Unapologetically Christian, unapologetically lesbian (this is where it is going ALERT)

Christian Lesbians ^ | Anita

[LiteKeeper]

It's not a contradiction. Neither are you.

I like that. If I had the money I'd put it up on billboards across America and if I ever win the lottery maybe I'll do just that. I suppose I need to actually play the lottery to raise my odds on winning but that's neither here or there.

When I wrote that short little phrase, and as I write this essay I'm thinking of you who fervently believe there's no such thing as a "Christian lesbian." You consider the term to be an oxymoron but more than that, you regard it an offense to the Gospel. You believe if someone really is a Christian they will seek repentance from the sin of homosexuality and will do all they can to change and short of change they will at least commit to a life of celibacy.

I also have those of you in mind who, even while doubting such a thing as a "Christian lesbian" can exist you've admitted to yourself that while you love Jesus and are committed to the Christian life, your only desire in an intimate and loving relationship is with another woman. Because of this apparent conflict you feel as though there's a choice you're going to eventually be forced to make, either to walk away from your faith in God or to deny, reject, or attempt to change your attraction to other women. If that's the personal struggle you're secretly holding in your heart then I'm writing to you.

And to both of you I'm writing as someone who knows you well because at one time I was you. For most of my life I believed homosexuality to be a grievous sin that led good people astray from a true faith in God. When a friend confessed her feelings toward another woman I prayed faithfully for her, counseled her, and rejoiced when her homosexual relationship ended. It was out of love and compassion and my strong belief in what I saw the Bible to clearly say about homosexuality that I reached out to help a friend I feared was slipping away from God and toward a life of destruction.

A few years later, I found myself engaged in an internal conflict I have never before known and that I could never have imagined. Above all else I was a committed Christian whose greatest longing was to live in a manner that brought honor to God but suddenly I recognized my lifelong unnamed feelings as being the very thing that would bring the most disappointment to the heart of God. I told no one so great was my shame and spent my evening hours crying out to God in prayers full of promise. I will change. I will do whatever it takes. I will never do anything to disgrace you. I will die before I do. And prayers of pleading. Please forgive me for whatever I did to make this happen. Change me. Help me. Don't leave me. Please don't hate me. In that moment I looked down the path of my future and saw nothing good.

I really have been there. I really have said and done and felt that. So to you, whoever you are, I want to offer a very basic response to this whole debate around being Christian and being gay. Let's call this little explanatory essay of mine "Christian Lesbian 101: The Basics."

1. I am a Christian.

I'm not attempting here to explain Christianity to those outside the Christian faith. I consider myself to be an evangelical Christian in the sense that I love, and am committed to, sharing my faith with others. I really do consider it the Good News and I've never been one to keep from sharing anything for which I have passion. For the purpose of this essay and for the sake of brevity I'm going to use religious-sounding language that I normally would avoid or need to explain in a conversation with someone of another faith just as I would need them to explain their own set of religious terminology that was centered in their own faith tradition. Here I'm directing my words to those of you who already identify as Christians.

When I say I'm a Christian I'm recognizing both a past event and a present reality. There was one moment in the past when I made the conscious and deliberate choice to acknowledge Jesus as my Savior and Lord. As my Savior, Jesus through his life, death and resurrection forgave my sins, restored my relationship with God and secured for me the promise of everlasting life. With Jesus as my Lord I submit my will daily to His will, seeking God's plan for my life rather than my own.

I'm a Christian, not by my own virtue but by the completed work of Christ (See John 11:25, John 5:24, Acts 2:38, John 20:31, Romans 1:16, Ephesians 2:8,9 and Colossians 1:21-23). In all these passages scripture seems relatively clear that while the final choice was mine everything else was left up to Jesus and if that's the case my salvation doesn't hinge on my faith or adherence in church teaching or in those dogmas and doctrines that are nonessential to the finished work of Calvary. It is about Christ and Christ crucified alone and to add conditions or requirements onto that glorious reality is to imply that the death and resurrection of Jesus was insufficient. While a church might say "Believe as we believe and do as we do and you can join us here" Jesus welcomes all who love Him and humbly seek Him.

2. I am a lesbian.

While I remember the very place and time when at the age of five I became a Christian, there was never a single moment when I made a conscious choice to be a lesbian and I always take it with a mix of mild amusement and irritation when people will argue that it was a choice. My irritation is that people who don't live inside my own skin would be so arrogant as to presume they know what happened within me better than I do and the amusement is in those moments when I play with the thought of how fun it would be to call them some morning asking "So how am I feeling today?" They should know after all.

And let's talk about this choice. At the time I realized I was a lesbian I was firmly grounded within conservative Christianity, both in my family and within the church where I served in full-time ministry. I had a large circle of friends, a lovely home, and a wonderful future in ministry that I loved and that brought my parents great pride and joy. Had you posed my life as a hypothetical situation and asked me what I thought would happen to someone who came out in that setting as a homosexual I would have been able to describe in detail the graphic consequences. I had a history in the church and so I'd seen the church and its people respond to those considered "in sin" and it was never pretty or kind and it was definitely nothing I ever wanted to experience firsthand. Now, I'm not the brightest bulb on the tree but I have enough intelligence to avoid certain choices like sticking my wet thumb into a light switch, coating my body with honey and lying on an ant hill or doing or being anything that's going to upset and repulse everyone I love and cause my dismissal from the only community I have ever known. Most of the gay and lesbian people I know seem to possess the same level of logic and self-preservation.

I'm in a committed relationship with my life partner Dana. We've been together for two years and will be getting married in a Christian wedding at a church this coming Spring. Our marriage will be affirmed by God and the church where our union will be celebrated even though the state will fail to recognize it. There's nothing about our life together that would look strange or odd were Dana a man and our relationship heterosexual. As a Christian couple, we begin each morning by reading devotions together. I cook breakfast. Dana makes the bed. We shower, dress and go to work. During the day we call each other to express our love or to remind the other to pick up more milk on the way home. After the dinner dishes are put away, we watch television or play with the kitten or just putter around the house until bedtime when we fall asleep beside the other. There's nothing bizarre about our life. Nothing unusual. While some would even consider our lives boring I treasure each day as an amazing and joyful blessing.

And yet, there is something very different about being a lesbian in this world. Being lesbian means knowing that in certain parts of this country you can't hold your partner's hand in public like straight couples do without risking being ridiculed or assaulted. Being lesbian means picking up the paper every morning or watching the news every night to hear about some new legislation that's being debated that if passed would negatively impact your life. Being lesbian means listening to false stereotypes being painted about you and the people you love every Sunday morning by television evangelists, all in the name of God. Being lesbian means trying to explain the nonexistence of the homosexual lifestyle or agenda to strangers.

But being lesbian means even more. Being lesbian means celebrating the joy of being a woman. Being lesbian means giving full expression to the depths of the love within you. Being lesbian means living confidently with God's approval rather than with the approval of others. Being a lesbian means standing in solidarity with others who stand on the outside whether they be the poor, the sick, the elderly, or any among God's creation deemed not acceptable by the majority. Being lesbian means finding your courage and living boldly. Being lesbian means experiencing another woman's courage when she takes your hand in a roomful of strangers or shows her engagement ring proudly without embarrassment or thought to what others will think.

I am a Christian. That is my faith. I am a lesbian. That is my sexual orientation. I make no apology for being either and if after all is said and done I remain a contradiction to you then that's fine too. Just realize what that means. When I speak of the presence of Jesus in my life you need to reject it. You have to see the fruit of the Holy Spirit within my life and call it evil. You have to deny the sufficiency of salvation through faith by requiring that I be heterosexual to first receive it.

Maybe you're right and I'm just not getting it and I never will. Perhaps I'm just foolish and naive enough to believe I can have it all, that I can live in wholeness and in relationship with God. So far that's what I've experienced and it's been the most joyful and God-filled adventure of my life!

[P.O.E.]

Christian Lesbians

Most boring men's magazine EVER.

[CARepubGal]

LOL! And what part of immoral behavior do these shemales not understand? So does this mean we can act carnally and still be saved? Sounds a bit like Gnostic logic to me.

[CARepubGal]

Precisely.

[Rytwyng]

that's a beautiful story but a conscience decision it the line in the sand.....not the "genes"

I never said anything about genes. The psychology of homosexuality has very little if anything to do with "genes", and a great deal to do with parent-child relationships. Homosexuality is simply one of many sinful addictions to which people turn, to self-medicate psychic wounds that they won't let God heal (or don't know that God can heal.)

[BibChr]

1. I know I miss things sometimes. Did I miss the part where she even tries to reconcile Scripture's clear, emphatic, and unambiguous condemnation of homosexuality, with her notion that if she desires something, it must be good?

2. I knew a woman fairly well who took a similar path. Tragic, very sad. I still pray for her.

Dan

[BibChr]

Oops, #65 was supposed to include y'all.

Dan

[justanotherfreeper]

Excellent, excellent, excellent post! I have a girlfriend, lively, educated and intelligent, who is still alone in her 40s and it is a real struggle for her. Why do homosexuals think they are they only people who must sacrifice and deny their sexual impulses to follow Christ? And what about married people whose partners become ill or incapacitated -- or are seperated by military service? If I remember right He said "Pick up your cross and come, follow me" not "Let's Party!"

[LiteKeeper]

Did I miss the part where she even tries to reconcile Scripture's clear, emphatic, and unambiguous condemnation of homosexuality, with her notion that if she desires something, it must be good?

No...and the election of Mr Robinson to be the apostate bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire will only encourage her, her apostate female clergy, and their fellow-travellers, male clergy who are guilty with them!

Yesterday was MONUMENTAL in the history and will have unbelieveable impact on the future of the church...not just the ECUSA.

[BibChr]

Exactly right.

This idea, that if we REALLY REALLY WANT something it MUST be good... where did that come from?

Not the Bible.

Dan

[nmh]

LOL! Being a lesbian is VERY UNCHRISTIAN. Being a lesbain is a sin because it violates the teachings in the Bible.

My guess is that this is what God is doing:

Psalm 37:12-14

12 The wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them;

13 but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he knows their day is coming.

14 The wicked draw the sword and bend the bow to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose ways are upright.

I also laugh at the absurdity of it while feeling bad that they are enroute to hell if they don't have a change in heart.

[Militiaman7]

Anita, Save your speech for judgement day you'll need it.

[RinaseaofDs]

First, congratulations on being saved. It's the greatest feeling in the world.

Second, being a lesbian isn't something you chose in any way that any of us finds us afflicted by sin of one specific type or another. Even Paul spoke about the demon who was the constant thorn in his side.

Third, the cross you bear sucks. I have mine though, and I don't want to get into it on a public forum, but I find myself afflicted with this particular sin, and find it difficult, sometimes extremely difficult to resist, and I'm not always successful in doing so.

The difference between you and me, however, is that I'm not asking God to rewrite the Bible for me. You are.

You are lapsing and you know it, just like when I lapse and I know it. I hate myself for it and I work on it everyday.

This is who we are though. As Christians, the thing that salvation did is make us realize that the world and its promises are empty. There is no happiness on earth that doesn't come to you through Christ and submission to His Father's will.

I will pray for you. As you know all sins are essentially equal in the eyes of God, and the deal after salvation is helping save others and leading an exemplary life.

So my question to you is this:

If you feel that this life you are about to enter can be sanctioned by God, then do you also feel the same way about a pedophile entering into a relationship with what may be your 8 year old daughter?

Like you, most pedophiles do not choose to be who they are, and you yourself admitted that for you, this is something with which you have been afflicted.

So, in your ministry, what would you say to some poor man or woman who struggled with the particular demon of pedophilia, who had never been with a child, was a saved Christian, and then came to you asking for advice about the possibility of living a more natural life, more openly?

Look, I wouldn't wish on anyone the demon of being a homosexual, and I pray every day that one of my three kids won't one day wake up and find that he or she is homosexual. There is nothing fair about it. Being on earth, however, means being subject to the one actually in charge on earth, and that would be Satan. Right now, you are playing into his hand, as we all do from time to time. It's never right, and it is something you strive to free yourself from until the moment you die.

I will pray for you every day, that you find the strength to listen again to the will of God, that you find as much peace as any Christian does in a world at war between God and Satan. As much as it doesn't feel this way, your marriage will be a big win for Satan, even though you yourself are saved, and nothing can take that away from you.

Yours in Christ.

[MEGoody]

Yeah, there probably are such things as Christian lesbians (or homosexuals). But they are most miserable if they are participating in same gender sex. God chastises those He loves.

[Heyworth]

"Thou shalt not Lie with mankind as with Woman".

From her standpoint, that could be read as God commanding her not to sleep with men like she does with women. I know that there are biblical injunctions against male homosexuality. Are there any that specify women?

[MEGoody]

"Well, scripture doesn't condem lesbian behavior to anywhere near the degree it condems sodomy."

Nonsense. Read Romans 1. God's word discusses the abomination of same gender sex, then says "likewise the women . . ."

[LiteKeeper]

I am not sure who you are directing this to. I am simply the one that posted this areticle - Anita is the apostate clergywoman who thinks she is following God's will. There is a link to her web site somewhere in the thread if you wish to address her.

LiteKeeper

[the-ironically-named-proverbs2]

Here's someone who's made their living ($$) in the "church", seeing that the coast is clear...

[LiteKeeper]

You doubt...check this out

Christian Lesbians

[the-ironically-named-proverbs2]

Rom 1:22-27
22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
(KJV)

[MEGoody]

Can't get to the site. It's forbidden by 'ratings check' on my PC at work.