As the people sitting beside me clapped and nodded. I became mad. Furious, in fact.
I thought to myself, "I've surrounding myself with a bunch of judgmental, ignorant, overly righteous and narrow-minded people." It didn't appeal to me. I wanted to get up and leave. "How dare they! How dare they pin out one group of people. How rude and unloving!"
Instead, I remained seated, and, attended over a month of classes....
Today in my second period class, Spiritual Principles, my instructor lectured on the subject of spiritual maturity.
He referred to Galatians 5:19-21.
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality,impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.He went on to discuss; acts of the flesh are basically symptoms of someone experiencing spiritual immaturity or the lack of.
"Homosexuality...., " he began.
I tilted my head and thought to myself, "Ohhhh no, he's going to upset me....he's going to talk about how awful and outrageous it is to be gay, everyone is going to cheer and I'm going to get mad....narrowminded-people" I rested my head on my desk.
The bell rang to indicate the end of class. I lifted my head from the table. The room remained still, no one moved.
"If you are going to get disgusted with homosexuality you need to get just as upset with adultery and fornication. It is a sin just the same, and it doesn't mean that there is demonic possession involved. Homosexuality is a lustful sin like fornication and adultery. (Romans 1:26+27)"
I clapped. I was one of a few people to clap and whispered "Thank you."
I'm not really sure if everyone in that room understood that he was saying it was wrong to esteem one sinful lifestyle as more impure than another, but I was relieved to hear someone of influence attempting to clarify where the church as to stand on the subject of sin; a sign of spiritual immaturity whether it be lying, cheating or homosexuality.
Dearest CC: I happen to agree with you that homosexuality is no worse than adultery or discord or debauchery, fits of rage, jealousy etc. However, I think where we may have a theological departure is that I don't think we should be celebrating sins. Celebrating a "coming out" day and saying that we're being non judgemental is,in my opinion the same as saying "let's have a national day of deceitfulness", or "let's celebrate men and women who are unfaithful in their marriages".
ReplyDeleteHomosexuality, like all other sin, is fogivable, but not acceptable, and certainly not something to celebrate. Condemning homosexualality as some sort of worse sin than any other is, I believe, unbiblical. But so is condoning and celebrating it.
I think our culture has made this a confusing issue because they insist it is black or white; you accept homosexuals and celebrate them or you reject them and hate them. That's not true, and I don't beleive we should fall for it.
As always, I love that you are so willing to put your convictions out there. And if we disagree on this, I still love ya.
I think you've really failed at communicating your point here. Since Jesus will never accept sin, I presume by your title that you won't either. The post is unclear. Be brave and take a stand.
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