Gay Christian Network

Many years ago I was a frequent poster over at the Gay Christian Network (now called something else) when they first started (my tag was "Common Swift" like the bird), one of the largest gay Christian resources and gathering places of gay Christians on the net then.

It was founded by a man named Justin Lee who came from a fundamentalist/Evangelical background like myself. I once almost made it to the GCN Los Angeles gathering (each city has its own) to actually meet these people (the husband and I did eventually meet one at a Mexican restaurant he might have regretted). GCN was set up to be a meeting place for gay Christians who didn't all believe in the same Bible beliefs but had that commonality with being gay and Christian. Supposedly.

If you know even a little of the history of the Body of Christ, you know they don't always get along, I mean, look at the conflict between the two powerhouses of Paul and Peter? Here's Paul telling Peter he's doing it wrong and Peter resenting this once Pharisee who hunted Christians telling him what to do when Jesus told HIM he was the rock the Lord's church was going to be built on (I'd like to think when Paul traveled to finally have a showdown with Peter in person, it wasn't to hit him over the head with a big rock). Then there was the war between the Orthodox and Gnostic Christians, Paul attacking Christians who were teaching heresies, not to mention all the in-fighting within the churches Paul was always writing letters telling them to stop. My point with all this is that even though we are all Christians, we are very much still human and there will always be conflict between us even on the day the Lord takes us into the sky.

Sometimes conflict is necessary because some Christian beliefs need to be banged out to see if they pass the Word of God test, it just has to be done and the victor of those conflicts is an example of why we don't have Cataphrygian Christianity today instead of the one we know and love now. Paul also didn't mince words with telling heretics off, like I said, no one likes conflict, but it needs to be done to keep the integrity of the Word of God from going off the rails.

My leaving GCN started with attacks on a friend named Rick Brentlinger who was also writing at GCN, a guy who towed the conservative Bible line of the Bible being the inspired Word of God, a belief that makes up my own belief system. Without going into the specifics, GCN was falling into nasty debates with what was a split between the more Orthodox Christians like myself and those who weren't (they had a "debate forum" on the site at one time. The weird part is that I was fronting the Orthodox side (Rick bowed out because he's a lover and not a fighter) and the other side had an ex-seminary student as their anti-me. You either took sides or you ran for cover. Because I was pointing out the truths of the Bible as literal truths, I came off as the bad "Bible-Thumper" (not a good taste in the mouth of many over there with the experiences they've had being gay and those in the Church) who's spoiling everyone else's form of goofy types of Christianity and practices the Bible said weren't correct or kosher (much of it had to do with the practices of Christian "mysticism" the Bible condemns in no uncertain terms). I had some great Titans on my side during that messy conflict and one Pentecostal lesbian was a real scrapper (keep fighting the good fight Heather!) who always had my back, but I knew this conflict was doing this fledgling body of gay believers no good and I dusted the dirt off my feet and left. Justin deleted my final goodbye post like a roommate throwing my stuff on the sidewalk and changing the locks.

I bring all this up now because I just watched a video of a debate between Justin Lee and James White with my responses in the comments section. As long as people like Justin try to justify homosexuality apart from the yes or no of it in the Bible, people like White will always get the upper hand if you hold the Bible as the very Word of God. Even though White fell on Justin like a cartoon anvil, this comment gives a perspective benefitting Justin:

"Justin Lee came into this meeting at a severe disadvantage. He was confronting James White, a more experienced speaker who seemed insistent on debate. Lee admitted he did not want to go into head to head cross discussion for fear of alienating many in his own organization who believed that Christians were called to live lives of celibacy. Another reason NOT mentioned in the video is that the audience was almost entirely unanimous in its belief that same gender relations were sinful. A head to head argument would very likely have only created animosity with such a partisan assembly if they were to hear Lee continually say their personal beliefs were mistaken. White tried to compare this with his visiting a Mosque in England with a mixed Christian and Muslim congregation in which he stated that Christ was the way. But while the situation he described was (somewhat) similar it was hardly the same as what Justin Lee was facing since there was scarcely anything "mixed" about the people he was addressing. These factors combined with a natural shyness he admitted to on a GCN podcast a few months following this event are why Justin Lee should be credited just for having shown up. What's more, it appeared that instead of trying to "win" the audience over, Lee was trying to get them to simply know him better, perhaps in the hope they would like him and (MAYBE) want to know why he feels and believes the way he does by going on line to GCN. In this, he just may be able to claim some measure of success."

Years later I see Justin in another debate (he pops up from time to time and I think he wrote a book you should all buy) and sure enough he's back with his "I don't want to argue" stance and of course, they wipe the floor with him yet again. 

Some things never change.

Inside a GCN conference.

Torah Up Inside

A recurring claim says Jesus would not have seen homosexuality as permissible during the time he lived because homosexuality was so prohibited by Judaism, homosexuality was almost never practiced or talked about. Two books bring to light homosexuality was prevalent in the Jewish tradition.

"Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition" By Steven Greenberg.

"Jacob's Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel" By Theodore W. Jennings Jr.

                                       

Don't you find it interesting that out of the 4 branches of Judaism, there is some acceptance of homosexuality at some level when they have the most damning of Scripture on homosexuality? Yet Christians are the least accepting with those same Jewish Scriptures?

Tying knots

I'm posting again to address an issue I don't think I've dealt with at any length on this blog.
Scripture on marriage and how supposedly they only allow a relationship within that paradigm. I'm amazed people are now trying to pull this sham that there are Scriptures that are against homosexuality outside of the 'clobber passages,' like we somehow missed them the first time.


I've posted about the Biblical emphases on celibacy over marriage and of Christ even downplaying the family unit (Matthew 12:46-50) as a focus.* For Christians to choose an ever-evolving institution called 'marriage' (at one time constituting polygyny and later for the purpose of carrying over bloodlines and later than that for the sole purpose of securing social contracts for land and power) from the Old Testament admonition to "Be fruitful and multiply" (since been replaced with "Seek the Kingdom first") over living and breathing human beings can not be justified Biblically.

One Scripture is repeatedly brought up as an argument for the "God only acknowledges a relationship within straight marriage." It's in Matthew 19:4-6:

"Haven’t you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female, and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh?' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

The context this was put in was the issue of divorce between a man and a woman being brought up to Jesus (you have to wonder if Christ would have even bothered to talk about marriage if it wasn't brought up to Him first?). Christ is talking about a spiritual dynamic of two beings coming together with the first beings being Adam and Eve in the garden. To say this is to mean anything else is making a completely new prohibition from the silence of Christ. It's dangerous to do eisegesis with reading between the lines of Scripture because you can just about make the Bible say anything.

We next go to verse 8:

"Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.  I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

Now THIS is groundbreaking. Jesus is stating the Laws of God were fudged for the sake of man and that some rules were only meant to be kept in a specified time frame. Jesus is putting something (easy divorce) in the context of what was only for a specific time (days of Moses) for a specific reason (man's hard heart) and saying it no longer applies.** 

As if Christ ANTICIPATED His bringing up the first couple of Adam and Eve would be used against same-sex unions, you go further down in the same chapter to verse 11 and Christ says:

"Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given."

Christ right here is saying the Garden of Eden pairing of man and woman is not a Universal rule applicable to everyone because Christ is leaving it up to the listener on if it applies to them or not.

Jesus then goes on to clarify to who this rule of marriage and divorce doesn't apply in the following verse 12, the 3 types of "eunuchs" (I've already covered the ground 'born' eunuchs fit the definition of a gay man HERE and the backing of that interpretation from one of the world's foremost anti-gay Bible scholars HERE).

Jesus ends the whole dialogue by saying:

"The one who can accept this should accept it."

In other words, Jesus is saying that if you follow the Biblical role of covenant marriage for yourself, you'll have to follow what I have to say on its divorce, and the rest who this doesn't apply to will take the rest of what I have to say.

Now, I'll play the Devil's advocate and this view of a relationship doesn't fit the definition of traditional "religious marriage."

There is no specified ceremony or guidelines of what can be considered marriage in the eyes of God. If two people come together to consecrate their relationship before God, even if it were just between the two of them alone, nothing, at least not Biblically, cannot call that a marriage. Some insist marriage will have to be done within a church body or clergy to be recognized by God, but individual churches within almost every denomination and both liberal and conservative synagogues have by majority vote allowed gay marriages within themselves and the Bible states that Heaven will acknowledge that decision with it being loosed on Earth (Matthew 18:18). The only other argument is if the marriage is against the law of the land because God will not accept a marriage if it's against the law, laws God said we are to obey because it's God who put those lawmakers in power to make those laws, but now that gay marriage is happening in state after state even as I type this, no other arguments exist.

Two points of debate have been brought up to me. One says; "Jesus was talking only about divorce and for you to imply Jesus would be breaking away from the old prohibitions of homosexuality are you reading into the text," but the only reason why we know how Jesus felt about Old Testament divorce was that it was brought up to Him first by the Pharisees to trap Him, it was not something he divulged freely in either a sermon or to His Disciples. We don't know how Christ saw homosexuality because it was never brought up to Him. It's not to say it wasn't brought up to Him because the Bible says not everything Christ said or did was written down (John 21:25), but we just don't have an account of it. We DO know how Jesus felt about the Sodom story and it has nothing to do with homosexuality. Jesus talking about Sodom would have given Him the perfect opportunity to condemn homosexuality if, in fact, the ancients believed the city was destroyed because of homosexuality. but He doesn't say a word about it or when He came across the same-sex practicing Centurion.

The second point, made by theologians, is this Scripture shows Jesus being more restrictive with and narrowing down the Old Testament Laws and Jesus would have felt just as strongly if not stronger about the Jewish prohibitions against homosexuality. If you look at this through the lens of Jesus keeping old laws, you'll come to that conclusion, but from Leviticus 19:18 to Jesus and then to Paul, we are to see everything through the narrow lens of "Loving your neighbor as yourself." If you approach the Matthew 19 passage this way, you will see that divorce is only permissible if the woman commits sexual immorality because it's her first breaking the command of "loving her neighbor (husband, mate, fellow human being) as herself." Now since a man loving another man does not constitute breaking "Loving your neighbor as yourself," We can't say Jesus would have fallen in line with the prohibitive view on homosexuality held by the Scribes and the Pharisees who only saw the world through the eyes of keeping old laws. Jesus didn't come down with a laundry list of subjects to check off. He was very narrow with what he said with the time he had. He expected us to make judgment calls in His absence using the Golden Rule which is the Royal Rule. The rest can fit in the category of Paul's "It may be allowable, but is it beneficial? These two things will give us our answers on subjects like if gays can get married or if I can watch horror movies.


The folks over at comereason.org bring up this point:

"Because marriage is a covenant to be entered freely by two individuals, is must be witnessed by at least two or three people. This idea is confirmed in Matthew 18:16, where Jesus quotes Leviticus, "Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. 

Ruth 4:9-12 shows this applies specifically to marriage when Boaz seeks out witnesses to secure his right to marry Ruth, the Moabites. There, the witnesses even pronounce a marriage blessing on them."

But let's look at the Scriptures they bring up. Matthew 18:16 is talking about when a fellow believer in the church is accused of committing a sin he won't admit to. Jesus says; "Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact (of his sinning) may be confirmed." Marriage has absolutely nothing to do with this Scripture.

Ruth 4:9-12, in context, shows a financial transaction and not a marriage transaction. Boaz bought land and Ruth was thrown in with the deal.


Another issue that was brought up was when a Pastor (though he saw the Bible as condemning homosexuality, believed the church should be called out for its less than charitable treatment of homosexuals) was asked the question; "Can a Christian attend a gay wedding?" His answer was no. He saw it as a type of condoning the relationship and the Christian should, in a loving way, give their faith as a reason. I see it differently (Now I'm saying this from the perspective of an anti-gay Christian because only an anti-gay Christian would ask this question) and this is my answer:

Any decisions or choices we make as a believer should go through the test of "Loving your neighbor as yourself." Now the question is asked; "Would I want someone I love to attend my wedding even though they might not approve of the union?" The answer is yes if you really followed the edict of "Loving your neighbor as yourself" as a hard truth. Doing into another that you would want to have done to you in real action. Weddings are attended all the time by people who might not necessarily approve of the person the loved one is marrying, but that shouldn't change because it's a homosexual union and the fact you are playing a part in their joy and happiness because you love them is a Christ-like testimony they won't soon forget and will be the greater witness than anything you could say on homosexuality. Christians have no problem attending secular weddings that are all ceremony and not faith-based with the two getting married, why should it be different here?

One last note: This "Marriage between man and woman reflects the marriage of Christ with the Church, His bride" makes no theological argument to reject gay unions while we are on Earth, which again, is making a prohibition out of Biblical silence. 

Never is the Church called "the Bride of Christ. All words relating to marriage (divorce, bride) are either talking about the Jewish people in the Hebrew Bible (they committed adultery, so God filed divorce papers (Jeremiah 3:6) or the New City of Jerusalem (Ιερουσαλημ) coming down from the sky to become the Bride of Christ forever (Revelations 21:2). Who was the Bride of Christ to John the Baptist? He tells you himself in John 1:31; "...but for this reason I came Baptizing in water; that He should be revealed to Israel." There is no word "husband" (ἀνδρὶ - is "man," not husband) or "betrothed" (ἡρμοσάμην - is "join," not betrothed) in 2 Corinthians 11:2. In Ephesians the Church is never called "her," but instead a different word is used for the Church (ἐκκλησ - Assembly) and the word is not "female/wife" (γυναῖκας). Believers WILL be invited as a guest to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in their finest clothing (Revelations 19:7-9), but so will the birds in the sky be guests (Revelations 19:17). Will Jesus have two brides? Believers are called the "Body of Christ" in that He is the Head of the Church body (1 Corinthians 12:27, Colossians 1:24). They are an extension of Jesus because He rules over them like the head rules over its body parts (Ephesians 4:15,16). We are already joined to Christ on Earth by the Holy Spirit in salvation, not in some future marriage event or as a bride to a husband.

*Even though the term "Family Values" was a term from the late 20th Century, it only became a rallying cry against homosexuality in the '80s. It was a smokescreen to make it sound like Christians are on the defensive with the myth homosexuals somehow hate and want to destroy good, straight, marriages and good, Christian, families. 

**Adherents to the belief that we are to keep Old Testament prohibition "Moral" Laws and it's only the "Ceremonial" Laws we are no longer to keep flies in the face of what Jesus is saying here. The Bible makes no such distinction within itself with moral or ceremonial laws and it's not how the ancient Jews divided their laws (Remember that even though breaking the Sabbath is considered a 'ceremonial law' to Christians today, it was still a law that required the death penalty because of its importance, Numbers 15:32-36).

I am going on hiatus. I always wanted the make this place a resource if nothing else for those on the minority side of the Bible/homosexual debate and to throw in a few thing of personal interest. I might or might not come back. I'll do as by the leading of the Holy Spirit.

God Bless you all and may He put you in perfect understanding.

Frank

The "Other" White Meat

I once received a comment telling me not all Christians are anti-gay. I wrote back; "Then why don't you stand up to your brethren that are?" I try to nudge these Christians who sit silent in a corner to actually speak up. These loud-mouthed, anti-gay, Christian bullies are the face of Christianity to the un-believing world while other Christians who actually get what the 'Golden Rule' is all about seem to all be hiding under blanket forts, in caves or making every effort to hide themselves. These "Good" Christians with homosexuality don't want to make waves with "Bad" Christians with homosexuality because they tend to be less confrontational unlike their anti-gay kin who can't shut up. That's now changing. NALT

"In other words, the most notorious, plain, and victorious truth of God is that God participates in our history - even yours and mine. Our history - all our anxieties - have become the scene of His presence and the matter of his care. We are safe. We are free. Wherever we turn we shall discover that God is already there. Therefore, wherever it be, fear not, be thankful, rejoice, and boast of God."

- William Stringfellow

Dear Dad...

This was the set-up of the above video since deleted. On the stage of an Evangelical conference, Todd Friel reads two letters from fathers to their gay sons who just came out to them. The first letter was the Christian father saying he's sorry to his son, but he never wants to hear from or see him again and to please don't contact him or his mother again. Ending the letter with the gall of saying "God Bless."

The second letter is from a pastor who also says his son is living a life contrary to God and he will never accept it or condone it, but he won't take the step to disown him. Instead, if the son decides to visit the family for the holidays, there are "rules" he needs to follow in the house the father says he must abide by.

This was my response:

So one was a disgusting worthy of Hell letter (1 Tim. 5:8) from the first father and the letter from the second dad is full of conditions and judgment with forcing him to go to church and saying he chose to be gay and it better not rub off on the children with his open displays of affection that he probably won't do out of respect for his dad's religious beliefs.

Both letters are saying "My Way or the Highway" with the first father not even giving his son a chance. Both letters are bad. 

Now what if the parents wanted to visit that same son and he wrote a similar letter to them?:

"Dear mom and dad, I love you. I am the same son you raised and loved. I didn't change with telling you I'm gay dad, YOU did.

I'd like to set some ground rules in my home before you come visit like you did for me in your house.

I don't want you to make my husband Pedro uncomfortable with talking about how you believe. Treat him with the same dignity and respect you treat Cathy's husband. I also expect you to go to a PFLAG meeting we have every Thursday at the community center. The leader of the meeting is an Evangelical pastor with a gay daughter and you guys should talk.

I want to constantly remind you while you're in my house that how you believe is contrary to my own faith in God. I belong to a gay affirming church that gives me love and acceptance with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I would love it if you and mom went to a service, but no pressure.

I would never cut you off like many do with their Christian parents who won't accept them being gay. Cathy and my brothers have no problem with me, it's only you and mom who do and the reason I don't pick up the phone more often when you guys call. I just don't want to hear all the judging when you aren't talking about my "lifestyle," whatever weird lifestyle you think that is. 

You will always be my dad even if you didn't accept me. I will always love you and you and mom are always in my prayers.

Your loving (I know I'm your favorite) son,

Mark.

P.S. Could you bring some Tommy's chili cheese burgers? We don't have a Tommy's in my state and you know how they're my favorite. Tell mom to pack warm, you know how she gets."

I'm taking a few weeks off unless something interesting comes up for me to post.


(Zach Zurn, who's featured in the song above, is a gay Christian recording artist)

Gagnon the Martyr

"The opening subtitle of Gagnon's (book) Introduction is "The Personal Risks Inherent in Writing Such a Book" outlines the great personal danger he is facing for entering this debate.

Such a claim is extremely unrealistic. Gay people don't persecute Christians except in the minds of those with a "persecution complex". Nobody has ever heard of gay parents throwing out their kids for being Christian, Christian teens are not committing suicide at unusually high rates, the boy-scouts don't ban Christian leaders, we do not hear of cake shops and B&B's denying business to Christian couples, gay cults don't picket the funerals of Christian soldiers, there is no alarming violence perpetrated on those who are perceived to be Christians in the streets, nor do people get fired from gay organisations if they're outed as Christian by a colleague ... You get my drift. "Persecution" is faced by the vulnerable in society, not by dominant ideological forces such as conservative Evangelicalism. Gagnon's "personal risk" is a fantasy. It is about as sympathetic, if slightly less melodrmatic, than Pauline Hanson's video tape recording: "if you are watching this, I have been murdered..."

As a male, heterosexually married, Christian author, Gagnon ought to be aware of his privilege, and write with some humility about it. Because he does not acknowledge it, and in fact maintains a delusion of persecution, his unrecognised privilege become a blind spot which will distort his interpretation of biblical texts."

- Unknown.

- From critical-discipleship.blogspot.com