First, let’s talk about the Bible. You state “the Bible does tell us that homosexuality is wrong.” I’m sure that you will not find that the Bible tells us anything about homosexuality at all, since the word was not invented till about a hundred years ago, and the concept of lifelong loving committed relationships with those of the same sex was an unidentified concept in Bible times. Yes, the Bible does talk about some specific behaviors, mostly referring to idolatry or to abuse, which God condemns. The laws of the god of love are summed up in just two: Love the Lord your God with all of your hearts, and love your neighbor as yourself. Thus, all the other laws flow from those two. All behaviors which do not honor God or in which people do not treat one another with respect are abominable to the God of Love. When we spend so much time nit picking about others or preaching expository sermons against God’s children, that is sin.

In the Bible, in Levitcus 20, in addition to the phrase about men lying with men, there are many other examples that one does not hear mentioned. These include seeing your sister naked, marrying a brother’s wife, having sex with a menstruating woman, etc. When was the last time you heard sermons preached against them, or fundraising campaigns to wipe such sin from our land. I tell you, there is more of the customs of our land in our churches than we would like to admit. There was a time when the Bible was used to justify removing the babies from a woman who had used any medications during labor to lessen her pain. Women have been severely abused and sent back to their abuser (and sometimes to their deaths) by pastors who told them the bible said they must submit in all things to their husbands. Slavery was once justified with Bible verses, as well as child abuse. Divorced people were treated as pariahs in my youth and were not allowed any positions in their churches. Illegitimate children were denied their rights in both civil and religious spheres based on the Bible. I’m writing all this not to confuse you, or your issues, but to encourage you to tread lightly in this arena.

A second area of your letter that concerns me, is your denial of the legitimacy of your emotions. Many evangelical churches elevate a Pseudo-rationality, teaching people to deny their legitimate feelings. Just as God gave us our marvelously complex bodies in which to live, building in pain mechanisms to tell us when something is awry, so, too, He gave us emotions. I encourage you to learn to trust your God-given feelings. They have been given you for a reason, though it may take you some time to learn to understand their language. Some church leaders have perpetrated grave injustices when people were told to ignore or deny their feelings (read Toxic Faith or Spiritual Abuse). Later, such victims will say, “I felt that there was something wrong, but the leaders told me…” There are some good Christian books on the market about learning to listen to our feelings and to discover the real needs underlying them. Then, there are life and love affirming ways of meeting those needs which honor God, ourselves, and others. Staying in community with those further along the path helps, too.

For example, if you have fallen in love, don’t try to explain it away with, “it’s just because you didn’t get enough love from your parents,” or “you were abused as a child, and now you are compensating.” If you have received the gift of love, welcome it as a gift from the God of Love. If it is not leading you toward greater love for yourself, the other person, and God, ask God to reveal that to you and lead you. Don’t accept someone else’s diagnosis if it does not resonate with your own feelings. If the true definition of sin is separation from God, I encourage you to stay close to God as you try to work through what is, and what is not sin. John said, “in whatever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things” (I John 3: 20). God will show you the way.

So, Lisa, I am sorry that the Christian life seems to be such a struggle for you. It is my prayer that you, too, will enjoy the freedom that comes from knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and stand forth therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free. If we are abiding in the vine, we should not have to work so hard. The “lifeblood” of Jesus, flowing through our spirits, should flow as freely as the blood in our veins, constantly renewing and being renewed. That is my prayer for you.

In Christ’s love and peace,
Rev. Dr. Jean Orost

Angela Rose responds: Hello Lisa!

This letter is in response to the many letters I have seen in your column. First I am glad there is a safe place for homosexuals to be in your site. To be loved is so important. To be loved unconditionally so rare.

I’m glad you stopped by the site and took the time to write! I’m also glad you took the time to read through some of the articles on the site. Hopefully you will find that this is a safe site for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, race, gender, religion, gender identity or anything else.

If I can please use my bible knowledge to address what I see is an over-sight in the thinking that I have witnessed here. I hope I can do it here. This information is not to offend, hurt or degrade. I would be interested to hear anyone’s biblical knowledge. And in fairness, I expect that I would receive the same consideration from another Christian. Fellow Christians, our God loves us, but he hates our sin. I have tried to read and re-read the Word to try to embrace your thinking on relationships. I could not. You see, the Bible does tell us that homosexuality is wrong. Many times over the Word tells us this. You are correct in your statement about “who so ever”. God does love us all. He is able to set us apart from our sin and love us, much unlike the world around us. I would hate to be constantly be judged by my own sins of the past and I do not want others to judge you or treat you badly. Yes, I, like you and the rest of the world was born with a sin nature.

I agree with most of what you say here. I agree with the idea that “sin is sin,” that God does love everyone, that being judged by past sins (or even present ones) is a sad state of affairs. And even though you have not offered any scriptural references to support your ideas, I would even agree that the WORD OF GOD says that homosexuality is wrong.

Before you begin to think that you’ve just witnessed my conversion from lesbianism, I hasten to add that the Bible also says the following are wrong: eating shellfish (Deut 14:9-10), having tattoos (Lev 19:28), wearing blended cloth (Deut 22:11), not having a fence around your roof (Deut 22:8), women having authority over men (1 Cor 11:3, 1 Tim 2:11-15 – interesting to note here how we women are to attain our salvation), men having long hair and women having short hair (1 Cor 5-7), women wearing pearls or braiding their hair (1 Tim 2:9), and the list of “don’ts” can continue for an awfully long time. The Bible condones slavery (Ecc 2:7 and Eph 6:5) and genocide (1 Sam 15) as well, just to throw in a couple of things that are apparently divinely sanctioned. The point I make here is that the Bible is not some mystical rulebook of do’s and don’ts that fell out of heaven to be slavishly adhered to in every time, culture, or situation. The Bible says many things that were specific for a time or a culture or a people; in the Bible’s case, the ancient Hebrew people of several millennia ago. For all these verses I’ve just listed, people have since read the passages with an open mind, looking back to original texts, trying to understand the culture the people lived in at the time the passages were written. We now have women in pulpits, wear poly-cotton blends, see many women with short hair (uncovered in church, no less) and men with long hair, have abolished slavery, and so on. To try and create some divine mandate against homosexuality demands that you must just as uncompromisingly adhere to all the rest of the written law and condemn the rest of the above-listed acts.

I read in one of your columns your reference to a writers statement that homosexuals are often mis-labled or labled as a group as being promiscuous. I have never (I promise) heard this lifestyle bashed by my fellow church-goers. I attend a small nondenominational Bible Church. Our Pastor preaches directly from the pages in the Bible. I share this only to give you back ground on my own thinking and the influences in my life

I know very few promiscuous people at all — gay or straight. They do exist, but the circles in which I live tend not to have promiscuous people in them. It’s not a relevant issue to this discussion, and I’m glad you point that out. We are both in agreement that any promiscuity, gay or straight, is sinful.

I do believe that sin ought to be called sin. It ought not be embraced. We cannot be so liberal in our thinking that we over-look a sin in our lives or a sin in the lives of our loved ones. This does not mean that we stop loving, quite the opposite. If a loved one sees sin in my life, I would hope he/she would not over look it just because he loves me and does not want to hurt me. My prayer to those around me is that if they see sin in my life, then lovingly show the sin to me and be there for me when I FALL BACK INTO SIN AGAIN. Being 37 years old, I know many of my weaknesses. Many of my sins are so strongly and emotionally tied to me that I have to lean on the strength of the LORD, BECAUSE I WILL MESS IT UP EVERY TIME. FEELINGS ARE SUCH A POOR INDICATOR OF WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG.

Then, really, you’re stuck. Most of us feel today that women have the gifts of preaching, teaching, leadership and administration. I would think we have all seen such women, and I for one have been very thankful for the female clergy I have known and who have led churches I’ve been in. But, by your argument, our feelings are a poor indicator of what is right and wrong. The WORD OF GOD (placed in all caps because so many churches seem to revere the Bible, and their own interpretation of it, above God) says that a woman must remain silent in church (1Cor 14:33b-34) and have no authority over men (1Tim 2:12). So very obviously, according to the WORD OF GOD, many Protestant churches must be in a state of unrepentant sin by allowing women to lead their churches as pastors. This must be liberal thinking to which we have succumbed, that we have overlooked this very apparent and unrepented sin in many of our churches today.

I want my life to give God glory. “If you love me then you will obey me”. I want to obey you Lord.

I’ll call my pastor right now and lovingly ask her to resign. For this would be obeying what the Lord commands.

Please understand I say this only to make a point. The Bible makes a point on some issue; in our two cases here, either homosexuality or female pastors. According to your letter, “feelings are such a poor indicator of what is right and what is wrong,” and that we have to look to the Bible to see what God’s will is. In the case of homosexuality, you suggest that it’s the Bible that wins out, and the feelings and innate sense of God-given self of GLBT Christians are to be deemed a heinous sin, without the repentance of which condemns us to eternal damnation. But in the case of female pastors, my suspicion is (since you, as a woman, are daring to offer spiritual advice to many of the men who read this e-zine, specifically against 1 Tim 2:12) that your feelings about women having leadership roles in spiritual matters would win out over the clear written teachings found in the WORD OF GOD. Lisa, you can’t have it both ways, and that is exactly what you suggest we do for you. I apologize for the assumption I make. I am assuming that you do not see it to be sinful for a woman to be a church pastor. It is possible you may see it sinful, although I’ve offered my reason as to why I do not believe that to be the case. But if need be, the same point can be drawn from slavery or genocide, which are two more issues that the Bible does not condemn, but our society most certainly does.

I want to embrace all of you with alternative life-styles. You are intelligent, funny, witty, hard-workers, sensitive and God-fearing and God loving. I embrace you sweet brothers and sisters, but not your lifestyle. I know many of you feel that this desire of yours is not a choice, I believe you, and I believe the Bible supports us in this belief. But, continuing to act on your in-born sexual feelings as an adult, with full knowledge of the Bible, is my brothers and sisters, sin. So, how then can we deny who we are? We put our old selves away and become new in the sight of God. Please note that I am not trying to over simplify anything.

You say you do not want to oversimplify anything, but you have done exactly that.

1) God made me as I am and has done so according to His will

2) God loves the creation He has made

3) Here is the non sequitur – God does not want me to be the person He created me to be.

I would believe that most GLBT folk, who have had to defend their Biblical understanding from so many people, have gone into great depths of research, study, and prayer to find what exactly the authors of the texts were driving at. We as GLBT people have a much better grasp than most straight people do on the issue because we are the ones that have had to do the looking. Many people who would deny us families, homes, jobs, and even life are the ones who will pass on the idea that, “The Bible says it right there that being gay is wrong. No need to seek God’s will any further!” There is no impetus at all for these people to do any study, and in fact it is in their better interest and self-comfort NOT to have the population at large do anything more than a surface reading of the Bible and listen to their own divisive interpretations. I do not sense that you would ever bear ill-will against your GLBT brothers and sisters. But if you were to strive for the “full knowledge of the Bible” of which you speak, I believe your overly simplistic view of what it means to be GLBT and Christian would broaden. And if in your in-depth study and prayer over this subject you were to find something I had missed, I would be very heartened to hear it. But, as I said earlier in this letter, I would respectfully demand the same consideration be granted to me and to my Biblical knowledge. If you’ve read my response to your letter, that is more of a start than many are willing to make.

I do know that we were all born with a sin nature. Homosexual or not, we are all sinners and we need to confess our sins and begin living one moment at a time FREE from the sin that binds us to this world. Look to your Savior for strength…we who believe that we are sinners and believe that Jesus came down to save us from our own sin, suffered died, and is risen, are His fold…..His sheep, His people. Take the information I have shared here and pray about it. Know the truth for yourselves. Those of you who have not got down on your knees and asked God to make His Word clear to you, should. Perhaps the message I am leaving with you here today will encourage and not discourage your reading audience. Sincerely Signed, Lisa from Texas

I agree that we all sin. I am not, however, in sin for being a lesbian. I was in sin when I harbored bitterness and resentment toward my ex-wife when she divorced me and outed me to our church, her family, her workplace, and probably my workplace as well (“Your ex-wife outed you? How can that be, if she was a lesbian married to you,” I hear you ask? When I was in a heterosexual marriage, I was a male. I have since transitioned and married another woman. And of course I do not believe my gender transition to be sinful either. I’ve looked and found nothing in the Bible to suggest so, but that is fodder for another Response). But the sin was there in that bitterness and resentment, and He made me keenly aware of it. Far more than I ever wanted to be made aware of it. When I was finally able to begin to let that sin go and be forgiving of my ex-wife, His forgiveness and peace was given to me. I’ve not heard you offer any information in your letter.

Though I hear a very loving and kind spirit in what you say and how you say it, you’ve presented no information. It’s solely been a letter of your personal feelings about homosexuality being sinful. Yours is an encouraging letter because it shows you are willing to dialogue and to respectfully listen to a viewpoint that doesn’t agree with your own. My prayer is that you will be open to looking at that viewpoint and not merely dismissing it because one can create a proof-text of a dismissal.

Angela Rose

Maarten van den Driest responds: Dear Lisa,

Hello Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Greetings, sister. I am glad you call me this… really. It shows that you, as one in many, at least give us the dignity of being Christians in your eyes.

This letter is in response to the many letters I have seen in your column. First I am glad there is a safe place for homosexuals to be in your site. To be loved is so important. To be loved unconditionally so rare.

If I can please use my bible knowledge to address what I see is an over-sight in the thinking that I have witnessed here. I hope I can do it here. This information is not to offend, hurt or degrade.

You are fully entitled your opinions and I will take them seriously. Do not however be angry with me for not agreeing with you. I invite you to reply and stay in discussion, if you want.

Fellow Christians, our God loves us, but he hates our sin. I have tried to read and re-read the Word to try to embrace your thinking on relationships. I could not. You see, the Bible does tell us that homosexuality is wrong. Many times over the Word tells us this.

You have my intense gratitude, Lisa. At least you tried. You tried to see our point and went back to the Bible in an effort to understand. I applaud your efforts. Unluckily, we are still not in agreement. Where does the Word tell us homosexuality is wrong? If you have read our site then you know our position: homosexuality is not covered in the Bible at all. At least, not homosexuality as we know it. Certain crimes like homosexual rape may be forbidden – and even this is not entirely clear – but the Word does not cover the situation of two men or two women in a committed, loving, consenting relationship. By the way, isn’t it weird that I have the tendency to always add ‘loving, committed, and consenting’ every time I talk about GLBT relationships? It should be self-evident. Straight relationships are often enough abusive or damaging to one or both partners but people always immediately assume it is ‘right’. Strange. Can you show me where you read that our love is wrong?

You are correct in your statement about “who so ever”. God does love us all. He is able to set us apart from our sin and love us, much unlike the world around us. I would hate to be constantly be judged by my own sins of the past and I do not want others to judge you or treat you badly. Yes, I, like you and the rest of the world was born with a sin nature.

My thanks to you, again, for this most gracious bit of writing. You are the very first writer I’ve answered who actually sees us as living individuals. We may not agree but I can easily respect you. You are quite right about what it’s like to be judged by your own sins constantly. But what about being judged for the sins of others or on trumped up charges? Do you ever get judged for seducing or ‘recruiting’ children? I do. Do you ever get judged for not being able to love and only wanting sex? I get judged for that when in fact, I’ve been celibate or in a committed relationship for over three years. I get judged in this way just for being gay. When I hear people talking about the issue of gay Christianity, I always want to ask them where the sinning is exactly. Even if you are right and my love for another man is inherently sinful, then who sins more? The men and women who do everything to keep us out of their lives, even going to the lengths of refusing us civil rights, firing us on the spot and throwing us out of our houses? Who sins more, the gay men and women who try to love each other in a hate-filled world or the people who picket our funerals in order to hurt the grieving ones even more and to rejoice in the death of yet another faggot?

I apologise, Lisa. You do not deserve my bitterness. Still, the question I pose is valid. I know we can’t actually weigh sins and tell others that we may be sinners but at least ‘we’re not that bad’ etc. etc. Then again…. What about accepting GLBT people into society first and then talk with us and then, and only then, start on about conversions? I see that straight people only talk at us most of the time at least. When will people talk WITH us?

I read in one of your columns your reference to a writers statement that homosexuals are often mis-labled or labled as a group as being promiscuous. I have never (I promise) heard this lifestyle bashed by my fellow church-goers. I attend a small nondenominational Bible Church. Our Pastor preaches directly from the pages in the Bible. I share this only to give you back ground on my own thinking and the influences in my life.

Amen! I can only applaud this practise. No bashing should ever be tolerated. Not of gay people, not of Jews, Muslims, of no one. However, I take issue at your remark about your pastor preaching directly from the Bible. That is quite all right in itself, of course, but I hope you do not mean that this makes him automatically right. I am not a preacher but I take my inspiration from the Bible, too. All preachers and lay persons on our list do.

I do believe that sin ought to be called sin. It ought not be embraced. We cannot be so liberal in our thinking that we over-look a sin in our lives or a sin in the lives of our loved ones.

I’m sorry, I’m losing you here. The issue is not being permissive or not. The issue is not being liberal or not. The issue is whether homosexuality is a sin or not. Not whether we call it a sin or not.

This does not mean that we stop loving, quite the opposite. If a loved one sees sin in my life, I would hope he/she would not over look it just because he loves me and does not want to hurt me. My prayer to those around me is that if they see sin in my life, then lovingly show the sin to me and be there for me when I FALL BACK INTO SIN AGAIN. Being 37 years old, I know many of my weaknesses.

I am 24 years old now and can’t say I even know all my sins. I admit that I sin a lot and that I could be a lot better than I am now. I hope I will some day achieve my full potential as a human. I too hope that the people around me will point out my mistakes and errors. However, this doesn’t change one bit my position on sexuality.

Many of my sins are so strongly and emotionally tied to me that I have to lean on the strength of the LORD, BECAUSE I WILL MESS IT UP EVERY TIME. FEELINGS ARE SUCH A POOR INDICATOR OF WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG.

I really disagree with you now. Feelings are a very good indicator of whether something is right or not. The problem is however that most of us are not in touch with our true feelings. For example, I am quite unsure why people throw their kids out of their homes when they come out as gay people, just for feeling righteous. I am quite unsure why I am forced all the time to defend my very existence. Not for doing anything wrong but just for breathing the same air. Your remark that we must lean on the strength of the Lord and obey Him is quite alright and sounds very Christian, but it does make it possible for each and every one to dismiss any homosexual opinions by just claiming they don’t rely on the Lord? It’s not that easy.

We all rely on the Lord. Now, don’t tell me your opinions are straight from the Bible and only that, that they have nothing to do with your feelings. Feelings are important.

I want my life to give God glory. “If you love me then you will obey me”. I want to obey you Lord.

I want to embrace all of you with alternative life-styles. You are intelligent, funny, witty, hard-workers, sensitive and God-fearing and God loving. I embrace you sweet brothers and sisters, but not your lifestyle.

Which lifestyle?? 8:00 am — wake up. 8:10 — shower: 8:15 — breakfast: 9:30 — get out to destroy society. Something like that? Sorry for being sarcastic but I get angry when people talk about our so-called ‘lifestyle’. Can you tell what you mean exactly? Don’t you just mean sex? That’s what it usually comes down to. People can’t stand the thought of us enjoying ourselves physically. That’s such a small part of life! It’s exactly the same as most straight people do. Only the technical details differ a bit.

Since you embrace us so fully, so easily… what is the problem?

I know many of you feel that this desire of yours is not a choice, I believe you, and I believe the Bible supports us in this belief. But, continuing to act on your in-born sexual feelings as an adult, with full knowledge of the Bible, is my brothers and sisters, sin.

There we go again. Before you start down this track you really must show me first where exactly I can find this homosexuality equals sin stuff in the Bible. I’ve read it a couple of times and studied it for some years but still don’t have the foggiest idea where to find those bits. What I can find are numerous harsh condemnations of several kinds of heterosexual sex. I read a lot about straight prostitution and straight rape. Why don’t people get worked up about that instead?

I agree with you that knowingly acting in a sinful way is a sin but my nature is not a sin. Precisely because it is nature. Do you really think God actually supports people twisting their very soul in order to conform to society’s wishes? I think not.

You really should come with some more info first.

So, how then can we deny who we are? We put our old selves away and become new in the sight of God. Please note that I am not trying to over simplify anything.

Your remarks are clear-cut and eloquent. An A for your English. How indeed CAN we deny who we are? Everyone always wants us to act like good, clean, normal straight people do and deny who we are. We don’t. We stay who we are and act it. We want to become new in the sight of God as our own selves, not as some straight counterpart of us.

We have been denying who we are for centuries and catering to heterosexual moralistic dictatorship. It is time for that to stop. We cannot keep lying just in order for straight people to rest easily at night. God does not encourage lying.

I do know that we were all born with a sin nature. Homosexual or not, we are all sinners and we need to confess our sins and begin living one moment at a time FREE from the sin that binds us to this world. Look to your Savior for strength…we who believe that we are sinners and believe that Jesus came down to save us from our own sin, suffered died, and is risen, are His fold…..His sheep, His people.

Amen once again. A pretty standard Christian thing to say but never wrong. That’s the catch of it though, it always works. We’re all sinners anyway. I agree but homosexuality is not one of my sins.

Take the information I have shared here and pray about it. Know the truth for yourselves. Those of you who have not got down on your knees and asked God to make His Word clear to you, should.

What, my dear lady, makes you think we don’t? We know the truth. We try to keep it a life in a whirlwind of moralistic and religious hatred. We are the bearers of the flame of truth and we will prevail. Thousands of us may be slaughtered, millions may have their lives ruined, their houses taken away from them but we will be there to bear witness. Until the end.

Perhaps the message I am leaving with you here today will encourage and not discourage your reading audience. Sincerely Signed, Lisa from Texas

I cannot speak for the audience on the Net but I do hope that my letter will encourage and not discourage you to think. Keep thinking, Lisa. Keep your heart warm and your head cool. I repeat my invitation to write back and stay in discussion. You are a warm, loving woman and I would very much like to talk to you again.

Blessings overflowing,
Maarten

Candace Chellew

Founder of Motley Mystic and the Jubilee! Circle interfaith spiritual community In Columbia, S.C., Candace Chellew (she/her) is the author of Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians (Jossey-Bass, 2008). Founder and Editor Emeritus of Whosoever, she earned her masters of theological studies at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, was ordained by Gentle Spirit Christian Church in December 2003, and trained as a spiritual director through the Omega Point program of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta. She is also a musician and animal lover.