I should not have to write this story, but here we go It’s a personal story that illustrates a sad but powerful truth about LGBTQ people, Christianity, and mental health. I wish I didn’t have to tell the story, but I do, because people who
The faith that you have, have as your own conviction before God. Blessed are those who have no reason to condemn themselves because of what they approve. But those who have doubts are condemned if they eat, because they do not act from faith; for
There was a saying that my father had when I was younger, which I recall clearly, as he often used it to try and push ultra conservative fundamentalist theology on me. Most often his insistence that anything we wanted to accomplish or have for ourselves
The concept of sin is not contained within catechisms learned in our churches, or in the theological vocabulary of our priests. Rather, I believe, each and every act of self-indulgence constitutes sin. Any time we put our own interests above that of others, so that
I’ve spent the good part of my 30 years running and hiding from sin. From the day I first realized I was homosexual, I linked the two words together. I believed you couldn’t have homosexuality without sin. I was raised in a very small, rural
A number of years ago, at a parent’s night held at the school where I taught theology to junior high students, a parent asked a question no one had ever asked me before: “Who has been the greatest influence on your spiritual life?” I remember
Sin, in my honest estimation, is one of two things. Sin is turning away from who God calls you to be, and sin is broken relationship, and we all experience these problems in our lives. Turning away from who God calls you to be is
The concept of sin is something I have been strangely aware of for most of my life. Sin is not just something I have been conscience of, but it is something I have earnestly wrestled with all my life, especially as a gay man. What
He was sobbing not just because he thought he had just done the most evil (sinful) thing he could possibly do, but because it was the thing he had most wanted to do ever since he became a self-conscious being. (Andrew Sullivan, When Plagues End)
Sin – what a terrible word! That word can make people feel bad about themselves, make them do even more evil things, just because they feel guilty. So it has been for me. I am raised in a Pentecostal church there I learned from childhood