#1) Topic I’m wrestling with God over: Homosexuality

There are a number of areas that I haven’t quite worked out yet in terms of my faith.    The issue of homosexuality is one of them.  I want for homosexuality to be acceptable to God.  I’ve had a number of dear friends who are gay.  I believe them to be good people, well-intentioned.   Some of them were far from God.  Most of the reason they were far from God, I think, is because the church was unloving to them.

If it turns out that God says that homosexuality is wrong, then of course we don’t have the luxury of running from this.  It would be unloving to sugar coat this reality.  But this does not excuse hate-filled and even Satanic actions done in the name of Christ.

And does God say it’s wrong?  That’s the whole sticking point, I suppose.

If we cite Old Testament verses, then we’d better be prepared to do a whole variety of terrible things that most of us wouldn’t want to do.  We all know those verses, there’s no point in rehashing them here.

This leaves us with the New Testament Verses.  Jesus  doesn’t say anything about homosexuality, but Paul seems to.   This is a meaningful distinction for some people.  They seem to imply that the Gospels have a greater importance than the Epistles.    But I’m not sure it makes sense to lower the importance of something in the bible merely because Jesus didn’t say it.  If God is behind the whole bible, then he’s behind the whole bible.  If he’s not, then he’s not.  If the bible is merely a human-created attempt at wisdom then I’m going to give up on calling myself a Christian and go join a Unitarian Chuch.  At least they’re honest and upfront about the status of various religious sciptures.

Some people say that the word we render as “homosexual” is more properly rendered “temple prostitute”; they describe that the concept doesn’t really translate… That the verses that are commonly understood as prohibitting homosexuality are really condemnations of rape, polyagmy, etc.   Frankly, I’ve gotten lost in all the scholarly debate on this issue.  It appears from the outside that both groups started with the assumptions they ended up with; both groups I think are sincere and arguing for things they generally believe.  Niether side can show me evidence that seems worthy of how secure they seem in their interpretations.

I’m familiar with the research that says homsexuality occurs in animal populations.  I’ve seen the studies where it’s been caused in rats.   I know about the autopsies they’ve done in gay men and found more densely packed cells in the hypothalmus.

I know that this information can be spun in either direction: as proof that homosexuality is naturally occuring or as suggestive that it’s some sort-of defect.  I’ve seen the claims that Christian therapists can “cure” homosexuality and the counter-claims that theses “cures” are hardly ever long-term.

What I’m left with is the following beliefs… They are tenative and wishy-washy.  But they are the best I can do, based on where I’m at now.   I’m open to correction from either side of the debate, so somebody, please, fill me in:

#1) There is far more black-and-white, uncontroversial evidence that Jesus is not very happy with the idea of divorce.  I don’t say this because I think we should be hard on divorcees… I say it because I think we ought to use this as a sort of litmus test.  Do we bar divorced people from our churches?  Do we show up at divorce courts with hate mongering signs?  Do we tell divorced people that God hates their divorce even if he does love them?  If we don’t do any of the above to divorced people it seems ridiculous to treat gay people in that way.  

#2) God is infinitely loving and fair.   He’s going to judge people based on infinitely loving and fair criteria.  

#3) Whatever standards I judge people by will be applied to me. 

These 3 parameters leave me with many more questions than answers.