How do you reconcile homosexuality and Christianity?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we don't have to worry about sin then why did Jesus have to be crucified? We are all sinners. Homosexual acts are sin as are premarital sex and extramarital sex... Selfishness ... Lying...stealing, gossiping, swearing with Gods name . We all probably sin at least 10 times a day. Having a homosexual wedding ceremony probably takes it to outright rebellion levels against God similar to having a satanic wedding ceremony , but I'm sure those people probably don't care .

See... as someone who wasn't raised Christian, I never understood why Jesus has to be crucified in the first place. How does Jesus dying translate to forgiveness of sins? Couldn't God just forgive your sins himself? Why the son/middleman? What about all the thousands of other human beings who were crucified on a cross? Why did they have to die? What was the value in their suffering? Was their suffering less than Jesus, even though they underwent the same horrendous torture?

God came to earth as man. Jesus was the God-man. His first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding ( I love that). In the old covenant between God and man , God required sacrifices from his people in repentance for breaking the Ten Commandments . He doesn't just forgive because he wants people to care enough about him to want to obey him. People failed so much that God being a loving God and not wanting everyone to go to hell gave the gift of himself as a one time brutal sacrifice for all the sin of the world . All he asked was to believe in him and care enough to know how desperate your situation is. That's the cut off... If you don't care enough about God to even accept a free gift of salvation , then you are screwed when you die.

This sounds like any mythological story the claims to be fact - Hindu Gods, Greek Gods, ancient Mayan or Egyptian gods. I get that it's a story woven as truth, and when you repeat the story in your own community a million times, you just believe it as so. But it sounds so non-nonsensical. Just like I'm sure Shinto stories sound to a Christian. Interesting stories, but all equally artificial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

What part of this is not clear to some of you?

The fact that it's not, you know, Jesus. If you want to interpret Paul as another prophet who mouths God's very own words, if you want to cherry pick Leviticus (put down that shellfish), then that's your game. The rest of us will continue to think you have a homophobic agenda.

[Anonymous]

I'm glad I'm not homosexual. The sins I do I know for a fact are sins having to worry that I may be in outright rebellion against God would be a lot to bear. I feel sorry for people in that predicament and pray that God forgives their plight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:P.S. Arguing with you feels exactly like arguing with Muslima.

Cherry-picking scripture? Check

Claiming "it's all about context" while seeming determined to ignore the actual context? Check

Deliberately missing the big picture, the broad message, of Jesus' words, so long as it conflicts with your position on a narrow issue? Check

And some people only like to hear the feel-good God is love sermon and don't like to hear about sins and facing them. Yes, Jesus was mostly about love and compassion. That doesn't mean Christians should ignore our sinful ways.

Haha. "Mostly."

Thank God -- truly, I thank Him -- for mainline Protestant reformed faiths that have moved beyond literalism and fundamentalism. God bless those churches whose doors are open to ALL, as Jesus intends.

+1. God's spirit is in these liberal churches, I truly believe that

Some of the letters in the Bible that were written by the Apostles to some churches warn of mixing local culture and other religions with Christianity. The letter to Pergamum in Revelations is one example. Liberal churches aren't always Biblicaly based, then again, neither are some conservative ones like Westboro Baptist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm glad I'm not homosexual. The sins I do I know for a fact are sins having to worry that I may be in outright rebellion against God would be a lot to bear. I feel sorry for people in that predicament and pray that God forgives their plight.

I think God understands them a lot better than we do, that's for sure. And this is why, though we know everyone is sinful, we are to be compassionate and loving. That doesn't translate to - we are not going to say xyz is a sin or not a sin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we don't have to worry about sin then why did Jesus have to be crucified? We are all sinners. Homosexual acts are sin as are premarital sex and extramarital sex... Selfishness ... Lying...stealing, gossiping, swearing with Gods name . We all probably sin at least 10 times a day. Having a homosexual wedding ceremony probably takes it to outright rebellion levels against God similar to having a satanic wedding ceremony , but I'm sure those people probably don't care .

See... as someone who wasn't raised Christian, I never understood why Jesus has to be crucified in the first place. How does Jesus dying translate to forgiveness of sins? Couldn't God just forgive your sins himself? Why the son/middleman? What about all the thousands of other human beings who were crucified on a cross? Why did they have to die? What was the value in their suffering? Was their suffering less than Jesus, even though they underwent the same horrendous torture?

Ok, this is a theologically complex question, but my understanding is that "sin" has a cost. It is like gravity in that it is part of the reality that God created us in. God could just magically erase sin, I guess, and God could also let us zoom around like Superman but that is not the reality we live in. God could also just make us love him and be perfect, but that is also not the reality we live in- we would just be robots in that case. We have free will, and one of the results of that is sin, and the cost of that sin is death and judgment. Jesus took on that penalty for us. Suffering is the cost of free will and sin. The world we live in is imperfect, which is why there can be great suffering all around us. But our suffering is trivial in the larger scheme of things- that eventually we will live in Heaven with God forever, if we believe in Jesus.

I get that. From a raised-Muslim person like myself it's still strange, as Muslims are taught that it's us against ourselves - we are always judged, and we answer to God fully for everything we did in our lives, no middleman needed. [fwiw I don't believe that either, but it is a little easier to digest].

But so what was the point of Joe Schmoe suffering on the cross, alongside Jesus, and undergoing the same exact amount of pain and torment?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we don't have to worry about sin then why did Jesus have to be crucified? We are all sinners. Homosexual acts are sin as are premarital sex and extramarital sex... Selfishness ... Lying...stealing, gossiping, swearing with Gods name . We all probably sin at least 10 times a day. Having a homosexual wedding ceremony probably takes it to outright rebellion levels against God similar to having a satanic wedding ceremony , but I'm sure those people probably don't care .

See... as someone who wasn't raised Christian, I never understood why Jesus has to be crucified in the first place. How does Jesus dying translate to forgiveness of sins? Couldn't God just forgive your sins himself? Why the son/middleman? What about all the thousands of other human beings who were crucified on a cross? Why did they have to die? What was the value in their suffering? Was their suffering less than Jesus, even though they underwent the same horrendous torture?

God came to earth as man. Jesus was the God-man. His first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding ( I love that). In the old covenant between God and man , God required sacrifices from his people in repentance for breaking the Ten Commandments . He doesn't just forgive because he wants people to care enough about him to want to obey him. People failed so much that God being a loving God and not wanting everyone to go to hell gave the gift of himself as a one time brutal sacrifice for all the sin of the world . All he asked was to believe in him and care enough to know how desperate your situation is. That's the cut off... If you don't care enough about God to even accept a free gift of salvation , then you are screwed when you die.

This sounds like any mythological story the claims to be fact - Hindu Gods, Greek Gods, ancient Mayan or Egyptian gods. I get that it's a story woven as truth, and when you repeat the story in your own community a million times, you just believe it as so. But it sounds so non-nonsensical. Just like I'm sure Shinto stories sound to a Christian. Interesting stories, but all equally artificial.

It's actually a lot different than other faiths. Other faiths say do this and you will be enlightened do that and you will be in heaven. Christianity says "done" it is finished, you just have to accept and open the gift.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

What part of this is not clear to some of you?

The fact that it's not, you know, Jesus. If you want to interpret Paul as another prophet who mouths God's very own words, if you want to cherry pick Leviticus (put down that shellfish), then that's your game. The rest of us will continue to think you have a homophobic agenda.

So out of the entire Bible, the only thing you will take literally or seriously are Jesus' words? The rest of the *New Testament* is no big deal? That seems very limited. If it works for you, it works for you, I guess.

[Anonymous]

Other faiths don't have the amazing , incomprehensible , unexplainable , impossible to duplicate shroud of Turin .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Who is ignoring the rest? Someone asked about a passage directly on homosexuality. They got it. Just b/c Jesus's death washes away the sins of the old testament doesn't mean he condones them. It doesn't give believers a free pass to sin as they want. It just means we are not condemned by them.

YOU are ignoring the rest of Leviticus. Do you eat shellfish? Do you wear wool-cotton blends? Then you're ignoring the rest of Leviticus and cherry-picking the anti-homosexual stuff. Why is this so hard? Have you read Leviticus?

How does what your saying disagree with my statements? Do you understand the meaning of Jesus? I don't mean this to be consending. I would be happy to explain then Jesus's meaning means to regarding the laws and ways of the Old Testament.

Thanks, but I don't think you have a clue about Jesus' relationship to the Old Testament. Do you understand why the Pharisees hated him? Why he was crucified? Because he overthrew nearly everything they stood for, all the rituals and customs they were in charge of interpreting and enforcing.

They hated Him because he claimed to be the Son of God and the Messiah, that many people were following Him instead of the Pharisees. He didn't overthrow what they stated; He pointed out their hypocrisy and misunderstanding of what God was about.

Let me quote again Matthew 5:17
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we don't have to worry about sin then why did Jesus have to be crucified? We are all sinners. Homosexual acts are sin as are premarital sex and extramarital sex... Selfishness ... Lying...stealing, gossiping, swearing with Gods name . We all probably sin at least 10 times a day. Having a homosexual wedding ceremony probably takes it to outright rebellion levels against God similar to having a satanic wedding ceremony , but I'm sure those people probably don't care .

See... as someone who wasn't raised Christian, I never understood why Jesus has to be crucified in the first place. How does Jesus dying translate to forgiveness of sins? Couldn't God just forgive your sins himself? Why the son/middleman? What about all the thousands of other human beings who were crucified on a cross? Why did they have to die? What was the value in their suffering? Was their suffering less than Jesus, even though they underwent the same horrendous torture?

God came to earth as man. Jesus was the God-man. His first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding ( I love that). In the old covenant between God and man , God required sacrifices from his people in repentance for breaking the Ten Commandments . He doesn't just forgive because he wants people to care enough about him to want to obey him. People failed so much that God being a loving God and not wanting everyone to go to hell gave the gift of himself as a one time brutal sacrifice for all the sin of the world . All he asked was to believe in him and care enough to know how desperate your situation is. That's the cut off... If you don't care enough about God to even accept a free gift of salvation , then you are screwed when you die.

This sounds like any mythological story the claims to be fact - Hindu Gods, Greek Gods, ancient Mayan or Egyptian gods. I get that it's a story woven as truth, and when you repeat the story in your own community a million times, you just believe it as so. But it sounds so non-nonsensical. Just like I'm sure Shinto stories sound to a Christian. Interesting stories, but all equally artificial.

It's actually a lot different than other faiths. Other faiths say do this and you will be enlightened do that and you will be in heaven. Christianity says "done" it is finished, you just have to accept and open the gift.

What was the gift given by the thousands of other human beings crucified on the cross? What I don't get, is Jesus is always singled out, as if his suffering was distinct. But it really wasn't - many others underwent the *exact* same torture and humiliation. So what did they die for? Why is their suffering not significant?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Other faiths don't have the amazing , incomprehensible , unexplainable , impossible to duplicate shroud of Turin .

I'm a Christian, but, wasn't this debunked?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Who is ignoring the rest? Someone asked about a passage directly on homosexuality. They got it. Just b/c Jesus's death washes away the sins of the old testament doesn't mean he condones them. It doesn't give believers a free pass to sin as they want. It just means we are not condemned by them.

YOU are ignoring the rest of Leviticus. Do you eat shellfish? Do you wear wool-cotton blends? Then you're ignoring the rest of Leviticus and cherry-picking the anti-homosexual stuff. Why is this so hard? Have you read Leviticus?

How does what your saying disagree with my statements? Do you understand the meaning of Jesus? I don't mean this to be consending. I would be happy to explain then Jesus's meaning means to regarding the laws and ways of the Old Testament.

Thanks, but I don't think you have a clue about Jesus' relationship to the Old Testament. Do you understand why the Pharisees hated him? Why he was crucified? Because he overthrew nearly everything they stood for, all the rituals and customs they were in charge of interpreting and enforcing.

They hated Him because he claimed to be the Son of God and the Messiah, that many people were following Him instead of the Pharisees. He didn't overthrow what they stated; He pointed out their hypocrisy and misunderstanding of what God was about.

Let me quote again Matthew 5:17
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."

In case you didn't realize, the "LAW" here are the laws in the OT, including Leviticus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we don't have to worry about sin then why did Jesus have to be crucified? We are all sinners. Homosexual acts are sin as are premarital sex and extramarital sex... Selfishness ... Lying...stealing, gossiping, swearing with Gods name . We all probably sin at least 10 times a day. Having a homosexual wedding ceremony probably takes it to outright rebellion levels against God similar to having a satanic wedding ceremony , but I'm sure those people probably don't care .

Of course sin is an issue. Yes, of course, we all agree that murder and greed and adultery and fighting (even fighting your enemy) are all "sins" that Jesus clearly defines in the gospels.

The problem here is that YOU are trying to define "sin" to include homosexuality, in a way that the rest of us don't find scriptural support for.
Jesus is NOT recorded as having talked about homosexuality, your reference to Leviticus seems hypocritical (put down that shellfish) and out of step with Jesus' own attitude to that book, and your attempt to take Paul as God's literal words is inconsistent with the poor man's own representation of himself.

You keep talking about how unimportant Paul is, but your characterization is not consistent with the Bible. You just keep saying it over and over without proving that it is true. Where does the Bible say that we do not have to take Paul literally?

Nobody here says he's unimportant. He's one of the first eye witnesses -- in fact he met the resurrected Jesus, and he met with Peter, James and others who knew Jesus before and after the resurrection. His testimony on these issues, and the very early creed in Corinthians I, are priceless for establishing the authenticity of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. Paul also wrote some beautiful and inspirational passages on faith.

That said, Paul never claimed to be a prophet speaking *for* God. So his opinions on homosexuality, women, and so on are not God's literal words, to me and to others here apparently.

Please prove to me that Paul is a "prophet" in the sense of speaking for God. If you can do that I would certainly take him literally. But you can't do that, you can only use words like "divinely inspired." You'd be contradicting Paul himself, who called hinself a "disciple" and most definitely never called himself a prophet).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

What part of this is not clear to some of you?

The fact that it's not, you know, Jesus. If you want to interpret Paul as another prophet who mouths God's very own words, if you want to cherry pick Leviticus (put down that shellfish), then that's your game. The rest of us will continue to think you have a homophobic agenda.

So out of the entire Bible, the only thing you will take literally or seriously are Jesus' words? The rest of the *New Testament* is no big deal? That seems very limited. If it works for you, it works for you, I guess.

+1 This is cherry picking what the Bible teaches, and your own brand of Christianity. Like I stated up thread, everyone has their own belief system.