Gay Clergy-About time or moral oxymoron?

Well,
I think some people are missing the point...
If you were gay, why would you want to be a Christian? why would you want to dedicate your life to a religion that refutes your life style?
It's like a vegetarian working for McDonalds.
I don't get how a gay person can preach the bible anyway.... And yes I am a Christian, but my views have nothing to do with homophobia - in fact Christians views of Gays are nothing to do with homophobia - if they follow the bible that is.

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Funny you should mention that jen. This story is legendary:

http://www.thenazareneway.com/vegetarian/ronald_mcdonald_is_now_a_vegetar.htm

Now as I see it, Christianity is supposedly a religion of acceptance, although the jury is still out on that. If a gay person wishes to also be a Christian, I think that a modern Church should let it happen. After all, is it not the soul that is paramount, not the person?

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Knew a girl back in the distant past who was a rabid vegan ... wouldn't even wear leather or animal fibers. She was also an avid amature photographer. Don't remember what it was she did that pissed me off, but it was great fun to reveal to her the critical, and chemically irreplaceable, nature of colodian derived from beef gelatine to the modern photographic process (it is cheap, chemically stable, does not react with silver halide, the light-sensitive component of film and photo paper, it is perfectly transparent to and beyond both extremes of the visible spectrum, and rinses away completely in cool water ... nothing else meets those requirements). The revelation caused her great conflict.

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Christianity is not 'supposedly a religion of acceptance' It is Christianity. It is a religion that loves a God and obeys his wishes, it has rules and guidelines like all other religions, these are fundamental.

One of the biggest miss-conceptions of Christianity is that it is all about being fair and loving and accepting and nothing else. It is not. It is all about God and Jesus.
The whole concept of a gay Christian is just wrong. You cannot believe in and worship a God, and at the same time disagree with him. If you accept God then you accept that he is right. Its not like you can say "okay God I like the idea of knowing you, but there are a few things that I just wont do"
I try hard not to be closed minded about anything. I have only just become a Christian myself, I used to be quite the opposite, and have many gay friends so I can see both points of view. I just fail to see how people can take a religion and mould it to their own ideals. Christianity is Christianity, There is some stuff that is okay, and some stuff that is not. Simple.

Re the Veggie thing, that's a whole other issue! Story was amusing though, thanks Smile

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It's a miss-conception? You mean only the ladies...oh well. Very Happy

You have or had gay friends? Are any of them in the clergy?

BTW, welcome to A2K, jen. Just be prepared in the religious forum and especially on this topic and others related not receiving a free pass on such an opinion.

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Jen seems to be saying many of the same things I said very early in this discussion.

And she is right.

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Yes, she is right about some Christians not wanting to accept gays because they themselves believe they have not sinned. There are religions who do accept gays -- the Methodists for instance.

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Lightwizard wrote:

Yes, she is right about some Christians not wanting to accept gays because they themselves believe they have not sinned. There are religions who do accept gays -- the Methodists for instance.

No, LW.

She is right when she says:

Quote:

Christianity is not 'supposedly a religion of acceptance' It is Christianity.

Quote:

You cannot believe in and worship a God, and at the same time disagree with him.

Quote:

I just fail to see how people can take a religion and mould it to their own ideals. Christianity is Christianity,

Quote:

If you were gay, why would you want to be a Christian? why would you want to dedicate your life to a religion that refutes your life style?

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I dissagree -- those are absolutes that do not exist. At least not in my experience. You must know some pretty stringent Christians. The local Methodist church has gay meetings within the church proper. That there are Christians who simply won't accept gays being Christians has to do with the Old Testament, not any teachings of Christ.

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Unless you also mean that if one doesn't faithfully go to church and follow all rituals they aren't really Christians. That doesn't exactly work for me either as I've known gay Priests in the Catholic and Episcopalean churches, the Catholics were more often celibate to my knowledge but some were not.
I guess growing up in Hollywood may have had something to do with a different viewpoint. I just feel that some people are just terminally naive about the whole thing. Of course, I realize they are offering up opinions and it may or may not be from experience or what their clerics are forcing down their throat. OOOPs -- bad choice of words.

Also using a the negative with "supposedly" is incorrect style to being with.

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On the "Miss-Conception" thing there, LW ... you have a valid point there about it being ok for girls ... the bible, new testament and old alike, specifically condems male homosexuality. There is no mention whatsoever of lesbianism, so, from a fundamentalist, literal point of view, lesbianism is not forbidden or otherwise proscribed.

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You got my little bait and hit the jackpot, timber. So Falwell has no issue with Ellen Degeneres.

The Catholic church used the very defense of hiding and moving around gay Priests who had committed offenses against children -- that they could be accepted as rehabilition cases and that Jesus/God would change them! Now that is terminally naive.

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(One wonders how they address two Priests engaging in homosexual sex. I don't.)

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LW

Are you saying that in the Methodist Church you "can disagree with your god?"

The only way that can be done -- and please don't take offense to this, it is offered in the spirit of conversation and debate -- is by being a hypocrite.

The god of the Bible is very, very specific about homosexual conduct:

"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their
lives." Leviticus 20:13

How the hell do you get around that short of hypocrisy -- or acknowledging that the Bible contradicts itself in very fundmental ways?

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That's if you accept the Bible as literally written by God. Some of the Christian faiths are growing away from Leviticus and other sections of the Old Testament that should have been left on the cutting room floor. One can call it hypocrisy or anything one likes -- or be an absolutist and either accept all of the Bible or none of it. I personally don't believe any of it was "written by God" or by any supernatural means was anyone guided to write the word of God. I agree that many faiths are shackled by traditions that have been shown to be foolhardy and false. They shalt remain in denial (not the one in Egypt).

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Lightwizard wrote:

That's if you accept the Bible as literally written by God. Some of the Christian faiths are growing away from Leviticus and other sections of the Old Testament that should have been left on the cutting room floor. One can call it hypocrisy or anything one likes -- or be an absolutist and either accept all of the Bible or none of it. I personally don't believe any of it was "written by God" or by any supernatural means was anyone guided to write the word of God. I agree that many faiths are shackled by traditions that have been shown to be foolhardy and false. They shalt remain in denial (not the one in Egypt).

That is the problem with Christianity, LW.

Whatever they see in the Bible that does not agree with what they want the Bible to say -- they suggest disregarding it.

But anything that agrees with their concept of what the Bible should be saying, they want to regard (you will excuse the expression) as gospel.

How about the Methodists disregard all the stuff in the Old Testament that is used to "substantiate" or "validate" that Jesus was the Messiah?

If you are going to be consistent -- you really have to accept it all -- or none of it.

With all the respect in the world, LW...

If you accept it all -- all my arguments (and Jen's) hold.

If you accept none of it -- you really should stop calling yourselves Christians.

If you only accept parts -- (once again as respectfully as possible) it seems to me to be hypocrisy.

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Some faiths like the Methodists are wrenching themselves away from those parts of the Old Testament that shouldn't have made it into the King James Version and have been left there hanging like a lot of poorly washed laundry. That Jesus stated that all old laws should be upheld should bother them but then the Old Testament didn't exist then and it is difficult to verify what parts of Leviticus were intact and recorded. Did Jesus also mean all Roman laws? I do not believe there were Roman laws against homosexuality but I could be wrong. It's difficult for me to criticize those who still want to believe in Christ but would rather not subscribe to all the Hebrew laws in the Old Testament. The laws that didn't make it into Roman law and then English law which is the basis of our laws are still considered sins. And sins are to be forgiven. Does it matter if we forgive ourselves for past sins or we pray that someone outside of us forgive us? Either way, it seems self-centered but is essential to maintain a level of self-esteem (some, however, are a bit overdosed on self-esteem, don't you think?). I don't think there is any pat answer to this -- perhaps the religions that are pulling away from the Old Testament will find they've unraveled their own reason for existence. That could very well be.

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Lightwizard wrote:

Some faiths like the Methodists are wrenching themselves away from those parts of the Old Testament that shouldn't have made it into the King James Version and have been left there hanging like a lot of poorly washed laundry. That Jesus stated that all old laws should be upheld should bother them but then the Old Testament didn't exist then and it is difficult to verify what parts of Leviticus were intact and recorded. Did Jesus also mean all Roman laws? I do not believe there were Roman laws against homosexuality but I could be wrong. It's difficult for me to criticize those who still want to believe in Christ but would rather not subscribe to all the Hebrew laws in the Old Testament. The laws that didn't make it into Roman law and then English law which is the basis of our laws are still considered sins. And sins are to be forgiven. Does it matter if we forgive ourselves for past sins or we pray that someone outside of us forgive us? Either way, it seems self-centered but is essential to maintain a level of self-esteem (some, however, are a bit overdosed on self-esteem, don't you think?). I don't think there is any pat answer to this -- perhaps the religions that are pulling away from the Old Testament will find they've unraveled their own reason for existence. That could very well be.

There was no Old Testament, LW, but there were all the books of the Old Testament -- and MOST DEFINITELY were the first five books of the Old Testament -- the Torah -- all written down, in most respects, word for word with what we read today.

Levitucus was there -- and that ESPECIALLY was what Jesus was talking about when he said he was not here to change the law -- NOT ON WORD, NOT ONE LETTER OF ONE WORD, NOT ONE STROKE OF ONE LETTER OF ONE WORD.

Methodists can do whatever they choose to do -- but doing certain things makes one a hypocrite -- and the Methodist faith, as you are describing it, seems embarked on a hypocritical course.

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Basically I can agree with you -- I don't condone that the clerics see fit to the Bible as "one size fits all" and I've always been bothered by what I interpret as hypocrisy. I'm sure the Torah has been heavily tweaked and things added and subtracted so nobody can say for sure what it looked like in Christ's time. You'd really have to take a trip back in a time machine to actually prove that -- are you getting your historical information from a historian of the era or are their passages in the Torah or Bible which can be offered as proof that those portions of today's Bible were available. Kind of a moot point because I'm sure they did have some laws regarding sexual contact (however, as Timber pointed out, Leviticus excludes homosexual sex between two women!) The Bible is a mess so arguing on a rational level about it no matter what side one is on is futile.

I'm sure all the straight males in the audience are happy about two woman going at it being okay! Very Happy

:wink:

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Thanks for the welcome Smile

I think this might be fun - its my first ever forum (I was really bored at work!)
I'm afraid that's all I have the energy to say, it being 1:31 in the morning and all.... I may have a more intellectual comment to add in a few hours time!

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Gay Clergy-About time or moral oxymoron?

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