[In the 39 Articles of Religion]…Article VII… says, “… Although the Law given from God by Moses, as touching ceremonies and rites, do not bind Christian men, nor the Civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called moral.”
In other words, obey God’s law. The most sensitive issue involving the church, of course, was Gene Robinson’s election to bishop in the state of New Hampshire in 2003. Robinson was the first priest in a blessed and openly gay relationship to be ordained bishop in a major denomination believing in the historic episcopate (the collective body of all bishops of a church).
This is such a difficult conundrum, because reasonable people believe that we’re all God’s children, that no one chooses to be gay, and that no one who is gay would be excluded from heaven simply for being such. Although acceptance of this is, or at least should be, a no-brainer, there is evidence in both the Old and New Testaments clearly suggesting that gay relations are in violation of the word. By ignoring this when it comes to promoting individuals to positions of authority, whom are we trying to please: ourselves or God?
A sane, thoughtful take on recent events. But to the two adjectives chosen by the doctor, i.e., “predictable” and “Understandable,” I’d add two more, tragic and necessary.
What I’m alluding to implicitly is the famous saying of the late, great historian of Christian doctrine, Jaroslav Pelikan, who once summed up the paradox of the Protestant Reformation as being that it was “[i]a tragic necessity[/i].” I wholeheartedly agree with Pelikan’s balanced assessment of that momentous 16th century split. And I think it applies just as well to the break between the biblically faithful DSC and the unfaithful and increasingly apostate TEC. That is, while of course the split is tragic, it was very much a necessity. And it’s almost entirely TEC’s fault.
David Handy+
Why does this person think that it is reasonable to think that no one chooses to be gay? Perhaps because he is a man. Unfortunately, women who are injured by men do choose to turn to women, holding all men responsible for what one man has done instead of learning to forgive. Here is one published example from the Washington Post about a young woman: “She started going out with girls when she was 14, following a breakup with her boyfriend. ‘At first I thought going out with a girl was nasty,’ she says. ‘Then I went to a club and did a big flip-flop. I’ve been off and on with girls and guys since then.'”
Why do evangelicals buy into nonsense? I suppose they also think nobody would ever do anything that society considers so reprehensible. That must be why all our prisons are empty. But instead I hear there are people willing to do things so reprehensible that their freedom is taken away or they are executed.
It is the ignorance expressed in this piece that caused me to write “And the Spirit Led Me: Walking with God through a Church Disaster.” It is an opportunity to educate both our children and those in our midst who have bought into the liberal propaganda. And it includes work done by homosexuals and the CDC, as well as quotes from the Washington Post to make the point.
Although evangelicals generally do not promote homosexuality because of prohibitions in the Scripture, they often are not any better educated than liberals. And most have utterly missed the difference between homosexuality in women and men.
I won’t pretend to know what is the source of same sex attraction. My best guess is that it’s one manifestation of the selfish yetzer ra, the evil impulse that makes us want to listen to and act on our will, rather than heed God’s will. Why some people seem to have this particular manifestation, and why some people seem not to, is a mystery to me. But, we all have the yetzer ra, and we act on it all the time.
I do know that having sex with someone else is always a decision, a choice, except in cases of rape. I suspect that’s the same for men and women. The yetzer tov, the good impulse that reflects God’s will is always there, warning us.
The Bible tacitly acknowledges the existence of same sex attraction, in that it forbids acting on this evil impulse. But, I don’t think the Bible condemns the impulse itself, or those people who have that impulse.
You are assuming that the source of same-sex attraction is mysterious for all. A friend of mine who was in the Netherlands in the ’70’s said that the feminists had made it all the rage to have a sexual relationship with another women. Many women did exactly that. Just like the young woman who went to the club and did a big flip after breaking up with her boyfriend, a decision to have a sexual relationship was made. For those women the behavior would have been positively reinforced by orgasm. I have no doubt that these people developed same-sex attractions for other women as the behavior was reinforced. There is definitely a choice about behavior, and many young women are crossing a boundary that they would have eschewed in the past. In 1994 the rate of homosexual identification in adult men and women were 2% and 1% respectively. Presently, people tell our children that their attractions are fixed and biologically based. So now in our kids the rate of homosexual identification in boys is 3% and in girls it is 8%.
Homosexuality has a whole different basis in men and women. I will quote from the Washington Post again:
“Recent studies of relationships among women suggest that female homosexuality may be grounded more in social interaction, may present itself as an emotional attraction in addition to or in place of a physical one, and may change over time. Young women also appear to be more open to homosexual relationships than young men are. In one recent national study, more than twice as many girls as boys reported being attracted to the same sex at least once.”
Also, you will hear women saying that they chose homosexual behavior. Women do choose to reject men. That is at least partly driven by feminists assuring women that men are just like them, an assertion based on nothing at all, and the result is that women are disappointed when men are less relational. But now they can just have a relationship with a woman instead. Sadly, even for those who eventually find their way again, sexual confusion can really wreak havoc with their lives.
Dr. Gilbreth assumes too much, and discounts scientific evidence that homosexuality is nurture as much as it is nature. I personally would not want him to be my physician based on his selective reading of the scientific facts.
Sexuality seems to exist along a continuum, and adolescents are particularly susceptible to confusing love with sex as they deal with their developing sexual feelings. This is why I find the promotion of web sites by Gene Robinson to help “confused” youth find themselves to be a particularly reprehensible action that takes advantage of young people. Older male homosexuals are known to groom young, adolescent males to make them more accepting of homosexuality. The sexual impulse is strong, as God intended it to be, and can be perversely channeled based on an older man showing love and attention to an adolescent male. I’m sorry, I just consider Gene Robinson and those of his ilk to be odious persons.
If homosexuality is nature, that is genetic, how does it reproduce itself?