Hm. This is a topic I've spent quite a lot of time pondering, and it seems to me to be thus:
- God hates the sin but loves the sinner. Very standard. But the question is, what is the sin per se?
It's pretty much unequivocally stated that it is a sin for a man to lie with a man (and by analogy, for a woman to lie with a woman), but this is a sin on par with and in the same category as any other sin of sexual immorality. This in turn equates two things:
The first is pretty much basic -- if you're Protestant, then you'd probably subscribe to the doctrine that we are all sinners, but we have all been redeemed by the blood of Christ, and no sin is greater than any other sin. Therefore, singling out homosexuals as 'Hell-bound' doesn't make doctrinal sense.
The second is my own conclusion and slightly further out -- the problem with homosexuality is not the love, nor the attraction, but the fact that homosexuals have sex for the sole purpose of having sex (as opposed to having sex for the sake of procreation.) And the problem with that is not so much that sex itself is a sin, but that it is a thing of the flesh, not of the Spirit.
From what I've seen thus far, homosexuality isn't exactly singled out for bashing -- it's always one line in a whole paragraph about fornication, bestiality and occasionally, adultery, etc. From context, therefore, it's very clear that it's certainly not love that's the problem -- the problem would be a person who wantonly and unrepentently indulges in the pleasures of the flesh.
While people are likely to jump on me and accuse me of a hair-splitting meaning-changing lawyer, it seems to me as clear as day. But for me, the clearest answer is the fact that I have a girlfriend that I love and adore (but whom I'll never sleep with), and our relationship of which I've prayed again and again and again about, and I've never received any sense of censure, nor has the Father seen fit to curtail it despite my asking that He do so if it displeases Him. Because, from everything I've read in the Bible, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Love itself.
The problem is that a lot of these hate-mongers don't think. I find that an appalling number of my Christian counterparts have been brought up believing that homosexuality = bad, gays = going to Hell, and homosexuality is somehow a cardinal sin worse than murder, and accept that as Gospel truth. The problem is that people have been so conditioned into believing that it's unnatural and wrong that they react on a instinctive gut level instead of on an intellectual level, and they just /can't/ learn to accept it, no matter how prolifically one might argue the case. (The smarter ones I know admit to this :P).
Whatever it is, I hope you find an answer one day. But I certainly agree that there's absolutely no room for hate in our faith.
Two cents.. no, make that 3 ^^
- God hates the sin but loves the sinner.
Very standard. But the question is, what is the sin per se?
It's pretty much unequivocally stated that it is a sin for a man to lie with a man (and by analogy, for a woman to lie with a woman), but this is a sin on par with and in the same category as any other sin of sexual immorality. This in turn equates two things:
The first is pretty much basic -- if you're Protestant, then you'd probably subscribe to the doctrine that we are all sinners, but we have all been redeemed by the blood of Christ, and no sin is greater than any other sin. Therefore, singling out homosexuals as 'Hell-bound' doesn't make doctrinal sense.
The second is my own conclusion and slightly further out -- the problem with homosexuality is not the love, nor the attraction, but the fact that homosexuals have sex for the sole purpose of having sex (as opposed to having sex for the sake of procreation.) And the problem with that is not so much that sex itself is a sin, but that it is a thing of the flesh, not of the Spirit.
From what I've seen thus far, homosexuality isn't exactly singled out for bashing -- it's always one line in a whole paragraph about fornication, bestiality and occasionally, adultery, etc. From context, therefore, it's very clear that it's certainly not love that's the problem -- the problem would be a person who wantonly and unrepentently indulges in the pleasures of the flesh.
While people are likely to jump on me and accuse me of a hair-splitting meaning-changing lawyer, it seems to me as clear as day. But for me, the clearest answer is the fact that I have a girlfriend that I love and adore (but whom I'll never sleep with), and our relationship of which I've prayed again and again and again about, and I've never received any sense of censure, nor has the Father seen fit to curtail it despite my asking that He do so if it displeases Him. Because, from everything I've read in the Bible, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Love itself.
The problem is that a lot of these hate-mongers don't think. I find that an appalling number of my Christian counterparts have been brought up believing that homosexuality = bad, gays = going to Hell, and homosexuality is somehow a cardinal sin worse than murder, and accept that as Gospel truth. The problem is that people have been so conditioned into believing that it's unnatural and wrong that they react on a instinctive gut level instead of on an intellectual level, and they just /can't/ learn to accept it, no matter how prolifically one might argue the case. (The smarter ones I know admit to this :P).
Whatever it is, I hope you find an answer one day. But I certainly agree that there's absolutely no room for hate in our faith.