Growthtrac Community

[Wynne]

How does your church family handle the topic of homosexuality?

Is there perhaps more emphasis upon the sin or sins involved, or is there more upon lovingly building relationships with people so as to lead them into peace with Our Blessed Lord?

Or does your group never broach the topic at all?

[Davep]

Homsexuality in my opinion has long ago been elevated to a social sin. Somehow sex out of marriage and the people who do so are look at more favorably than when the same situtation occurs but involves the same sex. Socially hetro-sexual sin is more acceptable and gets a free ride, versus same-sex sin.

How many Christian Churches will marry a couple who has been living together before their wedding day?

[Janine]

Toughie.

Does the church refuse to marry them at all, sending them to a Justice of the Peace or something, so as not to seem to be approving of their 'living in sin'?

Does it gratefully marry them so as to stop their 'living in sin'?

Does it say, "Sure we'll marry you, about time! First live apart for six months, go thru our pre-marriage conference, then we'll marry you."

Davep, you thought-provoker, you!

As for the Western church thinking of hetero sexual sins as somehow... cleaner?... than homo sexual ones... Yes, I sure have seen that. Saw it in what was supposedly an adult Bible class this week.

[Davep]

I think in a lot of respects people "used" the Bible's prohibition against homosexuallity for their own social agendas, because it suits them. It is interesting how we can use a "discussion of a sin" in an attempt to make social changes that we would like to see. Yet many sins go undiscussed which would have a bigger impact on making life better for all if only they where put in the light.

[BopeepTex.]

Sin is sin. The issue here is if they claim they are Christians or are they just giving the messsage of Christ lip-service?


Once in Christ, how do you learn what the will of God is?? By the renewing of the mind. Right? O.K. Then where do we go to get our minds renewed? We go to the Word. And what does the Word say about homosexuality? What does it say about any sexual sin or as far as that goes sin period??


All throught the Old and New Testaments we're taught that it's wrong. In 1 Corinthians we're also taught to expel the sexually immoral from our assembly. We're told not to associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral.


With that said the question now is do we love, love, love, and remain politically correct, or do we place our faith in the Word of God and what He says is right and in what He tells us to do?

[webacus]

BoPeep, well said.

I think we often get caught up in thinking there are "categories" of sin, some more severe than others. Or that some sins cannot be forgiven.

However, I think homosexuality tends to be a pattern of sin which does make it a different situation. And there are other similar "sin patterns" [I don't know that homosexuality is that unique]. For example, other sin patterns might be alcoholism, spousal abuse, pornography, shop lifting, etc. I would define a sin pattern as a persistent, long-term sin, perhaps an addiction.

Still, we should embrace everyone -- regardless of sexual orientation or sin --and share the message of Jesus Christ, with boldness and love. We're all sinners.

Can we add some NewsBoys lyrics here?

[Wynne]

I'm sorry, dear, I don't listen to them often enough to know many of their lyrics! Have they a song about homosexuality?

Any sexual sin, especially an entrenched one with a foothold in multiple areas of life, is a killer.

Families are "killed", spirituality is killed. There is often literal death as well, growing out of the sins of ungodly sexuality, more quickly and obviously than we see death come from other sins (gluttony, gossip).

We will probably see much more trouble in our Western society from homosexuality, just as we have seen from heterosexual sexual sins, before we see improvement.

I pray for special help from Our Blessed Lord for our attitude in this area, that we might stand firm against such evil, but that we never let an "us against them" superiority creep into our hearts.

[BopeepTex.]

I agree with you all on the fact we should embrace the sinner as we are all sinners. Hate the sin but love the sinner. Christ did go to the cross 2000 years ago to forgive all sin, not just one or two sins, and He forgave them once for all time. The question still remains. Do we allow homosexuals to remain in our midst or for that matter do we allow those (heterosexual) who are living with one another to remain? Are we not teaching our children that this is acceptable in the eyes of God or do we teach our children that this is not acceptable in the eyes of God and still allow all of the above to remain in our church family in hope of the love that Christ shows us to prevail.



You know (here I go again), it could be a matter of the identification thing again. If you get up every morning and look in the mirror and tell yourself that you are a homosexual or that you are an alcoholic, or a drug addict or a spouse abuser, then that is exactly what your're going to be. However, if you get up and continue to look in the mirror and tell yourself that you are a child of God then you will begin to see yourself as a child of God and then maybe just maybe the bad thoughts will be replaced with good thoughts and what you once did will become disgusting to you. See for me it internalizing the fact that I was a child of God. And then looking into the mirror every single day and seeing myself as an alcoholic or drug addict made me think about what Christ had done for me. I knew I was forgiven, but the fact that Christ lived in me and I was still following the same old pattern made me ill. And it wasn't church or Christian people loving me that changed my thought pattern. It was getting into the word of God and understanding just who I was in His eyes that helped me.

[Wynne]

Very good points, dear.

It is a two-pronged fork, is it not?

The loving acceptance and the equally "tough-loving" rejection of active sin...

Coupled with time in the Word.

Powerful, very powerful tools.