Ãanisty
Well-Known Member
How does it go...ask and ye shall receive?
When Christ was Gay
- What many Christians seem to forget -
By Brian Elroy McKinley
[size=+2]W[/size]hen Christians pour their judgment on homosexual men and women, they do nothing less than make a mockery of their own savior, Jesus Christ. The grace they are willing to accept as followers of Christ is suddenly not good enough to extend to those they find offensive. It's a double standard, based not in biblical truth but in fear and the desire for control. To understand this, we must understand what Christians believe, and how their beliefs are being subverted from living in love to the canonizing of condemnation.
Christians believe we all have sins that keep us from eternal life. None of us are good enough to earn our way into heaven, not even the Mother Teresa's of the world.[size=-1]1[/size] Sin - the breaking of God's laws as laid down in the Bible - must be "atoned" for; it must be penalized, and the penalty is eternal death,[size=-1]2 [/size]what some call going to hell. But all is not lost, say Christians, because God himself paid the price by sending his son, in the person of Jesus Christ, to die for all of us.[size=-1]3[/size] This is called "propitiation," where Christ died in our place to pay the penalty of sin. In essence, he became all of us for those moments that he hung on the cross; he became whatever kind of sinner we are, and then he took those sins to the grave.[size=-1]4[/size] But, as most of us know from celebrating Easter each year, Christians believe Christ did not stay in the grave. Once the penalty of sin was erased, Christ was raised from the dead and now lives in heaven with God.[size=-1]5[/size]
But we are not automatically "saved" from out sins. A person must decide to accept Christ's sacrifice on the cross in order to "join the family of God."[size=-1]6[/size] Some people believe we must say a prayer, asking God to forgive us of our sins.[size=-1]7[/size] Others say we must simply choose to believe in Christ.[size=-1]8[/size] Still others say we must confess our belief in Christ's sacrifice by going through a public ritual that represents Christ's death and resurrection, a ritual known as baptism.[size=-1]9[/size] Whichever way it's done, we must consciously decide to accept Christ's sacrifice for our own sins. This is called "grace." In a nutshell, grace is forgiving someone when they have wronged you. Since Christians believe all of us have wronged God with our sins, by believing that Christ paid our eternal penalty for our wrongdoing, we are accepting God's grace.[size=-1]10[/size]
Sounds simple enough. But it's not. Once you become a Christian, you should start seeing a change in your behavior.[size=-1]11[/size] You should start learning to love.[size=-1]12[/size] You should also stop wanting to sin.[size=-1]13[/size] But here's the catch. You can't. Even after you accept Christ's forgiveness, you will continue to be a sinner. Try as you might to stop altogether, you just can't.[size=-1]14[/size] Even the Apostle Paul, one of the most prolific writers in the Bible, complained that he kept sinning.[size=-1]15[/size] But we are told to keep trying and that we should see some progress.[size=-1]16[/size] We are also told that some people who say the words to become a Christian may not actually believe what they were saying. These people are not really saved.[size=-1]17[/size] And, say some Christians, you'll know who they are because they don't even try to stop sinning, even though those who are saved can never stop either.
Confused? It gets worse. Some Christians have made an art of figuring out who is saved and who is not. They figure that if you are at least trying to align your lifestyle to fit their interpretation of God's laws, then you are living under God's grace. But if you choose to continue living in a lifestyle displeasing to God, you cannot really be saved because you are living in a state of rebellion. These Christians are diligent to pick out those sins that are "lifestyle" sins and those that are once-in-a-while sins that can affect even good Christians. Once-in-a-while sins they blow off with the phrase, "we all fail sometime." Lifestyle sins they condemn loudly, making the point that people who practice such sins are bound for hell, and if they seduce our children into such sins, they will go to hell too.
And this is where these kinds of Christians, known collectively as the Religious Right or Fundamentalists, make a mockery of their own Savior. They do this by picking and choosing which lifestyle sins are covered by God's grace and which ones are not. They do this by claiming that God's grace covers their own lifestyle sins but not those of the homosexual. They do this by accepting God's grace in their own lives and then refusing to extend that same grace to those they condemn for having the wrong lifestyle.
And they can do this because they don't believe they have any lifestyle sins of their own. If you ask them about it, they'll say things like, "I used to sleep around but I was forgiven of that sin and now I don't do it anymore." However, ask them if a homosexual can be saved by God's grace, and they will say, "The gay man who does not turn from his homosexuality is choosing to live a lifestyle counter to God's laws and is not, therefore, saved by grace." What they conveniently forget is that 50% of them - those who count themselves among the Religious Right - are divorced, and more than 85% of those are remarried. What that means is, according to the Bible, that nearly 43% of the same people who condemn the gay man for his homosexuality choose to live in a lifestyle of adultery, a sin that ranks equal to homosexuality in God's eyes.
That's right. The very people who condemn one "sinful" lifestyle are practicing another.
You see, in the Bible Jesus said: "Every one who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery." Luke 16:18 And the Apostle Paul (who continued to sin himself) said: "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God." 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 A divorced man who remarries is entering into an adulterous relationship. And it's not just a relationship; it's an adulterous lifestyle because the remarried man chooses to continue living in the adulterous relationship for the rest of his life (or until he divorces and remarries again). However, if you ask this adulterous man if he is still a Christian, he will say something like, "I believe God has forgiven me and I'm now living under his grace." And ask him if he's willing to leave his current wife in order to "turn from his adulterous lifestyle," and he will refuse because "God's grace has already saved him." But this is the same man who earlier claimed that the homosexual must turn from his "sinful" lifestyle as a condition of receiving God's grace.
Continued.....
When Christ was Gay
- What many Christians seem to forget -
By Brian Elroy McKinley
[size=+2]W[/size]hen Christians pour their judgment on homosexual men and women, they do nothing less than make a mockery of their own savior, Jesus Christ. The grace they are willing to accept as followers of Christ is suddenly not good enough to extend to those they find offensive. It's a double standard, based not in biblical truth but in fear and the desire for control. To understand this, we must understand what Christians believe, and how their beliefs are being subverted from living in love to the canonizing of condemnation.
Christians believe we all have sins that keep us from eternal life. None of us are good enough to earn our way into heaven, not even the Mother Teresa's of the world.[size=-1]1[/size] Sin - the breaking of God's laws as laid down in the Bible - must be "atoned" for; it must be penalized, and the penalty is eternal death,[size=-1]2 [/size]what some call going to hell. But all is not lost, say Christians, because God himself paid the price by sending his son, in the person of Jesus Christ, to die for all of us.[size=-1]3[/size] This is called "propitiation," where Christ died in our place to pay the penalty of sin. In essence, he became all of us for those moments that he hung on the cross; he became whatever kind of sinner we are, and then he took those sins to the grave.[size=-1]4[/size] But, as most of us know from celebrating Easter each year, Christians believe Christ did not stay in the grave. Once the penalty of sin was erased, Christ was raised from the dead and now lives in heaven with God.[size=-1]5[/size]
But we are not automatically "saved" from out sins. A person must decide to accept Christ's sacrifice on the cross in order to "join the family of God."[size=-1]6[/size] Some people believe we must say a prayer, asking God to forgive us of our sins.[size=-1]7[/size] Others say we must simply choose to believe in Christ.[size=-1]8[/size] Still others say we must confess our belief in Christ's sacrifice by going through a public ritual that represents Christ's death and resurrection, a ritual known as baptism.[size=-1]9[/size] Whichever way it's done, we must consciously decide to accept Christ's sacrifice for our own sins. This is called "grace." In a nutshell, grace is forgiving someone when they have wronged you. Since Christians believe all of us have wronged God with our sins, by believing that Christ paid our eternal penalty for our wrongdoing, we are accepting God's grace.[size=-1]10[/size]
Sounds simple enough. But it's not. Once you become a Christian, you should start seeing a change in your behavior.[size=-1]11[/size] You should start learning to love.[size=-1]12[/size] You should also stop wanting to sin.[size=-1]13[/size] But here's the catch. You can't. Even after you accept Christ's forgiveness, you will continue to be a sinner. Try as you might to stop altogether, you just can't.[size=-1]14[/size] Even the Apostle Paul, one of the most prolific writers in the Bible, complained that he kept sinning.[size=-1]15[/size] But we are told to keep trying and that we should see some progress.[size=-1]16[/size] We are also told that some people who say the words to become a Christian may not actually believe what they were saying. These people are not really saved.[size=-1]17[/size] And, say some Christians, you'll know who they are because they don't even try to stop sinning, even though those who are saved can never stop either.
Confused? It gets worse. Some Christians have made an art of figuring out who is saved and who is not. They figure that if you are at least trying to align your lifestyle to fit their interpretation of God's laws, then you are living under God's grace. But if you choose to continue living in a lifestyle displeasing to God, you cannot really be saved because you are living in a state of rebellion. These Christians are diligent to pick out those sins that are "lifestyle" sins and those that are once-in-a-while sins that can affect even good Christians. Once-in-a-while sins they blow off with the phrase, "we all fail sometime." Lifestyle sins they condemn loudly, making the point that people who practice such sins are bound for hell, and if they seduce our children into such sins, they will go to hell too.
And this is where these kinds of Christians, known collectively as the Religious Right or Fundamentalists, make a mockery of their own Savior. They do this by picking and choosing which lifestyle sins are covered by God's grace and which ones are not. They do this by claiming that God's grace covers their own lifestyle sins but not those of the homosexual. They do this by accepting God's grace in their own lives and then refusing to extend that same grace to those they condemn for having the wrong lifestyle.
And they can do this because they don't believe they have any lifestyle sins of their own. If you ask them about it, they'll say things like, "I used to sleep around but I was forgiven of that sin and now I don't do it anymore." However, ask them if a homosexual can be saved by God's grace, and they will say, "The gay man who does not turn from his homosexuality is choosing to live a lifestyle counter to God's laws and is not, therefore, saved by grace." What they conveniently forget is that 50% of them - those who count themselves among the Religious Right - are divorced, and more than 85% of those are remarried. What that means is, according to the Bible, that nearly 43% of the same people who condemn the gay man for his homosexuality choose to live in a lifestyle of adultery, a sin that ranks equal to homosexuality in God's eyes.
That's right. The very people who condemn one "sinful" lifestyle are practicing another.
You see, in the Bible Jesus said: "Every one who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery." Luke 16:18 And the Apostle Paul (who continued to sin himself) said: "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God." 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 A divorced man who remarries is entering into an adulterous relationship. And it's not just a relationship; it's an adulterous lifestyle because the remarried man chooses to continue living in the adulterous relationship for the rest of his life (or until he divorces and remarries again). However, if you ask this adulterous man if he is still a Christian, he will say something like, "I believe God has forgiven me and I'm now living under his grace." And ask him if he's willing to leave his current wife in order to "turn from his adulterous lifestyle," and he will refuse because "God's grace has already saved him." But this is the same man who earlier claimed that the homosexual must turn from his "sinful" lifestyle as a condition of receiving God's grace.
Continued.....