Asking questions sincerely is not sin : )

Jamie asked a couple of questions of me, in comments to my blog post "Consistency and Prejudice". After mulling 'em over, I realized that they really deserved a post of their own.

"I read in your post that you were raised in a conservative denomination. May I ask what the teachings of that denomination were on homosexuality?"

And
"So, for those of us that literally been taught all our lives that Scripture teaches homosexuality is sin, what do you suggest for an honest study? If you were raised in a denomination that taught that homosexuality=sin, what was your journey? "

I hope, Jamie, that you don't mind the use of direct quotes. I didn't want to lose anything by paraphrasing.

The denomination that I grew up in taught that the orientation itself, as well as the intimate acts of lovemaking, were among the most horrible of sins. It employed the standard list of gotcha verses, including Leviticus 20:13 with its mandatory death sentence. It wiggled around its own 'saved by grace through faith' by teaching Romans 1 as saying that people are homosexual because they first reject God, and that He then punishes them by 'giving them over' - rejecting them in this life, as a precursor for fully rejecting them after death. Ironically, though the denomination I grew up taught that we were liberated from the Law by Christ, it also demanded that GLBTQ people still be imprisoned by the mainstream interpretation of the laws in Leviticus.

It was extremely destructive and damaging, then, to pass into puberty and discover that I was not at all interested in the opposite sex. It meant that God had rejected me, 'given me over' and that as devout and dedicated as I had been (extremely so), it had not been enough, I was still accused and convicted and punished for a rejection I had no awareness of making.

You asked about my journey, Jamie. My first thought on this is that I'm pretty ordinary, that there is nothing remarkable or different about my journey at all, except, just slightly, that I survived it. So I'm going to ask you, and anyone else interested, to do a little work. I hope that's ok.

"Our Stories" is a collection of the journeys of a wide variety of GLBTQ people of faith. Many, perhaps most, identify as Christian, but some are not. There are a lot of stories there; it is not a brief document. And there is a lot of sadness and despair, as well as a lot of joy and faith; it is not a cuddly document. But it is well worth reading. An account of my journey is there, you'll recognize it. But I'm not going to tell you where it starts, because I know from experience that the total of that collection is far, far, far more meaningful than any of its parts.

The real value in my journey is not the events, feelings, transitions, at all, but rather, the way my experience has so much in common with so many other people's experiences.

Millions have walked this road, encountering much of the same scenery.

But, just to whet an appetite, here are a few selections:

"Long before I had ever been physically assaulted, verbally abused or suffered discrimination, I had learned to hate myself.I prayed desperately every night for God to “fix” me, because I believed that all things were possible with God. I knew if I just had enough faith, God would “fix” me. When I didn’t become straight, I assumed it was because even God hated me. When my father found out I was gay (he was a minister and I thought he could help me), he beat me into unconsciousness, screaming Bible verses at me. It was the first of regular beatings intended to beat “being gay” out of me. After that, he would only hit me where the bruises didn’t show as much, like my groin. When I was 15, he allowed his drunk friends to rape me so that I would know “how bad gay sex was.” "

(From RanchHand's story)

"I “tried” it with a woman friend of mine. A last ditch effort to see if there was anything that could persuade me to “go back” to being straight. I faked the orgasm..out of boredom!And I prayed. I tried to tell God who I was and who I should be. The answer I got back was “How dare you tell me who I created?” Later, out of the mouth of a friend of mine came: “You think too much. If you are ever going to be in love you have to act from the heart…and stop THINKING!”

(From Robinsgarret's Story)

"Then I wrote to my parents again, telling them where I was and that I was okay. Dad wrote back that he no longer had two daughters and that I had been written out of his will. Mom sent me a Bible with portions of Leviticus and Romans highlighted along with a note saying that I had shamed them horribly and was no longer part of the family but that they might consider taking me back if I gave up my abominable lifestyle.

Over the next 25 years or so, I’d send presents home for Mom and Dad’s birthdays and anniversaries and notes telling them they had grandchildren and what was going on in my life. They’d return everything unopened but with Bible verses attached saying I was an abomination."

(From BobbiCW's Story)

One more. I've been told that I exagerate the consequences of teaching 'homosexuality is sin', that it is really a loving thing to teach. Judge for yourself from just one life:

"Suicide Hotline(note-this story was edited to delete the specific church reference)

If anyone believes they are helping a homosexual person when they spew their bigoted, close-minded nonsense at them:A friend of mine works for a suicide helpline. After keeping a man on the phone yesterday for three hours, he shot himself in the head with her still on the phone.My friend wanted to share this man's story, in the hope that it would reach someone, and at least make them think about the horrible things they put people they profess to care about through, just because they can't see past their own, tiny little corner of reality.

This is the post she made on another message board. This is one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen anyone do, and I survived 767s flying into the buildings I worked in almost two years ago. *...shakes head...* I will never understand how some people can be this way...I would like for people to know why he did it.

He was raised [religious]. He was born gay. Yesterday he went to his pastor and wanted to know what to do. He loved a man very much, and couldn't understand how love could be wrong. He was told that homosexuality is "immoral", and he "just thinks he is gay". Society does that to men like him and that he could put those urges aside and live the right way. That if he didn't disciplinary action would have to be taken. The pastor spoke with him for over an hour. He went home loaded a gun and called and I said hello. He had gone for help and got judgement. He went about love and got told his love wasn't good enough or right. He wanted acceptance and got none.I am sorry but if you stand by and watch hate speak in action and don't say anything, you helped promote hate. I doubt that bishop wanted to see this man die, but his words helped him die.I think his story should be told --- nods-- he deserves at least that."

That collection of lifestories is a treasure. I see it as a kind of testament of its own, a spiritual account of God working in people's lives just as instructive as any letter by Paul.

So - what do I suggest for study?

That was actually the hardest question, Jamie. There are so many different answers, and a lot of them are in the personal stories linked to above. But to introduce some specific examples of Scripture, I offer the following.

When I was struggling with Romans 1, as a teen, I found myself repeatedly encountering Matthew 7, in parts, the whole, you name it. One piece really gnawed away at me.

There I'd be, 2 AM, face down in the carpet before the altar at church, begging and crying, and I'd suddenly remember this (Matthew 7: 7,8):

7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. "

Well, I was asking. I was begging, I was pleading, I was weeping and grieving. What happened to the receiving, the finding, the opening of doors?

The many, many people I've encountered who believe 'Homosexuality is sin' tended to tell me, to my face, that I just wasn't sincere enough, as if they could know. Or that I hadn't asked long enough, asking me to suffer even longer than I had. Oh, the horrible thing such folks have said to me. Forgiving them was a challenge.

And one such night, I actually got up, pulled a Bible from a pew, and looked up Matthew 7: 7,8. I probably intended to lecture God about it, and call Him on his unfilled promise. I happened to read past verse 8:

9"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."

Now, I was stubborn in my attachment to the interpretation that fallible humans had taught me. It took several more years. But eventually, I realized that our self-ness - our capacity for love, our curiousity and intelligence, our hungers and fears, strengths and weakness, the who of who we are, is a deliberate gift from God. Humans were saying my sexuality was an abomination but 'how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him". God gave me the gift of my sexuality, God gives good gifts, and if humans say differently about some gift, who was more believable?

I was in real emotional, spiritual and physical agony, trying to become what fallible humans said I should be. And when I prayed, when I asked, what I received was not heterosexuality, but acceptance, and when I could accept it, joy.

The conscious understanding, though, occured after spiritual understanding. I had a direct, personal encounter with God, and God basically told me that my sexual orientation was not sin, but like anything else, if I used it to harm myself or others, it could be used for sin. Just like heterosexuality.

Of course, the learning doesn't end in kindergarten. Over the subsequent decades, I've prayed, studied, researched and analysed. I've learned that Paul did not use either of the greek two words that actually conveyed the concept 'men who have sex with men' when he wrote his letter to the Corinthians.

The title of this thread comes from one of the lesson I learneds. Something that causes as much destruction as 'homosexuality is sin' causes, simply cannot be from God. Said teaching only bears evil fruit, so it cannot be from God. I plan on exploring this with real life examples over the coming life of this blog.

I learned that an examination of the traditional interpretation "homosexuality is sin" through the microscope, the analytical tool, of Christ's life, ministry and teachings, thoroughly disproves the traditional interpretation. I learned that analysis of the texts as texts - the concepts conveyed by the original Hebrew or Greek words, the textual context that each passage is nested in, and the historical context of these texts, clearly refutes the traditional interpretation.

But at the heart, the lives recounted in "Our Stories" disprove the traditional interpretation beyond even the hint of a possibility of a shadow of a doubt.

And in the end, my faith is placed in God, not in the interpretations of texts, any texts, made by other fallible humans, even Paul.