Well, you knew this was coming. First they try to convince us that gay sex is not a sin at all and now they say that those who call it a sin are sinning. Wait, did you get that?
Here’s the story from Christian News:
The dean of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. claimed during his weekly address this past Sunday that it is a sin to oppose homosexuality.
The message was part of a weekend tribute to the homosexual youth at the National Cathedral, and a commemoration of the death of Matthew Shepherd, whose slaying sparked the passage of the federal “hate crimes” bill signed into law by Barack Obama in 2009. During his speech, Gary Hall blamed churches across the country for influencing American beliefs about homosexuality.
“We must now have the courage to take the final step and call homophobia and heterosexism what they are. They are sin. Homophobia is a sin. Heterosexism is a sin. Shaming people for whom they love is a sin,” Hall asserted. “Only when all our churches say that clearly and boldly and courageously will our LGBT youth be free to grow up in a culture that totally embraces them fully as they are.”
He proceeded to claim that churches that oppose homosexuality produce a culture that is harmful to children.
“It’s more than tragic—in fact it’s shameful—that faith communities, especially Christian ones, continue to be complicit in putting our children at risk and abetting the attitudes that oppress them, thereby encouraging the aggressors who would subject our children to pain, humiliation, and violence,” Hall stated.
October 12, 2013 at 4:49 am
First, allow me to say that it is a pleasure to communicate with you Sophia's Favorite. I have frequented your blog for about a year and a half and I always find it enjoyable. Your intellectual musings inspired me to write more about what I think. And, well, here I am.
Now, I cannot agree that homosexuality is a behavior. Lust is a behavior. God doesn’t make us lust because He cannot make us sin, and I agree with that. Homosexuality is a sexual order, not a behavior. Therefore, God can make us attracted to the same sex as well as any other sexual orientation (I state not whether this happens at birth or afterward, the truth is we do not know when one develops their sexual orientation). This seems to be possible since many of us are chosen to be eunuchs from birth, ie, God has chosen some of us to be celibate for the Kingdom without option, such as those with non-opposite-sex attraction. Sexual homosexual actions are a behavior that is indeed sinful because it is lustful, but the fact of being homosexual is not a sin in and of itself.
I can accept the act of repression is a good thing if we are to define repression to mean to fight with vigilance and all sincerity to destroy what is sinful in one’s self so they can become closer to God – which is the definition I had given it, but it might have been poorly conveyed. In this way, persons with same-sex attraction are required to fight their inclinations to act out homosexual sexual acts because such acts by their very nature are sinful by not being ordered to what God has sanctioned as holy: a sexual union capable of creating life. Therefore, homosexual sexual acts are always sinful, but being sexually ordered as a homosexual is not sinful any more than being ordered as a heterosexual is sinful since God chooses our sexual orientation. In fact, I would dare say that those who do have same-sex attraction have a massive cross to carry because they have been given by God a sexual orientation that harshly tests their faith in the realm of sexual fidelity to Him.
October 13, 2013 at 1:09 am
Sexual orientation is a myth. It was an idea originating from the same intellectual field as scientific racism and "rest-cures", and then used as a political tool by Kinsey, who also compiled statistics meant to represent the whole of society by interviewing convicted sex-offenders.
Besides, being "sexually ordered as a homosexual" is like being "gastronomically ordered as a cannibal". It is doubtful such a thing actually exists; if it does, it's a mental illness. There is research to support the idea that homosexuality is a maladaptive coping-mechanism for childhood sexual abuse.
God makes no mental illness, nor any other disordered thing; such things are the result of the Fall. Certainly he does not create an urge toward disordered acts, as a test; a God that did that would be evil, and unworthy of our worship. The real God forbears to interfere with free will (including that of Satan), but he does not create any urge toward wrongdoing.
And celibacy is not a thing imposed by God; again, God is not a tyrant. It is the freely-chosen sacrifice of a thing entirely good, laid upon the altar of God by those who choose to dedicate their lives to contemplating him, or by those who are called to act as his agents in the sacraments.
Some people must live in sexual continence because they cannot bring themselves to rightly-ordered sexual desire, but that is no more celibacy in the religious sense then a recovering alcoholic's avoidance of alcohol is asceticism. Those conditions are crosses which must be borne and which can bear spiritual fruit; they are not vocations.
October 13, 2013 at 4:23 pm
I see your point hits the mark and where mine misses. Your last paragraph is really the point where I truly understood you, and consequently unified all previous paragraphs together for me. I'm not wholly convinced of your position, but I will take the time to reflect, pray, and act on it.
October 14, 2013 at 12:57 am
Glad I could help. (Also, thanks for reading my blog!)