Posted on 06/18/2014 12:16:25 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
When I became Catholic in 1998, as a college sophomore, I didn't know any other gay Christians. I'd been raised in a kind of pointillist Reform Judaism...
This sheltered upbringing may help explain my sunny undergraduate confidence that even though I knew of literally nobody else who had ever tried to be both unashamedly gay and obediently Catholic, I was totally going to do it. No problem, guys, I got this.
[snip]
[M]any Christian churches are beginning to integrate gay marriage into their theology... With so many more options for gay Christians, why [not] just de-pope myself?
It's that I fell in love with the Catholic Church....I didn't switch from atheistic post-Judaism to "belief in God," but to Catholicism: the Incarnation and the Crucifixion...her insistence that seemingly irreconcilable needs could both be met in God's overwhelming love: justice and mercy, reason and mystery, a savior who is fully God and also fully human. I didn't expect to understand every element of the faith. It is a lot bigger than I am.
[snip]
At the time of my baptism...I figured, everybody has to sacrifice something. God doesn't promise that He'll only ask you for the sacrifices you agree with and understand.
[snip]
Right now, the Biblical witness seems pretty clear. Both opposite-sex and same-sex love are used, in the Bible, as images of God's love. The opposite-sex love is found in marriage—sexually exclusive marriage, an image which recurs not only in the Song of Songs but in the prophets and in the New Testament—and the same-sex love is friendship. Both of these forms of love are considered real and beautiful; neither is better than the other. But they're not interchangeable.
Moreover, Genesis names sexual difference as the only difference which was present in Eden...
(Much more at link)
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Yeah. The “consumer to object” thing isn’t love—— it isn’t even user-friendly.
The Eskimos have a thousand different words for ‘snow’ and I think that we should have a thousand different words for love.
* the love I have for Gd
* the love I have for my husband
* the love I have for my parents
* the love I have for my children
* the love I have for my female friends
* the love I have for my male friends
* the love I have for my siblings (I don’t have any, but I wish I did)
* the love I have for my family beyond that
* the love I have for my favorite TV show or movie
* the love I have for my favorite foods
etc.
Each love is special and unique and expressed in different ways. We need a way to articulate that.
“I’m not sure what you meant to prove in quoting this verse. It seems that this whole article is about this young woman learning she had to flee from sexual immorality in order to be a good Catholic. As a result, she became chaste and abstinent. She may still have the temptations, but she does not act on them.”
Not acting doesn’t mean you’re not sinning. “In thought, word, and deed.” By what we have done, and more important, what we have left undone.
Eve’s gotta cut the political and “friendly” ties with the non-Christian sociopolitical group called “Gays and Lesbians”. In other words, become a “Former Gay/Lesbian”.
Somehow I don’t think she’ll do it. She associated herself in the piece she wrote. She’s bought into the “God made me this way, and it’s OK” garbagola. She likes who she is. She likes to be “friends” with lesbians.
Well, if you’re a former “drug addict” and like it that way, you most certainly aren’t friends with drug dealers or expose yourself to that scene. And you sure aren’t going to shout on the rooftops you’re a “drug addict” either.
She’s saying, “For the sake of Christ”, not swearing.
Animalistic urges are not a sin.
Sodomy which has nothing to do with the thread is animalistic and in the same class as bestiality.
You are in good company. Read what Paul the Apostle said on the subject:
"When I want to do good, I don't. And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. But if I am doing what I don't want to do, I am not really the one doing it; the sin within me is doing it. It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God's law with all my heart. But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin?
Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. For the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you through Christ Jesus from the power of sin that leads to death. The law of Moses could not save us, because of our sinful nature. But God put into effect a different plan to save us. He sent his own Son in a human body like ours, except that ours are sinful. God destroyed sin's control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the requirement of the law would be fully accomplished for us who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit." Romans 7:19 to 8:4 (New Living Translation)
So Paul acknowledges that even he is slave to his own sinful nature, and it is only by the power of Christ that he is able to deny his desires and live a holy life. And anyone who claims they are not tempted with sin is a liar and are claiming to be greater than Christ, who was tempted in all aspects (but was without sin).
She’s saying, “For the sake of Christ”, not swearing.
Only she and God knows her real intent. Best just to leave that phrase out when there are so many better alternatives.
Right. I didn’t notice the word repented in her vocabulary either. How people go for PC hogwash.
Those are excellent examples, and only begin to touch the complexity emotional connections. For example, under “the love I have for my female friends,” there would need to be a different word for “the way I love Jamie” and “the way I love Doris,” because Jamie and Doris are completely different people. The love I have for Tom is different from my love for Frank, even though they are both my sons.
I think that we benefit by recognizing ever more detail. Each person is a unique and unrepeatable character, and so each will require a unique relationship.
“Right. I didn’t notice the word repented in her vocabulary either. How people go for PC hogwash.”
The author is definitely high on her “best of both worlds” world-view heresy.
Are you noticing here on Free Republic that quite a few Christian posters are falling into this trap Paul warned us about?
Romans 7:15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
Great point!
Did the author of the article say that? She seems prideful about if anything.
Wow! Did you read a lot into what she said that she didn’t actually say. Trying to twist what she actually said is disingenuous at best.
The attraction between a man and a woman are not animalistic? Not instinctive? Not purely of the body??
B... S...
Heterosexual lust is straight-up physical and of the body. We *all* feel it and sometimes it’s unwanted and very much inappropriate.
You push it away and move on. It’s temptation that you should not entertain, but it is definitely a physical/animal response.
Yes, those feelings are *necessary* in a healthy marriage; but it’s only one facet of the whole diamond. It’s inappropriate when those feelings are NOT with your intended. And those feelings sometimes happen.
For the love of Pete. I’ve been faithfully and lovingly married for almost a quarter century, but I still have urges. Thankfully, I also still have those feelings for my husband.
If one has urges that incline them to bestiality and then declines those urge, are they a sinner? No. Because they have not sinned.
Jesus was tempted. He did not fall and did not sin. *Feeling* and urge is not a sin. Actions are the sins.
>> Temptation is not a sin. You know that. Jesus was tempted in every way we are, but without sin.<<
Great point!
What in the...
No, temptation IS sin. Jesus didn’t have temptation, he was TEMPTED by the Temper, aka Satan. And he told Mr. Pitchfork to get lost.
Well put!
Exactly!
They are picking sides. Better to believe this story from a person they don’t even know than to believe what Paul said.
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