Wow, we had a great discussion at The Ave tonight, continuing our ‘Hot Topics’ series with a focus on homosexuality.
If you weren’t there, you should definitely listen to our two-part mp3 with Dave Seemuth and Colleen Sonderman while looking at the downloadable PDF of Dave’s part of the message. Dave offered a very concise look at the biblical texts regarding homosexuality. Colleen offered a personal and moving testimony about what it means to love others well who you know are living in or struggling with a homosexual lifestyle.
Clearly, this is a touchy one in the culture today, as well as in the church, where great divisions occur between those who see homosexual relationships as prohibited in Scripture and those who do not see such prohibitions.
Take a look at this piece on CNN regarding protestors at soldiers’ funerals. What are they protesting? They are protesting the work of soldiers fighting for an army that represents a country that accepts homosexuality. Here is one extreme view on biblical prohibitions of homosexuality.
For a scholarly approach to biblical texts on homosexuality, explore Dr. Robert Gagnon’s web-site. He is a New Testament professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
If you are struggling with homosexuality as a Christian and would like to explore resources to help you in that struggle, please consider looking at the web-site for Exodus Internaional or their local branch here in Milwaukee, Broken Yoke Ministries.
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Matthew Erickson 
This is such a tough issue… the middle ground seems to be reviled by all… either you are for or against… but what if you are for with reservations… or against with caveats…? I find myself stuck in the middle on this one.
This is such a tough issue… the middle ground seems to be reviled by all… either you are for or against… but what if you are for with reservations… or against with caveats…? I find myself stuck in the middle on this one.
Brandon,
I agree with you that this is a tough issue.
I think that there is an increasing comfortability at being somewhat middle ground on this issue.
In fact, I think that a number of thoughtful people are engaging well with this issue and realizing that whether or not they are for or against homosexuality, there are some tough application issues that call for sensitivity, reservations, caveats, and a ton bundle of grace.
Brandon,
I agree with you that this is a tough issue.
I think that there is an increasing comfortability at being somewhat middle ground on this issue.
In fact, I think that a number of thoughtful people are engaging well with this issue and realizing that whether or not they are for or against homosexuality, there are some tough application issues that call for sensitivity, reservations, caveats, and a ton bundle of grace.
I am a homosexual, and I’m not “struggling” with it – I was looking at your website because of a music position available at your church, but after viewing all of the web links to sites that supposedly “cure” homosexuality, no thank you. Gays are not cured, they are only supressed. If you want them to live the remainder of their lives being something that they are not, simply because it makes like you are “helping them”, thenI feel sorry for you.
I am a homosexual, and I’m not “struggling” with it – I was looking at your website because of a music position available at your church, but after viewing all of the web links to sites that supposedly “cure” homosexuality, no thank you. Gays are not cured, they are only supressed. If you want them to live the remainder of their lives being something that they are not, simply because it makes like you are “helping them”, thenI feel sorry for you.
Dear Anonymous,
I hear you saying that I am saying homosexuality is something that needs to be ‘cured’ while your view of that would be that it is suppressing who one is made to be by God.
I am saddened that you see my perspective as aimed at making myself feel good by suppressing people. That is not my intent.
I think that homosexuality within the church is a particularly difficult issue.
That said, I do see homosexual activity – even within a monogamous relationship – as contrary to God’s intent for human relationships, including sexuality. Although I wouldn’t use the word ‘cure’, I do think that homosexual behavior is something that needs God’s restorative touch just as adulterous behavior or compulsive lying behavior does.
We clearly disagree here.
I know of many individuals who have left a homosexual lifestyle out of convictions similar to those I’ve mentioned above. To you, they are suffering under a church’s suppresive attempts to ‘cure’ them. However, for them, their decision is one of walking into God’s intentions for the full life.
Dear Anonymous,
I hear you saying that I am saying homosexuality is something that needs to be ‘cured’ while your view of that would be that it is suppressing who one is made to be by God.
I am saddened that you see my perspective as aimed at making myself feel good by suppressing people. That is not my intent.
I think that homosexuality within the church is a particularly difficult issue.
That said, I do see homosexual activity – even within a monogamous relationship – as contrary to God’s intent for human relationships, including sexuality. Although I wouldn’t use the word ‘cure’, I do think that homosexual behavior is something that needs God’s restorative touch just as adulterous behavior or compulsive lying behavior does.
We clearly disagree here.
I know of many individuals who have left a homosexual lifestyle out of convictions similar to those I’ve mentioned above. To you, they are suffering under a church’s suppresive attempts to ‘cure’ them. However, for them, their decision is one of walking into God’s intentions for the full life.