More on Homosexuality, the Bible, the Church and … Reconciliation

My good buddy Preston Sprinkle of Eternity Bible College is teaching a course about “Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church” January through to May in California. He’s got a good video promoting what he’s gonna be covering:

At the same time, I heard a great interview today on a Melbourne radio show about a guy from The Marin Foundation in Chicago who spends his time trying to build bridges between churches and the LGBT communities. I’m not sure what to make of the organization’s aims and goals, I don’t know whether it is left leaning or right leaning, I’m not giving it my imprimatur, but I like the idea of bringing straight, celibate, gay, non-gay, and ex-gays all in a room together and finding a way to act so that we can genuinely try to live with one another and love each other.

I don’t know about you, but I come across some Christians who think that God has some kind of special loathing reserved just for gays and lesbians and we should all earnestly wait for the day when God smites them or else lay hands on these gay folks and say “untiemyboytiewhostolemyhonda” until the gay demon jumps out and we can reload the heterosexuality program in their heads. But I’ve also met some liberals and secularists who seem to think that Modern Family is official state dogma that all must yield to and the God-fearing homophobes must be purged from our society, because the only way to create a just, equal, diverse, and tolerant society is by mocking or removing people who have a different view about sexuality (and they say it with a complete awareness of their own hypocrisy).

You can learn more about The Martin Foundation at their website and the opening video is a worth a look.

When I hear a Christian say, “Hate the sin and love the sinner,” I like to say back, “Why don’t you hate your sin, I’ll hate my sin, and we can just love love each other as God commands us.”

When I hear liberal/secularist say, “Some people are gay, so get over it!” I like to say, “Some people are religious, why don’t you get over that. In fact, when you get over your thing and I get over my thing, maybe we can get together, rather than just throw insults at each other!”

For those interested, many of these issues get dealt with in a book I co-edited by Gordon Preece called Sexegesis, particularly with a view to the sexuality and scripture debates in the Australian Anglican church.