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<\/a><\/p>\nProfessor Malachi, Dean of Discernment and Judgment at The University of Heaven, tapped a file resting on the middle of his desk. \u201cLet\u2019s consider this candidate for heaven right here,\u201d he said. \u201cThe man is homosexual. Do we allow him into heaven?\u201d<\/p>\n
The student angel Arthur shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Finally he said, \u201cNo, we don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t? Are you sure?\u201d<\/p>\n
Arthur paused in case he wasn\u2019t. He almost desperately wanted to impress Professor Malachi, who had unexpectedly invited him into his office for this chat. \u201cWell, the Bible clearly states that homosexuality is a sin.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes it? What\u2019s the first thing we teach here about sin, Arthur?\u201d<\/p>\n
Arthur remembered his Introduction to Judgment class. \u201cThat it\u2019s contextual.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cExactly. When is it\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0a sin to kill?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it\u2019s done in the service of a greater good. In defense of the weak. In self-defense. Or even if it\u2019s an accident.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cVery good. So despite the fact that the Bible says,\u00a0Thou shalt not kill<\/em>\u00a0\u2026 ?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe consider the context in which any killing has occurred before determining whether or not that killing was a sin.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRight. And if a woman tells her best friend that the Christmas cookies she made for her were so delicious that she ate them all, even though she really threw them in the garbage because they tasted like dead cat?\u201d<\/p>\n Arthur laughed. \u201cNo sin.\u201d He recalled his time back on earth, when he told his Grandma how much he loved the bulky purple and green sweater she\u2019d knit him.<\/p>\n \u201cEven though the Bible says very clearly\u00a0Thou shalt not lie<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEven though. Because the larger good was served by her showing affection to her friend.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd the poor man who steals a loaf of bread from the kitchen of a rich man to feed his starving children?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo sin.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDespite the very clear words of the Bible\u2019s Eighth Commandment,\u00a0Thou shalt not steal\u201d <\/em>?<\/p>\n \u201cStill no sin. Because there is no judging of sin without first judging that sin\u2019s context.\u201d<\/p>\n The professor smiled. \u201cWe\u2019ll make a master angel of you yet, Arthur.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThank you, sir.\u201d Arthur took a moment to look at the vast shimmering empyrean everywhere around the two of them.<\/p>\n \u201cQuite a sight, isn\u2019t it?\u201d said Malachi.<\/p>\n \u201cEven when I dreamed of it on earth, I never imagined anything like it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSpeaking of those not yet here amongst us. Right off the bat, Arthur, do you vote thumbs up or thumbs down for our gay applicant?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I know that as a Christian on earth I definitely believed that homosexuality was a sin. That\u2019s all I was ever taught.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou died in your mid-twenties, Arthur. Had you continued to hold that same belief up until the time of your accident?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, I didn\u2019t. I mean, not exactly. By then the whole issue had grown more complicated. All I ever heard growing up was that being gay was extremely sinful. I learned that basically there was no such thing as a homosexual: that gay people were really just straight people who needed to get right with God.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou believed it was possible to, as they say, \u2018pray away the gay.'\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI did believe that, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs did most Christians. Did you continue to believe that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, over time it became pretty obvious how wrong that was. It became clear that nobody could just pray away their gay\u2014that some people really\u00a0were<\/em>\u00a0just born gay, the same as some people are born left-handed or red-headed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAh. And what was the general Christian teaching after that became the common Christian understanding?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen we were taught that while it might not have been possible for a gay person to stop being gay, it\u00a0was<\/em>\u00a0possible for any gay person to resist the temptation to give in to their homosexual tendencies.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd what exactly does that mean, you think, to \u2018give into one\u2019s homosexual tendencies\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI guess it means to engage in homosexual sex. To actually, physically,\u00a0be<\/em>\u00a0gay. I mean, what else\u00a0could<\/em>\u00a0it mean?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNothing that I can see. So the new Christian idea became that gay people could, and should, will themselves to resist being at least physically intimate with others of their kind\u2014to never, in short, have life partners in the way that straight people do. To never marry, for instance.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes. Just like everyone else, they were supposed to resist the sins that they personally were tempted to commit.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo by that reasoning\u2014the reasoning that all people are sinful and need to resist whatever urges they have to sin\u2014gay people were deemed to be no different from anyone else. Now it was\u00a0inherently<\/em>\u00a0no more of a sin to be gay than it was to be straight. All were then understood to start out on the same moral footing.\u00a0All<\/em>\u00a0were then innocent, in other words, until proven guilty.\u201d<\/p>\n Arthur thought for a moment. \u201cThat\u2019s right. That\u2019s how it was.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo tell me, where has all this left you on the gay issue?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStill a bit confused. I honestly don\u2019t know what to make of the whole question of the sinfulness of homosexuality.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen let\u2019s reason it out, shall we? If I correctly understood you, you no longer hold to the idea that it\u2019s a sin\u00a0just<\/em>\u00a0to be gay, any more than it\u2019s automatically a sin to be, as you said, left-handed, or red-haired\u2014which is to say, any more than it is to be straight. Yes?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo a person\u2019s sinfulness is no longer determined by what they\u00a0are,<\/em>\u00a0but rather solely\u00a0and exclusively by what they\u00a0do.<\/em>\u00a0No manifest sin exists, in other words, before a sinful action is actually committed. Correct?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCorrect.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo\u2014and forgive my\u00a0redundancy;\u00a0 I just want to be\u00a0absolutely\u00a0certain we\u2019re on the same page\u2014virtually the only way to judge if anyone, gay, straight, or otherwise, has done something sinful, is by evaluating what they actually did. There is simply no other way to determine sinfulness.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes. That does make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd what do we know to be\u00a0the<\/em>\u00a0indispensable tool for judging the morality of any given action?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cContext.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cContext.\u00a0Sometimes<\/em>\u00a0killing, lying, and stealing is a sin; sometimes it\u2019s not. It depends on the context. And when we look to context to determine morality, what two qualities do we look\u00a0for?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cHarmful intent and harmful action,\u201d said Arthur. \u201cAt the motives behind the action, and the harm that resulted from the action. Or, as you put it in one of your lectures, To find the sin, look within.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Professor Malachi brought his hand to his heart. \u201cHow it touches me to learn that one of my students has listened during class. So, what does our beloved Bible say about the\u00a0context<\/em>\u00a0of homosexual sex?\u201d<\/p>\n Arthur thought for a long moment. \u201cThe Bible says virtually nothing about any sort of \u00a0contextual situation relative to homosexuality.\u00a0It just\u00a0lists<\/em>\u00a0homosexuality as a sin. It refers to no context at all.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhich means that the Bible can, in no way, tell us whether or not any given act of homosexuality is a sin, yes?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes. It doesn\u2019t do that. It can\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut we do<\/em> know that being a homosexual, in and of itself, is not sinful. We know that we can only judge\u00a0acts,<\/em>\u00a0not God-given states of being. And we know that devoid of context, we have nothing upon which to base those judgements, do we?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, we don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhich brings us back to the question of our gay applicant. Do we accept him into heaven, or do we reject his application?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I guess I couldn\u2019t say. Not at this point, anyway. In order for me to make that call I would first have to know the man\u2014really\u00a0know<\/em>\u00a0him\u2014as a person.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes!\u201d cried the professor. \u201cThat is exactly right, Arthur! Exactly right. You have reasoned through to the very heart and truth of the matter. And so you will leave this office a wiser and kinder angel than when you entered it, simply because you were willing to do that reasoning. And God bless you for that willingness, son.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Professor Malachi, Dean of Discernment and Judgment at The University of Heaven, tapped a file resting on the middle of his desk. \u201cLet\u2019s consider this candidate for heaven right here,\u201d he said. \u201cThe man is homosexual. Do we allow him into heaven?\u201d The student angel Arthur shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Finally he said, \u201cNo, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1528,"featured_media":28210,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christianissues"],"yoast_head":"\n