I ran into an old friend not too long ago and he asked how I’d been holding up. I’ve had a very rough year to say the least, but I told my friend this, “not to sound hokey, but I’ve been praying and reading the Bible”; I guess I felt the need to preface my faith and my resurgence back to God with ‘hokey’. I was worried how my faith might make his view of me. I felt ashamed for that, but I realized I was trying not to offend anyone while still being able to say that I’m a believer.
If I had been really honest with my friend, I would have said I pray almost all the time and I pray for mercy, lots and lots of MERCY. I read the scripture and God talks to me through his Holy Word and sends the Holy Spirit to comfort me when I feel like I’m about to break down. I’ve been ungrateful person in many ways and I’m finally coming to that realization.
Truth be told I wanted to hug my old friend who I had partied with on numerous occasions in college and tell him that God loves him, but I guess I’m not up to that stage of courage yet. Baby steps Carth.
I remember sitting on the outside deck of the Commons Apartments with this old friend and another buddy one night during my freshman year at
I remember sitting there most likely drinking a steely tasting can of beer and some how the topic of religion came up. I assumed everyone believed the way I did about everything until I got to college and realized how oh so wrong I was. But on this particular night it was early into my naiveness of the world and I just assumed my buddies were Christian like me; I mean wasn’t everybody, not that I was exactly leading Christian type life.
I can’t remember what I said, but I do think I made an uninformed statement that sounded something like Islam seems to be so violent and seem to teach violence and Christianity is nothing like that. Before I could even finish my statement they both called b.s. on my ill advised argument and brought up the crusades.
I can’t remember the rest of the conversation only that I passively agreed the rest of the night and let them go on like I was in agreement with them in some way. I was caught with my pants down and had no way to offer any informed statement on what I believed. But I knew the crusades were not Jesus Christ’s fault.
Truth is, Jesus’ name has been misused so many times over the last thousand years, but if you truly look at Jesus he doesn’t teach what some people do in his name. David Koresh, Jim Jones, the God Hates Faggots Organization, people who attack abortion clinics or gays, etc.; none of that stuff is ordered in the Bible. The Bible doesn’t teach that, but so many people use it for their own personal vices. Matter of fact the Bible warns about false prophets and people coming in Jesus’ name who are not who they claim to be. Just because these people exist doesn’t take away from the heart of the Bible or the heart of Jesus’ message. We are all broken trying to find our way in this world. However you can disagree with abortion and homosexuality without resorting to what some people do. You can have these view points and not be ignorant or violent or uncaring.
I didn’t read anywhere in the New Testament where it condones preaching God Hates Faggots and giving a countdown on a website of how many days Matthew Shepard’s been in Hell. It actually makes me sick to my stomach when I see these people and the hate they spew. I want to yell and say have you people actually read you’re Bibles. Jesus hung out with the people you guys want nothing to do with. These types of people and organizations bring much more damage to Jesus than help and I wonder how a preacher can preach the word of God and encourage anything that spews hate.
Truth of the matter is I’ve been on both sides of the argument, but not in ways people may think. I’ve argued with Christians that picking homosexuality as a sin worse than other sins has no bearing with God. Many of these same Christians who have pre-marital sex with multiple partners, get drunk, do drugs, steal, treat their parents like crap, but they think being Gay is THE SIN. That is hypocrisy at its finest in my humble opinion. But on the flip side I find hypocrisy in people who call Christians or anyone that disagrees with that choice of lifestyle, a homophobe. They are no better than the other side and are actually acting like the people they claim to be ignorant.
There is no evidence to support homosexuality is biological and saying that doesn’t make me a bigot or a homophobe. Truth is, my opinion on the subject matter has evolved a great deal over the years from a person who called it a choice and didn’t want to be hit on to a person who sympathizes with the ones who are suffering because of real bigots. Let me make one thing clear I don’t think one day a homosexual woke up and said I think I’ll be gay today no more than a person wakes up says I think I’ll be straight today or I think I’ll be a Drug Dealer today or I think I’ll be a work-a-holic today or think I’ll neglect my kids today and watch TV, etc. The list goes on and on.
A homosexual comes to be that way just like any person comes to be the way they are by a series of events and choices in their lives that have shaped who they are. That makes people uneasy because then their world is drastically different and they have to have ownership of their own lives and the people they’ve become. It’s much easier to right it off as I was born that ‘way’ and to say ‘I had nothing to do with who I am’, and anyone who disagrees with that we’ll chalk up to simple bigotry.
I don’t think the argument that gays or people who say people are born gay have a sound argument when they simplify their argument by saying, ‘Do you think a person would choose this life? It’s so much easier to be straight’. Number one it dumbs down the significance of who they are and claim to be so proud of and it suggests that being straight is an easier lifestyle and in many regards less anxieties come with being straight obviously. But I also think the man of ambition who wanted to be a success and provide for his family and be the ‘cock of the walk’, but comes to a point in his life where his marriage is in shambles and his kids don’t even know him (cue the cats in the cradle song) and he can easily blame it on that’s who he is and how he was born. It’s a cop out and saying you were born gay is a cop out. I wasn’t born a Christian and I wasn’t born indecisive and I wasn’t born fat and I wasn’t born a football player. I became those things through a series of events in my life and choices I made. You trace choices back far enough you can pin point a great deal of things about your life.
A lot of guys today view females as instrument to meet their physical need. But were they born that way; did they only view females as sexual objects or fantasies, did they wake up one day choose to be that way? NO! It happened over the course of their lifetime and series of events led up to this point. Maybe the first time you chose to watch a bad movie or a skin-a-max flick and you knew it was wrong, but you liked this new sensation you felt and you could picture yourself in that dominating role of the woman. Then the next time becomes less of a big deal. It makes it easier to make other decisions and leads to sex with girls, but you’re not having sex with those girls; you’re having sex with the girls in the video and want the same reaction and feeling the dude in the movie appears to get. Then you go with another girl and another and maybe it leads to several, but the compromises you made 10, 15 years ago watching porn and choosing to continue to watch porn led to the shaping of what kind of person you are currently. With each choice and compromise and decision you shaped the personality of the person you’d become. First it was skin-max flicks then it was hardcore. It was progression that you didn’t even realize was happening. I don’t think the ‘drug dealer’ wakes up one day and says I chose this. But that first time he smoked pot and then took some Oxycontin and then realized he could make money and feed his habit along the ways. It’s a simplified explanation of the situation, but the argument is sound no matter how many people want to call you a bigot or insensitive because they can’t accept the truth.
Our environment and choices makes us who we are, sexuality and all. I also don’t feel me or anyone else have the right to tell someone they are going to Hell. The Bible backs me up on that tid bit as well. We as Christians can’t be willing to accept certain sins, but other ones we’ll make people wear a scarlet letter. Gays, straits, singles, married, divorced, workaholic, alcoholic, addict, virgin, promiscuous, etc, WE ARE ALL JUST TRYING TO FIND OUR WAY. Life is too short to live with judgment in your heart. And if you are truly trying to live according to Jesus then no one has that right to judge; we are to show God’s love and mercy and forgiveness through our actions.
Some how thinking about my friends and that talk we had so many years ago made me think about how uninformed I was on my own faith. I don’t want to be caught with my pants down ever again and I want to have sufficient intelligent arguments to counter back with using God’s word. I want to show his love and mercy for everyone. I want my friends to come to know his grace and compassion and feel the peace everyone is looking for and experience Jesus first hand because they are my friends. Hopefully I’ll have an opportunity to have a better reply than I did on that balcony in
No comments:
Post a Comment