[Vision2020] Gier's far-fetched foul

[Joe Campbell]

Can I be blunt, Princess?

The problem I have with your approach to Christianity is that it sits well with your own hate-filled views. It doesn't challenge those views and doesn't give you much room to grow and be a better person. 

It is pretty easy being straight and condemning gays and lesbians. But even if we suppose that "homosexuality" is wrong, how are your hate-filled rants going to change anything? What compelling argument do you offer gays and lesbians to make them change their ways? That it is disgusting? Apparently they don’t think so. You might talk of hell and eternal damnation but for anyone who thinks that the Bible is nothing but an extended myth that argument won't do. 

Thus, gays and lesbians are left with idle threats and a version of Christianity where they have absolutely no place at all. It is a sad, ugly version of Christianity on my view and I don't blame anyone for rejecting it.

Somehow I think that if Christ were here today, He'd do things differently. Moreover, if fear and intimidation were the keys to getting folks to fall in line, I doubt very much that God would need your help or my help to do so! He is all-powerful and everywhere present, so He'd do a much better job of scaring the heck out of us if that was what was needed. Unfortunately, generating love is much more difficult.

Can it be that the situation is much more complex than you make it? Can it be that the key to salvation is love and hope and compassion? And if so, might it also be that you are not actually following God's word when you hide behind your fake name flinging insults at marginalized groups of people?

--
Joe Campbell

---- Taro Tanaka <taro_tanaka at hotmail.com> wrote: 

=============
There are definitely "gay Christians." But there are no "gay Christians" in 
Heaven. Let's get one ultra-basic, super-fundamental point clear:

THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST IS *NOT* OPEN ONLY TO THOSE PEOPLE WHO HAVE 
OVERCOME THEIR ASSORTED INDWELLING SIN PROBLEMS.

The church of Jesus Christ is OPEN TO ALL.

COME AS YOU ARE.

And stay as you are not.

We are all called to struggle against our besetting sins. Have you stumbled 
777 times? Fine, repent and renew your commitment to cling to Christ 777 
times.

My deepest, darkest sins are every bit as ugly as the sin of homosexuality 
that some here insist I despise. If I despise homosexuals, it is ONLY in the 
sense that the Bible itself "despises" homosexuals (Jesus died to secure the 
salvation of so-called "despised" people, which is why I put "despise" in 
quotation marks), and in the exact same sense as I despise my own sins.

Have you sinned? Then the church of Jesus Christ is where you belong! You'll 
feel right at home, because everyone there is a sinner lost but for the 
grace of Jesus Christ.

Do you want to know the position that truly despises gays? It is the 
position that says, "God is happy with your homosexual desires! He is happy 
with your homosexual behavior! What ever you do, DON'T change!" That is 
cruel, perverse, and unloving. I want gays to go to heaven, not to eternal 
damnation. There are gays that I know personally, and I pray hot tears to 
our Father in heaven for them day after day after day, because I fear for 
the eternal safety of their precious souls. Yes, I despise their SINS, and 
that is why I call on them to learn to die unto themselves and be born again 
free people in Jesus Christ. But in that regard they are no different from 
any other person beset by serious sin.

Yes, there are gay Christians, praise the Lord. But there are no gay 
Christians in Heaven. Neither shall my besetting sins be found in Heaven. It 
is precisely for that reason that I shall cling to Christ to the very end. I 
look forward to being finally and totally freed from the encumbrances of sin 
in the eternal sabbath. And I know that not a few people who formerly 
struggled against homosexual sins will be celebrating in Heaven in that day. 
Gays are just like the rest of us.

-- Princess Sushitushi

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