Touchy Topic #1

Alright, touchy topic number one:

Homosexuality.

I might as well start with something volatile, right?  Though honestly, even considering posting this makes my heart pound and my hands a bit shaky (I’m such a big baby when it comes to confrontation).

I don’t know.  I really don’t.  I know what the Bible says, but…  If it’s not a choice, if it’s just the way people are born, some attracted to the opposite gender, some to the same… how can God, the one who created them, condemn that?  For that matter (hitting another touchy subject), how do we know the Bible is the perfect word of God?  I never questioned that growing up, but human beings wrote it, chose which books to put in, chose how to word things.  What if one of them worded it wrong?  Even inspired by God, how do we know that we can depend on every single word to be completely, perfect true?  (I’m not just being contrary; I’d really like to know.  I used to be so sure…)

Of course, I say all that, but I’ll use the Bible to defend my beliefs about drinking and sex and such.  I even want to argue that you can’t pick and choose the pieces of the Bible, that you should accept it as a whole, but how do we know?

I just don’t know.  That seems to be my answer to a lot of things these days: I don’t know.

I’ve heard it suggested that while sex outside of marriage is a sin, if homosexuals were married, it wouldn’t a sin any longer.  That kind of feels like a cop out, if only because it feels like an easy answer (I miss easy answers), but I don’t know.

Anyways, whatever else the Bible says, Jesus said to love your neighbor.  Whether homosexuality is a sin or not (and this goes for everything, really), we are supposed to treat people with love.  No matter what.  We are not supposed to bully and judge and condemn, but “Christians” seem to use God and the Bible as an excuse to do just that.

I fear the religious community in general gets far too focused on the rules and laws and traditions (not that they aren’t important, but they’re not the most important) and loses sight of the fact that God loves people, all people, and that we’re meant to love them too.

Consider that before the next time you react to someone who believes differently than you do.

That gets under my skin: the judgment and condemnation that comes from both sides, believers and non-believers, liberals and conservatives.  There’s nothing wrong with being opinionated but that doesn’t have to spark a war between us.  I know how easy it is to get defensive when beliefs are questioned; they’re what make us everything we are.  People strongly believing differently can feel almost like an attack on who we are, but striking back doesn’t solve anything.  It just widens the gap between us.

We’re all sinners.  We’re all screwed up and lost and doing the best we can to make sense of this life.  Cut each other some slack.

(And there’s me getting a little self-righteous about my moderate position.  Ah, hypocrisy, my familiar friend.)