Struggling with homophobia in the church.

So I go to a pretty liberal, happy clappy pentecostal church which i LOVE. The atmosphere is always so unbelievably positive and accepting and loving so I really thought that I'd found my people and my church going there...until this morning.

We had a guest preacher (turns out he used to be the pastor there like 10 years ago but I've not been there that long) and he was talking about the second coming of Christ. He was saying about how the world is getting worse and ungodly so it will be soon, and this was due to terrorism and war etc. Then he started talking about the loss of family values and sexual immorality. He never outrightly said homosexuality or being gay but it was SO clear what he was talking about.

I wasn't happy but understood why he might feel this way, he backed up this with scripture and I won't disagree with God's word but then he started going off on some of the most ignorant things I've ever heard. He kept saying "now young people, listen to this" and then genuinely was suggesting that being gay lead to disease (AIDs), taking drugs and turning evil. I actually couldn't believe what I was hearing and how my lovely, accepting church was allowing him to say these things. It felt like he totally went off reading scripture and was just on a tangent about his own hateful opinions.

I'm now feeling very torn about whether this church is the right one for me. I believe that God loves us all and as long as we believe and follow the path of Jesus then we will be saved. And I definitely think you can be gay and follow Jesus. I think what has upset me the most is the fact that I've always seen my church as so accepting, I used to go to a really conservative catholic church and nothing this hateful was ever said there so it completely shocked me to come from my current church.

I don't know whether this is something I have to accept and just continue in my church because apart from today I have loved it. Or do I need to find a new church?

(I'm sorry this is long, I just needed to get it all out of my system)

So I go to a pretty liberal, happy clappy pentecostal church which i LOVE. The atmosphere is always so unbelievably positive and accepting and loving so I really thought that I'd found my people and my church going there...until this morning.

We had a guest preacher (turns out he used to be the pastor there like 10 years ago but I've not been there that long) and he was talking about the second coming of Christ. He was saying about how the world is getting worse and ungodly so it will be soon, and this was due to terrorism and war etc. Then he started talking about the loss of family values and sexual immorality. He never outrightly said homosexuality or being gay but it was SO clear what he was talking about.

I wasn't happy but understood why he might feel this way, he backed up this with scripture and I won't disagree with God's word but then he started going off on some of the most ignorant things I've ever heard.

He kept saying "now young people, listen to this" and then genuinely was suggesting that being gay lead to disease (AIDs),

taking drugs

and turning evil.

I actually couldn't believe what I was hearing

and how my lovely, accepting church was allowing him to say these things. It felt like he totally went off reading scripture and was just on a tangent about his own hateful opinions.

I'm now feeling very torn about whether this church is the right one for me. I believe that God loves us all and as long as we believe and follow the path of Jesus then we will be saved. And I definitely think you can be gay and follow Jesus. I think what has upset me the most is the fact that I've always seen my church as so accepting, I used to go to a really conservative catholic church and nothing this hateful was ever said there so it completely shocked me to come from my current church.

I don't know whether this is something I have to accept and just continue in my church because apart from today I have loved it. Or do I need to find a new church?

(I'm sorry this is long, I just needed to get it all out of my system)

In response to the OP, I'm sorry you've encountered such hatred, I wish I could say it doesn't happen often...

Here are my thoughts (often echoing previous posts):

Are you a Christian, Toughtee?

Nope, and before anyone asks, I'm not gay either.

So you're not a Christian, yet you say this: "I personally think that being gay and being Christian don't have to be contradictions, nor should Christians consider being gay a sin."

1) Would you represent some other religion you don't follow, like Islam or Judaism, even though their teachings also condemn homosexual practice?

2) Do you not think you made the comment sound like you were a Christian? Do you not think you made it sound as though you follow what Jesus taught and what the bible teaches, and have these as an authority in your own life?

There are many Christians who don't know about their religion, and many non-Christians who know a lot about Christianity. Not to mention that many atheists are ex-Christians who have practiced the religion.

Yes, I see what you're saying. But let me come up with similar examples.

Do you see any problem with those ideas? My point being that you have to allow the doctrines of religions to define orthodoxy.

Any text, religious or otherwise, is subject to an element of interpretation. A liberal interpretation can be just as valid as any orthodox interpretation.

If we take something as simple as the ten commandments. Catholics, Protestants and Jews all interpret differently what these ten commandments are.

well whether a liberal interpretation is valid depends on what the truth is, so discussing a hypothetical like that is pretty useless. What does it mean for an interpretation to be valid? I have a feeling we would disagree on the answer to that question, perhaps because of post-modern thinking.

Do you take a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation story?

I know where you're taking this discussion, but it's pointless, because it basically bottles down to "people disagree on doctrine", and "multiple opinions on doctrine can all be valid [+/- because we don't know what's true]". I don't think that's a discussion worth having. It's a fundamental worldview issue there.

Unless you are willing to claim divine inspiration, then I don't think you can claim that you hold the one single correct interpretation.

no reference to Jesus, the authority of scripture/God to define morality, conviction of sin etc. Not a good sign...



ok, still no references...



Right, so you understand the authority of scripture, and you recognise that one cannot just say the bible is wrong, unless they are willing to forgo the entirety of the Christian belief system because it is underpinned by biblical inerrancy/biblical "inspiration".



Well statistically, he's got a point. This is common knowledge. You may want to Google Scholar: MSM (men who have sex with men) and HIV/AIDS.



again, statistically, he's got a point... Also bear in mind the links with depression and the fact that people often self-medicate with drugs, then you'll see that it's not completely unfounded.



ok so here, I wouldn't agree if that's what the guest pastor said. The bible teaches that mankind is evil, whether homosexual or not. Jesus wouldn't need to die on the cross if we didn't do evil things. At the end of the day, homosexual acts are evil, like a load of other things we do everyday, like be proud, lie, be selfish, gossip, envy and steal.

I would point you to Romans 1:26, where it says, "...God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature." You may want to read the whole of that chapter. The chapter clearly says very negative things about homosexual desires and acts. That's just what it says.



I think that's because you don't study what the bible actually says, and so you don't have a consistent view of good and evil, of sin, the bible, or the gospel. You also don't know anything about the research done on homosexuals and health.



It's really revealing how your focus is on the church being "accepting", rather than on Jesus being who he claimed to be, or on the church you attend preaching the actual gospel, and not a watered-down gospel, so that people will be presented with something that will save them from a deserved place in hell if they believe!



Look, I've been pretty harsh, but you're not thinking it through. You're just labelling groups as "liberal" and "conservative", rather than thinking about the issues. What did Jesus teach? Why did he die on the cross? How do we know what is good and what is evil?

So you're not a Christian, yet you say this: "I personally think that being gay and being Christian don't have to be contradictions, nor should Christians consider being gay a sin."

1) Would you represent some other religion you don't follow, like Islam or Judaism, even though their teachings also condemn homosexual practice?

2) Do you not think you made the comment sound like you were a Christian? Do you not think you made it sound as though you follow what Jesus taught and what the bible teaches, and have these as an authority in your own life?

I agree with everything you just said. To give another analogy...as I am a black person I can say that the statistics of black men in the U.S. making up most of the prison population is correct. The lifestyle of some black people, poverty, mindset and so on contributes to it. Therefore the statistics of what correlates to homosexuality is is also from a contribution to the lifestyle.

Yes the bible talks about love and we should love one another. But that doesn't take away from what the bible says about homosexuality is the biblical truth.
Genesis 1:27-28 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
Do you see the first command that God gave human kind? Be fruitful and multiply. Homosexuality naturally breaks that first command. Also Pride I've read all your posts. You give a decent and stable argument.

What statistics? I don't think anyone is denying that sexuality at least has some amount of a social/economic factor.



So marriage/love is only for child rearing? With this argument, infertile people and people who simply don't want children should be banned from being married or loving people.