@woodlandsmom - I actually don’t think it’s ok to couch educating your children to disrespect gay people as “strong opinions that are different”. People who grow up taught that being gay is wrong, end up behaving unkindly to gay people (whether at the ballot box, on the internet, to their own terrified children, or in a dark alley with a baseball bat). It’s one thing to have an opinion, but your opinion has to stop where someone else’s civil rights begin.
I am even more concerned about the closeted children. I think the internet helps a lot.
In my rural community, all the LGBTQ+people of my generation left, for the east coast, the west coast, and overseas. It is pretty hard on their families not to have them part of their day to day lives. This is a community with many 8 and 9 and 10 generation farms. We are newcomers to the community.
That is changing now with some of the expats. Some of them talk about maybe coming home when they retire. That has a whole lot to do with changing attitudes. One neighbor told me meeting my husband and me made a difference to her brother and his husband. (I apologize for the brag 
)
“Yes, I am a Christian. Yes, I have deep-seated beliefs. No, I do not really care what you do in your bedroom…just do not talk about it to me (gay straight…whatever).”
That’s the whole point. Gay people don’t want to be defined by what they do in the bedroom or who they do it with. They just want to go to work, come home, mow the lawn, watch the evening news, and be with the person they love, just like straight people. They aren’t interested in ‘splainin’ the mechanics to you.
LOUKYDAD, you keep saying that since heterosexual marriage is available equally to all this creates a fair situation, but this is like telling pre-1932 American Muslims that since there had never been a mosque in the U.S. they couldn’t build one but they were free to join any of the many Christian churches across the country. It simply doesn’t solve the problem and clearly privileges one group (hetero or Christian) over the other (gay or Muslim).
"Are you telling us that you feel same sex attraction, but choose not to act on it, and thus aren’t gay?
I am not trying to be snarky or rude. That is how your short answer reads to me and it seems like maybe we are all just reading over what you are telling us?"
Change “feel” to “felt”, and the answer would be yes. I was very young, and it was brief, and no I never acted on it or even spoke to anyone about it. It never became a major struggle, but it was significant enough that I remember it. It is not hard for me to imagine that if I had received enough encouragement that I would have acted on it.
I would say that I have struggled way more significantly with fornication in other ways, the desire to look at and actually looking at pornography, sex before marriage, and remaining faithful to my wife of nineteen years both in my heart and outwardly. In all by the last of those struggles, I have to admit I have failed miserably at times, and I am not proud of it. I don’t pretend that my sins are any lesser than anyone else’s. I continue to struggle everyday. I struggle hard if I am honest. I like to believe I am winning, even though some days it doesn’t feel that way.
Bless your heart Sue22, you are persistent. I have to know the answer to this question before I answer. Is the Muslim body going to be insistent on calling itself part of the body of Christ, in other words a church in the Christian sense? Because if so I would object.
@LOUKYDAD actually, it is not unusual for kids to have confusion in one’s sexual orientation(they may not express it for various reasons), which could last for a while, even til late teen years. My counselor, who was VERY experienced in pediatric psychology, told me this when I had a friend who had been confused whether he were gay or straight or bisexual. Why did I ask her about my friend? Because he was struggling quite a lot
Hunt’s post #549 - I agree to essentially everything you said. We just reach different conclusions at certain points along the way I think.
There is a lot of conflating of three things in this thread - 1) same sex attraction, 2) living a homosexual lifestyle, and 3) same sex marriage. They are three different things. What I might say about one doesn’t necessary apply to the other.
blink
Muslim religious groups are not churches because they aren’t Christian?? Oh, my.
I am a Christian. A member of an “evangelical” denomination. Not a fundamentalist denomination, note the difference. I am conservative. Either I am a Christian who is conservative or a conservative Christian, depending on your point of view. My denomination and experience is the same as this
We are taught that Paul’s instructions (and I’ve studied them extensively) are a good historical model for the thought processes, priorities and values, but that the specific instructions are no longer specifically applicable.
This, as you might know, is one of my greatest pet peeves. The large number of people who just KNOW that all conservative or evangelical Christians are fundamentalist wackadoos who picket funerals.
I m sorry, but the word church itself by definition is not unique to Christianity.
A church building, often simply called a church, is a building used for religious activities, particularly worship services.It is most often used by Christians but definitely not only for them.
-by “The Manichaean Church”, Encyclopedia Britannica
dfbdfb - if I have to disagree with you over the difference between a worship building, professing Muslims and the body of Christ, I can now answer your earlier question definitively. No, I cannot agree that you are a Christian.
^ Not that I’m the Pope, but… Christian Essentials 101, just so we’re clear:
- Believe that Christ was God incarnate and that he died as payment for our sins, was resurrected, and lives today.
- Ask Christ to be your lord and savior. Sometimes this is phrased as "ask Jesus into your heart". Acknowledge him as such.
- Repent of your sins. Try to be a better person, observing especially the two most important commands: "love God with all your heart" and "love your neighbor as yourself".
- Essentially, show Christ's love to others, so that others may see his light in the world.
The first two and a half are internal. Many Christians could probably do a better job with parts 3b and 4.
Sources:
John 3:16
Romans 10:9-10
Matthew 5:14-15
Matthew 22:35-40
1 John 1:9
^^^
True enough, but it is also a basic tenet of Christianity that when Christ used the term “Church,” he was referring to the body of believers rather than a physical building. I can’t speak for Loukydad, but I’m pretty sure this is what he was talking about in post #566. I, too, would look askance at someone who professed to be Christian but wasn’t aware of such a basic doctrinal tenet, especially if this person was criticizing my interpretation of scripture.
^ Yes, I think so. A church is the people who comprise it, not the building that houses them.
But the lack of that knowledge wouldn’t necessarily keep someone from knowing Christ… it’s just something the person would learn over time through studying the Bible, hearing sermons on the subject, etc. New Christians might not be aware of it, for instance.
I could care less if someone wants to call a mosque a church (little “c” in only a worship building sense). No one who is a professing Muslim is part of the Church (big “C”, as in the body of Christ). That is all I ever meant.
I am imagining dfbdfb believes there is a universal Church (big “C”) made up of Christians, Muslims, etc., worshipping the same God but calling God by different names. Do I have that about right, dfbdfb?
At this point, this thread has run its course and strayed well off topic.