Do You Think That God Or Jesus Will Get Mad If I Have Sex Before I Get Married Or Engaged?

w. prodigalmagazine com/ jesus-called-me-the-n-word/ please read it. Its great! However it makes me realize something with the words: "how do you love someone whose actions or behaviors you find really unacceptable?". Yes the C.S Lewis quote... My dilemma is, its like spreading a fake love, i know its better to love then it is to hate. But deep down he still thinks its unacceptable, He realizes their pain and apologizes, but he doesn't accept them, so why selfless love why not respect!?

“There is someone that I love even though I don’t approve of what he does. There is someone I accept though some of his thoughts and actions revolt me. There is someone I forgive though he hurts the people I love the most. That person is……me.” - C.S.Lewis(If you can’t say amen, say ouch.) 

Wow. Awesome, awesome quote. And great article! Okay so let’s examine your quarrel with this article. So if I understand you correctly, you feel like the fact that he still finds homosexuality “unacceptable”, means that he doesn’t genuinely love them. And your proposition is that if he did love them, he wouldn’t still have a problem with homosexuality. Alright, I will give you my interpretation and my opinion and hope that it’s…somewhat useful.

The problem I see with the Homosexuality vs. Religion catastrophe is rooted in the fact that it’s supposedly a unique situation. As I see it, there are two reasons for this. 

If I believe the bible, which I do, I believe that homosexuality is wrong. This is a problem because of the age-old psychological nature vs. nurture debate, and the fact that homosexuality is currently considered to be a natural, involuntary state which remains constant throughout the lifespan. And how can you judge someone for something they can’t help? That’s why homosexuality, among all the sins in the bible, is treated as a special case by non-religious people. 

But why is homosexuality treated as a special case by religious people? I mean, of all the things to protest with picket signs, why pick homosexuality? If I’m not mistaken, adultery is still a bad thing, right? Where are the laws against that? No one’s petitioning to make that illegal. We’re not a fan of taking the Lord’s name in vain but we sure have developed a high tolerance for it! Oh and drug and alcohol abuse. There are a good many Pentecostal church kids in that category. Do we kick them out of houses and out of churches? And don’t even get me started on Christian boys and porn addiction, we’d be here all night! So WHY is there acceptance and forgiveness for all that other stuff at the alter, and not for homosexuality?

I’m actually gonna tell you why. Let me address these two issues separately.

When it all boils down, I have no idea whether I think homosexuality is a choice or not. But guess what. I DON’T CARE!  I honestly could not care any less than I do right now whether homosexuality can be helped or not. It makes no difference to how I see you. It makes no difference to how I treat you. It makes no difference to how I love you. Hypothetically, if someone really did consciously and willingly make a choice to be gay, that wouldn’t make a difference either. I mean, all the crap we choose to do doesn’t, why should this? 

To answer the big WHY question back there, it’s because church people feel like we need to “fix” everybody’s behavior. You’re cutting? Let’s draw a butterfly on your arm and work through a positive psychology plan for diminishing relapses. (That actually worked for my friend.) You have a porn addiction? Okay, make me your accountability partner and download a secure browser and I’ll get email updates on your browsing activities every week. (I actually do get emails like that.) And I’m not saying that trying to help someone who wants help is bad! I’m saying that the compulsion to modify behavior is bad. We are accepting and loving but we want to fix you. And when church people come up against something they can’t control, like homosexuality, the rules change? I mean, come on. In reality, although I’m glad for butterflies and weekly emails, I don’t have to fix anybody. I can just go one loving them and leave it at that. And those butterflies and emails, they’re not me. They’re Jesus. Jesus is the only one who can do any fixing, so I’m not even sure why I try. 

But here’s the thing. All sin is equal in the sight of God. (James 2:10). So why are people making this big stinking deal about homosexuality when some of us have so much pride in our hearts, we can’t even hear God anymore and we probably think we wrote the bible! Some of us have so much hate that our souls are corroding away inside of us. Some of us have so much lust and secrets and shame that we can barely make eye contact. And you’re gonna look at me and say “homosexuality is a sin”? No my son (Newfoundland expression). I’ve got bigger things in my own life to deal with than homosexuality. And chances are, so do you.

Secondly, I feel as though we’re reading this article through different filters and the way we perceive love is very very different. I’m sensing that you see love as an endpoint. Like I’ve got to jump through a hoop, crawl through a tunnel, pole vault, limbo and do the hokey pokey before I can love you. And you see my issue with homosexuality as an obstacle that needs to be overcome before I can love you. Maybe homosexuality is a wall between me and loving you. And I just climb over the wall. But…the wall’s still there. It’s still a big huge reminder that the path to loving you was not easy. Maybe by saying that he still finds their behavior unacceptable, you feel like he’s cheating on his love. And that’s why you called it a fake love. 

Well I’m here to tell you that that’s not the way it works at all. Love is a starting point. It’s not like “Okay fiiiine, I guess I love you, even though….” No no no. It’s just “I love you.” Period. End of story. No ifs, ands or buts. In reality, it’s “I love you becauseyou’re a person and you’re a child of God, and God loves you.” And that’s good enough for me. That’s all there is to it. There are no qualifications on God’s love! He didn’t ask to see photo ID or a baptism certificate or your report card before He loved you. He just does! That is the nature of unconditional love. And that’s how I love you. EVERYTHING ELSE in the entire world is secondary to that fact. Your colour, your size, your height, your weight, your gender, your culture, your religious affiliation, your political opinions, your sexual orientation, your socio-economic status, your income, your education, your choices, your actions, your attitudes, your behavior, your family, your upbringing, your personality and your genetics are ALL secondary to the fact that first and foremost, and above all, you are a human being, worthy of love. And I don’t have to change your behavior. My ONLY job is to love you. I think that’s what the author was getting at in that article. It wasn’t really that he had this grand revelation that changed everything, it’s more like God brought Him back to the basics.

See, I know that God loves me. That’s why I’m capable of loving myself despite the terrible things I do, the struggles I face, the mistakes I make and the people I hurt. God loved us before we were born, so we obviously didn’t earn it, and obviously nothing we do will change it. And as a Christian, I love people the same way. 

Finally, respect is one of the primary exigences of love. Please, please don’t ever think that I don’t respect you. No matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done. Nowhere in that article does it state that he doesn’t respect gay people. You’re inferring disrespect where none was implied. Furthermore, nowhere is it written anywhere that you and I have to be in 100% agreement to love each other. Just because we might come down on different sides of the homosexuality question makes no difference to how I love you. I disagree with a lot of people on a lot of things, some small, some rather large. But I love them all the same. Just because I disagree with your behavior doesn’t mean I don’t respect you, and it doesn’t mean I don’t genuinely love you. 

I hope this helps a little! Thanks for your question :)Peace and love! -Katherine 

Plot twist: as a christian, homophobia offends and appalls me far more than homosexuality ever could.

10 Awesome Quotes from C.S. Lewis

“Though our feelings come and go, God’s love for us does not.”

“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”

“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

“A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell.”

“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”

“God can’t give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing.”

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

“I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”

Today I want all Christians who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, trans men, trans women, nonbinary, genderfluid, and all sexualities and genders to realize that it is okay to be you and be Christian. Jesus loves us for who we are, and loved us enough to die on a cross for us.

Don’t worry about being non-straight or non-cisgender at your church. You can still worship, and bless the Lord, no matter how you are.

You are loved.

"he is risen" if you believe in him then he rose 2000 years ago. put down your roses and get in the dirt there are people suffering now get out in the street there are people being occupied get out in the world maybe he is risen but it is your job to keep him alive

are you allowed to wear clothes above the knee?

Yes, I suppose I am "allowed" haha :P the are no rules for what I should or should not wear. It's basically a judgment call for everything I wear. I have personal preferences: I don't like to show off my boobs, belly or butt so my clothes cover those essentials. My shorts usually come about halfway down my thighs and my tank tops have straps that are like two finger-widths thick, for example :P Yeah, that's all!Peace and love! -Katherine

Has anything actually gotten better, for all the work you talk about doing? Or is it just treading water in misery forever?

Anon, ten years ago gay people couldn't get married in large parts of the US. AIDS was an almost certain death sentence when I was in high school. I was looking at job boards the other day and found a part time gas station job that had health insurance as a benefit, which NEVER would have happened 15 years ago. When I was a kid, hitting your child was extremely normalized in the US and my parents were the weird ones for not doing it. There is a vaccine for chicken pox. I didn't meet anyone who had transitioned until my 20s because it was so uncommon to transition in the aughts, and now there are some states that protect your right to have gender affirming care provided by your health insurance. It's not all states, but it's better than the number of states that had it in 2010, which was zero. THERE ARE TENANTS UNIONS NOW. WE HAVE A VACCINE AGAINST CERVICAL CANCER.

And all of that has been the work of a lot of individuals and organizations and research teams and activists.

God is using this podcast to heal me and breathe new life into my queer christianity. Can't recommend it enough.

Humans!!!!!!! Should!!!!!!! Not!!!!!! Kill!!!!!! Humans!!!!!!!