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Spiritual wounds, spiritual pride, spiritual bitterness, spiritual deception: sexual orientation
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Spiritual wounds, spiritual pride, spiritual bitterness, spiritual deception: sexual orientation
The Bible speaks clearly about homosexuality. In fact, the book of Jude goes so far as to imply that in the last days, the time will come when people will turn the grace of God into lasciviousness and there will be a showdown between those who hold to the traditions of their spiritual fathers, and those who –like the angels who left their first estate– lusted after strange flesh. In addition, John tells us that there will come a day when people will call evil “good” and call “good” evil. It has happened in our day. Now, if one talks about not sharing one’s body with any and everyone, one is seen as repressed. But someone who has sex with many people are called liberated and “healthy.”
Despite what the Christian gay movement would have us believe, the facts are that one has to go out of one’s way to find a different meaning for words so clearly stated. But although the Bible speaks against homosexuality, we as Christians must be very careful in not harming people – who in many cases– have already been harmed. The problem for Christians is how to speak the truth in love..., how to do no harm to either the person one is counseling or to one’s self.
First: a little about myself.
In college I had many gay friends. Like me, a minister’s grand-daughter, they were also wounded. They had come from small towns or large cities. But they had had their wars. I didn't know what to do with them. They were my friends and I had no desire to hurt them. And frankly, they were vastly more dear to me and more patient with me than the more normal unwounded persons I met.
Of all these gay people, there were boys who I had crushes on, boys who had crushes on me, and boys who were simply my friends. I noticed that I could not pin down an all-purpose reason for sexual orientation. Sexual orientation is a complicated thing. There are love-maps and lust-maps. Some heterosexual people find that they love one kind of person but simply can’t have sex with them. Life is complicated. Just as there are issues that make men have sexual orientation issues -- conflicted heterosexual, conflicted racist misogynist-- there are issues that turn men AWAY from women and issues that turn men TOWARDS men. Subtle difference there. My friend Jim, who is celibate Catholic and gay once said the following to me: “Of course a lot of adopted guys are gay! Their moms really wanted them and were grasping and controlling and nervous about them...and their dads could care less!” I’m not saying he is an expert on homosexuality but I know him to be honest and forthright and I value his opinion. In this case, he was describing why some people have a kind of orientation! At this point, it is a good time to say that many gay people tend to follow the party line when it comes to discussing sexual orientation with outsiders. In the media battle or in church, they will say they were “born this way” and that their orientation is genetic. But among friends, they will admit such matters as being in love with a woman but not feeling anything sexual for her. Or they will admit that yes, they were molested as children. Or they will admit that they didn’t really bond with a particular parent. Or they will admit that they used to engage with sexual play with a brother or sister while they were young. Or they might confess that the strange urges towards their own sex began after they went to a psychic or played with a ouija board. This is not to say that all gay people are hiding the truth from themselves or from others. Some of them simply do not know. And truly, Truth is the province of the Holy Spirit who reveals all matters .
One of my friend, Mio, died of AIDS about five years ago. He was born with no face really...and the doctors had to do a lot of operations on him. Understandably, his father was repelled by this anomaly and turned away fromhim..so Mio was always looking for love. Another male friend as a child was surrounded by 12 sisters and keeps saying he is not gay, he is a transsexual. His religious upbringing makes him want to believe that he is the wrong sex rather than believe that he is gay During the early nineties, a Chinese-American gay writer wrote a book about his dislike of Chinese women and how that plays into his sexuality. Let us not forget that. Sometimes people simply hate their own ethnic group or the women in those ethnic or class groups. Among, the Greeks and the upper class British, homosexuality was rampant. (Interestingly, although many moderns say the Greeks were tolerant and accepting of homosexuality, that is not quite the case. Pedophilia was accepted but homosexuality strongly discouraged. When a boy grew up, he and his male lover were encouraged to part. The Oedipus cycle of tragedies begins when a curse is placed on Laius because he did not want to give up his young male lover.) I know of two gay people, one a priest who was adopted (and whose adopted brother is also gay) who were great friends with black women but who were simply turned off by white women.
There is also a great deal of woundedness that goes into sexual orientation. My lesbian friend Lilian was raped from age 4 by her brother until she reached age 16 and threatened to murder him. My friend Doreen came from a very screwed up religious life with a harsh minister. Many children of ministers get spiritually attacked in the area of sex. I can attest to that. My answer is that I, a black woman, never was attracted to anyone who was black. I have loved and dated men of all races but my own. Some people cannot fall in love with people in their own race. Consider Samson who always fell in love with Phillistine women. The Bible says this tendency in Samson was from God in order to destroy the Phillistines. There is so much that goes into sexual orientation that it really can’t be discussed here. Consider, for instance, those women who always fall in love with gay men. Certainly, that is not genetic. Yet it is an orientation.
This leads to one of the major issues when dealing with orientation. Bitterness, self-rejection, emulation, unforgiveness, pride. These are all sins the Bible speak against. Emulation is especially bad in both the straight and gay communities. Certain young gay men are looking for a man to worship. This looking towards mere humans often leads to a strange overbearing love of beauty. It’s as if the more beautiful the love interest, the more healed we become. This love of beauty, of the creation more than the creator was one of the idolatrous reasons behind Sodom’s problem. It is also one of the reasons why external beauty is so prized in the gay community. In addition to emulation, and the love of beauty, there is the weird notion that being gay makes one special in some ways...more sensitive, more arty, etc. It’s a kind of Cinderella complex. Because they are depressed and wounded and victimized by the world because for some strange reason they do not fit into the grand biological scheme of things, their minds turn their affliction into a great blessing. And really, one can see the temptation to do it. It eases the heart to believe that one is special.
How then is a Christian to deal with a gay person? That’s the point of this article, right? How does one heal someone who may have been rejected and wounded –even before the sexual orientation began? How to replace the specialness the gay person feels with true healing, while not hurting that person’s feeling? And how to preserve the kindness and compassionate nature often found in many gay people because they themselves are acquainted with grief? Become a true and honest friend and pray. Prayer is the work. Pray and love and walk slowly. . -C
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Thank you, Carole, for the boldness to share your article. I am reminded that prayer and compassion are our greatest weapons of warfare next to the blessed Word of the Most High. I would like to share a little something with you about my nephew who was born with true, physical, reproductive deformities... a chromosome mess up... causing him to have to have testosterone injections and to be sterile: (Note: I am not excusing away his sexual preferences. I am just telling the truth about why he has them.) My nephew was born on my 16th birthday and I consider him as a gift from God to me... regardless of how he was formed... which just so happens to be in the likeness of his Creator. My prayers for him go without ceasing and without questioning God's will for him. I have never been so slapped in the face until I heard a "Christian" say "He is a freak of nature." I'm sorry, but God does not make junk. There is no such thing as a freak of nature. Unfortunately, however, there is such a thing as lack of compassion. Thank you again for bringing that to my/our attention. May God bless you!
Amazing! I believe that I could hear the voice of God in this article! Blessings, Sharon
You did a very good job with a thorny subject. Some of the information was new to me and you handled it well. My former pastor was always saying, “Reject the truth, you believe the lie.” This is what these people have done; they reject the truth of God because for one reason or another they had been wounded to the point they thought they deserved no better.
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