But why did he feel the need to address these concerns by moving into Chicago's gay village, with its sex shops, gay bars and saunas?

Because he's never had so much cock in his life as he's getting now.

slayer199: I never got the Christian homophobia. In the New Testament you're supposed to love everyone and God is the one to do the judging. This guy seems to get it.

That's what the United Methodists practice.... not to be confused with Evangelical Methodists (like Perry).

Immediately takes off his pants?

Cythraul: FTA: "That is no small achievement in a culture where openly gay people and evangelical Christians have long viewed each other with suspicion."

I have no problem with evangelicals. It's when they start telling me I'm going to burn in hell for all eternity and that I'm an abomination under God's eyes, that's when I start having a problem with them. And when they start to legislate on those beliefs, that's when I really start to have a problem with them.

Maybe he has a point, though. I'd definitely be suspicious of any evangelical trolling around my local gay bar. I'd find it hard to believe that his intentions are based in altruism, rather than a desire to proselytise or to 'witness,' as some call it now.

He is cute though. I bet he gets all the closet case chasers after him.

You'll notice there is no mention of a spouse or gf for him.
Look forward to his coming out party.
i don't believe his intentions are altruistic.

/gaydar activated

gilgigamesh: He gets nailed on a thick piece of wood?

Heh.
On, or by.

...convinces people to buy him drinks?

It's sad that Christians following the teachings of Jesus is so unusual

That is the hope of Andrew Marin - who has spent the last decade living in Boystown, Chicago's officially-designated neighbourhood for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) residents.

you know who else used "officially designated" neighborhoods??

seriously, if gays weren't so "open" with their sexuality, maybe they wouldn't need to be contained.

Take it down a notch Serge, your business should be kept to yourself.

FTA: "Sitting opposite him was Brian, who also says he's always known he was gay - but whose traditional theology meant he chose to marry a woman and has since fathered a child."

I just threw up in my mouth. living a lie because of a book based on a book, based on a book, based on even more versions of a book, based on a story, based on this thing that someone said they heard from some dude who wasn't there, but knew someone who was.

All christians are hatefull bigots...sky wizard...hypocrits...hate brown people...flying pasghetti monster!

it's close though...

I'm here for the gangbang.

Im more offend by my roomate getting banged out on the living room couch than I am by this

Dirtybird971: seriously, if gays weren't so "open" with their sexuality, maybe they wouldn't need to be contained.

Whoa, they live there by choice, not to be contained.
Gays have just as much right to be open about who they are as heteros.

claimed he could lick every man in the place?

slayer199: I never got the Christian homophobia. In the New Testament you're supposed to love everyone and God is the one to do the judging. This guy seems to get it.

See that's my problem with the more fundamentalist view. Even when I was a believer I thought as you described, but there were always those around me who were of the "if god hates it, I have to hate it too" mindset. The bigotry and hypocrisy of that thinking is part of what started me questioning the whole deal.

slayer199: I never got the Christian homophobia. In the New Testament you're supposed to love everyone and God is the one to do the judging. This guy seems to get it.

Eh, sort of. See, you've still got Paul....

"Claiming to be wise, they became fools,and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them." - Romans 1:22-32


This passage pretty clearly equates homosexuality as a shameful behavior that God gives people over to when they reject him, in the same breath as "envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness."

Now, people will say then that Paul was speaking from the perspective of his time, and that Jesus is not recorded as saying anything about homosexuality. This is technically correct, but not an easy perspective to take for evangelicals who consider the bible authoritative: Paul, in the book of Romans, lays out the very core of the Christian kerygma in more clarity and depth than anywhere else in the New Testament. The writings of Paul in all likelihood influenced the doctrinal content of the Gospels, and bluntly, without Paul, Christianity is not the same religion. You can't cast doubt out Paul's assertion that lesbianism is "contrary to nature" without also casting doubt on "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God," or claim that "I do not permit a woman to speak" was just Paul's opinion, but that "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" isn't.

I understand that there are many Christians who accept homosexuals. I think that's great. I'm familiar with a lot of their reasoning, and I think that their exegeses do tend to be a little more nuanced and intelligent than those of fundamentalists. My point is that accommodating homosexuality tends to savage the "God/The bible said it, I believe it, that settles it" hermeneutic that fundamentalists and most evangelicals love, and as such it's unsurprising that many aren't willing to even consider the idea.

Brandyelf: slayer199: I never got the Christian homophobia. In the New Testament you're supposed to love everyone and God is the one to do the judging. This guy seems to get it.

That's what the United Methodists practice.... not to be confused with Evangelical Methodists (like Perry).

Sadly not all United Methodist churches are there yet. I'm in the Baltimore-Washington Conference which is one of the more progressive in the nation and we're still struggling with it. The youth I work with want to see the change made, and whether people like it or not, young people tend to be the factor. I see a whole scale change taking place in the next 10years.

Reconciling congregations are the way to go.

Jesus didn't approve of sin. He didn't try to "sympathize" with it. He demanded repentance and died for our inability to live righteously.

I don't know evangelicals that condemn people to hell for all eternity as submitters suggest. If Jesus saved us from hell, why would any believer worry about it? My guess is those submitters are just lying, or their "evangelical Christians" were undercover atheists (we had one "fire and brimstone" preacher on campus admit to being a hired actor at one point).

Anyways, this guy FTA is gay. gay, gay, gay. He's obviously in crisis of faith because he KNOWS it's incompatible with the gospel (in the same way someone who compulsively steals or lies is incompatible with it) because the gospel says Jesus died for our sins, and it is belief in this which saves. To believe in this, it follows I need to believe I have sinned, at least according to the Bible. Ergo, I need to believe stealing, cheating, lying, gay sex, etc are all sins.

Seriously, I don't know why homosexuality gets such special treatment. Why is it the most popular sin to isolate from the Bible and say "But this sin, THIS SIN, does not matter, because it hurts people's feelings to call it a sin. No way Jesus died for THIS sin, because no way it's a sin!" It's ridiculous. Look, YOU already don't believe the Bible. Why so important to any of you to tell Christians what their Bible tells THEM to believe.

Someone pushed in his stool?

...turned the bar stools upside-down to seat more customers at the bar?

/I'm already going to Hell, so why not?

"To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some." - 1 Corinthians 9:20-22

/He gets it.
//If only the rest of us did too.
///Lutheran

Matthew 21:31(b): Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you."

These were just about the most maligned sinners of the time, but, sorry, they're the ones who are going to go to heaven first. I'm pretty sure if Jesus were here today, he would say to grandstanding Christians, "Truly I tell you, the gays and the weed-smokers are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you."

Irving Maimway: I can't find ANYTHING in the Gospels about being gay or having an abortion.

There's a lot about money and adultery, and not judging other people, but Christ didn't have shiat to say about the two prime movers of the "Christian" Right.

xanadian:
Here, lemme help: Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (new window)

This is my Bullshiat Meter. Anything a "Christian" says is God's Word, I use this little reality check to see if it's true or Bullshiat.

THIS. Greg Boyd makes the comment (and I'm paraphrasing) that if you're doing something in Christ's name and it doesn't look like Him dying on the cross in an act of pure and total sacrifice for people he'd never even met, it's not what Christ would do.

And He also made a comment about not drawing attention to yourself, just go about your life, quietly doing good and the only person who really counts will know what you've done and acknowledge it. Sadly, the Right totally misses this point too. Most real Christ followers live lives just like this: quietly doing their best to make the world a better place and reflect Christ's love and forgiveness out to the rest of the world.

Well here are some sources for your research:

Link (new window)
Link (new window)
Link (new window)

Not saying I agree with it, just saying there's plenty to read on the subject.

...a woman who self-defines as "queer" and who left the church because of its attitude towards homosexuality.

It's good to know that other people are also confused about whether to address some folks as "he" or "she."

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

/Ow! Mom stop that!

Iniamyen1: ...a woman who self-defines as "queer" and who left the church because of its attitude towards homosexuality.

It's good to know that other people are also confused about whether to address some folks as "he" or "she."

Not sure if you're kidding or not....? But just in case, "it" is referring to the church.

"Why conservative Christians flock to a Chicago gay bar"


Easy answer. The blow job you get there are far superior to the ones you can get at home.

xkillyourfacex: Jesus didn't approve of sin. He didn't try to "sympathize" with it. He demanded repentance and died for our inability to live righteously.

I don't know evangelicals that condemn people to hell for all eternity as submitters suggest. If Jesus saved us from hell, why would any believer worry about it? My guess is those submitters are just lying, or their "evangelical Christians" were undercover atheists (we had one "fire and brimstone" preacher on campus admit to being a hired actor at one point).

Anyways, this guy FTA is gay. gay, gay, gay. He's obviously in crisis of faith because he KNOWS it's incompatible with the gospel (in the same way someone who compulsively steals or lies is incompatible with it) because the gospel says Jesus died for our sins, and it is belief in this which saves. To believe in this, it follows I need to believe I have sinned, at least according to the Bible. Ergo, I need to believe stealing, cheating, lying, gay sex, etc are all sins.

Seriously, I don't know why homosexuality gets such special treatment. Why is it the most popular sin to isolate from the Bible and say "But this sin, THIS SIN, does not matter, because it hurts people's feelings to call it a sin. No way Jesus died for THIS sin, because no way it's a sin!" It's ridiculous. Look, YOU already don't believe the Bible. Why so important to any of you to tell Christians what their Bible tells THEM to believe.



But really, want to know why some of us get irritated by the fundamentalist view?

This comic sums it up:

Dr. Moonlight: Matthew 21:31(b): Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you."

These were just about the most maligned sinners of the time, but, sorry, they're the ones who are going to go to heaven first. I'm pretty sure if Jesus were here today, he would say to grandstanding Christians, "Truly I tell you, the gays and the weed-smokers are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you."


Let me play devil's advocate for a minute here, and ask that you consider this passage in the context of the other verse that abb3w quoted:

On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Jesus hung around with the undesirables, but still called them sinners, or "sick" and "need[ing]" a doctor. Would it be reasonable to interpret the Matthew 21:31 passage as saying that the tax collector and prostitutes would make it to heaven before the Pharisees not because tax collecting and prostitution were acceptable, but because unlike the Pharisees they recognized how depraved they were and how much they needed to change?

Hugs and kisses for everybody!

/skimpy tighty whities