BusyTarpDuster2017 said:
sombear said:
BusyTarpDuster2017 said:
sombear said:
Mothra said:
sombear said:
Mothra said:
sombear said:
Waco1947 said:
Practice empathy: Try to see things from others' perspectives, even if you don't agree with them. Ask yourself how you would feel if you were in their shoes and try to understand their motivations and feelings.Psychology Today
I agree. We Christians have for too long treated homosexuality as some kind of super sin, while looking the other way, or even endorsing, as our friends, family, and fellow church members have affairs, divorce, or live together/have sex before marriage - let alone all the nonsexual sins we accept, such as greed, anger, etc.
If you truly believe the Bible, it's all the same. In all of these cases we should hate the sin but truly love the sinner.
And, I know, the common rebuttal is that only gays flaunt it, try to change laws, force others to accept it, etc.
But what do you think divorcees, adulterers, etc. would do and how do you think they would behave if they were treated the same way?
I think the whole "super sin" thing can be attributed to two things:
1) The "ick" factor; and
2) An active, world-wide campaign to normalize and excuse sinful behavior and indoctrinate our children regarding same.
I think the former played a bigger role prior to the last couple of decades in people's mindset. But today, I think the latter is the much bigger factor regarding the attention that sin gets.
You don't see any campaigns devoted to normalizing being greedy, or saying "greed is good." You don't see people attempting to say cheating on your spouse is a good thing. We don't see any tweets from the White House encouraging such sinful behaviors among our children, as we saw yesterday with the White House tweet to "trans children." That is because all of these things are generally seen as bad or harmful to humanity.
Today, the same cannot be said of LGBTQ+. And I think that is why it may be exacerbated by the church - or at least those churches who correctly hold it to be sinful.
Point 2 I agree with as I already said. My question (don't know the answer for sure) is whether it would have turned out this way had we treated them as we do other sinners (all of us). I submit that the reason there is no counter-movement for other sins is we really don't treat them as sins or treat the sinners as sinners as we always have homosexuals. Throughout world history, groups that have been discriminated against have pushed or fought back. One can certainly argue that gays would have done the same things had we adopted a true love the sinner hate the sin approach. We'll never know.
Be honest, do we look at an adult man who sleeps with his girlfriend or even fiance with the same disdain we do homosexuals?
How about the adult whose entire life is about work and money?
I support the Colorado baker 100%. But has he refused to design a cake for two divorcees remarrying? How about couples living together?
I think we look at deviant sexual proclivities differently, and that's just human nature. If a man has sex with an underaged teen and a man has sex with an adult mistress, both are sin, no? But we look at one as much, much worse than the other (and not merely because it's criminal). I think the same as true with adultery vs. homosexuality. Both fall short of God's glory, but one simply seems more deviant and against nature.
If we had treated the sin as just another sin (even though I don't think sins of the flesh are just another sin), would we have seen the push we are seeing now to normalize the behavior? Perhaps. Perhaps not. We will never know. But I tend to think that humanity has always attempted to rationalize sinful behavior, and we would have seen it regardless.
......but we for sure have treated homosexuals far worse than vast majority of other sinners.
Why is that hard to understand, and why the objection? It is perfectly understandable both from a human and Christian perspective. There's sin that aligns with natural behavior, but certain limits and guidelines are exceeded - and then there's sin that completely deviates from natural behavior altogether. The latter is described in the bible as the consequence of mankind being so depraved that God withdraws all His grace and "gives them over" to such behavior. It's viewed as the end stage of man's rebellion against God.
I see zero Biblical basis for your position. On multiple occasions, the Bible lumps different kinds of sexual sins together. Yes, they are serious. But so are others. Marriage, for example, is a scared covenant, so adultery and divorce are every bit as serious, if not more, in my view. Those sinners are affecting not only themselves, but spouses and children.
To be clear, I am not minimizing homosexual behavior. I believe it clearly is a sin.
I just gave you biblical support. Romans 1 describes "unnatural relations" with the same sex as being shameless dishonorable passions that signify God having "given them over" to having a "debased mind". It's describing the act of going against God-ordained natural order as evidence of a deep level of depravity and rebelliousness, where you are kind of "far gone". Also, in Leviticus, though both adultery and homosexual acts were serious enough to be punishable by death, only homosexual acts were called an "abomination". Divorce was hated by God, but it was allowed (because their "hearts were hard"). Homosexual acts were never allowed.
The focus of Christians should not be on which sins are worse than others. Any sin separates us from God, and any sin can be forgiven (except perhaps blasphemy against the Holy Spirit mentioned by Jesus, whatever that is). But it would not be wrong if someone looked seriously at the bible and came away with the idea that homosexual acts are on a different tier. I am NOT saying that this justifies treating them poorly or thinking you are better than them.
But you need to keep reading in Romans 1:
They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;
31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.
32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Also:
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 - Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
1 Timothy 1:8-11 ESV - Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.