mls@mhuxu.UUCP (Michael Siemon) (05/27/89)
Gregory Shippen writes:
+ I find it equally appalling how often these creeds fail completely to at
+ least ask themselves what God would want in this situation.
I wish I knew what I may have said (other than my conclusions, of course :-))
that would suggest a failure to ask what God wants of me. Here again is an
issue where actual acquaintence with Integrity members (for example) goes a
long way to dispelling false ideas about gay Christians. The problem (for us
and for you) is that we have come, through many years (decades and lifetimes,
even) of prayer and counsel and experience to understand that what God wants
of us is NOT what the Church has traditionally taught us.
I was well enough instructed in traditional sexual morality by the time of my
catechism classes and baptism as a teenager, 30 years ago. That was NOT the
issue that prompted my departure from the church; instead I was (over)reacting
to the intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy I perceived in my teachers (and
that perception may have had more to do with my own adolescent arrogance than
with reality -- at this interval it is very hard to say.) Nor, some 15 years
later was my reentry into the Church prompted by any alteration in teachings
about sexuality. Though it helped a lot to be welcomed and loved and to have
my personal miseries about sex assuaged rather than aggravated by Christian
friendship. Those of you who heap burdens of guilt on us will have much to
answer for.
No. I had come to something like the current Catholic position that being
homosexual was a sort of "objective disorder" -- not blameworthy _per se_,
just a matter of being myself somehow "out of joint" with God's "plan" and
with no course of action open to me that would not in some way be sinful.
But as I grew into the church, over a span of several years, I became aware
that God was nudging me: "my thoughts are not your thougts" said the Lord,
and "by their fruits you shall know them" said my Lord. And I looked at the
saints around me and discovered instead of my fantasies an objective ORDER
that can only derive from God. And this order involves the sexual bonding
of people of the same sex. It is the order described in Genesis, though we
have done our best to misapply it, to narrowly monopolize it for the "best"
people in society, for 3000 years. The miseries I suffered derived, not from
God, but from the rather nasty oppressions of my society. That suffering was
a sign of sin, but most of the sin lay not in my acts but in the "righteous"
people who would condemn me.
I have been longer reaching this point than many of my friends (heterosexual
as well as gay) partially because I am stiff-necked and self-involved. It
is when I turn my head to look at other gay Christians that I can see how
selfish I had been ("well, Lord; you can't really expect very much from me,
consdering that I am objectively disordered.") Again, all I ask is that you
look -- with open eyes and open hearts and a prayer that God will aid you in
understanding us.
+ Religion is, admittedly, in part a social organization. It is made up of
+ people... This mission rules out, in my view, the concept that those in
+ the Church may change that organization according to the views of the
+ society of the time. In short shouldn't we at least ask the question:
+ what changes would God do in this or any other situation?
I am not sure that you take your own rhetoric as seriously as you should,
given what you go on to say below. It is worth dwelling on this just a bit,
however. The Church is always and everywhere an institution of human beings,
*in addition* to being the Body of Christ. There has never been a time (not
50 AD, nor 100, nor 250, nor 500, nor any other date) at which all things
said and done by the Church could be claimed to be a full instantiation of
God's will for us, untainted by both the irrelevancies of our fleshly state
and more particularly untainted by sin. At ALL stages of its existence, the
Church MUST criticize itself, with the aid of the Spirit. Change is not bad
or good in itself; neither is stasis. The ONLY issue is "thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven." The prior example of the Church is always a
good starting point; it is seldom a good idea to simply rest there. There
may be some proponents of "modernization" for its own sake in our churches,
but I think that is mostly a straw man. Those of us who DO propose changes
-- in the status of women, in the liturgies, in the language we use, in the
acceptance of new rules for sexuality -- do so under a compelling sense that
we ARE following God's will for us and for the Church.
Please do us the justice to understand WHY we think as we do, even if you
reject our ideas. You seem to be drawing a picture of frivolous, unspiritual
yuppies attempting to make an upscale fast-food religion. It just isn't so.
Consider, always, that your own seriousness and humility before God is the
measure that we use as well. Our differences can be painful at times, but
I may not yield my faith just because it makes you uncomfortable. Neither
should you yield to any blandishments of mine on the net. But I ask you to
look at God's creation with *God's* measure -- delight in variety and its
goodness, delight in the Leviathan He made for the sport of it -- and not
with the sour measure of early Christian asceticism.
--
Michael L. Siemon "O stand, stand at the window
contracted to AT&T Bell Laboratories As the tears scald and start;
att!mhuxu!mls You shall love your crooked neighbor
standard disclaimer With your crooked heart."