Can Homosexuality and the Christian Faith Exist Together?

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So God set up humans to fail (as imperfect beings) and then he knew beforehand he was going to punish them for it? It is sounds somewhat similar to the Calvinist position, God already knows who will be saved and who won't be saved, so it doesn't matter at all what you do.

That kind of talk makes me realize why people like Fnord and Tallyman view people who believe in God as idiots.
How many times must we all learn that changing your mind is not a sign of imperfection, or weakness?
From the information you've given me, the church, based on a decision long ago, made homosexuality a sin,
thereby HUMANS condemned innocent lgbt folks for all time past and present, to a life of eternal pain and suffering?
What a crock of BS!! !
I've been living my life with BUNCH OF CRAP in my head put in the bible by a bunch of SINFUL BIGOTS who had no place to judge those they did judge!
I bet God isn't even pissed of at me as much as I thought he was!
Time to go flirt with hermaphrodites and bisexual women whilst eating figs and wearing a mohawk and lots of tattoos to get too!! !
Good riddens!
At least I still love God, and believe in him and his son, that is probably what he wants most, not this fire and brimstone crap!
Ahh soooo much better!

I can finally get that tattoo of skeleton jesus playing chess with a samurai!

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Of course homosexuality and the Christian faith can exist together. The Bible condemns homosexuality in a small handful of passages. It also condemns the owning of any property beyond the clothes on your back. It condemns judging others. It condemns using violence against those who harm you. It categorically commands that if someone steals from you, you must give them even more than they stole. It commands that you give no thought to the future (i.e. saving or working) ("Be as the lilies of the field who neither sow nor reap...") I could go on and on.

Absolutely everything in modern life is roundly condemned as a sin by the Bible. And somehow, Christians have reconciled this to their own satisfaction. Heterosexual Christians commit every sin in the Bible except one, and that one is only mentioned a few times. If a person can own property, regard others as sinners, hold a job and have a bank account and still be a Christian, why not be gay also?

In fact, Jesus says the most important rule is "Love God and your neighbor as yourself." Looks to me as though loving someone that the bigots say you shouldn't love, is the most Christian of all sins.

Note: For me, an action that harms nobody and nothing, either directly or indirectly, cannot be a sin. There are actions that may fall too close to the line to achieve consensus regarding whether or not they are harmful, but love and sex between consenting adults harms nobody and cannot possibly be regarded as sinful or un-Christian except by narrow-minded people who reject everything Jesus said. I.e., A true Christian would have nothing to say against homosexuality.

A final word: Multiple studies and experience have shown that all attempts to change sexual orientation are absolutely doomed to failure. Trying to change your sexual orientation can lead only to unhappiness. Much better to accept who you are and respect others for who they are. I personally feel that religion is nonsense. But if you are Christian and gay, be aware that there are many Christian denominations that welcome GLBT people as they are and do not regard them as sinners or broken or sick. Find one of these churches rather than letting bigoted preachers bash you for being the person you are.

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OK: stop right there. I don't have time in the moment to scan the many comments between this one and my own, so it may be obvious that I just joined this discussion and I may be repeating something that's already been said. Too bad.

I not only take enormous offense at this statement (I'm an NT), but I can also tell you that a lot of it is just factually WRONG. For me and nearly everyone else in the Unitarian-Universalist church, homosexuality is just one expression of human love and physical attraction. Some of the main principles of our church is that each and every person has inherent worth and dignity and that justice, equity, and compassion should be the basis of human interactions. Acceptance of differences and reliance on your own conscience and intelligence are also biggies.

Years ago, our congregation chose to look closely at the issues and facts of life for non-heterosexual people and asked ourselves, through due process, if we wanted to become what's called a "Welcoming Congregation." It was an easy and almost unanimous decision that, yes, we did want to officially and adamantly announce ourselves to both our local and national communities that people of every sexual orientation were welcome warmly into our congregation and that we joined the larger Unitarian-Universalist Association in advocating for gay rights. I'm proud to say that one of our ministers was photographed by the Washington Post when gay marriage was legalized in VA as she performed a wedding for two women. She represents a lot of us.

Even if I didn't have GLBT friends, I still would have decided long ago that if people are equal, then two consenting adults should have the right to marry regardless of which dangly bits they have. More conservative, fundamentalist churches usually insist on sticking their own literal (and selective) interpretation of the Bible, but not all churches--nor all religions--are as out of touch. There are even individuals in some congregations and denominations who disagree with at least some of what's being taught and said there, but they feel trapped between tradition and modern reality and don't know there are other spiritual communities that would help them to match their practices with their values without feeling like they're defying God or going to hell.

In my honest opinion Homossexuality is wrong in the concept that it is not the way God created it be, but hey at least in my bible He NEVER EVER says about something being more wrong (or more of a sin) than the other.
Homossexuality exists (and I too agree that you are born as a gay) and if you love the other person I can't imagine the God that I believe throwing you away because of that.
Even if you go on the side that believe that it is a sin... God, I don't even know from where do I start... It doesn't matter "how much" of a Christian you are, you will lie or -insert any other stuff that would not be right in Gods point of view- until the day you're dead. I don't believe that anyone on this entire earth (except for Jesus) have lived a life free of sins, even after being converted and turned into a TRUE Christian. Yes, of course once you believe and understand that somethings are wrong you can try to avoid doing them, but it doesn't matter how hard you try eventually it will happen. What I meant through this is to say that there will always have something wrong (I meant, a sin) that I did through my life and the only thing that I can do about it is believe that God is not lying when he says about his love and forgiveness, even in this point of view from people that create this thing of "a sin being worse than the others". The name for this is hypocrisy.
What kind of impresses the most me is that I don't see discussions about liars questioning Gods love for them, or people who get drunk and do stupid things, or people who date 3 persons at the same time, or violent husbands (who sometimes are ironically pastors) and I could go on a lot... Because, well, those things are so common that they are "small" sins right? This ones God forgive, but some others he doesnt...

I'll throw this out there- and I come from a very conservative background.

If as the apostle James says, that if you break one little rule then you've broken the Law in its entirety, then isn't everyone on the same level, i.e. a law breaker?

I also have to wonder if God is so horribly obsessed with sexual morality as we as human beings seem to be?

I know growing up between a VERY old school Catholic mother and a Regular Baptist grandmother that I got the vibe that sexual immorality (basically any sexual expression in which one or both parties enjoyed it and neither were intending to procreate) was the Worst Sin short of capital murder.

I don't think that's what God meant when He gave the gift of sex- to keep us all guilt tripping about it. I think the "morality rules" were put there to protect us against behaviors that may harm us- but the furor about homosexuality or even heterosexual indiscretions has been blown out of proportion.

A short film about Catholic Faith and LGBT ...saw it linked in the National Catholic Reporter

http://ncronline.org/blogs/grace-margin ... -catholics

As a straight man I'd happily kiss Daniel48 for his writing above, well said that man. It's like watching God at work in his writing.

As an agnostic I'd say that the individual's relationship with Divinity is a private thing.

Anyone who thinks that Faith can be discussed should read a book called "Fear and Trembling" first.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Trembling

It's not a weakness for us since humans neither claim to be perfect nor do we claim to know everything. We learn new information all the time. I'll ask again, if something is perfect the way it is right now, how can it change in any way yet remain perfect?

As to your second point, humans don't/can't condem anyone. I'm speaking from the Catholic perspective and the church can't claim officially that anyone has been sent to hell. We believe it exists and that the likelihood that people go there is very high, but we can't claim to know who.

An omnipotent being who exists beyond our reality, should be able to decide what is perfect, and what is not perfect.
This is something both fundamentalist believers and Athiests have brought up to me as a reason for God not being able to exist, and predestination being true. This is ridiculous, if he is in control of the very fabric of reality, he for sure has the power to change his mind and still be perfect. What kind of omnipotent being wouldn't be perfect just because he changed his mind? When we people put boundaries on God and claim to believe in his omnipotence, it is comparable to saying Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier by going for a light stroll. You don't put boundaries on something you believe to be omnipotent.


When a church decides to make something a sin without any way of knowing God agrees, they 'condemn' people to hell. No one but God can decide what is sin and what is not sin.

Amen, GOD breaks silly little CHAINS of humans beings EVERYNOW!..

OK, I suppose the new "edit" limitations haven't changed. That's a shame.

FWIW, I want to say this: In my first post on this thread, I mentioned that the vast majority of Unitarian Universalists have no problem whatsoever with homosexuality--and many, in fact, embrace it as a beautiful element of human and natural diversity. HOWEVER, some people--Christians, non-Christians, and even some of us UUs don't consider any UUs to be Christian in any way at all (we are fabulously diverse and loathe to lock ourselves into one category or tradition), so my specific example might not prove to some people that Christianity and homosexuality can exist--peacefully, I assume--together. Let me add that most UUs don't really care what label people put on us, partially because we believe it's natural and healthy to change, morph, and grow in our spiritual development.

So here's a problem: there are sooooo many futile and sometimes ugly debates and declarations about who, precisely, is a Christian and who isn't, so for some, there's no way to arrive at a definitive answer to the original poster's question. Someone will always come along and say, "I know what the REAL, singular, undeniable definition of 'Christian' is, and [name here] doesn't, so . You're wrong because I say so and I'm right because I say so." You can't get anywhere with folks like that because they'll very likely be equally unyielding to another's interpretation of the Bible, which IMO is basically a jumble of contradictions, translations, re-translations, edits, myths/legends/folk wisdom/folktales and sometimes-cryptic edicts. Those who depend entirely on a literal interpretation of it for their answers to anything and everything will often cling to that resource so tightly that you'll regret having broached the topic at all.

I'm glad to see that most people here aren't mired in that sort of mud.

So explain it. If something is perfect and it changes, it is therefore no longer perfect. If you disagree, explain how this can be possible. For something to change, that requires that the changed state is different from the original state. If the original state is perfect, then by the definition of change, the end result would not be perfect.