Sad our church turned its back on dd

[TeenLifeMum]

Dd has been to church all her life. At one point we moved to a different church that suited us more but we made lovely friends etc and dd was attending youth group until she was 15. Suddenly she was less keen but focusing on GCSEs so we didn’t push it. With clubs etc for the other dc, regular attendance dropped a bit but we were fairly relaxed.

I believe in god but have always had issues with “the church”, but put that aside to be with people of faith.

I recently learned why dd stopped going to youth - they did a full session on how they should pray for gay people in the hope of healing them. How they are so angry about people loving each other is beyond me.

dd is gay. Her girlfriend is loving, kind, polite, and caring. I want all my dc to have loving healthy relationships so have no issue and naively thought others wouldn’t care. Turns out they do. Two of her closest friends stepped away due to her being gay (parents we’d met through church) and now she understandably doesn’t want to go to church, and neither do I.

I’m angry. I hope they’re really proud of themselves from their high horses. On the off chance they’re on here - no, you’re not good Christians.

Thanks for humouring my rant.

However, at a time when it seemed reasonable to a society going through a bad time to believe in literally deciding someone was a scapegoat, transferring all the local sin to him symbolically, and then driving him out of town and stoning him to death so the sin would all die with him, it would make perfect sense.

This was a Greek practice rather than a Jewish one, but the idea is definitely there back then in a way it isn't now (or at least, nothing like so much).

(I'd be a lot happier about Christianity if it hadn't quite so obviously nicked ideas from eg Mithraism, or the Corn King, or other "sacrificed for the good of the people" religions.)

See my previous points about secondary matters and core beliefs. Some differences in interpretation is inevitable but to erase, replace or add to the obvious stuff is plain heresy.

Would you like to give some examples of what you see as contradictions? I'm happy to discuss these with you.

"You stole my watch so I kicked my kitten. We're now even. You're welcome."

I see what you did there @HowardTJMoon but Yahweh is not Zeus.

You're right. Zeus is portrayed as capricious, self-centred and unreasonable. The god of the Bible is supposed to be just and the source of all morality.

Yet not even Zeus would come up with something as philosophically incoherent as the sacrifice of Jesus.

Jeff Goldblum was great and his portrayal of Zeus in Kaos made me so grateful we haven't got a messed up family ruling over us! 🙏

@DuBoo On the subject of original sin and whether or not babies go to heaven

https://www.youtube.com/live/d9l0nbqjKHg?si=hIvOVaC9NzMLAHv8

Mike also does a follow up video if you're left with more questions. Hope it helps.

I’m not clicking that link, or watching the video.

I grew up in the church,

went to faith school for 13 years (listen to speaking in tongues in assembly and faith healing at break time),

was taught science by creationists

went to church multiple times a week,

went to Sunday school and choir,

went to church youth group,

was confirmed (against my wishes at the time).

was informed about my assured damnation,

I know what I need to.

@DuBoo it seems our childhoods were similar! Every item on your tick list also applies to me, except no speaking in tongues/faith healing, and I was baptised (by immersion! the ONLY divinely approved way!) with my own consent, insofar as a primary-school-aged child can be said to consent. I also learnt entire books of the Bible off by heart.

In my experience, fundamentalists aren't open to reconsidering their views. I note that I received a very predictable response from Bogstandards when I asked why we should follow some of the teachings in 1 Corinthians but not all:
The [passages] you highlighted were merely guidelines from Paul to a specific church with specific problems rather than a moral commandment from God.

Oh, to be a fundamentalist and know for certain which passages are 'merely guidelines to a specific church', and which are 'a moral commandment from God'! Because the whole of 1 Corinthians is a letter addressed to a specific church at Corinth at a specific time in history. And it's not like the 'guidelines to a specific church' and the 'moral commandments from God' are in different fonts or anything! Ha.

It all boils down to, 'My interpretation is correct because I say it is.'

This wouldn't necessarily be a problem if fundamentalists didn't go round trying to impose their own arbitrary interpretation of divine truth on other people.

On a happier note, (this is utterly outing but I don't care), I went to evensong last weekend in the Cambridge college chapel where I was married many years ago as a university student, and where I hadn't been for a long time. The dean who led the service was the same person who performed our marriage ceremony. He is someone who is utterly welcoming of people of all sexual identities, which is the only reason I felt comfortable getting married in that chapel in the first place, when I was a young woman still traumatised by a a history of physical abuse and a burden of evangelical guilt. Sitting in the pews letting the music wash over me and listening to the dean pray for peace in the world was very healing. The chapel welcomes people of all faiths and none. There were some Muslim women in attendance as well. To me, it was religion at its best. Perhaps it was less about religion than about spirituality.

@DuBoo I'm saddened to hear of your bad experiences, it must be really tough for you.

I can understand how watching the video might be triggering, but I also think it's important to address the issue you brought up earlier in the thread.

Here's a summary of the main points. The conclusion he drew (which I'm in full agreement with) is that babies/young children go to straight to Heaven when they die:

They're not morally aware therefore they're not morally accountable.

There are specific examples of them not deserving judgement even when their parents do.

The reasons for people being judged, that we read about in Romans and Revelation, do not apply to babies/kids who have no knowledge of good and evil and no actions that are morally culpable.

King David's response to losing his son seems to strongly support a view that saved parents will have fellowship with their kids in the future, in Heaven, if they are in Christ.

Without good reason to invent a new location, other than Heaven or Hell for them to be, Heaven seems to be their likely destination.

God's desire to have all saved is consistent with the Salvation of infants. So if you have any question about it, you should lean towards them being saved, given God's heart.

God will restore all of creation, which has suffered unwilling because of the fall. I think it's consistent, if you have uncertainties about babies, to apply that to them too.

@Bogstandards if babies/kids are not culpable and have no knowledge of good or evil why would a loving Jesus murder them as per our previous discussion (Revelation 2)

Haven't been on here for a long time...oh dear, so you all turned it to a thread bashing the christians for believing what their holy book teaches? - well, you are all wrong. We will believe what the book teaches. Bashing or not.

Noy all Christians are homoohobic as described in the OP.

You mean not all gays are phobic to Bible believing Christians who upheld traditional sexual morality also

Because if people claim they have love, it has to come mutually both ways: if we love their heart and want them saved, no matter what we think of their sexuality, they in turn have to love us and want us being free in believing and practicing our religion in freedom, according to what the Bible teaches. Correct? - Correct.

Only correct if you have the arrogance to think that your way of being a Christian is the only correct one... None of you Biblical literalists appear capable of any humility. You should of course be free to practice your religion in the way you want to - but you should have the humility to accept the possibility that your way might not be the 'correct' way.

We are entering here higher moral ground where petty games of who does not like me - I am not liking them in return won't do. Especially for a mother who went to church - what do you think you will find in a church? God and Bible worshipping people with traditional marriage views

So to come and expect putting all kinds of sexualities in the mix, when all you need to do is to open the Bible and educate yourself on its content, is honestly, just being wilfully blind and ignorant - why? All mumsnetters seem to pretend to want to look very intelligent, articulate and so on. But nobody has picked up the book and done their homework.

No one has to love anyone.

WTF are you talking about?

You won't dare having a honest conversation with Bible verses, lady, because you are simply not interested in it. It is like the people who wrote Cold mountain.

The Bible prohibits many things. A lot of which modern Christians are entirely comfortable with creatively interpreting in convenient ways, cherry-picking, outright ignoring, and/or claiming that those bits were "best before 1CE".

It's always instructive to see which bits of the Bible a given Christian upholds and which bits they don't. Eg, how many Christians are righteous in their rejection of gay people (something Jesus said not one recorded word about) but are quite happy to ignore the instruction to keep the Sabbath holy which is part of the Ten Commandments despite Jesus saying that if you love him you must keep his Commandments.

Funny that, isn't it?

There are many churches which are not Biblical literalists and which are inclusive. OP and her DD could definitely find one.

By the way, which version of the Bible do you advocate?

How sad that you lose your manners the moment you are gently challenged.

@Ifoughthefight you’re missing the point.
we all understand that some Christians hold the views they hold about homosexuality because of the bible, what we’ve having is what I consider an interesting debate about whether the bible is actually clear on it, whether the bible can and should be taken literally given its history, how it came to be, myriad translations, and what some (including me) perceive to be multiple inconsistencies and contradictions, and whether the “logic” some Christian use to explain their view of homosexuality is flawed given the stance of the church on other things and that it seems to be a strange hyper focus for the church when it’s not a hyper focus for the bible.