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.

But God does love them @pointythings as He does all people. Being unmarried i.e. celibate is given as the ideal way to live a holy life. Jesus said, "..there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” Denying 'the flesh' is repeatedly emphasised throughout the New Testament. Galatians 5:16 is a good example - So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.

Being gay isn't a "cross to bear"!

I'm absolutely gobsmacked that you say you're bisexual. How does that work, considering all you've said here?

there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.

is from a translation of the bible which speaks volumes; but it may or may not be true to the original, which distinctly implies that self-mutilation rather than celibacy may be what is being suggested. Self-mutilation has at one time and another been advocated using that verse as an instruction from Jesus; generally the sects encouraging this, like the ones which deny sex altogether, only last a generation or so, but they have certainly existed.

There is quite a difference between the words "choose to live like eunuchs" and the words "eunuchs who have made themselves so", would you not agree?

I've always been attracted to both sexes but haven't been involved romantically with my own.

Phone not allowing me to tag you JayJay.

Nope, still not buying it. Your God creates people who are sexual beings and then tells them not to have sex. It's actually worse, him saying that if you're straight, you're allowed to have sex but it makes you lesser than someone who chooses celibacy. Sorry, but that's all kinds of twisted. I'm atheist, but religion wise I'm with the pagans, who accept people the way they are made by nature.

It seems to me that religion is all about controlling people's sexuality. Imagine how much good religious people could do if they took their minds out of people's sex lives and put all that energy into dealing with poverty, inequality and disease?

How have you managed to stop yourself? Or has the opportunity simply never arose?

@Bogstandards I understand that's a deeply personal question, but one I would say is appropriate considering the context here.

No problem JayJay, it hasn't been easy - I know the struggles of wrestling against desires more than most. I see an attractive woman but choose to not to act on that desire. I would say I'm actually more physically attracted to women than men, but more interested in having a relationship with men. Having only 'come out' to a handful of people, most wouldn't realise. I understand it's easier for me though, having options.

Imagine how much good religious people could do if they took their minds out of people's sex lives and put all that energy into dealing with poverty, inequality and disease?

We do try to do that too! @pointythings.

What if you didn't have options and you were only attracted to the same sex? How would that look for you?

I've thought about it a lot and come to the conclusion I would most likely stay single.

I think that is very, very, very easy for you to say. And - if I'm honest - entirely unbelievable. To resign yourself to a life devoid of love, likely devoid of children, devoid of happiness, devoid of company, devoid of true happiness? Very few people would have the willpower to truly live that way, with or without the comfort of faith.

People do do that though. Some gay Christians. Although I don’t know how many manage it long term,

for me that’s the crux here as that is so so incredibly sad. To deny oneself romantic love and sexual connection, because of a doctrine based on such a questionable foundation as the infallibility or errancy of the bible and a belief that that is God’s will for you.
its tragic.

It's not an easy route I grant you. However, monks, nuns and priests (traditionally) choose to live like this to be closer to God. I personally know someone (not clergy) who has chosen such a life for the same reasons. They are certainly not lacking in love or happiness and having children comes with its own problems.

Taken from 1 Corinthians 7 -

...“It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”

...I wish that all of you were as I am.

...Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do.

...Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them.

...those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this.

...I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife—and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.

Paul is saying here that Christians (gay or not) without a husband or wife, are free to focus on a relationship with God and to follow Him with 'undivided devotion'. To the Christian this life is but a flash in the pan - our focus should be the eternal home, when all suffering will end.

That Paul really was a sad little incel who hated women. The misogyny in that verse is sickening.

FWIW I live a celibate life. I am a widow, I have zero interest in dating and I am very happy. But I don't think that makes me superior or closer to any God.

I’m a lapsed Catholic and I am not denying the appalling enduring misogyny in the Church but to call St Paul “a sad little incel” when he is the man who described love so beautifully as “patient, kind and not arrogant or boastful or rude” and as something which is greater than faith or hope, is to miss the point entirely! If anything he is agreeing with you I reckon Pointy!

Paul and Jesus were not the same person. Paul was not God. Paul was a man who thought he knew better than everyone else, but had not as far as we know actually ever communicated with Jesus, whose followers he had been in the business of persecuting. Quoting his letters to other people as if they were the Word Of God is

actually, words fail me.

It sometimes seems to me as if a lot of people who purport to be Christians are in fact Paulians.

Yes. The man was a total wanker.

Actually, I'd suggest that rather than a wanker, he was quite possibly a proselytising asexual.

I'd suggest too that he undoubtedly thought he was the mouthpiece of Jesus in some obscure way, and was charismatic enough to convince a lot of people that he was (I have a deep mistrust of charismatic men: they tend to be a menace, like many magnetic speakers of last and this century, and beneath their rhetoric there is often either little substance or something nasty). But he had the gift of the gab, for sure; small portions of his letters are very poetic in translation.

It really is tragic. And even though there are some Christians that do it, they shouldn't have to do it, you know? It's barbaric, denying people a happy existence just because others have convinced them that having a loving, healthy, consensual relationship with someone of the same sex is a sin. It upsets me so much.

But how do you know he's happy? Maybe he spends every night crying about what he could have had. Maybe he secretly despises himself. You can't know with certainty that he is a happy person.

Also, the quotes you have shared surely mean heterosexual people shouldn't get married either??

@Bogstandards
"...Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them."

This surely applies to gay people, too, then? The Lord has "assigned" them as homosexuals, so to be a good Christian they should absolutely be acting upon the way they were made!

And meanwhile, justice is the business of God, and judging people is the business of God, and Christ is definitely reported as having been pretty opposed to people taking it upon themselves to judge others.

Matthew 7:1-5
1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

I think a great deal less of the congregation of the OP's church for thinking it is their business to judge the OP's daughter, because their thinking so is in direct contravention of what was said as instruction by the person they hold to be the Son of God and their church's one foundation.

I'm afraid that argument has no foundation.

It's a woman who's single and while I don't know all the ins and outs, she seems perfectly content. Like I said, nobody's life is perfect, we all have emotional burdens - just look at the MN relationship board!

The quotes above, plus what Jesus said about marriage, yes - the message is that those who can stay single, should.

Why does that argument have no foundation?

It's embarrassing to admit that a lot of this thread has gone way over my head. There's been lots I've wanted to say but haven't, either because I'm embarrassed about displaying my stupidity, or because I just haven't understood some of the content. Particularly around biblical quotes. So my questions come from a genuine point of interest in the views of others. Whilst some stuff I have understood in this thread has appalled and upset me (from lots of posters, not just yourself), what I do appreciate is your level-headed responses, even if I don't agree and/or fully understand.