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.

I'm sorry your dd (and you indirectly) had this experience. I'm Christian and this is a part of the church I have a problem with. This is deeply harmful behavior and should be called out.

I'd explore other churches in your area or maybe outside of your area? I go to a really inclusive church. They even have a choir for lgbt parishioners so they have a safe space to worship together.

@OneQuickHam Just realised I answered a different poster earlier (please see above).

@Lavender14 Without outing yourself, what denomination are you?

Disagree if it makes you feel better about yourself, but if campaigning against rights for gay people isn't homophobic I'm not sure what is.

What, so you can decide whether she's a Real Christian or not?

So don’t marry someone of your own sex? It’s not difficult. Gay Christians will be coming to terms with their understanding of Christianity in their own way.

The two most committed Catholics I know are a married lesbian couple who actually met at Mass when one was a minister of the Eucharist and one a minister of the word. And as well as being married in a civil ceremony, they were married in a full Catholic marriage ceremony by a progressive Catholic priest on his way to a west African diocese, hence not under any particular bishop. It’s not clear to me why you would actually want to be in a religion which by definition finds you exercising your God-given sexuality an abomination, but that’s not my decision. They’ve very devout, and bringing up their daughter both in the faith and respecting people’s sexuality.

I wasn't aware the Catholic church conducted gay marriages @Nannerli

So don’t marry someone of your own sex? It’s not difficult.

You're completely missing the point.

What, so you can decide whether she's a Real Christian or not?

No, I'm interested in their reasoning from a Christian perspective.

You might think I'm just being mean @OneQuickHam but even Jesus said that in the end there'll be those who thought they were Christians but who actually did not follow Christ at all:

“Not everyone who calls me Lord will enter God’s kingdom. The only people who will enter are those who do what my Father in heaven wants. On that last Day many will call me Lord. They will say, ‘Lord, Lord, by the power of your name we spoke for God. And by your name we forced out demons and did many miracles.’ Then I will tell those people clearly, ‘Get away from me, you people who do wrong. I never knew you.’ Matthew 7:21-23.

That's not for me to judge - only God knows a person's heart. It is our duty, however, to call out false teaching and use discernment to avoid being deceived and to prevent others being led astray.

Edit: I meant to tag you in the other post.

The Catholic Church doesn’t. But an actual Catholic priest did.

Ok, so not quite the same thing then.

Does it ever occur to you that passage from Matthew 7 might relate to you?

Or in the words of Oliver Cromwell, "I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you might be mistaken." (The Scottish Assembly were absolutely sure they were Godly, too.)

You can believe that you're following Jesus's teachings but that doesn't make you're not "mean" for self-righteously declaring others nobtrue Christians (although I'd use something a wee bit stronger than mean personally).

Of course it would never occur to them that they might be wrong. 😅

.Sigh.

It is certainly the case that people who were totally sure of their own godly righteousness have, over the centuries, done some utterly horrible things in the name of the Christ they sincerely and devoutly believed they were following.

The Holy Inquisition, and the behaviour of the Witch-Finder General, both found their justification in the Bible. As do those today who beat epileptic children and starve them to death in order to "throw out the Devil" from them.

And yet these unprintable unrepeatables are as sure of the proper religious nature of their behaviour as any homophobe who wants to forbid homosexuals from a relationship with Christ or a normal human life complete with the expression of sexuality.

Forgive my naivety, but the Bible is quite explicit about its stance on homosexuality. Are churches teaching contrary to what the Bible says?

Plenty of them are, fortunately. Not every religious organisation follows a set in stone Bronze Age novel.

Yeah... Certainly the CofE doesn't. I have yet to hear of any CofE church refusing admittance to a usurer, for example. Such people are often members in good standing of various congregations .

But, then, I'm wondering if that's still Christianity if they don't believe in the inerrancy of the word of God?

Which bit: women not plaiting their hair, perhaps?

I thought we were talking about homosexuality?

You were talking about the inerrancy of the bible; I ask which bits of it you mean. There is something in there for all occasions if you are just prepared to look, and it's not always internally consistent.

Who defines what Christianity is? Every branch of it thinks it's the One True Faith. And nobody actually knows which branch is. You are talking about Biblical literalism - which is only one strand of Christianity among others, so how do you know it is the correct one? You don't - you just believe it is. Ultimately it's all belief and nothing more. I include my belief that there is no God in that.

I would assume a Christian can't pick and choose which parts of the Bible to believe. It's either God's word or not, which we believe is of utmost importance. Concerning the Old Testament laws, to my limited understanding, Christ fulfilled the Law, and then Old Testament laws aren't required to be followed, yet Homosexuality is also quite clearly described in the New Testament as a sin, and those who practise it won't inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.

I am just somewhat surprised that despite this, many of the posts on this thread are entirely contrary to the Bible..perhaps I am sheltered; while I knew LGBT is a vast and growing movement, I was unaware of how prevalent it was within Christianity.

The Bible is a book written by people, for people, in order to further the political agenda of its time. It's been redacted, translated, had bits included and excluded until nobody knows what the original would have looked like. Which is why people love to use it to justify man's inhumanity to man.