The Alpha Course and homophobia

[user1469485133]

Hi,

My friend has just started going to The Alpha Course and asked if I wanted to go along one Sunday. She's Romanian and was raised in religion but basically broke away.
I'm openly lesbian and not religious, and have read about Alpha. What I've read has left me not feeling good towards the general jist of the course.
To be honest, I'm worried about her and am concerned that our relationship/friendship will change. As far as I can see, The Alpha Course is homophobic.
It's possible that my friend has explored the idea of being attracted to women, although she dates men.

I'd like to know others experience of this - especially those in the LGBT arena.

Thanks!

Did your parents not create you when they had sex?

Think speaking to God (if there is one) directly is wise. Cut out the middle man. I'm a lapsed catholic (in northern Ireland). The chapels are now a third full at best, yet just over two decades ago they were jam packed. The abuse of power of the monsters who once ran the church has done enormous damage to it. Nowadays people wouldn't tolerate all that guilt nonsense. For the most part today's catholic priests are a million times better, but I fear the damage has been done. The archbishop of Canterbury doing nothing about a paedophile shows these churches still have a way to go to in behaving properly. Some will never behave properly such as the Mormon, Jehovah and Seventh Day Adventist cults, and those mega churches (mainly US) are another con job as are those prosperity preachers with their learjets funded by vulnerable parishioners.

The Puritans (contenders for the most persecuting members of a cult that ever existed, certainly in the western world) killed homosexuals and publicly flogged those who had sex before marriage. They also hung Quakers, probably the one religious sect that has largely been moral.

The English to their credit had the good sense to declare all Puritan influenced laws null and void in 1660 when their reign of terror ended (having banned everything in sight, including Christmas, theatre, dancing while holding hands, public entertainers, football on sunday, drinking (and toasting to each other), books) etc etc. The Puritan influence in America however has lasted much much longer, which is why prohibition (no drinking) occured there and not in England (even today you have to be over 21 to drink there), as well as it taking until the late 19th century for Christmas to become a recognised holiday there. "Banned in Boston", a moniker for censorious Boston that lasted up to the mid 20th century, was also a lasting Puritan influence. They also still have 12 states who have homosexuality as being illegal in their legislation (the backward, right wing bigoted red states (in yellow) in the diagram below), having only ended their sodomy law nationally in 2003. Career wise Bowie said it was a mistake declaring himself bisexual in "puritanical America", whereas he had no issue in Europe where his career was unaffected. Queen were effectively thrown out when Freddie Mercury started wearing a moustache (they threw razor blades at him on stage as they objected to a "gay rock star"). Their race laws also invoked religion, for example miscegenation law (no interracial marraige which only ended in 1967) as it was sinful for the white race to sully themselves by mixing with non white people (Mormons in their origin documents said non whites were the result of the "curse of ham"). This extreme form of religion has done so much damage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SodomylawsintheUnitedStates

You’ve made a huge leap from some people accepting that a religion may not condone homosexuality to actually being homophobic. Most Christians believe all have sinned . Does that make them humanophobic? That’s sort of my point: people need to be accepting of each other.

Hm well maybe some of the more extreme versions are pretty 'humanophobic'! But it's the unequal weight given to different sorts of 'sin' as well as what's considered 'sinful' that's the problem here. The more fundamentalists sects bear down harder on gay people and women than straight men. For instance, the branch involved in the Iwerne camps which were explicitly cultivating the next generation of evangelical CofE leaders were and are intolerant of homosexuality but were happy to physically abuse boys and cover it up (the beatings were a feature, not a bug BTW)

Yes, condemning practising homosexuality while engaged in the sexually sadistic abuse of young boys is hypocrisy of the most gross kind. I include in that hypocrisy those who were aware of the allegations and covered it up/did nothing.

They can accept each other but there comes a time when bad behaviour needs to be called out - it's the morally right thing to do.

Homophobia is one of those times and most people who reject homosexuality slide fast into homophobia ime. Jesmond Parish Chuch comes to mind.

https://theconversation.com/stop-calling-it-a-choice-biological-factors-drive-homosexuality-122764

This is in the design.

Or do you think it is some kind of design flaw?

Why should people suffer due to a design flaw that is not their choice or determination?

"you can feel free to disagree with that, but it’s an opinion that is as valid as yours is."

What makes you the arbiter of what is valid?
One is a belief system.
What I've linked is scientific fact/evidence.
Why is the belief system as valid as scientific fact?

An Australian Prime Minister or equivalent once joked "thank goodness we got the criminals and America got the Puritans".

Sorry OP, but the Alpha course, and actually a lot of christian behaviour is homophobic. I'm an ex-christian and remember visitors to our church standing up and asking us, in desperate tones, to pray that their son would change from his sinful homosexual ways. My first thought was that I'd definitely be praying for their son, but to be free of their judgement and expectations and not to change his sexuality! Some christians definitely are much more loving and believe that god loves all of us, regardless of sexuality, but only time will tell which variety your friend turns out to be after exposure to that course.

Millions of people across the earth do not agree that gay relationships are healthy for the people involved in them or for the wider society

the op seems closed minded, intolerant and incapable of accepting that not everyone has the same values and beliefs as she does. FFS

The irony.
Except it's not values and beliefs that those millions of people are close minded about, intolerant of, and incapable of accepting ..... it's biological fact.

My mind is also boggled by the "millions of people across the earth" thing.

And what?!

Millions of people believing something doesn't make it valid, or true.

Millions of people across the earth believe things and do things that are fundamentally immoral, unfair etc.

In the past (and in some cases even now) millions of people across the earth believed that slavery was natural & acceptable, that some races were "sub human", that they were justified/entitled in colonising other nations and taking their resources. Millions of people thought (and still think) that depriving women of votes, education, property, bodily autonomy etc was correct.
Millions of people in the buildup to and during world war 2, thought persecuting, depriving of human rights and annihilating ethnic groups was correct. I could go on ...
This includes Christians in Christian nations.

What does millions of people believing something at any time signify?

NOTHING.

Millions of people voted for Trump!!!!!

In case you haven't noticed, humans are not infallible, quite the opposite.

Sounds like a cult.

You can't make generalised statements like that about the whole of Christianity. It is really offensive.

@Calliopespa - the post before mine said:

"Your friend can have views that don’t align with yours op.

I think it’s really important that as a society we develop genuine acceptance of different stances."

In the context of this thread, and the question and concerns the OP had raised, this can only mean that the OP would have to accept her friend thinking being gay is wrong, because we all have different views. That's not remotely the same as suggesting some religious people think all people have sinned and it's totally disingenuous to suggest that it's the same.

If you look up the definition of cult then most religions have at least some aspects - that's just stating reality.

I'm not. I'm talking about this alpha thing.
It's funny you jumped to the conclusion I was talking about Christianity though.
As a Christian myself, even I recognise all religion had elements of cultism. However, the danger lies mostly these days from small break away groups within certain religions that go extreme. This alpha thing sounds like it has potential to have you all sitting around in a circle drinking from plastic cups. Just saying.

I know Nicky G personally and would love to know the source of that quote as I would really question the validity of it.

https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/oct/21/weekend7.weekend

Alpha was quite common in the christian groupsI used to be part of, but always found Mr Gumbel quite creepy!

You could try an inclusive church. There’s a list by area here:
https://www.inclusive-church.org
My son and his partner go to one in Brighton and they are welcoming of everyone. His Church of England church are happy to bless same sex relationships.

To me it seems like so many of the Old Testament rules of Christianity are about reinforcing the social and economic structures of a herding, semi-nomadic society in which it was essential for inheritance (animals, goods) to be smoothly passed from father to son.

No adultery - because otherwise men don’t know who a child’s father is and how can they ensure that their inheritance is being passed to the right person?

No homosexuality - if men are using their sexual energy with each other they may have less enthusiasm for procreation with their wife, or be tempted to leave their assets to their boyfriend, thereby creating disruption, rather than keep inheritance inside the family structure.

Why do people today pay so much attention to the rules and writings of a society that is thousands of years in the past?