Love 'em all, and let God sort 'em out!

I believe marriage between two consenting adults should be a civil right. Gay couples who have committed to spending their lives together, who share their finances and living space, pain and joy, should be entitled to the same benefits and responsibilities as any heterosexual couple. It is not proper for a group of Christians to impose their religious convictions on a secular society. This has nothing to do with whether or not I believe being gay is a sin (a pointed question Rob Bell appears desperate to dodge), and everything to do with the separation of state and kingdom. Creating laws based on "majority Christian" values and imposing those laws on a diverse group of believers, non-believers and other-believers, is a recipe for resentment and division. Enforcing rules will not usher in God's kingdom. We do more harm than good when we treat gay people as less than. We need to love people into the kingdom, not convict them of their sins -that's God's department.

But is being gay a sin? I really wish Jesus had met a homosexual at the well, or given us a parable about this issue, but he didn't, so we are left to consider how Jesus treated other marginalized people. Who were the marginalized people in Jesus' day? Who were looked down upon, considered less than, or morally suspect? The poor, the disabled, women, children, Samaritans, adulterers, tax collectors, criminals... and in every one of these cases Jesus elevated their status. He built them up rather than tearing them down. He was radically inclusive and had harsh words for anyone who sought to dismiss, exclude or destroy God's people -even those who didn't consider themselves one of God's chosen, even those who were considered the worst sinners of his time! Jesus never once addressed the issue of homosexuality, and as such, I am inclined to believe it wasn't a pressing issue for him.

Having said that, I do not believe all sexual orientations/expressions are spiritually healthy. Gay people, like straight people, may be personally convicted about their sexual practices and God will let each and every one of us know what is right if we choose to ask and listen. In the early church eating meat sacrificed to idols was considered an abomination by some, but for others their conscience did not convict them that it was wrong. Even though we clearly read in Acts and in Revelation that it is wrong to eat meat sacrificed to idols, Paul states in Ephesians that those who feel convicted to abstain from meat should not condemn those who are not convicted, who do not struggle with the issue. This may seem like a stretch for some people, but this was a big deal for the early church, and it received much more attention than homosexuality. Culturally, the early church had little to no context for two consenting adults engaging in a committed, exclusive relationship, and following Jesus.

I will admit, I could be wrong about this whole thing, but I don't think I am. Nonetheless, let me be judged as loving too much, including too many people in God's kingdom, than for dismissing, excluding or shaming. Love 'em all, and let God sort 'em out!

LGBT in Light of Reincarnation

Be forewarned, I'm going way out there in this post. My beliefs about sexual orientation are bizarre even among the unorthodox. (Well, at least among unorthodox North American Christians!) My theory is uncommon but not entirely original; there are variations of this thought among those who research and believe in reincarnation.

We find very few clear descriptions of the world to come in the Bible but on one occasion, when the Sadducees present Jesus with a hypothetical situation involving marriage after the resurrection, Jesus shares some surprising information:

"At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven." (Matt 22:30)

Now, I have no idea what the angels in heaven are like in form or character but I'm going to make a few fun guesses. What if there is no marriage in heaven because there are no sexes? What if the angels, and our heavenly bodies, are androgynous? (I am aware that angels showed up as men in the OT but I don't think that is their true form; just one that made for good communication!)

Could homosexuality be an overstatement -i.e. a case of the pendulum swinging too far in the opposite direction as the soul struggles to overcome the male/female polarity? Or perhaps when a soul has incarnated as the same gender for many lifetimes it carries with it a sexual imprint, subconscious memories, making it difficult to identify with their new gender.

I'm not discounting the biological component here: sexual identity/orientation most definitely has a physical component, but what if the soul is the architect, the mind is the builder and the body is the temple? If that is the case then being straight, gay, bi or whatever isn't just an issue of anatomy/physiology, psychology or sociology; it runs even deeper than the typically understood influences of nature and nurture.

The irony here is that it seems I've come to the understanding that at our deepest level of being homosexuality (and all non-heterosexual sexual identity expressions) still 'miss the mark.' True, but I don't believe missing the mark automatically translates as sin. Let me illustrate: suppose two dark-skinned/dark-haired people living in a very hot climate give birth to a child who has considerably lighter skin and hair. From an evolutionary perspective the child has 'missed the mark' because the recessive fair-skinned/fair-haired genes do not offer as much protection from the sun. Likewise, non-heterosexuals are at an evolutionary disadvantage because they are less likely to procreate. From a purely physical perspective this is not ideal. However, from a spiritual viewpoint we can see that the overstatement, or the state of transition from one gender to another, is a necessary experience for the development of that particular soul.

In the end, when the human condition is no longer a necessary lesson, there will be no need to identify as gay or straight, male or female because we will all be reconciled as one. At least, that's what I believe.

My Initial Take on Homosexuality

I think (hope) we can all agree that sexual orientation is not a choice. While we have yet to determine any one cause (I personally doubt there is one), it has been proven that there are definitely biological differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals. For example, studies have been able to prove that in nonhuman mammals sexual differentiation of behaviour is mostly determined by hormone exposure while in utero. It isn't so easy to replicate these studies in humans because subjects need to have their fetal hormone exposure levels measured and then be followed for several decades in order to determine their sexual orientation, however preliminary studies do indicate that lesbians have been exposed to higher levels of male sex hormones while in the womb when compared to straight women.

So, I have to ask, how can gay people be held responsible for "missing the mark" if God created them this way to begin with?

Now I know that the argument a lot of Christians give is that God expects us to "act" a certain way (heterosexual) despite our (homosexual) "feelings". This, in my honest assessment of the situation, is bullshit. God is truth and truth calls on us to look at ourselves honestly; not deny or repress that which He created in us. I think telling a gay person to act straight would be comparable to telling someone with a beautiful voice to sing off-key for the rest of their life. It is uncomfortable, unnatural and unnecesssary. Not only that, but it devalues that which God created. God made gay people gay. He literally knit them together in their mother's womb -all of their biology right down to the last gene and chemical is His doing.

I suppose the flip side to this is the idea that we are no longer created as God intended us to be. That we have inherited sin from Adam and Eve through The Fall. Therefore we are imperfect beings even before we leave our mother's womb. Okay, I don't think I believe that doctrine exactly as it is understood by most Christians today, but following that thought process through, do we tell someone who is born tone-deaf that they shouldn't sing because surely God wouldn't have intended such imperfection and they're offending us with their voice? Or how about people born with birth defects or chronic illness? Do we shun them because they are living evidence of our fallen world? No. We attach no shame or blame. We tell them that God created them this way and we encourage them to accept and love themselves just as they are.

I have many more ideas and questions swimming in my head on this topic. Any thoughts so far?