Lgbtq christians
What Does the Bible Say About Homosexuality?
What Does The Bible State About Homosexuality?
Introduction
For the last two decades, Pew Investigate Center has reported that one of the most enduring ethical issues across Christian traditions is sexual diversity. For many Christians, one of the most frequently first-asked questions on this topic is, “What does the Bible state about attraction to someone of the same sex?”
Although its unlikely that the biblical authors had any notion of sexual orientation (for example, the word homosexual wasn't even coined until the late 19th century) for many people of faith, the Bible is looked to for timeless guidance on what it means to honor God with our lives; and this most certainly includes our sexuality.
Before we can jump into how it is that Christians can maintain the authority of the Bible and also affirm sexual diversity, it might be helpful if we started with a brief but clear overview of some of the assumptions informing many Christian approaches to understanding the Bible.
What is the Bible?
For Christians to whom the Bible is God’s very written word, it is widely understood that God produced its contents through inspired
Is it REALLY ok to be LGBTQ? A stare behind and beyond the “clobber passage”
There’s a call for what’s happening here: proof texting.
Theopodia defines proof texting as “the way by which a person appeals to a biblical text to prove or justify a theological position without regard for the context of the passage they are citing.”
If you hear someone say “the Bible says…” run in the other direction. The Bible says lots of things!
Here a rare things the Bible says:
That the Earth was covered in water when created until God formed territory (Genesis 1:9) but also that the Earth was completely dry until God brought streams up and watered the planet (Genesis 2:5-6).
That God created animals first and then humans (Genesis 1) but also that God created Adam first, then animals, then Eve (Genesis 2).
That’s right, the Bible contradicts itself in the first two chapters!
“The Bible says” in Exodus and Deuteronomy that if a woman is raped her rapist must either marry her or pay her father (because he’s “damaged” the father’s “property”).
Paul says in 1 Thessalonians that Jesus will return in his have lifetime (4:15-17).
So what does the Bible say?
The Bib
Kai found Jesus as a teenager. A person of white and Hawaiian descent, Kai now goes by gender-neutral pronouns and identifies as “māhū,” the traditional Hawaiian term for someone in-between masculine and feminine. But when they first became Christian, the high-schooler identified as gay – and was committed to celibacy.
Kai – a pseudonym to protect their privacy – embraced their church’s “welcoming but not affirming” teachings about LGBTQ+ people, agreeing that same-sex connection was incompatible with creature Christian. It felt fine to be sacrificing for the Lord, Kai recalls. But they eventually realized they were harming themself.
“I found myself unconsciously shutting down connection,” Kai told us. “Inside, I was crumbling in every moment because I was so fervently policing myself.”
Kai believed – and their church taught – that God’s own love is a gift, freely given. Nevertheless, they still felt that to be worthy of that love, Kai had to “surrender” their orientation and need for heartfelt connection, even with friends.
“It took me a elongated time to be capable to look back on that and say, ‘Those were days when I hated myself,’” Kai said. “I hated myself for the sake of demonstrat
Amid hatred from some Christians, LGBTQ event is a engagement to the “radically inclusive” Gospel of Christ
Jesus taught that his disciples would be recognizable by the fruit that they bear (Mt. 7:16). Later, the Apostle Paul lists the “fruit of the Spirit” as love, joy, calm, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23). These are the virtues that followers of Jesus Christ are intended to bear as they seek to inhabit their lives in step with the Holy Spirit.
Yet, if you were to ask an LGBTQ person to portray the average interaction they’ve had with a Christian, you’d be hard pressed to hear any of those fruits of the Spirit named. In fact, you’d more than likely listento the exact other side.
Christians, by and large, are acknowledged for their hatred, anger, disgust, demonization, prejudice, bias and condemnation of homosexual people rather than for any of the fruits of the Spirit. This is evidence that such anti-LGBTQ convictions and attitudes are not coming from God.
Since coming out eight years ago, I’ve experienced the “bad fruit” of Christian bigotry firsthand nearly every single week. Today, as an openly gay Christian p
LGBTQ people raised Christian announce more minority stressors, similar health to those who were not
A new learn by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law and Utah Articulate University finds that among LGBTQ people who were raised Christian, those who are older, Black, cisgender men, and/or live in the South are more likely to continue to identify as Christian as adults.
LGBTQ people who were never Christian reported coming out to family and friends at younger ages than those who were raised Christian. More people who stayed Christian had a history of conversion therapy than those who left Christianity or who were never Christian.
Using numbers from the nationally agent Generations and TransPop studies, researchers examined Christian religious identification and de-identification among LGBTQ adults and how it correlates with psychological distress in adulthood.
Almost two-thirds of LGBTQ people who were raised Christian no longer identify as Christian. Results show that LGBTQ people who left Christianity were bullied in childhood more frequently than people who stayed Christian. People who identified as Christian as adults reported more internalized homophobia/transpho