By DebbieLynne Kespert, The Outspoken Tulip: Discipling Women For Discernment Through Doctrine, Why I Can’t be Convinced, June 6, 2023
Recently I had an amiable conversation with a non-Christian on the topic of homosexuality. We clearly disagreed, which surprised neither of us, but we parted on good terms and met a few days later having no awkwardness.
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She asked me a question that I’ve thought about several times since our discussion. I didn’t give her a full response at the time (and I’m not even sure it would have furthered the discussion if I had), but in pondering the situation, I determined that her question needed to be addressed among Christians.
She wanted to know how she could convince me that her position on homosexuality is right.
My short answer had merit, actually — I simply said that she couldn’t. In a way nothing more needed to be said. As a non-Christian, she wouldn’t have accepted that I stand on the Bible as my reason for viewing homosexuality as a sin. Years ago, when I cited the authority of Scripture as the reason for another position I held, she dismissed my convictions by saying, “Well — I don’t believe the Bible.” It didn’t matter to her if I believed the Bible, apparently. She just wanted it made clear that she rejected its authority.
And that’s fine. I don’t expect any non-Christian to accept Scripture as God’s Word. Only the Holy Spirit can show someone that He speaks through the Bible. All I can do is pray that He will open her eyes to the fact that the Bible indeed has the authority to say what is and isn’t sin.
Those of us who are Christians, however, need to be sure that Scripture is our bottom-line reason for any position we take. As I said, the world won’t accept the Bible as a valid authority, but we know that no higher authority exists. For that reason, we must base everything we believe on God’s Word, confident that the Bible accurately reflects His perspective.
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Admittedly, some arguments for homosexuality, women’s rights, abortion and cohabitation seem powerfully compelling, They can really tug at your heartstrings and make you feel guilty for standing firmly on Biblical convictions. I’ve also experienced that false guilt.
But as Christians, we don’t have to let the world’s emotional manipulation bully us into compromise. Rather, we can rest assured that God has spoken and that we can trust His judgments over the judgments of the world. We’ll become increasingly unpopular, to be sure. but we’ll be planted on the solid rock of Christ’s words.
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So I can’t be convinced to change my stance on homosexuality because I’ve based my stance firmly on what God says in His Word. Unless someone convinces me that I can’t trust the Bible, I can’t be convinced to abandon my position.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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That’s a very straightforward argument that the lady articulates, but it’s also based on a false premise, namely that any text of the nature of the bible should be regarded as authoritative. Indeed, she says herself that she experiences moments of guilt and regret over her position, but then commits intellectual suicide by allowing her irrational and absolute reliance on the authority of a text to override her ability to reason. The difference between her and a decent secular person isn’t that the secular person isn’t fully aware of the texts on which she relies, it’s that the secular person doesn’t regard any text as being an authority, they are informative only. The secular person, in this way, attains a vastly superior moral base as they have taken into account many different influences in determining their moral position, not being limited to what is, let’s face it, male dominated writings of a primitive people many hundreds of years ago.
I might say that I would distinguish actual laws, based on legislation, common law, precedence etc, which do hold authority over us all. These are very specific forms of authority which we accept as parts of the rules of the society of which we are members. They can be changed as circumstances dictate and we all have, to a greater or lesser extent, a say in the creation of these laws.
I’ll write this as if I am replying to DebbieLynne Kespert.
“She wanted to know how she could convince me that her position on homosexuality is right.
My short answer had merit, actually — I simply said that she couldn’t. In a way nothing more needed to be said.”
You say that you see the Bible as authoritative. In the Bible, I see that Jesus said “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” And he gave this high priority, so it should be more important than anything the Bible says about homosexuality.
Your LGB neighbor is still your neighbor. As a follower of Jesus, you should love your LGB neighbor.
“As a non-Christian, she wouldn’t have accepted that I stand on the Bible as my reason for viewing homosexuality as a sin.”
If you view homosexuality as sin, then you should avoid homosexual practices in your life.
Jesus clearly said “Judge not, that ye be not judge.” It isn’t up to you to decide that your LGB neighbor is sinning. It is up to you to love your LGB neighbor, and to leave the judgement to God.
As you can see, this is really very simple. And yet so many Christians seem to have it wrong.
And, for the record, no I am not a Christian. I was a Christian at one time. I dropped out of Christianity, because I could see that most people who claimed to be Christian were failing the test that Jesus gave them. Jesus clearly said “Ye shall know them by their fruits.”
Steven Weinberg — ‘With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil – that takes religion.’
no holy spirit, just an ignorant and biggotted woman who tries to make excuses for her hate.
That story is a very good illustration of what is happening in this country: On the whole, it’s becoming less religious, but the very religious are doubling down on their beliefs as all evidence erodes their foundation.
And whatever they have to do, intellectually and emotionally, to hold on to said beliefs causes them to see non-believers—and LGBTQ people and feminists—as enemies or, at least, “others.”
All the commenter so far have made excellent points. I am probably not going to change a conservative Christian’s stance on LGBTQ issues. I can perhaps appeal to them to be kinder in their dealings with LGBTQ people, but I don’t know of they will agree that Jesus wants them to love their neighbor.
Now if I’m in the mood I drop a comment on posts from people in my past who are throwing out ANTI-LGBTQ memes. Last night someone posted something about a festival serving Bud Light and having drag performances as being “family-friendly”. Their post was meant to be sarcastic, but I commented as if I thought they were serious and asked if it was located in TN so I coukd recommend it to my daughter living in TN because we are LGBTQ allies with many friends, family members, and coworkers who are part of the LGBTQ community. All she responded was “no it isn’t in TN”. I don’t know what she thought of my comment but she deleted the post. Maybe she didn’t want her freshening she has a “friend” with a rainbow ribbon on her profile pic declaring she’s an ally and asking to go to the very event being derided. 😄
Satan is the author of confusion.
Jesus Christ is the truth. He suffered and died and rose again to give eternal life and forgiveness of sins to all who trust and accept him.
Skyler Stroud is one of many who came to Christ and came out of homosexuality.
His testimony can be found on google and Facebook.
Satan is a fictional character, ML, until empirically demonstrated.
If there ever was a Jesus, he died about 2000 years ago. If the Romans did actually execute him, he’s probably just a bunch of disarticulated bones in a mass grave in the vicinity of modern-day Jerusalem.
Resurrection? Arrant mythic nonsense. Eternal life? Almost certainly impossible. Forgiveness? Does not require someone’s death.
And why should we bother with someone who denied his own sexuality to worship some imaginary undead rabbi? Guy’s got issues.
She didn’t include everything…Lev:20:13 says the penalty for homosexuals is death. Is she willing to go that far? Thus saith the lord, and all that.
Wow. There’s really nowhere to go from there. If she’s determined to believe that the Bible is God’s last word on sin–and she fears that she’ll go to hell if she doesn’t believe and act on it–she’s completely boxed in. I wonder how she justifies only paying attention to parts of the Bible, though. Does she eat shrimp? Wear jewelry? Cover her head and stay silent in church? If the Bible is accepted as God’s actual word (not that I believe that), there are a great many paths to sin. Does she avoid all of them?
I really have no problem with someone having a religious belief that determines how they live their life, as long as that belief applies only to them and the others in their sect. So if they dislike gay people. Trans people. Non binary people, or whomever then fine, they can go on and live life as they please and avoid whatever they define as sin.
But, when they start trying to put their belief on me or anyone else that does not fit their particular interpretation of their particular religious text, then we have a problem. They do not need to try to change me through prayer or talk or social pressure or laws. They just need to leave me out of their fantasy world and go on with their life.
I am more than willing to coexist with Christians but for some reason they can’t coexist with me and constantly want to change me. Then when I tell them to sod off and leave me alone, they get upset and claim they are persecuted and I am trying to force my views on society.
I would love to be able to live my life without hearing from Christians or their lackeys. But they just can’t practice their faith with others like them, they have make extra effort to confront anyone they see as sinful.
They need to focus on their own lives instead of focusing on other peoples lives. I suspect their god would agree that they should take care of their own issues instead of telling others how to live.