Читать книгу For We Know in Part - Robert Henrikson - Страница 20

Table of Contents

Homosexual is a word we think we understand. It conjures up the most wicked behavior we can imagine and we never associate this word with decency or morality. It would take quite a stretch of our imagination to make that jump in reason. But what if centuries of misuse have programmed us to resist the idea that homo-naturality could mean anything other than what we believe it to be?

My son is gay. He knows from Leviticus that the romantic feelings he has are reflective of behavior that book condemns. But in this country of over 314 million people he can’t quite understand how his orientation is any threat to his nation’s identity and preservation.

My son knows from Romans that it is a sin to use his sexuality purely for his own satisfaction, to exploit weakness in others, or to elevate his desires to the level of making them more important than God. He understands that these prohibitions are not obsolete and he tries to live his life controlling their impulse and minimizing their effect.

We have taught our son that it is not a sin to lift people up, to care for them when they hurt, to help end their loneliness, or to express affection for them in a committed romantic way. Gay people are capable of agape love too. They always have been, but they’ve never been as able as they are today to come out of the shadows to prove it. Society has always insisted on seeing people like my son, who is not perverse and idolatrous, as if he is. Is this just?

If the word ‘unnatural’ is intended to include those who don’t misuse their sexuality along with those who do, it is a word far too wide. It is like the word ‘cowardly’ in Revelations 21:8 [NIV] that states that cowardly people will be assigned to the “fiery lake of burning sulphur.” In this text ‘cowardly’ probably refers to those people who choose to give up their faith because of the hardships of believing (ridicule, ostracism, persecution, torture, and execution). I’m sure you’ll agree that the word ‘cowardly’ in this text never was meant to include those who suffer emotional panic due to psychological trauma (afraid of deep water, flying in an airplane, or standing in high places), or those who are reasonably afraid of disease, tornados, burglars, murderers, rapists, and terrorists.

To say that the word ‘cowardly’ [in Revelations 21:8] refers to all people who are afraid in any circumstance would be the same as to say the words ‘abomination’ or ‘unnatural’ refers to every gay and lesbian. It is a gross misinterpretation of scripture. If the people of Bible times even had an understanding of homo-naturality as we do today, Romans 1 would speak only to those gays and lesbians who used their orientation to abandon their faith and to profane the worship of their creator with idolatry.