My Friend, I respect your reply as sincere. This response is more clear than your latter: here you don’t just imply that Julian’s choice is sin, but you come right out that it is sin, but he is nonetheless welcome in the church, but the implication here, if not explicit, is that he will not be saved until he acknowledges that he is a woman, acts like it and consistent with it, and confesses his sin. Of course none of that acknowledges his undeniably male self or the inherent conflict, both genetically and bodily.
My Friend, we have had many conversations about religion, and as I understand your position, only a religion that is founded on scripture, as it is found in our current version of the Old and New Testaments is valid. I do think that when Jesus says, I have sheep of other flocks that you do not know, and I must gather them, also, he was talking only of non-Jewish, Christian groups that had not yet formed at that time, if even he referred to them at all.. I do think that God has many whom he loves and receives that do not know or even call on the name of Jesus. Those are people, I think, that Jesus would include in his statement, “By their fruits you will know them.”
I actually had hopes of presenting gay’s, lesbians and trans-sexual in a way that would finally help Christians, both fundamentalist and those not so literal, to accept them as brothers and sisters, loved by God and accepted as they are within the fold of God’s love and blessings. It is now clear to me that there will always be those who will use Holy Scripture to bash, to separate and denegrade people who they are not in a position to judge, but nonetheless judge.
With that, perhaps it is best to acknowledge we will never agree because of irreconcilable differences, but to accept the love such Christians can give to me and the GLBT community, as conditional as it is, not based upon any real love and acceptance, but upon God’s command to love (however one does that given the judgment).
Thank you for going to the trouble to respond in detail. It helps me to know what I am up against in my call for full inclusion of all those who love God and Jesus. I understand and acknowledge the logical persuasiveness of your argument, given your premises. I consider my premises to be as fully founded on God, but they are not so limited. I have no hope of persuading you to these, as you have no basis for hope to persuade me to yours. I don’t know that a fundamentalist view must doom one to eternal damnation, if the fundamentalist can truly love despite the judgment. I choose to believe that whatever that reward is, Jesus’ welcome into eternal reward of those who cared for others, fed them, clothed them, and gave them shelter will include all those who did so, without regard to articulated faith or reasons for doing so: fundamentalists, atheists, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and many faiths that have not been yet articulated.
Love, Rob
Next blog post: 13 My Friend’s Response to Me https://wordpress.com/post/lovejudgenot.wordpress.com/362
Love and Do Not Judge 