KosmoLeo

Thanks everyone for the many good, insightful replies. I know inner change is one of the hardest struggles we face and takes time, I don't expect immediate results, it's part of a growth process. My greatest desire in all this is two things really. One... to leave all this behind once and for all, and two, to not carry hatred in my heart forever, because I know what a poisonous seed it is and how it harms a person from the inside out. I don't have any problem with forgiveness overall, I forgive all the ordinary quite easily, and I don't hate anyone, except that one person mentioned. That's one thing I may be struggling a long time to forgive, though I will continue to pray to The Lord on this. I don't know how I will ever have any capacity to love him, there's still too much anger and vileness I feel towards him over those things he did. But I feel better hearing that it doesn't make me a failure as Christian if I still have this between me and that person. I guess you're never truly a failure until the moment you stop trying. I understand the concept of this being a potential ministry for me but that's a bit much for me. I like helping others, but it seems like it would extremely difficult for me to put myself out there like that. Sharing such personal pain in such a public fashion is a difficult thing for me, which I already know is part of what makes me such a reserved person. But society, ie the 'beautiful people', looks down on people in this situation. Maybe that's what makes sharing these kinds of things so difficult.

Yeah I try hard to love all human beings as my brothers and sisters, do even though I believe homosexuals are living a life of sinful immortality, I wouldn't preach to them or confront them about it. To me in a way it's between them and God, plus, heaven knows I've certainly not lived a perfectly sin free life, most people have not. But it's my understanding from the way I was raised in my faith that the living church and it's congregation and and members are supposed to be the living body of Christ in the world. So it seems like a church may be forgetting that notion if they allow gay individuals to become members of the clergy. In my understanding of things, salvation and accepting Christ as your savior requires giving up sinful practices and lifestyles and living your life each and every day to God's holy commandments, so there's just no justification or legitimate rationalization for thinking one is saved or has a rightful place in the clergy if they are still living a life if homosexuality.

Well this is quite a lot to share for me, as these are things which I never really talk about with people in my personal life, but... I have some terrible experiences from my past that are still with me. My sister and I were from different fathers, neither of whom we were around when we were children, so my mother married another man, a stepfather, and he was very bad to all three of us. He was very abusive in all the usual ways, we lived with him for seven years and that whole time was just like one long nightmare for us, worse yet, because it was like a nightmare you can't wake up from. To give just a small example, he molested my sister a handful of times when she was only eight years old and on one occasion he brutally raped my mother while I sat helplessly in the next room. I feel horrible anger and bitterness every time I remember that event because I wish to God I could have done something to help my mother, and I feel very bad that I couldn't, but he was a very violent man and I was just a small child at the time and was terrified of him as we all three were. And these are just a couple of many, many other terrible experiences we all three suffered at the hands of this awful man during the time we lived with him. So, to this day, every time the memories of this man and the things he put us through resurface in my mind, I still feel furious anger and great hatred of him for all these terrible things he did to us. For me, time has not lessened the intensity of the things I feel against him and the power these awful memories still hold for me. I know that in the Bible Jesus commands us to love even our enemies, and God commands us to forgive others that we ourselves may be forgiven. But I can't deny the things I feel, they are real, and to me they are entirely valid. I can't imagine a human being who could go through all these terrible abuses at those young and impressionable ages and not feel these same kinds of things for the abuser. So I don't know how to even begin letting such a thing go. Plus, after considering it all for a long time, I really feel like even if I could forgive this man for these terrible things he did to us, that would be just the same as me saying the things he did to us are ok with me, and they are not, as long as I live they will never be ok with me. So on the one hand, I feel like to this day my anger and my hatred of this man are still so strong, so intense, that I will probably never be able to forgive him as long as I live, and I also can't even begin to imagine how I could ever feel any love for that awful man whatsoever, like I just hate him too much to even be able to imagine the idea even if I wanted to. Yet on the other hand I know we are commanded as Christians to forgive people who hurt us and love our enemies in order to have God's salvation. So I find myself going back and forth between my terrible hatred and anger for this man, and my very sincere desire to obey Jesus and the Father's commandments for us. And I keep wondering, if it turns out I can never forgive this man and can never love him as long as I live, does that mean I'm a failure as a Christian? This is really a terrible conflict for me that I go through again and again and I don't know how to resolve these things. I don't believe God meant for anybody to live with this kind of heartache, but I just don't know how I could ever forgive or love him when he did such terrible harm to us, especially when he will probably never care even a little bit as long as he lives his sorry, self indulgent excuse for a life.

It's only possible if one denies Christ. I know several.Many are in the Anglican Church.They water down the Bible.They do not think it is wrong.They interpret the passages on homosexuality to satisfy themselves. Believe me I try hard to see and think of all human beings as my brothers and sisters in humanity, in God's family of children, but I have to agree that it seems like hypocrisy to believe and claim that one has accepted Christ as their savior and is 'saved' while still living as a homosexual, completely in contradiction to God's holy commandments. It seems to me you can say all day and night you've accepted Christ as your savior and you believe you are saved, but if you're still openly living a life of sin or immorality, you may just be fooling yourself.

I would say the moment of George W. Bush's swearing in when he put his hand on a Freemason's Bible, am I the only one here who thinks that's offensive...?

I kind of struggle with this issue too. I know that Jesus commands us to love all people, even our enemies, and that it says in the Bible, 'judge not least you be judged yourself. ' But I know it also says very explicitly, 'a man shall not lay with a man, nor a woman with a woman. ' So I don't understand how homosexuality can, at any level, be accepted by the church, and especially for example, how it's possible to have homosexual and lesbian priests and ministers when it seems eminently clear that God has explicitly forbidden homosexuality as being immoral under divine law. Doesn't the church require persons wanting to be members of the clergy and wear the holy cloth to uphold, be an example of, and live by all of God's commandments...?

I always took it to mean the universe, since to me it's a given that God is the supreme creator of the entire universe and everything in it.