nebula Posted February 9, 2013 Group: Royal Member Followers: 10 Topic Count: 5,823 Topics Per Day: 0.76 Content Count: 45,870 Content Per Day: 5.96 Reputation: 1,897 Days Won: 83 Joined: 03/22/2003 Status: Offline Birthday: 11/19/1970 Share Posted February 9, 2013 My Train Wreck Conversion As a leftist lesbian professor, I despised Christians. Then I somehow became one. Rosaria Champagne Butterfield [ posted 2/7/2013 9:26AM ] <snip> As a professor of English and women's studies, on the track to becoming a tenured radical, I cared about morality, justice, and compassion. Fervent for the worldviews of Freud, Hegel, Marx, and Darwin, I strove to stand with the disempowered. I valued morality. And I probably could have stomached Jesus and his band of warriors if it weren't for how other cultural forces buttressed the Christian Right. Pat Robertson's quip from the 1992 Republican National Convention pushed me over the edge: "Feminism," he sneered, "encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians." Indeed. The surround sound of Christian dogma comingling with Republican politics demanded my attention. <snip> . . . I launched my first attack on the unholy trinity of Jesus, Republican politics, and patriarchy, in the form of an article in the local newspaper about Promise Keepers. It was 1997. I was a broken mess. I did not want to lose everything that I loved. But the voice of God sang a sanguine love song in the rubble of my world. The article generated many rejoinders, so many that I kept a Xerox box on each side of my desk: one for hate mail, one for fan mail. But one letter I received defied my filing system. It was from the pastor of the Syracuse Reformed Presbyterian Church. It was a kind and inquiring letter. Ken Smith encouraged me to explore the kind of questions I admire: How did you arrive at your interpretations? How do you know you are right? Do you believe in God? Ken didn't argue with my article; rather, he asked me to defend the presuppositions that undergirded it. <snip> [Ken] did not mock. He engaged. So when his letter invited me to get together for dinner, I accepted. My motives at the time were straightforward: Surely this will be good for my research. Something else happened. Ken and his wife, Floy, and I became friends. They entered my world. They met my friends. We did book exchanges. We talked openly about sexuality and politics. They did not act as if such conversations were polluting them. They did not treat me like a blank slate. When we ate together, Ken prayed in a way I had never heard before. His prayers were intimate. Vulnerable. He repented of his sin in front of me. He thanked God for all things. Ken's God was holy and firm, yet full of mercy. And because Ken and Floy did not invite me to church, I knew it was safe to be friends. I started reading the Bible. . . . <snip> But God's promises rolled in like sets of waves into my world. One Lord's Day, Ken preached on John 7:17: "If anyone wills to do [God's] will, he shall know concerning the doctrine" (NKJV). This verse exposed the quicksand in which my feet were stuck. I was a thinker. I was paid to read books and write about them. I expected that in all areas of life, understanding came before obedience. And I wanted God to show me, on my terms, why homosexuality was a sin. I wanted to be the judge, not one being judged. But the verse promised understanding after obedience. I wrestled with the question: Did I really want to understand homosexuality from God's point of view, or did I just want to argue with him? I prayed that night that God would give me the willingness to obey before I understood. I prayed long into the unfolding of day. When I looked in the mirror, I looked the same. But when I looked into my heart through the lens of the Bible, I wondered, Am I a lesbian, or has this all been a case of mistaken identity? If Jesus could split the world asunder, divide marrow from soul, could he make my true identity prevail? Who am I? Who will God have me to be? . . . Read the full testimony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jayyycuuup Posted February 9, 2013 Group: Diamond Member Followers: 3 Topic Count: 68 Topics Per Day: 0.02 Content Count: 1,384 Content Per Day: 0.37 Reputation: 155 Days Won: 1 Joined: 01/20/2014 Status: Offline Birthday: 02/22/1996 Share Posted February 9, 2013 Wow. . .powerful and am hooked, God is beyond words can provide! Please excuse me as I read the full testimony. I must add that this is great to read, especially on how to witness to certain individuals, a dose of love can go a long way <3 Love to you and thank you for sharing! Praise the LORD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 10, 2013 Share Posted February 10, 2013 Hallelujah~! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joi Posted February 10, 2013 Group: Royal Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 506 Topics Per Day: 0.11 Content Count: 1,922 Content Per Day: 0.41 Reputation: 173 Days Won: 4 Joined: 06/12/2011 Status: Offline Share Posted February 10, 2013 God is SO GOOD! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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