For many wives and daughters, the Christian home [and the Christian church] is not always a safe place. And through spiritual and emotional abuse, women who [subordinate themselves to their husbands in all things and] become “the least of these” . . . experience deep wounds that only God can heal. But if living “God’s way” caused this pain [for women], why should they trust Him [Her] to heal it?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n These words could apply just as well to the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d preached within the church in which Matthew Vines was raised. If he had submitted meekly to this \u201cgospel,\u201d then his resistance would have been broken, and he would have completely submitted (\u201cNot my will, but thine be done.\u201d). And while this \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d promises him eternal life in the world to come, his whole existence in this world would be menaced by the incessant fear of God and the reoccurring realization that being gay condemns him to a life devoid of an intimate partner who holds him when he is afraid, who heals him when he is wounded, and who goes with him wherever God might lead.<\/p>\n This is why the personal spiritual journey of Matthew Vines is of critical importance. After his father approved of his six-page summation of his biblical research, Vines took his discoveries and presented them to the elders in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in his home town. He met privately with many of the church members as well. And here is what he discovered:<\/p>\n Despite my best efforts and the support of my family and some of our friends, our broader church community proved unreceptive to my message. Months of grueling, emotionally draining conversations with church leaders and members produced next to nothing in terms of progress. So eventually I left, dejected and depressed, but also determined to make change. Several months later, I found a church in town that was brave enough to offer me a public platform to speak about the issue. . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Notice here that Vines didn\u2019t think that he should stay in the hope of slowly wearing down their resistance. Nor was he tempted to just give in, to acknowledge the superior insights accumulated in his church tradition, and to get on with the task of trying to make peace with the realization that sexual intimacy would never have any sanctioned place in his life.<\/p>\n Matthew Vines identifies a hidden menace that exists within communities that preach \u201csubmission to God\u201d as the necessary condition for the salvation of lesbians. For myself, it was in reading Hillary McFarland\u2019s book, Quivering Daughters<\/strong> (2010), that I realized just exactly what this menace is. McFarland summarizes her thesis in just a few lines:<\/p>\n For many wives and daughters, the Christian home [and the Christian church] is not always a safe place. And through spiritual and emotional abuse, women who [subordinate themselves to their husbands in all things and] become “the least of these” . . . experience deep wounds that only God can heal. But if living “God’s way” caused this pain [for women], why should they trust Him to heal it?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n These words could apply just as well to the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d preached within the church in which Matthew Vines was raised. If he had submitted meekly to this \u201cgospel,\u201d then his resistance would have been broken, and he would have completely submitted (\u201cNot my will, but thine be done.\u201d).\u00a0 And while this \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d promises him eternal life in the world to come, his whole existence in this world would be menaced by the incessant fear of God and the reoccurring realization that being gay condemns him to a life devoid of an intimate partner who holds him when he is afraid, who heals him when he is wounded, and who goes with him wherever God might lead <\/span>.<\/p>\n This is why the personal spiritual journey of Matthew Vines is of critical importance. After his father approved of his six-page summation of his biblical research, Vines took his discoveries and presented them to the elders in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in his home town. He met privately with many of the church members as well. And here is what he discovered:<\/p>\n Notice here that Vines didn\u2019t think that he should stay in the hope of slowly wearing down their resistance. Nor was he tempted to just give in, to acknowledge the superior insights accumulated in his church tradition, and to get on with the task of trying to make peace with the realization that sexual intimacy would never have any sanctioned place in his life.<\/p>\n Matthew Vines\u2019 entire family deciding to leave their church as well. They didn\u2019t do this in anger or in frustration. They did it because they wanted to express, first and foremost, their solidarity with their son or with their brother. They also did this, I would conjecture, because they were increasingly suspicious<\/span>, thanks to the insights of their son, that there might be something drastically mistaken in the traditional Bible interpretations<\/span> and that the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d was indeed destructive to the spiritual and psychological well-being of Matthew. By extension, they might have conjectured that if the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d is poisonous to their son, it would follow, as the night follows the day, that this \u201cgospel\u201d would be toxic to other youths wrestling with their sexual orientation as well. Here is how Vines masterfully expresses this in his own words:<\/p>\n One late night at the end of her sophomore year of college, Jackie sat in her parked car and made a phone call that would forever change the course of her life. An attractive sorority girl with almond eyes and delicate dimples, she was the product of a charmed Boise, Idaho, upbringing: a father who worked in finance, a private\u00ad school education, a pool in the backyard, all the advantages that an upper-middle-class suburban childhood can provide \u2013 along with all the expectations attendant to that privilege.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a standard to meet,\u201d Jackie says. \u201cAnd I had met that standard my whole life.<\/strong> I was a straight-A student, the president of every club, I was in every sport. I remember my first day of college, my parents came with me to register for classes, and they sat down with my adviser and said, \u2018So, what\u2019s the best way to get her into law school?’\u201d<\/p>\n Jackie just followed her parents\u2019 lead understanding implicitly that discipline and structure went hand in hand with her family\u2019s devout Catholic beliefs. She attended Mass three times a week, volunteered as an altar server and was the fourth generation of her family to attend her Catholic school; her grandfather had helped tile the cathedral.<\/p>\n \u201cMy junior year of high school, my parents thought it was weird that I\u2019d never had a boyfriend,\u201d she says, \u201cso I knew I was supposed to get one. And I did. It was all just a rational thought process. None of it was emotionally involved.\u201d<\/p>\n After graduating, Jackie attended nearby University of Idaho, where she rushed a sorority at her parents\u2019 prompting. She chose a triple major of which they approved. \u201cI remember walking out of the sorority house to go to Walmart or something, and I stopped at the door and thought to myself, \u2018Should I tell someone I\u2019m leaving?’\u201d she says. \u201cIt was the first time in my life where I could just go somewhere and be my own person<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, it took the freedom of college for Jackie to even realize who her \u201cown person\u201d was. \u201cGrowing up, I knew that I felt different, but when you grow up Catholic, you don\u2019t really know gay is an option,\u201d she says. \u201cI grew up in a household that said \u2018fag\u2019 a lot<\/strong>. We called people \u2018fags,\u2019 or things were \u2018faggy.’\u201d Her only sex-ed class was taught by a priest, and all she remembers him saying is, \u201c\u2018Don\u2019t masturbate and don\u2019t be gay.\u2019 I didn\u2019t know what those words meant, so I just hoped to God that I wasn\u2019t doing either of them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI honestly thought my whole life I was just going to be an undercover gay,\u201d she says, shaking her head in disbelief.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For better or worse, that plan was never to be. Toward the end of her sophomore year, Jackie got a text message from one of her sorority sisters who said she\u2019d been seen kissing another girl, after which certain sisters started making it clear that they were not comfortable around Jackie. (\u201cYou\u2019re living in the same house together,\u201d she says, \u201cand, of course, to close-minded people, if somebody\u2019s gay, that means you\u2019re automatically interested in all 80 of them.\u201d) Eventually, she went before her chapter\u2019s executive board and became the first sorority girl at her college to ever come out, at which point she realized that if she didn\u2019t tell her parents, someone else would<\/strong>. \u201cI was convinced somebody was going to blast it on Facebook.\u201d<\/p>\n So while Jackie hoped for the best, she knew the call she was making had the potential to not end well. \u201cYou can\u2019t hate me after I say this<\/span>,\u201d she pleaded when, alarmed to be receiving a call in the middle of the night, her mom picked up the phone.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, my God, you\u2019re pregnant\u201d was her mom\u2019s first response, before running through a litany of parental fears. \u201cAre you in jail? Did you get expelled? Are you in trouble? What happened? What did you do?\u201d Suddenly her mom\u2019s silence matched Jackie\u2019s own. \u201cOh, my God,\u201d she murmured in disbelief. \u201cAre you gay?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah,\u201d Jackie forced herself to say.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n After what felt like an eternity, her mom finally responded. \u201cI don\u2019t know what we could have done for God to have given us a fag as a child<\/strong>,\u201d she said before hanging up.<\/p>\n As soon as the line went dead, Jackie began sobbing. Still, she convinced herself that her parents would come around and accept her, despite what they perceived to be her flaw. As planned, she drove to Canada to celebrate her birthday with friends. When her debit card didn\u2019t work on the second day of the trip, she figured it was because she was in another country.<\/p>\n Once back in the States, however, she got a call from her older brother. \u201cHe said, \u2018Mom and Dad don\u2019t want to talk to you, but I\u2019m supposed to tell you what\u2019s going to happen,’\u201d Jackie recalls. \u201cAnd he\u2019s like, \u2018All your [credit] cards are going to be shut off, and Mom and Dad want you to take the car and drop it off at this specific location. Your phone\u2019s going to last for this much longer. They don\u2019t want you coming to the house, and you\u2019re not to contact them. You\u2019re not going to get any money from them. Nothing. And if you don\u2019t return the car, they\u2019re going to report it stolen.\u2019 And I\u2019m just bawling. I hung up on him because I couldn\u2019t handle it.\u201d<\/p>\n Woe to those Catholic households where, despite the best-laid plans for coordinated indoctrination, a child confesses having \u201chomosexual inclinations.\u201d\u00a0 A mother known to me, let us call her Gloria, had a son of seventeen who confessed to such inclinations.\u00a0 Upon hearing this, Gloria passed through many stages of grief.<\/p>\n First, angry denials: \u201cNo child of mine could possibly be gay!\u201d\u00a0 And threats: \u201cRemember your teaching, son.\u00a0 Sexual sins are always mortal.\u00a0 Repent and confess them to a priest or, God forbid, you will go straight to hell.\u201d<\/p>\n Second, there comes bargaining with God: \u201cGod, how could you have permitted this?\u00a0 I have been a faithful believer and have supported your true Church all my life.\u00a0 What must I do to get this unwanted sickness in my child\u2019s life reversed?\u201d<\/p>\n Thirdly, some months down the line after Gloria\u2019s ceaseless prayers and novenas did not get the miracle she wanted, self-doubt emerges: \u201cWhere did I go wrong?\u00a0 Or my husband?\u00a0 Or his teachers?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Then, her son leaves home and travels over a thousand miles away: \u201cFor the first time, I can breathe freely without my mother continually hounding me and prying into every aspect of my private life.\u201d<\/p>\n With her son\u2019s absence, Gloria becomes emotionally fragile.\u00a0 She breaks down in tears multiple times every day and, invariably, whenever anyone asks about her son.\u00a0 She seeks therapy.<\/p>\n Then she unexpectedly finds great solace in a support group of parents of homosexual children.\u00a0 For the first time, she hears from parents who have arrived at the point where they accept the sexual orientation of their children.\u00a0 She is horrified initially, but then she comes to realize that this acceptance enables parents to return to a supportive relationship with their children after a horrible period filled with harsh judgments and heart-breaking estrangement.<\/p>\n As a result of this realization, Gloria begins to avoid her parish priest entirely because she no longer wants to hear \u201cany judgments he might have regarding the conduct of her son.\u201d[i]<\/a>\u00a0 Gloria gradually stops going to her parish church entirely because she cannot tolerate the \u201cself-righteous pity\u201d expressed by certain \u201cbusy-bodies who are praying for Tony\u2019s (not his real name) conversion and return to the Church.\u201d<\/p>\n Tony writes a letter of a few pages each month.\u00a0 At the end of three years, he writes a long letter describing how he met Joe, \u201ca courageous and sensitive young man,\u201d and how, over the course of time, they gradually became great friends.\u00a0 Then Tony describes how they gradually became lovers and how they finally \u201cpledged their undying love to each other.\u201d\u00a0 Then, for the first time in years, Tony acknowledges that he sorely misses his mother and, \u201cif and only if she would agree to accept him as gay and to bless the love he has for Joe\u201d then both of them would want to explore how they might visit for a few days right after Christmas.<\/p>\n Gloria is ecstatic!<\/p>\n At this point, Gloria tells me that she is ready to accept her son \u201cjust as God created him, no more and no less.\u201d\u00a0 This readiness came from her association with members of her parents support group.\u00a0 As she became more and more at ease with their positive assessment of homosexuality, she at the same time became resentful of how the teachings of the Catholic Church had pitted her against her own son.<\/p>\n \u201cEven before his leaving,\u201d she said, \u201cI should have been blessing him every day and assuring him that I will be there for him in whatever path God calls him\u2014whether as a gay or as a straight.\u201d\u00a0 To this very day, she cannot understand how \u201cbishops and priests teach us that loving our Creator and loving our neighbor are the heart of Jesus\u2019 message and then, twisting this beautiful message, they go and teach my son that his deepest desires for intimacy are \u2018disordered\u2019 and that love-making between same-sex partners is always[ii]<\/a> a mortal sin.\u201d\u00a0 In fact, she tells those who sympathetically hear her whole story that \u201cthose parents [in her support group] who seldom went to church taught me more about the depth of God\u2019s love than all those Catholics who went to church every Sunday and firmly believed that Tony was destined for an eternity in hellfire.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [i]<\/a> At this point, Gloria completely distanced herself from the teaching of the Catholic Church regarding homosexuals.\u00a0 In fact, she deeply resents the fact that her parish priest had set her against her son\u2019s homosexuality and against any same-sex union that he might try to make for himself.<\/p>\n [ii]<\/a> While some moral theologians sometimes say that sins against the sixth and ninth commandments deal with \u201cserious matter\u201d and, accordingly, infractions result in a mortal sin.\u00a0 Even in classical moral theology, however, the conditions for committing a mortal sin always require, subjectively, that the person \u201crecognizes the seriousness of the matter and then goes ahead and does it anyway.\u201d\u00a0 In the case of homosexual acts, however, even Cardinal Ratzinger acknowledges that those naturally inclined to such sex acts are less culpable than those heterosexuals who do the same thing while being emotionally repulsed by the act.<\/p>\n Furthermore, when two women use sex to express and celebrate their mutual love, they frequently do not see this as sinful at all.\u00a0 In fact, they often engage in sex because they judge what they are doing as \u201clove-making\u201d and experience their mutual sex as a \u201csource of grace.\u201d\u00a0 Cardinal Ratzinger would intervene here saying that, due to the fact that the procreative aspect of sexuality is missing, there must always be a degree of moral guilt.\u00a0 Such a judgment, however, would follow from Ratzinger\u2019s essentialist thinking and his attempt to define a universal rule used to evaluate heterosexual acts.\u00a0 Furthermore, even in the case of a venial sin, one must judge the action as a minor deviation from what God expects.\u00a0 Something which is regarded as a \u201cvirtuous deed\u201d cannot subjectively be \u201ca sin\u201d at all.\u00a0 Here again Ratzinger\u2019s disordered thoughts on homosexuality bring him to conclusions which conflict with classical moral theology.<\/p>\n I and others will “thank you” for your contribution.\u00a0 If you are tempted to say more, I urge you to hold back.\u00a0 Your sense of safety and the safety of others is best protected by not getting overly wordy in the beginning.\u00a0<\/a> This will come after a few days or weeks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Related Videos and Leave a Reply~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n Related Videos:<\/p>\n ~~~~~~~~~Please remember, if you are an LGBT teen in need of help, the\u00a0<\/em>National Runaway Switchboard<\/em><\/a>\u00a0at\u00a01-800-RUNAWAY can help you.<\/em><\/p>\n [i]<\/a> The story continues at https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.jesus4lesbians.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/comic-God-hates-gays-300x227.jpg\")
Matthew Vines\u2019 entire family deciding to leave their church as well. They didn\u2019t do this in anger or in frustration. They did it because they wanted to express, first and foremost, their solidarity with their son or with their brother. They also did this, I would conjecture, because they were increasingly suspicious, thanks to the insights of their son, that there might be something drastically mistaken in the traditional Bible interpretations and that the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d was indeed destructive The psychological and spiritual harm that falls upon children.<\/p>\nMatthew Vines at risk of a spiritual death<\/h6>\n
Despite my best efforts and the support of my family and some of our friends, our broader church community proved unreceptive to my message. Months of grueling, emotionally draining conversations with church leaders and members produced next to nothing in terms of progress. So eventually I left, dejected and depressed, but also determined to make change. Several months later, I found a church in town that was brave enough to offer me a public platform to speak about the issue. . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Could it be true? Could it really be that this holiest of books, which contains some of the most beautiful writings and inspiring stories known to mankind, along with the unparalleled teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, also happens to require the emotional and spiritual destruction of sexual minorities<\/span>? For any of us who learned to love the Jesus who called the little children to him, whose highest law was that of love, and who was a fierce defender of the downtrodden and the outcast, this simply did not seem possible.
\nThus, the suspicion was that the teachings of Jesus invalidate the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d and that, in the case of homosexuality, false teaching has distorted the biblical texts such that \u201cScripture is used to manipulate. God is used as a weapon.\u201d<\/p>\nPersonal story of a straight-A Catholic college student<\/h6>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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When Jackie got to college, the \u201ctypical gay sorority encounters\u201d she found herself having didn\u2019t seem to qualify as anything more than youthful exploration; she thought all girls drunkenly made out with their best friends. By her sophomore year, she was dating a fraternity brother but was also increasingly turned on by a friend she worked with at the campus women\u2019s center. \u201cI was just playing it off as \u2018So maybe I\u2019m just gay for you \u2013 I mean, I don\u2019t have to tell my boyfriend\u2019 this kind of thing,\u201d she says. \u201cI knew what I wanted, but it was never something I ever envisioned that I could have on a public level<\/strong>.\u201d And yet, as her friendship with this woman turned physical and their relationship grew more serious, Jackie saw her future shrinking before her<\/span>: a heterosexual marriage, children, church and the knowledge that all of it was based on a lie<\/strong>.<\/p>\nFrom that moment, Jackie knew that she was entirely on her own, that she had no home, no money and no family <\/strong>\u2013 and that this was the terrible price she\u2019d pay for being a lesbian.[i]<\/a>
\n![](\"https:\/\/divorcedmoms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/635207444568266402Fotolia_56268032_XS.jpg\")
\nA woefully tragic story that ends well<\/h6>\nThose who want to interact with this blog are invited to “Leave a Reply” below.\u00a0 A solid way to begin doing this is to offer “readback lines.”\u00a0<\/span> To do this, quickly glace back over the entire blog and pick out the one or two lines that have made a deep impression upon you.\u00a0 Copy them [CTRL-C] and then paste them\u00a0[CTRL-V] into an empty comment box below.\u00a0 If you wish, signal the emotion that you feel when reading your readback lines.\u00a0 The primary emotions are anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise.\u00a0\u00a0 No need to further explain yourself.\u00a0 It is enough to identify the text important to you and to name the emotion(s) that it evokes.\u00a0 All of this normally takes less than a few minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n\n
\nculture\/culture-news\/the-forsaken-a-rising-number-of-homeless-gay-teens-are-being-cast-out-by-religious-families-46746\/<\/p>\n