Hey guys. Got another update for you.
This all happened just yesterday. My dad was looking through the Internet history on the computer in my mom’s ministry office and he found a lot of stuff on there. All the children got confronted for different stuff, but that’s not the important part. The important part is when my dad and I had to have another talk about my visiting gay Christian websites. My dad had told me before that I wasn’t allowed to visit them. I followed it for a while, but then I decided that rule was too stupid for me to follow, so I decided to just read them anyway. Was I justified in doing that? I don’t know, but either way, I still decided to ignore his ban on gay supportive websites. I didn’t really get in trouble for that part actually. He was more concerned about the actual content of the gay Christian websites. He believes quite adamantly that being gay is a sin. But anyway, we had a conversation about it. Which is great! It’s like the doors of communication were burst open. You see, I’d spent the last few weeks avoiding talking to him about this, but we started talking yesterday, so that’s really promising. The conversation actually went pretty well and I would say we are actually talking on a very diplomatic level. It’s going pretty well actually.
Anyway, my dad said that he loves me, but he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. I would say he’s prejudiced. He is making a little bit of progress but he still has a lot of doubts and he seems resistant to listen to people who argue in support of gay Christians. He even threw in a remark about how there were no Pentecostal, Charismatic gay ministers and then I said, “No. Anthony Venn-Brown.” Yes. 🙂 So thank you AVB for all you do.
My dad and my teacher both made the same remark about how I had to open my mind upon to the anti-gay position. I’m naturally open-minded, so they really didn’t have to tell me to do that. I actually do listen and consider what other people say. It’s just that I already know what I believe and I already know why I believe it. I studied this for a long time. I told my dad there is no reason he should be ignorant on gay issues with me as his son because any question he has I can answer or get in contact with someone else who can answer it. If the enemy is ignorance, it’s standing under a massive grand piano.
My dad and my teacher told me to listen to the other side as much as I listen to my own side, which is absolute hypocrisy, because neither of them is actively listening to my side so why should they then expect me to actively listen to them either? I would say it is a fair rule if my dad would follow it up by saying that he would also look up information, but he refuses to do so. Yet, I’m apparently obligated to look up arguments (which I’m already familiar with) in support of his side. Whatever. The amazing thing is that having studied so much, I’ve actually, several times, been able to start with a total blank slate and then come to the conclusion that homosexuality is not sin. It is in fact SO EASY TO DO and so OBVIOUS to me, that I sometimes struggle to understand why other people have difficulty believing it. But I’m not helping anybody by being impatient, so I try my best to help them understand. However, there is a benefit to this. It does help strengthen your beliefs in a way to examine them and in fact, I did come up with some new questions. I’m not really afraid of questions, because I know that a good answer can help your beliefs grow even stronger. So I guess you can say I’m making the best of the situation.
On Sunday night, my dad preached on angels and totally botched the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Before, I would’ve just cowered and privately seethed about it, but I knew that communication was open, so afterwards, at home, I went up to him and I said, “Dad, your interpretation of Sodom and Gomorrah… sucked.” And then I explained to him that since God was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah BEFORE the angels came, the actions of the men after the angels came could not possibly have been the cause of God’s punishment on the city. And then he said, well, it was just one of the sins. And then I said of the approximately 80 times Sodom is mentioned in the Bible never is it mentioned in conjunction with homosexuality. I then said that Sodom and Gomorrah does not condemn homosexuality anymore than Amnon and Tamar or David and Bathsheba would condemn heterosexuality. So yeah, we’ll see what happens in the long run. I’m just glad that I can finally talk and the ironic thing is that it happened after I decided that I wasn’t going to focus on my homosexuality so much. I guess when I stopped obsessing over how I could solve my problems, God kind of stepped in and set that up. 🙂 Thank you guys for all your support and prayers, it’s really helping.
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