A reminder to everyone involved in this discussion please read through the posting guidelines 9 http://www.freedom2b.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3015 ) and if your communication has not been aligned with these could you please edit your post and adjust future posts accordingly.

thank you.

Keeping F2B a safe, respectful and welcoming place for all is paramount. that includes non-believers and believers agnostics, atheists, spiritual whatever.

Just over the past few years I have started to see the bible very differently, and at this point in my journey I tend to see the bible in the same way as Brian McLaren – an ancient book of incredible spiritual value for us – and I am very comfortable with that. For me, reading the bible and trying to understand it from the midrash tradition in which it was written has made things so much clearer, and I no longer find all the texts as overwhelming. I have struggled with the bible in terms of the contradictions – you just have to look at the different account in the gosples about Jesus’s birth for one – but having read about the midrash tradition of story telling it is no longer a stumbling block for me. For me the bible is a book that attempts to tell a story about a God and a man that words really fall far short of telling. History tells us how we have misused the bible’s words to do very awful things to our fellow mankind, and continue to do so. Do conservative christians care what the bible really says? Probably not – but I think that is because they are totally convinced that they have the true insight into interpreting what the bible is teaching – and if we are honest it is not a failing that ony conservative christians share. If our reading of the bible enriches us and those with whom we share it, then for me that is of God. If our reading and sharing of the bible diminishes anyone, then it is not of God. I think the biggest stumbling block for me was the way I was taught to interpret the bible – it is an ancient jewish text written in a midrash story telling tradition – and when read without those boundaries it was confusing and full of contradictions that didn’t sit right with me. I have started to re-read the texts in that tradition, and I feel more connected to the bible than I have in a long, long time.

For the most part i did what i was told as a christian, although i did have many lecturers in bible college fear their lectures when they knew i was in the class (their admissions to me at the end of each semester) lol, cos i tended to ask and challenge difficult/hairy issues. I did this in sincere curiousity not as a smart so and so. Once i came ‘out’ it was like i had permission to challenge much of the doctrine i had accepted reluctantly. When the christian schools that i worked for asked me to resign earlier this year i firstly was quite upset about it, but then after a couple of weeks i found it to be the best thing that could have happened to me because it allowed me the chance to start my search all over again without any ties to my past associations. My connections to the christian culture had been severed, as if on purpose. This may sound weird but i know what i mean lol.

Now, without fear of being struck with a thunder bolt or by a bus i feel free to question many things and search for answers but i am also free for the first time in my life to not worry if i get the answer immediately or not. In fact, i have accepted there are many things i may never find the answers for. and it is great. (if you knew me you would realise how big this is lol)

For me, do conservative christians care what the bible really says, well perhaps some do and perhaps some don’t – the thing is they are human as we are. people faithfully served God but did not see in the scriptures that the earth was not flat, others served God faithfully to the best of their ability but persecuted and even killed those that baptised others in full immersion, and similar ridicule and disdain for those experiencing pentecost etc etc etc. Others amongst them only used religion for their own gain. Nothing is different today, there are the sincere and the not so sincere. For me – i endeavour to live in healthy integrity, slipping every now and then in one form or another but trying always to be sincere in what i know/feel. At this point in my life i have one christian friend, who knows i am gay, who does not hate me. He loves me but works tirelessly to get me ‘back’ into the fold. He believes i am not going to heaven etc but at least he does not hate me. He is sincere, and polite in it all, Some of my friends have voiced less then pleasant views about him and his intentions. Perhaps they are correct but for me – i can not turn away from someone who is sincere, regardless of their beliefs. I have told him he can dish out the scriptures to me as long as i can do the same with him. Hence some interesting future conversations will be had. LOL.

Dedicated to Freedom 2B

My risk of the night: a poem I wrote about Sodom in the year I came out as a gay man – 2004. Factual or not, it was my conclusion after reading widely on the subject. It may be interesting for some readers. Raw and as yet unpublished.

Sodom Myth

ancient Sodom

evil city

condemned

destroyed by God

a ruined land

home of sodomy

homosexual

man on man

provoking God’s wrath

contrived myth

Lot hid strangers

secret angels

God’s destroyers

waiting to act

fait accompli

Sodom men

surrounded Lot’s house

demanded to ‘know’

to interrogate

his guests

our translations say

they wanted sex

with the strangers

(the angels)

a questionable claim

943 times

the Old Testament

recites ‘to know’

just ten times

it describes sex

Ezekiel called Sodom

arrogant, overfed

neglectful of the poor

self-focussed, wicked

not gay

ancient Hebrew, Greek

and Aramaic texts

had no word

for homosexual

no evidence

yet Sodom gave

its name to men

emitting semen

for reasons more

than procreation

adultery

fornication

masturbation

marital pleasure

all acts of sodomy

thirteenth century

Albertus Magnus

named homosexual acts

the gravest sexual sin

vilest sodomy

new enemy of grace

reason and nature

Magnus moved attention

to gay hostility

rewriting history

a natural expression

throughout the ages

homosexuality

survived misunderstanding

and oppression

in Symposium

Plato represented

sexual orientation

as an objective

inborn trait

emperors, heroes

popes and kings

stand among the gay

in countless

generations

in myth Zeus carried off

young Ganymede

to heaven

Edward II of England

loved the exiled Gaveston

Israel’s David king elect

proclaimed the love

of Jonathan

more wonderful

than that of women

in medieval times

mankind repressed

sought to eradicate

the ill of men

with men

year AD 1533

Henrician statute

wielded rigid laws

banned gay relations

severe punishments

in recent decades

Wolfenden Committee

raids on Stonewall Inn

challenged laws

and time reformed

wise nation states

today embrace

gays, lesbians

as rightful

citizens

while churches cling

to sodomy

as evidence

of God’s

hostility

yet local law reform

steps back

protecting marriage

from assault

gay unions die

and still the myth

lives in our land

gay is unnatural

queer and straight

don’t yet unite

for me the very phrase ‘conservative christian’ denotes so much thinking for me

the original existence/creation of the christian was everything but conservatie

yet the very nature of humans over the centuries has not changed.

at every opportunity leadership (not all but many) find ways to control their parish/congretation/neighbouthood/community/society.

They blast emotional, spiritual and mental blackmail at people to keep them in line.

The issue of homosexuality is one of many situations where leadership has cast its own agenda.

Perhaps, unfortunately, I have come to a point where I currently don’t give a beeeeeeeep about what the conservative say. And for me with my past experience I include many denominations and their leaders into that category. I may sound too harsh but for me as soon as a church creates an order of service worship of the Living God no longer exists in the way it was meant. So i see many many many churches as conservative.