Crisis Brewing on Evangelicals and Scared Gay by Straight Girl

The Train is coming and the question is would it stop at the evangelicals station that believe in equality and don’t have a problem from their faith and human and civil rights or would it skip the station again and a place in history for backing civil rights.  The consequences would be that younger people would not see or believe them. The Catholics, Mormons and others already have seen that.
Those American Christians know the history of the country and the church, not because they learnt it from the mouth of politicians and news anchor people but from the real history of civil and human rights in this country. They know that their church have opposed equal rights for blacks at the time believing they had a mandate to keep with “Slaves, you obey your masters.” New Testament preaching which admonishes the church to keep the women in the back and without speaking. They have overcome those scriptures and many have ordained many not just women pastors but women in the higher posts on some evangelical denominations (on some not all). The church missed the train on those issues, would it do it again?

Can we learn from me? The doctrine:

Many Evangelicals have also abandoned corporate punishment on their children, again corporate punishment being a central issue on both the new and old testaments. Not only is corporate punishment essential in the bible that it goes beyond lashings to stoning people to death to damnation for eternity. You can find  women not obeying their husbands and not being faithful to their husbands would get a stone to death punishment.  It is no small thing that Evangelicals are so steadfast in keeping to the old harsh ideas of the bible because their culture starts with blood, blood of the lamb to eternal damnation to those who do not accept the lamb(Christ), I think that is harsh enough. They don’t think too much about older children and adults who never had a chance to become converts because of their geographical location. Also they don’t do much to combine the human factor of those who die of accidents on their way to be converts or those who did not have the mental capabilities to accept and convert in an all hearty way. The rule is you most repent and accept Jesus Christ. A simple and straight forward doctrine. No excuses!

Depending who you ask in the church, you will get different answers about most things but not about the repenting and accepting part. This is engrained in their minds as soon as they step in the church even as a visitor. I was lucky to have had one particular teacher while I was studying  in a (non affiliated) protestant seminary who tried to keep us all with an open mind about things. The others were too old to have open minds about anything but the doctrine. I however was young enough to accept everything she was putting fourth even if I didn’t understand. 
 I trusted her.  

Seminary days. Learning church doctrine:

I was what she would have wanted out of her son. As a teacher when it came to those points which people can’t explain with a straight honest face, she would sometimes cry and break into prayer but would not give us an answer on those things you can’t explain about the bible. She would many times give you what the church believed but you knew she was just giving you an opinion. 

I often wondered and could not truly understand her hesitation in teaching doctrine that was in question. She was very hesitant to teach the wrong doctrine with fear that what we in turn, the future pastors and hierarchy of the church would preach and past on to others.

13-16yrs and already becoming an expert in the doctrine but questioning me:

 I was very young but it came the time when I had to question “all” my believes in everything due to my  evolving knowledge about sexuality (particularly mine) and understanding that I did not belong in the church but also learn that my government, not the government of some far away place, was telling me I had no civil rights and in some cases no human rights. These were dark days for me turning 19, something that no teenager should be force to go thru. I understand so well why many decide to check out when they encounter the fact that the only way to live a so called normal life was to lie your way through to marriage and through marriage until you die.  That’s the way it was. That’s the way some decide to live even today.

Scared gay by a girl:

I had the opportunity to get close to engagement which is something I thought I wanted until a girl mentioned marriage. Then I panicked! The thought crossed my mind that I could never be faithful to this girl (actually 2 girls in different occasions). I understood very well then what was expected of me in the straight-closeted world.  At the same time to make the matters worse, my pastor had already a small church for me in his district. I had been comfortable being a sunday school teacher for many years since I was very young.  I  also was learning english, going to Jr High, sunday school teacher and spent three nights after school on the Seminary and Saturdays all day). 

How I found the time  to do all these things I don’t know. I was third honor when I graduated the Seminary at 16 but was expected to be the first and I could have been. Since I was so young and had gone to bat with the adults, pastors of other churches but needed the Diploma there were plans for me.

The church wanted me to be a Pastor and my seminary to my surprise made me a teacher. Never had the opportunity to teach there which I found such a big honor and something I wanted to do. I was in a ticking clock to find something about me and was going to run when I did.  I severed all connections to everyone in the church.  I was ashamed on one side and committed to be me on the other.

 School suffered a lot once I hit High School(no time for homework, since I had other homework’s and exam at the Seminary) Having the opportunity to teach guys in my church my age and sometimes younger made feel important and with a saying in these young lives. I had no problem quoting the church doctrine in homosexuals. What my students didn’t know was that I was reteaching it to myself because I did not believe it but had to swallow it. I knew that repetition was very important to learning things we were expected to learn, that was the cornerstone of the Lord’s prayer and other prayers, so If I said it enough times in particular to other people it would stick in me.

My heart aches for young guys in place even today. I am happier that its easier today, so many times easier but for kids that are very close to very religious families, they still face the choice of running away or worse. I just talked to a young guy of around 13 going thru that experience.  He was tying to come out to his mother but she would not accept it and would dismiss it with the usual excuses; It’s only a face that he would outgrow or worse demmonds that need exorcising. Imagine the hurt and damage. I told this young guy to stay put, to save money and wait like I did until turning 18 if he could and then to move out. I told him that when he moves out the relationship with him mom might actually improve but to stay put and wait to have the money and the age to be independent. In other words it will get better just wait and keep being honest of who you are even without the acceptance. 

Crisis in the Church:

JONATHAN RAUCH at the nydailynews.com today had a very accurate article on the crisis inside the Church;  Particularly due to the Supreme Court decision and having many of their young members recently coming out.

                                                                                 

"Evangelicals stand alone in their strong opposition to gay marriage in particular and to homosexuality more broadly. Most American Catholics support gay marriage. So do most mainline Protestants. Pope Francis, while not revising doctrine, is dramatically softening the church’s tone on homosexuality. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has done the same, helping to pass a breakthrough anti-discrimination law in Utah.

Evangelicals stand apart. Seventy percent of them oppose gay marriage. Theirs are the theology and culture that most fiercely resist bending what they regard as the Bible’s unambiguous and unalterable condemnation of homosexuality.

Quietly, however, and beneath the public surface, a crisis is brewing among evangelicals. Sooner or later, it will forge a new entente between them and gay America.

I base that observation only partly on polls. Low as it is, support for same-sex marriage has doubled among evangelicals over the past 10 years, and that trend is largely driven by movement among younger evangelicals toward greater acceptance of homosexuality. These young people do not believe God’s word has changed, but they disagree with their elders who disproportionately prioritized anti-gay rhetoric and doctrine.

But there is more to the story. In a major red-state city a few months ago, I talked for several hours with a dozen or so predominantly young evangelical pastors. And in Washington, D.C., this spring, I attended a private dinner with a group that included several prominent evangelical figures. In both meetings, the tone was candid and sometimes emotional.

I learned that, to a far greater extent than is visible from the national media, many evangelicals are in a state of agonized reflection over homosexuality and gay rights. This is partly because they see they have lost the argument and worry that they will soon be cultural strangers in their own land.

But if being an embattled minority were the whole problem, they could cope with it. Something deeper is troubling them. Nowadays, all their congregations include openly gay members.

This is something new in the evangelical world. Where an older generation simply did not tolerate homosexuality, younger pastors understand Jesus’ message as inclusive. Citing, for example, John 4, where Jesus pointedly ministers to a woman who lives in adultery and is a member of a pariah group, these younger pastors will not close their doors or hearts to gay people seeking God’s love.

But what can they say to them, if not “Get out”? One young pastor related being approached by a gay congregant who wanted to form a committed relationship with the man he loved. What, I asked, did you say? “I wished I could tell him: Go and be happy.” Instead, constrained by the Bible, he had to say he could not approve. From the pastor’s agonized tone, it was clear his head and heart were at odds.

A number of pastors say their churches are urging and sometimes helping gay congregants to be celibate. While less harsh than kicking gays out, this compromise position is untenable. Why would God create gay people for a life without sexual intimacy and loving companionship?

That question, I believe, poses the fundamental problem that nags the evangelical conscience. Younger evangelicals increasingly accept that gay people cannot change who we are. Yet the Bible, as they read it, provides no morally positive place for gay people to be gay.

This corrosive contradiction sets up what psychologists call cognitive dissonance, a conflict between core beliefs. Eventually, cognitive dissonance brings crisis and then some new equilibrium.

To date, only a trickle of evangelical churches have embraced same-sex marriage, and I won’t venture to predict that a majority will do so soon. I believe it’s only a question of time, however, and probably not a very long time, before evangelicals follow Catholics and Mormons in putting homosexuality and gay marriage on the back burner. Where homosexuality is concerned, American evangelicalism is on a collision course with itself.”

 Adam Gonzalez, Publisher

Rauch is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of “Gay Marriage: Why It is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America.”