[Dad_Scaper]

Wriggz, the world is full of well-intentioned people who are wrong. Indeed, I believe that most people who are wrong are well-intended, and have some sort of internal logic compelling them in some misguided direction.

I will do what I can to help them, one at a time, if I must.

edit:

Well, I searched and I searched and I finally found it. Many of you remember mad_wookiee, who at one time was a frequent poster and whose contributions - particularly to the maps we bring to tournaments - are as great as virtually anyone on this site. He's also as nice a guy as you could hope to meet, though I haven't seen him in far too long.

Anyway. In a similar thread, this was his contribution:

Originally Posted by mad_wookiee

Man, I can't believe I'm about to step into this. To my knowledge, I've never discussed my religious beliefs on this site and I certainly don't intend to make a habit of doing so in the future - but I'm making an exception, just this once, because I think this statement, right here, needs a response. And I guess I'm as qualified as anyone to say what I'm going to say, or at least, I have a paper hanging on my wall from a seminary that says I put in enough hours of study to earn the right to say what I'm going to say.

Look, I know what you're getting at here. And in some sense you're right in that there is a fundamental statement that Christianity makes vis-a-vis other theologies or religions or what have you, and yes, there are some fundamental statements about right and wrong that aren't negotiable. But I'm going to say that, when you look at the big rocks, the things that Christian scripture repeatedly burns a lot of ink on, this isn't one of them. The statements that you think are so black and white are really not all that black and white, and there are a great many folks who hold to the Christian faith that would say that you're out of line here. I'm one of them. I would counsel you to do more reading about this from people who know Greek and Hebrew, and do some reading about the first century ancient Near East culture, and try to understand the context before you decide this is one that you should go to the mat for. Because I don't think, at the end of the day, it really is.

Here's the ugly secret of American conservative Christianity: it's a theological approach that's based on fear. And my New Testament tells me a lot of things about fear, none of them particularly complimentary. I don't know what it is about this particular topic that makes certain segments of American Christianity so rabidly fearful, but I'm strongly concerned that what's getting lost in the shuffle is that you would likely claim to be about grace, but you're talking law here, and I think you need to consider whether that's an approach you're comfortable with. Please bear in mind that the New Testament that I've studied shows a Christ who is far, far more often telling religious conservatives that their proclamations of judgment on everyone else was going to land themselves in hot water some day. I would honestly tell you - please, take some time to read through the book of Luke and think about whether you represent your religion well by taking this approach. (Here's a hint: I don't think so.)

Let me make a final suggestion: drop the part of the line that says "hate the sin". D_S is right on - you can't do that without putting yourself in a position where you are damaging the person. I don't have a problem with trying to help people in areas where they need to be challenged, but you need to earn the right to do that, and you haven't earned that right with people that you don't know and love personally. And I suspect that if you actually got to know any GLBT persons - especially ones that have suffered at the hands of Christians - you might find yourself thinking about this whole subject rather differently.