Volume 2: Issue 4
January/February 1998
Spiritual Self Defense
Responding Constructively To Persecution
Table Of Contents
Cover Story: Spiritual Self Defense:
--By: Candace Chellew
In this issue of Whosoever, we help gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Christians "put on the armor of God" and defend themselves against those who attack their faith.
We must be assertive, zealous, in our defense. We must exude confidence. We must make it known that God works in our lives everyday! Anything else shows a weakness in faith, and we become an easy mark.
-- By: Rev. Dr. Jim Bilbrey, Ph.D., D.D.
Many of us have seen those horrible films
with titles such as "The Gay Agenda." Wouldn't it be wonderful to be
able to produce a video-tape of GLBT Christians at worship? To be able
to say, "Here is an honest depiction of the Gay Agenda!"
Loving someone does not mean that we expect to convert them. We know that lesson full well when others put our conversion to their point of view as a condition for their loving us; but the same goes for us: we are called by Christ to love unconditionally.
The words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount provide us with helpful
suggestions about how to manage the feelings we have in response to
persecution.
Your enemy is not the sanctimonious person who condemns you. It's
not the minister who says you're an abomination. It's not your family or
friends who reject you.
The call of Jesus to "Follow
Me" provides the path to victory in resisting our enemies and winning
with truth and love.
Why? Why on earth should you love a person whose every thought and deed
is focused to bring about what to your minds must seem to be illness
and suicide and the destruction of souls? Christ has an answer for this ...
The Bible, like the Kingdom of God, is not the special
property of the literalists who condemn us; it's for each of us to wrestle
with, as Jacob wrestled with God, so that we may be put out of joint and
then blessed.
I wish I could reassure all of these people that we gays and lesbians are
not those decadent biblical people they have been taught to hate.
Homospirituality:
"Stomping out sin" has
been interpreted by many as the role of the church in our day. The approach
seems to be to "sic 'em and sock 'em" through the manipulative power of guilt
and fear.
Every subculture has its dominant images and voices. I think of this
woman when I come across someone who doesn't think I'm "gay enough". I'm
attracted to people of my own gender. Isn't that enough?
Each of us knows in our hearts if we have embraced Christ and His Love, have acknowledged in our hearts our inability to live the Law and called upon God to forgive us through Christ our failings and enable us to live anew in God. No person has the power to say or judge us otherwise.
Features:
-- By: Candace Chellew
"Stealing Jesus" is an excellent place to begin learning about fundamentalism. Bawer takes great pains to outline the roots of fundamentalism, its beliefs, and its broad affect on Christianity as a whole.
To transition, to
transform. . . to change from one state to another. For the
Transgendered/Transsexual, this implies changing from male to female, or
female to male. And this implies a beginning and an end.
The Rev. Troy D. Perry, moderator of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC), met with Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu for a wide-ranging discussion of human rights issues.
Whosoever readers give thanks and praise for God's blessings in their lives!
Readers sound off on what they like and dislike about Whosoever.
From The Pulpit:
To me, a most important part of the verse is right there at the beginning: "God so loved the world...." Rather than being a stand-offish creator, who simply
set things in motion and went away, God is involved in an ongoing relationship with the creation, remains a part of it, and passionately cares for it.
Bible Study and Inspiration:
Sin has always been an act of
choice. I know that homosexuality is not a chosen lifestyle. So how can it be a sin? With
much prayer, I examined the various passages in the Bible linked to homosexuality and
asked God to reveal the truth, no matter what it was, to me.
Holy Humor!
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