Dear Mr. K,

In posting my comment, I was attempting two things, one of which was to remind those of us who may not have contact on a regular basis with homosexuals that they are in fact people no different than you or I or any of the members of this board. Homosexuals exist in every strata of society and every state of the union, and I dare say there are homosexuals in every country on earth (yes, even the Vatican), and sometimes (as with Papist or "Catholics" or with any ethnic or social group) we can tend to be not just biased but hatefully judgemental to a nameless mass of people. I don't support the idea of homosexuality, it is clearly wrong and not condusive towards the calling of God and there are no examples of condoned homosexual activity in the Bible. That said, we need to love them. There are hundreds of activities which we can call sins, there are hundreds of things that aren't condoned (and hundreds of actions that aren't condemned) throughout scripture and we must be careful in how we deal with others actions and their sins. As a single male in college I've found it difficult myself to deal with the temptation of heterosexual relationships (as I think most men have) and yet, I have Christ. How much harder must it be to abstain from sins when the only nature one has known is sin and when one has no experienced concept of grace. I guess in some ways I empathize with homosexuals who are attempting to find truth and attempting to deal with whatever their issues are (which usually go beyond mere homosexuality). People, all people, need to know about their sins and that by Christ alone they can be free because it IS for freedom that Christ has set us free.

I feel it important to point out though that I am one of these crazy Augustianian/Calvinist/Reformed whatever-you-want-to-call-me Southern Baptist and I do believe that Christ forgives all the sins of the elect who He died for on the Cross and that those He saves He keeps and those He saves and forgives will persevere to the end. Once saved always saved brother.

If an elect brother lies with another man as with a woman, all I need do is to lovingly rebuke the sin and do what I can to restore my brother. I do believe we only hurt the church when we push away brothers for doing what comes naturally apart from Christ. Brothers shouldn't ostrasize each other for prejudices which God will judge. Family is family and family is with you for life.

Brother Luke


P. S. I meant to do this earlier in the week, but here's a shout out to J. Edwards who was really cool in his responses, GOD Bless You.