Soul Survivor, and the Marriage Bill.

I'm off to Soul Survivor Week A with a few friends tomorrow - rather excited after the events that unfolded last year (which included watching the Olympics Opening Ceremony in a crowd of 4000 young people - it felt like I was actually there!), but also anticipating it in a different way this time around.

This is just wishful thinking, and I will by no means be disappointed if this doesn't happen, but I'm hoping that due to the presence of the homosexuality debate at the moment, there might be a seminar or two about it in the programme this year. Or at least there might be some more reading material on the subject that I might be able to purchase and read up on! Who knows.

But regardless of that, I'm really looking forward to hearing what God has to say to me and to everyone else over the next few days. How He speak to us, how Hes surprises, and the things He might do that could potentially change some lives. he has a knack for doing that quite a lot! But we shall see. I'll let you know next week, unless I come across any WiFi on the campsite, but somehow I highly doubt it, I doubt internet access is particularly high on God's agenda!

Also, I thought I should mention that David Cameron has announced that gay marriage will eventually in a few years become legal in England and Wales. He's even gone as far to add that the UK will be the best place to be gay and get married and live as an equal citizen in the whole of Europe. I truly hope in one way this will be true, but the priority still remains concerning world equality; although that is clearly going to take some time, especially when you take countries like Uganda into account.

As Alice Arnold highlights, however, this is all wonderfully good and hopeful news, but Britain still has a way to go in achieving total equality, void of discrimination and homophobia which is still extremely evident in our society. Kids are still being bullied at school, gay and lesbian stereotypes are still present and evermore damaging; I was reminded of this when walking in a park during the evening with my girlfriend a few weeks ago. I hadn't particularly noticed the group of young people a few yards away from us, or the middle-aged Asian men minding their children in the play park, yet my girlfriend seemed slightly uncomfortable when I reached for her hand and had to push me away a little to prevent drawing any attention to ourselves. I think she was right do so at that time; I was being pretty naive, and despite how I'm past the point of caring what others think of me, I could have made us both incredibly vulnerable to all sorts of prejudice, had I drawn attention to the fact that we were a couple.

That vulnerability still lingers within our society; changing a law is powerful way to begin changing the way people think, but it is general attitude and understanding that needs to adapt before homophobia can really be eradicated from general thought. I believe that the Church has a big role to play in the pace of this attitude change, but I truly believe that it will happen at some stage, hopefully in my lifetime - God treats us all equally, therefore he demands that we have an attitude of equality towards each other, as we are all made in His image regardless of skin colour, sexual orientation or anything else that defines us as who we are. We'll all realise that one day.

Here's Alice Arnold's article about the passing of the Equal Marriage Bill, in case you were wondering. Thank goodness someone can be totally honest about it! And honestly, I'm quietly over the moon about the fact that I might be be able to marry the woman I love one day. As much as I can be empathetic with the various conflicting views against this Bill, I'm hoping I can be allowed to be a little self-indulgent here. Here's to marriage, and a sure sign of equality, at last.

See you next week!

Retrospective Encouragement.

I've just been reading a old notebook/ journal type thing that I was writing in this time last year, when I got baptised and went to Soul Survivor for the first time. It was a pretty intense period in my life; everything was moving very fast, being a Christian was scary and exciting and totally fresh and new, and although I had by no means forgotten that I was gay (on the contrary really, I'd come out to my church and at one point was terrified that God was going to take my sexuality away from me - but that's another story), I'd started to find a way to live as Christian without acknowledging who I was, not living as a gay Christian perhaps but as a Christian who occasionally had feelings and thoughts about the same sex.

I guess it's because back then I didn't have a girlfriend, whereas now I do. Back then, as I finished a very sexualised and negative relationship God came storming back into my life, so maybe I think I associated the fact that that relationship had ended with God's new intentions for me. 

Now, I have a girlfriend. A wonderful girlfriend, who seems very much a part of me now as anything else. She is the gay side to me; not that she isn't involved in the Christian side of me, but that is also a whole other story - it's her story, really. 

However, this is the challenge that I now face, which is completely different to the problems I started out with last year. I am now living as two halves, trying to make them fit together and find bridges to make them work as a team. So far, it's going okay. 

Reading back though, I did come across a few verses I'd made a note of that took me almost by surprise. It's funny, you tend to expect reading back across something you've written that you won't find anything new, just old, preserved memories, but these verses that must have impacted me last year have still struck a chord with me now, sitting in my room a year on from then. That's the beauty of the Bible, right there; the majority of it is always, always relevant, and God can use it so much to talk to you and bring you back to things that you'd discarded or forgotten about. With God's Word, we are in a continual process of learning and sharing, so I thought I'd just share these verses with you.

'We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future,nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And who can argue with that? It is clear here, that God does not expect to judge each other, or keep others from knowing the love of Christ because we believe they shouldn't - that is not our right. Indeed, there is nothing of this earth or of the spiritual realms that can keep us from knowing God's unconditional and merciful love.So, speaking as a lesbian with a Christian faith, there can be absolutely nothing that stops me from knowing and experiencing the love of God, and I should neither be afraid that I can ever be separated from me because of how I feel or act. That firm belief is easier said than actually believed, but there is the truth of it.

The Jesus Creed.

Last night, surrounding the epiphany I had about creating this blog, my youth church was looking at something called the Jesus Creed. The video we watched basically summarised how, despite the density of the Bible and the 613 laws included in Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and so on, when asked about which law was the greatest of all Jesus responded with one law, and then added another.

These two laws are now encompassed under a term we now know as the 'Golden Rule', found in Luke 10v27:

'He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'

This was the starting point for the rest of the evening. To put this Rule into context, we all gathered and sat around a mat in the middle of the room scattered with candles and tea lights, and we were read the well-known parable of the Good Samaritan from the various predicted perspectives of the characters involved: the victim, the robbers, the Priest and the Levite who passed the man by, and of course the Samaritan himself. When we felt like we related to a particular take on a perspective, or felt like we needed to actively give something to God from our lives that might have been connected to a part of the story, we were encouraged to light a candle for ourselves and place it on the mat.

I think for many of us in the room, it was a fairly therapeutic and calming evening. We let go of things, asked for forgiveness, not out of guilt but just for a need for release. 

But, for me, I was thinking about something that caught my attention during the talk that I felt I needed to write down.

Currently, the Christian society and the British population in general is somewhat torn on what stance to take on homosexuality and the issues that come with it; marriage, children, education, acceptance into church communities and culture. Living within a wide Christian community in Wolverhampton, I get to see the different points of view on these issues form both sides, particularly the Christian point of view. 

Now I've heard countless arguments and people trying to justify their own views whilst to remain in concordance with the Bible and its teachings. Leviticus 18v22 is often a verse which is thrown into a debate:

 ‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.'

Another verse I've also heard mentioned a few times, in Romans:

'Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ... therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another ... even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death,they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.'

There are numerous other examples of where homosexuality seems to be blatantly condemned both in the Old and New Testament. The fact that this condemnation lies in both parts, for many people eliminates the argument that the law stating it to be against God's intentions for us is now void in retrospect due to the new teachings of Jesus, for it is mentioned by Paul as well. There is still the aspect of context that people also draw upon in their points of view, yet statistically, homosexuality is a sin that is both unlawful and justly punishable, as God's Word decrees.

However, here lies the question that I struggle with daily: why then, if God 'detests' homosexuality, would He create some of us to be homosexual, and furthermore allow us to live in various states of denial, fear of rejection, loneliness, and doubt of our ability to be loved by our Creator?

I could discuss this for hours, and probably will do so through this blog for the foreseeable future. Although Jesus never directly spoke on the matter, I do believe for now that the answer lies in the topic of conversation that we analysed last night during my youth church: the Golden Rule, and the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Take the Priest, for example. During the parable Jesus tells us that despite seeing the state that the man was in, having been beaten and left for dead by the side of the road, he thought it better not to help and continued on his journey. Why? Perhaps because the man was practically a corpse, and it states clearly in Numbers 19 that:

'Whoever touches a human corpse will be unclean for seven days.'

This Priest might not have been able to afford to be considered unclean in the eyes of God for seven days, for he was far too busy to put his religious duties on hold for a whole week. In the eyes of the law, it was perhaps best not for him to have anything to do with the man.

Or maybe he feared for his own safety? This ordinary man had not long been attacked by men who would not think twice about stealing the rich garments that he wore; if anything, he was more at risk of being beaten than the man now lying on the road nearing death. It may cost him his life if he stopped to help the man, for the attackers may return and do exactly the same thing to him.

It occurred to me whilst these ideas were being narratively voiced, that this perhaps how as Christians we can perceive the sinners and outcasts of our world. I use the term 'we', because I am just as much to blame for this as anyone else, perhaps more so in some cases. We sometimes believe that the biblical laws we follow prevent and almost excuse us in some way from helping and including those who are most in need of inclusion and help, just as the Priest possibly believed that he simply couldn't help the man, because touching the man would lead to uncleanliness and the consequences of being so. In a similar manner, was a human race we also sometimes refuse to be associated with such sinners, for fear of being accused of acting in a similar nature to them. This can be viewed as another version of uncleanliness; pride, and a desire for others to see us as a good and righteous person, may cause us to think twice about talking to someone who's sins might allow us to be seen differently as well.

On a personal note, this might be how some treat/think of homosexuality, and the majority of gay people. The bible condemns that sort of thing, so we should too. If I go into that gay club and talk to those guys, someone might see me and think I'm gay too.

But how does the parable end? What message of morality does Jesus want to convey through this story, that would eventually become one of the most well-known parables of all time? The Samaritan, the man who has little regard for what others think of him because he is so similarly disliked anyway, the man who almost certainly had reasons like the Priest and the Levite to pass by and not help at all. He stopped, tended to the man's wounds as best he could, took him to an inn, paid for his care and promised to return to pay for any extra costs that may not have been accounted for by the original sum he gave. The Samaritan acted with the love and grace that Jesus acted with towards the outcasts he came across on his travels, the love and grace that he expects us to extend towards others as his disciples, the love and grace that is cemented in the Bible within that one Golden Rule that he gave us to follow that should be obeyed above all other laws.

It is this love and grace that I believe should be absolutely taken into account when dealing with the issue of homosexuality. Particularly within churches, homosexuality can be reviewed as a fact, a statistic, when in fact there are real people with genuine feelings and lives that are affected by rejection just like everyone else. The Golden Rule, as previously mentioned, exists as a law that is above the other 611 laws and is ultimately superior to them; it is the Jesus Creed, and is the one rule we should quintessentially follow. So why are some so quick to disregard it when discussing homosexuality? This attitude is the one that is causing a divide both amongst churches and between the Church as a whole and the secular community, and it is that attitude that I think must change, just as beliefs were altered when slavery was abolished in 1833.

Personally, I'm hoping that the question in my mind that forms each day is not 'will this attitude change' but 'when and how this attitude will change'. Who knows? There is a Priest and a Samaritan inside all of us, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I know which persona Jesus would rather us act upon, particularly in these conflicting circumstances.

The First Thought.

It occurred to me last night, at my youth church. Being a Christian and being gay is in many ways a normality for me; everyday I wake up a lesbian, and I wake up with a grounded belief in God.

As I think God intended for humanity to do, I often question these two conditions that make me who I am, both as separate issues and as a whole, present issue that I'm realizing quite a lot of people struggle with. There are so many questions and ideas that roll around my head each day; I've come a long way from where I used to be, but I'm still nowhere near close to understanding what on earth is going on with me and how homosexuality fits in with God's plans.

So why not write my thoughts and feelings down? At least it might be easier to make sense of things that way.

Now don't get me wrong; I'm 18 years old, I'm fully aware of my naivety of the world, and there are so many more things I don't know than do know. I'm not claiming to have any superior knowledge about anything I talk about, and honestly I'm already at quite a disadvantage here! Although I do have a bit of personal experience on my side.

Please forgive me and my thoughts if I get a little subjective; I'll try and leave that to the blog intended for splurging my adolescent emotions, but I can't make any promises. Just bear with me for a bit, until i get my bearings.

Here goes!