Highlander
09-14-2009, 09:37 AM
My name is Ewan Gurr and I bring greetings from Scotland. I would like to share with you a little of the journey I have been on.
I am 23 years old and an evangelical Christian who attends an AoG (known for its anti-gay rhetoric) church and has since childhood. I was born and raised by loving parents who never forced their faith on me. However, I went my own way through drugs, alcohol, politics and came full circle when I had my first real experience of Jesus. Having fully committed my life to Christ in 2005, I found myself within the space of a year feeling challenged by God to get rid of a lot of the baggage I had brought into my relationship with him. I disliked foreigners, I had little tolerance for Muslims and really had an issue with homosexuals. Jesus broke down the racial, religious and gender barriers with the woman at the well. I knew where my racial and religious barriers lay, and I considered my gender barrier to be, in my world, between me and the homosexual community.
The first thing I did was to join a Nigerian Church bible study before going to Uganda twice in 2008, in addition to getting my haircuts at the Muslim barber and finally, I chose to start connecting with homosexuals at the local Gay Nightclub (Out) and share the love of Jesus. The hardest challenge was definitely the latter. I prayed 'God help me overcome my prejudice' and I reluctantly walked across the street to 'Out' that first night and was confronted with a gentle young gay man called Patrick. I've never felt the love of God well up within me as I did with that young man and from this day to that, I still wince when I hear words like 'faggot' and 'poof' since those words now carry such a gracious face. That night broke me and my prejudice! My Pastor said to me: 'You won't get any fruit from the Gay Club' but I don't exactly think the kind of fruit he is looking for is the kind of 'lasting fruit' Jesus was speaking of in John 15. Isn't the dismantling of my inhibitions against a community of people Jesus loves 'lasting fruit'?
Since then, I've been on a journey that has only confronted more internal barriers. As recently as four months ago, the Church of Scotland were torn by the induction of a practicing homosexual minister and the evangelical 'wing' of CoS sent out an E-Mail petitioning against it. I, being a Christian worker to the less fortunate, received the E-Mail and although I had reservations about the whole issue, I could not bring myself to sign it. You see Mel, I love homosexuals but have until recently, believed without question the practice of homosexuality to be a sin.
Nevertheless, I did not sign it and instead, connected with a young gay man and his lesbian flatmate who said they were both going on a 'Gay Pride' march in Edinburgh the following week. I decided to take the website details, book a train and talked my 'evangelical fiance (now wife)' into going with me. We went on the march purely to walk with the homosexual community and connect with them and experienced an acceptance that Leah commended. Since then, Kerry (an older ex-Anglican minister and mentor of mine) and I have continued to have conversations about our reservations with the evangelical 'slant' on homosexuality. Kerry is currently reading a book by a guy called Randy entitled 'Are Homosexuals My Neighbours As Well?' and I have started reading Mel White's book 'Stranger...' and we went into a Gay Bar around a month ago as we were talking through these issues.
It is as if we are re-aligning our perspectives on homosexuality and assessing why we believe what we believe. Is it because we were told what we should believe or what the Bible apparently says about such issues? We have not come to any solid conclusions but we know our journey won't leave us where we were and wherever we end up will leave us with a whole new set of challenges, like how can I relate to the homosexual community in a meaningful, ongoing nature? How can I generate authentic friendship relationships with the homosexual community?
Your friend, Ewan.
I am 23 years old and an evangelical Christian who attends an AoG (known for its anti-gay rhetoric) church and has since childhood. I was born and raised by loving parents who never forced their faith on me. However, I went my own way through drugs, alcohol, politics and came full circle when I had my first real experience of Jesus. Having fully committed my life to Christ in 2005, I found myself within the space of a year feeling challenged by God to get rid of a lot of the baggage I had brought into my relationship with him. I disliked foreigners, I had little tolerance for Muslims and really had an issue with homosexuals. Jesus broke down the racial, religious and gender barriers with the woman at the well. I knew where my racial and religious barriers lay, and I considered my gender barrier to be, in my world, between me and the homosexual community.
The first thing I did was to join a Nigerian Church bible study before going to Uganda twice in 2008, in addition to getting my haircuts at the Muslim barber and finally, I chose to start connecting with homosexuals at the local Gay Nightclub (Out) and share the love of Jesus. The hardest challenge was definitely the latter. I prayed 'God help me overcome my prejudice' and I reluctantly walked across the street to 'Out' that first night and was confronted with a gentle young gay man called Patrick. I've never felt the love of God well up within me as I did with that young man and from this day to that, I still wince when I hear words like 'faggot' and 'poof' since those words now carry such a gracious face. That night broke me and my prejudice! My Pastor said to me: 'You won't get any fruit from the Gay Club' but I don't exactly think the kind of fruit he is looking for is the kind of 'lasting fruit' Jesus was speaking of in John 15. Isn't the dismantling of my inhibitions against a community of people Jesus loves 'lasting fruit'?
Since then, I've been on a journey that has only confronted more internal barriers. As recently as four months ago, the Church of Scotland were torn by the induction of a practicing homosexual minister and the evangelical 'wing' of CoS sent out an E-Mail petitioning against it. I, being a Christian worker to the less fortunate, received the E-Mail and although I had reservations about the whole issue, I could not bring myself to sign it. You see Mel, I love homosexuals but have until recently, believed without question the practice of homosexuality to be a sin.
Nevertheless, I did not sign it and instead, connected with a young gay man and his lesbian flatmate who said they were both going on a 'Gay Pride' march in Edinburgh the following week. I decided to take the website details, book a train and talked my 'evangelical fiance (now wife)' into going with me. We went on the march purely to walk with the homosexual community and connect with them and experienced an acceptance that Leah commended. Since then, Kerry (an older ex-Anglican minister and mentor of mine) and I have continued to have conversations about our reservations with the evangelical 'slant' on homosexuality. Kerry is currently reading a book by a guy called Randy entitled 'Are Homosexuals My Neighbours As Well?' and I have started reading Mel White's book 'Stranger...' and we went into a Gay Bar around a month ago as we were talking through these issues.
It is as if we are re-aligning our perspectives on homosexuality and assessing why we believe what we believe. Is it because we were told what we should believe or what the Bible apparently says about such issues? We have not come to any solid conclusions but we know our journey won't leave us where we were and wherever we end up will leave us with a whole new set of challenges, like how can I relate to the homosexual community in a meaningful, ongoing nature? How can I generate authentic friendship relationships with the homosexual community?
Your friend, Ewan.