Honesty.

[keltic63]

Originally Posted by BrentRichards

You ARE from Western PA, n'at!

That's perfectly acceptable Pittsburghese!

Lent=Past tense of Loan

[keltic63]

Originally Posted by dsdrane

Me, too.

However, I've often wondered:

Is my neighbor a homosexual?

please, please, please, let the tattooed man next door, and the sexy bald man a few doors down be homosexuals. please, please, please!

[BrentRichards]

Originally Posted by keltic63

please, please, please, let the tattooed man next door, and the sexy bald man a few doors down be homosexuals. please, please, please!

See, I've always been of two minds on this ... like when I was excited to find out Rupert Everett is gay ... like I'm ever gonna date him!

[BrentRichards]

And now we're probably scaring the crap out of poor MM ... sorry M. It's a human thing.

[BrianB]

Originally Posted by keltic63

please, please, please, let the tattooed man next door, and the sexy bald man a few doors down be homosexuals. please, please, please!

There is a sexy, tattooed, bald man a few floors up from me. It's a shame that he has a girlfriend. "It's like meeting the man of your dreams... and then meeting his beautiful wife." --Alanis Morrisette--

[Daniel]

Originally Posted by u-dog

Now Daniel! Behave! Don't make me come back there !

So you think you're in the driver seat, huh?

Originally Posted by mmalm

I didn't say that, only that it will be a busy weekend, I'll catch up with you all later. Blessings.

Nope. You didn't say that. The brevity of your post gave- for me anyway- the wrong impression. Glad to hear that you are still in the pool. (I like this better than moving vehicle allusions).

[u-dog]

Originally Posted by keltic63

That's perfectly acceptable Pittsburghese!

Lent=Past tense of Loan

I'm NOT from Pittsburgh (grew up in Northern Ohio) Are you telling me that "lent" is NOT the past tense of "loan"? Since when? If it isn't that would leave ... what? "Loaned?" preposterous!

Next you'll be telling me that the past tense of "dive" isn't "dove".

[keltic63]

Originally Posted by u-dog

I'm NOT from Pittsburgh (grew up in Northern Ohio) Are you telling me that "lent" is NOT the past tense of "loan"? Since when? If it isn't that would leave ... what? "Loaned?" preposterous!

Next you'll be telling me that the past tense of "dive" isn't "dove".

it appears that we're allowed to use it, u-dog. I just looked it up at Merriam Webster online:

Loan, 1 a : money lent at interest b : something lent usually for the borrower's temporary use

[u-dog]

Originally Posted by keltic63

it appears that we're allowed to use it, u-dog. I just looked it up at Merriam Webster online:

HOORAY !!!! And I just checked on the past tense of "dive" . "Dived" and "Dove" are both acceptable. WHEW!

[BruceChris]

Well, I have a buddy who never returns anything that he borrows. So if he "borrows" my chocolate, I can always tell my pastor that I have given it up for "lent".

P&L, BC

[u-dog]

Originally Posted by BruceChris

Well, I have a buddy who never returns anything that he borrows. So if he "borrows" my chocolate, I can always tell my pastor that I have given it up for "lent".

P&L, BC

YOu BC... there are limits to what even friendship can bear.

[mmalm]

Thank you all for the reading recommendations you have given me. I will be honest, I don't forsee reading any of them this semester, but perhaps next when I have more leisure time.

Brent Richards- refering to your lengthy post from a few days ago, I understand why you would be angry. However, how much of what you have written in your post pertains to me? I think that there are a lot of assumptions made and a lot of people putting words in my mouth.

One thing people keep saying is that I have been "indoctrinated to believe" what I believe, that I need to "unlearn what I have been taught," and that I am "reading the very few passages that seem to deal with this issue through the lenses of your culturally conditioned prejudice." You are all making huge assumptions here. Is it too much to believe that I have actually read the Bible myself and have come to my own conclusions, rather then just robotically taking in what the Big Bad Church has taught me? I think a big problem is that when SF goes to these colleges they assume that students don't have minds of their own- that they completely soak in everything the doctrine of the school orders them to believe. That's at least the way it is coming off to me.

Paul, you asked about why Trinity was not willing to dialouge with Soul Force. As I wrote in a previous post (and I don't blame you for missing it, this thread is getting quite lengthy), the administration did consider it. However, after talking to the administrative counsels of other schools whom Soul Force had visited, they decided against it. Refer to my North Central example in a previous post. Had Soul Force conducted themselves differently in previous instances, there would have been a better possibility they would have been welcomed on our campus.

Thank you for the article references Brent Richards. That does bring up another question I have- why would Soul Force refuse the food and water we tried to give them, but accepts help in cleaning their bus?

dsdrane said "When SF shows up to shine a light on policies that we believe are fundamentally discriminatory, we are addressing a policy. Your theorectical "non-violent, anti-gay protesters", on the other hand would be attacking people...who they are and how and whom they love." I disagree. They would be protesting the belief that homosexuality is not a sin. If you still feel this is attacking people, then so is a protestor that says the people at a school are sinning for believing otherwise. You also said this discussion is getting old- if you feel so, then by all means please leave.

U-dog- I honestly don't remember the last time I was as offended as I was when I read one of your last posts. At the risk of sounding dramatic, how dare you accuse me of worshipping a false god. After reading that I was ready to say forget you all and not come back to this site at all. If that is what you plan on saying to people who do not share your beliefs, good luck with your whole dialogue thing. You should be absolutely ashamed of yourself for accusing someone of something like that, someone you don't even know. You claim that I "give [my] true allegiance and service to the legalistic anti-gospel of the pharisees" rather than to Jesus? How dare you assume that. If the rest of you believe that as well please tell me and I will gladly leave this thread and website.

[u-dog]

mmalm wrote:

U-dog- I honestly don't remember the last time I was as offended as I was when I read one of your last posts. At the risk of sounding dramatic, how dare you accuse me of worshipping a false god. After reading that I was ready to say forget you all and not come back to this site at all.

hmmm.... I wonder if your rage and hurt is anything like that which the young gay person at your school feels when they hear that it is impossible for them to be both gay and Christian? I wonder if your desire to leave and not come back is anything like what a gay person feels towards the gospel of Jesus Christ when who they are is attacked in the Christian church. And think about THIS: You are feeling turned away from a website. THEY are feeling turned away from the one who has the "words of life". Think long and hard about this mmarm. PLEASE! You, your school, and your wing of Christianity are driving people away from the central core of the gospel ...the love and grace of God ... for the sake something that is not even important enough for Jesus to talk about even once! how will y'all answer for that before the throne of God at the end of time?

And just for the record... I don't really think that you are worshipping a false god. At the most I might say that you are worshipping the true God falsely.. but even that... probably not. I was saying to you what fundamentalists say to GLBT people ALL THE TIME. So I'm curious... How does it look to you when you see it coming at you? Does it feel like love? Does this give you ANY sense of how hollow "Love the sinner, hate the sin" sounds to GLBT people? Stop feeling sorry for yourself and GET ON JESUS' SIDE! Not OUR side... not the GLBT side ... Jesus side. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and stand on the side of the oppressed... where HE ALWAYS STOOD, and look at life from there. THATS ALL I'M SAYING.

You should be absolutely ashamed of yourself for accusing someone of something like that, someone you don't even know. You claim that I "give [my] true allegiance and service to the legalistic anti-gospel of the pharisees" rather than to Jesus? How dare you assume that. If the rest of you believe that as well please tell me and I will gladly leave this thread and website.

Actually, mmarm, if you go back and read what I wrote you will find that I DIDN'T say that. Here is what I said:

Why do so many people in the fundamentalist movement seem to gravitate more to the Gospel according the Pharisees than they do to the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Why do fundamentalists pay LIP SERVICE to the "name of Jesus" but give their true allegiance and service to the legalistic anti-gospel of the pharisees?

Many in the fundamentalist movement DO love the pharisees more than they love Jesus judging by the fact that they emulate the pharisees RATHER than Jesus. with their lips they say one thing.. with their lives another. I am only talking about you if you are a part of the fundamental movement and IF you are one of those who think that the "law" is more important than people. That is "anti-gospel" and its evil. Many people believe it. maybe you are one of them. Maybe you are not. I have no opinion about that. My question was: Why do you suppose that THOSE fundamentalists choose the pharisees over Jesus?


U-Dog Wrote:

No Christian is going to suggest that you form your convictions without recourse to the Scriptures, MM. Sailaway is suggesting that you consider WHICH "lenses" you will wear while reading scripture. EVERYONE WEARS SOME LENS. Sailaway is suggesting that rather than reading the very few passages that seem to deal with this issue through the lenses of your culturally conditioned prejudice and distaste that you read them through the lenses of real people's real life experience of themselves. If you do that you will be in a position to decide for yourself what scripture teaches. If you DON'T do that you are only in a position to judge what it is that you WANT scripture to teach.

mmalm, you also misread this passage. I asked you to read scripture through a PARTICULAR set of lenses. The set of lenses I asked you to use were the experiences of actual GLBT people. No one reads Scripture without SOME lenses. We all do. We all always will. If we don't pay attention to what we are doing we will use our culturally conditioned prejudice... all of us... we all do it. I am asking you to conciously remove those lenses and put on the lenses of GLBT peoples lives and then read scripture again and see if it seems to see the same thing. I said this in response to what you said to Sailaway. I was not accusing you of being a bad person. Just a person.




In your rage you missed the really important part of what I wrote:

When you think about it... Isn't this the method of biblical interpretation that Jesus himself employed? When Jesus interprets the Sabbath laws and the Ten commandments, doesn't he ALWAYS do it from the perspective of hungry people, handicapped people, despised people? The pharisees HATE the way Jesus interprets scripture. They call him a sinner and they begin very quickly to plot his murder.

When you think about it... Doesn't Jesus approach EVERYTHING from the perspective of the hungry, the poor, the disgusting low life scum of the world? Think about it !! Jesus was born in a barn. Jesus touched lepers (the faggots of the first century) Jesus ate with tax collectors and prostitutes, Jesus touched unclean people. The Pharisees HATED JESUS FOR THAT! They KILLED Jesus for that.
Jesus bore witness in EVERYTHING HE DID that PEOPLE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE LAW... and the Pharisees had him killed for it.

[Steven E. Webster]

Originally Posted by sailaway58

Arminian all the way. And I prefer to consider myself handsome.

Originally Posted by BrentRichards

Well, I still like you. Arminians are chosen people too ... .

Sorry, this reminded me of a nifty book of cartoons I saw many years ago. It was titled something like "The Porcine History of Philosophy and Theology." The illustrations were all of pigs. On one pair of pages there were two identical illustrations of a pig wallowing in the mud. The first was captioned "Calvinist pig sinning because of original sin." The second was captioned "Arminian pig sinning because he wants to."

The other cartoon that comes to this old Methodist mind of mine was the illustration of pigs stampedeing. They were "Wesleyan pigs fleeing the wrath to come."

Appreciating the occasional bits of comic relief in this thread--

Steven Webster

[BrentRichards]

Originally Posted by mmalm

Brent Richards- refering to your lengthy post from a few days ago, I understand why you would be angry. However, how much of what you have written in your post pertains to me? I think that there are a lot of assumptions made and a lot of people putting words in my mouth.

Which is exactly what I said in prefacing my repost of those words ... they weren't written to you, but I hoped they would nonetheless illuminate some of the reasons for the anger you are encountering. People who have been beaten over the head (metaphorically, for the most part) by the same phrases and arguments for years are not likely to assume that "Surely this person is not the same as everyone else who has pounded me with these same words." No conversation begins with our first word in it ... it began long before that, and what came before affects how we talk now. Right?

Thank you for the article references Brent Richards. That does bring up another question I have- why would Soul Force refuse the food and water we tried to give them, but accepts help in cleaning their bus?

I can't find reference to the specifics of the food situation at Trinity, so I don't know. I know that food was refused at one or more places (I'm thinking BJU?) because of the manner in which it was offered. A truck pulled up, unloaded lunches, and left. Here, have food, but we're still not talking to you. The offer to stand by someone's side to wipe away the graffitti on their bus, or the offer to sit down at a table to share a meal with them (as happened at Messiah College, where I was fortunate enough to meet the Riders) is TOTALLY DIFFERENT than the token of food without fellowship. It's much like rich suburban churchgoers (we've probably all known churches like this) who are happy to "write a check" but don't ask them to "get dirty" by serving the homeless where they live, or the like. This is even Biblical ... foreigners and anyone else can "glean" from your fields, but when you accept someone into your home to eat WITH them, you are showing true hospitality ... conversely, when you decline to eat with someone, you are showing intentional rejection. Again, I don't know specifically what happened with this at Trinity, but if food was "sent out" to the Riders without a corresponding offer to SHARE the meal, I'm not at all surprised if they refused.

U-dog- I honestly don't remember the last time I was as offended as I was when I read one of your last posts.

M, I've gotten to know U-Dog (Dave) quite well over the time I've been here. He does not make personal attacks for the fun of it. He is, however, a very prophetic voice, and he challenges people - strongly. It seems to me (as he pointed out above) that he effectively got you to feel how many of us feel all the time ... we're routinely told our faith isn't genuine because of who we are. It's my opinion that U-Dog has a genuine prophetic gift (I'm a Presbyterian, and we don't use that term to mean "fortune teller" ... it means one who speaks the truth of God in insightful and incisive ways ... often unpopular truth!) ... may I suggest that you read his words in that sense, understanding that it's not a personal attack, and asking "What truth might be in these words for me?" As an evangelical, I know that I always have more to learn, and more changes to be made to my heart and attitude, and I value people like Dave who have the ability to "tick me off" in ways that challenge me to look at truth ... maybe not even the truth he intended me to see, but truth nonetheless.

I also know (and I can only speak for myself here, so ignore this if it doesn't apply to you) that the more offended I am by a given comment, the closer to home it hit. Sometimes that's because it is way off in an area that's really important to me, but sometimes it's because it's not far enough off for my comfort. Mostly, I get offended when a comment steps on my ego ... accuse me of being ignorant of the Bible, or uninformed in an area I've actually studied, or talk to me as if I were dumb and unedumacated ... and all my self-alarms go off ... So for me, when something REALLY offends me, I know that it's time to look carefully at what I need to learn there ... even if it's the opposite of what the person who offended me is saying, there's got to be something, or I wouldn't have reacted that way.

Just a thought.

[Daniel]

Originally Posted by mmalm

Thank you all for the reading recommendations you have given me. I will be honest, I don't forsee reading any of them this semester, but perhaps next when I have more leisure time.

I know exactly how you feel. I only have so many hours in the day, and reading things I'm not really interested in can take a great deal of effort. That said, I'm wondering how curious you are about gay people and their experience. At some point, if you really want some perspective, you are going to have to hit the books- that is- inform yourself. However, if you are here on a 'fly-by', then 'perhaps' will surely mean 'never'.

MM- you have to realize something about many of us here. We've lived with the self-knowledge of being gay a long time. We're used to thinking outside the box. In fact, most of us have been pushed outside of it- if not thrown over the side. This gives us a particular perspective. We see things differently because we've had to. Straight folks don't go through the psychological mill that gay persons routinely find themselves in- at least- not in the same way. They don't think outside the box for the simple reason that they don't have to. This applies to many areas: civil rights, sexuality, matters of faith etc.

Thinking outside the box.

That's what's Udog and Brent are asking you to do in their own way. And that's what I'm suggesting you entertain when you get around to a little reading.

Knowledge can be a dangerous thing. It can change your mind.

[dsdrane]

Originally Posted by mmalm

dsdrane said "When SF shows up to shine a light on policies that we believe are fundamentally discriminatory, we are addressing a policy. Your theorectical "non-violent, anti-gay protesters", on the other hand would be attacking people...who they are and how and whom they love." I disagree. They would be protesting the belief that homosexuality is not a sin. If you still feel this is attacking people, then so is a protestor that says the people at a school are sinning for believing otherwise. You also said this discussion is getting old- if you feel so, then by all means please leave.

With pleasure.

One last thing before I go, however: to the extent any "dialogue" has ever existed in this thread you started, it ceased to exist some time ago.

Further, I believe you are now taking advantage of others' willingness to continue to engage you so that you might continue to have a platform here. Your questions have been answered and your views allowed (something your school did not do for the SF activists, I might add), and now I believe it is time for you to leave.

Unfortunately, I have no power to make this happen (other than to recommend to those who do have this power, which I certainly will).

[NathanATX]

I'm closing the thread for a couple days to allow some time for things to simmer down.

Nate