SSA and the Local Church: time to heal the hurt

Things I've realised:

1. 'Homophobia' before anything else, is fear of man, not fear of 'homosexuals'. The term was used by John Wesley long before its current use was adopted in the 20th century.

2. The terms 'homosexual' and 'heterosexual' are a 19th century construction which has wrongly dichotomised human sexuality and reified 'sexual identity'. We are not one thing or the other, and we are more than all of it.

3. Generally evangelical churches are fighting the wrong war: attacking the rights of individuals to self-determine sexual identity, instead of modeling alternative ways of being.

4. Romans chapter 1 uses 'ethos', 'logos' and 'pathos' to express Paul's message of justification by faith. Latching onto 'pathos' - the example of homosexuality by evangelicals has distorted the writer's message.

5. Sexuality 'just is'. Our 'default' position develops and is reinforced. It can change. God has encouraged us to express the sexual celebration of 'difference' rather than of 'sameness'.

6. I will not attack people who chose to live differently and who express their 'rights' differently to the way I do

7. I need the church, and the church needs me. I have an important message: I won't be marginalised.
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The work I do:

Grieving for those whose sense of rejection and abandonment is increased through the well-intentioned, but often misinformed acts of Christians seeking to uphold the Biblical prohibition on homosexual acts, CORE Ministries seeks to explore appropriate patterns of relating in both singleness and in marriage. It takes seriously the Biblical injunction to “love one another deeply, from the heart” (1 Peter 1:22), and promotes the idea that change is possible.
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