The Gospel and our LGBT Brothers and Sisters

I have neglected writing this for far too long. I guess part of the reason was that I did not want to alienate the part of my readership that could see the validity of my paradigm shift and begin to adopt it in small ways. However, it needs to be said and so I will write it down for you all to digest, accept or reject. If I lose you I will lose you and pray that God will grant you the light to recover from the darkness of so much error in evangelical doctrine.

Let me state up front that I do not believe that God who is described as love would torture people for eternity. I know for certain that doctrine is from a faulty, erroneous view of scripture and completely false and erroneous presuppositions. But, bear with me a moment in my next assertion. If... there was eternal torture that is encapsulated in the doctrine of hell... notice I say IF... I know that there would be a ton of so called Christians that have said the sinner's prayer, attend church and Sunday School every Sunday, claim to love Jesus, teach and evangelize who would be in hell... and, I know a ton of LGBT brothers and sisters that would be in heaven. In fact, some of the most loving Christians I know are part of the LGBT community.

First of all, if one reads Romans 1:18-32 carefully, it becomes apparent that Paul is speaking of the downward spiral of humanity. He begins it with Garden of Eden imagery, "claiming to be wise they became fools" The first step on the downward cycle was heterosexual relationships. The next step down was same sex relationships. The third and final step of the downward plunge was acts/deeds which among many was gossip (think of little old church mothers.) The point of Paul's passage was that ALL people were without excuse and needed God's grace, most of all the religious.

It is sometimes easy to forget that God was in Christ, reconciling the WORLD to Himself not counting trespasses. The world most certainly includes our LGBT brothers and sisters. Contrary to popular belief it says reconciling the world! It does not say reconciling those who have said the sinners prayer. Now there is great benefit in accepting the redemption that Jesus provided, but it is accepted by apprehending the gospel of grace and resting in it completely.

So many of my LBGT friends are either monogamous or celebrate. They love their fellow man. They contribute to causes that help the poor, fatherless, homeless, and/or needy. They live normal productive lives. In exchange for that they reap the ire, condemnation, and harassment from much of evangelical Christianity. Again, some of evangelical doctrine and dogma is an affront to what the scripture really teaches when one discovers the truth that it is a redemptive narrative and not a legal constitutional operation manual for Christian living.