One of my friends is a very nice and very devoted Christian. She is wonderful to be around and very zealous, the type of person who keeps you on your toes. She and I were talking about a mutual friend who is gay, and his soul purpose is reconciling homosexuality with the Catholic church (good luck). And the bottom line of our conversation was homosexuality is wrong. I neither asserted nor rebuked this because whether it is "a sin" or not, you don't start a conversation with someone telling them they are wrong, also, I wasn't going to start an argument with someone who might believe in a mostly literal Bible. The conversation ended up going in a direction that bothered my friend, how is it that Christians believe all different things, but are still Christian? This is something I love, and this was troubling for her, and I could tell she had no idea how to make sense of it. Everyone has the Bible, everyone has history... How can one read it this way, and another read it another way, AND BOTH MAKE SENSE? It is a beautiful mystery.
So, it was good that this was something that baffled her. Our mutual friend is a Christian, loves Jesus, studies theology, is incredibly nice to everyone, practices what he preaches, and is gay. How can this be? she wondered. How can this be?
The path is narrow. Really hardly anyone is going to get to heaven. There are so few who know the truth. You may think you are okay, but really you are not. Those people think they are Christians, but they're not---You are going to hell. I don't think so... or maybe you are already living in hell? I hope not.
What did I learn from all this? Ask questions. When my friend began condemning the gays, I should have asked why it is important to her that that is the Truth. Why is that wrong, but woman speaking in church is not wrong? How is it relevant to her and other salvation? What is salvation... O Lord, not soteriology again.
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