Jamie
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![[*]](./images/oxygen/default_icon.gif) posted on 4-2-2009 at 06:08 PM |
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Civil Partners?
This is from a thread taken from the old Adrian Plass Conversations forum.
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My Father-in-law is having a civil partnership ceremony with his male partner in December and has obviously invited me. I am now stuck as to what to
do. He is clear that he accepts it is not a marriage, but, I just don't know if I can go along and smile while feeling inside that what is going on is
wrong.
My wife is going as it is her father, but, has said that she would accept my decision if I chose not to go.
Any body have any thoughts?
- scoot
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The core teaching of Jesus is love God and love others. If the church aren't following these commandments then they are not good teachers and you are
better off out of there.
- Princess
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Gordon
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| posted on 30-9-2009 at 12:57 PM |
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Jesus always showed love to people and gave them the opportunity to change what they were doing but it was always that way round - think of the
Samaritan woman.
I also think that the principle to be adopted here is the same as eating meat sacrificed to idols (1 Corinthians 8). There pragmatism could overcome a
general principle because as Paul explains the person's standing with God is not actually in reality affected by what they eat.
The issue must revolve around love. Will you be loved any less by God or be less of a Christian if you go - most certainly not. Will you show love and
kindness to another person by going - yes you will.
Remember that the Good Samaritan loved the person robbed. He did not know or care anything about his personal background. It was the Religious leaders
who were obsessed with such matters.
You cannot convince people that God loves them if His people refuse to have normal societal contact with them.
Pray in advance for God's love and guidance on everyone there (including your father in law and his partner) and have a great time.
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Sarah
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| posted on 19-4-2010 at 10:07 PM |
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Phew, this is a tricky one. Not in the sense of knowing what to answer, but knowing how this subject can be and has been treated on Christian
discussion forums. There's nothing like a good bit of conflict between Christians on issues like this to put off those outside the church from
entering the church!
So it's brilliant to come to a place like this and see the immediate responses to the question being about love, God's love being expressed through
our actions.
Theological debates on this subject tend to be a bit pointless, as generally people begin from one perspective and build their argument up by reading
scripture that defends it. I know I do it! I read in the bible that God is a loving God, and Jesus' highest commands to us were to love God and love
one another. Do we do that by making people feel as though they're less than human in God's eyes? I can't see how that can work. I read in the bible
that God dislikes not same-sex relationships, but sexual activity that is used for the purpose of power or dominance, or for flaunting a lack of
dependence on Him.
I can't help it, I like to see in the bible a God who delights in deeply loving relationships, who is firm in judgement but who does not consider us
as less than human because of something within our nature. I can't see a God in there who would approve of the hurt and damage caused to countless
Christians because of their sexuality (and such wounds run so very, very deep). I know full well I haven't got this all right, but for me it's the
only way to go forward constructively.
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Rgregorytsc
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| posted on 1-7-2010 at 03:07 AM |
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Truth vs. Fiction
I don't think the challenge he is showing love. That should be a given. The much tougher issue is how to communicate right and wrong in a culture
that no longer believes such a thing exists. Most people today would say you don't have the right to have an opinion because it is your father in
law's life and only he can say what makes him happy. And while that is true, it doesn't men that God doesn't have the right to an opinion. And as
believers we do need to stand firmly with God in our world view.
Sometimes, I think we confuse love with niceness. God is love, but he isn't nice. It isn't easy, especially within our families, but I think taking
a stand may be the more loving position. We don't want to be in the position of seeing our loved ones strolling down the road to hell, feeling really
good about how loved and supported they felt by their family.
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Sarah
Junior Member
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Registered: 19-4-2010
Location: Durham
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| posted on 13-7-2010 at 10:08 PM |
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So what happened to 'God is nice and he likes me'? 
No, seriously I think you're right, we shouldn't try and avoid difficult questions by turning God into some all-accepting, non-judgemental deity. How
could he truly love us without asking us the really difficult questions and expecting us to wrestle with them, probably for our entire life span on
earth?
That's not what I'm trying to say though. I think we should be asking different questions than about the nature of our sexuality: I personally think
that God concerns himself much more with how we use and abuse power, whether sexual or otherwise, and our hypocrisy in assenting to faith in him
publicly when we assert our own independence from him privately. Most importantly, these are questions we should ask of ourselves before we begin to
ask them of others.
I don't think it's true that society has no sense of right and wrong, but rather that ideas of what is right and what is wrong have changed, sometimes
for the better and sometimes for the worse. And of course God has an opinion on that, just as he did in the time of the prophets, who were willing
mouthpieces of his opinion. There are some people like that out there these days, and like those old testament prophets they have very little to say
about sexual identity, but speak much more about justice for the oppressed and the need for relationships that are at least heading towards wholeness.
I think the basic question is, what is more important: is it our sexuality, or about how we conduct ourselves in relation to and in relationship with
other people?
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