A straight woman I interviewed said, ‘When my lesbien friend said she wasn’t expecting me to change my views as a result of being friends with her, I think that helped me relax and just get on with being friends. It’s possible to be friends with someone and not share their beliefs about everything.’ Several straight Christians have come and told me how powerful and liberating they found hearing that.

And even in the virtual world here are people living that out, helping each other keep our eyes on God whether or not we agree on the other stuff.

Truly, it is such a beautiful thing that the most important thing should be open to us, whatever mysteries remain in our lives. Thanks for reminding me.

Much love to you

In the last 5 years, God has completely changed my heart and mindset because I have allowed him to break me and he has prepared me for more than I ever could imagined. My senior year of college, I busted out of my “Christian bubble” and became friends with a lot of different people. This was step 1 in preparing me to step out of the box and allow God to work in my life.

Until about 3 years ago, I had never met anyone that I knew was gay. The whole concept was fairly new to me because like I said I just didn’t understand. But God gave me a divine appointment with a girl whom had just broke up with her long-term girlfriend. I knew she was gay and that scared me, but I also knew that God put me in her life. She was very depressed and really didn’t have very many friends so I opened my home and life up to her. We would have dinner and hang out just like my normal straight friends. It took about 6 weeks for her to completely open up to me about her life and I will never forget that phone call I received that night. She just left my apartment about an hour earlier practically in tears. She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. She called to tell me she got home and we started talking about her life.. She said “ I’m afraid to tell you something because I’m not sure if you will want to be my friend anymore”. Those words pierced my heart. Was I really a person that people are afraid to talk to? I told her that nothing could change the fact that she was my friend and that I loved her. She proceeded to tell me that she was gay and her girlfriend had just broke up with her. She was hurt and felt so rejected. She had made so many selfless decisions for a relationship that was over. She shared so much of her life with me. We laughed and cried together. At times it was uncomfortable for me, but she was patient with me. She changed my life. She changed the way I look at the GLBT community, she changed the way I look at everyone.

How did I balance the truth with love and grace? I don’t know. And I don’t know if I did it well. Never once did I quote scripture to her. Never once did I preach a salvation message. I lived it though. Did I share truth? Yes, but it wasn’t about her being gay because honestly that’s between her and God. But what I did do – I was the first person to arrive when she got into a car accident. I was the person she called at 3AM when she was crying. I let her sleep on my couch on numerous occasions when she was having problems. So the tiny steps you can take is to just be a friend. What I focused on was I am I allowing Jesus to love her through me? My concern was not her lifestyle, but her salvation.. Let God take care of the rest – its not in our job description.

So what I am saying my dear friend, do not complicate it. Do not allow yourself to feel trapped and condemned that is Satan just trying to deceive you. We are free in Him. You are going to find so many opinions and I bet most people here would even tell you they don’t have all the answers. Just remember this whats is important is that Jesus died on the cross for ALL and He has called us to love.

If anyone who reads this would pray for me – that as I go this journey I would not focus on my fears or even my good questions so much as just *loving* people, loving the best I can and beyond each moment. In an uncertain life and world this is truly what matters most – and I think it is what God is really calling me to above all.

Don’t know if this will be helpful or not, but I do know that what you’re experiencing is really common. All of us brought up within a Christian context get to the point where we have to question *everything* and make our faith our own. Many people get lost along the way, many leave church and God for a while and then find our ways back, some decide the faith of their childhood is still one they want to affirm, but yet others come to a new relationship with God, and a deeper, more authentic faith.

A resource that I know a lot of people here in the UK have found helpful is a book called ‘The Post-Evangelical’ by a guy called Dave Tomlinson. I don’t know if you’re someone who finds books helpful, but I’m sure you could order it via Amazon if you wanted a look. He specifically talks a bit about the church and ‘the gay issue’ as something that can trigger faith-problems for people. And, for a US author, Brian MacLaren’s ‘New Kind of Christian.’

An important thing on your search is to know that God can meet you *anywhere* – even in books and people and places that your unbringing has told you are far from God.

I hope you’re one of the ones who finds a new way to hang on in their with your faith – your desire to find out more gives me huge hope that you are.

Any advice for me on my journey of research and questions?”

1. Read more resources on the subject. Aim for the middle.
2. Don’t worry what others (might) think about you or your opinions. Make your own decisions and choices because they are right with you, not because someone else pressures you to agree with them.
3. Give yourself time and give yourself a break. You don’t need to have all of the answers now. And you likely will never have all the answers.

I’m a young woman questioning and deconstructing her childhood faith. One of the things that disturbs me the most about the church is the way it has treated homosexuals.

Everyone close to me is an evangelical conservative. A lot of the people around here are.

I’m a people pleaser. I’m scared of not being loved or liked. Yeah, I know, it’s selfish if I let this control me, but it is honestly hard and scary.

Recently, as I’ve been trying to research this, I read on a very very hardcore conservative website that demonized gay people, and had a very strong ultimatum to everyone to agree with them.

Then, on a pro-gay website, I read a declaration by someone who said he would refuse to discuss alternative views on homosexuality, as it was akin to being soft on slavery, ect. That he would ignore anyone who thought homosexuality was sin. Now I see his point, and I have no doubt that the awful injustice towards gays mustn’t be tolerated.

But right now, I just feel caught in two. Like I’m either teetering on the brink of Hell or being a bigoted homophobe. It isn’t pleasant.

There has to be some way that none of us is too hopeless to change, or do better, or listen to another who is different than him. Just – how do we get the vision for that, without compromising on right and wrong? I don’t want to be soft on wrongdoing either – and right now I tend to feel that the church and bigotry have most of the wrongdoing on their hands. Yet I must go over traditional teachings for myself and just make sure just what I don’t agree with at this point – but now I’m scared whatever I do that I will either be reprobate or bigoted. Do you see what I’m saying? That I feel trapped and condemned anyway?

You know, I *am* a sinner, and I *am* a homophobe (though it’s not all my fault because so much of that gets drummed into you from childhood), and where I do find the room and the grace to keep taking those tiny steps out of it all? As well as not be sure of what I think? What can I say but Christ have mercy?

Any advice for me on my journey of research and questions?

Sorry for the book. This is really frightening right now – but love never was easy at all, was it? You know that.