www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Here we go again! (SSA)

Alice,

Thank you. This is a difficult topic for anyone to speak about especially those of us who have this problem and don't want it. Sometimes I catch myself in denial and I have to wake up to the reality of it all over again. This is certainly not the cross I would have chosen for myself, but then it wouldnt be a cross if I had. I do understand the confusion most people have about homosexuality and was subject to that confusion for a long time myself. But I think I see more clearly now. It's simply one of a very long list of issues that resulted from the fall. I firmly believe that having these inclinations is NOT a choice. God knows how many times I have tried to unmake that choice only to fail. And God help those who are stuck in the believe that they are under some kind of responsibility to undo it. Jesus never asks us to feel a certain way about anything. He asks us to BELIEVE certain things and DO certain things. It is precisely the feelings or passions that can so powerfully work against us doing those very simple requirements. Thank God these passions are not sinful! What a mess we would all be in since every one of us must deal with them, homosexual, heterosexual or non sexual. In my opinion, dealing with the passions is where the East really shines. We westerners tend to suppress or deny our passions and live stoic lives. The east on the other hand is much more attune to the emotional side of life and says fight against your passions but dont attempt to kill them! To attempt to kill the passions is to make oneself dead while alive. WE all know know a passionless person is like: listless, unmotivated, dead. While God is passionless in his essence, He became Passionate in Jesus. In fact, Jesus defined what Passion is. In an ideal world we would all hunger and thirst for the Will of God alone. Still, I don't doubt for a minute that Jesus, who was like us in all respects but WITHOUT SIN, experienced feelings that went contrary to his will. How else could he be tempted? Perhaps this will shock someone or ever provoke someone to accuse me of blasphemy, but if Jesus did not experience life as I do, in some degree, then how can he have redeemed me? I am confident that not only does Jesus care about me, but he understands. And he understands not in a merely intellectual way, but by virtue of his passionate humanity.

There is something to be said for those who insist that we cannot be "named" or "called" based on our feelings or inclinations, but only on our actions. If that is true then there is no such thing as a chaste homosexual. Simply because homosexuals are defined not by their feelings but by their sinful lifestyle. A chaste person is simply that, a chaste person...feelings notwithstanding. I admit that is useful and practical to refer to oneself as gay or homosexual if one has those inclinations even though they do not act upon them for the simple reason that it makes it easier to understand oneself. Yet I can't help but wonder if labeling people as homosexual or gay even if they are chaste is not part of the problem with the way people who do not experience these feelings see those of us who do.

Protestants want to say and indeed DO say that the very inclination is itself sinful. This is of course hogwash. We know that sin is a deliberate (at whatever level of consciousness) choice to do evil. But we cannot usually choose to feel a certain way. Emotions are mysterious and we cannot understand all the factors that come into play that make them what they are as we experience them. Why do we cry tears of sadness when someone dies whom we love or pity and why do we do the same thing, cry, when something wonderful happens? I cry a lot. I'd say 50% tears of sadness and 50% tears of joy. I can't help it. It drives me crazy and it can be embarrassing but that's the way I am made and I cannot change it. I suppose I could force myself to stuff it all down deep inside and avoid the physical expression of tears, but that doesnt make the feelings go away. They simply are put at a level of consciousness that doesnt allow them to affect me. The downside of this is when one suppresses feelings they accumulate and over time can literally force one to do things that they would never do deliberately. I believe this is the case with many homosexuals who were reared in religious households where their inclinations were understood as being inherently evil. They suppress their feelings to such an extent as to believe they no longer have them (of course they always do, but they deny they are what they are). Usually these people get married and have a family. THen to the utter astonishment of all they go awol and enter the lifestyle without warning, leaving family and friends in bewilderment and distress because they wonder what could have possibly happened. Well what happened what that their suppressed feelings became so volatile and powerful that they were forced to do the unthinkable. I believe there is much mercy on God's part for such people. But still it is a sad thing to see. I have seen it myself several times and have seen wonderful families destroyed and wifes broken hearted and children in dismay. How things would have been different had they been able to acknowledge their condition at a younger age!

There is much in this thread and its predecessor that I disagree with because frankly, it smacks of naivety and ignorance. One thing I heartily AGREE with though is the danger of these so called "repairative therapies" I know there are some highly intelligent people who espouse this theory, including some well known Catholics like Dr Nicolosi. Yet I believe for all their psychological training and expertise, they are gravely and dangerously mistaken. Thank God the Catholics do not generally say more than the Catechism in that they do not call SSA a sin. But still, if SSA is simply a psychological aberration then it should be able to be "fixed". Strangely nobody seems to think that OTHER psychological aberrations "SHOULD" be fixed. That is to say, even if it is not stated, many imply that there is some kind of moral obligation to fix what is broken. I say hogwash. Our duty is to OBEY and Cooperate with God. Fixing what is broken is HIS business, not ours. In fact, Holy Scripture states that it is precisely in our brokenness that God uses us the most. When we are weak, then we are strong. The Apostle Paul begged God 3 times to remove his "thorn in the flesh sent from Satan to buffet him" but God refused saying "My grace is sufficient for you." We have this notion that health, both physical and psychological have some kind of moral value. They do not! If they did then those who waste away their bodies through fasting would have something major to explain to God! We are under no obligation to be healthy. We are under obligation only to Love and obey and cooperate with God. Practical wisdom does indeed teach that it is good to be healthy. But the Gospel does not. Rather God delights in the weak and poor and sick. If he chooses to make them healthy and whole then SOLI DEO GLORIA! God Bless God who cures the leper, give site to the blind, speech to the dumb and hearing to the deaf and makes the lame walk! But these are things to Glorify God for, not moral obligations. They are the cherry on top.

I know my words in my original post were harsh. But I meant for them to be. However, I did not mean them to be self righteous. I am in the same boat as everyone else is, especially as those who suffer with SSA. I intended them to be a wake up call. If anyone reading them thinks they can live according to the passions and be pleasing to God, they need to think again. Such goes against all of Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition. Modern science notwithstanding. Science cannot teach us a thing about ethics. NOTHING WHATSOEVER. Everything we need to know is available in Divine Revelation whether written or orally transmitted through the Church. Science is a wonderful tool that can help us understand ourselves and the universe. But it cant change that which is absolute. Groups in the Church such as Courage stand for that Holy Tradition. WHile groups such as Dignity wish to change it in justification of sinful actions.

It is often opined "why do dissenters not leave the church if they disagree with it but rather stay and try to change it?" I think the answer is because they want justification. They know their own word is not good enough but if they have the word of those in authority it can lend some credence to their position. It's like a child who obstinately continues to try to persuade his parents to buy something for him which they cannot afford or know would not be good for him. He cannot just do the thing on his own, he needs their approval to give it legitimacy.

Thus, in my opinion, such groups as Dignity are not full of people who want to do the right thing but are simply confused...though there may be SOME people there like that. But these groups are positively WICKED and spawned of the Devil himself. They do not deserve understanding. They deserve excommunication. Churches should refuse them just as they would refuse to allow the CHurch of Satan to worship on their premises. There should be no "grey" area about this. If people are serious about loving God, no matter how often they fail or fall, then they need to objectively subject themselves to the teaching of the Church and align themselves with groups that uphold that teaching. It rankles me to no end to know that there are active homosexuals who shamelessly approach the Holy Mysteries and take the Body and Blood of the Lord. Whats the difference in this and giving the Eucharist to impenitent fornicators and adulterers? Or theives, murderers and the like? If they want to share in His body and blood, let the REPENT. It is available to them freely then. But they want HIS approval on THEIR wickedness and as long as they are not dropping dead they assume they've got it. I know our respective Church's bishops and archbishops are bogged down with many things. But this is a scandal of worldwide proportions that could easily be taken care of. Preach the WORD in season and out of season. When its convenient and when its not. DISINVITE active homosexuals to the table. Let them know its for their own spiritual wellbeing. I cannot hate homosexuals being one myself. Even active ones. But I am torn between compassion for them and vindication for the Body and Blood of the Lord. I am angry and in pity at the same time. If anyone reading this fits into that category I ask you to recall the words of Jesus "If you love me, keep my commandments" and "WHy do you say you love me and do not do the things I say?" If you wish to defile yourselves then that is your own affair. But do not defile the Table of God by your sin.

My apologies for writing so long and getting so preachy.

Jason

JASON:

I don't know where to begin except to say that each of us has his own cross to bear and you seem to be bearing a very heavy one through your pilgrimage.

We are all broken in one way or another. If we were not, we would have no need of God or of His Son, OLJC, or of Christ's coming here to find us and provide the bridge back to the Father that His Cross is for us.

We all have need of help in carrying our cross and that is the beauty of the Church in tath we have a supportive community to help us when we fall. Unfortunately many in that same community seem to forget this and seem to condemn certain sins rather more harshly than others. I do agree with your points, however, in that we cannot give support to those who refuse to repent and who demand recognition of something that is objectively sinful. But that is no different than those who seem to think that they should be allowed to obtain a civil divorce and remarry without consequences, even when Jesus has said that to do so makes one objectively an adulterer.

Jesus calls us to persevere to the end. He doesn't say that it will be a cakewalk. As the Desert Fathers have said, we ought not to be surprised when a brother falls (or we do ourselves for that matter), but we should be amazed when someone is able to avoid the jaws of the Evil One.

In Christ,

BOB

Thank you very much for that information. It would seem that there are many gentle programmes in the USA concerning orientation to heterosexuality and that is heartening news. My concerns have been derived from the UK where many attempts have been harsh, cold and unprofessional. This of course has involved a great deal of suffering and resulted in suicides in some cases. These amateur initiatives were from a heavy Calvanist background.

Lawrence wrote: Amen! That is exactly the agenda of the Rainbow Sash crowd and their Lavender sympathizers. Such an issue has to be handled with pastoral care, but the Church must also hate the sin. (And She does.)

Michael Thoma wrote:

This seems to imply a false equivalence between heterosexual attraction and homosexual attraction. According to the Roman Catholic Church:

And according to the Orthodox Church:

If you're merely stating heterosexual lust is wrong, that is true, though it goes without saying; we would have no argument there. However, there can be a pure heterosexual desire, which has no homosexual counterpart; the very inclination is disordered. Let's obey our Church.

[b]-------
Western Orthodoxy Blog [westernorthodox.blogspot.com]

I believe it is important to emphasize that there is NO moral value to either heterosexual or homosexual feelings or desires. In this sense they are equivalent. Granted though, that in a perfect world, homosexual desires would not exist while heterosexual desires would.

Jason

Slava Isusu Christu!

I actually did not write that the Church in England was not fighting still, but that it lost its fight against the SORs, and that Christianity is being criminalized in the UK. Your article confirms this. I only decided to comment in this thread because the notion that there are better things to fight than the normalization of homosexual acts is specious, in addition to being utterly spurious.

"Let's get on with fighting greed, war, poverty, hunger, and stop wasting our time on such matters."

"Blah, blah, blah, here we go again..."

Well yes, here we do indeed go again, for evil is relentless, and it has added a new category to the age-old order: the formal, government-sanctioned corruption of children's minds. You do not ignore a flank attack just because you are engaged on your front - not unless you wish to lose.

But in this age of ours, this most pernicious error is now propagated far and wide amid the multitude, it is insinuated even in the popular schools, and shows itself openly in the theaters; and in order that it may be spread abroad as far as possible, its advocates seek aid from the latest inventions, from what are called cinematographic scenes, from gramophonic and radiophonic concerts and discourses; and possessed of printing offices of their own, they print books in all languages, and, taking a triumphant course, they publicly display the monuments and documents of their impiety. Nor is this enough; for dispersed among political, economical and military parties, and closely associated with them, through their heralds, by means of committees, by pictures and leaflets, and all other possible means, they labor diligently in the evil work of spreading their opinions among all classes and societies, and in the public ways; and to carry this further, supported by the authority and work of their universities, they succeed at last by forceful industry in binding fast those who have incautiously allowed themselves to be aggregated to their body. When We consider all this careful labor devoted to the advantage of an unlawful cause, that most sad complaint of Christ our Lord spontaneously rises in our mind and on our lips: "The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light" (Luke xvi. 8).

6. Now, the leaders and authors of this iniquitous faction do all they can to turn the present distress and need of all things to their own purpose; and they seek, by infamous cavils, to persuade the people that God and religion are to blame as the cause of all these great evils; and that the sacred Cross of Christ our Savior itself, the ensign of poverty and humility, may be compared with the ensigns of the modern lust of domineering; as though, forsooth, religion was joined in friendly union with those conventicles of darkness which have brought such an immense mass of misery upon the whole world. And by this line of argument they strive, not without fatal effect, to mix up the struggle for daily food, the desire to possess a smallholding, to have a fair wage, an honorable home and, lastly, those conditions of life that are not unworthy of a man, with their iniquitous war against God. (His Holiness Pope Pius XI, Caritate Christi Compulsi, 1932)

We "go again" because we have to.

Pax

there is an interesting article in the October issue of Christianity Today on the ex Gay movement. I suggest that one and all read it. it seems quite realistic and balanced.
Much Love,
Jonn