Sunday 17 September 2017

What My Pretend Friend Said.

When the secular world wants to be particularly derogatory to Christians they
refer to God, the Creator of the Universe, as our *pretend friend* or our *sky fairy*.

On these grounds they can safely argue that our opinion is null & void because we are obviously idiots who believe  in things that don't exist. That they also believe in things that can't be seen, & sometimes can't necessarily be proven, though their effects can be seen, like oxygen, wind, quantum physics & black holes, doesn't seem to cross their minds.

However  I suspect the ratio of real idiots is no higher among the Christian population than the secular which led me to speculate about the Great Divide Australia is presently experiencing among our Christian population.

Rightly or wrongly [& no~one can seem to agree about that either] our present government has asked for the population's opinion on changing the marriage act to include homosexual couples.  We are simply being asked do you agree that same sex couples should be allowed to marry? [Yes] [No]

One would assume, on scriptual grounds alone, that most Christians would vote No.  Apparently not.  Interestingly these Christians are not using scripture for their argument ~ though the word *love* gets tossed around a fair bit. I am not going to digress onto a definition of the word *love*.  What I am going to theorise is that not a single one of these people asked God for His opinion.  Oh, they may have prayed ~ but there is prayer & then there is prayer.  Some prayerers do all the talking.  Some ever shut up in fact.  They do not really expect an answer & for all intents & purposes they may as well be secular because their reasoning is just that ~ theirs.

 However some people have learnt to listen.

I put myself in the listening category.  Now I do not necessarily think I am a very good listener ~ so much so that I tend to qualify my prayers with instructions to be loud & very clear ~ as in no mistaking. God has always honoured that.

My first degree was in literature.  I can be completely pedantic about words & what they mean [just ask the MOTH] & I hate it like poison when people misuse words, so when it first came to my attention that all references to homosexuality in the bible were due to mistranslations, poor translation etc & that really the bible didn't talk about homosexuality at all, I began to investigate.  I knew enough to know that a work in translation is never going to be 100% accurate just because some ideas & concepts become terribly unweildy or are just impossible to translate.

At this point I was prepared to be swayed. I could be convinced by a good argument.  Like any good academic I was prepared to look @ the evidence & deal with it. However, not only did I not find the evidence compelling, I got a complete stop in my spirit. I have written about the Quaker Stop here.

I hesitated.  I did not want to displease my Lord by holding to a viewpoint He did not agree with.  At the same time I was not willing to change either way without a more compelling argument than those presented by either side of the divide.

So I did what all good little charismatics do: I asked. Despite what the secular world believes God is real & He has real views & opinions & He has a way of expressing Himself unmistakably. The answer came hard & fast & unmistakable, like a clip over the ear: homosexuality is an abomination in the sight of the Lord.  I was not expecting that.

So, I will be voting NO.  I have no doubt in my mind that homosexuality & all its associated baggage is displeasing to God.  I do not know how the Christian yes camp is going to vindicate itself but it certainly explains to me why the majority of charismatics are in the no camp; we are the ones that asked for clarification.

2 comments:

  1. I had this revelation this week, something we all know but somehow it seemed so profound for some reason and that came during singing Bethel's Our Father: Your Kingdom come quickly. Your will be done the same. On Earth as it is in Heaven Let Heaven come to earth..." earth is God's kingdom and therefore we are to live by what He finds good, not what we think is "okay" as if it really does not matter. It really matters!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Luke 4:43: *But He said to them, "I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose*

    I was reading recently the meaning of kingdom as not a place but rather a Ruling ~ God as King, rules & thus His followers should abide by His rules. We are to *trust in the Lord with all our hearts & lean not on our own understanding.* This is where liberal theology falls short. Everything is dismissed as *cultural*, irrelevant, outmoded & man's understanding replaces God who informs us *All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.* 2 Tim 3:16

    ReplyDelete