19 September 2008

Sure, blame God

So, Ray Bolz is gay. And, of course, God made him that way.

One of the problems of life from a Christian perspective is knowing where God's creative act is a reason and where the reason is simply that corruption which we inherit from Adam. We all -- yes, all -- have that area where we really, really, struggle. With me it's unlimited ambition and competiveness. With others it's unlimited sexual desire (in this case, heterosexual). When it comes to homosexual desire, however, this desire is singled out for special treatment. When it come to this desire it must be of God. It cannot be an area where one just happens to have his struggle against corruption.

One of my favorite poets is W. H. Auden. Auden was gay. He was also a Christian. I know what you're thinking. But in Auden's case he confessed it as a sin from which he could get free.

I don't post on this because I think homosexuality should be singled out for special treatment among sins. Rather, I've noticed the tendency on the part of a great number of Christians to place the responsibility for their failings at God's feet. Gay Christians aren't the only Christians who claim, "This is how God made me."

I really wish David would have blamed God for his dalliance with Bathsheba.

The problem, in many cases, is not that God made us with specific sexual desires. The problem is that we are born in corruption with sinful desires. Identify any element of God's will, and you will find someone, even a Christian, with a deep desire to disobey. Why? Because in that person's life the corruption into which we are born works itself out that way.

What separates gay Christians from other Christians is that other Christians really don't have to struggle in quite the same way. We can indulge our ambitions, our gluttony, our envy and employ all sorts of euphemisms to hide them. The gay Christian doesn't have any euphemisms to hide behind. And, really, we think -- employing our euphemisms -- that God made us that way, too.

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James Frank Solís
Former soldier (USA). Graduate-level educated. Married 26 years. Texas ex-patriate. Ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.
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