Lynn, I will try and briefly address your points

1. I do the best I can to understand where you are coming from. Ultimately I am not you and so I try and understand you from my frame of reference. I am sure you feel misunderstood at times, as do I, and I assure you that it is not malicious on my part. I do not pour over your comments for hours but read it once and write a response. I am a very busy person, as I am sure you are as well, and so I will probably never try and set your blog posts in the greater context of your thoughts that are laid out in your e-book. I think this is how blogging works, being a rather informal dialogue, and so I think you have to expect not to always be understood quite in the way you would like to be. As to your points about Paul and Jesus, (1) given the fact that Jesus was a traditional first century Jew I have little doubt that he would have thought the very act of homosexual behavior to be immoral in that it violates God’s purpose for his creation. (2) Certainly within Christian belief you cannot draw a line between Paul and Jesus. I know this sort of thing happens in academic circles all the time, but it has never held a place in Christian confession.

2. Why is homosexual activity so much more reasonable than incestuous activity? I agree with you that the church believes incest to be immoral. However, the vast majority of worldwide ecumenical Christianity also believes homosexuality to be immoral. It seems to me that most of Christianity feels both incest and homosexuality to be immoral and thus unreasonable.

3. Having an open mind does not mean you have no opinions about anything. I only means that you are willing to change those opinions. It means that you are willing to be convinced you are wrong. I do think that the act of homosexuality is immoral, but I am open for correction. I feel that not making yourself vulnerable to another point of view is a bad ethic of listening and thus sin. I often feel that the word “condemn” is used in these sorts of discussions about the person rather than the activity. Of course I would condemn the act of homosexuality as I would any other sin, but since I am a sinner I would never condemn the person committing the sin. Thus, I believe I can separate you from your homosexuality…I know you disagree with this, but I think it is important for you to know that in my mind I do not condemn you.

4. Again I, like you, can only speak from their own perspective. I only developed a stronger opinion that people can change in their sexual desires (over a very long period of time) after having the conversation with many of my peers and them agreeing. Perhaps unlike yourself, I do believe that I am capable of almost any sin, which I why I, like everyone else needs the assistance of God’s Spirit to stay where I should be sexually in all ways. I could never make your statement: “descending into debauchery and wickedness is not and could not be in me.” I believe that even now as a Christian it is possible for me to sin against God, and I think I would be a fool to underestimate the extent of that sin.

5. Truth in Christianity has always been based on ecumenical agreement guided by God’s Spirit. That is how we even have the ecumenical canon, creeds, etc. So of course, hypothetically speaking, if worldwide Christianity believed something to be true, I would also hope I would believe it. As for your other comments, God is a God of the heart, but God knows our hearts. We all have hearts which deceive us in various ways. Very well intentioned people sometimes believe and do very bad things. As a Western person, I would like to accept homosexuality as correct because then I would fit in with the rest of my Western culture, but I feel inhibited from doing so by the Christian tradition. In other words, my thoughts about homosexuality have not been made without thought.

6. Well I think you should follow the “spirit” of the Mosaic law. It is the same God. As far as women go, this is another discussion because Biblical trajectories for women are much more liberating than those for homosexuality, which tends to be addressed as statically immoral. On another note, I might add that most Christians still do not condone women taking certain positions (all Roman Catholics, Easter Orthodox, and most Protestants outside the Western world).

7. I realize you have a confirming feeling in your heart about your position on homosexuality. However, for me the overwhelming weight of biblical evidence and Christian tradition (which has interpreted the Biblical evidence as you are trying to do) is against your position. Almost 2000 years of Spirit filled interpreters of the Bible have come down against you and the majority still do today. I am sure we will be in heaven together and I would love to be on the same side of other arguments with you (perhaps against people who discredit the resurrection or something like that), but on this one I have to remain as I am.