Onesimus said:
Words mean things. How you string your words together means things. You've used the word "hate" - "self-absorbed" in contradiction to "sympathetic" and followed that up with an aspersion of enmity.
You're psychoanalyzing and projecting.
Perhaps enmity is a poor choice of words. It sure seems like you have many misgivings of the LGBT movement and choose to see the movement in somewhat adversarial terms.
Having seen how you interpret Scriptural passages - it is indeed likely that you are suffering from some sort of significant impairment in this regard, only potentiated by your involvement in the ELCA.
I reached my own resolution a long time ago. The ELCA has nothing to do with it. I was just looking for a sacramental, liturgical church. Despite all that has happened in my life, I still think Jesus matters. Which is a miracle in its own right.
Struggle and failure and temptation and falling into the sin of sodomy out of human weakness is not a grounds for exclusion, if one is struggling and fighting the fight. But active intent (overt, covert or subvert) to participate in a lifestyle and to encourage the Church to embrace active homosexuality is.
You seem to be focused on what people
do an awful lot, rather than focusing on what they
are.
This entire discussion between two opposing sides is often unable to distinguish between working and dealing with persons and loving them in their particular circumstances
Exactly... being gay is part of some peoples "particular circumstances". I will be frank, some of the Fathers, when they are speaking of acts interpreted as "homosexuality" do not seem to be speaking of an awareness of issues that affect the 21st century context of this discussion, the "particular circumstances" of actual
gay people.
intent upon "normalizing" promoting and teaching homosexuality
Are most gay rights advocates actually doing this? I think they are saying being gay is
normal for gay people, not that being gay should be "promoted" to those who are not gay. That's frankly a talking point of the culture wars that doesn't stand up to serious scrutiny.
Sometimes LOVE and compassion involves clear and open communication, including the open communication of defining sin as sin and proposing that repentance is necessary for communion.
To which I can only think of the stern warning that Jesus gave in Matthew 18:6. We are not talking about axe murderers here, and I find the comparison with heterosexual adultery incredible. Especially in a Church that permits contraception and remarriage with
economia. What exactly is so hideous about gays that they don't deserve the same
economia?
Why impose this austere monastic ideal on people least able to carry it?
The entire Protestant Reformation was made a reality through this very process of division and internal warfare that it finally sought the semblance of peace and the normalization of division and doctrinal and practical incoherence that is a faith without FULLNESS and content.
Does anybody really have a perfect understanding of the Faith?
Its fruit becomes obvious...and its fruit is a continued acquiescence to active division and the scattering of the flock to be picked off by wolves who wish for both soul and body to be destroyed.
I don't see unwavering traditionalism and triumphalism as a good response to western modernity. We are all Protestants now, at least in the western world. Nobody holds a gun to our head and tells us what to believe. And we all have to give an account to God for our actions in this world. "My pastor/priest said it was good" is not going to be a very good response. God gave us individual minds and hearts for a reason.
AND as part of that love PREACH AND EXPECT REPENTANCE (as a form of mutual edification) rather than simply drink in the lie that you cannot oppose a sinful lifestyle and also love a person.
"Hey friend, let me help you remove that speck from your own eye", indeed.
In the west we had centuries of hellfire preachers and mendicant orders of all sorts doing the exact same thing you advise- preaching repentance in a legalistic fashion. (And I really see the Orthodox "therapeutic" approach as potentially even more insidious if misused, for the worst things could be justified in the name of "doing this for your own good. For many centuries serfs were also told that economic slavery was "for their own good" and that such a state of affairs was the "natural order"). This approach hasn't seen to make a dent in stemming the long-term tide of secularization. Quite the opposite. Now you think maybe the western experience might actually have some insight on this matter?
Preaching repentance as a condition of grace is a heavy burden upon those who are wounded. And many gay people are especially wounded (I don't live in San Francisco, I live in the Bible Belt where people are still kicked out on the street and bullied for being gay or transgender). I think it is rather a matter of many people that need to first approach gays and ask the gay brother to remove the speck from their eyes. Pope Francis is at least starting to do the right thing in this matter by apologizing to the gay community.