God, Guys, Goodness – what Christian’s have taught me about the true meanings

Over the last few years, I have become involved in the local Baptist church in bath, it has become like a home for me as I’m normally there a few hours a week helping out with the office doing my own projects and general admin.

From the start, I have welcomed with open arms something which I needed I had just finished a college course which I hoped would have led to me gaining paid employment.

I was nervous all my life I had been supported in whatever I did in education full time, but this proved to be a long-term voluntary post which I enjoy as it gives me the freedom to work on projects for the church. These aren’t necessarily related to faith but as service to the community.

Coming into the church, I believed my focus would be on the admin side but over the years that has evolved into projects around obviously the religious observances, and other celebrations which aren’t necessarily religious.

We are not just a church, but a community as we run a café and without the cafe, we wouldn’t have met. This cafe is kind of a meeting place, @ The Centre of everything we do, we are all volunteers. Refresh, meet, seeking help.

Being involved in the church and seeing things like foodbank and seeing things like CAP being set up, I can see the good we can do, it also motivated my moves to join a political party. I met this man of Christian belief and is also gay, but comparing notes we have built arms distanced friendship he has similar experiences.

We met through politics and like in politics you need to be open-minded to different points of view, in my life I’ve never met a homophobic Christian in person. But I believe most Christians would also feel it’s equally against the teaching of the bible to be homophobic as it says, ‘love thy neighbour’ and Jesus often met with sinners.

An interruption of John 6:60-68 ‘Jesus was clear about the truth, even when it was not popular, and even when it caused crowds to scatter. He wasn’t just trying to build a large following. He was on a mission to share both truth and love in profound ways, ways that still shake the world today.’

My journalistic brain and writer, there was one interview which changed my life with the centre manager he challenged me and set me off on a journey which l look back on as one I needed. It allowed me to accept things I hid away from in my past, understanding why.

Some believe that ‘you can’t be gay and a Christian’, I totally disagree, as while I’m not holy I believe in the people rather than god or Jesus. Being a gay adult with Cerebral Palsy, I struggle with the idea of full membership as I feel I would be not doing things by the bible.

But in recent years and more recently I’ve realised that faith, especially during the pandemic isn’t about what happens on Sunday it’s about the practical things people do because of their faith. The pandemic in away has highlighted this, I have had hateful replies on Twitter from both Christians and the LGBT community.

These range from ‘The church not praying for me to be cured’ or ‘permitting homosexuality’ or ‘suggesting the Baptist Union isn’t a recognised church’, these are paraphrasing.

I believe in hard fact, but I don’t see hard fact, challenging that the bible was written by different authors. These are their interpretation of what they believed happened, The New Testament consists of stories, teachings, and letters that circulated among the first Christian churches. Letters from apostles like Paul and Peter are among the earliest writings in the New Testament.

Our minister says, ‘everyone has a different interpretation’ and that’s how we have different churches. So, is it like reporting on say a Grand Prix? We all agree about what happened, but why it happened and who may be at fault may be different.

The ten commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ this could range depending on the church from sex outside of marriage, gay-sex, masturbation, group sex, rape, incest, paedophilia, bestiality, and necrophilia.

The latest interpretation by some churches of adultery has been changed to ‘affair-proof relationships.’ This I believe shows a small step forward, although there is a long way to go, reforming an centuries old intuition, is going to take time.

Some would interrupt adultery as sex outside of marriage, meaning man and wife. But the interpretation only applies to women, modern Christians may not follow that, as I believe that sex is a natural thing and love is something that defies gender. You need to live in hope that over time that the younger people will continue to evolve over.

As so I believe it isn’t wrong, as it’s human nature and in nature to feel sexual attraction to the same sex. If I’m honest I think if you look at the definition of adultery how many straight people can say they haven’t had sex outside marriage?

The fact is that in the bible you can find anything to back your ideas and believes, look at the Westboro Baptist Church.

Officially, the position of the Baptist Union is that the “understanding of marriage as a union between one man and one woman.” It also has issued guidelines which “urges churches who are considering conducting same-sex marriages to refrain from doing so out of mutual respect. At the same time, we also humbly urge all churches to remain committed to our Union out of mutual respect.”

Oasis Church, a member of the Baptist Union, in recent years has become an independent Baptist Church with its mission statement saying “The church recognises that the love of God is inclusive and incarnational and welcome anybody who wants to join regardless of gender, race, sexuality, disability”

I think that is the real message that most Christian’s I know would want to share in the love, in practice I think it is very difficult to find an openly homophobic Christian, as they know that is equally against the teaching of the bible.

The Baptist Union didn’t sign the letter lead by The Evangelical Alliance, saying the ban on gay conversion therapy could end up criminalising church leaders. It’s adopted the neutral position, called ‘agree to disagree’ to maintain an  ‘All are welcome’ public profile.

Leaving it to induvial churches to make their own decisions on LGBT issues in cases documented in the Baptist Times has caused friction between ministers and members.

I have always inspired and impressed by the work of Bloomsbury Baptist Church, where Affirm are based on their mission is to ‘created to equip churches and faith communities with the resources to engage with the safety and wellbeing of LGBTQ+ people. Affirm is delighted to have been involved in the development of this essential material.’

Ifs off my view that my church preaches an “inclusive theology” to be welcoming but not entirely inclusive – with some who would profess inclusivity. But yet we don’t have a formal position, but it equally states in policies the church rejects all forms of discrimination.

This could make marriage for me in my church difficult, I would hope that future reform and that the minister would consider attend or bless the wedding. But maybe future reform may give more freedom. Rev. Joe Haward points out a contradiction in policy, of understanding but not accepting the right of marriage.

Haward, wrote in the Baptist Times, that the church needs to be in tune with the LGBT community. Highlighting the church’s duty ‘not neglect to highlight the reality on the ground of what real people have gone through and the loneliness experienced. Depression and suicide rates amongst this community remains shockingly high.’

If the church doesn’t build some kind of understanding, how does it expect to remain in touch?

I believe that Gay Sex or sex outside of marriage is OK, as long as it’s done out of love and care. This is a whole another argument, I been asked before if paying for sex is something I think about, honesty conflicts me, I think sex should be out of love and not paid for. If I met a man on a night out and had a one-night stand, I believe that is different as while not love it fulfilling a need.

I have never been in that situation, so how I would react is unknown. Some would argue that anything other than vaginal sex is a sin, but in reality I think it’s highly unlikely that the majority of the population goes into marriage being celibate.

I am a man we all have needs and if we were to strictly follow that there wouldn’t be a church, I believe that we should understand other and accept each other.

Reading The Gathering website, it says, “We believe we are called to create a safe space for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Questioning, Intersex and Allies of all faiths and none to learn about the Lord our God, Jesus Christ the son of God, the Holy Spirit, Scripture and the Lord’s message.”

I believe the message of God is one of love, he wouldn’t care if he lived today about sexual attraction, I believe he wouldn’t. My message is I believe god wants us to love people for who they are as people and not their biological sex.

I always use a song by Florence Welsh, she grew up in church, June I think can be seen as a message from god two lines “you’re so high, you’re so high, you have to be an angel. And I’m so high, I’m so high, I can see an angel.”

“In those heavy days in June. When love became an act of defiance. Hold on to each other.” I would say that gods message of love, if God gave us the freedom to love and love is gender blind.

I’m not a person who goes to church regularly on Sunday, but I am there regularly. I believe my faith is not necessary for what the bible says, it’s in the people I work with.

Seeing the work of the church and seeing the same people using things like foodbank and listening to older members, I realised that the world isn’t fair. Joining a political party I wanted to use what I had heard over the years about people struggling or witnessing the same people using foodbank, made me realise how much suffering there is in our world.

The church is a place where I feel safe to be me, we in our policies state we are for everyone. I believe that though in the UK which is a secular society, what we believe is allowed and we can be part of something we may not agree with everything but as a community, we are there to support each other when things are difficult, but celebrate the achievements too!

But I believe that these far-right churches in America, such as the Westboro, I believe don’t spread the message of love. That I believe that they defend the past without enriching change, they are a far-right and so shouldn’t speak for us. I believe ‘God doesn’t hate fags’, he loves them as he wouldn’t create LGBTQ people.

I am not the biggest fan of the catholic church, looking in from the outside it seems to be centralised and has its problems. How it dealt with unmarried mothers, sexual abuse etc is not one I believe is right. I was once told an interesting theory, ‘these priests who must be celibate need a way of pleasure’ leading to abuse.

I believe those who accept gay people but say we must be celibate, are wrong. I say we are all made equal, and the bible says, ‘we are in gods image,’ and if we are god made me to be disabled and gay.

I like to see hard facts, we didn’t have journalists at the time of Christ, but you need three sources, the bible is written by followers and no independent person. So how do we fact check, and verify the writing of the bible?

You could say the bible was written by forty different authors and they have their own ways of understanding what happened. The Bible is a diverse collection of literature, yet it contains a unified message of redemption and renewal. If we were to re-write the bible now, would we be more inclusive of LGBT people? It’s my belief it would be different.

Baptist believes that Christ died on the cross he died for everyone in general. You could argue that the sin of being LGBT has already been forgiven. Somer Baptists followed the Calvinist tradition of believing that Christ died for a particular group or elect.

However, one thing I think the Baptist Church does well is a democracy, we elect the president of the union and we as a church elect our deacons on three-year terms. Our minister is appointed by us and not placed in by the Baptist Union.

I describe our church as an independent school, we follow the teaching of Baptists, but we have freedom in the way we teach it and Baptist Union acts as the regulator. In the limited services I’ve attended, I have witnessed our minister deliver engaging and services with humour.

He is young in his thirties but looking at him he is relaxed he doesn’t use the bible much in normal conversation. When he speaks most of the time it isn’t dry, there is some of his characters when he speaks, trying to use recent events or figures to show why things matter.

I feel a great pride in service to the community, and that I believe is more important than worship. One woman, Maria, uses the phrase ‘practical Christianity’, our community is there to be supportive but also to challenge each other.

But I can’t escape at the back of my mind that the scripture says homosexuality is a sin, however as a gay man I believe that most Christians don’t believe that is right. I accept I won’t have the option to marry in church, at the moment, but I hope that they will celebrate my happiness when I find it.