If you are still around and would like to talk with someone who promises not to judge you, respond to this post and I will share my private email address with you.

God loves you and so do I.

Harry Peters

Pipe down.

Are you saying that you are at a conventional, stage four level of moral development?

I have had some dear friends through the years who never married. Their life attitude was that this was God’s will for them, and they had to obey Him, although this surely wouldn’t have been their own first choice. I admire them for honoring God in their celibacy. As far as I know, these folks’ sin nature would have led them to heterosexual sin, had they chosen to indulge in it. That their own professions, witnessed by how amazingly God has used them, is that they never indulged in those sins, is a thing that I - and the Lord - greatly admire. I know professing Christians, riddled with guilt and a loneliness that I can’t imagine, who have struggled all of their lives with a sin nature that leads them to homosexual desires. I wonder if, since they have never yielded to it, I should admire them even more greatly
than I admire those who haven’t yielded to a heterosexual sin nature…but I do.
I’ve seen the agony in their faces and heard it in their words.

And then, there is the subject of those who have that sin nature, and have given in to it. Kirk Talley has been the poster child for it here. When the news came out, I wrote him an e-mail that same day. I’ve shaken his hand, but I don’t know him. I told him that day that he would be in my ongoing prayers, and that I would pray for him to claim God’s unconditional forgiveness, and one day be able to rise above that sin nature that he had struggled with for so long. I never heard from him, nor did I expect to. I still pray for him.

God names many sins. All of us bear our own temptations. I have mine, and if we’re honest, everyone reading this has yours. They may differ, but the end result is the same. We all need to be saved from both the power and penalty of sin. A sovereign God could have removed our old fallen nature and just superimposed His new nature in us at the moment of salvation, but He chose not to. We now possess two natures, of course - and all too often, the old fallen sin nature takes precedence over our new nature. It happens all too often on this site, in fact.

Since we all succumb to our old nature all too often, do we dare use this as a club over others? Sin is sin, and while we tend at times to judge everyone except ourselves, we need to be careful. We might put degrees on sin that God doesn’t. Remember that of the seven abominations that the Lord hates, we read in Proverbs 6:17 that leading the list is “A proud look”. We dare not look down on anothers sin in pride, when we have our own to deal with. And yet, in Romans 1, as has been mentioned, it does indeed to appear that in the downward helix of sin, homosexuality is one that God particularly despises; perhaps because it’s a reversal of His creative order. We cannot in any way minimize that particular sin. We’re being systematically eroded in our hatred of all sin, every day, everywhere we turn. The saddest occasions of all are when we’re blinded to our own.

Abortion is the ultimate manifestation of our blindness to a God Who is, has always been, and always will be. As Dr. Joe said, earth’s massive loss is Heaven’s equally massive gain. It is the ultimate selfish indulgence in a sin nature left unchecked.

Please tell me if I’m way off-base here, will you? Sorry for such a long post; the longest I’ve ever written by far. I hope only to interject a possible cause for an extremely sensitive subject.

Who’s left?

But at least he is in the closet about it with the door cracked. I honestly believe the reason some of these folks so freak out about being gay is because when the question is asked if they could switch some of them could and they think EVERYBODY can!!

The simple difference between us is that you are thinking horizontally, and I am thinking vertically.

I said abortion is murder. I said I have never nor will ever have anything to do with one.

But it IS law. You may thank Harry Blackmun for his deciding vote, on 22 Jan. 1973. Since then, the estimate (US only) is 50 million abortions.

A horrible statistic. But when you look at it through Heaven’s eyes, 50 million out of 50 million are in Heaven.

That is a far better percentage than seeing people saved through preaching the gospel.

The great commission for us is to preach the gospel. Period. Not to stamp out abortion. Not to change laws the ways we want them. Not to pick political candidates. Not to save redwoods or snail darters at all costs. We are to see people saved for Heaven.

And THAT, is exactly what God is doing here. Through a horrible and awful law, countless millions are being saved for Heaven.

Is it a great human loss? Absolutely. Is it a wonderful Heavenly gain?

It all depends if you think horizontally, or vertically.

Your logic is so twisted and convoluted that it smells like smoke from the pit of hell to me. It actually sounds like you are trying to justify voting for Barack Huessin Obama or some other pro-death democrat…after all abortion is legal…and we can’t touch that.

So…applying your lack of logic, all anyone need do is get enough people to go along with them to make the wrong of their choice a law…and after that, it’s in God’s hands and we have no reason to challenge it.

Harry Peters would like it better if you keep your head in the sand. First off, you can’t spout off absurdities and second, we won’t be exposed to the gore of seeing the hole in your head where your brain was taken out. I hope it is pickled and someone is getting good out of it somewhere.

I cannot imagine the pain and disappointment you must feel and I offer my apology on the behalf of others who do not even realize what they are doing.

Rather than hang it up, try hanging out at a different church. From experience, I can suggest that there are many United Methodist and Episcopal churches who would be welcoming to you and not trying to “fix” you. They may not sing SGM. God knows Harry Peters HATES the music at his own church. All we have is a half dozen screachers and an old, out of shape organist that looks like Uncle Fester from the Adams family. What has worked for me is to worship God with and among people that I see sharing my journey with me….and you know, not a single one of them has ever asked me if I was gay or heterosexual.

Now Rewind almost 20 years. Those of you who post a lot on here know of my wife, Fonda Peters. Fonda was an independent baptist. When we became serious about marriage, Fonda’s mother, a holier than thou, sunday school teachin, typical gossipin, “good Baptist Christian,” started rumors that Harry Peters was gay. You KNOW how that went over in an Independent Baptist Church, so I won’t ellaborate. At the same time, she was telling other people in her “prayer group” that Harry Peters was the greatest fornicator in the world and that I had broken up a woman’s marriage who had 3 children. This created such a buzz in a very LARGE Independent Baptist Church, that the pastor (God love and bless his soul) came to visit me. Although he never told me this himself, I learned that after our talk, he went privately to the prayer group and told them that if they did not stop using the “prayer group” as a weapon, he would have no choice but to ask them to leave the church.

What the hardliners on this site do not realize is that they are trashing people who are in their closest circle of friends, family and church. Yes, gay people are everywhere. It won’t make you feel much better, but some of these same people saw Martin Luther King Jr as a trouble maker and thought Rosa Parks SHOULD have been in the back of the bus. Thank God, much of that is changing, but when it comes to suffering, you are in good company.

NOW to the rest of you….HARRY PETERS MUST MAKE A HARD STATEMENT! You are losing precious souls by your approach. For the sake of argument, if you were right in your self-righteousness, would you hope to be helpful to someone like this dear man by trying to run him away from the church and his faith? How is that Godly?

The Oak Ridge Boys used to have a song with a lyric, “reach out and touch a hand; make a friend when you can.” OH–that’s right– the HTT’s (Holier Than Thous) ran them out of SG music because they weren’t “Godly” enough. Funny that my all-time favorite CAT’S invited them to their Farewell Tour Taping with B—I—-L—L G—A—-I—-T—-H—E—-R.

Shame on Us!

If being gay sends you to hell I know alot of people that will bust hell wide open. I know the verses that get twisted around here to make ppl feel that way. But I feel that it is no more a sin to be gay than a person who commits a multitude of other sins. Drinking, messing with women and GOSSIPING which Lord knows hell will be full of alot of us on this site.

I think many of the ppl that feel that way think you need to be SAVED many times and Jesus was not good enough to make it happen the first time by his good grace.

If that is the standard we all need to confess of all our sins the second before we die.

Like Aaron Wilburn say… God Love their hearts!!!

#67, Wade, I have read your posts and appreciate your words very much. But I am just so very tired of trying to swim upstream against the majority of the church. I know not everyone feels the same way as those who always seem to want me to feel “less than” as a Christian because of something I did not choose. I’m sorry, but I need a rest from this fight.

I have also said that being gay and being an active gay are two different things and that is all I will say about it at this moment.

Homosexuality is a struggle as is any other temptation in my opinion. I had never thought of it being demons, and I don’t know that. It is what we do with the temptation.