Jesus had no choice. In the environment where he lived, had he failed to acknowledge the Pentateuch and state that he didn't come to change even one iota, then he would have much sooner lose his body and become unable to teach anyone and bring his message to the world. Instead he was walking a tight rope which allowed him to teach to the maximum possible extent. This is the compromise he made with the Jewish people among which he taught.

The Levitical laws, including the one against homosexual acts, were given to Jews. Why should anyone who is not a Jew even bother about them while they have no problem eating pork for example? We must remember that the purpose of those laws was to consecrate and forward the Jewish nation through the power of austerity - but is forwarding the Jewish nation any of our current concerns in life today?

So long as we are bound by the sexual urges of our body/minds, this separates us from God. It really doesn't matter whether those urges are directed towards the same gender as our body or towards the opposite gender, either way we cannot hold onto them and reach God at the same time. To reach God, we must be attracted to God alone.

However, the biblical Israelites were not after God, they were after national success and accordingly, the formula for that included encouraging heterosexuality and discouraging homosexuality. Yes, if you are after national success, if you want to make your nation great, then that's [part of] the way to go. Personally, I have no interest in that.

You do not have a dilemma- you have an emotional dependence on religion and your emotional dependence is your problem. Only you can deal with it.

Trying to make people feel sorry for you is manipulative. Many people have learnt to overcome emotional dependence. It is the task for every adult.

This article reminds me of my faith’s dying days. Only I was still homophobic well after losing my faith.

Reconciling modern reality with a book of ancient myths is a never-ending exercise in mental gymnastics for any thinking Christian, not to mention a stressful experience.

The things one puts oneself through when simply tossing the whole lot out, and conceding that it is all rubbish, is excluded as ever being an option…

--

Yuyutsu,

The New Testament condemns homosexuality too. The condemnation of homosexuality is not just enshrined in Levitical law. In fact, the New Testament goes out of its way to include lesbianism too. Like the homophobes on OLO, the Old Testament was only concerned with male homosexuality.

The bbc/abc thought Jimmy Saville was a nice guy. Maybe he was. His choices sexually were not ok. Read Romans 1 and you find why so many support this unsavoury lifestyle. By all means be sympathetic to the person just like you would with adulterers and fornicators. I suspect they to would disqualify themselves from the worship team. Don't apologise for calling sin sin. Just because someone is feels urges towards young boys or animals does not make the urges right. Leave that conclusion to the god deniers.

“Worship team”. Senior minister”. Sounds more like a branch of Bunnings than a church.

But of course, the church was right. The homosexual could attend church, but he not preach or teach. There is nothing unreasonable about that. However, the homosexual seems to have been unhappy with that, and he left – again. So what?

The author doesn't seem to take his religion seriously either, if he choses to be 'emotive' about what Christianity teaches about homosexuality.

I gave away the organised church long ago; and I do not live exactly by the Christian creed, but I do know and respect the church's attitude to homosexuality and perversion, and there is no getting around it. Homosexuality is a sin – end of story. If a deviate cannot attend church, mind his own business and get on with life, that's his problem.

I don't really see any point to this article. It seems that the writer just wanted to ramble on about his own problems with the subject and with his faith.

Church congregations are getting smaller. There is no surprise that there are recruiting drives.

Pareto's 80:20 might have some relevance here. Some churches are failing most while attempting to get publicity by virtue signalling for the few.

Churches could cut straight to the chase and remember the outreach services they could be supplying to, by way of examples,

- the many thousands of isolated elderly who have been abandoned by their own loved ones;

- the plague of parental and grandparental alienation that separates children from other family members; and,

- the number of depressed children and youth who are not attending school and are self-harming and who sorely need someone to visit, display an interest and keep them company for a while without judging, preaching, 'problem-solving' and attempts at conversion.

This article reminds of Latham's well-founded criticism of trendy 'Progressive' Labor that it was all about rhetoric concerning gays, while ignoring the plight of the many thousands of poor and now, “Shorten Labor is only interested in diversity of skin colour, gender and sexuality — Safe Schools BS”.

That is not to say that minorities should not get attention (and there is no chance of that happening), but there is plenty of evidence that the failure of government to plan for all sorts of very serious matters, for example aged care, is being covered up by huge public posturing, bothering and wastage of Parliament's time and taxpayer money on such trivialities as 'gay marriage' .

Many church congregations are the glue of their local communities (like other community service organisations) and they do provide many valued practical services that government is unlikely to ever afford or prove capable of providing well and efficiently. Getting mired in issues complicated by activists such as gay politics is unnecessary, usually only the ridiculous 'Me too' and a recipe for chaos and disintegration.