Sermon on Sheep and Goats

Here's a link to a delightful sermon by Nadia Bolz Weber.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2014/11/sermon-on-sheep-and-goats/

...A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, and subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, and subject to all.  (Martin Luther, the Monk!)

To live as those whom God loves is to serve the other in that same love. I see this in you. For you are the blessed of God. (Nadia Bolz Weber)

Changing Our Minds

David P Gushee is a respected American evangelical theologian/ethicist. He has written several books about christian ethics and in his latest book 'Changing Our Minds' (publish October 2014) he confesses that he has changed his mind about the gay marriage issue and in 126 pages explains why this is so.
He takes the 'homosexual' passages in Scripture and reveals in a persuasive and coherent manner that the Bible is not anti-gay.
In his analysis of Genesis 18 & 19 (the Sodom & Gomorrah story) he convincingly shows that God's judgement has nothing to do with same-sex faithful relationships but about attempted 'gang-rape' and inhospitality. (See Matthew 10:15/Luke 10:10-12).

His analysis of Lev 18:22/20:13 is also compelling. All kinds of sexual acts are banned in the passages in Leviticus...also certain food is banned...a disobedient son was to be taken outside the town and stoned...
He writes 'If we say Christians may not accept all the laws or the principles offered in the Old Testament, but we are committed to belief in the core character of God as revealed there, such as the idea of God is holy and demands holiness, this is better. But this does not resolve the question whether all same-sex relationships violate the character of a holy God. Nor does it settle the question of whether divine holiness-at least the kind of holiness emphasized in Leviticus-fits with the character of God as taught and embodied by Jesus Christ...'

1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim 1:10, are often quoted as proof that homosexuality and homosexual practices are wrong and those that practice them will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Gushee points out that the context and the words used (arsenotoitai) suggest that Paul is referring to same-sex prostitution that took place in the Greco-Roman world.So it would be more fitting for the english translation to be 'sex-traffickers, 'sexual-exploiters', 'rapists', or 'sexual-predators' and NOT 'homosexual perversion'.

Gushee analyses other key verses and points to the fact that we can hold a thoroughly biblical view of same-sex covenant relationships.

He also looks at the world of science and his own personal encounters with gay christians, and comes to the conclusion that there is a place for same-sex covenant relationships.

Another book that helped me personally grapple with the gay issue was 'What God as joined together. The Christian case for gay marriage' by David Myers and Letha Dawson Scanzoni (2005).
Myers is a Professor of Psychology at Michigan's Hope College.