My last blog entry about God’s conditional love got me thinking about love in general. I find it helpful the way the Ancient Greeks categorised love along the lines of eros (erotic love), philos (the kind of love a parent has for her child) and agape (the selfless laying down of one’s own needs in order to serve others).  As an aside, I would like to know whether these terms have shaped my thinking or whether they articulate something that is real in our society. In other words, does language shape our reality or does reality shape our language? I will come back to that question in a later blog.

This morning on the way into work on the subway, a young woman noticed that I was reading the Bible. To my surprise, she engaged me in conversation and started off with questions about my understanding of love. It turned out that she is a theology student, a believer in God and a lesbian.

I’d like to summarize the main points she shared with me:

1. Irrespective as to whether you believe your sexual orientation is determined by nurture or nature, you cannot choose your sexual orientation any more than you can choose your eye colour.
2. As the Bible implies in 1 Corinthians 6:18, your sexuality is not a selectable bolt-on to who you are like your choice of job, car or cell phone. Rather it is an absolute integral part of who you are as human being. Hence, you cannot say, I accept you as a human being but I cannot accept your sexual orientation. Your sexual orientation is an integral part of who you are. And who we are determines what we do.
3. Hence, if God labels homosexual practices as a sin, He is simultaneously rejecting the human beings (His creation) who live out a homosexual lifestyle. A lifestyle based on a sexual orientation which they never even chose.

When I asked her what did that mean for her interpretation of the Bible or for her personal faith, she replied:

“In Hebrews 11:1, it is written that ‘faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.’ As far as homosexual love is concerned, however, my definition is: ‘Faith is a refusal to believe what it is true.’ Do you understand what I am trying to say?”

Well, I guess I’ll leave her question for you to answer …

Links

Same Love by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis