I'm the author of "Talking Across the Divide: How to Communicate with People You Disagree With and Maybe Even Change the World" and "Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate."
For 20 years, I've been known for bridging the LGBT-Christian divide, and today, I'm focused on using those strategies to bring nuance to a polarized world on all sorts of issues.
People like you help other people like myself see that homosexuals are nice, kind humans not some sinful or problematic peopl. Keep going love from Iran.
Huh, I’m a straight guy who had many gay friends. I always h the light it was just a sexual preference, and while I still think that is at the heart of the matter, your video has given me an insight into homosexuality that I did not have. I can appreciate now that being gay is just like being straight. It’s exactly the same besides the ultimate object of desire. Thank you for helping me understand.
Hi Justin, this video popped up in my reccommended and I became so happy to see you again/hear you again. You and Brian (RIP) meant alot to me when I was 11-14 years old listening to the GCN podcast(before podcasts were popular lol). I’m now 27, no longer christian, but very comfortable in my orientation as a gay man. You, Brian and all the guests you had on really helped young gay christian me, and made it possible for me to come out at the age of 15. Thank you so much, and I hope you are well!
By the way, I do have a relationship with Jesus … but I’d still like to fall in love with another human. No, the love of Jesus isn’t enough … at least not in this world.
As someone who doesn’t believe in god. It’s nice to hear this conversation but I’m not a fan of Preston Sprinkle. How can he boldly ask people who are gay to give up on marriage when he is happily married? He makes it sound like it’s this easy thing to give up on
Brother, thank you for this nuanced approach to a vital topic in the 21st century Church. So many focus on what Jesus did not discuss, rather than focusing on what He did say. I have done a fair amount of research recently on this topic, and have not yet heard such a clear application of the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. Thank you and God bless you in your work.
When l became a Christian in 1982, God healed me of schizophrenia, but He didn't heal my being gay. It took 10 years to realize that I wasn't broken, the church is. 1946themovie proves the Bible is not anti-gay. God doesn't heal gay people of being gay because you can't fix what's not broken. Jesus came to give a new covenant. It's faith & Love. 1John3:23 ❤
Great break down! This should be taught in middle and high school! We also need more art in middle and high school. We need more art and more love and kindness today and always.
I never understood the argument people make: “I don’t want to show my kids any kind of sexuality, so obviously that includes exposing them to homosexuality.” It is such a common argument and hearing it so often just confuses me. I’ve always thought about things the way you do in this video so I can’t even empathize.
I’ve been in a committed same-sex relationship for 6 years. We own a house together, have a dog and two cats, he’s our church’s music minister and choir director in which I sing. All of that being said… We haven’t had sex for going on like 3 years? I love him with all my heart, and that doesnt have much to do with sexual desire most days. So it’s hilarious to me when being gay is equated with a sex. It’s about who you’re attracted to, sure, but who you romantically love, and romantic love is regularly devoid of sex. Ask any married couple of more than a decade.
I use the term Gay celibate to refer to myself because I am not interesting in sexual relationships before I am in a proper relationship with another guy
My problem with most churches' attitude towards gay people is this: no other sin will get you condemned this way. I don't believe being gay is a sin for one minute, the "clobber verses" are never speaking of equal, loving relationships of adult men. But even if you felt it was a sin, even a chosen sin... We don't treat adulterers this way, or liars, or any other sin. Only gay people are banished from God's house. That's not fair. In this one area, Christians allow their fearful bigotry, and hatred, to overrule the love they should have for their neighbor. And that's a much bigger sin than just being gay could ever be.
Thanks a lot Justin. I just bought the first edition. I guess I have to forgive you, don't I. Really though, you've helped more people than you know. You'll need a knapsack in heaven to carry all the crowns you'll get before you cast them.
I lived THIS until the age of 57. I knew who and what I was but poorly defined "gay" as merely a temptation to be resisted. In my 30s (after one failed marriage to a woman), I met a lovely woman who quickly became my best friend. I confessed my homosexuality to her. We both held the same view that being gay was not a 'terminal' diagnosis. We were married for 20+ years and had one son. In 2020, I was afflicted with a crushing depression. Within that depression, I realized that much of my turmoil arose from trying to be someone I wasn't and the debilitating disappointment of coming face to face with the fact that, after 25 years of daily begging and pleading and denying myself God was never going to 'fix' me. I handled my coming out poorly (after 20+ years of fidelity to my wife, I had a hook-up with a man to be certain of who I was before I broke the devastating news to my wife. Before I could tell her that I knew now who I was and where my life was headed, She discovered my infidelity and asked me to move out. A legal separation followed and divorce shortly after. In the course of one weekend, I lost my family, my church, 90% of my friends (The 10% who stuck around did so to 'save' me from my sin) and it FELT like I had lost my relationship with Jesus. I have now been out for about 3 years but only recently found your channel. I'm loving everything about it.
To me the most hurtful thing is that I feel I was told directly that homosexuality wasn't as black and white as people make it out to be, and then again when I met a guy years later at an evangelical school that helps people decide on a careerpath among other things, but I could not and still can't believe in it because I've been told I just believe what I want for myself. The turning point was when I had been talking to this pastor guy (my mentor at the institution) for some months, and he had really been helping me, but then he dropped the bomb of wanting to introduce me to a celibate man. I remember I felt so hurt and misunderstood, this man who was telling me what he BELIEVED to be the truth and therefor wanted to send me on a path of utter loneliness all the while he could go back to his wife and family at the end of the day. People don't (want to) understand what they are asking of us yet do so so casually. Our desires are not hurtful to anyone in the process, it's not equatable to any other sin in that regard. But since it's so visible and a small percentage of the whole, itś easy to focus on us to make others feel better about themselves. We are the perverted deviants who chose their poison and they are the sinful christians who are 'truly' regretful of their sins. Christians make me sick, even if it's all real, I'm just so furious
Hi Justin. I watched this video twice. Glad to hear you say what you do. I am a gay Catholic, but am asexual. Trying to find another person like that is difficult. There are times when I ask myself if I did find someone that I truly loved and wanted to be with for the rest of my life would I want to have sex with him? It is a temptation for me to t if I had to chance to do it would I really do it? The other point I want to make is "gay" is only one of many titles we have i in this world. We are called by so many different titles. But the only real title or name that we have is "I am a child of God". I joined a Catholic men's group about twenty-two years ago and the first thing they asked in orientation was "Who are You?" I am not denying my being gay, but it is only a part of me. When we say I am gay to people most of the time they will think it is all about sex. That that's all it is about. I agree, a lot of gay people want it that way. Most gay guys want sex. A relationship? Maybe, but lets have sex first.
Years ago, I asked a native Greek on the subject of "arsénokitè" and "malakí" (I've chosen to write the pronunciation in Greek rather than the usual spelling in Latin letters). His answer was: Malakí means the feminine plural of "soft" which would be absurd for us to understand as effeminate males, or "used" males as some translations prefer to say... Arsénokitè is composed of Arsenios (god of fertility back then) + bed; which seem to denote a male prostitute who is sent to serve ladies on their premises... Those two terms are then used in another epistle, but this time coupled with "people who steal people" (or something along these lines, depending on the specific translation). Adding all this together, one would infer that St Paul in fact was referring to Sex Slavery: young girls, hunks and those who kidnapped them and/or sell their services.
I grew up in a rather libertarian but at the same time socially conservative environment, where (after coming out to my parents, at a rather embarrassingly old age by today's standards, although of course they already knew) we somehow tacitly agreed to not discuss about it. I was never bothered about my personal life, as long as it did not affect the rest of the family (with which, mind you, I enjoyed an excellent relationship). Many many years after I moved out, had my own job, a rather successful career and a bf I lived with, I was discussing with my mom whether I should bring him home for the holidays. She genuinely looked at me perplexed and said, "well, I guess you could, but what am I then supposed to tell my friends?". It was not an accusation neither did this have any reprimanding undertone, it was a real concern of hers. I decided against bringing him so she actually never met him although I lived with the guy for a few years..... Whenever some of her friends made any unpleasant remark, she would always stand up for me, but still would feel uncomfortable about the situation, so I simply never put her through such a dilemma because she had been a really good mother in every other respect. I guess what I'm trying to say is that even the ones who try to understand gay people (especially the older generations) themselves dread social pressure, which makes their position not easy either. If a devout christian is embarrassed about his/her son being gay because it is mentioned as being a sin in the church on a weekly basis, it will probably be a larger step ahead to accept it.
That what I agree with. There is nothing explicitly wrong with being gay, straight, lesbian or what have you, but the issue arises when anyone acts on sexual urges outside of God’s laws, which applies to both straight and queer. Great info 😊 !
There are two different versions of the song, but you're right; I said the "gay" lyric was in the 1957 Broadway version, but it was actually a few years later in the 1961 film version. Thanks for the correction!
