JW'S Are Last

[Dustparticle]

https://religionnews.com/2015/06/30/ranking-churches-on-acceptance-of-homosexuality-plus-their-reactions-to-scotus-ruling/

[Katty]

Either the title is misleading or the questions were leading, or something more disturbing has happened:
while JW's are rightfully intolerant of homosexual activity within the congregation, we don't judge what people do outside the congregation. Ideally, all of Jehovah's Witnesses should be completely neutral on the SCOTUS ruling regarding same sex marriage. I imagine the questions were probably asking if people support the ruling without asking if people oppose the ruling, which would result in a huge difference. It matters to an extent, because it seems like it would be an insidious way for those who politically support same-sex marriage to frame Jehovah's Witness as a political threat to to this kind of ruling, which is not the case. If it was framed in this manner, however, it would not be surprising. There will be a world-wide persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses, and a think a lot of us have been speculating that this persecution will likely be riding the coattails of the LGBT+ movement. 

I'm going to choose to believe, however, that the above is what happened, that the questioned were framed in a particular way, as there doesn't seem to be a link to the questionnaire, thus I don't know what questions were asked, and I trust our brothers and sisters have remained politically neutral in this issue.

 

Edit: I looked at it a little closer, it seems like it was one question: "Homosexuality should be accepted by society". That is a question that has says very little about whether someone has an opinion on the actual SCOTUS ruling. It's a vague statement. Does it imply that homosexual people should be accepted by society or only focuses on homosexual acts. What does it mean by "accepted by society", does it mean homosexuals should be allowed to buy and sell and do the things other people do? Or is it saying everyone should approve of homosexual lifestyles and should be making those custom cakes for same sex marriage? I don't like these vague questions that don't set up the specific parameters of the situation. I don't trust them, as they're often misleading.

Edited April 30, 2021 by Katty

[EccentricM]

@Katty I think it's talking about "acceptance in the church", aka if Christians can have homosexual lifestyles.

[Katty]

2 minutes ago, EccentricM said:

@Katty I think it's talking about "acceptance in the church", aka if Christians can have homosexual lifestyles.

I'd like to believe that, but the title relates it to the SCOTUS ruling and I edited my post to make room for what I saw in the actual graphic. Apparently, the statement in question is "homosexuality should be accepted in society" I find that's such a vague statement. I would not feel comfortable answering a question based on that statement, myself, because I honestly don't care what worldly society accepts. We expect the world to accept things that we don't. 

[Dages]

I guess the non 0% is from Bible students ?

[EccentricM]

4 minutes ago, Dages said:

I guess the non 0% is from Bible students ?

Or people with secret opinions.

[EccentricM]

7 minutes ago, Katty said:

I'd like to believe that, but the title relates it to the SCOTUS ruling and I edited my post to make room for what I saw in the actual graphic. Apparently, the statement in question is "homosexuality should be accepted in society" I find that's such a vague statement. I would not feel comfortable answering a question based on that statement, myself, because I honestly don't care what worldly society accepts. We expect the world to accept things that we don't. 

True, true.

 

If someone wants to live a wordly life, that's their affair, we have no right to judge. Only in keeping the congregation clean amongst practicing members do we have any sort of judicial action. And even then it's not with hatred.

 

In my blog about false Christianity, I wrote this on the subject of homosexual acceptance in the churches, and how the best way to go about the topic of homosexuality, and why.

 

Quote

 

...many churches are in a state of “debate” over whether they should be accepting of homosexuality. Now, this is not to mean that true Christians be homophobic and mistreat those who identify as such, shouting in their faces that they will “burn in hell” and that they “need Jesus”, would not be Christain behaviour.

 

Dealing with homosexualilty in the modern day, is of course often a complicated and sensitive subject. Feelings of people are easily hurt, and such feelings in these times do not have a high threshold for patience in regards to what is seen as mere “outdated and ignorant prejudices”. It is why so many churches have decided to accept homosexual behaviours in their congregations, and have declared it not to be a sin. Afterall, we are not living in the year 0 C.E anymore, we understand today that there those who are perhaps quite literally biologically born with such sexual orientation, just as those of us who are straight have not “chosen” our own orientation. These are indeed all very valid points, and play very important parts to the way we as Christians should treat those who are gay… Yet the undeniable and unchangeable the law of Christ requires that people must strive to not live that life style or carry out such urges as they are described as being “unnatural and sinful”, just as those who are biologically born with a sexual attraction to children (who some of which end up becoming pedophiles and molesters), or those who are sexually attracted to animals (some of which end up committing acts of beastiality) are regarded as having unnatural sexual orientation despite being born in such a way.

 

Of course this is a hard pill to swallow, and when being born and raised in a modern society with modern understandings of the mind and brain, is it any wonder? Today, homophobia is comparable to racism (and I would say, rightly so), yet God’s word does not change, and has stated homosexualilty to be a sin which will be judged at the end of all things (and let’s remember, God can see the future, meaning the future of human society and all its advancements, yet made no exception to the written rule), and that’s not something I as a believing Christian can argue against, rather… it is something to be “understood”.

To truly understand the “biblical crime” of homosexualilty, and to best explain it to people of the modern day, especially to those who they themselves are gay, it must be looked at in the ‘historical’ context.

 

All of the laws of God are based upon “love”, aka “benefits”. Whilst at first this seems absurd to those of a gay orientation, considering their very “born identity” is put on trial by God (a very understandable feeling), we have to take a closer look to the time period and world people lived in when those words were first penned into the scriptures. A good example to start with is fornication; in an historical context, fornication (sex outside of marriage) was bad, why? Because they had no contraception, and survival was based upon the existence of the family unit in society back in those times. As a result of fornication, many fatherless and motherless children would be walking the streets homeless, and not to addtionally mention, STDs would have spread rapidly from person to person, causing multitudes of early, painful deaths. In that same stead, homosexualilty; back then, it was seen as an almost global crime (with exception to a few groups and societies, of whome the rest of the world saw as corrupt or perverted). Without medication or condoms, likewise to fornication, rampant disease was the consequence (much more so for homosexual relationships). As such we would have considered the Biblical law in such a time and context to be a protection.  But this is not all, to fully grasp why those things were considered “crimes”, and were listed next to things such as theft and murder in the Bible, lies in ancient society as whole in itself. Homosexual acts were punishable by the same measure of murder and theft, on the basis of the natural consequences in nature that such life style entailed (of which spread disease and death to others), in a sense, it could be seen from their point of view as the prinicple of “an eye for eye”.

 

Yet, even in such an ancient society with that line of logic, it is important to know that homosexuals were not not punished in the early Christian congregation (in terms of what people think of today in regards to “punishment”, such as being beaten, slapped, cursed at or put to death), rather those ones were simply told “don’t do it”. There was no scolding, torture, abuse, slapping, hitting, solitary confinement, or anything like that in the first century congregations (something which ‘did’ happen in general society back then, and of course the later corrupted Christendom churches). If someone committed such acts without repentence, the worse one could recieve was excommunication from the congregation (which simply means not being able to go to church anymore), and it was left to God and Jesus to ultimately judge that individual.

 

No doubt of course, people’s “views” of such ones in general society back then, and even perhaps amongst Christians, would have been surely a tad judgemental, or homophobic by today’s standards, but again, this was on the basis of the global atmosphere of the time, and how most people saw gays, considering they did not have the luxury to say “I was born that way, I’m not hurting anyone, leave me alone”, for in fact… they were hurting people, just as in the same way if a pedophile says today “I was born that way, leave me alone”, the reactions sparked are often outbursts of disgust and anger. Even though they ‘are’ born that way, on the basis that they hurt children, it feeds into that 99% global agreement that sex with children is wrong.  Same sex relations were viewed in that exact same light before the advancement of medical means.

 

In ancient times, to act on gay impulses was seen to be a crime of selfish perversion and spreading of disease, and those who were born gay… grew up in such a society from birth, and so likewise they would have been mentally comparable to a person today born a pedophile. He would grow up knowing that his actions, even if they were an in-born impulse, would be morally wrong, and they would feel the same shame and guilt with that. Those going out and commiting the act, would be the ones choosing to have the reputation of a criminal, in fact, not just the reputation, but to truly “be a criminal”, as the idea of being gay being an “evil crime” would have been as strongly implanted in his own head from birth, just as much as it was in everyone else’s head from birth in 99% of the Earth’s societies. This is why the laws against homosexuals, in both society and religion, was not seen as some evil intollerant regime, either by those holding to those laws, or those who were victim to the punishments of those laws, they would have been ‘self professed’ “criminals and perverts”, just as a pedophile today, would admit they are a self professed criminal for acting on ‘their’ in-born impulses, because of the society we exist in.

 

But now society is different, and upon the basis of the Biblical Christian teaching of empathy and mercy based upon “ignorance” and understanding of the innerperson and heart over his outward apperance (such as the example of Apostle Paul, being shown mercy after he stoned Christians, because he felt genuinly it was the morally right thing to do), just as today, a person who is gay may be anti-Christian because they believe it is the morally right thing to do from a good place in their heart. In that stead, we today understand people are born a certain way, that society is different (of which people are born into), as are the modern implications of living a homosexual life, and those acting on homosexualilty are not “evil perverts”. Of course, this does not suddenly mean, we are free to teach that acting on gay urges is “acceptable” for a Christian, but there is no condemning of such people either, just as in the first century, all that can be said is merely; “God said don’t do that”, it is not and should never be coupled with homophobia, but rather, understanding.

 

But this here lies the fault of many modern churches, who change God’s written laws to suit themselves. We cannot be ‘assumptive’ and change the commands of God to say it’s “ok” now. We cannot argue that “what God says is unnatural is now not a sin in his view because we put a bandaid on it to prevent the natural consequences”. But most certainly, homophobia (abusing, mocking, insulting, outcasting) is as wrong as racism is today, even by a Christian standpoint.

Jesus, by God’s decree, will be the one responsible for reading people’s hearts and judging the everlasting fate of all inviduals at the end, he will know the situation of all individuals, and takes into accout the world and societies we live in. But it is the responsiblity of the Christian congregation not to tolerate “willful and unrepentant submittance” to these sexual urges by ‘practicing members’ who fully accept God’s word as law, just as much as the congregation would not tolerate the sexual sins (such as fornication or adultery) of a hetrosexual (straight) couple. When a straight couple commits sexual sin, we do not suddenly view them as freaks to be victim to… “fornicaphobia” (just to make up a word on the spot to get the point across), rather they merely commited a sin of which they have chance to repent, as should it be with those who are gay, there is no need to “dehumanise” them, but at the same time, we cannot “announce the practice” as not being a sin anymore.

 

The chuches of many denominations now however are accepting the very open practice of homosexuality and are appointing their various priests who are openly in such relationships. This is the extreme where “understanding and tollerance” (not bad things in themselves, as I have aformentioned) have overtaken God’s objective authority on the matter, for people are polarised in their mentalilty and cannot seperate “conscientious conviction to law” against “prejudice”, and as such, it has sadly blinded them into the acceptance of sin in the congregations.

 

“A growing number of churches are allowing openly LGBT clergy to serve. The Metropolitan Community Church, a predominantly LGBT church, has ordained LGBT candidates for ministry since its founding in 1968.  In 1972, the United Church of Christ became the first mainline Protestant denomination in the United States to ordain an openly gay clergy.

 

Other churches are the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (since 2010) and the Presbyterian Church (USA) (since 2012). The Episcopal Church in the United States and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have also allowed ordination of openly gay and lesbian candidates for ministry for some years. Internationally, churches that have ordained openly lesbian or gay clergy include the Church of Scotland, the Church of England, the Church in Wales, the Church of Sweden, the Church of Norway, the Church of Denmark, the Church of Iceland, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the Evangelical Church in Germany, the Methodist Church in Britain, the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, the United Protestant Church in Belgium, the Swiss Reformed Church, the United Protestant Church of France, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, Anglican Church in Canada, the Old Catholic Church, and the United Church of Christ in Japan”. – Wikipedia on LGBT Cleries in Christianity

 

 

 

[Thesauron]

Good. At least there’s one group that wants to align themselves with the views of God as expressed in the Bible.

[Brandon]

42 minutes ago, EccentricM said:

we are not living in the year 0 C.E anymore

Oh Matthew… you do realize that no one lived in such a year. Because there never was such a year. 🤣

[EccentricM]

5 minutes ago, Brandon said:

Oh Matthew… you do realize that no one lived in such a year. Because there never was such a year. 🤣

You know... I was reading that and had a "wait a minute" moment... lol.

Edited April 30, 2021 by EccentricM

[Dages]

It's from 2007, do they have an update ?

[JennyM]

2 hours ago, EccentricM said:

True, true.

 

If someone wants to live a worldly life, that's their affair, we have no right to judge. Only in keeping the congregation clean amongst practicing members do we have any sort of judicial action. And even then it's not with hatred.

 

In my blog about false Christianity, I wrote this on the subject of homosexual acceptance in the churches, and how the best way to go about the topic of homosexuality, and why.

 

 

True.. Christ is the only judge.. We still respect them when we talk to them . 

[Dustparticle]

44 minutes ago, JennyM said:

True.. Christ is the only judge.. We still respect them when we talk to them . 

Some of my friends meet some at the doors while preaching. They said that we hate them. We had to tell them we love them, but not  their practice.

[Shawnster]

2 hours ago, Dages said:

I guess the non 0% is from Bible students ?

 

2 hours ago, EccentricM said:

Or people with secret opinions.

 

Not necessarily.

 

Should homosexuality be accepted by society?  I have no opinion one way or another as to what the world's society accepts or rejects.  The very poll is political and, therefore, I cannot give an answer.  If I say "no," then I'm giving a political statement. 

 

As Katty said, "accepted by society" is open to interpretation.  Do you have an opinion on whether homosexuals should own homes or property?  Do you have an opinion as to whether homosexuals should be allowed to have equal access to employment and education as the rest of society?  Should homosexuals be allowed to be parents or adopt or foster children?  Does a politically neutral Christian have an opinion on what society should or should not allow?

 

As far as morality...  It would be immoral to discriminate against any homosexual.  To deny a homosexual basic human rights would violate Bible standards.  So, in that sense, should homosexuals be barred from medical treatment?  Let's return to those questions about housing or employment I asked above - would it be morally acceptable to deny a homosexual the right to own or rent property or to be gainfully employed?

 

For sake of argument, let's agree that sin is sin.  In that case, substitute "homosexual" for "smoking" or "prostitutes."  Should prostitutes or smokers be allowed to own or rent property, adopt children, have equal access to health care or employment?  

 

I can see where mature Christians would not answer the polling questions the same way.  The poll is open to interpretation.  It's not a poll on what the Bible states or what Jehovah accepts or condemns.  The poll is about society and the culture we live in.

 

 

Edited April 30, 2021 by Shawnster

[Bob]

My opinions on this are really simple:

 

JWs respect the ruling and have never interfered with the same-sex marriage in the secular world. So as an organization, we shrug our shoulders and move on.