Belief and Orientation: Reconciling the Contradiction I.

An anonymous commenter asks, "How do gay people with strong religious beliefs explain themselves to one who sees this as an impossible contradiction?"

I hope most of what I post here has some connection to that question, but I'll try to say something directly responsive to the question as I understand it. And I take it the contradiction in question is between the strong religious beliefs and being gay. For starters, it seems to me that there are three different things in play here. There is my orientation. There are my beliefs. And there is my conduct.

I think that my beliefs are dependent on faith, which in turn I consider a gift from God. In other words, it is not something that is demonstrable in the way a mathematical proposition or a logical syllogism is. It is possible to say that I find none of it absolutely self-contradictory, and that a lot of it seems to me to make sense. But I have no illusion (as I once did) that I can prove it in such a way that any honest person would be compelled to accept that everything I believe is true. So it's about faith, and you've got it or you don't. I don't mean to be cavalier, just to say that my beliefs are based on a faith which tells me many things which you may not agree with if you don't start from the same or similar faith. So first I will say some of what I believe, not to tell you what you must believe, but to tell you about myself.

I believe that the world was created by God out of love and that God loves all of us and wishes to share his joy with us in a life which extends beyond the limits of our earthly existence. I believe that God has let us come to know of his love for us and how we can live now and forever in his love. I believe that we can use our intelligence to help us understand what he has revealed. I believe that the Bible shows us God progressively revealing himself to human beings in ways adapted to their ability to comprehend. I believe that all morality is not arbitrary but what God, in his love knows is best for us.

More specifically, I believe that human sexuality is part of God's loving creation. I believe that God created sex to enable us to be a physical image of his loving act of creation, and in doing so to experience a taste of his joy. I believe that engaging in sex in a way which precludes the procreation of new human life falls short of what God gave it to us for. But since homosexual activity cannot procreate, I believe it is one way in which we can fall short of what God gave the gift for (and, btw, "falling short" is the meaning of the Greek word which is usually translated "sin" in our Bibles).

I also believe that God gave us the Bible as his word in human language, and that the Church has been given God's help so it can correctly interpret God's word to us. So I did not make up my beliefs on my own but found them in the teachings of my church, and found them credible.

This is getting kind of long. I'll give another post or two to deal with orientation and conduct.