Archive for January, 2006
Homosexuality, Faith Present Paradox
Sunday, January 15th, 2006
“The Post and Courier”
By Jeff Kirby
Recently, our society has been challenged by many questions pertaining to same-sex attraction and homosexual lifestyles.
There has been an odd paradox between a silence and lack of sincere dialogue by many churches on one hand and an aggressive assertion and pontificating of rights and lifestyle by several gay rights groups on the other. This polarity itself shows the discomfort and awkwardness of the issue and its questions.
The reality of homosexuality is one that touches the Christian church not merely in its doctrinal capacity, but also in the intimate realm of the family and of friendships.
Almost every Christian knows a family member or friend who struggles with same-sex attraction. In these moments, what is a Christian to do when religious values seem to clash with the relationships they have with loved ones?
Among many possible responses, the most obvious would seem to be a thorough examination of the religious values themselves and a real search to understand God and the meaning and purpose of our lives.
The Christian could realize that his or her faith bases itself on truths given by God and that God desires our fullness. He has created us and the world with an established order and a set nature, based on truth, beauty and goodness.
We have a vocation in life to respect them, even if following them causes some therapeutic suffering. We don’t mind the suffering because we know that it is making us better people, better ordered to fullness. This fullness gives us the ability to authentically believe, hope and love God, ourselves and others.
The Christian in such a search also may joyfully see that God truly loves all people exactly where they’re at, and yet he loves them too much to let them stay there. God calls each person to a life of fullness. Man-made gospels of supposed happiness, as we’ve seen in the 20th century, can never live up to their false hopes and promises.
The Christian Gospel insists on the goodness found in God’s law because it is real. It gives everything its promises. The Gospel lasts even through suffering. It sustains and can carry the person beyond themselves and their struggles toward fulfillment.
Can knowing all this, however, help the Christian in the difficulties with disorder and desires foreign to God in themselves or in those they love? It’s here where anger, frustration, helplessness and even despair seem to battle the most. How can the Christian be faithful to what is true, while remaining true to faithful friends and family?
Ordered love and compassion, fruits of living the Gospel, allow the Christian to embrace the struggling person. This relationship leads to accepting the person and walking with them. It means affirming them while not approving of any sin, which would only take away from their dignity and fullness.
Breaking the perceived silence on same-sex attraction, Bishop Baker, the local Catholic bishop, recently wrote that no person can be defined by his or her disorders, and that each of us are broken images of God. We must work toward our own fullness and the fullness of those we love. We realize that it’s a fullness we can’t give ourselves or that no other human person can give us. It’s a fullness that is given by God and by joyfully living according to his gifts of nature and truth.
Jeff Kirby is a seminarian of the Catholic Diocese of Charleston studying at the Pontifical North American College in Rome.
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