GSI Articles:
Open Appeal to
My Homosexual Friends
(Homoagapic not phobic)
© Sid Galloway BS, M.Div.
Just an old sheepdog of the Good Shepherd
Genesis 1:1
Communicating conclusions from 100's of PhD scholars
(& children)
Supporting the authority of His Word
& the consistency of His character
Human Rights? Slavery? - Animal Rights? Cruelty?
What about God's right to command compassion for all of His creatures?
Recommended Related Reading & Organizations:
- (American College of Pediatricians Statements on Homosexuality & Children)
* "On the Promotion of Homosexuality in the Schools"
* "Homosexual Parenting: Is It Time for Change?"
- (Book) Homosexuality & the Politics of Truth, by Jeffrey Satinover, MD
Dr. Satinover (MD in psychiatry and a PhD in physics) Dr. Satinover is a brilliant, internationally respected (now retired) professor of psychiatry at Harvard & Yale. In retirement he went back to graduate school and earned a second doctorate, a PhD in physics (summa cum laude) at the University of Nice, France.
- (Book) Out From Under: The Impact of Homosexual Parenting,
by Dawn Stefanowicz, a survivor of a family fragmented by homosexuality.
- (Organization) PURE LIFE MINISTRIES
Growing up, I know that I sometimes stood by when some kids teased others who were different from the majority. At the same time, however, I hurt for them and most of the time I came to their defense. For various reasons, I too often felt like an outcast. I never felt like I fit into "normal" society, and even as a young boy, I became depressed and suicidal.
Even though I understood rejection, my love for others was inconsistent at best and shallow at worst. I wasn't the person that our Creator commands us to be in the New Testament. I wasn't even the kind of person I expected other people to be toward me. So in many ways I failed a lot of my friends, but most importantly my failure was rebellion against God. I became increasingly bitter and challenged just about every cultural norm and authority, in order to do what "I" wanted and "believed" was "right", especially "my rights". To all of those I hurt along the way, please forgive me. Growing up in this broken and selfish world is painful enough, so I'm truly sorry for the times I was selfish and insensitive, and the times when I failed to defend others who were rejected and ridiculed.
Now after serving as a counselor for almost 30 years, it's become abundantly clear that everybody's spiritual, social heart has been deeply hurt in many ways. Friends, nobody has the market on pain and rejection.
"No trial has overtaken you but such as is common to man. And God is faithful, who will not allow the you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation He will provide the way of escape, so that you can endure it."
1 Corinthians 10:13
And over the past 18 years watching my little boy, Michael, suffer with both his physical and spiritual heart has helped me to see how important it is to love one another enough to be real and never phony. Michael's heart surgeries are horribly painful to him. He has to endure being full of needles, and waking up strapped to a board, unable to speak because of the tubes in his nose and throat. Every breath causes excruciating pain, and the constant coughing is unbearable to him. He just lays there with tears in his eyes, pleading to be rescued. Even so, his recovery is quick and he gets better as a result of the surgery. So it's worth it.
He doesn't understand all of the "whys", and is sometimes angry when we tell him the truth about his heart condition, especially the fact that he must take medication, avoid certain yummy foods, and even have more surgeries. But we still have to tell him the truth, because real love would never silently tolerate his serious heart problem, and just accept a long, slow, and tragically unnecessary death. I admit that I'm sometimes tempted to avoid causing conflict in my relationship with Michael. I'm tempted to just pretend there's nothing wrong. But Christ's strong love won't let me ignore his real need and just let him die without addressing the problem honestly and practically. So I continue, on occasion, to speak the truth in love to him, even though he rarely wants to hear it.
With the same love, my friends, I'm writing to share with you my deep concerns about your spiritual heart condition, and a need for spiritual heart surgery. I realize that I could be wrong about my concerns, so I regularly reevaluate. But after a long and careful examination of the objective evidence (biblical, medical, biological, physiological, historical, social, psychological, etc.), I genuinely believe that your practice of homosexuality is contrary to both God's natural design in creation, as well as His expressed will in His Word, the Bible.
Romans 1:20 "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; . . . ."
Homoagapic not Homophobic
I'm homoagapic, my friends, not homophobic. The roots for these Greek terms phobeo (to fear) and agapeo (to love), express very different heart motives. Jesus said it's wrong to judge (krino) the heart motive of another person (Mat 7:1-5). However, lovingly judging (using the same term, krino) the doctrine and/or moral behavior of another person who claims to be a fellow Christian is not only biblically acceptable, but actually commanded.
Mat 18:15-17 "Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector."
1 Cor 5:9-13 "I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, not even to eat with such a person. For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore put away from yourselves the evil person."
I'm grieved that many cruel, pseudo-Christians actually are homophobic and react with misguided fear and even hate, rather than the love commanded by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Some of them talk like they wish harm instead of salvation would come to those who practice homosexuality. They falsely teach that God also desires to hurt them. You may have experienced such unbiblical reactions from people like this, and if so then I'm very, very sorry. Please know that such a characterization is not the God of the Bible. Yes God is opposed to selfish rebellion, but He is also perfect love.
God's punishment for any of us when we rebel against His Way is entropy (physically, socially, and psychologically (Gen 3; 1 Pet 5). When a person chooses to walk in rejection of God's Design for their good, then they have chosen to walk out from under God's hand of protection and provision (1 Pet 5:5-9). That person is choosing to act as his own little god, the lord of his own life, so God merely allows the person to bear his own consequences, even eternally. God reveals in Scripture that He will not forcefully possess an individual and make him or her submit and obey the truth. That would be a portrait of Lucifer, not our real Creator. God seeks to draw people to follow His way, as they see His unique love through the self-sacrifice of Jesus the Messiah (Rom 5), the Son of God. He willingly bore the separation from God the Father, that we all deserve (Isaiah 53).
On the other extreme from the homophobics, however, are other pseudo-Christians who also fail to truly agapeo, because they won't care enough to speak the truth. They avoid conflict by tolerating anything and everything (except of course in private conversations behind other's backs). Neither of these types of folks are doing what Jesus commanded, which is to love God and His Way above self, and love their neighbor as they naturally care about themselves (Matthew 22:36- 40).
I recognize that many people who claim to be "Christian" leaders tolerate homosexuality, such as Bishop Spong, even though the Bible explicitly condemns the practice (though not the desire) numerous times.
1 Cor 6:9-11 "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God."
These false messengers of light (2 Cor 10-11) have decided that the Bible is not the authority for their religious beliefs, and have substituted their own opinion in its place. Please think about it, if it's legitimate for them to throw out whatever verses they chose and still claim to be Christians, then another person could throw out different verses and claim the same. By this reasoning, someone could throw out all of the verses about Jesus, and still claim Christianity. It would be like me claiming to be a Muslim, and yet holding to a set of beliefs that were antithetical to the Koran. So, when I share with you my concerns as a "Christian", I'm speaking from my conviction that the Bible is a unique and miraculous book. God has objectively demonstrated His Divine and inerrant authorship by transcending past, present, and future (the space-time creation) through hundreds of specific prophecies about numerous nations, kings, and family lines. In fact, just the messianic prophecies alone number over 300, and most have already been fulfilled to the letter in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The Bible is the only religious book to use this special category of evidence to demonstrate that it is from our Creator. Wouldn't you expect such evidence from the true God, since only God could know the future with 100% accuracy.
Isaiah 44:6-7
"Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel, ... 'I am the First and I am the Last; ... And who can proclaim as I do? ... the things that are coming and shall come."
Deut 18: 21-22 "And if you say in your heart, how shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously . . . "
I have a number of dear friends and relatives, who have lived exclusively as homosexuals for all or most of their life. Some of them have later turned away from the practice and are now married as heterosexuals, others are heterosexually celibate, while some are still choosing to be active in the homosexual culture. The number one reason each gave for once believing that they were born "homosexual" was their strong desire for sexual intimacy with someone of the same gender. Using that same logic, however, would make me a born adulterer and philanderer, since my own sin tendency is a strong attraction to lots of different women. But that strong desire is not "who" I am. It does not make my identity. It's merely the learned expression of my sinfully distorted desire for fulfillment. It's the painful pursuit of pleasure (emotionally, socially, and physically), that enslaves yet never satisfies. Friends, you "can't get no satisfaction", apart from God's Way. We all have the responsibility before God our Creator to follow Him rather than our own disordered desires. Dysfunctional people and families become dysfunctional because they are out of order according to God's design. One or more of the family's members is refusing to submit under the guidance of God's hand of authority. They're trying to find satisfaction and fulfillment outside God's Way. Their unconscious, life motto has become, "No Fear - No Rules" or "I did it my way".
Yet Jesus said that fulfillment can only come from being filled full with the infinite love of God, God's Way:
"Now this is eternal [& abundant] life, that they may know [intimately]
Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou has sent" John 17:3
"You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free . . . . whoever commits sin is a slave of sin . . . . if the Son shall makes you free, you shall be free indeed." John 8:31-34
"And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal [abundant, fulfilling] life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have spoken to you, who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know [for sure] that you have [right now] eternal life . . . ." 1 John 5:11-13
Please feel free to write, call, or email, if you'd like to respond. I'm willing to listen to your views, and I won't "lecture". I hope you can tell from my letter, my friends, that I've shared these concerns with you because I genuinely care about you, even though we disagree. But what's most important is that God cares for you, and desires for you to spend eternity with Him in His Kingdom, where no selfish rebellion and its destructive consequences will ever be allowed. If that's what you want, please submit under His hand of loving provision and protection (1 Pet 5). But please don't wait, until its too late. He won't force you or manipulate you the way Lucifer does. You must chose to receive the gift of His Lordship, in order to enter the Kingdom where He alone is King.
Sid Galloway
Just an OLD sheepdog of the Good Shepherd