Lgbtq

LGBTQ: Lov is Love

In Genesis 1:24-28, we read that “God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.’ And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, ‘Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So, God created humans in His image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’”

“Let us make man.” Mankind is described as a special creature, created by God Himself. To enhance the dignity of this, His last work, and to mark the fact that man differs in kind from the animals. Scripture represents God as deliberating over the making of the human species. It is not ‘let us be created’, or ‘let man be made’, but ‘let us make man’, is the Hebrew way of expressing deliberation.

Man alone among living creatures is gifted, like his Creator, with moral freedom and will. Man is capable of knowing and loving God, and of holding spiritual communion with God; and man alone can guide his actions in accordance with Reason. On this account, he is said to have been made in the form and likeness of the Almighty. Because man is endowed with Reason, he can subdue his impulses in the service of moral and religious ideals and is born to rule over Nature. Psalms 8 says of man, “O Lord … Thou hast made him but little lower than angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou hast made him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands.”

“And God blessed them”, indicating an intimate relationship between Him and human beings. “And subdue it”, belief in the dominion of spirit over matter, of mind over nature, of man over the physical and the animal creation, was essential to the possession of that dominion. We human beings are special and able to control the passions that control animals.

I was inspired to write this sermon by Genesis 1:24-28 and by Reverend Calvin Robinson’s rebuttal in debate at Oxford Union February 15, 2023. He spoke of LGBTQ and its conflict with Christianity in a powerful loving way. I will quote him in this work.

The Bible tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It also tells us that to sin in the least of things is to sin in all things. Therefore, I can hold no one sin as worse than other sins in the eyes of the LORD. This idea that all have sinned in some way must be kept in your mind as you hear this sermon; do not pretend to be a non-sinner, a perfect person.

The subject today is LGBTQ. The history of the acronym LGBTQ: According to Ms. Magazine, the first acronym to take shape in the 1990s was "GLBT," used to describe those who identified as gay, or lesbian, or bisexual, or transgender. "LGBT" eventually replaced "GLBT" in the mid-2000s, as lesbian activists fought for more visibility. Activists and members of the queer community have since come together to form the current acronym, "LGBTQIA+." The L stands for Lesbian, the G for Gay, the B for Bisexual, the T for Transgender and the Q for Queer for those questioning their identity.

American culture is thrusting LGBTQ upon us from everything to sex changes for children, to transgender participation in women’s sports, to drag queen shows for all ages. The LGBTQ community believe that when human beings love other human beings in many different ways, that “Love is Love.”, but is it? I have no doubt that some will consider me a bigot or a transphobe or a homophobe but I am neither of these things and none of those things. I am simply a follower of Christ, a Christian. Today’s liberals are driving our culture. We Christians are and always have been counter-cultural. If liberals were truly as diverse and tolerant as they claim to be, they would entertain our point of view just as they entertain other points of view. They do not so we Christians must speak to that audience and to those affected by it.