Time to amend our beliefs
Shawn Xolani Mavundla
HOMOSEXUALITY needs to be debated, especially in churches. I will state my view as a Christian and then argue for it.
Just to clarify, when I say gays and lesbians I’m referring to LGBTQI people.
I believe it is completely unacceptable for a church which claims to welcome people of all sexual orientations to discriminate against gays and lesbians, whether through their statements of faith or different avenues.
You cannot say gays and lesbians are welcome at your church, but insist that in order for them to become church members they adhere to a heteronormative idea of a relationship. This is homophobia.
What churches – as well as businesses and other institutions – are doing is forcing gays and lesbians to deny a major part of their identity, a major part of their existence, a major part of who they are. If gays and lesbians do not have the right to be true to who they are, what do all their other rights mean?
One might argue it is a church’s prerogative to hold the doctrinal views it does.
In other words, it is their right to discriminate against gays and lesbians because homosexuality is, according to their beliefs, an abomination and heterosexual relationships are the only ones recognised as legitimate. Some might even argue that gays and lesbians can go to other churches if they feel a particular church is coercing their conformity.
My response is that certain schools in the past had the right to discriminate against blacks because of the laws that promoted segregation. Their doctrine was that of segregation. This was their belief. My question to Christians is this: if I believed the white race superior and I set up my own private school that accepted kids of other races only if they signed a statement affirming the superiority of the white race, what would you think of my belief and school? Would you defend them?
After all, other races can go to other schools if they disagree with my belief.
Is there a principle distinction between my invocation of my school’s policy and the church’s invocation of its statement of faith?
There is a difference between having the right to hold a particular belief and your belief being right. If your belief is not open to being disproved or falsified, then you are holding that belief irresponsibly. No belief should be immune to reason.
Racists hold racist beliefs, sexists hold sexists beliefs, homophobes hold homophobic beliefs.
Should their beliefs not be subject to public scrutiny? Should they also go unquestioned like the word of God? I think not.
Some Christians say the 50 people massacred at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando last year got what they deserved. Where is the love? Very few Christian voices rose up and condemned such utterances.
Pastors and other Christians will tell you what homosexuals are doing is wrong, but when it comes to what is being done to them, they remain silent.
Pastors passionately proclaim from the pulpit that homosexuality is a sin – an abomination in the eyes of God – but when it comes to the murders of gay people and so-called “corrective” rape, they remain silent. What do you call that in the eyes of God?
Thuli Madonsela’s words come to mind when she said: “Be careful what you raise your voice about and what you remain silent about because that tells the world who you are and what matters to you.”
It is deeply worrying that pastors did not come out in numbers to condemn the words of Pastor Roger Jimenez when he said, referring to the Pulse nightclub massacre, that “the tragedy is that more of them didn’t die”.
Again, very few Christians were in uproar when Pastor Steven Anderson, at a radio station in Botswana, called a gay guest “disgusting” and added, “he should be killed”.
It is a great concern when Christians are quick to call out homosexuality, but very slow to act when it comes to vitriol and violence that is levelled against homosexuals.
It is easy for us men now to look back and comment on how grossly misguided were the beliefs of men in history who held the view that women were inferior to men.
They were not allowed to get an education, job or vote. It is easy for white people now to look back and comment on the horrors and inhumanity of slavery that was based on whites’ beliefs.
What do you think men and whites thought of their beliefs back then?
Their atrocious acts were justified by the dominant group in the dominant culture as being ways to maintain the “appropriate social order”.
And more often than not, these acts were carried out in secret.
Take apartheid for example. We may disagree on a lot of things, but what we