Religous panel says God loves everyone, including homosexuals
INDIANA: God does not condemn homosexuality or other alternative lifestyles, a panel of four local religious leaders said at PRIDE’s “Homosexuality and Religion” panel discussion Tuesday in Smythe Lecture Hall.
Dianne Oliver, associate professor of religion, chaplain Brian Erickson, Unitarian Universalist minister Carolyn Brown and United Church of Christ pastor Karen Lipinczyk began discussing their denominations’ beliefs concerning gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues.
Oliver took on the first question regarding the passages in the Bible that discuss homosexuality. Out of 66 books, she said, there are only 7 passages that refer to homosexuality. And all these passages, Erickson said, refer to homosexual acts, not homosexual relationships as we know them today.
Brown agreed, and said the people of that period had no conception of a homosexual as our society would define him or her. “They didn’t even have a clue of what a homosexual was in the time that those books were written,” she said.
Ultimately, Lipinczyk said, God is about love, not sexual orientation. “Jesus doesn’t care a wit about all the stuff we spend so much time arguing about,” she said. “Jesus wants us to learn to live and love.”
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Dianne Oliver, associate professor of religion, chaplain Brian Erickson, Unitarian Universalist minister Carolyn Brown and United Church of Christ pastor Karen Lipinczyk began discussing their denominations’ beliefs concerning gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues.
Oliver took on the first question regarding the passages in the Bible that discuss homosexuality. Out of 66 books, she said, there are only 7 passages that refer to homosexuality. And all these passages, Erickson said, refer to homosexual acts, not homosexual relationships as we know them today.
Brown agreed, and said the people of that period had no conception of a homosexual as our society would define him or her. “They didn’t even have a clue of what a homosexual was in the time that those books were written,” she said.
Ultimately, Lipinczyk said, God is about love, not sexual orientation. “Jesus doesn’t care a wit about all the stuff we spend so much time arguing about,” she said. “Jesus wants us to learn to live and love.”
full article
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