Mat: 44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When
a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all
he had and bought that field. "
The coming out as an
ex-gay, the Professor Rosaria Champagne Butterfield is rare and the
current toast of the conservatives since her testimony was published in
Christianity Today in Feb 2013. Alas, it is all vanity.
Rosaria was on the far
left side. An advocate of post modern queer theology, attended the
Universalist church, a flaming feminist, an ardent evolutionist, and not
to mention a lesbian.
She said that she
operated from an intellectual academic "historical materialistic world
view" whilst Christianity is from "a supernatural world view".
Although attending a
Universalist church and an expert of Queer theology, Rosaria considered
herself a non-Christian and indeed despised Christianity and was
cynical.
In many churches, what
Rosaria described is the kind of preachers we hear, a kind of sterile
intellectualism, and pale idealism often lumping everything together and
despising the Word of God as inspired and only following the Love
teachings of Jesus. On the other extreme, we have preachers abusing the
Word of God and making God's name in vain in their prosperity theology
to make money out of the sincere faith of others.
So was she ever a
Lesbian in the first place as there was little mention of her same sex
experiences or desires/struggles since young. Was she living out the
experiences as a victim of oppression? to fit her left wing identity
rather than being an innate sexual orientation.
Rosaria was drawned to
the Reformed Presbyterian Church where you read the English bible after
translation as the literal word of God in a prescriptive sense. She
should be reading in the origianl language.
She admitted that as a
left wing christian, she was more a heathern dishing the bible.
It is not our intention
to doubt her conversion to Christianity or whether she was a bi-sexual
in the first place for which some of my lesbian friends are. But a
fundamental mistake is made of associating salvation to the right sexual
orientation.
Rosaria made the same
mistake as many of my friends in making her sexual orientation as god,
and so intertwined it with her Christian faith that the biblical Jesus
is not the center.
What made Rosaria so
intriguing is that she went to the far left to the far right, whilst
many gay christian friends went from the far right to the far left.
When her liberal
Christian faith was desconstructed as superficial, so goes her sexual
orientation.
Reconciliation between
our Christian Faith and our sexual orientation is to know Jesus, that He
came not to prepetuate the religious laws but that His only condemnation
was our unbelief that Jesus Himself is the way, the truth and the life
to God.
When we focused on
religious laws, where sin can become arbitrary according to our labels
and culture when the most ardent person of faith can be the greatest
sinner for whom the pharisees were.
"You read a different
bible" a liberal pastor once said to me when many left wing Christians
and pastors were dishing the bible as erroneous, man inspired, and all
myths.
There is a difference
in reading the bible in the historical context to understand it rather
to start of with the wrong preposition. When we see it as history with
an understanding of the historical religious faith background, and as
the revelation of Jesus, and desire to connect with the Christ within
supernaturally, we are changed.
Alas, when we swing to
the Christian far right as Professor Rosaria is now doing, we become
obsessed by religious laws and self centered morality. This is again
vanity.
Jesus is not in the
left or the right wing culture of Christianity trying to create their
own opposing kingdoms of earth, but His Kingdom is in heaven. He came
that He might bring His own home for the highway to heaven is narrow.
It is said that Liberal
Christianity has fallen which is spiritually not true since her legacy
of the social welfare and health benefits to the poor and outcasts in
the US is a perpetual legacy.
But the same could be
said of the far right Christian churches such as the reformed
presbyterian now attended by Rosaria which has been stagnant. At least
their staying above water rather than the straight fall from height for
the Episcopal and UCC.
John 7:16-19 Jesus said, “I didn’t make this up. What I teach comes from
the One who sent me. Anyone who wants to do his will can test this
teaching and know whether it’s from God or whether I’m making it up. A
person making things up tries to make himself look good. But someone
trying to honor the one who sent him sticks to the facts and doesn’t
tamper with reality. It was Moses, wasn’t it, who gave you God’s Law?
But none of you are living it. So why are you trying to kill me?”
It is about Jesus who
represents grace and truth, and not Moses who represents the law. Our
sexual orientation doesn't matter but who we see the biblical Jesus as,
a good person and a prophet, or God incarnate, our Saviour beyond time,
culture and circumstances.
Redemption is not
redeeming our inward sexual orientation or an outward redemption making
this earth a better place to live in, but a spiritual redemption of
heaven above.
Therefore, we sake to
be, when our lives are crucified with Christ.
Rom 12 1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your
everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and
walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing
what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become
so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even
thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the
inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly
respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down
to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops
well-formed maturity in you.
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