Freedom in first loving yourself

Freedom in first Loving yourself

(Mat 22:37 NKJV) Jesus said to him, " 'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.'(Mat 22:38 NKJV) "This is the first and great commandment.(Mat 22:39 NKJV) "And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
What they don't tell you at many churches in Singapore is that their fight against gays through their proxies such as the Church of Saviour, Exodus, Focus on the Family are heading for a dead end. Desperate measures have been used such as outrageous rethoric from the pulpit, and pseudo science as the acceptance of gays becomes more widespread in the US with the fear that Singapore could follow suit. Their message is being drowned by the increasing world wide acceptance of gays coupled by an uneasy conscience that perhaps they may have been wrong.

The Christian Right groups are calling for dialogue trying to convince themselves that they were the victims rather than the perpetrators much alike a robber coming to your house and asking you to give reasons why you should keep your own belongings! It could never be about dialogue on equal terms as they were debating about your rights and not theirs. Gays should never need to justify for basic human rights and dignity. Freedom of religion does not give us special rights to impose our own theological construction to bind the lives of others unless our faith is so weak that it requires gays as the scapegoat for our own immorality.

The theological construction of condemnation against gays has meant that even the best of Christian writers and thinkers such as Henri Nouwen was never able to reconcile his sexuality and come out in public as a gay person. As a result, he suffered so much emotional toil that had contributed to his early death in 1996. Only a deep revelation that our love for God is intertwined with first loving ourselves would set us free from our theological bondage. Nouwen grew up 50 years ago in a hostile environment very much different from today where we now know that we are not alone and that there are many Gay Christians just like us. Can we go further to love ourselves and have pride.

In the US, even with the advent of the mega churches in the last 20 years, there has been a massive shift in public opinion:-
a) Gay marriage is supported by 42% in 2010, versus just 27% in 1996.
b) Gays serving in the army is supported by 60% in 2010, versus 52% in 1994.
c) To-date, 53% of those born after 1981 supports gay marriage, versus 29% born prior to 1928. ie the acceptance of gay marriage by the younger generations will soon surpass the negative opinion of the older generations with the passing of time.

The profound change may be hastened by more gays coming out, loving and accepting themselves and be "out" to friends and family at a much younger age, thus effectively negating the vicious rethoric of the Christian Right. It is much harder to believe their half truths if gays were not much different from the straight people and are our friends and family. We are becoming proud and coming out as never before:-

a) According to Stonewall report in Nov 2010, the average age of coming out for over-60s was 37; for people in their 30s it was 21; and for those now aged 18-24 was 17.
b) In Asia, the first Taipei Pride was held in 2003 with many gays wearing masks. In 2010, the Pride grew to 30,000 attendance and not a mask was to be seen.
c) India's first gay pride was held in Nov 2010 with 2,000 in attendance, made possible, by the legalization of gay relationships in 2009.

The legalization of gay relationships and same sex marriage are only a matter of time as more gays begin to accept and love themselves instead of carrying a baggage of self denial. As we begin to take the journey of loving ourselves, we start the journey of having the self confidence to be how God has created us, and begin to relate to people as who we are authentically rather than hiding behind a mask.

Loving ourselves comes so naturally to straight people, but for many gay christians, the negative construction by society and by the church has bound us in a theological construct to hate ourselves. We must consciously "consume" Jesus as one preacher has said, not to deny ourselves and put on Christ as he had proposed, rather to see and visualise Christ acceptance and love for us as a special and unique queer people of faith.

The recent strong reaction to Rev Ou Young of MCCNY in Malaysiakini highlighting the existence of gays in the community shows that Malaysia even more than Singapore are far behind. Some in the Gay Christian community seemed perturbed by Rev Ou Young stirring the issue even though he was not outing them in any way. It showed a deep seated self loathing instead of pride, of how God has created us wonderfully as a gay person. We were not rejecting Rev Ou Young, rather rejecting ourselves. The key to coming out of the closet is not only about coming out to family and friends, but whether we could love and accept ourselves as who we are.

The mere mention of the gay issue seems to cause a Holy indignation amongst many gay christians who instead prefer to focus on being Christians who happens to be gay. However, if we cannot fully love ourselves, how can we say we love God, or worship Him fully in Spirit and in truth. We can preach and worship God from the pulpit and in public within the safe space of a "gay church" yet when our worship to God is broadcasted in the Youtube we become defensive and ashamed of worshiping God as a Gay Christian.

There is a strong calling of God for gays to love and accept themselves. When we love ourselves, we have the freedom to love others and to love God. Being free is not only first realising that all are equal in God's eyes, but to realise that we are equal ourselves. There is little point to see others as equal without the basis of loving ourselves first. We are able to love ourselves especially our sexual orientation, when we see the love and acceptance of God through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.

Freedom is seeing yourself in the mirror and loving yourself because you are beloved in Christ Jesus. It doesn't really matter when Singapore eventually decriminalises Homosexuality, for we must first be decriminalised it in our own hearts and mind, in the deepest recess of our sub-conscious. Only the Holy Spirit can do this work of revelation in our lives to love and accept ourselves first, so that the Love of God can come into our hearts.

We can't worship and praise God effectively, unless we are bold enough to yearn for freedom. The Holy Spirit is put in a box when we praise God with our face in the ground, afraid to see God as a Gay Christian community, afraid to raise our hands to worship God in the World Wide Web lest others see us and question whether we were gay!.

It is time for us to start loving ourselves first, and to live with oneself.

Anglican Africans

(1 Cor 9:16 NKJV) For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!

The Christian Post article “Anglican Bishops Resolve to Tackle Africa's Social Ills” dated 31 Aug 2010 reported that the African Anglican Bishops from 400 diocese after a weeklong conference in Uganda issued a strong statement against gays. It was stated in the article that “in their communiqué that "in order to keep the ethos and tradition of the Anglican Communion in a credible way, it is obligatory" of all provinces in the global Anglican Communion to continue to observe and honor the moratoria on the ordination of partnered homosexuals, the blessing of same-sex unions, and cross-border interventions.”

The African Bishops in the “2nd All African Bishop Conference” had also invited their American Anglican schism partner, the “Anglican Church in North America” including Archbishop Robert Duncan, Bishop Martyn Minns, Bishop John Guernsey and Bishop Bill Atwood. The Anglican South represented by Archbishop John Chew of Southeast Asia, have also been invited to join with the primates of the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA). The conference was also attended by Prime Minister of Uganda, Apollo Nsibambi.

With such a strong focus on gays, even interfering with the sovereignty of the Episcopal Church in the United States by the cross border attempts to steal the American conservative diocese, and hunting down gays in the streets within their cities, speaks of a continents deep in grave “social ills” of rampant violence, poverty, injustice, corruption, military dictatorship, infant mortality, abortions, and disease pandemic. It is a horror of a dark continent where the Bishops closed their eyes on the desperate issues and sum them us as a Gay issue. There are no easy answers or solutions except it seems to blame gays.

Whilst the religious leaders put gays on the altar of sacrifice for all the “sins” of the deep dark African Continent, NGOs are calling for a doubling of the 50 Billion dollar AID that goes to Africa each year. This AID should actually be reduced significantly since obviously from the communication of the African Bishops, the main problem or social ill they have is gays and not poverty. So, the solution is obviously simple, the AID money to be used to emigrate the gays from Africa to Europe/USA/Canada/South America. Surely, it would overnight resolve all the social ills and bring prosperity to Africa where 350 million of the population lives below USD 1 per day.

The Conference was hosted by Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi, head of Uganda's Anglican church. According to CNN, “Bishops from Singapore, Southeast Asia and Africa told Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in closed-door sessions Tuesday and Wednesday that there should be no more diplomacy on homosexuality ….. However, Williams preached tolerance in a sermon after the meetings, reminding African bishops that a good leader does not abandon his flock. He did not bring up the issue of homosexuality”.

The Rev Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke that the 21st Century may well be the “African Century.” Archbishop Orombi quoting from 1 Cor 9:16, exalted the crowd that the time has come for ‘fresh wine’ from ‘new wine skins” from what the conference website advocated as “represented by the potentials in the conference to go to Europe and America to bring fresh life in the ailing global Anglicanism”, ie for the voice of the African Anglicans to spread their hate of gays to Europe and America.

Africa is a continent of Population of 1 Billion (2005 census) with 45% Muslim, and 40% Christian. It will be an African Century as said by Rowan Williams, but a century in the news front page of continued economic, social strive and famines, wars, coups, and with the growing Christian Fundamentalism demonstrated at the Bishops’ conference, the religious confrontation between the Muslim North and the Christian South will represent further tragedies. Whether the Christians will march out of the Middle Kingdom to hunt gays all over the world is yet to be seen, but the battle remains up North where the desert of the Sahara is ever expanding to make the land desolate and religious based warfare now starting to dominate the scene, AIDS/HIV threatened as a grim reaper to bring millions of death even bringing down the life expectancy to below 50 years. Africa is indeed a tragedy, so rich in human and natural resources, yet doomed to fail because the real issues have not been addressed by going after a non issue such as gays.

The Gospel is not about making gays a scapegoat, but preaching Christ instead, His love, Grace, and mercy to the lost, the poor, and the outcasts. We are indeed truly lost when we could not see ourselves and how sinful we are but to see the spec in others eyes.