Christian and Gay Harmony

By Professor Jensen and Students

Bringing about harmony is the goal of this book. Sadly there has evolved distrust and misunderstandings between the gay and Christian communities. This unfortunate state of affairs exists today and the goal of this book is to present reason and information to create harmony instead of discord. It is an easy to read book that presents the viewpoints from each community. The conclusion and solution is for each community to listen, learn, and love. How to do this is explained in the conclusion of the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491781845

Professor Jensen

Professor Jensen has written several books, published more than 100 peer reviewed scholarly articles and taught at four universities since 1965. His focus has been on moral development and gender. Most of his publications have been co-authored with his students and address current issues.

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Copyright © 2015 Prof. Larry Cyril Jensen.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-8173-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-8184-5 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 11/19/2015

Contents

Contributors

Preface

Chapter One Harmony

What We Will Say in This Book

How We Handled Disagreements

Using Clear and Correct Terminology

Necessary Distinctions

How Many People Are In The Gay Community?

Responding to the Sexual Minority

To Be Christ-Like Is To Love

Understanding Sources of Differences

Public and Legal Support for Gay Right Issues Grows

Chapter Two Christianity

The Soul–Spirit, Pre–Mortal Existence and Gender

The Bible and Beliefs in Marriage

Modern Christian Statements about Marriage

Early Christian Beliefs about Marriage

Christian Beliefs about Sexuality

Sexual Behavior and Christian Standards

Sexual Orientation and Identity

What is Behind the Beliefs of Christian Churches?

What the Christian Church Wants From the Member

Christianity’s Plan for Living

Chapter Three Some Research

The Promise and Limitations of Research

Sexual Orientation and the Human Brain

The Brain, Genes, and Gay Men

Hormonal Differences in Sexual Orientation

At Least Eight Variations of LGBTIQQ

Non-Biological Theories of Sexual Orientation

Questionable Parenting Studies On Same-sex Parenting

Comprehensive Study Shows Problems with Same-Sex Parenting

An Appetitional Theory of Sexual Motivation

The Question of Choice

Can Sexual Orientation Be Changed?

Chapter Four The Christ-Like Response

The Christian, Loving God and LGBTIQQ

The Right to Believe What You Want about Sexual Orientation

Listen, Learn, and Love

The Christian Listening to the Gay Person

The Christian Learning about the Gay Person

The Christian and Loving the Gay Person

A First Step towards a Christ-Like Response

A Second Step towards a Christ-Like Response

A Third Step towards a Christ-Like Response

Conclusions

Appendix

Author’s Reflections

End Notes

CONTRIBUTORS

Sarah Davis

Janet Jensen

Necia Nikelle O’Grady

Andrew M. Summers

J. Russell Tyler

PREFACE

All of us have a family member, loved one, or dear friend who has identified as either gay or lesbian. We care about them. And it is impossible to ignore tensions, even conflict, between the gay and Christian communities so frequently reported in the news. Therefore we embarked on this project, in our university seminar, to discover how to bring about harmony between these two communities. Both have conflicting yet understandable points of view.

The Christian does not like to be called bigoted or homophobic just because their God says marriage and sex should only be between a man and a woman. The gay does not like to be called a sinner and denied civil rights just because of same sex attraction.

We all live better when there is harmony. We constantly seek harmony with nature and with others. In this book we hope that through listening, learning and loving we can show a way for the Christian and Gay communities to live together in harmony.

CHAPTER ONE

Harmony

What We Will Say in This Book

How is this little book going to lay down a path towards harmony? Let us try to explain this right now; right at the onset.

The first step or building block is to bring center- stage the Christianity’s core and central belief. It is to love on another.

The second step is to recognize and listen to the request from the gay community that their civil rights be honored, respected, and that they be accepted without prejudice in society.

The next variable, that must be part of the solution, is to realize that for centuries