Can gays be Christians?
Incompatible, aren’t they? How can one be a Christian and gay at the same time? But, as BRIGHT MHANGO writes, there are some people who don’t see a contradiction.
Leviticus 20:13 says without apology that “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”
The fact that homosexuality is in the Bible tells us that the practice has been out there as far as man could keep records. In fact, some studies say homosexuality is natural, engineered by the genetics of a person.
It is such people that are of interest. If they believe they are gay by birth and were born to Christian families, how do they reconcile their being gay and worshipping a God that actually calls for their death?
Nation on Sunday
on Saturday last week caught up with two gays at Andrews Hotel in Mangochi on the sidelines of a workshop organised by the Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC) and Centre for Development of the People (Cedep) to train health workers on the rights and issues of gays in accessing healthcare.
The two chose to call themselves Khumbo Phiri and Junior Banda for obvious reasons. I started by asking them if they thought being gay was a sin.
Strangely, Khumbo conceded and said it is a sin.
“It’s a sin. Because the Bible says so, but then again he created me, right? So, he should explain why he created me gay and yet said it is a sin,” he said.
In contrast, Junior was upfront in making it clear that being gay is not a sin. Needless to argue with that; everything about Junior is gay—mannerisms, the way he speaks are all peculiar to him.
If he made a presentation on Malawian gays, many would not argue on the existence of gays and how natural and not their fault it all is.
“It’s not a sin. If he knows it’s a sin, he should fix me, then,” he said.
Junior called for understanding, saying being gay is not a sin. He said it is just a creation of some people who do not know that people can be gay.
“I am gay and in a perfect relationship with God. Even if being gay was a sin, there are many sinners in the church; do we stop the church from talking about gossipers, for example?” he wondered.
But how do they feel when they go to church and the pastor is preaching, especially in recent times when the gay agenda has taken centre stage up to the point of seeing some clergy such as Apostle Samuel Chilenje of Jesus Pentecostal Church of Lilongwe who told his congregation that gays deserve to be killed?
Said Khumbo: “If I am a sinner, then it’s God who should judge, me not a pastor. I go to church for God, not for people, so what they say doesn’t matter.”
He said he is a proud member of the Charismatic Redeemed Ministries International Church and goes to church every Sunday.
He keeps his identity secret and argues that he cannot tell or confess to anybody because nobody is forced to do so.
For Junior, the response is more radical; he quit going to church because what faith teaches does not go down well with what he is.
Well, there you have it. So when Paul listed the things likely to keep one from heaven in 1 Corinthians 6, he never knew that there would be Junior who would need to be told why he is not going to heaven, yet he was created by God and never chose to be gay.
