This morning at the website of the Melbourne newspaper, The Age, an article appeared about the biological sister of Steve Jobs, Mona Simpson. She happened to be at the bedside of her brother when he died. In the article, a very revealing comment was attributed to her:
Simpson grew up as an only child with a single mother, and only met Jobs later in life when he tracked her down. “Even as a feminist, my whole life I’d been waiting for a man to love, who could love me,” she wrote. “For decades, I’d thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother.”
A psychological break-down of the things stated here would leave me writing a breathtakingly long post, but the point here is that broken people compensate for their losses in tragic ways. Now that Simpson’s brother is dead, where is she to go now? Which other father figure(s) will she be latching onto? Unless she grafts onto Jesus, her search will be ceaseless and her need for satisfaction unmet. Her need is healthy and her search understandable, and though it leads to sinful solutions, God has a much better solution in mind that will quench her thirst (c.f. Jeremiah 2:13, John 4:1-45).
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Last weekend I went to a couple of churches. One was Riverstone Baptist: you can listen to my talk here (30 October 2011). The other one was at a church on the north shore, where I preached to a youth group. Please pray that those who listened to my talks be edified and that those struggling with SSA who were there were encouraged in godliness. Even when all seems hopeless and no-one else seems to listen and understand, remember that God cares, understands, and is there waiting to listen and help. And He never gives up or is slow to keep His promises. (Have a listen to Louis Armstrong if you don’t beleive me!)
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Recently, in my devotional times, I have been thinking about a couple of verses from the New Testament. The first is James 1:27, which says, “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world“ and Ephesians 5:11 “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them” (New King James Version). These came to mind, because so much of what Liberty Christian Ministries does is to expose the evil in the world, the encourage people to abstain from evil, and to find the healing balm for sinful, broken, and rebellious hearts.
This is important to say, because in our general culture we have product labels to warn us of the dangers of potentially using certain things. We put labels on food products which outline calorie, salt, and fat content; gasoline and other materials have ‘Hazchem’ on them to tell us what protective gear to wear; toys have choking hazard warnings on them. The list is endless. (Pictured left is the Australian Federal Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, holding a prototypical cigarette box with the infamous graphic pictures of what happens to the human body as a consequence of cigarette usage).
In that vein, I thought it was worth putting here some insightful research that was done by a medical practitioner in the US into the dangerous side-effects of engaging in gay and lesbian sex. Why? Not because this is to shock anyone needlessly, but to show people what dangers they are into by doing it. God never meant for people to do certain things with their bodies. When I lived the gay life I had to get AIDS, STD, and other checks every once in a while to see if I was infected. Many gay men do this on a 3-monthly basis and live in constant fear of when they might get something. I remember going with a gay friend to the Sydney Hospital sex clinic as he awaited his results and it was a sad and terrifying ordeal for him (though he tried very hard to act as if it wasn’t!) It is a very scary scenario, and it is worth people counting the cost of what they are planning to do. Living one’s life under the constant threat of a guillotine is not much of a life.
Will this information necessarily make people stop having gay sex and going into the lifestyle? Not necessarily: government advertising against cigarattes has gone on for 20+ years and there is no indication that the uptake of smoking has dropped. I used to conduct market research analyses for a tobacco company in 2003-2004, and the trend data was a flat line: anti-smoking ads and infromation had done nothing to dent the uptake of smoking. But I pray that it will cause people to stop and pause and think about whether they really want to enter into that life. These things may not happen to gay people, but the odds are not in their favour, and they pose very real physical and mental risks to those engaged in gay practise. (The infamous ‘gay bowel’ is just one example of that.)
So here are are some resources to cast light on a subject that gets discussed very little in today’s ’tolerant’ culture. It comes with a warning, though: the kinds of things discussed are not for the faint-hearted and are inappropriate for children. Please DO NOT read them, especially the PDF paper, if the reader is not ready.
- Health risks of gay sex, written by a medical practitioner (PDF)
The media has been busy lately on the topic of gay marriage, and thankfully, Christians have not been silent. The Jesus: All About Life Facebook group posted today a video on the gay marriage debate, interviewing influential figures such as former Deputy Prime Minister, John Anderson M.P. There is also a website you can visit that has answers on gay marriage, including a very telling page on how not all gay and lesbian people agree with gay marriage.
Blessings,
Haydn, pastoral care worker.