Mike's musings

Christians: choosing who to love

I'd hoped to spend some time on this, but as readers of entries passim will realise, I'm not at all well (update below), so I'm going to keep it short.

My intention had been to write from two directions:

1. as Christians, we don't get to decide who we should love: we're supposed to love everyone (including ourselves). This includes people of whom we may not approve - and I'm thinking in particular of gay, bisexual or lesbian people. And gay, bisexual or lesbian Christians, too.
2. we should maybe realise that other people don't get to decide who they love, either: and I'm thinking in particular of gay, bisexual or lesbian people. And gay, bisexual or lesbian Christians, too. God made each of us the way we are, and we must remember that Jesus told us to "love your neighbour as yourself", which means that we must realise that people must love the selves that God made them.

I'm not going to be drawn into the "paedophile debate": that's not about love, as it's not reciprocal, and is entirely about abuse. I'm talking about good, honest, human (and, through Christ's incarnation, divine) love.

Sorry to be blunt - I expect comments (though I may delay responding to them all until I'm rather better).

Synchroblog

Today is a "synchroblog" on the subject of spiritual warfare. If you've liked what you read here, or, more particularly, if you didn't, and you'd like to read some other opinions, please visit one of the other participating blogs:

• Christian Sexuality as Ritual Worship at Phil Wyman's Square No More
• Christians: choosing who to love at Mike's Musings
• Loving God, Loving others, loving self- responding to the Goddess- a feminist perspective at Eternal Echoes
• Trinity by Mike Crockett
• Prophet's Passion at Adam Gonnerman's Igneous Quill
• A Love Supreme from Fernando's Desk
• What is this thing called love? at Steve's Notes from the Underground
• Love as it should pertain to us missionally? at Webb's Stumbling into the Kingdom
• Divine Eros by Handmaid Leah
• Loving the Other by John Smulo
• The Conjunction Between Sensuality and Spirituality by Matt Stone
• The Blogger Whom Jesus Loved at Jamie's More Than Stone
• Love Them Patriots at Calacirian
• I'm a better lover than I used to be... by Billy Calderwood
• Young people in on love by Tim Abbot
• The Art of Making Love....and Soap at Cindy's Tracking the Edge
• Being Missional: Love Comes Before Power by David Fisher at Be the Revolution

Update

For those of you with an interest, I'm definitely still ill. Got around 2 hours of sleep last night, woke up with a temperature and alternate shakes/sweats. Doc gave me antibiotics and the week off.

Labels: illness, love, sexuality, synchroblog