Just a brief understanding of Christian fundamentalism
Modern Christian fundamentalism arose from American millenarian sects of the 19th century, and has become associated with reaction against social and political liberalism and rejection of the theory of evolution. It is a form of Protestant Christianity that upholds belief in the strict and literal interpretation of the Bible, including its narratives, doctrines, prophecies, and moral laws. Further, it begs of its religious participants a strict maintenance of ancient or fundamental doctrines of any religion or ideology, notably Islam.
I would like to say that I first and foremost I am a Christian, however, I differ with you in accordance to homosexuality and Christianity. Many Christians today have still not come to grasp with the message that Jesus came to deliver, which was to destroy the categories of uncleanness and to abolish the paradoxes that were within the old laws that inhibited many from attaining a truly effective and healthy relationship with God. Further, as I see many Christians lambaste homosexuals from verses in the Bible, I don’t see many other people acknowledging verses by the Apostle Paul, which say women should not wear earrings in the church and also that women should not talk and should remain silent in the church. Thus, there lie contradictions within many of our theological presuppositions and how we reverence the Bible and how it relates to interpreting Biblical verses within their social and historical context. Because you’re an African-American, you are the exact result of taking the Bible to literally. Many Europeans took the Bible verses “servants serve and obey your master” too literally, and look where we are today, consequently, we can see repercussions of such actions.
Also, I would ask for you to actually seek for deeper revelation into the so-called verses against homosexuality. It is well known, that Sodom and Gomorrah is not about homosexuality, however, it is about the gang rape of two angels of God! In those verses God did not once mention homosexuality, however, it is only with your heterosexual normative gaze that you interpret sexual deviance and immoral behavior with a homosexual lifestyle. I know many peoples argument will state that homosexuality is interfering with nature because they cannot have children. I find something deeply wrong with humans with finite minds defining what is “natural”. I could further argue that wearing a condom is not natural; using birth control is not natural, for heaven sake using medicine is not natural! Who are you, as a moral judge to tell someone that his or her behavior is unnatural?
With many fundamentalist Christian, I find a lot of self – righteous behavior, which is something Jesus did not forget to condemn because he came to destroy the methods of external holiness that were displayed by the Jewish high priest who were complicit with the Roman empire in his demise because of his teachings that called for a more intrinsic spirituality, that could combat the staunch absolutist dogma that told the “ unclean” the “unnatural”, that they could not take part in the Kingdom of God. I also find it disgusting at the amount of heterosexist and homophobic mindsets that are indoctrinated in the African American community. African Americans were told that they were animals, and that they were a cursed creature void of culture, based of the same Bible, and you are using to beat upon the head of homosexuals! Irony at its finest I say I hope you as a Christian wake up and see the cycle of biblical oppression that is being professed in the name of the Bible: racism, sexism, classism, etc. These things Jesus was vehemently opposed to, so why would heterosexism and homophobia be any different?
I invite you to think more critically about these issues and to see how Jesus would handle them. Remember, you are a Christian not a Paulite not a Mosesite not Solomonite, you are a CHRISTIAN. Study what Jesus said, you would be interested to know that Jesus never mentioned once homosexuality. I wonder why……….
