{"id":1345,"date":"2019-05-25T22:12:53","date_gmt":"2019-05-25T22:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/?p=1345"},"modified":"2019-09-16T15:30:23","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T15:30:23","slug":"christian-fellowship-club-discusses-homosexuality-in-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/2019\/05\/christian-fellowship-club-discusses-homosexuality-in-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Fellowship Club spills the LGBTea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Christian Fellowship Club held a forum last week to provide perspective on what it\u2019s like to be homosexual and religious. Putting the audience in the shoes of club members who identify as gay and hold a intimate relationship with God who look to take on the issue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With chairs arranged in an order equivalent to a classroom, each speaker stood at the front of room TH112 and expressed their insight of what it means to identify as gay and christian in front of an audience of 25. The overall message from participants was to focus on the words of the Bible, and not the socially constructed bias against homosexuality that has been perpetuated by some faiths.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1351\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 620px\"><a href=\"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-content\/uploads\/SJp626TS2qJyhUhEOqcng.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1351 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-content\/uploads\/SJp626TS2qJyhUhEOqcng-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"610\" height=\"458\" srcset=\"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-content\/uploads\/SJp626TS2qJyhUhEOqcng-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-content\/uploads\/SJp626TS2qJyhUhEOqcng-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-content\/uploads\/SJp626TS2qJyhUhEOqcng-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-content\/uploads\/SJp626TS2qJyhUhEOqcng-310x233.jpg 310w, https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-content\/uploads\/SJp626TS2qJyhUhEOqcng-60x45.jpg 60w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 610px) 100vw, 610px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Christian Fellowship Club pile up<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cYou [are raised to] think that being straight is the holy state of being, when in fact the holy state of being is to take your sexuality regardless of the cards you\u2019re dealt and to put them in submission to Jesus,\u201d said Gregory Coles, a member of the club.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In addition to being homosexual and christian, you can add author to Coles\u2019 resume. Coles is a proud author of \u201cSingle, Gay, Christian: A Personal Journey of Faith and Sexual Identity\u201d. He basically touches on the topic of religion and sexuality, providing his personal lens on the topic. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Being attracted to the same sex has historically drawn negative attention, however the barrier between religion and sexuality is nonexistent for Orion Barthley, Christian fellowship attendee.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Barthley described God\u2019s grace as \u201can awesome orgasm\u201d with a wide grin on his face that represents the pride LGBTQ community share in being religious. Barthley makes it clear that homosexuals can experience the grace of God just as much as the next person.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The members of the Christian Fellowship Club hold no discriminations to those who are attracted to the same sex. In fact, the club as a whole doesn\u2019t allow for barriers between sexuality and religion to be made. The negative connotations carried about by the church ultimately have no effect on the Christian Fellowship Club as they\u2019ve been accepting to those who share this distinct lifestyle. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Throughout the discussion numerous people were laughing at comments being made, clapping at every point of emphasis and cheering on each speaker who shared their experience. Each member of this club grew up amongst youth groups that hold their faith on a pedestal. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As the discussion continued, the audience&#8217;s attention remained undivided as they listened to quoted Bible verses and homosexual revelations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe need to be able to let the Bible prove us wrong,\u201d said Coles. \u201cThen we also need to be willing to let the bible tell us what we don\u2019t want to hear.\u201d Members at the forum believed that those who are against homosexuality often reference the bible to prove their point. As he delivered his speech, Coles proficient dissected the bible on what it means to be straight and homosexual. By doing so, he realized that the bible is often taken out of context which allows for individuals to automatically view same sex relationships as sin. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a Christian and homosexual, Coles was determined to study what the Bible was teaching him instead of listening to outside factors telling him how to live. When Coles looks back on how he was brought up, he realizes that the majority of what he was taught was socially constructed, and not dictated by the Bible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cTherefore you have no excuse, you who judge someone else because at whatever point you judge someone else you yourself stand condemned as you do the same things,\u201d as Coles adds the exclamation mark. By tackling life-long debates like sexuality vs religion, the Christian Fellowship Club continues to plant their feet forward in the right direction as a unit.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A forum last week to provided perspective on what it\u2019s like to be homosexual and religious, putting the audience in the shoes of people who identify as gay and hold a intimate relationship with God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":1351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[121],"class_list":["post-1345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-christian-fellowship-club"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1345"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1514,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345\/revisions\/1514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}