the days i wrote about hitler, retards, hating christianity and gay people…

one of my facebook friends [Catherine Rogers] posted a status about the overabundance of brett FISH anderson articles/blogs/videos on her newsfeed and the struggle to pick which to give her time to [not complaining that there was so much but that there was too much choice] and so somehow five minutes later i found myself looking back through some early pre-Simple Way blog posts i made two or more years ago and finding a bunch i thort would be good to share… but then i was hit by the dilemma of not wanting to make Catherine’s newsfeed explode and so i had the cunning plan of sticking them all in one blog post, which altho it won’t help with the choice factor, will certainly be a lot better than posting each one separately… i think there is some good stuff here and i hope you find something useful…

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO: shortest blog post in the history of brett fish blogposting but hectically profound: https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go

BLESSED ARE THE RETARDS: this must have been posted before anyone was reading my blog cos i didn’t get a single hate mail for the title – or else maybe people got it – maybe this should be a taboo topic of dealing with or just being around people who are hectically different than you in some way cos they don’t have lessons on how to do that at school – https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/blessed-are-the-retards

REASONS TO HATE CHRISTIANITY: in the meantime this one DID get me into trouble, with one of the leaders of my denomination [never mind local congregation, i aim high!] because he lambasted me for writing this having read the title but never read what i was saying which was kinda not the title [but possibly giving a reason to be somewhat annoyed with christians] – https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2010/07/04/reasons-to-hate-christianity-part-i

THE WAGES OF GOD, ARE YOU: another short to the point one focused on the economy of heaven, and if it’s the economy God is interested in, the surely we should be as well – https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2010/04/02/the-wages-of-god-are-you

ALL MEN SHALL KNOW YOU FOR YOUR HATRED OF THE GAY – another worrying one if you stop at the title but this one is SO much completely close to my heart that it is definitely worth a repost – https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/all-men-shall-know-you-for-your-hatred-of-the-gay/

HITLER’S MOM – wow, again this must have been the days before people figured out i had a blog – just a short but important glimpse into the way we see people and the influence we may have in their lives and the need for intentionality and always holding on to hope – https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/hitlers-mom/

love God, hate gay people?

i love God.
some of my best friends are gay and i love them.

this is quite clearly a dangerous piece to write because in this politically correct world we find ourselves in you are allowed to be anything but just not allowed to question anything – each to his own, right?
but i read this article and really thort the author, John Dickson, nailed the topic on the head…

i remember an occasion a number of years ago when i ended up chatting to one of my gay friends late into the night about a whole variety of topics. it was a guy i worked with and so we were probably more acquaintances than friends at the time [we’re friends now] and so we didn’t really know each other well, but the conversation went from hypnotism to ghosts to other spiritual things and eventually after about an hour ended up on christianity [there had been a bunch of us chatting for about the first hour but then the rest lost interest and it was just me and let’s call him ‘J’]

i remember being quite nervous about asking the question but for some reason i just really wanted to know and i knew that if it went badly it could make things difficult for us in the working/acquaintance environment we were in. I looked at J and asked him, ‘So J, what do you think my opinion of gay people is?’ He looked at me and said, “Isn’t it supposed to be love the sinner, hate the sin?” I was quite surprised that he was the one quoting that line, so I asked another nervous question, “What about me, J, have you ever felt judged by me because you are gay?” [he knew i was a Christ-follower and working in a church as a youth pastor at the time] He turned to me and said, “If you judged me, you would never have worked alongside me or come to my house or drunk out of the same cup” and one or two other things.

And for me it has always been that. I now have a lot of friends who are homosexual and they are my friends and I love them. But, according to my beliefs and my understanding of the Bible, I don’t see that as being God’s plan for the world. I really like how Dickson sums it up at the end of his article:

“But there is a third way, based on a different logic. We ought to be able to love even those with whom we profoundly disagree. It must be possible for Christians to question the moral status of sexual intimacy outside heterosexual monogamy while demonstrating respect and care for neighbours who are neither heterosexual nor monogamous. True open-mindedness is not merely accepting as true and valid someone else’s viewpoint; it is the more difficult and noble commitment to honouring people whose viewpoints you reject.”

i think as a christian, it is very easy to have an opinion on the gay/homosexual issue, until the moment you actually know some gay people and are friends with them. then it becomes completely difficult and complicated. the church has far too often made ‘being gay’ a worse sin than any other and worthy of extreme focus and condemnation and we have often lost the basic command of Jesus which is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind” but also to “love your neighbour as yourself”

hopefully, day by day, i’ll be able to do that better…

and hopefully get better at being open-minded like John says, “True open-mindedness is not merely accepting as true and valid someone else’s viewpoint; it is the more difficult and noble commitment to honouring people whose viewpoints you reject.”

take a look at the rest of the article at http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/44682.html