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A spirit that is not afraid

EDITORIAL: On divining scripture

SPRING EDITORIAL BOARD 2017

Last week, a family schism between a popular radio show host and his daughter became public. The crux of the issue: her bisexuality.

The daughter wrote a guest column on AL.com offering her perspective on the issue, emphasizing the destructiveness of a parent who doesn’t accept who you are, and sending others like her a word of encouragement, “I love you. Your worth is untouchable. Find a good friend. Invest in therapy. Dance in the middle of the night and hold yourself accountable to the life you’ve always wanted. At the root of all this hate speech is fear. This is not your fear to carry. Release it.”

The radio show host took to the airwaves to decry her lifestyle, full of grief, comparing his daughter to the prodigal son who strays away from sanctity and eventually returns to his father to find forgiveness awaiting him.

This is an issue that arises all throughout the nation, and is especially explosive in more deeply religious parts of the country like Alabama.

Some religious parents, with fundamentalist teachings charting the course of their logic, chastise their children who stray away from heterosexuality.

Too often, these disagreements ruin relationships and breed resentment until the actors involved are no longer around to resent or love.

This is an issue that can’t be argued to conclusion in five minutes, or in a single editorial; the opposing sides rest their cases on fundamentally different worldviews, proceeding their arguments from different axioms.

With that difficulty in mind, we implore parents to retain an air of kindness and tolerance toward their children who may disagree with them regarding whom to love.

As time presses on, acceptance of homosexuality has increased broadly across Christian denominations and has finally attained a majority, according to a 2015 Pew Research study. This change has largely been because of millennials, who view homosexuality with a much kinder eye than preceding generations.

This change has largely been because of millennials, who view homosexuality with a much kinder eye than preceding generations.

The Bible is being interpreted less literally and more within the confines of the cultural contexts surrounding different passages.

Many homosexual Christians offer up theological defenses of their sexuality by tearing apart and analyzing the old Greek translations to figure out for themselves what seems to be the most accurate interpretation of scripture.

Additionally, we encourage those children to balance their parents’ criticism with the fact that sometimes the criticism comes from a place of genuine concern and love, however distorted they may think their parents’ worldview is.

In the minds of many concerned parents, ignoring the child’s lifestyle could entail eternal damnation, a gamble no decent parent would be willing to make.

However, we acknowledge good intentions shouldn’t be accepted as a sufficient reason to love or remain in contact with somebody.

After all, many proponents of terrorism intend to do the right thing through their heinous acts, but there remains a deficit between themselves and decency.

We merely ask that the goodwill be considered in the decision calculus, which will amount to differing outcomes across different contexts.

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Above all, when confronted with seemingly impossible problems like this, it is important to remember to extend empathy and remember that truth that shouldn’t be revoked under the auspices of any religion: genuinely love people.



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