A few weeks ago, when my best friend was visiting me, we sat down early on a Saturday morning with a friend of mine who guest preaches at the spiritual center I currently attend, during which my hope was that maybe he might help my friend see things from a different perspective when it comes to God and homosexuality. Although my best friend’s viewpoint on the subject didn’t change after that meeting, I was still grateful to have had the experience, as it reconfirmed my own stance on the matter, especially when it comes to God.
Ultimately, I believe God is a lot bigger than the Bible, although many Christians would probably have my head for saying so. As my preacher friend, who’s also a Bishop, suggested, the totality of God goes way beyond the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, and any other book that’s ever been written about God. I agree and would go so far as to say that if every book ever written on the subject of God was put in an enormously large library, it still wouldn’t even touch the totality of God.
Unfortunately, my best friend feels just the opposite, as he believes that God’s truest word can only be found in the very pages of the Bible and the Bible alone. Hence the reason why he feels as he does now about homosexuality because it’s in those very pages in black and white where several passages denounce any same-sex relations.
I, on the other hand, have seen God in so many other ways in this world. I’ve seen God in a Muslim. I’ve seen God in a Wiccan. I’ve seen God in a Jew. I’ve seen God in a Hindu. And I’ve even seen God in an atheist who may not even believe in any type of God, but still does their best on a daily basis demonstrating the unconditional love of God anyway. Along the same line, I’ve seen God in many homosexuals, each who also do their best on any given day to offer the unconditional love of God too, myself included.
But, like my best friend, for the longest time none of that fell into my belief system since I used to believe the only true God was the one from the pages of the Bible. Because of that I never could fully accept myself and my sexuality in entirety, and if the totality of God was strictly that from the Bible, not only would I never be accepted into the Kingdom of God, but so wouldn’t billions and billions of people on this planet. At some point that started to not make any type of sense whatsoever, hence the reason why I began having to see the totality of God as something more than that which came from the Bible alone. Add in all the discrepancies to how the “Word” was constantly being applied in this world, the countless interpretations from Biblical scholars that all seemed to contradict each other, and plenty of people who warped God’s unconditional love into conditional or judgmental-based views, I realized God’s totality had to be something more than the Bible.
Eventually, I arrived at a place where the totality of God had me still identifying Christ as my Lord and Savior, except without labeling myself anymore as a Christian because of how much negative connotation that seems to hold these days in this world. With the amount of gay people, and people from other religions for that matter, who keep on being rejected because of the Bible and Christianity, I simply tell people now that I follow the unconditional love of Christ as best as I can. This thankfully has helped me to fully accept a number of things including the sexuality I was born with, the current relationship I’m in that’s same-sex based and fully monogamous, and plenty of others who come from non-Christian and non-Biblical-based backgrounds.
Many Christians, including my best friend, might say I’ve allowed the “Enemy” to sway me. If the “Enemy”, which of course is really just another term for Satan, has swayed me, I surely wouldn’t be holding the unconditional love I have for my partner. On the contrary, that “Enemy” was most definitely present in my past during the majority of all my previous relationships when I wasn’t faithful, when I did random hook-ups, when I attempted to break up marriages for sexual gain, when I viewed pornography, and so on and so forth.
So, no, I don’t believe the “Enemy” is swaying me today into believing any of this because for me, the totality of God absolutely includes the unconditional love I have for my partner. In the end, choosing to see the totality of God in this way, beyond the scope of the Bible, has allowed me to connect to countless souls on this planet that are just as worthy and deserving of God’s unconditional love. Souls that are indeed homosexual, souls that may never claim Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, but souls nonetheless that truly do their best, every, single, day, to bring as much Light and Love onto this planet as they can.
And if that isn’t part of the totality of God, well, then I really don’t know what is or ever will be…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
