by Raymond D. Johnson

Created on: October 22, 2009   Last Updated: October 24, 2009

Can a Christian be gay? This is the proposed question. My answer, yes I firmly believe that an individual can be a true and faithful Christian and be gay. Many will disagree with me, and that is fine. I am gay and I am a Christian. Now to some this statement is an oxymoron, not possible. To me it is a reality. We are all God's children; He made us all. He loves us all. Yes he requires obedience and he has rules of living as set down in the Bible by Moses and conditions of stewardship as set down in the Bible specifically by the apostle Paul in Corinthians.

Let us take the bible first off. Now I am a writer. The bible was written by the scribes on papyrus paper, so over time this paper becomes brittle and fragile. The Bible was written by many different individuals in many different languages. For example: Hebrew, Greek, Sanskrit, and Aramaic. I am also bilingual and do translation not professionally, so I know that translation to exact phrases in the English language can be difficult. Exact meanings can be lost or perhaps a better word is obscured. Also in some languages there are gender associations like Spanish, male and female. For example the Hebrew word for spirit is Ruah, which is feminine. So you see this makes the Bible difficult to fully grasp and interpret. Now then add to that that the Bible was canonized or edited by the Catholic church by Canon Law so some books like The Book Of Enoch were excluded, left out. So then we do not have all the information. Also take into account other manuscripts have been found and are still being discovered and indivuals are working to authenticate, date and translate those documents. For example the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered and the Nag Hamadi texts and more could exist. So then it is clear that fully reading and understanding the Bible is a task that must take time, study and be thoroughly undertaken. Most people do not do this. I have.

There are also many editions of The Bible, such as The Revised Standard Version, The King James Version and many others. There are also many denominations. For example there are: Methodist, Baptist, Mormon, Catholicism, Jehovah's Witness, Dunkard, Quaker and many others.

Now these are all a part of Christianity, the same religion, but each differs in their tradition, ceremonies and beliefs even though it is the same religion. So it is really a matter of interpretation. So how do we view the bible Jesus and his teachings? More importantly how do we interpret it? Do we feel

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