THORN

IN

the Homosexual

THE SPIRIT

on the Horns of a Christian Dilemma

99

"And... a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated.. -St. Paul, in II Corinthians, 12:7, Rev. Std. Version.

Three years after the publication of Sinclair Lewis' BABBITT, a young advertising executive hit with a best-seller intended to demolish the prevailing perverted notion that Jesus the Nazarene was a soft effeminate, and to demonstrate rather that THE MAN MAN NOBODY KNOWS was really the very figure of the resourceful, back-slapping, aggressive American businessman. of the 'Twenties. No more welcome message could have been found for the religion of the drumthumping Billy Sunday era.

Yet few serious Churchmen considered this as more than a vulgar and rather silly effort to cut the heart out of Christ's character. This trumped-up masculine image was incongruous to him who said, "For I am gentle and lowly of heart."

Lyn Pedersen

The blessing for the poor in spirit, the mourners and the meek, those hungry for righteous, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the reviled and the persecuted was quite out of character with the Bruce Barton portrayal, as also was the insistence on perpetual forgiveness, loving enemies, avoidance of judgement and lack of regard for this world's goods.

The Barton view is not surprising, however, for though foreign to the Galilean, it has long been a strong current in the Church.

Curious, that from the other worldly Gospels, we have gotten a Church and laity so very much concerned with the wealth and affairs of the world, and so deeply involved in the proscribed "judging" and doing anything but loving their enemies.

Thus has precipitated a rough, not always obvious, dichotomy in Church history. A more obscure dichotomy stems from a related fact that would be fiercely denied by most Christians, at least by most evangelical Protestants.

The message and life of Christ, and therefore the core of Christianity, has a selfless and a notably feminate quality that would seem to render somewhat hypocritical the actual aggressiveness of most Christian nations, sects and individuals.

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