Gay Africa - the discussion over at Think Christian

I don't normally really have time to get involved in online discussions but got waylaid a little this evening by David Ker's post at Think Christian on Gay Africa.
Here's the first paragraph from David's piece:

For those of us who label homosexual practice as a sin it can be easy to get muddled up about government attempts to legislate and prosecute sexual behavior. There is a difference between legislation designed to protect the vulnerable from victimization and that which tries to monitor and control consensual relationships. We must stand up for children and women at risk. Society must create a safe environment for its citizens, free from rape, chronic abuse and exploitation. But while the church can condemn adultery, fornication, pornography, prostitution and homosexuality as corrosive behavior we shouldn’t try to police them. The church exists as a society within a society. We have an obligation to God’s Word and his flock to strive toward purity. But outside the walls of the church our role is different. We can be prophets of truth but never legislators of behavior. That’s why a theocracy like ancient Israel failed from the beginning. A quick survey of the crude and androcentric laws found in the Book of Numbers show just how wrong we can get it.

Continue reading and get involved in the comments here. Below is part of (well actually very nearly all of) my second comment. I suppose what I find interesting about very occassionally getting involved in these online discussions is how they can sometimes get me to say something I'd not written or even thought much about before. to be fair I have done quite a lot of thinking about homosexuality and about who is "in" and "out" for the church, I just don't write about it here, mainly because I'm very wary of getting drawn onto discussions I won't be able to cope with.

Let me also be clear that I don't equate "being" homosexual with "being" sinful anymore than I equate "being" heterosexual with "being" righteous. I am certainly as sinful a person as many of the homosexuals I know, as much in need of transformation and cleansing. I know many celibate homosexuals. I know many who live in faithful long term relationships. I can also fortunately say the same about many heterosexuals I know. I also have many friends who have left partners with whom they have had children and founded new relationships and had further children. I have welcomed them and many other sinners and impure people at the Lord's table - and I have presided that table knowing that I too am far from the transformed human being Christ calls me to be.
It sometimes seems to me that as divorce rates increase there has been a need amongst some of us in the church to look for a new sin to condemn that is not too close to home.
So easy to point to the need for healing in the unknown other and assume that their "lifestyle" is more impure than our own. The many stones of sin in my own hand would be - being rich (oh how difficult it is for a rich woman to get into the kingdom of heaven), being fat (not treating my body as temple of the Holy spirit), not practising the beatitudes or hearing the magnificat call sufficiently. Despite these very great failings (and the Bible has a lot to say about how we use our wealth) I still trust that Christ integrates me with grace and forgiveness to his table and church.

Dreaming of relevance or maybe going viral - just how do we change the world?

Over the weekend I was thinking about the dream of being relevant or having impact. Over a late lunch today with a friend who has worked in international emergency work and is now in development communication we talked in a bit more depth about various aspects of having an impact. How emergency aid workers are trained to not try and resolve anything other than the immediate problem - food shelter and water for today. Impact is in the here and now, it's about today and not about changing things for ever.
How do we change the world, have impact, touch others with a message that we passionately believe is important? Is celebrity for an idea or an individual the answer - going viral on You Tube the only mark of success? (Watching the media circus of recent months around Susan Boyle has hardly been edifying.)
At the beginning of my year of theological studies in the former GDR in 1989 our course tutor read from and encouraged us to read further Manfred Josuttis' Der Traum des Theologen (published in 1988). It begins with a preacher dreaming about preaching to a packed church, condemning apartheid and the people applauding - a real dream of having impact or resonance. I can still remember the woman next to me muttering under her breath "this is a very macho dream of adulation". Later that autumn there were a few brief weeks when the churches were packed, when the words of many pastors and church people in the GDR were listened to and applauded. Then the Berlin wall came down and the churches gradually emptied again.
The desire to have a big impact is no doubt very human - as is the desire to say that the small impact we are having is more significant than it really is. This need to live the dream of relevance often blinds us to the reality of needing to get on with humble, incarnational work - writing, talking, listening, studying. The lasting relevance of what we do will be in the quality of our message, the integrity of our vision and in the relationships we build, and not necessarily in the brilliance of our fine preaching or super-packaged gimmicks.