Well, I do know of a specifically LGBT church called Metropolitan Christian Church or MCC. I believe the first one formed in LA in 1969 and has spread since then. That's about all I know about it.
We've a couple friends who attend there, both were brought up Catholic and attend this church because it's the one church where they can attend services not in spite of being gay, but because they are. Which to them is a big deal. Yes, straight people would be welcome but aren't likely to attend services there.
I imagine that they attend services precisely because they had been brought up believing and like most people just keep doing it. With this church they can be who they are, and no one is going to look at them funny. People do what they have to do to make it through life in one piece. These guys need to believe in this stuff. Or they think that they do, which in practice comes out to the same thing.
I was raised Catholic myself, and when you are brought up in something like that it takes a great deal of soul searching and effort to bring yourself away from it. These guys aren't ready to do that. Maybe they never will be. But at least they have found something that is affirming and not filled with self-loathing as a lot of varieties of Xtianity are. It is a form of “cafeteria-ism”? Very much so, but it gives these two guys what they think they need.
I keep looking forward to the day when humanity has left this sort of destructive nonsense behind, but I know that it will never happen in my lifetime. In the meantime, believe whatever you want so long as you don't go making laws trying to make people live according to your religious beliefs. But they can't seem to do that, can they?
We've a couple friends who attend there, both were brought up Catholic and attend this church because it's the one church where they can attend services not in spite of being gay, but because they are. Which to them is a big deal. Yes, straight people would be welcome but aren't likely to attend services there.
I imagine that they attend services precisely because they had been brought up believing and like most people just keep doing it. With this church they can be who they are, and no one is going to look at them funny. People do what they have to do to make it through life in one piece. These guys need to believe in this stuff. Or they think that they do, which in practice comes out to the same thing.
I was raised Catholic myself, and when you are brought up in something like that it takes a great deal of soul searching and effort to bring yourself away from it. These guys aren't ready to do that. Maybe they never will be. But at least they have found something that is affirming and not filled with self-loathing as a lot of varieties of Xtianity are. It is a form of “cafeteria-ism”? Very much so, but it gives these two guys what they think they need.
I keep looking forward to the day when humanity has left this sort of destructive nonsense behind, but I know that it will never happen in my lifetime. In the meantime, believe whatever you want so long as you don't go making laws trying to make people live according to your religious beliefs. But they can't seem to do that, can they?
“To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation—is that good for the world?”
― Christopher Hitchens
"That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject". - George Santayana
"If this is the best God can do, I'm not impressed". - George Carlin
― Christopher Hitchens
"That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject". - George Santayana
"If this is the best God can do, I'm not impressed". - George Carlin
