... a layman’s indictment of traditional, fundamentalist Christianity’s views of “the gay question” countered by a conservative, Pentecostal-style preacher.
It presents in laymen’s terms a revealing and sometimes heated argument about the conflicting perspectives and misunderstandings of the two camps. These differences threaten to topple the house of Christianity that is even now divided against itself, and to widen and solidify the chasm between believers and non-believers.
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Two
friends of fifty years — one a straight, fundamentalist Christian minister, the
other a gay activist, artist and educator — both rooted in the same
fundamentalist religion during their teen years, now occupy different poles of
philosophy.
Tempered by their old
friendship, they strive to understand their present differences. In doing so,
they join the ancient battle between faith and reason. The Bible appears to say
homosexuality is evil, contemporary science says it is a normal, human
condition. Their arguments provide the reader a deeply personal insight into
this discord.
We listen to two men who,
accepting they are on opposite sides of what have become political, as well as
religious issues, present intellectual, emotional, moving, and at times, heated
arguments. Their genuine, lucid dialogue clarifies the struggle over
homosexuality.
As we listen to the dialogue
we glimpse the skeleton of a divided faith - a division threatening
international religious schism. The conflict over homosexuality presents a
dilemma which is even giving birth to an African and South American
“missionizing” of the Northern hemisphere—an ironic, delayed echo from the age
of colonialism when European missionaries went forth to “Christianize the
heathens.”
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