Flawed souls, flawed choices
So Mayor Pete is running for president. Perhaps now he'll stop attacking Vice President Mike Pence for allegedly having a "problem" with him because Buttigieg is gay. V.P. Pence, to his credit, didn't know there was a problem, as he had only ever had what seemed like positive interactions with Mayor Pete. Is there such a thing as "straight privilege"? If not, doubtless it will be invented.
Buttigieg asserted that Pence (and presumably anyone else who allegedly has a problem with Mayor Pete's gayness) has a problem with his Creator. I wonder if Buttigieg understands the implications of his remark.
By blaming God for a human choice that breaks the divine laws, Buttigieg removes all concept of sin from life. If your behavior is strictly a result of how you were created, then you are not responsible for your poor choices any more than you are your eye color. Nor is society, nor your parents. It's all God's fault for not making you perfect in the first place. So there is no reason for Jesus to have died for your sins because there were and are no sins.
Even acts that seem overwhelmingly evil are no longer sins. Murder, rape, theft, and whatever else you can think of are all non-sins, if they grow out of our being created imperfectly. We did not create ourselves, after all. It's not our fault if God made us flawed, so why are we responsible for our personal choices?
My understanding of this is that we start life with DNA and a soul. We aren't guaranteed that we won't have flaws in our DNA. Even in biblical times, there were people who were born blind or lame, and the laws were the same for them as for the physically whole and healthy. The soul we have is also not perfect, since it incorporates our human nature and we are all fallen. However, we all have the capability to make both wise choices and foolish choices, to support and affirm life or undermine and destroy life.
God didn't make the angels perfect, nor did he make us perfect. My speculation is that a decision to follow God would be meaningless if we had no choice. I also expect that there is something planned for us in the afterlife that we can succeed at only if we have exploited our current life as training in following God's will. I have no meaningful suggestions for what that cosmic task might be.
Obedience, as the Bible tells us, is paramount. The greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, but love is supposed to drive our obedience to His will. The second commandment is to love our neighbors (like Mayor Pete) as we love ourselves.
When Christians tell Buttigieg that homosexuality is a sin in God's eyes, they are trying to warn him. The Bible contains text alleged to be from God, and it refers to homosexuality (and a few other things) as an "abomination." Christians don't make the rules for God, it's the other way around. If Mayor Pete doesn't like the rules, then he's the one who has a problem with his Creator.
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