Of course I feel bad for them. The urge isn't the impediment, it's acting on the urge.

It's not a dodge, it's a pertinent point to Swarthout's use of a 1970's pamphlet that really wasn't all that out of step with the DSM-III which was the prevailing academic thought on the subject.

Which supports my statements on this board and CB that at times I have been ripped on for making. Everything that comes from the church isn't or shouldn't be taken as Gods word.

It should be taken as his servents word, which may or may not refelect how God feels.

Which then neatly goes into another one of my long held arguments, the honor code doesn't come from God. It is a code his servants choose to use to control or run the church owned school.

Given that pamphlet, it's easy to see why the greatest geopolitical issue for the Brethren is homosexuality.

It's not abortion, political oppression, fasicism, communism, totalitarianism, radical Islam, world hunger, disease, etc.

It's homosexuality. Because homosexuals will destroy the entire human race.

You see how these ideas percolate. For one generation, they are literally like unto a nuclear holocaust, these gays. For the next generation, gays will not destroy the world, but gay marriage will destroy the world.

Just like the belief that blacks are cursed, "fence-sitters", and spiritually inferior to one generation. To the next, they are "allowed" in the door, but don't marry them, that's wrong.

When my generation takes over, I suspect that views will be different on these two issues.

I weep for your generation because they're evidently too stupid to understand that the church doesn't say that marrying people of another race is "wrong".

Link?

Thanks in advance.

I wonder if the church still believes, as that pamphlet says, that most cases of homosexuality can be "cured."

I highly doubt their success rate.

Where do you think sexual urges come from? Your ankles? Your brain processes various stimuli and formulates reponses to those stimuli. Not all brains are created equal, so people react differently to different stimuli.

Why do I even need to engage in this exercise of pointing out the stupifyingly obvious?

I agree with you in theory--that imperfect men are trying, in their imperfect way, to relate God's will to His church.

However, if there's something to get right, in my view, this is it. To you, me, and 95% of church membership, this isn't a big deal. We don't struggle with it, it seems to make sense that this issue is similar to anyone else's weaknesses, and that turning to God will help. To the youth who struggles with it, and then is given bad advice and/or dealt with as a "pervert", this is potentially life-wrecking.

This may be what the DSM-III was teaching, but that's no excuse for the church of God (whose leaders claim their wisdom is superior to that of the world--read the pamphlet) to get this wrong. I just don't get this.

Yup, brains and ankles--those are my two body parts. Why did med school take so long?

You're right--it's stupifyingly obvious.