First, realize that the assertion that gay kids are killing themselves at four times the rate as straight kids are may be a lie put forward to garner sympathy for the gay cause and to convince us to be accepting of a lifestyle that we would rather not accept. Whenever I come across that statistic, there is never any source given to prove it, and comments about other possible contributors to each suicide are not mentioned. So the statistic might be a ruse; and when a gay kid commits suicide, the cause might be a web of concerns that the kid could not see himself overcoming or dealing with: problems like his parents divorcing, poor grades, a puppy-love meltdown, or a general sense of inferiority and unimportance due to a lack of truth in his mind concerning God in heaven and Man’s duty on earth to God. When God might not exist, when heaven might be imaginary, when a monkey might be your ancestor, when you can see no reason to believe in living more than dying, suicide begins to loom over you as an option by which to escape your unhappiness and lack of direction.
Suppose that it’s true that LGBT youth commit suicide at four times the rate of straight kids. Whether the rate is true or not is not easy to determine. Nevertheless, why do some gay kids commit suicide? Is it because of bullying? Is it because of all the criticism they endure? The bullying they encounter, when they encounter it, is no worse than what bullied kids had to face a generation ago when gays were still in the closet. Do gay kids get bullied today more than fat kids got bullied forty years ago? Are they not celebrated more than bullied? Why do gay kids of our day commit suicide at a greater rate than fat kids of a former day? Here is the reason: because today’s gay kids have less moral sense and less stability in their lives than fat kids had decades ago.
Are Christian kids killing themselves at a greater rate than other kids? They must not be, or we would be hearing about it, would we not? Who gets bullied and criticized more than Christian kids do? Why aren’t Christian kids killing themselves at as great a rate as gay kids? It is my belief that Christian kids are mostly kids who call themselves Christian, nothing more. I say this because most kids who profess to be Christian grow up to be no more Christian than atheists are. However, the reason they are not killing themselves as often as gay kids do, might be due to the fact that they grow up in a moral community made up of church and home. Christian homes and churches are not very morally upstanding these days, but the little morality they have might be just enough to keep their kids from overdosing on pills or jumping off bridges. The gay community, on the other hand, is a community made up of confused, angry people who push and propagandize. Gays do come together for mutual support. But their favorite ways of coming together are not moral, but immoral; that is, when they come together carnally to participate in orgies or to flaunt their lewd selves before a curious public.
Dr. Phil says that being gay or lesbian or bisexual is not a fad. But for many, it is a fad; and for many others, it is a fad that would pass quickly away if not for authority figures who labor to fan the fad into a lifestyle. Through cultural pressure and the twisted teachings and advice that come down from brainwashed teachers and parents, what might have been a fad becomes something more; and that something more, because of the confusion and sense of guilt involved, can end in suicide. Things that inquisitive boys and girls used to do at puberty and that would pass away in a year or so are now being legitimized and cultivated through the curriculums in our schools. So what might have been a fad quickly becomes something more, and suicide can be the result. Dr. Phil is not the authority on LGBT psychology. A little sociology and history would help him to figure things out more perfectly. The word of God would help him most of all.
Oprah Winfrey is no authority on LGBT psychology either; and the ministers whose philosophy she embraces are not theologians. Ministers who claim that being gay is a gift from God are ministers of no one but Satan. Homosexuality is not called a gift from God in Romans 1! Romans 1 does not need the word 'homosexual' to condemn homosexuals and the perversions that homosexuals do! If being alright no matter what happens is what spirituality is, as Oprah stupidly alleges, then why not practice that spirituality, and be alright with Christians who condemn homosexual behavior and who refuse to bake cakes in celebration of gay marriages? True spirituality begins with repentance from sins like homosexuality, and repentance yields acceptance from God.
It is common among Christians who know they should stand against perverse activities and lifestyles, to lose heart; so they water down the doctrines of sin, judgment, and love. This is what, for example, pastor Tony Scott from the church on Strayer does. God denounces the sin, he says, not the sinner. Let’s test that assertion. When God denounces sin, he is obviously denouncing the person doing the sin; otherwise, he would not tell the sinner to ‘flee fornication,’ as in 1 Corinthians 6.18. If God were denouncing the sin alone, he would command the fornication to flee! If God denounces sin, not the sinner, why did he rain fire and brimstone on the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah? If he denounces the sin alone, how would that even be done and what would it mean? God denounces, not just the sin, but the sinner also. This is why the person, not the sin, must repent in order to be accepted by God. Does God pour his wrath out on sin, while sparing the sinner, as this weak-spined pastor says? What do you call what happened at Sodom and Gomorrah? Was that an instance of wrath coming down on sin, or on sinners? Next, if God loves every person without distinction, as this pastor says and as so many others say, then his love for Abraham was the same as his love for Hitler, and Christians have no better claim on God’s promises than the grossest sinners do. Romans 8 probably contains the strongest statement about how secure the bind is between Christians and the love of God. What are they called in Romans 8? They are called children, heirs, joint-heirs, sheep, and conquerors. Why? Because God’s love is the same for them as it is for everyone else? No, but because God loves everyone benevolently, and his chosen saints especially. To some he gives the bounty of the earth; to others he gives both that and heaven.
We must not be ashamed to preach and teach without swerving from what the word of God bluntly says. Those who will not inherit the kingdom of God include thieves, drunkards, and idolaters, but also, adulterers, fornicators, effeminate persons, and abusers of themselves with mankind (1 Corinthians 6.9, 10.) In other words, those who don’t sober up, those who won’t quit stealing, those who love their idols in the place of God, those who cheat on their spouses, those who sleep around, those who participate in homosexual behavior, will not inherit the kingdom of God and will not see heaven except from a place of torment. This is an old message; it is still the message that our kids need to hear, whether LGBT behavior is a fad for them, whether it is their chosen identity, or whether they are professing to be Christian in the face of the rampant perversities that are being foisted on their developing minds and bodies. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”—this is what must be urged, no matter how much ridicule the command draws from some obstinate sinners. To repent toward God and to trust in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for sin is the only way to heaven for any who will get there. To the Corinthian Christians that Paul warns not to continue in sin, he adds, “and such were some of you” (1 Corinthians 6.11.) Some of them had been thieves and some of them had been practicing perverts. Repentance and faith leading to acceptance with God was possible for them; it is possible for any kid who will repent and believe today. The message of repentance from sin and faith in Jesus is infinitely better than what kids are being told now: that we evolved from the dirt and through primates, that God might not exist and that if he does he might be an impersonal careless force, and that it’s fine to dabble in activities that make you feel unnatural, uncomfortable, guilty, and exposed to the displeasure of God. No matter how good a sin feels, a sinner will endure pangs in his conscience and he will wonder at where the shame that he feels ultimately comes from. It comes, ultimately, from God, who created the conscience. The conscience, though, because it is negatively affected by sin, can become insensitive to sinning. The command to repent, then, is a command that should be obeyed right away, before the conscience ends up giving a green light to an even faster highway to hell than the sinner is presently on.
This has been a Puritanical opinion on suicide rates among LGBT youth.
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