A couple of years ago I was at the airport waiting to board a flight when a lady quickly told me as she passed me by: “you are against homosexuals”. Her words caught me by surprise and I tried to learn why she told me that but we couldn’t interact much as she was running late to her flight.
According to what I figured, as she saw me in uniform her words weren’t addressed to me personally but to the Salvation Army. The little I could understand from our rapid exchange was that her homosexual son had had a bad experience with the Army, therefore she unburdened herself with the first salvationist she could find and it happened to be me.
This episode made me very sad because neither the Salvation Army nor I are against homosexuals. We salvationists do not encourage homosexuality but we are not against the homosexuals. The Army has one of the biggest networks of social work in the world and cares for all without discrimination of ethnicity, gender or religion. In fact, no organization in the world has probably cared for more homosexuals than the Salvation Army.
A person is not sinful because of its gender identity but because of its humanity. The Bible teaches that sin entered the world through Adam and passed on to all people. On the other hand also teaches that Jesus brought the antidote to sin when he died on the cross for all. Regardless of gender all people need to accept his sacrifice to get rid of the condemnation from sin.
To follow Jesus however implies to abandon the old practices derived from our human nature and embrace the new practices in line with our master’s divine one. This is true for all of us, heterosexuals, homosexuals or lesbians.
- Which practises from the human nature should you abandon?
- Which practises from the divine nature should you adopt?
(Sinful nature, Romans 5:12 / Sinless life, 1 John 1:6-9)
Commissioner Torben Eliason is the Territorial Commander of the Southern Africa Territory.