another really long one-- read it in shifts =0)
Submitted by sally on March 26 2002 03:48:31
In reply to Another PS submitted by Dakota on March 25 2002 16:50:00
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I can't believe you would condemn a child to live without the attention they need just to doggedly adhere to an ideal that may not exist for that child. You are right to not believe that. It is not that I mean you can never help a child in need, but I would ask you to realize that the best thing for the boy is that God give him a daddy who will be his best friend. I can imagine that this would hurt you. I can imagine that you might want the object of your affection to love you more than any other man. But think Mary Poppins. You should only be there until you can bring Mr. Banks to his senses. Can you do that? I find the label YF to be disturbing as it calls into being a relationship that I don't see in scripture. This little boy from the broken home is just a neighbor to be loved like any other neighbor. You may be very fond of him because of the time you spend with him and you may even say your relationship is a God-given one because we don't bump into people by accident, all our chance encounters are foreordained by the God who set the cosmos spinning and holds all stars in place. But my argument against your having YF's twofold-- one: I think you are unnecessarily putting yourself in harm's way-- but I realize that I can't really judge that about you, though I still demand the right to tell you all I think you are playing with fire, and the second argument is that I don't like this thing I hear that goes like this... I hated myself and thought I was a monster and then I discovered that I wasn't a monster I was actually gifted by God to do great things in the lives of boys. This sounds to me like a change of mind not based on solid scriptural reasoning but based on the need we have to not feel bad about ourselves. I would so much rather see calm middle ground. I thought God hated me, now I know God loves me, I will take him at HIS WORD that if I confess my sin he is faithful and just to forgive my sin and cleanse me from all unrighteousness, and I will not listen to the accuser of the brethren when he tells me that I have sinned ONE TOO MANY TIMES WITH THAT ONE, BUBBA. HUH-UH. HE AIN'T GONNA FORGIVE THAT ONE. However, if you meant that just having the desire is sinning, I still must disagree. I don't believe a person is sinning just by having a random thought about anything. To use your example, if you had a thought about murdering someone pop in your head, I don't believe you sinned. But if you start dwelling on that thought, such as planning how you would do it, then that is sinning. In my case, if I see a boy, and a bit of lust creeps into my mind, I don't believe I have sinned. But if I start undressing the boy in my mind, then I have sinned. I'm not perfect. I admit I have done the latter, and have needed to ask forgiveness, because I actively cultivated those thoughts. But I can't believe anything a person does not have an active role in is sin. I agree that playing with the thought is sin and dangerous sin. (No, thank God I have never planned anyone's murder.. it's gross enough to have the idea even pop into your head... oh you think you feel filthy???) But I think that even to have the desire is sin. Take my example of having the thought that I could see how people might resort to murder and I could see how easy it would be to kill pop into my head. And to have that thought repeatedly pop into my head for months. How much more unloving can I get? Does this thought just pop into my head or have I sown to it by feeling sorry for myself? I can remember being about ten and thinking it would be kind of cool if mom and dad were dead and I was an only child and I could live in the house all by myself and do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I think I had them die off in some desperately sad way and I mourned them but I was strong and brave and the clear heroine of the story. My five brothers and sister didn't die they just never existed I think. Now in real life I love my parents and didn't really want them to die. But the interesting thing to me is that I wasn't mad at my parents for anything. I just dreamed up their deaths because they were inconvenient to my being the ruler and heroine of my own little life. Did you ever see that TV show called "James at 13" or something like that? It was only on for only a year I think. I loved it because I could relate to that kid. He was constantly living in a fantasy world and he was the hero. Now flash forward six years and see me putting to death two babies in two years because I was really no kind of heroine except in my silly fantasies- in real life I was a stupid, selfish girl. But I had fed that selfishness all those years with my childhood fantasies. Then I married the father of those kids... but I didn't like him much even before we married... we were drug addicts and we were pretty miserable... I can remember many a time dreaming up a car wreck for him whenever he was late coming home from work, because of course all our troubles were his fault and none of mine. So getting rid of him would solve all my problems. So I'd dream up his death and it was a little disappointing when he always came home, I remember. I sometimes would get myself so involved that I'd actually make myself cry as I pictured the funeral scene and of course I was the beautiful widow who would be comforted by some man who would appreciate me a bit more than the present guy did. Yikes! I shouldn't be telling this on a site where you already find women unattractive. But back to husband number one. It would have been romantic had he died dramatically but no such luck-- I had to just go through an ordinary stinkin' divorce like all the other losers. When I became a Christian God began to show me just what an utterly sinful pig I was. I had always thought I was a good person. I had some morals. I always hung with people who were worse than I was because it made me feel good about myself. My friends were sluts, I was not... and on and on, I would compare myself. The point of this disgusting story is that I can see how I fed my selfishness for years so that I can honestly say that thoughts might pop into my head without my conscious thought but I do believe that I am responsible for much of what comes out of my subconscious, too. I believe we reap what we sow and that I sowed for years the idea that I was more important than anyone else and that all my unhappiness stemmed from the fact that other people held me down or cramped my style or something. I sowed to the fantasy that all who stood in the way of my happiness and/or freedom (even though they were never really in my way I just blamed them because I was stupid) should just disappear. Now I can't speak to your desires based on my experience. My experience is not a valid measuring stick. I just know that I am guilty for the desires that I opened the door to even if I opened the door in ignorance. But what does the Bible say about it? Colossians 3:5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 2 Timothy 2:22 Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. There are several more verses that speak to our not following our evil desires, not obeying them, fleeing them-- not inviting them in for tea and cake as I think you put it. But I think that if the desires are evil then we should not even have them and I think that if we can be commanded to put them to death that means there is something we can do to kill them. I believe that because of my lifelong lusts I have some desires pop into my head sometimes that you might never have. And because of your lusts you have ideas pop into your head that I have never thought of. I don't believe that Satan is all over the world at once plunking thoughts into our heads. He is a finite being for one thing. And we really don't need a lot of help at being evil. I believe we give him a toehold and then he tempts us but there is much we can do to take that toe hold away and to kill those evil desires that belong to the earthly nature. And if we consistently kill them when they pop up they begin to pop up less and less. or in some other way implying that merely BEING a pedophile is a crime, Very interesting. I would have said, "Of course it is a crime and well it should be." But I see your point. The thing is that the guy in the paper is arrested for an act and not for being self-controlled. But I see what you mean. You wish they would say he is a "pedophile offender" or something like that... This site's main purpose is not to change the world. If a few hearts and minds are changed along the way, all the better. But it's mainly here to help us deal with our pedophilia, not to make the world deal with us. Understood... But do all the Christians on the board believe that pedophlia is a sin even if the thoughts should not be considered a crime? Do you believe your orientation is a sinful one? That is where we part roads. And that is what I'm objecting to. If you are Christians I want to convince you of this truth because I don't think you will really help others, or bring any real lasting change, unless you are convinced of it. I say my selfishness is sin. I am selfish and I think I will be selfish to the day I die. Sometimes I am less selfish than others but basically it is always with me. I constantly have to repent of it and renounce it and seek to kill it. But it is always right there with me. So I could say my life orientation is selfishness. I could say I was born this way. And yet God has told me that it is sinful and that I am to esteem all others as better than my self. I am to put their needs before my own desires. So I will say to my dying day that it is not OK for me to be selfish and by God's grace I will fight it to my dying day. Do you feel the same way about your orientation to pedophilia? So my point is that we aren't outcasts because of the way we view our pedophilia, because very few people are aware of how we view it. I guess in the strictest sense of the word, we are not personally outcasts. Pedophiles are outcasts. We only personally become outcasts if we reveal that we are pedophiles. But because WE know what we are, we FEEL like outcasts. And if you think that the label of pedophile causes us to be outcasts, then forget the word pedophile and interject "someone who is sexually attracted to children." Do you honestly think that would change anyone's view? it is not the word "pedophile" that makes you an outcast. I cannot speak for the world--they hate you because they love to hate and they beat you to death because it makes them feel good about themselves, I would guess. And I can't even speak for the majority of the Christian church because I don't believe the majority of the Christian church is Christian. But I can speak for my church. If you were to come to any Reformed Church I am fairly confident that you would feel like an outcast too. Partly because the people would not know how to relate to you. But mostly because you would hear that your orientation was sinful. They would welcome you to the service and they would even invite you to dinner. And they would not preach on homosexuality or any other sin probably because they don't preach topically like that usually. I mean it would surely not be a like a moral majority sermon you'd hear. But they would not let you "join" the church as long as you hung onto the belief that the evil desires were not your responsibility. They would not demand that you be perfect just that you be constantly repenting of your sin like the rest of us. My friend who did jail time for his sexual sin was a member and welcomed to the communion table of his church and it is one of the most conservative churches in the world. Even when he actually fell and did the deed (with someone of legal age) instead of just thinking and playing on his own, he was not disciplined. Why? Because he was sorry. Because he went to the pastor and admitted his sin and said he was sorry. No one would have known about his sin but he went and told on himself. So that proved to them that he was seeking to be accountable and he was truly repentant. It is not the perfection they seek in people but it is the soft and repentant heart. If you came to my church they would treat you with love and respect, I'm confident... but they think, as I do, that desire is sinful... here is what one pastor just wrote today on a list I'm on where we have been discussing this for the past month... Homosexual orientation may be illuminatingly compared to worry. Since I You ask why we need to talk about it. Fair question. I can tell you why *I* need to talk about it. Many reasons. To know I'm not alone in my struggles and that others have similar struggles. To be reminded that I'm no worse than anyone else, regardless of what most others (including the media) says or thinks. So I don't feel so alone in this battle. For understanding. To find out how others with a similar orientation deal with it so that I might learn how to better deal with it myself. For strength. For fellowship. To worship God among people who know my darkest secret and still acknowledge me as a brother in Christ. There are other reasons, but those are the first ones to come to mind. valid reasons, all. You know, if you or others believe that the sexual desires I feel for boys are sins, that's ok. I don't agree, but I don't have a major problem with it. As long as that same person believes his or her own sexual desires (that everyone has) are sins also. Well as you can see the minister in my denomination compares homosexuality with worry. So we aren't thinking your sin is so much worse than ours are we? Of course we believe that if a man lusts after a woman he is sinning or if woman lusts after a man, for that matter. That definition of sin is a lot broader than mine, but we can't always agree on religious views. The problem I have is when others believe my desires make me a worse person than him or her, and that is the prevalent opinion of most people. I can't believe you are not aware of this. I suppose I am aware of it but I cannot take responsibility for the sins of others. I do not think your lusts are uglier than mine-- that is the best I can do. My view on people is that we are all sinners. But once we are saved by grace, we begin a journey of becoming more like Christ and expelling sin from our lives. At least that's how it's supposed to be. We will never be completely sinless till we get to heaven. But while we are here, we are to work on avoiding sin, more and more. In other words, I believe we are filled with less and less sin as we grow in Christ. I agree completely with this. I also believe that we are completely clean in God's eyes at the point that the Holy Spirit washes us or regenerates us. This we call being Justified. We say that God has declared us "not guilty" and not only did Christ take our sins but he clothed us in his righteousness. So God sees us as perfect in Christ and he loves us as dearly as he loves Christ. Then the ongoing struggle with sin we call sanctification. We are set apart for God's use and we are being made holy. You seem to believe that we are all dirty rotten scoundrels till the day we die, no one being less dirty than the next. I guess compared to God, we are all filthy. But I see people like Mother Theresa, or the Pope, or Billy Graham, and I see someone a lot less dirty than me. Well I hear Paul in Romans chapter 7 saying "Oh wretched man that I man.." because the evil that he didn't want to do he did but the good that he wanted to do he didn't do, and I can relate to him. I do think that the more we progress in righteousness the more aware we are of our sinful motives. So on the outside we look to others as less sinful but in our hearts we see more and more how much we need Christ's blood to cover us. He shows us as we go on how sinful we really are... if he revealed it to us too early it would overwhelm us and we would commit suicide probably. As far as the pope or Billy Graham go... I don't think they are cleaner than you. If you are covered in the blood of Christ you are as clean and sinless as Christ was before he went to the cross for you. Our sin here is not as big a deal to me as what we do with it. Do we take it to the cross or do we insist that we really haven't sinned and don't need cleansing? But the view of everyone being dirty rotten scoundrels is fine. The problem is that most people look at pedophiles as being the dirty rotten scoundrels while everyone else is only slightly tarnished. Can you honestly say you know many people that don't view pedophiles with disgust? Knowing and being reminded constantly of how people would feel about me if they knew I was attracted to children sure hurts my self esteem. Why do you think there are so many suicides among pedophiles? So sites like this try to rebuild what society is constantly tearing down. Understood. Thank God for this site where you can be reminded that it is not what other people think that matters. It is what God thinks. Frankly, I don't think we'll ever agree on this. I respect your views, but even believing as you do, I'm still surprised you don't think this board should be here. I never meant to imply that this board shouldn't be here. Sorry I've been tired and not making any sense. I'm sure I've been giving you mixed messages because on the one hand I don't think we need to broadcast our sin about too widely (i have never told anyone what I just told the entire Internet in this post, about myself and my fantasies that everyone around me would just die so I could move on, for instance, and I do so hope that this never gets back to my friends who probably have no idea what a sicko I am. But I bet they are sickos too in their own ways because everyone is.) nor do I think we should engage in self pity and encourage each other to think we're really not all that bad at all when in reality we are pretty yucky... but on the other hand I think it is fine to have a group to keep you accountable. I think this board is fine but I think you have to keep digging deep to see what God says or you'll end up being earthly comfort to people but you won't help them really overcome their troubles or grow in grace or the knowledge of God. One final thought. You were saying how you have had pedophilia on the brain lately. It sounded like you were saying it was a bit of a burden since you were waking up in the middle of the night thinking about it. Consider this. If it has becaome somewhat of a burden for YOU, after a couple days of interacting with us as a person on the outside, how much more of a burden can you imagine it to be for someone that has to deal with it every single day of his life; not from the outside looking in, but from the inside. It's much easier to discuss the reasons and theories about why people hate a group of people when you aren't in that group. Just like it's easier for me to disuss the reasons and theories about why the Nazis hated the Jews, because I am not a Jew. You have been dealing with it as an exchange of ideas. When it's over, you can go back to your normal everyday life. We will still be dealing with it. We can't walk away from it. We can't even take a break from it. So that's why we need each other. Perhaps we wouldn't need each other as much if society put us on equal ground with everyone else. Maybe then we could "blend in" more. But society won't allow us to blend in, at least if they know what we struggle with. And as long as society continues to vilify anyone with sexual feelings for kids, even when they don't act on them, there will always be a need for banding together to maintain our strength (to resist temptation), our self esteem, our dignity, and our sanity. Great points. Thanks for speaking with me about these things. sally sally@paraklesis.com |
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