I understand where you are coming from. There was a time when I felt like you did at church as well. With time, I learned that my point of view all along had been mistaken. Some would call that point of view "a lie from Satan". I'm not the type to see the devil around every corner, so I won't quite go that far, though I can certainly see that point of view.

The fact is that very few, if any, churches expect their members to be perfect. Get to know people at any church and you will find many who have struggled with all manner of addiction and temptation and who continue to be tempted in many ways. You will find people who are tempted by lust even to the point that they have committed adultery. You will find people for whom staying sober is still a struggle. You will find people with internet addictions and people who harbor hateful feelings. You will even find people who are tempted by homosexuality and perhaps even other boylovers. No one expects you to be perfect, churches are meeting places for people facing the struggles of life together.

That's not to say that you should go around telling people about your attractions in church. Even though I am confident that if people understood your struggles, they would not shun you any more than they shun those who struggle with lust towards people of the same sex, I have little faith in people's willingness to take the time to understand your struggles. The fact is our orientation is misunderstood and villified and the way people would react to learning about our orientation is not the way they would react if they really understood, it is the way they are reacting to the "evil pedophile" caricature the media has created and which they erroneously believe to be true. Thus any rejection wouldn't be a rejection of who you truly are, but of who they mistake you for being.

Also, I've been to many churches and have very rarely run into any that even mention homosexuality, let alone condemn those with homosexual feelings to eternity hell. If I do run into such a church, it's really not a big deal, I just won't return to it; that would not be the church I choose to call home.

Welcome to our forum. I hope you will stick around. I don't believe we have all the answers here. But this is a great place to seek them out together.

We will be doing our first Christian book study here soon. We will be reading and discussing "The Purpose Driven Life". The book does not go into sexuality, homosexuality or any such issues, but it does deal with some of the other things you seem to have questions about. In particular, it deals with who God is and what he wants from us, how we are made to be in community with each other, and ultimately, about finding our purpose in life. Feel free to join us for that. We have no firm date for it yet, we want to give people time to purchase the book, but more details will follow.