A call for Feminist Lesbian Vegans!!
Part 1
So I've always had doubts but, I've always said that I'll stay because what else is there for me out there, and 'this is the truth' and (blush) 'even if I don't get into the new system this is the best way to live'. Then after reading some insightful threads on www.jehovahswitnessrecovery.com about reasoning with people to help wake them up from being in a cult I realised that my reasoning was not only faulty and dangerous and sad (so sad) but misguided- because here it is- if I didn't think that I'd be in the new system why was I still in the religion? I always thought that no matter what the religion condemned me in-
worldly associations
university degree
entertainment
meeting attendance
field service (lack of ) attendance
I knew that Jehovah didn't care about those things.
Those things were imposed by man. I knew that, so I lied when I said I didn't think I'd make it into the new system. I knew that Jehovah would read my heart, I'm a good person.
However, the stumbling block came for me when I realised I was gay. I kind of didn't think even Jehovah in all his wisdom would allow that. And then, knowing how I feel about myself, and feeling that surely God wouldn't want me to die just because I like woman, especially feeling like I had no choice about who I like, I've come to reason that I need to work out what the bible actually says about homosexuality and what JW say about homosexuality.
A JW summary on homosexuality
So my understanding has always been that they don't condemn the person only the practice. I've had some gay friends and I've always likened it to being friends with people who decide to live together outside of marriage- it's their choice (clarification I see now how faulty my reasoning was in this area and how it contributed to my confusion about my own 'coming out'. Being homosexual isn't like 'choosing' to live with someone. It's not a choice therefore my comparison was flawed and something my brain used to make me think that I was choosing a different life.)
I've understood that homosexuality is depraved. That it is what you engage with just before you become a pedophile or engage in beastiality. It has everything to do with wrongful desire and is perverted. How did I come to those understandings?
The Young People Ask Book, chpt 23, pp 165-171
“What does the Bible say about homosexuality?”
“The Bible makes it clear that God designed sex to be engaged in only between a male and a female and only within the arrangement of marriage. (Genesis 1:27, 28; Leviticus 18:22; Proverbs 5:18, 19) When the Bible condemns fornication, it is referring to both homosexual and illicit heterosexual conduct.”*—Galatians 5:19-21.
Genesis says he created them, it doesn't say anything about sexual orientation. Leviticus says that if a man 'lies down' with a man (or a woman does the same with a woman) it is 'detestable' and they should be killed. And, Proverbs says that you should love your wife- again nothing about homosexuality. So really, the only scripture her of importance is Leviticus 18:22- sandwiched as it is in-between the creation of humankind and the love of humankind- the killing of the gays. So what's that about?
The book of Leviticus
The Insight book (it-2 pp. 242-244) says that Leviticus-
The third book of the Pentateuch, containing laws from God on sacrifices, purity, and other matters connected with Jehovah’s worship. The Levitical priesthood, carrying out its instructions, rendered sacred service in “a typical representation and a shadow of the heavenly things.”—Heb 8:3-5; 10:1.
But we know that the Israelites had the 'kingdom taken away' from them. Yet Leviticus was used to keep God's people holy and separate them from the nations that surrounded them. I have no problem with that. The issue arises when some scriptures are kept (Leviticus 18:22) and others are discarded (Leviticus 11.4-8 which says ‘Only this is what YOU must not eat among the chewers of the cud and the splitters of the hoof: the camel, because it is a chewer of the cud but is no splitter of the hoof. It is unclean for YOU.+ 5 Also the rock badger,*+ because it is a chewer of the cud but does not split the hoof. It is unclean for YOU. 6 Also the hare,*+ because it is a chewer of the cud but it does not have the hoof split. It is unclean for YOU. 7 Also the pig,+ because it is a splitter of the hoof and a former of a cleft in the hoof, but it itself does not chew the cud. It is unclean for YOU. 8 YOU must not eat any of their flesh, and YOU must not touch their dead body.+ They are unclean for YOU.+)
It makes me suspect that if JW doctrine had been written by a feminist lesbian vegan then we'd be experiencing 'the truth' differently.
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