With the advancement of generation, awareness of human rights has gradually strengthened, and various conflicts have also arisen, such as gay parades and the opposite, both of which walked on the streets to implement their own concepts, with the conflicts occurring continuously, instead of having the same pictures, the misunderstandings and hatred grew worse.
Occasionally seeing the idea that “Christian strongly opposed to the homosexual” which constructed by news and movies, are those statistic? news manipulated? or just a single case? If we judge things depending on single view without investigation or thinking, we will only have more misconceptions to either homosexual or religion.
Alex Tseng, Ph.D. in Theology, University of Oxford, Professor in ZJU, REM Academic Consultant, invited by 《The Icons》to explain the misunderstandings between homo and religion.
Religious “Fake Equality”
“Doesn’t the Christianity advocate equality? Then why do they do that?” Reporter of《The Icons》asked Alex.
Many religions promote equality, Christianity as the relatively influential one promotes the same idea, but some of the followers criticized homo strongly, isn’t that contradictory?
“We can discover that the Christians can be categorized into two types from history. One believes in God, considering all people created in the image of God are equal; ; the other type believes that they belong to a group, regardless of gender or race, they’re outstanding and are favored by God, although their so-called ‘God’s will’ often distorts the teachings of the Bible according to their own cultural values.”
Alex analyzed two types of Christians to the reporter, although both believe in Christianity in name, they have different views on the life endowed by God. The former treats life equally, whether it is heterosexual or homosexual, they are all created in the image of God. Even though the latter admits that “everyone is a sinner”, they often regard homosexuals as heterogeneous in words and deeds.
Alex: There are admirable ideals behind the parade! However, the behavior and expression may have different perceptions
The tenth goal of the UN 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) is “Reduce Inequality” which Alex said the parade’s purpose is to reach the goal for themselves and this actions is admirable, “However, no matter the LGBT parade or the opposite, the misbehavior will only cause a deeper misunderstanding.”
“Sometimes I see people holding indecent slogans in LGBT parades. Even if there are deeper intentions or expressions of emotion, in the eyes of others, it is easy to misunderstand them; on the other hand while anti-gay parades’ leader uttered threats, and incite hatred, these are all very inappropriate. What is often seen by the society is the most extreme words and deeds in the parade. These may lead to more misunderstandings on both sides, and even deepen hatred.” said Alex.
Alex shared his experience about participating in and recommended two books edited by the professor of National Tsing Hua University, Daowei Wang: 《When homo meets Jesus》and《When Jesus meets homo》, to resolve the misconceptions every month. It works perfectly that some of them are willing to let go of prejudice.
“Isn’t that great? Sit down and talk for a second, just let go of the prejudice and listen to each other, this is the first step to eliminate the gap.”
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