"Facing Truth of Being a Gay Christian"

First, sorry the site went a couple of days without being updated. I had my gallbladder removed on Thursday and I'm just beginning to get my legs back under me.

More importantly, Pastor David Shelton of the Christian Community Church of Clarksville, TN was featured in an article published in Clarksville's local newspaper, The Leaf Chronicle. Titled "Facing Truth of Being a Gay Christian," Pastor Shelton talks about that topic in some depth:

Shelton says people can "get away from trying to fix their gay identity, or absolve their gay identity, and be the child of God they were meant to be."

Through his writing and his church, Shelton hopes to show people who have been harmed by the Christian church that they can return to their faith and find love and welcome.

"I want to serve the people who have been hurt, wounded, crushed," he says. "I want to minister to the walking wounded — that's a hard thing to do. A lot of people, when they have arrows sticking out of their backs, they don't want to talk about God."

He offers a message of God's grace, hope and love with no expectation for how people will react to it.

"This is the path I'm taking. I invite people to join me. The good news is Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world. And he was resurrected, which is what we celebrate on Easter," Shelton says. "The grace of God is for everybody. That's my mission. That's my message."

It's a wonderful message indeed, one which Pastor Shelton wrote about at some length in his book, "The Rainbow Kingdom: Christianity and the Homosexual Reconciled," which I reviewed here a while back.

David also let me know that this article has spurred quite a discussion over at the site Topix.net. There are, as you would unfortunately expect, some nasty comments is a discussion that had 543 posts to it as I write this, so check it out only if you have the stomach for it.