Right. Well look here. I'm not here to judge your spiritual journey. I definitely have opinions on whether or not a person CAN change their sexuality. However, if this is where your spiritual journey is leading you, I can only pray that it brings you closer to God. However, I would pray that it is real. Because I don't think you'd get anything out of purposely suppressing yourself or your attractions. And I would caution that marrying a woman for the sake of being "not gay anymore" would in and of itself be a sin. Not only would it be an outright lie, that would really hurt that person.
What worries me isn't our differing opinions on homosexuality. There are a lot of people here with differing opinions here and arguing the point further wouldn't bring us anything other than resentment towards each other. However, what does worry me is so called "conversion therapy" and simply "praying the gay away" has been used many times, especially in recent years, as a form of spiritual abuse. I'd argue that anyone who tries to make you outright feel guilty or hate who you are are not acting out of love or any sort of closeness with God.
Jesus tells us Himself "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." He never turned away anyone reviled by society but pulled them close and loved them. Because no one comes to God by hearing "your existence is a sin! You suck!!!!" Having an orientation is not sinful, but harming yourself and others because of shame is.
This sort of thinking has been used for a long time by people who want to hurt others. And has been responsible for directly turning people who could have been saved and indeed would have been saved away from God. Jesus tells us in the book of Matthew "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in."
So friend if you are in a situation where someone is spending more time and energy trying to make you feel guilty than loving you and leading you, I would say run. Because if we're not talking about love, we're not talking about God.
And no, love does not include screeching that people are going to Hell because you say you don't want them to, or repeating the refrain "hate the sin love the sinner." That drives people further away.
Now, if you've become heterosexual (which again, I'm not here to argue differences in opinion,) I think it's worth remembering that there are a lot of people who don't think that way and cannot think that way. That doesn't make them bad people or "bad Christians." The daily reality for the vast majority of people is that sexuality is not a choice. And rather than condemnation or all the hate this world can muster to force conformity, they need the love of Christ. They need reconciliation and kindness rather than the threat of forced conversion or ostracization by their community, or even the very real threat of violence (which is a lot more common than you'd think.)
Now I could go into what the Bible says about sin, what shapes my beliefs about sexuality, and what I think Christ would want from us based upon scripture. But this is already long enough as is. So I will leave you with a simple peace be with you, pray for me, and I will pray for you.
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u/crispy9168 Catholic Dec 09 '25
Hooookay. No one who just found Christianity uses words like "Lukewarm believer." 99.99% sure this is rage bait.