As expected Pastor Stephens was not pleased he felt I should have come to him first!

I of course wanted the members and particularly the MALE members to read the E mail and form their OWN opinion hopefully they might just see their own man 2 man needs.

Next Pastor Stephens arranged for him and a male member to visit my home to talk about my E mail, it lasted just over one hour but came down to three main points, as I described in an email to Bill:

What do you think?

Sunday, February 10, 2008

From: Brian Hulme

To: Bill Weintraub

Hi Bill, since sending my E mail out I have had a meeting with (at his request) Pastor Stephens and although it lasted about an hour it came down to this

1) With prayer I could "over come" the need (or as he said "feelings") I have for sex with a man.

2) With time God/Jesus would take such feelings away.

3) That I need to accept the church teaching of sex outside male/female marriage is not acceptable

so what do you think?

As you can see, I asked my friend Bill for his help and advice and he quickly responded assuring me that I COULD be a Christian AND love a man referring me to two excellent posts on the web site.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

To: Brian Hulme

From: Bill Weintraub

Re: What do you think?

Hi Brian

It's good to hear from you.

I'm sorry Pastor Stephens is so rejecting.

But it's how I expected him to be.

He has his beliefs.

We have ours.

Beyond that, I'm not sure what you're asking me.

But let's take a look:

Hi Bill, since sending my E mail out I have had a meeting with (at his request) Pastor Stephens and although it lasted about an hour it came down to this 1) With prayer I could "over come" the need (or as he said "feelings") I have for sex with a man.

That's not true.

Nor is it desirable.

There are many ministry-run "ex-gay" programs in the US.

They've all failed.

And those failures have a terrible impact on the men involved.

We have a post on the board from Chuck Tarver, who's one of the kindest and gentlest and finest people you can ever meet -- about ex gay:

Ex-gay ministries -- a letter from Chuck Tarver

Brian, I strongly recommend that you read that post.

2) With time God/Jesus would take such feelings away.

No. There's nothing in the Gospels which would indicate that Jesus cares about that or would want to do that.

Look Brian, I'm going to tell you what Patrick has told me -- and Patrick is as evengelical and fundamentalist a Christian as you will ever meet.

But he's an INclusive evangelical -- he doesn't believe that Jesus wants us to turn people away from the church -- the communion of saints.

What Patrick has told me is that there's the Great Commission -- which is simply the duty of every Christian to lead souls to Christ.

And that's all there is.

There's nothing else there which truly matters.

Is your pastor talking about that?

If he's not, or if he's talking about it only in terms of the narrow doctrinal disputes he has with other churches -- he's not doing the work of Christ.

He's doing the work of Pastor Stephens.

3) That I need to accept the church teaching of sex outside male/female marriage is not acceptable

Or what?

He'll throw you out of his church?

Then it's not a real church.

Nor is it a truly Christian church.

It's not a Church of Christ.

What it is, is the First Church of Pastor Stephens.

And that's all it is.

so what do you think?

What I think is what I said in my last reply to the post titled Wonderful Site.

Basically, that you need to listen to yourself.

To your heart.

To your Manly heart.

Brian, please read that post -- all the way through.

In any case, that's what I think.

That you need to think for yourself.

Brian -- You can still be a Christian -- and Love a Man.

I repeat:

You can Love a Man --

and still be a Christian.

Patrick does it.

He loves me.

And he's still a Christian.

You can still be a Christian.

No one's going to take that away from you.

Unless you let them.

Which is what Pastor Stephens wants to do.

So you need to think for yourself.

Otherwise what will happen to you is that you'll spend your life yo-yoing between whatever version of scripture you currently believe -- and your own normal and natural same-sex needs and desires.

And you'll never be at peace.

For a while you'll be a "Christian" -- an "ex-gay" Christian or some variant thereof.

Then you'll be experimenting with being "gay."

Then you'll be a "Christian" again.

I've seen that many times.

It's sad.

The point is, Brian, that you can be both a Christian and a Man.

But to do that, you'll have to think for yourself.

I hope that helps.

Bill

Brian:

Newly strengthened I then sent an E mail to Pastor Stephens, in it I explained how I did not accept what he said taking him through each point one by one. He did not respond.

A date for the Church Board (the committee that runs the church) meeting came and went and I had expected some discussion and action from them concerning my somewhat controversial E mail "Dear All" and possibly Pastor may have brought to their attention in the form of the second E mail my rejection of his "counselling".

But I heard NOTHING, I now decided if they did nothing maybe I should act. I had a good honest look at the situation and found after having a second look at the E mail Bill sent me on 11th February that what the Church believes and what I believe are now way apart so I came up with wrote and sent the E mail "Poles Apart" sent on Monday 24th March saying I wanted to end my membership,

From: Brian Hulme

To: Pastor Stephens

Cc: Jenny

Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008

Subject: Poles apart

Since my last E mail to you on 12th February I have given much thought to my relationship with the church and I have come to the following decision:

First I wish to continue as a Christian, that is a disciple of Jesus, however to do this I only need to find how He lived and what He taught in the Gospels and put what I find into action in my life with the Ten Commandments. However you and the church seem to want me to do two things that is first to not have someone in my life who would be a life partner and I love and make love to in the way that I choose.

Secondly you also seem as though you want me to "fit in" with the teachings and doctrines of the church. I have decided that I can not do either, and I would rather be a Christian AND love a Man than continue with the SDA Church therefore it is with regret that I ask you to end my relationship with the church as soon as possible

Brian Hulme

I decided to hand in the last of my tithe and did so on Saturday 29th March but most significantly I also handed in three EMPTY tithe envelopes this made it clear that I would NOT be using them and so no tithe would come from me!

On Sunday 6th April Pastor Stephens phoned me! To ask if he and a male member could come and see me that afternoon to discuss the E mail sent 24th March and saying that he had been away a week so had only just got it I told him that I did not want to change my mind, so the call ended, but quickly he called back to ask for "an official letter requesting the end of your membership" I asked if an E mail would do he said yes so I wrote one stating in detail why I wanted to end my membership and sent it to him.

It is now only a matter of time before this is duly processed.

Here's the last email I sent to a church member:

From: Brian Hulme

To: Jenny

Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2008 5:33 PM

Subject: All you need is love?

Hi Jen, further to our phone call, I have given what we said quite some thought and I have found the Bible text we mentioned it is 2 Samuel beginning at verse 19 to 27 but as you see from verse 17 it is a song of lamentation. Verse 26 is the one that is of interest to me. Notice that David does not say that this is one type or another type of love nor is there anything in the writing to indicate that this is so what it does say is that the strength of feeling between himself and Jonathan went beyond that of women, that is any women past or future.

If a couple, a man and a woman, are in love then they could justify having a sexual (we will set aside the church's requirement for marriage for now) relationship as a demonstration of their love. You could say that they would because they wanted to because they were in love.

So if there was another couple who just happened to be two men (David and Jonathan) who were not just "in love" but could describe their feelings as "surpassing the love of women" as it says in my Bible the NKJ version then they could defiantly justify making love.

The Beatles said All you need is love back in the 1960's if this is true then what if your feelings feel more than just the "love of women" are you really going to say no to expressing those feelings in a physical and natural way for men.

Jen I want to be able to do this and be a Christian. Here is a quote, where do you think it came from? This person went on to encourage me to carry on as a Christian even if I could not continue in Stafford SDA Church the quote is "there is the Great Commission - which is simply the duty of every Christian to lead souls to Christ. And that's all there is there's nothing else there which truly matters" so what do you think? the answer is?

a) Pr Stephens

b) Mr. C. McDonald

c) a quote from Sis White

d) from an E mail sent by the man who runs the web site I have been on.

Remember they encouraged me to continue as a Christian so choose carefully, that is right the answer is d! Yes d no you did read right d. The most encouragement to carry on as a Christian came not from Pastor Smith or the Church but from the man who runs the web site because I can do both be a Christian and love a man and this is what I now accept but is too far from SDA Church teachings so there you have it poles apart we have to agree to disagree.

Finally I believe that if someone shows me loyalty then I should give it back and if they give me support then the same thing measure for measure.

So that's One Christian's Journey.

I hope other Men will find it helpful.

I also sent Bill this for posting:

Onward Christian Warriors

I find this web site very encouraging and informative but one thing that upsets me is that every so often someone blames "Christianity" for the fact that society has such a sexually repressive way, it is true that some individuals have and still do preach in the name of Christianity a twisted and repressed form of sexuality but Jesus advised others to look to Scripture when they came to Him with a question for example a lawyer came to Him in Luke 10:25-28 and this records the encounter (for those really interested the lawyer was quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18) if it is good enough for Jesus to refer others to the Bible then it is certainly good enough for us to get our beliefs from the Bible.

Jesus though said to His disciples, "take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees" in Mathew 16:6

He was speaking to them about the religious leaders of the day, an explanation of what He meant by "the leaven" is found further down in the passage in Mathew 16 :11,12, Jesus is speaking of the doctrine of these men and mostly because they tend to teach according to traditions or their opinions and not as Scripture if Jesus were on Earth to day He would say "Take heed and beware the leaven (doctrines/teachings) of the Pastors and the Preachers"

Finaly if you were stung by one bee you would not blame the whole hive so when one preacher says something please name HIM instead of that blanket blaming of "Christianity".

Brian

Bill Weintraub

Re: One Christian's Journey

Thank you Brian.

Guys, Brian lives in England and has a post up in Frot Club.

If you live in England, you might want to ck it out.

Thank you again Brian.

You're a true Warrior.

Bill

Brian's post in Frot Club

Also by Brian Hulme:

values and morals and honour

The credit crunch will NOT crunch my Manhood my Masculinity or my Warriorhood

CAN MY MAN TO MAN RELATIONSHIP DRAW ME CLOSER TO GOD?

Adam and Jesus the first M2M

Warrior Love True Love

Fight Back

God's stubborn warrior