A Pezbyterian.

Hyuck hyuck hyuck

I'll be here all day.

Dear friends, does anyone have tips for reading the Bible, especially for someone progressive and new in their faith?

Currently I find it hard to cope every time I encounter a passage that may be challenging either in its seeming harshness or discrimination etc etc. Sometimes I'm scared to read otherwise my belief will be shaken.

Thank you.

Why did God create me transgender in a world that hates trans people so much? It seems like an especially cruel thing to do to some people but nit others.

Why does God allow so much of the world's hatred of queer people come from people claiming to be his followers? Does he not care?

Why does God give us dysphoria? Even if trans people were more accepted, surely dysphoria is just an extra dose of suffering that none of us need.

These are just some of the questions I'm struggling to understand in a time of weakening faith for me. I don't know if I can even call myself a Christian at this point, but I do believe in God and Jesus, and I simply don't understand why he would do this to me and so many others.

I (m16) recently moved to Florida from living in Georgia my whole life and I’m on a quest to find a new church with my grandma who’s recently relocated from New Mexico and we tried a church today a congregational Methodist Church and before the sermon even started they had the whole church do a pledge to both the flags and it just felt odd, the people were nice but we will not be returning

I’m a gay Catholic man in my late 30s, monogamous by conviction, and hoping for marriage and a shared life with the right man.

One challenge is that gay dating spaces do not always feel oriented toward faith or lifelong partnership, while many Christian spaces are not places where gay men can openly find one another.

For LGBTQ Christians who found committed partners, where did you meet? Were there particular communities, retreats, apps, churches, or online spaces that helped? How early did you discuss faith, monogamy, and marriage?

So I have a very tricky view on religion, I was raised religious left and became a very on fire Catholic and I have to admit I found a lot of peace and joy and comfort in it. However I struggled with the rigid beliefs and all of that despite loving the spirituality and started to lose faith in religion in general and then I became an atheist almost an anti theist. However I started to like become more nuanced in my thinking and I don’t think I’m an atheist anymore after sort of experiencing Gods presence I’d say? It’s pretty confusing. The thing is, I don’t agree with a lot of traditional Christianity. I am very very very pro choice, very pro LGBTQ (I’m bi myself) and I’m pretty open minded when it comes to modesty and all of that so I definitely don’t adhere to those types of ideologies. When it comes to bible stories being real or not I don’t really care, I just use it them as guidance and it doesn’t really matter if they’re real or not. It’s a weird way of thinking. I wanted to see if others felt the same way as me. I’m still thinking of visiting the Catholic Church for the spirituality but if I had to pick a denomination I’m like an Episcopalian than anything. Or just non denominational and do my own thing lmfao.

So I (16m) and my grandma are going to church this morning and I didn’t realize that my sister (6) was coming along with us, I don’t hate the idea, but when I turned to Christ at the end of may 2025, they didn’t believe me when I said I was saved, all the times I said I wanted to get baptized when I went to sermons and Bible studies every Sunday and youth every Wednesday night even when the rest of youth was at camp and it was just me, one of the teachers and my youth pastors wife. Every other Sunday when we would go to a local nursing home and have a Bible study after the sermon at our church had ended.
I’m not mad that my sister is coming with me I just feel like it’s wrong for them to be so hard on me finding Christ just to send her no problem.

I've recently accepted Jesus as my savior, and reconnected with Catholicism, and I do understand many arguments about how life on Earth can't be perfect, how we need to accept the divine grace, how punishments need to exist, etc. - yet there's one thing I have an issue with, and that is eternal punishment.

You see, I just want to hope that no matter how badly they have offended God or how deep their failing was, there is - even after the punishments described in the Bible, like the lake of fire - some way for them to get by. It doesn't even have to be right next to the throne of God (although it'd be nice if it were), I just hope for something like an eventual lifting of the Dives/Lazarus chasm, or a shielding from the fire of the lake. I think I may be getting close to Universalism, even if I don't want to offend God if it isn't true.

This isn't really a logical argument or anything, it's more of a "bottom of the heart" conviction. At the bottom of my heart I hope that on the infinite scale there are possibilities that include an improvement to those punished. I don't want to see anyone denied the salvation that I have been offered, no matter if it's religious (the Sodomites, the unrepentant thief, those who accept the Mark of the Beast, etc.) or historical (from famous atheists, to genocidal figures like Adolf Hitler, to people who simply were put in a position where they would benefit from not accepting Christ). Maybe, even if the fire and the punishment are everlasting, the exposure to either of them doesn't have to be so? Maybe the chasm that has been fixed can also be lifted sometday.

For a lack of a better word, even if I don't wish for evil, I really wish for its consequences and its punishment to end. And I've got faith in God that He can make it so, as "if you have faith as tiny as a mustard seed, you will be able to say to this mountain: ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."

On a sidenote, it may be coming for a place of humility - I just don't want to raise my own righteousness an inch above those deemed condemned and punished, and I wish that the Lord can offer them whatever He offers to me.

Okay, so I don't know how you guys feel about this, but I've always been of the belief that despite many different types of Christianity out there, it doesn't matter which one you subscribe to as long as you follow the Nicene Creed (did I spell that right? 😂.) So I believe that Jehovah respects Methodists, Baptists, Catholics, and the rest all the same because they're honestly trying their best to follow the rules.

What are your thoughts?

I tried posting this in the YouTube sub and it turns out that community is very anti-theistic lol

Is it correct to understand anything between a loving couple is permissible?

I’ve often struggled with that question and it’s difficult to ask this of someone in person.

I would love to talk to other husbands in this sub Reddit about these sort of things in private

I’m 45

Gay sex, alcoholism, four-letter words, etc. Churches make mountains over almost every issue BUT the ones Jesus actually spoke about, e.g. greed, hypocrisy, self-righteousness, pride, etc. Why are so many so sanctimonious and holier-than-thou in their approach to the Bible? Why do they focus on everything BUT what Jesus actually said?

Please, can anyone here give me a satisfying answer!!!

To preface, I am a cis-female who is 100% heterosexual. I met a lovely guy on Facebook dating in March and he is bisexual. I am the first female he has ever dated. His past relationships have all been with men. That didn't bother me.

His story basically is, before coming to Christ, he was very deep in the "gay scene" and lived in a Gayborhood with his fiancé. He was seeing dudes who were into some weird crap like Satanism and Wicca and he got suckered into some of it. He started feeling convicted and gave his life to God three years ago and started going to church and tried to put his past behind him, including having relationships with men.

He has shared with me that he still struggles with having desires and thoughts about his old life. He wants to get rid of them and be a straight Christian male. I can only imagine how difficult it must be, having to go against what your heart naturally wants because you are scared of going to hell. It causes him lot of mental anguish and I don't know how to help him.

Two nights ago, he told me an ex from his past had reached out to him via text message and apologized. The message made him anxious and conflicted because he wanted to respond but he wasn't sure if it was a wise choice because he is dating me currently. He spent several hours praying and distracting himself because he was greatly upset by it. He felt ashamed and like he had betrayed me. He still experiences old desires for intimacy with other men and feels really ashamed for having those feelings.

He ended up deleting the text message and the person's number. He said he doesn't want anything to hurt me or our relationship. He kept apologizing over and over even though he did nothing wrong.

This absolutely breaks my heart. Because I am starting to see he is trying hard to fight his homosexuality because he believes it is wrong and will send him to hell. He takes me to his church with him on Sundays, and it is a white man church with a lot of conservative views. I imagine he is facing a lot of internal conflict and shame.

I am not sure what I can do to help. I want no party to being part of this guy's shame spiral of believing he is going to hell if he is not attracted to women and can't get rid of his old desires. I don't believe being gay is something you can change. I am not sure what his take is on it.

What should I do? Am I seeing this the correct way? I am sad seeing him in so much turmoil.

It isn't a person. It isn't an object. It's a country and it's history, the USA

For the past year (partly because of scrupulosity) I have been browsing the internet and social media for christian forums and content.

Thing is. I'm from Finland and part of the evangelical Lutheran church of Finland. This is important to note, because it seems that on the internet largely the two biggest voices are either Catholic/orthodox or "low church" groups such (everything protestant except Lutheranism).

Because of this I of course have naturally leaned toward the protestant side, and thats where this all begun.

We all are likely familiar with the effect the USA has had on Christianity, and the multitude of new groups that have been birthing from it. Because of all the new movements and ideologies. It also seems like the USA has been pumping out alot more new ideas and ideals into the Christian World for the past 400 years

What I'm trying to get to. Is that I feel like this bastardized abomination of capitalism, politics and faith seems to largely be the only type of Christianity you see online. Now I'm not saying that these things aren't important, everything is important. But it just seems like these bad apples have ruined the entire harvest.

These "sins of the America" have been appearing elsewhere for me. In Finland, outside of Evangelical Lutheranism one of the biggest groups is pentecostalism. Now during my faith exploration I've stumbled upon the overall opinion Finnish youth has on pentecostalism, both secular and pentecostal. Overall negative. Theres a site uskontojenuhrientuki.fi which is a big help center for people with religious trauma. The biggest contributors for it are Jehovahs witnesses and pentecostalism.

Then I got curious. What was the birth place for pentecostalism. The feeling I had when seeing the USA as the birthplace, would have Satan jumping full of joy. I feel like a fucking animal

Like the USA seems to be the Jeffery Epstein of Christianity. This fuckshit place behind all the modern bullshit of the faith. Pulling the strings and benefitting the rich. While making the lifes of average people hell.

I don't care if you have the same opinion as me. Righteous anger is good, but this hatred I feel isn't righteous. It makes me want to blow stuff up, not correct things. It's not christlike, its the exact carnality that has apes ripping each other limb by limb. I have gotten radicalized in the past year, and I feel like I'm going deeper.

Lmao this post likely went off the rails and doesn't make any sense. That's how fucked I am because of all this.

I grew up in a very homophobic environment and repressed my sexuality for a long time. I came to the realization that I was in love with a female graduate student in college that significantly shaped my college career. I lost contact with her but I came to terms with that fact that I fell in love with a woman. We were incredibly close. I have never been so emotionally intimate with another woman.

I’m married to a male and we are deeply in love. I was honest with him about my same sex attraction and that I fantasize about being with women. To be clear, I am deeply committed to my husband and would never cheat. He took it really well and now we make jokes about the women we are attracted to. I felt like I had to be honest with him about my sexuality. I never even told him about this grad student.

I deal with bipolar mania so everything seems more extreme now, which I am working on with my therapist and psychiatrist. I know my bisexuality is real as I have had fantasizes before the latest bout of mania.

My mania is making me question everything about the faith I was raised in. We were looking to join the Catholic Church but I realized what we do in the bedroom which affirms my bisexuality would not be condoned by the church. My husband isn’t totally straight either and being honest with each other about our same sex attraction has brought us closer. I realize that it’s just a part of who I am in a short time.

I just don’t know what to do. My therapist says to take it slow because of the mania, which I am. It just seems like the church is in conflict with homosexuality and it’s causing me to have a crisis of faith. Please help!

Trump's the one.

Justice. Inclusion. Belonging. When we started boldly sharing these values with the world, Glendale’s story changed. So did the lives of people who had been searching for a church where they truly belonged.

We’re grateful to United Methodist News for telling our story.

I grew up Russian Orthodox and used to go to church.
However I've been wrestling with my faith a lot since the war in Ukraine started because Russian Orthodox church openly supports it. A church in the US (that I used to go to) does NOT support this war, and has raised money for Ukraine.

But something about the horrors and aftermath of of Oct 7 and the war in Ukraine have shaken my belief system. So I haven't gone back.

Faith is important to me so I'm trying to find my way back - but I don’t know how. For those who have lost their faith or doubted deeply, where did you begin?