I think I have quite traditional views on original sin, grace, and the real but difficult nature of we humans being able to learn something true about being human that we didn't know before. And yet the consequences of this traditional view are really quite radical.
James AlisonGive people a common enemy, and you will give them a common identity. Deprive them of an enemy and you will deprive them of the crutch by which they know who they are.
James AlisonI'm trying to make the case that the church can indeed, from within its own resources, move out of a false, and often a hateful, characterization of and set of attitudes toward gay and lesbian people.
James AlisonPart of my motivation in the search for a cause of being gay was the need to find "something that has gone wrong that I can put right," and it was good, spiritually fruitful, to discover that the question "What went wrong in where I came from?" is actually not a useful one.
James AlisonI'm honestly not sure that I've ever tried to talk as a theologian about "homosexual acts," per se. My disagreement with the current teaching of the Roman Congregations is about what I consider to be their fundamentally flawed premise of the objectively disordered nature of the inclination.
James Alison