English

Streitfall Liebe – biblische Plädoyers wider die Ausgrenzung homosexueller Menschen

That means literally:

Love As A Point Of Dispute: Biblical Pleas Against The Discrimination Of Homosexual People.

This is my book, first published in 2003.

Normally gay people get uneasy when they meet Christians who claim to believe in the Bible as God's inspired Word. Too often the Bible had been used "against" them: to prove how perverted and detestable homosexual persons are… So gay Christians tend to stand for a theology "against" the Bible: Certain passages don't represent God's eternal will but only human opinions. Yet not all gay Christians are happy and satisfied with that kind of approach to the Holy Scriptures which deprives them of their formerly beloved Word of God.

But what if you do not need to argue "against" the Bible? What if the Bible itself might argue in your favor? And mind you, just the Bible as God's inspired Word?

So that's what I tried to express with the subtitle: Biblical Pleas Against The Discrimination Of Homosexual People.

Up to now readers who wanted to join me in my voyage of discovery through the messages of the Bible had to speak German. But all over the world Christians suffer from the message that God detests homosexual people. Wherever they live – they certainly won't search for a German publication. Still THE world language is English…

First in 2011 two friends of my gay Christian group "zwischenraum" asked me, "what if we translate your book Streitfall Liebe in English?" - To me that was a dream came true. A longtime prayer had been answered…

Whereas Streitfall Liebe has been published as a book, the English version will probably remain a mere online issue. The English version of the title is: LOVE WINS THE DEBATE.

Meanwhile there are 4 people engaged in that project. But all do it on a voluntary basis and beside their jobs. So some time may pass until the whole book is ready. Therefore I decided to begin with a step-by-step-publication. I am very glad that now at the end of 2013 the time has come to start with the first published chapters.

I ask my readers to keep in mind, that this is no professional translation. We never planned to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Nonetheless I think my team has done a great job up to now!

Moreover my English readers may realize that I tend to quite long, complex and complicated phrases. Therefore some of my German readers already sighed a little, but in my mother tongue this is at least more common than in English. I'm sorry that is wasn't always possible to adapt to the English language use.

Over the course of translation we realized that the quotation of verses might confuse some readers accustomed to English standard translations of the Bible. In some Biblical books the German differs a little from English versions concerning the number of verses.

Besides quotation in German uses abbreviations for the chapters instead of writing out the full name and a comma between chapter and verse instead of the colon in English (e.g. Rom 8,1 instead of Romans 8:1). We did not manage to verify it afterwards in all cases, so I ask my readers to think a little "double-tracked" and perhaps to read up a quotation one or two verses before or after in your English Bible.

I'd appreciate if my English readers take the time to send me an email - be it to point out mistakes to me or with their suggestions for improvements of the translation.

Adina, Rachel, Gesa, Mika, and Michael – I owe you my great respect and my deep thankfulness for all your work and support in this project!

 

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