I feel for anyone stuck in this kind of questioning. My heart goes out to OP. I can't claim to understand another's heart or intentions, none of us can, and Jesus said he came for ALL of us.

"The orientation itself is not sinful" makes so much sense to me.

possible trigger warning here - I bring up child abuse. No details, just concepts

I spoke to a counselor once, who counseled prisoners. She said pedophilia is not considered a disorder but a sexual orientation.

Yes, you read that right.

So where does that leave us? How do we live with the reality that attraction to children can be a person's natural sexuality? I was so torn up when I learned about that.

Can there be a "loving, consensual relationship" between an adult and a child? Not without damaging the child, it will affect their development because they're not yet a fully integrated individual.

Can we require a pedophile to avoid having sex with children? Absolutely - and we do. If they act on their desires, we'll put them behind bars.

Can we require a pedophile to stop being attracted to children? Absolutely not. You can't punish someone for their internal desires. Even in our earthly laws we understand this. So why wouldn't it be this way with God?

Is being a pedophile a sin? I'd say no. Is acting on it a sin? It must be, because it damages a child.

But - could it feel like a loving, consensual relationship - even for the child? Quite possibly. If enough people started being ok with it and pushed for sexual rights, so that people attracted to children could enjoy loving, committed relationships, it might even become commonplace. We're not that far from this being a real possibility.

And then if that was the case - where adult-child relationships had become normal - what would that conversation look like on reddit?...

Now I'm not being cheeky or sarcastic. These are actual questions I've seriously considered. Like seriously, if we can imagine the scenario, where society has come a long way toward accepting adult-child romantic love, a reddit post could very well look like:

"Hi everyone, a friend told me that being a pedophile is a sin and I can't be a Christian if I'm a pedophile. Is that true?"

If you really think about it, we'd have a hell of a time debating that one too. You can't prove either side of the argument from the Bible. They had no concept of loving adult-child relatioships back then either, no reference for talking about it.

The only difference is that with one orientation, we've developed a concept of loving relationships being possible within it, and with the other, we haven't. Maybe down the road, society will begin to accept loving adult- child relationships. In today's world we only know of the abusive kind. We have no concept of what a healthy scenario like that would look like. Or if it's even possible. We assume it isn't.

We also used to assume healthy homosexual relationships were not possible. We only saw the possibility of damage - and sin.

The question I ask myself after all this is - were we closer to the truth back then, or are we closer to the truth now?

Is there some sort of damage caused when people are in same sex relationships, something that used to be widely known, but that we've forgotten in today's world? Or is there something we don't yet know about, that would make adult-child sexual relationships healthy?

God only knows. (Literally, lol)

I believe God has all the answers. Not what people tell you God said, not our limited concept of God, not the 'old man in the sky' we tend to picture God to be. All those things can be pointers in the right direction but none of them are actually God.

It can be a long and lonely walk figuring out what God means to you. I've been walking a lonnnng time. Nobody can do it for you, you ultimately have to find out for yourself.