Conscience vrs Faith

If there is any battle that goes on in my brain,then it's the battle between conscience and faith. As a christian, I've had the opportunity to develop a personal relationship with God and been able to learn to trust him with my life. However, there have been times when my faith has conflicted with my conscience. Yep. That has happened quite a few times and I have been very confused as I believed the two to be one.

So what are conscience and faith? How are they different? How come I have conflicting thoughts on these two main areas of my life.

I am part of an organized religion/faith/spiritual group. Like every other faith there is a set of rules and regulations to living a devout life and eventhough Jesus gave us a second chance at living a guilt-free life, we still are to abstain from certain things. That's is pretty fair to me. In order to be Christians (followers of Christ) we need to live like him. But somewhere in the bible we are thought that certain lifestyles are unacceptable (gays, lesbians, transgendered, bisexuals,etc) and these are considered cardinals sins. There is also the thought that all other religions even those that are very similar to the teachings of Jesus are doomed to fail and are heading to hell. WOW!

That is where my conscience kicks in. As a precocious young child, I once asked my non-religious father a very important question. I asked him where all the people who lived before Christ and therefore never had the chance to meet Him and accept him ended up going when they died. My father answered with much certainty saying they went to heaven or hell according to their deeds good or ill. And then I argued back "but they never accepted Jesus..." (at the time I was pretty sad my father had not accepted Jesus and might end up in hell as my sunday school teacher had taught us).
And so being the all knowing father that I saw him to be, he replied with all coolness and certainty with " their conscience did guide them ."

That was the first time I heard the word conscience. I was simply amazed at how God was kind enough to allow people into heaven even though they weren't able to purchase the ticket (Jesus) before hand. It was like being allowed to the poolside without paying for it. It sounded great and I felt that I could sleep after that. My father was going to heaven with the whole family! Great!

So as years passed on, the idea that the conscience was essentially going to be how God was going to judge non-believers gave me a sense of rest. It made me happy that we were all at some point given an equal playing field....no one with an upper hand.
But this feeling was short-lived after I was old enough to know about homosexuality and other religions.

Back in Ghana(West-Africa) homosexuality was viewed as demonic state of being. It was never talked about and like witchcraft or evil voodoo practices they were greatly feared and shunned by society. In high school (I went to an all girl catholic boarding school) some girls showed lesbian tendencies but these girls were always viewed as "spoiled", bad, immoral girls. I must admit that I greatly feared them as I believed homosexuality was some sort of contagious illness that could be contracted via eye contact. I avoided ''them" (try to avoid using that word) as much as possible.
In college (here in the US) lesbians where viewed as sexually exploratory individuals, feminists and even sexy.
In the Christian context, they were viewed not too differently than they are back in Africa - misfits and God rejects.

I struggled with this idea even after years of research. I asked myself questions like "is homosexuality reversible and are people gay because of the sexual benefits and social notoriety"?
My conscience was clear about God loving us all and wanting us to enjoy this life and live our true identities sans self-hate and doubt. But my faith was telling me otherwise. It was telling me the very lives of these folks was wrong and that God was going to judge them based on that. My conscience and faith don't always agree and this is one of many issues I have. It makes it hard to have christian friends because it makes me self conscious about these topics. I know that things will change in the future as we've already seen some major changes in the last few decades (civil rights movements, abolishing of slavery and colonialism) and that humans will draw closer to the knowledge of He who lives within us. Change will come at some point. I mean if USA has a black president then everything is possible.

I don't long to settle this conflict or to harmonize it in anyway. I just want to know God and surrender my every thought to him for He alone knows tomorrow and my heart. It is to me the mysteries of life that make God who he is. Besides Im not the only one in this type of situation. Great men like Gandhi and Darwin in a attempt to change society had to question their faith. To me its healthier than trying to harmonize them.