christian homosexuality part of note i am breaking this reply into parts due to length mls panix com michael siemon writes in article may athos rutgers edu mserv mozart cc iup edu someone named mark writes mls panix com michael siemon writes homosexual christians have indeed checked out these verses some of them are used against us only through incredibly perverse interpretations others simply do not address the issues i can see that some of the above verses do not clearly address the issues there are exactly zero verses that clearly address the issues i agree that there are no verses that have gone unchallenged by gay rights activists but if there are zero verses that clearly address the issues doesn t that mean that there are also no verses that clearly support your case are you sure you want to say that there are zero verses that clearly address the issues however a couple of them seem as though they do not require incredibly perverse interpretations in order to be seen as condemning homosexuality the kind of interpretation i see as incredibly perverse is that applied to the story of sodom as if it were a blanket equation of homosexual behavior and rape since christians citing the bible in such a context should be presumed to have at least read the story it amounts to slander a charge that homosexuality rape to use that against us the story in genesis tells of the citizens of sodom demanding an opportunity to know the two men who were lot s guests the fact that the sodomites became angry when lot offered them his daughters could be seen as indicating that they were interested only in homosexual intercourse yes what they wanted was rape homosexual rape and everybody agrees that that is wrong some christians believe that the homosexual aspect of their desire was just as sinful as the rape aspect of their desire the passage does not say what it was that so offended god whether it was the homosexuality or the intended rape or both but i believe that it is only fair to consider all the possible alternatives in the light of related scriptures i do not believe that those who believe god was offended by both the homosexuality and the rape are trying to say that homosexuality is itself a form of rape you seems to take the view that the only sin described in gen is in the fact that the sodomites wanted to commit rape and that it is unfair to stigmatize their homosexuality by associating it with the sin of rape i can see how you might reach such a conclusion if you started from the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality but then again we re not supposed to start from our conclusions because that s circular reasoning if god is in fact opposed to homosexual intercourse in general then the more probably interpretation is that he was at least as offended by the sodomites blatant homosexuality as he was by their intent to commit rape later on i will document why i believe the old testament portrays god as one who despises any homosexual intercourse even if both partners are consenting adults do not be deceived neither fornicators nor idolators nor adulterers nor effeminate nor homosexuals nor thieves nor the covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor swindlers shall inherit the kingdom of god and such were some of you i cor the moderator adequately discusses the circularity of your use of porneia in this the moderator found my proposal to be circular in that he regarded the church as the proper authority for determining what kinds of marriages would be legitimate and thus the church s refusal to recognize perverted marriages was circular reasoning my questions however had nothing to do with the church ordaining new kinds of marriages and so his argument was something of a straw man in terms of my original question the precise definition translation of porneia isn t really important unless you are trying to argue that the bible doesn t really condemn extramarital sex i m not sure the moderator was trying to do that in any case i think both you and the moderator have missed the point here when jesus was asked about divorce he replied have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh consequently they are no longer two but one flesh what therefore god has joined together let no man separate mt i read here that the sexual union of a man male and his wife female is a divinely ordained union in other words the institution of heterosexual marriage is something ordained and established by god not by men and not by the church but by god men are not supposed to dissolve this union in jesus words because it is not something created by men this is not circular reasoning this is just reading god s word i read in the bible that god ordained the union of male and female i do not read of any similar divinely ordained union of two males or two females granted there have been uninspired men who have ordained alternative unions isn t caligula reported to have married his horse but the only union that jesus refers to as what god has joined together is the heterosexual union of a man and his wife pardon me for mentioning caligula i know that s probably inflammatory and i should save it for the discussion on bestiality in part of this post please hold off on passing judgement on me until you have read that section of my reply anyway my original question was not whether we should translate porneia in a way that condemns only a select few kinds of extramarital sex my question was given that heterosexual marriage is the only union described by the bible as divinely ordained and given a biblical prohibition against sex outside of marriage is homosexual intercourse sinful of course i see now that first we need to ask whether the bible really condemns sex outside of marriage you seem to be trying to argue that only certain kinds of extramarital sex and other sins are really wrong i think we can all agree with paul that there are some kinds of activity that could be named by fornication or theft or coveting or reviling or drunkenness which would well deserve condemnation we may or may not agree to the bounds of those categories however and the very fact that they are argued over suggests that not only is the matter not at all clear but that paul an excellent rhetorician had no interest in making them clear leaving matters rather to our spirit led decisions with all the uncomfortable living with other readings that has dominated christian discussion of all these areas alternatively it may be that the definition of such terms as porneia and all the rest was in paul s day what we would call a faq i e the law as the tutor appointed by god to lead us to christ had just spent some sixteen centuries drumming into the heads of god s people the idea that things like homosexual intercourse were abominations that deserved punishment by death perhaps paul didn t go into detail on what porneia c were because after years he considered the question to have been dealt with already perhaps the reason god s apostles and prophets did not devote a great deal of time defining a distinct new testament sexuality was because he did not intend any significant changes in the sexuality he had already established by the law i ll discuss the law and homosexuality in greater detail below but i just wanted to point out that the new testament s failure to develop a detailed new standard of sexuality is not necessarily evidence that god does not care about sexual conduct especially after years of putting people to death for practicing homosexuality homosexual behavior is no different i and the other gay christians i know are adamant in condemning rape heterosexual or homosexual and child molestation heterosexual or homosexual and even the possibly harmless but obsessive kinds of sex heterosexual or homosexual that would stand condemned by paul in the very continuation of the chapter you cite may i mildly suggest that what paul does in his letter that you want to use is perhaps a good guide to his meaning i am free to do anything you say yes but not everything is for my good no doubt i am free to do anything but i for one will not let anything make free with me cor which is a restatement that we must have no other god before god a commandment neither i nor any other gay christian wishes to break some people are indeed involved in obsessively driven modes of sexual behavior it is just as wrong though slightly less incendiary so it s a secondary argument from the phobic contingent to equate homosexuality with such behavior as to equate it with the rape of god s messengers and how do you define an obsessively driven mode of sexual behavior how do you determine the difference between obsessive sexual behavior and normal sex drives is the desire to have sinful sex an obsessively driven mode of behavior i think you see that this is circular reasoning why is it defined as sinful because it is obsessive what makes it obsessive the fact that the person is driven to seek it even though it s sinful or is it obsessive because it is a desire for that which society condemns once again that s circular why is it defined as obsessive because the person wants it even though society condemns it why does society condemn it because it is obsessive you seem to be trying to limit the bible s condemnation of porneia to only perverted sex acts but i don t think you can really define perverted without falling into exactly the same circularity you accuse me of what then is paul condemning when he declares that fornicators shall not enter the kindgom of heaven i won t deal with the exegesis of leviticus except very tangentially fundamentally you are exhibiting the same circularity here as in your assumption that you know what porneia means i think you misunderstood me i was not trying to make an argument on some technical definition of porneia i was raising the issues of the sinfulness of extramarital sex and the lack of any scriptural evidence of a homosexual counterpart to the divinely ordained union of heterosexual couples there are plenty of laws prohibiting sexual behavior to be found in leviticus most of which christians ignore completely they never even bother to examine them they just assume that they know which ones are moral and which ones are ritual well i have news for you any anthropology course should sensitize you to ritual and clean vs unlcean as categories in an awful lot of societies we have them too but buried pretty deep and i cannot see any ground for distinguishing these bits of leviticus from the ritual law which no christian i know feels applies to us i m dead serious here when people start going on as they do in this matter about how repulsive and unnatural our acts are and what do they know about it huh it is a solid clue to the same sort of arbitrary cultural inculcations as the american prejudice against eating insects please remember what you just said here for when we discuss bestiality in part on what basis other than assuming your conclusion can you say that the law against male male intercourse in leviticus is not a part of the ritual law i am glad you asked would you agree that if god condemns homosexual intercourse even among those who are not under the law of moses then this would show that god s condemnation of homosexual acts goes beyond the ritual law if i can show you from scripture that god punished the homosexual behavior of people who were not under the law of moses would you agree that god s definition of homosexual intercourse as an abomination is not limited to just the ritual law and those who are under the law i ve been having a private email discussion with a th day adventist on the subject of the sabbath and my main point against a christian sabbath keeping requirement has been that nowhere in scripture does god command gentiles to rest on the sabbath nor does he ever condemn gentiles for failing to rest on the sabbath this illustrates the difference between universal requirements such as thou shalt not kill and requirements that are merely part of the temporary jews only law of moses such as the sabbath the point you are trying to make is that you think the classification of homosexual intercourse as an abomination is just a part of the temporary jews only law of moses i on the other hand believe that it was labelled by god as an abomination for gentiles as well as jews and that he punished those guilty of this behavior by death or exile here s why back in genesis god promises to give abraham all the land that was then in the possession of the amorite kinda hard on the amorite don t you think but in verse we have a clue that this might not be as unjust as it sounds it seems god is going to postpone this takeover for quite a while because the iniquity of the amorite is not yet complete remember this is all long before there was a ritual law what then was the iniquity the amorite was committing that when complete would justify his being cast out of his own land and or killed go back and look at lev again verses list a variety of sins including child sacrifice incest homosexuality and bestiality beginning in verse god starts saying do not defile yourselves by any of these things for by all these things the nations which i am casting out before you have become defiled for the land has become defiled therefore i have visited its punishment upon it so the land has spewed out its inhabitants for whoever does any of these abominations those persons who do so shall be cut off from among their people notice that god says the gentile nations who are not under the ritual law of moses are about to be punished because they have defiled themselves and their land by committing abominations that include incest bestiality and homosexuality flip ahead two chapters to lev and you will find these same abominations listed and this time god decrees the death penalty on anyone involved in any of these things including specifically a man lying with another man as one lies with a woman lv their bloodguiltiness was upon them meaning that in god s eyes they deserved to die for having done such things according to lev even the alien non jew who sojourns among you was to refrain from these practices on penalty of being cut off by god from among their people under the circumstances i believe it would be very difficult to support the claim that in the old testament god objected only to the intended rape and not the homosexuality in sodom since god took the trouble to specifically list sex between two consenting men as one of the reasons for wiping out the canaanite nations not homosexual rape mind you but plain voluntary gay sex i d say god was not neutral on the subject of homosexual behavior even by those who had nothing to do with the mosaic covenant for those christians who do think that some parts of leviticus can be law for christians while others are not even to be thought about it is incumbent on you in every case handled on its own merits to determine why you pick one and ignore another according to ii tim all scripture is inspired by god and is profitable for teaching reproof correction and training in righteousness thus i believe that even though we gentile christians are not under the law we can learn from studying it if a certain action is defined as a sin because it is a violation of the law then it is a sin only for those who are under the law for example in the case of sabbath keeping where god reveals that certain actions are abominations even for those who are not under the law then i conclude that god s objection to the practice is not based on whether or not a person is under the law but on the sinfulness of the act itself in the case of homosexuality homosexual intercourse is defined by god as a defiling abomination for gentiles as well as jews i e for those who are not under the law as well as for those who are thus i am not at all trying to say that gentile christians have any obligation to keep any part of the law i am simply saying that god referred to homosexuality as a sin even for those who are not obligated to keep the law if this is so then i do not think we can appeal to our exemption from the law as valid grounds for legitimizing a practice god has declared a bloodguilty abomination that defiles both jew and gentile continued in part mark
