re homosexuality issues in christianity in may geneva rutgers edu djohnson cs ucsd edu darin johnson writes ok what s more important to gay christians sex or christianity i m afraid i see that question as very tendentious try rephrasing it what s more important to christians love of god or love of other human beings to which of course the only conceivable answer is that the one is like the other i am deeply suspicious of any flavor of christianity which would elevate one clause of the great commandment to a priority over the other such as to claim a conflict true we are told to let the dead bury the dead to hate family rather than let it keep us from following christ but the dichotomy here is not one between love of our fellows and love of god but of allowing social constructs to blind us to the presense of god it is particularly satanic to twist love of god in such a manner as to become an excuse to treat others as on a different level than the one who is so caught up in love of god the trouble comes in the relation of human love and human sex yes it has sometimes been the case that the church has taught that all sex was nasty evil sinful stuff but when man and wife leave their parental homes to become helpmates living in one flesh it is the sex that is the vehicle of becoming one flesh if you doubt me read st paul on what is wrong with frequenting prostitutes less provocatively what i mean is just this sexual bonding is a deeply founded aspect of our social interaction and in particular is the foundation of the institution of marriage so that unlike with many mammals human males remain with and foster the children they beget and support their children s mothers this is the schema behind genesis and behind jesus citation of that passage i observe by the way that not all human males in fact do as i have just described but another thing that characterizes human societies is our raising of non begotten children not only orphans and adoptees and the like but products of the quite common infidelities of humans to their spouses we are in this not unique in the animal world but the full extent of social consequences and implications is most intricate for us yes of course it sometimes goes wrong like all else we do it is infected with sin and you find married couples where there is no bond and people so deliriously addicted to the initial stages of sexual bond formation the infatuation falling in love phase that they break any forming bond in order to keep stepping over the threshold of the deep unity god has prepared for us and stepping back out again right away satan may indeed use sex as a very handy tool to corrupt human love but in the edenic creation that is not its nature and with god s grace under the power of christ to make all things new it need not be a problem for christians though we must be vigilant even in christ as the devil is watchful prowling around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour so returning to the original question what is more important to straight christians sex or christianity paul clearly tended to think that sex was at best a distraction from christianity though to be charitable to him his context was in expectation of immediate parousia so that the hard tasks of a married union the lifelong building and adaptation to each other seemed somehow to undercut the proper preparation for an immediate eschaton since we do not know the hour of return we should act both with instant readiness for that and with a commitiment to our mates that proposes a long lifetime together and telling people not to bond in such a perspective strikes me as crippling us in the second clause of the the commandment to love i would claim that only a very few saints have the capacity to deeply love without sexual tinges or complication mind you their fellow human beings unless they have had a deeply spiritual life in married union growing together as one flesh and that means in the type case with a persistent and continued sexual relationship we are human and little good comes of trying to mortify the flesh to the point of pretending to be otherwise pretending not to be sexual beings christianity i would hope would they be willing to forgo sex completely in order to avoid being a stumbling block to others it depends entirely on context if that context is major hypocrisy on the part of those who find us stumbling blocks i am much less of a mind to efface myself so that they can pontificate about my sins there are some people for whom a life of celibacy is a spritual gift and maybe even a victory against a to them troubling sexual urge that seems to them to lead only to sin nothing i say should ever be read as demeaning such a gift nor the even rarer gift of love for all our conspecifics and indeed for all god s creation that can develop to the full without the tutoring of a spousal helpmate marriage founded in sex but there is a difference between spiritual gifts and penance telling people that they have to have a particular gift or else what is fraught with manipulation and disregard of the differences of our spiritual endowments from god to one person is given the gift of speaking in toungues to another intepretation of toungues to yet another prophecy and to still another teaching the notion that some particular gift is required of all is one of the earliest heresies michael l siemon i say you are gods sons of the mls panix com most high all of you nevertheless or you shall die like men and fall mls ulysses att com like any prince psalm
