These conversations always end up like this, even if the people agree with each other.
Hmmmm. That does indeed seem to be the case. But why?
Sass says:
And I understand why she says this. We might ask, how can we discuss *anything *properly if we have to pussyfoot around, not voicing our true opinions, because we’re scared we might hurt somebody’s feelings?
But the problem with this particular debate is the back story. The historical context. Which is centuries of oppression. Centuries of bigotry and prejudice and hatred and violence towards gay people. And given that context, we have to tread *incredibly * carefully.
For that prejudice, that hatred, that violence is not confined to our disgraceful past. It is a live fact of our society today. Even today, in 2012, gay men and women around the world are subject to mockery and persecution and violence daily. There are still countries - thank the Lord only a few, but there are some - in which it not only is it illegal to be homosexual, but homosexuality is punishable with the death penalty!
And the Church, to its eternal shame, adds fuel to this fire through its pathetically equivocal stance on the subject. As I said before, until Church leaders the world over have the guts to welcome and embrace human sexuality in all its varieties of glory, there will continue to be hatred and oppression and violence against anyone who is not part of the straight majority.
God help us all, and forgive us all.
But thank you, Sass, for your honest and heartfelt contributions to this debate.
All the best
Johnny
For the record, those concerned and I privately talked things out. Praise the Lord that we were able to reach a place of mutual agreement and understanding. I have a renewed hope that these conversations CAN happen and CAN be fruitful. Perhaps the public setting is more of a barrier than we realize.
Sass
I’ve seen many articles on the site about the issues of homo-sexuality and Gay marriage and not made any comments. But I guess I am being a coward so here goes…
Shore makes some good points. But he is trying to avoid the real issue. The real issue regarding homo-sexual practice (rather than temptation or desire) is that the Christian church (and almost without exception all human societies) has always said it is sinful and not to be encouraged. And the Bible in every case refers to homo-sexuality in a negative way.
Now in our post-modern world we don’t like to be told or tell other people that their actions are sinful.
So when Shore says
<<If there is no clearly stated directive in the Bible to marginalize and ostracize gay people, then Christians continuing to do so is morally indefensible, and must cease.>> he is missing the simple reason why gay people will feel octracized by the Church.
We can all agree that the Bible properly understood doesn’t teach that the church should ostracize anyone. But what if it tells those practicing homo-sexuality that what they are doing is sinful. Just like it tells me that my occasional watching of internet pornography is sinful.
So the issue here is that people identifying as gay or homo-sexual will very likely feel ostracized by a community that says that homo-sexual practice is sinful, because they are told in many other forums in society that homo-sexual practice is natural and good and anyone saying otherwise is a bigot and a terrible person. And indeed they have been encouraged to make their homo-sexuality identity defining.
Just like if I believed stridently that watching pornography was actually a good thing and someone tells me it is actually wrong and I should seek to avoid doing it, and If I’d become part of a sub-group of society where my whole identity was wrapped up in watching pornography, and then I came into a church where I was told it was wrong, I’d find it very difficult to feel accepted and loved by that church.
Now with respect to Gay marriage, we need to step back and ask why has human society (again universally) made marriage (which I define as a long term commitment betwen a man and a woman involving sexual practice) such an intergral part of its laws, values and societal mores? And why have human societies discouraged (or condemned) homo-sexuality? The reason is that a society’s first priority is to continue to exist beyond the now. And for a society to exist in the future it needs children to be born who will preserve the values, beliefs and practices of that society. So human society has chosen to encourage behaviour that will lead adults to enter relationships that will produce children who will be raised so that they can preserve the values, beliefs and practices of that society.
Since human children take at least 12-15 years to be raised to the point where they can look after themselves it requires a marriage that is built for the long term.
So marriage has been designed to discourage behaviour that leads sexually active adults to participate in sexual practice that don’t lead to this desired goal, that is society’s continuation.
Now the red-herrings of why infertile people are allowed to marry is just the exception that proves the rule. And besides infertility can only be discovered by being in a long term hetro-sexual relationship.
Now in a real sense our society has been trashing marriage now for 5 or 6 decades. With changes such as:
- encouraging sexual activity outside of hetro-sexual marriage (telling that I even need to add the adjective hetro-sexual)
- no fault divorce
- removal or the legal and taxation privileges given to marriage
- The push for legalized gay marriage
A society such as ours that decides to devalue marriage, re-define it in such a fundamental way and generally discourage it (by allowing easy sex to be available for many outide of marriage) will not actually last for many generations. I hope and pray (because I think western society has many good aspects which I want to continue for my children) that we realise before it is too late that we must return to the traditional (or Christian or normative) view and encouragment of marriage.
Hi Scott
Thanks for joining in the discussion. I think the issues at stake here are of vital importance, and we should be able to talk them through. And that means looking at ‘both sides’ of the arguments. But we must do so lovingly and thoughtfully, always keeping in mind the sensitivity of the subject, and the possibility that what we say may cause offence to some.
I’m very glad to read that Sass has resolved whatever conflict previous conversations on this thread had caused. (And Sass, I hope this means that you feel you can join in again, should you wish.) So with her wise words about the public nature of this debate in our ears, let us proceed with caution and see if we can unpack what’s really going on here.
“Almost without exception all human societies”? Really? I think the Ancient Romans and Greeks might take issue with you there. Those two great pre-Christian civilisations most definitely did not view homosexuality as “sinful and not to be encouraged”. And the Greeks in particular promulgated their positive view of homosexuality outside of their own society, as this quote from Wikipedia sums up:
“326 BC – Military leader Alexander the Great, who was bisexual (as was considered the norm in Ancient Greek culture), completes conquest of most of the then known Western world, launching the Hellenistic Age in which millions of people are converted to a Hellenistic culture that views homosexual relationships positively.”
It is interesting to note that it was only once the Roman empire began to be Christianised that it gradually adopted a less tolerant attitude to same sex relationships. And it is hardly surprising that most, if not all, of the societies that came after the birth of Christianity were predominantly anti-gay – given the pervasiveness of Christianity, and the Church’s historic stance on the issue.
This is very revealing statement remark, Scott. Yes, of course we can all agree that the Bible, properly understood, doesn’t teach that the church should ostracise anyone. But there is no such consensus on the issue of homosexual orientation or practice. I for one am wholly confident that the Bible, properly understood, does not condemn homosexuality. Okay, I am doubtless in a minority among Christians generally. But it is a sizeable, and I would guess growing minority.
A few minutes research will show you how little the Bible actually says about homosexuality. Basically, there are four OT references and three in the NT which have traditionally been interpreted as speaking against homosexuality. (For the record, they can be found in Genesis 19; Leviticus 18 and 20; Deuteronomy 23; Romans 1; 1 Corinthians 6; and 1 Timothy 1.) But a careful exegesis of these passages, properly translated, reveals that to say they speak against homosexuality is, in almost all cases, dubious at best, and plain wrong at worst.
Now I am not going to do that exegesis here, partly because it would take me all day, and partly because it has been done, thoroughly and in my opinion thoroughly convincingly, by a Christian pastor whose name, shamefully, I have forgotten. I downloaded a copy of his article from the internet, from a website I cannot now track down, but I forgot to make a note of his name, and it does not appear in the article itself. So I trust he will forgive me for citing his work unattributed. However, I would be delighted to email you a PDF copy of the article, or attach it to a private message. (I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to attach or embed a PDF in a post. If anybody reading this knows how to do this, please do let me know. 
)
And consider this: while Jesus was certainly never recorded as speaking against homosexuality, there is a strong argument to be made that he actually did the exact opposite! This argument is carefully elucidated by Michael Wood, as pointed out earlier by Ruth J. You can read a summary of Wood’s research here:
Scott, your drawing a parallel between homosexuality and internet pornography is both fatuous and, I would suggest, offensive. You and I can choose to watch pornography if we wish. Gay people do not choose to be gay - any more than I chose to be heterosexual. To suggest otherwise is ignorant in the extreme.
(And strictly speaking, of course, the Bible doesn’t actually say anything about internet porn. You are interpreting its teachings and then choosing to apply them to the subject yourself.)
So your arguments – predicated as they are on such highly dubious, and in some cases plainly incorrect, assumptions – just don’t hold water.
No, that isn’t the issue here. The issue here is that homosexual practice is natural and good, yes. But centuries of anti-gay prejudice, sanctioned by the Church on the flimsiest of scriptural ‘evidence’, have marginalised and oppressed gay people – and quite rightly they (and those of us outside the gay community who support them) are sick to the back teeth of that oppression, and are hence speaking out and acting against it.
(And what on earth do you mean by “gay or homosexual”, by the way?!)
I do not agree with what you say about marriage either. As and when I have time I will try and explain why. (But in short, I would argue that it is the family, not marriage per se, which is central to a healthy society.)
All the best
Johnny
Hi Johnny,
Thanks for your reply. You make some good ripostes to my arguments. Lots of issues raised.
Firstly my analogy with internet pornography was to highlight that I am too a sinner and have had need to seek forgiveness and healing for sexual sin in my life. Indeed I take very serious Jesus adomonition that to look at a women lustfully is as serious as committing adultery. What I am not doing is asking that the church accepts my wrong behaviour as right. I do expect that I am loved and accepted as a repentant sexual sinner.
Nor do I consider homo-sexual practice any more sinful or less sinful than my viewing of internet pornography.
Secondly onto Rome and Greece I agree there was some sort of societal acceptance of homo-sexuality practice, but I did say nearly all societies. And relating to my point on marriage, it was tolerated as something men did while being married. Just as in many societies sexual infidelity outside of marriage is tolerated although not encouraged (as your example of Alexander shows, he was bi-sexual and married).
My argument is that God has designed hetro-sexual marriage to ensure the preservation of human society. There is no concept in the Bible of sex having any proper role outside of the sphere of hetro-sexual marriage. In any other context it is viewed as sinful.
<<
Gay people do not choose to be gay - any more than I chose to be heterosexual. To suggest otherwise is ignorant in the extreme.
I agree that people may not choose to have sexual desires for those of the same sex, there is no argument on this.
But they do choose to practice homo-sexuality. I think underlying your point here is a view that no-one can be happy without fulfilling their sexual desires. That is incorrect. Many throughout history have been extremely happy and achieved great things and abstained from sexual practice all their lives. I am sure we agree that there are many sexual desires that should be resisted.
<<
No, that isn’t the issue here. The issue here is that homosexual practice is natural and good, yes. But centuries of anti-gay prejudice, sanctioned by the Church on the flimsiest of scriptural ‘evidence’, have marginalised and oppressed gay people – and quite rightly they (and those of us outside the gay community who support them) are sick to the back teeth of that oppression, and are hence speaking out and acting against it.
No doubt that many horrible and wrong things have been done against those indentifying as homo-sexual by others using as a justification that homo-sexuality is wrong. And I can only imagine the hurt of seeing a family member affected by this.
But what I am trying to point out is that human societies and the Church has very good and valid reasons for discouraging sexual activity outside of hetro-sexual marriage.
To back up your argument that the Bible does not condemn homo-sexual practice, is there any point in Church history (before the last 30 years) that you point to where sex outside of hetro-sexual marriage was viewed as anything other than sinful?
I am universalist and so prepared to accept the church can often interpret scripture incorrectly, but as a universalist I can see that there have been many Christians in many periods of church history that have interpreted scripture as I do, that God will reconcile all people to himself. I’d like to see some examples of Christian scholars teaching that homo-sexuality was good in various periods of church history.
<<But in short, I would argue that it is the family, not marriage per se, which is central to a healthy society>>
Could explain yourself more on this point.
Johnny, if I have understood Scott correctly, he believes sinful acts (such as watching pornography) regardless of an unchosen orientation is sinful. He is not being logically fallacious to suggest that sinful acts (such as having same-sex relations) regardless of an unchosen orientation is also sinful. I personally believe he is wrong (and probably offensive too). But it’s not silly or ignorant under his premise (that same-sex relations are universally sinful). And that premise is largely why people are speaking over each other on this issue. You’re simply going to have to do the hard work and explain why same-sex relations by same-sex couples are not universally sinful.
I may have advertised this to death (sorry!) but I grew up in a IFB church, of which I consider to be a soft-cult today. I’ve heard some really disgusting things said of homosexuals from some people. But even those who maintained softer views still violently avoided fellowship with homosexuals. Though I do appreciate I also avoid “criminals”, vagrants and other such members of the Poor — I’m working on it; God help me! In my experience, Christians who consider homosexuality to be sinful seem to be completely inexperienced (personally or vicariously) concerning suffering from sexuality. My agnostic opinion on homosexuality changed after befriending an incredibly “sheep”-ish gay woman (sheep-ish in the good Matthean 25:31-46 sense). I don’t believe this automatically invalidates the authenticity of new biblical interpretations. It’s taken a long time but I’m finally beginning to believe that God and love can only be truly understood in the context of suffering and others — though I don’t know what that means exactly. I don’t mean this in a contrived way, but I would encourage every heterosexual Christian to take a gay person out for a coffee (or fishing, or whatever it is you both find conducive to honest conversation).
Someone just recently posted this on a Facebook conversation. I don’t usually promote things I haven’t finished watching, but it seems to be a nice overview of the pro- position so far. [Edit: I finished watching it. It might be appropriate for some audiences.]
If I may quickly ramble beyond the scope of this thread… I think how we understand and respond to all sexuality is immensely important. I appreciate that some people prefer to maintain an agnosticism on many of these issues (as I was for many months) but I don’t believe that freedom is particularly available to us (eschatology is a different beast 
). I think the potential consequences can be very serious, especially when fragile, young people are understanding their emerging sexualities. Even the strong patriarchy and machismo heterosexuality (à la Johnny’s favourite Calvinist) that my childhood church advocated, was quite troubling in my own life (I hated my own “effeminacy” and was fearful of a homosexual orientation I never really had). The point is, we should be open and motivated to carefully study our positions on sexuality and church inclusivism.
Scott, I hope I haven’t offended you. We plainly disagree, but please know I have not intended to cause offense.
You may be interested in the controversial and contested works of John Boswell who believes Christians did, on various occasions, endorse same-sex unions up until the 12th Century. By “contested”, I really mean “contested”. I know it’s a redundant word because every scholarly position is contested. But I felt like I had to add it anyway. I have not read any of his books, but he is famous for Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality (1980) and The Marriage of Likeness: Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe (1994).
Here is an untrustworthy overview of his thought.
Godspeed all,
Andrew
Thanks for your response Andrew.
<<
Scott, I hope I haven’t offended you. We plainly disagree, but please know I have not intended to cause offense.
Not at all, brother.
My argument is that all sexual relationships outside of hetro-sexual marriage have been consitently discouraged by nearly all societies and the church. Sexual relations between those of the same sex are no more or less sinful than hetro-sexual relations outside of marriage (or indeed my viewing of internet pornography). They are just all actions that fall short of the ideal God has set for us.
Can I create a fictious dialogue here to help illustrate our dilema, between me Scott and Jim (a name I have just made up) a Gay Christian.
Jim: I believe that only through faith in Jesus Christ can someone be right with God. I am in a same-sex relationship. I believe that this is God’s will for my life. I want you to love me and accept me as you would any other believer.
Scott: That is wonderful that you trust in Jesus saving power. I am very happy to accept you as I would any other believer.
Jim: So Scott to feel accepted and loved I have to know that don’t consider same-sex relationships wrong. I want you to accept my relationship as good and holy as I am happy to accept your relationship with your wife as good and holy.
Scott: Jim you are asking me to do something I cannot do. For a number of reasons I am not able to say that same-sex relationships are good. I don’t think that is what the Bible teaches. But hey I am a sinner too. I have issues with sexual sin in my life, that mean I am really in no different a situation to you. We are both redeemed sinners that God is taking through a process of sanctification
Jim: But my relationship is not sinful. My sexual identity is so important to me that if you cannot accept that this is God’s will for me then I cannot feel loved and accepted by you or your church.
This dialogue I think characterises the impasse we find ourselves in.
But what I hope we can avoid, because we recognize Christ in each other, is throwing insults at each other and questioning the other’s commitment to follow Christ.
Hi Scott
Thanks for your thoughtful responses. You make a number of important points which I would like to address properly. However, you may need to bear with me for a couple of days, as I am ultra busy at work at the moment (I’m grabbing five minutes in my lunch hour to write this ).
But I would just like to apologise if I offended you with anything I said earlier. Reading back over my post it was unnecessarily confrontational in places. Sorry. As you’re probably aware, I have a gay brother who has not only experienced prejudice and physical violence in his life, but who remains outside the Church because of his perception that it is institutionally opposed to gay people. Hence I have very strong feelings about this subject. And sometimes I know I give vent to them rather too forcefully.
I would only add a hearty ‘hear, hear’ to your closing comment.
While I may disagree with you on matters of doctrine or theology, I would certainly not question your commitment to Christ. (Indeed, your commitment is evident in the way you are clearly trying to be true to your understanding of scripture, and of what is required of you to be a true follower of Christ. (I have been accused, on another thread, or having a lukewarm, or even non-existent, commitment to Christ because of my belief in the theory of evolution, and it’s not nice 
.)
As Andrew sums up in his forum nickname, we are all brothers.
Love and blessings to you
All the best
Johnny
PS Andrew – thanks for your contributions also. Duly noted and filed for mental processing!
Hi Bret
It fits exactly - very revealing.
In our culture, we think with our head, and feel with our heart; the people of the culture Jesus was speaking to thought with their heart, and felt with their guts.
So, looking again, what it means is, “Whatever fills your mind is what will come out of your mouth.”
Thanks Ruth… what you wrote makes sense to me, again!! Guess the idea than is to fill our minds with good thoughts… I believe it was the Psalmist who said, “Bless the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart, that they may be acceptable in Thy sight, oh Lord.” Blessings to you Ruth. 
Hi Andrew
I never said Scott was committing a logical fallacy. I merely stated my view that it is ignorant to suggest that gay people *choose *their sexuality. I stand by that view. As my brother said to me only the other day, “why would I choose to be gay, when by doing so I open myself up to a lifetime of prejudice and misunderstanding?”
Hi Scott
If *I *understand you correctly, you are saying that homosexual *orientation *is not a sin, but homosexual *practice *is. And your justification for this view is that: a) the Bible condemns homosexual practice; b) God has ordained heterosexual marriage for the procreation of the species; and c) one does not have to express one’s sexuality to live a fulfilled life.
With regard to a), you said earlier:
Sorry, but I don’t think it does. I think the Bible, properly translated and interpreted, does nothing of the sort. So I would turn Andrew’s challenge to “do the hard work” back on to you, and ask that you demonstrate to me where and how the Bible refers to homosexuality in a wholly negative way.
Further, you say:
Firstly I would ask you why you make this statement in the first place? Despite what the Roman Catholics might tell us, ultimately all sin is sin, ie something which goes against God’s will for us, and causes us to be separated from Him. Pride or arrogance or lies separate us from God just as surely as do murder or rape, or sexual sins such as lust or adultery, do they not?
This attempt to measure the gravity of particular sins is pointless, but revealing nonetheless – particularly in this context. So many Christians, particularly those on the Evangelical Right in America, are obsessed with the supposed sin of homosexuality, while pretty much turning a blind eye to all sorts of blatant iniquity – selfishness, greed, adultery, take your pick. And to my mind this has nothing to do with piety, and everything to do with their own personal prejudice.
Secondly – and this brings in c) as well – I reiterate my opinion that it is fatuous to draw a parallel between a freely chosen act – ie an act from which we can easily refrain if we so desire – which some, or most, or even all of us would define as ‘sinful’ (viewing pornography), and expressing one’s God-given sexual orientation through a physical act – ie making love. Yes, of course, we can choose to refrain from love-making if we so desire. And many of us do, a lot of the time, for all sorts of reasons – because we don’t believe in sex before marriage; or outside marriage; or because we don’t have access to contraception, for example.
But if we are of a heterosexual orientation, no reasonable person (including Paul) expects us to remain celibate our entire life. The physical act of love-making is the natural expression of desires which are innate. And to suppress those natural desires can lead, for most of us, to serious psychological and physical problems.
(Ken Russell’s magisterial 1971 movie The Devils is one of the most profound articulations of that truth in all art. And a brilliant expose of religious hypocrisy and the abuse of power to boot. But I digress.)
(And yes, I know there are exceptions, people who opt for celibacy and are happy to remain that way for life. But I would venture that a) such people are few and far between; and b) they are probably people in whom the sexual urge is, for genetic or physiological reasons, just not very strong.)
So, if we accept that it is not sinful to have homosexual desires, it is surely ridiculous, and a non sequitur at that, to assert that it is sinful to act on those desires. It’s a bit like saying that it’s okay to want to rob a bank, but not to actually go ahead and rob it! And anyway, didn’t Jesus explicitly equate ‘mental’ sin (eg lust for another man’s wife) with ‘physical’ sin (eg adultery)? By which yardstick you really ought to be consistent and say that you find both homosexual practice and orientation sinful. I don’t know, maybe you do …
As for b), the fact that God has ordained heterosexual marriage for the procreation of the species, well I think this is a red herring. The fact that some people are practising homosexuals has no real bearing on the issue. Straight people will continue to be straight regardless of what gay people do, and if this – as it does for many of us – includes marriage and children, then the species will continue. But of course, the species continued long before people had ever heard of the concept of marriage, and it will continue long after people cease to get married (if indeed they ever do).
You say:
I say ‘nonsense’! People will go on having sex, and hence having babies, for as long as there are people. It’s in our genes. We can do no other. We do not need the spurious validation of ‘marriage’, in the legal sense in which I think you are using the word, to do so.
I know lots of couples with children. Some of them are married, some are divorced, and some never got married in the first place. But they are all, by definition, families. And it is the family (which can include gay couples who have adopted children, or had children through surrogate mothers), not marriage, which must endure if society is to endure.
All the best
Johnny
Gosh – this is an interesting thread (with lots of really heart rending tragic stories woven in – so sorry about your gay friend Sass and about your other woman friend who was beaten by her husband – such terrible sadness).
Ok I’ll just give my two pence worth here… in no particular order
Those of us who are heterosexual Christians who are accepting of gay people as gay people are often motivated by having known them as beloved friends, brothers/sisters, colleagues. (Well I’ve also known a couple of gay men who were not very nice people at all – but this had nothing to do with their sexuality but just how they acted as people)
Homosexuality was indeed endemic in Greek and Roman societies – it seems to have done pretty well in warrior based societies (often in Islamic culture – although it is technically forbidden, and in Norman French society for example). However, the context of homosexuality we are talking about is one between peaceable and consenting adults as part of a loving and faithful relationships.
I don’t think the Christian Right invented homosexuality as a big issue. I’m not sure about America, but consenting acts of homosexuality were still punishable by death in the UK during much of the nineteenth century and by hard labour during much of the twentieth; among the upper classes, even in the early twentieth century, if a man attracted scandal to himself through homosexual activity he might be taken to his Gentleman’s Club and left in a room with a bottle of whisky and a revolver to do ‘the decent thing’. So I’m sure Americana social history has its equivalents. The Christian Right, as far as I know, battened on to homosexuality as a big issue because gay rights/gay pride had become high profile as a part of the wider civil rights movement and the liberalisation of laws concerning homosexuality. I think Francis Schaeffer actually has rather a good record on homosexuality because he was apparently sensitive as a pastor to gay Christian artists.
Of course there is a long tradition of seeing homosexuality not only as a moral or criminal disorder but also as a psychiatric disorder to be treated with drugs, electric shock aversion therapy etc. Electric shock aversion therapy was still practised in the UK on gay men as late as the 1980’s. And there is a whole tradition of Christian counselling that seeks to ‘cure’ homosexuality through prayer, repentance, and exorcism. As far as I know the consensus today is that none of this stuff works and it is abusive of human integrity.
I also understand the scientific evidence suggests that homosexuality is genetic. But is it then a genetic disorder? There was a very conservative Chief Rabbi in the UK in the 1980’s who suggested that gene therapy might be a possible solution to eliminate homosexuality – something that outraged many Jews, including religious Jews here because it sounded alarmingly like eugenics.
So if homosexuality is part of nature - and indeed it is found in animals too – what are we to make of this? The Christian pessimists will say that nature is fallen; homosexuality is a deformity of nature that needs to be redeemed because it contravenes God’s original intentions. A more optimistic view would be that nature is not replace by grace but completed by it. So if homosexuality is natural to some and can be lived out in a life that lead to fulfilment then it is something that can be graced.
Some of this revolves around issues of sin and sexual pleasure. In the really pessimistic Christina tradition of Augustine, sex is something that should be practised with tears and sorrow purely for procreation. Any pleasure had is in itself a sin. In the more optimistic Christian view (which is also the Jewish view) sexual pleasure, if it is graced with intimacy, trust, fidelity, gentleness and integrity, is a good gift of God’s good bounty. For this reason I have heard a fairly conservative Christian express how they changed their mind about consenting non- celibate homosexual relationships once they had accepted that sex for heterosexual couples should not be purely for procreation but also for pleasure that enchanced life and love (and therefore contraception is not sinful), then it seemed perverse to argue that homosexual relationships involving sexual activity were sinful.
Just a wee note on the Mosaic Law and homosexuality – there are certain passages in the Torah that condemn homosexuality, although I’m not sure that the story of Sodom does – I’m pretty convinced that this is about heterosexual men wanting to humiliate strangers (also men) by forcing them into a passive position in sex (which at the times meant the men were force to play the female role); and therefore the story is about violent abuse of hospitality/charity laws toward strangers. This is the consensus of many Rabbis and Church Fathers. However if we want to take the other few legal prohibitions on homosexuality in the Torah as literal and binding (apart from the death penalty aspect I hope) we also need to take the Torah’s blanket condemnation of usury (lending money at a rate of interest) seriously – for usury is forthrightly condemned in the Torah many times (but it is the basis for a Capitalist economy)
The gay BDSM outrage contingency and those who give deliberate offence to Christians and other groups? Well a lot of this seems to me to be rather adolescent and counterproductive – but I see it largely as a reaction against hatred from straight society (two sides of the same coin) – and the gay friends I have are actually respectable people and in no way part of that scene (perhaps they like me have a streak of conservatism in this regard – dunno) it. I think Michel Foucault, the French gay intellectual was a lot to do with making this sort of stuff respectable as a political tactic and ‘life style choice’. But he was a funny old thing – a brilliant gay intellectual (who also talked a lot of rubbish in my view with a few good ideas in my view) he ended up supporting the Iranian Revolution with enthusiasm (because of his anger towards Western Christian culture and because he was optimistic that revolutionary Islam would provide a context for greater tolerance of gays – he could not have been more wrong the very silly man).
I think the best gay strategy for winning hearts and minds in the Christian community is the ‘faith beyond resentment’ that James Alison, the gay Catholic speaks of – driven by forgiving acceptance and self acceptance as loved by God rather than by outrage – but this will take time to bear fruit.
As someone who grew up at a time when gays were still ‘in the closet’ and treated with hushed disdain, I can remember ‘feminine’ boys being bullied at school without recourse to justice or protection. I always look back on the few incidents I remember – and one in which I did nothing to help or intervene – as parallel to lynch mob dynamics; the same insecure self righteousness that resulted in Jesus’ death (although the cause in his case was different). And when today I read of stories of gays begin murdered and lynched, and of lesbians being raped by heterosexual men (as happens quite a lot in parts of Africa for various reasons of severe cultural and economic stress) I cannot help but think they are ‘hated without cause’ whatever the issues of sin may be (and I know that other Christians of far more conservative frame of mind than me have reached the same conclusion).
All the best
Dick
One last thought – this one is for Johnny
I can perfectly see what you mean about the stance of Rowan Williams the Archbishop of Canterbury about homosexuality. Yes everyone knows that he is broadly very sympathetic to the cause of gay Christians. However, he has not supported the consecration of openly gay clergy and has found himself in conflict especially with the liberal wing of the Episcopalian Church in America over this.
I can however see where ‘he is coming from’; as Archbishop of an international Church without the magisterial authority of a Pope and with only a pastoral authority, he sees it as his role to keep the Church together and seek for consensual change. If the Anglican Communion was to break up over the issue of gay clergy and gay marriage – which it may well do, along with the issue of female Bishops – much would be lost in terms of international collaboration and consensus seeking/making Also if the conversation stops the extremes can take over.
However, there are real problems in the Anglican Church over this issue especially with the stances taken on homosexuality by the Archbishop of Nigeria – who has advocated and supported legislation for long prison sentences for practising homosexuals – and the Archbishop of Uganda – who has done the same with legislation calling for the death penalty for practising homosexuals. (I note however that Archbishop Tutu of South Africa has stood out bravely against ecclesiastical homophobia).
I think in America the only part of the Christian Right actually calling for the death penalty for practising homosexuals is the extreme Calvinist Reconsturctionist movement promoted by Rousas John Rushdoony. See –
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rousas_John_Rushdoony
I’m unsure exactly how wide his influence is in America today. Obviously he thought it was the business of the law to make people ‘moral’ (as defined in his theology). I think most conservative Christians who are compassionate towards gay people as individuals but still see homosexual acts as sinful would disagree with this stance - and as such they have been influenced by the Gay Rights movement whether they know it or not.
The Vatican takes the line that while homosexuals should be protected as persons and what they get up to in private should not be made a crime, the law should in no way be seen to promote or condone morally ‘disordered’ behaviour (through civil partnerships or allowing gay adoption etc). This is a moderate conservative position – and one that I disagree with for reason outlined in my previous post. However, it is certainly preferable to the line taken by some African archbishops and by the late Rousas Rushdoony
All the best
Dick
I agree with our resident professor, Sobernost, this is an interesting thread… I’ve gotta ready for work here, but when I’ve got time I’d like to take more time to read through it all and maybe throw in my two cents.
Blessings to you all
nicely put, Johnny and Sobornost.
i think we could do some work to unpack the old Scriptures that are translated as having to do with homosexuality, as this might be a reason this is a sticking point for some. it turns out that literally speaking, the passages often understood to disapprove of homosexuality have little to nothing to do with consenting adult gay relationships.
anyone have any thoughts on these?
my contention is that if we’re going to go so far into the Bible as to unpack “aionios” and other things, and find deeper truths buried therein than standard theology, why are we not doing this holistically with the rest of the Bible? especially with issues that have people so divided?
also, can we not apply the same criterion for “good doctrine” to the ones on homosexuality (and abortion for that matter) and check the fruit? if the current general stance on these “moral” issues is causing division, hatred, abuse, bullying, suicide, murder, torture, etc…could these doctrines actually be not only incorrect but damnably wrong?
if doctrines exist that bring us together, that don’t marginalise people but allow them to reach their potential exist, should we not reject the blatantly wrong ones and embrace the right ones?
if a certain view on Scripture brings bad fruit, could we not just shelve it as “something we don’t yet understand” and stop beating each other over the head with notions that only cause harm and keep people from coming to God?
Yes James – I see exactly what you mean in your post; that is clearly expressed.
It is amazing that we can discuss ‘aionos ‘without rancour but when it comes to ‘arsenkoites’ (I think that’s one of Pauls’ words) we fall into wrath.
I take moral issues very seriously – including issues of sexual morality. But as a universalist I don’t believe that God is especially outraged by sexual sins or muddles so as to be preparing a storm of hellfire for us especially on this score – and I don’t believe God is a God of irrational retribution anyway. I believe that God wants our good and we sin only as we sin against our own best interests. And coming to realise what or own good is, is not a simple matter. I think we should discuss moral issues without fear – and hope that we can gain understanding by doing so.
I’m quite pleased that some of us speak here as ‘concerned heterosexual Christians’ who have gay friends (it’s a slightly different perspective from the perspective of actual gay Christians and I think it is just as important we are heard, for the sake of gay Christians and for the sake of those Christina brothers and sisters who think homosexuality a terrible sin).
I find it difficult when I see homosexuality, pornography, abortion and atheism lumped together as one issue as has been done above. Obviously I respect the right of someone to put these together – and actually put them together within the scope of an otherwise compassionate argument - but I want to make distinctions because these four are not part of the same package in my experience.
I grew up schooled by my family in a certain amount of racial prejudice (I had an aunt who was a rabid racist and felt free to influence me); that always jarred with me, although I took it on board as a child, because I went to school in Brixton and half of my classmates were black. Very early on – actually from the time of my conversion at thirteen – I questioned and jettisoned racial prejudice; this part of my conversion was to do with my suspicion of universal humanity being confirmed by my coming to know Christ; yes, black people were people just like me and had been all along (and I regretted moments of suspicion and friendships not fully realised from my childhood with real repentance).
I was not schooled in homophobia as such. Gay people were just not mentioned. I was vaguely aware of their existence but they were like non-people, a hushed up wrong. It was only in my mid-twenties that I became friends with gay people for the first time. Ok I had to overcome the biblical texts that seemed to condemn them – but I gradually did overcome, and the process felt very similar to that of unlearning racial prejudice. It was about coming to know gay people as persons – and knowing people as persons and people fulfilled as full persons is to me a hallmark of true religion. And I can think of three gay men I have known who live lives of real self sacrificial service and love, clearly love Christ and are full with Christ.
I think one of my awakening experiences regarding gay people came when I saw a programme on television about a very rigid fundamentalist evangelical British Christian who had a gay son who had committed suicide. This man had started an advisory service to ‘cure’ gay Christians in memory of his son. He asked for understanding and compassion when he said that finding out that his ons had been gay in the suicide note was far more distressing than the fact that his son had committed suicide. His wife was not interviewed in the programme – which was a pity. That programme really shifted something in me.
Aids was another awakening for me. It was first billed strongly by many fundamentalists (who still influenced me at a subliminal level) as God’s just retribution against gay people (although one fundamentalist I knew did muse that if this were the case God must approve of lesbianism). Of course it was a wake-up call about promiscuity having physical as well as other consequences – but it was no more God’s retribution than other epidemics in history in my view. This ‘’myth’ still holds true in parts of Africa – and this ignorant myth is one of the reasons that makes it so hard to check the spread of heterosexually transmitted Aids and prevent children being born with Aids in parts of Africa.
I remember seeing a large banner in Southwark Cathedral in the early nineties stating ‘The Body of Christ has Aids’ – I agree.
Yes I think it would be good to look at the key biblical texts together. But I reckon that all of us are also taking our personal experience into account – and rightly so (I’m basically an Anabaptist Spiritual in loyalty, so this is not a problem for me, as long as I reflect on my experience in the company of fellow Christians, and in the light of scripture and tradition).
Blessings
Dick
Just to say I too was shocked when I saw ‘The Body of Christ has Aids’ banner - but you can take the message of this in various ways. It made me think deeply about the full humanity of those suffering from Aids - gay and straight, young and old.
“I’m quite pleased that some of us speak here as ‘concerned heterosexual Christians’ who have gay friends (it’s a slightly different perspective from the perspective of actual gay Christians and I think it is just as important we are heard, for the sake of gay Christians and for the sake of those Christina brothers and sisters who think homosexuality a terrible sin).”
You have said more than a mouthful here Dick!! Yes, yes, yes. And thank you for sharing your enlightenment. This is so true, I don’t know IF you really understand how important your statement above actually is?!! Again, thank you Dick.
Blessings all the way around,
Bret
Blessings to you too Bret – and lovely to meet you
Well I’m glad I sometimes say the right things to some people these days even if I do it in a rather convoluted way sometimes 
. And you can see from this thread that other heterosexual Christians on this site feel very supportive of you and the other gay Christians here.
What I said was heartfelt. I think it was helpful to give a history of overcoming prejudice. Last year I had a chat wit a fellow Anglican about this issue. She treated my story with some disdain – and got rather ‘holier than thou’ with me about how she had been brought up in an artistic family so prejudice against gay people had never even entered her mind. I wasn’t going to argue with her – but I’ll bet she had plenty of more subtle prejudices herself about other groups of people (we all do in my view and all have work to do on them – I’m prejudiced against fundamentalists and am trying to work through it and making a horrid mess of it from time to time, getting frustrated with the wrong people 
).
At the other end of the spectrum I can see that amongst some heterosexual Christians – including me – there will always be a concern about the BDSM stuff and promiscuity among some gay men. But beyond understandable concerns I think – speaking for myself at least– that if we are honest we do come up against purity taboos deep in our subconscious when we think about this matter. It is a sense of gay people as unclean that we have to struggle with.
Regarding racial prejudice in my family – which was very strong and nasty in my aunt, and fairly strong in both my parents – I note that in old age my Mum has finally completely overcome prejudice because we have sweet, beautiful, humorous and compassionate care staff from Africa in and out of the house caring for her most basic needs and giving her great dignity while doing so. She has come to see one as a sort of second daughter.
I don’t’ want to stereotype gay men but I know that in the UK a profession in which they have often thrived is as male nurses. My dear gay friend who died ten years ago was a male nurse as were lots of his gay friends. I could always imagine letting him care for me and when I look back, I think a male nurse who was kind t me when I was very distressed in hospital as a child was probably gay.
Jesus touched the lepers and the deaf and the dumb – Hebrew Scripture can be quoted extensively to see this as the act of a subversive agent acting against God’s explicit commands (and for all my admiration for normative Judaism I note that leprosy until modern times was still seen as both a punishment for sin and as amoral disorder). If I am to follow the Jesus I know I have to retell myself the story of the Good Samaritan with a gay person as the Samaritan - the unclean person (in the eyes of respectable society) who overcomes the taboos of respectable society about death in order to minister to a living person left for dead.
Blessings
Dick