 |
| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Tearing down walls > homosexual orientation/identity | Forum Quick Jump
|
| 
Modes of Thought
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817
| Posted 8/13/2001 10:48 AM (GMT -6) |   | | | |
 |
GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 8/13/2001 8:58 PM (GMT -6) | | I'm going to offer a few thoughts on a touchy subject.
1) I am always a bit disturbed when homosexuality is highlighted for a distinct discussion. I cannot help but regard it as sin (more on this below), but it is not highlighted in Scripture above gossip, or greed, or hatred, or robbery, or idolatry, or drunkness, or people who don't love their mothers. In fact, in I Cor. 6 and Romans 1 its listed right along side some of these. And we don't ordinarily go on witch hunts trying to find gossipers out! We don't condone the behavior, but we preach Christ's transforming grace which meets you WHERE YOU ARE AT and grows you toward where Christ wants you to be.
For reasons to be given below, I don't think the Church can remain faithful to Scripture and condone any form of homosexual behavior. At the same time, I don't think our NOT condoning this sin should be different than our NOT condoning any other sin. We have to in love give space for people to receive Christ's transforming grace and grow. We evangelicals often don't extent this loving space to gays. I believe we'd see many more people freed from the gay lifestyle (yes, they do need to be freed) if we loved them more passionately, walked with them with more committment, and honed in on them to point out their sin less frequently.
2 Having said that, why think at least some forms of homosexuality (e.g. loving committed relationships) are wrong in the first place? Let me start with a brief critical review of the article Modes posted, written by Walter Wink.
The major flaw I find in Wink's artcile is methodological in nature. So far as I can see, Wink makes no attempt to distinguish between what is culturally relative and what is timeless teaching in Scripture. His logic seems to something like this: Since there are many teachings that pertain to sex in the Bible (especially in the Old Testament) that no one follows, we need not feel obliged to follow any of them -- certainly not the prohibitions on homosexuality. Hence Wink ends by basically saying that sexual ethics has always been and should always be decided by culture (although he wants to CHANGE the dominant Christian culture which views homosexuality as wrong). There IS NO distinctly Christian sexual ethics. The Bible has nothing distinctive to say to us about sex. (Given how central sex is to our lives, wouldn't that be surprising?) The only timeless truth that pertains to all situations and all cultures, he says, is love.
I find this unacceptible. I do not see how Wink's position, as expressed in this artcile, would in principle rule out any sexual taboo. It certainly doesn't rule out pre-marital or even extra-marital sexual relationships. How could it? Why try to follow those biblical teachings, since, after all, we don't obey the Levitical laws on (say) semen emissions or women during menstration or polygammy and concubines.
Now, deciding what is and is not culturally relative in Scripture is not always easy. But what concerns me is the lack of an attempt on Wink's part. Certainly, at the very least, we should pay attention to the fact that there is a difference between the Old Testament and the New. Most of the relativized sexual ethics Wink alludes to are in the Old Testament. We should also pay close attention to the nationally specific cultic regulations and the particular situations Israel was in, combined with what God's purpose was at the time in dealing with this nation, in contrast to the unqualified and uncondiitonal assertions we find in the New Testament. For examples, there were particular REASONS God had for allowing polygammy in the Old Testament, and why he gave them various rather bizzare cultic laws in the Old Testament.
3) The teaching about sexual union in marriage is built into the fabric of creation, beginning in Gen. 1 and 2. It runs throughout the Bible. The "one flesh" relationship exemplifies God's triune nature: it is not a peripheral issue. While there is a variety of particular laws pertaining to sex that for varioius reasons rise up now on then, never is sex outside of a heterosexual marriage condoned. True, God allowed "concubines," but as I understand it, these were covenantal relationships that constituted a sort of second class marriage. (And there were reasons for this allowance: it was, at the time, the lesser of two evils, considering what would happen to women not under a man's care in the ancient world).
4) The main passage that addresses homosexuality in the New Testament is Romans 1. It reads:
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done.
Here the act of homosexuality is judged to be "lust" "impure," "shameless," "degrading," and "unnatural." Nothing in the passage restricts its application. Men with men; women with women. The fact that such relationships were quite common throughout the Roman empire makes Paul's statement against it all the more noteworthy.
Some have tried to argue that Paul was only speaking to people for whom homosexuality was unnatural (viz. not real homosexuals). But Paul assesses the "passion" that the people have for others of the same sex to be the problem. Besides, if we applied this logic elsewhere, it would be like saying pre-marital sex, or extra-marital sex, are only sins for people for whom they are unnatural! The problem, of course, is that sin always feels natural ... this is what makes it difficult. Obstaining from sex with a person you love before marriage feels positively unnatural, at least for many heterosexual couples.
While I have in the past read a number of books trying to get around this passage, I cannot with integrity say I have found any of them remotely convincing (Wink doesn't seriously address this passage). If I hold the Bible to be God's Word, I honestly cannot avoid the conclusion that homosexuality is sin. It "misses the mark" of what God intends for human beings.
5) The argument that some people are born gay, or at least born with a tendency toward homosexuality that is actualized because of certain social factors, is to my mind absolutely convincing. The empirical evidence backs this up, and my own experience with gay people, or ex-gay people, confirms it. Besides, if a person is truly heterosexuality, could you, or would you, CHOOSE to be gay? Put a gun to my head and it still ain't gonna happen! 
But I don't see this as demonstrating that homosexuality is all right. In the war zone in which we live, we are all born with a semi-screwed up disposition. Many males, for example, find monogomy unnatural. (I can't speak for females on this one). Most healthy heterosexuals find abstaining from pre-marital sex unnatural, as I said above. Lying and cheating come natural to us. So does hate, envy, strife, etc. The "IS" of our situation doesn't issue forth in an "ought." It just stipulates what our particular cross is going to be, if we decide to follow Christ and carry it.
The understanding that gay people don't choose their orientation should, however, breed compassion. We are all part of a fallen race, saved only by God's grace, struggling with God's help to live for him. We are all born damaged, in one way or another. So we must live God's grace for ourselves and extend it to one another -- whatever their particular damage looks like.
Wink is right on one point, at least. LOVE has got to surround everything we do. I "miss the mark" regularly. Will you still love me and embrace me in the body of Christ? If I missed it by being gay, would you still?
Doc
"Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having." C.S.Lewis | | Back to Top | | |
|
writerdad
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 448
| Posted 8/14/2001 1:35 PM (GMT -6) | | Doc: once again you have nailed my thoughts on a subject. When someone as knowledgeable as Wink makes statements that the Bible has no sexual ethic, then what pervents someone from claiming sex with children is allowable? Or animals?
We run into problems when we assume that just because God allowed something (such as multiple wives) that he was okay with it. Many times God works within a situation, though it is not what he would exactly want (if he waited, for instance, until we were perfect, he'd never be able to work with us). I think that Wink is excellant in many ways, but, for me, his piece on homosexulity is scary and dangerous. John 17:3 Harold
Oh, in regards to the link Modes posted...it should be noted that not all Lutherans are studying homosexuality. The Evangelical Lutheran are the more liberal wing of Lutheranism and should not be grouped with the Missouri Synod, which is very much views homosexuality as a sin.
| | Back to Top | | |
| 28 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page : 1 2 |
| Forum Information | Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 2:25 PM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP3
dotNetBB © 2000-2026 |
|
|