From: mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon)
Subject: Re: Homosexuality and Christianity
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 20:39:23 GMT
Summary: on being a _skandalon_

In article <1992Apr13.174423.10268@athena.cs.uga.edu>, hudson@athena.cs.uga.edu
(Paul Hudson Jr) writes:

> This reminds me of another important point, the issue of faith in
> regard to conscience.  If there is any doubt in the Christians mind as to
> whether doing something is sinful, for example homosex (there should not be
> any.  Both New and Old Testaments are explicit that it is.)  then the
> person should not do it.  

No, the scriptures are NOT explicit about this.  Exactly ZERO of the (few)
passages that are always cited say explicitly what is sinful.  You, and
those whose traditions you follow, *think* matters are clear because you
have a process of inference which you *think* is correct and beyond any
reasonable question.

However, I am a fairly careful reader, and a prayerful and moderately
well-informed (though hardly scholarly, except in the most amateurish
sense) reading does NOT leave matters in much doubt in my mind -- I
think the tradition has *manufactured* a sin where there is no good basis
for it.  I consider it similar to the hoary tradition that condemns the
taking of interest as usury -- there is indeed a sin of usury, in which
the powerful do economic injustice and harm to the weak by loan-sharking;
this is simply NOT the same thing as a just fee for the use of funds in
an impersonal market economy (though sinful usuriousness can lurk within
the bounds of a market that is not inherently sinful.)

Or it is similar to the question of drunkenness -- condemned by Paul in
one of those lists that keeps getting repeated at me.  By your reasoning
above, no one should EVER drink anything alcoholic.  Given that communion
involves wine, there is something wrong with your reasoning (and a much
less extreme _reductio_ is possible on this one, in case some transub-
stantiationist wants to claim that it *isn't* wine when drunk :-))

I don't offhand know what the "limits" are which turn interest into usury
or table fellowship into drunkenness -- I rather suspect that it is just
wrong to THINK in terms of setting up elaborate codes on such matters.
And drawing ANY limits (with the implication that activity up to point X
"isn't" sinful, while activity of the same sort but just a little bit more
"is" sinful) fails by the critique Jesus makes in the Sermon on the Mount.
We are thrown back on a RADICAL demand to put ALL our activity under the
direction of love for God/neighbor.

Similarly, with regard to sexual codes, there really ISN'T much in
scripture (other than the command against adultery, and the exceptionally
vague NT condemnation of _porneia_, which has all the problems of usury
or drunkenness).  Most of the Levitical regulations aren't about sex (as
we think of it) so much as about "impurities" of bodily emissions --
what can and cannot be touched and when and what to do about it when
it happens anyway ...

This doesn't prevent people from inventing elaborate codes, however --
always with the greatest sincerity and intent to do justice to all the
many, incoherent strands of scripture and human tradition:

Jesus tells his followers (in Matthew 23)

	"The scribes and pharisees sit on Moses' seat; so practice
	and observe whatever they tell you...  They bind heavy burdens,
	hard to bear, on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not
	move them with their finger."

For a heterosexual (even a voluntarily celibate one, like a priest)
to tell gay men that our *only* option on sex is celibacy is, frankly,
offensive -- and would be so just as Jesus lambastes the Pharisees --
even if you were CORRECTLY exercising the sanhedrin function of legal
interpretation of an applicable law code.  I think that you are both
*incorrect* and that the law code in question is inapplicable.

If that makes me a stumbling block (Greek _skandalon_) to you, well
I had years of practice of effacing myself so as not to cause weaker 
brethren (like you?) to stumble -- and I found in that role that far
worse sins flourished in my silence and avoidance of offense to those
whose doubts I was attempting to accomodate.
-- 
Michael L. Siemon		   "Oh, stand, stand at the window,
					As the tears scald and start;
mls@usl.com			   You shall love your crooked neighbor
standard disclaimer			With your crooked heart."