From: wiggins@hurricane.cs.odu.edu (Samuel E Wiggins)
Subject: Re: True Gay Christians
Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA
	<WIGGINS.92Nov2232557@hurricane.cs.odu.edu>
	<1992Nov3.154018.5191@cs.yale.edu>
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 02:31:05 GMT

In article <1992Nov3.154018.5191@cs.yale.edu> rescorla@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu (Eric Rescorla) writes:

   In article <WIGGINS.92Nov2232557@hurricane.cs.odu.edu> wiggins@hurricane.cs.odu.edu (Samuel E Wiggins) writes:
   >In article <1992Oct27.145716.12813@cs.yale.edu> rescorla@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu (Eric Rescorla) writes:
   >   Let us remember that there are only TWO passages where Paul says
   >   that you can't be gay. One is in Corinthians and doesn't really say
   >   it. The other is in Romans where Paul condemns it but doesn't
   >   actually say you can't do it. And funny, he says later that
   >   "All things are lawful for me." Now, which one is it? Is it lawful
   >   or isn't it? 
   >Forgot something: "All things are lawful for me, but everything is not good
   >for me."  So, I would have to say UNLAWFUL.
   How does that make it unlawful?
   It may be not GOOD, but as Paul says, not unlawful.

I beg to differ.  It depends on how you want to take unlawful.  With respect to
the OT Law and the rules and principles in it, these acts are definitely NOT
lawful.  Jesus having paid the penalty of the Law for Paul, freed him from
the Law; wherefore, Paul can say he's dead to the law and that all is lawful
(ina sense).  The OT Law still tells what things are sinful or not.  Thus,
while Paul argues that Christians are not under the penalty of the Law (freed),
he says a little later in Romans, "Are we to continue in sin that grace (the
mercy of God) may abound?  May it never be!  How shall we who died to sin still
live in it?" (ch. 6:1-2).  Now, the big question is: is homosexuality a sin?

   >as sinners, since they do the same things; stop doing them!"  In the OT also,
   >homosexuality was punishable by death, Leviticus 18:22, 20:13; this instruction
   >was given by God Himself.
   Try rereading.
   It says that you shall not lie with a man as with a woman.
   I'm really not sure what that means.

So, you really think that OT Jews thought it was OK for men to lie with other
men as long as it was in a different way than with a woman?  Hahahahaha...
YOU reread.  Look at it this way: it is physically impossible for a
man to lie with a man exactly as he does with a woman, in the first place.
So, why would God tell a man not to do what is physically impossible for him
to do anyway?  The Hebrew does not imply this meaning; it DOES imply men are
not to have sex with men.  Don't believe me, believe OT Jewish culture at
around 1500 BC.  And, the punishment for it was death.  Even before this Law,
too, I believe there were some cities named Sodom and Gomorrah...  God
destroyed these cities for their wickedness, part of which was homosexuality
(see Genesis 19:5,13).  Paul recognizes the same wickedness in Romans ch. 1
and 2.

   >Yeah, unlawful.
   Funny, Paul says otherwise.
   He says that all things are lawfful.

In a sense, yes, considering that Christians are freed from the penalty of
sins.  But, no, if a Christian's new Law of faith shows him how to keep the
Law of works (Romans 3:27-28,31).  He does not keep sinning.  He doesn't
keep breaking the old Law.  Christianity gives the only means to keep it.
See Romans ch. 6.

   >Pauls's letter to the Romans was written in part to gay Christians, since they
   >made up part of the church at Rome!!!
   Funny, I see no reason to believe this. Sounds like pure fantasy to
   me.
   -Ekr

You can, of course, believe whatever you want.  Reality may differ from your
beliefs, however.  There were homosexuals in many churches of that day.  Romans
chapter 1 gives a long, scathing remark about how bad homosexuals were to Paul,
especially v. 26-32.  Then, in the VERY NEXT sentence, Paul says, "Therefore
you are without excuse, all of you who pass judgment; because, in so doing you
judge yourselves, because you do the same things.  And, we know that God
rightly judges those who practice such things."  (Romans 2:1-2)  I encourage
the whole world to open their Bibles and check this out!  There's very little
obscurity or room for interpretation here.  Paul implies that homosexuality is
the result of a depraved mind, is wicked, and that God judges it as sin.  And,
that the Romans (at least part of them) were homosexuals.  It was very common
in the Hellenic and Latin parts of the Roman Empire in those days; believe
any history book.