From: hedrick@dumas.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Homosexuality & the Bible
Date: 17 Apr 92 05:33:00 GMT
Distribution: talk.religion.misc
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

Paul Hudson has given a detailed response to my comments on
homosexuality.  He argues basically that Paul views homosexuality as
sin, and thus that any arguments about the dangers of promiscuity or
anything else are irrelevant -- homosexuality is simply wrong, and we
can say nothing other than that people should not do it.

There's not much I can say about that, since it comes from a very
different view of Christianity than mine.  As is well known, I find it
odd indeed for people to use Paul's letters -- whose best-known focus
is opposition to law -- as a new law.

However I do believe that my original posting waffled on my reading of
Rom 1, and that this caused some confusion.  I agree with Paul
(Hudson, that is) that Paul (the Apostle)'s comments in Rom 1 are
unambiguously negative.  He is describing homosexuality, not just as a
misfortune, but as debased sexuality.  My comment however is that what
he's describing in Rom 1 is not homosexuality among Christians -- it's
homosexuality that appeared among idolaters as one part of a whole
package of wickedness.  Despite the impression left by his impassioned
rhetoric, I'm sure Paul does not believe that pagans completely
abandoned heterosexual sex.  Given his description of their situation,
I rather assume that their heterosexual sex would also be debased and
shameless.  So yes, I do believe that this passage indicates a
condemnation of homosexuality, but in all fairness, the "shameless"
nature of their acts is a reflection of the general spiritual state of
the people, and not a specific feature of homosexuality.  I'm not
claiming that Paul is making this distinction -- that would really be
stretching the text.  But I do believe it leaves some opportunity for
reconsideration.

Basically I think Paul had simply never faced the kinds of questions
we are trying to deal with.  He encountered homosexuality only in
contexts where I would probably agree that it was wrong.  He had never
faced the experience of Christians who try to act "straight" and fail,
and he had never faced Christians who are trying to define a Christian
homosexuality, which fits with general Christian ideals of fidelity
and of seeing sexuality as a mirror of the relationship between God
and man.  I think it is unfair to take Paul's judgement on
homosexuality among idolaters and use it to make judgements on these
questions.

What I do concede is that there is some reason from Paul's general
approach to doubt that he would concede homosexuality as a fully equal
alternative.  I am not sure that I'd want to be bound to his use of
the Genesis story, but in all honesty I do think his use of it would
probably lead him to regard heterosexual marriage as what God
ordained.  However the way he deals with pastoral questions elsewhere
says to me that he would not push this analysis to the point of
creating an unbreakable law against homosexuality.  That's not the way
Jesus worked, and it's not the way Paul worked.  To turn Rom 1 into a
law against homosexuality seems to me an inversion of everything Paul
stood for: it ignores his consistent battle against legalism, and his
loving and pragmatic way of handling pastoral issues.
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc