From: hudson@athena.cs.uga.edu (Paul Hudson Jr)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Homosexuality and Christianity
Date: 13 Apr 92 23:39:34 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

In article <1992Apr13.203923.4959@cbnewsm.cb.att.com> mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon) writes:
>In article <1992Apr13.174423.10268@athena.cs.uga.edu>, hudson@athena.cs.uga.edu
>(Paul Hudson Jr) writes:
>> , for example homosex (there should not be
>> any.  Both New and Old Testaments are explicit that it is.)  

>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

>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.)

I have heard that usury was always interpretted as any interest at all,
untill Martin Luther said that it meant "excessive interest."  But
I know of no NT command specifically against charging interest.  I think
this is an Old Testament apllication.  Back in the Old Testament,
money probably did not devalue like it does today, because it was based
on gold and silver.  
Homosexuality is somehthing different.  The tradition was not manufactured.
It is found in Scripture.

>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 

I don't understand how my reasonling forbids the use of alcohol.  How
does it?  I don't drink personally, but Jesus obviously drank alcohol, 
and the Corinthian church obviously used wine in their communion services
that at least had a probability of being ferment.  ("One is hungry and
another is drunken.")  Drinking would only be forbidden if it offended
the conscience of the drinker, or other peoples consciences.  Of course,
it is a sin to use alcohol in excess.  I was not the one who brought up
wine, but Paul mentions it in the chapter.  How does my line of reasoning
lead to the conclusion that it is wrong to drink wine?   

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.

Yes, our actions should be motivated primarily by our love for God, and
secondarily, by loving our neighbors as our selves.

>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 ...

If you are not familiar with the passage of Romans 1, here it is,
24-28,
"Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleaness through the lusts of their own
hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves:
Who changed the
truth of God into a lie and worhsipped and served the creature more than the
Creator, who is blessed for ever.  Amen
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women
did change their natural use into that which is against nature:
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burnded in 
their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly,
and recieving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.
And even as they did not like to retain GOd in their knowledge, God gave
them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convinient."

Could you give me an exegisis of this passage?  The only explanation I
have seen on it (admittedly, I might have messed some of the conversation
since I just joined in) is "Paul also said that women could not preach"
or something to that effect."  BTW I am consistent, and I agree with Paul
that women should not be teachers or elders in the church.

I think it is rather clear.  Look at verse 27.  It describes homosex
between men as driven by a burning lust, and unseemly.  Verse
32 describes this (and many other sins, many of which most of us our
guilty) as a sin worthy of death.  If you hold that Paul was an inspired
agent and that this text is reasonalbly accurate, then wouldn't you
agree that the prohibitions against homosex are not fabricated traditions?


>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 --

Celebacy is not the only option.  There is also marriage.  I 
can't have sex untill I get married without offending God.  I am not
even allowed to lust.  Why would it be any different for a homosexual?

>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 

Your words will not cause me to go out and have homosex.  Don't worry
about it.  Whether I am weak or not is not the issue.   The issue is
submission to God's will.  Pleasing God is always the issue.  The
Scriptures condemn homosex.  My opinion does not add any weight to 
what the Scritpures say.

Link Hudson