From: hudson@athena.cs.uga.edu (Paul Hudson Jr)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Homosexuality & the Bible
Date: 16 Apr 92 22:16:38 GMT
Distribution: talk.religion.misc
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

I find Boswell's attempt to dismiss Rom 1 far less
convincing than his discussions of the other passages.  I think the
implication in Rom 1 is pretty clear that homosexuality is a deviation
from God's original plan, caused by sin.
*

I agree.  This ignores that Paul describes uses words like "uncleanness,
dishonoring their own bodies between themselves," "vile affections,"
"against nature," "unseemly," and "reprobate."

Paul seems to see homosex not only as caused by sin, but as sin.

*
However if you even there the consequences are less obvious than you
might expect.  The entry of pain, death, and even work are portrayed
in Gen. as being a deviation from God's plan, caused by sin.  This
does not mean that we can avoid them.  My own view, which I fear is
acceptable to neither side in this rather polarized debate, is that we
should make a distinction between theological and pastoral issues.
Paul's theological view on human sexuality is pretty clearly based on
God creating people as male and female.  Anything other than faithful
marriage is a departure from God's plan.

However the question of how to counsel homosexual Christians is not a
theological issue, but a pastoral one.  Paul's tendency, as we can see
in issues such as eating meat and celebrating holidays, is to be
uncompromising on principle but in pastoral issues to look very
carefully at the good of the people involved, and to avoid insisting
on perfection when it would be personally damaging.  For example,
while Paul clearly believed that it was acceptable to eat meat, he
wanted us to avoid pushing people into doing an action about which
they had personal qualms.

*
How could this example be used to support the idea that something seen
as sinful could be acceptable?  Paul advocated giving up personal
liberty in order to avoid up sin.  Paul wrote of sacrificing freedom
so that others would not stumble into sin.  Since from chapter 1 we
see that Paul considered homosexual sex to be singul, how could this
paline principle of sacrificing to avoid sin be applicable?
*

For another example, Paul obviously would
have preferred to see people (at least in some circumstances) remain
unmarried.  Yet if they were unable to do so, he certainly would
rather see them married than in a state where they might be tempted to
fornication.
*

However Paul also makes it clear that some are gifted with marriage and
others with celebacy.  (each man has his own gift, one after this manner,
and another after that.  paraphrased.)  He also makes says when he
is giving his own opinion, that is not a command of God.
*


However
it is certainly possible using Paul's principles to support an
acceptance of homosexual relationships within the church.

*
What principle?  That of mortifying the deeds of the body?  Keeping
the body in submission?  Being careful not to allow the enemy to have a
foothold?  Presenting the body as a living sacrifice?  

Who is to say that homosexual monogamy is any more sinful than 
homosexual "polygamy?"  Jesus said that the one man who put away his
wife except for the cause of fornication, and married another 
commited adultery.  Is adultery with one hundred women any worse 
morally than sex with one woman.  Every time the act is done, or the
lustful thought is thought, there is a sin.
*

Even if you
acknowledge that homosexuality entered as a result of idolatry, that
does not make it different than death, suffering, or working by the
sweat of our brow -- it is a departure from God's original intention,
introduced by sin.  But as death and work, it's here and we have to
help people cope with it.
*

death, suffering, work?  What about sin?  Paul described it as
unclean, dishonoring of the body, against nature, unseemly, and a step
on the way to reprobation.  Not to mention that it is a transtition into
the other sins that he describes as "worthy of death."

We are not to help people cope by allowing them to have sin in their lives.
We are not to give comfort to the unrighteous.  If we have sin in our
lives, we should be miserable.   Thank God for misery and the convicting
power of the Holy Spirit when we have sin in our lives.  It should be
hard to cope when we have sin in our lives, because we are not to 
cope with sin in out lives, we are to erradicate it, by the grace of God.

*

The evidence is that long-term success in changing
orientation is rare enough to be on a par with healing miracles.
Furthermore, the danger in advising Christians to depend upon such a
change is very high.  When "conversion" doesn't happen, which is
almost always, the people are left in despair, excluded from a Church
that has nothing more to say but a requirement of life-long celibacy.
*
I have heard some accounts of people who have been delivered, but if
we are tolerant of sin, and are willing to accept no change, we
can expect no change.  Can we expect God to manifest his life-changing
prescence where sin is tolerated.  

There are two alternatives, as we know from Scripture:  celebacy,
and marriage according to God's design (man and woman.)  It is not
too much for God to expect people not to have homosexual relations
or homosexual lust.  If I were to lie, it would be *my* fault, if I
covet, it is *my* fault.  Each person is responsible before God 
not to perform or lust after homosexual sex.  If we allow homosexual
"marriage" unions in the church, how will those who come to believe 
learn that they are not supposed to sin.  Homosexual "marriage" is
not even a compromise, it is sin.

Sin is not something we are to accomodate.  It is something we are
to battle fiercly in our own lives.  We are not to make a little
place for a watered down sin.  

James speaks of confessing our sins one to another that we may be healed.
The word for sins here, if I remember correctly, is "sidesteps."  We
are not to have big huge cancerous growthes in our spiritual lives.
There is forgiveness for when we step off the path.  
We should not have areas of our lives that we will not submit to the Lord.
*
The practical result is that homosexuals end up in
the gay sex clubs and the rest of the sordid side of homosexuality.
Maybe homosexuality isn't God's original ideal, but I think Paul would
far rather see people in long-term, committed Christian relationships
than promiscuity.
*
Long term relationships can be sinful as well.  Paul opposed sin.
Did Paul apply this reasoning in I Corinthians 5?  Was it not better
for the man to sleep only with his fathers' wife, rather than with all
the wives and husbands of his brothers and sisters?  Long-term sin
will benefit noone.  Especially when the individual has some idea
that it is wrong, and willfully continues in it, trampling the blood of
Christ under his feet.
*

As with work -- which Genesis suggests wasn't part of
God's original ideal either -- I think such relationships can still be
a vehicle for people sharing God's love with each other.
*
Rather a vehicle for blaspheming the name of Christ by associating
it with sin.
*

This issue is a matter of life and death.  I think AIDS and many other
problems within the homosexual community exist in part because society
as whole -- and the Church is surely a large part of this -- has acted
to discourage homosexuals from living in ways that would avoid these
problems.
*

The true problem is spiritual death.  We should not offer a watered-down
psuedo-gospel with no power, and no deliverance from sin?  If  we do not
see any deliverance in our churches, then we need to be on our faces in
prayer, not compromising morality.  A homosexual can live in a 
monogomous relationship with another homosexual without being a Christian.

We need to be teaching and practicing submission  to God.

Link Hudson.
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc