Sure, Ezekiel 16:49-50. Nowhere is homosexuality mentioned. It was pride and gluttony and in the midst of plenty gave no help to the poor and needy, which was considered to be far more abominable than it is today.
If you read the account of Sodom and Gomorrah, no mention is made of homosexuality. Oh, they threatened to sexually abuse God's angels, which is certainly a problem. It was a common practice to show dominance over your enemy by raping their men, and it seems reasonable to assume this was the motivation behind the threat. It was certainly a show of a lack of hospitality, which was a grievous sin in that culture. But the idea that run-of-the-mill homosexuality was even a factor is an interpolation by Christian tradition and is not supported by scripture.
If the motive was merely to show dominance, why did Lot offer his daughters to satisfy the abusers desires in place of the angels (emissaries of God)? Gen 19.
Because the motivation of the mob was unbridled sexual lust. That lust was piqued by the presence of the pure, spiritually beautiful angels. That's how lust works. Evil lust is attracted to purity. It want's to claim it, but always destroys it in the process.
I think you might be looking at the wrong scripture. I mean, scripture over HERE may not support X, but scripture over THERE does support X.
If you want to assert that scripture does not support X, well, it's easy to simply go to the scripture that serves your intent and ignore the scripture which doesn't!
Sure, that's a fair interpretation. But it still says nothing about homosexuality. It says something about evil.
"If you want to assert that scripture does not support X, well, it's easy to simply go to the scripture that serves your intent and ignore the scripture which doesn't!"
I agree with that. People do it all the time. Whenever we see a contradiction in scripture we can untangle it by studying the context, the translation, the culture of the time, etc. As far as I can tell from my studies of all the passages relevant to this discussion, the Christian interpretation of the Bible as being condemnatory of homosexuality (not talking about adultery, promiscuity, or fornication, gay or straight - that's all clearly forbidden) is based on tradition paired with incorrect translations or a lack of context.
Since I was born gay and didn't have a say in the matter, that's quite a comfort.
Christians can be guilty of a terrible thing in this matter. By pounding on the Bible and insisting that God hates gays, they drive gays out of worship. Many of these people react by saying "Well if God hates me, then I hate God." They turn their back on God entirely, and that's on those Christians. Wouldn't you prefer that a gay man loves God, finds a partner to whom to commit, stays faithful, and lives a good life with Christian fellowship? I think Jesus would prefer that. But the perpetuation of the false tradition hinders it, which is just sad.
I see that you have a special interest in your interpretation. (And I think that's understandable.)
At the same time, your interpretation is likely to be rooted in your particular worldview. For example, your belief that you were "born gay". That's a belief you've embraced and accepted, isn't it? Then that's going to inform and shape your interpretation of many things, including scripture or that the idea that there is something wrong (unnatural, fallen, etc), or not wrong, with homosexuality.
Without going into too much detail, my own interpretations of scripture likewise are rooted in and/or are impacted by the worldview that I have. In my estimation, that worldview is grounded in and verified (supported and upheld) by scripture. Naturally, otherwise I would change it, as I affirm that scripture is an expression of God's truth. (And, I won't really elaborate on that here, as it would divert a lot from what I think are the important points your response raises.)
But aside from all of that, you bring an anecdotal argument, which I think isn't really evidence. It's a very different matter, even if the two are connected in some way.
This is a topic that requires a lot of discussion of some of the issues are to be satisfactorily (imo) addressed. But as an example (or starting point), I would put it that any Christian who insists that God hates gays has a deeply flawed view of God and truth, or scripture. It's axiomatic that God hates the sin but loves the sinner.
I would also put it out there that such people are in almost all cases (if not all) projecting their own flawed inner world on what they perceive, rightly or wrongly, as an easy target. Thus, they point at the sin in their brother's (or sisters) eye, as a means to ignore, or indulge in, denial of their own.
Projecting one's own flaws, faults, inner conflicts etc, onto others is always going to generate severe problems. It multiples the problems, instead of restoring them.
But none of this means that homsexual behavior isn't sinful or not a sin. Projection in and of itself doesn't prove or mean that the target of the projection is faultless. But the practice of diverting attention (self attention or otherwise) from oneself by focusing on something going on in others, that's always problematic, and irresponsible in nature. Hence, Jesus admonition about logs and twigs.
....
Many of these people react
Yes, I very well understand the dynamic of "if God hates me, well then, I'm going to hate God" which is essentially "If God rejects me, then I'm going to reject God". But there are several faults or flaws here.
One, is God rejecting the person, or is the judgemental believer rejecting the person? The obvious answer is that it's the second.
Another problem is identification with behavior or impulses. Aka, I feel same sex attraction therefore "I AM a homosexual". A person takes on such a classification of themselves at their own peril. I say that not to proclaim foreboding on you (heaven forbid!). No, rather this is simply another example of any multitude of examples of practicing identification (aka defining oneself by identifying with a thing that is not actually one's self, or conceiving of one's value by identifying it with something that is not the true source of one's value): I am a wealthy person! I am a doctor (how dare you question my knowledge!) I am (this concept that I have chosen or adopted as my identity).
[The problem here is that in a fallen condition, we experience separation from God, and very often do not see ourselves as God sees us, or see our value as God sees it.]
They turn their back on God entirely, and that's on those Christians.
Actually, it's on both of them. Unless a person takes responsibility for his or her choices, he is essentially doomed to wander without ever finding home.
"I reject God, but that's ALL that person's fault. I have no choice!" Just like "I hit her; it was her fault, she made me" and "I'm feeling angry, and it's your fault".
This is the route that any sinner takes in order to self-justify their behavior and choices without actually acknowledging their own responsibility in the choices that they make.
And I say sinner here because we're having a discussion within the Christian context, but it's true of any person who is avoiding their own painful growth process. We fall in to a trap of not accepting responsibility for MY choices.
This is fundamental fallen human nature 101. Where did it come from? This is what Lucifer did at the fall. He came up with hundreds of justifications for his choice - his decision - to rebel against and reject God and seduce God's children in to spiritual death. He did it, and blamed God for it. But this fallen nature is rooted in a lie.
Wouldn't you prefer....?
Well, what I prefer is not really important here, is it? What's important is what God would prefer. And I think God has a LOT of preferences with regards to his children that frankly do not come about because of the choices of those children.
In my understanding of God, without going into possible nuances, or without raising all the possible caveats that there might easily be, I would say that God would prefer someone with SS attraction to not practice it, but would also prefer that someone with SS attraction practicing it would practice it in monogamous way.
But it really all depends on the circumstances.
In any case, I think we could agree that ignorance, or personal misbehavior, by judgmental people (be they Christian or not) causing others to feel unloved, not valuable, or rejected by God, well, that's caused a LOT of suffering, and is an undesirable thing.
That said, we cannot deny truth and responsibility of choice simply in order to make people feel comfortable. That is completely the path being taken by all those woke churches.
To give another example, if a church or preacher were to say Hey, drunkenness is not a problem! Don't worry about it! in order to ensure that people with drunken problems don't feel rejected and refuse to come to church, well, that's a lose-lose situation.
The question of homosexuality is a both a simple and a complex topic, imo. It's one that is very real and deeply personal for some people, but sadly also something easily dismissed or ignored by some who take it purely on a theoretical basis.
To God, however, the return of each and every one of his children is a deeply personal thing. And as such, any person seeking to make God happy should strive not to be too blase about the topic. But that's my opinion.
false tradition
In my view, the false tradition is how people treat their fellow man, NOT the view that God's original design is only sexual union between a man and a woman, OR the view that homoesexual behavior was introduced into the human experience from a non-God source. (MANY human behaviors have been so introduced.)
But that's my belief. So far.
I appreciate your coming back and expressing your views.
"For example, your belief that you were "born gay"."
This discussion warrants getting a bit personal I think, so I'll tell you something. I tried to be straight for two decades. It's what my family taught, it's what my faith taught, it's what people I trusted told me that God wanted. But it didn't work. I prayed. I fasted. I studied scripture. FOR DECADES. If I had had the choice on not being gay, I WOULD HAVE MADE IT, a thousand times over. I wanted to lead that life of meaning. I deeply yearn, still, for the joy of fathering children. Loneliness sucks. But throughout all this struggle, I could not form meaningful relationships with women. And I eventually realized how cruel it would be to rope a good woman into that situation. That would truly be a sin. So I resigned myself to a life of loneliness and voluntary celibacy.
But the struggle did result in a close relationship with God. We converse daily. It's the most important relationship in my life, and I trust it beyond anything anyone in this mortal coil could tell me. It took me two decades to realize that I needed to trust him more than the people who claimed to know him.
So there aren't many people around who are better qualified through personal experience to say that one is born gay. It took me a lot of years to get it through my skull that I needed to ask God what he actually wanted instead of trusting what I'd been told he wanted. He told me to accept myself, showed me how and why the Christian tradition on the topic is false, and to look for someone to commit to and build a life with.
Your opinion on whether I'm right about this is irrelevant. I'm right about this. I will meet you before the great judgement bar of God and still be right about this; the knowledge is from him, in spite of all my struggles to "know" something different.
"But aside from all of that, you bring an anecdotal argument, which I think isn't really evidence."
Of course. I can't prove it to you, only God could prove it to me. Can you prove to another person that God exists with anything more than anecdotal evidence? Accept the anecdote or not, it's not important as to whether or not it's the truth. And frankly, so long as you treat everyone with dignity and kindness and fairness, it doesn't really matter whether you ever agree with me. God has already given me all the validation I need.
See my reply below yours. It would seem homosexuality is a judgement.
We still have to love the sinner, but perhaps it would be better if they did not practice it, in the same way unmarried hetero ppl should avoid fornication
Sure, Ezekiel 16:49-50. Nowhere is homosexuality mentioned. It was pride and gluttony and in the midst of plenty gave no help to the poor and needy, which was considered to be far more abominable than it is today.
If you read the account of Sodom and Gomorrah, no mention is made of homosexuality. Oh, they threatened to sexually abuse God's angels, which is certainly a problem. It was a common practice to show dominance over your enemy by raping their men, and it seems reasonable to assume this was the motivation behind the threat. It was certainly a show of a lack of hospitality, which was a grievous sin in that culture. But the idea that run-of-the-mill homosexuality was even a factor is an interpolation by Christian tradition and is not supported by scripture.
Hope that helps!
If the motive was merely to show dominance, why did Lot offer his daughters to satisfy the abusers desires in place of the angels (emissaries of God)? Gen 19.
Because the motivation of the mob was unbridled sexual lust. That lust was piqued by the presence of the pure, spiritually beautiful angels. That's how lust works. Evil lust is attracted to purity. It want's to claim it, but always destroys it in the process.
I think you might be looking at the wrong scripture. I mean, scripture over HERE may not support X, but scripture over THERE does support X.
If you want to assert that scripture does not support X, well, it's easy to simply go to the scripture that serves your intent and ignore the scripture which doesn't!
IMO.
"Unbridled sexual lust."
Sure, that's a fair interpretation. But it still says nothing about homosexuality. It says something about evil.
"If you want to assert that scripture does not support X, well, it's easy to simply go to the scripture that serves your intent and ignore the scripture which doesn't!"
I agree with that. People do it all the time. Whenever we see a contradiction in scripture we can untangle it by studying the context, the translation, the culture of the time, etc. As far as I can tell from my studies of all the passages relevant to this discussion, the Christian interpretation of the Bible as being condemnatory of homosexuality (not talking about adultery, promiscuity, or fornication, gay or straight - that's all clearly forbidden) is based on tradition paired with incorrect translations or a lack of context.
Since I was born gay and didn't have a say in the matter, that's quite a comfort.
Christians can be guilty of a terrible thing in this matter. By pounding on the Bible and insisting that God hates gays, they drive gays out of worship. Many of these people react by saying "Well if God hates me, then I hate God." They turn their back on God entirely, and that's on those Christians. Wouldn't you prefer that a gay man loves God, finds a partner to whom to commit, stays faithful, and lives a good life with Christian fellowship? I think Jesus would prefer that. But the perpetuation of the false tradition hinders it, which is just sad.
Aaha.
I see that you have a special interest in your interpretation. (And I think that's understandable.)
At the same time, your interpretation is likely to be rooted in your particular worldview. For example, your belief that you were "born gay". That's a belief you've embraced and accepted, isn't it? Then that's going to inform and shape your interpretation of many things, including scripture or that the idea that there is something wrong (unnatural, fallen, etc), or not wrong, with homosexuality.
Without going into too much detail, my own interpretations of scripture likewise are rooted in and/or are impacted by the worldview that I have. In my estimation, that worldview is grounded in and verified (supported and upheld) by scripture. Naturally, otherwise I would change it, as I affirm that scripture is an expression of God's truth. (And, I won't really elaborate on that here, as it would divert a lot from what I think are the important points your response raises.)
But aside from all of that, you bring an anecdotal argument, which I think isn't really evidence. It's a very different matter, even if the two are connected in some way.
This is a topic that requires a lot of discussion of some of the issues are to be satisfactorily (imo) addressed. But as an example (or starting point), I would put it that any Christian who insists that God hates gays has a deeply flawed view of God and truth, or scripture. It's axiomatic that God hates the sin but loves the sinner.
I would also put it out there that such people are in almost all cases (if not all) projecting their own flawed inner world on what they perceive, rightly or wrongly, as an easy target. Thus, they point at the sin in their brother's (or sisters) eye, as a means to ignore, or indulge in, denial of their own.
Projecting one's own flaws, faults, inner conflicts etc, onto others is always going to generate severe problems. It multiples the problems, instead of restoring them.
But none of this means that homsexual behavior isn't sinful or not a sin. Projection in and of itself doesn't prove or mean that the target of the projection is faultless. But the practice of diverting attention (self attention or otherwise) from oneself by focusing on something going on in others, that's always problematic, and irresponsible in nature. Hence, Jesus admonition about logs and twigs.
....
Yes, I very well understand the dynamic of "if God hates me, well then, I'm going to hate God" which is essentially "If God rejects me, then I'm going to reject God". But there are several faults or flaws here.
One, is God rejecting the person, or is the judgemental believer rejecting the person? The obvious answer is that it's the second.
Another problem is identification with behavior or impulses. Aka, I feel same sex attraction therefore "I AM a homosexual". A person takes on such a classification of themselves at their own peril. I say that not to proclaim foreboding on you (heaven forbid!). No, rather this is simply another example of any multitude of examples of practicing identification (aka defining oneself by identifying with a thing that is not actually one's self, or conceiving of one's value by identifying it with something that is not the true source of one's value): I am a wealthy person! I am a doctor (how dare you question my knowledge!) I am (this concept that I have chosen or adopted as my identity).
[The problem here is that in a fallen condition, we experience separation from God, and very often do not see ourselves as God sees us, or see our value as God sees it.]
Actually, it's on both of them. Unless a person takes responsibility for his or her choices, he is essentially doomed to wander without ever finding home.
"I reject God, but that's ALL that person's fault. I have no choice!" Just like "I hit her; it was her fault, she made me" and "I'm feeling angry, and it's your fault".
This is the route that any sinner takes in order to self-justify their behavior and choices without actually acknowledging their own responsibility in the choices that they make.
And I say sinner here because we're having a discussion within the Christian context, but it's true of any person who is avoiding their own painful growth process. We fall in to a trap of not accepting responsibility for MY choices.
This is fundamental fallen human nature 101. Where did it come from? This is what Lucifer did at the fall. He came up with hundreds of justifications for his choice - his decision - to rebel against and reject God and seduce God's children in to spiritual death. He did it, and blamed God for it. But this fallen nature is rooted in a lie.
Well, what I prefer is not really important here, is it? What's important is what God would prefer. And I think God has a LOT of preferences with regards to his children that frankly do not come about because of the choices of those children.
In my understanding of God, without going into possible nuances, or without raising all the possible caveats that there might easily be, I would say that God would prefer someone with SS attraction to not practice it, but would also prefer that someone with SS attraction practicing it would practice it in monogamous way.
But it really all depends on the circumstances.
In any case, I think we could agree that ignorance, or personal misbehavior, by judgmental people (be they Christian or not) causing others to feel unloved, not valuable, or rejected by God, well, that's caused a LOT of suffering, and is an undesirable thing.
That said, we cannot deny truth and responsibility of choice simply in order to make people feel comfortable. That is completely the path being taken by all those woke churches.
To give another example, if a church or preacher were to say Hey, drunkenness is not a problem! Don't worry about it! in order to ensure that people with drunken problems don't feel rejected and refuse to come to church, well, that's a lose-lose situation.
The question of homosexuality is a both a simple and a complex topic, imo. It's one that is very real and deeply personal for some people, but sadly also something easily dismissed or ignored by some who take it purely on a theoretical basis.
To God, however, the return of each and every one of his children is a deeply personal thing. And as such, any person seeking to make God happy should strive not to be too blase about the topic. But that's my opinion.
In my view, the false tradition is how people treat their fellow man, NOT the view that God's original design is only sexual union between a man and a woman, OR the view that homoesexual behavior was introduced into the human experience from a non-God source. (MANY human behaviors have been so introduced.)
But that's my belief. So far.
I appreciate your coming back and expressing your views.
be well, fren.
"For example, your belief that you were "born gay"."
This discussion warrants getting a bit personal I think, so I'll tell you something. I tried to be straight for two decades. It's what my family taught, it's what my faith taught, it's what people I trusted told me that God wanted. But it didn't work. I prayed. I fasted. I studied scripture. FOR DECADES. If I had had the choice on not being gay, I WOULD HAVE MADE IT, a thousand times over. I wanted to lead that life of meaning. I deeply yearn, still, for the joy of fathering children. Loneliness sucks. But throughout all this struggle, I could not form meaningful relationships with women. And I eventually realized how cruel it would be to rope a good woman into that situation. That would truly be a sin. So I resigned myself to a life of loneliness and voluntary celibacy.
But the struggle did result in a close relationship with God. We converse daily. It's the most important relationship in my life, and I trust it beyond anything anyone in this mortal coil could tell me. It took me two decades to realize that I needed to trust him more than the people who claimed to know him.
So there aren't many people around who are better qualified through personal experience to say that one is born gay. It took me a lot of years to get it through my skull that I needed to ask God what he actually wanted instead of trusting what I'd been told he wanted. He told me to accept myself, showed me how and why the Christian tradition on the topic is false, and to look for someone to commit to and build a life with.
Your opinion on whether I'm right about this is irrelevant. I'm right about this. I will meet you before the great judgement bar of God and still be right about this; the knowledge is from him, in spite of all my struggles to "know" something different.
"But aside from all of that, you bring an anecdotal argument, which I think isn't really evidence."
Of course. I can't prove it to you, only God could prove it to me. Can you prove to another person that God exists with anything more than anecdotal evidence? Accept the anecdote or not, it's not important as to whether or not it's the truth. And frankly, so long as you treat everyone with dignity and kindness and fairness, it doesn't really matter whether you ever agree with me. God has already given me all the validation I need.
Thank you for the respectful conversation.
See my reply below yours. It would seem homosexuality is a judgement.
We still have to love the sinner, but perhaps it would be better if they did not practice it, in the same way unmarried hetero ppl should avoid fornication