Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: TWohlford
I am unclear as to what Scripture actually says. Rather than rely on my efforts at hermaneutics, I will post a brief section from Wikipedia:

The Bible and homosexuality

"Main article: The Bible and homosexuality The Bible is regarded by most Christians as inspired by God or at least recording God's relationship with humanity and includes within it certain moral teachings. Passages from the Bible commonly used in the debate over homosexuality include Leviticus 18 and 21, Romans 1, 1 Timothy 1:10, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Jude 7. The arguments over these passages have centered on the extent to which these passages are still relevant; whether they refer only to certain sexual acts or to homosexual orientation; and how they should be interpreted, understood and applied...

...Many Church Fathers condemned homosexuality [1]. In his fourth homily on Romans [2], St. John Chrysostom argued in the fourth century that homosexual intercourse is worse than murder and so degrading that it constitutes a kind of punishment in itself, and that their enjoyment actually makes it worse, "for suppose I were to see a person running naked, with his body all besmeared with mire, and yet not covering himself, but exulting in it, I should not rejoice with him, but should rather bewail that he did not even perceive that he was doing shamefully." He also said:

But nothing can there be more worthless than a man who has pandered himself. For not the soul only, but the body also of one who hath been so treated, is disgraced, and deserves to be driven out everywhere.

The Council of Ancyra (314) prescribed a penance of at least twenty years' duration for those guilty of "bestial lust" [3]. There is dispute whether this reference is to homosexuality or bestiality, but it was received in the West as governing penances for sodomy...

An earlier Doctor of the Church, St. Peter Damian, wrote the Liber Gomorrhianus, an extended attack on both homosexuality and masturbation [12]. He portrayed homosexuality as a counter-rational force undermining morality, religion, and society itself [13], and in need of strong suppression lest it spread even and especially among clergy [14]....

The point is many in the clergy have had very different views and remedies on the basis of Scripture. It also seems the approach to homosexual acts has evolved over time as well. It is not an easy subject to discuss but the section on homosexuality and Greece as well as Rome gives even a different perspective.

35 posted on 12/12/2006 7:24:55 PM PST by shrinkermd
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies ]


To: shrinkermd
The Bible cannot lead your life if your life is not in communion with the Holy Spirit. A legalistic reading, searching for well-crafted statutes with no loopholes, violates the very thing Christ came to earth to establish: the truth, for those who can hear the truth.* The Bible's true meaning can be understood only by degrees, and through long study and openness to the promptings of the Spirit within one's life. Then the entire long story starts to knit itself together.

As a teenager I struggled with history class. I found it boring to memorize dates and try to remember who conquered whom -- who cared? But now, history is one of my favorite topics. Not only do I find it fascinating, I also find my unconscious mind has stored up a great number of facts; and as I read about one situation, another one from the annals of time comes to mind and knits together a large timeline and global interactions. What compulsion by the school board's curriculum could not accomplish, my love of reading later achieved quite naturally.

It is the same with Bible study. You couldn't have paid me to do it until I was earning my own living. Faced with adult challenges, I started to look there from time to time for answers. As the years accumulated, so did my love of learning the Bible, as well as my grasp of the larger patterns of meaning in the scriptures. The call to integrity and purity occurs throughout the Bible in hundreds of passages, all of which interweave with, and support, specific proscriptions on behaviors.

A single commandment, "Thou shalt not commit adultery", can be worthy of many hours of contemplation. I like to translate it into modern language this way: "Do not adulterate the essence of what God has created." I believe he created the natural male/female reproductive scheme for the ultimate good of all of human society, not just the pleasure of the individual. When we live as Christians with integrity, with purity of heart and in surrender to God, we offer up our personal desires as a sacrifice, so that the Holy Spirit can move through us and use us to suit God's desires, not our own. These desires may be as simple as whether to wear revealing clothing or as complex as whether to engage in high-risk sex for pleasure's sake. The goal, however, is not to please the self, but to please God.

Our lives here are just a tiny speck of time, compared with the infinite afterlife. Why throw away an eternity in paradise for a few years here of sexual obsession? Only by believing in the promises of God can we have the strength to resist temptations, to live for the greater good and to "die to self" so that we gain eternal life.


*John 18:37
Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.

41 posted on 12/12/2006 8:13:30 PM PST by Albion Wilde (...where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. -2 Cor 3:17)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies ]

To: shrinkermd
I am unclear as to what Scripture actually says.

I hope I've helped a little! ;^)

47 posted on 12/13/2006 6:23:50 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies ]

To: shrinkermd

Rather than Wikipedia, read Chapter 1 of Romans.


56 posted on 12/13/2006 9:39:24 AM PST by almcbean
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson