Argument For Homosexuality In The Church

The below is excerpted from the tail end of Prager’s commentary that I linked to in post # 49 here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2796454/posts?page=49#49

Dennis Prager is a writer, ___theologian___, and daily talk show host on KABC Radio in Los Angeles. He also writes a newsletter, “The Prager Perspective.”
http://www.dennisprager.com/

From post 49:

[snip]

PRAGER: “.......As early as the second century B.C., Jewish writers were noting the vast differences between Jewish sexual and family life and that of their non-Jewish neighbors. In the Syballine Oracles, written by an Egyptian Jew probably between 163 and 45 B.C., the author compared Jews to the other nations: The Jews “are mindful of holy wedlock, and they do not engage in impious intercourse with male children, as do Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Romans, specious Greece and many nations of others, Persians and Galatians and all Asia.” And in our times. sex historian Amo Karlen wrote that according to the sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, “Homosexuality was phenomenally rare among Orthodox Jews.” ........

[snip]

“.....Therefore, the evidence overwhelmingly leads to this conclusion: By and large, it is society, not the individual, that chooses whether homosexuality will be widely practiced. A society’s values, much more than individual tendencies, determine the extent of homosexuality in that society. Thus, we can have great sympathy for the exclusively homosexual individual while strongly opposing social acceptance of homosexuality. In this way we retain both our hearts and our values.

Is Homosexuality an Illness?

Society, in short, can consider homosexuality right or wrong whether or not it is chosen. Society can also consider homosexuality normal or ill whether or not it is chosen.

Though the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, did not think that in and of itself homosexuality meant that a person was sick, according to his standards of psychosexual development, he considered homosexuality to be an arrested development. But until 1973, psychiatry did consider homosexuality an illness. To cite one of countless examples, Dr. Leo Rangell, a psychoanalyst, wrote that he had “never seen a male homosexual who did not also turn out to have a phobia of the vagina.”

In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed homosexuality from its official listing of mental illnesses in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders. Gay activists have used this as a major weapon in their battle for societal acceptance of homosexuality. But, for many reasons, the APA decision has not resolved the question of whether homosexuality is an illness, and the question may well be unresolvable. Given the mixed moral and judgmental record of psychiatry, especially since the 1960s, all one may conclude from the APA’s decision to remove homosexuality from its list of illnesses is that while it may have been right, organized psychiatry has given us little reason to trust its judgment on politically charged issues. For these reasons, the fact that the American Psychiatric Association no longer labels homosexuality an illness should not persuade anyone that it is not. Given the subjective nature of the term “mental illness,” given the power of gay activists, and given the political views of the APA leadership (as opposed to most of its members), the association’s vote means nothing to many observers.

If social pressures forced psychiatrists in the past to label homosexuality an illness, how can we be certain that social pressures in our time have not forced them to label it normal? Are present-day psychiatrists less influenced by societal pressures than were their predecessors? I doubt it. So, putting aside psychiatry’s ambivalence about homosexuality, let us pose the question in this way: “Assuming there is such a thing as normal, is it normal for a man to be incapable of making love to a woman (or vice versa)?”

Presumably, there are only three possible answers:

Most homosexuals can make love to a woman, but they find such an act repulsive or simply prefer making love to men.

Yes, it is normal.

No, it is not normal.

If the first response is offered, then we have to acknowledge that the homosexual has chosen his homosexuality. And we may then ask whether someone who chooses to love the same sex rather than the opposite sex has made this decision from a psychologically healthy basis.

If the second response is offered, each of us is free to assess this answer for him or herself. I, for one, do not believe that a man’s inability to make love to a woman can be labeled normal.

While such a man may be a healthy and fine human being in every other area of life, and quite possibly more kind, industrious, and ethical than many heterosexuals, in this one area he cannot be called normal.

And the reason for considering homosexuality abnormal is not its minority status. Even if the majority of men became incapable of making love to women, it would still not be normal.

Men are designed to make love to women, and vice versa. The eye provides an appropriate analogy: If the majority of the population became blind, blindness would still be abnormal. The eye was designed to see.

That is why I choose the third response that homosexuality is unhealthy. This is said, however, with the understanding that in the psychological arena, “illness” can be a description of one’s values rather than of objective science (which may simply not exist in this area).

Man and Women He Made Them

To a world which divided human sexuality between penetrator and penetrated, Judaism said, “You are wrong sexuality is to be divided between male and female.” To a world which saw women as baby producers unworthy of romantic and sexual attention, Judaism said “You are wrong women must be the sole focus of men’s erotic love.”

To a world which said that sensual feelings and physical beauty were life’s supreme goods, Judaism said, “You are wrong ethics and holiness are the supreme goods.” A thousand years before Roman emperors kept naked boys, Jewish kings were commanded to write and keep a sefer torah, a book of the Torah.

In all my research on this subject, nothing moved me more than the Talmudic law that Jews were forbidden to sell slaves or sheep to non-Jews, lest the non-Jews engage in homosexuality and bestiality. That was the world in which rabbis wrote the Talmud, and in which, earlier, the Bible was written.

Asked what is the single greatest revelation I have derived from all my researches, I always respond, “That there had to have been divine revelation to produce the Torah.” The Torah was simply too different from the rest of the world, too against man’s nature, to have been solely man-made.

The creation of Western civilization has been a terribly difficult and unique thing. It took a constant delaying of gratification, and a re-channeling of natural instincts; and these disciplines have not always been well received. There have been numerous attempts to undo Judeo-Christian civilization, not infrequently by Jews (through radical politics) and Christians (through anti-Semitism).

The bedrock of this civilization, and of Jewish life, has been the centrality and purity of family life. But the family is not a natural unit so much as it is a value that must be cultivated and protected.

The Greeks assaulted the family in the name of beauty and Eros. The Marxists assaulted the family in the name of progress.

And today, gay liberation assaults it in the name of compassion and equality. I understand why gays would do this. Life has been miserable for many of them.

What I have not understood was why Jews or Christians would join the assault. I do now. They do not know what is at stake. At stake is our civilization.

It is very easy to forget what Judaism has wrought and what Christians have created in the West. But those who loathe this civilization never forget.

The radical Stanford University faculty and students who recently chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western civ has got to go,” were referring to much more than their university’s syllabus. And no one is chanting that song more forcefully than those who believe and advocate that sexual behavior doesn’t play a role in building or eroding civilization.

The acceptance of homosexuality as the equal of heterosexual marital love signifies the decline of Western civilization as surely as the rejection of homosexuality and other nonmarital sex made the creation of this civilization possible.

Thanks for the input. Two every good points: 1) continuity of message and 2) It is God`s will not our will (especially today with the gay agenda being pushed). The gays will disagree that God condemned homosexuality and will try to twist scripture to prove he has not — they`ll use all kinds of arguments — or they will say that condemnation is itself an evil act, an example of where Christians used the Bible as savage text.

>> Here's what I want to know. At that point, what do YOU say?<<

To that I would say that I would repeat what I said in my last post. Catholics rely on their “church” or their “magisterium, Mormons and Muslims rely on their “prophets”. But if we rely on scripture alone we find the real answers. All that deny the sufficiency of scripture alone with guidance by the Holy Spirit ignore portions of scripture. I give an example below.

Leviticus 18:22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

Leviticus 20:13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

Romans 1:26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless ...

1 Corinthians 6:9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,

Now here is a verse that homosexuals and those that try to justify their lifestyle use as “proof” that Sodom and Gomorrah were not destroyed for sodomy but for other sins.

Ezekiel 16:49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

I have highlighted the words they use to justify their belief that Sodom and Gamorrah were destroyed for those sins but not for homosexuality. They never include the following verses in the same chapter.

Ezekeil 16:50 And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good. 16:51 Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they, and hast justified thy sisters in all thine abominations which thou hast done. 16:52 Thou also, which hast judged thy sisters, bear thine own shame for thy sins that thou hast committed more abominable than they: they are more righteous than thou: yea, be thou confounded also, and bear thy shame, in that thou hast justified thy sisters.

God never called pride, gluttony, or idleness abominations. He did call homosexuality and abomination.

So you see. I have found that EVERY time someone has disagreed with Sola Scriptura on any subject they have ignored another portion of scripture to justify their interpretation.

Yes, it is but the gay have their arguments for that too.

Even if they don`t believe in Satan!

A very good point. No one can deny the need of God's spirit in our efforts to understand His Word. There is every reason to believe He wants us to understand His Word and that to the average person it is indeed open to be understood.

How did one’s like the apostles Peter and Paul explain the meaning of the Scriptures? By turning to the Scriptures themselves.
We need not be an apostle to follow their example and thankfully we have concordances, interlinears, access to Bible manuscripts at the touch of a few keys, the work of archaeologists and more.

And as James said in James 1:5, If we lack wisdom, ask for it in faith that we will receive it.

The Bible alone is enough.

People who actually conform to theological standards from the Reformation, i.e., Reformed Churches, are a very small minority within the Protestant Churches of today.

Roman Catholics who are very conservative in their views and these Reformed do disagree on some theology, that’s true. However, I find that in a large part of fundamental beliefs, knowing right from wrong, etc., people might be surprised at how much they have in common.

True believers know that immoral acts are immoral acts, and they know that one only has to read the Bible to discover quite a large number of places where immoral acts are described as sinful and to commit them is to rebel against God. They also know that nowhere in the Bible are we told that these acts are acceptable to God. There simply is no defense of them unless the reader makes up a fallacious interpretation of Scripture.

Etymology is important to developing a deep understanding of certain doctrine, but it is sometimes employed by people trying to “read in” meanings that simply are not intended. The “acid test” of reviewing the whole of Scripture and making sure that the supposed new meaning they have found (mind you, after 2,000 years of highly intelligent people studying the Bible before us) is conveniently skipped. Simple common sense tells us that if men laying with men or women laying with women were - God forbid - acceptable to God, there is absolutely no way that it would not be made quite clear - since it was made so quite clear in so many places that such acts are an abomination unto God. It’s sheer lunacy to think for one second that an act that is referred to as an abomination unto God - quite clearly, literally and on numerous occasions and never contradicted - is not just what the Bible says, an abomination.

People so often think the Christian mean for insisting on the Biblical view, but of course, it’s not our decision, it’s not about us - it’s just what is in the Bible, it’s that simple. There is no “having it both ways”. One can not be a Christian and not believe that every word of the Bible is true. Otherwise one is just making up what one believes when in fact the Bible is the revealed Word of God. Logically, there are only two possibilities, either it’s 100% true or it’s not, God forbid; there’s no halfway, since the Bible itself states that it is 100% true.

In interpreting Scripture, it stands to reason, and, indeed, Scripture tells us, that there is nothing inconsistent in Scripture, so we should be able to stand up our interpretation of a particular verse against every other verse and not find that we have contradicted ourself.

We all know that there has been 2,000 years of scholarship regarding the Bible, and the Reformation did not throw out all prior scholarship, it sought to ensure that the then current interpretation was consistent with all prior interpretation that was consistent, abandoning only the interpretations that were inconsistent with Scripture. In other words, to correct errors that were relatively recent at that time and remembering and using original theology going back to the time of Christ.

Since the Reformation, the Roman Catholic and Reformed schools of thought have continued separately of course, but both have sought to be correct and true, each using their own established mechanisms for considering issues as they arose. Both Roman Catholic and Reformed Churches have their own system of teaching elders as defined in Scripture, and Church elders, ordained, are the only ones who interpret Scripture when it comes to dealing with issues, questions or disagreements as they arise within the body.

When completely wrong teachings like that which seeks to promote sodomy come along, they conveniently ignore all prior writings and Bible commentary of any kind. The Arminian part of the Protestant Churches, which started hundreds of years ago and is an enormous influence on mainstream Protestant Churches today, went off on a theological tangent of their own making, with various heretical innovations that resulted in most mainstream Protestant Churches today having no idea what they’re talking about. As proof, simply talk to some members, and you’ll find people that have no real understanding of fundamental Christian doctrine.

In the prattling of misguided people who rationalize sin we find almost each statement they make refutable without much complex analysis but simply looking up a few verses or referring to some basic theology, combined with a little common sense. For example, the phrase “the ancient Hebrew and classical Greek milieux knew nothing of of marriage between same-sex peers”, that’s pure twaddle. The ancients didn’t “know about” such an evil concept because it was recognized to be an abomination and was therefore not condoned or accepted by any accepted church or congregation. The Epistles to Churches in the New Testament frequently exhorted congregations which were having such difficulties to make it crystal clear to all but those who don’t want to listen that all sinful behavior - including fornication, lying, etc. - was not to be tolerated and would result in excommunication if there was no repentence. The Epistles to Churches speak across the ages to Churches today, as we know; are they not an amazing blessing ?

We live in an age where the news media and the intelligentsia simply say any foolhardy falsehood with a straight face on national tv or in writing and there is no one to call them on it and boo them out of their career. Some of these people today utter ridiculously obvious lies - and just enough people in the right positions in society tolerate it.

The Bible tells us again and again that there are those who do not want to listen, those who want to make up their own religion, make up their own rules, defy God, excuse themselves from God’s commands - from early in the Old Testament. And it beautifully and perfectly paints the picture of those good servants who will persevere in the truth that is Jesus Christ.

You`re right, it`s contrary to accepted or traditional meaning of scripture.

Thanks!

Thank you, Matchett-PI. This is vastly informative.

I find it persuasive. However, I think the "Gay Christians" will not find it persuasive, because so many of them reject historic,cultural,andmoral evidence, in favor of crafting an exclusively "Sciptural" argument which holds that their particular form of behavior is not explicitly condemned in Scripture. I don't buy their way of thinking, but that's the argument they make.

Like here: at #54.

Prager's excellent commentary is historical-cultural-moral, but not (explicitly) Scriptural.

You’re welcome!

Prager is a Jew and as such, his focus is on the OT, on which he is a scholar. Nevertheless, most of his arguments are invincible and backed up by the NT on this issue.

Saturday, September 01, 2007 Let's Play Who's the Victim?!

One of the appeals of leftism is that you can never be called a hypocrite. That is, if you have no standards, then there is no standard by which to judge you.

Why then are leftists so incredibly, gleefully judgmental? Because, as Polanyi pointed out, one of the defining characteristics of leftism is the subversion of traditional morality. But since you cannot eliminate the moral impulse, it ends up becoming unhinged, that is, uncontained by any transcendent moral boundaries. Therefore, the moral impulse "fuses," as it were, with what is below instead of what is above, and becomes a dangerous vehicle of the most base passions. This is why leftism is associated with the greatest mass murderers of all time -- Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, et al.

In a lengthy essay entitled Hitler Was a Socialist, John J. Ray makes reference to the notoriously "slippery standards" of the left, writing that they "have no fixed principles. If a principle suits their rhetorical needs of today they will proclaim their loyalty to it -- and then cheerfully adopt the opposite principle tomorrow if that happens to suit the rhetorical needs of that day."

Regarding the absence of fixed principles, I can remember on many occasions hearing liberals insist that Saddam was "our creation," and that, like the Shah of Iran or Marcos in the Philipines, we were morally responsible for him.

If true -- which it wasn't -- then it would follow that we would be responsible for removing him and "restoring" freedom.

Since that is exactly what President Bush did, the left had to fabricate ulterior motives for the liberation of Iraq -- Haliburton, big oil, imposing theocracy in America, etc.

Because of the traumatic cognitive dissonance of President Bush putting their vacant ideals into action, the left had to detach from reality and enter a parallel looniverse of political discourse, in which Bush was and is condemned on wholly fantasized grounds. This is what I mean about the fusing of the moral impulse with the unconscious "primary process," the latter of which is rooted in wish fulfillment rather than the dictates of reality.

In a passage that encapsulates volumes that could be written about the left, Ray discusses the deep structure of leftism, which is always the same, even while the surface content changes from era to era, year to year, day to day, and even moment to moment (as anyone knows who has tried to engage in rational debate with a leftist -- you can't do so, because the rhetorical ground keeps shifting under your feet). Like the borderline personality, they possess a kind of "stable instability" that is their only enduring structure: "The political content of Leftism varies greatly from time to time. The sudden about-turn of the Left on antisemitism in recent times is vivid proof of that. And what the political content of Leftism is depends on the Zeitgeist -- the conventional wisdom of the day.

Leftists take whatever is commonly believed and push it to extremes in order to draw attention to themselves as being the good guys -- the courageous champions of popular causes.

So when the superiority of certain races was commonly accepted, Leftists were champions of racism. So when eugenics was commonly accepted as wise, Leftists were champions of eugenics -- etc. In recent times they have come to see more righteousness to be had from championing the Palestinian Arabs than from championing the Jews so we have seen their rapid transition from excoriating antisemitism to becoming 'Antizionist.'"

Which brings us to soon to be ex-Senator Larry Craig. What exactly was his crime? It was doing what homosexual men have always done, which is to compulsively seek anonymous sexual encounters in order to diminish anxiety (the anxiety has specific causes that we needn't get into here, but it usually has to do with a defective sense of masculinity and the need to primitively incorporate the male essence of another; this is just one possible explanation among many -- sexuality is a much more complex and nuanced issue than any doctrinaire leftist imagines).

The left would have you believe that only "closeted" gays engage in this sort of compulsive behavior because they are victimized by society, but any honest homosexual can tell you this is pure nonsense. If anything, it is the possibility of AIDs which put a damper on this kind of behavior. And now that AIDs can be controlled with drugs, we are indeed seeing a resurgence in the kind of compulsive anonymous sex that was responsible for AIDs to begin with.

In any event, how can Craig be homosexual? He obviously wants to be married to a woman. Why should he be defined as a "homosexual" just because he is compelled for unconscious reasons to seek a certain kind of sexual encounter? Because that is the extraordinarily simplistic understanding of sexuality promulgated by leftists. Similar to the "one drop" rule that mandated that one was excluded from being white if one had 1/16 or 1/32 "black blood," leftists believe that if one ever engages in a homosexual fantasy, impulse, or act, one is automatically homosexual. (Which is an ESPECIALLY CRUEL belief as it apples to adolescents, who are often confused about their sexuality. For the leftist, this confusion is redefined as normative, and the child is told that he or she must "accept" their homosexuality.)

Or I suppose one could also be "bisexual," but that is equally naive in positing a fixed "essence" for what is almost always a psychologically confused and conflicted person whose identity is anything but fixed. Indeed, that is usually the problem in such an individual -- the failure to achieve a mature sexual identity. I personally have not encountered a bisexual person who didn't have a deep boundary disturbance and identity confusion.

Remember a few years back, the celebration on the left when the Supreme Court overturned the sodomy laws in Texas? This was on the premise that sexuality is an entirely private matter, and that the state had no business legislating what people do with their bodies behind closed doors. Fair enough. Why then is it the government's business to target homosexuals who like to pick up men in public restrooms? On what possible basis can they object to this? They're not hurting anyone, right? After all, all he did was tap his foot and brush his hand. I don't like the idea of being propositioned in a public restroom, but why do leftists object?

Normally they wouldn't. Again, I think it's the unhinged moral impulse of the left, that has no traditional boundaries and no fixed standards. Therefore, they blindly lash out in an incoherent way, based upon the needs of the day. They say that they are offended by Craig's "hypocrisy," but the obvious hypocrites are the leftists who would normally see a homosexual being persecuted by the state as a quintessential victim.

The question of "who is the victim" is always the key to understanding the leftist dialectic.

One of the reasons they have no fixed principles is that it all depends upon whom they can define as the victim. One could well imagine circumstances in which Larry Craig would become a cause s'lob in the struggle against a marauding, out of control police state persecuting homosexuals just because, say, they oppose President Bush's policies!

But Craig cannot be a victim because he is a conservative white male.

In fact, in the economy of the primitive leftist imagination, the conservative white male is always victimizer, even when he is the victim. This is how someone ends up being gleefully stoned by the leftist mob merely for expressing a homosexual impulse.

Here’s another article by Prager you might find useful:

2005

We are not just animals: Judeo-Christian values part XV By Dennis Prager Tuesday, June 14, 2005
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2005/06/14/we_are_not_just_animals_judeo-christian_values_part_xv

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Thanks for your reply Cicero. You`re argument is good but one thing the author repeatedly gets at is the vicious nature of God, especially that he is a baby killer in the land of Canaan and in Egypt and when he proposes to have Abraham kill his son Issac. Even the good news of Christ`s birth heralds bad news for babies in that Herod goes on a murderous rampage throughout his kingdom — and the author almost wants to make God responsible for that too. This makes the idea of savage text more plausible and convincing in the author`s mind. If people abuse each other based on text from the Bible of what God does then that text is unholy. But to my mind, human actions don`t make a text holy or unholy. Thanks again.

Thanks for the quote!

Who is to vouch for those “revelations”?

CB... a most excellent question... I love this aspect of Scripture.

I will leave citations of verses as an exercise for the curious...

We know that Old and New Testaments explicitly reference each other's content. Prophetic verses in the Old Testament clearly make references to future events where New Testament events fit. The New Testament refers to the Old all over the place - and it says that it does, it does not imply a reference, it says it's going to make a reference then it does.

The Bible makes it clear that it is complete, that it contains all of Scripture, that we should not add on anything or take anything away. If there were any new prophecy which was to happen at some time following the close of the New Testament canon, according to any reasonable hermeneutics or theology, one would be able to discern it being pointed to by the New Testament.

However the New Testament does not reference any other new book.

Arguments that the Bible references anything else are absurd if you review them.

"..As Upton explains, "the Sodomite is violent against nature because he denies relatedness to the Other; his erotic energy is turned inward." This is indeed the key point. Man cannot engage in mere animal sexuality without sinking beneath even the animals, who are innocent in their animality. ..."

``Those pushing for sodomite acceptance might try to float the line “we are under grace and no longer under the law.” The law is eternal. Jesus Christ fulfilled the law. (Read Hebrews) Because we are in him, we establish the law. (Read Romans).

Bingo! But the gays will say Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. Furthermore, it shouldn’t matter whether you marry a woman or a man because St. Paul says that “in Christ” there is no ”woman or man.”

So true!