Posted on 12/04/2004 5:17:59 PM PST by Mr. Silverback
Note: The following commentary includes graphic descriptions. This is not suitable for children.
“I’m at my wits’ end,” the young woman wrote. “I’ve asked pastors, friends, parents, God, and message boards this question and still haven’t received an intelligent answer that I can live with. Why are homosexual acts wrong? I’m a Christian and believe in the Bible, but this part always stumps me.”
According to my friend, Dr. J. Budziszewski, author of the excellent new book, Ask Me Anything: Provocative Answers for College Students, disturbing questions like this show that church leaders aren’t providing young people with the whole picture about sexuality. They may be faithfully teaching God’s rules, but when asked why God made these rules, too often they say, “Take two aspirin, and wait for the questions to go away.”
The good news, says Budziszewski, is that we can answer disturbing questions. Where are the answers found? In our creational design.
“People say homosexuality isn’t natural,” the young woman complained in her letter, “but that can’t be true because it’s found among animals.” Budziszewski answers, “But our nature is how God designed us. What’s natural for human beings isn’t whatever you can find some animal doing; it’s whatever fulfills our design. Men and women were plainly designed for each other—not men for men, nor women for women.” Children can be born in no other way.
“But homosexual acts don’t harm anyone,” said the young woman. Budziszewski answers, “The idea that homosexual acts don’t harm anyone isn’t even close to being true; they harm those who perform them at every level. To begin with the most obvious level—the physical—how could it not harm a man to suffer physical trauma because body parts are repeatedly forced into bodily openings that were designed for a radically different function?” And the rates of a long, long list of diseases are also much higher among practicing homosexuals, and contrary to popular belief, this is true for lesbians as well as for “gay” men.
At the emotional level, Budziszewski explains, the damage of homosexual acts is just as grave. God designed the male-female pair to balance each other; by contrast, same-sex mating drives them out of balance. If you want an example, think of the anonymous, no-brakes promiscuity of men who have sex with hundreds, even thousands, of other men.
“And what about spiritual harm?” asks Budziszewski. “In homosexual acts, you’re seeking union with someone who is only your own mirror image, so in a way, you’re still trapped inside yourself. You haven’t experienced the power of marital sexuality to take you beyond the Self; you’re rejecting the challenge of union with someone who is really other. In that way, homosexual acts are less like marital intercourse than like masturbation with another body.”
That’s frank, even startling language, but what’s happened to our culture is startling too. When young people confused by the culture ask questions, they need clear, unvarnished answers to set their thinking straight. That’s why I recommend this great new book Ask Me Anything: Provocative Answers for College Students.
God’s rules for sex are never arbitrary; they are based on how He made us. As Budziszewski rightly says, it’s all in the design.
Homosexual Agenda Ping.
Dr. J. Budziszewski's answers seem ok for a start, and I have no problem with secular or rational arugments against homosexual behavior. When discussing with someone who has no faith in God, it's a good idea to be able to speak about the myriad reasons why homosexuality is not normal, natural, or healthy - or good for individuals or society as a whole.
Anyone who hasn't yet can check out this for a whole bunch of rational arugments against normalizing homosexuality:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1026551/posts
Homosexual Agenda: Categorical Index of Links
And let me and ItsOurTimeNow know if anyone wants on/off this pinglist.
God's perfect timing ping! (meant to do this the first time)
Accepting God's wisdom is a fine concept, but determining the nature of that wisdom presents more than a little difficulty. After all, lots of sincere Christians have justified lots of evil (chattel slavery in the USA, for example) by thinking it was sanctioned by God's wisdom. At a minimum, the Billy Graham approach seems appropriate: yes, engaging in homosexual acts is a sin, but no worse than any other sin, such as the sin of "pride." That sin of "pride" (the opposite of humility) might even ensnare a fair number of Freepers from time to time.
Fortythree posts already on a Saturday night? Maybe I should put a sexual content warning in all my thread titles!
Well spoken. Though reason is sometimes rooted in Scripture, a lot of times those who use it do not realize where it comes from.
Once we depart from Scripture as our basis for right/wrong, we can only wait until someone with stronger reasoning powers comes along to defeat our arguments.
I have a sister who is gay. She refers to me as a 'breeder'.
I refer to her as things I cannot repeat here. When I say them to her, she says I'm homophobic. I respond by calling her heterophobic.
This is a group of people who by all logic should be on the endangered species list, but through gay and pro-gay politicians, they have hijacked our schools, taught children that being queer is o.k., and promoted a culture of sin.
Billy doesn't have two daddies or two mommies. He has one of each. That's they way nature works.
I prefer the teaching of God's word on this subject:
Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.--Colossians 4:6
We are also counseled by Paul to be always ready to give an answer for the hope that we have.
There is a great gulf between questioning God's wisdom and asking questions about why things are the way they are. A faith that can't stand up to a reverent, curious question from a believer (much less a question from a skeptic) is of little value, and is certainly not the bold faith passed down to us by people like Aquinas and Augustine.
You're added! See you Monday.
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=56646
For the Godless, even Mother Nature apparently has a problem with homosexuality.
No reason to worry about questions. See my post 47.
If the young woman mentioned in Colson's column had come to you and asked you those questions, that would have been your response?
If so, do you think she would have walked away with her faith stengthened?
Good point.
What is there in the article that's not consistent with what you posted here?
Huh? Please elaborate.
No probably about it. A faith that can't stand up to reasonable questions can't possibly be the real thing.
Sit back and consider for a moment, that I (and you, if you're male) have more DNA in common with a male chimpanzee than we do with any woman outside our blood kin.
Then come back to me.
Rich Mullens once said that being gay was either not as big a deal as many Christians make it, or those Christians should ditch all their fat friends immediately.
But then, though I don't treat gay people any differently than i treat any other "sinners" (read: people) I'll also point out that Paul makes it clear that homosexuality is a sign of a particularly degraded spiritual state.
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