Posted on 06/08/2015 11:48:14 AM PDT by C19fan
As a young, openly gay Christian activist, Matthew Vines considered it a victory just to get into a room at a conservative Christian university here with four influential evangelicals who disagreed with him over what the Bible says about homosexuality.
He ended up in a polite, heartfelt three-hour debate last month over Scripture passages about topics like celibacy, eunuchs, slavery — and the connections between sex and marriage.
“Every single system you have within your body — whether it’s your respiratory system, your excretory system, your muscular system — can be completed as an individual,” said Sean McDowell, a professor here at Biola University and a well-known Christian author and speaker. “But there’s only one system in which male and female have half and become a united whole, and that’s in reproduction.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Well, Paul does refer to sodomites having "vile affections". (KJV) Vile affections does seem to refer to a homosexual orientation or desires in this context.
The Bible acknowledges murders, thieves, liars, adulterers exist too. It doesn’t give approval to those behaviors or even the thoughts that lead to them either.
To summarize the liberal position:
If people do it, it is ok.
The words “homosexual” and “heterosexual” were coined by Austro-Hungarian activist and “journalist” Karl-Maria Kertbeny. Not exactly a product of Victorian society.
The Bible calls this act “the sin of Sodom”.
The big media outlets do not report news. They manufacture news, or, rather, propaganda.
“The procreation argument against homosexuality has always been pretty lame. The Bible point-blank says that it’s an abominable sin. Period. You can’t get around that, though Mr. Vines does try by obfuscating with “but what if they really love each other?” Who cares? What if I really love any number of other abominable sins against God? Now it’s OK?”
This society has made Happiness a god which must be obeyed to the exclusion of all else, even the true God’s express will.
(Nevermind that sin never leads to enduring happiness.)
I wouldn’t have met with them if I were them. I understand why they did, but it is futile. There is no ground to give. There is no negotiation to be had. The two ideologies are incompatible.
Paul uses the “procreation” argument.. But of course, homosexuality is only one on the list of abuses of sex that he provides. We Christians give too much of a pass to the adulterers et al. and beat up too much on the queers. That because hardly any of us do not have family members who commit adultery. Further divorce is as frequent among church members as among non-Christians.
Euphoria and happiness are not necessarily synonymous. It’s euphoria that is one of their false gods.
I don't see what that has to do with it. I love my brother and sister. I love my good friends. I love my parents. That doesn't mean it would be right to have sex with them. There are thousands that any person may love and sex doesn't even enter into the equation. The Greek language has three words for love Agape, Phileo and Eros. Eros is the word for the type of physical, romantic love Mr. Vines is referring to. The word Eros does not appear in the NT.
So you’re saying in the Duggar’s case that both Josh and the girls should be put to death?
“That’s why I know the only reason for marriage can’t be procreation,” he said. “I would think there’s a depth of our relationship that transcends sexuality.”
Genesis 17:17New International Version (NIV)
17 Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?”
The author opines:
Vines and Wilson claim that they continue to hold to a high view of biblical authority, and that they believe the Bible is completely true, but that they don’t think it teaches all same-sex relations are wrong. Vines argues that while the Levitical code forbids homosexuality (Leviticus 18:22) it also forbids eating shellfish (Leviticus 11:9-12). Yet, he says, Christians no longer regard eating shellfish as wrong — so why can’t we change our minds on homosexuality? Here Vines is rejecting the New Testament understanding that the ceremonial laws of Moses around the sacrificial system and ritual purity were fulfilled in Christ and no longer binding, but that the moral law of the Old Testament is still in force. Hebrews 10:16, for example, tells us that the Holy Spirit writes “God’s laws” on Christians’ hearts (so they are obviously still in force), even though that same book of the Bible tells us that some of those Mosaic laws — the ceremonial — are no longer in binding on us. This view has been accepted by all branches of the church since New Testament times.When Vines refuses to accept this ancient distinction between the ceremonial and moral law, he is doing much more than simply giving us an alternative interpretation of the Old Testament — he is radically revising what biblical authority means. When he says “Christians no longer regard eating shellfish as wrong,” and then applies this to homosexuality (though assuming that Leviticus 19:18 — the Golden Rule — is still in force), he is assuming that it is Christians themselves, not the Bible, who have the right to decide which parts of the Bible are essentially now out of date. That decisively shifts the ultimate authority to define right and wrong onto the individual Christian and away from the biblical text.
The traditional view is this: Yes, there are things in the Bible that Christians no longer have to follow but, if the Scripture is our final authority, it is only the Bible itself that can tell us what those things are. The prohibitions against homosexuality are re-stated in the New Testament (Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, 1 Timothy 1) but Jesus himself (Mark 7), as well as the rest of the New Testament, tells us that the clean laws and ceremonial code is no longer in force.
Vines asserts that he maintains a belief in biblical authority, but with arguments like this one he is actually undermining it. This represents a massive shift in historic Christian theology and life.
Not the procreation argument per se...but the argument that nature presumes normal male female relationships based on the fact that in the natural scheme of things(not forced in labs via petri dishes) it will always take a female ovum and a male sperm to create a child. Any homosexual relationship must be presumed disordered of nature based on the 98 per cent of all humans not homosexual and the 2 per cent who are.
Homosexuals seek some type of justification of their lifestyle by the invalidation of Christianity. They may tout science in the attempts to do so but science in the end doesn’t help them. The disastrous medical effects of such lifestyles are well known and documented. In the end, despite the good PR, good science will “out” the real evils of the homosexual lifestyle! They are the real “science deniers”!
You want to apply the Law of Moses you have to apply the entire law. A child is not accountable so neither would be guilty.
Yes, but sodomy is a homosexual’s way of life.
And of course, let’s completely ignore 5000 years of Jewish and Christian tradition
Bump for later.
I’m sure Vines has no knowledge at all of the original languages and culture used in the Bible.
He is correct and the early Church fathers addressed the issue as documented in Acts 15:
“It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20 Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. 21 For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”
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