Christianity and Homosexuality

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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NB, I am not a homophobe, nor am I a Christian. This post is purely to see other’s opinions and to also highlight that most Christians aren’t Christians at all but have abandoned their “God” and made up a new one.

I’m interested what you all have to say about the huge division erupting at the moment in the Anglican Church. I had been having huge arguments with friends about it, they were saying things like “they should be more open minded” and “They’ve got to keep up with the modern world”. They were all arguing that the church should consecrate a Gay Bishop.

I, on the other hand, was taking the line that if the Bible said being gay was wrong, it was wrong according to Christ and all Christians should see homosexulity as a sin and certainly not a trait they would desire in their priests! It mattered not if homosexuality were accepted today, the Bible is the word of God and if you question him on whether he “really meant it when he said homosexuality was wrong” you have to ask the same kind of questions about everything else.

Now I never really looked into the passages of the bible which condemned homosexuality, I thought it would be unclear. However I was surprised reading the Independant yesterday when I came across a letter from the Rev Richard James in which he quoted I Corinthians 6 (the new testament):

Apparantly the Greek is quite clear in this translation. Much to my utter surprise the passage is very very clear, so:

  1. There’s no way that is quoted out of context, homosexuality is quite clearly highlighted as one serious Sin.

  2. There are ‘Christians’ out there who try and promote homosexuality as ok.

Conclusion? Those people calling themselves ‘Christians’ who agree with promoting homosexuality are obviously evil as they are trying to lead the faithful astray! I just couldn’t believe that there is a passage so explicit in it’s condemnation of homosexuality and yet there are Priests who bless gay partnerships and want to start performing gay marriages. It’s not just absurd it is quite plainly wrong if they believe in a Christian God! I am baffled and this is what I want your opinion on, why do they deny it?

As for the arguments within the church, perhaps even funnier is something I noticed written in the same passage just before the quoted part:

lol, quite apt huh! It makes my mind boggle even more at organised religion.

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Lke you I’m neither a Christian nor a homophobe, but what you (and the Rev Richard James) have to take into account is that the bible was written 2000 years ago and has been translated into diffrerent languages while the languages themselves were changing. Moreover, Christ did not mention homosexuality once and that passage was written by a human and not (the Christian) God. Anyway, I have an instinct that this will be quite and interesting thread.

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im not really a Christian. But What ive heard is that we are all sinners under god and all sins are equal. so being homosexuality is just anthoer sin and we all Sin so its not really that big of a deal i think. But on the other hand promoting sinning and electing a bishop let alone a priest that admitts hes is actively sinning and arent trying to rectifiy thier actions is stupid. Its a complete condraticon to the teachings of the religion. I also understand that most of the people of the church dont want this to happen. So there is another down side to this decision.

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The problem with creating a religion with a base in Dogma is that a truth today is the same as a truth 2000 years ago and 2000 years into the future. God doesn’t change, nor do his opinions on how we should live our lives morally. We as a society can change our moral beliefs, but the Church cannot, to do so undermines the truths inherent in God’s Dogmatic laws. It would be the equivalent in Maths of 1 + 1 = 3! It just can’t happen. I’m not saying the church is right with this line, its just the way it is, because that’s the way the church has always promoted its self over the course of history.

Homosexuality is intrinsically evil in the eyes of the Christian Church, the act that is, not the sexual orientation in its self. It’s okay to be gay so long as you don’t partake in gay sex. Also because gays can’t legally marry in the eyes of the church all there sex is done outside of wedlock, which is also a sin. So an openly gay bishop partaking in gay sex is breaking the rules that he swore to uphold, in effect he is reneging on his ordination vows he took to become a priest. How as a Bishop he is responsible to be a teacher of the teachers, that is, he is one of the guys that teach other priests what is correct church doctrine. So to be openly against the church’s dogma is a precarious position. It would be like swearing allegiance to your flag, but as soon as you got the chance, you were burning it because you didn’t like it anymore. People would just assume you are no longer in allegiance with the flag because of your open hostilities.

It’s never ‘okay’, it’s always a sin, but your sins can be forgiven. So in that way it’s okay to be gay. As if you seek forgiveness it will be given. Heck like I’ve said, sex outside of marriage is always a sin. But people just don’t take that on board anymore; they’ll have sex when and where they want and no longer see it as a sin. Homosexuality has gone this was as well. If you’re a capitalist you don’t go around preaching communism?

All this said I think the Anglican Church is in a much better position then the Catholic Church, as the Catholics have the infallible Pope. They can never come out and say the Homosexual sex it not a sin before the eyes of God. If they do they will create a massive schism, which could do irreconcilable damage.

The Churches no longer have the guts to teach what it is they once believed as truths for the world has laid bare their blatant lies on their claim to absolute Truth. The church doesn’t have that kind of truth, it’s only a guide like all other religions, but they can’t admit this to themselves, as to do so would be the equivalent of defeat! There own arrogance has put them in this predicament. To change their beliefs now is to show that the people define God! (i.e. To define God with the characterises we wish from him to have). But they once believed that God should define his people and not the other way round.

It’s like Moses coming down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments only to find that the priests were forced by the people to build a Calf idol of Gold, because they demanded it! We all know what happened next! HAhaHEhe!!! :evilfun: God got biblical on their sinning Asses. :evilfun:

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Matt-
I am beginning to to think that we should simply merge into one poster, as I seem to consistently agree with much of what you have to say :stuck_out_tongue: .

Yep, the Anglican Church is in quite a pickle.

What belief will be questioned next? Will we soon have a division of Christianity that (gasp!) disregards the word of God and believes in evolution?

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lol, well someone has already confused us to be the same poster a month or two back.

Thx for you post Pax, twas very good, I hadn’t realised that it’s ok to be gay as long as you didn’t actually perform the deed though everything you say makes sense now.

I saw an interview with an apparantly prominent American priest who said that they’d been blessing Gay unions and were considering performing Gay marriages (I think he was suggesting starting in the next year), so that could get around the sex outside of marriage lark.

Now I assume he’s read the Bible, if I understand it becoming a Priest is quite hard work, you have to know your theory and your Bible inside out (wern’t you studying to be a Priest Pax?). I think my underlaying question is, do most priests actually believe in God? Because they behave as if they don’t!

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I was, till I thought better of it. “Thank you God!” is all I can say for Philosophy! Feck Jesus! Philosophy saved my soul.

It’s different for Anglicans then it is for Catholics. A Catholic priest must follow the rules of the Catholic Church before everything else. The bible is secondary to Catholic dogma! This is one of the reasons for the existence of the protestant religions. The Anglicans believe that each person can interpret the bible and part of knowing God, is understanding God through how he reveals himself in the bible, so the laws in the bible are central to their faith, though the general moral spirit of the laity depends on how fundamental they are. Despite the bible being the center, they still have bishops to help with the traditional teachings in the bible, as how it’s interpreted doesn’t change much over the course of history. It’s only since the Enlightenment that all the Churches have started to show there age. So the Anglicans still have a council to interpret meanings for the entire Anglican Church.

You’ve probably heard of: God the Father, God the Son, well the Anglicans also have: God the Bible. Because of this and a person’s ability to interpret the bible the Anglican Church is more open to possible disagreements about what God (the bible) is trying to say. This gives both the laity and the priests more room in what they believe in, but if they vary to much from the standard Anglican teaching they run the risk of no longer being Anglican. Its not like Catholicism were you can just excommunicate somebody, the Anglican system is more fluid and shapeless which is part of its strength.

Homosexuality is probability one of the only issues that the bible is adamantly against! Most other subjects you can find contradictory opinions on, which I have throughout my many readings of the bible, but not homosexuality! While I personally no longer care for what the bible has to say on such subjects, if you want to be any way orthodox in your Christian beliefs gay sex is an absolute no, no. Above is the quote which Matt was referring to, there are many more, but I don’t plan to look them up.

Over approximately the past 50 years, since around 1940’s after the war the Personality ‘Jesus Christ’ has been slowly disentangling its self from the traditional teachings in the Christian Churches and even the bible. Jesus is a character that is universal and is seen as a forgiver of sins and loves all people without exceptions. It was St. Paul that founded all Christian Churches, not Peter or Jesus! It was Paul’s teachings and interpretation of Jesus that led to shaping & forming of the Christian Churches; it was he who made the impact on the world, not Jesus! If it weren’t for how Paul took and shaped the Gospel of Jesus through the Letters, the Gospels wouldn’t have been taught to all nations, Christianity might have just remained a sub-cult amongst the Jerusalem Jewish community, initially, then spreading out into the Diaspora.

My main point about the above is there is a growing number of people who worship at Christian Churches that worship the ideas that ‘Jesus the Celebrity / Personality’ stand for, but when it comes to the Church’s opinion on doctrine or dogma completely ignore them. They use the church to praise Jesus, while paying lip service to the tradition of the Christian Churches. This is where the future of the Christian religion is heading: Jesus disembodied from Christian Churches remaining a central force in world religion, interpreted through peoples lifestyle choices with devotion as their personal saviour, while the last of the fundamentalists will hold onto the Christian Churches traditional teachings, which the world will increasingly see as outdated, obsolete and irrelevant. The only people who will have any interest in the Christian Churches are those that can use it to their advantage, like people in developing nations.

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Some sins are more grevious than others. There are mortal sins and venial sins. Among the mortal sins there are more or less grevious: killing is worse than theft; killing one’s mother is worse than killing a stranger. Sins commited in an altered state of mind are worse than one commited with a clear head, and sins commited in ignorance are lesser than ones comiited in full knowledge.

Ok, on to the topic. Like Pax said, there’s nothing wrong with being gay. Being gay in itself is not a sin or even shameful. The actions (sex) that may result from it are very serious sins, however. Moreover, it is not wrong to have an openly gay bishop (even in the Catholic Church) so long as 1.) He isn’t having sexual relations, and 2.) He isn’t promoting a gay agenda (which would be leading others to sin).

I’d argue with Pax that it’s the “fluidity” of the Anglican church that is what’s causing all these problems. I don’t see how you can interperet:

any differently, but since they go by the bible as their first and last source they lack a lot of the theological insight that the Catholic Church has. How many great protestant theologians have there been?

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I would like to say that homosexuality was around during the bible’s time. It does not mark a sign of modern times(a refridgerator is a sign of modern times, not a form of sex)

So them keeping up with “modern times” is not a valid argument. Keeping up with demand maybe, but not with modern times.

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Interesting topic. I don’t understand why people get upset at christians when they don’t allow gays into the church… to me, that would be like having an alcoholic priest, but really even more akward because although homosexuality has always been around it is certainly not something American society has heard much about before the last 20 years or so.

I think that if there is a God, God tempts everyone in a different way. I don’t really agree that the performing of homosexual acts are the sins, but I believe that most every sin comes from within us, and our actions are symptoms of those sins (presupposing christianity, God, etc.). For instance, stealing isn’t neccesarily the sin, but a symptom of greed… God may tempt one man with greed, he may tempt one man with sex… We are all sinners, true, but I don’t blame the church for not allowing a man in that openly praises something that goes against the very doctrine with which the christian church and religion is based. So I guess it would be like having a priest that taught that being an alcoholic is not a sin, but just a different disposition than most people have.

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My King James Bible uses the word effeminate also. I am neither a christian, nor a homophobe.

A lot of religions only stay a few hundred years behind modern times. Wasn’t it Luther who abolished celibacy for priests? And marriage has been with us a very long time. And i think this should be looked at in light of the recent catholic debacle. The man of nature is usually antecedent to the man of God. The Catholics tried to extirpate a drive by rules, a very strong libidinous drive, and It just popped up somewhere else. A set of rules will never equal morality. Jesus never carried around a set of rules.

Pax Vitae Said:

Amen! I did’nt know you were studying to be a priest.

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I believe it was Pope John Paul II who said (refering to homosexuals) “Love the sinner; hate the sin.” It gives Christians a bad image when we attack homosexuals for being gay, rather than teaching that the act is wrong. It seems like a contradiction to me to say that its OK to be a gay priest so long as you don’t practice gay sex. That’s like saying it’s OK to be a theif as long as you don’t steal, or its permissable to be a murderer as long as you refrain from killing people. The act defines the person. It’s perfectly fine, in my mind, to have been gay, ceased to practice homosexuality, and become a priest. Since you no longer engage in the sin, you are no longer defined by it. The Bible teaches that all sins are equal in the eyes of God. We need to be careful not to fall into the trap of alienating homosexuals from the rest of the world simply because their sin is different. The Anglican church will undoubtedly lose much of their following if they continue to support homosexuality in such a manner. The other contradictions between the Anglican Church and Scripture won’t help the situation. This is the core issue that was at the heart of the Protestant Reformation.

“Since then Your Majesty and your lordships desire a simple relpy, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason - I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other - my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.”

  • Martin Luther (Respnonse at Worms)
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The above post is mine. I guess i wasn’t logged in.

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Good to text you again SuperStrongSteve! How ya been? Good Post! How does one reconcile “love the sinner, hate the sin” with “the act defines the person”?

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I’ve been doing quite well. Thanks for asking. How about yourself? Now, to the point. Excellent question. I think it is quite possible to love the sinner while still believing that the sin defines the person. Allow me to illustrate. If a child were doing something wrong, such as ditching school regularly or being continually late to class, he may be labeled a “habitual truant.” A parent can still love their child even if he has become a habitual truant. They may, quite appropriately, place restrictions on him as a punishment. This doesn’t mean that they don’t love their child; it simply means that they are doing what is best for him (no, I’m not suggesting we “ground” every homosexual). If we weren’t able to love the sinner, there would be no love in the world whatsoever. Unfortunately, there are some out there who interpret the Bible wrongly. I do not thing that we should accept homosexuality, but we should still accept the person. For some reason, the world has perceived homosexuality as a graver sin than others; I’m not sure why. I do not believe that we should condemn them any more than anyone else. But, likewise, we should not give them any more priveleges than anyone either.

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I have noticed the same thing. Within the Christian Church, premarital sex is also considered a sin, and since homosexual marriages are not performed or acknowledged by the Christian Church, we can infer from this that same sex relations are in the same vein. With that said, I don’t hear a big outcry from the community about sex before marriage. From my limited understanding, all sins are equal since in God’s eye since they create distance between him.

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I think the reason homosexuality is such a big taboo (along with incest and perhaps cannibalism), is that it seems (to a lot of people, not necessarily to me) to be a crime against nature.

I don’t believe, as in Romans, that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”. I think the concept of original sin has wrecked a lot of lives. in one study, 20 serial killers were interviewed (the interviewer was looking for a common thread) and 11 were found to be highly religious and believe in the literal existence of the devil and demons.

1.a) love the person (including sinners).
1.b) hate the sin.
2.) the act (including sin) defines the person.

The act may do little to define a person. That person may have judged the act from his/her motivation, from the acts expected consequences. The person may be under duress, coercion, etc. Perhaps a God made them do it. The act is the final step in a long chain of ever-evolving processes, not all of which we have complete control over. It seems to me that religions ( to my mind, especially Christianity) is too quick to judge people.

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But the thing that i dont understand is how the church could elect a Gay bishop that isn’t even trying to stop his sinning. The church is promoting the sin. It doesnt seem to me that they are hating the sin.

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It will end in homosexuality not being a sin in a lot of denominations, the same way divorce is now okay in some sects, the same way that priests can now marry. The paradox is that if you were an alien looking at the effect (religious doctrine) with no notion of the cause (spirituality), it would seem that either a.) we don’t have a freaking clue what God wants or b.) God keeps changing his mind.

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[laughing]

Thank you, Marshall. You have moved, or toppled rather, mountains with this statement.