A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
MidnightBlue said:
Quite right. I was overgeneralizing to illustrate degrees of acceptance.
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Gay and Christian
- Thread starter bigvindaloo
- Start date
Quite right. I was overgeneralizing to illustrate degrees of acceptance.
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
Mister_T said:
Soldiers in the NT were not called to non-violence but not to complain about their pay...
FerventGodSeeker
Believer
MidnightBlue said:
Jesus told His followers to go sell their clothes to buy a sword (Luke 22:36), and praised a military man for His faith (Matthew 8:5-13). In heaven, Christ leads an army to go to war (Rev. 19:11-16). The modern-day view of Jesus as some pacifist hippie is simply untrue.
FGS
BUDDY
User of Aspercreme
And don't forget the first non-jew to be converted, Cornelius. Luke says that he was a Roman Centurion and a man that was very devout, and feared God. When he was converted by Peter, he was never once chastised for being a soldier, or told not to do it anymore. Acts 10FerventGodSeeker said:
Quiddity
UndertheInfluenceofGiants
MidnightBlue said:Responding to any of these would amount to completely derailing bigvindaloo's thread, but if anybody'd like to start a thread on this subject, I'll be happy to argue with you over there.
*MOD POST*
MidnightBlue is right...PLEASE STAY ON TOPIC.
MidnightBlue is right...PLEASE STAY ON TOPIC.
Easy cowboy. I'm not taking anything out of context or studying "perverted" scripture (Of course "perversion" of scripture is in the eye of the beholder). A point was brought up and it got me thinking.BUDDY said:
But like MidnightBlue said, let's take this to another thread.
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
BUDDY said:
I disagree with your statement in red, and especially with the qualifier in blue. This viewpoint is a product of the most surface and irresponsible of Biblical scholarship. IMO, as well as that of others, It is not at all clearly condemning of homosexuals.
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
sojourner said:
It's only unclear because recent scholarship has muddied the waters. There have not been any doubts at all concerning the anti-homosexual nature of the NT until very recently.
Moses the God Archetype*
Active Member
m:
Beloved tho i do not aprove of your lifestyle it is your choice but why do you have a avatar that is eastern in the lotus position if you are christin........?:flower2:bigvindaloo said:
Elvendon
Mystical Tea Dispenser
Okay, this is obviously a contentious topic, but in order to help keep this on topic, I will make a reply about this, especially since I have been chatting about this with my local priest recently.
In my view, I believe that there are three aspects to the mission of Jesus - theophily (the creation of a loving relationship and synergy between God and humankind - allowing for mysticism and theosis to take place), social ethics (how humanity should treat each other on earth) and righteousness (our attitude towards goodness and God's plan within our heart of hearts.)
The theophily of Christ is not particularly relevant to this debate, while his teachings that are directly relevant are his ideals about social ethics and righteousness. In my view, these two are often (and damagingly) confused, which results in all manner of trouble.
Social ethics, in Jesus' teachings, appear to be quite simple. When Jesus turns to the business of "commandments" he often returns to the same aphorism - "Love your neighbours as you love yourself". In short, Jesus teaches us that in order to bring about God's kingdom via our deeds, we must love all men (including those we would normally despise and revile, as outlined in the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son and others) just as God does.
Now, righteousness is a different matter. Jesus says that we must be internally devoted to goodness and love if we are to produce God's kingdom. We should also judge men's own righteousness (and thus whose teachings to follow) based on the fruits of their deeds. Righteousness is a complex thing, and though Jesus elaborated upon it using topical examples (e.g. divorce, taxation, anger and violence) it still remains rather elusive. Jesus' reaction to the Pharisees, a group who tried to enforce their own brand of righteousness (based on deeds rather than internal piety), is more informative; he loathed and despised them - calling them snakes among other things. Now, this group devoted themselves to making the Jewish people pure and good. So why did Jesus hate them? Because they made the law into a durge and a burden - rather than a loving and eagerly recieved source of purification. Their endless regulations and emphasis upon doing things to the letter meant that the spirit of the law - love of God and what he represents, was lost. We, as Christians, have been around so long we are starting to become just like the Pharisees. Jesus' message, in my view, was that the Law (righteousness) is a thing that must come from our loving relationship with God, not from some dusty old book on a shelf in an ecclesiastical library. Righteousness comes from loving God, and experiencing him in any way we can. By doing this, we can be transfigured, body and soul, into the people God wants us to be. Otherwise, the spiritual devotion to what God wants is difficult if not impossible to develop, and without this special affinity for Good, our deeds, even if they are completely right according to God, lack the inner potency that makes them special.
Firstly, I think all Christians can say that homosexual acts between consenting, monogamous adults, are not socially unethical. Unless his family are upset by the revelation, a homosexual's lifestyle impinges on noone elses. Loving one's neighbour and being a homosexual are not mutually exclusive.
The problem comes with righteousness. Is homosexuality evil, abominable or whatever in the eyes of God? According to a scant few Bible quotes (which appear to me to be incredibly dubious, especially in the New Testament) it could be. But wait a second - didn't Jesus hate and object to those who tried to enforce righteousness on others? Absolutely. He denounced the Pharisees completely. Righteousness, as I have said before, is something between a man, or woman, and God. We can help as much as we can, set the person on the path, but their personal spiritual affinity with the divine is in God's hands, not ours. We can check their progress by how well they love their fellow members of the human race (and adhere to obvious social ethics) but otherwise, let them be.
As Christians, we must work, and fight, to create a compassionate and loving world in which the innocent, downtrodden, humble and weak are protected by the worldly-wise, the powerful, the proud and the strong. That is what we must do. There is so much injustice in this world that it sickens me to my core. But the personal righteousness of individuals is God's perogative, not ours. We as individuals, must pick up our crosses and follow Christ, the road is a long and lonely one, but the quest for righteousness is something we are honour bound to undertake.
So, bigvindaloo, the issue is not whether I accept you for being homosexual. I accept and love you as a fellow human being as I love any human being. I consider you no better or worse than myself (from what I know of you.) The issue is, whether you can turn your face into the light, and take the road that leads to glory while retaining your sexuality. It is not my place to say if you are permitted to do so or not, but if you carry on walking, you will find out for yourself.
Much love
Elvendon
In my view, I believe that there are three aspects to the mission of Jesus - theophily (the creation of a loving relationship and synergy between God and humankind - allowing for mysticism and theosis to take place), social ethics (how humanity should treat each other on earth) and righteousness (our attitude towards goodness and God's plan within our heart of hearts.)
The theophily of Christ is not particularly relevant to this debate, while his teachings that are directly relevant are his ideals about social ethics and righteousness. In my view, these two are often (and damagingly) confused, which results in all manner of trouble.
Social ethics, in Jesus' teachings, appear to be quite simple. When Jesus turns to the business of "commandments" he often returns to the same aphorism - "Love your neighbours as you love yourself". In short, Jesus teaches us that in order to bring about God's kingdom via our deeds, we must love all men (including those we would normally despise and revile, as outlined in the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son and others) just as God does.
Now, righteousness is a different matter. Jesus says that we must be internally devoted to goodness and love if we are to produce God's kingdom. We should also judge men's own righteousness (and thus whose teachings to follow) based on the fruits of their deeds. Righteousness is a complex thing, and though Jesus elaborated upon it using topical examples (e.g. divorce, taxation, anger and violence) it still remains rather elusive. Jesus' reaction to the Pharisees, a group who tried to enforce their own brand of righteousness (based on deeds rather than internal piety), is more informative; he loathed and despised them - calling them snakes among other things. Now, this group devoted themselves to making the Jewish people pure and good. So why did Jesus hate them? Because they made the law into a durge and a burden - rather than a loving and eagerly recieved source of purification. Their endless regulations and emphasis upon doing things to the letter meant that the spirit of the law - love of God and what he represents, was lost. We, as Christians, have been around so long we are starting to become just like the Pharisees. Jesus' message, in my view, was that the Law (righteousness) is a thing that must come from our loving relationship with God, not from some dusty old book on a shelf in an ecclesiastical library. Righteousness comes from loving God, and experiencing him in any way we can. By doing this, we can be transfigured, body and soul, into the people God wants us to be. Otherwise, the spiritual devotion to what God wants is difficult if not impossible to develop, and without this special affinity for Good, our deeds, even if they are completely right according to God, lack the inner potency that makes them special.
Firstly, I think all Christians can say that homosexual acts between consenting, monogamous adults, are not socially unethical. Unless his family are upset by the revelation, a homosexual's lifestyle impinges on noone elses. Loving one's neighbour and being a homosexual are not mutually exclusive.
The problem comes with righteousness. Is homosexuality evil, abominable or whatever in the eyes of God? According to a scant few Bible quotes (which appear to me to be incredibly dubious, especially in the New Testament) it could be. But wait a second - didn't Jesus hate and object to those who tried to enforce righteousness on others? Absolutely. He denounced the Pharisees completely. Righteousness, as I have said before, is something between a man, or woman, and God. We can help as much as we can, set the person on the path, but their personal spiritual affinity with the divine is in God's hands, not ours. We can check their progress by how well they love their fellow members of the human race (and adhere to obvious social ethics) but otherwise, let them be.
As Christians, we must work, and fight, to create a compassionate and loving world in which the innocent, downtrodden, humble and weak are protected by the worldly-wise, the powerful, the proud and the strong. That is what we must do. There is so much injustice in this world that it sickens me to my core. But the personal righteousness of individuals is God's perogative, not ours. We as individuals, must pick up our crosses and follow Christ, the road is a long and lonely one, but the quest for righteousness is something we are honour bound to undertake.
So, bigvindaloo, the issue is not whether I accept you for being homosexual. I accept and love you as a fellow human being as I love any human being. I consider you no better or worse than myself (from what I know of you.) The issue is, whether you can turn your face into the light, and take the road that leads to glory while retaining your sexuality. It is not my place to say if you are permitted to do so or not, but if you carry on walking, you will find out for yourself.
Much love
Elvendon