Christianity and homosexuality - please explain

[Polycarp]

@roger thornhill

I think one of the most important truths of the Bible is that people look at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). I believe that part of growing to be like Jesus involves appreciating this and disciplining oneself not to judge on appearances. If one gets into a habit of not doing this, then it becomes easier to distinguish the good from the not good (Hebrews 5:14).

I rather like that formulation. Rather, given our Lord’s command, we should not judge, period – insofar as that means setting ourselves up as the arbiter of others’ behavior. “Judging” as it is called for in Paul seems to mean being a friend who will provide counsel and help, as to a brother or sister, as opposed to the way that the Pharisees and seemingly the evangelicalist preachers of today would arrogate to themselves the right to condemn others for violating what they perceive as the mandates of Scripture.

Gobear and iampunha are my friends, my brothers, to be loved and helped insofar as they may look to me for help, not the accused in the dock before me that I may pass judgment on their lives. Is that how you see it, roger?

[ambushed]

@Captain Amazing

I’m not in denial. I don’t particularly care what Jesus thought about homosexuality. He lived 2000 years ago in a culture with values extremely different than my own, and his opinions aren’t binding on me. All I’m saying is that the passage can be read in a non-sexual context (and has, traditionally, been read that way).

Yes, any passage can be read however one wants to, especially if one insists that common daily idiom is never used. It’s the most likely scenario that’s important, and that’s what I gave above. And while I am certainly not accusing you of homophobia, the only reason that the passage has been traditionally held to be perfectly straight is that the traditional reader, interpreter, and scholar has been a tight-assed hater of all things homosexual. One shouldn’t award points to a tradition that’s based on hatred and ignorance.

[ambushed]

[B[Polycarp**, First, threre’s no need to defend yourself. I don’t believe you or the Captain are homophobes. That’s not the issue; the issues is which scenario rings more true and is more consistent with known facts. I gave that scenario earlier. It is a far better fit that yours or Amazing’s.

Further, how can one scandal automatically exclude all others? What are basing that assertion on?

Your view is also a possible explanation – but works completely off denying the reliable linguistic fact that the word pais in that context primarily means, as Greco-Roman scholars who specialize in ancient sexuality will tell you, a male sexual servant. No one has successfully refuted that.

[Polycarp]

@ambushed

[B[Polycarp**, First, threre’s no need to defend yourself. I don’t believe you or the Captain are homophobes. That’s not the issue; the issues is which scenario rings more true and is more consistent with known facts. I gave that scenario earlier. It is a far better fit that yours or Amazing’s.

Further, how can one scandal automatically exclude all others? What are basing that assertion on?

Your view is also a possible explanation – but works completely off denying the reliable linguistic fact that the word pais in that context primarily means, as Greco-Roman scholars who specialize in ancient sexuality will tell you, a male sexual servant. No one has successfully refuted that.

I didn’t suppose that “one scandal would automatically exclude all others” – I merely gave the more traditional reading for why there was scandal, toward the end of sharing information to dispel ignorance generally.

As for pais, it means boy – that’s its denotation. And it has a very similar collection of connotations to the translation: bat boy, rent boy, barefoot boy, Blue Boy, hot boi, “best boy” in theater, etc. I.e., it was common in some circles to have it suggestively mean “catamite” or something of the sort; in other contexts, it had all the double endendre of “turbinate bones.”

I’m purely asserting that the reading you seem to be insisting on is not certain by any means – in fact, I’m much more comfortable with the arsenokaites argument that Paul was condemning boy prostitution than I am with this one. It’s founded purely on the idea that: pais was sometimes used to mean “adolescent servant kept as sex partner,” therefore it must mean that here.

The farthest I intend to go is to say that it’s not an out-of-the-park reading of the passage, and that the portrait of Jesus given in the Gospels, particularly in Luke, is of a Man that would have reacted to a centurion whose beloved boy sex partner is fatally ill and who turned to Him in faith just as Jesus did to the centurion in the account.

[roger_thornhill]

@Polycarp

I rather like that formulation. Rather, given our Lord’s command, we should not judge, period – insofar as that means setting ourselves up as the arbiter of others’ behavior. “Judging” as it is called for in Paul seems to mean being a friend who will provide counsel and help, as to a brother or sister, as opposed to the way that the Pharisees and seemingly the evangelicalist preachers of today would arrogate to themselves the right to condemn others for violating what they perceive as the mandates of Scripture.

Gobear and iampunha are my friends, my brothers, to be loved and helped insofar as they may look to me for help, not the accused in the dock before me that I may pass judgment on their lives. Is that how you see it, roger?

I know nothing of gobear and iampunha and certainly can’t judge! But I probably see things a little differently from you in some ways. At the risk of quoting more verses, I was reflecting today (while umpiring on the cricket field - more judging!) on the fact that if we know what is the right thing to do and don’t do it, we sin (James 4: 17). This call to graciousness and generosity of spirit is quite a challenge for me in a world where injustice and disappointments tend to make me, at least, cynical and ungracious.

[Rucksinator]

Now for a little MPSIFIMS time.
I just gave the presentation in front of a group of mostly Baptists. It went over like a lead balloon.
As soon as they realized where I was going (partway though somebody said something like “wait a minute. Are you saying that homosexuality is OK?”) you would have thought that I was stabbing the baby Jesus to death. I didn’t even get to discuss adelphopoiia. We ran out of time. I thought I did OK, considering. In order to really get into the subject, I had to teach them some Greek, and most were of the opinion that their Bibles must be right.

After my presentation was interrupted, a guy from my group who is of a different opinion got up and basically said that the Bible translations were right, and even read the prefaces from a couple versions of the Bible where they said that they were all experts and they were right about their translations. There was almost cheering. He also pointed out that Lot offer his 2 daughters to the crowd, and they turned him down, and used that as evidence that they were all homosexual. He used this to refute my point that the issue in this story was rape, not homosexuality.

I didn’t have time to rebut his stuff, but the professor did get up and point out that 150 years ago people would have sworn that the Bible supported slavery, and now people ignore those verses. And therefore interpretations of the scriptures changes over time, whether people want to admit it or not. That saved me a little.

There are now 2 unanswered questions: Did the class give our group a good or bad grade because they disagreed with me, and did they think that the presentation itself was good (I didn’t think I did as well as I could have.) I may be able to ask the professor how they judged our presentation. Based on my quiz and test scores, I think I had a low A, so it could be crucial.

I kinda also think now that I may have screwed my group members over by being so adamant about making a lecture. We could have just said “Here’s the issue (son tells you that he’s gay). Here’s our opinion on the issue (we choose to accept him as he is). But, no. I had to give a dissertation on the meanings of Greek words. I had to give a lecture. The last section of the class dealt with ethical issues and viewpoints (teleological vs. deontological, altruistic vs. egoistic) So was my insistence on giving a lecture egoistic (i.e. “I’m going to say what I want to say”) or altruistic (i.e. “I’m trying to end homosexual persecution”) Right now, I’m not sure. If it weren’t for the fact that somebody in my class later came up to me and basically said that they had a family situation involving a gay (and presumably Christian) family member who was having a really hard time with things, and she wanted some of my research, then I might think that it was all for naught.

I think that I may have made a mistake by quoting the verses from the Sibylline Oracle, because I had to basically say “If you assume that murder and this other thing were actually economic sins, you’ll see that all of these are economic sins.” Not a very convincing argument. I shouldn’t have done that.

I now realize that I was ridiculously naïve to imagine that after I was done, everybody would be going “wow, I never realized that. You’ve shown me the light.”

The more I sit here drinking, the more I think about things that I should have said. I didn’t ever mention that lesbianism is never condemned. I wanted to say something like “In the time and place that Paul lived in, homosexuality was common and public. If Paul thought that it was a sin, he would have said so clearly and often”. Again, I either didn’t have time, or didn’t think about it.

Some of you guys are probably chomping at the bit to tell me what I should have said. All I can say is that that’s all that I can think about now. “If only I had just said…. Then I would have slaughtered them.” I suppose that I should just realize that the class is over, and that I don’t need to worry about it anymore. But I can’t stop imagining how it would have gone better if I had just said this or that.

Anyway, one girl after class said that she agreed with me, and another said that she had a family situation involving a gay (and presumably Christian) family member who was having a really hard time with things, and she wanted some of my research. So, perhaps I at least helped one person. That really makes me feel better about all of this.

I’m going to just post this now and quit rambling.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

If you end up helping one person you will have succeeded.

Remember what Jesus said about the mustard seeds.