Good questions, but I hope you don’t think there’s an easy answer. There’s a whole field of it: biblical hermeneutics.
Please note, absolute consensus does not appear anywhere.
As far as references to homosexuality in the bible, there are more than you’d probably think. The first I’m aware of is in Genesis, chapter 9, verses 20-27. Noah, having had a long sea voyage, has had too much to drink and passed out. Two of his sons respectfully ignore his sodden state, but Ham doesn’t, and is cursed (along with all of Canaan, Ham’s descendants). The questions is: what did Ham actually do? Some scholars think he just laughed at his father, some think he slept with Noah’s wife, and some think he sodomized Noah as he lay unconscious. Is this a text dealing with homosexuality? No one can say for sure, and that’s just one of dozens.
Good, solid answers to your questions require considerable study.
I’m sorry if I implied I didn’t think there was. I was merely illustrating one of many problematic examples from the scriptures, and the passage has been used in any number of discussions of whether or not homosexuality is a sin.
I think, rather, that it illustrates the opposite point: there are surprisingly few unambiguous injunctions against homosexuality in the Bible. Most of them involve situations where there’s some other, overtly horrible thing going on. There’s just Leviticus and Paul, and the translation of Paul’s letters is problematical.
As with most Christian arguments I think the Standard operating procedure is
Decide what you want to be true based on your own desires, culture and prejudices
Go to the bible and find quotes that support your position.
Given the size an ambiguous nature of the bible its pretty easy to do (2) once you’ve decided on (1).
For example suppose you actually don’t want to help the poor in spite of the many bible passages supporting such actions. You just have to look to 2 Thessalonians Chapter 3.
It’s all problematical. I’ve only been reading occasionally on the More Light debate for the last 20 years, and there isn’t anything that can’t be used exclusively by one side or the other. The fact that we’re engaged in civil conversations without often going into moral invective or explosive emotionalism is what I find encouraging: that the participants are actually listening to each other, rather than fronting an immovable position.
The SOP you’re referring to is called “eisegesis”, reading into the scriptures what you want it to say. No competent scholars endorse this method. The recommended procedure is “exegesis”, reading from the scriptures, preferably in the original languages (or as close as possible), and adding historical and cultural information to come to a conclusion as to its meaning. If you really want to do it right, you’ll need to research the history of its interpretation throughout history. It’s a lot of work, so most Christians, not being interested in being scholars, either take a text at face value or listen to an authority who may or may not have gone through the process.
You’ve made the above point yourself with the passage in 2 Thessalonians you refer to. A diligent scholar would need be to interpret it considering the role of the individual Christians in the early congregations. They were usually few in number, and if someone wasn’t doing his or her part, the church could easily fold.
By taking it out of context, and neglecting this one factor, it is easily twisted, as you have already said.
Yep, and the fallible, mortal authors of the Christian Bible were tasked with encouraging the flock to multiply in order to strengthen the power and reach of the church. Gay couples weren’t procreating and advancing the church’s agenda by numbers, therefore homosexuality would be discouraged as were other methods of avoiding childbearing. But now the numbers are huge, many if not most adherents practice some form of birth control (yes, the rhythm method is and has always been birth control), polygamy is no longer justified in the case of barren wombs, and the ban against homosexuality is logically losing favor along with the outdated need to increase the Christian population at the expense of hunger, morality, and health of mothers.
Plus women were property and with no labor saving devices marriage was almost required to accomplish daily tasks and kids were your retirement plan …“love” as a driver for marriage is a very recent development.
Trying to justify a modern morality through the writings of a iron age tribe is a difficult task.
Hey, Jack Chick at least first gives me a comic book to pick apart and critique, with ocassional (and mostly unintentionally) funny panels before he gets to this part.
(BTW and more seriously: Christians get around the matter of the Levitic rules (shellfish, mixed fabrics, shaving your sideburns, circumcision, etc.) through Chapter 15 of the Book of Acts where the Council of Jerusalem relieved gentile Christians from following most Mosaic laws on ritual and “uncleanliness” except those related to “blood”, idolatry and “fornication”, the latter being interpreted to encompass all the sexual prohibitions. Fundamentalists somehow fail to bring this up when challenged about Levitic prohibitions.)
What happens if we sign someone else’s name? Like someone we really don’t like and who we know is going to keep on sinning? Could we get them in trouble with God?
Nah, they’ll just get Heaven spam for the rest of eternity. “Heaven has vacancies! Sign up now!” “Super-effective way to enlarge your halo! Only $15/bottle!” “Meet angelic singles! God-approved!”
