The Bible doesn’t say “anything goes.” There are biblical admonitions for Christians to hold one another accountable for their behavior.
What I have heard—and it makes sense to me—is that the Bible says little or nothing about homosexuality (and the other parts of LGBTQ) as a matter of identity or orientation, the way we think of it today, because people in biblical times didn’t think in those terms.
True. But none in the words of Jesus. That is important to some.
But even so-
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate (malakoi), nor abusers of themselves with mankind (arsenokoitai), nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God."
The Right wing “Christian” Hypocrites somehow ignore most of that quote- Adultery among some leaders" is rife- but it is- according to Paul anyway- just as bad as being gay- and we arent sure if just being gay is what Paul meant here- but in any case- it continues to say that baptism washes those sins away.
How the Evangelicals cah love trump- who certainly is an adulterer and a fornicater, not to mention covetous- and it looks like a thief to boot- is beyond me.
Basically IMHO if Paul says Y and Jesus says X- we follow jesus, not the dude who never even really met him.
Kinda.
Homosexuality in ancient Rome - Wikipedia.
Roman men were free to enjoy sex with other males without a perceived loss of masculinity or social status as long as they took the dominant or penetrative role.
This is why some contend that what Paul meant by his new word is Men who are the passive partner.
and
Paul was a perverted transexual, as he gave up relations with women and took on a feminine role for the Church. Birthing, nursing (giving milk to), and raising spiritual children.
Yep. There is a tendency to imagine there is some division between Christians who pick and choose vs Christians who remain completely and utterly faithful to the whole of the Bible (and the notion of this division or distinction is promoted by folks who assert that they are part of the second group).
In reality, there is no such division. All of them pick and choose, because it is impossible to do otherwise, because there are conflicting instructions in different parts of the Bible.
There are divisions, for sure, but they are divisions between different groups who have picked and chosen different subsets (and many of those groups of course claim that they’re not the ones picking and choosing - it’s the other groups doing that).
Christians can kinda ignore the OT , per the Words of Jesus.
If a Christian sticks to the words of jesus, they are pretty safe.
How about Acts 10:28:
“but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.”
or in more modern English:
“But God has shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean.”
Agreed - in most of the documented interactions with people over matters of right and wrong, it seems that the stance of Jesus was pretty much ‘have you considered being less of a dick about it all?’
That is a good way of putting it. Tolerance- not bigotry.
Christians wanted Paul’s material in the Bible. I don’t understand how one can ignore it if you think the Bible is the word of God.
I thought the magic invisible man in the sky didn’t make mistakes?
I’d argue trans inclusion is completely acceptable from Christian point of view. There is absolutely nothing in the Bible about trans sexuality and it’s fundamentally about who someone IS not about who they want to sleep with. There is no biblical reason for trans exclusion.
I would say Matthew 23 applies to a lot of these matters. In context it’s Jesus rebuking the pharisees for their hypocrisy, but one of the key themes is religious people placing unfair burdens and conditions on others.
v13: Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.
If the Bible is silent on the matter, it’s silent on the matter. The Bible doesn’t say anything about bicycle riders, mountain climbers, sex therapists, nuclear physicists. Should all of those folks also be excluded?
A post was merged into an existing topic: SyncoSmalls trocking thread
I don’t know about Christianity, but Judaism is kinda okay with trans people. Traditional Judaism is a very “binary” religion, with different rules for men and women. And the Talmud (also called the oral law, and considered canonical) discusses what rules apply to men who used to be women, women who used to be men, hermaphrodites, and people without sexual characteristics. They were probably taking a physical view (which bits do you have) and no doubt they did so because people with ambiguous or non-conforming genitalia are common enough that the rabbis wanted to include them in the rules. But what they wrote is general enough that modern trans people can be accepted and accommodated within Orthodox Judaism.
So i think if the Christian documents are silent, Christians shouldn’t take a harsher line than their Jewish cousins.
As for Christianity and homosexuality, there are an awful lot of things that come up in one or two lines, and are widely ignored. Like the admonition for slaves to serve their masters well. There’s a lot more in the New Testament condemning wealth than condemning homosexually. But i don’t see any churches throwing our people who have too much money, and telling them they need to change their ways to be accepted in the community.
The only reason to hold tight to the one or two mentions of homosexuality is if you WANT to. Modern Christians ignore all manner of stuff in the New Testament that is out of step with our current culture or the desires of the people in charge of a group. “Choose love” seems like a more fundamental rule than any of the anti-homosexuality stuff.
So, the book of Isaiah talked about eunuchs (an ancient way maybe of labeling “trans”), and says the following:
Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and do not let the eunuch say, “I am just a dry tree.” For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off … for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered (Is. 56:3-8).
This tells me that within the bible, there is acceptance for trans people in Heaven.
Got any sort of Biblical scholarship to back this up?
I would have read eunuch literally, as men who had their balls removed.
I almost posted that @survinga seemed to have a “eunuch” perspective on the topic.
Umm,
Deuteronomy 22:5 KJV
The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.