How do loving churches overcome bronze age admonitions against gays?
This is primarily a sociological question: we’ve discussed the theology of appropriate Christian treatment of homosexuals since the earliest days of this message board.
I’ll briefly recap the theology here. Love the sinner but hate the sin. The gospels don’t mention homosexuality, though they are pretty clear on the subject of being a sanctimonious prick. That’s a red letter topic. Saint Paul attacked the views of neighboring tribes with ad hominem mention of their homosexuality. Modern theologians note that they aren’t too thrilled with some of the exploitative sexual practices of the day either, and think that Paul was conflating cultural practice and sexual preference as a shorthand. The claim isn’t that Paul wasn’t a bigot: rather it was that he didn’t think too hard about the issue. He wasn’t obsessed with it. At any rate for loving Christians, Holy Scripture isn’t too difficult: Love God and His creation and love thy neighbor as thyself.
At the same time a lot of the Old Testament material, written over 200 years before Socrates, clearly condemns homosexuality. It is characterized as an abomination. Similar passages also prohibit multi-colored fabric, which you would think is a pretty easy rule to follow. But never mind. Now I’m not a fancy theologian, but it seems to me that God is about love, as opposed to fan wank or rules lawyering. Furthermore, I say that the Bible isn’t mostly about wild sex. But others disagree. And most congregations will have a mixture of temperaments and even beliefs.
So -sociologically- how do actual churches overcome bronze age admonitions against homosexuality thereby welcoming gay couples or even performing gay marriages? Give examples, not necessarily named ones.
As the OP, I think discussions of theology are permissible in this thread, but recognize that they are hijacks. I am really inquiring about internal church politics c. 2015, which of course will vary. How do steps towards treating gays with decency play out in practice? How do the elders respond when they get snippets of anti-gay scripture thrown at them without historical context or even at times multi-paragraph study?
A few past threads:
2015 discussion: A doper agrees to disagree with a conservative Christian:
2013: How do I respond to this Facebook bigot?
2012: Are all religions anti-homosexuality?
A: No.
2009:
2004, which digs into a little of the Greek:
From a 1996-2011 essay at Religioustolerance.org: “How mainline &, liberal/progressive Christians develop their homosexual teachings and beliefs, from the Bible, church tradition, scientific studies, and personal experience”. It is not completely up to date.
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