How about: “My opinion is that homosexuality is as much of a sin as the many that are my own.”
I truly appreciate Polycarp for asking for a bit of time before we resumed this discussion that I started. It is devastating to lose a friend, and Scott was one of my BEST friends. It was a very VERY hard thing to deal with. However, I really DID want to have a discussion about this question. So I am reviving it. Plus, I owed Stoid an answer to her question.
The question arose, Stoid, because I have a concern about appearing to “condone” something I think is wrong. For instance, say some of us are sitting around the break room at work and someone makes what I consider to be a racist remark. Now, this would not be a remark along the lines of "I am going to go out and kick [some group]'s butt…but something along the lines of "all [said group] are [something or other.] Now, this is clearly WRONG as far as my belief system…but they are not really causing HARM to said group because they are not going to DO anything about it. They ARE doing harm, simply with their attitude or belief, but…not “actual” harm…as in physical harm…I have to assume that racist attitudes are only accepted by those who agree with them. I assume anyone who DIDN’T agree with them would feel the same way as I do.
So, if I sit there and don’t say anything to them, I am not judging the person making that statement… I am doing as the Scripture tells me …not judging them. On the OTHER hand, I feel that if I DON’t SAY that I think they are WRONG and being a totally UNLOVING and (in some cases) unChristian human being, then I might appear to be “condoing” that behaviour…and therefore not living up to the Scripture about loving my neighbor (ie…the group being denigrated.) At this point, I always SAY something, trying to walk that fine line.
But I was looking for a discussion about this. What IS the fine line between “judging” and appearing to “condone” wrong? That is what I was trying to get at.
Do you see what I mean?
If you STILL don’t, I don’t blame you. I started this thread because I am not clear about the whole thing myself.
I guess I’m a little late coming to this thread, but since I was the inspiration for it, I’ll take a stab. There’s an awful lot here to respond to, so I’m going to miss a lot, but here goes.
First, failing to judge sin is not the same as condoning it. More on “judging” in a minute. But as Christians, we are called to be light and salt to the world. Light shows what is hidden in the darkness, and salt hurts in a wound, but speeds healing, in addition to adding flavor to your favorite vegetable. 
It’s true, however, that we are to be light and salt primarily by example.
Now. Judging (or condemning) in the sense you asked about is not the same as saying “what you did is wrong.” What the men (with the woman caught in adultery) were doing that Jesus didn’t approve of is this: They were a mob, attempting to stone a woman without a hearing before the authorities, just to make a point to Jesus. They did not have the authority to carry out the sentence for adultery - they were just these guys. This is the same as when Jesus said “You have heard it said that an eye shall be paid back for an eye, and tooth for tooth, but I say to you…” The eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life rule was for carrying out justice. The sentence was to dealt out by a magistrate, not by anyone who felt he had been wronged. Which is exactly what those men were doing in their attempted stoning.
Again: Their error was the attempted execution of a sentence without the authority to do so; NOT making the determination that the woman caught in the act of adultery was sinning. You do not have the right to condemn somebody for sin since you yourself are a sinner.
Leave it to God or to the legal system.
Back to judging vs. condoning: Let me ask you some questions as an analogy:
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Your friend invites you over for a movie. While you’re there, he kills his neighbor’s dog because it barks too much. You don’t say anything because it isn’t your house or your business, and you go on watching your movie.
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Your friend tells you that you’re watching the movie on a television that he bought really cheap because it “Fell off a truck”. You don’t say anything because you didn’t do it.
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Your friend is homosexual and Christian. You don’t tell him that what he’s doing is wrong according to the bible.
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Your friend is homosexual and non-Christian. You don’t tell him that what he’s doing is wrong according to the bible.
In each of the above situations, are you withholding judgment, or are you condoning? IMO, only one of the situations is questionable at all, and I leave it to the reader to figure out which one.
Like I said, this thread is really involved, and it’s late, so I can’t get it all on the first try. I’ll write more later.
Joe_Cool, I don’t think that Jesus was condoning “an eye for an eye” because he says “you have heard that, but”. I don’t believe he considered the magistrate sinless. I think he also dissagreed with the person who had the proper authority to crucify him.
I don’t think that there is any problem with condoning “sin” as long as it hurts no one. Mostly because I don’t believe something that doesen’t hurt people is a sin. For example divorce is considered a sin when the bibilical meaning of divorce is probably differen’t than the one we use today. When Jesus talked about divorce he talked about unions that he created. He wasn’t talking about ones a priest or judge created. I would say divorce would be closer to involuntarily seperating two people whom God married.
Joe: I had no idea that the Sermon on the Mount, where “Judge not, lest you be judged” comes from (Matt. 7.1), ditto the commentary on “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” (Matt. 5:38-42), was given in the context of a near-execution. Can you explain how you know this?
Your analogies:
If people are going to sin, or boast of sin, right in your face, then silence is condoning. I think we agree on that.
I refer back to Polycarp’s post. Of course I don’t speak to him of what he’s doing, since AFAIK, he’s not doing anything, sinful or not.
If he mentions his gay lover, and you believe homosexual intimacy of any kind is a sin, then that’s where it becomes analogous to #1 and #2 for you.
If you believe that the verse about it being sinful for a man to have lain with a man as one would with a woman, specifically refer to anal sex, then it’s still time to keep your mouth shut, since you don’t know what they’re doing with their privacy.
When I was single, I slept with my SOs, when I had a SO to speak of. If someone had rebuked me for this on the basis of the Biblical verses against fornication, they would have similarly been out of line.
Durn right you don’t. Especially these days, when there’s no shortage of people who are giving him this message already.
I was going to go into a long response to this post until something occured to me…appearances are completely beside the point! You are instructed to refrain from judgment, so that is what you must do. Refraining from expressing your * actual * judgment of another’s racism is not refraining from judging, it’s refraining from expressing it.
So, when you find yourself listening to some nasty racist remarks, and in your mind you are thinking judgmental thoughts about the person speaking, you need to address the judgment that exists in your mind, unexpressed.
Now, this is surely difficult, but the easiest way is this: hate the sin, not the sinner. You may judge the behavior and thoughts of the person expressing them to be unloving and wrong, but you mustn’t allow that to color your feelings about the human being expressing them. And that is where the division lies, and that is the fine line you must walk. And it is definitely a finer, more difficult line to walk than the other, that’s for sure.
So then it becomes a matter of whether it is necessary for you to say anything, in order to walk that line. You have to examine your purpose in saying anything at all. Remember: it is unimportant what the persons who are doing the talking think. It is only important what * you know. * Because, presumably, God knows too.
So why say anything? The only reason I can think of would be to let the people around you know that for you, racist remarks are painful, because you are working towards loving acceptance of all humanity. Therefore, you would be grateful not to be exposed to such remarks. (You need not spell out the fact that your work in this instance is largely about feeling a loving acceptance towards them, what they need understand is only that you want to be spared this kind of talk.)
So, to reiterate, your appearance of condoning or not condoning is really, I think, a matter of ego (and I say that with all due respect and awareness that you are in fact a most humble and loving soul, please don’t misunderstand me.) So you have to dump the ego and consider only what God sees when he looks in your heart, because that’s the only place he’s looking anyway.
Howzat?
Scotticher-I agree with you.
I just wanted to ask a question:
Why is it necessary for Christians to judge other Christians? I could see the point in pointing out sins to people who aren’t Christians (first you would have to make them want to convert though). But if everyone is a Christian, then isn’t it a little presumptious to judge each other? I mean, we are all going to be judged in the end, so why should we be concerned about what our fellow man thinks? It’s God’s opinion that matters.
And actually, the more I think about it, the more I think it would be better for your Christian practice to refrain from saying anything at all. Because you could probably use the practice in not judging.
Being the best Christian you can be might be even more difficult than you thought!
Here would be my hand rule of thumb:
- keep your mouth shut about sinning … we all do that
BUT
- speak out against injustice – namely, when another person is suffering real harm (i.e., loss of life, liberty, livelihood–the person being stoned to death, the person wrongly imprisoned, etc.)
Seems to me that, once we get to the point where everyone in the world is no longer cheating and starving and killing one another, THEN we can start to argue about what they do in their bedrooms with consenting adults. There are rather a lot of more serious problems in the world, and a lot more obvious and heinous fruits of sin to remedy.
I think you need to reread your scriptures, Joe.
Seems to me this wasn’t some random mob, they were the ones who had the civil authority to carry out the Leviticus rule. And even if they weren’t, surely you think Jesus had that authority. Yet he still chose mercy.
What happened between God giving the rules in Leviticus and Jesus teaching about Love?
A trite, hollow and empty phrase used by hateful people to rationalize their hatred of those who aren’t like them. You can’t hate homosexuality and love a gay person, the two are inseparably connected. You can’t hate Islam and love a Muslim, becuase without Islam the Muslim wouldn’t be the person they are. So on and so forth.
Hate the sin, love the sinner is the most evil of all “Christian” doctrines, because it justifies hate. A good religion has no room for hate in any form.
There is no problem. It is not a choice. Ex-gay cults are evil brainwashing groups that do great harm to the innocent folks they snare in their sugary-sweet net. No one with an ounce of intellect beleives that homosexuality is a choice.
Not really.
That is still visciously condemning a gay person for having the gall to be honest about who they are.
You forgot 5:
- Your friend is a homosexual and a Christian. You are intelligent enough to realize that the so-called anti-gay quotes in Scripture do not actually apply to the modern concept of loving, supportive, moral gay relationships, and thus have no problem with it.
I disagree with you completely! Of COURSE you can hate a person’s behavior or choices or beliefs and love that person! How silly to think otherwise. Do you love equally every behavior, thought, belief, and action of everyone you love? I certainly don’t!
What if a parent has a difficult teenager that fights, uses drugs, steals cars? By your definition, they must either love and embrace all those behaviors, or hate their child, and I don’t know many parents who would do either! They continue to love their children, while hating what their children are doing.
Think about it.
There’s a difference between drug use, which is something someone does and homosexuality or religion, which is emphatically and irrevocably part of what someone is.
A homosexual can never stop being a homosexual. To hate homosexuality is to hate that person, because homosexuality is what they are, it is part of the core of their being.
There’s a difference between drug use, which is something someone does and homosexuality or religion, which is emphatically and irrevocably part of what someone is.
A homosexual can never stop being a homosexual. To hate homosexuality is to hate that person, because homosexuality is what they are, it is part of the core of their being.
I must gently disagree with this. All that is needed for something to be wrong or a sin is for God to say that it is wrong. I (and this is my opinion) don’t think God would make it impossible to refrain from something and then call it a sin. We make choices of what to do and how to behave and whether or not to give in to our desires. Of course, I respectfully acknowledge that I doubt many of us will every be in agreement on this subject. I’m not pronouncing anything on anyone here, I just fel the need to say something, ok?
His, for once we agree, but I kind of skipped the “what if God did…” step and moved to practicalities – He has not, so far as I know, mandated anything impossible for humans aided by the Holy Spirit to accomplish, nor forbidden anything we are incapable of not doing.
The point I was making in that comment was (relative to homosexuality) that gay people state that being gay – men being attracted to men instead of women, or women being attracted to other women instead of men – is a state they found themselves into when they became aware of their own sexuality, and one that in almost all cases they are incapable of changing. (I ask you kindly to skip discussion of “ex gay ministries” for the moment, since that’s a hijack this thread does not need.) For God to forbid a given sex act is one thing; to stand in judgment over people for what they are and cannot change is quite another. It’s the classic line between sinner and sin in a slightly different perspective, if you will. If gobear or Esprix says that he can’t help being gay, he’s not saying that he’s under some sort of compulsion to go out and have sex with any willing man; he’s saying that he is so composed that he finds sexually attractive the same sort of person as you as a straight woman would, rather than the sort of person that, say fauxpas or Fenris would find sexually attractive – and that he as is incapable of changing that as you suddenly deciding that you’re going to become a Lesbian and find only women attractive would be for you. Does that help clarify the point?
But see, they AREN’T!!! I wouldn’t care to JUDGE the person making those remarks, as it isn’t my BUSINESS to do so. But on the other hand, I don’t want them to think that it JUST FINE with me that they are being a bigot.
I don’t WANT them thinking that I agree with them, that calling an African American the “N” word (for example) is JUST FINE WITH ME…because it most assuredly is NOT fine with me, and I don’t want anyone THINKING it is fine with me. Or with GOD, for that matter. And in this particular instance, I think I CAN speak for God. God most CERTAINLY doesn’t see the color of anyone’s skin…and He is most CERTAINLY appalled by people who DO…and who decline humanity to those people who don’t happen to share the same skin color that YOU (not YOU, Stoid, a “general” you) do.
Let me give you an example, okay? My parents were founding members of our church. There are several people who were there WITH them when they founded that church. One of them is a good friend of my father. One day dad and I were invited to dinner at someone’s house, and they invited these friends of ours also. Now, in MY neck of the woods, we don’t really have any overt racism toward African Americans. No, the prevailing prejudice here happens to be toward American Indians. Probably because we have a “reservation” quite close to where I live, and it WASN’T the best thing to have happened to the culture, and in the process, the people involved have developed quite serious problems. No doubt due to the fact that as a nation we …never mind, that isn’t THIS debate. Anyway, so we were talking about something or other, and this man said something that I considered VERY racist. Something along the lines of (talking about an employee who had a drinking problem.) Direct quote. “Well, what can you expect? He was an indian, after all.”(Uncapitalized “Indian” because that is the intent in which it was said.)
Okay, so “pan” to Scotti, who is choking on her tea.
Now, in THIS case, we are talking about a brother in Christ, so once I got my temper under control, I said…" You DO realize how racist that comment was, don’t you?" Maybe not the BEST thing to say, but the best thing I could come up with at the time. (It didn’t go OVER well, either, but I don’t care. That remark was WRONG and I didn’t feel I could just let it ride without saying something.)
Now, if that had been someone who WASN’T a brother in Christ…THAT is where I am seeking help. I don’t WANT anyone thinking that God thinks that is OKAY…but OTOH, I KNOW this man and he would never EVER ACT on his racism. So, he isn’t going to be causing HARM to any Native Americans…he just holds generalized misconceptions. Sure, that hurts people in a general sense…but in NO way is it something that was, or is GOING to be, a legal problem. He has a misconception, he isn’t going to ACT on it.
Yes. Which is what I am trying to figure out. WHERE is that line between NOT judging, yet NOT allowing people to think that I am in agreement with them about something I think is WRONG? WRONG (and unBiblical)…WRONG, WRONG… WRONG!!!
Okay, I guess that is a valid point. Wait, I guess I DON’T think so. It doesn’t have anything to DO with me judging THEM, it has to do with ME MAKING IT CLEAR that although I am NOT judging them, IT IS A WRONG thing…on EVERY level…Christian or NOT Christian, it is a WRONG THING!
Actually, this is ONE area of my Christian life where I don’t really have a problem. I don’t have a problem with loving people, at least so far. I have never met anyone who did anything that would make it inherently difficult to love them. If I ever DO, I will get back to you.
Yes, He does. But if I sit there and smile, I am condoning their belief. And if I think it a horribly WRONG thing for them to believe what they believe, and it is a belief that I believe is abhorrent to GOD as well, and I sit there and smile, then it would be reasonable for them to believe that I DON’T think it is abhorrent to God. And believe me, there are a LOT of things that I don’t want anyone to think I approve of. Racism is the example I brought forward, and I think it is a good one.
You know, there is a great deal of sense in what you say. I guess I should practice saying things like…"I feel that what you said is racist, and I don’t want to hear it. It hurts me, and I don’t agree, and please don’t involve me in your conversations concerning what you think about this.
Of course, that is…in and of itself, judging them. “sigh”
I don’t misunderstand you at ALL, and thank you for the kind words. But the thing IS, I believe that I have an obligation to present the truth of what Christ teaches. I don’t want to appear to be sitting in judgement on anyone, because I don’t believe it is my right or obligation. However, I don’t want to appear to be agreeing with anything that I don’t think God thinks is right, either.
I dunno, but thank you for discussing this with me.
My Love,
Cheri