Rule #1: GOD IS LOVE.
1 John 4:8 — Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Oh, also…
When Jesus was asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
He replied… (from Mark, chapter 12)
And of course, those rules are many, often unclear, and sometimes contradictory. You, as a Christian, pick and choose which rules out of the Bible to follow, and how to follow them. Other Christians do the same…and they may not make the same choices you make.
But you know that already, right?
The problem with this is that it implies that homosexuality is something that a person could conceivably repent of and give up, like adultery.
How you divine the will of God says more about the state of your soul than it does about God’s will.
I doubt God sees a compassionate, generous, non-hedonistic homosexual worse than a callous, selfish, womanizer. And churches are fucking filled with the latter.
If churches are supposed to be hospitals for the soul and you think homosexuality is a sin, you should be out there recruiting the homosexuals like churches recruit the prostitutes, pimps and addicts. That’s what they do right? Proselytize to the prostitutes, pimps, addicts, criminals, etc. Amirite?
Parts of it are.
Those are sometimes presented as two sides of the same coin. If you can’t love others you can’t love God.
Eleven times the bible tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves, or words to that effect. As Bullitt pointed out above.
And my personal favorite verse;
1 John 4:20
If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
To which I would add;
If you hate another because of his sins, you cannot love yourself, as you are also a sinner. Nor can you love God, who commanded us to love one another without judgement.
Look, you don’t have to like what anyone else does. You don’t. But if you choose hate, if you choose anger, if you choose to oppress others because they break one commandment while you break a different one, then you’re making a bad choice and you’re disobeying God and Christ.
This is much less a matter of us wanting to belong to your church, and much more a matter of of self-appointed spokesmen decrying our sinfulness, then using the power of the bully pulpit to stop the advancement of rights and even the rollback of rights hard fought for. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and there is a fuckload of rats squeaking right now.
BTW, I wouldn’t mind seeing a list of other large groups you oh-so-graciously “tolerate”.
Yes, yes and yes.
The Lord wants, much like Unca Cecil, for us not be jerks. He may want other things of you personally. You’d have to ask Him yourself.
Which god? How do you know, especially when he says different things to different people? If he doesn’t answer, how do you know?
…On second thought… never mind, DocCathode. I don’t want to derail this into another theist vs. atheist argument.
I think we can all agree that the Golden Rule is a good idea. The rest is commentary.
Clobber passages notwithstanding, the Bible isn’t especially focused on homosexuality one way or another. And there are a boatload of red letter passages in the New Testament telling the pious not to be dicks.
If a Christian says, “Yeah, I admit you’re doing no harm, but you are sinning nonetheless”, they should look a little deeper into their souls. Because the clobber passages were written at a time when homosexuality typically involved exploitative behaviors. They were reasonable in their time, less so now. And there aren’t that many of them, nor are they really that conclusive for those who don’t follow Jewish law.
Those who claim that Jewish law exists for all time under all circumstance are making an extra-Biblical argument. That’s fine actually: just say so.
Homosexuality is peripheral to the Word. I can understand those who argue that it’s frowned upon in the Bible. But honestly, this simply isn’t a slam dunk: if it was Jesus would have mentioned it now and then, as opposed to defending eunichs as humans who are simply born the way they are.
Jesus understood that this sort of moral understanding wouldn’t make him popular: he repeatedly said things like, “Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.” He repeatedly enjoined upon his followers to raise their moral bar, to extend their moral horizon. And he repeatedly denounced the religious who focused on rules and rituals, while neglecting basic human decency.
Parts of it are … what?
How do you know all these things?
Are you a Christian?
From the language you use “churches are fucking filled with the latter.” I doubt it.
If so, what church do you attend?
The bible also says in 2nd Timothy 4:2-3 “2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” NIV
Plus it also says in 2nd Timothy 3:16 " All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,"
So I dont see it is wrong to discuss scripture.
Oh, taking the Churchly high road, are we??
Got three words for you.
Bernard Cardinal Law.
And no, the name of my church is none of your business. Doesn’t mean I’m not a Christian. Just means that I’m no fool.
Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
I’m honesty unclear on how you concluded that I think it’s wrong to discuss scripture. Heck, I was discussing scripture.
Though I’ll add that discussions should include the underlying context, if only for historical setting. 2 Timothy was written by Paul at a time near his death, when many of his friends had abandoned him. Paul’s endorsement of scripture reflects the fact that he never renounced his Judaism. None of those passages imply that Christians need to follow Jewish Law - though if you want to argue otherwise, that’s fine with me. Frankly when I see folk sanctimoniously quote Leviticus yet wear cloth of more than one color thread (picking and choosing what commands to abide by), I like it. For I appreciate knowing that they are fond of using scripture to bash others – without taking it especially seriously themselves.
To be fair, I didn’t see you do that. But we both know it happens.
Bernard Francis Law. Asshole. So what?
Just wondering whether he made it to heaven or not.