I couldn’t say for sure, as I know little of Christian theology, as mentioned. (In fact, I probably know less about Christian theology than Polycarp knows about Orthodox Judaism :D). So I would put it this way: people who point to Leviticus and go on and on about homosexual acts and ignore the other 612 rules that the Torah lays down have some explaining to do.
IzzyR, we’re in violent agreement with each other. My apologies for going off on you earlier! 
Since I think we’ve beaten Leviticus to death, let’s turn to the NT and check out this:
This is a website that offers an interesting interpretation of NT condemnations of homosexuality and homosexual acts. Follow the first link (not the one for the short version) then follow the link for the NT passages.
The commentary on Romans I is:
Paul’s letter to the Romans raises a question about the "“natural” and the “unnatural.” He says men “gave up natural relation with women and were consumed with passion for one another.” This is certainly a reference to homogenital acts. And the words translated as “unnatural” are para physin. What do these words mean?
From the Religous Tolerance.org Site they have the following interesting translations/interpretations of Pauls writing:
The original Greek text describes the two behaviors as malakoi and arsenokoitai. Although this is often translated by modern Bibles as “homosexual,” we can be fairly certain that this is not the meaning that Paul wanted to convey. If he had, he would have used the Greek word “paiderasste.” That was the standard term at the time for male homosexuals. We can conclude that he probably meant something different from male-male adult sex.
From this, I think it’s clear that Paul wasn’t condemning male/male homosexual acts at all.
Useful points, Freyr. As I think you’ve noted me commenting before, if you read those verses in context you find that the desire for gay sex is something God afflicts previously heterosexual people who have turned from Him to “the things of this world.” Since that doesn’t fit the story of any gay person I’ve ever read, talked to, or encountered in any way, the only thing I can figure out for it is that Paul’s talking about “turning to perversions out of ennui,” trying out something different for new kicks when you’re jaded. Which was the case in first century Rome (don’t forget the letter is addressed to the Roman Christians), and in New York 20 years or so ago – remember “queer chic” when half the Jet Set decided they were bisexual all of a sudden?
In other words, gay-oriented people aren’t the target here at all.
And there’s also the thinking that Paul saw homosexuality as someone “turning away” from their natural heterosexual desires, as “homosexuals” (and certainly gay pride) didn’t exist at the time, or, rather, didn’t exist as a sociological entity. Knowing as we know now that homosexuality is as much of a choice as heterosexuality is (that is to say, not one at all), it seems possible at least that Paul’s writings may not apply, as no homosexual is “turning away” from heterosexuality (claims of Exodus aside), but rather acting naturally to their nature. It seems more likely to me that Paul was speaking of hedonism in general, as opposed to homosexually oriented individuals directly.
Esprix
**Polycarp wrote:
As I think you’ve noted me commenting before, if you read those verses in context you find that the desire for gay sex is something God afflicts previously heterosexual people who have turned from Him to “the things of this world.”**
Thanks, Polycarp! To be honest, I’ve always found Paul a bit suspicious. His conversion on the road to Damascus and then his subsequent conversion efforts; he always seemed, to me, to be talking about a very different Jesus than the one depicted by the Apostles who actually knew Jesus. One reason I loved The Last Temptation of Christ* was the part of the dream sequence where Paul and Jesus get into a shouting match. Hrm… Ancient Rome and New York City of the '80s… you think there’s a connection? 
I’d be very interested in hearing a conservative Christian’s take on the translation of Paul as offered. Otherwise, it appears a bad translation is the cause of equating homosexual acts = sin in the NT.
Esprix, agreed, totally about the sociological construct of a modern homosexual (within the past 100 years) as opposed to what was before. To be out and proud of it is completely modern phenomenon (not to cast aspersion on pre-modern homosexuals!). Even Pagan Greece and Rome had nothing like it, as far as I know. Does anyone else know?
While the author of the page provides nice support for his point by including the Greek text (though my Bible says the literal translation is against nature, which would imply the same meaning) he starts one verse too late in analyzing the context. The verse doese not imply that people stopped being Christians and then felt these desires, Paul is talking about the fall after Creation. IMHO, one could harldy argue that a list of behaviors detailed as having come about from the fall could be interpreted in a positive light in Christian literature, no matter what the vocabulary used might be. Essentially, I don’t see a conflict between the claim that homosexuality is innate and the claim that it is a sin. If anything, it would be predicted. The Bible never makes claims that we will innately desire to follow the behavior it ascribes, the exact opposite is in fact described. Well, there you have the Christian take on it :).
Fleegajoob, the problem there, speaking hypothetically, is that except for some perversions of Calvinism, for something to be a sin, there must be repentability. There is no grounds for condemning you for not creating food for the hungry out of thin air, because that is not within your powers (I assume!). To share a portion your resources with the hungry, on the other hand, is well within your powers, and therefore the failure to do so can be sinful.
By this logic (and I admit logic is slippery when it comes to religion), if Freyr, Esprix, and their fellow gays cannot “repent of being gay,” then their orientation, which appears to be what the passage in Romans condemns, cannot be sinful. And I do not see the passage as conceivably talking about the Fall, since it appears that the individuals are “exchanging their natural lusts for unnatural.”
The passage, beginning at verse 20, says
This certainly sounds like the fall to me, for given Paul’s clear stance that the flesh is inherently corrupt, that would be the only time that humanity would have had the ability to make that fall. I believe that the word they refers not to individuals, but to mankind.
Also, I do not think that having a desire to do something means that you cannot repent from it. If so, then every person who professes Christianity would be in BIG trouble. Let’s face it, if Christians weren’t tempted by the things that everyone else was, the majority of the NT would never have been written, as a lot of it was to churches who were struggling with specific issues. The point is that you don’t have to do what your body wants, for there is a greater joy elsewhere.
See, this is the part that I have always had a problem with. So basically, God is saying that the straight people are going to have it easy in the sexuality department…they get to marry someone they fall in love with and have sex and still get into heaven. But the gay people…well, they have a problem. No matter how much they may want to get into heaven, to do so they have to live in social misery for the rest of their lives.
Thanks, God! One ticket south, please…
Emphasis mine, to show off the two most important words in Biblical interpretation and, on a larger scale, religious belief. Thanks for including them. 
Esprix
Your welcom, Esprix. I’m sure that if I hadn’t, then someone else would have for me :). There is some level of interpretation involved in reading any text, and to pretend otherwise would be playing the fool. I do think that we owe it to ourselves to search for what the true intent was, and I do not feel that this particular passage is not exactly cryptic in content.
jayjay, I think that your statement oversimplifies the issue of what sin is in the Bible. Every person is going to have certain areas in their life that they struggle with, and each person is going to have to rely on God to help them with those areas. Straight people can have as much problem with sexual temptation as gays. (Note: I realize that I am assuming Christian beliefs in this part, specifically mine. I am trying to clarify my POV.) I do not believe that that struggle will lead to misery for those involved, though. I think that God wants exactly the opposite for those who follow him. I believe that by following his commands and putting him first in my own life, I am actually pursuing and fulfilling my own need for joy. How devilishly hedonistic of me! :eek:
Ignore the double negative in that first paraghraph… I was changing my wording and forgot to proofread. Sorry!
Doesn’t really explain gay Christians, though, does it?
Esprix
Floogajoob responded:
In those passages I italicized above, you seem to be talking about committing a gay sex act. Correct me if I am wrong.
On the assumption that that is indeed what you meant, may I point out that nobody is defined by what they do sexually. A nun is a nun not because she’s “married to Jesus and doesn’t have sex,” but because she committed her life to live under a rule for love of Him and her fellow men. I have not the slightest interest, other than a slight prurience, in whether any given married couple has sex, how they do it, what foreplay if any they use, and how they feel about doing it. They’re married because they love each other and decided to commit to spending the rest of their lives together.
Gay people are precisely the same, except that the people they desire and fall in love with, and want to spend the rest of their lives with, happen to have the same plumbing as they do. Which makes the mechanics of their having sex in a mutually satisfactory fashion a bit trickier, but otherwise makes no distinction between them and us. It’s quite possible to live a totally moral life under either orientation. I can easily refrain from hitting on the buxom young blonde in my office (who is a pretty sharp person) because I am committed to my wife. And there are gay couples who found each other, have never (seriously) desired anyone but their partner, and live chaste lives within a mutually pledged bond.
But what society condemns gays for is not the having of sex, but the orientation as a whole. Or at least most gay-bashing I’ve ever heard of was not on the basis that they’d been caught doing the dirty, but for being a person who loves, or could love, another of the same sex.
And that, it has been made very clear by statistical studies and mountains of uncontroverted anecdotal evidence, is something that was not chosen, and effectively unchangeable. (I will not accept a hijack to whether “ex-gay programs” work: if they do at all, it’s extremely difficult and long-term for such a change, and there appears to be quite a bit of evidence to document that.)
So while I take your point that a gay person, just like a straight person, has moral choices to make regarding his or her actions, I want to stress that when I was talking about the Romans passage, I spoke specifically, and explicitly, about orientation. I invite you over to the Pit – no, not to get into a flame war with you – but to review the thread started by goboy about his potential lifemate and what has been happening in his life. And then decide if your points remain valid.
Polycarp, thanks for not taking me to the Pit. I knew I was in trouble when I accidentally triple posted, but I didn’t expect it to go that far :).
Just because I don’t condone homosexual relationships does not mean that I do condone the way that society treats homosexuals. While the “love the sinner hate the sin” stuff that I’m sure you guys have been fed a million times before is a load of BS (if we really hated sin as much as we profess, we wouldn’t do it. Only God can make that claim.), I do think that I can love someone without condoning their behavior. If we look at the example of Jesus, he associated with the greatest sinners of his day. Harlots and corrupt officials were fair game. He treated them like people, something that they were lacking from those members of society who were “too good” to associate with them. This does not mean that he condoned their behavior or did not expect them to change. It does mean that he made love his priority. That is the model that I look at when forming my behavior towards people. And hey, I know I’m not perfect at it, but that is the goal that I strive towards.
And Esprix, you could pick any behavior you wanted to and find professing Christians that practiced it. Unfortunately, one cannot look at specific instances of Christian behavior and make a perfect model of what Christian behavior should be. How I wish it were so! And it should be. But many who say that Christianity is their religion fall far short of the picture that Christ paints for what our behavior should be. Many of these people provide the most excellent witness against Christianity that will ever be made, and it is those who do so that make me angry more than anything else (these folks have been discussed on this board often enough that I’m sure you can come up with many nasty examples of supposedly Christian behavior). But I digress. The point is that we must look to Christ for our model, not the behavior of other Christians. We can model others (for Christian behavior) only so much as we see them modeling Christ.
Dragging this back onto topic:
Fleejagoob, I really have to debate Paul’s veracity on this. On this and several other topics, he seems to take a very different path than from what Jesus is reported to have said. If homosexual acts were really that important of a sin, why isn’t this specifically mentioned in any of the other Gospels? The people who interacted directly with Jesus probably wouldn’t have missed such an important point. Then, suddenly, Paul shows up with all these extra “rules” that Jesus apparently left out. I find this highly suspicious.
Fleejagoob, you say the translation that I quoted above isn’t really accurate. What do you base this on? Have you translated those verses yourself or what’s your source for your version of the translation?
Freyr, as far as the translation issue is concerned, if you’re talking about the single Greek word that I pointed out, then it’s a footnote giving the literal translation in my Bible. I don’t think that that really makes a big difference in the passage, however. If you’re talking about the passage as a whole, I don’t debate the validity of the biblical text you cited. I simply say that the author of the page (the second link) to which you provided a link started the passage at a point that takes it slightly out of context. Any differences from when I quote scripture would be because I have a different translation. I usually use New American Standard (NAS), which is the most literal translation according to nearly all of the sources that I have read. And, ummm, see my last point as I realized I said something a little stupid. Please?
Now on to your first point(s) (I seem to do this backwards… oh well). First of all, I make no claims to the elevation of the status of sins. The Bible seems to make it pretty clear that sin is sin. It also makes it pretty clear that homosexuality is a sin, however.
As far as a lack of content on the issue in the Gospels is concerned, you have to realize that Paul’s letters were written for a different reason than the Gospels. MML&J were written to show who Jesus was, and chronicle the impact that He had on the lives of those around Him. Since Jesus was not a guy who was big on listing sins (just the opposite, in fact) there are a lot of omissions if you are looking for particular sins. He dealt with matters of the heart. He intended to return people’s focus to where it really belonged, instead of the religious legalism of the day. Paul’s letters, on the other hand, were written to fledgling churches who were often struggling with specific issues. Therefore, though he continues to make it clear that it is not by works that people are saved, he gives more detailed advice on behavior and particular things that they may have been struggling with.
Finally, I have to revise my statements from earlier. Esprix was right, I spoke too hastily when equating the passage to the fall. (Oooh… that stings. But I said I had to look for truth, and I’m holdin’ to it.) I missed the key words of “image in the form of” in verse 23. The passage is talking about worshiping things other than God, specifically idols. So it seems to be talking about men rejecting God in general, of which the fall would have been a specific instance.
More later, sleep now.
Fleegajoob, a very nice summary on the traditional view of Jesus vis-a-vis Paul with regard to sin. I take one exception to what you say, however:
This ties into two of the issues I’ve raised in arguing the viewpoint my wife and I share on this. First, “what the Bible says” can be extremely misleading, since words’ meanings and their contexts change over time. I think you need to look carefully, not only at the wording in the original (with the aid of a good Bible scholar or reference who knows the Hebrew or Greek), but in the social construct in which it was framed. Jewish and First Century customs are not ours in 21st Century America, and this can lead to some inane readings if one does not pay attention to detail. (The classic quote from First Corinthians about women not being allowed to speak in church is a really good example. In Paul’s day, when women received no education, and hence could contribute nothing useful to a sermon or discussion, this made sense – the context makes it clear that they were disrupting meetings by asking questions of their husbands: “What’s he talking about?” To apply that pronouncement today where equality of the sexes has reigned in education for nearly 100 years, and is slowly being put in place in all areas of society, is taking the letter over the spirit.)
Second, “homosexuality” is an abstract noun denoting a group of related concepts. Except for the Romans passage under discussion, what the Bible condemns are homosexual acts, and that in a context of a list of sexual sins that makes it clear that what is being spoken of is use of another man (Lesbianism is not addressed) as a sexual release, in the same sense as patronizing a prostitute and one-night-stand promiscuous fornication are condemned. (Only Romans addresses the interior attitude, the orientation, and only Romans speaks of woman/woman sex.) And, as I noted above, the context seems to imply a turning in the individual from “normal” heterosexual desire to “perverted” homosexual desire given by God as punishment for rejecting Him in favor of idolatry in the broad sense.
There is no passage that, in my admittedly liberal reading, addresses the idea of sexual acts done in the context of love by two men or women who are in a committed quasi-marital relationship and who have been since the day they knew what sexual desire was oriented towards desiring persons of their own sex.
This is not an attempt to “excuse” gays “because it’s politically correct.” It’s an attempt to find out just what, exactly, is being condemned and not apply it erroneously to a social-outcast minority thoughtlessly in support of a distaste many feel towards their modes of life.
At least two threads in the past week have focused on the pain caused specific individuals who are members here by that latter attitude being bolstered by a “the Bible says” mentality.
I believe in following what the Bible says. And one major point in it is that we are not obligated to live out somebody’s conception of what God’s law is, set up as a legalistic code, but rather to live a life focused on total radical love of God with all our being and of all our fellow men in the same way we love ourselves. To me, that trumps any two-verse proof-text citation from the eleventh chapter of some prophet or epistle.
That passage is one of three main reasons we have become outspoken for the gay community. A second is Pastor Martin Niemoller’s warning: “First they came for the Jews, and I said nothing, for I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I said nothing…” (Probably slightly misquoted, but you should recognize it. If you don’t, find it and read it.) The third is intensely personal, the baring of my soul, and while I posted it on a now-locked thread recently, I have no desire to repeat it here.
I’d welcome your feedback and that of others on the viewpoints I’ve expressed here.
{fixed code. --Gaudere}
[Edited by Gaudere on 03-07-2001 at 09:35 AM]
**Fleejagoob wrote:
Paul’s letters, on the other hand, were written to fledgling churches who were often struggling with specific issues. Therefore, though he continues to make it clear that it is not by works that people are saved, he gives more detailed
advice on behavior and particular things that they may have been struggling with.**
Then doesn’t this make the point; that Paul is not speaking with the authority of God behind his words, he’s simply giving advice to the new Christian communities of his time. Therefore his words are simply his, they’re not divine in origin or inspiration. They are the words of Paul of Tarsus, a human man just as falliable as the res of us. His condemnation of homosexual acts or homosexuals are just the opinions of a man for his time; NOT the Word of God speaking for eternity.
This may be a digression…
I’m a baptised Catholic. My girlfriend is Methodist. We’re both spiritual people - we go to our respective churches, she teaches Sunday School, I help out at the local convent. Prayer’s a very important part of our lives.
It was difficult at first having to deal with that first moment of attraction. Well, difficult for her at least. You see, I’m gay. She’s not. But yet, after four years of friendship, we decided to become a couple.
It’s been two and a half years so far of pulling each other through personal crises and anxieties. Dealing with bills, jobs and extended families.
I wouldn’t call it a perfect life, but we’re happy. And we know that happiness stems from our love for each other, God and our families.
Does that make us perverts? Sinners? Do we still go to hell at the end of it all?
I’ve stopped asking that question. God knows how much He matters to me. And He knows how much I love my girlfriend. If on the big day, He says to me, “Sorry, you have to go to hell for that”…well then, too bad.