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chip · by **chip** on Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:51 pm

A member wrote this:

pro-homosexual apologists have devised elaborate pro-homosexual theologies and claim that homosexual relationships are Biblically acceptable.

In seminary we had some Welcoming & Affirming students and professors. In an ethics class we had small group debates. One was whether homosexuality is an acceptable choice. These were fun times. Students passionately prepared talks in the dorms the night before. At least we thought about and cared as they did in the 1800's. They questioned if other forms of human slavery was acceptable (you see where my theological bent is based from that statement).

This is the most divisive issue today and it may be dividing for all the right reasons. Should this compromise be acceptable for denominations like the ABC and the Episcopalian church?

I had found a link a while back that systematically shows how the W&A group justifies same sex unions and out-of-the-closet gay clergy as viable options in the Christian church. I don't recall where that link is.

Nevertheless, How does the W&A group justify those lifestyles in the Christian church?

Right or wrong, it will at least help us understand them a little better.

chip.

ehart · by **ehart** on Fri Jan 11, 2008 4:58 pm

By first of all saying that Homosexuality is not a sin.

The sin in the days of Lot was inhospitality. The men of the city of Sodom were not guilty of homosexuality but of not showing hospitality. The demand that the visitors be sent out was a violation of the hospitality that Lot was showing. And the men of the city showed no hospitality themselves.

The sin in the days of Moses was idol worship and sex as part of the idol worship. The peoples who already occupied the land God was giving to the Children of Israel used various sexual practices including homosexual sex and temple prostitutes to worship their idols.

The Apostle Paul in Romans stated that "men would turn from their natural affection" so to turn from their natural-born affection whether it be hetero- or homosexual affection would be the sin. Also the verse refers mostly to men and women turning away from the care of others and really has no sexual connotations at all.

How does that proverb go?

Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive!
--Walter Scott, Marmion, VI

chuckl · by **chuckl** on Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:13 pm

chip wrote:A member wrote this:
...This is the most divisive issue today and it may be dividing for all the right reasons. Should this compromise be acceptable for denominations like the ABC and the Episcopalian church?

Nevertheless, How does the W&A group justify those lifestyles in the Christian church?

Right or wrong, it will at least help us understand them a little better.

chip.

One way in which awab justifies the homosexual lifestyle in the Christian church is that they are enabled by our denominational leadership. Consider this comment from our General Secretary, Rev. Dr. Roy Medley, to the 2005 Biennial gathering:

"The issue of homosexuality has brought us as a denomination to a cross-road in our life together. One road will lead to separation. The other path will lead us to shared ministry and mission in all the theological and ethnic richness that has come to make us the unique denomination we are. What will you choose? Which road will you take?

I was asked by the General Board before my election, "Where do you stand on the issue of homosexuality?" I replied, "I am conservative in matters related to human sexuality AND I do not want to be separated from those who differ from me. So, I want you to hear me clearly tonight: I am STILL traditional in matters of human sexuality AND I do not want to be separated from those who in Christian conscience differ from me on the issue of homosexuality. We have been a family where I have been granted the privilege of living in that paradox. With all my heart that is where I believe I have been called to be, where we have been called to be." -- Rev. Dr. Roy Medley, Denver, Colorado, 7/1/2005

The belief of our General Secretary and others throughout the ABCUSA is that hohmosexual apologetics are part of our "theological and ethnic richness." In stark terms, any group or individual within ABCUSA speaking and writing against homosexuality is set up to lose by default because of this false platform of unity at all costs that has been set as the adjudicating authority which supercedes Scripture. For Dr. Medley, unfortunately, there is subscription to an equivalency that tells us that even if I am Scripturally accurate, it is a far worse sin to distance myself from the "richness" of dialogue and unity and acceptance and welcoming and affirming than it is to denounce the sinful behavior that God has denounced.

Also note that Dr. Medley styles himself here as "traditional" in matters of human sexuality. He does not even dare to go so far as to claim to espouse Biblical truth to distinguish himself from those who merely have a different "Christian conscience!" Our distinction, then, is only a matter of tradition, not of truth honestly and accurately discerned from significant Biblical study. Consequently, we live in a "family of paradox" rather than a family of truth.

This is certainly one of the ways that homosexual behavior is justified within the Christian church. There are more, and I will post more for review and discussion over time.

[Note: I have the entire transcript of Dr. Medley's address as a MS Word document. The original web link is no longer valid. I could post it here, but don't know if the site owners want large posts like that. I can e-mail it to anyone who wants it. Request it from me at calayne1@juno.com. There is an ABC news link reporting on the address. It does not contain the entire address, though:
http://www.abc-usa.org/news/2005/20050702.htm ]

artjaggard · by **artjaggard** on Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:36 pm

Thanks Chuck,

It's the many faces of the VF system. On the one hand traditional notions of sexuality, which traditionaly means that the practice of homosexuality is sin. On the other hand tolerance to a fault which says the practice of homosexuality is just an alternate lifestyle with which I may or may not disagree.

Let not the double minded VF system think that it shall recieve anything from the Lord...

Better yet, Rev. 2:20 ff:

Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.

The only way any church in Revelations 2 is commended in relation to sexuality is by being intolerant, especially of the Nicolatians who taught that sexual sin wasn't really sin since it was an activity of flesh, not spirit.

As long as tolerance of sin is the hallmark of our VF system we should be intolerant of that system. Pertinant questions ought to include the number of times the heads of the VF system have been remarried and have they jumped ship while in office? I do not think divorce is the unforgivable sin. However if it is the rule at the top, it is a symptom of rottenness at the root. Until VF is known for chastity instead of being, in Kathy Brown's words, "a little Peyton Place", we are better off ignoring it to death.

Let's be clear. The apologies for W&A within the VF system are driven by sexual immorality within the system.

Art

chuckl · by **chuckl** on Mon Jan 21, 2008 4:00 pm

This is quite lengthy, but the topic is about how awab justifies the homosexual (and let's not forget their other categories of bi-sexual & transgendered) "lifestyle." It is rather simple to see how they justify themselves by looking at their documents. This excerpt comes from the awab journal "InSpiriter," Fall 2004 ("A Case for Same-Sex Marriage" by H. Darrell Lance):

Doesn’t the created order as described in Genesis indicate that the divinely ordained relationship is between male and female? When presented in its more polemical form, this argument is stated, “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” Two responses need to be made.

In the first place, one must read the text carefully. In Gen. 2:18, the Lord God contemplates the Human One (the literal meaning of the Hebrew word ‘adam) and realizes that solitude is not a satisfactory state for his creature: “It is not good that the Human One should be alone.” The search that ensues, therefore, is not for a spouse, it is for companionship. This is demonstrated by the fact that the Lord God first creates all the animals and brings them to the ‘adam who looks them over, names them, but fails to find a suitable companion. However, in the internal logic of the story, it would have been entirely satisfactory to the Lord God that the ‘adam choose an animal for his companion. Thus if more general theological conclusions be drawn from this story, they might be that God’s concern is not primarily the male-female arrangement but rather the concern that human beings not have to live their lives alone, that we need a companion “suited” to us, to quote the Revised English Version. And for those with a same-sex orientation, the one suited to her or him will be one of their own gender with whom they can find complete companionship. The arbitrary imposition of the heterosexual model on all people is arguably an opposition to the Lord God’s desire that we find someone with whom we may fully share our lives.

There is a second argument against same-sex marriage that takes the Genesis creation stories as its paradigm, namely that both creation stories assume the union of male and female, and that there is no evidence anywhere in the Bible to support the union of same-sex couples. This is essentially true, although ironically one of the passages of scripture most often recited at heterosexual weddings was spoken between two women, namely Ruth’s expression of loyalty to Naomi in Ruth 1:16-17. This argument against same-sex marriage, however fails to distinguish between the Bible as descriptive and the Bible as prescriptive. Why is this distinction important?

The ancients were acute observers of their natural and social surroundings, and we can reconstruct their ideas of that world with a fair degree of accuracy. However, at the same time, we would often hesitate to take their descriptions as normative. For example, Psalms 93:1 and 96:10 speak of the immobility of the earth, and Genesis 1:6-7 describes the sky as a great dome holding back the waters of heaven – both logical deductions from observing earth and sky. And yet we no longer take these descriptions of what they saw as prescriptions for modern science which has demonstrated that the earth moves around the sun and rain comes from vapor in the atmosphere. The Bible’s social and religious context provides similar examples: the normal form of government in the Bible is monarchy, not democracy. Samuel hacks a defenseless prisoner of war to death (I Samuel 15:32-33). Deuteronomy 20:10-18 commands the practice of herem or “Holy War” in which, under certain circumstances, all the enemy population – men, women, children – are to be killed. Slavery is taken for granted in both Old and New Testament (e.g. Exodus 21:1-11; I Timothy 6:1-2). Women are to be silent in the church (I Timothy 2:11-15). And so on. Most of us would, I hope, not want to have to argue for these biblical examples and instructions to be prescriptive for our present conduct. We understand them to be descriptive of customs and mores of a different time, customs which we believe time, experience, and continuing revelation have shown us to be problematic to say the least.

In the case of sexuality and marriage, again the Bible speaks only out of the experience of the time and place in which the writers lived. The bipolar heterosexual model was the only one available to them. Male same-sex sexuality was forbidden because it was associated with pagan worship, or because the laws of purity forbade the confusion of male and female roles, or whatever. They were unaware that some people, as part of their innate personality structure, have a sexual orientation that is different. To put it bluntly, we know more than they did about human psychology and sexuality, just as we do about the structure of the natural world. We are no more free to ignore this knowledge than we are to ignore the knowledge that the earth revolves around the sun.

One of the questions concerning this excerpt is whether or not it represents sound exegesis. This is the kind of logic and Biblical application that is adopted throughout their apologetics.

DrEhud53 · by **DrEhud53** on Mon Jan 21, 2008 6:37 pm

When you proclaim the Bible is a documentation of mans understanding of God in his social setting, and not the infaliable Word of God then you can justify anything including murder. Just an observation that I know will get me yelled at, those denominations that have promoted women in clergy are for the most part the same ones that are having the homosexual debate, because they don't FEEL that a loving God could condenm anyone. Maybe there is more relavence to 1Tim. 2:11-15 than most of us want to admit. But then thats just my observation.

Ehud

chip · by **chip** on Tue Jan 22, 2008 4:58 am

This line of thinking is difficult to follow.

They demonstrate “neither the Bible nor history is reliable”. Yet they use the Bible and historical, biblical figures to support ideas. In other words, “I don't trust the creation account(s), but I will use those writings to portray what God intended with Adam regarding his yearning for a companion. I don't accept biblical history but use Ruth's relationship with Naomi, and David's with Jonathan, to demonstrate homosexual tensions in scripture.” The Bee Gees said it best--"Jive Talkin".

If you don't believe Scripture then just be honest and start a new religion. Why highjack such a good faith like the Baptist religion. There have been great heretical "Christian" movements throughout church history; why not revive one of those instead of sinking this ship? Satan isn't worried about denominations like the ABC; the AWAB is an iceberg to these titanic denominations.

Chuck, that Inspiriter note answered the spirit of my question. It's all coming back; I remember now how they justify the issue. Guess I needed a reminder.

chip.

chuckl · by **chuckl** on Tue Jan 22, 2008 1:06 pm

chip wrote:This line of thinking is difficult to follow.

Chuck, that Inspiriter note answered the spirit of my question. It's all coming back; I remember now how they justify the issue. Guess I needed a reminder.

chip.

Your comment reminds me of the contoversy that used to arise in my Association concerning the American Baptist Evangelical (ABE) organization. Whenever anything about ABE came up, there would be those who responded with disdain, "They're trying to get churches to leave the denomination!" This was typically spoken by laypersons who were solid-thinking and solid-serving Christians. They just were unaware of the reality of the issues... until I provided a simple awareness lesson based on the truth.

I learned to have at the ready copies of the brochures from ABE and AWAB containing their respective statements of belief & purpose. I would read or have them read through them and simply ask, "With whom do you identify?" Amazing how quickly the ABE ceased to be an "enemy" of the denomination in their minds.

There is a website bumper sticker I saw that is applicable in so many situations:

How to anger a conservative: tell her a lie.
How to anger a liberal: tell him the truth.

chuckl · by **chuckl** on Tue Jan 22, 2008 1:12 pm

chip wrote:Chuck, that Inspiriter note answered the spirit of my question. It's all coming back; I remember now how they justify the issue. Guess I needed a reminder.

chip.

What I hope is to have more than awareness of how they justify their agenda. How is their "justification" solidly refuted? They are adept at planting seeds of doubt, as evidenced from just the above snippet. They are adept at introducing cultural relativisms, and this plays well even among some Christians who then support this perverse interpretation and application.

chuckl · by **chuckl** on Tue Jan 22, 2008 1:33 pm

DrEhud53 wrote:When you proclaim the Bible is a documentation of mans understanding of God in his social setting, and not the infaliable Word of God then you can justify anything including murder. Just an observation that I know will get me yelled at, those denominations that have promoted women in clergy are for the most part the same ones that are having the homosexual debate, because they don't FEEL that a loving God could condenm anyone. Maybe there is more relavence to 1Tim. 2:11-15 than most of us want to admit. But then thats just my observation.

Ehud

One of the more honest apologists for the pro-homosexual agenda & theology, in my opinion, is Walter Wink. I think this because he at least is open about his denial of the authority of Scripture (even though he does use it to justify his various doctrines of love).

From an article originally published in 1979, "Homosexuality and the Bible," Wink writes:

...The debate over homosexuality is a remarkable opportunity, because it raises in an especially acute way how we interpret the Bible, not in this case only, but in numerous others as well. The real issue here, then, is not simply homosexuality, but how Scripture informs our lives today... Where the bible [sic] mentions homosexual behavior at all, it clearly condemns it. I freely grant all that. The issue is precisely whether that Biblical judgment is correct. The Bible sanctioned slavery as well, and nowhere attacks it as unjust. Are we prepared to argue that slavery today is biblically justified? One hundred and fifty years ago when the debate over slavery was raging, the bible seemed to be clearly on the slave holders' side. Abolitionists were hard pressed to justify their opposition to slavery on biblical grounds. Yet today, if you were to ask Christians in the South whether the Bible sanctions slavery, virtually everyone would agree that it does not. How do we account for such a monumental shift?

The following link takes the reader to a current online copy of Wink's article. I notice that this one is not word for word the same as the copy I have, but it does contain the essence of his complete article:

http://www.christianadvice.net/homosexu ... e_wink.htm

DrEhud53 · by **DrEhud53** on Tue Jan 22, 2008 8:55 pm

It is true that no where in the Bible is slavery condemned, however many of the demeaning ractises of the institution that crept into the institution of slavery clearly are. i.e. Beating a slave as entertainment, sexual use of slaves, starvation and poor living conditions, etc.
Ehud

DrEhud53 · by **DrEhud53** on Tue Jan 22, 2008 8:57 pm

oooppppssss I ment (practices)

AJ · by AJ on Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:52 pm

There is a common misconception that the Bible does not condemn slavery. How, then, do those who believe this explain 1 Timothy 1:10? There is an explanation in verses 8-11 that the law was not made for the righteous, but for the lawless and disobedient. Paul then provides a list of who he includes in the "lawless and disobedient" category. In his list in verse 10 (King James translation), he includes "men-stealers". This refers to kidnappers or slave-catchers. In fact, the NIV translates "men-stealers" as "slave traders". I disagree with Wink and others who say that slavery is never condemned in the Bible.

Dennis Reeves · by **Dennis Reeves** on Tue Jan 22, 2008 11:44 pm

I have felt that the whole tenor and message of Philemon would indicate that Paul sees our family relationship in Christ trumping the cultural practice of holding slaves. Onesimus is to be forgiven and set free for ministry because he is Philemon's brother in Christ. A Christian master would want all his slaves to become Christians, and then be obligated to free them because they had become his brothers and sisters in Christ. The end of slavery came about in England because people who took the Scriptures seriously could find no Biblical grounds for its continued existence.

Dennis Reeves

chip · by **chip** on Wed Jan 23, 2008 3:08 am

"Slavery" & Homosexuality"

The line of thinking goes: "The Bible allowed slavery and today we moderns know slavery is reprehensible. Surely, we have evolved as a society. We know homosexuality was biblically and socially proscribed, but today, just like with slavery, we know better". Motto for radical liberals: Take the Bible in context knowing we have more information today. Some spiritual lessons can be gleaned from the Bible. We should follow the spirit of the word, not the letter”. I think they would say, “Sodom and Gomorrah were not hospitable to the angelic visitors. Their homosexuality was perversion, not because of their orientation, but because of their perversity (that's why Lot offered his daughters, because he didn't want to offend his angelic guests). Heterosexuals can become equally perverse as the people of Sodom; look at any Spring Break weekend in South Florida”.
________________________________________
Humankind has struggled with many issues, not just homosexuality and slavery. Our religious society is condemning one form of human slavery and is now condoning another. It's not whether one is worse than the other; both are deadly, only one to the temporal existence and one to the eternal. Human slavery is normally not a behavioral choice. The Bible portrays certain sexual behaviors as slavery, but a choice to be enslaved. Now whether a persons sexual proclivity is a God-given orientation or a learned choice is still up to debate. Some folks say “people can be born alcoholics”, does that mean he should just drink and die? Does it mean the church should change its position on drunkards, and should it change its scripture to fit the position? If an alcoholic is born that way, shouldn’t his orientation be seen as a gift and celebrated? Why do we condemn closet drinking?

(This part hits close to home for me)
God loves the slave, he loves the homosexual, he loves slave owners, and he loves the homophobe. He loves the alcoholic too; there’s not much debate there. Just because he loves us it doesn't mean we should engage in every behavior imaginable. I love my kid but don't like when she strays away from me without me knowing. When she is naughty, I don't love her less but I reprove her. If I didn't, wouldn't you question my love for her? I question the love the AWAB has for it's listeners. From their message we conclude, "Live and Let Live", but unfortunately, the ultimate message is, “live and let die”. My father died of cirrhosis of the liver. Many good Christians tried to get him to stop drinking. He had a few spots of sobriety. Thank goodness the AWAB didn’t get hold of him; he would have accepted his alcoholism and would have died a lot sooner. How many GLBT are saying "I’m OK" now by groups like AWAB? And a deeper question is: what does the Master say to them, and whom does he hold accountable in the end for allowing their gospel to flourish? (Hint: Regional and National Leaders, and the Boards who rubberstamp their decisions. Seminary teachers will have to answer too).

In Revelation 2 & 3, Jesus himself rebukes specific churches for putting up with certain people, certain groups, certain behaviors, and certain doctrines. I wonder how and about whom he would reproove us today?

chip.

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