Liberal and Conservative

RDKirk said:

What is your calculus for drawing that line?

I know what my calculus is--the means by which I can say that homosexuality is forbidden to Christians but cheeseburgers are not--but what is your means for drawing that line?

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I’ve made that point abundantly clear in several of my previous posts.

Dave-W said:

In criminal law - that is true. But in civil law, the seller, the manufacturer and even the ammo manufacture can be held liable for a person's bad actions.

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Actually, no.

Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act - Wikipedia

Only if the injury is because of failure of the devices to operate as designed can the seller, the manufacturer and even the ammo manufacture can be held liable for injury.

RestoreTheJoy said:

None of them are wedding cakes right off the shelf; there is no such thing.

They are all ordered and designed in conjunction with the client.

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Not "off the shelf"--yes, they were baked on order.

But they can be generic wedding cake designs out of a catalog.

Tigger45 said:

Not tue. First you can order your steak rare to well done and second they will throw together a multitude of ingredients to your order “within what they offer” on their wok and stir fry to your hearts content.

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That's not customization. All those are options "in the catalog."

The fact that the enemy has managed to get everyone focused on the boogeyman up front is why the Body of Christ in America is falling to the enemy's attacks from the inside.

By analogy, the Body of Christ in America is so focused on her shoes that she doesn't realize she has cancer.

dreadnought said:

There is an obvious, I think, rift in the Protestant Church. There are conservatives, who apparently believe the entire Bible is the inerrant Word of God. And there are liberals, who seem to believe we are bound to nothing the Bible says. Has anyone ever wondered if there is some middle ground?

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I think you can find the middle ground but you have to look for it yourself. Church leadership groups are generally bound in one way or another to a particular viewpoint.

RDKirk said:

In that case, the baker needs to restrict his customization. Have a catalog of standard cake sayings and sell only cakes with the catalog messages to anyone who walks through the door.

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That would certainly be one sensible approach. Of course, he'd then need to be prepared to make anything in the catalogue, for any customer, no matter the event they want it for.

When I look at Christianity in America - from the other side of the world, and mostly mediated by this forum - it seems to be going through something of an identity crisis. "We don't know who we are in response to our context, which is changing rapidly and in very confronting ways." The good thing about identity crises is that they eventually pass, but the bad thing is that people and groups often do some very silly things which they regret during them.

Paidiske said:

When I look at Christianity in America - from the other side of the world, and mostly mediated by this forum - it seems to be going through something of an identity crisis. "We don't know who we are in response to our context, which is changing rapidly and in very confronting ways.

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It is not just Christianity here that is experiencing that upheaval. The very ideas of "Conservative" and "Liberal" have been changing radically as well for society at large.

RDKirk said:

What is your calculus for drawing that line?

I know what my calculus is--the means by which I can say that homosexuality is forbidden to Christians but cheeseburgers are not--but what is your means for drawing that line?

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It's pretty simple, really.

The New Testament confirms that homosexuality (and other forms of sexual immorality) already forbidden in Old Testament (See Leviticus 20) continue to be off the table for His people. The New Testament, in sharp contrast, states that ceremonial requirements for the new believers are no longer necessary.

1 Corinthians 6:18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

Ephesians 5:3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.

Romans 1:26-27 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

1 Corinthians 6: 9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

1 Timothy 1: 9-10 Now we know that the law is good, if any one uses it lawfully, 9 understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 10 immoral persons, sodomites, kidnapers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, 11 in accordance with the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.

7 Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and perversion serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Matthew 15: 19
For from the heart come evil plans, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, abusive speech.


Matthew 19: And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” 4He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 7They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.

Acts 15: 20
but we should write a letter to them to abstain from the pollution of idols and from sexual immorality and from what has been strangled and from blood.

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Contrast:

Mark 7 -
5And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

“‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
7in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

8You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”

9And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 11But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)d— 12then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”


14And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”

Mark 2: John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and they came and said to Him, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?" And Jesus said to them, "While the bridegroom is with them, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot fast, can they? So long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. "But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day

Galatians 4:9-11 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain.

Belk said:

No, it is not a false equivalency. Sexual orientation is as innate as skin color and the only people who have homosexual weddings are homosexuals. Trying to change the focus to the event rather then the participants was already addressed by the courts. Both types of discrimination are covered by the same law.

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No, it is not. No one is "born that way:, Lady Gaga notwithstanding. There are no genetic markers whatsoever, just some studies that showed brain changes of indeterminate origin (chicken or the egg argument). And even apart from all that, no one can tell one has sex with the same gender unless you tell them, much unlike being a woman, black, Asian, etc.

Belk said:

I did read before responding. If I missed something then I apologize but it appears you are continuing to make the same argument. In this particular case making a wedding cake is the service offered. Since it is an offered service the courts have ruled you do not get to discriminate based on race, religion, or sexual orientation. The only way around this is to not offer the service of making wedding cakes.

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Only because the meaning of "wedding" was redefined.

RestoreTheJoy said:

No, it is not. No one is "born that way:, Lady Gaga notwithstanding. There are no genetic markers whatsoever, just some studies that showed brain changes of indeterminate origin (chicken or the egg argument). And even apart from all that, no one can tell one has sex with the same gender unless you tell them, much unlike being a woman, black, Asian, etc.

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Actual scientists disagree with you. I'll go with their findings over your unsupported opinion.

RestoreTheJoy said:

Only because the meaning of "wedding" was redefined.

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Much like it has been every time society has changed for thousands of years. Words reference reality, they do not define it.

RDKirk said:

That's not customization. All those are options "in the catalog."

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Nothing is stopping the owner from going beyond what is listed on a menu per his choice to fulfill the customer’s request or not.

Tigger45 said:

Nothing is stopping the owner from going beyond what is listed on a menu per his choice to fulfill the customer’s request or not.

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Nothing except being accused of unlawful discrimination if he's made a practice of doing it with all but one group of people defined by race, gender, et cetera.

Here is the basic problem: Christian vendors want to be secular business people doing whatever they want, unfettered by Jesus, until one particular group they don't like comes in. Then they want to play oh-so-holy Christian, too holy to touch evil.

I'm a photographer. A few years ago, in a men's bible study with another photographer, a barber, and a lawyer, we discussed the issue of any of us being contracted to perform personal work by homosexuals.

There are no undercover agents in Christ's body. If we're going to be Christians and businessmen, we must be openly Christian. So our businesses reflect our Christianity the moment you walk in the door or click on our websites. We're going to talk about Jesus at some point to every customer. We make it clear up front: You're dealing with a Christian here.

And that means our business practices must stand up to scrutiny as well, all the time, working always "as unto Christ."

So then, anyone who hires us knows what he's getting. And if a homosexual wants to hire us anyway, we'll take that as a holy appointment that someone has been enabled by the Father to accept Jesus. What we realized was this: The battle is not legal, it's spiritual.

The point is its inherently wrong to violate the conscience of a person just because they charge for their creativity as services.

Even an atheist who painted portraits as a trade who personally considered public nudity to be wrong and improper to be required to paint a portrait for a nude couple just because of a stroke of the pen of legislation ruling nudist as a protected group of people.

Belk said:

Actual scientists disagree with you. I'll go with their findings over your unsupported opinion.

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There isn’t anything conclusive on either side of the argument. Just studies that indicate this or that might be the case. Neuroscience is very young as a science, barely learning to crawl, anyone who talks about absolutes in that area has an agenda.

In that case, a blanket statement that people aren't "born that way" would also have an agenda?

Paidiske said:

In that case, a blanket statement that people aren't "born that way" would also have an agenda?

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If that's for me then yes, it's a unknown so either way saying 'science proves it' isn't a factual statement, so anyone making that argument either way is bringing in something to reinforce an argument that should have some other basis.

Tom Farebrother said:

There isn’t anything conclusive on either side of the argument. Just studies that indicate this or that might be the case. Neuroscience is very young as a science, barely learning to crawl, anyone who talks about absolutes in that area has an agenda.

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There is conclusive evidence that genetics is at least a factor. This is in direct contradiction to the claims I am replying to.

What do the new ‘gay genes’ tell us about sexual orientation?