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vinsight4u

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Well, I'm not in a position to speak from experience. I can only state that many people in my country are not married yet love each other dearly. I can also attest (As I volunteer in a womens shelter) that many women who are married live an abominable life with their husband.

So I dont think that what you espouse is a true and consistent standard....my point in any case isnt to NOT marry - but rather highlighting what that bumper sticker you referred to may have been espousing.
How many of those living together have children, yet they do not marry each other? God intends the family unit. Yes, it is sad that many women live in shelters. Not sure, what other reasons may have put them there, such as married a drunkard, a gambler, married for the wrong reasons.
I was referring to a special kind of love that causes two people to make a commitment to each other, and raise a family maybe later.
 
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section9+1

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There is no safety net for churches that fall into error. The entire Jewish nation was God's people that he loved and nurtured and they fell into error and wickedness and God rejected their system of righteousness and their citizenship in his kingdom. Just because you are in a church is no guarantee of his acceptance. God told the church of Laodicea he was about to spit them out of his mouth if they didn't change. Was that an idle threat? Christ's message is not one of universal compassion but one of truth. He has compassion for his people and the extent of his compassion toward others is they have the chance to join his people. That's it! If they don't join, they are damned. And you cannot just say, I think I will become one of the righteous and go to heaven. That's impossible without any repentance. If you insist on legitimizing your sin and taking it into his kingdom with you, you are doomed to failure. I cannot say who is Christian and who isn't, but to exercise compassion at the price of violating his truth is heresy and evil. I don't really think too badly of people who are struggling with their homosexuality and truly want to repent and change. There is room in heaven for them. But to embrace your sin and flaunt your rebellion in the name of universal acceptance is pure wickedness.
 
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woobadooba

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The Bible doesn't present one view of marriage. Some forms of marriage found in the Bible would be illegal today.
Not only is marriage under God (Gen. 2:18), the Bible makes it clear marriage is between a male and a female (see Gen. 2:24).

Note: The underlying Hebrew word for "wife" in Genesis 2:24 is "woman."
 
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Ignatius the Kiwi

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A lot of the arguments I have seen revolve around an emotional appeal. That the erotic love between two men and two women respectively is real and not illusion and should thus be respected as such.

Biblical or Christian inspired arguments seem harder to establish but they would revolve around the idea that a basic reading of the bible is wrong (there are obvious passages in both testaments) and also that as the Church has traditionally practiced things since it's beginning is also wrong.

Personally, while I can relate to the emotional appeal in being told that whom you want to be with you can never be with forever is compelling emotionally (most people desire some sexual intimacy). It seems to me the tradition of the Church on this matter is too strong to be ignored or discredited. Just how could the Church be wrong since the time of the Apostles on a matter as important as marriage?
 
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Southernscotty

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If the Holy Inspired Bible is the rule book for the church then it must be followed.
If they do not recognize the boundaries as set forth by God in this Word,
This is not a church I would attend.
Of course homosexuality is a sin and it is NEVER to be condoned.

If someone comes into my church and is a "flaming Homosexual" they are very welcome and encouraged to stay and hear the gospel, However after service I will tell them directly that they are living in grievous sin and must repent and stop living the behavior/lifestyle if they wish to remain and become a member.
But I will also tell them we love them and will help them and be an encouragement unto them while they work on this.

They may be in fact born this way, I do not know, Actually I believe it is a probably learned behavior but ether way we are responsible for what we do and the actions we take.

So I will happily pray with them and help them anyway that I can to repent of this type of behavior and grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour.

No "church" should ever close the doors to anyone that is in sin, Or else they would need to shut the doors for everyone in my opinion, If I threw sinners out based on sins, I guess I would have to grab myself by the seat of the britches and chunk myself out the door too.
 
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ToBeLoved

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This is a question that I have been thinking about the last several days while discussing the topic on another thread. During the discussion, a "Christian" made a statement that it was "ignorant bigotry" to "keep someone from marrying the person they loved". This statement of course involved the marrying of a same sex couple. I will keep the individual anonymous. However, it just baffles me that someone who considers themselves "Christian" would have such an idea. How can a "Christian" rationalize supporting same sex marriage? Furthermore, how then could they at the same time reject polygamy and incest without having to rationalize a double standard?

Edit: I just wanted to add that after doing some research there are hundreds of church denominations and groups that accept LGBTQ individuals into their congregations. However, A few denominations, most notably the Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC), United Church of Christ (UCC), the Presbyterian Church (USA), The Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) will perform same sex marriages. Source: gaychurch.org
I would just like to add that there are really two issues here. Actually more than two, but let’s just concentrate on two.

1. The religious aspects of marriage and the moral implications of same sex marriage. (Which is probably the point that most Christians are interested in).

2. How the laws in this country do not protect relationships that have not been made official in a marriage like ceremony. (Ie insurance benefits, next of kin medical decisions, inheritance laws, ect ).

I’m sure we will concentrate on issue 1.
 
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Vicomte13

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I will go one step further and say that I think Christians probably SHOULD hear the reasoned Christian argument for same sex marriage and come to understand it, even if they do not personally agree with it, and that reason is this: same sex marriage is here to stay in our society, and the tolerance of it without expressions of bigotry are increasingly becoming a requirement of employment and social acceptance in all Western countries.

Homosexual rights are classed legally in the same category of things as anti-racism law. People who openly express racism or anti-Semitism are not simply socially shunned in modern Western society - they are fired. It is legal to actively discriminate AGAINST racists in hiring, and many institutions make a POINT of publicly humiliating and ending the careers of people who practice racism in their free time. You cannot, for example, be employed by any branch of the US government anymore, nor work for any contractor that is hired by the government to do anything, if you are a member of a racist organization. It is perfectly legal to actively discriminate against racists, and it is done publicly with great vigor explicitly to break people who persist in racism, to take their jobs, their property, their status in society. Open racists are actively and aggressively punished by our society, and it is legal to do so. They are not punished directly by the government for their speech - they still have "free speech", but they CAN be retaliated against by employers, and they can be actively discriminated against in hiring and firing by all levels of government and by the private sector. There are no laws that PUNISH explicit discrimination against racists, and racists are actively discriminated against. So, they still have freedom of speech, by the consequences of that speech is that employers, including the government, have the right to actively and openly discriminate against racists in the workplace, in hiring and firing. There is no sanctuary for racists in modern society. It's a very expensive philosophical position to cling to, so people abandon it.

But nobody likes to give up a long-held cultural belief out of fear. Intellectuals and political leaders have had to provide a set of arguments to make it palatable for the older generations to cease being overt racists, and to cease teaching those attitudes to their young. Not many young people today are racists, and the ones that are, are generally the sort of abnormal people you keep an eye on because they turn into school shooters. 50 years ago, the average kid was latently and culturally racist because the society was, and he didn't know any better. With time, most of us who grew up with a default racist setpoint, from the background society, changed our minds because of experience. It is easier to change one's mind if one has reasoned arguments to help.

The same is true now vis-à-vis homosexuality. Fact is, Christianity is fading as a political and social force as overall numbers decline. And the fact is that society has become more broadly tolerant of private sexual behavior between consenting adults. Fact is, society is becoming increasingly INTOLERANT of anti-gay bigotry, and to express anti-homosexual views is increasingly becoming the equivalent of expressing racist views.

50 years ago, whole sectors of American Christianity upheld racial segregation as a morally proper thing, from God. Not one denomination of any size dares do so today. The formal theology of a hundred million Christians has changed in the past 50 years because society would no longer tolerate racial bigotry, so any Church that insisted upon continuing to practice it because of their theology faced loss of not-for-profit status, and full federal, state and local taxation on all of their collections, on pastors' salaries and benefits, and property taxes on church properties, just like any other for-profit enterprise. The real, and true, threat of taxation caused EVERY denomination to abandon all pretext of "Mark of Ham" racial theology, to the point that many Christians today will blink incredulously if you tell them their Church used to teach that black/white segregation was ordained by God in Genesis.

Theology DOES change to reflect law and society.

One thing that is clearly going to change over the next several decades is Church practice regarding homosexuality. The society is simply not going to tolerate intolerance of gays, it will use the lash of the law - particularly the tax code - to force the recalcitrant churches into line, and the same sort of threats of job loss and social and economic ostracism are at work on this subject as successfully destroyed the racist establishment structure of the United States and elsewhere.

The fight against homosexuality is a fight that the church is going to lose, just as those churches who engaged in it lost the fight to maintain a theology of racial segregation.

Many, many people will kick at the goad, but future generations will not be kind, and many people alive to day will see the broad acceptance of homosexuality come to the society and bend their churches to basic acceptance. Most of you reading this do NOT accept it, and have made your religious objections abundantly clear on this thread.

Nevertheless, by the time in your old age, your church itself will have become more accepting - or will have been driven to extinction by taxation. The lash is coming out, and all history has shown that Churches - who are all led by professional salary-earning clergy - bend to the lash. Yours will. Not all at once, but incrementally.

It might help make that process less miserable for you if you saw a religious argument that would let you accept this evil with equanimity. You won't like it. But you will be able to see that, yes, there is a point in there. And your pastors, to keep their jobs and property intact, will eventually come around to the argument, so it will be the future, in a few years. Seeing it and understanding it in advance may make it easier to swallow when it happens.

Because one thing is for sure: none of you chooses to burn his own life and his family to the ground to hold onto the "liberty" to express racism. And you're not going to burn your lives down to uphold the "right" to express your rejection of what other people are doing in bed. You will privately dislike it, but you will fall silent in the end, to protect yourself. Having a Christian-based argument to justify turning the other cheek on the subject may help you swallow what is and will be a very bitter pill.
 
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Danielwright2311

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My oldest son is gay, I don't hate him, I hate his actions. When we talk about it, or when we use to in the past, he would dance around the issue and I would lecture him on how wrong it is.

But to be honest, it was not my place to lecture him, it was his place to live the life and experience the reasons its wrong for him.

So people are attracted to the same sex, there are also many other sins in this world and every sin is forgiven, everyone but just one.

It's not about being gay, it's about Following God and letting him teach you the ways of himself. If I had a do over, I would tell my son to follow God no matter what and in time let him show you why it is wrong and tell him to have faith in Jesus who died for all sin.

We need to start teaching Jesus and forgiveness for sin, not punishment.
 
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section9+1

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We all commit sins, no doubt. But I think a real Christian finds that his sin is a weakness and a vexation to him. He takes no glory in it. He is saddened and shamed by it. He stumbles---but that's what it is---a stumble. It is not his preferred method of walking through life. Society does make the standards and they do change with time, but the presence and influence of God within that society is determined by its overall righteousness. If you deliberately accept error and wrongness into your way of life and fellowship, when you pray to God you will be looking up to a brass ceiling.
 
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Kenny'sID

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Thats my logic as well Kenny. The fact that in those ancient days homosexuality was condemned, why does that have a bearing today. It so inconsistent - The bible says to stone people for adultery...what bearing does that have on our response to it today.

My point is that the social norms of those days are not consistently regarded as needing to be maintained today...whether we are talking about giving our daughter to her rapist - or polygamy - or homosexuality. Social norms evolve, and that is why not all Christians support your adverse views of SSM

Before I comment I need to know if all that is considering a biblical stand point or just general social behavior at the time?
 
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JCFantasy23

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I edited the OP to include a short list of church denominations that have officially accepted same sex marriage.

This is different from the thread title. Plenty will keep going to a denomination that may officially accept a view on this that they don't personally agree with, or a Christian who makes up his own mind on social issues like this may not have it alignment with their church.

I don't see this as a reason to move to or leave a church over. Personally speaking, I don't see it as my business if two people marry in accordance to the law. Whether it is valid between them and God or in a sacred connection is debatable, but the legalities and protections of marriage raise valid arguments if you look at it from only society's viewpoint. Regardless, it's not my choice or concern if two decide to marry - that's between them, the state and God.
 
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Vicomte13

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We all commit sins, no doubt. But I think a real Christian finds that his sin is a weakness and a vexation to him. He takes no glory in it. He is saddened and shamed by it. He stumbles---but that's what it is---a stumble. It is not his preferred method of walking through life. Society does make the standards and they do change with time, but the presence and influence of God within that society is determined by its overall righteousness. If you deliberately accept error and wrongness into your way of life and fellowship, when you pray to God you will be looking up to a brass ceiling.

But when it comes to sexuality, the particular problem is that it is a persistent, daily recurring want. Jesus was clear: remarriage after divorce is adultery. And yet all of the Orthodox Churches, and virtually all of the Protestant Churches, allow remarriage after divorce - EVEN THOUGH IT IS ADULTERY according to Jesus (THAT part CANNOT be honestly denied - Jesus said it) - as an allowance to human weakness. It's a fact: remarriage after divorce is adultery - Jesus said so.
It's also a fact: people will not simply be celibate for the rest of their lives just because they got divorced.
It's a fact, too, that the Church has always known: if you make the rule such that people cannot remarry, they will fornicate, and they will turn away from the Church. The Catholics have held the line on no remarriage after divorce, and the Catholic Church has declined and diminished on account of it.

Eventually, the Catholics vastly expanded annulment, and vociferously claim that it's NOT Catholic divorce, convincing precisely nobody other than those Catholics who want to believe that.

So, ultimately, ALL of the Christian Churches, as a matter of mercy and as a matter of bending the knee to human reality, permit remarriage after divorce (which they sometimes call "annulment" and loudly protest it's NOT divorce, even though it really is in most cases) EVEN THOUGH it means that the remarried people are adulterers per Jesus.

Reality is the Church will do this, or it will die out as people abandon it. All of the Churches know this. The Anglican Church came into EXISTENCE over the matter of divorce and remarriage. The Orthodox Churches will permit up to two divorces and three marriages before they give up.

The Catholic Church will keep finding grounds for annulment - and when it doesn't, Catholics remarry anyway and leave the Church.

One can kvetch all one likes, but human sexuality is too strong and too insistent and too persistent, and men are too weak, to not commit sexual immorality.

Fact is masturbation is the same sit as fornication, which is the same sin as adultery, which is the same sin as homosexual sodomy. It's all "inappropriate contenteia" on Jesus' short list. And it's ALL forgiveable by God - and God had better forgive, because not one normal adult is free of this sin.

Given those realities, it is relatively easy to see how the Church CAN, if it decides to, extend the same merciful allowance for human weakness that it does with divorce or annulment and remarriage. The spirit may desire to be perfect, but men and women are not, are not going to be, and if a Church tries to hold them to sexual purity, the church itself dwindles, and the faithful fall into sexual immorality ANYWAY, so nothing is accomplished.

Christians already know this and make allowance for it in the case of masturbation and remarriage after divorce/annulment, and the regularization of relationships that begin in fornication through blessing those relationships in marriage. To apply the same grace to homosexuals is not a thing of a different order - it's all equally the sin of inappropriate contenteia we are talking about: sexual immorality. There is nothing WORSE, sin-wise, about homosexual inappropriate contenteia than autosexual masturbation. The minds of the conservative like to imagine there is, but those vain imaginings are not true, at least as far as what Jesus himself said.

So, the Church CAN get there, and to protect it's tax free status, and for Christians to protect themselves against anti-discrimination laws, the churches will eventually get there. When they do, it will be along these grounds too.

That's the legal argument. That's how it can be reasoned out. Gay marriage is no different from remarriage after divorce: it's tolerating sexual immorality. The Churches have tolerated sexual immorality for a couple of thousand years because of the realities of human weakness, the need for mercy, and the desire to survive. During those years, social norms allowed them to take a harder line against certain sins (e.g.: Homosexual immorality and witchcraft, and interracial relationships) than others (e.g.: masturbation, fornication and remarriage after divorce (adultery)), and they did. The social norms have changed and the Churches have changed with them, in order to survive.

Gay marriage is the next change coming down the pike. In 100 years all Churches in the West will have a version of it. Between now and then there will be terrible storm and stress over it.

In a similar vein, in 100 years the Catholic Church will have married clergy, because it has to make that change in order to survive.

Some things are so, whether you like them or not (and if you're reading this on this thread on this site, it's a very good bet you DON'T like any of this at all - nevertheless it is so).

Don't kill the messenger.

Scratch that: you CAN'T kill the messenger. Don't attack the messenger. I've told you the truth. I've shown you the future. Read it. Absorb it. Realize that, before the end of your life, you will be making the mental adjustments necessary to move in the direction of tolerance. Dislike it as much as you must, but thank me for showing you the way that you will eventually tread in order to stay viable in society, and to keep up with your churches as their clergy, to preserve their jobs and their institutions, make the necessary adjustments to survive.

That is all.
 
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food4thought

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I strongly believe that the Bible condemns the homosexual "lifestyle" in no uncertain terms, but I have encountered some arguments for the opposite view before. I will list the two most common arguments for accepting homosexuality, and then show how these arguments fall flat in the light of Scripture.

One view holds that the Bible is written to an ancient culture, and aspects of that culture bled into the Scriptures. This view would argue that God does not condemn homosexuality, but the cultures to which the Bible was written condemned it, and the writers of the Bible were just reflecting the cultural views of the time. This view is clearly denied by 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which states that all Scripture is "God-breathed": not the meanderings of an enlightened human mind, but God's very word to us. It also fails to account for the widespread acceptance of homosexuality by the Greco-Roman world at the time the NT was written.

A second view is more subtle, saying that when the Bible condemns homosexuality, it is only condemning the practice of male temple prostitution, not loving monogamous relationships. They infer that the Greek words translated as homosexual or sodomite (depending upon the translation) were actually words used for temple prostitution, not your average everyday same sex couple. Aside from the dubious support for the idea in Greek literature, this view is clearly denied by Leviticus 18:22. They would counter that we are not under the Law. I would counter that the Greek word inappropriate contenteia (G4202) is a blanket term for all kinds of sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 5:1), and according to Acts 15, inappropriate contenteia is forbidden to the gentile believer. One must ask oneself, how would the Apostles have defined the word inappropriate contenteia? They were all Jews, and steeped in the OT Law... where is sexual morality most clearly defined in the OT Law? Leviticus 18. So, according to Acts 15, Leviticus 18 is still binding on the gentile church. Like it or not, that is what Acts 15 clearly implies.

Hope this helps;
Michael
 
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section9+1

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It is entirely legal for a married church-going man to cheat on his wife. He can have a different woman every night and break no laws. It's his business, then, and the church should leave him alone. It's between him and God. His marriage is still intact. Violating the terms of it does not end it. That will only happen if someone institutes a divorce. So the marriage is intact and no laws are broken. No problem.
 
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Vicomte13

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I strongly believe that the Bible condemns the homosexual "lifestyle" in no uncertain terms, but I have encountered some arguments for the opposite view before. I will list the two most common arguments for accepting homosexuality, and then show how these arguments fall flat in the light of Scripture.

One view holds that the Bible is written to an ancient culture, and aspects of that culture bled into the Scriptures. This view would argue that God does not condemn homosexuality, but the cultures to which the Bible was written condemned it, and the writers of the Bible were just reflecting the cultural views of the time. This view is clearly denied by 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which states that all Scripture is "God-breathed": not the meanderings of an enlightened human mind, but God's very word to us. It also fails to account for the widespread acceptance of homosexuality by the Greco-Roman world at the time the NT was written.

A second view is more subtle, saying that when the Bible condemns homosexuality, it is only condemning the practice of male temple prostitution, not loving monogamous relationships. They infer that the Greek words translated as homosexual or sodomite (depending upon the translation) were actually words used for temple prostitution, not your average everyday same sex couple. Aside from the dubious support for the idea in Greek literature, this view is clearly denied by Leviticus 18:22. They would counter that we are not under the Law. I would counter that the Greek word inappropriate contenteia (G4202) is a blanket term for all kinds of sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 5:1), and according to Acts 15, inappropriate contenteia is forbidden to the gentile believer. One must ask oneself, how would the Apostles have defined the word inappropriate contenteia? They were all Jews, and steeped in the OT Law... where is sexual morality most clearly defined in the OT Law? Leviticus 18. So, according to Acts 15, Leviticus 18 is still binding on the gentile church. Like it or not, that is what Acts 15 clearly implies.

Hope this helps;
Michael

Your point is correct: the Bible condemns homosexual activity. It also condemns fornication, adultery, and masturbation. All of these sins are "inappropriate contenteia", and they all earn one the Lake of Fire, unless forgiven. The Church has managed to fill the pews with masturbators, fornicators and adulterers (which the remarried after divorce are) and rely upon the grace of God to forgive all of that inappropriate contenteia. It can do the same for the homosexual form of inappropriate contenteia, and in order to survive, it will.
 
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whereloveandmercymeet

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Whether you condone it or condemn it I think the important thing to remember is this: love the sinner, hate the sin.

If you think someone is sinning and you close your doors to them, how can you expect them to learn of the truth and Jesus?
 
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