These questions deserve serious answers, but I’m not sure it’s worth doing it at the tail end of a discussion with few participants left. Furthermore, I can’t give a detailed answer without violating the rules.
On the first question, I have some concerns, of at least two types.
First, most younger Christians accept homosexuality. Why? Have they thought carefully about Paul’s statements and adopted a new exegesis? How about Catholics? The impression I get from postings here is that they have not. You get moderately vague statements that the Bible and/or church tradition are out of date. But if our primary authorities are out of date, how do we make decisions?
I think there are answers to this, but I’m worried that people aren’t doing the necessary analysis, and that this failure could show up in how we approach other questions. I can’t actually present an analysis here.
Second, if old standards don’t apply in certain areas, we need new ones. I don’t think all gay sex is OK. Indeed I doubt that even a majority is. (The same is true of heterosexual sex, of course.) Because people of most of our churches are proceeding without guidance, the Church as a whole has barely even started looking at this question. The effort has started among the Catholic and mainline communities, but has neither wide participation nor wide acceptance.
You asserted my views on the sin of Sodom were mere "pop Christianity." I demonstrated that they were not. Whatever other doctrinal agenda you have in this thread, the great sin of Sodom was the sin of homosexuality. Both the Old and New Testament make this clear.
Jesus told us to "judge righteous judgment." (John 7:24) He spoke also of trying to remove from another the mote in their eye while having a beam in one's own eye (Matthew 7:1-5). But he does not forbid removing the mote, only doing so when one has a beam yet in one's own eye. Paul has the same standard when it comes to judging. He does not say never to judge, but only to refrain from judging in others those things of which one is guilty. So it is that imperfect Paul wrote to Timothy to "reprove, rebuke and exhort" (2 Timothy 2:4) those under his spiritual authority and care and chastised the Corinthian church sharply for their sinful conduct (1 Corinthians 3, 5, 6 & 11).
No thinking, moral person can escape making judgments about a whole host of things every day, including making moral judgments. In fact, when Paul says to the Romans "don't judge hypocritically" he is at that moment making a judgment upon the hypocritical judgment of his readers at the church in Rome. It is...irrational, then, to urge people not to judge. All that the Bible allows us to urge upon each other in this regard is to avoid judging others hypocritically. I am not guilty of the sin of homosexuality so I do not contravene this rule concerning making moral judgments about the homosexual conduct of others.
To properly understand the story of Sodom and Gomorrah requires looking at what immediately precedes it. What precedes it is the story of Abraham's Hospitality. It's not an accident that these two stories are side-by-side in the Torah.
-CryptoLutheran
AFA Journal - Gay activist’s war against Christianity
By their own admission.
"we are going to force you [Christians] to recant everything you have believed or said about sexuality.”
Warren said the Bible, especially, would require a face-lift. “Finally, we will in all likelihood want to expunge a number of passages from your Scriptures and rewrite others,” he said, “eliminating preferential treatment of marriage and using words that will allow for homosexual interpretations of passages.”
Nearly getting Gang Raped in the town square does offer a rather bold contrast to Abraham's hospitality.
Why do people avoid the implications of Ezekiel 16:49 while being drawn back to the Old Covenant?
Right, and a mob seeking to gang rape two people seems to be kind of an issue here, not the orientation of the mob. We're not talking about a group of gay men wanting to take the two angels out to dinner. We're talking about a group of violent human beings (the Hebrew text does not explicitly identify these as males, just that they are human, so the gender-makeup of the mob is not explicit*) wanting to impose their violence on strangers to the city.
*טֶרֶם יִשְׁכָּבוּ וְאַנְשֵׁי הָעִיר אַנְשֵׁי סְדֹם נָסַבּוּ עַל־הַבַּיִת מִנַּעַר וְעַד־זָקֵן כָּל־הָעָם מִקָּצֶֽה׃
אֱנוֹשׁ - human, mortal, mankind
אנוש - Wiktionary
-CryptoLutheran
Mankind does not "sin no more". Mankind can "unbelieve" no more.
By the very magnification of the Law in the Sermon on the Mount, a single wayward thought is counted as transgression of the full Pentateuch.
Jesus made a statement that did not encourage the woman to continue sinning, but in the full context of John, bound to Jesus imploring the woman to no longer commit the "Sin of the World"... UNBELIEF.
By scripture, a single transgression of any of the 613, or for the less Judeo root studied... the 10 ... brings the full weight of the Law on our shoulders... if we are this (Galatians 5:4).
I will spell it out...
Galatians 5:4 You who are trying to be justified by the law are alienated from Christ; you have fallen from grace!
Romans 1 is a favorite go to passage for pop Christianity because it carnally reads the verse while ignoring its easily studied context throughout ALL of scripture.
There is reason to study this matter out further that... if someone doesn't mind Spiritually condemning an entire group of Sinners Jesus died for (1 John 2:2)... could at the very least avoid condemning themselves, by not ignoring clear scriptural warnings.
James 2:8-10 and Romans 2:1-2 plainly state that by carnally judging humanity with Moses... (Jewish name for the Law which spans the Pentateuch)... a person becomes guilty of all sin of the Law.
Randomly connecting the dots... Homosexuality is in the Law... thus carnally judging Homosexuals per the Sin of the Law... makes the very judge guilty of Homosexuality in the eyes of God.
???
"A single wayward thought"? I don't recall Jesus ever using that phrase in his Sermon on the Mount. Are you being a bit hyperbolic, perhaps? It takes more than a "single wayward bthought" to become guilty of adulterous thinking, it seems to me. One must imagine a sexual encounter with a woman, to desire it, not just have the temptation to such thinking appear in one's mind. This requires more than a "single wayward thought." So does being guilty of murder by hating another person. Such hatred involves more than a mere "wayward thought." There must be intentionality and persistence in an evil line of thinking to be guilty of such murderousness.
Context is king. And the immediate context of the story does not indicate that Christ was referring to the woman's unbelief when he told her to go and sin no more. It was her adultery in view at the beginning of the story and nothing in the progression of the story suggests it was not in view at the end of the story, too, when Jesus commands (not implores) her to forsake her sin.
??? Did I anywhere in my posts to this thread ever suggest one could be justified by the law? Nope.
I don't really know what you mean by "pop Christianity" but Paul is very clear in Romans 1 that homosexuality is a dangerous evil that is symptomatic of a heart in deep rebellion toward God. Your attempt to soften or water down his comments by vaguely appealing to "ALL of Scripture," as though it disagrees with Paul's words, doesn't wash, as far as I'm concerned. Homosexuality is condemned flatly in both Old and New Testaments. This is not "pop Christianity" but biblical Christianity.
Who's condemning sinners? I'm not. I've called homosexuality the sin that it is, however, just as Scripture does, and suggested that this sexual perversion is helping to dissolve western Judeo-Christian society, but I have not condemned homosexuals which I take to mean consign them to an irredeemable condition that warrants unloving conduct toward them. There is nothing more loving, I think, than following Christ's example by calling sin what it is and then calling the sinner to repentance.
Luke 5:29-31
29 And their scribes and the Pharisees complained against His disciples, saying, “Why do You eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
31 Jesus answered and said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
See my earlier posts.
Look, I'm not trying to knock anything out or people's beliefs on things. I really don't even care what others do unless it's really bothering me, however I must speak on something, I was browsing google and saw so much stuff on LBGT rights, why does it seem so widespread now? Like what's going on? I know for sure no one on this Earth was born that way, it seems more like some trend now then what's really being put out there. I am trying so very hard not to judge the LGBT community cause I know it's still a matter of the heart and people can still be nice and loving no matter who they are or where they come from, but where does all this come from? Wouldn't it seem more right for a man and a woman to brag about thier rights of having met in some foreign place started a relationship and how excited they be carrying thier precious newborn baby into a world so fitting, a world where God started creation with a man and a woman and not the other way around? I'm just saying...why is it so prideful...I really don't care but it's not just something to do cause everyone else is doing cause i know diseases can come about that way too which is also affecting this place ..
Rape and sodomy v not being hospitable.To properly understand the story of Sodom and Gomorrah requires looking at what immediately precedes it. What precedes it is the story of Abraham's Hospitality. It's not an accident that these two stories are side-by-side in the Torah.
-CryptoLutheran
Rape and sodomy v not being hospitable.
Now you're making me curious!
4 Before bedtime, men both young and old and from every part of Sodom surrounded Lot’s house.
Come one come all, fresh meat in town!
sounds like the whole dang town showed up.
Very neighborly.
5 They called to Lot, “Where are the two men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so we can have sexual relations with them.”
All those men wanted TWO guys?
Dang! Now that IS rude.
6 Lot went outside to them, closing the door behind him. 7 He said, “No, my brothers! Do not do this evil thing. 8 Look! I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. I will give them to you, and you may do anything you want with them. But please don’t do anything to these men. They have come to my house, and I must protect them.”
Lot's quite the dad huh?
So .. he was calling the thing they wanted to do "EVIL".
Funny stuff considering what he himself was doing.
9 The men around the house answered, “Move out of the way!” Then they said to each other, “This man Lot came to our city as a stranger, and now he wants to tell us what to do!” They said to Lot, “We will do worse things to you than to them.” They started pushing him back and were ready to break down the door.
Worse than what we're doing to them.
Hmm, what bad thing were they going to do?
And they KNEW it was bad, else they wouldn't have used "worse".
10 But the two men staying with Lot opened the door, pulled him back inside the house, and then closed the door. 11 They struck those outside the door with blindness, so the men, both young and old, could not find the door.
So, typically, the angels of the Lord bring good (or so I thought)
But in this case, God blinded every last one of them.
For?
Eh, I just don't see it being a just punishment for being rude.
But far be it for me...
Rape is not just rude. Particularly when directed against guests. The sin of Sodom was abusing strangers, something that the current US government had better be concerned about.Eh, I just don't see it being a just punishment for being rude.
But far be it for me...
In the same way it's not right to reject one thing and favor another cause of race, appearance and disability and etc.
That was an understatement.Rudeness wasn't the problem.
Hospitality in the ancient near east wasn't about following Miss Manners' Guide to Polite Etiquette.
Hospitality is about being a welcoming, inviting people and giving comfort to strangers--as we see Abraham do.
When Jesus says, "Whoever accepts you also accepts Me" that is the language of hospitality.
-CryptoLutheran
Guess I should have used an emoticon.Rape is not just rude. Particularly when directed against guests. The sin of Sodom was abusing strangers, something that the current US government had better be concerned about.
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