jsn112 said:
"You might be Christian, but it sounds like a "Unitarian" Christian to me.
My, my. That sounds strangely like "brinking" -- staying within the bounds of the rules, but just barely. The lady said she is a Bible-believing Christian. So am I, in much the same way she is. We simply read the Bible as the message of God's
love sending Jesus to save and redeem humankind -- not as a collection of ways in which you can identify the sins of others. (And if I am doing you an injustice in that "not as" clause, please accept my apologies in advance. Much of what you post seems to defend looking for and pointing out sins in others; if that's not your intent, then I apologize for misreading it. But it does sound that way, sir.)
jsn112 said:
You are right in that I am not being persecuted the way you are. Jesus will remove your sins but would not remove the consequences. Your persecution is the consequences. Just like a murderer receiving his due consequences at either death or life long sentences.
My initial reaction was to take this as saying, "Yes, God loves you, but his condemnation of sin justifies me as a member of society in persecuting you as a sinner." I strongly urge you rethink how you said this, because that's not the message of your thinking that I'm getting from your other posting.
Volos is a man with same-sex attraction who has found and "married" (in the sense of personal covenanted monogamous relationship that is the foundation of a sanctified marriage) the man who is "the one" for him. And he gives every evidence of living out a moral life -- by his standards. Equating him to a sociopathic killer is very insulting.
If you are convinced that God condemns gay sex in every circumstance, then your job is to (1) refrain from gay sex yourself, and (2) try to
convince people that that's the proper way to read His commandments. I've seen people like
La Bonita Zorilla post at length on the language used, the Biblical and cultural contexts surrounding the commandments, and so on. And most people dismiss that as "special pleading" and "interpreting away God's commandments." But if you think that one through, that's precisely what we do in ignoring the proper animals to sacrifice to atone for sin or to make a thanks offering, and in ignoring the explicit strictures on what foods are unclean --
interpreting them as no longer valid on the basis of Peter's vision, Jesus's remarks about what makes one unclean, and Paul's interpretation of how the Law affects those in Christ. They're still commandments, and they're still in the Bible. What we're saying is that they're strong and explicit denunciations of sins that are sometimes common and sometimes rare -- but not of the "sin" of entering into a committed same-sex love relationship.
"Thou shall not commit gang anal rape against a stranger (or rape of any sort). Thou shalt not prostitute thyself in fertility rites in worship of false gods. Thou shalt not associate with a man who panders young boys as prostitutes, nor hire out those boys for thy sexual pleasure. Thou shalt not turn from God and take the pleasures of this world in His place, for thou shalt find thyself right weary of them, and turn to perversions in search of new kicks." Those are commandments against that which is
evil in God's sight, and that we agree on.
.
