Orthodox who support homosexual activity

jckstraw72 said:

1. Orthodox interpretation of Genesis far predates the 19th century
2. the Fathers already refuted proto-evolutionary theories in their own day. Darwin was not so original.

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Are you in the correct thread?

Nm

New Mexico?

rusmeister said:

Nm

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rusmeister said:

So two questions:
Do you accept that the homosexual act is sin?
Should you correct someone (in the Church) who thinks that (any) sin is not sin?

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1. Of course I am aware that from the point of view of the Orthodox Church the homosexual act is a sin as are lots of other things. Whether I accept all teachings of the Orthodox Church as the truth is a different story. I am 75% not practicing my faith right now. That being said, the issue of homosexuality is the least of my concerns as it does not touch me in any way.

2. No, I do not think it is my place to correct another adult on any matter. I'm not his parent or priest.

Mariya116 said:

1. Of course I am aware that from the point of view of the Orthodox Church the homosexual act is a sin as are lots of other things. Whether I accept all teachings of the Orthodox Church as the truth is a different story. I am 75% not practicing my faith right now.

2. No, I do not think it is my place to correct another adult on any matter. I'm not his parent or priest.

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1.) Part of being Orthodox is accepting that the teaching of the Church is truth. That can, at times, be a very difficult thing to accept. You've admitted that you're not 75% not practicing...wish I had a pat answer to help you. Just know that while there are hard truths, there's also love and understanding.

2.) True, you are neither priest nor that person's parent. But if there is someone in the Church, claiming to be a part of that Church, running about claiming that something taught to be sin isn't sin, and you say nothing - that makes you complicit in their sin.

The good thing, is sin is an illness, the priest our doctor, the Church our hospital. Always a good thing to keep in mind.

Kyprian said:

1.) Part of being Orthodox is accepting that the teaching of the Church is truth. That can, at times, be a very difficult thing to accept. You've admitted that you're not 75% not practicing...wish I had a pat answer to help you. Just know that while there are hard truths, there's also love and understanding.

2.) True, you are neither priest nor that person's parent. But if there is someone in the Church, claiming to be a part of that Church, running about claiming that something taught to be sin isn't sin, and you say nothing - that makes you complicit in their sin.

The good thing, is sin is an illness, the priest our doctor, the Church our hospital. Always a good thing to keep in mind.

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That's a kind answer, thank you.

Mariya116 said:

1. Of course I am aware that from the point of view of the Orthodox Church the homosexual act is a sin as are lots of other things. Whether I accept all teachings of the Orthodox Church as the truth is a different story. I am 75% not practicing my faith right now. That being said, the issue of homosexuality is the least of my concerns as it does not touch me in any way.

2. No, I do not think it is my place to correct another adult on any matter. I'm not his parent or priest.

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I would mostly echo what Kyprian has already said.

But your faith icon is Orthodox. That implies that you accept the teachings of the Orthodox Church. All of them. And if you don't, you will always be confusing Orthodox Christians (and misleading others), because there is no such thing as "being Orthodox" and picking and choosing which teachings to believe or not believe. If any of us do that, in so doing we cease to be Orthodox. We submit ourselves to the Church and ask Her to teach us. We do not presume that we are right and the Church is wrong in its teachings. We accept Her authority to correct US, not the other way around.

(Your clarification alao explains our past clashes. I, or someone else, would say something assuming you accepted the Church's teachings, and evidently you didn't.)

To iterate what Kyprian said, the Church is a hospital, and we are patients - not doctors.

rusmeister said:

I would mostly echo what Kyprian has already said.

But your faith icon is Orthodox. That implies that you accept the teachings of the Orthodox Church. All of them. And if you don't, you will always be confusing Orthodox Christians (and misleading others), because there is no such thing as "being Orthodox" and picking and choosing which teachings to believe or not believe. If any of us do that, in so doing we cease to be Orthodox. We submit ourselves to the Church and ask Her to teach us. We do not presume that we are right and the Church is wrong in its teachings. We accept Her authority to correct US, not the other way around.

(Your clarification alao explains our past clashes. I, or someone else, would say something assuming you accepted the Church's teachings, and evidently you didn't.)

To iterate what Kyprian said, the Church is a hospital, and we are patients - not doctors.

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I don't remember any clashes. I remember differences in opinion, well it's normal on a forum.

Well well, hi guys. It's been a long time since I came here. My last log-in to CF was 2010. Some of you may not remember me, lots would've joined since I left that don't know me to begin with. Anyway, last I was at TAW regularly, I was inquiring into Orthodox church. I am gay myself, which is why I'm posting in this particular thread . As you can see, faith isn't really a part of my life these days. I still believe in a higher power I'd like to think - I certainly don't want to believe we were accidents and that this life is it.

Anyway, I did a bit of lurking last night, just randomly, and there were a few threads on the issue of gays throughout the pages. I have a few thoughts since it's a topic that affects me greatly.

This law passed in Russia (obviously one of the biggest centres of your guys' church) recently is really quite damaging to the church in my opinion. Don't you guys think so? The amount of of torturings and slaughterings of LGBT youth have gone up, many of them done in the name of God and the church no doubt (obviously many feel this law has given them license to act out and perform vigilante executions of gays - that truly evil man Vlad Putin sneakily associating homosexuality with the separate issue of pedophilia wouldn't have helped). Things were rough over there already. I think in light of that, most LGBT youths who in your eyes would be struggling wouldn't be going near church, because the message given out of there is that they're not struggling, but scum . Again, it's the opposite message of what most of you guys post here, but then again few Russian gay youths would be visiting this forum.

Another Orthodox country, Serbia's a similar story. Surveys over there from recent years indicate that a good percentage of them still believe violence is an acceptable way to 'deal with' gays, and again, the LGBT community over there would be reluctant to turn to the church for support in that environment. At the centre of anti-gay protests in both of those countries (as photos seem to indicate) are Orthodox priests and church-goers. That's the image lots of your guys' main centres in the world are portraying to the entire world - judgmental, intolerant, rather than welcoming as I found you guys on TAW generally were, despite disapproving of embracing a gay lifestyle.

What I did also notice was that a lot of complaints in gay-related threads here were being made about the odd political decision around the place (like gay marriage legalized in places) in favour of gays. Understandable perhaps, but I think what I wrote about above is much more damaging to your guys' church in a worldwide sense than any small political victory for gays around the place, and I didn't see that discussed at all.

The bottom lines are, the behaviour of major Orthodox centres like Russia and Serbia are much more damaging to your church than any gay marriage legalization or songs like "Born This Way" and "Same Love" becoming popular. You guys as a whole (the generally compassionate and loving ones) are being really discredited by the behaviour of extremists . I just thought I'd point that out in case you guys haven't thought about it (I'm sure most of you have - you're certainly not fools even though I no longer agree with your views on it ).

"You guys as a whole"

What exactly is "you guys as a whole?" I'm an Orthodox Christian and have nothing to do with extremists or the far right or the Republican Party or Russian xenophobes or whatever!!! And there are lots of Orthodox Christians just like me - I should know because I run the Orthodox Christian Meetup Group in New York consisting of almost 100 people. We are a diverse group of young people from all over the world, we are at various points in our spiritual life and have different points of view, but we are all members of our one Church.

I don't stereotype gays, so please don't stereotype us. There's more to the Orthodox Church than a bunch of loud loonies.

Mariya116 said:

"You guys as a whole"

What exactly is "you guys as a whole?" I'm an Orthodox Christian and have nothing to do with extremists or the far right or the Republican Party or Russian xenophobes or whatever!!! And there are lots of Orthodox Christians just like me - I should know because I run the Orthodox Christian Meetup Group in New York consisting of almost 100 people. We are a diverse group of young people from all over the world, we are at various points in our spiritual life and have different points of view, but we are all members of our one Church.

I don't stereotype gays, so please don't stereotype us. There's more to the Orthodox Church than a bunch of loud loonies.

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We don't "stereotype" in any sense of assuming that all individuals of a certain type, here, who experience a certain passion, are alike.

I don't think either of you have fully delved into the teachings of the Church. If you did, you would discover the compassion. You would discover that we don't label people "gays" or pigeonhole them. That the passion is rightly condemned but the individual is rightly to be loved and accepted like all others - though approval of his passion is NOT.

When you come into the Orthodox Church, AJ, you are NOT "gay". You are a man in need of salvation like all of us. Like the rest of us, you have wrong desires. If what you are looking for is approval of those desires, you are just plain not going to find it.

You have to want God more than you want your passions. As long as your passions are priority over God, you can never attain heaven.

That said, it follows naturally from that that we do NOT approve of lawless violence. It's no use telling us to disapprove of it. We do. But it's no use telling YOU we disapprove if you refuse to see that we must also disapprove of all sinful passions, including the desire for the same sex.

The Church has been around for two thousand years. There have ALWAYS been fringe groups claiming things in the name of the Church and they have never changed the Church as a whole. Yes, the secular centrally-controlled media do aim to exaggerate those fringes, but that is only a matter of false perception. The damage is actually done by the media, not by the Church itself, and yet the Church always rises again from such attacks. The faithful can only do what they have always done: pray for the grace of God and try to live according to the Gospels.

But those Gospels do condemn sodomy, and the unnatural love of men for men, along with other sins that most of us are guilty of, somewhere or other. So looking for a Christian faith that approves of such things is vain. If you find it, it is not Christian.

Rus, why are you consistently so awesome?!

You have to want God more than you want your passions. As long as your passions are priority over God, you can never attain heaven.

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But those Gospels do condemn sodomy, and the unnatural love of men for men, along with other sins that most of us are guilty of, somewhere or other. So looking for a Christian faith that approves of such things is vain. If you find it, it is not Christian.

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amen!

I think I made the effort in my post a couple of times to say that I don't believe you posters here are like that or approving of that. Couldn't have made that clearer I thought .

Anyway Rus, yes I know that much from my time here . You were all as good about it as you could've been, without approving of course.

Anyway, it's not just fringe groups, it's the governments, police etc, too. Sure the media may be exaggerating some of it, but they're being given lots to exaggerate. And I don't really believe it's hugely exaggerated anyway.

Anyway don't mean to upset anyone. Just wonder if you guys are concerned that people are seeing all this stuff and one of the first things they're thinking is 'Orthodox church'?

AJB4 said:

I think I made the effort in my post a couple of times to say that I don't believe you posters here are like that or approving of that. Couldn't have made that clearer I thought .

Anyway Rus, yes I know that much from my time here . You were all as good about it as you could've been, without approving of course.

Anyway, it's not just fringe groups, it's the governments, police etc, too. Sure the media may be exaggerating some of it, but they're being given lots to exaggerate. And I don't really believe it's hugely exaggerated anyway.

Anyway don't mean to upset anyone. Just wonder if you guys are concerned that people are seeing all this stuff and one of the first things they're thinking is 'Orthodox church'?

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It's really just humans doing what they usually do, no matter how people are thinking about it.

AJB4 said:

Just wonder if you guys are concerned that people are seeing all this stuff and one of the first things they're thinking is 'Orthodox church'?

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Of course I am concerned. In my case, I as a person of mixed Russian-Jewish-German heritage am mostly concerned with xenophobes and good old anti-Semites hijacking the Russian Orthodox Church. I am a member at a Russian Orthodox social network, and on a regular basis there are people coming there posting the most hostile and obnoxious messages regarding non-Slavs and Jews SIMPLY ASSUMING THAT SUCH STATEMENTS WOULD BE OKAY WITH THE REST OF THE COMMUNITY. When they get put in their place (I would not be a member at any site where hostility would be allowed), they are genuinely puzzled - are we in the wrong place?

Yes. You are. The door is that way.

But you don't have to be a person of mixed heritage to have an issue with xenophobic discourse. Plenty of normal people who are 100% Russian or of whatever ethnicity are against it and are annoyed as hell at it being positioned as the official position of their Church.

AJB4 said:

I think I made the effort in my post a couple of times to say that I don't believe you posters here are like that or approving of that. Couldn't have made that clearer I thought .

Anyway Rus, yes I know that much from my time here . You were all as good about it as you could've been, without approving of course.

Anyway, it's not just fringe groups, it's the governments, police etc, too. Sure the media may be exaggerating some of it, but they're being given lots to exaggerate. And I don't really believe it's hugely exaggerated anyway.

Anyway don't mean to upset anyone. Just wonder if you guys are concerned that people are seeing all this stuff and one of the first things they're thinking is 'Orthodox church'?

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Just about as much as all other mis- and disinformation the media spread about the Church. But we can't do a whole lot about that. They were doing it in the second century, taking Eucharistic worship and casting it as drinking blood, taking true things and twisting them so as to cause complete misunderstanding and stir up hatred against the Church.

If you set up a poll here asking whether Orthodox members condemn violence, including that committed against those attracted to the same sex (the sodomic passion), I think you know you're going to get just one answer. We even condemn violence against people attracted to animals and children.

As individuals and members of the Church, we are supposed to be like Christ. As members of society, we are supposed to desire a just society with godly laws that discourages ungodliness. But some people take the command to turn the other cheek to mean to turn the cheeks of others as well as oneself. But that is actual wrong for anyone, especially for a parent, a king, or a voter who ostensibly has responsibility and authority over others. So there is no conflict between outlawing public approval of ungodliness and fulfilling the Law of Christ.

Mariya116 said:

Of course I am concerned. In my case, I as a person of mixed Russian-Jewish-German heritage am mostly concerned with xenophobes and good old anti-Semites hijacking the Russian Orthodox Church. I am a member at a Russian Orthodox social network, and on a regular basis there are people coming there posting the most hostile and obnoxious messages regarding non-Slavs and Jews SIMPLY ASSUMING THAT SUCH STATEMENTS WOULD BE OKAY WITH THE REST OF THE COMMUNITY. When they get put in their place (I would not be a member at any site where hostility would be allowed), they are genuinely puzzled - are we in the wrong place?

Yes. You are. The door is that way.

But you don't have to be a person of mixed heritage to have an issue with xenophobic discourse. Plenty of normal people who are 100% Russian or of whatever ethnicity are against it and are annoyed as hell at it being positioned as the official position of their Church.

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Mariya, you have yourself admitted that, quote unquote, you are 75% not a practicing member of your own Church.

Mariya116 said:

Of course I am aware that from the point of view of the Orthodox Church the homosexual act is a sin as are lots of other things. Whether I accept all teachings of the Orthodox Church as the truth is a different story. I am 75% not practicing my faith right now.

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http://www.christianforums.com/t7801024-4/#post64941494

That alone ought to have you assuming silence to speak with any authority on Church teaching. Since you do not accept the authority of the Church over you, you really have no right to teach what it teaches, especially when it doesn't teach it. You obviously think you know better than the Church, that the Church's teaching on same-sex attraction is wrong, and want to see that teaching abolished. That is the best explanation for why you come on to a thread about homosexuality, say things that denigrate the condemnation of sodomy, saying, "We should just mind our own business" as if we should apologize for saying that sin is sin, and then bring in words and ideas (fuzzy ones at that) like "antisemitism" and "xenophobia" which have nothing to do with the price of tea in China, although there are plenty of things I could say about those two rhetorical terms, with (apparently) the express purpose of confusing the issue of homosexuality with these things.

Please back off. You have said you never hear this issue discussed in coffee hour, you are not really familiar in-depth with the Church's teaching or you would know how compassionate its teaching is, and it is wrong for you to be taking it upon yourself to be trying to suggest that attitudes toward homosexuality should be the same as those toward ethnicity.

I'm certainly no better than you, but I accept the authority of the Church to teach me and correct me. If I WERE to get "xenophobic" or "antisemitic" ideas, I would have to accept the Church's correction of myself, because I admit that I ought not to be my own authority unto myself, which is the ancestral sin of Adam and Eve, the essence of the Fall. You feel free to reject Church teaching, and so you are in more danger than all of us who do not of falling into wrong ideas. If you are really concerned about those things, you should start by saying "I do NOT know best. The Church does. What is the consensus over space and time? (whether I like it or not)"

rusmeister said:

Please back off.

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Please stop responding to my messages that are not addressed to you. Unless you own this forum, of course. Thank you. If I annoy you, there's the ignore list.

rusmeister said:

although there are plenty of things I could say about those two rhetorical terms, with (apparently) the express purpose of confusing the issue of homosexuality with these things.

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Do you need me to tell you that I have as much right as you to speak on these issues as you and to say plenty of things? You're not going to bully me.