| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Xomicron" |
| Date: |
13 Apr 2004 07:28:35 AM |
| Object: |
Re: [ot] public service announcements? |
Christian's posts about homosexuality in Romans 1 contain a lot of good
material, specifically his assertion that homosexuality is not a
"greater" sin than any other. The worst sin is unbelief.
However, his analysis of Romans 1:21-34 suffers from a few flaws. Most
important, he has misunderstood the place of homosexual desire in this
passage. He has also misunderstood who the passage it talking about.
Christian suggests that the passage is referring foremostly to a specific
group of pagans that Paul and his readers were aware of. But the passage
will not sustain this interpretation. Verse 20 specifically says "For
since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal
power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from
what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (21) For although
they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him,
but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were
darkened." (All quotes are from the NIV) This appeals, not to some
specific group of pagans, but to all humans since the creation of the
world. God's power and divinity have been evident to everybody since
Adam, but since Adam people hace consistently rejected God and worshipped
creation instead. When this happened, God did certain things. Again,
the appeal is to all people since creation, not just a select few that
Paul and/or his readers might have had in mind. God did not just abandon
a certain group to these things, he abandoned *humanity* to these
things. Not all people commit these specific sins, just as not all
people commit murder or any other sin; but the tendency to sin is there
all the same, and whether the specific manifestation of sin be homosexual
activity, murder, theft or something else, human sinfulness is the root
cause behind it all, including "unnatural" lusts.
Furthermore, Christian, like so many others, seems to suggest that there
is a difference between those for whom such things are not natural and
those for whom they are natural. This is a gross misreading of the
passage, and can only be maintained by ignoring the appeal to all creation
I mentioned. Where do such desires come from? They're part of the curse
God put on humanity. Verse 26 affirms this: "Because of this
[humankind's rejection of God] God gave them over to shameful lusts...In
the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were
inflamed with lust for one another." This says that both the desire and
the willingness to act on it came from people's rejection of God. Even
homosexual desire is a result of the curse and must be dealt with like
any other sinful tendency. It is not "natural" for anybody; it is the
result of inborn sin and the curse of God that grew out of sin.
The good news is, the Cross can cover any sin including this one. But it
requries facing it for what it is: sin. Royce suggests that the
descriptions of idolatry and worship of images don't have specific
application to us today. But let's get real for a moment. Paul's point
is not some specific type of idolatry, it is idolatry period. America is
just about the most idolatrous nation on the face of the Earth these
days. What does out country worship? Sex! Sex of any kind, as long as
it brings self-gratification, is America's god. Go to your local
bookstore and check out the titles; examine the average magazine rack;
watch the evening news; check out movies, television--it's all around us,
shouting at us that sexual gratification is the most important thing in
the world. That's idolatry. And this idolatry is the very reason we're
even having this discussion: too many Christians have bought into
America's great idol of sex. I'm an alcoholic/addictive personality, and
I have to watch myself. For me, certain activities are sinful because of
certain genes I was born with. So it is with the homosexual; assuming
that some people really are born that way (I don't know; the research is
inconclusive), why should my drinking be sinful and carrying out
homosexual desires not be? Every time I bring up this comparison,
somebody says "Oh, no, they're not comparable. This is different." but
nobody can say why. The simple fact is, in America you don't stifle
sexual expression. It's okay to jail somebody who's drunk in public,
it's okay to denounce drinking in public service announcements etc., but
don't mess with sex! After all, that gets down to who people are. Guess
what? So does my alcoholism. It's part of who I am. But it's an inborn
result of the sinfulness of the human race. So is homosexuality. In
fact, in Romans 1, we have a biblical basis for saying this about
homosexuality; we don't have such a passage about alcoholism. However,
both are a form of idolatry, and both need to be dealt with at the
cross. The sooner Christians acknowledge this and offer help and healing
for those caught in this sin, instead of wimping out and giving in to the
American idolatry, the sooner we can begin to have a real impact on our
society. Condemnation and rejection of these people is wrong, as Royce
pointed out. But acceptance of explicit sin in the Christian community
is equally wrong. Our job is not to twist the Bible so it will fit in
with the current idolatry; our job is to offer a better way and rescue
people from idolatry and introduce them to the true God, the one who can
save them from themselves.
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| User: "Clay Colwell" |
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| Title: Re: [ot] public service announcements? |
13 Apr 2004 01:58:04 PM |
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Xomicron <xomicron@wp.pl> wrote in message news:<Xns94CA56368F10Exomicron@0.0.0.1>...
[an article cribbed and reposted without attribution, with changes
too minor to ameliorate the plagiarism. The pertinent info about
the original:
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian.bible-study
From: (David Washburn)
Subject: Re: Is homosexuality unusually sinful? II
Message-ID: <CnDxu7.5CK@spss.com>
Sender: (Bible Study)
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
References: <CnDoE6.95@spss.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 17:27:42 GMT]
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| User: "Daniel Horn" |
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| Title: Re: [ot] public service announcements? |
13 Apr 2004 04:56:24 PM |
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Xomicron wrote:
Christian's posts about homosexuality in Romans 1 contain a lot of good
material, specifically his assertion that homosexuality is not a
"greater" sin than any other. The worst sin is unbelief.
Adam Clarke's Commentary:
Romans, 1
Verse 23. They changed the glory,] The finest representation of
their deities was in the human figure; and on such representative
figures the sculptors spent all their skill; hence the HERCULES of
Farnese, the VENUS of Medicis, and the APOLLO of Belvidere.
And when they had formed their gods according to the human shape,
they endowed them with human passions; and as they clothed them
with attributes of extraordinary strength, beauty, wisdom, &c., not
having the true principles of morality, they represented them as
slaves to the most disorderly and disgraceful passions; excelling in
irregularities the most profligate of men, as possessing unlimited
powers of sensual gratification.
Verse 26. For this cause God gave them up]. Their system
of idolatry necessarily produced all kinds of impurity.
How could it be otherwise, when the highest objects of
their worship were adulterers, fornicators, and prostitutes
of the most infamous kind, such as Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, Venus.
Verse 27. Receiving in themselves that recompense,] Both
the women and men, by their unnatural prostitutions, enervated
their bodies, so that barrenness prevailed, and those disorders
which are necessarily attendant on prostitution and sodomitical
practices.
Romans was written in Corinth and the context is temple prostitution
Corinth
For 1 Cor 6:9
Paul's epistle to the Corinthians shows that divisions had
sprung up in the Christian church. The congregation had
preferred showy, ecstatic gifts of the spirit such as
speaking in tongues, the celibate life, eating meat offered
to idols. Christian freedom was the theme against
self-righteous legalism. I Corinthians was written by Paul
from Ephesus in the spring of 55 and the second epistle about
two years later. First Corinthians was a failure for it did
not accomplish the main purpose for which it was written.
The factions in the church of Corinth, so far from putting
aside their differences and blending harmoniously into a
unified church life, shifted just enough to unite all who
for any reason objected to Paul and then faced him and each
other more rancorously than ever. The chief characteristic
of Paul's second letter is its boldness. So far from
apologizing for himself, he boasts and glories in his
authority, his endowments, and his achievements.
A wide open city, Corinth was famous for wealth and vice.
In earlier centuries Corinth was known for the temple of
Aphrodite, the goddess of love, which was served by cult
prostitutes. The Temple of Aphrodite with its thousands of
priestess prostitutes gave license to sensual revelry and
sexual immorality, the "Corinthian Girls" were harlots.
The word "Corinthian" is still used for one wholly given
to dissipation and debauchery. Long after the temple had
been destroyed by the Romans (146 BC) the city’s reputation
for immorality lingered. Yet in this predominately pagan
city, Paul founded his most successful church.
The temple was at the summit of Acrocorinth and at the
center of the city stood the marketplace, with its bronze
statue of Athena and the temple of Apollo. Its riches
produced pride, ostentation, effeminacy, and all the vices
generally consequent on plenty. Lasciviousness was not
only tolerated but consecrated here by the worship of
Venus and the notorious prostitution of numerous attendants
devoted to her.
http://latter-rain.com/background/corinth.htm
YLT
1 Cor:
9have ye not known that the unrighteous the reign of God shall not
inherit? be not led astray; neither whoremongers, nor idolaters, nor
adulterers, nor effeminate, nor sodomites
sodomite = qadesh, which means a male temple prostitute.
http://www.khouse.org/cgi-bin.blb/strongs.pl?book=Deu&chapter=23&verse=17&strongs=06945
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