The Evangelical Universalist Forum

I've finally openly proclaimed my Universlaism on my Blog

Whether they have free will or not, the point is that God gives such ones over to those things which are beside nature. He doesn’t ask them if they want to be given over. God loves all mankind and doesn’t do things to just be vindictive or mean. But thanks for your thoughts on the matter. :wink:

But of course you don’t qaz… those “other things” run more rampant in the church than does homosexual practice and thus speaking to “other things” hits too close to home; thus it’s safer, easier and convenient to point the crooked insincere finger at what we can claim an abomination — funny how the likes of these still get conveniently glossed over…

Well of course haven’t qaz… that’s the beauty of churchianity’s blatant hypocrisy… “pro-adultery, pro-fornication, pro-drunkenness” take more people to wrack and ruin in the church than does same-sex affinity, and yet the aforementioned gets passed over with a wink and a nod because it’s easier to point to those deviant ones out there.

Sorry Eusebius but your position is well known so your “Whether they have free will or not…” is totally disingenuous and can’t be taken seriously. As to “beside nature” seeing as you brought nature up… are you not aware that homosexual activity actually does occur quite naturally in nature? (FWIW)

Eusebius wrote:
Whether they have free will or not, the point is that God gives such ones over to those things which are beside nature.

davo replied: Sorry Eusebius but your position is well known so your “Whether they have free will or not…” is totally disingenuous and can’t be taken seriously. As to “beside nature” seeing as you brought nature up… are you not aware that homosexual activity actually does occur quite naturally in nature? (FWIW)

Eusebius’ reply:
But I’m saying it is not a matter of God’s sovereignty or free will in God giving them over to do that which is not befitting; men with men effecting indecency. Why does God give them over to that? It is because they are holding God in an improper understanding. However, man can’t tell God “No! You are not going to give me over to that!” and succeed in their demand. So of course, God is sovereign in His decision to correct them.

And it is not stated in the Scriptures that if animals do it, it is therefore natural. The majority of animals don’t do male on male. So even the animals sometimes do that which is beside nature or beside that which is natural. What is natural? male and female. Git it?

NO… what is “natural” is what can and in many instances does occur, that is my only point. And of course it is not stated in the Scriptures… but neither are, for example, “avalanches” and yet given certain circumstances they occur — going to deny such as “beside natural”?

qaz wrote

Well, I would say that If tomorrow the SC overturned the same sex marriage law, That would not change the minds of couples wanting to live together as same sex couples. They would go back into the closet or simply live as couples out of legal wedlock, and society would have not made one stride toward eradicating this problem from it’s ranks. At the very best one could say ‘at least I don’t have to openly be reminded about them.’

If tomorrow we stopped promoting (what ever that means) the LGBT lifestyle in our public buildings and yes, our schools, there would still be LGBT adherents. So the boy dressed as a girl now has to go into the boys restroom. :open_mouth: And like wise we would definitely save a few bucks by not having to construct gender neutral bathrooms and hire in sensitivity training in our public buildings. But in the crazy state of waste and misuse of public funds, are these really the problem?

It is fairly common to say that at a church level we ill take a stand against it :confused: But I once again ask you in what way? There is no way around your position except for you to say that if it is out of sight it is out of mind.

Not one of these answers is satisfactory if you TRUELY think that we are dealing with perversion and something that is an abomination to the lord. :open_mouth:

Davo, the Scriptures do tell us that men with men and woman with woman in sexual partnerships is “beside nature.” We must defer to God’s inspired Scriptures.

Rom 1:26 Therefore God gives them over to dishonorable passions. For their females, besides, alter the natural use into that which is beside nature."
Rom 1:27 Likewise also the males, besides, leaving the natural use of the female, were inflamed in their craving for one another, males with males effecting indecency, and getting back in themselves the retribution of their deception which must be."

See, Davo, for humans, it is natural for males to have sexual relations with females and for females to have sexual relations with males.

God created Eve, a woman, for Adam, a man. He told humanity to be fruitful and fill the earth after Eden.
Gen 1:28 And blessing them is the Elohim. And saying to them is the Elohim, "Be fruitful and increase and fill the earth, and subdue it. And sway over the fish of the sea, and over the flyer of the heavens, and over the beast, and over all the earth, and over all life moving on the land.

Then after the world-wide flood God told the survivors: Gen 9:1 And blessing is the Elohim Noah and his sons. And saying is He to them, "Be fruitful and increase and fill the earth and subdue it.

That is what is natural.

ruh roh! :laughing:

Still waiting for an answer. :smiley: Love ya!

What I see get glossed-over in churches is divorce and remarriage. It’s serial polygamy. God hates divorce, and I think divorce causes far more damage to people and to society than does homosexuality.

That is NOT to say, of course: “Hey, since we’re lax on divorce and remarriage, let’s be lax on homosexuality, too.” That would be getting things exactly backwards. Instead we must say, “Hey, we’re doing our job on having a zero-tolerance policy on homosexuality. We need to step-up our game and be zero-tolerant towards divorce and remarriage as well.”

Being indulgent towards sexual sin is NOT loving or broad-minded. It is hateful. Sexual sin does NOT bring joy, only pleasure (sometimes). One might as well smile indulgently at a wino drinking his wine, or a meth addict taking his drugs. In all these cases the sin damages the person.

A big problem is the English word “love”. It has so many meanings as to be almost meaningless. Observe:
My 2-year-old daughter loves her blankie.
I love strawberries.
I’d love to throttle that man.
Frank loves it when Victor gives him oral sex.
Bill loves his dog.
I love my wife.
Christ loves His creation.
I love my friends.

Whenever the homosexual movement uses the word “love”, I want to know what Greek word they are translating by “love”. It certainly isn’t agape. Instead, it is a word never used in the New Testament: eros, which means “sexual desire”. Sometimes homosexual eros can be combined with storge, which means “liking”. Sometimes it can even be combined with phileo, which means “friendship”. But agape? Never. Please note that agape does not mean “strong feelings”. Instead agape is participating in God’s work to make His creation perfect.

Husbands are commanded to agape their wives (and vice versa). Marriage is a path to holiness and the ordained way to bring children into the world. These things are impossible for homosexuality. By its very nature it is devoid of agape, even as it is sterile. This is why, even at an instinctive level, we recognize that marriage is a serious and commendable thing. When a man and a woman get married, it has dignity precisely because marriage is martyrdom. The man and the woman are sacrificing themselves on Christ’s holy altar, warring against their passions for the sake of their spouse and their children.

But homosexual relationships? Their sex cannot result in children but only in orgasms. What are we to say? “Oh, I’m so happy you have good orgasms together”? It would be absurd. But the conception of a child is greeted with joy and congratulations. We essentially say to the couple, “We admire you for committing to care for and raise this child for two decades. We recognize that this is a great sacrifice of time, money, and tears. Doing this is necessary for the continuance of civilization.”

The idea of homosexual “marriage” is an absurdity. It is play-acting. They cannot be icons of Christ and of His Church, nor can they grow His kingdom by the birth of children. All they have are feelings.

Hmm… you’ve completely evaded the point i.e., the likes of “fornication, drunkenness, hatred, theft, greed, etc” have a greater and more active part in church communities THAN DOES the likes of homosexuality, and yet what gets the more passionate airtime… this thread is a good (typical) case in point. Swap homosexuality for say hatred and this thread and others like it die off with a whimper as the likes of hatred don’t allow so much for overt behavioural self-righteousness.

That is simply not true… you are simply construing, for argument’s sake, more than is in that account. Take for example this post-cross reality… 1Jn 5:16, fully in line with Deut 21:22.

TRUE… which just demonstrates my case. AND then you go on further to COMPLETELY affirm my case with the entirety of your post after this first small paragraph by railing (incorrectly in some parts) against homosexuality — case made.

If someone starts a thread about divorce and remarriage, I’ll rail against them there.

Geoffrey said:

Well, in this paradigm we will have no problem with the celibate priests and clergy not procreating an offspring will we? So at the end of the day the number of people who fail to make babies because of personal choices, will be at this point minimal at best… Don’t you think?

Davo said:

That is huge… :open_mouth:

Give me some time, and I’ll start such a thread within 24 hours.

Close to 95% of Orthodox priests are married men, and I’ve never met one without children.

I admire the 5% of Orthodox priests who are unmarried and the monks and the nuns. They have sacrificed for themselves God’s mystery of marriage as well as of raising up children to the Lord. They have made this sacrifice that they might devote their entire lives to prayer, without having to spend the time and effort of having a spouse, children, paying the mortgage so their families aren’t homeless, etc.

None of this can be said for homosexuality.

This seems to be different than your original stand against these folks… Hey, I’m not trying to paint you into a corner, but we all need to learn from each other and I appreciate your position. I learn from you. :smiley:

You know love does always win… No matter how corrupt, how perverted, how immoral a person may be, Love will win, and when we choose love, I believe God will be with us.

Good Luck

Chad

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails.

The biblical ban on homosexual practice, particularly so in the OT, has little to do with present-day same-sex loving monogamous relationships. And to say that same-sex couples cannot know “agape” is a complete joke and fanciful.

The reason for said ban came on a number of fronts FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD as then constituted.

1) Such could logically/potentially threaten their very existence as Yahweh’s emissaries to the world.
2) The homosexual sex act or practice was directly linked with pagan idolatrous cultic worship.
3) The most poignant… anal coitus was a direct and egregious display of power, dominance and violence over and against another, and in ANE and in particular Hebraic culture, the complete antipathy of hospitableness, i.e., the complete subjugating and bastardisation of another, usually a foreigner — whether male OR female — cut right across their call to love thy neighbour, as a reflection of loving (serving) Yahweh.

Two texts of Scripture show this last point to a tee…

These perverted Benjamite (Israelite ‘sons of Belial’) thugs above were NOT homosexuals BUT fully desired to enforce their dominance over this travelling foreigner via anal rape. They did as the story shows sexually ravish the poor defenceless woman to death.

These violently vile incidents above have NOTHING in comparison to present-day same-sex loving monogamous relationships — they just don’t! That the poor woman could so easily be handed over as she was just shows the degree of importance hospitableness carried in their culture. I personally think the heinous act of handing her over was even more reprehensible.

That would be a fair indicator qaz you are reacting out of NOT having a reasoned nor logical response to my 3 valid points as previously given. Maybe you’re missing the wood for the trees because of the plank in your own eye?

Yes and Jesus is reflecting the conventional view as relevant per Israel and her continence thereof… so what he says makes perfect sense as that was by the nature of the case the essence of “marriage” — but not even all “heterosexual” unions constitute “marriage” do they?

Yeah and again you’re missing the point and focus of Paul’s words… he was speaking to Israel’s past wanton IDOLATROUS violations and unfaithfulness where they went off chasing and serving other gods which entailed ALL those activities mentioned, i.e., these things were the practices of pagan worship… you can readily read of these things in the OT if you’d do some homework.

Yet again… what’s the backdrop? Idol-filled pagan Corinth wherein there was all manner of sexual activity associated with their pagan cultic worship; something Paul in his concern for the believers wanted to guard against their involvement because of its lure back into IDOLATRY.

Your charge of “eisegesis” is nothing but a light-weight lazy cop-out on your part because you cannot stomach the 3 points given, let alone deal with them.

You then divert onto something quite other than what I was dealing with — my guess is because you cannot raise a rational or reasoned response to what I’ve raised. :unamused: