Great stuff Prof 
The stuff about scapegoating from Girard, the stuff about Paul, Jesus on family valuesā¦ all great stuff.
Keep it coming, and blessings to you
Matt
PS P.S. How do you find the time to do so much typing 
Though perhaps I should ask myself that same question
Exactly, Sass. And here in the US, most evangelicals, fundamentalsists, and conservative Christians that lens is one of biblical inerrancy and literal interpretation where ever possible. For some, the sense of reverence even stretches to various translations.
I like Peter Rollinsā take in Insurrection on how people struggle to keep all doubt and questioning out of their personal theology, for fear that their entire faith may crumble if they ever ask any of these questions of themselves (which fits perfectly with Beckās idea that we view even the smallest amount of contamination as more powerful than the purity.) Rollinsā idea that many people set up tenets of faith and an idealized view of God as a type of idol, rather than experiencing Christās life and crucifixion on a personal level that drives us to act out of love, seems to fit the mindset of the anti-gay contingent of the church quite well, imo.
Another factor that I believe comes into this picture is laziness. It simply takes much less time and effort to let someone else do the thinking and just absorb what comes from a pulpit as truth and fact. This kind of spiritual inertia is very difficult to overcome, as challenging oneās own views doesnāt give the quick feel-good experience that other actions concerning our faith do. (Most of us here know exactly how difficult the inward examination of our ideas can be!)
As to Johnnyās question, āWhat are they afraid of?ā, I think these three points answer that question for many. Weāre afraid of expending the energy (and the inward journey) to question ourselves, and God Himself, about these concepts, fearing what we may lose or even find deep within us. We tend to forget how Jesus actually turned over the paradigm of purity/contamination. We have no need to fear that extending the boundary of hospitality and brotherhood will sully the church, and by extension, muddy up our own inner sense of sanctity; Christās overwhelming holiness purifies all, indeed it did so by immersing itself in our contamination.
And maybe thereās a seed of fear in each of us that fights against us being transformed by Him to the point where our faith is so simple and pure that we become like the man who answered, āAll I know is I was blind, but now I see.ā
just a quick one, Eric, but you made me think of what Jesus said about leaven and dough.
a small amount of leaven DOES work throughout the whole dough, but the only leaven He felt it necessary to warn us about was that of the Pharisees.
not the gays, not the tolerant, not the liberalsā¦
interesting.
when weāre given sweeping cautions against horrible doctrines, without any exception i can think of, itās never a caution against being too āniceā, āliberalā, soft, etcā¦itās against being too religous, too staunch, too self-righteous, too arrogant.
Iād just like to put some extracts from a short biography of Josephine Butler (nee Grey), the nineteenth century evangelical, (by Andrew Wilson), on this thread. Her story strikes me as relevant because she was a fine evangelical woman who overcame scruples about purity and decency to help those on the margins. There is no direct parrallel between her cnocern and the topic of our discussion; but she had to taek on huge prejudices to engage with the world in loving kindness - and here I do see a parrallel .{Hope you donāt mind the brief interlude ā but no need to comment on this one necessarily}
**ā¦Josephine Grey learnt the Christian religion. That religion has at its heart the belief that God who is rich for our sakes became poor. Those who respond most vividly or affectionately to the Gospel have almost invariable been drawn to identify with the poor. This has been fact which has linked many different Christians of widely various ethnic or cultural backgrounds. We see in the life of Francis Assisi, in General Booth of the Salvation Army, in Mother Teresa of Calcutta today. Because God loved the world, such Christians have believed that it was their duty to love the world too; for āin as much as ye have done it unto the least of these brethren ye have done it unto meā. The dichotomy in the minds of many people between āpoliticsā and āreligionā does not exist for these Christians. Probably neither word plays a large part in their vocabulary. But they are living in the world which they believe God has loved and inhabited, they naturally look for justice in society, relief for the poor.
In the early part of the last century this was particularly true of the Evangelical wing of the Church of England. It was from this religious perspective that William Wilberforce brought about the abolition of the slave trade, and that, later in the century, Lord Shaftesbury prevented the use of children as what was no more or no less than slave labour force in British mines and factories. Josephine Butler was very much the heir to this way of reading the Gospel. What she saw very clearly was that, in spite of the misogynistic traditions of Christianity, the Gospel contains within it the seeds of that was later called feminism. Just as the equality of Jew and Gentile as proclaimed in the Gospel made it ultimately unthinkable for Christians to allow the continuance of the slave trade (though for 1800 years Christians did not see this!) so, for Josephine, the respect shown by Christ for women, in spite of the social conventions of His day, led inevitably to the conclusion that women ā all women, not just the prostitutes with whom her name is associated ā should enjoy equal rights with men.
Among the great typical acts of Christ which were evidently and intentionally for the
announcement of a principle for the guidance of Society, none were more markedly so than His
acts towards women: and I appeal to the open Book, and to the intelligence of every candid
student of Gospel history for the justification of my assertion, that in all important instances of
his dealings of women, His dismissal of each case was accompanied by a distinct act of Liberation
From an early age then, radicalism and evangelical piety were in Josephineās blood. Evangelical piety, for those of us who are not used to it, can be embarrassing, even cloying. But she was never this. Feminist or political radicalism can often be strident. Josephine was never that either. For me, she was one of the most attractive people who ever lived: not merely beautiful, but one of those extremely rare people who is good through and though without for one second seeming āgoody-goodyāā¦
ā¦The Butlerās theology was more āliberalā than the Evangelicals of the early Victorian period, admitting and indeed welcoming the advances in Biblical scholarship which inevitably modified the way in which the Bible was viewed. But they were no less ardent in their insistence that Christianity involves a social commitment. Josephine with her inquiring mind and profound interest in society found no conflict of views in her marriage to George Butler which was idyllically happy for forty-eight years until his death in 1890. His words to her, some four years after they were married, are remarkable for the extent to which they recognise his wifeās equality.
No words can express what you are to me. I hope I may be able to cheer you in moments of gloom
and despondency... and by means of possessing greater physical strength... I may be enabled to
help you in the years to come to carry out plans, which may under Godās blessing, do some good,
and make men speak of us with respect....
ā¦One evening, however, in 1863, something happened which was to change their lives forever. Returning home from a drive, the children rushed on to an upstairs landing to greet them as they entered the hall. Little Eva fell over the banister on to the hard, tiled floor below, and lay insensible at her parentās feet. A few hours later she died.
Never can I lose that memory ā the fall, the sudden cry, and then the silence. It was pitiful to see
her, helpless in her fatherās arms, her little drooling head resting on his shoulder and her
beautiful golden hair all stained with blood, falling over his arm!
The torture of grief for this child was something which Josephine was unable to assuage. Never strong (she had poor lungs) she fell seriously ill. ā¦
ā¦Josephine decided that the grief she felt for Eva could find no outlet at home.
I became possessed with an irresistible desire to go forth, and find some pain keener than my
own ā to meet with people more unhappy than myself (for I knew there were thousands of
such). I did not exaggerate my own trial; I only knew that my heart ached night and day, and that
the only solace would seem to be to find other hearts which ached night and day.
In the Liverpool of the 1860s, she did not have far to look. She began visiting vagrant women who had been rounded up into the notorious Brownlow Hill Workhouse, and establishment which makes the one in Oliver Twist seem positively benign. In exchange for a nightās lodging and a hunk of bread, the girls had to work in the sheds stripping oakum (tarry hemp) from piles of rope, the same tedious and painful work ā it tears all the skin off your fingers ā doled out to prisoners serving penal servitude (Oscar Wilde did it in Reading Gaol). Josephine was shocked at her first sight of the oakum sheds, but her immediate and characteristic response was not to enter then as a lady bountiful, dispensing good advice or soup. Instead, she sympathised in the literal sense of the word: she suffered with these women.
I went into the oakum shed and begged admission. I was taken into an immense, gloomy vault,
filled with women and girls ā more than two hundred, probably, at that time. I sat on the floor
among them and picked oakum. They laughed at me, and told me my fingers were of no use for
that work, which was true. But while we laughed we became friends.
The unselfconscious Evangelical felt no difficulty, in these miserable circumstances, in speaking to āthis audience ā wretched, draggled, ignorant, criminalā about her Christian faith. She got one girl, tall and dark, standing up amid the heaps of tarred rope, to repeat the words of St Johnās Gospel ā āLet not your heart be troubled. Neither let it be afraid.ā And then, prayed. āIt was a strange sound that united wail ā continuous, pitiful, strong ā like a great sign or murmur of vague desire and hope issuing from the heart of desire.ā The scene reminds us of that of the prostitute reading St Johnās Gospel to Raskolniklov at the end of Dostoyevkyās Crime and Punishmentā¦
ā¦There were far too many prostitutes in Liverpool for the Butlers to be able to take them all. What was worse, the longer Josephine worked among them, the more she discovered that it was not simply a matter of reclaiming individuals. These women and children were victims of precisely that attitude which she had heard expressed at Oxford when Mrs Gaskellās Ruth was under discussion: āA moral sin in a woman was ā¦ immensely worse than in a man. āWomen are temptresses, hoydens, harbourers of disease and corruption; men on the other hand will be men and must be indulged and forgiven. This was the āmoralityā of mid-Victorian Englandā¦
ā¦It was more than a mere piece of convention which you could ignore or follow at your choice. It was written into the law of the land. The first Contagious Diseases Act was passed in 1864, with the aim of reducing the spread of sexually-transmitted disease in the armed forces. In effect it ment the establishment of state brothels for the navel and military, but it also involved a gross violation of civil rights not only of prostitutes but, by implication, of every woman in Britain. In 1866 and 1868, with the passing of further Contagious Diseases Acts, its original powers were extended far beyond the confines of the military encampments.
The Contagious Diseases Acts effectively abolished Habeas Corpus in Great Britain. By the provocation of these Acts, special police were empowered to arrest any woman, compel her to submit to an examination for venereal disease, and require that she should present herself to the Justice of the Peace. Her guilt presumed unless she could prove herself innocent. No witnesses were require, and no evidence on the part of the officer making the arrest. If the woman protested or refused to co-operate with the law, she was liable to a period of penal servitude. If she did submit to the examination, it was in the eyes of many who investigated the matter little better than an āinstrumental rapeā. The woman was forced into a straightjacket to prevent her from struggling. Her legs were forced apart by metal clamps. One girl interviews by Josephine Butler after such a āmedical āexamination had rolled off the couch with a ruptured hymen. She turned out, as it happened, to be a virgin. The police paid her a few shillingās hush money, but she went at once to Josephine Butler. Another woman, walking innocently along one evening with her daughter, was arrested and charged by the special police with being a ācommon prostituteā. This was how all women were now defined by the law of England unless they could prove to the contrary. This particular woman committed suicide rather than submit to the horrors of the examination.
These are the matters about which many people today still find it difficult to speak in public without embarrassment. How much truer that was in Josephine Butlerās day! She was not a strident, foul-mouthed woman who found it easy to mention matters normally only spoken about in the doctorās consulting-rooms (if there). But a vitally important matter of human liberty was at stake, one which would never get reformed unless someone were brave enough to challenge it. To do so would be to risk the charge of prurience and impropriety. When it was further discovered that Josephine was protecting āimmoral womenā, she would obviously be charged with wickedness. She was an upper middle-classed woman with a position to maintain. This meant little to her personally, but the reputations of her sons and their husband meant everything. George was a clergyman and a schoolmaster with responsibility for the care of the young. His entire career was put in jeopardy by the very idea of having a wife whom āhe could not control, who was prepared to peer so mercilessly beneath the respectable surface of Victorian life and reveal the cess-pit which lurked there. What should she do?
She put the problem to George. She knew that he was sympathetic to the cause, but was he prepared to risk the obloquy and anger which the campaign against Contagious Diseases Acts would provoke? Josephine now knew more, from first-hand experience, than any other educated woman in England about the plight of urban prostitutes. The feminist campaigner, Elizabeth Wolstenholme, wrote to her in 1869 and asked her to lead the protest again the Acts. George had no doubt about where her duty lay. Quoting Saulās words to young David when he went forth to fight the giant Goliath, he told her, āGo, and the Lord go with you.ā...
ā¦The Goliath whom Josephine had to fight represented almost the entire male-dominated British Establishment. This was not just a case (brave as that would have been) of standing up to the pimps, and the brothel-keepers and madams. She had, for one thing, the medical profession against her. Since thousands of young men in the armed forces were suffering from venereal disease, it was felt that anything justified the halt of it; and for the doctors of Victorian England, who saw things from so one-sided a point of view, that merely meant controlling the prostitutes. āIt is only insofar as a woman exercises trade which is physically dangerous to the community that Government has any right to interfere,ā conceded The Lancet of 27 November 1869. But the notion that that Contagious Diseases Acts in effect deprived women in garrison towns of civil liberty, where they were prostitutes or not , and that it had no effect on combating the spread of sexually transmitted diseases did not seem to have occurred to the author of the article. Most doctors reacted as Dr Preston of Plymouth, who wrote on 24 June 1870
I will pass over Mrs. Josephine Butlerās address in public before men ...because I believe that a
very large majority of our sex ...can only characterise it as the height of indecency to say the
least. But it is my opinion that women are ignorant of the subject ... but not Mrs. Josephine
Butler and Company ā they know nothing about it ... Certainly if such women as Mrs. Butler
continue to go about addressing public meetings ā they may ultimately do so but at present I
venture to say that they are ignorant and long may they remain so. No men, whomever they
may be, admire women who openly show that they know as much on disgusting subjects as
they do themselves, much less so those who are so indelicate as to discuss them in public.
But Josephine risked the extreme ignominy of making speeches about venereal disease because she knew she was right, even though none of the medical profession would support her. The very few women doctors who were struggling into existence at this period were frightened of their positions vis-a-vis their male colleagues. Only Dr Elizabeth Blackwell was brave enough to oppose the Contagious Diseases Acts from the first, followed eventually by Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, who had been the first woman to qualify as a doctor in 1865ā¦
ā¦Josephine Butler was eventually to collect some influential male allies - such figures as F.D. Maurice, James Stansfeld (a Liberal MP) and the philosopher John Stuart Mill. But many whom one might have thought would be sympathetic were not. None of her old friends at Oxford would lend their support. Benjamin Jowett, for example, the liberal-minded Master of Balliol, was priggish enough to say, āMrs Butler takes an interest in a class of sinners whom she had better left to themselves.ā More surprisingly, Gladstone, himself so keen on rescuing prostitutes, was deeply unsympathetic to her cause. He considered it unfortunate that she should try to make it a political issue.
But of course it was a political issue, since her aim was to repeal a series of Acts of Parliament. This could only be done by scaring the Liberal government of the day into some kind of action. Since women did not have the vote, Mrs Butler had to appeal to men ā and that meant extensive travelling around the country to speak to frequently bawdy or hostile audiences, as well as a ceaseless stream of written campaign material, largely gathered up in her news-sheet, The Shield. In her speeches and articles, she was punctilious in her collection of evidence; and what she began to reveal, with hideous clarity, was not the narrowly important question of the Contagious Diseases Acts and their injustice, but also the much wider question of double standards in Victorian society. This, beyond question, is why her campaigns, from the very first, got so many people on the raw. One of her friends who was sent to prison for soliciting on 2 March 1870 told The Shield, āIt did seem hard, maāam that the magistrate on the bench who gave the casting vote for my imprisonment had paid me several shillings, a day or two before, in the street, to go with him.ā
This double standard was extremely widespread. In a society where men were supposed to delay marriage until they could afford to maintain a household, and in a society where marital breakdown was not relieved by divorce, prostitutes provided an essential role in keeping the whole facade of āVictorian valuesā unscathed. It was, moreover, the prostitute who supposedly made sure that the promiscuous middle-class man did not infect women of his own class ā the sort of woman he might dance with, play croquet or bridge with, or escort into dinner.
In an age when there was no cure for the rampant disease of syphilis, it is easy to see how these standards grew up. It is equally easy to see how Josephine Butlerās attempt to expose the standards was seen, and intended, as a political act. She saw the Contagious Diseases Acts as āa tyranny of upper classes against the lower classesā. And that is why she got the Liberal Party on the run.
Realising that something had to be done, but wanting to put off the evil day, the Government set up a Royal Commission. Josephine Butler was summoned before it in 1871 to face a panel which was made up of bishops, doctors, naval and military experts and MPās. Every member of this Commission was declaredly opposed to repealing the Acts and when she stood before them, she was made conscious of their hostility. āIt was distressing to me owing to the hard, harsh view which some of these men take of poor women, and the lives of the poor generally ... I felt very weak and lonely. But there was One who stood by me.ā
Josephine meant this sincerely and literally. She and her husband were both of the view that Christās mortality was simple, and obligatory on all Christians. They were impatient of the doctrinal wrangling which so interested Roman Catholics and High Churchmen. āI am sureā, George once wrote, āMary who sat at the feet of Jesus would have been puzzled by the reading over to her of the Athanasian Creed and the injunction to accept it all at the peril of the loss of her soul; but she understood what Jesus meant when He said āOne thing is needfulā.āJosephine felt that āthose who profess the religion of Jesus must bring into public life and into the legislature the stern practical social, real side of the Gospelā. And this in turn brought the realisation that āeconomics lie at the root of practical moralityā.**Great stuff there, Eric
James, just to balance it out bro, Jesus did say ābeware of the yeast of the Pharisees, and of Herodā.
I always thought by the Pharisees he meant being self-righteous and spiritually arrogant and all of that, like you pointed out, but by Herod I think he meant basically being hedonistic and totally immoralā¦
So I always took this to mean that we shouldnāt go too far one way or the otherā¦
I donāt believe that being nice or soft or liberal naturally falls into the Herod category, nor do I believe that being harsh or hard or conservative naturally falls into the Pharisee categoryā¦ but in both cases it can lead to that, and weāve gotta be aware of that, and be carefulā¦
What I take from what Jesus said is that we shouldnāt, on the one hand, be obsessed with rules and regulations like the Pharisees were, or be all Puritanical and miss the joy of life or try to take it away from others, but then, on the other hand, we shouldnāt just do whatever the heck we want and follow our more selfish and base passions without any concern for consequences, or take Godās grace for grantedā¦
In other words, we shouldnāt go to extremes on either endā¦
Or at least thatās how I take it anywayā¦ 
This is all of course easier said than doneā¦ I have struggled on both sidesā¦ there are times I have fallen on one side, and times Iāve fallen on the otherā¦ times that Iāve been spiritually proud and have judged others, and times Iāve just followed my lusts and my selfish desires without really giving any serious thought to consequencesā¦
God knows we all struggleā¦ I do believe that people who have fallen into the Phariseeās trap are in a more difficult place to get out of, but that doesnāt mean people who have fallen into Herodās trap donāt need to get out tooā¦
We all need Godās grace and help in one way or anotherā¦ whether itās in our being legalistic or whether itās in our being lawlessā¦ Heās the only one who can keep us from falling into these traps, and if we do fall in, can break us out of themā¦
Heās the only one who can help us to learn and to grow, to change for the better, and to walk and live and love more like Christ, rather than live like the Pharisees or like Herodā¦
You could say that Jesus is our balance beamā¦ and the One who catches us whenever we fall off.
Well anyways, thatās my two cents
Blessings to you bro
Matt
I agree with Matt - ābe thou moderateā And I agree with Eric and James
Yes indeed, ābe thou moderateāā¦ thatās the eleventh commandment, didnāt you know?
just wondering where we get the idea that Jesus was referring to hedonism with regards to Herod? we only know a few things, from the text anyway, about Herodā¦and which Herod was Jesus referring to?
to me, Herod would symbolise working with the evil system for his own gain, doing horrible things to people to protect himself, etc. Herod is painted more as a petty, self-serving person than as a hedonist, in my opinion. he was also a symbol of oppression.
iām not overly convinced that Jesus was talking solely about how he took his brotherās wife, eitherā¦that was one of a catalogue of things Herod did, and again, it was all self serving.
so i suppose my personal opinion is that Jesus said beware of the leaven of the pharisees with their oppressive, scape-goat religionā¦and beware of the leaven of the self-serving, unscrupulous coward. i donāt see it personally as a balancing statement, as they are not direct oppositesā¦in fact, one often finds one in the company of the other, though that isnāt always true.
Well, you may be right, broā¦ I know, as Iāve learned the hard way, that Iām not always rightā¦ 
Perhaps I chose the wrong words or didnāt explain what I was trying to say well enoughā¦ sometimes I kind of fail in that areaā¦
And maybe my interpretation of that particular verse is off, but from reading the Bible as a whole, I do think I get the impression that, using another example, that being like the prodigal son, or being like the elder brother, are both situations and ways of life that one needs to be brought out of and need to be delivered fromā¦ perhaps youāre right that Herod isnāt the best example as an opposite to a Phariseeā¦ maybe a better example would be some guy who parties hard, gets drunk and high and sleeps around, and either takes Godās grace for granted or doesnāt even pay any attention to Godā¦ the kind of person who goes crazy on Saturday cuz they know theyāll get forgiven on Sundayā¦ I guess thatās what I meant by hedonistic and immoralā¦ someone who just did whatever felt good at the time, but regardless of how it might damage themselves or those around themā¦
I think that kind of place is a bad place to be in too, and a mindset and a way of life that one needs to be delivered from as much as the Pharisee needs to be delivered from his mindset and his way of lifeā¦
Donāt know if Iām really making any sense, maybe Iām just clueless
My apologies bro if I came off as an idiotā¦ no hard feelings, I hope.
Blessings to you and peace
Matt
on the contrary, itās good you mentioned your thoughts. truly Jesus would iām sure caution us away from destructively following our base urges with no thought of others! itās good to get that out of the way, as some assume gay people are like thatā¦
also, as a side issue, i have met responsible āhedonistsā (not quite as simple as that though), but that might be a topic for another day
i just think itās interesting that, despite the general evangelical slant on relative morality, the things Jesus was MOST upset about seems to me to be anything that oppresses others. for me it seems quite clear that He was preaching here against the scapegoating paganism of the Pharisees and self-serving oppression of the monarchy of the day.
in short, He was preaching a personal relationship with God that didnāt require mob lynching mentality and envy (scapegoating) and political responsible anarchyā¦at least thatās what i take from this, and of course mate, i could be wrong too
Matt ā
I think we have to bear in mind that our āblack metal contra mundumā/black metal against the worldā, biker chic, Goth loving James is ā¦ well actually a bit of a pussy cat . Heās a gentle, softy spoken Canadian; a really sweet bloke, and a real conciliator in the frenzied London UR mob. Now I may have misunderstood ā often do ā but itās a fact worth stating that James is about a scary as ā¦well whatever you think isnāt at all scary (oh James ā Iām sorry Iāve blown your cool mate!!! ).
I think James was spot on about Herod as a craven oppressor client king of the Romans. If we look at Herod through Girardās lenses, itās not difficult to see the root of the scandal. As a client king Herod is in a situation of frustrated antagonistic rivalry ā he both admires/envies and resents their superior power that has made him into a puppet of their power; and thatās going to make him potentially nastier towards his own people, nastier even than the Romans (I think the Romans understood and manipulated this dynamic, like the Nazis did in Vichy France). Added to this there are the tensions set up by his marriage to Herodias and how this is perceived by his own people. And John the Baptist becomes the scapegoat for both tangles of desire ā and I know Girard sees the dance of Salome as an intrinsic part of the scapegoating ritual against John.
I googled the verse from Mark that you cited and found a very interesting article by an American Christian ā who is basically a compassionate conservative and says thing that are relevant to the earlier discussion about the First Amendment. I think Iāll start a supplementary materials thread and plonk it on this ā thatāll mean I can stop interrupting with background reading stuff.
Blessings
Dick
as Arnie said in Total Recall: āyou blew my cover! theyāll kill us all!ā
itās a true fact though, that many proper metallers (those that donāt have a stage persona to live up to, at least) are pretty nice peopleā¦we get our aggro out in the music!
OK here is Bennyās blog from Accepting Evangelicals on the first chapter of Romans for your comment. The original article can be viewed at -
acceptingevangelicals.org/20 ā¦ -romans-1/
**As we have seen, Bible verses taken out of context in Leviticus 18, 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy do appear to take the same approach as the clerk in Little Britainās āComputer says noā [local reference to a comedy show that you either love or you hate!]. But context is vital to understanding Scripture, and usually, when something is prohibited in the Bible, there is a Biblical explanation for why. The verses we have looked at so far do not provide that. There are no reasons, no explanation, just āDonāt do it!ā ā whatever āitā isā¦.
The one exception to this is Romans 1. Here finally, there appears to be some theology going on ā some attempt to explain the purposes of God and the waywardness of human nature. The central verses are 26 & 27:
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
The passage is often used to explain why same-sex acts are wrong. For many Christians, it explains how people became homosexuals ā that homosexual attraction is the result of a perversion of natural, God-given attraction and emotion. Such desires are the result of exchanging natural feelings for unnatural ones. It is the rationale behind āhomosexual healingā which seeks to re-orientate homosexuals into heterosexuals by a combination of prayer, confession, forgiveness and self-discipline.
But wait a minuteā¦ Verse 26 begins with the words āBecause of thisā¦ā ā which means that we should ask ourselves āBecause of what?ā And as we read back in the chapter, we find a very different rationale emerging.
So why had God given them over to shameful lusts?
In Romans 1:18-25 it is clearly because ā¦
They knew God through creation, but neither glorified him nor gave thanks to him (vs 18-21)
They exchanged the glory of God for images & idols which they served and worshipped (vs 22-25)
In Romans it is idolatry (worshipping other gods) which leads people to Godās wrath, shown here as in so many places in scripture, by God abandoning them to the consequences of their own choices ā and the homosexual lusts which Paul is describing are the result of the rejection of God and morality.
But this does not describe the LGBT Christians I know. They have not exchanged the glory of God for created idols. They are prayerful, devout, committed Christians, worshipping God faithfully, and giving him the glory.
I remember the day when this light dawned in me for the first time! I finally saw what my gay Christian friends meant when they told me that they did not recognize themselves in the Biblical passages which condemned homosexuality ā and indeed what I read now was not describing them.
But there is more ā as we then read the next few verses of Romans 1, the picture becomes even clearer:
Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. (vs 28-31)
Do gay Christians fit this description? Have they become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, envy, murder, deceit and malice? Are they gossips, slanderers, God-haters, inventing ways of doing evil? Are they senseless, faithless, heartless, and ruthless?
For anyone who has gay Christian friends, the answer is a resounding āNo!ā This does not describe them, so how can it be that Paul is writing about them? And if he is not writing about them, then yet again the Biblical proof texts we have been given simply do not apply to the loving same-sex relationships we see today.
So who was Paul writing about?
The answer of course, is staring us in the face ā Rome! The epistle is, of course, a letter to the church in Rome ā the centre of the Roman Empire ā the seat of power. It was also the centre of Roman religion, politics, the Emperors & the ruling classes. These ruling classes were famous for their ruthless greed, intrigue and debauchery ā and it was this pagan society about which Paul was writing. Roman society and Greek culture were the environments in which Paul saw homosexual activity, alongside all the idolatry of the Greco-Roman world. It was not born out of love, or orientation, but out of pagan practices, greed, lust and abuse of power.
Needless to say ā this is not the same as a loving, faithful, self-giving, same-sex relationship.
It is true of course, that homosexuals can embrace promiscuity and immorality, just like anyone else. It might even be argued that in the moral vacuum which the Church has created by condemning all sex between homosexuals, we are responsible for pushing the gay subculture in that direction, resulting in some of the more extreme expressions of same sex sexuality. But heterosexuals are by no means immune from such temptation, as witnessed by the exponential rise in pornography over the last 30 years. That does not make all heterosexual expression wrong ā neither does it make all homosexual expression wrong.
The Christian faith rightly stands against pornography and debauchery because it impoverishes our humanity, transforming people into mere objects of lust. But the church has always encouraged and blessed expressions of mutual love and self-giving ā the ultimate expression of which is marriage.
Romans 1 does not condemn LGB&T people seeking to give and receive love in a mutual life-giving relationship. In fact it has nothing explicit to say about it at all, in common with the rest of Scripture. And if the Bible does not condemn loving faithful, committed same sex relationships, why does the church condemn them?
I began this series with a comment on my blog, calling on me to look at the clear and numerous Bible verses which condemn same-sex relationships. Having done so, it is clear that what the Bible condemns is not those loving committed relationships which groups like Accepting Evangelicals are advocating. Simply repeating the mantra āBible says noā is not an option. The few verses of Biblical evidence which exist are at the very least unclear, rooted as they are in the context of historical cultures very different to our own.
And yet the church has used these half dozen verses to place a burden of judgment and shame on LGB&T people which the rest of us would find impossible to bear. If we continue to do so, we will be no better than the Pharisees who Jesus reprimanded. āThey tie up heavy loads and put them on menās shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.ā (Matthew 23:4)
Where same-sex relationships of love, faithfulness and commitment are concerned, the Bible does not say no ā and neither should we**
PLease come back and have a chat - Iām gonna take a break.
P.S. Matt me old chum; Iām still thinking of the Prodigal Son as a counsel for moderation. I think the key to this parable is the Fahterās love - and his love is reckless, extravagant, and immoderate from a wordly perspective. But if we are focussing on the two ābrosā - yes we do get the two extremes presented to us, and neither is desirable for human flourishing/alivenness. So I agree (although I could be being dumb - but its my dumbness and Iām sticking to it 
- until someone comes up with a better idea that makes me see things differently ) But the older brother has more complexity in the way Jesus draws him.
Glad to hear you donāt think Iām a numskull
Well, I meant bad hedonists, as opposed to good hedonists, anyway
And I totally agree with you that Jesus got upset with those who were oppressing others more than anything else. And that was, strangely enough, usually the hyper-religious. And I think youāre right broā¦ and who knows, maybe weāre both right in a way, with things sometimes having more than one meaning and all.
Can always count on you to lighten the mood, Prof 
Actually James, you kind of remind me of my good friend CJ Hilton. Maybe a bit more on the intellectual side, but still.
Iāve known him since he was about 5, but now heās in his early twenties, a tall big guy with long blond Viking style hair, whoās a down to earth laid back metalheadā¦ heās actually, or was, the lead singer of a blender metal band called Titariusā¦ went to one of his concertsā¦ you should see him headbangingā¦ all that crazy Viking hair.
His band recently had to disband because of time conflicts after 10 years, and heās starting a new band called Point Of The Devil, which is supposed to be a Judas Priest/Iron Maiden style bandā¦ anyways, you kind of remind me of him a bit.
Oh, and though heās very much liberal, even more so than myself, he does believe in God/Jesus, and I found out that he believes in, or is very open to, UR too.
I think you two would probably get along well, as I think you and I would too.
Too bad weāre on opposite sides of the pond. Ah well, maybe someday in the next world.
It is trueā¦ my friend CJ is a great guy who would give you the shirt off his back, and though he looks a bit intimidating with his sheer size and all, heās got a heart of gold. Heās like the younger bigger brother I never had.
Some would say there are wolves in sheepās clothing out there, which no doubt there are, but Iād also say that there are sheep in wolvesā clothing out there as well, which is a category some metalheads like yourself may fall into.
Yes, I imagine there are a lot of headbanging sheep out there And God loves His headbanging sheep.
Yeah, I think that may be a better example of what I was trying to say then the Pharisee/Herod verseā¦ but then like you pointed out, itās also a great example of Godās love, which is totally immoderate, which is, of course, a good thing, and, in fact, a great thing. With most things it is best to be moderate, I thinkā¦ but there are some things, like murder and rape and other terrible crimes, where we should be 100 conservative about it and totally against it and stay away from itā¦ but then, on the other hand, there are some things, like faith and hope in God and love for God and for others, where we should be totally liberal about it and all for it and not hold backā¦ or at least thatās the ideal, or at least thatās how I see it.
Anyways, blessings to you bro, and enjoy your break, and looking forward to hearing more from you.
P.S. Prof, have you checked out my Monsters, Ghosts, and Aliens thread? James and Andrew and Sass and I are discussing those things over there. You may want to join in as a fun excursion.
After reading Richard Beckās blog post for today, I would have to strongly recommend that anyone that may still be against an equal fellowship in the church with gays NOT read his post for 27 June 2012. You just may find your logic against homosexuals indefensibleā¦
Youāve really hit it out of the park with this one, Richard!
You mean the post plus midrash about the Syro Phonecian woman Eric?
experimentaltheology.blogspot.co.uk/
Yep ā it must be this one. Iāll paste in here because Iām just so aware that people donāt always open links when they are referred to on thread -
**The story from Mark:
Mark 7.24-30
Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an impure spirit came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.
āFirst let the children eat all they want,ā he told her, āfor it is not right to take the childrenās bread and toss it to the dogs.ā
āLord,ā she replied, āeven the dogs under the table eat the childrenās crumbs.ā
Then he told her, āFor such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.ā
She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
There is little doubt that Jesus privileges his mission to Israel. Jesus is, after all, the Messiah of Israel, the culmination of the story of Israel for the sake of the world. However, throughout Jesusās ministry we see him bring the Kingdom into the lives of Gentiles, a sign of Jesusās vision of the universal vocation of the Messiah.
What grates in the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman isnāt any of this but the racial epithet ādogs.ā Did Jesus consider the Gentiles ādogsā?
There have been a variety of responses to this query. Some point to Jesusās use of the diminutive for dogsāālittle dogsā or āpuppies.ā That softens things a bit. Which leads to perhaps the most common interpretation, that Jesus was being ironic or playful with the woman to test her and the assumptions of the onlooking disciples.
Iām okay with that interpretation, but I was struck the other day reading a different interpretation in Ched Myersās commentary on Mark Binding the Strong Man.
Myers first points to the social location of the woman. As a Gentile and a woman sheās pretty far down on the power structure, the bottom really. Because of this the womanās insistence and pushing on Jesus is socially transgressive. Sheās not being polite or staying in her place. Even when Jesus tries to put her in her place.
But hereās the remarkable thing. This Gentile womanāthis outcast of societyāis the only person in human history who ever bested Jesus in an argument. Jesus, we know, was a darn good debater and wins every exchange recounted in the gospels. Except one. Jesus loses once.
This fact is highlighted when we note that the womanās requestāhealing for her daughterāis granted not on the basis of faith but on the basis of her argument. Jesus says, āFor such a replyā¦ā
Whatās going on with all this? Why does Mark show us Jesus losing an argument to a Gentile women when weāve seen Jesus best the best theological minds in Israel (from the time he was twelve no less)?
Hereās Myersās take: āThis drama represents another example of status-equalization. Jesus allows himself to be āshamedā (becoming āleastā) in order to include this pagan woman in the new community of the kingdom.ā Myers sees in this a foreshadowing of the āshamingā of Israel when the Gentiles are brought into the Kingdom: ā[S]o too Judaism will have to suffer the indignity of redefining its group boundaries (collective honor) in order to realize that gentiles are now welcomed as equals.ā
Although we could go too far with all this, I find this line of thinking very interesting. Jesus allows the Messiah to be shamed by the āleast of these.ā And not because of their faith, but because of a forthright argument about fairness and equality. The Messiah is convinced and āshamedā by this argument and responds by opening up the Kingdom to all.
No doubt many readers right now are getting Christologically nervous. The idea of Jesus being āshamedā or losing an argument is just too much for their imaginations. For the anxious amongst us, Iām not going to force this interpretation upon you. Take a deep breath. Weāre in midrash mode here.
And my midrash is this.
If Jesus is willing to be shamed by an argumentānot faith!āfor simple fairness coming from the margins, is the church willing to undergo a similar shaming for the sake of expanding the Kingdom?**
Well I see the point of challenge here that is relevant to our conversation ā all very clear to me.
Blessings
Dick
Thatās the one, Prof. Thanks for posting it; couldnāt do that on my phone.
Funny how itās so easy for we humans to talk about our religious beliefs in terms of faith, then behave in a legalistic manner. In this parable, Christ showed that He was moved not only by faith, but also by logic and fairness.
A preacher friend of mine once told me, āThereās a fine line between preaching and meddling. A good preacher knows when to cross it.ā I think Richard may have taken a big step across that line and stepped on a lot of toes by bringing this point to light!