as Arnie said in Total Recall: “you blew my cover! they’ll kill us all!” 
it’s a true fact though, that many proper metallers (those that don’t have a stage persona to live up to, at least) are pretty nice people…we get our aggro out in the music!
OK here is Benny’s blog from Accepting Evangelicals on the first chapter of Romans for your comment. The original article can be viewed at -
acceptingevangelicals.org/20 … -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 Britain’s ‘Computer says no’ [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 ‘Don’t do it!’ – whatever ‘it’ is….
The one exception to this is Romans 1. Here finally, there appears to be some theology going on – 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 – 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 ‘homosexual healing’ which seeks to re-orientate homosexuals into heterosexuals by a combination of prayer, confession, forgiveness and self-discipline.
But wait a minute… Verse 26 begins with the words “Because of this…” – which means that we should ask ourselves ‘Because of what?’ 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 …
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 God’s wrath, shown here as in so many places in scripture, by God abandoning them to the consequences of their own choices – 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 – and indeed what I read now was not describing them.
But there is more – 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 ‘No!” 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 – Rome! The epistle is, of course, a letter to the church in Rome – the centre of the Roman Empire – 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 – 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 – 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 – 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 – 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 ‘Bible says no’ 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. “They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” (Matthew 23:4)
Where same-sex relationships of love, faithfulness and commitment are concerned, the Bible does not say no – and neither should we**
PLease come back and have a chat - I’m gonna take a break.
P.S. Matt me old chum; I’m still thinking of the Prodigal Son as a counsel for moderation. I think the key to this parable is the Fahter’s love - and his love is reckless, extravagant, and immoderate from a wordly perspective. But if we are focussing on the two ‘bros’ - 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 I’m 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 don’t think I’m 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 you’re right bro… and who knows, maybe we’re 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.
I’ve known him since he was about 5, but now he’s in his early twenties, a tall big guy with long blond Viking style hair, who’s a down to earth laid back metalhead… he’s actually, or was, the lead singer of a blender metal band called Titarius… went to one of his concerts… you should see him headbanging… all that crazy Viking hair.
His band recently had to disband because of time conflicts after 10 years, and he’s starting a new band called Point Of The Devil, which is supposed to be a Judas Priest/Iron Maiden style band… anyways, you kind of remind me of him a bit.
Oh, and though he’s 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 we’re on opposite sides of the pond. Ah well, maybe someday in the next world.
It is true… 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, he’s got a heart of gold. He’s like the younger bigger brother I never had.
Some would say there are wolves in sheep’s clothing out there, which no doubt there are, but I’d also say that there are sheep in wolves’ 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 verse… but then like you pointed out, it’s also a great example of God’s 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 think… 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 it… 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 back… or at least that’s the ideal, or at least that’s 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 Beck’s 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 indefensible…
You’ve 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 – it must be this one. I’ll paste in here because I’m just so aware that people don’t 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.
“First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
“Lord,” she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
Then he told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.”
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 Jesus’s ministry we see him bring the Kingdom into the lives of Gentiles, a sign of Jesus’s vision of the universal vocation of the Messiah.
What grates in the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman isn’t any of this but the racial epithet “dogs.” Did Jesus consider the Gentiles “dogs”?
There have been a variety of responses to this query. Some point to Jesus’s use of the diminutive for dogs–“little dogs” or “puppies.” 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.
I’m okay with that interpretation, but I was struck the other day reading a different interpretation in Ched Myers’s commentary on Mark Binding the Strong Man.
Myers first points to the social location of the woman. As a Gentile and a woman she’s pretty far down on the power structure, the bottom really. Because of this the woman’s insistence and pushing on Jesus is socially transgressive. She’s not being polite or staying in her place. Even when Jesus tries to put her in her place.
But here’s the remarkable thing. This Gentile woman–this outcast of society–is 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 woman’s request–healing for her daughter–is granted not on the basis of faith but on the basis of her argument. Jesus says, “For such a reply…”
What’s going on with all this? Why does Mark show us Jesus losing an argument to a Gentile women when we’ve seen Jesus best the best theological minds in Israel (from the time he was twelve no less)?
Here’s Myers’s take: “This drama represents another example of status-equalization. Jesus allows himself to be “shamed” (becoming “least”) in order to include this pagan woman in the new community of the kingdom.” Myers sees in this a foreshadowing of the “shaming” of Israel when the Gentiles are brought into the Kingdom: “[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.”
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 “least of these.” And not because of their faith, but because of a forthright argument about fairness and equality. The Messiah is convinced and “shamed” 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 “shamed” or losing an argument is just too much for their imaginations. For the anxious amongst us, I’m not going to force this interpretation upon you. Take a deep breath. We’re in midrash mode here.
And my midrash is this.
If Jesus is willing to be shamed by an argument–not faith!–for 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 – all very clear to me.
Blessings
Dick
That’s the one, Prof. Thanks for posting it; couldn’t do that on my phone.
Funny how it’s 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, “There’s a fine line between preaching and meddling. A good preacher knows when to cross it.” 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!
I too, see the relevance Prof… thank you!
Love and blessings,
Bret
Hi both – and lovely to hear from you
Glad I did a good turn there 
– and thanks to Eric for bringing the good Doc’s post to our attention.
Yes its a very challenging narrative – unless we file it away with the ‘little dogs’ explanation which doesn’t do it justice (and I’ve seen many who agree with Ched Myers on this – and I’m not even sure that he was the first person to make this point).
I guess this narrative is also about ‘scandal’ – it seems that the woman’s request at first scandalises Jesus (as if she presumptuously making equal claims to God’s love – and therefore she is making a rival claim against Jewish exclusiveness). If we believe in the Incarnation we also believe that Jesus was limited by his human context – and this admits the possibility of spiritual growth in grace and truth in Jesus. Perhaps that is what is happening here; although Jesus is initially scandalised by the gentile woman- she is not scandalised by him (she could have responded to the name calling by saying – ‘Well I shouldn’t have expected any more from a male Jew’).She states her claim with ‘logic and fairness’ showing a faith beyond resentment – and it is this faith beyond scandal that is part of the healing.
Oh I think that Doc Beck probably crossed the line sometime ago. There is actually a tow part article on sexuality on his blog, and the first part deals with the first chapter of Romans in some detail (in a way that we would find interesting – and it might be good to look at his arguments here on this thread). Also I note that in his Powers blogs Doc. Beck give swarm tribute to William Stringfellow – a gay Episcopalian theologian in the 1960s.
All other regulars please read Doc Beck’s post – copied into this thread four posts ago – and tell us ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ about its relevance.
By the way – there’s no reason why everyone should know that ‘midrash’ does not refer to a spotty belly . Rather it is a form of Jewish Rabbinical interpretation of scripture that seeks to make a text of scripture relevant to pressing issues in the present day.
Midrash places the focus on the reader and the personal struggle of the reader to reach an acceptable moral application of the text. While it is always governed by the wording of the text, it allows for the reader to project his or her inner struggle into the text.
This relates to a discussion Sass and Johnny were having earlier in the thread.
Blessings
Dick
We may be reaching the end of this discussion. However, I’ll try and keep this going for a bit longer (I’d certainly like to have a good look at James Alison’s article on Romans Chapter 1-2 before I’m through because this is the article dear Rev Drew cited once to a less receptive audience. It’s a very thought provoking article but perhaps needs some commentary for a Protestant audience).
Anyway for now I’m going to copy Doc. Beck’s post looking at the terms ‘natural’ and unnatural’ in Paul. It very relevant to our discussion and you can find the original at -
experimentaltheology.blogspot.co … art-1.html
***Last week I finished Eugene Rogers’ book Sexuality and the Christian Body. I thought I’d devote a few posts to some of the main ideas in the book for any who are interested.
The book is a theological argument advocating for the inclusion of same-sex marriages into the Christian communion. Consequently, I don’t expect everyone to agree with Rogers’ argument. Regardless, what I found encouraging in Sexuality and the Christian Body was a vision of marriage that inspired me in my own marriage to Jana. More, Rogers offers a view of marriage that also lifts up singleness and celibacy. In short, regardless as to what you think about Rogers’ views on same-sex marriage, his theological treatment of marriage is, from a theological perspective, very inspiring. Or at least I found it so.
A key notion in Rogers’ book is that the vast majority of Christians need to recover their identity as Gentiles. This is important for a few different reasons. First, this recovery highlights the fact that we are not “by nature” children of God. We’ve been chosen and adopted. In the language of Paul we’ve been “grafted into” the tree of Israel. Second, this action of God, grafting in the Gentiles, highlights how the grace and election of God determines the people of God. We are not God’s children because of nature. We are God’s children because of election. This places election at the center of Christian notions of marriage (and celibacy) rather than a Darwinian focus on procreation. Marriage is grace, not biology. Finally, a recovery of our identity as Gentiles helps us understand why God’s actions toward the Gentiles was such a shock and offense to the Jews (both Christian and non-Christian). Importantly, this shock was very much focused on issues of holiness and morality.
Early in the book Rogers has us consider what he calls “the standard argument.” The argument is standard because it has been used throughout history, at various times and places, to argue for the moral inferiority of a marginalized class of people. Gender and race have been common targets. And a common example of this moral inferiority is evidence of sexual licentiousness. Thus, in the Middle East today we see the standard argument applied to women. Women are sexually promiscuous and, thus, require a variety of social restraints to keep them in check. This is also why women are blamed for adultery. The woman’s lust for the married man causes him to falter. A woman is a Jezebel, a temptress.
The standard argument was also applied to blacks in the American South during slavery and segregation. In particular, the black male had a voracious sexual appetite for white women. And blacks generally were considered to be more promiscuous than whites.
In both cases we see how immorality generally, and sexual licentiousness in particular, get attributed to natural kinds (e.g., race, gender). In the Old and New Testaments this same reasoning was applied to the Gentiles. As a natural kind the Gentiles were considered to be naturally prone to immorality and sexual deviance. Paul gives us the standard Jewish view of the morality of Gentiles in Romans 1:
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
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.
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. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
The important thing to note in this passage is that this is a description of the Gentiles as a natural kind. They are naturally depraved and deviant. Consequently, they engage in acts that are “contrary to nature.” In all this we see another example of the standard argument, an argument that has been applied to all sorts of despised groups. Women. Blacks. Jews. And homosexuals in our time. What is important to note in all this is that it’s not just that Gentiles do unnatural things. It is, rather, that they are morally inferior by nature.
This understanding helps us recover the moral shock of God’s excessive grace in Galatians 3.28:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
We tend to read this passage as a condemnation of slavery and as a call for egalitarian gender relations. No doubt that is a part of the story. But what Rogers argues is that what we are seeing in Gal. 3.28 is a fusion of natural kinds. More, we are seeing a fusion of the morally inferior with the morally superior. In the 1st Century slaves, women and Gentiles were all considered to be morally inferior to the highest natural kind: The male Jew. For example, each group was characterized by the sexual perversions we’ve seen Paul describe in Romans 1.
So what we are witnessing in Gal. 3:28 is something really quite shocking. Galatians 3:28 isn’t about slavery or gender relations. It’s about morality and holiness. More, it’s about God’s fusion in Jesus Christ of natural kinds, kinds that were believed to represent either holiness or depravity.
And the shock of God’s actions goes even deeper. Later in Romans the phrase para phusin (“contrary to nature”) reemerges. Only this time it is applied not to homosexuality but to God! In Romans 11.24 Paul describes the action of God in grafting in the Gentiles to the tree of Israel (the vision of Galatians 3.28):
After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!
Does Paul know what he’s doing here? Is he intentionally pulling para phusin from Romans 1 to make a parallel to God’s grace in Jesus Christ? The Gentiles behave “unnaturally” and God, in his grace, does something just as “unnatural,” he overrides the category of natural moral kinds to create one body in Christ. Surely the readers of Romans would have heard the overtones between Romans 1 and Romans 11, that their biases about what is “natural” or “unnatural” have been unnaturally reconfigured in the Kingdom of God.
How does Paul’s argument apply to the case of modern day homosexuality? Rogers is clear that Paul is not offering his arguments in Romans to legitimize same-sex unions in the church. But what he does argue for is that Paul’s arguments in Romans 1, Romans 11 and Galatians 3 are broadly isomorphic with the arguments offered to exclude same-sex unions from the church. That the arguments being made by the Jews to exclude the Gentiles are the same arguments being used to exclude same-sex couples from the life of the church.
In light of this, what we see in Paul is how the grace of God undermines the standard argument, an argument that there are kinds of people who are, by nature, morally inferior. And that these morally inferior natures cannot be “grafted into” in the church.
This is by no means the end of the discussion, but it does suggest that God does some very strange things when it comes to “nature.” In fact, God himself often acts “contrary to nature” to erase our judgments about what is or is not natural or unnatural. This suggests that in the same-sex union debates we may have to rethink “nature” in light of God’s election. God has chosen the Gentiles, by nature homosexuals and perverts, and has grafted them into the tree of Israel. God overrides the standard argument in the minds of the Jews and, in doing so, also acts “contrary to nature.” Such actions on the part of God should give us moderns pause when we reason about “nature” in the same-sex attraction debates.
How can you be certain of what is natural or unnatural worshiping a God who acts para phusin?***
Does this make sense/speak to anyone’s condition?
Hi All –
Well this thread seems to have dried up. However, I have had private communications from my American Universalist cousins about it – and it’s all been very fair minded and pleasant to my ears across the pond .
I think the heart of these communications has to do with a shared abhorrence of homophobia, and an affirmation of compassion towards gay people, but with a qualification that some more space needs to be dedicated to reviewing the Biblical evidence on this thread now. ‘How problematic/unclear is this evidence?’ Even more difficult is the question, ‘If the Bible doesn’t actually condemned what we call a gay relationship today then is it not a problem that it doesn’t seem to affirm these either?’
Some of these issues have already been looked at on this thread in a diffuse/soft focus way– but I think it completely fair that we look at them in a more concentrated way before this thread is ‘cooked’. I propose that we take a couple of weeks off and during this time I will post some materials on the supplementary articles thread that I think are relevant (and anyone else can do the same). Then we can come back refreshed and have a focussed discussion to draw the threads together (because the number of readers of this thread suggests that many on this site see it as an important or a perplexing issue). Then we can agree and agree to differ in clarity and with charity. What d’ya think?
The two articles I’ve posted on the supplementary thread that I think are relevant are the Wikipedia ones on homosexuality and the Bible. Have a look/scan at -
Hope it whets your appetite and that you’ll look at the original. The articles are not perfect but at least they look at the lexical issues systematically and try to give balance in giving conservative and liberal arguments. It’s the best resource that I – a complete non-expert -have been able to find at the moment
Also I recommend the Philip Yancey interview; especially to American Christians perplexed by this debate (Eric and Andy have both shown appreciation of this). Philip Yancey doesn’t hide his difficulties but he also manages to be very compassionate/loving towards gay people (Philip Yancey is an editor of the mainstream Evangelical publication ‘Christianity Today’ – so he has impeccable credentials of mainstream respectability). I’ve posted the article here at -
Dick
I don’t think we’ve run out of steam just yet, old bean. We - or I, at least - need a bit more time to properly digest all that has been said so far. I’d agree that we haven’t yet finished the collective exegesis on supposed NT references to homosexuality.
As for the Bible not affirming gay relationships, would it be mischievous to bring up David and Jonathan again?
Peace and love
Johnny
Hi Johnny -
How nice to hear from you. No of course it wouldn’t be mischevious of you. Tis’ a perfectly legitimate question - and I understand people are divided about the answer - as ever 
. Och well, we can but do our best.
Hi Dick
Don’t know if you caught the discussion on Radio 4’s *Today *programme yesterday about gay marriage, which really brought the issue into sharp relief for me. They had on a top guy from the Quakers and a Canon who represented a pressure group calling itself Anglican Mainstream – although I suspect they are anything but.
The Quaker guy made an eloquent case for having a mechanism – ie Christian marriage - for gay couples to affirm faithful, committed same sex relationships in a properly spiritual way, something civil partnerships don’t achieve. The Anglican Mainstream guy trotted out the tired line, with no evidence, by the way, that the Christian scriptures “clearly state” that homosexual relationships are not on a par with heterosexual ones, hence no organisation calling itself Christian ought to have the right to conduct gay marriages.
What struck me was the openness, inclusiveness and tolerance of the Quaker guy, contrasted with the narrow-minded self-righteous exclusivity of the Anglican guy. Not only did he (the Anglican guy) think it was wrong for gay people to get married in a church, he wanted to impose that opinion on all other people and church groups. In so doing he epitomised what I – along, I suspect, with a sizeable majority of the British population, at least – find most insufferable about ‘religious’ folk: this obsessive desire to impose their own personal view of life on the rest of us. They base this view on their own interpretations of scripture, and blithely affirm that it is the only correct, ‘orthodox’ or ‘biblical’ view – often going so far as to condemn anybody who disagrees with them as a liberal at best, or a heretic at worst.
By far their biggest hobby horses are, as you’d expect, homosexuality and abortion. A cursory exploration of their website gives you the distinct impression that they are a single issue organisation – that single issue being to promote the ‘traditional’, ‘orthodox’ view of marriage, and to oppose equality for gay people.
They’re basically a bunch of homophobes, in my opinion, although the guy on the radio was careful not to say anything overtly homophobic.
Here it is, in the words of another website they link directly to and clearly endorse (my emphases):
This is the sort of entrenched anti-gay sentiment we are fighting against. We may have won a few skirmishes, but as long as this sort of offensive propaganda continues to be broadcast in the name of the Anglican Church, and the real Anglican Church does nothing to dispel it, the war is very far from being won.
Cheers
Johnny
Hi Johnny –
You are right; the Quakers in the UK have been in the foreground of promoting tolerance and affirmation for gay people. They published a booklet in 1963 ‘Towards a Quaker View of Sex’ while the findings of the Wolfenden report were still under discussion: in this they were the first Christian denomination in the UK to have a representative group affirm gay relationships. See the following links for further information (one of the representatives on the Wolfenden committee was a Canon in the Church of England):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenden_report
religioustolerance.org/hom_quak.htm/
The view of the UK Quakers about gay relationships and gay partnerships is not shared by Quakers worldwide – especially elements within the Evangelicals Quakers in America and Africa – Evangelical friends are often hard to differentiate from ordinary evangelicals and have the same variety of fundamentalist, conservative, and progressive/liberal elements within them. The Early Friends did not express any view on gay relationships that I know of (it wasn’t an issues for open discussion at the time). However, I would argue – as would many British Quakers – that the current stance of UK Quakers about gay issue is in line with the early witness of the Society of Friends against slavery and for full equality of women (as people and as ‘priests’).
I know that Quakers in the UK have allowed Quaker ‘marriage’ for gay people for a tem now. Quakers in the UK – in line with the early Firmed – do not have priests/pastors. In a UK Quaker marriage, at some time in a meeting for worship the couple to be married will get up and take each other in marriage – and everyone who attends the meeting has to sign the marriage certificate as witnesses. I think it’s status is a purely civil one – because Quakers believe that everything is sacred so distinctions between civil and religious, sacred and profane are irrelevant.
‘Anglican Mainstream’ is, as you say, a pressure group within the Anglican Church (a small but noisy one). The ‘Mainstream’ bit begs many questions – they don’t represent the mainstream broad Church. The name is a marketing ploy by a group of extreme conservative Anglicans – probably aligned to the Anglican Church in Nigeria for all I know. They are key exponents of gay cure therapy
There is also a very strong movement supportive of gay relationships within the Church of England – certainly not afraid to speak out. See the following link
I think Anglican Mainstream and other extreme conservative pressure groups in the Church of England are not on a par with evangelical Christians – in the Church of England and in other denominations worldwide - of real goodwill towards gay people who are uncertain of how to square this with their Biblical faith. I think there is a huge difference.
Oh - and I’ve put an article about David and Jonathan on the resources thread.
Tiddly pom
Dick
P.S. There is some informative stuff on the Ekkleisa site about Anglican Mainstream (so called). For example –
***Dr Lisa Severine Nolland has written on the Anglican Mainstream website comparing gay Christians to the BNP.
Her argument in a nutshell is that the Greenbelt arts festival wouldn’t give a platform to the racist party’s views, so why is it giving Christians who believe in the inclusion of gay and lesbian people a platform?
The argument clearly falls apart as soon as you consider it. The churches have with one voice rejected the hate-filled messages of the BNP [the BNP are the racist fascist party in England – that thankfully have only a minority following currently] whilst there are many in the churches who affirm gay and lesbian people.
But my main concern is that she seems completely blind to the kind of message that such a comparison between gay Christians and the BNP sends out about the churches attitude to LGBT people.
At least I hope she is blind to it, and this is just a terrible error of judgement. If she is in fact aware of the impact that such a comparison might have, she is doing something that I think even most conservatives within the church would consider a step too far.***
Also see the following two Ekklesia links about gay cure therapies and the ‘Anglican Mainstream’ (so called)
Hi Johnny,
I didn’t hear that discussion but I’m not at all surprised at the line taken by the Anglican Mainstream spokesman. It is a pressure group which was formed to oppose the appointment of Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading (in 2002 I think). I joined them initially and signed the petition against John’s appointment. I held the conservative evangelical party view on homosexuality myself back in those days. I remember attending a meeting at a church in Reading (Greyfriars I think) at which the main speaker was Greg Venables, Bishop of the Southern Cone. The meeting was like a highly charged political rally and that’s when I started to wonder if I was on the right side of the issue. Over the following months I became more and more uncomfortable with the harsh, pharasaical tone of propaganda coming out of Anglican Mainstream. Their articles, actions, private and public comments seemed to me neither christlike nor biblical and I eventually cut myself off from them and started to explore alternatives.
There are some good people in Anglican Mainstream and many of its members are compassionate and well motivated Christians. However it is basically a single issue pressure group, with all the weaknesses that entails. Use of the word mainstream is rather wishful thinking. The C of E has a knack for ironic titles - Forward in Faith and Reform are two of my other favourites. All jolly polite and well intentioned I’m sure, but sometimes I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Blessings to all, Drew
Hi Drew -
Thank goodness you are back !!! Lovely to see (pic)/hear you again!!! (I get confused by all of the different pressure groups within the C. of E. - not being inlvoved in the politics in a big way). And it’s good to hear that Anglican Mainstream also has some well intentioned people in them (although their leaders are not serving these people well).
Dick
I was just thinking how difficult it is to discuss any controversial fairly – even when it is very important to discuss the issue (and discuss it fairly). ‘Truth is the first casualty in war’ as they say – and that’s also true of wars of ‘mental fight’.
It might seem that , in an earlier post, I was lionising the UK Quakers for humane attitudes towards gay partnerships, and for being uniquely well in advance of their times. Well they do tend to be ahead in initially unpopular matters that concern compassion. However, in the UK the Quakers are relatively thin on the ground/small in number, tend to be well educated and employed in education and the caring professions these days, and tend to be ‘Arts and Crafts’ in outlook (gross caricature but fairly accurate). So in social attitudes they belong to a wider group in UK society – including sectors in the Church of England – that are open to the idea that change can be progressive and can sometimes be grace filled (even when change entails challenging the letter of sacred tradition and scripture in the name of the spirit ).
The Church of England is huge – and has every variety of everything under the sun within it!!! The Anglican Communion is even larger. It’s impossible to make any big generalisations about it. At the moment this huge group of Christians are still talking – just about; but the conversation is difficult, and becoming increasingly so.
By the way Johnny; if you want to have a chat specifically about David and Jonathan, I think I’ve now got some sort of view on this - for what it’s worth (although I’d not thought about it much before). You kick off old china –
Dick