Neon Genesis

One thing I never understood about the fundamentalist Christian understanding of the Genesis creation account is that they blame the existence of evil on the fall of Adam and Eve and yet simultaneously claim Satan rebelled against God and took on the form of the serpent to tempt Adam and Eve. So, if Satan existed before the fall, how can they say that evil didn't exist until after the fall? And if there was no evil until after the fall, then how can Adam and Eve's actions been counted as a sin if there was no evil?

It should also be noted that whether or not Leviticus condemns homosexuality is irrelevant to Christians because according to the teachings of Paul, Jesus' sacrifice put an end to the old law and Christians are now under the law of grace. In the case of Romans, there is considerable debate as to whether Paul was condemning all forms of homosexuality or more specific sexual acts such as pagan temple prostitution rituals.

Most members here may be progressive Christians but many progressive Christians were raised in the homes of fundamentalist Christians or are former fundamentalists themselves and as someone who is also a former fundamentalist, I know how ingrained their interpretations of the bible can get into your head. Even when you reject the bible as a divinely inspired authority, when you've been raised to interpret the scriptures in one true way, it can be difficult to let go of that interpretation and to reconsider a different way of looking at the bible that you weren't taught to believe before.

Neon,

 

Perhaps your questions of Why? above in post #30 are flawed because your assumption is that the Bible is really going to answer your question. By your own admission, the Bible can be used in both sides of the issue. Why then look there for an answer (persuasive evidence) ? It seems to me that an open mind and reason and real life subjective experience will do a better job than looking for proof in the Bible of your claim..

 

Joseph

The U.S. constitution is also a human-made document made up of the opinions and biases of the Founding Fathers and has been used by both political parties in legislative debates yet we still consider the constitution to be an important document to consult and interpret both within its historical context and in light of modern developments. Likewise, while the bible is a human-made document made up of the opinions and biases of the authors who wrote it and has been used on all sides of theological and moral beliefs, the bible, for many Christians, is still the most important book in Western civilization, which people still turn to for guidance in their moral lives. And I think that's an important reason for why we need to rethink the way we've looked at the bible in light of historical context and in light of modern developments and not just blindly accept the way we've always been taught about the bible just because that's what we've always been taught it says.

The problem with George's standard of "persuasive" evidence is that unless we find some amazing archaeological evidence that proves what the Israelites thought about homosexuality either way, the only thing we have to rely on to reconstruct the moral views and practices of the ancient Israelites is the bible and one's own scriptural interpretation. So if George won't be convinced until something other than the bible comes along, then he's going to be waiting a very long time, for that and almost any other biblical debate about the OT. Bible scholars have found both pro-slavery and anti-slavery passages in the bible, they've found both pro-women and anti-women passages, and there's pro-polygamy and anti-polygamy passages in the bible. If we could find both sides of the spectrum on other moral debates in the bible, I don't see why we can't do the same with homosexuality, other than because of cultural hangovers from a fundamentalist upbringing. I do find it curious though that if the bible condemns homosexuality, why does it only condemn lesbians in one whole passage in the NT but mentions only gay men everywhere else and why is there no record of anyone in the OT being executed solely because of their sexuality?

I'd like to know what you would define as "persuasive" evidence since apparently what I've given you isn't good enough for you.

I would be interested in solid, explicit evidence that the Israelite society approved of same-sex relations in a "loving' relationship

From David to Jonathan:

Jonathan lies slain upon your high places.

I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;

greatly beloved were you to me;

your love to me was wonderful,

passing the love of women.

 

I would also be interesting in evidence, from Israelite society (not Greek, not Persian, Arab, etc.), of this sexual positioning claim. Were Leviticus referring only to the physical position of the participants (regardless of biological sex), I wonder why it didn't say so, it specifies a man with another man.

Leviticus doesn't say for a man not to lie with a man. It says that a man shouldn't lie with a man as with a woman, meaning don't take the sexual position of a woman in sex. If it was condemning all forms of homosexuality, why doesn't it condemn lesbians? Bishop Spong discusses ancient attitudes towards sexual positions in his book Rescuing The Bible From Fundamentalism.

I don't think Leviticus is as straightforward and obvious as biblical literalists would like to think, either. The law in Leviticus 18 was given to the Israelites in the context of God commanding the Israelites to keep themselves separate from pagan society. In ancient times, women had even less social status than they do today and were treated like property by men. If you were the man on top during anal sex you would be pardoned, but for a man to play the role of a woman in sexual intercourse would be considered a highly degrading form of sexual abuse because you were seen as taking on the role of the lowest of the low during sex. An example of this would be how Julius Caesar's political enemies tried to claim he was the victim of anal rape as a political smear against him. The Levitical law here isn't condemning loving and consenting relationships between the same gender but it's saying don't sexually abuse a man like an object. In modern times, we wouldn't consider anal sex between consenting and loving adults regardless of their gender in itself to be abusive and many heterosexual couples enjoy anal sex too, but there are other ways men use other men as sexual toys in modern society, like homophobic Christians who have sex with prostitutes while smoking crystal meth behind their wives' backs.

I agree, if that perspective is objective and not just an attempt (consciously or subconsciously) to give a modern point-of-view an authoritative biblical slant.

 

George

I would say that the majority of the anti-gay interpretations that homophobic Christians use today are modern day points of views that the American Religious Right made up to justify their bigotry and discrimination. The first known appearance of the slogan "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" made its first appearance on a homophobic protest sign in the 1970s, yet many fundamentalist Christians still think the Genesis creation account condemns homosexuality. Furthermore, nowhere in the bible does anyone ever cite the Sodom and Gomorrah story as a justification for condemning homosexuality and the book of Ezekiel itself tells us what the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was.

My understanding of the biblical scholarship behind the Gospel of Judas and the other non-canonical gospels is that they were written centuries after the time Jesus and his apostles lived by Gnostic Christians who believed the universe was created by an evil false god and rejected the OT as authoritative. In ancient times, it was common for followers of a school of thought that centered around a teacher to write their teachings in the name of that teacher even if the teacher themselves didn't write it. A classic example is the cult of Pythagoras whose followers frequently attributed their doctrines to their leader even if Pythagoras didn't write it. In the case of early Christianity, it was popular for early Christian groups to authenticate their writings by attributing their writings to a famous follower of Jesus.

 

This is the case of the gospel of Judas where Judas himself didn't write the gospel of Judas but it was written by Gnostic followers who attributed the text to Judas to justify their beliefs to other Christians. This is also the case with the canonical Pastoral epistles in the NT which actually written by Paul but were written by his followers and attributed to him posthumously. The current consensus among biblical scholars is that all of the Gnostic gospels of this sort of writing and that while they provide important insight into the diversity of early Christian beliefs, outside of maybe the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, none of them provide any authentic accounts of the life of the historical Jesus.

It seems to me that apologetics can apply not only to fundamentalists but also to liberal Christians on this issue. Rather than reaching to assume a position on interpretation, i think the answer is more appropriate in the proper classification of what the Bible is. Just my opinion.

 

Joseph

I don't think this is necessarily a liberal version of apologetics. Christians of all theological and political persuasions are starting to question traditional biblical interpretations of the passages typically used by Christians to condemn homosexuality. Accepting that the bible is nothing more than human opinion may work just fine for progressive Christians and their secular allies but it's not convincing to other Christians who still believe that the bible is the inspired word of God but who might otherwise be open to being supportive of the plight of gay rights. Considering that so many Christians still consider the bible to be the final word on morality, I think it's important to understand what the bible says and what it doesn't say, just like it's important to understand any other issue that mainstream biblical scholarship has addressed, including everything from the existence of a historical Jesus to the Q gospel debates. It's like how Christians used to believe that the curse of Ham supported the suppression of the races but now that most Christians in modern times condemn slavery, nobody except maybe a few radicals like the KKK still thinks the curse of Ham had anything to do with race and I think the same thing will eventually happen with homosexuality. Until then, I think it's important for us to educate people that there is more than one way to read the bible and that sometimes it's important to take a step back and look at the bible from a different perspective instead of using tradition as an excuse for justifying discrimination and a refusal to look closer at the scriptures.

There has been some scholarly debate as to whether or not 1 Corinthians 6:9 actually condemns homosexuality or if it's been mistranslated in English. The problem with translating 1 Corinthians 6:9 as condemning homosexuality is that the Greek word Paul uses an unusual word that he seems to have made up himself and not the normal Greek word they would have used to describe same-sex sexual acts. Since the word seems to have been one Paul coined, we don't really know what it actually means. Likewise with Romans 1, there is some debate as to whether or not Paul is condemning homosexuality between consenting adults or if he's condemning pagan prostitution rituals. The general consensus of Sodom and Gomorrah is that it was about hospitality laws and not homosexuality. Here's an interesting article that goes into the translation and historical context debates in more depth and provides some other interesting interpretations of these controversial scriptures: http://truthsetsfree.net/

While I think it's important to point out the barbarity of the Levitical laws, I think number 8 is a bit misrepresentative of fundamentalist Christian doctrine. The reason fundamentalist Christians still condemn homosexuality but don't follow the other Levitical laws is because they believe that the OT laws were superseded by the sacrifice of Jesus. Most of the current English translations of the NT still keep the prohibitions of homosexuality in the NT but the OT commandment to stone disobedient children isn't repeated in the NT. So for fundamentalist Christians, since they think the commandments against homosexuality are in the NT, it's still considered a sin by God but since the the NT no longer allows stoning disobedient children to death, they don't think they have to follow it. The real problem and a more interesting debate that I think they should have brought up is that the English translations of the bible that condemn homosexuality are mistranslated into English and have nothing to do with homosexuality between consenting and loving adults at all.

Many surveys show that younger evangelical Christians are becoming more moderate in their religious beliefs and are slowly but surely becoming more gay friendly. If the younger evangelical Christians become fully supportive of gay rights and other liberal social justice values while still holding conservative religious beliefs, do you think there will still be a need for progressive Christianity?

Marriage - that's ALL marriage - should be a matter of the government, not the matter of the church. Let everyone have a "civil marriage." Then, if the couple wishes to also have a church ceremony, let that be at the discretion of the church. As for the point about members-only marriages, some churches already do this, and I don't think it's a terrible idea.

 

My cousins live in Venezuela, where church-only marriages are not recognized by the government. Everyone gets a civil ceremony, which is performed by a JP, and then if they choose, they can have a church ceremony as well. This seems like a good idea to me.

 

 

Contrary to the conspiratorial claims of the Religious Right, the U.S. government already recognizes that government marriage and religious marriage are two different things. The only people who can't see the difference are the anti-gay Christians. The only benefit I could see of changing the name would be it could appeal to middle of the road voters who might be uncomfortable with gay marriage but would be comfortable with civil unions but with the President of the U.S. and major organizations like the NAACP coming out in support of full marriage equality, the whole concept of civil unions is starting to look out-dated and antiquated. I just don't see much point to changing the name of marriage when what you're legalizing is 99% identical to marriage other than the name anyway. It's not like just changing the name will somehow magically convince homophobic Christians to be nicer to gays.

Didn't "Liberty" University ban interracial dating until the late 90s?

I can't speak for liberal European countries that still have an official state church but in the U.S. we have the separation of church and state which not only protects the government from being controlled by the church but it also applies the other way around in that churches should have their freedoms protected from the control of the government. As long as churches are private organizations in the U.S., they can make up their own rules of who they allow in their buildings and to participate in their rituals as long as the secular government is still allowed to grant same-sex couples the same legal rights as everyone else. I also think there's a danger in that if we try to force churches to marry same-sex couples, it would risk causing a backlash and fundamentalist Christians would see it as proof that they're being persecuted by the "radical gay agenda." You can't force someone who wants to keep living in the medieval era into modernity. But I think if churches want the freedom to not marry same-sex couples in their churches, they should be required to give up their tax exempt status as a non-profit charity.

Sorry, I accidentally posted in the wrong thread.

I don't always agree with everything someone says here but I fail to see how this site has become conservative. Are we demanding all forum members to subscribe to biblical inerrancy? Are we preaching hellfire and brimstone? Are we trying to force our beliefs on everyone else? What part of the forum is conservative?

As someone who has lived with conservative Christians my whole life, while I don't always agree with everything everyone on these forums has said, I don't see what part of these forums is conservative.

Now may be the highest record of murders of gays but that doesn't mean it will always be that way and likewise just because we say America will move forward from LGBT prejudice doesn't mean it will be quick or easy. But just look at the past four years to see how much progress American culture has progressed on the issue of gay rights. Obama passed the Matthew Shepard Act which classified the killing of gays as a hate crime, he repealed DADT which allows gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, he's now the first American president to openly support gay marriage and has vowed to repeal DOMA, and all the surveys show the younger generations of all political and religious backgrounds becoming more supportive of gay rights, and a majority of Americans now support gay marriage. Even many prominent Republican figures have come out in support of gay rights. So we still have a long way to go before we say the fight is finally over but that doesn't mean there isn't any progress being made or that we're going backwards.

Name me a single survey of gays.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/us/21evangelical.html?pagewanted=all

In a separate survey in 2004, John C. Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, however, placed evangelicals into three camps — traditionalist, centrist and modernist — based on the how rigidly they adhered to their beliefs and their willingness to adapt them to a changing world. The traditionalists are evangelicals who are usually labeled as the Christian right, while the centrists might be represented by the newer breed of evangelical leaders, who remain socially and theologically quite conservative but have mostly sought to avoid politics. The two camps are roughly the same size, each representing 40 to 50 percent of the total.

Experts agree, though, that the centrist camp is growing. Estimates of the number of evangelicals nationwide vary, depending on how they are counted and how the term is defined, but Mr. Green put it at 26.3 percent of Americans.

The full electoral implications of the shift that is occurring in the movement will likely unfold over the next decade or more, several religious experts and activists said, as opposed to in this next presidential election cycle.

“I think we’re talking about a 20-year effect,” said Andy Crouch, an editor at Christianity Today.

The tremors of change are, nevertheless, detectable, especially among younger evangelicals. Many are intrigued by Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, who has demonstrated the ability to speak convincingly about his faith on the campaign trail, as a presidential candidate.

“The person I just hear about all the time is Obama because he is seen as spiritually serious, even if people know he’s really kind of a liberal Christian,” Mr. Crouch said.

Gabe Lyons, 32, is emblematic of the transformation among many younger evangelicals. He grew up in Lynchburg, Va., attending Mr. Falwell’s church. But he has shied away from politics. Instead, he heads the Fermi Project, a loose “collective” dedicated to teaching evangelicals to shape culture through other means, including media and the arts.

“I believe politics just isn’t as important to younger evangelicals as it has been for the older generations because we recognize from experience that politics does not shape the morality of a culture,” he said. “It simply reflects what the larger culture wants.”

There are other signs of attitude changes among younger evangelicals. Recent surveys conducted by the Barna Group show that younger “born again” Christians are more accepting of homosexuality than older ones and are less resistant to affording gays equal rights. But on abortion, they remain almost as conservative as their parents — more fodder for both political parties to weigh as they consider the future.

The problem with trying to figure out Romney's personal beliefs is that he's a habitual flip flopper who changes his mind on every subject from one second to the next. One minute he tells gays he would be more liberal than the Kennedys or whoever and the next minute he's caught donating thousands of bucks to an ex-gay organization. But personally I'm more concerned about what Romney's views are towards the separation of church and state and equal rights than his personal beliefs. I do sometimes wonder if he wears the Mormon underwear.

Perhaps there will be a Gospel of Victoria Winters next?

Christian privilege is a serious issue that Americans need to understand but I am tired of the argument about public display of religious expression. First it seems to be argument between the poles of the spectrum in which we in the middle struggle to get out of. Second, it is not a healthy discussion because it does not lead to wholeness in the future. The extreme positions are trying to make it zero-sum: someone wins and someone loses. America is not zero-sum, neither is the best of Christianity and atheism. When one wins, every one wins. But this argument which so often ends with &^$#@ on a t-shirt seems to lead to a societal desert not unlike the knowledge of the universe being reduced to eliminative materialistic version of science. I think that makes us all poorer.

 

Dutch

I think as long as Christian extremists are sending death threats when their privileged place in society is challenged, I think it's important and healthy for us to debate what role religious rituals play in American society and when and where they're appropriate. Consider the threats Jessica Ahlquist has been receiving from Christians: