For The Bible Tells Me So

[Steno]

Very interesting, if you have 1.5hrs to kill. Tells some amazing stories, some beautiful and others tragic, but all worth listening to. I don't have TV, and Google Video really is the next best thing.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 8277312330

[Steno]

Synopsis:

An exploration of the intersection between religion and homosexuality in the U.S. and some religious have used its interpretation of the Bible to stigmatize the gay community. We meet five Christian families, each with a gay or lesbian child. Parents talk about their marriages and church-going, their children's childhood and coming out, their reactions, and changes over time. The stories told by these nine parents and four adult children alternate with talking heads - Protestant and Jewish theologians - and with film clips of fundamentalist preachers and pundits and news clips of people in the street. They discuss scripture and biblical scholarship. A thesis of the film is that much of Christianity's homophobia represents a misreading of scripture, a denial of science, and an embrace of quack psychology. The families call for love.

[Beta]

Anyone know off the top of their head what the *new* testament says about homosexuality?

[DanGenck]

In short, the new testament says very little.

Paul's letters to the Corinthians and possibly to the Romans reference that homosexual acts are wrong, but this is not to be mistaken with a direct command from God or Jesus that these acts are wrong (instead, this is Paul's interpretation).

All together, there is little said by Jesus or in the stories about Jesus regarding homosexual acts. The question is whether or not Paul's letters being included in The Bible therefore makes these acts condemned by God. If you feel The Bible was written by the hand of God (through others) then yes, the New Testament lashes out at homosexuality in a few areas.

This type of thinking discounts the critical element that casting out homosexuals from our lives and excluding them from our churches is fundamentally counter to the teachings of Jesus...

This issue goes much further than The Bible. Many people see homosexual acts as "sexually deviant" behavior (Dr. James Dobson and others), which leads to an entire new discussion about whether or not gays are sinners and how they should be treated.

Too many ways to go with this discussion... much deeper and we will be on PhD level.

[cecilc]

... whether or not gays are sinners ...

Well .... yes, they are sinners ... but I don't make that comment out of any homophobia ....

Apparently, we are all sinners for one reason or another .... even those (seemingly!) pious people who point at gays and call them "deviant" have their own sins to account for ... So, as far as "sin" goes I think we're all in that boat ..... !

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)

Too many ways to go with this discussion...

Got that right ! ...

[KnoxVegas]

A person's self-righteousness is ultimately their own downfall.

[Steno]

The film focuses on how the word "abomination" has changed in meaning over the years - at the time of penning on the bible, abomination just meant against custom. It was not customary for a man to sleep with a man, but it was not necessarily condemnable.

The bible needs to be understood within the context of when it was written. It was written at a time when Judea had to be re-populated, and so wasting time and energy (and semen) was seen as needlessly, well, wasteful.

The notion of homosexual act as sin derives from Leviticus, which also says that wearing linen with wool is sinful, or eating shrimp and pork.

People who claim to be Bible literalists but still eat shrimp and don't give all their money to the poor, who still control investments and make money off interest are the most dangerous hypocrites around.

[Buc_em_up]

Id love to follow around some bible beater who defames gays and then wait until they order a "surf and turf" at Applebee's. Then I'd jump out, bible in hand, and start telling them how they were going to "buuuuuuuurn in Hell!!" and that they are just as bad as "the queers and misaginators".

It would be even better with some sort of candid camera crew and carnival music... maybe once my act gets picked up by a network they can pay for that.

On a side note, has anyone read the comments on the YouTube George Carlin Tribute videos? Some people are pretty happy that he is "roasting in hell". I guess he did a little more than eat shrimp though.

[JW]

Because I believe the entire Bible to be true and that it is completely inspired by God written by man in their own style and historical context, I believe the writings of Paul to be important in this discussion.

To start:
Romans 3:23 - "For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God." The only thing that brings me into the Lord's presence is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Jesus never speaks to the issue of homosexuality itself, and this may be because it was not as big an issue in Judea and Samaria as it was in Corinth and Rome (churches that Paul was writing to). However, Jesus did speak about loving your neighbor as yourself.

1 Timothy 1:8-10 "But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that law is not made for a rightesou person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, according to the Gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted. " The Law spoken about here is the Law of Moses, which can be found in the Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy).

Leviticus also speaks out against it. Remember when Christ said

"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets (their teaching); I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. FOr truly I say to you until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commmandments, and teach others to do the same , shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:17-19

While I believe the Bible speaks against homosexuality, I am not the one that condemns. My God is a God of love and grace. My Savior teaches that Love and grace and shows it by His sacrifice on the cross. My Jesus taught me to love everyone. I am not homophobic (working at Banana Republic will change that). They are people making a choice, just as i have made choices in my life. I will love them like my God told me to.

[KnoxVegas]

They are people making a choice, just as i have made choices in my life.

JW, I do appreciate your post.

I do not see it as a choice but that that one is born a particular way. It is not a defect. While the scientific data on both side is sketchy, so we can agree to disagree. I think that the church struggles with this because if we are indeed created in god's image, then someone who is born gay is that way because god wanted them to be that way.

I just cannot see how someone would choose to be persecuted in the manor that society-at-large continues to condemn them. A person experimenting is making a choice. A person who struggles with coming out and living an openly gay lifestyle is not.

Why shouldn't lesbians and gays have a chance to experience life as a married couple, with all the benefits that it brings, both legal and intangible. We certainly allow 50% of the heterosexuals that get married the chance to divorce.

[JW]

They are people making a choice, just as i have made choices in my life.

JW, I do appreciate your post.

I think that the church struggles with this because if we are indeed created in god's image, then someone who is born gay is that way because god wanted them to be that way.

I just cannot see how someone would choose to be persecuted in the manor that society-at-large continues to condemn them. A person experimenting is making a choice. A person who struggles with coming out and living an openly gay lifestyle is not.

Knox, thanks for your discussion, but I will disagree with one point.

Adam and Eve were created in the image of God. When they sinned in the Garden by eating from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, the image was defaced (Genesis 3:6). The image of God that was placed on them during creation was defaced by their sin. It is because of the sin of man that we have disease, war, murder, etc. In a perfect world God intended on a Man leaving his mother and father and cleaving to a woman (Genesis 2:24).

At this point the image of God is placed on us, but only through belief in Jesus Christ. Man is not born inherantly good and learns to be evil. Man is born inherantly evil, and only through the saving grace of Jesus at Calvary can man recieve that image of God.

When Adam and Eve sinned, relationships were messed up completely. The way that relationships were supposed to be, Man and woman only being sexually active within the bounds of marriage (Unfortunately i was unable to keep this law - premarital sex) was ruined. God would not tell us that we could not do something, be in a Homosexual relationship, and then put that desire in our heart. God would not tell me to commit murder then tell me to commit murder. When I had sex before being married, it was not God telling me to do it, it was Satan.

I know that we would like to make everyone feel better by saying that people were created to be Homosexual, but that would just go against everything natural about what sex is supposed to be. Sex is supposed to be for the purposes of producing children. Humans have made it about pleasure.

I can't claim scientific data, just Biblical. My God is perfect, unfortunately because of sin in this world the creation of a child is not. Only through obedience to God and belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior can we have the image of God bestowed upon us. I am not perfect, never will be, but only because of Jesus Christ do I have hope of that perfection when I am one day living in the New Jerusalem.

Like I said, I don't believe that engaging ing Homosexuality is Biblical, but that does not change the fact that they are people that God desires a relationship with. God loves them, and so do I.

Leviticus 20:13 " 'If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. "

Romans 1:26-27 - Because the disobeyed God and looked to become wise of the world, "26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error."

Just a couple of more references that I found, to support my Biblical Theology.

Hope everyone is having a great night.

[KnoxVegas]

Like I said, we will disagree on this one but I honestly appreciate your posts and each one continues to educate me.

[KnoxVegas]

Those filters can be fun. These headlines are from a Google search this weekend. Each of the links direct you to the website OneNewsNow (http://www.onenewsnow.com/) run by the Christian group, American Family Association. Beautiful.




The complete article.
http://outsports.com/jocktalkblog/?p=1174

[TheBearcatHimself]

Steno,
Great post, the movie is truly an educational experience for those willing to listen and open their mind to reality. I actually netflixed this movie and watched it the other day before I realized it was available online

To address the interminable debate in other posts in this thread about the meaning of the bible and other such things, as a student of linguistics I can tell you quite assuredly that any modern day English translation of the bible has been translated through at the very least 4 other languages. Now I won't even go into the innumerable intricacies and exceptions and nuances of vocabulary in each language that the bible existed in before the modern King James' and other English translations, but it reasons that any amalgamation that the current bible you read comes in is a far cry from the original exact meaning (or story) that the writer's intended.

As Buc_em_up already noted, it is important to remember that eating shrimp is just as heretical as homosexuality.

The passage about "abomination" that people rally around to hate homosexuality is from Leviticus which along with the other first 4 books of the bible are from a completely separate period of cultural and social human history. Any comparison to modern times with these books is at best poor taste and at worst sheer and utter stupidity and ignorance toward the book in which you put so much faith.

The books in the bible like Leviticus, Exodus, and Deuteronomy are from over 4000 years ago. To equate moral and social norms with those times is foolish. As recently as 200 years ago the French decapitated political opponents in public squares, that doesn't mean that it would be socially and morally responsible for the French (or other cultures) to maintain that practice today does it??

[Dr. Jason Stockton]

We certainly allow 50% of the heterosexuals that get married the chance to divorce.

FYI, the divorce rate has NEVER reached 50% in this country. The statistics used for those numbers are totallly flawed.

From the NY Times in 2005:

the rate has never exceeded about 41 percent, researchers say. Although sharply rising rates in the 1970's led some to project that the number would keep increasing, the rate has instead begun to inch downward.

Far too many people get divorced, I agree, but the true statistics put the rate at about 30% right now - and dropping to their lowest levels in 25 years.

Some suggest it's the mortgage crisis. . .kinda ironic.