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Homosexuality in the NT: A further reflection

  • Thread starter angellous_evangellous
  • Start date
Dunemeister

Dunemeister

Well-Known Member
angellous_evangellous said:
No, I'm developing this. I think that the church is correct in applying it to homosexual action, but utterly inappropriately, because the action is not specifically homosexual. I'm developing and clarifying an idea to remove what I think is an error: attributing the action to specific homosexual activity, when it's not the activity that is the problem, but the nature and intent of the action.

Don't get me wrong - I agree that Paul is against homosexual activity, but it is for a cosmological view, and the words that he uses are not limited to homosexual actions. Scholars have know that for a long time. My contribution is that we can accept homosexual action as we reconstruct Paul, and still keep the spirit of the Scripture, if we want, by emphasizing the intent. I suppose another important contribution is that Christians should apply these words to heterosexuals as well - not alienating these passages from the majority of the people by seeing these folks as "us" and "them."
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I think I agree with you about the dangers of using an us/them sort of schema. And it is enlightening to think that there is a heterosexual application here. But I disagree that we can come to a conclusion opposite to Paul's and still say that we are "reconstructing" him or keeping "the spirit of the Scripture, if we want, by emphasizing the intent." A reconstruction of Paul must include the prohibition against homosexual behavior, even if we have a harder time with the cosmology. The church has always understood this passage this way, and our 1900-years-removed attempt at altering this appears to be motivated by Western political sensibilities more than a concern for what the text actually says.

After all - all of us fit into the categories that Paul uses - we're all theives, liars, sorcerers, and so on. All of us are sexually inappropriate and unable to contribute to God's kingdom, until "as we are graced."

For example, if we learn from the excessive amount of testimony that homosexuals love eachother, and Paul is wrong about the destructive nature of such acts in his cosmology (which, of course, the church has accepted and must accept) - we can apply the text in a more responsible manner.
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Ah, so you think Paul's wrong. I guess that's where we get off the rails. I assume Paul's correct. I'm all for thinking through what he has to say in order to rightly understand him, but I'm not about to assume that my intellect or spiritual understanding is superior to his.
 
A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
Dunemeister said:
Ah, so you think Paul's wrong. I guess that's where we get off the rails. I assume Paul's correct. I'm all for thinking through what he has to say in order to rightly understand him, but I'm not about to assume that my intellect or spiritual understanding is superior to his.
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Don't mistake complacency for humility.

It's one thing to hail Paul as a god, and quite another to have faith that God still speaks and moves today.
 
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