Tumah
Veteran Member
I don't think Jews were killing anyone for anything at the time Muhammad was around.
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Is pro-gay Christianity really a tenable position?
- Thread starter Saint Frankenstein
- Start date
Vishvavajra
Active Member
"God never changes" is a statement of definition, not an argument for any particular sort of policy, which is what you were trying to use it as. In contrasting Church doctrine with the social values of the larger society, you said Church doctrine was preferable because God never changes. That's neither here nor there, since Church doctrine does change, and it changes in exactly the same manner as the values of society at large change, only much more slowly, since a bunch of conservative old men have to vote on it.
As for Jesus, he talks about the community of the faithful in very general terms. He does not talk about capital-C Church at any point. At the time John is written, Christians are only just beginning to get a sense of themselves as separate from the Jewish community, having been a movement within the synagogue up to that point, now cast out of it. The institution of the orthodox Roman church is still a couple of centuries away. What he is given to say in that passage is meant as reassurance to early Christians that they retain moral authority even as the disowned children of Judah, and that there is a way forward. It is not meant to say that any particular mortal institution can do no wrong.
Servant_of_the_One1
Well-Known Member
Actually i dont really give a toss about what Jews did or didnt. What Bible says is importanter than what jews did or didnt.
Vishvavajra
Active Member
Believing that requires a profound ignorance of classical antiquity. This stuff did not arise in a vacuum. On the contrary, it arose in the context of the most prolifically literary culture in the premodern world. We have more evidence for their attitudes about sexual practices than we do about the attitudes of every other premodern culture combined. There are whole genres of poetry dedicated strictly to that topic, and they are some of the most well attested. This is not a mystery that we have to reconstruct by looking at scriptures and filling in the gaps with modern attitudes and prejudices. It's true that modern attitudes are anachronistic for the time, but not in the way you think.
Tumah
Veteran Member
No need to be aggressive. Just pointing out a mistake.
Vishvavajra
Active Member
Strikes me as too anachronistic in its assumptions and orientation. The author claims that the use of male and female as archetypal categories in the myth and language of the Bible "cinches" the argument that homosexuality is inherently sinful. That's absurd. Every culture recognizes male and female as basic complementary components in myth, language, and metaphor, yet that does not necessarily have anything to do with condemning any particular kind of relationship as "unnatural."
The Heliopolitan Theology is a record of ancient Egyptian myth from the city of Heliopolis. In its creation myth the god Atum masturbates, swallows his own semen, and gives birth to the gods who will in turn create the world. In this way he manifests both the male and female principle. Is it then reasonable to assume that the Heliopolitans thought anything other than autoeroticism was inherently sinful? The fact is that ancient people's attitudes towards and use of myths was complex and sophisticated. Sometimes they used them as exempla when making moral argument, and other times they didn't. They weren't so simple-minded that they couldn't think for themselves apart from what the myths say (would that the same could be said for all modern people).
Even leaving aside the entirely tentative claim that god never changes, the matter of the fact is that there is not a single reason to want to be attached to past, immature doctrines, while there are a bazillion reasons to want to grow beyond and above them.
Servant_of_the_One1
Well-Known Member
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
None.
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Then why did you lump homosexuals in with all the other types of sin that are "welcome" in your churches?
Yeah you do. That's about the joining and divorce of a man and a woman. There's nothing else addressed. Jesus never once mentioned anything about two men or two women getting it on. He only addressed lust and adultery. If two men were in love with each other, something well known in the ancient world, and spent their time together, that wasn't lust. Therefore, Jesus made no mention of homosexual relationships.
It does rule out something else: living as a single man apart from one's parents. Seeing how this describes every Catholic priest, I'm guessing that they don't put much weight on this passage.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
I agree. There is no condemnation of committed homosexuals, only promiscuity.
I'm not arguing that Christians should own slaves, but I have been trying to point out this hypocrisy.
It was routine in my ex's Catholic church for women to do readings during mass, despite the fact that the Bible says that women should stay silent in church and not teach men. I'm sure that, given enough time, they'll come up with some revisionist interpretation to let them claim that "authentic" Christianity was never really anti-gay the same way they've done with slavery and the nastier misogyny from the Church's past that they now conveniently ignore.
lovemuffin
τὸν ἄρτον τοῦ ἔρωτος
Isn't it ultimately a good thing if Christians change to be less misogynistic, xenophobic, anti-semitic, and etc? "Convenient" or not? Lets say we agree that reading the Bible as an entirely immutable and authoritative declaration of the ultimate will of God is untenable, absurd, and would lead to a completely immoral way of life. Isn't it better then that people not consider it to be that? Lets say we agree that given the enormous variety of belief and practice that fall under the umbrella of the word "Christianity", it's practical to be nominalistic about the term. That is, to accept that "Christians" are people who call themselves that. If so, isn't it a good thing that what "Christianity" is, as a reflection of what is actually practiced and believed by those who use the name, changes for the better? One can certainly appreciate that there is a perspective from which you might prefer that it entirely vanished, but in the shorter term, isn't a less awful version to be preferred to the more awful version?
leibowde84
Veteran Member
I think that rethinking doctrine, done with good intentions to better understand God's will, is fabulous and absolutely necessary. Why should we settle with the interpretations of the imperfect ancient men who wrote the Bible?
IMO, it definitely is. I wished it happened more often and was more casually accepted.
Thanks for the info.
The problem with this approach is that it can change back to a more perverse form. The process is still the same, interpration and faith. This is the foundation of religion. If the process does not change, then the same errors will occur in future generations. Maybe not with homosexuals or trans, but some other unfortunate minority group or minority beliefs.
lovemuffin
τὸν ἄρτον τοῦ ἔρωτος
Of course. But the same question still applies. Wouldn't you rather a less awful form now, even accounting for the future possibility of change, over a more awful form now that is resolute to not change?
I mean I think this entire question sort of misses the point in that change is not optional, but inevitable. There never was nor will there ever be a single "real" Christianity that is unchanging. The entire idea is a category error, a misunderstanding of religion, basically. It's as inevitable that religions can and do change as it is that cultures can and do change, or politics, or everything else.
it's sort of like saying "the problem with wanting the Democratic party to be less perverse is that it can change back to a more perverse form."