“Gay Marriage” – It’s Alive!

114 thoughts on ““Gay Marriage” – It’s Alive!”

1. members of the liberal Massachusetts state legislature have surrendered to the demands of the militant homosexual lobby and have betrayed both the citizens of Massachusetts and the democratic process

   I’m not an expert in Massachusetts constitutional law, but what was the nature of the vote? My understanding was that members of the Massachusetts legislature had a duty to vote on the merits of the proposed legislation, and not on the procedural issue of whether the referendum should move forward.

2. The writer asks: “What possible justification would there be for preventing polygamist marriages once the true definition of marriage is done away with?”

   Is anyone aware of an explicit condemnation of polygamy in Scripture?

   There’s a mention of adultery, but this is the taking of another’s spouse (in violation of the concept of property rights in the Old Testament). There’s even an implicit endorsement of polygamy in 2 Samuel 12:8 as a God-ordained institution (“And I gave thee thy master’s house, and thy master’s wives … “).

   In fact, most of the major Old Testament prophets that had found favor with God were polygamous. Certainly if a statement about this practice was going to be made, God could have found monogamous prophets, yes? So it seems polygamy (along with slavery, by the way) was part of the Old Testament traditions, not contrary to them.

   Now, this doesn’t mean I’m personally in favor of polygamy, it’s just that I have a hard time seeing how one can sanely appeal to the Judeo-Christian tradition when speaking in opposition to it. In fact, the writer seems to be appealing to a liberalized version of Christianity that denounced polygamy as misogynistic, the same liberalized version he would currently denounce today as being “unScriptural”.

3. The author seems to be misinformed as to the true nature of representative democracy, as well as of the proper functioning of such. There are three branches of government for a reason. If you believe the author’s take on how government should run, then *everything* should be up for a vote, and there is no need to elect representatives. Further, there is no need for courts — just let the people vote!

4. Stephen, you are the one unaware of constitutional theory

   Stephen, the U.S. Constitution and all State constitutions have adopted the concept of three branches of government with countervailing checks and balances. Each branch has a unique role and a unique set of powers. The legislative branch is the only branch that can make new law. The executive may propose laws and may lobby for them, but it cannot make new law. The judiciary can only interpret law, not make new law.

   Prior to the American Revolutionary War Massachusetts was governed by English common law because it was a British colony. After the Revolution Massachusetts and all of the other original colonies KEPT British common law that they had been operating under since the beginning of their existence EXCEPT to the extent it was inconsistent with the Massachusetts or U.S. Constitution.

   The law of the family has always been considered to be the exclusive domain of state legislatures. Each state makes its own family law, juvenile law, divorce law, etc. As the author noted the very idea of a “marriage” between members of the same sex was considered preposterous until the actions of the Massachusetts Supreme Court made it law.

   The Massachusetts Supreme Court actually ruled that the Massachusetts constitution mandated same sex marriage. The Supreme Court is supposed to decide what the original Framers of the Constitution would have decided had they been alive today. Seriously, Stephen, do you think it was the intent of the original adopters of the Massachusetts Constitution to enshrine gay marriage as a constitutional right? Until fairly recently most states criminalized sodomy even if the enforcement was spotty. So the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that the same people who must have thought the very concept of gay marriage ludicrous and even criminal intended to enshrine it as a constitutional right.

   We are a constitutional democracy. The source of political power is the will of the people, not the will of an unelected set of “robed masters.” The people voluntarily limited themselves somewhat by the establishment of some very basic individual rights, however, the establishment of some rights did not mean that the SOURCE OF LAWMAKING POWER shifted from the voters to the unelected judges.

   The Massachusetts Supreme Court legislated from the bench. They made new law. No one could, with a straight face, make the case that the Framers of the Massachusetts Constitution who thought that sodomy was a crime could have intended to give it a constitutionally protected status.

   The Massachusetts Supreme Court has effected a coup d’etat and seized power that it lacks. The Legislature has collaborated in that coup d’etat and blocked the voters from having a say on a topic that constitutional theory has always delegated to the voters and their elected representatives.

   Gay marriage has been imposed “from above” on the ignorant masses who may not be allowed to exert influence on the society in which they live. People in Massachusetts will not be allowed by their “robed masters” to define and determine the nature of the society they live in. The nature of the society they live in which be dictated by the Courts.

   Whether you realize it or not, your standing as a citizen in the United States has just been compromised because Massachusett’s decision now stands as precedent (something the Mass Sp. Ct. intended). That precedent will be used in other states to spread the effort to normalize gay marriage and to override the religious and moral beliefs of the vast majority of the American population. They did this with abortion and they are doing it with gay sex.

   Ever notice that the Left is always pushing sterility and death? Wonder why?

5. JamesK,

   You are not reading the OT in light of the New Testament as is proper. The NT take on marriage is quite clear- one man, one woman. Any other arrangement was allowed due to the hardness of our hearts. Remember, the Incarnation changed the entire dynamic of inter-relationships between God and His creation, God and mankind, and the interaction btween human beings.

6. Missourian:
   “Seriously, Stephen, do you think it was the intent of the original adopters of the Massachusetts Constitution to enshrine gay marriage as a constitutional right?”

   In short, yes. There are many things that are not spelled out explicitly, but the principles to be applied are spelled out. As a matter of fact, that’s the job of the SJC: to interpret the constitution. They didn’t make new law, they determined that to deny certain “rights” (call them what you want) to a certain group was wrong. That’s their job to make these decisions. It doesn’t really matter if you agree with them or not (as a matter of fact, it doesn’t really matter if even a majority of people don’t agree — it’s not up for a vote).

   The Legislature didn’t make new law, either. They declined the opportunity to make a bad law. That, too, is their job, whether or not you agree with their decision. It’s not up for a vote, and that’s just the way it should be according to the constitution and the principles enshrined within it.

   You’re welcome for the civics lesson!

7. Michael notes that “other arrangement[s were] allowed due to the hardness of our hearts.”

   I hate to be disagreeable, as we are probably in agreement that polygamy most often turns out to be an unfortunate arrangement for the women involved, and in spiritual terms, it’s probably not an ideal. It’s of no surprise to me that multiple marriages most often involve many women and one man, given our gender’s apparent insatiable need for “variety”.

   Nevertheless, when one recalls the fact that under the Law, a man was put to death for the trivial infraction of gathering firewood on the Sabbath (Numbers 15: 32-36), I have a hard time understanding how marrying fifteen women is something that simply escaped notice.

   My point is that we need to be sensitive to the fact that when we refer to a “tradition”, we’re not referring to a tradition that was common among the greatest prophets of the Judeo-Christian religion. It instead seems to reflect a more liberal, modernized appreciation for women that runs almost completely contrary to the traditions that conservatives are insisting we must appeal to.

   The fact that the New Testament changed our understanding of marriage (and relationships) to a degree simply highlights my point.

   Where does gay marriage come to play in all this? I’m not certain. I just don’t find that creating legislation based on religious arguments to be all that persuasive.

8. JamesK, addressing the religious aspects of Note 7, First read something!!!

   The Christian condemnation of homosexual conduct has been discussed a great deal on this site. It has also been the subject of some vigorous debate on many other sites. I am saddened that I don’t seem to see any evidence that you have actually read any serious scholars evaluation of the Christian
   case against homosexual conduct.

   I have frequently referred people to the work of Dr. Robert Gagnon, a respected Biblical scholar. I am reproducing an excerpt from his work which addresses the religious issues raised by you, JamesK.

   Please actually read and think about this material before commenting further

   Appendix 1

   How Bad Is Homosexual Practice According to Scripture?

   by Prof. Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.

   It is my contention that homosexual practice is a more serious violation of Scripture’s sexual norms than even incest, adultery, plural marriage, and divorce. (The reader will note that I did not mention bestiality because the evidence from ancient Israel and early Judaism suggests that bestiality is a worse offense than same-sex intercourse.)

   I. Different Degrees of Severity as regards Sin

   At the outset there will be some readers who contend that it is both unscriptural and un-Reformed to argue that any sins are more severe than any other sins. However, no one really believes such a claim. In fact, most people in the mainline churches today who want to see some sort of accommodation made to committed homosexual unions do so because, they rationalize, even if it is not God’s ideal it is nevertheless “not that bad of a sin” or at least a lesser evil than, say, promiscuous homosexual behavior. Proponents of homosexual unions often recoil in horror at the thought of any comparison with consensual incest or with adultery (to say nothing of bestiality) precisely because they operate with a notion that some sexual sins are truly more severe than others.

   Whatever concessions have been made to fornication and divorce in the church, I still see the mainline churches in the West holding reasonably consistent positions against sexual unions involving more than two partners and certainly incestuous unions of a first-order severity (e.g., incest with one’s parent, full sibling, or child), to say nothing of bestiality, sex with prostitutes, and sex with prepubescent children. Are we being unreasonable in giving precedence to some sins over others? Should we concede these other matters as well and be more consistently disobedient to the will of Christ? I don’t think so. Failing in some areas does not justify failing in more foundational matters. The church’s current practices tacitly acknowledge a different weight given to different sins.

   It is true that any sin, including sexual sin, can get one excluded from the kingdom of heaven if merit is the means of entrance. In that specific sense, all sins are equal. And there are certainly other sins, including sexual sins, that the apostle Paul indicates create a risk factor for the exclusion of Christians from the kingdom of God if they persist in such behavior in a serial, unrepentant way. Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 5-6 incest, adultery, and sex with prostitutes alongside same-sex intercourse.

   Yet none of this means that the church should regard all sexual sins, let alone all sins of any type, as basically of equal import or even that God views all sins as equally abhorrent. I am confident that few Christians, at least when hooked up to a lie detector or given truth serum, would assert that God views the taking home of a company pen as endangering the eternal destiny of the Christian perpetrator in the same way that, say, raping and eating children (thinking here of the serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer). The image is offensive, I grant. In fact, if you, the reader, feel any offense, this merely confirms my point: you don’t really believe that all sins are equally heinous, either to God or to us.

   In short, it is not true that all offenses to God are in all senses equally offensive to God.

   For those from the Reformed tradition it should be noted that such a view is “reformed.” For example, the Larger Catechism of the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) states the obvious: “All transgressions of the law of God are not equally heinous; but some sins in themselves, and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others” (7.260; elaboration in 7.261; cf. the Shorter Catechism 7.083).

   The claim that Scripture does not support the notion of different weights of sins is also inaccurate, in my view. To take a few examples:

   In the Old Testament there is a clear ranking of sins. For instance, when one goes to Leviticus 20, which reorders the sexual offenses in Leviticus 18 according to penalty, the most severe offenses are grouped first, including same-sex intercourse. Of course, variegated penalties for different sins can be found throughout the legal material in the Old Testament.

   Jesus also prioritized offenses, referring to “weightier matters of the law.” For instance, healing a sick person on the Sabbath takes precedence over resting.

   Paul’s attitude toward the case of incest in 1 Corinthians 5 also makes clear that he differentiated between various sexual offenses, with some being more extreme than others. This is clear both from the horror in his tone at the case of incest but, even more, from the fact that he has to arbitrate between competing values when he condemns the incest. If there were no ranking of priorities, how could Paul reject out of hand a case of incest that was monogamous and committed? If the values of monogamy and commitment to longevity were of equal weight with a requirement of a certain degree of familial otherness, Paul could not have decided what to do. Would commitment to a monogamous, lifelong union cancel out the prohibition of incest? Obviously, this was not a difficult matter for Paul to decide. He knew that the incest prohibition was more foundational.

   II. Why Homosexual Practice Is One of the Most Severe Sexual Sins

   Having established the principle that some offenses are more heavily weighted than others, both by Scripture and by the church, the question arises: How big a violation does Scripture view same-sex intercourse? I believe that Scripture indicates that the only sexual offense more severe is bestiality. Here are three main reasons why:

   It is the violation that most clearly and radically offends against God’s intentional creation of humans as “male and female” (Gen 1:27) and definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman (Gen 2:24). According to the story in Genesis 2, the differentiation into man and woman is the sole differentiation produced by the removal of a “side” (not “rib”) from the original human. It is precisely because out of one flesh came two sexes that the two sexes, and only the two sexes, can re-merge into one flesh (2:24). Since Jesus gave priority to these two texts from the creation stories in Genesis when he defined normative and prescriptive sexual ethics for his disciples, they have to be given special attention by us. Paul also clearly has the creation texts in the background of his indictment of homosexual practice in Rom 1:24-27 and 1 Cor 6:9.

   Every text that treats the issue of homosexual practice in Scripture treats it as an offense of great abhorrence to God. This is so from (a) the triad of stories about extreme depravity, Ham, Sodom, and Gibeah (which incidentally are no more limited in their implications to coercive acts of same-sex acts than is an indicting story about coercive sex with one’s parent limited in its implications only to coercive acts of adult incest), to (b) the Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic legal and narrative materials that rail against the homoerotic associations of the qedeshim as an “abomination” or “abhorrent practice” (men who in a cultic context served as the passive receptive sexual partners for other men), to (c) the Levitical prohibitions (where the term “abomination” or “abhorrent practice” is specifically attached to man-male intercourse), to (d) texts in Ezekiel that refer to man-male intercourse by the metonym “abomination” or “abhorrent act,” to (e) Paul’s singling out of homosexual practice in Romans 1:24-27 as a specially reprehensible instance (along with idolatry) of humans suppressing the truth accessible in the material creation set in motion by the Creator, labeling it sexual “uncleanness,” “dishonorable” or “degrading,” “contrary to nature,” and an “indecent” or “shameful” act. These views are also amply confirmed in texts from both early Judaism and early Christianity after the New Testament period, where only bestiality appears to rank as a greater sexual offense, at least among “consensual” acts. There is, to be sure, some disagreement in early Judaism over whether sex with one’s parent is worse, comparable, or less severe, though most texts suggest a slightly lesser degree of severity. While Scripture makes some exceptions, particularly in ancient Israel, for some forms of incest (though never for man-mother, man-child, man-sibling) and for sexual unions involving more than two partners (though a monogamy standard was always imposed on women), it makes absolutely no exceptions for same-sex intercourse. Indeed, every single text in Scripture that discusses sex, whether narrative, law, proverb, poetry, moral exhortation, or metaphor, presupposes a male-female prerequisite. There are no exceptions anyway in Scripture.

   The male-female prerequisite is the foundational prerequisite for defining most other sexual norms. Jesus himself clearly predicated his view of marital monogamy and indissolubility on the foundation of Gen 1:27 and 2:24, texts that have only one thing in common: the fact that an acceptable sexual bond before God entails as its first prerequisite (after the assumption of an intra-human bond) a man and a woman (Mark 10:6-9; Matt 19:4-6). Jesus argued that the “twoness” of the sexes ordained by God at creation was the foundation for limiting the number of persons in a sexual bond to two, whether concurrently (as in polygamy) or serially (as in repetitive divorce and remarriage). The foundation can hardly be less significant than the regulation predicated on it; indeed, it must be the reverse. Moreover, the dissolution of an otherwise natural union is not more severe than the active entrance into an inherently unnatural union (active entrance into an incestuous bond would be a parallel case in point). The principle by which same-sex intercourse is rejected is also the principle by which incest, even of an adult and consensual sort, is rejected. Incest is wrong because, as Lev 18:6 states, it involves sexual intercourse with “the flesh of one’s own flesh.” In other words, it involves the attempted merger with someone who is already too much of a formal or structural same on a familial level. The degree of formal or structural sameness is felt even more keenly in the case of homosexual practice, only now on the level of sex or gender, because sex or gender is a more integral component of sexual relations, and more foundationally defines it, than is and does the degree of blood relatedness. So the prohibition of incest can be, and probably was, analogically derived from the more foundational prohibition of same-sex intercourse. Certainly, as noted above, there was more accommodation to some forms of incest in the Old Testament than ever there was to homosexual practice. Adultery becomes an applicable offense only when the sexual bond that the offender is cheating on is a valid sexual bond. Needless to say, it would be absurd to charge a man in an incestuous union or in a pedophilic union with adultery for having sexual relations with a person outside that pair-bond. One can’t cheat against a union that was immoral from the beginning.

   My purpose in evaluating, from Scripture’s perspective, the severity of engaging in same-sex intercourse is not to exhort believers to hate those who engage in homosexual behavior but rather to inform love with knowledge of the truth. Many Christians have attempted to respond in love towards persons who act on homosexual urges, including ordained officers, by either “tolerating” the behavior or, worse, affirming it. If, however, same-sex intercourse is a high offense in the sexual realm toward God, then there can be no question of ordaining persons participating in such acts in a serial, unrepentant manner. To do such would only confirm the sin, leave the individual exposed to the wrath of God, and risk that one’s exclusion from an eternal relationship with God—not to mention produce deleterious effects on the community of believers (see 1 Cor 5:6-7: a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough).

   It is also important to determine the relative severity of an offense because of polity decisions. Churches do not treat all sexual offenses as equal when it comes to decisions of ordination (and sometimes even membership) but rather make distinctions on the basis of the severity of the offense, its repetitive character, and whether the offender has expressed repentance. Churches will ordain persons who have and occasionally entertain lustful thoughts, though I’m not sure one will find many churches ordaining persons who affirm and promote such thoughts. They will ordain persons who have been divorced and remarried, though I know of none who will ordain persons who have had five or more divorces and remarriages and plan to continue the cycle. Some churches may even ordain heterosexual persons in a committed sexual bond outside of marriage. However, few if any churches will ordain—at least not as of today—persons who are in committed sexual bonds involving close blood relations, more than two persons concurrently, or an adult and an adolescent or child. Few if any will ordain persons who are actively engaged in adulterous behavior. So knowing the severity of the sexual offense is an important factor in deciding what ordination decisions should be taken when violations are committed—and not only committed but committed repeatedly and, worse of all, unrepentantly.

   In fact, the more severe the sexual offense, the more acute becomes the question of whether churches and individuals should stay in a denomination that tolerates or perhaps even promotes such offenses among its ordained officers. For I know of few, if any, reasonable persons who would stay in a church that tolerated or promoted repetitive and unrepentant incest, adultery, or polyamory among its ordained officers. If same-sex intercourse is treated by Scripture as equally severe or worse than these sexual offenses, then serious issues about denominational unity are posed by a denomination’s toleration or affirmation of homosexual practice among its ordained officers.

   Appendix 2

   Does Scripture’s Indictment of Homosexual Practice Apply to Committed Homosexual Unions?

   by Prof. Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.

   Many claim that the Bible is opposed only to particularly exploitative forms of homosexual practice; specifically, those involving an adult and adolescent (pederasty), coercive sex with a slave, or solicitation of prostitutes. However, this claim is generally made in ignorance of the arguments that suggest Scripture’s absolute (i.e. exception-less) opposition to homosexual practice. Because the arguments for this latter position are so numerous and involve many texts, I here restrict my remarks to the witness of Paul. This witness is not unique among the authors of Scripture; indeed, it is representative of the whole, including the figure of Jesus. Yet Paul makes a good test case because he says the most about the issue and provides us, among New Testament-era figures, with the broadest array of contextual information for assessing his views.

   The discussion below has two parts: six synthesized arguments for why Paul’s rejection of homosexual practice was total, followed by a citation of some scholars who, though supportive of homosexual unions, acknowledge that Paul’s indictment is not limited to particularly exploitative instances of same-sex intercourse.

   I. Why Paul’s Indictment of Same-Sex Intercourse Included “Committed” Unions

   Below I offer six arguments for concluding that Paul’s opposition to same-sex intercourse was absolute and not limited only to particularly exploitative forms of homosexual practice. Readers can consult my two books as well as online material for further documentation. Naturally, if I had opened the scope of the investigation below to the whole range of scriptures that address the issue of homosexual practice, the length of my presentation would have increased significantly.

   (1) Paul clearly had in view the creation texts in Gen 1:27 and 2:24 behind his two main indictments of homosexual practice, Romans 1:24-27 and 1 Corinthians 6:9 (cf. 1 Timothy 1:10). There are eight points of correspondence, in a similar relative order, between Romans 1:23, 26-27 and Genesis 1:26-27: human, image, likeness; birds, cattle, reptiles; male, female. This intertextual echo back to Genesis 1:26-27 occurs within a context in Romans that emphasizes God’s role as Creator and the knowledge about God and about ourselves that can be culled from observation of the material structures of creation/nature. Similarly, 1 Corinthians 6:9, in a context in chs. 5-7 that deals with sexual vices, is in close proximity to Paul’s citation of Gen 2:24. These allusions to Gen 1:27 and 2:24 indicate that Paul’s first problem with homosexual practice was that it was a violation of God’s will for male-female pairing established in creation, not that it was typically exploitative. Incidentally, Paul uses the same two texts that Jesus himself defined as normative and prescriptive (with proscriptive implications) for all matters of human sexual ethics (cf. Mark 10:6-9; Matt 19:4-6). So the two most important texts in Scripture for defining sexual ethics, at least in the view of Jesus—Genesis 1:27 and 2:24—were at the heart of Paul’s rejection of all forms of male-male and female-female intercourse.

   (2) Paul’s nature argument against homosexual practice in Romans 1:24-27 does not lend itself to distinctions between exploitative and non-exploitative manifestations of homosexual behavior but rather to an absolute rejection of all homosexual bonds. By “against nature” Paul meant that the evidence from the material structures of creation—here the complementary embodied character of maleness and femaleness—gives clear evidence of God’s will for human sexual pairing. Some have argued that this could not have been what Paul intended by his nature argument, despite Paul’s clear statement in Rom 1:19-20 that such matters are “transparent” and have been so “ever since the creation of the world . . . being mentally apprehended by means of the things made.” Yet the historical context also confirms this way of reading Paul, whose views on the matter were no different from Jesus’. “Basic to the heterosexual position [against homosexual practice in the ancient world] is the characteristic Stoic appeal to the providence of Nature, which has matched and fitted the sexes to each other” (Thomas K. Hubbard, Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents [University of California Press, 2003], 444). “Some kind of argument from ‘design’ seems to lurk in the background of Cicero’s, Seneca’s, and Musonius’ claims [against homosexual practice]” (Craig A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality [Oxford University Press, 1999], 242). Ancient writers “who appeal to nature against same-sex eros find it convenient to concentrate on the more or less obvious uses of the orifices of the body to suggest the proper channel for the more diffused sexual impulses of the body” (William R. Schoedel, “Same-Sex Eros,” Homosexuality, Science, and the “Plain Sense” of Scripture [ed. D. Balch; Eerdmans, 2000], 46). Part of Charicles’ attack on all homosexual practice in pseudo-Lucianic text Affairs of the Heart, a work which contains a debate about the respective merits of heterosexual love and male homosexual love, is the assertion that male-male love is an erotic attraction for what one already is as a sexual being:

   She (viz., Aphrodite) cleverly devised a twofold nature in each (species). . . . having written down a divinely sanctioned rule of necessity, that each of the two (genders) remain in their own nature. . . . Then wantonness, daring all, transgressed the laws of nature. . . . And who then first looked with the eyes at the male as at a female . . . ? One nature came together in one bed. But seeing themselves in one another they were ashamed neither of what they were doing nor of what they were having done to them. (19-20; my emphasis)

   (3) In Rom 1:24-27 Paul emphasizes the mutuality of the homoerotic desires (“inflamed with their yearning for one another,” “their bodies being dishonored among themselves”) so he is clearly not restricting his remarks to coercive, exploitative acts. Moreover, the wording of “exchanging” and “leaving behind” the other sex for the same sex is absolute and clearly inclusive of all same-sex sexual relations.

   (4) The indictment of lesbian intercourse in Rom 1:26 does not support the view that Scripture’s indictment is limited to exploitative homosexual acts, since lesbianism in antiquity was not generally characterized by pederasty, prostitution, or abuse of slaves. Indeed, Greco-Roman moralists in antiquity who argued against homosexual practice sometimes cited intercourse between women as a trump card against arguments for men-male sexual bonds (see, for example, pseudo-Lucian, Affairs of the Heart, 28). For consistency’s sake, advocacy of male homosexual bonds necessarily entails acceptance of female homosexual bonds, something few if any men in antiquity were willing to accept. It is a way of making an absolute argument against all homosexual bonds, not merely against particularly exploitative ones.

   (5) The terms malakoi (lit., “soft men,” but taken in the sense of men who feminize themselves to attract male sex partners) and arsenokoitai (literally, “men who lie with [koite] a male [arsen]”) in 1 Cor 6:9 are clearly inclusive of all homosexual bonds, as is evident from the following. With regard to malakoi note: (a) its place in a vice list amidst other participants in illicit sexual intercourse, (b) its pairing with the immediately following arsenokoitai, (c) Philo of Alexandria’s (a first-century Jew’s) use of cognate words to refer to the effeminate male partner in a homosexual bond, and (d) occasional Greco-Roman usage of malakoi (and the comparable Latin molles) to denote effeminate adult males who are biologically and/or psychologically disposed to desire penetration by men. With regard to arsenokoitai note: (a) clear connections of this word to the absolute Levitical prohibitions of man-male intercourse (18:22; 20:13), evident from the fact that the word, exclusively used in Jewish and Christian contexts until late in antiquity, was formulated directly from the Levitical prohibitions, that ancient rabbis used a parallel Hebrew term, mishkav zakur (“lying with a male”), to apply to all men-male sexual bonds, and that 1 Tim 1:10 explicitly connects opposition to this vice (among other vices) to the law of Moses; (b) early Judaism’s univocal interpretation of the Levitical prohibitions against men-male intercourse as allowing only sexual relations between a man and a woman (e.g., Josephus, Philo, the rabbis); (c) the singular use of arsenokoites and related words subsequent to Paul in connection with male-male intercourse per se, without limitation to pederasts or clients of cult prostitutes; (d) the implications of the context of 1 Corinthians 5-7, given the parallel case of adult, consensual incest in ch. 5, the assumption of consent in the vice list in 6:9-10, the citation of Gen 2:24 in 1 Cor 6:16 (see also 11:7-9, 12), and the presumption everywhere in ch. 7 that sex is confined to male-female marriage; and (e) the fact that the Greco-Roman milieu considered it worse for a man to have sex with another adult male than with a boy because the former had left behind his “softness.”

   (6) A conception of caring homoerotic unions already existed in Paul’s cultural environment and yet even these unions were rejected by some Greco-Roman moralists. For example, in a late first-century / early second-century (A.D.) debate over heterosexual and homosexual bonds, Plutarch’s friend Daphnaeus

   Dr. Gagnon’s work is heavily footnoted and much is available free on his site.
   See http://www.robgagnon.net/WinterRMiltonResponse.htm

9. JamesK. You are right. Make policy on religious arguments is shaky. Far greater men and I have pointed out, however, that the Orthodox Faith, the Chrisitan Faith is not a relgion but worship of the Incarnate Son of God. Oh yes, we are quite capable of turning such an awesome gift and opportunity into the meaninglessness of relgion. However, the revealed truth of marriage as expressed in the Christian Tradition does not spring from such a place.

10. the Chrisitan Faith is not a relgion but worship of the Incarnate Son of God

    I think I’m misunderstanding what you mean when you use the term “religion.” Can you provide a definition?

    I’m reluctant to continually be the proponent of common-use definitions of words, but I’m fairly certain that if you randomly selected a thousand Americans and asked them, “What religion are you?” a pretty significant number of them would answer “Christian.”

    So you seem to have a very specific definition in mind when you use the term religion. I’m curious what it is.

11. Seriously, Stephen, do you think it was the intent of the original adopters of the Massachusetts Constitution to enshrine gay marriage as a constitutional right?

    Do you think the original adopters of the Constitution intended to enshrine “the abilty to email poems involving sexual metaphors about the political situation in Myanmar” as a Constitutional right?

    I suspect that the original adopters of the Constitution knew nothing of email, and certainly nothing of Myanmar.

12. Missourian, thank you for the post, but I didn’t really even touch on gay marriage, exactly. My point was whether or not we should appeal to a Scriptural tradition to craft public policies as if it were eternal and unchanging when clearly it is not.

    For example, one could appeal to Scripture to justify slaveholding as a God-ordained institution (which it was within the Old Testament and which was not condemned as unjust by either Christ or Paul), but I don’t think such things would pass any Constitutional litmus test today (although you would know more about this than I).

    One could appeal to the widespread toleration of polygamy and its common use in Old Testament society to suggest that it should be given the same status today, but I’m not sure doing so would be necessarily practical nor beneficial, although I’d have a hard time arguing why consensual polygamy for adults should be a criminal act other than the fact that it makes me feel uncomfortable.

    My point is that I would be more likely to be persuaded by arguments like those of Stanley Kurtz (who did some studies on SSM in the Netherlands) as opposed to someone who is simply saying we should create or deny legislation simply because “the Bible says so”.

13. James K, a rule which hasn’t changed in 5000 years isn’t stable enough for you?

    Gagnon demonstrated that there was no change between the Old and New Testaments on the topic of homosexual conduct. I believe the oldest documents contained in what Christians call the Old Testament are 5000 years old.

    It is also clear that with regard to sexual morality the rules of the New Testament are more restrictive and more demanding on the believer.

    Those rules haven’t changed in 2000 years. Our country is less than 300 years old.

    Any rational person would find the Christian teaching on sexual morality to be sufficiently stable given a 2000 year history.

    Your point is simply frivolous and not informed by the actual intellectual and theological situation because you simply theorize in a vacuum.

    I have supplied a real argument crafted by a life-long scholar of the Scriptures supported by references to Scripture, the ancient languages (which Gagnon has studied and understands) and theological history.

    At this point, I am classifying you as a troll for your failure to even attempt to actually study the topic about which you want to theorize This isn’t the first time you have done this.

    Last year you spent alot of time theorizing about constitutional law. Your speculation and arguments were totally detached from United States constitutional history, yet, on you went. There was literally no evidence that you studied any Constitutional history or anything written by any recognized expert of any school of thought.

    Neither religion nor law or constitutional history is something that can be master by “campfire speculation.”

14. Missourian:
    “Gagnon demonstrated that there was no change between the Old and New Testaments on the topic of homosexual conduct. I believe the oldest documents contained in what Christians call the Old Testament are 5000 years old.

    It is also clear that with regard to sexual morality the rules of the New Testament are more restrictive and more demanding on the believer.”

    What if a person is not a Christian? Why should a Buddhist, for example, care one little bit what some other tradition’s ancient books say? This alone is enough of a reason to not base public policy on a particular religious tradition.

    As for Gagnon, taking his word on this subject would be a bit like taking the Pope’s word on Catholicism. While he doesn’t appear to as shady as some others you could have cited, he is far from an unbiased observer. A fair and rational discussion of the issue would examine points of view across the spectrum, not just from the POV that you happen to hold.

15. Missourian notes: “Those rules haven’t changed in 2000 years. Our country is less than 300 years old … Any rational person would find the Christian teaching on sexual morality to be sufficiently stable given a 2000 year history.”

    On what basis, then, did we decide that slavery is suddenly immoral given its consistent and stable treatment in Scripture (which we’ve apparently rendered irrelevant)?

    Here are the Scripture passages that support it:

    (Regulations regarding usage)
    Exodus 21:1-4: “If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself.”

    Deuteronomy 15:12-18: “And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.”

    Exodus 21:7: “And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do.”

    Leviticus 25:44-46: “Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.” (NIV)

    Leviticus 25:48-53: “After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him: Either his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of an hired servant shall it be with him.”

    Reselling of Slaves
    Exodus 21:8: “If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.And if he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish. And if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money.”

    Enslaving women captives

    Deuteronomy 21:10-14: “When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails; And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her [i.e. rape her or engage in consensual sex], and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.”

    Deuteronomy 20:14″But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself”

    NEW TESTAMENT
    Ephesians 6:5-9: “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him.”

    1 Timothy 6:1-3 “Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;”

    Again, there was no condemnation of slavery in either the Old or New Testament. On what basis have we decided, given this consistent treatment, that we should not continue the practice into this century unless there was something else being considered here?

16. Missourian, one last comment before I sign off:

    You are wrong, and it is obvious that you will never realize this. For this I truly am sorry, and I have a prayer in my heart for you, and I forgive you. God forgives you, too! Don’t worry, you will see the light soon enough. All will be revealed to you when you pass on to the next stage of existence. So don’t be afraid any longer! Just say “No” to fear, and let Love into your heart. Amen.

17. Missourian, I posted that windy list of quotes since I think you’re missing my point. The discussion of Scripture’s perspective on certain issues is worthwhile, but I’m not sure how useful it is when it comes to determining public policies. I’m not suggesting that it’s wholly irrelevant, but that “what the Bible says” should not be the last word in making these decisions. If it were, we’d continue to use unpaid Africans in our cotton fields to this day (as witnessed by Scripture’s treatment of “indentured servitude” in my last post). Abolition was, while perhaps rightfully credited to a religious revival, a result of a break from tradition (or at least an evolved consideration of it).

    This is why I find Gagnon’s analysis, while interesting from a theological perspective, to be not all that persuasive (at least to a non-Reconstructionist like me who does not desire a theonomy) in terms of how one should cast their vote should an issue like this come to the polls. Instead, it may be more useful to provide sociological studies and the like (or a cost/feasibility analysis).

18. Sir James,

    Yes, you are in fine company.

    John Milton uses his ingenious reasoning — just as you.

    “Moreover, God himself, in an allegorial fiction, Ezek. xxiii. 4. represents
    himself as having espoused two wives, Aholah and Aholibah;….”

    Having looked upon [down upon] the Sacred Scriptures under the light of his clever reasoning, he sums things up ably if you look to his concluding argument. John Milton on Plural Marriage/Polygamy [1608-1674]

    Gagnon’s forebear in the faith, Jean Cauvin, appears to me indeed fatherly teaching here from St Peter.

    The early church garden had to be weeded. And there is nothing new under the sun…

    Hailing from the Promised Land of Alice,
    THE BIBLE SAYS VILLE

    p.s. all our children are above average!

19. James, quit thinking like a fundamentalist. You are proof-texting the scripture even as you argue that the scripture should not be proof-texted!

    Look, the moral tradition of Western civilization is Judeo/Christian. The primary text of that tradition is Holy Scripture. But it’s clear you have a very simplistic understanding of how the scripture is read, the great debates that occurred that shaped that tradition, how cultural structures developed over time (do you read Missourian’s posts on the development of law?) guided by some foundational moral precepts, and more.

    Study your history. You really don’t understand the abolition movement at all if you really believe that abolition was a break from the tradition. I understand it very well. The abolition of slavery was the topic of my senior thesis in college. I read the material — the abolitionist tracts, the sermons, Thomas Clarkson’s biography, the political arguments — the whole nine yards. Denying that the movement arose from the well of the Christian moral tradition is ludicrous. And this is true of both the American and English movements.

20. Note 14. Stephen writes:

    As for Gagnon, taking his word on this subject would be a bit like taking the Pope’s word on Catholicism. While he doesn’t appear to as shady as some others you could have cited, he is far from an unbiased observer. A fair and rational discussion of the issue would examine points of view across the spectrum, not just from the POV that you happen to hold.

    Note the loaded language: “fair and rational”, “unbiased observer”, “points of view across the spectrum”, as if the critics of homosexual activism are not aware of the arguments the activists employ, or that homosexual activism is somehow free of moral assumptions.

    Look Stephen, any argument about human relationships are unavoidably moral arguments. You assumption that some place of neutrality exists where questions about homosexual behavior can be examined free of moral assumptions is fantasy. It doesn’t exist. Both sides bring assumptions to the table.

    So, yes, of course the Pope is “biased”. So is Barney Frank. There is no such thing as “unbiased” opinion or ideas when delving into the moral dimension of human behavior.

    There is, however, responsible scholarship — a truthful and accurate recounting of history, exegesis, psychology, etc. When I want answers I’ll consider the ideas of the Pope or Robert Gagnon over the tawdry, pop-culture, moral relativism that you employ to dismiss them. (And yes, your relativism is a bias too.)

21. After the Massachusetts Supreme Court — through judicial fiat — made Massachusetts the only state to recognize “same-sex marriage” by miraculously divining that the framers of the state constitution really intended that Patrick Henry could marry Henry Patrick, many in Massachusetts — embarrassed by the court’s unprecedented leftist extremism — felt that their state had become a laughingstock and initiated the constitutional process in an effort to undo this court forced insanity.

    Missourian, I suppose this reference to Patrick Henry is incidental. I learned only recently that Patrick Henry did NOT sign the constitution, because he argued for an entry [what I don’t yet know & time is short] concerning religion. I mean in the U.S. Constitution. Merely noting it here. Nancy L.

22. “What we have here is a failure to communicate” The Boss in Cool Hand Luke

    It is a clear example of why debating secondary issues without a clear understanding of fundamental assumptions and beliefs is futile. The fundamental disagreement here seems to be one of anthropology, i.e., what is man, his position in the created order, and the social order founded upon such understanding. Stephen, Dean, Jim, Phil, bob, et. al., seem to have a profoundly different understanding and comprehension than Fr. Hans, Missourian, Christopher, and me.

    Belief whether it is ideological, theological, or illogical will always give meaning to facts and evidence. Attempting to change someone else’s belief solely with logical (or illogical) argument never works.

    Underlying the anthropological questions is the theological one: the nature of God.

    Culture is founded upon society’s answer to the theological question and the anthropological question. The secondary issues which include power, sex, and death are then dealt with from the cultural wisdom accrued and the knowledge acquired from answering the fundamental questions. The change to sexual mores being demanded leads me to assume that both the theological and anthropological assumptions informing those seeking the change are deficient. However, in an effort to more fully understand the nature of your arguments I have to know more about your fundamental beliefs.

    I begin with the key question Jesus asked his disciples: “Who do you say that I am?” The next question follows from that, who or what is man?

    Frankly, given past avoidance of the question, I do not expect an answer. I’m not sure what that means except that perhaps those who avoid answering the question don’t really have an answer. I would say that absent an answer there is absolutely no foundation for positing the fundamental cultural change you advocate except personal whim. Someone’s personal whim is not a compelling reason to change a set of norms that are such an integral and sucessful part of culture and society.

23. Look, the moral tradition of Western civilization is Judeo/Christian.

    I’m curious how this statement is different, in meaning, from saying “The moral tradition of Western civilization is Christian.”

    In Note 5, Michael Bauman contends that the Old Testament must be read in light of the New Testament. Since Jews reject the New Testament, and the Christian tradition encompasses the Old Testament (in light of the NT), how is the “Judeo-” part of the phrase necessary?

24. The Ten Commandments to start.

25. 24–
    The Ten Commandments are part of the Christian tradition, since that also encompasses the Old Testament. (When asked their religion–whatever that word means–no one says, “I’m a Judeo-Christian.”)

    It’s not clear why “Judeo-” is necessary, or how the phrase “America was founded on Judeo-Christian moral thinking” has a different meaning from the phrase “America was founded on Christian moral thinking,” for example.

26. A cumbersome term indeed, imo. You are then required to add disclaimers regarding 2000 years of “anti-Christian” [St John] by definition. It is awkward.

    Christian is comprehensive. Christian — all by itself, as a descriptive term –includes the 10 Commandments.

    Christians are people of the Book, Genesis to Revelation — the whole counsel of God.

27. Note 25. It’s a convention that acknowledges the Judaic roots of Christianity, particularly the Torah and it’s contribution to the formation of Western civilization. That’s all. It’s not a confessional statement which is why no one says “I am a Judeo/Christian”.

28. Notes 3 and 6, Stephen, having no hope that this will make a dent

    My grasp of U.S. Constitutional law has been official certified by the two states which have granted me a license to practicd law. Between the two of us, I am the professionally reliable source.

    As to God forgiving me, well, there is plenty to forgive but I didn’t think that I had offended the AlmightY by my exposition of U.S. Constitutional law.

29. Note 14, It is clearly too much trouble for Stephen to click a link:

    Stephen writes:

    Missourian:
    “Gagnon demonstrated that there was no change between the Old and New Testaments on the topic of homosexual conduct. I believe the oldest documents contained in what Christians call the Old Testament are 5000 years old.

    It is also clear that with regard to sexual morality the rules of the New Testament are more restrictive and more demanding on the believer.”

    What if a person is not a Christian? Why should a Buddhist, for example, care one little bit what some other tradition’s ancient books say? This alone is enough of a reason to not base public policy on a particular religious tradition.

    As for Gagnon, taking his word on this subject would be a bit like taking the Pope’s word on Catholicism. While he doesn’t appear to as shady as some others you could have cited, he is far from an unbiased observer. A fair and rational discussion of the issue would examine points of view across the spectrum, not just from the POV that you happen to hold.

    REPLAY TO STEPHEN’S Paragraph three, Buddhists don’t have concern themselves with the complexities of the Christian tradition if they don’t want to. Buddhists merely have to follow the law.

    In order for society to survive across generations, children have to be brought into the world, then they have to be socialized and take on the duties of adults in perpetuating civilization. Children who become mentally unbalanced or habitual, destructive criminals have not been socialized properly. Every society on the planet has put rules regarding family structure in place, the point being to create a haven and a locus for the responsibility of bringing up the next generation. If you tell an anthropologist that a new tribe of people has been discovered in some remote place, the first thing that anthropologist will study is family structure.

    America is actually suffering a failure of family structure in that, if it were not for immigration, we would not be reproducing ourselves in sufficient number. In order for society to work, we must have a new generation coming up and entering the work force. See Social Security and related issues.

    America has a history, a cultural history. America was, for the most part, founded by Christians. Yes, I am familiar with the usual response that some of the Founding Fathers were actually deists, and that people from non-Christian religions also inhabited the original thirteen colonies. But, the original thirteen colonies were English colonies, ruled by English law at a time when England had an official established Church and that Church had real political power. Given this obvious fact, the laws enacted by a predominately Christian population reflected Christian moral philosophy.

    Christian moral philosophy have much in common with Jewish moral philosophy. Christian moral philosophy differs from Hindu moral philosophy and Buddhist moral philsophy, although there are some overlaps. Does this straighten this out for you? Societies inhabited by people who are predominately Buddhist will produce laws that reflect Buddhist moral philosophy and the Buddhist view of humankind. Societies inhabited by people who are predominately Hindu will produce laws that reflect Hindu moral philosophy and the Hindu view of humankind.

    REPLY TO FOURTH PARAGRAPH>
    The link that I supplied to Robert Gagnon website, IF YOU HAD FOLLOWED IT, would show that Robert Gagon RESPONDED TO THE WRITTEN ARGUMENTS OF PRO-HOMOSEX CLERICS. In other words, Gagnon did the reader the courtesy of supplying the reader with both (or more) sides of the story. Your comment about Gagnon shows that you did not deign to even click the link.

    I am glad that you don’t think that Robert Gagnon is “shady” since even theologians who disagree with him have to acknowledge his well established career as a theologian and his mastery of the ancient languages. He is clearly a person fully qualified to read the ancient manuscripts in their original languages. I am sure that Prof. Gagnon would be thrilled to learn that you don’t consider him to be “shady.”

    This comment standing alone shows that you haven’t given the debate a single minutes serious thought, that would have required actually clicking the link where you would have found arguments from various sides of the debate.

30. Note 16, Is this a promise Stephen?

    16) | Jun 26 2007 | Stephen
    Missourian, one last comment before I sign off:

    You are wrong, and it is obvious that you will never realize this. For this I truly am sorry, and I have a prayer in my heart for you, and I forgive you. God forgives you, too! Don’t worry, you will see the light soon enough. All will be revealed to you when you pass on to the next stage of existence. So don’t be afraid any longer! Just say “No” to fear, and let Love into your heart. Amen.

    I believe I have addressed two broad issues in this post. First, I endorsed the arguments of Robert Gagnon regarding homosexual conduct. The position held by Robert Gagnon on this topic is consistent with the position of the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church and the vast majority of Protestants in the world. Only a small percentage of American Protestants actually endorse homosexual conduct. Worldwude, my view and that of Robert Gagnon is in the clear majority. It also has many centuries of precedent. If I am, in fact, wrong on this point, I have good company down through the ages and across the globe.

    Second, I have given some simplified statements regarding U.S. Constitutional history and constitutional law. As I noted, the Supreme Courts of two states have certified my knowledge of constitutional law and granted me a license to practice law. My essays have been highly simplified and therefore contain some distortions but constitutional law is not a simply topic and it frankly isn’t something that laymen can just decide to delve into light a debate about which restaurant in New York serves the best steak.
    It is a specialized topic.

    I don’t know what any of this has to do with either “fear” or “love.” I consider adultery to be sinful and harmful and against God’s will, however, I certainly know that adulterers are just sinners like the rest of us and that they need God’s forgiveness. I am not afraid of adulterers and I don’t lack Christian love for them.

    You can rewrite the foregoing paragraph and substitute “persons who engage in homosexual conduct” for “adulterers” and the same holds true.

31. Note 30, Stephen’s advice “Just say no to fear”

    Actually, I think that most of us should develop a much stronger, healthy fear of God and His coming judgment and much greater sensitivity to the patience that He extends to us and our repeated, ingrained disregard for his Holy Law and our disgraceful rejection of his Tender Love.

    I think modern Christians believe that they have a nice, tame God who can be trusted to be reasonable and not too extreme. I just finished reading the first half of Matthew and I was gobsmacked by the bluntness of the warnings Jesus gives us, the consequences for disobedience are dire beyond words.
    Most of us are whistling past the graveyard of our sin and disobedience.

    All of the above applies to me, first and foremost.

    I am really tired of the old cliche of the cultural Left which ascribes “fearfulness” to those who take Scripture seriously.

32. Missourian:
    “Actually, I think that most of us should develop a much stronger, healthy fear of God and His coming judgment and much greater sensitivity to the patience that He extends to us and our repeated, ingrained disregard for his Holy Law and our disgraceful rejection of his Tender Love.”

    OK, now we’re getting to the root of your fear. You believe in a God who can be harmed, who can make mistakes, and who can be offended. I believe in a God who is unable to be harmed in any way, who is infallible, and who is never offended by anything we do (to be offended is just another way of being harmed). I don’t reject His tender Love, I live in it. As such, I know that He created me perfectly, just the way He wanted me, without mistakes. I also do not fear His judgment, because He as no need to judge me: He made the way I am, and He is infallible, so what is there to judge?

    All of you who want to believe in a vengeful, angry God, go right ahead. I choose not to. And all of you who would use your own morality as a stick to beat the rest of into submission, well, you’re free to try, but my side has God with us, yours does not. I know who will prevail in the end. It doesn’t matter if you realize the Truth of this or not, for It is the Truth.

33. Phil writes: “It’s not clear why “Judeo-” is necessary, or how the phrase “America was founded on Judeo-Christian moral thinking” has a different meaning from the phrase “America was founded on Christian moral thinking,” for example.”

    The “judeo-christian tradition” is a manufactured political/mythical term that became popular in the 40s and 50s in response to nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It conceals and confuses far more than it reveals. I mean, I suppose we could talk about the “capitalist-communist” economic tradition, but why would we?

    In the same way that the “capitalist-communist economic tradition” involves the conjoining of two economic philosophies that reject each other, the “judeo-christian” tradition involves the conjoining of two religions that specifically reject each other.

    Modern Judaism — in other words, Judaism of around the last 2,000 years — has little to do with the religion of the Old Testament (e.g., temple worship, autonomy). Rather, it is a religion of the oral tradition, finally written down in the Babylonian and Palestinian talmuds.

    But the keepers of the oral tradition, the Pharisees, were precisely the ones most denounced by the Jesus of the gospels. In other words, when Missourian says “I was gobsmacked by the bluntness of the warnings Jesus gives us, the consequences for disobedience are dire beyond words,” many of the worst of those warnings were reserved for those who passed on the oral tradition! “Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?” Jesus isn’t talking about liberals. He’s not talking about pro-choice politicians. He’s talking about the fathers of modern Judaism.

    The talmudic scholar Jacob Neusner, perhaps the most esteemed expounder of the talmud in the U.S., said of the “judeo-christian tradition” that “Theologically and historically, there is no such thing as the Judeo-Christian tradition. It’s a secular myth favoured by people who are not really believers themselves.”

    In recent years the term has been appropriated by members of the political and religious right for political purposes. It gives the appearance of inclusiveness while papering over the real and significant fact that both groups specifically reject the central claims of each other’s theology. It gives the impression that Jews and Christians are one big happy family as they go about the important tasks of bashing liberals and pursuing the right-wing agenda.

34. #33 – Jim Holman

    I’m sorry, but this post is preposterous – a fog of unrelated facts and specious reasoning.

    Jews and Christians have more in common with each other – especially in terms of what constitutes societal norms – than they do with Muslims or Hindus. That’s what Judeo-Christian refers to. To suggest that it is meant to imply that Jews and Christians agree on everything and are “one big happy family” is mistaken.

35. JamesK writes

    It’s of no surprise to me that multiple marriages most often involve many women and one man, given our gender’s apparent insatiable need for “variety”.

    James — First, I wish your forgiveness. If you are pleased to generally forgive me. I don’t see most of my shortcomings till damage is done.

    I’m not aware of ill-will to you personally. In fact, being a fundamentalist at heart, I rather like! the idea of digging into the scriptures and seeing what is there. It does not bother me in the least to see you posting what you call ‘windiness’, or long, passages from the Bible. On that count, why should you apologize?

    I also believe with Thomas Watson, that

    Scripture is to be its own interpreter, or rather the Spirit speaking in it; nothing can cut the diamond but the diamond.

    In other words, in my book, debate is not cut off by bringing scripture forward. I have confidence in the integrity of ‘the whole counsel of God.’

    God granting me opportunity I would like to read your astute observations more closely, that Orthodox saints were polygamous. This deserves attention. It requires apologetic.

    For the moment as to your quote, and being that Michael asks for a focus on a) God’s nature, and after that b) man’s, I have a simple question?

    Do you believe that God created your gender with such “insatiable need?”

36. Nancy L: No harm done.

    In terms of Michael’s question, I don’t think Scripture even claims to portray God in His entirety. Perhaps this quote might help:

    “When I conceive of the Divine, I think of a perfect being — an unspeakably majestic one. You’ve probably seen those glorious photos of the heavens from the Hubble Telescope. And most of us have pondered the immensity of galaxies and their unimaginable grandeur. Or the complex universes of atoms and quarks. God is a being standing above it all, having created it with an imagination and a power we can’t begin to fathom.”

    I thus have a hard time reconciling such a Being with the one portrayed by Scripture and many in the Christian community: that is, one who can be placated by specific rituals or a “sinner’s prayer” coerced out of sheer terror at an altar call. Certainly not the one painted by some Reformed theologians who suggest that He decided before the world began that He would create most of humanity simply so that He could consign them to eternaly misery. This seems beneath a Being of such grandeur. I also can’t reconcile such a Being with one who placed female children as being worth fewer sheckels than male children and who condoned, no .. commanded, the forcible taking of women as property against their wills. It rings false. If this makes me a heretic for denying the truth and inspiration of Scripture, I can live with that.

    In terms of man, well, I can say I have no illusions. We are part good, part bad. I am always amazed by the extremes I’ve seen on both ends of the spectrum. Certainly, there are some amoral monsters roaming the earth who have no conscience and no remorse. For these, perhaps a truly radical intervention on the part of the divine is necessary because, in their current state, they are “totally unable” to respond. I don’t think this is the case with everyone (or even most), however.

    In terms of men in particular, I wouldn’t say men are “created” to seek variety, but it seems that we have a weakness which renders commitment to any person or cause very difficult. I’m not sure if it’s laziness or simply a lust for “newness”, but you can see it in the way people keep (or don’t keep) even friendships.

37. In recent years the term has been appropriated by members of the political and religious right for political purposes. It gives the appearance of inclusiveness while papering over the real and significant fact that both groups specifically reject the central claims of each other’s theology. It gives the impression that Jews and Christians are one big happy family as they go about the important tasks of bashing liberals and pursuing the right-wing agenda.

    Bah! The Troll strikes again. “Judeo-Christian tradition” is a perfectly serviceable if inexact idea. It is secularists, modernists, and ‘Death Eaters’ like Jim who want to divide those who do have a common moral tradition…

38. What forms the Judeo-Christian tradition is the I AM that calls us to Himself and reveals Himself to us. The fullfilment of that revelation is Jesus Christ on the Cross: “It is finished” (The old covenent). “Father forgive them for they no not what they do” The beginning of the new covenent.

    It is the same God who “In the beginning” created the heaven and earth and at the end says “And the Spirit and the bride say Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” (Rev 22:17)

    Both the foretaste and the fullfilment are essential to entering into the marriage feast of the Lamb. The conviction, the repentance and the forgiveness.

    That is the spiritual tradition. Fr. Hans is speaking more of the moral tradition which has continuity for the same reason. That moral tradition gave birth to the legal tradition of which Missourian speaks so knowledgibly.

39. Christopher, actually I found this in one of Nancy’s links. Keep in mind it’s written by a socially conservative Christian, Gary North. It seems to be an honest (though unflattering) assessment.

    “Every time you hear the phrase, “Jesus is coming back soon,” you should mentally add, “and two-thirds of the Jews of Israel will be dead in ‘soon plus 84 months.’” Fundamentalists really do believe that they probably will not die physically, but to secure this faith prophetically, they must defend the doctrine of an inevitable holocaust.

    This specific motivation for the support of Israel is never preached from any fundamentalist pulpit. The faithful hear sermons – many, many sermons – on the pretribulation Rapture. On other occasions, they hear sermons on the Great Tribulation. But they do not hear the two themes put together: “We can avoid death, but only because two-thirds of the Jews of Israel will inevitably die in a future holocaust. America must therefore support the nation of Israel in order to keep the Israelis alive until after the Rapture.” Fundamentalist ministers expect their congregations to put two and two together on their own. It would be politically incorrect to add up these figures in public.”

    I realize this view is generally not shared by the RCC or the Orthodox who see things closer to the way Michael referred to, but it’s held by a substantial enough percentage of the Protestant Christian population (who most frequently use the term “Judeo-Christian” in their political discourse) that it seems worth mentioning.

40. James presents a
    stellar quote, seconding the psalmist.

    “When I conceive of the Divine, I think of a perfect being — an unspeakably majestic one. You’ve probably seen those glorious photos of the heavens from the Hubble Telescope. And most of us have pondered the immensity of galaxies and their unimaginable grandeur. Or the complex universes of atoms and quarks. God is a being standing above it all, having created it with an imagination and a power we can’t begin to fathom.”

    I am tempted to re-write Thomas Watson’s view,

    God’s TWO great books, Nature and Scripture are to be their own interpreters, or rather the Spirit speaking in them; nothing can cut the diamond but the diamond.

    So we heartily concur on one important doctrine. God is Glorious. I am supposed we agree this God seen in his immense (glorious) creation is worthy of our bended knee.

    Where are we now?

    You say:

    I thus have a hard time reconciling such a Being with the one portrayed by Scripture.

    Stop. We just agreed God is God. And glorious in his creation.

    Very well, then let us set the Bible aside if you wish. What if your father was cruel? Or, mother? Or, wife? Where was your glorious God?

    p.s.

    Speaking of ‘things-as-they-are.’

    If you were a woman in this world of woe, wouldn’t you prefer to have perhaps Benedick [Much Ado About Nothing] as your suitor? True, perfectionistic ….. but see how he dealt with “insatiable need for variety.”

    I thoroughly love this one of Shakespeare …. it makes me laugh so hard. And, in the end – I see Jesus. He is “making all graces be in one woman” – his church. It is written.

    I will not
    be sworn, but love may transform me to an oyster; but
    I’ll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster
    of me, he shall never make me such a fool. One woman
    is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am
    well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all
    graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in
    my grace. Rich she shall be, that’s certain; wise,
    or I’ll none; virtuous, or I’ll never cheapen her;
    fair, or I’ll never look on her; mild, or come not
    near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good
    discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall
    be of what colour it please God. Ha! the prince and
    Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour.

41. Stephen,
    I am blinded by the glory of the gold and silver idols before which you worship. This poor insignificant worm is burned by the reflected glory of your radiant and perfect being. I have one question, if I may or great guru with eyes of brown: If there is nothing from which to repent, why do you demand repentance from Missourian? Perhaps she is created perfect in her “fear” so that you might further revel in your perfect lack of “fear”.

    I am sure there is nothing that such a poor, quaking slug such as I can possibly add to your august, perfect and serene knowledge. I can only hazard a few words from one whose magnificent language might possibly rise to the level of your own facile mind.
    “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy”

42. Note 41, Stephen

    What Michael said in Note 41.

    One of your best Michael I am printing that one out!!!!

43. The Church is going to have to soften and more carefully craft it’s message regarding Gays or risk offending large numbers of young people it would like to bring inside its doors and expose to its message of faith.

    Young Americans are more likely than the general public to favor a government-run universal health care insurance system, an open-door policy on immigration and the legalization of gay marriage, according to a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll.

    Young Americans Are Leaning Left, New Poll Finds , NY Times, June 27, 2007

    Certainly, there are behaviors pursued by some Gays, such as promiscuity, that are contrary to Christian values and which the Church should feel free to condemn, especially since the same message applies to heterosexuals as well as homosexuals. There are valid, logical, defensible reasons for maintaining the current definition of marriage. These should be explained carefully and patiently.

    Many young people today have friends or acquaintances who are Gay and with whom they go to school or work. They may have brothers or sisters who are Gay. When they hear Church leaders targeting Gays for their harshest denunciations, making no distinctions between the promiscuous and those in caring monongamous relationships, raising homosexuality up as a menace to society more dangerous than war, disease, poverty or hunger, it sounds bigoted and hateful. It may also repel young people from, rather than attract them to, the message of Christ. That would be the worst outcome.

44. Note 44, Dean, the “straw man” of the harshness of the Church’s condemnation of homosexual conduct

    People who regularly practice homosexual conduct do not want to be told that their preferred choice of sexual gratification violates God’s law. There is no manner of stating the truth that will satisfy these people. Any plain statement of the truth will be described as “harsh.”

    Herold didn’t care to be told by John the Baptist that he could not have his brother’s wife. There was no way that John could clearly state the plain truth to Herod that Herod would not find “hurtful” or “harsh” or “non-inclusive.”

    We live in a society which has made sexual gratification an idol. Sexual gratification is more important than loyalty to a spouse. It is more important than the welfare of children. If the natural family doesn’t provide an individual the sexual gratification that he or she has a constitutional right to enjoy then that family should be broken up, if necessary, to facilitate that sexual freedom for the adult.

    The assault of marriage is accompanied by a parallel assault on priestly celibacy, something voluntarily assumed by those who believe it to be a aide to serving God.

    People who have deeper knowledge of Scripture than I have stated that the Christian debate about homosexual conduct, is really about the authority of Scripture. Do we humans have the right or power to make Scripture say whatever we want it to say OR does it represent and convery eternal truth.
    The real issue is about Scripture not homosexual conduct.

45. Note 44, Dean’s suggestion that only “some” homosexual behavior offends God

    Certainly, there are behaviors pursued by some Gays, such as promiscuity, that are contrary to Christian values and which the Church should feel free to condemn, especially since the same message applies to heterosexuals as well as homosexuals. There are valid, logical, defensible reasons for maintaining the current definition of marriage. These should be explained carefully and patiently

    I repeat what I previously offered in this same comment stream. The introduction to Robert Gagnon’s detailed and thoroughly supported essay on the myth of God’s acceptance of “committed homosexual unions.”

    Appendix 2

    Does Scripture’s Indictment of Homosexual Practice Apply to Committed Homosexual Unions?

    by Prof. Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.

    Many claim that the Bible is opposed only to particularly exploitative forms of homosexual practice; specifically, those involving an adult and adolescent (pederasty), coercive sex with a slave, or solicitation of prostitutes. However, this claim is generally made in ignorance of the arguments that suggest Scripture’s absolute (i.e. exception-less) opposition to homosexual practice. Because the arguments for this latter position are so numerous and involve many texts, I here restrict my remarks to the witness of Paul. This witness is not unique among the authors of Scripture; indeed, it is representative of the whole, including the figure of Jesus. Yet Paul makes a good test case because he says the most about the issue and provides us, among New Testament-era figures, with the broadest array of contextual information for assessing his views.

    The discussion below has two parts: six synthesized arguments for why Paul’s rejection of homosexual practice was total, followed by a citation of some scholars who, though supportive of homosexual unions, acknowledge that Paul’s indictment is not limited to particularly exploitative instances of same-sex intercourse.

    Dr. Gagnon’s work is heavily footnoted and much is available free on his site.
    See http://www.robgagnon.net/WinterRMiltonResponse.htm

    For the record Gagnon reprints the arguments published by pro-homosexual clerics and directly engages their points. He also reproduces a colloquy between himself and a pro-homosexual cleric. There is simply no intellectual competition. Scripture cannot be said to condemn only promiscuous homosexual unions.

46. Note 45, Dean, do you “hear” what you are saying?

    The Church is going to have to soften and more carefully craft it’s message regarding Gays or risk offending large numbers of young people it would like to bring inside its doors and expose to its message of faith.

    I would beware of anyone arguing that the Church has to soften its message.

    First, the posture of victim assumed by person who promote the legitimization of homosexual conduct is groundless. Nothing less than full approval of homosexual conduct and its elevation to sanctity will satisfy these people. The ECUSA is holding fast to its pro-homosexual position even though it is tearing the world-wide Anglican Church apart. They will have their homosex at any and all cost.

    After we “soften our message” and lure people who engage in homosexual conduct and who feel no remorse or repentance about that conduct into the Church, what should we tell them? Should we lie and tell them that God condones their behavior? Would that not put their souls at risk? What would be our responsibility for engaging in conduct that put someone else’s soul at risk?

    Should be “soften our message” and lure people who are unrepentant about committing adultery into the Church. After these unrepentant adulterers arrive at Church what should be tell them? Should we lie and tell them that God condones their behavior? Would that not put their souls at risk? What would be our responsibility for engagin in conduct that put someone else’s soul at risk? Dire, I would expect, more dire than we can imagine, I would expect.

47. Dean, your’re cazy! There is NOTHING harsh in the Orthodox approach to human sexuality, homosexuality included. It is real simple: any sexual gratification outside of the male/female bond in marriage is sinful. To be healed of sin, one must stop the sinful behavior, repent and receive the grace of God. As Jesus said, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”

    The Church should more forcefully and clearly articulate Her understanding of human sexuality and not acquiese in anyway to the worldly/fleshly mind. The fact that probably 95% of the adult U.S. population has engaged in various types of sexual sins, especially those raised in the 60’s, does not negate but rather enhances the need for the Church to strongly and unequivocably witness to the truth and call us all to repentance for such licentious behavior and attitudes.

    Homosexuals and all sinners are welcome in the Church and the path to sanctity and holiness is just as open to homosexuals as it is any other person. To the best of my knowledge homosexuals are not barred from any office in the Church for which they are otherwise qualified. Holy Orders are dependent upon homosexuals remaining celibate.

    Of all the posts you have made, this one saddens me the most, deeply saddens me. It seems to indicate that despite long years of participation in the Church you have no concept of Her purpose, Her mission, nor Her power. She is not a social/political institution created by the mind of man. It matters not how many come within Her embrace, that is the choice of each person. If people turn aside from Her because of the poor witness of those within Her, shame on us. That should only spur us on to greater dedication to the repentance, prayer, fasting and almsgiving to which we are called so that our Master is not spurned because of the failure of we poor servants.

    The “wisdom” of the world is foolishness before God as you might have heard a time or two from the pulpit. Please, I beg of you, don’t buy into the clap trap that equates sexual gratification with the essence of being human. Seek out the traditional wisdom of the Church for the real human sexuality is so much more.

    Through the intercession of the immaculate Mother Mary, the blessed lady Theotokos, God grant you wisdom.

48. Missourian asks: “Do we humans have the right or power to make Scripture say whatever we want it to say OR does it represent and convery eternal truth.”

    Let’s assume, for the moment, that Scripture is authoritative and that it is the literal, inerrant and infallible inspired words of God completely without taint of human error or input.

    How do you extract the “eternal truth” and true meaning of the words written there? Do you simply take the words at face value? For example, should we take Ezekiel 9:4-6 (in which the Lord instructed the Israelites to “Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women”) as a recommendation for how to engage in modern warfare?

    This anti-abolitionist had ample Scripture passages to buttress his arguments, and he taunted the abolitionists for their lack of exegetical skills and reverence for Scripture.

    There may be a truth in Scripture, but given the lack of consensus over what that truth is throughout the history of Christendom, I’d say it’s not self-evident, wouldn’t you? The disagreements have been many, and they were often bloody.

    In other words, all we can do is make an honest attempt to discern what it means if we believe it to be “authoritative” and live it as best we can. I don’t see where some of this overwhelming certainty comes from (on either side).

49. See folks, this kind of discussion — attempting to use the “Scriptures” as some sort of disembodied standard of “truth” just does not work. It ends of like the monolith in 2001: A Space Odessey, i.e, somehow attractive but ultimately incomprehensible. Outside the life of the Holy Spirit in the worshiping community of the Church, the scriptures become less and less meaningful. Unless they are prayed, the scriptures become just another piece of fodder for mankind’s fallen intellect.

    Some protestants think that we Orthodox are idol worshippers because of our veneration of icons and they can become such if we allow them to be an end in and of themselves. Well, some protestants make an idol of the Bible.

    The Fathers of the Councils quickly found that every heretic had their favorite proof text, so simply appealing to the Scriptures was insufficient.

    The ability of human beings to rationalize is almost infinite. So, yes we can even turn the Holy Gospels into garbage if we try hard enough. That is why the standard of interpretation has to be the Church, not the gestalt of the current moment in time filtered through our own sinfulness.

50. Note 48, JamesK, Here’s how you extract it

    Let’s assume, for the moment, that Scripture is authoritative and that it is the literal, inerrant and infallible inspired words of God completely without taint of human error or input.

    How do you extract the “eternal truth” and true meaning of the words written there?

    Through the interpretation by the Church as a whole. IMHO, truly a HO, the Orthodox Church has best preserved the Faith and the Roman Catholic Church has come close. The wheels have simply come off the theology cart in the world of the Protestants. (Not intended as a negative judgment against Protestants as people or individual Christians, I am referring to corporate theology)

    By the way, if you are simply “assuming for the moment” that Scripture carries authority why are you here?

    The authority of Scripture has been demonstrated to me through direct life experience and reinforced by intellectual seeking and the examples of others. The experiences of my life has proven that Truth may be found in the Scriptures. If you do not share this viewpoint, that is certainly your intellectual perogative, but the question remains why are you wasting time here?

    I would also note that a genius like Jaroslav Pelikan (spelling?) after a lifetime of study left the Lutheran Church into which he was born and joined the Orthodox Church. He was neither ignorant or foolish JamesK.

    Secondly, with this issue are with most of your comments I see no evidence that you have read a single respected writer on the very deep topic of Scriptural interpretation. This is one of the deepest topics imaginable, something which has occupied lifetimes of study by truly great minds, yet, I all I read from you JamesK is isolated potshot questions, never any genuine attempt to understand what those going before you have already grappled with.

    Again as with the constitution and as with the literature regarding the position of Scripture on homosexual conduct, I think you need to do some serious reading and thinking before you comment further.

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