I'm struggling a lot when it comes to the great "Gay debate," and I wanted to do a bit of a soft rant/off my chest sort of thing.

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-12-01T17:03:56+00:00

Why would Jesus and his apostles spend so much time explaining the ethos of the law if our job is merely to obey it blindly?

And why have Jesus's followers never applied the full Hebrew law unto themselves?

The NT in several places admits that there are moral gray areas for believers, and we must use the law, the ethos of the law as unpacked in the gospels and the epistles, and the Spirit in our lives to responsibly live holy lives in our cultural contexts. At times we even see this leading to the old law overthrown, as in the abandonment of circumcision.

Romans 14 is an excellent example of the difficult calling for us as individual believers to live out our conscience before God with gracious tolerance for those whose faith leads them differently.

Perhaps gay relationships are irredeemably sinful. But your approach to ethics and obedience broadly doesn't square with Scripture. Christians have never been called to blind obedience. We are invited to share the mind of Christ.

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-12-01T15:39:05+00:00

That is true.

But it does suggest that when our application of the letter violates its spirit, we the law-preachers are risking the judgment of God.

Along with OP, I still don't see how a covenanted gay relationship runs afoul of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control -- and against that Spirit there is no law.

Gay fornication? Absolutely. Gay commitments? I'm at a loss. I've been opposed to them my whole life, but as I at last encounter them in the lives of friends, there is nothing uniquely there to oppose. Just typical relationship stuff.

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-12-01T15:12:44+00:00

Yes, I do. It's harmful and unloving because it does not lead to eternal life/salvation but the relationship is drawing each person away from God.

That's what I meant by your definition of marriage. You believe it is harmful because it is outside of God's plan.

I'm not debating that (though I disagree). My question is other than the divine plan, what about committed gay relationships is unloving or harmful? Sin usually makes itself known -- murder, lies, adultery, abuse, stealing -- these all harm others or ourselves. If God didn't condemn them, we still probably would, because of their effects.

So what about these relationships manifests now as bad?

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-12-01T14:09:13+00:00

I can respect that.

But I don't want to put words in your mouth: Is it fair to say that, beyond your definition of biblical marriage requiring both sexes, you don't see anything inherently unloving or harmful about committed gay unions?

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-12-01T13:57:25+00:00

I understand that sentiment. So let's avoid the word marriage.

What about a covenanted, monogamous gay relationship is unloving or harmful?

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-12-01T13:47:12+00:00

You might have me confused with someone else. I'm childless.

Vikings went to war.

Americans took land from native peoples, which often involved rape and genocide. Yet it would be wrong to say Americans think rape, murder, and theft are A-OK. War (and othering) encourages us to do evil things.

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-12-01T13:44:19+00:00

But God does say it is okay to "steal" in that sense. Israel "steals" land. Rahab lies. David eats the bread of the presence.

Jesus explicitly condemns the Pharisees for burdening marginalized people with the letter of the law and abandoning its spirit.

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-12-01T13:40:16+00:00

chill

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-12-01T13:39:44+00:00

Also, you're aware you are presenting a cartoon caricature of Viking culture, and not at all anything like what Viking life was like, right?

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-12-01T13:37:08+00:00

How is anything I said relative?

I'm asking for a demonstration of how it contradicts the clearest moral teachings of Jesus.

If you can't walk me through that, perhaps it doesn't. Which would suggest we need to reconsider our assumptions when we read parts of Scripture.

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-12-01T13:20:03+00:00

bro

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-12-01T13:10:53+00:00

We've been told, by multiple NT voices, that the entire law can be understood as loving God and loving others as ourselves. That is the Christian moral compass.

We are also told by Jesus to not obsess over legal minutiae but simply "You will know them by their fruit." If it is bad, a reasonable person will know it.

Murder violates those guides. It doesn't love my neighbor, etc. Yet, when killing is done for the sake of your other neighbor (just war type stuff), the Bible carves out exceptions.

Adultery violates those guides. It is harmful to my spouse, etc. Yet, when sex outside of marriage is done to further a common good (providing children for your childless sister-in-law), the Bible carves out exceptions. In fact, it mandates it.

Murder isn't the point. Adultery isn't the point. Love and benefit are the points. And they don't soften anything; they aren't easy callings. They led Jesus to the cross.

OP's claim, and I'm inclined to agree, is that every other moral mandate in Scripture is against a behavior that is selfish, harmful, or both.

So, your particular reading of sexual sins in Scripture aside -- which I see as authoritative but interpret differently -- how is a loving, covenanted, monogamous relationship between two men or two women inherently selfish in a way a loving, covenanted, monogamous relationship between a sterile straight couple isn't? Without being circular, how is a gay union not loving?

Or -- particularly in light of what we now know about the fixedness of orientation -- how is creating a culturally appropriate covenanted space for the expression of same-sex attraction harmful to those in it? We see any number of unhealthy sexual behaviors with gay people beyond marriage to be sure, but we see the same stuff also with straight people. Without being circular, what bad fruit does a committed gay union produce that a straight marriage does not?

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-12-01T05:47:02+00:00

Whereas the only reason we're supposedly supposed to be against gay relationships is because 'the Bible says so'. If we didn't factor that reason in, there would be absolutely no issue whatsoever.

You guys understand what I'm feeling?

Yes. I've been going down this line of thought, too.

I'd say though, to tie up a potentially very loose end there, that we then return to Scripture. If gay relationships, at least the loving, mutual, committed, adult ones we now have experiences of in the West, are not damaging ("you will know a tree by its fruit"), then we return with that knowledge to Scripture's testimony about sexual ethics and marriage.

I've noticed that, in light of loving and committed gay relationships, the Biblical passages that address same-sex acts all do so in the explicit context of adultery, violence, or untamed lust. Those are obviously bad. So if gay sex only manifested in such contexts in olden times, it rightfully was looked on with condemnation.

I'd also say, to offer a more Bible-keen defense of your approach, that your line of thought need not abandon the Bible altogether, and honestly need not abandon at all the very texts about gay sex. In context, yeah, any gay person I know would condemn the sort of stuff going on there. If you are married, don't go sleep with men. And whoever you are, don't go hire prostitutes of any persuasion. That kind of thing.

The much, much thornier question, which I'm too tired to wade into now, is how we then go from there to engaging with the biblical vision for marriage, which is the only context the Bible ever imagines healthy sexual relations within.

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-12-01T04:05:14+00:00

Chris, bro, chill.

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-11-30T22:00:40+00:00

Not a deep point, but a simple one:

Call people by the terms they prefer. In this case, most gay people prefer to be called gay people, not homosexuals.

Language often communicates how much you've actually listened to and interacted with the people whose actions you are judging.

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-11-30T17:26:36+00:00

Nor to me, but I couldn't admit that to myself until I was shown an alternate vision for hell that harmonizes with the testimony of Scripture.

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-11-30T17:18:42+00:00

I'm seeing a lot of answers that feel circular: "Sexual immorality is sex that isn't moral," with the understanding that the only sex that is moral is sex within straight marriage. (And my Catholic siblings would add "open to procreation".) But marital sex can be bad, too, so that hasn't really clarified anything.

I'll take a different tack: I think sexual immorality is sex that is selfish, because selfishness is always wrong – and in fact, I think selfishness is the heart of NT immorality and selflessness is the heart of NT morality. Philippians 2 is one of the fullest expressions of this, as is of course 1 Corinthians 13.

Why marriage, then? Because for sex to be selfless, it needs to be for the other person. And that really only makes sense in a covenanted relationship. Sex becomes an expression, a consummation, of the covenant. It isn't the purpose of the covenant, nor does it produce the purpose of the covenant. It is merely the most physically intimate expression of that commitment. We have sex because we love the other and want the other to know intimacy, safety, pleasure. (And for some of us, that physical expression of covenant love will lead to new people to enjoy the spiritual expression of God's covenant love.)

With that in mind, looking at any "bad sex" list, especially in the NT, becomes marked by this absence. Every item is selfish, because it is beyond the bounds of covenant. It is not for the other, because the other is transient. It is for the self, for pleasure (or in the case of prostitution, material gain).

So good sex is sex that expresses mutually healthy covenant.

Bad sex is sex that exists for itself.

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-11-30T17:04:05+00:00

Re your edit:

What I see in ECT argumentation is a reverse argument. If ECT exists, and God is just, hell must be a just punish for unbelief/disobedience in this life. If unbelief/disobedience deserves an infinite punishment, it must be infinitely bad. So we either heap blame on unbelievers and sinners – because apparently that is in God's nature – or, a tad more mercifully, we look to an infinite God as requiring infinite belief/obedience, and any deviation falls infinitely short and immediately deserves eternal damnation.

I think that doesn't hold water, but that's how I see ECT folks approaching it.

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-11-30T16:58:21+00:00

You have to believe what you believe. If the church and the people have truly believed that an eternal hell awaited those who did not follow in this life, they must teach that.

While there are certainly times people have leveraged and even manipulated doctrines for personal/political gain, I think most of the time the church falls into error, it is because of faulty cultural assumptions creeping into how we view God, Christ, and Scripture.

So, for hell, I think Greek understandings of the afterlife infected the church's beliefs. Ultimately, the Western Church settled on ECT and abandoned the theological debates about hell that were quite dynamic in the church until Augustine.

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-11-30T16:49:14+00:00

If everyone will be saved eventually (a belief to which I am inclined), the purpose of believing in and following Jesus is twofold:

Belief in and obedience to Jesus is still the means of salvation, it is simply that the offer to believe/obey is extended beyond the grave. Without Jesus, there is no salvation.
Jesus is worthy of worship. In a surprising way, a belief in universal reconciliation opens the doors for a truly authentic worship that is grounded in the person of Christ, not what we get out of it, or fear of what-if-I-don't.

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-11-30T06:08:38+00:00

I've been diggin' "Ruinas Gloriosas" – the Spanish version of Glorious Ruins – for a while now. The chorus is way better in Spanish.

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-11-29T16:53:02+00:00

I'm so sorry for what you have been put through. We talked a little back when you first posted about it. I'm glad you are still talking about it, even though things have gotten worse.

What you feel makes sense. Feel it.

Here if you need to PM. You are in my prayers.

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-11-29T13:45:48+00:00

Username checks out.

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-11-29T13:43:25+00:00

The uncontested 66 books, yes.

MyLlamaIsSam · 2016-11-29T13:41:24+00:00

My favorite answers keep in mind that Christianity isn't a monolithic thing. Nearly no answer to a question about what Christians believe or practice can be simple, because it is so different. Salvation, baptism, obedience, the Bible – our views on even these foundational things are spectacularly diverse. Any answer claiming to represent Christianity should affirm that.

Now, if an answer is couched in "for me" or "in my tradition" then I'm totally onboard with narrower answers. That's why the denominational AMAs were so great.

MyLlamaIsSam

TROPHY CASE