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Pro-life, pro-gay
On his Atlantic blog today, Ross Douthat looks at data indicating that the younger generation is both more pro-gay and more pro-life. He asks how pro-lifers are maintaining their ground on abortion while the rest of the country is moving left on sexual orientation issues.
Quoting a Peter Berkowitz essay, he posits that it’s difficult to say which side the “liberal spirit” should favor on abortion because “both camps are pro-personal freedom.” The pro-choicers side with the woman’s personal freedom, and the pro-lifers side with the unborn child’s personal freedom. It’s more difficult to frame anti-gay marriage arguments in the same “language of freedom.”
Douthat is looking at the younger generation as a whole, but you see the same trend among young white evangelicals. According to a Religion and Ethics Newsweekly survey, 58 percent of young white evangelicals support civil unions or marriage, and 26 percent support full marriage rights for same sex couples. But 46 percent say abortion should be illegal in most cases and 25 percent say it should be illegal altogether.
Could Douthat’s argument explain their views, or do young evangelicals have a different reason for being both pro-gay and pro-life?
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I’m one of those “young evangelicals,” and my libertarian-leaning reasoning is simple:
-Abortion is a violent crime against another human being. Unborn children deserve equal protection under the law, thus, abortion ought to be illegal.
-Gay marriage is a victimless crime. It is a sin against God and abhorrent in His sight, but there are a lot of sins that we do not actively ban in our republic. Pornography, adultery, and divorce devastate far more marriages than gay marriage ever will. If we want to “protect marriage,” we ought to address those issues before we start trying to ban gay marriage. Gay citizens ought to have equal rights under the law and no one has told me yet what we will gain in terms of changing hearts, protecting families, saving souls, or loving others if we ban gay marriage.
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1. I would go along with you on number two if it weren’t for all the anti-discrimination laws that interfere with my freedom not to be forced to affirm Gay marriage. I could refuse to photograph or cater the wedding of a divorce couple easier than I could a gay wedding. They are not teaching that pornography and adultery are just personal choices in the public school. An adoption agency could refuse to work with a couple in an open marriage but not a gay couple. E-harmony could refuse to accept a guy looking for a second wife, but they now have to work with gay couples.
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Kbells, that’s a bit of a slippery slope argument. If what we’re really concerned about is making sure that anti-discrimination laws don’t hurt us or keep us from following God, why don’t we focus our attention on them, working for a political solution (a law) to a political problem (discrimination or anti- thereof) instead of wasting our time fighting for a political solution (a law) to a moral problem (a sin against God)?
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#1 What sense does that make? If you think that ‘gay’ (the ruin of a perfectly decent word, by the way) citizens have the ‘right’ to state-sanctioned ‘marriages’, then why not the same rights for group marriages? Or for marriages to animals? Or for incesteous (but consentable) marriages?
If you want to be a Libertarian, than be one. And don’t play favorites based on what a decaying and Truth-denying culture dictates. Otherwise you are just another cultural puppet jerking and flailing about at the end of the wires, as so well demonstrated by so many of our relativist posters here.
Proponents of homosexual marriage or civil unions are almost uniformly hypocritical on this point – I could accurately say they are ‘bigots’ based on their own fond usage of the term for any who hold that marriage – or union – is uniquely defined as between man and woman. But I am feeling particularly easy-going this morning, so I will not.
Religion utterly aside, the expansion of government-sanctioned (recognized) unions between anything but a man and a woman (in terms of the only legitimate community interest in enabling/supporting child-bearing and child-rearing families) is complete civic and fiscal stupidity.
It is the attempt of a base society to publicly justify itself in its scratching of its various and sundry itches. Not a pretty sight.
But if you do argue for its (marriage) expansion, but nevertheless want to restrict it only to certain groups as determined by the shifting ‘morality’ of a decadent and rootless culture, you have utterly made fraudulent the very libertarian arguments you use in the first place.
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On the one hand the gay movement is trying to say that they are gay genetically. If we find the gay gene and abort them all they are done.
On the otherhand we have been silent about the statistics. People that engage in homosexual behavior do not engage in a victimless crime. All sex outside of marriage has victims if none other than sining against oneself. Statistically the homosexual community is engaged in much riskier behavior, has a higher rate of drug use, is involved more frequently in violence, and has a higher suicide rate. Not to mention they do not advance society with the biological raising of a child by it’s mother and father. While there are certainly exceptions to the statistics it is still to the advantage of society to promote marriage and family as the best hope for health and our future.
I should conclude with saying we should never support cruelty or violence toward homosexuals. But this does not mean that we promote the delusion that gay marriage is marriage.
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3. It is not a slippery slope. We are already there. E-Harmony, Catholic Charities of Mass. and a couple of Professional Photographers have already been forced to choose between violating their conscience and going out of business.
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Also are not anti-discrimination laws a politics solution to a moral problem?
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That should be: Are not anti-discrimination laws a political solution to a moral problem?
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#5;
So my marriage should be outlawed and annulled as I now live in a state that is apparently governed by a cult from Utah. Our children would be better off with their biological mother who was a drug addicted, abusive alcoholic who went through men like an elephant goes through peanuts. Certainly we are not good parents as we have provided a stable, loving home for our daughters as well as providing them with the professional help to allow them to heal from their earlier life. How irresponsible of us as sinners. Hopefully we will get enough advance notice to leave the state before they are taken from us in a vote by loving christians.
My husband (a surgeon) and myself (art director) contribute nothing to society and should have been aborted. The catholic church has come out against gays being fined imprisoned or publicly executed, except for when we are fined, imprisoned or publicly executed. And that is supposedly in line with a “pro-life” stance. Yup. I’m feeling the christian love this morning.
What is happening is that young evangelicals are perhaps starting to see people in a way that the older generation does not. As people. As human beings. We have faces. We have Lives, loves and in some cases children.
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“Gays” are and have always been permitted to marry. What they are asking is that the word “marriage” be appropriated legally, or in a quick endrun around the Democratic process, suborn sympathetic judges to overstep their enumerated powers to issue a judicial fiat to overrule legislation, to describe a different relationship that has never been called marriage and does not fit the concept of marriage in all the cultural varieties known in history.
The forced redefinition of a word imperils its institutional referent by limiting the way we can discuss or think about it. George Orwell’s appendix to his 1984 describes how his conceptual masterpiece, “Newspeak”, worked to subjugate the citizens of his bleak dystopia. The distortions of language he described can be seen in the way the campaign for “equality” and the “right for Gays to marry whomever they please” play in the media and misinform public discourse.
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Well, the liberal mainstream Christians and liberal evangelicals have caved on the issue of homosexual marriage, though orthodox Catholic and evangelical Christians still view homosexual behavior on biblical and rtional grounds as a grave sin and a disorder of nature. This won’t change as it is too deeply rooted in our biblical faith and religion. Serious Christians won’t waver on this issue even when presented with disappointing statistics from Ross Douthat. It’s rather unlikely that his own Catholic faith will change its cathecism on this score which reads:
Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
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Well said #1.
why not the same rights for group marriages? Or for marriages to animals? Or for incesteous (but consentable) marriages?
If you want to be a Libertarian, than be one.
Drill,
I know you weren’t talking to me, but as a libertarian, I will respond.
First of all, I don’t really care about group marriages. If a Mormon man wants to have 5 wives, fine by me. That’s his problem. It does get a little tricky regarding taxes, benefits, etc, but that’s why I don’t think marriage should have anything to do with the State.
That brings us to civil unions. I think a civil union (which is only a legal term) should be open to ANY 2 people. Why only 2? Because you have to draw the line somewhere. If you want to make it 3 or more, I guess that’s OK, but most “unions” involve only 2 people so it seems like the most reasonable number.
Marriages to animals? Well, I don’t see the purpose. If a man wants to marry his dog, that’s his problem. If he can find a church to to do the ceremony, fine. But keep in mind, I’m talking about marriage that is totally separate from the State. Of course there can be no civil union between a human and animal because animals are not citizens of the State and they cannot consent.
Incestuous marriages? Sure. Why not. If they can find a church to marry them, that’s their problem. And by all means, let them file for a civil union. Who says that a civil union or a state-recognized marriage has to be about sex? Why can’t a 50-year old mother have a union with her single 30-year old daughter? Perhaps they live together and want a tax break. Or a brother and sister.
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Ken,
What they are asking is that the word “marriage” be appropriated legally…to describe a different relationship that has never been called marriage…
Do you prefer to define marriage as the Bible does or as culture does? If we prefer a biblical definition, then our society has already redefined the term. We grant “divorces” to people who are not actually divorced, and then they “marry” other people when the marriage does not actually exist as far as the Bible is concerned.
What is my point? It is not the job of the State to uphold the definition of marriage. As you can see, the State has already failed to do so, and not with homosexual marriage but heterosexual marriage. It is the job of the church and its members to uphold the definition. If a man in Utah has 5 wives, it does not IN ANY WAY redefine marriage as God ordained it. All it means is that that particular “marriage” is not recognized by God. If your marriage is in line with Scripture, you have no need to worry. Your marriage IS recognized by God. It doesn’t matter what the State has to say about it.
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Graceland: Fair enough – except why do you ‘prefer’ to draw the line at two people in terms of civil unions? By so doing, you are intentionally discriminating against people who want to scratch their itches by arranging group ‘marriages’ – or I guess your ‘civil unions’.
That means you are not a Libertarian – but simply a Statist, who wishes to allow the culture to define the limits on what you find ‘acceptable’.
And by throwing out (eliminating) the historical and universal and ABSOLUTE definition (and necessarily exclusive definition) of the family and marriage and making it instead dependent on the decree of the State or the culture, you are really declaring that the State (or the culture) is (or should be) now the final arbiter in terms of defining what a family is – or is not.
In other words, you are stating that there is no absolute standard or law standing above and beyond the State or culture – only the State’s (or culture’s) determination of what is allowable – and what is not allowable – is permissable.
That is not really Libertarianism at all.
It is just the same warmed-over relativism, seems to me.
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Actually, regarding marriages to animals, a lot of folks are already married to their animals. Ever watch Dog Whisperer or It’s Me or the Dog? Pretty creepy.
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Treemen said,
“but there are a lot of sins that we do not actively ban in our republic. Pornography, adultery, and divorce devastate far more marriages than gay marriage ever will. If we want to “protect marriage,” we ought to address those issues before we start trying to ban gay marriage.”
Perhaps since your a “young evang” you are unaware that it’s always been the church who fought against the very things you mention. In my opinion we’ve lost on some of those fronts, but they were fought for. And in all cases, still are being fought for, however futile the effort. When pornography took off the church opposed and fought against it. They’re still opposing it on the public airways today. Unfortunatly, with the internet, the battle appears lost, but they know the adverse effects on marriages and offer help in dealing with it. When adultery became OK to most of society, the church was fightin’ against it. They still offer more help on having healthy marriages than any other group. When no-fault divorce became the new rave in many states, and it became easier to divorce, the church knew it was a bad idea, and said so. We were pretty much ignored, and what we predicted for the stability of marriages if this was allowed, has come to pass.
We have tried to address them, and were ignored by most. Gay marriage is just the next assault in the larger culture war. And it, like the others you mentioned, will be addressed by the church and it’s people. Is it a slippery slope? Who knows? But we sure seem to be sliding, and it’s been steady downhill.
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#15
Or this couple in Florida:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-bk-couple-arrested-sex-with-dogs-120308,0,3924223.story
Good thing their marriage is “protected”.
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Drill,
The reason I draw the line with 2 people is that you have to draw it somewhere. If you don’t draw the line, theoretically, you could have all 300 million (or whatever the number) US citizens file for the same civil union so that everyone gets the same benefit. And in that case, why even have it? Perhaps the answer is to not have the State recognize ANY sort of union. That would be OK too. But back to my point, yes, if the State is going to recognize a union, you have to draw the line somewhere. Is it discriminatory? I guess so, but that’s just how things work sometimes.
you are really declaring that the State (or the culture) is (or should be) now the final arbiter in terms of defining what a family is – or is not.
No, I’m NOT allowing the State to define a family. God has ordained what a family is, and that will not change no matter what the State says.
you are stating that there is no absolute standard or law standing above and beyond the State or culture
No I’m not. God’s law is the standard. That will never change. It is not the job of the State to uphold God’s law. God’s people should be upholding God’s law, but they shouldn’t require the State to do the same. The State’s purpose should be quite limited. Protection, infrastructure, currency, etc.
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AJ,
You are right in many regards about the church’s fight against evil, although I would add that the church has not done nearly enough. It should continue to fight, and fight much harder.
BUT, I don’t think that fight should be in terms of banning evil. Pornography is evil, and the church should fight against it, but I hope it remains legal. Why? Because it is crucial that our freedom of speech and press remain intact.
As for gay marriage, your argument seems to be that allowing gay marriage is going to send our society down a slippery slope. How is that? Does legalized homosexual marriage mean homosexuality is going to increase? We already have homosexuality. It’s legal. It SHOULD be. But allowing them to “marry” does not make homosexuality any more or less sinful.
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Watching everyone trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.
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I regard murder, rape, and stealing as evil. I consider acts such as having sex without protection and without provisions for caring for children who may be produced as harmful.
“Sin” seems to mean “something I detest” (that may or may not be evil or harmful), but sounds more impressive than saying I don’t like it and is more likely to get lots of other people to join me in opposing it. In some cases claiming something is a sin in itself causes a fair amount of harm or even evil.
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Random,
I’m speaking from a biblical worldview. The Bible calls some things sinful and/or evil. I’m not trying to make pornography or homosexuality sound any worse than I believe it to be. I’m just using biblical terms.
If I were discussing this issue with you or other non-Christians, I probably wouldn’t use those terms because they don’t mean the same thing to you as opposed to someone with a biblical worldview.
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Watching everyone trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.
Maybe I’m a little slow. What’s that supposed to mean?
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Graceland: Practically speaking, I cannot see that your position is defensible from any Christian (or ethical) perspective.
For instance, if the State (or the State informed by the culture) can redefine the family (practically speaking – i.e. in terms of visible manifestation of what a family is within a society), why should it not also be able to equally redefine what is defined as ‘murder’?
So the State (or the culture) should be able to redefine what is infanticide – based on whatever shifting mores drives the various itches and twitches of the culture? And say make killing children (say under the age of two) legal? (So we have abortion on demand even now, thanks to this basic idea.)
You are saying (it seems to me) that from a practical world-we-have-to-live-in perspective, the State/culture can and should be the ultimate ‘decider’ on all matters moral, ethical, and able to do exactly as it pleases in defining human relationships and human actions. Sure, you hold your private beliefs (hey – it is sort of abstractedly ‘wrong’ to kill children – or you personally believe that marriage is really only between a man and a woman – but you still must ‘go with the flow’ in terms of tolerating it in the wider society). But of what consequence is that private belief, practically speaking, or for the generations yet unborn?
When exactly do you stop that culturally-driven train and get off, from a practical standpoint?
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Drill,
You are saying (it seems to me) that from a practical world-we-have-to-live-in perspective, the State/culture can and should be the ultimate ‘decider’ on all matters moral, ethical, and able to do exactly as it pleases
I’m amazed that you got that from what I said.
What I’m saying is that the purpose of the State should be very limited. Primarily, it should protect its citizens. That would cover your example of killing children.
In my mind, allowing a homosexual civil union in no way causes harm to other citizens. It is consensual. In general, the State should not get in the way of consensual behavior that doesn’t infringe upon anyone else. A man having 5 wives does not infringe on you…though I’m sure you will try to argue otherwise.
Let me ask you something. What should be the standard for State law?
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Surveys aren’t relevant when it’s not state wide or a vote across and including every single state. Here in California the people voted – it was the hot issue – clearly those who voted want nothing to do with ’same sex marriage’ it LOST.
Excerpt below which tells the story:
Let’s get something straight, it wasn’t all the Evangelicals who voted against the homosexual marriage, it included thousands of individuals who understand that its wrong and the ramifications of such a law – it has long reaching effects which the homosexual community and weak kneed, so called ‘Christian’s’ would like to foist off as ‘right’ –
These laws effect children – take a close look at the schools – a teacher decided to take her kindergarten class to her lesbian wedding not to long ago. Gender identification classes in K-12th grade, that includes all transgender, homosexual education — and you ask “WHY WOULD THAT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH ’same sex marriage’ ? – if that sort of marriage becomes law, then there would be NO REASON not to teach this in schools, it would be considered a NORMAL OCCURRENCE –
Most thinking parents who have a moral compass, understand the reasons for NOT allowing ’same sex marriage’ those who continue to press on with this charade aren’t fooling anyone, they support ’same sex marriage’ —– some even support it, saying they are Christians – such a sly trick but very obvious as to the ways of evil – How many wolves have entered the church and Evangelical groups pretending to be sheep?
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Graceland: Seems to me that it is the logical outcome of everything you are saying – so the State (in your view) decides that marriage (practically – visibly – speaking, your ‘civil unions’) is being redefined this year to include say up to three – but not four – people of any sex mixture, etc.
Its basis for deciding that is the current culture, or whatever.
Nothing absolute, just whatever the State says. So the State is the Absolute, practically speaking.
And you are giving it that authority practically speaking, seems to me.
You say the purpose of the State is to protect its citizens? But then you turn around and say that the State/culture has the authority to define who qualifies as an acceptable citizen – or not? So laws which allow infanticide – or abortion – are okay based on the fact that the State has decided that certain classes of its citizens are NOT citizens?
I have to go, but the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights is the only acceptable standad or basis for State Law in this country, last time I checked. And they are both based on the notion of the Absolute. Absent the culture and the State.
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the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights is the only acceptable standad or basis for State Law in this country
I totally agree. Just note that neither say anything about marriage. It’s not a State issue, at least it shouldn’t be.
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#26 Victoria;
It would be nice if you could at least get your facts straight. The teacher did NOT take her kindergarten class to her wedding. A group of parents did, with the schools blessing. Some parents opted not have their children go and they stayed in school. The children that did go did not attend the ceremony, they stood on the steps of city hall and threw rose petals as the teacher and her spouse came out.
But I guess the actual facts get in the way of the rhetoric, don’t they?
I’m curious though… back before the election on a thread here, I asked you what you thought those of us who are legally married in California should do if Prop 8 passed. I’m still curious. Should our marriage be annulled? Should our rights as a married couple be taken away? Are our children the next thing you want to vote on?
Quite frankly I applaud the younger generation of evangelicals that have a broader view of the world.
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One more thing Drill, even though you said you had to go.
You mention absolutes. Would you say that the sinfulness of homosexuality is an absolute? What about the sinfulness of adultery? Fornication?
I would say yes. I think all of those are equally sinful.
But is it the State’s job to enforce those absolutes? My answer? Of course not.
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Graceland;
A wise prime Minister once said; “the state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.” Unfortunately the church seems to be obsessed with them.
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Duncan
The fact that the teacher took the children to her wedding, whether or not they actually saw the wedding – threw petals on the steps isn’t the point, the POINT is the lesbian teacher was making a statement to her class –
Thousands of parents just like me voted against ’same sex marriage’ in California – As far as how old parents are who vote against it, just look at the numbers Duncan, I know many young people who believe it’s wrong, that’s why in California we won this last November -
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Teacher forces teens to question being ’straight’
‘Is it possible your heterosexuality is just a phase you may grow out of?’
December 02, 2008
By Drew Zahn
The mother of a Wisconsin teenager was stunned when her high school senior brought home a questionnaire assigned by his English teacher that asked, among several provocative questions, “Is it possible that your heterosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of others of the same sex?”
The mother, Marilyn Hanson, reviewed the questionnaire and thought it completely inappropriate for any class, but especially for a required English class, where, Hanson told WND, “They should be taught to read and write and prepare for college.”
“I really believe this was outright indoctrination to the homosexual viewpoint,” Hanson said. “I could see this being discussed in a debate class, where both sides were presented. But the other side was not presented.”
_________________Another excerpt from Article________________
Hanson’s son, Alex, originally thought he was required to complete the questionnaire for the next day’s class. He was struggling, however, to answer the following questions:
Read the rest ————Teacher forces teens to question being ’straight’
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A very interesting poll conducting by Harris is available here:
http://www.glaad.org/2008/DOCUMENTS/HarrisPoll120308.pdf
According to the poll 52% of mainline Christians support civil unions or gay marriage, while 70% of Evangelicals oppose it. Young women and men are much more likely to support same-sex marriage than those over the age of 65.
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There are many who applaud a broad view, but it leads no where when it’s sinful.
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Victoria, apparently you didn’t read my post, or the news coverage of the story. The teacher DID NOT take her class to her wedding. A group of PARENTS of her students did. The teacher herself had NO IDEA that they children would be waiting outside for them. Again, why let facts get in the way?
As to you next post, the survey is no more or less offensive than what we as gay people get asked all the time. Just not so much fun when the shoe is on the other foot is it?
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Duncan – 34
Play with numbers, pretend that its all the older, elderly who are voting against a sinful law, you are just fooling yourself – young couples are not buying into it, that’s why all the uproar in schools, that’s why we are winning –
Homeschooling is becoming far more important, much more appealing – certainly you have the ability to understand that older people aren’t having children? – it is the younger people who have children Duncan, they are the ones who are turning to homeschooling and private, Christian schools – I haven’t seen an older over 65 year old lady pregnant yet, but I’ll keep my eyes open –
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Kbells #6 and #7,
I’m not familiar with the professional photographers or Catholic Charities, but eHarmony seems to have chosen to run their business they way they want to, not because any court forced them to. In any case, what we ought to be pushing for is the right to practice business as we see fit and not to ban gay marriage altogether if what we’re concerned about is being tackled by anti-discrimination laws.
And people seem to push for anti-gay marriage laws because of their moral stance on the issue. That’s a moral issue. Anti-discrimination laws have to do with businesses denying or allowing certain customers based on their moral principles; that’s an entirely different ballgame.
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Victoria, for the record, I find the tone of your responses to be offensive. I do not appreciate being addressed as if I was a child “Certainly you have the ability to understand that older people aren’t having children?” If you cannot address me in a civil manner you will simply be ignored. I have no desire to get into a flame war with you.
The numbers are not mine to play with, they are simply what is reported. If you wish to dispute them I suggest you should take that up with Harris Research.
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The Real AJ #16,
If the church tried to fight pornography, adultery, and divorce by political means and failed, wouldn’t it make sense that we ought to change our tack when it comes to the issue of homosexuality? Clearly our strategy back then– get political power, pass a law, and pretend we’re safe– didn’t work!
If we imagine sin as a filthy, polluted river flowing out of a toxic waste dump that increases its output every day, laws are like a dam against it. But we could not build a dam to hold back internet pornography, we could not build a dam to “protect” marriage from inappropriate divorces, and we could not build a dam to “protect” it from adultery or fornication. Sin must be addressed at its source and it is idolatry to believe that a law will do anything but hold off the onslaught for another few years or so.
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Duncan
I find same sex marriage to be offensive – If you can’t understand that those who are young married with children who, – voting Prop 8, made a statement loud and clear AGAINST same sex marriage – making other arrangements for their childrens education, then you need to be educated. If you are going to pout and start playing the ‘flame war’ routine as an excuse it doesn’t work.
If you want to dispute the numbers, and the vote in California that’s your choice, but it makes no sense. The homosexual community has tried to convince everyone that all the older people are the ones who are voting down gay marriage, its nothing more than a myth.
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Christians take the view that we live in a cosmos ordered by a Creator including the moral law. No moral relativism here. sexual sins and disorders in terms of their legality including fornication, bestiality, adultery, and homosexuality have traditionally come under the authority of the states. States have an interest in upholding morality and have retained most laws against sexual depravity, even if lightly enforced.
In the case of marriage law most states have been able to define marriage as limited to a man and a woman and justify this on the rational basis of protecting the nurturing of children. Ideally every child should have the complementary benefit of both a mother and father.
The gay lobby argues the right of homosexual marriage on the basis of a fundamental civil right, though the Supreme Court has so far not come close to agreeing with this. In the case of Lawrence V. Texas, the Supreme Court struck the Texas law against sodomy down due to its supposedly lacking a rational basis, not because of a fundamental First Amendment civil right.
Drill is right that libertarians in allowing homosexual behavior and marriage on a cultural basis are arguing from moral relativism, which no state in its right mind should allow.
Sadly, due to the weakness and fecklessness of conservatives. the militant gay juggernaut is very close to achieving their first goal of establishing sodomite behavior and marriage as morally equivalent to that of heterosexuals, to the point that those who oppose it will be regarded as being involved with unlawful “hate” speech. When this happens most libertarians will then realize the trouble they have stored up.
Evangelical and orthodox Christians along with Mormons, Catholics, and Orthodox Jews need to wake up to this parlous situation in which the secular left is leading the country into serious decadence.
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Graceland: The idea that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights make no mention of marriage and hence the (civic) definition of that institution is a State perogative is an odd one to me.
The Constitution and the Bill of Rights make no mention of parental rights with respect to children, either. Does that mean that anyone can claim your kids with as much authority as you, since nowhere in these documents are familial rights discussed?
As a matter of fact, using that argument, one could easily say that the State operating under the Constitution has the right authority to take away your children without any cause – there is no explicit mention of an inalienable right to ‘keep’ your children.
But in fact there IS a solid structure of Absolutism with respect to morality and right living that makes up the entire matrix of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The Founders apparently did not anticipate the development of a decadent society composed of ethical/spiritual morons, who in the course of a couple of generations would so gleefully trash the country and the principles in the documents, just in order to legally scratch their various physical itches.
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Duncan-
Well done. There are some people here who refuse to acknowledge the facts.
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Graceland: To clarify, you keep saying the State has no business in defining marriage, but then simultaneously you seem to want some restrictions on it (i.e. you want the State to define it at some level).
Also, unless the State absolutely recognizes NO legal or financial aspects of marriage at all (which would then annilate familial/parental rights), it is – by definition – in the marriage-definition business, legally speaking.
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Drill,
To clarify, you keep saying the State has no business in defining marriage,
That is right. The State should not define marriage.
but then simultaneously you seem to want some restrictions on it (i.e. you want the State to define it at some level).
No I don’t. I don’t want the State to restrict marriage in any way. It should be regulated by the church.
Also, unless the State absolutely recognizes NO legal or financial aspects of marriage at all (which would then annilate familial/parental rights)
No it doesn’t. Since when is marriage required to have children or have parental rights?
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Menliketreeswalking #1,
You write, “If we want to ‘protect marriage,’ we ought to address those issues before we start trying to ban gay marriage.”
You’re putting the cart before the horse. You can’t try to ban something that doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing as “gay marriage,” except in a couple of states. What Christians and conservatives are doing is playing defense against the offensive (in both senses of the word) homosexual activists who are trying to force moral acceptance of a deviant lifestyle on the rest of the country.
This is a breach in the wall of traditional Judeo-Christian morality that Biblically faithful people will rush to defend. As the statistics mentioned show, the church contains fewer and fewer such people.
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The idea that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights make no mention of marriage…
The reason I mentioned that is that you said the Constitution and Bill of Rights is the standard. I agree. It is a standard, but it is not specific enough.
I am trying to figure out what your standard for State law is. You say that the State should define marriage between a man and woman. On what basis should the State do that?
You then mentioned absolutes. So I pose my question again. Do you think that homosexuality, fornication, and adultery are “absolutely” sinful?
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Duncan: What is happening is that young evangelicals are perhaps starting to see people in a way that the older generation does not. As people. As human beings. We have faces. We have Lives, loves and in some cases children.
Evangelicals of all ages are perfectly willing to view homosexuals as human beings with faces and lives. To suggest otherwise is slander. We quite understand the simple truth that one can love the sinner while being critical of the sin.
In truth, our problem with homosexual marriage and behavior is that based on both principled reason and Biblical teaching we view homosexual behavior as disordered and sinful. We are aware that many homosexuals have sought both secular and Christian therapy for their disorder and then gone on to lead more normal and happier lives.
WH Auden, the homosexual poet, toward the end of his life had the following to say about the homosexual life:
I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s wrong to be queer, but that’s a long story. Oh, the reasons are comparatively simple. In the first place, all homosexual acts are acts of envy. In the second, the more you’re involved with someone, the more trouble arises, and affection shouldn’t result in that. It shows something’s wrong somewhere.
In 1969, just four years before his death, Auden wrote candidly, Few, if any, homosexuals can honestly boast that their sex-life has been happy.”
Your simple minded view of serious evangelicals is rather mistaken just as is your romantic view of the disorder of homosexuality. It, also, has tragic consequences for young people who are confused sexually.
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Peter,
the militant gay juggernaut is very close to achieving their first goal of establishing sodomite behavior and marriage as morally equivalent to that of heterosexuals,
Question 1: Is “sodomite behavior” currently a moral equivalent to homosexual relations?
Question 2: Will legalization of homosexual marriage actually change the above?
Here’s my take. “Sodomite behavior” is already largely accepted in our society, therefore legalization of homosexual marriage will not change that at all. It will remain accepted.
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MENLIKETREESWALKING: Unborn children deserve equal protection under the law, thus, abortion ought to be illegal.
If you could see clearly, you’d see the difference between a fetus and a child.
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Peter,
In truth, our problem with homosexual marriage and behavior is that based on both principled reason and Biblical teaching we view homosexual behavior as disordered and sinful.
OK, so that’s your problem with it. Now let me ask you the same as Drill: Do you think fornication and adultery are disordered and sinful? Any less so than homosexual behavior?
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If you could see clearly, you’d see the difference between a fetus and a child.
Scroop,
If you could see clearly, you’d see the difference between an infant and a 10-year-old.
Just because one life is in an earlier stage of development does not make it’s life lesser.
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Graceland – okay, call it civil unions or recognized domestic relationships or whatever you wish, then. I would nevertheless call it marriage, practically speaking.
My point stands; you yourself wanted the State to define it, however named – I believe to encompass two individuals of any sex.
And, no, familial/parental rights ARE tied up in the implicit assumption of a meaningful definition of what constitutes a legal ‘union or ‘domestic relationship or ‘marriage’. Last I checked, anyway.
Shoot. Motherhood itself is never mentioned in the Constitution either. Does that mean that the State can not hold a mothers rights regarding her own children to be higher than the rights of someone else regarding those same children?
That does not work for me on ANY level.
As I noted, there is a strong assumption of basic Absolutes threading through the entire infrastructure of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, including Absolutes involving families (meaning marriages) and domestic relationships. These Absolutes were plainly recognized then, should be now (they are not).
As a matter of fact, I will go further and say that the Republic is a dead duck when those Absolutes are utterly trashed. It cannot survive the present hedonistic onslaught; what comes after when that wheel turns I do not know, but it will not be pretty.
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Quite bizaarely, towards the end of their lives–along with WH Auden– Rock Hudson and Oscare Wilde both spoke with some sadness about their homosexual lifestyles. and in RH’s life it was independent of his final HIV sequelae.
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Drill,
You seem to imply that marriage and civil unions are essentially the same. They are VERY different in my book. A marriage in something instituted by God, which the State should have no control over.
A civil union is a creation of the State for the purpose of encouraging or rewarding a particular behavior. The State is by no means required to grant civil unions. If there were none, I wouldn’t complain. If the State wants to grant civil unions, I support that.
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PETER LEAVITT: WH Auden, the homosexual poet, toward the end of his life had the following to say about the homosexual life . . . [ta dah, ta dat, ta dah, ta dat, ta dat]
Don’t pay any attention to anything Auden said or wrote at the end of his life. Early Auden was different, a homosexual poet, rather than a self-loathing poet who was a homosexual.
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And, no, familial/parental rights ARE tied up in the implicit assumption of a meaningful definition of what constitutes a legal ‘union or ‘domestic relationship or ‘marriage’. Last I checked, anyway.
Are we talking about the same thing? “implicit assumption”? “meaningful definition”? These are subjective terms. I’m talking about legal, black and white terms.
A person has parental rights if he/she is a biological parent or has legally adopted a child. Legally, that has nothing to do with marriage.
Now if you are talking about absolutes again, then I’d agree. Yes, the created order intends that a man marry a woman and they share parental rights over the child. But our laws aren’t written that way.
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An interesting point is the stand many “Emergent Church” movement leaders have taken regarding homosexuality. Here are several quotes, there are many more.
Romans 1 would be a good place to get your Biblcal bearings -
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Graceland: I did not mean to ignore your question regarding adultery, etc. Yes, all are sin – based on absolutes. Not sure of your point. We don’t tend to make laws about those except perhaps in terms of controlling consequences, etc.
Murder is also sin. We make laws respecting not doing it, or penalties when it is done.
But so what?
The idea of letting the State/society/culture define marriage (yes, I know you try to distinguish between that and civil unions – I do not, practically speaking) is as alien to me as letting it define human life. And creates a monstrosity; look no further than the gore-smeared tables in your average abortion ‘clinic’.
However, the original argument stands – you cannot agree that the State should put any restrictions on marriage (you call it civil unions, I suppose) or you are inherently untrue to libertarian principles and are, in fact, just moving the legal ‘boundaries’ in order to accomodate a relativist decadent culture. The boundaries are still there – and they are determined by the State and imposed on all.
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Graceland: Where are biological or ‘motherhood’ rights mentioned or ‘legally described’ in the Constitution? If they are not, are they implicit? Assumed? If so, why?
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But Drill,
What’s it to you if the state recognizes what you consider a “counterfeit” marriage. This notion that the state’s rules have to perfectly match up with what your (very morally demanding) religion teaches or else *something is wrong* is a neurotic tendency that leads to tyranny.
I think Christians need to feel comfortable with the fact that they live in pagan Rome, that indeed they thrive as “dissidents.”
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you cannot agree that the State should put any restrictions on (civil unions) or you are inherently untrue to libertarian principles and are, in fact, just moving the legal ‘boundaries’ in order to accomodate a relativist decadent culture.
I couldn’t disagree more, unless you have some whacked out definition of libertarian. Are you thinking that a libertarian does not want any restrictions on anything? That is anarchy!
Again, I’m not saying the State MUST put restrictions on civil unions. I’m just saying that you can’t have a civil union if there are no restrictions. It simply can’t exist. So the solution is to either restrict who all can be united, or just not have civil unions. I’m fine with either, but prefer the civil union.
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Where are biological or ‘motherhood’ rights mentioned or ‘legally described’ in the Constitution? If they are not, are they implicit? Assumed? If so, why?
Yes, they are assumed. Why? Because our founding laws are centered around liberty, and it would be in complete contradiction to the Constitution to assume that children become property of the State, thereby granting no parental rights.
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Graceland: Actually, I would disagree, not sure about the whacked out comment. If one is a thorough-going and consistent Libertarian, there would be no support for any State involvement in defining relationships, including recognization of any civil unions or anything else. As long as nobody was getting killed or visibly maimed, it would be no one’s business.
If, however, you wish the State to define the thing and describe the envelope based on its own (cultural) mores, it is then still just Statism, with the goal posts moved out a bit. In that case you are no Libertarian, as I understand Libertarianism. More of a Hedonistic Statist, perhaps.
Anarchy is another thing, I think, as there would be no entity to interfere no matter what was being done.
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Graceland #64: Forget the State. How about the nice rich couple that lives down the road – they decide they could better raise your children (and anyone would agree based on their bank account and their own stellar record of raising three very fine children) and so one day claim them.
What Constitutional basis do you object? Do you own your children?
What is ‘best’ for them?
Why does YOUR biological rights, not described anywhere in the Constitution trump the rights of this couple – or those of your children?
The point being that there IS an absolute moral framework that the Constitution works within – and fundamental definitions of familial rights, biological rights, marriage (recognizable largely for thousands of years) is implicit throughout it.
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Jon Rowe: For one thing, we do not yet live in Rome. We are supposed to be a Republic – we are in charge of the government ourselves (for the people, by the people, etc.) In other words we are on the governing board – and hence responsible for what goes on during our watch.
The question of undefining marriage need not even be framed in terms of religion – it is, as I originally noted, a complete fiscal and civic recipe for disaster and chaos. Pragmatically speaking, society (or the State) has an interest in the nuclear conventional family, in facilitating the environment that nurtures birth and growth of its citizens.
Pragmatically, the idea of state-sanctioned ‘civil unions’ or ‘marriages’ outside of the man-woman construct is at best a huge gamble in social engineering at the highest level – at worst, it is a sure sign of a culture/civilization spinning into a moral and spiritual abyss. I believe the latter.
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The problem I have about hte moral/spiritual abyss idea is that folks like Peter Leavitt have talked about how after the 1960s the changes signified America/decadent Western Culture was ready to collapse. It’s true that increases in crime/out of wedlock births caused problems — problems by the way from which we learned and “live and let live” conservatives like Rudy Guiliani helped enact counteractive reforms.
But in many ways, things have gotten better; we’ve gotten richer, technology has made our lives even easier (government has grown too much and we have way too much debt). But the end is not near. Secular places like Norway and Japan are some of the most civilized places on the planet. Japan, by the way is one of the best educated, peaceful, productive places on the planet. And they are not only not religion but pornography is utterly rampant there.
Unless God steps in and destroys us with a big giant meteor or whatever, the “end” isn’t apparent at all.
However, sometimes I think that religious conservatives WANT modern society to collapse because, you know, before the invention of the TV, Internet, automobile and the like local communities were much tighter and ministers had a much easier time exerting moral influence on people’s lives.
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David L. (#47),
You’re playing games with words in your discussion about “banning gay marriage” and being “defensive.” Everyone knows that “defending marriage” means making sure that gay marriage doesn’t happen for all intents and purposes. In fact, one of the reasons I don’t like these “marriage defense” laws and amendments is that there is no evidence that any of them will ever “save” a single traditional, heterosexual marriage in any significant sense. How much money and effort and political will has been expended on something meant only to stop non-Christians from committing a victimless crime when there are so many more important causes that we should have dedicated ourselves to?
You speak of a breach in the wall of traditional morality. Pornography, adultery, fornication, etc. have already punched much larger holes and dug enormous tunnels beneath the wall. Let’s worry about those things (not to mention abortion, which is a real crime with real victims) rather than trying to shut down gay marriage before it starts for the sake of trying to keep our supposed “wall” of Judeo-Christian morality standing upright when the cultural onslaught (see my post #40) keeps going on?
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Graceland: Do you think fornication and adultery are disordered and sinful? Any less so than homosexual behavior?
All of them are sinful; all of them due to being violations of moral law lead to much pain and suffering; the consequences for compulsive homosexual behavior is probably the most difficult to overcome. Traditionally and properly states in our country have made these perverse activities illegal, even if lightly enforced. Libertarians who avoid the matter of moral law and the necessity for black letter law to respect it are mistaken.
Moth: Don’t pay any attention to anything Auden said or wrote at the end of his life. Early Auden was different, a homosexual poet, rather than a self-loathing poet who was a homosexual.
I should think that a sensible person would pay careful attention to one of the great poets of the Twentieth Century who came to regret his homosexual life. He was never a self-loathing poet; rather a brilliant poet who came to loathe homosexual behavior.
Jon Rowe: I think Christians need to feel comfortable with the fact that they live in pagan Rome, that indeed they thrive as “dissidents.”
In truth we live in a culture with a deep-seated Christian tradition that is under siege by a noisome minority of “gay” pagan militants. Serious Christians will continue to oppose these militants strenuously, though civilly, as we did with Prop. Eight. Every state that has voted on a referendum to define marriage as between a man and women has voted decisively in favor. Your notion that we are mere “dissidents” is ludicrous.
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I beg to differ, Jon Rowe. The population levels in the countries you mentioned are below replacement levels. And if you look at Europe as a whole, the declining population levels are matched by a huge influx of Muslim immigrants who pose challenges to the structures of formerly Christian–and free–Europe. The end of Europe has been on observers’ radar screens for decades, and it keeps approaching. America is lagging behind, but not for lack of trying. Progressives in this country champion international law and the same social engineering approaches as obtain in Europe, Scandinavia and Canada. You can’t really deny the progress of liberalism in this country over the past 40 years. Nobody is saying that America will become an unpopulated, post-atomic wasteland. It will simply be unrecognizable and entirely unpleasant to live in within one or two generations–except on the superficial level in areas that you point out–technology, entertainment, etc. It’ll be “Brave New World” brought to life.
But this part of your comment is just ridiulous caricature:
“ministers had a much easier time exerting moral influence on people’s lives.”
Yeah, it’s all about coercive oppression. Your insight into our secret motivations is just impeccable.
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. . . rather a brilliant poet who came to loathe homosexual behavior.
He was pawing boys on the subway who just wanted to talk about poetry with him. He was disowning his own best work.
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Menliketreeswalking,
“You speak of a breach in the wall of traditional morality. Pornography, adultery, fornication, etc. have already punched much larger holes and dug enormous tunnels beneath the wall.”
Nobody in the church is defending pornography, adultery, fornication, etc., as positives to be achieved in society as a whole.
Fighting against the public acceptance of homosexuality is a Gospel project, because it raises issues of sin, righteousness and judgement. Where God says, “No,” we should not say, “Yes.” Practical activities aside, you’re not going to convince anybody who loves God’s Word that sexual immorality of any kind should be ignored.
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Jon Rowe: I believe that (morally speaking) Japan is largely living off its past, helped by an almost complete lack of diversity in terms of demographics within its population which is incredibly homogeneous. There are still strong currents from countless generations of stable family-oriented traditions, customs and morals-centered faith (though false in its basic premises, to me). Those currents now are beginning to rapidly break down as older generations pass away.
There are unsettling signs of discontent and rising violence within Japan – and not due to economic reasons at all. It is in fact (in my opinion) a society that will rapidly spin out of control, especially as stresses from without (it is an internally unsupportable society and population) increase.
I do not deny that materially things have ‘gotten better’ in America in the past sixty or seventy years, having been raised in hard-scrabble circumstances myself a long time ago – but believe that we are spiritually living precariously on the fumes of a past work ethic and past moral scruples. And those fumes are just about entirely spent now. And then what? A nation or a civilization without spiritual bearings is a nation or a civilization headed for destruction.
And it is hard for me to imagine any arguments that this nation has meaningful spiritual bearings – we are too far sunk in hedonism (witness the ‘civil union’ debates) and apathy (witness the lack of outrage over the bloody atrocities in the nations abortion clinics every day) and ignorance (approximately 2/3 of Obama voters did not know that the Democrats controlled the Congress for the past two years).
Norway? Sort of like North Dakota. I like the place, but am glad that I don’t live there, at least in the winter.
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Actually David L,
I well represented the opinions of one Russell Kirk, one of the most influential traditionalist intellectuals of the 20th Century. He thought modernity with its technical innovations was corrupt and thought America’s soul was much healthier back in “Little House on the Prarie” days. He specifically connected this corruption to the inventions of the automobile, television and telephone. You can see the “crunchy cons” of today many of whom write in the American Conservative Magazine who long for this Kirkian world. Indeed, I’d imagine we’ve got some of those on this thread who live this lifestyle on a farm, as far removed from modern culture as they can get.
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“there is no evidence that any of them will ever “save” a single traditional, heterosexual marriage in any significant sense.”
I don’t think that’s the sole, let alone primary, reason for opposing homosexual “marriage.”
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Again Drill — absent some kind of unforeseen event like a meteor of a nuclear bomb — I don’t see any kind of breakdown or collapse in the near future. Let’s take one point:
And it is hard for me to imagine any arguments that this nation has meaningful spiritual bearings – we are too far sunk in hedonism (witness the ‘civil union’ debates)
Okay, hedonism. If all we did was have fun, we wouldn’t work, be productive or take care of business and society would collapse. I get the logic.
I have a pretty strong knowledge of the gay community and know that because gays have fewer kids they do tend to “play” more, which includes not just going to the bars, picking people up for sex, drinking more and experimenting with drugs, but also more harmless play like travel and leisure. Yet, from the best knowledge that we have the gay community is every bit as if not more (probably more) productive than the heterosexual community (in terms of work and wages). And as long as you work hard and productive who cares if one lives a “hedonistic” lifestyle. I say work hard, play hard, which is what the gay community seems to do. Indeed some religious conservatives like to stress how much more money and education gays have to argue that they aren’t “civil rights victims” and don’t need antidiscrimination protection. I think the religious right stats that I have seen exaggerate the extent to which gays are more affluent and educated; but I think some truth is there. The stereotype of gays having the nicest yards and better tastes or whatever. When gays move into your neighborhood and take over there goes the neighborhood…’s value UP.
One could argue that there is more to life than economic determinants. But that’s the only objective criteria we have to measure such things as productivity and quality of life. Look at where neighborhoods are the most affordable (meaning dirt cheap). Slums like Camden New Jersey where there is little meaningful economic activity, out of wedlock births by young uneducated mothers are rampant and there is high crime. These communities, by the way, tend to be MORE religious than average.
Yet look at ALL of the places where gays tend to congregate and they are some of the most affluent and “livable” places in the nation (and I’d imagine the trend is the same in all Western nations). See if you can think of one gay enclave that doesn’t fit this pattern. The closest some friends of mine could come up with was Fort Lauderdale Fla. which isn’t exactly Camden New Jersey (though it is home to Coral Ridge Ministries and a lot of evangelical Christians).
In short: Yes, society needs structured rules to function. But I see nothing that suggests we have to live by strict biblical standards, that we can’t use our reason find what works (like don’t have babies out of wedlock if you are young and don’t have a highschool degree; indeed don’t have ANY babies you can’t afford to take care of) and scrap what I regard as irrational superstitution. If you want to live by superstition, fine. I don’t. That’s what it means to live in a free country.
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JonRowe makes the pagan argument that since material life has become better in Norway, Japan, et al at the same time that pagan sexual sin has become accepted, we, therefore, may accept this sin. This is of course a crude logical fallacy. The one doesn’t follow the other. We can make the counter argument that no amount of material prosperity justifies the acceptance of any sin.
JonRowe: folks like Peter Leavitt have talked about how after the 1960s the changes signified America/decadent Western Culture was ready to collapse.
I am far from the view that Western culture is ready to collapse; it is under siege by decadent leftists, pagans, and jihadis, though it has the resources and the growing will to stand up to and defeat these challenges. WorldMagBlog is one of the places involved in this fight. That is undoubtedly why the gay militants come on to this site foolishly attempting to undermine its Christian will. Fortunately, the majority of bloggers here are onto your game.
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David L.,
Huh? People speak of “defending” traditional, heterosexual marriage. Yet you admit that that isn’t the primary reason why we pass amendments to “defend” traditional marriage. That’s why I’m so dissatisfied with the idea– actual marriages won’t really be helped.
I mentioned the enormous impact that pornography, adultery and fornication have had because I think they’re far more deadly to actual marriages and I think the church ought to deal with them (especially in its own ranks) before they start attacking gay marriage in the public square. fornication is certainly accepted as “normal” and “no big deal,” but you don’t see us trying to ban it. There are all sorts of sinful attitudes that our sinful culture accepts as normal, but our response to those is preaching, teaching, loving, witnessing, etc. and not through political action.
You mention that the fight against “the public acceptance of homosexuality is a Gospel project, because it raises issues of sin, righteousness and judgement.”
Tell me, do you know any homosexual who said, “Because people opposed me politically and condemned me from the other side of town, I’m going to take them seriously about spiritual matters”? Do you think any homosexual in America who reads doesn’t know already that a good majority of Christians think that their behavior is sinful? Do you know anyone who, because of public, politicized discourse on homosexuality, has decided to become a Christian?
Ask yourself: has your opinion on a spiritual matter changed because of political opposition? If not, why would you expect it to be any different?
Gospel-centered preaching, teaching, Bible study, evangelism, relationships, mercy ministry, and missions are far more effective means for raising issues of sin, judgment, and righteousness. We should call people to repentance (as often as possible, as even we Christians must constantly repent!), but I don’t think that we should do so in a political context unless the law or lack thereof is directly hurting someone. In fact, we have no example in the Bible (outside of a theonomic context, and that was within God’s covenant community) of God’s people using political discourse to call people to repentance.
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Peter L.
Whatever dude. Say hi to your married gay neighbors for me.
In any event, this is what I was referring to when I discussed gays as “model minorities” (not unlike Jews and Asians). The following is from an op ed article that got this woman fired (a human resources administrator at a college who wrote an anti-gay op ed). Note I’m suspicious of figures the religious right promotes about gays; they often cite whatever it is that fits the point they are trying to make and have cited the notorious fraudulent Paul Cameron lifespan figures. But I digress. Here is what conservative Christian Crystal Dixon wrote:
Economic data is irrefutable: The normative statistics for a homosexual in the USA include a Bachelor’s degree: For gay men, the median household income is $83,000/yr. (Gay singles $62,000; gay couples living together $130,000), almost 80% above the median U.S. household income of $46,326, per census data. For lesbians, the median household income is $80,000/yr. (Lesbian singles $52,000; Lesbian couples living together $96,000); 36% of lesbians reported household incomes in excess of $100,000/yr. Compare that to the median income of the non-college educated Black male of $30,539. The data speaks for itself.
You can more about it at the Volokh Conspiracy.
http://tinyurl.com/5jbuca
But the question I might have is if gays are “almost 80% above the median U.S. household income of $46,326, per census data,” what they heck are they doing to be so successful and productive? My own opinion is the figures are an exaggeration, but there is a kernel of truth there, that gays probably are more productive, make more money, have better education, etc. This is the exact opposite of “bad for civilization.”
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MLTSW, you make a fundamental error in your thinking by separating Evangelical religion from political reality. The greatest of Evangelical thinkers, Jonathan Edwards, was well aware in Northampton Massachusetts that the modern political realities had a profound effect on people of all ages and that serious Christians avoided these realities at their peril. You may be a bright medical student, though you have a lot to learn about the crucial nexus between religious and political life.
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. . . pagan sexual sin . . .
Well, it’s no worse than Christian sexual sin, and if it makes you richer, why not?
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The greatest of Evangelical thinkers, Jonathan Edwards, was well aware in Northampton Massachusetts that the modern political realities had a profound effect on people of all ages and that serious Christians avoided these realities at their peril.
I can accept certain notions of Hell like annihilation, temporary punishment or being excluded from the perfect happiness of God’s presence for some kind of imperfect eternal happiness separate from God, with all of your fellow unsaved loved ones and historical figures.
However, I’ve read Edwards’ views on Hell and the man was one sick pup; if anyone is going to be punished for misrepresenting a loving benevolent God, Edwards and the Islamofascist Mullahs will be first in line. Edwards was a sick pervert if ever there were one.
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Peter Leavitt,
I would definitely appreciate a link, quote, or reference on Jonathan Edwards’ thoughts on the subject.
I think I understand the nexus between religious and political life pretty well: as Paul points out, the Law is only good for making people realize how corrupt they are (and even then, only by the influence of the Holy Spirit.) Laws don’t determine the cultural and moral makeup of a nation; they reflect it. If you want to have a culture that brings glory and honor to God, you have to do the hard work of preaching, teaching, evangelism, and counter-cultural living. Passing a law is the easy way out and it’s not particularly effective if the culture is rotten.
Christians must participate in political realms just as much as in other spheres; but to elevate political power as the preeminent means of cultural change is foolish and unbiblical.
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Scroop Moth,
Don’t pay any attention to anything Auden said or wrote at the end of his life. Early Auden was different, a homosexual poet, rather than a self-loathing poet who was a homosexual.
What’s your basis for deciding which stage of his life is more valid regarding his writings, etc.?
Or is it just that his earlier opinions suit your purposes better?
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JonRowe, no one of any seriousness can read Jonathan Edwards and conclude that he is “one sick pup.” George Marsden, his Yale biographer, and Robert Jenson, a Lutheran professor of theology at Princeton, regard Edwards as America’s greatest theologian and among the best American philosophers.
One notes that whether it’s Jeffrey Satinover or Jonathan Edwards, two excellent thinkers, when you can’t defeat their arguments you smear them with argumentum ad hominem trash. My guess is that you either read or heard of his sermon at Enfield, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God and, unable to handle serious theology, decided that he must be a bad guy. The shallowness of your knowledge of American history is always amusing.
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Jon Rowe: I dunno. Human beings are first-most and essentially spiritual beings, in my opinion. In other words, the part we phyically observe of each other is only like a small island sticking out of a gigantic ocean, so to speak. That small island encompasses all our physical appetites, sexual and otherwise, our physical desires, etc. But the real human creature is almost infinitely more than that – he or she has roots – and destinations and drivers in eternity – and in Absolutes of Good and Evil which actually define the meaning and warp and woof of our existence, no matter how much we deny it.
Western – world – culture has devolved largely to the denial of all existence but that of the small island – resulting in the single-minded pursuit of the mindless satisfaction of our physical appetites and the uninhibited scratching of our various itches.
This is a larger problem than just materialism – it is a wasting spiritual desolation. The throwing off of sexual mores and restraints (in terms of calling our own shots, so to speak, and pronouncing it good) is in fact only one weak venal indication of a much larger spiritual disease.
There are unquiet rumblings occassionally that this, for some reason, is not quite sufficient to sustain human happiness; but largely ignored – and reviled.
The question is how long that can go on before a culture implodes – especially when simultaneously under external attack from truly hostile idealogies that are rooted in spiritual Evil and Darkness.
Oh, I don’t think that the collapse, or implosion, or shattering will necessarily be instantaneous – but the trend will be – is – accelerative, I am convinced.
But then I am probably being too optimistic and cheerful here. There is no reason to be so rosy about things.
I should probably need to take a grimmer view of things, I am sure you would agree.
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Peter,
I made no ad hominen attack on Satinover. He peddled Paul Cameron’s proven debunked fraudulent gay lifespan data and I called him on it. Case closed.
Re Edwards, yes, let’s by all means start quoting from “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and see if any evangelicals here can defend such twisted sentiments on the nature of Hell.
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MLTW, to understand Jonathan Edwards there is no short cut. You need to read at least one or two of his volumes of theology with a background, perhaps, of George Marsden’s biography. Edwards is a dense and profound thinker with whom one can’t take shortcuts. Though he lived in the early Eighteenth century, he understood both the modern thinkers of the mainly Scottish Enlightenment and the the classic Christian theologians including Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin. He himself is regarded by many theologians as being in the same league with the best of Christian thinkers.
If I may say so, you are trying to avoid the serious moral issue of homosexuality and other contemporary issues by trying to make peace with the hard-edged secularists through isolating religion from politics. A fellow named Chamberlain once did the same in Britain after betraying Czechoslovakia and announcing “peace in our time.”
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Drill,
It’s true that many/most past civilizations have collapsed. One thing that makes our different is the technology/scientific dynamic. But Rome, certainly before it became “Christian” flourished in what you would regard as “spiritual darkness” for hundreds of years, much longer than the United States had existed. And indeed, America’s Founders turned to this period of “noble paganism” of republican Rome when they adopted the surname “Publius” and articulated American Founding principles. George Washington’s hero “Cato the Younger” was a noble pagan who committed suicide as a matter of principle.
I just don’t “see it” that we need to uniformly abide by principles of orthodox biblical Christinianity or everything is going to fall apart, or as you might put it “go to Hell in a handbasket.”
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MLTW, on second thought as a busy medical student it would probably not be wise to get involved in the thickets of Edwards theology. Probably the best book on homosexuality for physicians as well as general readers is Jeffrey Satinover’s Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth. Satinover is an MIT annd Harvard educated psychiatrist and psychoanalyst with an interest in both science and religion. He was the William James Lecturer on Psychology and Religion at Harvard.
Satinover understands the lethal physical and spiritual aspects of homosexual behavior as well as the etiology of this behavior. He worked for over twenty years as a therapist with homosexual people and has great compassion for them.
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You might also want to check out Satinover’s book endorsing the nonsensical “Bible Codes.”
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Peter Leavitt,
I’m already reading “The Religious Affections” by Edwards right now and I seem to be tracking with it okay now. Which book would you recommend reading next to get a better understanding of his views on political engagement and the State?
It’s interesting that you mention Augustine. In City of God, he emphasized the passing nature of the “City of Man” and the need for Christians to live as the “City of God”– being, as it were, a “city within the city” as a counter-cultural witness. We must not put too great a premium on the power and glory of the City of Man.
You mention that I am trying to “make peace with the hard-edged secularists through isolating religion from politics.” If you read my first comment, you would see that I have no trouble with religion influencing politics– I strongly believe that religious and moral views on the sanctity of human life ought to shape abortion policy. I simply do not think that the battle over gay marriage is nearly anywhere as important as the battle for the lives of preborn babies, especially considering that most of the threats to marriage (pornography, adultery, fornication, etc.) need to be dealt with on a moral and spiritual level. Furthermore, I am perfectly willing to recognize and deal with homosexual behavior and homosexual marriage like any other sin that only hurts the person committing it– through prayer, evangelism, and vigorous expositional preaching & teaching of God’s Word.
Unless you think that it is the role of the state to defend Christ and enforce all of His moral law (and if you do believe that, we can discuss that further), then I don’t see why gay marriage in and of itself is worth fighting over when, as I’ve pointed out to David L., that an amendment or law “defending” traditional marriage would actually do just about nothing to “defend” any actual traditional marriages.
Careful with the Chamberlain analogy, you’re getting awfully close to fulfilling Godwin’s Law. ; )
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#1 pretty much exactly matches my views.
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MLTW, Edwards best works in my view are Freedim of the Will and Original Sin. Bear in mind that these were preliminary works before a magnum opus of systematic theology that unfortunately didn’t get written due to a deathly reaction to a small pox vaccine.
While the state can’t enforce the moral law, it can’t stand idly by and allow the assorted depredations of the Sexual Revolution. Traditionally and rightly the states had laws against fornication, bestiality, bigamy, incest, and homosexuality, though the wiser states were circumspect about enforcing these laws given the fallen nature of man. On the issue of marriage it is in the interests of children to ideally have the complementary benefits of both a mother and father. The fact that the sexual revolution has resulted in increased adultery and divorce rates doesn’t allow any basis for changing this.
I’m well aware of Godwin’s law, just as I am of the tendency of young evangelicals to avoid the hard issues raised by militant homosexuals by saying a pox on politics; let us do our own thing in the fastnesses of our churches. If you read Edwards and Satinover carefully, you will see the futility of this view.
Augustine in the City of God correctly distinguished between the secular state and the holy church, though he far from argued a simplistic separation between them. He certainly would have been appalled at any marriage law in North Africa that gave sanction to homosexual marriage or behavior.
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Or is it just that his earlier opinions suit your purposes better?
This is the problem of recantation and conversion. How do we assess the meaning and influence of someone who presents self-contradiction? Are we bound by a writer’s or a composer’s last revisions and thoughts, or can we disagree with the artist’s self-evaluation?
There are no rules. People like “restored” editions of Faulkner, but not of Robert Penn Warren. Most readers prefer Auden I unmolested by Auden II.
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Auden, a careful man, would not have recanted a life of homosexuality lightly. One may prefer the earlier Auden, though his final thoughts on homosexual life cannot be slighted.
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Peter #95,
Should we enforce laws against all those sexual sins that you described? If so, why press for silly little “defense of marriage” laws when we could be advocating for a general one banning all sexual activity outside of marriage? You mention the “circumspect” application of said laws with a bit of a callous wink; this makes me think that you’re not really serious about any of them. If you want to make accommodation for man’s sin, be a man about it and don’t just be coy. You have to have it one way or the other; either the state is meant to enforce sexual morality in its totality and it should do so with vigor or it’s meant to do something else.
It has been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result. I’m perfectly alright to let the state “stand idly by and allow the assorted depredations of the Sexual Revolution” to march onwards because all of those past laws that you mentioned did nothing to stop the onslaught of relativistic sexual behavior. If it didn’t work 30 years ago, why would we expect it to work any better now in a country that is even more Biblically illiterate than it used to be? While my understanding of the Bible and idolatry chiefly determines my position on this particular issue, practicality and effectiveness also does– using political power and the arm of the state doesn’t seem to have ever pushed back the tide of sexual sin. Rather, the sinful effects of sinful thoughts permeated a sinful culture, and the government’s laws were rolled back over time. Assuming political power and hegemonically enforcing certain moral strictures cannot hold back a cultural shift– see my analogy of the dam and the toxic waste dump in post #40. Rather, the church must live as a counter-cultural “city within the city” and proclaim God’s truth. As long as no one is getting hurt when two homosexuals (or unmarried folks) engage in sinful relations, we have far more important issues to pursue politically, like ending abortion– where real people are actually getting hurt.
You still seem to assume that I desire a “simplistic separation between [church and state]” and, in a roundabout way, accuse me of being hoodwinked by the culture and desiring to withdraw from politics. Far from it! I would much rather that the bride of Christ view politics rightly: as one arena among many in which to boldly proclaim the truth. However, evangelicals in America seem to have been hoodwinked by a culture that looks to political power as the means by which to accomplish the goals of their tribe. They have decided with Constantine that political power is the means by which Christ ought to have His church propagated and His moral law enforced. In doing so, we make His bride into another special-interest group vying for power and jockeying for position with all the others. I believe we have a higher calling and a more difficult mission: to live faithfully to Christ within the culture, boldly proclaiming His truth to a lost world. Is the work of preaching, teaching, evangelism, missions, relationship-building, and mercy ministry (mixed with appropriate political involvement) just not effective enough? Do we need to be able to “whisper right in that President’s ear” for God to be glorified among us?
I’ll get to Freedom of the Will one of these days… working on a bunch of other books first.
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#33
Victoria — learn how to recognize satire and irony. The questionaire you cite has been floating about for years; it simply reworks common questions and comments gay men and women are asked and applies to the straight population.
As for the post;
The acceptance of gay marriage in opposite proportion to age. Somewhere around the age of 40 the yeas and nays meet. As people get older and the old die off, gay marriage will be seen as an accepted alternative. As the sky hasn’t fallen when gays marry, and the idea of personal liberty is still paramount, the nay sayers will lose out.
The abortion question is far more complex and hence the pro-life movement has a greater adherence among different generations.
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MLTW, actually in Edward’s Northampton and in Puritan New England in general both the moral influence of the church and the laws against sexual sin both had real effect, though Edwards was concerned that the political authority in the town was relaxing its standards. The view that churches should ignore the tendency of our culture to define deviancy down both culturally and legally is rather naive. In my view you lack the wisdom and the will to engage in a crucial cultural and legal fight. You rationalize an essentially weak Christian position.
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Peter,
We have no evidence from the NT of any church engaging “in a crucial cultural and legal fight” except for Paul appealing his conviction to Caesar. The Bible’s clearest teaching on the role of the state in relation to the church is to punish evildoers. If it worked in Puritan New England, that’s great, but we live in a different time and enforcing sexual mores on consensual acts by use of law hasn’t been working out too great for the last few decades. We ought to look at how the early Church lived dramatically different lives that shamed the Biblically illiterate culture around them with their faithfulness and radical generosity. If others want to define deviancy down, it’s not our job to make the government stop them (unless they’re directly hurting someone else.) Let them see our good deeds and praise our Father in heaven.
The view that the Church is meant to seize political power and use it to usher in the Kingdom of God is rather naive. In my view, you lack the discernment to view political engagement as one part of our mission here on earth and you do not seem to appreciate the power of God to radically change lives and nations by means other than political power. You make a secondary cause into a “crucial” fight, call us to put our trust in princes, and rationalize an essentially misguided Christian position.
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As a younger Reformed evangelical, I agree with the Harris’s initial post. Younger evangelicals are more interested in pursuing justice than in pursuing right order.
Whether appropriate or not, anti-abortion initiatives are readily recast as initiatives for securing the human rights of the unborn fetus. Thus, younger evangelicals typically oppose abortion because they view it as an injustice to the unborn.
For these justice-oriented younger evangelicals, the victimless nature of gay marriage makes it more acceptable. These younger evangelicals may still oppose bigamy and polygamy because these practices tend to be associated with coercion. But civil marriage between two consenting adults ruffles few feathers among the 30-and-under evangelical crowd.
Younger evangelicals’ conduct and beliefs make perfect sense if one recognizes that they are justice-oriented conservatives and not order-oriented conservatives. Even among the religious in America, these two visions of the good society competed with each other. The New England Puritans tended to prize right order, while the Scots-Irish Presbyterians tended to prize justice. In that sense, the evangelical movement is shifting away from Puritanism toward something that looks more Scots-Irish. It is probably not fair, then, to say that they are more liberal. They are just a different kind of conservative.
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Evan, that’s a fascinating analysis (and I have to say that I’m inclined to agree with it being a Presbyterian of Scots-Irish ancestry, but I’d like to learn more.) Do you have any sources, books, links, etc. to read more about these contrasting visions of society and their historical roots?
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MLTW,
I like the book Albion’s Seed, which chronicles the interactions in the Colonial era by the four dominant groups: New England Puritans, Quakers, low-country Cavaliers, and Scots-Irish Presbyterians. I also like Leyburn’s book on the Scots-Irish.
Regarding my application to younger evangelicals, it is just my observation as a member of an urban PCA church with a lot of young professionals.
I also like Nick Wolterstorff’s new book entitled “Justice.” In the book, Woltertorff provides a Biblical critique of divine command theory, which lies at the center of order-oriented conservatism.
Thanks too for your comment in 101. I view Peter as putting forth a classically Puritan view. But this view rarely prevailed outside of New England, and was expressly rejected in the 1788 revisions to Article XXIII of the Westminster Confession. Therefore, it is implausible to suggest that Edwards’ views prevailed at the time of our nation’s founding. In fact, Colonial-era Reformed churches had largely come to terms with American pluralism, and had re-embraced Calvin’s view of the spirituality of the church. The New England view did not become prominent again until the 1850s with the rise of the abolitionist movement.
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This thread is way too long to read, but I’ll put in my two cents.
I’m another young evangelical. I’m almost obsessively pro-life, but fairly neutral on gay stuff. Simply put, I think gay marriage is a bad idea, but we have bigger fish to fry. (Or rescue, if you want to make that analogy a tad more literal.) See, I think gay marriage is wrong, and that it is and will have some negative effects on society, so I will vote against it when the opportunity comes around. But if it wins, I’m not going to cry about it, because at least it is a (relatively) victimless crime. It may hurt people, but not nearly as badly as abortion does. I’m also pretty sure there’re other so-called victimless crimes that have more negative effect than gay marriage.
Summary:
1) Pro-life. It’s a big deal. Like, holocaust big several times over.
2) Very mildly No-Gay-Marriage. I’ll vote against it, but there are bigger things to fight over.
3) I’m a young (19) evangelical.
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So, Evan, you regard the tenets of the sexual revolution that have given us widespread fornication, adultery, and homosexuality ro be matters of “justice.”
One doubts that the Presbyterian leader, Witherspoon of Princeton, Madison’s teacher, would have approved of the sexual “revolution.” He would well understand the corrosive influence of a corrupt culture on the young people in the churches.
The notion of homosexuality being a victimless activity is absurd. The romantic “gay” view of life overlooks the lethal physical and spiritual effects of homosexual behavior on individuals, to say nothing of the transference of AIDS to heterosexuals in large part due to the activities of bi-sexual people.
Your churches that pursue “justice” have their heads in the sand. I should think that church people would take a close look at the view of Edwards that church authorities ought to take a vital interest in public affairs while keeping the entities legally separate. Your church fastnesses pursuing “justice” are involved in a conflagration of values in the culture and legal environment surrounding them.
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#99
Victoria — learn how to recognize satire and irony.
hrw, do also you stand next to walls telling bricks not to be thick?
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Graceland #22 and #23
Graceland, here is what I mean by putting the toothpaste back in the tube.
As people meet real homosexuals as children, as co-workers, as relatives, as members of our society, they begin to realize they are real people, with the flaws and complications of real people.
This thread Juxtaposes abortion and homosexuality. I think there are problems with the evangelical approach to abortion, but I am not going to deal with them right now. Abortion involves killing. Homosexuality does not.
Evangelicals are split on homosexuals. There are many participants at wmb who just won’t read the “gay” topics. Our society, having come to realize that homosexuals are just people, is gradually coming to terms with its existence. Human society has passed the “tipping” point in this regard.
I’ve said that hostility toward homosexuality is not just like racism, but they have a lot in common. We passed the “tipping point” on racism a while back; the election of a mixed race man as President is a sign of how far we have tipped.
When I was in my twenties, I knew (in Seattle) an evangelical family who were hysterical that their teenage daughter (a perfectly sensible and nice young woman) was dating a black man. I’m sure this drama might be repeated today, but much less often.
Many of evangelicals on wmb who post most frequently and vociferously on wmb (I won’t name screen names today) are problematic personalities, at least as how they reveal themselves in their posting.
I have four siblings. All five of us have problems with our emotional health, but three of us have learned how to cope with our problems well enough that we function as reasonably normal human beings in our families and our society. Two of us have serious problems. One was recently diagnosed as bipolar. One suffers from narcissistic personality disorder (as did our paternal grandmother).
I have read wmb for several years. Over that time, several people have appeared on line who ranted in an extreme fashion about homosexuality. In my opinion, they were emotionally disturbed on the topic.
At least two of those people stopped posting very suddenly. I’m pretty sure they were banned from the web site because they were an embarrassment to the wmb evangelical “family.”
There are at least two people who appear in every homosexuality thread and start ranting. They are like the “Uncle Charley” and “Aunt Maggie” of every family who are allowed to come to the Thanksgiving dinner, but everyone warns the children Now they are a little odd, but they are harmless; we just don’t talk about how they carry on.
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Graceland #22 and #23
Human beings are not very intelligent. We have a great deal of cunning, which most of the time we confuse with clear thinking. I include myself in this labeling. Anybody who wants to tell me I am stupid is welcome to do so. I have a lot of experience at looking at my own ignorance and foolishness.
Science developed fairly late in our culture and provided a way to slightly improve our thinking. For example, it took us a long time to learn to wash our hands when we practice medicine. Millions of mothers and babies died because of our ignorance.
I’ve recently read several articles about how even today doctors are not washing their hands properly and people are continuing to die as a result. If doctors, the people most qualified to understand this issue, cannot be trained and persuaded to reliably follow this procedure, we as a species have serious problems.
As useful as it is, science does not tell us how to be moral, or why to live. Religion has been the traditional answer. Traditional does not mean correct. Widely accepted does not mean correct. I disagree with most of the atheists who participate on wmb because I don’t think they acknowledge atheists’ own problems of ethics. Because most of the religionists do a poor job on ethics does not mean most of the atheists do a good job on the problem.
After several years of reading this web site I am not seeing much that convinces me that religious belief helps people think more clearly. Conservative religious belief is having a resurgence in world society. Christians love to point their fingers at Islamic terrorists and proclaim at least we don’t blow ourselves up in the middle of crowds.
It’s always nice to have someone even crazier than you are so you can point to them as a contrast to you. It’s still pathetic..
I have a sister who suffers from narcissistic personality disorder. She doesn’t murder people or rob banks. She doesn’t act “crazy enough” to get herself locked up. My other sister gives her some money once in a while.
But everybody else in our family knows that she is crazy and has as little to do with her as they possibly can. Gradually, conservative Christians are going to start disassociating themselves from the Christians who are obsessed with homosexuality. This thread is a toe under the door.
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Random,
I enjoyed reading your thoughts. Thanks.
As people meet real homosexuals…
I think this is largely true. I grew up in a conservative Christian home, educated in an evangelical private school. I’ve spent all my life in a conservative PCA church, although we are by no means Bible-thumpers. By the time I went to college, I thought I had a lot of it figured out. Live like Jesus, and vote Republican. Homosexuality was not something I thought about much, because I was never faced with it.
In college, I had a homosexual professor. He was great. Very intelligent, very kind, and VERY gay, if you know what I mean. He was the first homosexual I actually knew (this is the South after all). I was intrigued not only by what he taught (philosophy), but also his homosexual lifestyle. I met with him several times outside of class as he was kind enough to give honest answers to my curious questions. I learned a lot through him.
All this to say, I probably wouldn’t feel the way I do about homosexuals if I had not spent those hours getting to know my professor. I would probably hold homosexuality as some grave sin that is worse than all of mine. I still think homosexuality is sin, but it is no worse than the sin in my life. The greatest commandment is to “love the Lord with all of your heart, soul, and mind.” It just so happens I break that commandment every day.
With all of that said, I think it is perfectly acceptable for a conservative Christian to want to ban same-sex marriage. I don’t, but that’s due to my politics rather than religion. Even if the conservative Christian base continues to fight against same-sex marriage, I hope that it will do so with respect and compassion. Somehow I doubt it, but we’ll see. Evangelicals don’t have the greatest track record of advocating morality with love. Nobody is buying the love.
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Random Name,
Very interesting set of posts. I myself am curious as to why some Christians are so obsessed about homosexuality when there are only a handful of passages in the Bible about it (in fact, there are more about greed, envy, general sexual immorality, denying justice to the poor, etc.) My theory is that when there is a wicked “other” to vilify from a safe distance, Christians can insulate themselves from the Bible’s proclamation that they are just as wicked as those terrible sodomites and thus feel better about themselves. The devil also really likes it, I think, when we make the people that we are supposed to love into bitter political enemies.
My hope and prayer is that Christians will view practicing homosexuals like any other sinner: a fellow image-bearer of God in desperate need of God’s healing grace. I know that that’s not particularly palatable to your spiritual leanings, but that’s how we (should) look at ourselves, too. Hopefully one day the Holy Spirit will use that to work humility within us. We are constantly falling down and failing at what the Bible calls us to, but we look to our perfect Savior and confidently hope that His redemption in us as individuals and us a church will be made complete.
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Peter,
Can you give any support from the Bible (especially the NT) for your “order-oriented” view (as Evan puts it) of the state and the church? Are you a theonomist? It seems to me that your view is strongly influenced by the medieval Catholic position, where the church dominated the state and used civil authority to enforce God’s law as much as it could while the two remained separate entities.
No one here “approves” of the Sexual Revolution or expects that any great church leader would approve of it. But some of us don’t think that civil authority is right way to deal with it. We all agree that church authorities “ought to take a vital interest in public affairs while while keeping the entities legally separate.” We simply think that the issues within public affairs ought to be carefully chosen, and we think that Christians must be careful not to make an idol out of political power that displaces our first love, Christ our Savior.
How is homosexual behavior any more lethal spiritually (or physically) than serial adultery, prostitution, etc.? We acknowledge that those crimes all have victims, but the primary victim is the sinner, and it’s not the job of the state to save people from themselves. That’s the Holy Spirit’s job, and the state does a terrible job when it tries to usurp the Holy Spirit’s role.
“It is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people, in such an effectual manner as that no person be suffered, either upon pretense of religion or of infidelity, to offer any indignity, violence, abuse, or injury to any other person whatsoever: and to take order, that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance.”- from the aforementioned 1788 Revisions to the Westminster Confession.
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it’s not the job of the state to save people from themselves. That’s the Holy Spirit’s job, and the state does a terrible job when it tries to usurp the Holy Spirit’s role.
I thought that needed an Amen.
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For equal time — since Peter Leavitt reproduced Auden’s psychological difficulties with accepting himself as a gay man (shouldn’t be surprising given the context in which he was raised) — I’m going to reproduce some stuff from one Frank Kameny, the godfather of gay rights activism who is still alive and kicking at 83 and has *no regrets whatsover* about his homosexuality.
I am on a private listserv with him. He wrote me the following two emails a little while back and gave me permission to reproduce them. Note: I disagree with his fervent atheism:
Atheism isn’t gay — or anything else — friendly or hostile. All it is is a belief that there is no supernatural. End.
Since about 1940 I have characterized myself as “a good pious atheist”. By this I mean that there is not a shred — not the smallest shred — of valid, credible, persuasive evidence for the existence of anything supernatural or other than material. That is all that atheism is, in my view. So there is no possible connection between atheism and homosexuality, or anything else.
Within the framework of the common Christianity in this country, this means that there are no supernatural beings: God(s), angels, demons, devils, satans, souls; that there are no supernatural events: miracles, resurrections, afterlife; that there are no supernatural places: heaven, hell; AND that when you die you”re dead and it’s over for you permanently.
There is no objective morality. Matters of morality and immorality are ones of personal opinion and individual religious belief, upon which each person may make up his or her own mind and conduct him or herself accordingly in his or her own life, but that alone, but not impose his or her opinion upon disagreeing others (granted, that rises to the level of a moral precept, itself).
As for my saying that “Gay is Godly”, that is part of a rhetorical response to the religious “them” out there who are trying to impose their views upon all of us and may not know of my atheism, as they tell us that gay is bad, ungodly, and immoral and sinful and I respond by saying that Gay is good, godly, moral and virtuous, and American, while they are evil, ungodly, sinful and immoral, irrational to the point of utter lunacy and beyond, and unAmerican and anti-American and that they don’t have a clue as to what America and Americanism are all about (It is always helpful to wrap oneself in the flag) ——- all usually presented in a less cumbersome manner than here.
I also take the position, with them, that our homosexuality is a divinely-inspired gift and blessing, given to us by our true god to be enjoyed to its uttermost, exultantly, exuberantly, and joyously.
That leads, inexorably to the assertion that the god of Leviticus is a false god who is an irrational homophobic bigot and an abomination.
As for “natural law”, whatever that really means — perhaps more about that anon. Most people don’t realize how profoundly and utterly totally unnatural we are from the moment of birth until after death, in absolutely EVERYthing we do. And that acting naturally is certainly not a desideratum. Life would be a misery if we did.
Written somewhat hastily. Maybe more later.
Frank Kameny
Theism can be pro-gay, anti-gay, or anything else. It’s all an imaginary invention, and those inventing it can — and do — make of any particular theism whatever they want.
Some people believe in Grimm’s fairy tales, some in Andersons, some in the Bible, some in the Koran, some in —- whatever. None of it has any reality or is worth spending any time on, or has anything much of use, value, or worth to offer us.
Certainly we should do our own thinking for ourselves and not let our thinking be done for us by intellectually-primitive, culture-bound gurus who lived millennia ago — or more recently in some instances: They keep inventing themselves without cessation and the gullible keep listening to them.
Frank Kameny
You can read more about Kameny here (as a civil rights icon his papers are collected at the Library of Congress):
http://www.kamenypapers.org/
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MLTW, Paul 13:1-5 makes clear that the powers that be are ordained of God and that rulers are not a terror to good works but to evil. It is rather naive for churches to substitute their moral authority for the necessary sword of the state. Americans, especially Protestants, are prone to a syrupy moralism which ignores the requirement of the sword of authority.
In the case of the militant homosexual lobby the liberal Evangelical and mainstream Protestants are putty in their hands. Jon Rowe, who advises Christians to be comfortable in Pagan Rome as mere dissidents, gets off when you and Graceland offer the gays an essentially supine libertarian position. Fortunately there are not a few conservative Evangelicals, Catholics, and Mormons, with the backbone to stand up for their beliefs.
Paul in 13:4-5 ends appropriately with the following:
For he [ruler] is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he he beareth not the sword in vain; for he is a minister of God and thou shalt have praise for the same. Whrefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but, also, for conscience sake.
Stern but good stuff for a morally decadent society
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The above passages are found in Romans.
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Well Mr. Leavitt,
Saints Peter and Paul willfully submitted to the governing authorities of pagan Rome and indeed that’s the crux of Romans 13, Titus iii and other biblical chapters and verses on the matter.
I would suggest Andy Olree, author of “The Choice Principle: The Biblical Case for Legal Toleration” and “an evangelical Christian and an associate professor at Faulkner University’s Jones School of Law,” on the proper understanding of Romans 13.
Quoting from a review of that book in Reason Magazine:
An important part of Olree’s thesis is that you can believe in moral absolutes without legislating morality. Indeed, he argues, God may prefer a legal order in which Christians tolerate sin rather than use the power of the state to stamp it out.
Olree quotes Paul’s description of civil government as “God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid; for the authority does not bear the sword in vain. It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:4). At first blush, this sounds like it would be more compatible with “big government Christianism” than with Olree’s more permissive prescriptions. Except that the specific government Paul described as “God’s servant” was a pagan one that permitted abortion and prostitution while funding forms of idolatry. And if, as Paul says earlier in Romans, “There is no one righteous, not even one,” then what sense does it make to identify a separate class of “wrongdoers” who need to fear civil authority? If all have sinned and none are wholly good, then perhaps government’s purpose is only to punish a specific kind of wrongdoing.
Olree posits that because the Bible teaches individuals not to seek revenge, God needs a “servant” to “execute wrath on the wrongdoer.” He argues that “what is forbidden is individualized vengeance. The first verses of Romans 13 strongly imply collective vengeance through the civil government is not only permissible, but part of God’s plan.” Libertarians may balk at the idea of government having a divine mandate for collective vengeance, but such a mandate is clearly very limited. And it becomes even more limited as Olree continues. “Will any and all otherwise sinful action be sanitized,” he asks, “whenever the government is the actor?” He answers his own question with a resounding no: “In fact, in most contexts of wrongdoing, we should probably assume that the moral nature of an act does not change, no matter who the wrongdoer is.” Olree’s ideal government is at least presumptively bound by the same ethical rules as its subjects.
http://tinyurl.com/657qte
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#107
hrw, do also you stand next to walls telling bricks not to be thick?
I’m just an eternal optimistic that rational thought will overcome eventually.
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Peter,
You throw out Romans 13, but you don’t give any explanation or exegesis to indicate why it has anything to do with sexual morality when, throughout the history of the church, that passage has been mostly understood in terms of Just War and restraining violence or persecution directly against others. There is also no indication in Romans 13 about Christians specifically obtaining, using, or controlling political power, either. Jesus told Peter to put down his sword and you are convinced of the necessity of the church to take it up (at least I think this is what you mean when you speak of the trading moral authority for the “necessary” sword of the state– when we worship the sovereign ruler of the universe, is the measly power of civil authority so necessary?)
And you haven’t responded to any of the other arguments that Graceland and I have put up; you’ve only continued to assert how terrible the militant homosexual lobby is and that it’s so important that we use political power against them. I recognize that you are very well-read and intelligent, but I’m disappointed that you are using bluster and assertion instead of careful Biblical and philosophical reasoning.
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JonRowe, Paul wrote in context of Roman civil authority that allowed prostitution and abortion. We live in context of a profoundly Judeo.Christian influenced civil authority that does not for allow fornication, bestiality, bigamy, incest, homosexuality, et al.
Oltree is right that the Bible doesn’t condone revenge but it does uphold a high standard of moral law that is reflected in black letter statutes.
You at least are honest in advocating a return to morally relativistic paganism; the libertarians are in the hopeless position of advocating both Christian morality and loose personal autonomy.
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Well, MLTW, why wouldn’t homosexuality be included in Paul’s strictures to obey the civil Roman law. He probably would have been aware that sodomy was a capital crime under Roman law, viz the following from the 1986 US Supreme Court decision in Bowers v Hardwick 478 US 186:
Prescriptions against sodomy have very ancient roots. Decisions of individuals relating to homosexual conduct have been subject to state intervention throughout the history of Western civilization. Condemnation of those practices is firmly rooted in Judeao-Christian moral and ethical standards. Homosexual sodomy was a capital crime under Roman law. During the English Reformation when powers of the ecclesiastical courts were transferred to the King’s Courts, the first English statute criminalizing sodomy was passed. Blackstone described “the infamous crime against nature” as an offense of “deeper malignity” than rape, a heinous act “the very mention of which is a disgrace to human nature,” and “a crime not fit to be named.
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HRW — 99
YOU WRITE: “learn how to recognize satire and irony. The questionaire you cite has been floating about for years; it simply reworks common questions and comments gay men and women are asked and applies to the straight population.
The article which you found to be “satire and irony” (33) regarding the ‘Questionnaire’ has been issued throughout schools, parents are not amused. As you fluff off the questions –
The far left has been using, what they believe to be a NEW and IMPROVED ‘agenda’ to combat all disagreement as to homosexuality, transgender, gender identification taught in public schools (K-12) when called ‘on the floor’ such as the article and questions, they shriek “satire and irony” nothing could be further from the truth. In essence its the stupidity of those to the far left, actually believing the ‘improved’ excuse has wings, in essence it’s witless, – the English teacher gave out the questionnaire.
You obviously didn’t read the whole article, or if you did you failed to understand the idiotic reasons the principal and the teacher gave for making it a so called discussion for the next day in class.
So much for “satire and irony” – The teacher must have missed the ‘new and proved’ excuses, think how handy they would have been -
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Thank you to the people who made thoughtful and sensitive replies to my comments.
When I first started posting on worldmagblog, I noticed that many atheists and religious believers most communicated through “flaming each other.” Although in “real life,” I have a bad temper and have a tendency to speak harshly to people who offend and irritated me, I am fairly selective in to whom I speak in that fashion. I rarely blow up at customers. I frequently blow up at bosses. This may have something to do with my having held 17 different jobs during my life.
When communicating on line, I generally control my temper. I have learned to walk away from my computer when need be. I have learned to shape it as sarcasm. I generally don’t post naked flames or insults. I express my disagreement with religious belief and various sorts of prejudice in a fairly calm way, and most people take it that way, except for a few people who are constantly spoiling for a fight or posing as martyrs.
I asked myself, how should religious believers and atheists communicate besides slinging insults at each other? The answer I came up with is make each other uneasy.
The statement seems to be either ignored or misinterpreted among many people here. For some, it means, Random is trying to destroy people’s faith and turn them into atheists.
That is not my intent, though it is a risk anyone who participates on a forum like this faces.
Life is difficult and confusing, whether one is an atheist or a religious believer. Although I don’t think atheism is the essence of Communism, it was part of it, and Communism brought great evil to the world. Any person who considers himself an atheist or a liberal should be uneasy about this historical fact, and consider how he can be true to his values without falling prey to these failings.
That many people chose to have abortions is a disturbing and difficult part of human life. I think any person who supports “Choice” should think very carefully and deeply about this problem.
The issue of what is ethical/moral in a world without “absolute values” should make any secular person uneasy. I get asked this at least once a month on these forums. It’s a fair and difficult question; it’s not as overwhelming and devastating a challenge as many religious believers think it is.
Genocide is a serious phenomenon of human history. It has been practiced as much by religious groups as it has been by secular groups. Religious believers, such as Christians should be uneasy about this. I wrote a series of brief and calm posts summarizing a serious book on the history of genocide. As far as I can tell, four people have read my posts. It could be that my posts were worthless. On the other hand, it could be that many people here are unwilling to examine how and why religion has often been implicated in this terrible phenomenon.
I regard Graceland’s #110 and MenLike’s #111 as examples of Christians doing appropriate “soul searching” on the difficult issue of homosexuality. I don’t get a sense that you are about to “lose your faith” over this issue, nor is it my intent.
I grew up with a casual, unthinking contempt for homosexuality in the 1950 and 1960s. I was never mean to homosexuals (I have a bad temper but I am not a mean person), but I looked down on them (though I didn’t really know any in person). Over time, many experiences and encounters gradually changed my thinking on this topic. By the time my daughter told my wife and I that she was engaged to her female college roommate, it was hardly an issue.
I have a negative reaction to the word “sin,” but there is a use I can abide, when people examine their own behaviors and motivations and seek to be good. When it is simply used as a stick to beat people they don’t like, it quickly strikes me as obnoxious.
It is sometimes used in the thoughtful way I refer to, but frequently it is a word for Christians to hurl at people they disagree with, most frequently on the topic of homosexuality.
As I’ve said, I think “gay marriage” is a stick which Christians and homosexuals beat each other with. I think civil union is the best solution. My daughter and her partner (strangely enough) seem to be satisfied with their own “do-it-yourself” solution:
private legal agreements, my daughter changing her name and adopting her partner’s daughter and having the father sign away his legal rights, and so on. Their is a civil union option now in our state. They have not pursued it.
None of this is perfectly “safe and secure.” My wife and I have a marriage certificate and have been married for 43 years. As we both have bad tempers, the chance always exists that we might kill each other out in our five acres of woods, and our harmonious daughter and daughter-out-law will find coyotes gnawing our bones when they come to visit some day.
They will cover our granddaughter’s eyes and tell her never to get married, whether she swings to girls or boys.
“
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Jon Rowe writes: “The problem I have about hte moral/spiritual abyss idea is that folks like Peter Leavitt have talked about how after the 1960s the changes signified America/decadent Western Culture was ready to collapse. It’s true that increases in crime/out of wedlock births caused problems — problems by the way from which we learned and “live and let live” conservatives like Rudy Guiliani helped enact counteractive reforms.”
Of course Guiliani was a very much a Christian and his conservativism and values were strictly based on his Christianity and the Bible. I first met him at a $ 150 a plate dinner at Shea’s Restaurant in the Sky political fund raising Banquet for Construction Contactors, of which I was one. He announced that he would be running for mayor. He mentioned to us that as a youth growing up in the Catholic Church, he desired to become a Priest. He told us that he is squarely pro-life, but that in running for Mayor of New York against then Mayor Dinkins (which he had not yet announced), that it would hurt his chances of being elected in a liberal town like NYC. He said that since the Mayor of NY has no effectiveness in dealing with the pro-life vs. pro-choice issue, that he would be running as a pro-choice mayor. As a presidential candidate, if elected – Rudy would have a say about abortion and he revealed his pro-life beliefs by asserting he would appoint conservative cinstructionists judges to the bench and Supreme Court
I also met David Dinkins prior to his being elected Mayor. I was the Electrical Contractor renovating the 19th floor of the NYC Municipal Building on behalf of Mayor Dinkins. i had several conversations with him. A very pleasant man in person. However, two years prior to his becoming Mayor, I was told by many people that he was selected by the powers to be in NYC to be the next mayor of NY.
Politics is very predetermined in NYC, at least to Rudy Guiliani came along and upset that apple cart, and he cleaned up NY. I mean he really cleaned up, clearing out most of the smut industry, taking down gangs and the Mafia, getting drug addicts and sellers off the street, driving pornography out of the limelight in NYC. Rudy Guiliani was by no means a live and let live mayor. He drove crime out. As one who worked all over manhatten in the 1980’s and 1990’s, Guiliana really made NYC a cleaner and safer place to live in and visit. Being ‘gay’ is simply not a crime.
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In reading the last three messages, and the apparent hostility toward “tolerance” in Victoria’s message, I can’t help wondering why we shouls “tolerate” the flavor of Christianity on display there.
I am something of a fanatic about free speech. I don’t delete messages from my blog because they disagree with me; I can only envision boring messages if they went on so long and repeated so often become tedious and boring. As it’s my blog, I allow myself to become as tedious and boring as I want.
As I often say, your mileage may vary.
As far as who is tedious and boring on worldmagblog…well, it’s probably a sin. To twist Sartre a bit, Hell may consist of an eternity of reading other people’s blog comments.
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Peter,
Homosexuality, as far as I can tell, was only a capital crime in “Roman times” after the rise of Christendom and Constantine’s decrees (which you seem to be a very big fan of.) Wikipedia points out that the first law against homosexuality in Rome was passed in 390, which is well after Romans 13 was written. It would be very difficult for homosexuality to have been a capital crime if a good number of emperors practiced it. Thus, we can assume that Romans 13 probably doesn’t cover government control of homosexuality.
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Random Name,
You kind of veered off in a weird direction at the end there, but you bring up a lot of good points. Sin isn’t a pretty word, but we have to deal with it one way or another. Christians believe it’s the best way to describe why human beings are so cruel to each other and live in such rebellion against God and nature. It’s a stick, certainly, but rightly understood it will beat us Christians harder than anyone else– for we believe that as the Holy Spirit works more and more in our hearts, the more that we’ll be aware of the horrors of sin in our own hearts and the more that we’ll be forced to turn to Christ for salvation.
There are many understandings of sin; one that I have found is particularly helpful is Kirkegaard’s understanding– Tim Keller explains this view like this:
“Sin isn’t only doing bad things, it is more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Sin is building your life and meaning on anything, even a very good thing, more than on God. Whatever we build our life on will drive us and enslave us. Sin is primarily idolatry. “
When I look at that, I can more easily see the sin in my own heart and root it out– the good things in life (school, relationships, family) were never meant to be ultimate things, but when I make them my ultimate hope and hang my self-worth and validation on them, they become sinful and they drive me from worshiping God, who is over all.
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menliketreeswalking
Let’s look at the definition of sin and idolatry – Sin is not just idol worship – sin has many paths. What it most definitely is – anything that GOD has told us in HIS Word is sin/sinful, that covers many things. To make such a trite statement that “sin is primarily idolatry, is to exclude many sins which, if one continues leads to eternal hell.
sin - definition
Deliberate disobedience to the known will of God.
A condition of estrangement from God resulting from such disobedience.
Something regarded as being shameful, deplorable, or utterly wrong.
Idolatry – definition
idol worship: the worship of idols or false gods
extreme admiration: excessive admiration or love shown for somebody or something
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Why all this focus on sin? There is nothing to gain thinking about sin. Especially other peoples sins.
Are we Christians unaware that God gave Moses The Law, not to eliminate sin, but so that sin may increase among us. For though the Mosaic Law was good in what is asked of us, it was totally worthless in regards to saving anyone from the curses to be received by all who signed on to that written contract, The Mosaic Law. For if you constantly keep telling a child not to put beans in his ears, guess what happens, he puts beans in his ears. So the Mosaic Law likewise caused sin to increase. It is like riding a motorcycle (for kids) or a bicycle: where you look is where you go.
Jesus kept the Mosaic Law on our behalf, and the path to growth, maturity, and salvation is that daily walk we have with God and the fellowship we have with God via the indwelling Holy Spirit.
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Tyrus888,
The reason that I brought up sin was because Random Name was musing on it. Many Christians, Tim Keller surmises, don’t feel as much joy in their walk (a) because of hidden sins that drag them down and (b) because they don’t appreciate how much Christ did for them on the cross. Talking about sin (especially in more expansive ways like the discussion above on idolatry) helps people uncover sin in their life and repent (a), and helps them to treasure Christ more (b).
If you talk about sin in the sense of “this is bad, that is bad, knock it off” kind of way– I totally agree, it’s going to be spiritually counterproductive in the end. However, if you talk about sin in a way that points people to their good, gracious Savior (like Keller does, especially in his “Faces of Sin” series), I think that talking about sin can be very good and helpful.
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Victoria, you have clearly misunderstood one of my posts again and I can’t tell if you even read the entire paragraph I posted, much less the article I linked to. I’m not going to respond beyond that.
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Tyrus888
YOU WRITE: “Why all this focus on sin? There is nothing to gain thinking about sin. Especially other peoples sins.”
WRONG – when others sinful lifestyles impact the children of this country, our public schools – there is no time to waste becoming politically active against s-SEX-m – bringing sinful practices into the classroom (K-12) to discuss gender identification, etc., then to top it off, adding that our children need to learn “tolerance” – tolerance of sin is not an option for Christian Believers – loving others has nothing to do with tolerating their sin –
Those who are homosexuals teaching in our public schools have every right to live that lifestyle, but they don’t have a right to teach such things to kids, that’s not their right – s-SEX-m incorporates a right, if it becomes law, to bring this sinful practice into the classroom.
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menliketreeswalking
YOU WRITE: “Victoria, you have clearly misunderstood one of my posts again and I can’t tell if you even read the entire paragraph I posted, much less the article I linked to. I’m not going to respond beyond that.”
I clearly understand what you wrote. The blurb from the article – it doesn’t come close to being accurate regarding sin being primarily idolatry
You have problems when I don’t agree with you saying “you have clearly misunderstood one of my posts again” – that menliketreeswalking is your excuse for not being able to accept the fact that I don’t agree with you, using definitions of words, which the individual writing the piece misunderstands, but you as well. That’s an old immature trick which goes something like “if you don’t agree with me, or find something wrong with what I post, you misunderstand” -
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Indeed, the worst sin is spiritual sin including idolatry and spiritual pride. However, a close reading of Paul reveals that his objection to unnatural sodomy was that it led to the idolatry of unnatural sexual pleasure and away from God and Christ. Paul in Romans I 22-27 puts it this way:
…Therefore God gave them over to the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped created things rather than the Creator. Because of this God gave them over to shameful lust. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves due penalty for their perversion.
The ones truly obsessed with homosexuality are the militant gays who stridently push for the acceptance of their perverse lifestyle. Conservative Christians and Jews are merely reacting on grounds of Biblical principle and reason to this movement. Though at present the hard-edged secular liberals have succeeded to some extent in branding opponents of the gay agenda as politically incorrect, this can and will change over time. Meanwhile, Christian and Jewish conservatives shall not back down on this issue, protestations of religious skeptics notwithstanding
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I don’t even know where to begin to get on the same page.
There is no evidence that I know of that humans have an ineffable spirit we call a soul. There is no evidence that humans live after death. The whole idea is quite incoherent.
Humans are appalled that we die. Humans are appalled that the wicked and cruel often prosper and the good and innocent often suffer. Little children say, “It’s not fair,” about any little frustration. Adults construct religions where we live forever and the good are rewarded (thought we can’t really imagine what that “reward” would be like) and the bad are punished eternally (though the idea is obscene for even the worst of humans).
There was no Garden of Eden. Humans did not start with one man and one woman who popped into existence able to speak and who sinned out of their “free will” so all humans would be punished.
It’s called a myth. I don’t say this to insult anybody who just posted. We just don’t agree. Sixty billion words of theological logic chopping about the meaning of “sin,” or what Paul said doesn’t make it true.
There are evil secular people and there are good secular people. There are evil religious people and good religious people.
It’s like basic geometry where you have axioms and postulates, only sixty million times more difficult to parse and “prove” your theorems.
#131: what I said earlier about thick and brick.
Evil secular people say, I only have one life. Why not do whatever I want? (Murder, rape, become a dictator.)
Good secular people say, we only have one life. Let’s make the best of it we can. (Cure diseases, bring peace, save lives, be kind to each other.)
Religious people have their own variations on this.
Nobody is purely good or evil. We all make mistakes. We all do things we should not.
The religious are not all going to convert all the atheists. The atheists are not going to “enlighten” all the religious. We have to learn to live with each other.
Atheism is a dry diet, so most humans become religious believers. The classic religions have lost their flavor on the bed post overnight. Some people have tried to invent modern religions, some nutty (Mormonism, Scientology), some insipid (Unitarianism, “Ethical Culture”). The old ones have more lasting power. They didn’t make the world a very good place in the past and they’re not doing that great a job today.
People want something to believe in, something to give them a reason to live, a purpose in life, a guide to how to live.
We all struggle with this. This web site is an interesting one and there are some attractive people here (spirtually) who are quite intermingled with some very unattractive people.
I am (for whatever reason) a dessicated non-believer. I think the best we can do is make this world a little better place, with a little more peace and a little less suffering. If the Christians here only talked about prayer and God and being Saved, it would not be very interesting and I would soon be gone.
However, the Christians feel they need to constantly meddle in economics and politics and everyday life. They do quite a bit of good, but also quite a bit of harm, and some of the people here applaud and encourage the harmful bits.
That’s a downright sin.
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Let’s look at the definition of sin and idolatry – Sin is not just idol worship – sin has many paths. What it most definitely is – anything that GOD has told us in HIS Word is sin/sinful, that covers many things. To make such a trite statement that “sin is primarily idolatry, is to exclude many sins which, if one continues leads to eternal hell.
sin – definition
Deliberate disobedience to the known will of God.
A condition of estrangement from God resulting from such disobedience.
Something regarded as being shameful, deplorable, or utterly wrong.
Idolatry – definition
idol worship: the worship of idols or false gods
extreme admiration: excessive admiration or love shown for somebody or something
The ones truly obsessed with homosexuality are the militant gays who stridently push for the acceptance of their perverse lifestyle.
I am far from the view that Western culture is ready to collapse; it is under siege by decadent leftists, pagans, and jihadis, though it has the resources and the growing will to stand up to and defeat these challenges. WorldMagBlog is one of the places involved in this fight. That is undoubtedly why the gay militants come on to this site foolishly attempting to undermine its Christian will. Fortunately, the majority of bloggers here are onto your game.
Edwards’s preaching became unpopular. For four years, no candidate presented himself for admission to the church, and when one did, in 1748, he was met with Edwards’s formal but mild and gentle tests, as expressed in the Distinguishing Marks and later in Qualifications for Full Communion (1749). The candidate refused to submit to them, the church backed him, and the break between the church and Edwards was complete.
In the old days, people wandered off and started their own churches. Today, it’s easy enough to wander off and start one’s own blog. One can always post little enticements here and invite those who feel you have a line to the right stuff to come over to your place, where you can praise each other and applaud each other.
There are some people here who are willing to engage in a discussion of differing points of view, and at least try to understand those who think differently, and perhaps come to a little bit of understanding. There are those who only want to preach and only want to hear echoes.
I’m not sure they all belong in the same building.
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Random Name your prolix meanderings are beside the point on a Christian blogsite. Go away. Whom do think you are to pontificate that “they don’t belong in the same building.” Deliver us.
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Random Name your prolix meanderings are beside the point on a Christian blogsite. Go away. Whom do think you are to pontificate that “they don’t belong in the same building.” Deliver us.
As with llama’s message to me, those who agree with such comments will be happy to see them twice, and those who don’t will suffer them twice.
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Peter – 137
Wouldn’t that be a blessed relief!
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Yes Victoria, you are right to oppose school administrations that have taken upon themselves to authoritatively teach children a value system of their own making as to what is sin and what is not sin. Even more so when they hide what they teach from the parents. Even worse is when the school allows medical treatment on children without the parents knowledge, speaking of abortion and sexual counseling in particular.
And any Christian parent that surrenders their child to a value system that is in opposition to God’s plan is a fool who endangers the welfare of their own children. For God’s plan for all is the gift of eternal life, and the good life given most abundantly.
I too am opposed to same sex marriage. For marriage is not a union created by any human or government, it was ordained by God.
Matt 19:4-6 Jesus, speaking in opposition of divorce:
“Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” NASU
When our country was founded, it was a very Christian nation and the government naturally accomodated the Christian culture and the Biblical institution of mariage.
Today, this fact is no longer true, we now have large sectors of the population who are gay, atheist etc. Our government have accomodated gays by offering them civil unions that confer all the legal rights to gays that have been rendered by the government upon the ‘Biblical Marriage’. I’m all for older wealthy gays taking full financial responsibility for young gays they seduce. Gays have money, let them share the wealth with their partners.
But marriage is of Biblically origins. And this ancient institution is not just about sex, it is abut the natural family: Children being raised by the parents that bore them. At several points of growing up, there will occur periods of bonding between father and son, father and daughter, mother and son, and mother and daughter that are vital for the overall healthy maturation of the children over time. This will work fine with adopted children also. But it is important that each child bonds both with a same sex parent and an opposite sex parent at several separate time periods during their maturation to adulthood.
Victoria, please note how I shared my views without using the word’sin’. It is best to provide specific reasons for why you believe something to be true than give a blanket answer like ‘it is a sin’. We all sin. Are your sins okay, but not theirs. No one gets into heaven by not sinning, but by the grace and mercy of God through Jesus Christ
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Actually, I will comment. I went away for six months. Peter Leavitt said, “He won’t.” I did.
When I came back, I saw Peter saying the same thing to other posters who are not Christians using words and labels such as “trolls” to describe people who participate here who are not conservative Christians.
I think quite a few people who post here are not very introspective or self-aware. For Christians who are unhappy in dealing or communicating with secular people who express sharp disagreement, there are other web discussion sites. Peter mentioned one once–I forget the name. Recently, Outcast mentioned that he was leaving wmb and going to Conversant Life. I looked at that web site and set up an account there; the atmosphere seems rather different.
In any case, for all Peter claims to want to have a web site without the voices of secular people, I find that claim difficult to believe. I suggest that Peter’s posting is in large part motivated by arguing against and criticizing people who do not share his somber, negative, and hostile view of Christian Belief.
In any case, worldmagblog, particularly Lynn Vincent, whom I take as the person who oversees this forum, have stated at various times that they welcome participation from a variety of points of view.
[Note–I am not sure about Lynn’s role in this. I just looked at World’s description of her role:
Lynn Vincent | Lynn serves as WORLD’s features editor and has co-authored several non-fiction books, including the bestseller Same Kind of Different As Me. Lynn lives in San Diego with her husband and two sons
In any case, Peter’s quarrel about who participates here and and should be permitted to participate here is really with the management of World Magazine.
Peter is welcome to tell me to “Go Away” twenty times a day if he pleases. I support freedom of speech quite strongly, and as far as I am concerned, that includes freedom to insult people. As I’ve said many times, posting forum messages is not the same as striking people, and striking people in person seldom causes them to change their minds and hearts.
Peter can tell me and other secular people to “go away” as many times as he wants. I will help him by copying and reposting his comments to me. I asked not long ago who World wants to represent the “face” of conservative Christianity to the world.
Perhaps Peter is nominating himself for the position.
Peter, can you state why you participate here? I doubt you can.
I am not likely to become a Christian. I have often stated the reasons why. I do find it stimulating and interesting to converse with Christians. I have often stated why.
I realize that many Christians feel a strong motivation for interacting with non-Christians is to convert them and bring them to Christ. Certainly people are converted all the time. I have never seen it happen in an on line forum. But it may happen.
I think the messages of Peter Leavitt are not likely to convert many people to Christianity.
I doubt that many people here would really want to have people who would be attracted by him to join their church.
I could be wrong about this.
In any case, I think Peter’s real quarrel is with Lynn and the management of World Magazine, and I suggest he address himself directly to them instead of trying to use me and other secular participants as proxies.
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T888: We all sin. Are your sins okay, but not theirs.
The difference is that serious Christians sincerely repent and ask forgiveness for their sins and try not to repeat them, while adherents of the sexual “revolution” make a virtue of their sins. No devout Christian would say that any sin is OK.
Your view that Are we Christians unaware that God gave Moses The Law, not to eliminate sin, but so that sin may increase among us. is absurd on its face.
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#122 Victoria
The survey you have cited forces students to realize the questions frequently asked of homosexuals is nonsensical by reversing the onus of explanation.
Its a legitimate question to ask why is it in English class, however, I can think of a few reasons. It appears the teacher is discussing “tolerance” which is a theme prevalent in minority writing in the modern era. The survey can also be used to teach the idea of bias, question skills and perspective.
Personally I would think it more appropriate in health class where I do encounter the opportunity to discuss the issues raised by these questions. Frequently I’ve been asked in and out of health class why would anyone want to be gay — I reply with the question why would anyone want to be straight. From this point, we might have an interesting conversation on the nature of sexual orientation and tolerance.
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Tyrus888 – 140
I don’t know how long you’ve been on this blog, but I have been here for some time – I have posted many passages of Scripture on sin, the results of continued, purposeful sin after repentance and Salvation, and returning to sin. You appear to be preaching to the choir, however well meaning you might be.
YOU WRITE: “Victoria, please note how I shared my views without using the word’sin’. It is best to provide specific reasons for why you believe something to be true than give a blanket answer like ‘it is a sin’.
Tyrus888 – that is exactly what I did in post 133
You posted (#129)
“Why all this focus on sin? There is nothing to gain thinking about sin. Especially other peoples sins.”
I answered you in post #133, you did mention sin in post #129 – three (3) times – check out your post. I posted my beliefs just as you do – homosexuality is a sin which is done deliberately – have you forgotten that s-SEX-m is one the key points on this thread.
I should have posted more of your post #129 which reads:
What kind of a nutty statement is that? You honestly think GOD gave Moses the law so that: but so that sin may increase among us.”
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HRW – 143
YOU WRITE: “I reply with the question why would anyone want to be straight. From this point, we might have an interesting conversation on the nature of sexual orientation and tolerance.”
As I stated earlier; Believers don’t have to tolerate sinful behavior – we are commanded to love each person, but that does not include their sin. Our children don’t need to be taught a so called “tolerance” gospel by those who believe sinful behavior is normal – homosexual training doesn’t belong in public schools, you can keep it north of the border -
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School holds surprise ‘Gay’ Day for kindergartners
Parents outraged at public elementary’s secretive ‘coming out’ event
October 22, 2008
By Chelsea Schilling
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Some parents are shocked to find their children are learning to be homosexual allies and will participate in “Coming Out Day” at a public elementary school tomorrow – and they claim the school failed to notify parents.
One mother of a kindergartner who attends Faith Ringgold School of Art and Science, a K-8 charter school in Hayward, Calif., said she asked her 5-year-old daughter what she was learning at school.
The little girl replied, “We’re learning to be allies.”
<The mother also said a Gay Straight Alliance club regularly meets in the kindergarten classroom during lunch.
According to a Pacific Justice Institute report, Faith Ringgold opted not to inform the parents of its pro-homosexual activities beforehand. The school is celebrating “Gay and Lesbian History Month” and is in the process of observing “Ally Week,” a pro-”gay” occasion usually geared toward high school students.
The school is scheduled to host discussions about families and has posted fliers on school grounds portraying only homosexuals. According to the report, a “TransAction Gender-Bender Read-Aloud” will take place Nov. 20. Students will listen to traditional stories with “gay” or transgender twists, to include “Jane and the Beanstalk.”
Some parents only recently noticed posters promoting the school’s “Coming Out Day” tomorrow – celebrated 12 days after the national “Coming Out Day” usually observed on Oct. 11. When WND contacted the school to confirm the event, a female representative replied, “Yes, it is scheduled on our calendar.”
When asked if the school made any efforts to inform parents, she refused to answer and said the Hayward Unified School District would have to respond to additional questions. However, the district did not answer its phones or e-mails, and a voicemail recording would not take messages. “Coming Out Day” is not listed on the district’s online school calendar.
?
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Random
Excellent series of posts just a comment;
The answer I came up with is make each other uneasy.
You’ve identified a critical function of conversation (which is a way of describing the activity on this blog) which is to lead us to doubt. When one is infected with absolutism is when one is able to excuse all manners of repression, terror and genocide.
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RandomName, as I’ve said before, I respect WorldMagBlog’s view that this is an open Christian website. My view about religiously skeptical trolls like you has to with the good sense, judgment, and manners of lodging on a website with an evangelical and orthodox point of view.
Personally, I wouldn’t think to go on an agnostic, atheistic, or liberal Christian website to offer my conservative world view, or to smugly look down on these distinct worldviews in the style that you do compounded with your inimitably obtuse and prolix style. You pretend to engage in dialog with Christians, though your corrosive view about the Christian religion and its Holy Bible is obvious. You make your contempt for conservative Christians amply clear.
Llama and I have your number and you know it.
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Tyrus888,
Very interesting opinions on NYC politics. Yes, of course, being gay isn’t a crime nor should it be. And I think your support of civil unions is reasonable though I though your reasoning for them is a bit odd.
You do know that Rudy Guiliani lived with two (obviously very rich) gay guys after his fairly recent divorce in the last decade. I wonder if you were being facetious when you termed him “very much a Christian and his conservativism and values were strictly based on his Christianity and the Bible.” If he did say to you guys what you said he said, sorry, from my perspective this sounds like a politicians lie. Though politically conservative, religiously, he seems to me like a typical Ted Kennedy cafeteria Catholic and has the multiple divorces to prove it.
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As an example of what I suggest in #147 see #145
Victoria,
Homosexual training is not on the curriculum and if it was I would not be qualified but public schools accept people of various backgrounds including some “non-traditional” family units. Schools are places of learning not bullying and repression hence its necessary to teach tolerance of various differences, including matters relating to sexuality and harassment. Homophobic bullying is a form of sexual harassment.
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PETER LEAVITT: .his objection to unnatural sodomy was that it led to the idolatry of unnatural sexual pleasure and away from God and Christ.
You have it backwards, LEAVITT. Paul thought unnatural affections were the result (or the punishment for) idolatry, not the cause of idolatry.
” 22Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
24Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
25Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.”
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Moth
Peter didn’t get anything backwards. You however, stopped at verse 25, here is the part which pertains to homosexuality –
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First of all, after reading through most of the comments on this thread, my hat’s off to Peter Leavitt, Drill, Victoria, and others who have done a fine job holding up what I believe to be the right side of this debate.
I would like to address a couple of the issues raised by the opposition. First, the idea that crafting laws against immoral behavior is an exercise in futility, and second, that, for our society as a whole, homosexuality is basically a harmless behavior.
In #40, MLTW has expressed the first issue in a fairly concise manner. My objection to his view centers on what I believe is a misunderstanding of the biblical concept of law. First, he misstates the conservative view as if we believe that passing a law will defeat sin and make us safe. None of us are that simplistic and to portray us as such is frankly, kind of disingenuous. We realize that sin is the result of a basic defect in human nature (a result of the fall) and that merely saying, “Don’t do that,” by passing a law, even a law with sanctions, is not going to defeat sin. The best a law can do is to discourage and deter it.
So, what then is the purpose of the law from a biblical standpoint? It is to make man aware of sin, of God’s displeasure, and to lead men to Christ, the only solution.
Any genuine Christian must recognize this and understand that a failure to publish the law would result in man never understanding that he was in transgression, that he and God were at odds with one another, and that this was a serious problem that needed a solution or man would die. Publishing the law was not a solution for sin, rather it defined the problem and pointed toward the real solution. But the solution would never be achieved unless the problem is first identified and defined, which is what the law does. For any form of Christian evangelism to be effective, an understanding of the law and its purpose is vital.
Now let’s drop down a notch and consider human government as God’s representative here on earth, for this is what Romans 13 clearly states.
What are the standards upon which that human government is to base its laws? From the biblical point of view, it can be none other than God’s standards. Does that government tell God that it will not pass laws based on His standards because it is futile and because those laws will not defeat sin? That is what MLTW seems to be saying. He may as well go ahead and also criticize God for even publishing the Ten Commandments in the first place; by his reasoning they don’t defeat sin either.
The secondary purpose of the law, as seen in the Rom 13 passage, is to regulate human behavior, by God’s standards, for the good of all. Those laws will never defeat sin but, in this fallen world, they do make life tolerable by keeping sin at bay and allowing us to live in a civilized fashion rather than by the law of the jungle. It is kind of like cutting the grass and pulling weeds, the task is never ending and I must make rules as to how often it is to be done and what weeds are to be controlled. As onerous as the task is, I can’t make it go away by refusing to make the necessary rules/laws. Otherwise, the weeds win and I am soon living in a jungle. The sticking point here is the specific behaviors to be declared unlawful.
Everyone will agree that murder and theft are wrong and that we need laws against them. Why? Most will agree because they see that there is a human victim who is hurt by that behavior. However, the Christian (MLTW, et al) must also understand this: there is another victim for every sin that is committed, God Himself. David went so far as to say to God (about his sins against Bathsheba and Uriah) “Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in you sight…” (Ps 51:4) There is never any victimless sin, even sins that go no further than your own thinking. Besides the individual, God is always the victim. In my opinion, any supposed Christian who argues that some sins only affect the sinner is someone whose understanding of the Bible is so deficient as to bring his Christianity into question.
God has clearly stated that homosexuality is a sin that He absolutely abhors, along with murder, theft, etc. That should be enough for any Christian to likewise oppose it, both within his religion and within society as a whole.
Beyond that, it can also be demonstrated that homosexuality is a harmful behavior to society as a whole. It brought us AIDS that has killed millions and which continues to be the signature disease for the homosexual community. It undermines the basic, God ordained and defined family unit that is the foundation for almost every aspect of our society. The pathetic attempts of homosexuals to redefine the created order and substitute their perversions in its place defies all common sense and the physical realities of sexual differences and family structure. Not only that, but the aggressive pursuit by homosexuals for societal approval brings confusion and sexual chaos to our youngsters and makes them extremely vulnerable to homosexual recruitment and predation. Thus, an entire generation becomes a victim when our society regards this behavior as “normal” and says so by the approving laws we pass. To say that homosexuality is a victimless behavior is absurd to all but the most foolish and/or morally blind among us.
In truth, homosexuality is one of the most degrading and harmful behaviors known to man, both for individuals and for society as a whole. The seventh commandment includes all forms of sexual perversion and it is only for the sake of brevity that all of them are not specifically named in Ex 20 and Deut 5. However, homosexuality is specifically singled out for condemnation, both individually and corporately, in multiple places in both the Old and New Testament over a span of more than 2,000 years. Our Creator God knows what harms individuals, families and societies and He has spoken loudly and clearly on this issue.
Young Christians like you, MLTW, need to reexamine your thinking and get back to the Scriptures for another look. Over 3,000 years of believers have not suddenly become wrong on this issue in just the last 30 or so years. You are not the newly enlightened ones among us—on the contrary, you have been far more molded by this degraded culture around us than you want to acknowledge.
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RandomName, as I’ve said before, I respect WorldMagBlog’s view that this is an open Christian website. My view about religiously skeptical trolls like you has to with the good sense, judgment, and manners of lodging on a website with an evangelical and orthodox point of view.
Please define a “troll.”
Personally, I wouldn’t think to go on an agnostic, atheistic, or liberal Christian website to offer my conservative world view, [why not express your opinion in other places?] or to smugly look down on these distinct worldviews in the style that you do compounded with your inimitably obtuse and prolix style. You pretend to engage in dialog with Christians, though your corrosive view about the Christian religion and its Holy Bible is obvious. [How is disagreement "corrosive"?] You make your contempt for conservative Christians amply clear.
[This is very similar to another person who calls me "condescending." If you lack confidence in your own beliefs and point of view, you will feel condescended to. I disagree with Joel Mark about just about everything, but he doesn't have to pull the you don't belong here because you don't respect us card. ]
Llama and I have your number and you know it.
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Everyone will agree that murder and theft are wrong and that we need laws against them. Why? Most will agree because they see that there is a human victim who is hurt by that behavior. However, the Christian (MLTW, et al) must also understand this: there is another victim for every sin that is committed, God Himself. David went so far as to say to God (about his sins against Bathsheba and Uriah) “Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in you sight…” (Ps 51:4) There is never any victimless sin, even sins that go no further than your own thinking. Besides the individual, God is always the victim. In my opinion, any supposed Christian who argues that some sins only affect the sinner is someone whose understanding of the Bible is so deficient as to bring his Christianity into question.
The notion that Christians should support using government’s Romans 13 power to punish sins that victimize God is a recipe for tyranny. And by the way, God isn’t a “victim” of *any* sin. He is, by definition, all powerful. It’s like shooting bullets at Superman.
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Leavitt,
Somewhere above, you were asked whether you were a theonomist. You did not answer the question. I’d like to hear your answer.
You frequently accuse other Christians of being liberals or secularists when they suggest that the church’s primary mission on earth is spiritual not political. In that sense, many conservative Christians believe in the separation of church and state as a matter of principle. They are not liberals, and they have no secret love of the Sexual Revolution. Instead, we believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is sufficient to provide for the growth of Christ’s church. Of course, we recognize that some political environments are more suitable for for the spread of the gospel than others. Nevertheless, we believe that the power of the resurrected Christ working through His Spirit is all that we need.
Because few people are practical relativists, we are to advocate for public justice and righteousness in terms that common to all men – pagan and Christian alike. In this activity, we conduct ourselves with civility, avoid lies and mischaracterizations, and rely on natural reason (or common grace) to lend support to our arguments.
I acknowledge that you and I disagree. You tend to favor an “experimental Calvinism,” as Puritanism is often called. I believe that classical Calvinism (e.g., as practiced by the Scots in America) offers a more Biblical approach. That doesn’t suggest that we approve of certain social developments that have occurred over the past 30 years. Nevertheless, we trust that the Spirit’s power is sufficient to guard Christ’s church and His covenant children.
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Keep posting here RN. You are civilized voice of reason on this website. And the explicit mission of this site ala Milton calls for open debate.
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#154 Michael Martin,
Thank you, first of all, for being the first person since Kbells to address the issue using thoughtful Biblical reasoning and providing good food for thought. What you say is well worth weighing and considering, and while I still disagree with you, I have to say that I appreciate the thought and time that you put into your post.
My “misstatement” about gov’t intervention in moral affairs keeping us safe may be misrepresenting your views, and I’m sorry for that. However, Peter Leavitt seemed to express very strongly the view that if the church would just take up the reins of civil authority, everything would be hunky-dory. I was opposing him, and I recognize that he probably represents a minority viewpoint.
You and I both know that every sin hurts the sinner, the sovereign Lord of the Universe, and the community in which the sinner lives. Of course there is no truly “victimless” crime, but like you say, we have to draw the line somewhere, and I draw the line at sins that directly hurt another person because, frankly, I don’t think it’s the government’s job to do much else. Of course that our Judeo-Christian morality ought to shape and influence the laws that we make, but it seems to me a foolish distinction that we would cherry-pick homosexuality and leave behind all the other sins that anger the righteous Judge of the universe and justly deserve His wrath.
I also don’t understand why homosexuality specifically ought to be singled out when, as I’ve noted before, there are really only a handful of passages that even mention it, and most of the time it is grouped with other sins that we’d never think of trying to root out with a political law. Most other sins that we can name are mentioned more often and by more writers in the Bible. There is scant textual evidence that homosexuality is any more abhorrent in God’s eyes than pornography, adultery, fornication, etc. 1 Corinthians 6 includes fornicators, drunkards, and the covetous; 1 Timothy 1 includes liars– do you suppose that we ought to have a law against coveting or lying? Surely coveting and lying hurts God deeply, and more often, as far more people covet or lie than engage in acts of homosexual lust. I know that I’ve committed both of those sins, and many people will be harmed by the evil tentacles of covetousness, greed, idolatry, and deception far more than any vague effects that the practice and acceptance homosexuality might ever have. If we vilify homosexuals and pass laws against them, why leave behind all these other wretched sins that nailed our Savior to the cross?
If you want to argue about homosexuality from a public health standpoint, you might as well ban fornication, because that’s spreading plenty of terrible STI’s, too. More so than homosexual intercourse. And it’s hurting God. It’s hurting families. On and on it goes.
My point about the laws being poor stand-ins for the Holy Spirit speaks mostly of the civil law, in a political sense. I strongly think that the major purpose of civil laws is to keep other people from hurting one another and restrain natural evil; anything beyond that is much better handled by the sovereign power of the Holy Spirit! Of course God was right to give the Ten Commandments and teach us His moral law, and I think that we ought to teach and proclaim the moral law– in our churches, not in our police stations.
I went back to the Scriptures for another look, sir, and I saw that the work of the Holy Spirit is the most effective means for dealing with the radical corruption of human hearts and that God has never called His beloved bride in the NT to acquire political power in order to deal with any sexual sin. I believe that it is the Christians like Peter who desire political power as a means of accomplishing the goals of a particular special-interest group who have been molded by the degraded culture– and have been since Constantine.
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God has clearly stated that homosexuality is a sin that He absolutely abhors, along with murder, theft, etc. That should be enough for any Christian to likewise oppose it, both within his religion and within society as a whole.
This is something I don’t “get” about orthodox biblical Christianity. I think we all agree that murder and theft are wrong. The Bible seems utterly unconcerned with chattel slavery (and other seemingly terrible things) but according to MM and other like minded thinkers puts homosexuality up there with murder. And it’s not just homosexuality; I’ve heard Christians note “pride” is up there as the gravest of sins. And of course, look at the First Commandment. If you worship false gods, since that relates to the First (few) Commandments and other parts of the Bible, that’s GOT to be as serious as homosexuality, murder and theft. I think homosexuals are saying, think of us as no different than the Hindus or the Hare Krishnas who not only freely practice their religion in the United States as the Founder Fathers thought they should be able to, but encourage you to explicitly worship their false gods as airports and the like (something else for which the Old Testament demands the death penalty as it does with homosexuality).
We are living in a pluralistic nation/world people. And the gay and lesbian community, like those of other religions, are one of those social groups. That’s something you folks are going to have to learn to live with. And I’m glad the younger generation is learning to do so.
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If you want to argue about homosexuality from a public health standpoint, you might as well ban fornication, because that’s spreading plenty of terrible ST[D]’s, too. More so than homosexual intercourse. And it’s hurting God. It’s hurting families. On and on it goes.
Good point. And I would note a public health standard by no means perfectly matches up with with Michael Martin, Peter Leavitt and the like want. For instance, many what Mr. Leavitt would term “militant gay activists” are adamant about taking precautions for safer sex in the gay community that if “militantly” followed would either end or greatly reduce AIDS and other STDs. Indeed the entire push for gay marriage is to give some kind of social solidification for the committed monogamous relationships that many gays wish to enter into but have a heard time maintaining (as many straights do).
I think the notion that gays can have civil unions that grants EVERY right and responsibility of marriage and if they want to think of themselves as “married,” “partnered,” “garried” or whatever, so be it, is a reasonable compromise.
Finally let me note that from a standpoint of societal destruction, the consequences of irresponsible heterosexual sex, even on a per capita basis are far graver and more expensive than the consequences of irresponsible homosexual sex. I’m speaking of 1) abortions (no gay sex act ever led to an abortion); 2) divorce, and 3) out of wedlock births. The first is as many define it here, murder. And the second two are far far more destructive to the integrity of the family unit than homosexuality.
It seems to me that “pro-life,” “live and let live” on homosexuality is an entirely reasonable standard for conservative evangelicals, Mormons and Catholics to take.
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“What are the standards upon which that human government is to base its laws? From the biblical point of view, it can be none other than God’s standards.” -Michael Martin
This is the key premise of your argument. Moreover, it is a premise that most theologically conservative Protestants reject. I have no problems with your desire to be a theonomist. Nevertheless, I know of few theonomists outside of WMB who suppose that all who disagree with them are weak-kneed liberals.
I would challenge you to read an article by T. David Gordon entitled, “The Insufficiency of Scripture.”
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“What are the standards upon which that human government is to base its laws? From the biblical point of view, it can be none other than God’s standards.”
A good question might be what ARE God’s standards that He wants governments to enforce in Romans 13? The theonomists (ala Rushdoony) are (in my opinion) rightly called “Theocrats” for wanting practically EVERYTHING enforced by the civil law including stoning to death not just homosexuals, but adulterers, sassy children and those who worship false gods.
As I noted in post 117, Andy Olree, author of “The Choice Principle: The Biblical Case for Legal Toleration” Romans 13 was given in the context of Paul encouraging believers to submit to pagan Rome, indeed Nero the pagan Tyrant! This suggest quite a bit of leeway and discussing in regard to what government properly “ought” to do ala Romans 13. One thing that seems not in dispute though is whatever the government, even a pagan tyranny, Christians MUST submit to those powers because they are ordained by God.
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This should have read: This suggest quite a bit of leeway and room for rational discussion in regard to what government properly “ought” to do ala Romans 13.
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I personally think the Holy Spirit guides Random Name’s post.
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So Victoria. What say you? DO you support civil unions that grant the rights of marriage for gays as a compromise? And if not why?
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Jon Rowe wrote:
“Tyrus888,
Very interesting opinions on NYC politics. Yes, of course, being gay isn’t a crime nor should it be. And I think your support of civil unions is reasonable though I though your reasoning for them is a bit odd.
You do know that Rudy Guiliani lived with two (obviously very rich) gay guys after his fairly recent divorce in the last decade. I wonder if you were being facetious when you termed him “very much a Christian and his conservativism and values were strictly based on his Christianity and the Bible.” If he did say to you guys what you said he said, sorry, from my perspective this sounds like a politicians lie. Though politically conservative, religiously, he seems to me like a typical Ted Kennedy cafeteria Catholic and has the multiple divorces to prove it.”
I can’t vouch for the depth of Guiliani’s Christianity, i shared only what I heard back then.
As my reasoning for civil unions. Well, I had a foster son some time ago as a young single man. I had a children from St Agatha’s group home come to my house for a Christmas party and my fellow young adults bought and gave nice presents to each child. The coat I bought for one boy was too large for him and I made arrangements through the group home to exchange his present. Since it was after Christmas, I was able to return the coat and buy it back for half the price, and the rest of the money bought a shirt that he wanted. And he joined me at a dinner out with a female friend of mine. By the time I returned him back to the group home, he told me how I could take him out of the group home for a day every now and then, and as cunning as he was, he talked me into it. After a few times of me taking him out, he told me how I can be his foster father and how tortured he was by the other kids in the group home. The boy was quite an artist and drew excellent pictures, mostly of satan and demonic figures.
In short, I became his foster father, but not before the group home tried to talk me out of it because they felt this Bronx boy was self destructive, dangerous to others, mentally imbalanced, and suicidal. As a Christian, I believed this was a piece of cake.
Manuel was 14 and lived with me for one year. I demonstrated my love for him, my commitment to God and what was right and good, and made him the most important person in th world. Introduced him to new friends at church and let him go away to the country for a week without me. Once he tested me at a bowling alley creating a great disturbance and complaining why he was being dragged to a Bowling alley once a week. I took him to the car and told him that I really like and enjoy bowling with my team in that league, but that I loved him, that he was really important to me, and I abandoned my bowling team and drove him home. After that, he never complained again at being with me when I went bowling. I bought him a hamster, a rabbit, a couple of ferrets. I helped him with his homework, he was very bright. He stopped drawing demons. He joined his classmates in a school contest to draw halloween pictures about town. He drew a very beautiful black on glass of a witch flying with a nice autumnly background, many kids praised his artwork as did the owner of the store. One day a girl in his class kissed him on the cheek and he was all aglow for days.
Then one day he decided to go back to the city to live with his mom in the projects in the Bronx. I wanted him to stay with me, but that was his decision. He quickly became popular with the girls and was threatened and beat up by the guys telling him to stay away from the girls or else. I went to the Bronx and he explained in tears what happened. I was engaged at this time to be married soon and there was not much I could do.
He met a young man on the subway train who turned out to be gay. He was very friendly to manuel, brought him home ands seduced the now 15 year old boy into sex. I found out that he was being given poppers by his new ‘friend’. Then he was introduced to other gays, who had sex with him and they threw money at him. Soon he was being filmed and while having sex with two guys against his will.
I was visiting Manual at his apartment one day. The boy was expecting a call from a well to do business man who wanted to have sex with him that day. I talked to the man on the phone and asked if his interest in Manuel included helping the boy finish High School and go to college, the man said “no” and hung up. Manuel soon after became a prostitute and a drug addict, made a lot of money for a couple of years, spent it all on drugs, then the money dried up as he became old news, sickly, and undesireable to gay men. by this time he hardly knew me at all. He died of aids at the age of 27.
My best friend’s younger brother was seduced in his mid teens. By 18 he fully embraced the gay lifestyle. He got really well paying jobs for awhile, but could never hold on to them for long. He committed suicide in his mid twenties.
Needless to say, I’m no fan of the New York Gay lifestyle.
“All that Glistens is not gold.” W.S.
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Tyrus888 wrote: “Are we Christians unaware that God gave Moses The Law, not to eliminate sin, but so that sin may increase among us.”
Victoria wrote: “What kind of a nutty statement is that? You honestly think GOD gave Moses the law so that: but so that sin may increase among us.”
Yes, I do. this is what scripture clearly tells us.
Rom 5:20-21
The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. NASU
Gal 3:19-22
Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made. Now a mediator is not for one party only; whereas God is only one. Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. NASU
As you can see with your own eyes, The Law was given that sin may increase. That the Law confine everyone under sin. That none of us can be justified by our works, but we are justified by faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross. For Jesus kept the Law on our behalf, that whosoever believe in Him shall have eternal life and life abundantly.
This is the essence of the gospel. Salvation is God’s gift to us. Telling people over and over will never lead them to salvation.
Through Jesus we enter into fellowship with God, and it is God who works in us and transforms our very nature to one that we will do the good God created us to do. He gives us the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, God in me who works in me every good thing. Holiness is the presence of God in us, and not the absence of sin, for even a rock is sinless, yet lifeless.
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Evan: Somewhere above, you were asked whether you were a theonomist. You did not answer the question. I’d like to hear your answer.
I am far from being a theonomist in that I am happily in full accord with the principles of our Constititution including the provision that forbids the establishment of religion as well as the free practice of religion. My family has been active religiously and politically in New England since 1635; not one member has favored anything like Rushdoonian theonomy. In my town beginning in the 1630s the church would routinely adjourn a church meeting and convene a town meeting, being careful to follow the tradition begun in England of separating church from state matters.
I agree with you that the fundamental purpose of any church is spiritual, though not political, though there is an unavoidable nexus bettween politics and religion. Churches that ignore the cultural and political/cultural reality that surround them do so at their spiritual peril. Ask any minister, priest, or rabbi about the about the erious effects that the sexual “revolution” has had on their congregations, especially the young people. My minister deals daily with families and young people who are in crisis due primarily to the appallingly loose sexual mores of modern secular society.
You may trust in the Lord and the Holy spirit to deal with these cultural and legal depredations, though in my view serious Christians meed to stand up to what amounts to an onslaught of pagan secular culture that undermines the Judeo/Christian foundations of Western civilization. One can do this and still hold strongly to the tenets our political democracy and republic.
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MLTW, the reason Christian conservatives oppose the agenda of the gay militants more emphatically than fornication adultery, et al is simply that the folks involved in the latter are not organized politically. I’m not aware of any noisome citizen groups in favor of fornication, adultery, bestiality, etc.
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RandomName, I accept the common definition of a troll as To deliberately post derogatory or inflammatory comments to a community forum, chat room, newsgroup and/or a blog in order to bait other users into responding.
WorldMag and its blog have a basically evangelical and conservative point of view. Any fair reading of World Magazine and its blog would confirm this, though its blog welcomes broad Miltonian style debate. In your case, while your rather subtle about it, you have lodged yourself on this blog in a rather condescending manner to basically beard the conservative Christians and by so doing stir up trouble. That’s why I regard you as a troll.
As said earlier, I wouldn’t think to lodge on a blog with a liberal Christian, gay, or politically conservative basic point of view, not as a matter of right but of good sense, judgment, and manners.
The fact is that the religiously skeptical and politically liberal folk on this blog usually play a game of uproar. I have sometimes despaired of this and thought to be involved only on Gene Veith’s excellent Christian blog that has wide ranging discussion of Christian matters; however, I happen to be a former Marine officer who enjoys a good fight and have decided to hang in here.
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Pardon me. at #170, para. 1, I meant to say “… that forbids the establishment of religion and upholds the free practice of religion.”
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Peter,
You still haven’t addressed the concern I have that political action against sexual sin has pretty much failed for the last 50 years or so, nor have you offered me a Biblical analysis to suggest that sexual sin is covered by Romans 13. Even granted that there’s a “militant” homosexual lobby as you suggest, so what? That sounds to me like you’re letting the world dictate the terms of the struggle and you’re buying into their game. In the end, the other sins that have been discussed will harm more people, and considering that there are 3,000 babies dying every day from abortion, we’ve got bigger fish to fry.
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Tyrus888,
The problem I have with your account of the “New York” gay lifestyle is that it fits a pattern common among conservative evangelicals of only sharing the bad or horror stories and never any of the good stories. I suppose you feel you are just counteracting media bias. But from my end it would sound as though someone trying to portray the “lifestyle” of conservative evangelicals by trotting out Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swagart, Robert Tilton and Jim Baker.
So as long as we are on the topic of Guiliani and gays lets talk about the two gay guys who “put him up” after his divorce. Here is an interview with one of them about their fun time living with Rudy while he was kicked out of the Mayor’s mansion.
http://tinyurl.com/yuc9wx
I’m looking for the exact quote; but I think Rudy said something along the lines of I don’t believe in gay marriage but were it to become legal, I’d perform their wedding.
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MLTW, one doesn’t retire from a carefully held moral position on an issue merely because it has taken a beating over the last fifty years. What’s happened that is that liberal Protestant and Catholic Christians along with reform Jews have caved into secularism and become morally neutral in the guise of being libertarian. Talk to most ministers and priests who most days deal with with the human wreckage among families, especially young people, caused by the appallingly loose sexual mores of our time. The poorest people suffer the most with this.
A reasonable interpretation of the Third Canto of Dante’s Inferno is that the hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality. I regard the depredations of the sexual revolution to be a serious moral crisis in our time.
As to Romans Thirteen, I interpret it to mean that the reason the Roman Christians should submit to the governing authorities and give them their proper due is because the authorities have been appointed by God as attested by conscience and will praise those who do good and inflict punishment on those who do evil The reason Paul commands the Roman Christians to submit to the authorities is because civil authority is among God’s institutions and as such will punish wrongdoers and praise those who do good. Undoubtedly, some of Roman was crude by our standards, though this doesn’t obviate Paul’s points.
This relation of black letter law to religion still remains valid with American law, as Jonathan Edwards well understood.
I, also, agree with Michael Martin’s superb analysis at #154 on this matter.
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PETER LEAVITT: . . . you have lodged yourself on this blog in a rather condescending manner . . .
Good grief. If Peter feels possessively towards WMB he needs to acquire the proper manners of a host. Don’t attack a guest, for example, or project your own faults. WMB has great guests including Random Name who acquiesce in all the rules and let Christians set and change the topics of conversation at whim. Liberals give full attention and indulgence to all the points Christians want to discuss or simply dwell and dwell upon. Peter’s repertoire on the other hand ranges from declaration to contradiction. There’s never any dialect there.
Christians blog with unclean hands, because what they want isn’t open inquiry but affirmation from the like-minded and a triumph of will over liberals. They’re like cooks who want their culinary standards and methods celebrated in the world and therefore invite a table full of food critics to dinner. Instead of being grateful that they all came, tasted, and reacted, the Christians weep like persecuted captives by the waters of Babylon.
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Jon Rowe writes: “The problem I have with your account of the “New York” gay lifestyle is that it fits a pattern common among conservative evangelicals of only sharing the bad or horror stories and never any of the good stories. I suppose you feel you are just counteracting media bias. But from my end it would sound as though someone trying to portray the “lifestyle” of conservative evangelicals by trotting out Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swagart, Robert Tilton and Jim Baker.”
Where is your sense of balance Jon? Haggard, Swagart, Tilton, and Baker were adults who made the decision to do what they did. At that moment of sexual temptation they excersized their choice, and it was a legal choice. As mature adults, they were in control of their situation. And the good life goes on for them well after their politicized exposure by gays and certain political opponents who save such juicy tidbits for the right political moment to enhance their political and social agenda’s.
My former foster son was 15, he was taken advantage of at a very difficult time in his life and was brought into the land of confusion by predators who lusted for young new flesh. They convinced him that he was gay and couldn’t help but let gay men do what they desired with him. They drugged him and got him addicted to drugs. He was placed with a group of young teenage boys who they had convinced that they were hopelessly gay and must yield to any man who they were lucky to get, that “they were born that gay”. When his ’sexual appeal’ died in the eyes of his lovers, they abandoned him and left him desolate. His money dried up. His mom kicked him out because he was stealing everything he could to feed his drug habit. No one wanted him except for one young man who shared the same experience that my foster son went through and he allowed Manuel to stay with him in his last months. They were both isolated from the well to do gay crowd that had fed on them for so many years, and now they were both dying of aids. Hundreds of gay men had sex with him and not even one had any pity on him.
Jon, you’re an intelligent man, perhaps well meaning, but your prized wisdom has rendered you witless on this matter. The NY gay community knows what goes down on their turf.
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Tyrus888,
I’m sorry to hear what happened to your foster son. I do know that men by nature (more so than women whose nature has it to lesser extent) have sexual predation instincts. And indeed post pubescent young adults/teens are the likely targets. However, your tagging the “gay community/lifestyle” whatever with what happened to your son makes about as much sense as blaming men in general for the much worse problem of exploitation of underaged female prostitutes.
There are folks in the gay community who fight mightily to protect gay youth from such predation and exploitation. We should hear more of their stories, which I’ll gladly share on these threads if interested.
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MICHAEL MARTIN’s notion of criminal laws to protect God from victimization is astonishing. As ROWE points out, this line of thinking can only lead to a society in which everybody is required to agree, because even bad thoughts victimize God!
Michael Martin hasn’t thought through his argument about the necessity for law to give notice of what’s wrong. As he recognizes, everybody knows murder, theft, and false witness are wrong. The laws corresponding to these offenses are needed to give notice of the penalties, not to inform people that the behavior is criminal. So why doesn’t everyone know universally that homosexuality is wrong? Why do people disagree over whether we need criminal penalties for homosexual behavior?
I suggest that the only thing that makes homosexuality wrong is the fact that God doesn’t like it. That is enough, of course. Many people don’t like it either, both religious and non-religious. But on our own, most people wouldn’t go so far as to make homosexuality a crime, if God first hadn’t declared it an abomination to Himself. It just doesn’t appear to be in the same category with murder, theft, and false witness. Regardless, the Bible does agree with Michael Martin and others here that homosexual behavior is one of the worst sins there is. I think Paul suggests that homosexuality is the very worst.
We need to be clear that homosexuality is a sin against God’s good taste, and there is no arguing taste. The good news for homosexuals is that God could declare a new dispensation in which homosexuality is not abominable. He’d have a rebellion on His hands if he tried that with murder, but repealing the prohibition against homosexuality could boost his popularity, particularly in certain places, something that God is not oblivious to.
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Let me also address what I see as a “recruitment” canard implicit in Tyrus888’s claim. Most gays don’t believe it’s possible. Though gays are not monolithic in opinion, as I noted to Ree on another thread, just as very few people generally are atheists, materialists, or pomo philosophers, the same can be said of most gays (though I’d imagine a higher % of gays identify as atheists, agnostics, pomos, or whatever). Most gays have “faith” in their narrative (just as you have “faith” in your God) that God made them this way and consequently they are gay from birth as evidenced by a “gay gene.”
Now, the gay gene has not been found and personally I’m skeptical of a gay/gene/birth notion. However, among experts who have studied this issue, and I’m including Dr. Dobson here, there is a consensus that that one’s sexual orientation fixes at a very young age by 3 or 4). The dispute Dobson et al. have is that the orientation can’t be changed and should just be accepted; but they agree that the “developmental” factors that they believe cause homosexuality come into play around 3 or 4 years old.
NO ONE who studied this issue (including the NARTH folks) believes that you can take a 15 year old boy who has a normal heterosexual orientation and “recruit” him into the gay lifestyle (in the sense of planting the “homosexual” orientation) in him. If a 15-year-old teen gets picked up by a young man, has sex, enjoys it and keeps coming back for more then he was gay to begin with and the example is of a gay on gay predation.
Or if there wasn’t much of an age difference between them, then it’s an example of a young teen getting into trouble by hanging out with the wrong crowd, something that happens *all the time* in the non-gay context.
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The following is an example of a great gay role model. The late Charles Whitebread who just recently died at 65 of lung cancer. I didn’t know he was gay when I saw him lecture twice. The first was when he presented his book on how to write law school exams which I saw as a 1L and the second was when he gave the Crim. Law bar review lecture. He was a brilliant performer, excellent example of “edutainer.”
Whitebread was one of the folks to whom I referred when I noted those in the gay community who are fighting to protect at risk gay youth many of whom have been kicked out of their houses by anti-gay parents (whose anti-gay stance often stems from their religious beliefs):
http://tinyurl.com/6olyw3
He did so in part by pledging $100,000 in 1996 to found a drop-in facility at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center in Hollywood that offers life-saving services to homeless and at-risk youths. Eventually, Whitebread donated more than $280,000 to the center and helped raise an additional $230,000, said Jim Key, a spokesman for the Gay and Lesbian Center.
Called the Jeff Griffith Youth Center, it was named for a barely literate 17-year-old runaway whom Whitebread befriended. Griffith died at 32.
The center, which helps 50 to 70 people a day, provides meals, clothing, counseling and other services, Key said.
Wearing his ubiquitous bow tie, Whitebread traveled extensively to present roundups of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions to judges, said George Lefcoe, a USC law professor and good friend of Whitebread.
“He might have been the most popular law lecturer in the country,” Lefcoe said. “In his annual summaries . . . he was like the painless dentist — he would tell the judges what the court was up to without them having to suffer.”
Whitebread also had visited more than 80 law schools to talk about how to succeed in the first year of law school. His advice was rooted in common sense, such as “stay positive” and “focus on the big picture.”
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Tyrus888;
I am sorry for what happened to your former foster son. I hope that in some way you keep in touch with him and help him through.
I’d like you to consider two news stories that surfaced this week.
One, a 17 year old boy in Tracy CA who stumbled into a fitness club wearing only boxer short and shackles. He had managed to escape his captors after being taken in after running away from a foster home.
The other, a wonderful story out of Florida of a humane society worker who enjoyed sex with dogs, and getting 15 year-olds drunk in order to have sex with them while the partner took pictures.
In both of these cases the culprits are straight, LEGALLY married, in HOLY matrimony couples. In the Tracy case, she is a Girl Scout Leader.
Both cases are simarly abhorrent.
But as they cases wind their ways through the halls of justice, at no time will the validity of their marriages be called into question. There will be no ballot propositions stating that if one or both parties in a marriage is involved in such a crime that the marriage will be annulled. It’s rather doubtful that if they were married in a religous setting that the Church is going to be jumping in to detroy their marriage either.
The mother of our adoptive daughters was (and probably still is) a drug-using alcoholic abuser. If however, she decided to marry, there will be celebrations all around. She will not be prevented from doing so, no will she be prevented from having and perhaps destroying further offspring.
On the other hand, my life, my marriage and my family are under legal attack for no other reason than that we have the nerve to exist.
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Peter,
I’m not suggesting retreating from a moral position because it has taken a beating over the last 50 years. I’m suggesting retreating from a political position because it hasn’t worked for the last 50 years. What evidence do we have that after laws failed to hold back the cultural tide of sewage for decades, that all of a sudden they’ll start to work?
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Tyrus; I missed the part of Manual’s suicicde. I’m very sorry.
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MICHAEL MARTIN’s notion of criminal laws to protect God from victimization is astonishing. As ROWE points out, this line of thinking can only lead to a society in which everybody is required to agree, because even bad thoughts victimize God!
Orthodox Christian writers argue both from reason and the Bible that the Creator God structured a universe with moral law, commonly known as right and wrong. Assuming this, then the black letter law should both respect and reflect God’s law. In the West, though this civil law is instituted by state authority distinct from religious authority, traditionally laws, for example about sexual morality and marriage have in fact respected and reflected moral law.
Consequently it shouldn’t be astonishing to anyone that civil law reflects and protects God’s moral law. The idea that the law is purely secular is mistaken. This is certainly true in the fields of sexual morality and marriage. We rely on legislators to pay attention to the moral aspects of the law. Unless, of course, one follows Jon Rowe that we are living in a Pagan society.
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MLTW, re #184, I’m surprised that a follower of Tim Keller would argue from a utilitarian point of view, an anathema to most orthodox Christians.
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Tyrus888 – 169
Below the passage of Scripture which you posted and Matthew Henry’s commentary. It describes much better than I what this passage means.
By Christ and his righteousness, we have more and greater privileges than we lost by the offence of Adam. The moral law showed that many thoughts, tempers, words, and actions, were sinful, thus transgressions were multiplied. Not making sin to abound the more, but discovering the sinfulness of it, even as the letting in a clearer light into a room, discovers the dust and filth which were there before, but were not seen. Matthew Henry Commentary
If that promise was enough for salvation, wherefore then serveth the law? The Israelites, though chosen to be God’s peculiar people, were sinners as well as others. The law was not intended to discover a way of justification, different from that made known by the promise, but to lead men to see their need of the promise, by showing the sinfulness of sin, and to point to Christ, through whom alone they could be pardoned and justified. The promise was given by God himself; the law was given by the ministry of angels, and the hand of a mediator, even Moses. Hence the law could not be designed to set aside the promise. A mediator, as the very term signifies, is a friend that comes between two parties, and is not to act merely with and for one of them. The great design of the law was, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ, might be given to those that believe; that, being convinced of their guilt, and the insufficiency of the law to effect a righteousness for them, they might be persuaded to believe on Christ, and so obtain the benefit of the promise. And it is not possible that the holy, just, and good law of God, the standard of duty to all, should be contrary to the gospel of Christ. It tends every way to promote it. Matthew Henry Commentary
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Victoria, 188, excellent.
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Jon Rowe (156) writes:
”…God isn’t a “victim” of *any* sin. He is, by definition, all powerful. It’s like shooting bullets at Superman.”
You contend that God cannot be a victim because He is like Superman, all powerful. Your reasoning, your understanding of the word victim, and your understanding of the Bible is deficient here Jon. I did not say “helpless victim,” I said victim, which is anyone hurt or injured by something, regardless of the power they posses. God is indeed injured by the sins we commit:
”The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.” (Gen 6:5,6)
Numerous other Scriptures speak of God being grieved and heartsick over sin and its calamitous results upon us and upon the rest of His creation. His pain finds its culmination in Christ. Jesus wept over Jerusalem and then suffered terribly on the cross and in His separation from the Father—all as a result of our sin.
I repeat, there is no victimless sin, and God is the first and foremost victim. Whenever anyone sins, be it only in your mind and not directly affecting anyone else, God is grieved and hurt. This is because He created man with love and great care. It is painful to see what you care about defaced, shamefully perverted from its carefully designed purpose, and then destroyed. I offer this fact to counter the oft repeated and false contention that homosexuality hurts no one because it is a relationship between two consenting adults. Even if that were always true (which it is not), God is still grieved by it because two of his creatures are ruined eternally by their homosexuality.
On the other hand, rather than just two consenting adults, the norm in the homosexual community seems to be promiscuity with multiple partners and multiple encounters, with many lasting only a very short time. It is more like that described by TYRUS888, in posts #’s 168 & 178. He offers a most poignant account of the tragic situation of a young man’s life perverted and then totally destroyed by homosexuality.
You may counter with the fact that some lives are also ruined within the confines of heterosexual relationships. I would agree with that. However, within unrepentant homosexual relationships, not just some, but 100% of lives are eternally ruined. So the comparison breaks down immediately.
You also write:
”The notion that Christians should support using government’s Romans 13 power to punish sins that victimize God is a recipe for tyranny.”
In my post #154, I said nothing akin to your above mischaracterization. I said that the secondary purpose of the law was to regulate human behavior and keep sin at bay so that we could all live tolerable lives. Any earthly punishment meted out by government is for the purpose of justice and to deter sin against other humans. It is for our earthly benefit. It is not something done by us to seek restitution for a victimized God—you misunderstand me on that point. He is not helpless and he will, without our assistance, ultimately take care of those who have grieved and offended him.
Furthermore, I suspect that your accusation of tyranny goes much deeper than this current debate. Like all humans in rebellion against God, your preference is complete personal autonomy. ANY intrusion by God into your life, in any way, fits your definition of tyranny.
Am I correct in this?
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On the other hand, rather than just two consenting adults, the norm in the homosexual community seems to be promiscuity with multiple partners and multiple encounters, with many lasting only a very short time.
Not only is this not true; but even if it were, your prescription doesn’t necessarily follow. I’m not denying problems with gay promiscuity; I do deny it’s the norm. I think most gay guys are just average. And average Joes have average sex lives. If you want statistics, Eugene Volokh debunked the notion of the hyper promiscuous median gay male. I can link to his work if you’d like.
But what do you expect when males [speaking of "men generally"] whose libidos are tamed by the institution of marriage and other “courting” institutions, are excluded from those very institutions meant to tame their libidos? The answer from my perspective is integrate those gay males into those conservative, civilizing institutions by recognizing SSM. OR offer some kind of compromise. And then more gay men will “settle down” as it were.
It is more like that described by TYRUS888, in posts #’s 168 & 178. He offers a most poignant account of the tragic situation of a young man’s life perverted and then totally destroyed by homosexuality.
He gave an anecdote and I gave some anecdotes as well. I submit that Charles Whitebread and the two gays guys with whom Rudy Giuliani lived are more representative of typical gaydom. And if you look at the “statistics” that Crystal Dixon was fired for citing in her op-ed article, it would seem that I’m right.
However, within unrepentant homosexual relationships, not just some, but 100% of lives are eternally ruined. So the comparison breaks down immediately.
Obviously this is a matter of unanswerable religious fanaticism. I take it you mean Charles Whitebread can be well educated, affluent, hard working, productive, kind, caring, and giving but because he died an unrepentant homosexual, he’s in Hell for eternity.
Whatever.
The problem is those arguments don’t work in a pluralistic society. Indeed it’s the same argument that Samuel Rutherford used to justify Servetus being burned at the stake.
“It was justice, not cruelty, yea mercy to the Church of God, to take away the life of Servetus, who used such spirituall and diabolick cruelty to many thousand soules, whom he did pervert, and by his Booke, does yet lead into perdition.”
—Samuel Rutherfurd, A Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience. (1649).
Like all humans in rebellion against God, your preference is complete personal autonomy. ANY intrusion by God into your life, in any way, fits your definition of tyranny.
Heh. As Roger Waters said, what God wants God gets. God help us all.
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Moth:We need to be clear that homosexuality is a sin against God’s good taste, and there is no arguing taste. The good news for homosexuals is that God could declare a new dispensation in which homosexuality is not abominable. He’d have a rebellion on His hands if he tried that with murder, but repealing the prohibition against homosexuality could boost his popularity, particularly in certain places, something that God is not oblivious to.
How utterly arrogant and absurd. As far as we know from the best understanding of theological minds is that God’s Will and moral law are immutable and eternal. To speak of such a triviality as taste and popularity in relation to God’s Will is risible. Moth has a fevered infection of post-modern moral relativism, though even Derrida and DeMan didn’t extend this to the absurdity of God’s “taste.” I would suggest a good cold shower or bath.
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Peter – 192
Your answer was perfect, well stated.
As Moth wrote: “The good news for homosexuals is that God could declare a new dispensation in which homosexuality is not abominable.”
As God cannot lie, then HE would also not change his mind as to what is sinful, IF that were a possibility (which it isn’t) then God would be a liar, which is impossible –
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Peter,
I’m not sure what Tim Keller has to do with it, but you kept dancing around the question. Like I said before, it’s my moral and Scriptural concerns that mostly determine my thoughts on the issue, but the question of effectiveness also plays a role.
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MLTW, I understand as a young, thoughtful Christian you want to present Chistianity to yourself and your secular friends as a kind,loving, peaceful religion and distance yourself from what you view as a harsh and judgmental Christianity that condemns homosexual people. Further, that you want to keep the church well separated from the law of the state and its sword.
The largest problem with your position is that serious Christians and Jews in the West are at present engaged in a fateful conflict with what amounts to a fundamentalist secular religion that has no respect or toleration for orthodox and evangelical Christianity. Actually, we were doing fine in the nation with religious and cultural pluralism until the fundamentalist secularists in recent years decided to remove orthodox Christianity from the public square. In my view people like you and Graceland with your libertarian position are unwittingly playing into the hands of the secular fundamentalist religionists.
Again, since you are a student of medicine, I should suggest on the subject of homosexuality that you get a hold of Satinover’s book, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth which was touted by the Congressional Record reviewer as The best book on homosexuality written in our lifetime. He is brilliant on the etiology of homosexuality, the relationship of homosexuality to Paganism, and on the very effective secular and Christian therapeutic work being done with homosexual people who wish to cure their tragic disorder. He worked as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst with homosexuals for over twenty years. Satinover was educated at MIT and Harvard and was the William James Lecturer on Psychology and Religion at Harvard. i
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I’ll keep an eye out for the Satinover book.
As far as the “fateful conflict with what amounts to a fundamentalist secular religion” goes, I think it’s historically ignorant of you to suggest that such a conflict has only arisen in the past few years. Sure, perhaps secular fundamentalism has become more powerful lately. But militant atheists since the time of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution have tried to bring down the church, and before that enemies from other religions and worldviews have sought to destroy her. Our enemy all along has been Satan himself, and it is his desire that we play only by his rules and on his playing field– the playing field of politics.
With all due respect, you are the one playing into the hands of “secular fundamentalist religionists.” If they want to bring war against us, fighting back with the weapons of money and political influence will only egg them on and degrade us to their level. When we put this political fight with secularists above every other, we become another special-interest group just like them and we look foolish and petty to the world, chasing after scraps when we could be dining at a royal table. If they have chosen the battlefield of politics, we would be foolish to define our fight only in this regard when we serve a King who is sovereign over all political authority and over all realms of life. And really, since laws flow out of a culture and rarely define it, politics isn’t nearly as important in this respect, either.
I think we need to look to Christ. When confronted by his enemies here on earth, He did not seek to gain power over them, whether ecclesiastical or political– he taught about a Kingdom much more powerful than theirs and through a self-sacrificial death on the cross accomplished the victory and is now crowned as the King. All power and dominion now belong to Him, and the U.S. Congress and Presidency are but trifles in comparison.
I’m alright with the loving aspects and the judgmental aspects of Christianity being blasted loud and clear to whoever will listen. There is no sweetness to be found in the Cross unless we can understand the sin in our hearts that drove Christ there. But my argument all along has been that seizing political power can never be the principal means for accomplishing our goals of public redemption because it’s (a) pretty ineffective and (b) not really proscribed by the Bible. Cultural change comes when a countercultural movement lives within the culture and applauds what is true and good whilst it condemns what is evil and perverse. Living that consistently and faithfully brought down the pagan Roman Empire and I believe that the same faithful living, combined with appropriate political and cultural involvement, can do the same in our pagan culture.
I understand that you don’t want to see Christianity pushed out of the public square. But if our goal is stay in the public square, we will lose any value we might have to the culture and we’ll become another special-interest group vying for power and position just like everyone else. We have a higher calling. I think we should take it seriously.
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An additional thought/clarification:
What you seem to be saying (and I could be wrong) is this: “We must have political power in order to retain our status in society and accomplish our goals. Our enemies are vast and dead-set against us, and they are using political power. If we don’t obtain and leverage political power, we won’t be able to influence our society. Thus, our primary goal as Christians in America must be to win back political power in order to accomplish our goals.”
And if that isn’t what you’re saying, I invite you to correct me. It is certainly the attitude I sense from many Christians in the wake of the most recent election.
But I think it’s a bad attitude because once our main goal is no longer being the bride of Christ and living faithfully to Him, we have lost the power to have the influence we can and traded it for only what the world can offer. This redefines us in our enemy’s terms. Even if we “win” in the political sense, all we’ve won is a few years to have our way fighting against a tsunami of toxic cultural influence with a baseball bat. If our primary goal is glorifying Christ in our own hearts, in our families, in our neighborhoods, in our churches, in our cities, and in the whole country– well, then, I think we can’t go wrong with that. “Seek first the Kingdom of God.” If we do that, I think we’ll see more redemption in all realms of life and all the institutions we’ve created– not just politics.
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MLTW, you and I are the product of democratic Christian Western civilization with high standards of morality, ethics, and civil government. Reducing this to a special interest group is absurd. Actually, there is sweetness to be found on the Cross, as well as stern morality.
Again, on this crucial moral issue of homosexual marriage and behavior your comfortable neutral position places you squarely in the position of the forlorn characters that Dante placed on one of the lowest rungs of the Inferno. Sorry to be blunt about this.
I’m well aware of the charge that those who oppose the gay position are regarded by many as homophobic bigots by the media and many people. However, there will come a time when this mania passes and people come to their senses. One such group is the prophetic Anscombe Society of Princeton, a group of young, bright people who explain themselves as:
The Anscombe Society Confirming the Goods of Family, Marriage, and Faithful Love: The Anscombe Society believes in the inherent dignity of every human person. We, furthermore, look to what sociology, psychology, medicine, philosophy, theology, and human experience agree works for the good and health of the person and for the common good and flourishing of society. In this way we have been led to take stated positions on the family, marriage, sexual ethics, chastity, and sexuality. We believe that these positions protect human dignity, the individual and common good, and the healthy and flourishing society, for which all people must endeavor.
The Ansconmbe Society BTW has taken a firm position on the subject of legal homosexual marriage.
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MLTW, I understand as a young, thoughtful Christian you want to present Chistianity to yourself and your secular friends as a kind,loving, peaceful religion and distance yourself from what you view as a harsh and judgmental Christianity that condemns homosexual people. Further, that you want to keep the church well separated from the law of the state and its sword.
First, everyone who is not a Christian should leave worldmagblog.
Then, any Christian who does not understand that Peter Leavitt’s version of Christian belief will be “straightened out.”
Peter’s intake of information seems to be fairly one way.
One of his other dubious assertions was evolutionary science leading to Naziism. His support was Weikart’s book.
I will challenge Peter to read Blood and Soil which discusses genocidal events in history, including Nazi Germany and to post a review that includes enough information to show he read and understood the book. (Not demanding he agree.)
If Peter will do this, I will post Satinover’s book and post a review.
I also request that Peter be honest enough that he address wmb management and ask them to change their policy about non-Christians participating at worldmagblog.
To show how silly Peter is, I will point out that the best way to make sure I don’t go away and that I stay here and keep posting comments that irritate him is to demand that I go away.
Which is perhaps what he wants. Think about it. Is Peter Leavitt really a “sockpupper” for Random Name?
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God’s Will and moral law are immutable and eternal.
Taste is important to God. I don’t “trivialize” this. We are encouraged to taste God, and God spits (or once spat) queers out of His mouth. Taste was important to Derrida, too (The Taste of Tears, A Taste of the Secret).
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RandomName: I also request that Peter be honest enough that he address wmb management and ask them to change their policy about non-Christians participating at worldmagblog.
Apparently you don’t get it. I’ve explained several times that I have no problem with WMB’s policy of open discussion on this blog. What I question is the good sense, judgment, and manners of the trolls on this blog, as with the following at #172 on this thread:
WorldMag and its blog have a basically evangelical and conservative point of view. Any fair reading of World Magazine and its blog would confirm this, though its blog welcomes broad Miltonian style debate. In your case, while your rather subtle about it, you have lodged yourself on this blog in a rather condescending manner to basically beard the conservative Christians and by so doing stir up trouble. That’s why I regard you as a troll.
As said earlier, I wouldn’t think to lodge on a blog with a liberal Christian, gay, or politically conservative basic point of view, not as a matter of right but of good sense, judgment, and manners.
Serious evangelical and orthodox Christians on this blogsite pay scant attention to your overweeningly smug and condescending anti-religious views.
As to Kiernan’s Blood and Soil, I’ve read this excellent book and find no contradiction between its thesis regarding the excesses of tribalism/nationalism and Weikart’s thesis that social Darwinism along with Nietzschean nihilism played a major role in the rise of Fascism in Germany. In fact social Darwinism gave quite reinforced the fatal view of the virtues of Aryan superiority. At any rate this topic is rather irrelevant to this thread.
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Peter,
I’m not sure you understood my point about the church becoming a special-interest group; was my characterization of your position accurate? If so, how can we have a goal other than glorifying Christ and expect to succeed?
If my “neutral” position on the matter of homosexuality and politics puts me in one of the lowest circles in Dante’s vision ofhell, I’m afraid you’re right there with me for your support of “circumspect” application of anti-fornication laws back in the day. I’d also really like to see a Bible verse that chides believers for not using the power of the sword to accomplish God’s will (in a non-theonomic context) when I’ve already cited a verse that chides believers for the opposite.
If you want to throw a personal attack my way using Dante, I have to ask a question. You (and other Christians that I’ve read) seem obsessed you are with using gaining and using the sword to accomplish the goals of the Kingdom (which Christ pretty clearly opposed in several passages.) I have to wonder if we as a church have been like Josiah in 2 Chron. 25, thinking only in terms of worldly strategy and power. God brings condemnation on this way of thinking in Isaiah 30, calling His people to repentance and rest in Him instead of political conniving and power-grabbing. Is the savior of the American Church Jesus our Lord, or is our hope getting enough power to have our way? He is a jealous husband who will have no other gods before Him, and we must be sure that we have not elevated politics to a place so high that it displaces our trust in Him.
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MLTW, we can glorify Christ and still pay attention to the realities that militate against His Kingdom coming and His will being done. At any rate, we’ve perhaps wearied this subject long enough. Godspeed with your medical studies and Christian faith.
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Here’s a reason NOT to take Satinover seriously; his book that Mr. Leavitt referenced endorsed the work of one Paul Cameron whom just about everyone regards as a notoriously debunked fraud. Cameron is the sources of the phony stat that gay median lifespan is between 39-43. Even Bill Bennett fell in to the trap of citing the statistic and properly ate crow and retracted his support for the figure. Has Satinover retracted his support for the figure?
Here is what Walter Olson writes on the Cameron “data.”
Against this, Cameron and his supporters argue that, according to their survey of obits, even if they don’t have AIDS, homosexual males tend to die by their mid-40s (and lesbians by their late 40s). Some downright peculiar results followed from this inference. One is that–contrary to the opinion of virtually everyone else in the world–AIDS in fact hasn’t reduced gay males’ life expectancy by that much–a few years, at most. Moreover, the obits also recorded lots of violent and accidental deaths. From this Cameron and company concluded not that newsworthy deaths tend to get into newspapers, but that gays must experience shockingly high rates of violent death. With a perfectly straight face they report, for example, that lesbians are at least 300 times more likely to die in car crashes than females of similar ages in general.
http://www.slate.com/?id=2098
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Note also — let me repeat — what Crystal Dixon cited about gays’ economic condition, popularly cited by religious conservatives to demonstrate gays aren’t “civil rights victims.”
Economic data is irrefutable: The normative statistics for a homosexual in the USA include a Bachelor’s degree: For gay men, the median household income is $83,000/yr. (Gay singles $62,000; gay couples living together $130,000), almost 80% above the median U.S. household income of $46,326, per census data. For lesbians, the median household income is $80,000/yr. (Lesbian singles $52,000; Lesbian couples living together $96,000); 36% of lesbians reported household incomes in excess of $100,000/yr. Compare that to the median income of the non-college educated Black male of $30,539. The data speaks for itself.
Also note the narrative Tyrus888 told of the “gay lifestyle.” We seem to have two incompatible narratives that antigay religious conservatives like to tell. On the one hand the “gay lifestyle” guarantees a very young death and makes you much likelier to become a hopelessly depressed drug addicted degenerate living on the streets. But on the other hand gays are these super well educated, productive economic workers, making “almost 80% above the median U.S. household income,” and thus don’t need anti-discrimination protection.
These two narratives cannot both be true at the same time.
Does anyone else here see a self serving, unreal, unbelievable narrative about homosexuality told by religious conservatives on these threads about gays?
Tisk tisk. You know what the 9th Commandment says.
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United States Statistics by Age Group
More than half a million people diagnosed with AIDS have died in the USA. Some 69% of these people did not live to the age of 45.
In 2006, the age group 35-49 years accounted for an estimated 42% of HIV diagnoses, 52% of AIDS diagnoses, and 51% of deaths of people diagnosed with AIDS. The estimated number of children (under 13) diagnosed with AIDS in 2006 was 38.
When interpreting HIV and AIDS statistics, it is important to remember that a person infected with HIV will probably not develop AIDS for several years – the average delay in the USA is around ten years without treatment, and longer if antiretroviral drugs are taken. Also, new diagnoses of HIV do not necessarily represent new infections, because people may live with the virus for a number of years before being tested.
Notes
The latest statistics on AIDS & HIV in the USA were published in March 2008 by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The next data are due November 2008.
There is often a delay between the time of diagnosis of HIV or AIDS, or the time of death, and the time at which the event is reported. Moreover, this delay may differ among different categories of people. For this reason the CDC estimates the number of diagnoses, deaths and people living with HIV or AIDS by adjusting for reporting delays, taking into account the differences between categories. The CDC also redistributes cases into exposure categories if none was initially reported. No adjustment is made for incomplete reporting. On this page, all numbers are CDC estimates.
The HIV statistics presented on this page include only the 33 states with a history of confidential name-based HIV reporting, as listed in our USA AIDS Statistics Summary. The AIDS statistics include all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
http://www.avert.org/usastata.htm
Sources:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report 2006, (Vol. 18)
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Jon, Satinover in his 1996 book merely reported on a paper that Cameron, Playfair, and , and Wellum reported to the Eastern Psychological Association in April 1993. The paper was based on an analysis of obituary notices of 7,000 gay and straight men. They found that the gay life span, even apart from AIDS and with long- term partners, was significantly shorter than that of married men in general by a span of more than three decades. Satinover did say that the rough and ready methodology of these findings have to be considered preliminary, though they did comport with some Census data. Satinover made no big deal about Cameron in the book. His last name is in a footnote, not the index.
I know little about Cameron other than the above and a comment I once read in a NARTH article that Cameron has become a bete noir of gay activists.
If you really want to criticize Dr. Satinover, I should suggest that you read his book and apply your lawyerly mind to his findings based on twenty years of study and compassionate therapeutic experience with gay people.
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Being active in local, state and federal government – making our voices heard (Christian Believers) allows us the opportunity to share our beliefs with those who may never have heard of the life saving Salvation which Jesus Christ offers. We aren’t to sit on our hands as Christians when we have the opportunity to be involved within state and federal government. No place in Scripture does it tell Believers to turn a ‘blind eye’ and SILENT lips to laws which hurt the children and adults of this country. We must conduct ourselves in a peaceful, orderly way, in order to make change – making sure everyone understands the ramifications of laws, which if passed would harm the innocent, subvert the minds of children and young people.
As the Scripture above says, to “reprove rebuke with all long suffering” – this can easily be accomplished when one is involved in state and federal government. We can’t spend all our time ONLY in Bible study and Church, we need to spread the Gospel outside these areas – “Governments” are a gift, just as preaching, teaching etc. “And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, divers kinds of tongues. 1 Corinthians 12:28
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Various comments from Peter Leavitt in italics.
Apparently, you don’t get it. Apparently I don’t. I imagine that you will keep explaining it to me until I do.
RandomName, I accept the common definition of a troll as To deliberately post derogatory or inflammatory comments to a community forum, chat room, newsgroup and/or a blog in order to bait other users into responding.
It is quite possible for a person who is [supposedly] being baited to abstain from responding. In that regard, I would say that we are about on an equal level in our inability to restrain ourselves. You can always strive to outdo me in not responding to what you perceive as being “baited” and “bearded” [whatever you mean by that].
In your case, while your rather subtle about it, you have lodged yourself on this blog in a rather condescending manner to basically beard the conservative Christians and by so doing stir up trouble. That’s why I regard you as a troll.
Does “stir up trouble” mean post points and information that you find difficult to answer? Though, as I like to say, mileage varies, especially when people are measuring their own mileage.
I think most Christians on worldmagblog are fairly secure and sophisticated in their faith. I haven’t noticed most participants here showing signs of becoming atheists, agnostics, or liberals because of my comments [or any other secular person’s comments].
At the worst, occasionally someone says, “Random has a point” on some small matter, though not on serious matters of belief or principle.
As I’ve said, I also think it appropriate for atheists and religionists to make each uneasy on difficult matters, such as the tendency of both atheists and religionists to engage in genocide. Some people do not like to be uneasy; such people often react to becoming uneasy by becoming belligerent and looking for scapegoats.
I am glad that you read Kiernan’s Blood and Soil. I would think that both atheists and religionists would be uneasy about the tendency of both groups to engage in genocide. I can see nothing in what you said that indicates this phenomenon makes you uneasy.
I will read Satinover’s book as I get a chance. It may be a couple of months before I do so as I am getting ready to retire from my job and finishing up some tasks there. If I haven’t commented about his book by say April of next year, feel free to remind me of my commitment.
From #172 As said earlier, I wouldn’t think to lodge on a blog with a liberal Christian, gay, or politically conservative basic point of view, not as a matter of right but of good sense, judgment, and manners.
I am very puzzled by this statement. It strikes me that you have appointed yourself as a one-person arbiter of who should participate here and of what constitutes “good sense, judgment, and manners.” I also puzzled why you should not participate on a blog with a different political or philosophical point of view. An argument might be made that the participants there are more in need of your point of view than people who basically agree with you. Unless what you seek is an echo chamber, perhaps to reinforce yourself in areas where you suffer doubt?
I have sometimes despaired of this and thought to be involved only on Gene Veith’s excellent Christian blog that has wide ranging discussion of Christian matters; however, I happen to be a former Marine officer who enjoys a good fight and have decided to hang in here.
I just took a look at Gene Veith’s blog and your two comments there for December 5. Very interesting.
I do not disparage any one’s honorable service in the military for our country. In all seriousness and with no disrespect intended, I admire your service in the military.
However, I have often said that regarding posting of blog messages as akin to striking physical blows is a sign of very confused thinking. Besides the fact that you can’t really “hit” somebody on line, and hitting people rarely changes their thinking, telling people to “go away,” in an on line discussion is the most likely method of encouraging them to stay. Surely you have noticed this phenomenon?
I resisted an impulse.
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Quoting Jon Rowe
“Tyrus888,
I’m sorry to hear what happened to your foster son. I do know that men by nature (more so than women whose nature has it to lesser extent) have sexual predation instincts. And indeed post pubescent young adults/teens are the likely targets. However, your tagging the “gay community/lifestyle” whatever with what happened to your son makes about as much sense as blaming men in general for the much worse problem of exploitation of underaged female prostitutes.
There are folks in the gay community who fight mightily to protect gay youth from such predation and exploitation. We should hear more of their stories, which I’ll gladly share on these threads if interested.”
And of course, Jon, it is good that such protection occurs. One ought to put others true good before ones’ selfish desires. The crime was man’s inhumanity to his fellow human being.
I know you are not a religious man Jon (at least that is my impression to date), but Jesus said it best:
Matt 22:34-40
But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together. One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, ” ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” NASU
The first commandment takes man’s eyes off himself and onto the perfect, the superior beyond himself. As you may be aware, self reference is a dangerous thing, for logic breaks down with self reference. If we want to be a better humand being, we need to seek out that which is better than ourself and learn from the master.
The 2nd commandment guides our decisions toward right behaviour and interaction with others, if we honestly view them as truly being our very self. Therein is the golden rule: Do unto others as we would like to be done unto ourself.
It was selfseeking, unabated hedonism, emanating from callous hearts, that led to the suffering and untimely death of my former foster son.
To all others:
I tend to write precisely what I mean with my comments limited to the confines that I set, and no further. It would be wrong to extrapolate my remarks to all gays in general. Every individual deserves to be treated individually and not be sterotyped into some broad condemned general grouping. If I were asked ‘Could a gay person of good character be a close friend of mine, my answer would be “yes, as long as he does not mind putting up with me.”
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In reply to Victoria and others.
Matthew Henry is wrong. The plain reading of the scripture quoting Paul is that the Mosaic Law caused sin to increase. It amazes me how many Christians misconstrue the gospel. Paul in Hebrews chapter 7 calls the Mosaic Law useless and worthless in that it could not save anyone. Why any Christian wishes to put themself back under the Mosaic Law befuddles me. It may be heuristically usefull to keep in the back of our minds that the Commandments given Moses were very good, but they were never good for us because we are all condemned under the Mosaic Law simply because we are incapable of keeping it. Thus as Paul states, The Mosaic LAW kept us all confined under sin. And this was God’s will, that salvation shall not come by the keeping of works, but by faith in Jesus Christ who kept the whole of the Law on our behalf, and that through Jesus the Father’s will is revealed that we are saved by grace under the mercy of God, that none may boast in their works. For The LAW was our tutor until Christ came, and if there is one thing the Law taught us, it is that wem by our very weak nature, are incapable of keeping The Law.
In GalatiansPaul loudly condemned those who wished to put themselves back under The LAW as heretics who were voiding gift of their salvation under God’s grace, which is received through Jesus’s finished work on the cross. It isn’t that the commandments are bad, indeed they are good, but they are not good for us because they condemn us.
The Law set our minds on sin. When riding a bike, where you look is where you go. The commandments focused our minds on sin and not on God, who is Good, who is Love. Thus, as Paul writes, sin increased because of the giving of the commandment: Thou Shalt not… . this we could agree that the commandment is good, but the flesh is weak. If you keep telling a child not to put beans in his ears, and the child eventually will put beans in his ear. Jesus told the Jews who believed they would gain eternal life by keeping The Mosaic Law: ‘it is not I that condemns you, it is Moses in whom you have placed your hopes who condemns you’. For none could keep that Law.
But Jesus is not a priest of Levite, but of Melchelzidek. And where there is a change of priesthood, there is a change of law. Those under Mosaic Law must keep the whole of it if they want to justify themselves to God and receive eternal life. The New laws under our new Priest Jesus, keeps us in Jesus, thus eternal life is already ours.
How many of you actually know anything about these new Laws that superscede the Mosaic Law?
I’ll start with the conversation of the young rich man with Jesus in my next post.
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Some people imagine that the rich man of Matt 19:16-24 is indicative of rich people in general, and that this discourse between Jesus and the rich man somehow demonstrates that rich people are more sinful and evil than non-rich people, and/or their riches make it near impossible for them to get into Heaven. This is not at all the lesson Jesus is teaching.
Matt 19:16-22
And behold, one came to Him and said, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?”
And He said to him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
He said to Him, “Which ones?”
And Jesus said, “You shall not commit murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; and You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
The young man said to Him, “All these things I have kept; what am I still lacking?”
Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieved; for he was one who owned much property.” NAS
In the category of living a life of decency and goodness, This rich man of Matthew 19 is in the top one percentile of all people who ever been born on earth. His riches afford him easy opportunity to break the commandments in pursuit of Power, Wealth or Pleasure. Even more telling about this man’s character is that he chooses to come to the light (Jesus). As it is written:
John 3:19-21
“This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” NASU
But this rich man did not keep ALL the commandments set forth by Moses. Jesus drew out of him that he loved his material possessions more than God, a form of idolatry. The rich man walks away cause he could not bring himself to give up all his wealth. This single violation of the Mosaic Law made it impossible for the rich man to obtain eternal life under the Mosaic Law because he failed to keep the entire Mosaic Law – Every Jot and Title of it.
Jesus is not just addressing this rich man, He is also saying this to all the Jews:
Matt 19:23-24
“And Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”" NAS
Some people stop here and draw the false conclusion that the rich are more sinful in God’s eyes and are less likely to go have eternal life. This is not so. But when we read on, we get rather profound context. However-
When the Disciples heard Jesus say this, they did not respond, “well that’s really bad news for rich people, good thing we are not rich.” Rather, they became worried about their own salvation as they mulled over Jesus words of how this very exceptional decent rich man will never enter the Kingdom of God under the then prevailing Mosaic Law. This is revealed by their response:
Matt 19:25
“When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Then who can be saved?”" NAS
Jesus then assures them that they need not worry, that this rich man, and they, can be saved and attain eternal life, note also that Jesus’s response addresses all men will not be saved by keeping the Mosaic Law, not just rich people:
Matt 19:26
Jesus said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” NAS
Thus Jesus makes it very clear that humans cannot do enough to save themselves by the keeping of the Mosaic Law. Jesus answered regarding the rich man’s question by pointing out that he will never stop sinning enough or do enough good things to enter the kingdom of God and inherit eternal life. This is not the only time Jesus lets the Jewish people know that they will never be justified by their efforts to keep the Mosaic Law. He lets them know that if anyone has hatred in their heart that they are guilty of breaking the commandment prohibiting murder, and if anyone looks at a woman with lust upon married women, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart. The bible categorically states that noone will be saved by their ability to keep the Mosaic Law.
God knew this even when He gave Moses that Law, before the people had a chance to break that Law, that they would never keep The Law:
“Then YHWH said to Moses, “Behold, the time for you to die is near, call Yeshua, and present yourselves at the tent of meeting so that I may commission him”. … And YHWH said to Moses, “Behold,you are about to lie down with your fathers; and this people will arise and play the harlot with strange gods of the land, into the midst of which they are going, and will forsake me and break My covenant that I have made with them”. Deut. 31:14 & 16.
Jesus reiterates this same message to all Jews, who rely on their keeping of the Mosaic Law to obtain eternal life, yet it is that very law that dashes their hopes.
Jn 5:39-47
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life. I do not receive glory from men; but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. … Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”
NASU
Well, if no one is capable of keeping the Mosaic Law, who then can be saved?
In this exchange with the rich man and the ensuing conversation with His disciples, Jesus hints at the fact that there is another way to enter God’s Kingdom and obtain eternal life. It will turn out to be the only REAL way to be saved and have eternal life and life abundantly. But the apostle’s do not know about that yet and, though semi-relieved by Jesus last words, they are still concerned about their future. Peter’s speaks for their mutual worries on this issue of salvation:
Matt 19:27-30
“Then Peter answered and said to Him, “Behold, we have left everything and followed you; what then will there be for us?”
And Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, shall receive many times as much, and shall inherit eternal life.” NAS
Jesus would later reveal the good news as to how all people, rich or poor, may have eternal life, good life with joy and peace, life abundantly:
John 3:14-18
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
John 6:37-40
“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
“This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”
Matt 11:26-30
“Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
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Peter,
I agree; we certainly have wearied this subject. Good luck and godspeed to you as well. It’s been fun.
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Jon Rowe (#191):
We could trade anecdotal evidence all day about the homosexual lifestyle as to whether it is promiscuous or not. You concede problems in that regard, but you deny that it is the norm without citing any evidence to support your view.
On the other hand, CDC figures for 2006 reported that of 25,928 new reported AIDS cases for males that year, 18,645 (71%) were associated with male-on-male sexual contact. Wikipedia information on AIDS further states that, ”Infection is unlikely in a single encounter. High rates of infection have been linked to a pattern of overlapping [promiscuous] long-term romantic relationships. This allows the virus to quickly spread to multiple partners who in turn infect their partners.”
This is significant evidence of the dominance of promiscuity in the homosexual community and of its deadly consequences. There is also reason to believe that the above reported figures are significantly lower than the actual numbers.
In light of this, it is absurd for homosexuals to be using arguments claiming normal monogamous relationships in their pursuit of same-sex marriage. For the most part their relationships are grossly promiscuous, physically harmful, and destructive of normal and stable family relationships.
The homosexual pursuit of legal same-sex marriage is the pursuit of government sanction for that lifestyle. Such a stamp of “normalcy” for this destructive behavior cannot help but influence our society, and especially our youth, in a profoundly negative manner.
To put it bluntly, it is insane—another step along a road of national moral suicide.
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Here is a theological recapitulation of Jesus conversation with the young rich man:
1. The rich young man set the topic of the ensuing conversation that goes on unti Matthew 20:16. That topic is: “Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?” So the topic of the ensuing verses in Matthew are mainly about ’salvation’.
2. Jesus gives the only way to salvation in existence at the time that question was asked: “… keep the commandments.” That is, Keep all of the Mosaic Covenant. Another way of saying this is: Do all of the works required by the Mosaic Covenant.
3. From Jesus’s words, both the Rich Man and the Apostles become aware that they will not qualify for salvation ubder the Mosaic Covenant (i.e. The rich man walks away sad and the Apostles ask “Who then can be saved.”)
4. Jesus hints to them that there will be another way to be saved and have eternal life besides keeping the Law of the Mosaic Covenant:
Mt 19:25-26
When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Then who can be saved?” And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
NASU
5. Jesus explains that the first shall be last and gives the ‘parable of the workers’. I took this to mean that Jesus is saying that Israel, whom were first to receive God’s calling, would (as a people) be last to accept Jesus as their saviour in the latter days, and the gentiles will be saved first because they will accept Jesus by faith as their saviour in the immediate future following Jesus death.
So this whole discourse from Matthew 19:16 to 20:16 is basically about salvation. But it is an introductory discussion, as if it were a college course entitled: ‘Salvation 101′.
This very decent rich man inquired of Jesus ‘How may I obtain eternal life.’ The only way to enter into eternal life at that time was to keep the whole Mosaic Law. Jesus proved to the rich he could not do so. The apostle Paul confirms this by referencing the words of Moses in the Torah:
Ro 10:5
For Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on law shall live by that righteousness.
In Galatians Paul points out that no one will be saved by the keeping of the Law, for the Law never decreased sin, rather, it actually caused sin to increase. Paul also teaches us:
Gal 3:1-14
You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain — if indeed it was in vain? So then, does He who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?
6 Even so Abraham BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “ALL THE NATIONS WILL BE BLESSED IN YOU.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.
For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT ABIDE BY ALL THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO PERFORM THEM.” Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, “THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.” However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, “HE WHO PRACTICES THEM SHALL LIVE BY THEM.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us — for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE” — in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
NASU
Ro 10:6-13
“But the righteousness based on faith speaks as follows: “DO NOT SAY IN YOUR HEART, ‘WHO WILL ASCEND INTO HEAVEN?’ (that is, to bring Christ down), or ‘WHO WILL DESCEND INTO THE ABYSS?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).” But what does it say? “THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART” — that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, “WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for “WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.” NASU
This is precisely the path to eternal life that Jesus was hinting at when He said: “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
I suggest that when we enter into the New Covenant by belief that Jesus is the ultimate Paschal Lamb who kept the whole Mosaic Law on our behalf, and whose shed blood washed away all our sins for all time, and we have opened the door of our heart and have asked for and received the Holy Spirit, thereby entering fellowship with God. It is this daily fellowship by of each of us individually with God, by which God works in us to transform our very nature to do the good that He created us to do, and that this is the work He does in us. Though we accept Jesus by faith, it is the faith of Jesus that actually saves us. This has been God’s plan for us from the very beginning as the Holy Scripture so clearly states:
1 Co 2:7-9
“… but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; but just as it is written, “THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.” NASU
Eph 1:3-7
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world [cosmos], that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. NASU
This path to salvation and eternal life is what Jesus was inferring when He said: “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
It’s a gift, believe God and accept it. We will always sin throughout our life. But John 1:9 states:
1 John 1
1. What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life — and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us – what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete.
5. This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. NASU
It is really easy to be a Christian, just believe what Scriptures actually state. We know we will sin while we live. But when we do, we need only to confess our sins and it becomes God’s work ” … to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
It is not our job to become sinless or make others to become sinless, we are called into a daily fellowship with God and allow Him to transform our inner nature that we may do the good that he created us to do. This is His work in us, it is not our work.
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MLTW (#213),
I’m glad to see that you and Peter have signed off on good terms.
I share your concern for the Gospel and the need for long-term solutions beyond civil law. I would venture a guess that most conservative Christians, especially those who participate on this blog, do far more towards the long-term solutions than you give us credit for. We are not just Christian activists who seek to advance a political agenda, as you seem to think.
We are active both politically and evangelically, and for most of us, probably more in the latter area than the former.
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I missed most of the debate on this issue, as I worked today. Nevertheless, I appreciate the discussion between MLTW and Leavitt.
Leavitt, like the Puritans, seems to believe that Scripture calls for Christians to work for a covenanted society. That’s what the Puritans practiced in East Anglia, and it is what they erected in New England.
Others of us believe that God’s covenant ends at the doors of the kirk. We believe that our engagement with the broader culture is guided by natural reason and pragmatism. It’s probably fair to call this the Scoto-American view of church-state relations.
Both views have been represented in our Reformed communions since the Reformation. The latter view has generally prevailed, although not wholly.
Peter, I don’t doubt that you hold to your view out of genuine conviction. I don’t doubt your election in Christ. Nevertheless, I ask you to accept that others of us may disagree with you, and that our disagreements also rest on Biblical conviction. I don’t hold to the Scoto-American view because I desire to be accepted by the pagan culture that surrounds me in my urban environs. Rather, I hold to it because I believe that Scripture teaches it. Therefore, I wish that you would not suppose that MLTW, Jon, or I have secret desires to sympathize with the most debased desires of pagan America. We hold to our views because we desire to be faithful to Scripture without regard to society’s normative moral practices.
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Well Evan, I understand the view that God’s covenant end at the door of the church and that even in New England these days there are few with the Congregational Church view of a covenanted society. Actually, the only people engaging the secular fundamentalist religion are the Evangelicals, conservative Catholics, and Mormons; though we are rather in the minority we are raising a lot of funds and putting up a strenuous fight.
I have no problem living in a pluralistic society with many forms of religions along with religious skeptics, pagans, and atheists. What is happening, however, is that the the fundamentalist religion of secularism that dominate the cultural heights is engaged in a frontal effort to denigrate religion and exile it from the public square. That needs to be fought on political grounds, apart from religious grounds.
Pardon me for also thinking that the Scoto-American view of essentially Christian church fastnesses in the midst of a cultural conflagration of values is short sighted. At any rate, I do appreciate and respect anyone who takes their kirk seriously and wish you and yours Godspeed.
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Victoria (#208),
Very well stated!
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Tyrus888,
Post 210. Very nice. More Christians on this blog should adopt such a civil tone.
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Michael Martin #216,
I’m glad it ended well, too. And you’re right in saying this– “I would venture a guess that most conservative Christians, especially those who participate on this blog, do far more towards the long-term solutions than you give us credit for.” I know that you, Peter, Victoria, and others that I disagree with on this issue are doing good things to honor God, and I’ve tried my best to frame the debate in terms of how the church ought to be instead of saying that y’all are a bunch of reprobate idolaters or anything like that (there are some public figures that I could call reprobate idolaters in this regard, but that’s another story.)
My concern in all of this (like I’ve said before) is that because I see the political strategy and victory talked about so much with so much hope wrapped up in it, this strategy & victory becomes elevated to a place beyond its usefulness or above glorifying Jesus. You have your own concerns about my position, and that’s fine. I think that we can respectfully disagree on some things as long as we agree on the most important things.
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Michael 214,
Eugene Volokh debunked your conclusion back in 2003. You conclusion is a non-sequitur, that is, it doesn’t follow from the data you and Victoria presented.
This is significant evidence of the dominance of promiscuity in the homosexual community and of its deadly consequences.
No it is not “significant evidence” of dominance. Rather it illustrates the reality that a MINORITY, a small but significant one, but a minority nonetheless of gay men live hyperpromiscuous lifestyles.
Eugene Volokh demonstrates that here. I’m going to reproduce a taste; read the whole thing at the linked URL:
http://tinyurl.com/5p4a74
The myth of the median hyper-promiscuous gay male: The data on this is getting more and more interesting for me; I’m glad I got tempted into investigating this. Here’s my tentative judgment: (1) Quite a few sources claim that the median American gay male is hyper-promiscuous, with a median of hundreds of sexual partners in his lifetime. (2) This appears to be a myth.
Now it does appear that a significant minority of American gay males do have lots of sexual partners. Moreover, the median American gay male does have somewhat more sexual partners than the median American straight male (likely 10-20 lifetime partners for gays as opposed to 5-10 for straights; my earlier post giving medians of 40 and 16 respectively, was mistaken, because it inadvertently reported averages rather than median).
But the claim that the median American gay male (not just a minority of gays) is hyper-promiscuous (not just a bit more promiscuous than heterosexuals) appears to be false — and politically quite important. Claims that “Male homosexuals have . . .” or “Most male homosexuals have . . .” or “The median male homosexual has . . .” are much more politically effective at justifying different treatment for homosexuals than claims that “Some male homosexuals . . . .” Many voters are open to the idea of treating a whole group based on what most of its members do; fewer are open to treating the group based on what a minority of the group does. Also, statements about mild differences in median sexual partners aren’t terribly striking, but claims that, say, the median gay man has over 250 sexual partners in a lifetime makes gays seem in a way freakish and deviant, and makes it much harder for people to see gay sexual relationships as emotionally comparable to straight sexual relationships. (I’m making a descriptive claim here about how people are likely to react to promiscuity, not a claim about how people should react to it.)
There are two reasons why I think the median gay male hyper-promiscuity claim is mythical….
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The discussion about homosexual behavior and health is useless at this web site because of the “heads we win tails we lose” type of argument used by Christians here.
If there are facts (or assertions of facts) critical of homosexuals the posters here will say, “See what we mean. It’s bad.” [Regardless if the facts have any validity or not.]
If there are facts (or assertions of facts) tending the other way, they will say, “It doesn’t matter. God says it is a sin.”
It is not a serious discussion.
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Jon,
In Virtually Normal Sullivan remarked that gay men would not likely conform to the expectations of marriage as we know it, but would in fact likely transform the institution. Gays, Sullivan wrote, have a “need for extramarital outlets.”
In a First Things article, The Marrying Kind, Eliabeth Kristol writes:
Yet in the closing pages of his book,[Virtually Normal] Sullivan undermines his own argument. In the final chapter he returns to the opening chapter’s personal tone and reflects on some of the strengths he sees in the contemporary homosexual community. He asserts that “homosexual relationships, even in their current, somewhat eclectic form, may contain features that could nourish the broader society as well.” The “solidity and space” of gay relationships “are qualities sometimes lacking in more rote, heterosexual couplings.” Moreover, the “openness of the contract makes it more likely to survive than many heterosexual bonds.” As Sullivan puts it, there is “more likely to be a greater understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman; and again, the lack of children gives gay couples greater freedom.”
In truth most conservatives on the issue of homosexual marriage are very concerned about the effect it would have on further reinforcing heterosexual infidelity, which, though less than that of homosexuals, is a serious side effect of the radical change of sexual mores brought about by the perverse sexual revolution.
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The above refers to Andrew Sullivan.
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Therefore, I wish that you would not suppose that MLTW, Jon, or I have secret desires to sympathize with the most debased desires of pagan America.
Thanks for the defense. Evan; though I want to make clear that my religious creed more or less swings between agnosticism and an unorthodox theism. I consider myself a non-Christian “gentleman” and defend what I see as a strict code of ethics. But that code probably would permit much behavior that evangelicals find hedonistic and sinful; though I think we could all come to important common ground on what matters most in this secular world, i.e., that we have a healthy economy, a productive workforce, honest, peaceful, civil folks with safe, clean streets to walk on, and most importantly: free to live their lives and “discover” those important cosmic truths that are not within the proper domain of government.
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In truth, Jon Rowe has made it clear on this thread and others that he is a modern Pagan . Why else would he advise Christians that they need to get comfortable with being mere dissidents in a basically American Pagan Rome.
Jon writea: But that code probably would permit much behavior that evangelicals find hedonistic and sinful; though I think we could all come to important common ground on what matters most in this secular world, i.e., that we have a healthy economy, a productive workforce, honest, peaceful, civil folks with safe, clean streets to walk on, and most importantly: free to live their lives and “discover” those important cosmic truths that are not within the proper domain of government.
The problem with this view is that, while Christians enjoy a healthy economy, a productive workforce, clean streets, et al, we are instructed both through reason and the Bible that hedonistic sin is real and that it separates folk from Christ and God, as Paul made clear in Romans. In fact there is real danger with the siren song of material wealth getting in the way of what Christians view as the moral law at the core of reality.
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Peter
You write: “In truth, Jon Rowe has made it clear on this thread and others that he is a modern Pagan.”
Peter you are correct – the pretense of those who have this belief know next to nothing of the Gospel of Christ, yet pretend of their understanding, arguing about that which eludes them.
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The problem with this view is that, while Christians enjoy a healthy economy
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Jon (#222),
I read the Volokh link you provided and the data seems genuine, coming from the General Social Survey out of the University of Chicago. Nor does Volokh himself appear to be a homosexual or homosexual apologist. So, I’ll take the data at face value