For Gay Christians, "Another Kind of Love..."

[Green_Man_007]

LONG AGO, while still "searching for God," and at a crossroads of reconciling my sexual and religious identities, I happened upon this title:

"Another Kind of Love: Homosexuality and Spirituality" by Richard Woods.

(without plugging any particular retail website, here's a list of Google hits

http://www.google.com/search?q="ano...+spirituality+"richard+woods"+author&hl=en&lr= )

From reading it I gained a sense of why Christian leaders from the Pope to Pat Robertson are Biblically wrong to condemn the natural feelings of homosexuals.

Also, Dr Woods does give some psycho-social elaboration of gay lifestyles at the time, which I found interesting.

The author's been criticised by gay church groups as being too apologetic, as well as for being too guilt-tripping over non-monogamy; and he's been critiised by heterosexist religious establishment for being a puppet for "the gay agenda."

However, his book gave me a peace of mind from self-acceptance and realizing myself to have a rightful place within the Church.

Since then, I've distributed copies among gay friends who had conflicts similar to mine, as well as to my cousin's gay son, who was unsure as to how to handle coming out to the Baptist family.

I am now a Pagan, anyway, so Christian values have no great signifigance.

Still, I respect others' faiths, and know that a community of my fellow gays can only get healthier by discovering and embracing their spirtual cores.


Blessed Be

 

[Green_Man_007]

to carry. what the church does condemn is ANY sexual act that does not lovingly reproduce children within the bond of holy matrimony.

To throw the Bible at that arguement, though, Paul advocates celibacy, but in the case of needing to "quench the passions," gives followers permission to marry, but only one wife.

I'm not a fan of Paul myself, but some potentates gunning for human overpopulation need to take another look at the motive of satisfying lust versus popping out babies.

"Be fruitful and multiply" was a Hebrew thing, like forbidding bacon cheeseburgers.

 

[gaypiper]

The R.C. Church has bought into Augustine and his sexual hangups bigtime, as have the mainline Protestant groups. Unfortunately, the Biblical references against "homosexuality" that the cons are fond of quoting have nothing whatever to do with what you or I would regard as homosexuality. In short, they are quoted totally out of context, with little or no regard for what each passage was actually addressing or why.

 

[CuriousMonkey]

I try not to get too hung up on whatever backwards or idiotic position the Catholic church decides to take on any issue, especially given their track record and dubious history. ( pedophile priests, inbred and incestuous popes, the inquisition, the crusades, Galileo, complicity in the holocaust, fomenting hatred in the Muslim world ... ) I'm convinced that their arbitrary and capricious application of SOME Old Testament laws - while disregarding so many others - is a sad manifestation of a human need to create a basis for claiming moral superiority. The Catholic hierarchy are the new Pharisees, more intent on imprisoning people with laws than liberating them through God's grace.

What kind of God would command that the world be over-populated? What loving father would put a desire in our nature and condemn us for acting on it? ( you can probably answer this beter than the pope can ) And why does this Catholic church take so long to listen to the science that can HELP US ALL better understand the world we live in, whether one believes it to be of divine creation or not.

Don't trust a church to tell you what God wants for you in your life ... or what She will or will not permit ... especially when they show so little desire to improve their understanding of her nature.

 

[Green_Man_007]

Well, I'm not trying to bring criticism against any religiouss core as a whole, though some of its organized leadership may need to be either addressed or simply ignored.

Like I said, I'm Pagan (for reasons that have nothing to do with my being gay), so Christian affairs no longer concern me.

 

[bagley]

A book that has "enlightened me on the Gay/Christian debate is John Boswell's, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality.

Boswell, an open gay man was a convert to to Roman Catholicism and used his scholarship to to discover the mistakes in many of the modern Biblical translations.
I got a laugh about one mistranslation from 1Cointhians 6:9. The word translated in modern texts as... homosexual is "malakos" which in modern Greek means jerk-off. You hear it all the time in Greece as a mild cuss word....this text was used to condem masturbation...and only changed to homosexual in the 20th century.... there is a lot more examples in the book.....Boswell died in 1997 and if I were Pope I would make him a saint.....

 

[turtle]

Human homosexuality is a gift of Creation.

Some common abberations are more or less problematic; cleft palate, for instance, or schizophrenia. (Homosexuality is not genetic like those things, but seems to be generated chemically, in the womb.) Homosexuality is a positive abberation which serves to provide communities with a pool of talent not occupied by child-rearing. It is associated with artistic, spiritual, and martial talents.

It has more often been seen, globally and historically, as a weakness, rather than as an evil.

It has been celebrated as a gift of God in some cultures.

-D

 

[JackFTwist]

The R.C. Church has bought into Augustine and his sexual hangups bigtime, as have the mainline Protestant groups. Unfortunately, the Biblical references against "homosexuality" that the cons are fond of quoting have nothing whatever to do with what you or I would regard as homosexuality. In short, they are quoted totally out of context, with little or no regard for what each passage was actually addressing or why.

good post, with the observation that the word "homosexual" no where appears in the Bible (if you see it in an English translation, that is a political judgment of the translator and not faithful to the Biblical text.

The very handful of passages that supposedly relate are speaking of other matters than orientation and are so few in number that it is hardly of concern to the whole Biblical message which speaks far, far, far, far more about justice, concern for the poor, denouncing the rich, denouncing war, and equal treatment for aliens.

Not all American mainlines but into that Augustianian crap - the UCC does not, the Episcopalians in some pain as a whole do not, the ELCA as to laity does not as some congregations seek to end the mandated celibacy of gsy clergy, etc.

 

[Kulindahr]

To throw the Bible at that arguement, though, Paul advocates celibacy, but in the case of needing to "quench the passions," gives followers permission to marry, but only one wife.

I'm not a fan of Paul myself, but some potentates gunning for human overpopulation need to take another look at the motive of satisfying lust versus popping out babies.

"Be fruitful and multiply" was a Hebrew thing, like forbidding bacon cheeseburgers.

I've always thought Paul's advice was pretty shallow, and not very respectful of human dignity. But your point is a good one: he metnions nothing about having kids, which suggests that there IS a 'use' for intercourse other than population increases.

As regards your final comment, I have to disagree; it was meant universally. But if used to forbid contraception, it is woefully misread, utterly out of context, in two ways:

first, the rest of the command said to "fill the earth, and subdue it" (to quote the generally familiar King James translation). Let's look at the first part: how do we decide if something is "full"? For restaurants and gathering halls, in most countries there is a "Maximum Occupancy" statement posted; it isn't arrived at by calculating how many people could be crammed in physically, but by what an ecologist might term the "carrying capacity" -- and that's the way to look at this command, that when the carrying capacity has been reached, the command has been fufilled, and we're to stop! at least to stop multiplying. So the natural question is, "What determines this carrying capacity?"

Fortunately, the next item of context gives a strong hint. That command, "be fruitful, and multiply", was given not just to us human-type critters, but to ALL the critters God had made. Now, man was supposed to be the "caretaker" (which is what the phrases "have dominion" and "subdue it" really mean); implied in this command and that duty is to take care that each and every species gets to "be fruitful, and multiply". Therein lies an upper limit to human population under this commnd: the moment our population reaches a point such that ANY species is being crowded, the job is done -- we've "filled the earth", and not only can, but MUST reign in our numbers.
I submit that we hit that point at least four billion people ago, and if we're going to be obedient to that command, we need to be shrinking our population!

So in a way it "was a Hebrew thing", because they still lived in an age where the earth was not yet "full" of humans. We live in one where the command has been disobeyed not by failure, but by excessive zeal -- there are just plain too many of us!

It might have been nice if God had arranged for our lust to just fail when the population was too high; things would be much easier. Since He didn't, however, I have to ask if there wasn't, after all, another purpose to sex from the beginning besides baby production. If lust continues, then it stands to reason that a purpose must also continue -- and that that purpose was there all along! Well, then, what might that be? Assume for a moment that we all became sterile when the population limit was reached -- but we still lust. What s the result of that lust? Why, it is pleasure, pure and simple: the pleasure of the hunt, the pleasure of companionship, the pleasure of sharing, and the pleasure of climax.
Oh, my! It seems that God just might want us to have fun!
And, at this point, to NOT make so many babies -- a task, I might point out, that gays are particularly suited for.

 

[turtle]

The Christian church took Jewish morality and expanded it. We all may dislike it, but it is based on the logical view of human existence and purpose of life.

Homosexual "acts" as well as the prohibited heterosexual ones, are in fact, unatural in the biological and natural law sense of those definitions.

The acts you describe, oral sex, anal sex, homosexual sex, (actually even cross-species sex) are all widely exhibited in the natural world.

One of the most widespread natural uses of sex acts is to accentuate bonding.

Sounds OK so far, but what about the very common and important use of sex to establish dominance?

Let's be careful about "natural law".

I say that your view of "human existance and the purpose of life" is extremely limited and in fact not logical at all, but are based on, and themselves constitute, false premises.

-D

 

[JackFTwist]

The New Testament as well as Old condenms homosexuality. It's a bit wishful thinking to say they don't.

You are wrong on that.

I will wait very patiently for you to find one place, one time, once anywhere where in any language of the Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, where the word "homosexual" appears, let alone a condemnation of it.

There is a huge difference between what the Scriptures say and what some people says it says.

 

[turtle]

You are wrong on that.

I will wait very patiently for you to find one place, one time, once anywhere where in any language of the Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, where the word "homosexual" appears, let alone a condemnation of it.

There is a huge difference between what the Scriptures say and what some people says it says.

So, then, would you please favor us with an improved and more accurate translation of Romans 1:27?

Not what you think it properly is supposed to refer to, but what it actually says.

Homosexuality, by the way, needed little overt condemnation in a Roman world. Rome was extremely homophobic, though it was a matter of position and dominance. The problem was in allowing oneself to be "used" as a woman is "used". (Shows how highly they thought of women, too.)

-D

 

[turtle]

Thats true to an extent, but good enough for your point, but...

1. No serious biologist equate this with animal homosexuality, in the human sense. i.e. if your dog humps another male dog, it really isn't "gay", it's just assuming, incorrectly, that the other dog is female, or is horny for a leg, old boot, etc... The reasons are not known, but the effort is still to "mate", not buy a time share on Fire Island together. Likewise with other exibitions of animal same gendered "mating". It may have some relation to trans-genderism. Maybe even homosexuality, but the jury is still out.

From the animal's point of view the whole purpose of sex is to enjoy sex. I doubt that animals actually have procreation in mind when they screw.

To suggest that we know the dog's assumption is a projection of ourselves on the dog. We do not know that they do not simply feel like having a male today, instead of a female. Apes, for example, are most certainly aware of the sex of their partners.

And then there are the penguins.

2. Christianity agrees with you on sex being a "bonding" experiance. No problem there. The traditional Christian point is that, unlike animals, the act of biologically successful sexual union is truly divine in every sense of that word. It creates a soul, a person in the image of God, who is totaly unique, who is totaly imortal, from that moment on, no matter where that leads that individual person for eternity. It raises the sexual, procreative act, to the level of sacrament. It combines the physical of this world with the divine of the next. It is for that reason, that ALL sexual acts outside of marriage, that are not potentially pro-creative, are condenmed

Somehow that "unlike animals" reminds me of those who say "Asians don't value human life like we westerners do.".

That argument also leaves a significant gap. Marital sex, after menopause, is not potentially pro-creative.

Leaving the theology aside, it is quite clear that homosexuality is a natural and fairly common "aberration" among humans. Some aberrations may be harmful. Homosexuality is not one of those, being of considerable potential benefit, and not harmful at all.

-D

 

[Kulindahr]

My church was the first major Christian denomination to remove the condenmnation on birth control in the late 1920's, and then the rest of liberal Protestantism followed suit.

Which was about two centuries late. I don't mean that as a criticism of any particular denomination but to point out how slow we are to see what the Spirit is teaching. If by some wild chance I got to be Pope for a day, I would issue an encyclical condemning the failure to use birth control.
So in comparison... what will the church finally be getting through its head, two hundred years from now, that God is trying to get us to see now?

 

[Kulindahr]

Our work is to integrate our sexuality with our spirituality. Perhaps we start with the recognition of the biblical statement that we are all made in the image and likeness of God and if that be true homosexuality is as much an expression of God as is heterosexuality. As we begin to open ourselves to that integration we become freer to be ourselves and less anxious about the "judgments" of God.

I have been pondering this dichotomy and how to address it, meditating on what I learned from a Greek Orthodox priest: that it is not theology unless it begins with the question, "Who is Jesus?" And I've been having trouble fitting that to the issue of being gay and Christian. But now....
"Jesus is the true image of the living God." That He was needed to come to us as the true image reminds us that we are in that image, but a broken and battered version of it; a fallen version theologically speaking. Yet had it become so far battered and bruised it could not be repaired, He would not have permitted any expression of that in a human, for such a one would not be redeemable.
Thus, whatever being gay does to the image of God, it cannot be something inherently unredeemable. Indeed being homosexual cannot, then, be even evil, for evil is not redeemed, only destroyed, and homosexuality is frequently, if not always, tied up so much with who a person is that to destroy it woiuld be to destroy the person. Yet, from above, God would never have allowed the birth of a person whose nature was so evil that destruction was inevitable. Thus, since homosexuals are in fact born, homosexuality cannot be inherently evil.

If that seems clumsy, I'm composing as I wrest the thoughts out coherently.

At this point I am coming to believe that on this issue we must learn as those before us did concerning slavery, for a very similar argument could be made concerning it, except to show that it was not inherently good. Paul permitted slavery -- but Moses permitted a wife to be divorced for nearly any cause, so long as a document was written out (and even that was an improvement over what came before). Do we now progress beyond another position of Paul's? Can we claim he was writing for that culture, thus dismissing the issue, and move on?
That would be a simple response, but especially with the discourse in Romans 1, we have to show that it was culturally bound. Of course we also have to show that his remarks there have to do with homosexuality, or alternately that they apply regardless of orientation. More importantly, we have to put the one verse (27) into the context of the argument (e.g. is he talking here only of those who "exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator").

There's a need to stop taking scripture at face value or at the very least to remember that all of what was written so many thousands of years ago was written to the Jews or early Christians who had no knowledge of genetics, DNA or scientific discoveries. Mostly what they were dong with their injunctions was to hold a community together that was very small and needed to grow. Polygamy was in and quite naturally, homosexuality did not serve its purpose.

We live in a different world today, far removed from the world of that time. It is time to work toward integrating our lives in all its parts and see its glorious wholeness and then to make choices that are ethical and fulfilling.

Free2Be

Unfortunately, if we stop "taking scripture at face value", there's nothing left to take -- anyone can then write a set of rules, or do away with all, for interpreting the message.
Remembering that we are far removed in time and culture, however, is golden. One lesson in the Bible is very clear for those who look at the whole, a lesson with two sides: one is that humans will always take God's word and turn it into rules that never change, while the other is that God will over and again give rules -- that change. Those rules change because they are not goals, not eternal truths, but are like signposts along a path, and the point of paths is to get somewhere. Thus through Moses God could tell the people to stone to death someone guilty of a certain offense, which to us seems cruel, then through Jesus say "Let the one without sin cast the first stone", which we see as merciful. But the command through Moses was also merciful, because (consider how rednecks today could react to being gay) it was accepted at the time for many offenses that not only the offender be stoned, but also his family (a pattern U.S. law is actually bringing back to life!). So also Paul could tell masters hoiw to treat their slaves, yet now we see that there ought not be masters and slaves.
The libertarian in me hopes that God's lesson at this point is that the strictures, if indeed that's what they were, against homosexual behavior are now going the way of permitting slavery; the Christian in me struggles and hardly dares hope.
One thing is certain, though, and in this the Christian and Libertarian intersect: in a civilized society, out of the principle "you own yourself" and (literally) for the love of God, we must not, we dare not, allow gays to be kept as second-class citizens, or allow anyone else to be, either.

 

[JackFTwist]

So, then, would you please favor us with an improved and more accurate translation of Romans 1:27?

Not what you think it properly is supposed to refer to, but what it actually says.

Homosexuality, by the way, needed little overt condemnation in a Roman world. Rome was extremely homophobic, though it was a matter of position and dominance. The problem was in allowing oneself to be "used" as a woman is "used". (Shows how highly they thought of women, too.)

-D

Yo, I am not going to do your work for you. You should study the matter. Consider the word "homesexual" did not exist as a word unril recent times. There is nothing in any Scriptural language that is an equivilant of the modern word "homosexual." Then adter you have done the etymology there, consider the Greek word which is used by Paul - and then try reading the context, anyone can pull a vrse out of context, read the context of what you cite. Which of those categories are you? And then reflect on the concept of natural. What is narural, what is the difference between normative and normal?

Then check your cultural read back of the 21st century experience into the 1st century Common Era. I also question your cultural conclusions. What was done in Rome did rely much on doiminance - but did not apply to equal relationships. But Rome - Paul wrote not in Latin, but in Greek, with Greek concepts, and his culture 35-55 CE was far more Alexandrian than Roman, indeed, his cultural experience was not very Roman at all - the politcal does not equate the cultural.

And then back to Romans. You cannot in justice to decent theoilogy take a phrase, a word, which has no English equivilant to what you say it says, and make that normative (back to that, yes) for what Romans 1 says, let alone the entire epistle, let alone the Christian canon (and read that back into the common canon). Let alone to supercede the whole of Scriptures.

And thus you will begin to explore the meaning of what Paul was saying which was on the concepts of grace. And the experience of grace is connected to the universality of sin- sin not as an act, or a series of acts, or a thing. And the thing you say it says because that is not what it says. And yet that intorduction in Romans 1 on the universality of sin leads us to the sweeping declarations of grace and then to the conclusion - another reason that to use Romans 1 in the way you do is to do violence to what Paul write, maing an introduction in the teaching, which is in the context of grace a teaching on what is a clean act and what is an unlcean act for the individual - no sweeping pronuncements on what all humans do, but the concept for each person that clear conscience before God is determinative, nothing else.

Certainly not your total misreading of a word that rests on a fabricated translation based in a ripped from context and separated from cintext that is going somewhere else entirely than what you suggest.

 

[Kulindahr]

Jack, that was rather vague and a little sloppy... kinda hard to figure out what your point was.

Paul, BTW, was from Tarsus, which was a VERY Roman city, being, IIRC, one of those where enough Romans had been settled that all its inhabitants were given Roman citizenship, so he was very familiar with Roman culture.
Which brings me to my thought: Paul would have been very aware of the one place in Roman life where men "abandoned their natural desire", turning from women and having sex with men. That place was certain temples, where there were both male and female prostitutes and having sex with them was considered worship.
Given that there is a strong theme of worship in the argument in Romans 1, is this perhaps what Paul means -- that in a thoroughly godless society, men spend their lust on other men and call it "worship"?

 

[Kulindahr]

Without filling space with quotes....

"Current biblical research" ... such as what?
I've done more than a bit of research myself, and can assure you that most of what passes for "biblical research/scholarship" these days, at least what is paid attention to by current popular academia, begins with what it wants the Bible to mean, and introduces arguments to achieve that and then presents the results as "conclusions". I've played that game; using the accepted rules, you can demonstrate that the book of Joshua was a guidebook for tourists ikn the ancient Holy Land, with a story made up for every pile of stones large enough to arouse curiosity -- pure fantasy, but perfectly legitimate the way things are done nowadays.

All the evidence known to date points to all the Gospels being finished before the fall of Jerusalem.


After that you wander into pure subjective speculation -- at which point, why even refer to anything but yourself? Subjective "theology" requires only yourself as prophet.


I'm still unconvinced Paul had a position on homosexuality, let alone a "theology" of it. I suppose there's enough to say he had a theology of marriage, but beyond that... I don't think so.

 

[turtle]

Yo, I am not going to do your work for you. You should study the matter.

No thank you, sir.

I do know just how to look it up, you see, but it's not worth it for idle curiosity.

I couldn't personally care less, and its very very far down on the list of curiosities to be indulged.

I did expect you to be prepared for that question, as an illustration of your point.

-D

 

[JackFTwist]

Without filling space with quotes....

1. All the evidence known to date points to all the Gospels being finished before the fall of Jerusalem.


2. After that you wander into pure subjective speculation -- at which point, why even refer to anything but yourself? Subjective "theology" requires only yourself as prophet.


3. I'm still unconvinced Paul had a position on homosexuality, let alone a "theology" of it.
4. I suppose there's enough to say he had a theology of marriage, but beyond that... I don't think so.

Friend, sorry you feel my prior post was "sloppy." It may well be, it surely could be tighter, I did not do critical editing, but it says all that I wanted to say on that. The challenge is to get at what Paul was saying in Romans: that we are all sinful, that we live totally in absolute grace, and in that grace, each person must look to God and the insight into whether one can do any action, so to speak, is if it can be done with a clear conscience before God of the Faith. So the clean or unclean actions, sinful or not actions, are not the same for each person. Many things come into play here - but that with integrity to God is bsically it.

1. ALL evidence? Not ALL. Mark, surely, Luke, Matthew, surely probably perhaps after 70 CE, after the fall, but in a 65-70 context in which it was imminent, John, I go with those scholars with the late date, long after the fall of Jerusalem.

2. It all is subjective. Pilate asks in Jesus Christ Superstar: what is truth, some unchanging law? What ios truth, are mine different than yours?" The Christian faith is not about having opinions, or conformity of opinions. The Church itself expresses a divversity of understandings because the finitenss of human knowledge is meagre indeed to the fullness of what is God. But that does not require one's self to be a prophet - it requires a sense of the community for discernment, for learning, for call to the Gosepl and worship in Word and sacrmament, but each baptised being indeed a member of the prtiesthood of all believers. You are priest without being prophet; the prophets as in the scriptures and of our day speak to the community.

3. Paul has no concept of homosexuality. That is a late 18th-19th centuty concept. Paul had views on cultic and ritualized prostitution, as he did on the eating of meat offered at the cultic worship. Thus no way he had a theology of it. Let me add from a prior post of yours that Paul albeit a citizen of Rome was in an Alexandrian culture, a Greek culture, through Antiochus. He spoke and wrote and Greek, the common language of the Roman empire, and he lived where Rome had recent - very recent - poliitical power but was not the culture. Paul would have been aware of male on male sexual acts used for submission, for power, and as Susan Brownmiller taught us, those are acts of violence, not sex, and Paul stood against that. He was against the cultic acts that were not natural. Paul very much endorses the concept of acting on the natural - and who defines that? Paul didn't. We can theogoize that in acting on the naturalwith a clear conscience before God, that we have come to know as homosexuality and loving bonds between two same genered people,if that is natural for them, and it is not the norm for our society but it is indeed normative in our society, that he would be in a good place regarding homosexuality as we know it (and his culture did not) other than to say, unless you burn if you don't do it, you should not to it as we await the imminent parousia - just as he taught straights.

4. I cannot see that Paul had a fully develped theology of marriage.



Let me borrow from free2beme with a few woprd changes that he can beat me up for but I want to emphasize a convergance of thought:

While Paul [STRIKE]felt a need to delineate a [/STRIKE] had no"homosexual theology" which comes 18 centuries later, Jesus certainly didn't. Jesus simply pointed out that in heaven "there is neither male nor female but they are as angels". He gave no concern about sexual orientation. If what is done in heaven is also done on eartth (states of consciousness), then we have nothing to fear about homosexuality and/or judgment. We are simply left with Paul's need to give a disparaging homosexual slant to his preaching perhaps because of the male temple prostitutes used in pagan practices which is a far cry from a committed relationship of two men or women and that far cry is a chasm of separation such that it is violence to the text to conflate the two; Paul, in other words, said nothing about homosexuality.