no, do you?
Submitted by F.O.D. on August 10 2001 23:36:24
In reply to Do you have the answers I am seeking? submitted by sequestered on August 6 2001 11:15:06
|
I was raised in a fundamental Baptist church and have had a problem reconciling my desires with my beliefs. It's like that for me too. To be honest, I don't truly expect the conflict I experience will ever be resolved this side of the grave. We'll see. 1.How do you deal with the fact that the Bible teaches that sex should only take place within the marriage relationship? Here I concur wholeheartedly. I can understand the union of sexual relationship to be of such a depth that it should be laid in a commitment of life-long devotion. But I am willing to allow that two people of the same sex are able to make that commitment. When I read Genesis 2, it doesn't say the earth was full of men, but for Adam no suitable helper was found, and so God made woman. It says the earth was of animals but no suitable helper was found, so God made another person, who happened to be a woman. Is the point of the sexual union in Gen 2, then, that we are designed to relate sexually to another person? Is the meaning of gender largely to be found only in procreation? 2.How do you deal with the fact that the object of your affections is enumerated in the list of sexual don'ts contained in Scripture? Which list? The one in Leviticus, where a "man lying with a man" is said to be "detestable", alongside the lobster or octopus, the eating of which is also "detestable"? Why do you say the one law retains its literal meaning today, while the other does not? What is the real criteria for understanding the Law? Has it something to with pagan temple rituals? Fertility rites? Do you mean the one in Romans? Where the people are so full of lust they could care less just what they sleep with, men, women, cats, dogs... What does that passage have to say about the concept of commited relationship? Do you mean the one in 1 Cor 6? "Homosexual offenders" ? What does that mean exactly? Does it mean someone who sleeps around with anyone they can get their hands on? Does it mean prostitution? The Greek says "arsenokoitos" - "man layer", sounding very close to the text in Leviticus. Does that mean the sense is the same, and nothing more, than what Leviticus says? Temple prostitution again? 3. How do you deal with the fact that your desires are contrary to His will and His Word? What I'm getting at with the answer above is that it is not at all clear that a committed relationship is being condemned. To go further, any rule against homosexuality must conform to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which says that the Law is fulfilled in his life, and who says the beginning and the end of the Law is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and to love your neighbour as yourself. In what does a gay relationship intrinsically disrupt love towards God or towards other people? Sleeping around - yes, it shows contempt for the sexual union. Prostitution, likewise. Rape (cf. the Sodom story) - it's a clear violation. More subtly, a co-dependent relationship, using another guy to fulfill your own needs, yes that's unhealthy. But if you consider a healthy lifelong relationship - does it exist? Hard to find, but does it never happen? If it does exist, how in the light of the gospel will you say it violates God's will, which is that we live one another? Or to talk about the meaning of the male-female relationship, Jesus said there's no marriage in heaven, no male or female. Does it makes sense then to apply some super-spiritual meaning to the heterosexual relationship on earth? Yes, the sexual union provides insight into heavenly unity. But one might just as well say that as the heterosexual relationship provides insight into the relationship between Christ and the church with its otherness, so too the homosexual relationship provides insight into the heavenly relationship between the members of the church, or between Jesus and the Father, with its "sameness". John 17 "may they be one as we are one". The conclusion I'm coming to is that it plain doesn't make sense to say all gay relationships are inherently wicked. Some are wicked, made only to use others. But I don't think you can say that's true of all. But the church stubbornly insists they are all evil, and says these verses all mean one thing, not another. Who am I to stand against the wisdom of the Most Holy Church? So I am caught between the convictions of my own understanding, reasoning and logic, and the word given by the church leaders (though not all, some church leaders, not all of them gay themselves! agree with my conclusions, or I agree with them). I don't expect this conflict in my life to be resolved speedily :( Regards, Fod |
Follow ups: