Christian BoyLove Forum #66001
Wow. I'm impressed. Stunned even. By trying really really hard you can suggest a possible interpretation of the text that makes it mean something other than the whole flow of scripture clearly means. I mentioned your argument to my church leader, and he suggested I walk away, and I'm inclined to do so, but I'll give it one more go:
The second half of 1 Corinthians 6 talks about the way in which having sex with a prostitute creates the 'one flesh' reality that is supposed to be restricted to marriage. Paul then goes on: 18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. 19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. So: having sex with a prostitute - i.e. where there is zero emotional engagement joins your body to the prostitute as 'one flesh'. Having sex with your wife - where there is supposed to be total emotional engagement creates one flesh. Jesus teaches in mt 19: '4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” So God's COMMANDMENT is that the one flesh relationship should not be disrupted. Yet you are proposing the creation of a admittedly temporary relationship between a BL and a boy. You accuse me of being a Pharisee. Yes, there's always a danger of that. But there's also the danger of being a Jezebel or following the suggestion of Balaam: 'to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality'. (Rev 2). It's important to note what Jesus does condemn about the Pharisees: it's not their holding fast to the revealed commandments of God that causes Him a problem, but their hypocrisy, loss of perspective and traditions that get them to do the opposite of what the law requires. On the issue of divorce Jesus is MORE rigorous than the Pharisees, rejecting as illegitimate what they taught as acceptable. The question is whether the whole sweep of the Old and New Testaments, with their very high view of the significance of sex and their consistent call for it to be restricted to marriage, is to be taken seriously. Remember Paul in Corinthians was speaking to sex obsessed culture not unlike ours. Do you really believe his teaching about sex is permissive of man boy relationships? Isn't it vastly more probable that he's calling for celibacy before marriage and faithfulness within it? After all Paul doesn't say: 'But if they cannot control themselves, they should find a cute boy to have sex with'... (that would have made Christianity a very different religion, and in the context of the culture would have been entirely acceptable!) In a criminal trial the test is 'reasonable doubt'. Whilst it is possible to construct 'possible doubt' by wriggling stupidly hard, really the bible can only be reasonably interpreted as calling for celibacy or marriage. |