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Original poster

What exactly does the Bible say about homosexuality?

221 replies

beansmum · 15/07/2008 21:09

And why do some Christians make such a big deal out of it when Jesus didn't mention it at all?

It is kind of on my mind at the moment because of a comment the woman preaching on Sunday made about 'truth not tolerance', standing up for the 'truth' and not just trying to 'hug everyone and tell them they are ok'.

OP posts:
Original poster
beansmum · 16/07/2008 14:12

sorry about that!

OP posts:
KayHarker · 16/07/2008 14:13

the headship thing made slightly more sense to me than the homosexual thing, in terms of the idea of being a team and a team benefitting from a leader. But there's a whole lot of assumptions working into that idea to begin with.

Original poster
beansmum · 16/07/2008 14:17

I can kind of understand why sometimes a democracy of two doesn't work. You might have to make a decision and not be able to agree, in that situation someone would have to have the final say. I'm not sure why it should be the man though.

OP posts:
AMumInScotland · 16/07/2008 14:17

I can see two ways of dealing with it beansmum -

  1. Reinterpret the Bible, in the light of more modern ideas. But that can mean twisting it quite a long way, and I find that just as much of a problme.
  1. Change the way you think of the Bible. If every word of it is there because God wants it to be, then I can't make that work (sorry Kay and others!) But if you take it as a collection of writings from people who were trying to make sense of their world and their experience of God, and therefore is not literally the word of God, then i can make it make sense.

I know some people think that's not OK either, and I often get accused of being a "Pick&Mix" Christian, but I can't reconcile my experience of God with a literal interpretation of the Bible. And I can't give up on either faith or rationality.

KayHarker · 16/07/2008 14:18

beansmum - when I find an answer to that little conundrum, I'll share it

AMumInScotland · 16/07/2008 14:19

I don't see any reason why it ought to be the man who gets the casting vote. I know with me and DH it probably would be, but that's more about individual personalities than gender.

cornflakegirl · 16/07/2008 14:21

seeker - tell me about it! It is hard! I don't believe God wants me to be subservient - I wouldn't have promised to obey. Ephesians 5:22 says "Wives submit to your husbands", but the verse before says (to all christians) "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ".

And it's not about equality either - the husband is the head of the wife as God is the head of Jesus. Who is God. And therefore equal to him in a fairly literal way!

I don't pretend to really understand it. As KayHarker says, it's a right pain. But the alternative as I see it is to deliberately place scripture on a lower level than reason - and I don't think I can do that and remain a christian. If the bible isn't true - even the bits I don't like - then I'm not really left with anything more than any other guardianista.

KayHarker · 16/07/2008 14:23

AMiS - that's exactly it. The revisionist stuff just breaks my head.

The second option is the only one I think open to me if I want to keep hold of faith and not implode with self-hatred.

cornflakegirl · 16/07/2008 14:23

I type too slowly!

AMIS - with DH and me, I usually get the casting vote, because I am bossy, and because I like finding out about things. It is hard.

madamez · 16/07/2008 14:27

Who cares what it says? It's a cobbled together pile of assorted reheated mythologies that has been through a dozen translations and re-editings, so any amount of the original subltleties would have been lost - if there were any subtleties in the thoughts of a few desert peasants a few thousand years ago.
Religions are all made up by people. If you don't like the version you've been given, make up a new one (it's a good tax dodge if you can be reasonably original, just ask L Ron Hubbard about that one.) Interpret your mythologies how you like but take responsibility for either your own bigotry or your own inclusiveness.

cornflakegirl · 16/07/2008 14:30

AMIS - my problem with the second option is knowing which bits are true. How do you decide which bits to believe?

If the gospels are accurate, then that leaves you with the rest of the NT being written or approved by people who knew him intimately. If they could get it so wrong, how can I get it right?

If the gospels aren't accurate, then we have no reason to believe that Jesus died for our sins. And without that, we're just a bunch of people trying to be nice to each other. And I don't need an organised religion for that!

AMumInScotland · 16/07/2008 14:30

Um, we care. I care. Lots of us care. Just because you don't doesn't make it any less imporant to many people.

seeker · 16/07/2008 14:32

cornflakegirl - so do you follow all the dietary and "housekeeping" laws as well - and the rules about how menstruating women should behave, for example? Do you have a mortgage? I'm really striving to understand. I don't see how anyone can live exactly according to the Bible - is it possible?

And, crucially, would you want your daughters to be subservient to their husbands?

princessofpower · 16/07/2008 14:33

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princessofpower · 16/07/2008 14:35

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AMumInScotland · 16/07/2008 14:36

I do believe that the gospels are accurate, although each of them was written for a slightly different "audience" in slightly different circumstances, so there is some inconsistency. But overall I do believe in the gospels.

But the epistles were each written as part of a longer correspondence, to people in circumstances we don't have in full detail. Therefore, while they were intended to be clear messages to those people in those circumstances at that time, we have to look deeper at them to decide to whet extent we think they are relevant to us today in our circumstances.

I'm not claiming that it's easy, or that I get it right in every case, but for me it is a necessity.

KayHarker · 16/07/2008 14:36

madamez, but what's the point of that? I mean, you've really nailed the crux of the issue for me, right there.

If I want to make up a religion, I can go for a much happier collection of tenets, really. But I don't want to make one up, and the only, singular reason I believe what I believe is because I was once upon a time convinced that a God exists and he spoke through the bible.

I know you don't get that, and that's fine.

But it's real or it isn't. If it isn't real, I've got no desire to make something else up. And if it is, then it's really important to me to work out how the hell it's supposed to work.

AMumInScotland · 16/07/2008 14:40

seeker the dietary and purity laws are in the Old Testament, and Christians do not have to obey them. There's a bit (probably in Acts?) where St Paul has a vision of clean and unclean animals on a sheet and knows that "it's not what goes into a man's mouth that makes him unclean, but what comes out of it". From then on, the early Christians no longer had to obey the dietary laws. I'm not sure to what extent the Jewish people were obeying some of the other laws by that time, but the ones which involved "making a sacrifice" at the temple were superceded by Jesus as the "full final sacrifice" - so they were no longer required of Christians.

cornflakegirl · 16/07/2008 14:43

seeker - in common with a lot of christians, I believe that there is more than one type of law in the OT. There are laws that express God's moral character, and there are laws that were particular to Israel in that place and time, keeping them separate as a people belonging to God and emphasising their dependence on him. Some of these are specifically set aside in the NT, eg the food laws. Others are more generally "fulfilled" in Jesus. We no longer need to sacrifice, because that was a foreshadow of Jesus. We don't need to have outward signs to mark us as different, because the Holy Spirit has "circumcised" our hearts, marking us out as belonging to God.

I will freely admit that my understanding of this is a little woolly. It's not one of the things I've spent a lot of time on. I'm happy that other people have done that for me.

seeker · 16/07/2008 14:43

But isn't all the stuff about homosexuality in the Old Testament too? It's Leviticus people quote most...

seeker · 16/07/2008 14:44

Cornflakegirl - so how do you know which law is which?

seeker · 16/07/2008 14:45

I don't think Jesus ever talked about homosexuality, or about women being subservient to men, did he?

AMumInScotland · 16/07/2008 14:45

Most of it yes. Which is why some of the opposing side make comments about poly-cotton shirts and prawn cocktails... (Both equally forbidden). But there's enough in the NT which seems to support the same view, and those bots are trickier to ignore (though not impossible )

cornflakegirl · 16/07/2008 14:47

AMIS - I completely agree that the epistles (and I would say the gospels) were written in a specific culture, and that we need to interpret them for today. The reason that I have problems with homosexuality and headship is because in each case, there is one crucial verse that I just can't make a case for being culturally bound. Where the argument is from creation, or from the revelation of God in nature. That's what stumps me.

KH - 100% agree with your 14:36:56 post.

madamez · 16/07/2008 14:49

Well, KH, here's how religions are supposed to work. They are and have been a way of explaining stuff to primitive people (and young people) - what makes the sun go up and down, what makes the corn grow etc - well, Great Magic Mushroom did it. As human society evolved, so did an assortment of myths and stories, dealing with the cyclical nature of life, occasionally dropping in a few notable events and/or characters, some of which reappear in more than one mythology in slightly different guises. These stories have the comfort of familiarity, they are easy to follow, and they are usually tightly-structured. They also tend to contain fairly universal 'truths' - everyone dies, it's better to be nice etc.
Then there came a point where some people were smart enough to work out what a magnificent tool for social control religions are. This is when all the stuff about self-denial and accepting your slavery comes in: it's a little easier to get people to do your shitwork while you relax if you can convince them that once they are dead, they will get the benefit and you will suffer. 'Honest, I will suffer awfully for having had a rich pampered lovely life but we all just have to accept the lives we have been assigned, etc.'
It's always been easier to convince people to do what you say if you convince them that you've got an invisible bug in a box that Knows Best and that only you can understand. That's what religions are mostly for: protecting the interests of the powerful by convincing the less powerful that they A) deserve their lack of power and B) will get a reward once they are dead.