What exactly does the Bible say about homosexuality?

[beansmum]

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'.

But, cornflakegirl, isn't it so illogical that he wold do that that there must be another explanation - misinterpretation or mistranslation or something? Why would God want you to be unhappy?

I was just about to say what cornflake said about God not contradicting himself...also going to try and find the reference for Jesus being God's final revelation - not that we can't know God ourselves, but he will not say anything different to what he has said in the Bible...will have to look for that later as I'm pressed for time...

The Christ Files DVD - have a look at the link - I honestly don't tknow who produced it. It is very 'user friendly', but also acedemicly rigourous. The chap who presents it has a PHD in history I think. It was screened on free to air television in Australia. The gnostic gospels is only one thing it talks about - its basicly about the history of the Bible.

with regard to the 'why would God want us to suffer' question - it's an eternally hard question. I guess the answer (sorry cornflake, it will be another stock one ) is that God doesn't want us to suffer, but all suffereing is a result of living in a fallen world. The Bible says God looks forward to taking his people to heaven where he will 'wipe away every tear from their eyes"...but also that God's patience (ie, not coming back yet) is mercy, because he wants there to be time for all to repent and be saved.

The other part of the answer is that God's purposes are bigger than ours. We see comfort and lack of suffering as something very important, but God's ultimate purpose is to see people coming into his kingdom...and sometimes (actually, often )people come to God through suffering. For Christians, who already know God, God uses suffering of all kinds to change us more to his likeness. In other words, God doesn't take pleasure in our pain, but he cares more for our holiness than for our suffering.

seeker - without trying to trivialise, there are also probably bigger things that I would take God to task on than why he won't let gay people have sex. Such as why he lets thousands of children die each day because they don't have clean water. Which again comes back to the fallen world thing, but is even more fundamentally unfair...

So basically, I don't find it intellectually any harder to reconcile a loving God with a bizarre position on gay sex, than I do to reconcile a loving God with a world full of suffering.

It is unfair, but then if God gave us all what was 'fair', we would all get nothing good, because we reject Him who gave us life. So why do some suffer and not others...? Of course I can't answer that, beyond what I said below about suffering in general.

I just wanted to clarify what I said below - I didn't mean for it to come accross as "Its hard, but clever me has found the answer" but rather as "I believe the Bible tells us the answer, which is true, but doesn't make it easy to accept".

It is hard, hard, hard The thing is, the Bible being hard to understand and accept doesn't make it untrue.

I find it extremely difficult to reconcile any kind of suffering with a loving God but I can just about get my head around it. I do think though that there is a huge difference between suffering caused by man (poverty, war etc) which God allows to happen, and suffering apparently caused directly by God (someone who is created gay and then told by the bible that he or she can never have a complete relationship). I can't believe that God would be deliberately cruel, and so I have to believe the Bible is wrong.

cornflakegirl - that's why I am an atheist. I just cannot believe in an omnipotent God who would let that happen. And I have been very well educated in the reasons for suffering, but I just don't buy any of them. A merciful "Abba" would not let that heppen to his children.

Have I missed something? Abba are God? I always knew "The Winner Takes It All" was touched with genius, but even so...

UQD - I'm shocked. All your posting on religion threads and you have never cottoned on to this before!?

Well obviously Abba ARE God. That goes without saying .

But for the benefit of anyone who is still wondering what this is all about ...

Romans 8:15-17 "For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ?Abba! Father!? 16it is that very Spirit bearing witness* with our spirit that we are children of God, 17and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ?if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. "

"Abba" is an intimate word for father. We don't really have an equivalent word. Daddy comes close, but is too childish. I'm told that the french "papa" is closer. Loving, intimate, dependent, but also respectful and mature.

It is the word that we translate as "Our Father" in the Lord's prayer and pretty much sums up Christian teaching about our relationship with God in a single word

And my whole gut finds it incomprehensible that "Abba" would cause people to be rejected on the basis of something as innate as their sexuality, which in the context of a stable, committed relationship harms no-one. Which is why we're having this discussion.

seeker - I respect that position, even though I disagree with it. I don't think a christian explanation of suffering is ever likely to convince someone who doesn't already believe in God (although I guess in some cases may remove a barrier to a person even thinking about God...).

(However, I would also argue that a sense of injustice about suffering requires morality - and I think there are apparent holes in all the arguments that I have studied for a non-deist basis for morality as well. But that's a whole other argument, that I'm probably not even equipped for any more - university was a long time ago!)

The whole purpose of the New Testament was to replace the Old Testament. If you're a Christian, the NT is the one to follow. You can forget everything else. The NT doesn't condemn homosexuality, or even mention it. So there's no need to treat it as a religious question at all.

Why discuss this on MN? Surely Ship of Fools would be a better forum? Or has some one drawn a parallel of homosexuality with parenting and I've missed it?

twicer, that isn't accurate. Most Christians take the NT and the OT together, and the NT does reference homosexuality.

elasticwoman, I happen to like the unmoderated, lots-of-views-in-the-mix setting of MN. Given that this is the Philosophy/religion/spirituality section of MN, it's perfectly appropriate to discuss it here.

I've yet to find a way to parallel fanfiction stories about telly programmes with parenting, but it doesn't stop me discussing them on MN

Twicer - thats not so:

"17"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5: 17-19

"The Law" here is the old testment, and these (above) are the words of Jesus himself.

Can I just say again how good it is to have this debate with you lot. Its refreshing and useful to debate things intelligently and respectfully with you

When I said the NT said nothing about homosexuality, I really meant Jesus said nothing. I know there is an appendix to the gospels, including letters by Paul, but he is not one of the Apostles, and doesn't claim to be quoting Jesus (I presume). I take the New Testament to be the four accounts of the life of Christ. I know of nothing in there to condemn homosexuality.

Well, if we're making up our own terms, this could get very confusing. You're refering to the four Gospels, not the New Testament, which is the collection of those four gospels, plus the Acts of the apostles (which follows the journeys of Paul, who the author appears to think is an apostle, and is written by one of the Gospel authors, Luke) and all the pastoral letters (not all authored by Paul) and Revelation at the end.

That's one hell of an 'appendix'.

My point is that there is no need to pay any attention to anything other than what was said by Jesus Christ. His sayings and doings are in the four gospels, nowhere else. If homosexuality was not condemned by him in his own lifetime, I can't regard anything said about it later as carrying any weight in Christian doctrine.

Also, while I'm sure you're the expert on what qualifies someone to be an Apostle, it's news to me that Paul was one. I've always understood there were twelve, and all of them knew Jesus Christ personally, and all attended the Last Supper. But if he is regarded as an Apostle, all I can say is that the views of a man whose conversion was the result of being struck by lightning should be treated with some suspicion.

yeah, but on that logic, there's no real need to pay attention to any of it, because Jesus didn't write the gospels.

Don't get me wrong, I understand what you're saying and the whole 'red letter Christians' thing is a nice idea, but it just doesn't really convince me personally - but I really urge you not to take that personally, I'm in a very mixed up sort of place right now.

(BTW, I'm boggled that you've never come across the idea that Paul was an apostle.)

No, that logic you talk of isn't mine. Jesus didn't write the Gospels, but his life and works were recorded by his four biographers. They might not agree in every particular, but between them they give us a picture that we can take as reliable. If none of those four reports any opinions from Jesus against homosexuality, we can take it he didn't hold such views. And no one should rank Paul's thinking higher than his supposed teacher.

I don't know why you're "boggled" that I didn't take Paul for an apostle. I've just looked up the subject in Wikipedia, and he is described as a "supernumerary apostle", or "the apostle to the Gentiles". It also says "Paul made his case to the Corinthian Church that he was an apostle by the evidence of God's(Jesus Christ's) power working through him". Clearly, then, he wasn't a shoe-in for the title, and had to plead his case in a way that the others didn't. Besides which, everyone is familiar with the phrase The Twelve Apostles, whereas I've never heard anyone talk of The Thirteen Apostles. So the idea that only the original twelve qualified as apostles, even if it isn't true, is a view that should not leave you boggled at all. I would guess there are many under the same impression.

What is the meaning of the term "red letter Christians"?

It shouldn't leave me boggled that, despite you showing from the ever-reliable source wikipedia, that he's been considered an apostle by most of christendom for centuries, Paul being an apostle is 'news to you'? If you say so.

You've still not really made the case for 'the gospels and nothing else', though. The Gospels were written by the same sort of people (in one case exactly the same person) that wrote and believed the rest of the New Testament. Fair enough if you've decided that those are the only books you are willing to dissect for truth, but it's all very arbitrary.

'Red letter Christians' is a shorthand term for those who put primacy on the words in scripture which are often highlighted in red type as 'the words of Jesus'. It's a view often held by those at the more liberal end of the pool and contrasts with the traditional evangelical view of every word in the scriptures being the word of God - black or red, or the middle of the road view of scripture containing God's word, which we must then, with the help of the Holy Spirit, use reason to discern.

twicer - none of the gospels reports any opinion from Jesus in support of an active gay lifestyle either - does that mean we can take it he didn't hold those views either?

Well, yes, there is that - an argument from silence can be spun both ways, of course.

I should point out that people who contribute to threads like this range from the scholarly and devout, like you, to the totally hostile, like madamez. Most of us are somewhere in between, and would probably describe themselves as workaday Christians, whose knowledge of the texts is adequate, but not intimate. You seem to be under the impression that you're amongst scholars. It might once have been true that most of Christendom considered Paul an apostle, when every house contained a copy of the bible, and such questions were part of everyday discourse. These days most people who call themselves Christian neither know nor care whether he was or not. I would guess the average MNer would assume, as I did, that the number of apostles was twelve, not thirteen (or is it fourteen or fifteen? Are there any more "supenumerary apostles"?). You belong to a scholarly minority who know things like this more exactly, but don't be astonished at coming across people who don't.

I don't know why you regard it as "very arbitrary" to focus on the words of Jesus Christ, and to treat later additions as suspect. The role of Luke as a maker or developer of Christian doctrine is a quite different thing from his role as a biographer. As long as we're satisfied that the four Gospels are accurate in passing on the words of Christ, we can use them to get Christian doctrine from the horse's mouth. What I wouldn't be prepared to do is treat any doctrines emanating from Christ's associates as having more weight just because of their role as his biographers. That applies even more so to Paul, who didn't know Christ personally, and who had all his doctrines at second hand. His views about homosexuality or any other spiritual question are worth no more than yours or mine or L. Ron Hubbard's. It seems to me that what is arbitrary is not to make that distinction. Because then you start picking and choosing. The religious wars fought between Christians have never been about anything said by Christ, or any views he himself held. They've always been about the doctrines of his successors - such as that long line of "infallible" popes. I would say this "red letter Christianity", which attempts to return the faith to the source, has a lot going for it.

Twicer, I'm still interested to now how you wriggle out of Jesus' words, as I quoted below:

"17"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5: 17-19

"The Law" here is the old testment, and these (above) are the words of Jesus himself.

Slightly pmsl at being cast as 'scholarly', but I'll take it as a well-meant compliment, which I'm sure it was.

In terms of 'picking and choosing', Twicer, we're all doing that to a certain extent. You've decided that some books which carry the same pedigree as certain other books, but with which you have less disagreement, are more worth following than those other books. That's an interesting way of looking at it, and I'm sure it works just as well as any other variant on a theme.

My scholarly credentials aside the gospels are later than the epistles, if memory serves. I guess my point is that you have no real way of knowing whether the red letters are actually Jesus' words, any more than you can know whether Paul wrote Hebrews or not.

I'd be interested to know your response to Astrophe's point about a particularly tricky bit of the gospels. Or even if you really think that Jesus' words 'I came, not to bring peace, but a sword' are more likely to bring about an end to religious conflict than Paul's famous passage on love in 1 Corinthians 13?

I don't mean to pick on you (and please don't take any of this as an attack) these are just issues which I am working through myself at the moment, and it just seems to me that thinking we can take the gospels and leave the rest is somewhat naive.