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by Cat
I agree with Callum, the problem isnt the bible it's the church, organised religion, where someone interperits the text for you.

The bible says "love the sinner, hate the sin". problem is with christianity (and other religions) the devout feel so righteous, so above everyone else, so sure of their place in heaven, that they forget the teachings of the bible, other than to condem others for braking it's laws.

religion isnt evil or bad. But, the church can be!

(i say can be because a few preachers dont impose their or the churches view. they are a minority though, sadly)

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Except the Bible says nothing of the sort with regards to gays. It mentions homosexuality specifically a grand total of two times, rising to five if you use an extremely liberal criteria. It spends a lot more time condemning usury and stipulating the correct sacraficial protocol, yet for some reason Christians aren't firebombing the NatWest and burning a freshly slaughtered ram outside the See of Cantenbury.

I genuinely wish this theological wranging -- which I have no interest in from either side of the debate, becaus I think the whole thing is a load of superstitious hogwash -- could be kept within the confines of the church. But inevitably, as the Pope's latest nausiating "faggots are evil" pronouncement shows, religions are fundamentally incapable of keeping themselves to themselves. (How any vaguely rational person could allow their sexual conduct to be dictated to them by a clique of geriatric virgins who've spent the last few decades covering for those among their acolytes who enjoy inducting alter boys into the joys of Catholicism in a very special way temporarily escapes me.)

So while the church continues to interfere in secular matters, I only think it fair to intefere with them (figuratively, you understand). So hats off to Peter Tatchell for gatecrashing the Synod's meeting and demanding they obey the comedy stylings of Leviticus and execute him. Much as I've been tempted to take him up on said offer at times, he spoke with more clarity and humanity on the matter than any of the assembled clergy. Which pretty much makes a mockery of the argument of superior religeous morality.


(Edited by Byron 02/08/2003 00:04)

Word!

Sorry, still not going to let this fallacy of 'if only they listened to the bible instead of the church' go by. Yes, the church is unquestionably a spreader of hate and bigotry, but its all there in the bible as well. Which has far more to say on hate than it does on love.

Homosexuality only twice? Don't think so. Only a very 'liberal' (in the sense of not literal) translation would have the word occur even once. The term did not exist until roughly 150 years ago. There are references to Sodomy and sodomites, but for those less adventurous I should point out that not all homosexuals are sodomites, nor all sodomites homosexual.

And sodomy is covered time and again and in no uncertain terms - it is unnatural and offends god. You don't have to be a member of an organized religion to hear this stuff, just read the bible.

Well, all i got from the bible was some nice stories and the message "Love the sinner, hate the sin".

thats what it said to me. Not be racist, not hateful, not stand in judgement.

it also said "turn the other cheek", but i never believed that, "God helpes them who help themselves" and whilst the "meek shall inherit the earth", i've never been very ambitious.

(Edited by Cat 02/08/2003 00:57)

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by Cat
Well, all i got from the bible was some nice stories and the message "Love the sinner, hate the sin".

thats what it said to me. Not be racist, not hateful, not stand in judgement.

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How about taking this quote and applying it in the other thread?

Or how about "Love the sinner, hate the sin, blow his head clean off"?

Here's some Bible quotes about loving thy neighbour. Or something:

Deuteronomy Chapter 3

“1. Then we turned, and went up the way to Bashan:and Og the king of Bashan came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei.
2. And the LORD said unto me, Fear him not:for I will deliver him, and all his people, and his land, into thy hand; and thou shalt do unto him as thou didst unto Sihon king of the Amorites, which dwelt at Heshbon.
3. So the LORD our God delivered into our hands Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people:and we smote him until none was left to him remaining.
4. And we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, threescore cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
5. All these cities were fenced with high walls, gates, and bars; beside unwalled towns a great many.
6. And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city.
7. But all the cattle, and the spoil of the cities, we took for a prey to ourselves.”

1 Corinthians Chapter 6

“9. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived:neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
10. Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”

1 Kings Chapter 9

“20. And all the people that were left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, which were not of the children of Israel,
21. Their children that were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel also were not able utterly to destroy, upon those did Solomon levy a tribute of bondservice unto this day.
22. But of the children of Israel did Solomon make no bondmen:but they were men of war, and his servants, and his princes, and his captains, and rulers of his chariots, and his horsemen.
23. These were the chief of the officers that were over Solomon's work, five hundred and fifty, which bare rule over the people that wrought in the work.”

Luke Chapter 12

“51. Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:
52. For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.
53. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.”

Matthew Chapter 15

“22. And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.
23. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.
24. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
25. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.
26. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.
27. And she said, Truth, Lord:yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.
28. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith:be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”

There are those who clearly believe that the Bible is to be regarded by Christians as
canon truth, immutable law, as so fundamental to the nature of Christianity that no
deviance from it's literal word can be accepted by any who would claim to be of that
faith. To this group belong such people as the Pope, George Bush and JayJay.

The 2001 census recorded that 71.7% of the population identified as Christian, does
this mean that 40million or so Britons believe homosexuality to be an abomination,
that their daughters may be sold into slavery, that those who work on the Sabbath
should be put to death, that I should be slain for the sin of have looked upon an
altar of God with my defective sight? Of course not. Most of the people who ID as
Christian have probably never even heard of Leviticus, let alone read it.

Christianity as understood by most of those 71.7% of Britons is a modern, liberal
variant, inspired by the Bible, not enslaved by it. We don't have to worry about
how to hold together a band of a dozen tribes of rag-tag refugees as we lead them
accross the desert, through lands controled by hostile tribes, to the safety of
a new, promised, land. We don't need to convince these dozen tribes that they have
common bonds, beliefs and heritages, nor do we need to convince them that the
enemy tribes should be hated, feared and reviled.

The majority of the 71.7% will not be particularly devout, they go to church for
hatching, matching and despatching, they'll pray in times of trouble, and they'll
find cheer in the simple parables they were taught as children. They're Christian
because that's what their parents were; they might believe that someone called
Jesus hung out around the middle east a couple of thousand years ago, but they'll
probably not give much thought to anything more; they'll be as likely to off-handedly
say "it's all the same god really, it's just different cultures interpret things
differently" when mentioning Hinduism as Islam -- no distinctions are drawn, a
casual, simple faith is all that's present, no more is desired or even considered.
Religion dosn't impact on their day-to-day lives, they won't consider themselves
as Christian until something happens to cause them to bring it to mind; others
when thinking of them may consider them to be "not very religious, but probably
Christian I guess".

Most of the rest stand on the boundary between the simple, hearth-Christianity
practised by most, and the strict orthodoxy of the few. These are those we regard
as "normally" religious. They go to church most Sundays, they pray when it occurs
to them, there's somebody "up there"; they believe the bits of the bible they like,
and as for the rest -- it may have made sense a few thousand years ago, but it
dosn't really apply now.

The last few are the Popes and George Bushes of the world; the word of the Bible
is a guide for how to live life; homosexuality is an abomination, abortion is murder,
atheists are heretics, and evolution is at best a theory. For them the teachings of
the bible are literal and immutable, the underlying principles of Christianity haven't
changed, and indeed thay cannot. There are always shades of grey, and some will believe
in more than others -- does GWB believe in the literal Creation? Does he believe that
the world will come to an end with the battle of Armageddon? Does he believe that he
will be saved from this by the rapture? I don't know, but there are some who do
believe these things; there are those who decry GWBs liberal beliefs, who speculate
that he may be the antichrist because of his involvement in the middle-east peace
process -- he's forestalling the final battle of good versus evil in the holy land
by negotiating with those evil arabs.

If the average hearth-christian were to read the Koran he would find much in their
that was compatible with his beliefs, and even more that is compatible with the
teachings of the Bible (in the unlikely event that he had read that!), indeed the
similarities between the three principle Abrahamic faiths are so great that it
would be almost impossible to differentiate between the ethical and spiritual beliefs
of a non-devout Jew, Christian and Muslim. Certainly an MOR Christian would probably
find his personal beliefs far more in keeping with those of MOR Jews and Muslims, than
with a strictly orthodox Christian.

The hearth-christian's faith isn't cast by the word of the bible, but rather shaped
by it's influence; to him it's heritage, it's pedigree and veracity matter far less
than the ethics he believes it to espouse -- of course Christianity is basically
"good", but it's a goodness defined by "nice" rather than "law". The Bible has
changed so much in the last three thousand years that it cannot meaningfully be
regarded as the literal words of the patriarchs and founders of the faith, let alone
the word of God.

Maybe as far back as 1000BCE the J and E texts were written, these were blended
together a couple of centuries later, then after another hundred or two years the D
and P texts were written of the course of a generation or two, and eventually
somewhere around the 5th century BCE the J/E, D and P texts were brought together
and rewritten to form the first five books of the bible. Additional writings
were brought in, rounding the pentateuch out with the rest of the books of the Tanakh,
the OT before it was the OT. Over the first few centuries CE more texts were produced,
as the NT was written, texts from countless sources, written over the previous
thousand years, written some in ancient Hebrew, some in Aramaic and Syriac, some in
Greek, were collected and edited together to form what we would recognise as the New
Testament, translated from there into latin (with much of the Greek translation being
done by the Arabs), and from there into English in the middle ages we finally have
a book that the average hearth-Christian would recognise as the Bible. Or a Bible,
for there are myriad versions; indeed although we may all agree on the very start
of the bible -- "Bereshit" -- "In the beginning" -- were does it go from there?

In the beginning

God created the heavens and the earth
God created heaven, and earth
, when God created the heavens and the earth
God created the sky and the earth
of God's creation of heaven and earth

half way through the first sentence and already we're uncertain; maybe life shaping
decissions shouldn't be made based on whether an Arab scribe fifteen hundred years
ago translated the Hebrew for "ritualised homosexual temple prostitution" correctly.
Then again maybe life shaping legislation shouldn't be based on such grammatical
masterpieces as [i]"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a
free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"[\i],
so I suppose we should be gratefull that our Arab scribe didn't accidently denounce
all procreation.

Bit rambley, but it is 3am! Hope I remembered to include my point in there somewhere.
Incase I didn't it's something along the lines of -- to most Christians the bible
isn't the word of God, it isn't the law; rather it's an concept around which they have
build their own image of Christianity -- the Christianity that they believe in enshrines
their own values and beliefs, by assinging to Christianity the attributes that they
themselves believe in they really do create god in their own image -- a god based on
"nice" who dosn't require his believers to be particularly devout.

First off I ought to make at least one thing clear (though I'm sure I've said this already). I don't hate Christians, I hate Christianity. I fail to see anything nice in a religion that won't let me into the after life party. I've even been known to fancy the odd Christian. But they do have to be odd.

71.7%? Had no idea. I suspect a sizeable amount of them, not all, not even the majority, but a sizeable amount, haven't the faintest idea of what Christianity is about. Which is a good job.

But please don't make out that everyone is a nice lovey dovey liberal with vague ideas about god and some bloke with a spanish name from Israel. I've seen the damage Christianity (and the other monotheisms) can do. I've seen gay christians torment themselves because they couldn't reconcile their faith with their sexuality. I've seen families destroyed because a child couldn't tell their christian parents they were gay. This is not just some quirk of mine, some wacko reading of the bible - this is life, this is reality. The world is not made up of middle-class liberal christians. It is filled with people who take the Bible, the Koran and the Torah very literally. The majority of church goers here in Reading were opposed to an openly and unrepetently gay Bishop, and were very vocal about it. How do you think that made all those 14 and 16 year old gay kids feel? Do you think it encouraged them to come out? That made them feel a part of their community?

Anyway, I still fail to see what you can base christianity on if not the bible. I admit people do, I just don't see how. Unless you think you've got a direct line with god (in which case you should propably be locked up with Peter Sutcliff) - how else are you to understand what god wants you to do? What does it mean to call yourself a christian if you think the bible is wrong?

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by Jayjay
Homosexuality only twice? Don't think so. Only a very 'liberal' (in the sense of not literal) translation would have the word occur even once. The term did not exist until roughly 150 years ago. There are references to Sodomy and sodomites, but for those less adventurous I should point out that not all homosexuals are sodomites, nor all sodomites homosexual.

And sodomy is covered time and again and in no uncertain terms - it is unnatural and offends god. You don't have to be a member of an organized religion to hear this stuff, just read the bible.

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LEVITICUS 20:13 If a man has sexual relations with another man, they have done a disgusting thing and both shall be put to death. (GNB)

ROMANS 1:26 Because they do this (worshipping false gods) God has given them over to shameful passions. Even the women pervert the natural use of their sex by unnatural acts. In the same way men give up natural sexual relations with women and burn with passion for each other. Men do shameful things with each other, and as a result they bring upon themselves the punishment they deserve for their wrong doing. (GNB)

All references to homosexuality, positive and negative, are listed here at the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement's website. It’s a noticeably terse list.

Those two verses do not explicitly deal with sodomy, they deal with homosexuality (I'd never be so crass as to suggest that all homosexuals are sodomoites: it'd be rather difficult with half of gay people anyhow!) And "sodomite" is a great misnomer anyway. Sodom and Gomorrah weren't raised by God because the residents enjoyed consensual buggery, they were destroyed because they tried to gang-rape two angels. (This verse tends not to make it to village pulpits very often for some reason.) The Bible’s explicit references to homosexuality are both fundamentally flawed, comprehending it as they do as nothing but physical lust, but I'll say next why I don't consider that an indictment of the entire religion.

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Sorry, still not going to let this fallacy of 'if only they listened to the bible instead of the church' go by. Yes, the church is unquestionably a spreader of hate and bigotry, but its all there in the bible as well. Which has far more to say on hate than it does on love.

---

The cruelest irony of the current furore over homosexuality is just how scarcely its referenced in the Bible. There are many more grounds to attack usury, and to condone slavery, than there are to traduce gays. The latter example demonstrates a fundamental flaw with treating the Bible literally: even the most extreme evangelical does not support slavery, because it is so anathema to our contemporary thinking.

So misguided literalism is the crux of the matter. Unlike the Holy Koran, the Bible was never intended to be taken as the verbatim words of God: the entire Old Testament was written by thousands of different people over countless generations, and the struggle of an oppressed group of desert-dwelling nomads tends to have only limited relevance today. Jesus Christ directly contradicts much of the Old Testament, replacing "An eye for an eye" with "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone". He did not go about condemning everyone; he spent his time chilling out with all those shunned by society. He never once condemned homosexuality, suggesting it wasn't remotely included in his list of sins, and he most certainly didn’t have more to say on hate than he did on love. In fact, the contemporary meaning for the Greek word used for the Centurion’s servant who Jesus famously healed, "pais", was "live in lover"!

Those who treat the Bible as the be all and end all, the sole immutable truth of Christianity, are going against the heart of the religion. Christian theologians have always viewed the Bible in light of personal revelations from the Holy Spirit and put all verses in the proper context of their times, not hold them in isolation. And all of the Bible must be viewed in light of the teachings of Jesus. That's how Christians ended up at the forefront of the abolitionist movement. If the Bible explicitly and prominently condemned homosexuals, then I would do unto it as it did unto others, but it doesn't.

So why does what the Catholic columnist Paul Valley aptly termed "doctrinal queer-bashing" take such prominence among certain groups of Christians today? When it's barely mentioned in the Bible, instinctual human prejudice informed by a truckload of twisted societal received ideas, have to be looked at. Evangelicals claim to be holding Biblical teachings separate form contemporary mores, when in fact they’re influenced by negative contemporary mores more than anyone. People, as you say, take the Torah and the Holy Koran, literally; many people are unfortunately want to have a very low grasp of abstract ideas and the concept of proper context, and this is far from limited to Christianity. I'm not absolving Christian theology, because by its very nature its followers claim divine support for whatever position they hold, a highly dangerous thing, and responsible, in tandem with the malign received ideas, for the suffering and self-loathing endured by gay Christians. That's why I myself am an atheist. But neither am I holding it solely accountable for the consequences of the fanatical hatemongering perpetrated by many of its supposed adherents.

Is this an emotive subject then?

Should I begin with an immense theological entreaty?
Or examine the problems of transliteration, transcribing from a language with no masculine or feminine emphasis?
Extrapolate a theoretical hypothesis based on my transcendance and immanence?

Or should I just put my spin on it? Decisions, decisions!


I think (something I rarely do, admittedly) that sometimes we get too caught up with the words rather than the overall meaning. Jesus was the word made flesh (John 1:1) Jesus didnt come to get rid of the law and prophets but rather to sum them up in his entire being, he came to fulfil the law.

So where do I begin?

I would like to quote the immortal, legendary, the stupendous, my own personal hero - Forrest, Forrest Gump: Stupid is as stupid does.

Forget for a moment about what you try to understand from a difficult time and culture and look at what the man actually stood for. The things he actually did, the people he associated with.

His disciples (part of the rag tag army - shades of battlestar galatica???)

Simon/Peter a man easily raised to temper, who was swayed easily by others and would ultimately deny Jesus - and even knowing this Big J made him part of the inner circle

James and John - Boanerges Sons of thunder, who's Mum (aww Bless Mum's) wanted them to sit at his right and left in glory

Judas, erm am sure you remember Judas

He only had to pick a first 11 with a sub, and most of them were defective with one double agent!

The woman at the well, a prostitute who by society's way of thinking he had no right to be talking to, and yet he took the time out to help.

The woman with the issue of blood - shouldn't have been out in the street, and yet in a jostling crowd he makes time to find her.

Mary Magdelene, another prostitute, and yet so touched by his life was the first to discover his resurrection.

The list of waifs and strays goes on and on; beggars, lepers, people from Reading....(with one note, the man who wasn't a jew who wanted Jesus to heal his son was commended for having more faith than anyone else in Israel)

Jesus denounced the organised church by likening them to the whited sepulchres along the highways, nice and clean on the outside but filled with decay inside. There is only one actual mention of Jesus preaching in a "church" the rest of the time he was where the people were at (indeed his first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding - JC grooovy?)

The problem as I see it, through mmy glass darkly, is that we all too often take the look at the organisation and founding our ideas on its weakest link, in this case I would be a very weak link. Holding God responsible for the errors of his people. Bit like saying Sainsburys is crap cos your branch had no sugar on the shelf.


Hebrews 9:27 says, "It is appointed
for men to die once and after this comes judgment."

I won't be held accountable for anyone's life other than my own.

And boy am I going to make the most of it.

Shalom Alechem peeps!!

Ookay...speaking as someone who's been in and out of Christianity, Mormonism, Wicca etc and who hasn't quite made up his mind (they haven't built the belief system that can hold me!)

What nobody seems to have mentioned is that Jesus came to earth precisely because nobody could fulfil all the requirements of the Jewish law. The Bible says that because he gave his life for us, he also took on himself the burden of our sins and because of this, anybody who believes in him will be saved/have eternal life, etc. Christians believe that they are saved by faith, not by actions.

However, when it comes down to gay priests, the issue that I have is that if the church is to have any respect in the world, then its ministers have to be worthy of that respect. Which you do by practising what you preach and living a Christian lifestyle. To my mind, a gay priest who preaches the Christian message is living a lie- their lifestyle is incompatible with the standards laid down in the Bible. I'd expect somebody in that position who really cared about what they were doing to admit their sexuality before they were ordained. But it's not because they're gay- I'd say the same about somebody who was having a heterosexual affair- it's because the job description (if you like) demands that you live your life in a certain way so as to draw people to Jesus.

I'd probably agree with anybody who said that Christianity wasn't particularly gay-friendly. It's particularly sad when there are Christians (like my friend Kate) working to reach out to people with HIV who wouldn't otherwise dream of approaching the church for fear of having their lifestyle condemned. When I know people a bit better, I'll go into some of the stuff that I've gone through in the last couple of years from trying to fit into the Christian belief system, but I'll finish the essay here before everyone's

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by Igsy
To my mind, a gay priest who preaches the Christian message is living a lie- their lifestyle is incompatible with the standards laid down in the Bible.

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Following this line of thought, are Christian priests who condemn slavery, capital punishment and have no problem with usury also living a lie?

Of course not, because from a Christian point of view, they're moved by the Holy Spirit to speak out against these things. The things you mention are part of the Law which God gave the Israelites in the desert. The main aim of this law was to ensure that the people of God survived as a unit. The reason Jesus supposedly came to Earth was because over generations, the Law had become woefully inadequate- it was used by different groups to justify their own points of view and more often than not, the letter of the law was considered more important than the Spirit.

A Christian would believe that the Holy Spirit would never move anybody to do anything which was against God's will- which includes homosexuality. That said, preachers in different societies have tolerated certain practices which we'd now consider unacceptable. There's an "official" church in China which turns a blind eye to the Chinese regime and certainly 150 years ago you would have found preachers in the southern US supporting slavery. I have to say I don't consider myself a Christian any more- although I still mix with my Christian friends, there hasn't been anything on the inside for some time now- I suppose I'm between a lot of different stools. Christian values do change slowly over time and perhaps this will all seem like a storm in a teacup in a century or two.

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by Igsy
Of course not, because from a Christian point of view, they're moved by the Holy Spirit to speak out against these things. The things you mention are part of the Law which God gave the Israelites in the desert. The main aim of this law was to ensure that the people of God survived as a unit. The reason Jesus supposedly came to Earth was because over generations, the Law had become woefully inadequate- it was used by different groups to justify their own points of view and more often than not, the letter of the law was considered more important than the Spirit.

A Christian would believe that the Holy Spirit would never move anybody to do anything which was against God's will- which includes homosexuality.

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How are you so sure of that? It is just a personal certainty? There seems to be a lot of contradictions here: you dismiss slavery as an Old Testament hangover, but it's also appoved of in the New. As you've discounted the Old Testament, meaning Leviticus isn't applicable, you leave Paul's writings as the only relevent Biblical passages condemning homosexuality. These are principally about debauchery, both homosexual and hertosexual, and don't tackle stable gay relationships at all (it's unlikely Paul even concieved of such a thing). And since Paul also thought slavery was acceptable, his credibility is by your own criteria called into question somewhat!

This to me is the inherent danger of religeon. When something is "God's will", it allows any counter-argument, however rational, to be jetisoned out of hand. Which is extremely dangerous territory.

(Edited by Byron 05/08/2003 02:22)

I don't deny that a lot of what I've said is informed by my own experience and teaching I've been given over the years. To be honest, I think we're probably going to have to agree to disagree here or we'll just end up picking holes in each other's arguments forever. Is anybody else actually following this thread any more? I don't think the New Testament condones slavery as such- what Jesus and Paul do say is that slaves should obey their masters rather than using Christianity as an excuse for a Spartacus-like revolt.

And I agree that neither Jesus nor Paul have anything to say on the subject of stable gay relationships. That's not to say they didn't exist in the ancient world- Julius Caesar's sexual preferences were very much gossiped about and some of Plato's dialogues have a lot to say on the subject. They probably just didn't exist much in the Jewish culture where they could get you stoned to death.

Your last point also makes sense- I'm sure every al-Qaeda terrorist, Palestinian suicide bomber and medieval witch-burner thought they were doing God's will. Mainstream Protestant Christianity (which is more or less all I know) believes that God has given us two ways of knowing his will- the Holy Spirit and the Bible- and also other believers, and if you believe something is his will, you need to check it out first.