Anonymous wrote:Christian condemnation of homosexual behavior did not materialize out of the ectoplasm in 1946.
This. The very idea shows a complete ignorance of Christianity, the Church, and the Bible. All church teaching (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant denominations) prior to the middle 20th century regarded homosexual behavior as sinful. I'm not saying you have to agree with that teaching, but when people talk like "homophobia" is the result of a translation that occurred almost 2000 years into the history of the church, they are not being serious.
OP
Ignorant of what exactly? That most ancient civilizations did not stigmatize or punish homosexuality until 4th century AD when Constantine converted the declining Roman Empire to Christianity? Jesus had nothing to say about the matter giving us a sense that he did not regard homosexuality as an abomination before God in the same league as many other behaviors. He had plenty to say about other types of sin (attitudes and actions that separate us from the love of God) - such as those who were/ are judgmental, hypocritical and lack compassion for others who are suffering in different ways.
Ancient Rome
As long as a man played the penetrative role, it was socially acceptable and considered natural for him to have same-sex relations, without a perceived loss of his masculinity or social standing.
Was homosexuality accepted in ancient Egypt?
No ancient Egyptian document mentions that homosexual acts were set under penalty. Thus it was very likely tolerated, as there has never been proof suggesting otherwise. The Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD is said to have exterminated a large number of "effeminate priests" based in Alexandria.
Speaking for myself, many of my favorite priests and church leaders are gay. I am so glad that they can be their true awesome selves in our church (and in many others now). Jesus advised us that we will know a tree by its fruit. The gay people I know at my large church reflect the fruits of the spirit that St Paul talks about in Galatians 5: 22-23: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law or condemnation.
You are guilty of cherrypicking what you want to believe and making widespread assumptions about pagan civilizations with absolutely no knowledge of them. Pagan civilizations were not beau ideals when it came to homosexuality. There was never a time when two grown male adults could openly be married in the eyes of their civilization with all the due rights associated with it. There were no rights for homosexuality. The Romans were also very aware of the Greek (some Greek, not all Greek) man-boy love and it was controversial for them and not exactly something they accepted as "normal."
A great deal of your misunderstanding lies in that homosexuality was seen as a sexual act rather than a sexual identity, whether man-boy or man-man love, or woman-woman. Roman literature and history is filled with using homosexuality as a slur against a person, not a praise, just as other forms of deviant sexual behaviors were also used slurs. At the same time, it was an era when men could engage in homosexual activity and still be treated as a regularly married man with a wife and family, which they often did have. It was treated as one would treat a fetish.
You also ignore that the mindset of the ancient world was sharply different and based on entirely different outlooks. It was a world, for example, where men had complete "ownership" over family members so if the wife produced yet another unwanted daughter, the father could order the slaves to leave the baby to be abandoned outside the walls for the vultures, and then go sleep with his male lover, assuming he had one. And it was accepted and within the bounds of legality of the times. The consideration for the value of human life practically did not exist in any meaningful sense, people were viewed by their tribe/people, their status as free or slave, and if free, their family and wealth. Society operated against that framework. A wealthy man from a prominent family would receive far more freedom and flexibility in his private life than a slave or a poor man. And the vast majority were either peasants or slaves with preciously few rights or protection. So I would be very careful before trying to see that a "better" morality was lost with the arrival of Christianity.
When Christianity arrived on the scene, it did introduce a new morality that fundamentally changed how the world viewed itself and people viewed each other, but it wasn't invented by the early Church. A great deal of Christian morality derived from the strict rules governing family and sexual relationships of the Jewish people (there were multiple Jewish groups), along with adaptation and evolution as it spread out of the Eastern Mediterranean and across the known world. Still, Jesus makes it clear that he subscribed to the laws of the Jewish people before him. But the absence of information in the Bible shouldn't be taken to mean that Jesus would have given his thumbs up to open acceptance of homosexuality. Frankly, we do not know what he would have said or thought. But given the context of his time and his origin and his people, if he thought about homosexuality, it was as a sexual act, not an identity, and given that he deferred to existing Jewish laws in so many areas governing family relationships, it's likely he would have seen it against that backdrop.
I'd consider homosexuality a red herring in many ways because we're arguing about something that didn't have the same societal meaning and perspectives at the time. It wasn't important enough to Jesus to talk about it, yet he also didn't single out acceptance of homosexuality either, and that does tell you something. The concept of a "gay man" rather than someone who liked to sleep with men first emerged in Germany in the mid 19th century. But what would be much more intriguing is the modern concept of transgenderism and non-binarism and fluid sexual identities. Now what Jesus would have thought about that is surely an interesting question.
DP. Agree that pre-Christian societies were not the tolerant paradises some here would like to think.
The tradition of man-boy love, in particular, involves power imbalances that should give us all pause.
But you’re wrong in asserting that Jesus would “likely” have opposed homosexuality because of his time and background. It also seems meaningless to conclude that because he isn’t on the record as saying anything affirmatively in favor of homosexuality, this absence “tells us something,” and that something must be negative. Against all this, you should weigh his acceptance of and love for all types of people.
PS. Jesus broke many taboos of his time. Accepting foreigners (parable of the Good Samaritan), teaching women (Mary and Martha), eating with the despised and “unclean” tax collectors, and more. Plus he lived in a heavily romanized part of the world. You just can’t assert that because he isn’t on record as saying anything affirming homosexuality, this must mean he thinks what anyone of his background would have thought.
I'm a new poster. Good points, but the taboos Jesus broke weren't sexual. We know Jesus was against adultery and fornication, and had rather strict views on a man taking only one wife (an improvement for women's status at the time). We can assume that Jesus would not have approved of homosexuality during the first century, because it was only available in the context of an extra-marital / non-marital relationship. How this translates to gay marriage in the 21st century is a but less clear. We do know his response would have been compassionate regardless.
I have a difficult time with interpreting what compassionate looks like with regard to sin.
Because he loved everyone, spent time with, invited everyone,…to “go and sin no more”
—which we know is an impossible task. But we strive not to sin, fail, and ask forgiveness.
My issue with this is not in being compassionate toward others who are “in sin” as we ALL are. But it’s in the “pride” part of it. IF it is a sin—which many now claim it is not, then—as Christians—we can accept and live the sinner, but we can’t be celebrating ithe state of sin and refusal to repent from it with pride parades because if I acting on an attraction to same sex is sinful, God does not want us doing that.
And since God does not want us having sexual relationships outside of the marriage covenant, and has defined Biblical marriage as a covenant between man, woman, and God, it is difficult to reconcile affirming same sex relations in the context of what Jesus teaches is necessary for salvation (confession of sin and repentance).
On the other hand— one can probably argue that many many many (most?)heterosexual Christians have sex prior to marriage and then eventually stop doing that when they get married (“go and sin no more”) and churches don’t make a huge case out of whether they are or are not a “casual sex for 20-something singles” affirming church! There’s no flag for that outside the more liberal denominations.
It’s just sort of a non issue. The church accepts that we fall short of that expectation.
But there’s also not a casual sex parade for heterosexual that insists that we celebrate our lustful nature as part of our “identity” so it’s difficult to be consistent on this.
If “the church” can’t agreee on what behaviors are sinful, then one can’t acknowledge sin to repent from it. Simple as that.
I thought Jesus said we shouldn't be judging others and just be loving everyone. So why are we deciding what is a sin and what is not? That's is God's role, not ours. If someone wants to take pride in being gay, and God doesn't like that, then God will deal with that. We shouldn't be doing anything about it. We should just be loving everyone.
After saving her from execution, he told the adulterous woman to go and sin no more. Why did he do that?
Anonymous wrote:Christian condemnation of homosexual behavior did not materialize out of the ectoplasm in 1946.
This. The very idea shows a complete ignorance of Christianity, the Church, and the Bible. All church teaching (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant denominations) prior to the middle 20th century regarded homosexual behavior as sinful. I'm not saying you have to agree with that teaching, but when people talk like "homophobia" is the result of a translation that occurred almost 2000 years into the history of the church, they are not being serious.
OP
Ignorant of what exactly? That most ancient civilizations did not stigmatize or punish homosexuality until 4th century AD when Constantine converted the declining Roman Empire to Christianity? Jesus had nothing to say about the matter giving us a sense that he did not regard homosexuality as an abomination before God in the same league as many other behaviors. He had plenty to say about other types of sin (attitudes and actions that separate us from the love of God) - such as those who were/ are judgmental, hypocritical and lack compassion for others who are suffering in different ways.
Ancient Rome
As long as a man played the penetrative role, it was socially acceptable and considered natural for him to have same-sex relations, without a perceived loss of his masculinity or social standing.
Was homosexuality accepted in ancient Egypt?
No ancient Egyptian document mentions that homosexual acts were set under penalty. Thus it was very likely tolerated, as there has never been proof suggesting otherwise. The Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD is said to have exterminated a large number of "effeminate priests" based in Alexandria.
Speaking for myself, many of my favorite priests and church leaders are gay. I am so glad that they can be their true awesome selves in our church (and in many others now). Jesus advised us that we will know a tree by its fruit. The gay people I know at my large church reflect the fruits of the spirit that St Paul talks about in Galatians 5: 22-23: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law or condemnation.
You are guilty of cherrypicking what you want to believe and making widespread assumptions about pagan civilizations with absolutely no knowledge of them. Pagan civilizations were not beau ideals when it came to homosexuality. There was never a time when two grown male adults could openly be married in the eyes of their civilization with all the due rights associated with it. There were no rights for homosexuality. The Romans were also very aware of the Greek (some Greek, not all Greek) man-boy love and it was controversial for them and not exactly something they accepted as "normal."
A great deal of your misunderstanding lies in that homosexuality was seen as a sexual act rather than a sexual identity, whether man-boy or man-man love, or woman-woman. Roman literature and history is filled with using homosexuality as a slur against a person, not a praise, just as other forms of deviant sexual behaviors were also used slurs. At the same time, it was an era when men could engage in homosexual activity and still be treated as a regularly married man with a wife and family, which they often did have. It was treated as one would treat a fetish.
You also ignore that the mindset of the ancient world was sharply different and based on entirely different outlooks. It was a world, for example, where men had complete "ownership" over family members so if the wife produced yet another unwanted daughter, the father could order the slaves to leave the baby to be abandoned outside the walls for the vultures, and then go sleep with his male lover, assuming he had one. And it was accepted and within the bounds of legality of the times. The consideration for the value of human life practically did not exist in any meaningful sense, people were viewed by their tribe/people, their status as free or slave, and if free, their family and wealth. Society operated against that framework. A wealthy man from a prominent family would receive far more freedom and flexibility in his private life than a slave or a poor man. And the vast majority were either peasants or slaves with preciously few rights or protection. So I would be very careful before trying to see that a "better" morality was lost with the arrival of Christianity.
When Christianity arrived on the scene, it did introduce a new morality that fundamentally changed how the world viewed itself and people viewed each other, but it wasn't invented by the early Church. A great deal of Christian morality derived from the strict rules governing family and sexual relationships of the Jewish people (there were multiple Jewish groups), along with adaptation and evolution as it spread out of the Eastern Mediterranean and across the known world. Still, Jesus makes it clear that he subscribed to the laws of the Jewish people before him. But the absence of information in the Bible shouldn't be taken to mean that Jesus would have given his thumbs up to open acceptance of homosexuality. Frankly, we do not know what he would have said or thought. But given the context of his time and his origin and his people, if he thought about homosexuality, it was as a sexual act, not an identity, and given that he deferred to existing Jewish laws in so many areas governing family relationships, it's likely he would have seen it against that backdrop.
I'd consider homosexuality a red herring in many ways because we're arguing about something that didn't have the same societal meaning and perspectives at the time. It wasn't important enough to Jesus to talk about it, yet he also didn't single out acceptance of homosexuality either, and that does tell you something. The concept of a "gay man" rather than someone who liked to sleep with men first emerged in Germany in the mid 19th century. But what would be much more intriguing is the modern concept of transgenderism and non-binarism and fluid sexual identities. Now what Jesus would have thought about that is surely an interesting question.
DP. Agree that pre-Christian societies were not the tolerant paradises some here would like to think.
The tradition of man-boy love, in particular, involves power imbalances that should give us all pause.
But you’re wrong in asserting that Jesus would “likely” have opposed homosexuality because of his time and background. It also seems meaningless to conclude that because he isn’t on the record as saying anything affirmatively in favor of homosexuality, this absence “tells us something,” and that something must be negative. Against all this, you should weigh his acceptance of and love for all types of people.
PS. Jesus broke many taboos of his time. Accepting foreigners (parable of the Good Samaritan), teaching women (Mary and Martha), eating with the despised and “unclean” tax collectors, and more. Plus he lived in a heavily romanized part of the world. You just can’t assert that because he isn’t on record as saying anything affirming homosexuality, this must mean he thinks what anyone of his background would have thought.
I'm a new poster. Good points, but the taboos Jesus broke weren't sexual. We know Jesus was against adultery and fornication, and had rather strict views on a man taking only one wife (an improvement for women's status at the time). We can assume that Jesus would not have approved of homosexuality during the first century, because it was only available in the context of an extra-marital / non-marital relationship. How this translates to gay marriage in the 21st century is a but less clear. We do know his response would have been compassionate regardless.
I have a difficult time with interpreting what compassionate looks like with regard to sin.
Because he loved everyone, spent time with, invited everyone,…to “go and sin no more”
—which we know is an impossible task. But we strive not to sin, fail, and ask forgiveness.
My issue with this is not in being compassionate toward others who are “in sin” as we ALL are. But it’s in the “pride” part of it. IF it is a sin—which many now claim it is not, then—as Christians—we can accept and live the sinner, but we can’t be celebrating ithe state of sin and refusal to repent from it with pride parades because if I acting on an attraction to same sex is sinful, God does not want us doing that.
And since God does not want us having sexual relationships outside of the marriage covenant, and has defined Biblical marriage as a covenant between man, woman, and God, it is difficult to reconcile affirming same sex relations in the context of what Jesus teaches is necessary for salvation (confession of sin and repentance).
On the other hand— one can probably argue that many many many (most?)heterosexual Christians have sex prior to marriage and then eventually stop doing that when they get married (“go and sin no more”) and churches don’t make a huge case out of whether they are or are not a “casual sex for 20-something singles” affirming church! There’s no flag for that outside the more liberal denominations.
It’s just sort of a non issue. The church accepts that we fall short of that expectation.
But there’s also not a casual sex parade for heterosexual that insists that we celebrate our lustful nature as part of our “identity” so it’s difficult to be consistent on this.
If “the church” can’t agreee on what behaviors are sinful, then one can’t acknowledge sin to repent from it. Simple as that.
I thought Jesus said we shouldn't be judging others and just be loving everyone. So why are we deciding what is a sin and what is not? That's is God's role, not ours. If someone wants to take pride in being gay, and God doesn't like that, then God will deal with that. We shouldn't be doing anything about it. We should just be loving everyone.
Judging others is a blood sport for certain religious folks.
Anonymous wrote:Christian condemnation of homosexual behavior did not materialize out of the ectoplasm in 1946.
This. The very idea shows a complete ignorance of Christianity, the Church, and the Bible. All church teaching (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant denominations) prior to the middle 20th century regarded homosexual behavior as sinful. I'm not saying you have to agree with that teaching, but when people talk like "homophobia" is the result of a translation that occurred almost 2000 years into the history of the church, they are not being serious.
OP
Ignorant of what exactly? That most ancient civilizations did not stigmatize or punish homosexuality until 4th century AD when Constantine converted the declining Roman Empire to Christianity? Jesus had nothing to say about the matter giving us a sense that he did not regard homosexuality as an abomination before God in the same league as many other behaviors. He had plenty to say about other types of sin (attitudes and actions that separate us from the love of God) - such as those who were/ are judgmental, hypocritical and lack compassion for others who are suffering in different ways.
Ancient Rome
As long as a man played the penetrative role, it was socially acceptable and considered natural for him to have same-sex relations, without a perceived loss of his masculinity or social standing.
Was homosexuality accepted in ancient Egypt?
No ancient Egyptian document mentions that homosexual acts were set under penalty. Thus it was very likely tolerated, as there has never been proof suggesting otherwise. The Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD is said to have exterminated a large number of "effeminate priests" based in Alexandria.
Speaking for myself, many of my favorite priests and church leaders are gay. I am so glad that they can be their true awesome selves in our church (and in many others now). Jesus advised us that we will know a tree by its fruit. The gay people I know at my large church reflect the fruits of the spirit that St Paul talks about in Galatians 5: 22-23: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law or condemnation.
You are guilty of cherrypicking what you want to believe and making widespread assumptions about pagan civilizations with absolutely no knowledge of them. Pagan civilizations were not beau ideals when it came to homosexuality. There was never a time when two grown male adults could openly be married in the eyes of their civilization with all the due rights associated with it. There were no rights for homosexuality. The Romans were also very aware of the Greek (some Greek, not all Greek) man-boy love and it was controversial for them and not exactly something they accepted as "normal."
A great deal of your misunderstanding lies in that homosexuality was seen as a sexual act rather than a sexual identity, whether man-boy or man-man love, or woman-woman. Roman literature and history is filled with using homosexuality as a slur against a person, not a praise, just as other forms of deviant sexual behaviors were also used slurs. At the same time, it was an era when men could engage in homosexual activity and still be treated as a regularly married man with a wife and family, which they often did have. It was treated as one would treat a fetish.
You also ignore that the mindset of the ancient world was sharply different and based on entirely different outlooks. It was a world, for example, where men had complete "ownership" over family members so if the wife produced yet another unwanted daughter, the father could order the slaves to leave the baby to be abandoned outside the walls for the vultures, and then go sleep with his male lover, assuming he had one. And it was accepted and within the bounds of legality of the times. The consideration for the value of human life practically did not exist in any meaningful sense, people were viewed by their tribe/people, their status as free or slave, and if free, their family and wealth. Society operated against that framework. A wealthy man from a prominent family would receive far more freedom and flexibility in his private life than a slave or a poor man. And the vast majority were either peasants or slaves with preciously few rights or protection. So I would be very careful before trying to see that a "better" morality was lost with the arrival of Christianity.
When Christianity arrived on the scene, it did introduce a new morality that fundamentally changed how the world viewed itself and people viewed each other, but it wasn't invented by the early Church. A great deal of Christian morality derived from the strict rules governing family and sexual relationships of the Jewish people (there were multiple Jewish groups), along with adaptation and evolution as it spread out of the Eastern Mediterranean and across the known world. Still, Jesus makes it clear that he subscribed to the laws of the Jewish people before him. But the absence of information in the Bible shouldn't be taken to mean that Jesus would have given his thumbs up to open acceptance of homosexuality. Frankly, we do not know what he would have said or thought. But given the context of his time and his origin and his people, if he thought about homosexuality, it was as a sexual act, not an identity, and given that he deferred to existing Jewish laws in so many areas governing family relationships, it's likely he would have seen it against that backdrop.
I'd consider homosexuality a red herring in many ways because we're arguing about something that didn't have the same societal meaning and perspectives at the time. It wasn't important enough to Jesus to talk about it, yet he also didn't single out acceptance of homosexuality either, and that does tell you something. The concept of a "gay man" rather than someone who liked to sleep with men first emerged in Germany in the mid 19th century. But what would be much more intriguing is the modern concept of transgenderism and non-binarism and fluid sexual identities. Now what Jesus would have thought about that is surely an interesting question.
DP. Agree that pre-Christian societies were not the tolerant paradises some here would like to think.
The tradition of man-boy love, in particular, involves power imbalances that should give us all pause.
But you’re wrong in asserting that Jesus would “likely” have opposed homosexuality because of his time and background. It also seems meaningless to conclude that because he isn’t on the record as saying anything affirmatively in favor of homosexuality, this absence “tells us something,” and that something must be negative. Against all this, you should weigh his acceptance of and love for all types of people.
PS. Jesus broke many taboos of his time. Accepting foreigners (parable of the Good Samaritan), teaching women (Mary and Martha), eating with the despised and “unclean” tax collectors, and more. Plus he lived in a heavily romanized part of the world. You just can’t assert that because he isn’t on record as saying anything affirming homosexuality, this must mean he thinks what anyone of his background would have thought.
I'm a new poster. Good points, but the taboos Jesus broke weren't sexual. We know Jesus was against adultery and fornication, and had rather strict views on a man taking only one wife (an improvement for women's status at the time). We can assume that Jesus would not have approved of homosexuality during the first century, because it was only available in the context of an extra-marital / non-marital relationship. How this translates to gay marriage in the 21st century is a but less clear. We do know his response would have been compassionate regardless.
How is monogamy better for women?
Monogamy means fewer women get a rich husband, a larger share of the homemaking work, and have more pressure for sex or their husband's company, and then more than now, women didn't get to choose a husband whose company they'd enjoy.
Polygamy is better than monogamy for women.
I can't tell if this is a real response or if it's satirical. Monogamous marriage means that a husband's resources are better able to provide for his wife and kids. Most men who practice polygyny aren't rich, and live in areas where women don't usually work outside the home (as it was then). So polygyny = thinner resources, and results in more women living in poverty. Also, lots of research shows the negative effects of polygyny on women, higher rates of domestic abuse, and worse outcomes for their kids who are all competing for resources from the dad. There is more that you're not getting here, but I don't have time to respond. Just google it.
And it was never a case of multiple equal wives but a pecking order of first, second and so forth wives, and with less power and less rights the lesser a wife you were, including the children who'd be viewed by which rank their mother had in themarriage. And polygamy also meant that richer men took the lion's share of wives and fostered greater inequality in society.
Anonymous wrote:Christian condemnation of homosexual behavior did not materialize out of the ectoplasm in 1946.
This. The very idea shows a complete ignorance of Christianity, the Church, and the Bible. All church teaching (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant denominations) prior to the middle 20th century regarded homosexual behavior as sinful. I'm not saying you have to agree with that teaching, but when people talk like "homophobia" is the result of a translation that occurred almost 2000 years into the history of the church, they are not being serious.
OP
Ignorant of what exactly? That most ancient civilizations did not stigmatize or punish homosexuality until 4th century AD when Constantine converted the declining Roman Empire to Christianity? Jesus had nothing to say about the matter giving us a sense that he did not regard homosexuality as an abomination before God in the same league as many other behaviors. He had plenty to say about other types of sin (attitudes and actions that separate us from the love of God) - such as those who were/ are judgmental, hypocritical and lack compassion for others who are suffering in different ways.
Ancient Rome
As long as a man played the penetrative role, it was socially acceptable and considered natural for him to have same-sex relations, without a perceived loss of his masculinity or social standing.
Was homosexuality accepted in ancient Egypt?
No ancient Egyptian document mentions that homosexual acts were set under penalty. Thus it was very likely tolerated, as there has never been proof suggesting otherwise. The Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD is said to have exterminated a large number of "effeminate priests" based in Alexandria.
Speaking for myself, many of my favorite priests and church leaders are gay. I am so glad that they can be their true awesome selves in our church (and in many others now). Jesus advised us that we will know a tree by its fruit. The gay people I know at my large church reflect the fruits of the spirit that St Paul talks about in Galatians 5: 22-23: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law or condemnation.
You are guilty of cherrypicking what you want to believe and making widespread assumptions about pagan civilizations with absolutely no knowledge of them. Pagan civilizations were not beau ideals when it came to homosexuality. There was never a time when two grown male adults could openly be married in the eyes of their civilization with all the due rights associated with it. There were no rights for homosexuality. The Romans were also very aware of the Greek (some Greek, not all Greek) man-boy love and it was controversial for them and not exactly something they accepted as "normal."
A great deal of your misunderstanding lies in that homosexuality was seen as a sexual act rather than a sexual identity, whether man-boy or man-man love, or woman-woman. Roman literature and history is filled with using homosexuality as a slur against a person, not a praise, just as other forms of deviant sexual behaviors were also used slurs. At the same time, it was an era when men could engage in homosexual activity and still be treated as a regularly married man with a wife and family, which they often did have. It was treated as one would treat a fetish.
You also ignore that the mindset of the ancient world was sharply different and based on entirely different outlooks. It was a world, for example, where men had complete "ownership" over family members so if the wife produced yet another unwanted daughter, the father could order the slaves to leave the baby to be abandoned outside the walls for the vultures, and then go sleep with his male lover, assuming he had one. And it was accepted and within the bounds of legality of the times. The consideration for the value of human life practically did not exist in any meaningful sense, people were viewed by their tribe/people, their status as free or slave, and if free, their family and wealth. Society operated against that framework. A wealthy man from a prominent family would receive far more freedom and flexibility in his private life than a slave or a poor man. And the vast majority were either peasants or slaves with preciously few rights or protection. So I would be very careful before trying to see that a "better" morality was lost with the arrival of Christianity.
When Christianity arrived on the scene, it did introduce a new morality that fundamentally changed how the world viewed itself and people viewed each other, but it wasn't invented by the early Church. A great deal of Christian morality derived from the strict rules governing family and sexual relationships of the Jewish people (there were multiple Jewish groups), along with adaptation and evolution as it spread out of the Eastern Mediterranean and across the known world. Still, Jesus makes it clear that he subscribed to the laws of the Jewish people before him. But the absence of information in the Bible shouldn't be taken to mean that Jesus would have given his thumbs up to open acceptance of homosexuality. Frankly, we do not know what he would have said or thought. But given the context of his time and his origin and his people, if he thought about homosexuality, it was as a sexual act, not an identity, and given that he deferred to existing Jewish laws in so many areas governing family relationships, it's likely he would have seen it against that backdrop.
I'd consider homosexuality a red herring in many ways because we're arguing about something that didn't have the same societal meaning and perspectives at the time. It wasn't important enough to Jesus to talk about it, yet he also didn't single out acceptance of homosexuality either, and that does tell you something. The concept of a "gay man" rather than someone who liked to sleep with men first emerged in Germany in the mid 19th century. But what would be much more intriguing is the modern concept of transgenderism and non-binarism and fluid sexual identities. Now what Jesus would have thought about that is surely an interesting question.
DP. Agree that pre-Christian societies were not the tolerant paradises some here would like to think.
The tradition of man-boy love, in particular, involves power imbalances that should give us all pause.
But you’re wrong in asserting that Jesus would “likely” have opposed homosexuality because of his time and background. It also seems meaningless to conclude that because he isn’t on the record as saying anything affirmatively in favor of homosexuality, this absence “tells us something,” and that something must be negative. Against all this, you should weigh his acceptance of and love for all types of people.
PS. Jesus broke many taboos of his time. Accepting foreigners (parable of the Good Samaritan), teaching women (Mary and Martha), eating with the despised and “unclean” tax collectors, and more. Plus he lived in a heavily romanized part of the world. You just can’t assert that because he isn’t on record as saying anything affirming homosexuality, this must mean he thinks what anyone of his background would have thought.
I'm a new poster. Good points, but the taboos Jesus broke weren't sexual. We know Jesus was against adultery and fornication, and had rather strict views on a man taking only one wife (an improvement for women's status at the time). We can assume that Jesus would not have approved of homosexuality during the first century, because it was only available in the context of an extra-marital / non-marital relationship. How this translates to gay marriage in the 21st century is a but less clear. We do know his response would have been compassionate regardless.
I have a difficult time with interpreting what compassionate looks like with regard to sin.
Because he loved everyone, spent time with, invited everyone,…to “go and sin no more”
—which we know is an impossible task. But we strive not to sin, fail, and ask forgiveness.
My issue with this is not in being compassionate toward others who are “in sin” as we ALL are. But it’s in the “pride” part of it. IF it is a sin—which many now claim it is not, then—as Christians—we can accept and live the sinner, but we can’t be celebrating ithe state of sin and refusal to repent from it with pride parades because if I acting on an attraction to same sex is sinful, God does not want us doing that.
And since God does not want us having sexual relationships outside of the marriage covenant, and has defined Biblical marriage as a covenant between man, woman, and God, it is difficult to reconcile affirming same sex relations in the context of what Jesus teaches is necessary for salvation (confession of sin and repentance).
On the other hand— one can probably argue that many many many (most?)heterosexual Christians have sex prior to marriage and then eventually stop doing that when they get married (“go and sin no more”) and churches don’t make a huge case out of whether they are or are not a “casual sex for 20-something singles” affirming church! There’s no flag for that outside the more liberal denominations.
It’s just sort of a non issue. The church accepts that we fall short of that expectation.
But there’s also not a casual sex parade for heterosexual that insists that we celebrate our lustful nature as part of our “identity” so it’s difficult to be consistent on this.
If “the church” can’t agreee on what behaviors are sinful, then one can’t acknowledge sin to repent from it. Simple as that.
I thought Jesus said we shouldn't be judging others and just be loving everyone. So why are we deciding what is a sin and what is not? That's is God's role, not ours. If someone wants to take pride in being gay, and God doesn't like that, then God will deal with that. We shouldn't be doing anything about it. We should just be loving everyone.
Judging others is a blood sport for certain religious folks.
Jesus definitely judged. We all judge. Although perhaps not as judgmental as the progressive left is these days.
Jesus encouraged people to see the errors of their way. The modern liberal church outlook that you can do anything and call yourself anything and it doesn't matter because Jesus would still love you is rather misleading. Jesus still loves you but he still wants you to see the errors of your way. He wants you to stop sinning. So the question is whether homosexual activity is a sin or not. You could make the valid case that Jesus loves the gay man but not the gay sexual behavior, just as he forgave the prostitute but told her to stop being a prostitute. He would love the transgender but not the belief that you can be born a different gender from the body God gave you, which would certainly be viewed a sin.
It can be a problematic topic, even for me because I am gay. I don't agonize over the subject too much but as someone who is culturally Christian I have thought about it. How can one not? And I know other gay Christians, both conservative and liberal. Ultimately, I take the path of so many Christians before me and who will come after me in making my little compromises and just simply try to be a decent person because I'm not perfect and no human is perfect.
Anonymous wrote:Christian condemnation of homosexual behavior did not materialize out of the ectoplasm in 1946.
This. The very idea shows a complete ignorance of Christianity, the Church, and the Bible. All church teaching (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant denominations) prior to the middle 20th century regarded homosexual behavior as sinful. I'm not saying you have to agree with that teaching, but when people talk like "homophobia" is the result of a translation that occurred almost 2000 years into the history of the church, they are not being serious.
OP
Ignorant of what exactly? That most ancient civilizations did not stigmatize or punish homosexuality until 4th century AD when Constantine converted the declining Roman Empire to Christianity? Jesus had nothing to say about the matter giving us a sense that he did not regard homosexuality as an abomination before God in the same league as many other behaviors. He had plenty to say about other types of sin (attitudes and actions that separate us from the love of God) - such as those who were/ are judgmental, hypocritical and lack compassion for others who are suffering in different ways.
Ancient Rome
As long as a man played the penetrative role, it was socially acceptable and considered natural for him to have same-sex relations, without a perceived loss of his masculinity or social standing.
Was homosexuality accepted in ancient Egypt?
No ancient Egyptian document mentions that homosexual acts were set under penalty. Thus it was very likely tolerated, as there has never been proof suggesting otherwise. The Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD is said to have exterminated a large number of "effeminate priests" based in Alexandria.
Speaking for myself, many of my favorite priests and church leaders are gay. I am so glad that they can be their true awesome selves in our church (and in many others now). Jesus advised us that we will know a tree by its fruit. The gay people I know at my large church reflect the fruits of the spirit that St Paul talks about in Galatians 5: 22-23: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law or condemnation.
You are guilty of cherrypicking what you want to believe and making widespread assumptions about pagan civilizations with absolutely no knowledge of them. Pagan civilizations were not beau ideals when it came to homosexuality. There was never a time when two grown male adults could openly be married in the eyes of their civilization with all the due rights associated with it. There were no rights for homosexuality. The Romans were also very aware of the Greek (some Greek, not all Greek) man-boy love and it was controversial for them and not exactly something they accepted as "normal."
A great deal of your misunderstanding lies in that homosexuality was seen as a sexual act rather than a sexual identity, whether man-boy or man-man love, or woman-woman. Roman literature and history is filled with using homosexuality as a slur against a person, not a praise, just as other forms of deviant sexual behaviors were also used slurs. At the same time, it was an era when men could engage in homosexual activity and still be treated as a regularly married man with a wife and family, which they often did have. It was treated as one would treat a fetish.
You also ignore that the mindset of the ancient world was sharply different and based on entirely different outlooks. It was a world, for example, where men had complete "ownership" over family members so if the wife produced yet another unwanted daughter, the father could order the slaves to leave the baby to be abandoned outside the walls for the vultures, and then go sleep with his male lover, assuming he had one. And it was accepted and within the bounds of legality of the times. The consideration for the value of human life practically did not exist in any meaningful sense, people were viewed by their tribe/people, their status as free or slave, and if free, their family and wealth. Society operated against that framework. A wealthy man from a prominent family would receive far more freedom and flexibility in his private life than a slave or a poor man. And the vast majority were either peasants or slaves with preciously few rights or protection. So I would be very careful before trying to see that a "better" morality was lost with the arrival of Christianity.
When Christianity arrived on the scene, it did introduce a new morality that fundamentally changed how the world viewed itself and people viewed each other, but it wasn't invented by the early Church. A great deal of Christian morality derived from the strict rules governing family and sexual relationships of the Jewish people (there were multiple Jewish groups), along with adaptation and evolution as it spread out of the Eastern Mediterranean and across the known world. Still, Jesus makes it clear that he subscribed to the laws of the Jewish people before him. But the absence of information in the Bible shouldn't be taken to mean that Jesus would have given his thumbs up to open acceptance of homosexuality. Frankly, we do not know what he would have said or thought. But given the context of his time and his origin and his people, if he thought about homosexuality, it was as a sexual act, not an identity, and given that he deferred to existing Jewish laws in so many areas governing family relationships, it's likely he would have seen it against that backdrop.
I'd consider homosexuality a red herring in many ways because we're arguing about something that didn't have the same societal meaning and perspectives at the time. It wasn't important enough to Jesus to talk about it, yet he also didn't single out acceptance of homosexuality either, and that does tell you something. The concept of a "gay man" rather than someone who liked to sleep with men first emerged in Germany in the mid 19th century. But what would be much more intriguing is the modern concept of transgenderism and non-binarism and fluid sexual identities. Now what Jesus would have thought about that is surely an interesting question.
DP. Agree that pre-Christian societies were not the tolerant paradises some here would like to think.
The tradition of man-boy love, in particular, involves power imbalances that should give us all pause.
But you’re wrong in asserting that Jesus would “likely” have opposed homosexuality because of his time and background. It also seems meaningless to conclude that because he isn’t on the record as saying anything affirmatively in favor of homosexuality, this absence “tells us something,” and that something must be negative. Against all this, you should weigh his acceptance of and love for all types of people.
PS. Jesus broke many taboos of his time. Accepting foreigners (parable of the Good Samaritan), teaching women (Mary and Martha), eating with the despised and “unclean” tax collectors, and more. Plus he lived in a heavily romanized part of the world. You just can’t assert that because he isn’t on record as saying anything affirming homosexuality, this must mean he thinks what anyone of his background would have thought.
I'm a new poster. Good points, but the taboos Jesus broke weren't sexual. We know Jesus was against adultery and fornication, and had rather strict views on a man taking only one wife (an improvement for women's status at the time). We can assume that Jesus would not have approved of homosexuality during the first century, because it was only available in the context of an extra-marital / non-marital relationship. How this translates to gay marriage in the 21st century is a but less clear. We do know his response would have been compassionate regardless.
I have a difficult time with interpreting what compassionate looks like with regard to sin.
Because he loved everyone, spent time with, invited everyone,…to “go and sin no more”
—which we know is an impossible task. But we strive not to sin, fail, and ask forgiveness.
My issue with this is not in being compassionate toward others who are “in sin” as we ALL are. But it’s in the “pride” part of it. IF it is a sin—which many now claim it is not, then—as Christians—we can accept and live the sinner, but we can’t be celebrating ithe state of sin and refusal to repent from it with pride parades because if I acting on an attraction to same sex is sinful, God does not want us doing that.
And since God does not want us having sexual relationships outside of the marriage covenant, and has defined Biblical marriage as a covenant between man, woman, and God, it is difficult to reconcile affirming same sex relations in the context of what Jesus teaches is necessary for salvation (confession of sin and repentance).
On the other hand— one can probably argue that many many many (most?)heterosexual Christians have sex prior to marriage and then eventually stop doing that when they get married (“go and sin no more”) and churches don’t make a huge case out of whether they are or are not a “casual sex for 20-something singles” affirming church! There’s no flag for that outside the more liberal denominations.
It’s just sort of a non issue. The church accepts that we fall short of that expectation.
But there’s also not a casual sex parade for heterosexual that insists that we celebrate our lustful nature as part of our “identity” so it’s difficult to be consistent on this.
If “the church” can’t agreee on what behaviors are sinful, then one can’t acknowledge sin to repent from it. Simple as that.
I thought Jesus said we shouldn't be judging others and just be loving everyone. So why are we deciding what is a sin and what is not? That's is God's role, not ours. If someone wants to take pride in being gay, and God doesn't like that, then God will deal with that. We shouldn't be doing anything about it. We should just be loving everyone.
After saving her from execution, he told the adulterous woman to go and sin no more. Why did he do that?
You tell me why he did that and not some random person.
Anonymous wrote:Christian condemnation of homosexual behavior did not materialize out of the ectoplasm in 1946.
This. The very idea shows a complete ignorance of Christianity, the Church, and the Bible. All church teaching (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant denominations) prior to the middle 20th century regarded homosexual behavior as sinful. I'm not saying you have to agree with that teaching, but when people talk like "homophobia" is the result of a translation that occurred almost 2000 years into the history of the church, they are not being serious.
OP
Ignorant of what exactly? That most ancient civilizations did not stigmatize or punish homosexuality until 4th century AD when Constantine converted the declining Roman Empire to Christianity? Jesus had nothing to say about the matter giving us a sense that he did not regard homosexuality as an abomination before God in the same league as many other behaviors. He had plenty to say about other types of sin (attitudes and actions that separate us from the love of God) - such as those who were/ are judgmental, hypocritical and lack compassion for others who are suffering in different ways.
Ancient Rome
As long as a man played the penetrative role, it was socially acceptable and considered natural for him to have same-sex relations, without a perceived loss of his masculinity or social standing.
Was homosexuality accepted in ancient Egypt?
No ancient Egyptian document mentions that homosexual acts were set under penalty. Thus it was very likely tolerated, as there has never been proof suggesting otherwise. The Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD is said to have exterminated a large number of "effeminate priests" based in Alexandria.
Speaking for myself, many of my favorite priests and church leaders are gay. I am so glad that they can be their true awesome selves in our church (and in many others now). Jesus advised us that we will know a tree by its fruit. The gay people I know at my large church reflect the fruits of the spirit that St Paul talks about in Galatians 5: 22-23: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law or condemnation.
You are guilty of cherrypicking what you want to believe and making widespread assumptions about pagan civilizations with absolutely no knowledge of them. Pagan civilizations were not beau ideals when it came to homosexuality. There was never a time when two grown male adults could openly be married in the eyes of their civilization with all the due rights associated with it. There were no rights for homosexuality. The Romans were also very aware of the Greek (some Greek, not all Greek) man-boy love and it was controversial for them and not exactly something they accepted as "normal."
A great deal of your misunderstanding lies in that homosexuality was seen as a sexual act rather than a sexual identity, whether man-boy or man-man love, or woman-woman. Roman literature and history is filled with using homosexuality as a slur against a person, not a praise, just as other forms of deviant sexual behaviors were also used slurs. At the same time, it was an era when men could engage in homosexual activity and still be treated as a regularly married man with a wife and family, which they often did have. It was treated as one would treat a fetish.
You also ignore that the mindset of the ancient world was sharply different and based on entirely different outlooks. It was a world, for example, where men had complete "ownership" over family members so if the wife produced yet another unwanted daughter, the father could order the slaves to leave the baby to be abandoned outside the walls for the vultures, and then go sleep with his male lover, assuming he had one. And it was accepted and within the bounds of legality of the times. The consideration for the value of human life practically did not exist in any meaningful sense, people were viewed by their tribe/people, their status as free or slave, and if free, their family and wealth. Society operated against that framework. A wealthy man from a prominent family would receive far more freedom and flexibility in his private life than a slave or a poor man. And the vast majority were either peasants or slaves with preciously few rights or protection. So I would be very careful before trying to see that a "better" morality was lost with the arrival of Christianity.
When Christianity arrived on the scene, it did introduce a new morality that fundamentally changed how the world viewed itself and people viewed each other, but it wasn't invented by the early Church. A great deal of Christian morality derived from the strict rules governing family and sexual relationships of the Jewish people (there were multiple Jewish groups), along with adaptation and evolution as it spread out of the Eastern Mediterranean and across the known world. Still, Jesus makes it clear that he subscribed to the laws of the Jewish people before him. But the absence of information in the Bible shouldn't be taken to mean that Jesus would have given his thumbs up to open acceptance of homosexuality. Frankly, we do not know what he would have said or thought. But given the context of his time and his origin and his people, if he thought about homosexuality, it was as a sexual act, not an identity, and given that he deferred to existing Jewish laws in so many areas governing family relationships, it's likely he would have seen it against that backdrop.
I'd consider homosexuality a red herring in many ways because we're arguing about something that didn't have the same societal meaning and perspectives at the time. It wasn't important enough to Jesus to talk about it, yet he also didn't single out acceptance of homosexuality either, and that does tell you something. The concept of a "gay man" rather than someone who liked to sleep with men first emerged in Germany in the mid 19th century. But what would be much more intriguing is the modern concept of transgenderism and non-binarism and fluid sexual identities. Now what Jesus would have thought about that is surely an interesting question.
DP. Agree that pre-Christian societies were not the tolerant paradises some here would like to think.
The tradition of man-boy love, in particular, involves power imbalances that should give us all pause.
But you’re wrong in asserting that Jesus would “likely” have opposed homosexuality because of his time and background. It also seems meaningless to conclude that because he isn’t on the record as saying anything affirmatively in favor of homosexuality, this absence “tells us something,” and that something must be negative. Against all this, you should weigh his acceptance of and love for all types of people.
PS. Jesus broke many taboos of his time. Accepting foreigners (parable of the Good Samaritan), teaching women (Mary and Martha), eating with the despised and “unclean” tax collectors, and more. Plus he lived in a heavily romanized part of the world. You just can’t assert that because he isn’t on record as saying anything affirming homosexuality, this must mean he thinks what anyone of his background would have thought.
I'm a new poster. Good points, but the taboos Jesus broke weren't sexual. We know Jesus was against adultery and fornication, and had rather strict views on a man taking only one wife (an improvement for women's status at the time). We can assume that Jesus would not have approved of homosexuality during the first century, because it was only available in the context of an extra-marital / non-marital relationship. How this translates to gay marriage in the 21st century is a but less clear. We do know his response would have been compassionate regardless.
I have a difficult time with interpreting what compassionate looks like with regard to sin.
Because he loved everyone, spent time with, invited everyone,…to “go and sin no more”
—which we know is an impossible task. But we strive not to sin, fail, and ask forgiveness.
My issue with this is not in being compassionate toward others who are “in sin” as we ALL are. But it’s in the “pride” part of it. IF it is a sin—which many now claim it is not, then—as Christians—we can accept and live the sinner, but we can’t be celebrating ithe state of sin and refusal to repent from it with pride parades because if I acting on an attraction to same sex is sinful, God does not want us doing that.
And since God does not want us having sexual relationships outside of the marriage covenant, and has defined Biblical marriage as a covenant between man, woman, and God, it is difficult to reconcile affirming same sex relations in the context of what Jesus teaches is necessary for salvation (confession of sin and repentance).
On the other hand— one can probably argue that many many many (most?)heterosexual Christians have sex prior to marriage and then eventually stop doing that when they get married (“go and sin no more”) and churches don’t make a huge case out of whether they are or are not a “casual sex for 20-something singles” affirming church! There’s no flag for that outside the more liberal denominations.
It’s just sort of a non issue. The church accepts that we fall short of that expectation.
But there’s also not a casual sex parade for heterosexual that insists that we celebrate our lustful nature as part of our “identity” so it’s difficult to be consistent on this.
If “the church” can’t agreee on what behaviors are sinful, then one can’t acknowledge sin to repent from it. Simple as that.
I thought Jesus said we shouldn't be judging others and just be loving everyone. So why are we deciding what is a sin and what is not? That's is God's role, not ours. If someone wants to take pride in being gay, and God doesn't like that, then God will deal with that. We shouldn't be doing anything about it. We should just be loving everyone.
Judging others is a blood sport for certain religious folks.
Jesus definitely judged. We all judge. Although perhaps not as judgmental as the progressive left is these days.
Jesus encouraged people to see the errors of their way. The modern liberal church outlook that you can do anything and call yourself anything and it doesn't matter because Jesus would still love you is rather misleading. Jesus still loves you but he still wants you to see the errors of your way. He wants you to stop sinning. So the question is whether homosexual activity is a sin or not. You could make the valid case that Jesus loves the gay man but not the gay sexual behavior, just as he forgave the prostitute but told her to stop being a prostitute. He would love the transgender but not the belief that you can be born a different gender from the body God gave you, which would certainly be viewed a sin.
It can be a problematic topic, even for me because I am gay. I don't agonize over the subject too much but as someone who is culturally Christian I have thought about it. How can one not? And I know other gay Christians, both conservative and liberal. Ultimately, I take the path of so many Christians before me and who will come after me in making my little compromises and just simply try to be a decent person because I'm not perfect and no human is perfect.
Anonymous wrote:Christian condemnation of homosexual behavior did not materialize out of the ectoplasm in 1946.
This. The very idea shows a complete ignorance of Christianity, the Church, and the Bible. All church teaching (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant denominations) prior to the middle 20th century regarded homosexual behavior as sinful. I'm not saying you have to agree with that teaching, but when people talk like "homophobia" is the result of a translation that occurred almost 2000 years into the history of the church, they are not being serious.
OP
Ignorant of what exactly? That most ancient civilizations did not stigmatize or punish homosexuality until 4th century AD when Constantine converted the declining Roman Empire to Christianity? Jesus had nothing to say about the matter giving us a sense that he did not regard homosexuality as an abomination before God in the same league as many other behaviors. He had plenty to say about other types of sin (attitudes and actions that separate us from the love of God) - such as those who were/ are judgmental, hypocritical and lack compassion for others who are suffering in different ways.
Ancient Rome
As long as a man played the penetrative role, it was socially acceptable and considered natural for him to have same-sex relations, without a perceived loss of his masculinity or social standing.
Was homosexuality accepted in ancient Egypt?
No ancient Egyptian document mentions that homosexual acts were set under penalty. Thus it was very likely tolerated, as there has never been proof suggesting otherwise. The Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD is said to have exterminated a large number of "effeminate priests" based in Alexandria.
Speaking for myself, many of my favorite priests and church leaders are gay. I am so glad that they can be their true awesome selves in our church (and in many others now). Jesus advised us that we will know a tree by its fruit. The gay people I know at my large church reflect the fruits of the spirit that St Paul talks about in Galatians 5: 22-23: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law or condemnation.
You are guilty of cherrypicking what you want to believe and making widespread assumptions about pagan civilizations with absolutely no knowledge of them. Pagan civilizations were not beau ideals when it came to homosexuality. There was never a time when two grown male adults could openly be married in the eyes of their civilization with all the due rights associated with it. There were no rights for homosexuality. The Romans were also very aware of the Greek (some Greek, not all Greek) man-boy love and it was controversial for them and not exactly something they accepted as "normal."
A great deal of your misunderstanding lies in that homosexuality was seen as a sexual act rather than a sexual identity, whether man-boy or man-man love, or woman-woman. Roman literature and history is filled with using homosexuality as a slur against a person, not a praise, just as other forms of deviant sexual behaviors were also used slurs. At the same time, it was an era when men could engage in homosexual activity and still be treated as a regularly married man with a wife and family, which they often did have. It was treated as one would treat a fetish.
You also ignore that the mindset of the ancient world was sharply different and based on entirely different outlooks. It was a world, for example, where men had complete "ownership" over family members so if the wife produced yet another unwanted daughter, the father could order the slaves to leave the baby to be abandoned outside the walls for the vultures, and then go sleep with his male lover, assuming he had one. And it was accepted and within the bounds of legality of the times. The consideration for the value of human life practically did not exist in any meaningful sense, people were viewed by their tribe/people, their status as free or slave, and if free, their family and wealth. Society operated against that framework. A wealthy man from a prominent family would receive far more freedom and flexibility in his private life than a slave or a poor man. And the vast majority were either peasants or slaves with preciously few rights or protection. So I would be very careful before trying to see that a "better" morality was lost with the arrival of Christianity.
When Christianity arrived on the scene, it did introduce a new morality that fundamentally changed how the world viewed itself and people viewed each other, but it wasn't invented by the early Church. A great deal of Christian morality derived from the strict rules governing family and sexual relationships of the Jewish people (there were multiple Jewish groups), along with adaptation and evolution as it spread out of the Eastern Mediterranean and across the known world. Still, Jesus makes it clear that he subscribed to the laws of the Jewish people before him. But the absence of information in the Bible shouldn't be taken to mean that Jesus would have given his thumbs up to open acceptance of homosexuality. Frankly, we do not know what he would have said or thought. But given the context of his time and his origin and his people, if he thought about homosexuality, it was as a sexual act, not an identity, and given that he deferred to existing Jewish laws in so many areas governing family relationships, it's likely he would have seen it against that backdrop.
I'd consider homosexuality a red herring in many ways because we're arguing about something that didn't have the same societal meaning and perspectives at the time. It wasn't important enough to Jesus to talk about it, yet he also didn't single out acceptance of homosexuality either, and that does tell you something. The concept of a "gay man" rather than someone who liked to sleep with men first emerged in Germany in the mid 19th century. But what would be much more intriguing is the modern concept of transgenderism and non-binarism and fluid sexual identities. Now what Jesus would have thought about that is surely an interesting question.
DP. Agree that pre-Christian societies were not the tolerant paradises some here would like to think.
The tradition of man-boy love, in particular, involves power imbalances that should give us all pause.
But you’re wrong in asserting that Jesus would “likely” have opposed homosexuality because of his time and background. It also seems meaningless to conclude that because he isn’t on the record as saying anything affirmatively in favor of homosexuality, this absence “tells us something,” and that something must be negative. Against all this, you should weigh his acceptance of and love for all types of people.
PS. Jesus broke many taboos of his time. Accepting foreigners (parable of the Good Samaritan), teaching women (Mary and Martha), eating with the despised and “unclean” tax collectors, and more. Plus he lived in a heavily romanized part of the world. You just can’t assert that because he isn’t on record as saying anything affirming homosexuality, this must mean he thinks what anyone of his background would have thought.
I'm a new poster. Good points, but the taboos Jesus broke weren't sexual. We know Jesus was against adultery and fornication, and had rather strict views on a man taking only one wife (an improvement for women's status at the time). We can assume that Jesus would not have approved of homosexuality during the first century, because it was only available in the context of an extra-marital / non-marital relationship. How this translates to gay marriage in the 21st century is a but less clear. We do know his response would have been compassionate regardless.
I have a difficult time with interpreting what compassionate looks like with regard to sin.
Because he loved everyone, spent time with, invited everyone,…to “go and sin no more”
—which we know is an impossible task. But we strive not to sin, fail, and ask forgiveness.
My issue with this is not in being compassionate toward others who are “in sin” as we ALL are. But it’s in the “pride” part of it. IF it is a sin—which many now claim it is not, then—as Christians—we can accept and live the sinner, but we can’t be celebrating ithe state of sin and refusal to repent from it with pride parades because if I acting on an attraction to same sex is sinful, God does not want us doing that.
And since God does not want us having sexual relationships outside of the marriage covenant, and has defined Biblical marriage as a covenant between man, woman, and God, it is difficult to reconcile affirming same sex relations in the context of what Jesus teaches is necessary for salvation (confession of sin and repentance).
On the other hand— one can probably argue that many many many (most?)heterosexual Christians have sex prior to marriage and then eventually stop doing that when they get married (“go and sin no more”) and churches don’t make a huge case out of whether they are or are not a “casual sex for 20-something singles” affirming church! There’s no flag for that outside the more liberal denominations.
It’s just sort of a non issue. The church accepts that we fall short of that expectation.
But there’s also not a casual sex parade for heterosexual that insists that we celebrate our lustful nature as part of our “identity” so it’s difficult to be consistent on this.
If “the church” can’t agreee on what behaviors are sinful, then one can’t acknowledge sin to repent from it. Simple as that.
I thought Jesus said we shouldn't be judging others and just be loving everyone. So why are we deciding what is a sin and what is not? That's is God's role, not ours. If someone wants to take pride in being gay, and God doesn't like that, then God will deal with that. We shouldn't be doing anything about it. We should just be loving everyone.
Judging others is a blood sport for certain religious folks.
Jesus definitely judged. We all judge. Although perhaps not as judgmental as the progressive left is these days.
Jesus encouraged people to see the errors of their way. The modern liberal church outlook that you can do anything and call yourself anything and it doesn't matter because Jesus would still love you is rather misleading. Jesus still loves you but he still wants you to see the errors of your way. He wants you to stop sinning. So the question is whether homosexual activity is a sin or not. You could make the valid case that Jesus loves the gay man but not the gay sexual behavior, just as he forgave the prostitute but told her to stop being a prostitute. He would love the transgender but not the belief that you can be born a different gender from the body God gave you, which would certainly be viewed a sin.
It can be a problematic topic, even for me because I am gay. I don't agonize over the subject too much but as someone who is culturally Christian I have thought about it. How can one not? And I know other gay Christians, both conservative and liberal. Ultimately, I take the path of so many Christians before me and who will come after me in making my little compromises and just simply try to be a decent person because I'm not perfect and no human is perfect.
That's so interesting to hear your perspective. Thanks for sharing it.
Anonymous wrote:Christian condemnation of homosexual behavior did not materialize out of the ectoplasm in 1946.
This. The very idea shows a complete ignorance of Christianity, the Church, and the Bible. All church teaching (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant denominations) prior to the middle 20th century regarded homosexual behavior as sinful. I'm not saying you have to agree with that teaching, but when people talk like "homophobia" is the result of a translation that occurred almost 2000 years into the history of the church, they are not being serious.
OP
Ignorant of what exactly? That most ancient civilizations did not stigmatize or punish homosexuality until 4th century AD when Constantine converted the declining Roman Empire to Christianity? Jesus had nothing to say about the matter giving us a sense that he did not regard homosexuality as an abomination before God in the same league as many other behaviors. He had plenty to say about other types of sin (attitudes and actions that separate us from the love of God) - such as those who were/ are judgmental, hypocritical and lack compassion for others who are suffering in different ways.
Ancient Rome
As long as a man played the penetrative role, it was socially acceptable and considered natural for him to have same-sex relations, without a perceived loss of his masculinity or social standing.
Was homosexuality accepted in ancient Egypt?
No ancient Egyptian document mentions that homosexual acts were set under penalty. Thus it was very likely tolerated, as there has never been proof suggesting otherwise. The Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD is said to have exterminated a large number of "effeminate priests" based in Alexandria.
Speaking for myself, many of my favorite priests and church leaders are gay. I am so glad that they can be their true awesome selves in our church (and in many others now). Jesus advised us that we will know a tree by its fruit. The gay people I know at my large church reflect the fruits of the spirit that St Paul talks about in Galatians 5: 22-23: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law or condemnation.
You are guilty of cherrypicking what you want to believe and making widespread assumptions about pagan civilizations with absolutely no knowledge of them. Pagan civilizations were not beau ideals when it came to homosexuality. There was never a time when two grown male adults could openly be married in the eyes of their civilization with all the due rights associated with it. There were no rights for homosexuality. The Romans were also very aware of the Greek (some Greek, not all Greek) man-boy love and it was controversial for them and not exactly something they accepted as "normal."
A great deal of your misunderstanding lies in that homosexuality was seen as a sexual act rather than a sexual identity, whether man-boy or man-man love, or woman-woman. Roman literature and history is filled with using homosexuality as a slur against a person, not a praise, just as other forms of deviant sexual behaviors were also used slurs. At the same time, it was an era when men could engage in homosexual activity and still be treated as a regularly married man with a wife and family, which they often did have. It was treated as one would treat a fetish.
You also ignore that the mindset of the ancient world was sharply different and based on entirely different outlooks. It was a world, for example, where men had complete "ownership" over family members so if the wife produced yet another unwanted daughter, the father could order the slaves to leave the baby to be abandoned outside the walls for the vultures, and then go sleep with his male lover, assuming he had one. And it was accepted and within the bounds of legality of the times. The consideration for the value of human life practically did not exist in any meaningful sense, people were viewed by their tribe/people, their status as free or slave, and if free, their family and wealth. Society operated against that framework. A wealthy man from a prominent family would receive far more freedom and flexibility in his private life than a slave or a poor man. And the vast majority were either peasants or slaves with preciously few rights or protection. So I would be very careful before trying to see that a "better" morality was lost with the arrival of Christianity.
When Christianity arrived on the scene, it did introduce a new morality that fundamentally changed how the world viewed itself and people viewed each other, but it wasn't invented by the early Church. A great deal of Christian morality derived from the strict rules governing family and sexual relationships of the Jewish people (there were multiple Jewish groups), along with adaptation and evolution as it spread out of the Eastern Mediterranean and across the known world. Still, Jesus makes it clear that he subscribed to the laws of the Jewish people before him. But the absence of information in the Bible shouldn't be taken to mean that Jesus would have given his thumbs up to open acceptance of homosexuality. Frankly, we do not know what he would have said or thought. But given the context of his time and his origin and his people, if he thought about homosexuality, it was as a sexual act, not an identity, and given that he deferred to existing Jewish laws in so many areas governing family relationships, it's likely he would have seen it against that backdrop.
I'd consider homosexuality a red herring in many ways because we're arguing about something that didn't have the same societal meaning and perspectives at the time. It wasn't important enough to Jesus to talk about it, yet he also didn't single out acceptance of homosexuality either, and that does tell you something. The concept of a "gay man" rather than someone who liked to sleep with men first emerged in Germany in the mid 19th century. But what would be much more intriguing is the modern concept of transgenderism and non-binarism and fluid sexual identities. Now what Jesus would have thought about that is surely an interesting question.
DP. Agree that pre-Christian societies were not the tolerant paradises some here would like to think.
The tradition of man-boy love, in particular, involves power imbalances that should give us all pause.
But you’re wrong in asserting that Jesus would “likely” have opposed homosexuality because of his time and background. It also seems meaningless to conclude that because he isn’t on the record as saying anything affirmatively in favor of homosexuality, this absence “tells us something,” and that something must be negative. Against all this, you should weigh his acceptance of and love for all types of people.
PS. Jesus broke many taboos of his time. Accepting foreigners (parable of the Good Samaritan), teaching women (Mary and Martha), eating with the despised and “unclean” tax collectors, and more. Plus he lived in a heavily romanized part of the world. You just can’t assert that because he isn’t on record as saying anything affirming homosexuality, this must mean he thinks what anyone of his background would have thought.
I'm a new poster. Good points, but the taboos Jesus broke weren't sexual. We know Jesus was against adultery and fornication, and had rather strict views on a man taking only one wife (an improvement for women's status at the time). We can assume that Jesus would not have approved of homosexuality during the first century, because it was only available in the context of an extra-marital / non-marital relationship. How this translates to gay marriage in the 21st century is a but less clear. We do know his response would have been compassionate regardless.
I have a difficult time with interpreting what compassionate looks like with regard to sin.
Because he loved everyone, spent time with, invited everyone,…to “go and sin no more”
—which we know is an impossible task. But we strive not to sin, fail, and ask forgiveness.
My issue with this is not in being compassionate toward others who are “in sin” as we ALL are. But it’s in the “pride” part of it. IF it is a sin—which many now claim it is not, then—as Christians—we can accept and live the sinner, but we can’t be celebrating ithe state of sin and refusal to repent from it with pride parades because if I acting on an attraction to same sex is sinful, God does not want us doing that.
And since God does not want us having sexual relationships outside of the marriage covenant, and has defined Biblical marriage as a covenant between man, woman, and God, it is difficult to reconcile affirming same sex relations in the context of what Jesus teaches is necessary for salvation (confession of sin and repentance).
On the other hand— one can probably argue that many many many (most?)heterosexual Christians have sex prior to marriage and then eventually stop doing that when they get married (“go and sin no more”) and churches don’t make a huge case out of whether they are or are not a “casual sex for 20-something singles” affirming church! There’s no flag for that outside the more liberal denominations.
It’s just sort of a non issue. The church accepts that we fall short of that expectation.
But there’s also not a casual sex parade for heterosexual that insists that we celebrate our lustful nature as part of our “identity” so it’s difficult to be consistent on this.
If “the church” can’t agreee on what behaviors are sinful, then one can’t acknowledge sin to repent from it. Simple as that.
I thought Jesus said we shouldn't be judging others and just be loving everyone. So why are we deciding what is a sin and what is not? That's is God's role, not ours. If someone wants to take pride in being gay, and God doesn't like that, then God will deal with that. We shouldn't be doing anything about it. We should just be loving everyone.
Judging others is a blood sport for certain religious folks.
Jesus definitely judged. We all judge. Although perhaps not as judgmental as the progressive left is these days.
Jesus encouraged people to see the errors of their way. The modern liberal church outlook that you can do anything and call yourself anything and it doesn't matter because Jesus would still love you is rather misleading. Jesus still loves you but he still wants you to see the errors of your way. He wants you to stop sinning. So the question is whether homosexual activity is a sin or not. You could make the valid case that Jesus loves the gay man but not the gay sexual behavior, just as he forgave the prostitute but told her to stop being a prostitute. He would love the transgender but not the belief that you can be born a different gender from the body God gave you, which would certainly be viewed a sin.
It can be a problematic topic, even for me because I am gay. I don't agonize over the subject too much but as someone who is culturally Christian I have thought about it. How can one not? And I know other gay Christians, both conservative and liberal. Ultimately, I take the path of so many Christians before me and who will come after me in making my little compromises and just simply try to be a decent person because I'm not perfect and no human is perfect.
Anonymous wrote:Christian condemnation of homosexual behavior did not materialize out of the ectoplasm in 1946.
This. The very idea shows a complete ignorance of Christianity, the Church, and the Bible. All church teaching (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant denominations) prior to the middle 20th century regarded homosexual behavior as sinful. I'm not saying you have to agree with that teaching, but when people talk like "homophobia" is the result of a translation that occurred almost 2000 years into the history of the church, they are not being serious.
OP
Ignorant of what exactly? That most ancient civilizations did not stigmatize or punish homosexuality until 4th century AD when Constantine converted the declining Roman Empire to Christianity? Jesus had nothing to say about the matter giving us a sense that he did not regard homosexuality as an abomination before God in the same league as many other behaviors. He had plenty to say about other types of sin (attitudes and actions that separate us from the love of God) - such as those who were/ are judgmental, hypocritical and lack compassion for others who are suffering in different ways.
Ancient Rome
As long as a man played the penetrative role, it was socially acceptable and considered natural for him to have same-sex relations, without a perceived loss of his masculinity or social standing.
Was homosexuality accepted in ancient Egypt?
No ancient Egyptian document mentions that homosexual acts were set under penalty. Thus it was very likely tolerated, as there has never been proof suggesting otherwise. The Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD is said to have exterminated a large number of "effeminate priests" based in Alexandria.
Speaking for myself, many of my favorite priests and church leaders are gay. I am so glad that they can be their true awesome selves in our church (and in many others now). Jesus advised us that we will know a tree by its fruit. The gay people I know at my large church reflect the fruits of the spirit that St Paul talks about in Galatians 5: 22-23: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law or condemnation.
You are guilty of cherrypicking what you want to believe and making widespread assumptions about pagan civilizations with absolutely no knowledge of them. Pagan civilizations were not beau ideals when it came to homosexuality. There was never a time when two grown male adults could openly be married in the eyes of their civilization with all the due rights associated with it. There were no rights for homosexuality. The Romans were also very aware of the Greek (some Greek, not all Greek) man-boy love and it was controversial for them and not exactly something they accepted as "normal."
A great deal of your misunderstanding lies in that homosexuality was seen as a sexual act rather than a sexual identity, whether man-boy or man-man love, or woman-woman. Roman literature and history is filled with using homosexuality as a slur against a person, not a praise, just as other forms of deviant sexual behaviors were also used slurs. At the same time, it was an era when men could engage in homosexual activity and still be treated as a regularly married man with a wife and family, which they often did have. It was treated as one would treat a fetish.
You also ignore that the mindset of the ancient world was sharply different and based on entirely different outlooks. It was a world, for example, where men had complete "ownership" over family members so if the wife produced yet another unwanted daughter, the father could order the slaves to leave the baby to be abandoned outside the walls for the vultures, and then go sleep with his male lover, assuming he had one. And it was accepted and within the bounds of legality of the times. The consideration for the value of human life practically did not exist in any meaningful sense, people were viewed by their tribe/people, their status as free or slave, and if free, their family and wealth. Society operated against that framework. A wealthy man from a prominent family would receive far more freedom and flexibility in his private life than a slave or a poor man. And the vast majority were either peasants or slaves with preciously few rights or protection. So I would be very careful before trying to see that a "better" morality was lost with the arrival of Christianity.
When Christianity arrived on the scene, it did introduce a new morality that fundamentally changed how the world viewed itself and people viewed each other, but it wasn't invented by the early Church. A great deal of Christian morality derived from the strict rules governing family and sexual relationships of the Jewish people (there were multiple Jewish groups), along with adaptation and evolution as it spread out of the Eastern Mediterranean and across the known world. Still, Jesus makes it clear that he subscribed to the laws of the Jewish people before him. But the absence of information in the Bible shouldn't be taken to mean that Jesus would have given his thumbs up to open acceptance of homosexuality. Frankly, we do not know what he would have said or thought. But given the context of his time and his origin and his people, if he thought about homosexuality, it was as a sexual act, not an identity, and given that he deferred to existing Jewish laws in so many areas governing family relationships, it's likely he would have seen it against that backdrop.
I'd consider homosexuality a red herring in many ways because we're arguing about something that didn't have the same societal meaning and perspectives at the time. It wasn't important enough to Jesus to talk about it, yet he also didn't single out acceptance of homosexuality either, and that does tell you something. The concept of a "gay man" rather than someone who liked to sleep with men first emerged in Germany in the mid 19th century. But what would be much more intriguing is the modern concept of transgenderism and non-binarism and fluid sexual identities. Now what Jesus would have thought about that is surely an interesting question.
DP. Agree that pre-Christian societies were not the tolerant paradises some here would like to think.
The tradition of man-boy love, in particular, involves power imbalances that should give us all pause.
But you’re wrong in asserting that Jesus would “likely” have opposed homosexuality because of his time and background. It also seems meaningless to conclude that because he isn’t on the record as saying anything affirmatively in favor of homosexuality, this absence “tells us something,” and that something must be negative. Against all this, you should weigh his acceptance of and love for all types of people.
PS. Jesus broke many taboos of his time. Accepting foreigners (parable of the Good Samaritan), teaching women (Mary and Martha), eating with the despised and “unclean” tax collectors, and more. Plus he lived in a heavily romanized part of the world. You just can’t assert that because he isn’t on record as saying anything affirming homosexuality, this must mean he thinks what anyone of his background would have thought.
I'm a new poster. Good points, but the taboos Jesus broke weren't sexual. We know Jesus was against adultery and fornication, and had rather strict views on a man taking only one wife (an improvement for women's status at the time). We can assume that Jesus would not have approved of homosexuality during the first century, because it was only available in the context of an extra-marital / non-marital relationship. How this translates to gay marriage in the 21st century is a but less clear. We do know his response would have been compassionate regardless.
How is monogamy better for women?
Monogamy means fewer women get a rich husband, a larger share of the homemaking work, and have more pressure for sex or their husband's company, and then more than now, women didn't get to choose a husband whose company they'd enjoy.
Polygamy is better than monogamy for women.
I can't tell if this is a real response or if it's satirical. Monogamous marriage means that a husband's resources are better able to provide for his wife and kids. Most men who practice polygyny aren't rich, and live in areas where women don't usually work outside the home (as it was then). So polygyny = thinner resources, and results in more women living in poverty. Also, lots of research shows the negative effects of polygyny on women, higher rates of domestic abuse, and worse outcomes for their kids who are all competing for resources from the dad. There is more that you're not getting here, but I don't have time to respond. Just google it.
And it was never a case of multiple equal wives but a pecking order of first, second and so forth wives, and with less power and less rights the lesser a wife you were, including the children who'd be viewed by which rank their mother had in themarriage. And polygamy also meant that richer men took the lion's share of wives and fostered greater inequality in society.
+1. My Pakistani friend is the daughter of a second wife, and she'll tell you that not only are they looked down upon by Pakistani society as a whole (at least, her 1% Pakistani society), but they absolutely do get fewer resources than the favored wife (not necessarily wife #1) and her kids.
Anonymous wrote:Christian condemnation of homosexual behavior did not materialize out of the ectoplasm in 1946.
This. The very idea shows a complete ignorance of Christianity, the Church, and the Bible. All church teaching (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant denominations) prior to the middle 20th century regarded homosexual behavior as sinful. I'm not saying you have to agree with that teaching, but when people talk like "homophobia" is the result of a translation that occurred almost 2000 years into the history of the church, they are not being serious.
OP
Ignorant of what exactly? That most ancient civilizations did not stigmatize or punish homosexuality until 4th century AD when Constantine converted the declining Roman Empire to Christianity? Jesus had nothing to say about the matter giving us a sense that he did not regard homosexuality as an abomination before God in the same league as many other behaviors. He had plenty to say about other types of sin (attitudes and actions that separate us from the love of God) - such as those who were/ are judgmental, hypocritical and lack compassion for others who are suffering in different ways.
Ancient Rome
As long as a man played the penetrative role, it was socially acceptable and considered natural for him to have same-sex relations, without a perceived loss of his masculinity or social standing.
Was homosexuality accepted in ancient Egypt?
No ancient Egyptian document mentions that homosexual acts were set under penalty. Thus it was very likely tolerated, as there has never been proof suggesting otherwise. The Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD is said to have exterminated a large number of "effeminate priests" based in Alexandria.
Speaking for myself, many of my favorite priests and church leaders are gay. I am so glad that they can be their true awesome selves in our church (and in many others now). Jesus advised us that we will know a tree by its fruit. The gay people I know at my large church reflect the fruits of the spirit that St Paul talks about in Galatians 5: 22-23: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law or condemnation.
You are guilty of cherrypicking what you want to believe and making widespread assumptions about pagan civilizations with absolutely no knowledge of them. Pagan civilizations were not beau ideals when it came to homosexuality. There was never a time when two grown male adults could openly be married in the eyes of their civilization with all the due rights associated with it. There were no rights for homosexuality. The Romans were also very aware of the Greek (some Greek, not all Greek) man-boy love and it was controversial for them and not exactly something they accepted as "normal."
A great deal of your misunderstanding lies in that homosexuality was seen as a sexual act rather than a sexual identity, whether man-boy or man-man love, or woman-woman. Roman literature and history is filled with using homosexuality as a slur against a person, not a praise, just as other forms of deviant sexual behaviors were also used slurs. At the same time, it was an era when men could engage in homosexual activity and still be treated as a regularly married man with a wife and family, which they often did have. It was treated as one would treat a fetish.
You also ignore that the mindset of the ancient world was sharply different and based on entirely different outlooks. It was a world, for example, where men had complete "ownership" over family members so if the wife produced yet another unwanted daughter, the father could order the slaves to leave the baby to be abandoned outside the walls for the vultures, and then go sleep with his male lover, assuming he had one. And it was accepted and within the bounds of legality of the times. The consideration for the value of human life practically did not exist in any meaningful sense, people were viewed by their tribe/people, their status as free or slave, and if free, their family and wealth. Society operated against that framework. A wealthy man from a prominent family would receive far more freedom and flexibility in his private life than a slave or a poor man. And the vast majority were either peasants or slaves with preciously few rights or protection. So I would be very careful before trying to see that a "better" morality was lost with the arrival of Christianity.
When Christianity arrived on the scene, it did introduce a new morality that fundamentally changed how the world viewed itself and people viewed each other, but it wasn't invented by the early Church. A great deal of Christian morality derived from the strict rules governing family and sexual relationships of the Jewish people (there were multiple Jewish groups), along with adaptation and evolution as it spread out of the Eastern Mediterranean and across the known world. Still, Jesus makes it clear that he subscribed to the laws of the Jewish people before him. But the absence of information in the Bible shouldn't be taken to mean that Jesus would have given his thumbs up to open acceptance of homosexuality. Frankly, we do not know what he would have said or thought. But given the context of his time and his origin and his people, if he thought about homosexuality, it was as a sexual act, not an identity, and given that he deferred to existing Jewish laws in so many areas governing family relationships, it's likely he would have seen it against that backdrop.
I'd consider homosexuality a red herring in many ways because we're arguing about something that didn't have the same societal meaning and perspectives at the time. It wasn't important enough to Jesus to talk about it, yet he also didn't single out acceptance of homosexuality either, and that does tell you something. The concept of a "gay man" rather than someone who liked to sleep with men first emerged in Germany in the mid 19th century. But what would be much more intriguing is the modern concept of transgenderism and non-binarism and fluid sexual identities. Now what Jesus would have thought about that is surely an interesting question.
DP. Agree that pre-Christian societies were not the tolerant paradises some here would like to think.
The tradition of man-boy love, in particular, involves power imbalances that should give us all pause.
But you’re wrong in asserting that Jesus would “likely” have opposed homosexuality because of his time and background. It also seems meaningless to conclude that because he isn’t on the record as saying anything affirmatively in favor of homosexuality, this absence “tells us something,” and that something must be negative. Against all this, you should weigh his acceptance of and love for all types of people.
PS. Jesus broke many taboos of his time. Accepting foreigners (parable of the Good Samaritan), teaching women (Mary and Martha), eating with the despised and “unclean” tax collectors, and more. Plus he lived in a heavily romanized part of the world. You just can’t assert that because he isn’t on record as saying anything affirming homosexuality, this must mean he thinks what anyone of his background would have thought.
I'm a new poster. Good points, but the taboos Jesus broke weren't sexual. We know Jesus was against adultery and fornication, and had rather strict views on a man taking only one wife (an improvement for women's status at the time). We can assume that Jesus would not have approved of homosexuality during the first century, because it was only available in the context of an extra-marital / non-marital relationship. How this translates to gay marriage in the 21st century is a but less clear. We do know his response would have been compassionate regardless.
I have a difficult time with interpreting what compassionate looks like with regard to sin.
Because he loved everyone, spent time with, invited everyone,…to “go and sin no more”
—which we know is an impossible task. But we strive not to sin, fail, and ask forgiveness.
My issue with this is not in being compassionate toward others who are “in sin” as we ALL are. But it’s in the “pride” part of it. IF it is a sin—which many now claim it is not, then—as Christians—we can accept and live the sinner, but we can’t be celebrating ithe state of sin and refusal to repent from it with pride parades because if I acting on an attraction to same sex is sinful, God does not want us doing that.
And since God does not want us having sexual relationships outside of the marriage covenant, and has defined Biblical marriage as a covenant between man, woman, and God, it is difficult to reconcile affirming same sex relations in the context of what Jesus teaches is necessary for salvation (confession of sin and repentance).
On the other hand— one can probably argue that many many many (most?)heterosexual Christians have sex prior to marriage and then eventually stop doing that when they get married (“go and sin no more”) and churches don’t make a huge case out of whether they are or are not a “casual sex for 20-something singles” affirming church! There’s no flag for that outside the more liberal denominations.
It’s just sort of a non issue. The church accepts that we fall short of that expectation.
But there’s also not a casual sex parade for heterosexual that insists that we celebrate our lustful nature as part of our “identity” so it’s difficult to be consistent on this.
If “the church” can’t agreee on what behaviors are sinful, then one can’t acknowledge sin to repent from it. Simple as that.
I thought Jesus said we shouldn't be judging others and just be loving everyone. So why are we deciding what is a sin and what is not? That's is God's role, not ours. If someone wants to take pride in being gay, and God doesn't like that, then God will deal with that. We shouldn't be doing anything about it. We should just be loving everyone.
Judging others is a blood sport for certain religious folks.
Jesus definitely judged. We all judge. Although perhaps not as judgmental as the progressive left is these days.
Jesus encouraged people to see the errors of their way. The modern liberal church outlook that you can do anything and call yourself anything and it doesn't matter because Jesus would still love you is rather misleading. Jesus still loves you but he still wants you to see the errors of your way. He wants you to stop sinning. So the question is whether homosexual activity is a sin or not. You could make the valid case that Jesus loves the gay man but not the gay sexual behavior, just as he forgave the prostitute but told her to stop being a prostitute. He would love the transgender but not the belief that you can be born a different gender from the body God gave you, which would certainly be viewed a sin.
It can be a problematic topic, even for me because I am gay. I don't agonize over the subject too much but as someone who is culturally Christian I have thought about it. How can one not? And I know other gay Christians, both conservative and liberal. Ultimately, I take the path of so many Christians before me and who will come after me in making my little compromises and just simply try to be a decent person because I'm not perfect and no human is perfect.
Thank you for this, pp. I have a good friend who is Catholic and gay--he had his marriage blessed at the hotel, but not in the church. I keep coming back to this: we don't know whether Jesus thought homosexual relations were bad, and it's fake and unfounded to assume we do know that he would condemn them. Jesus ate and hung out with a lot of people who were deemed "unclean" by his society, but he had no problem with these people. He explicitly said that it's OK to eat food that was previously considered "unclean." So Jesus broke a lot of taboos. The folks who say he could break some taboos (so I'm eating bacon!) but would never, ever break other taboos have no authority for their certainty.
Anonymous wrote:Christian condemnation of homosexual behavior did not materialize out of the ectoplasm in 1946.
This. The very idea shows a complete ignorance of Christianity, the Church, and the Bible. All church teaching (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant denominations) prior to the middle 20th century regarded homosexual behavior as sinful. I'm not saying you have to agree with that teaching, but when people talk like "homophobia" is the result of a translation that occurred almost 2000 years into the history of the church, they are not being serious.
OP
Ignorant of what exactly? That most ancient civilizations did not stigmatize or punish homosexuality until 4th century AD when Constantine converted the declining Roman Empire to Christianity? Jesus had nothing to say about the matter giving us a sense that he did not regard homosexuality as an abomination before God in the same league as many other behaviors. He had plenty to say about other types of sin (attitudes and actions that separate us from the love of God) - such as those who were/ are judgmental, hypocritical and lack compassion for others who are suffering in different ways.
Ancient Rome
As long as a man played the penetrative role, it was socially acceptable and considered natural for him to have same-sex relations, without a perceived loss of his masculinity or social standing.
Was homosexuality accepted in ancient Egypt?
No ancient Egyptian document mentions that homosexual acts were set under penalty. Thus it was very likely tolerated, as there has never been proof suggesting otherwise. The Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD is said to have exterminated a large number of "effeminate priests" based in Alexandria.
Speaking for myself, many of my favorite priests and church leaders are gay. I am so glad that they can be their true awesome selves in our church (and in many others now). Jesus advised us that we will know a tree by its fruit. The gay people I know at my large church reflect the fruits of the spirit that St Paul talks about in Galatians 5: 22-23: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law or condemnation.
You are guilty of cherrypicking what you want to believe and making widespread assumptions about pagan civilizations with absolutely no knowledge of them. Pagan civilizations were not beau ideals when it came to homosexuality. There was never a time when two grown male adults could openly be married in the eyes of their civilization with all the due rights associated with it. There were no rights for homosexuality. The Romans were also very aware of the Greek (some Greek, not all Greek) man-boy love and it was controversial for them and not exactly something they accepted as "normal."
A great deal of your misunderstanding lies in that homosexuality was seen as a sexual act rather than a sexual identity, whether man-boy or man-man love, or woman-woman. Roman literature and history is filled with using homosexuality as a slur against a person, not a praise, just as other forms of deviant sexual behaviors were also used slurs. At the same time, it was an era when men could engage in homosexual activity and still be treated as a regularly married man with a wife and family, which they often did have. It was treated as one would treat a fetish.
You also ignore that the mindset of the ancient world was sharply different and based on entirely different outlooks. It was a world, for example, where men had complete "ownership" over family members so if the wife produced yet another unwanted daughter, the father could order the slaves to leave the baby to be abandoned outside the walls for the vultures, and then go sleep with his male lover, assuming he had one. And it was accepted and within the bounds of legality of the times. The consideration for the value of human life practically did not exist in any meaningful sense, people were viewed by their tribe/people, their status as free or slave, and if free, their family and wealth. Society operated against that framework. A wealthy man from a prominent family would receive far more freedom and flexibility in his private life than a slave or a poor man. And the vast majority were either peasants or slaves with preciously few rights or protection. So I would be very careful before trying to see that a "better" morality was lost with the arrival of Christianity.
When Christianity arrived on the scene, it did introduce a new morality that fundamentally changed how the world viewed itself and people viewed each other, but it wasn't invented by the early Church. A great deal of Christian morality derived from the strict rules governing family and sexual relationships of the Jewish people (there were multiple Jewish groups), along with adaptation and evolution as it spread out of the Eastern Mediterranean and across the known world. Still, Jesus makes it clear that he subscribed to the laws of the Jewish people before him. But the absence of information in the Bible shouldn't be taken to mean that Jesus would have given his thumbs up to open acceptance of homosexuality. Frankly, we do not know what he would have said or thought. But given the context of his time and his origin and his people, if he thought about homosexuality, it was as a sexual act, not an identity, and given that he deferred to existing Jewish laws in so many areas governing family relationships, it's likely he would have seen it against that backdrop.
I'd consider homosexuality a red herring in many ways because we're arguing about something that didn't have the same societal meaning and perspectives at the time. It wasn't important enough to Jesus to talk about it, yet he also didn't single out acceptance of homosexuality either, and that does tell you something. The concept of a "gay man" rather than someone who liked to sleep with men first emerged in Germany in the mid 19th century. But what would be much more intriguing is the modern concept of transgenderism and non-binarism and fluid sexual identities. Now what Jesus would have thought about that is surely an interesting question.
DP. Agree that pre-Christian societies were not the tolerant paradises some here would like to think.
The tradition of man-boy love, in particular, involves power imbalances that should give us all pause.
But you’re wrong in asserting that Jesus would “likely” have opposed homosexuality because of his time and background. It also seems meaningless to conclude that because he isn’t on the record as saying anything affirmatively in favor of homosexuality, this absence “tells us something,” and that something must be negative. Against all this, you should weigh his acceptance of and love for all types of people.
PS. Jesus broke many taboos of his time. Accepting foreigners (parable of the Good Samaritan), teaching women (Mary and Martha), eating with the despised and “unclean” tax collectors, and more. Plus he lived in a heavily romanized part of the world. You just can’t assert that because he isn’t on record as saying anything affirming homosexuality, this must mean he thinks what anyone of his background would have thought.
I'm a new poster. Good points, but the taboos Jesus broke weren't sexual. We know Jesus was against adultery and fornication, and had rather strict views on a man taking only one wife (an improvement for women's status at the time). We can assume that Jesus would not have approved of homosexuality during the first century, because it was only available in the context of an extra-marital / non-marital relationship. How this translates to gay marriage in the 21st century is a but less clear. We do know his response would have been compassionate regardless.
I have a difficult time with interpreting what compassionate looks like with regard to sin.
Because he loved everyone, spent time with, invited everyone,…to “go and sin no more”
—which we know is an impossible task. But we strive not to sin, fail, and ask forgiveness.
My issue with this is not in being compassionate toward others who are “in sin” as we ALL are. But it’s in the “pride” part of it. IF it is a sin—which many now claim it is not, then—as Christians—we can accept and live the sinner, but we can’t be celebrating ithe state of sin and refusal to repent from it with pride parades because if I acting on an attraction to same sex is sinful, God does not want us doing that.
And since God does not want us having sexual relationships outside of the marriage covenant, and has defined Biblical marriage as a covenant between man, woman, and God, it is difficult to reconcile affirming same sex relations in the context of what Jesus teaches is necessary for salvation (confession of sin and repentance).
On the other hand— one can probably argue that many many many (most?)heterosexual Christians have sex prior to marriage and then eventually stop doing that when they get married (“go and sin no more”) and churches don’t make a huge case out of whether they are or are not a “casual sex for 20-something singles” affirming church! There’s no flag for that outside the more liberal denominations.
It’s just sort of a non issue. The church accepts that we fall short of that expectation.
But there’s also not a casual sex parade for heterosexual that insists that we celebrate our lustful nature as part of our “identity” so it’s difficult to be consistent on this.
If “the church” can’t agreee on what behaviors are sinful, then one can’t acknowledge sin to repent from it. Simple as that.
I thought Jesus said we shouldn't be judging others and just be loving everyone. So why are we deciding what is a sin and what is not? That's is God's role, not ours. If someone wants to take pride in being gay, and God doesn't like that, then God will deal with that. We shouldn't be doing anything about it. We should just be loving everyone.
After saving her from execution, he told the adulterous woman to go and sin no more. Why did he do that?
DP. Jesus was definitely against promiscuity, against sex outside of marriage. But what would he say now that we've (finallly) legalized gay marriage? We don't know, and to pretend otherwise is to put words in Jesus' mouth... obviously not something anybody should do.
Anonymous wrote:Christian condemnation of homosexual behavior did not materialize out of the ectoplasm in 1946.
This. The very idea shows a complete ignorance of Christianity, the Church, and the Bible. All church teaching (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant denominations) prior to the middle 20th century regarded homosexual behavior as sinful. I'm not saying you have to agree with that teaching, but when people talk like "homophobia" is the result of a translation that occurred almost 2000 years into the history of the church, they are not being serious.
OP
Ignorant of what exactly? That most ancient civilizations did not stigmatize or punish homosexuality until 4th century AD when Constantine converted the declining Roman Empire to Christianity? Jesus had nothing to say about the matter giving us a sense that he did not regard homosexuality as an abomination before God in the same league as many other behaviors. He had plenty to say about other types of sin (attitudes and actions that separate us from the love of God) - such as those who were/ are judgmental, hypocritical and lack compassion for others who are suffering in different ways.
Ancient Rome
As long as a man played the penetrative role, it was socially acceptable and considered natural for him to have same-sex relations, without a perceived loss of his masculinity or social standing.
Was homosexuality accepted in ancient Egypt?
No ancient Egyptian document mentions that homosexual acts were set under penalty. Thus it was very likely tolerated, as there has never been proof suggesting otherwise. The Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD is said to have exterminated a large number of "effeminate priests" based in Alexandria.
Speaking for myself, many of my favorite priests and church leaders are gay. I am so glad that they can be their true awesome selves in our church (and in many others now). Jesus advised us that we will know a tree by its fruit. The gay people I know at my large church reflect the fruits of the spirit that St Paul talks about in Galatians 5: 22-23: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law or condemnation.
You are guilty of cherrypicking what you want to believe and making widespread assumptions about pagan civilizations with absolutely no knowledge of them. Pagan civilizations were not beau ideals when it came to homosexuality. There was never a time when two grown male adults could openly be married in the eyes of their civilization with all the due rights associated with it. There were no rights for homosexuality. The Romans were also very aware of the Greek (some Greek, not all Greek) man-boy love and it was controversial for them and not exactly something they accepted as "normal."
A great deal of your misunderstanding lies in that homosexuality was seen as a sexual act rather than a sexual identity, whether man-boy or man-man love, or woman-woman. Roman literature and history is filled with using homosexuality as a slur against a person, not a praise, just as other forms of deviant sexual behaviors were also used slurs. At the same time, it was an era when men could engage in homosexual activity and still be treated as a regularly married man with a wife and family, which they often did have. It was treated as one would treat a fetish.
You also ignore that the mindset of the ancient world was sharply different and based on entirely different outlooks. It was a world, for example, where men had complete "ownership" over family members so if the wife produced yet another unwanted daughter, the father could order the slaves to leave the baby to be abandoned outside the walls for the vultures, and then go sleep with his male lover, assuming he had one. And it was accepted and within the bounds of legality of the times. The consideration for the value of human life practically did not exist in any meaningful sense, people were viewed by their tribe/people, their status as free or slave, and if free, their family and wealth. Society operated against that framework. A wealthy man from a prominent family would receive far more freedom and flexibility in his private life than a slave or a poor man. And the vast majority were either peasants or slaves with preciously few rights or protection. So I would be very careful before trying to see that a "better" morality was lost with the arrival of Christianity.
When Christianity arrived on the scene, it did introduce a new morality that fundamentally changed how the world viewed itself and people viewed each other, but it wasn't invented by the early Church. A great deal of Christian morality derived from the strict rules governing family and sexual relationships of the Jewish people (there were multiple Jewish groups), along with adaptation and evolution as it spread out of the Eastern Mediterranean and across the known world. Still, Jesus makes it clear that he subscribed to the laws of the Jewish people before him. But the absence of information in the Bible shouldn't be taken to mean that Jesus would have given his thumbs up to open acceptance of homosexuality. Frankly, we do not know what he would have said or thought. But given the context of his time and his origin and his people, if he thought about homosexuality, it was as a sexual act, not an identity, and given that he deferred to existing Jewish laws in so many areas governing family relationships, it's likely he would have seen it against that backdrop.
I'd consider homosexuality a red herring in many ways because we're arguing about something that didn't have the same societal meaning and perspectives at the time. It wasn't important enough to Jesus to talk about it, yet he also didn't single out acceptance of homosexuality either, and that does tell you something. The concept of a "gay man" rather than someone who liked to sleep with men first emerged in Germany in the mid 19th century. But what would be much more intriguing is the modern concept of transgenderism and non-binarism and fluid sexual identities. Now what Jesus would have thought about that is surely an interesting question.
DP. Agree that pre-Christian societies were not the tolerant paradises some here would like to think.
The tradition of man-boy love, in particular, involves power imbalances that should give us all pause.
But you’re wrong in asserting that Jesus would “likely” have opposed homosexuality because of his time and background. It also seems meaningless to conclude that because he isn’t on the record as saying anything affirmatively in favor of homosexuality, this absence “tells us something,” and that something must be negative. Against all this, you should weigh his acceptance of and love for all types of people.
PS. Jesus broke many taboos of his time. Accepting foreigners (parable of the Good Samaritan), teaching women (Mary and Martha), eating with the despised and “unclean” tax collectors, and more. Plus he lived in a heavily romanized part of the world. You just can’t assert that because he isn’t on record as saying anything affirming homosexuality, this must mean he thinks what anyone of his background would have thought.
I'm a new poster. Good points, but the taboos Jesus broke weren't sexual. We know Jesus was against adultery and fornication, and had rather strict views on a man taking only one wife (an improvement for women's status at the time). We can assume that Jesus would not have approved of homosexuality during the first century, because it was only available in the context of an extra-marital / non-marital relationship. How this translates to gay marriage in the 21st century is a but less clear. We do know his response would have been compassionate regardless.
I have a difficult time with interpreting what compassionate looks like with regard to sin.
Because he loved everyone, spent time with, invited everyone,…to “go and sin no more”
—which we know is an impossible task. But we strive not to sin, fail, and ask forgiveness.
My issue with this is not in being compassionate toward others who are “in sin” as we ALL are. But it’s in the “pride” part of it. IF it is a sin—which many now claim it is not, then—as Christians—we can accept and live the sinner, but we can’t be celebrating ithe state of sin and refusal to repent from it with pride parades because if I acting on an attraction to same sex is sinful, God does not want us doing that.
And since God does not want us having sexual relationships outside of the marriage covenant, and has defined Biblical marriage as a covenant between man, woman, and God, it is difficult to reconcile affirming same sex relations in the context of what Jesus teaches is necessary for salvation (confession of sin and repentance).
On the other hand— one can probably argue that many many many (most?)heterosexual Christians have sex prior to marriage and then eventually stop doing that when they get married (“go and sin no more”) and churches don’t make a huge case out of whether they are or are not a “casual sex for 20-something singles” affirming church! There’s no flag for that outside the more liberal denominations.
It’s just sort of a non issue. The church accepts that we fall short of that expectation.
But there’s also not a casual sex parade for heterosexual that insists that we celebrate our lustful nature as part of our “identity” so it’s difficult to be consistent on this.
If “the church” can’t agreee on what behaviors are sinful, then one can’t acknowledge sin to repent from it. Simple as that.
I thought Jesus said we shouldn't be judging others and just be loving everyone. So why are we deciding what is a sin and what is not? That's is God's role, not ours. If someone wants to take pride in being gay, and God doesn't like that, then God will deal with that. We shouldn't be doing anything about it. We should just be loving everyone.
After saving her from execution, he told the adulterous woman to go and sin no more. Why did he do that?
DP. Jesus was definitely against promiscuity, against sex outside of marriage. But what would he say now that we've (finallly) legalized gay marriage? We don't know, and to pretend otherwise is to put words in Jesus' mouth... obviously not something anybody should do.
The Bible is clear that marriage is an institution created and ordained by God. It is the joining of one man and one woman. That we have “finally” legalized gay marriage does not change that.
Anonymous wrote:Christian condemnation of homosexual behavior did not materialize out of the ectoplasm in 1946.
This. The very idea shows a complete ignorance of Christianity, the Church, and the Bible. All church teaching (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant denominations) prior to the middle 20th century regarded homosexual behavior as sinful. I'm not saying you have to agree with that teaching, but when people talk like "homophobia" is the result of a translation that occurred almost 2000 years into the history of the church, they are not being serious.
OP
Ignorant of what exactly? That most ancient civilizations did not stigmatize or punish homosexuality until 4th century AD when Constantine converted the declining Roman Empire to Christianity? Jesus had nothing to say about the matter giving us a sense that he did not regard homosexuality as an abomination before God in the same league as many other behaviors. He had plenty to say about other types of sin (attitudes and actions that separate us from the love of God) - such as those who were/ are judgmental, hypocritical and lack compassion for others who are suffering in different ways.
Ancient Rome
As long as a man played the penetrative role, it was socially acceptable and considered natural for him to have same-sex relations, without a perceived loss of his masculinity or social standing.
Was homosexuality accepted in ancient Egypt?
No ancient Egyptian document mentions that homosexual acts were set under penalty. Thus it was very likely tolerated, as there has never been proof suggesting otherwise. The Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD is said to have exterminated a large number of "effeminate priests" based in Alexandria.
Speaking for myself, many of my favorite priests and church leaders are gay. I am so glad that they can be their true awesome selves in our church (and in many others now). Jesus advised us that we will know a tree by its fruit. The gay people I know at my large church reflect the fruits of the spirit that St Paul talks about in Galatians 5: 22-23: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law or condemnation.
You are guilty of cherrypicking what you want to believe and making widespread assumptions about pagan civilizations with absolutely no knowledge of them. Pagan civilizations were not beau ideals when it came to homosexuality. There was never a time when two grown male adults could openly be married in the eyes of their civilization with all the due rights associated with it. There were no rights for homosexuality. The Romans were also very aware of the Greek (some Greek, not all Greek) man-boy love and it was controversial for them and not exactly something they accepted as "normal."
A great deal of your misunderstanding lies in that homosexuality was seen as a sexual act rather than a sexual identity, whether man-boy or man-man love, or woman-woman. Roman literature and history is filled with using homosexuality as a slur against a person, not a praise, just as other forms of deviant sexual behaviors were also used slurs. At the same time, it was an era when men could engage in homosexual activity and still be treated as a regularly married man with a wife and family, which they often did have. It was treated as one would treat a fetish.
You also ignore that the mindset of the ancient world was sharply different and based on entirely different outlooks. It was a world, for example, where men had complete "ownership" over family members so if the wife produced yet another unwanted daughter, the father could order the slaves to leave the baby to be abandoned outside the walls for the vultures, and then go sleep with his male lover, assuming he had one. And it was accepted and within the bounds of legality of the times. The consideration for the value of human life practically did not exist in any meaningful sense, people were viewed by their tribe/people, their status as free or slave, and if free, their family and wealth. Society operated against that framework. A wealthy man from a prominent family would receive far more freedom and flexibility in his private life than a slave or a poor man. And the vast majority were either peasants or slaves with preciously few rights or protection. So I would be very careful before trying to see that a "better" morality was lost with the arrival of Christianity.
When Christianity arrived on the scene, it did introduce a new morality that fundamentally changed how the world viewed itself and people viewed each other, but it wasn't invented by the early Church. A great deal of Christian morality derived from the strict rules governing family and sexual relationships of the Jewish people (there were multiple Jewish groups), along with adaptation and evolution as it spread out of the Eastern Mediterranean and across the known world. Still, Jesus makes it clear that he subscribed to the laws of the Jewish people before him. But the absence of information in the Bible shouldn't be taken to mean that Jesus would have given his thumbs up to open acceptance of homosexuality. Frankly, we do not know what he would have said or thought. But given the context of his time and his origin and his people, if he thought about homosexuality, it was as a sexual act, not an identity, and given that he deferred to existing Jewish laws in so many areas governing family relationships, it's likely he would have seen it against that backdrop.
I'd consider homosexuality a red herring in many ways because we're arguing about something that didn't have the same societal meaning and perspectives at the time. It wasn't important enough to Jesus to talk about it, yet he also didn't single out acceptance of homosexuality either, and that does tell you something. The concept of a "gay man" rather than someone who liked to sleep with men first emerged in Germany in the mid 19th century. But what would be much more intriguing is the modern concept of transgenderism and non-binarism and fluid sexual identities. Now what Jesus would have thought about that is surely an interesting question.
DP. Agree that pre-Christian societies were not the tolerant paradises some here would like to think.
The tradition of man-boy love, in particular, involves power imbalances that should give us all pause.
But you’re wrong in asserting that Jesus would “likely” have opposed homosexuality because of his time and background. It also seems meaningless to conclude that because he isn’t on the record as saying anything affirmatively in favor of homosexuality, this absence “tells us something,” and that something must be negative. Against all this, you should weigh his acceptance of and love for all types of people.
PS. Jesus broke many taboos of his time. Accepting foreigners (parable of the Good Samaritan), teaching women (Mary and Martha), eating with the despised and “unclean” tax collectors, and more. Plus he lived in a heavily romanized part of the world. You just can’t assert that because he isn’t on record as saying anything affirming homosexuality, this must mean he thinks what anyone of his background would have thought.
I'm a new poster. Good points, but the taboos Jesus broke weren't sexual. We know Jesus was against adultery and fornication, and had rather strict views on a man taking only one wife (an improvement for women's status at the time). We can assume that Jesus would not have approved of homosexuality during the first century, because it was only available in the context of an extra-marital / non-marital relationship. How this translates to gay marriage in the 21st century is a but less clear. We do know his response would have been compassionate regardless.
I have a difficult time with interpreting what compassionate looks like with regard to sin.
Because he loved everyone, spent time with, invited everyone,…to “go and sin no more”
—which we know is an impossible task. But we strive not to sin, fail, and ask forgiveness.
My issue with this is not in being compassionate toward others who are “in sin” as we ALL are. But it’s in the “pride” part of it. IF it is a sin—which many now claim it is not, then—as Christians—we can accept and live the sinner, but we can’t be celebrating ithe state of sin and refusal to repent from it with pride parades because if I acting on an attraction to same sex is sinful, God does not want us doing that.
And since God does not want us having sexual relationships outside of the marriage covenant, and has defined Biblical marriage as a covenant between man, woman, and God, it is difficult to reconcile affirming same sex relations in the context of what Jesus teaches is necessary for salvation (confession of sin and repentance).
On the other hand— one can probably argue that many many many (most?)heterosexual Christians have sex prior to marriage and then eventually stop doing that when they get married (“go and sin no more”) and churches don’t make a huge case out of whether they are or are not a “casual sex for 20-something singles” affirming church! There’s no flag for that outside the more liberal denominations.
It’s just sort of a non issue. The church accepts that we fall short of that expectation.
But there’s also not a casual sex parade for heterosexual that insists that we celebrate our lustful nature as part of our “identity” so it’s difficult to be consistent on this.
If “the church” can’t agreee on what behaviors are sinful, then one can’t acknowledge sin to repent from it. Simple as that.
I thought Jesus said we shouldn't be judging others and just be loving everyone. So why are we deciding what is a sin and what is not? That's is God's role, not ours. If someone wants to take pride in being gay, and God doesn't like that, then God will deal with that. We shouldn't be doing anything about it. We should just be loving everyone.
After saving her from execution, he told the adulterous woman to go and sin no more. Why did he do that?
DP. Jesus was definitely against promiscuity, against sex outside of marriage. But what would he say now that we've (finallly) legalized gay marriage? We don't know, and to pretend otherwise is to put words in Jesus' mouth... obviously not something anybody should do.
The Bible is clear that marriage is an institution created and ordained by God. It is the joining of one man and one woman. That we have “finally” legalized gay marriage does not change that.
Jesus was responding to a question about divorce, and his response is that remarrying is equivalent to committing adultery. Jesus quoted Genesis in this passage from Matthew: "He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Nothing in there either for or against gay marriage. Also, Jesus was talking within the legal framework of his time. Gays couldn't marry 2000 years ago. They can now.
Anonymous wrote:Christian condemnation of homosexual behavior did not materialize out of the ectoplasm in 1946.
This. The very idea shows a complete ignorance of Christianity, the Church, and the Bible. All church teaching (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant denominations) prior to the middle 20th century regarded homosexual behavior as sinful. I'm not saying you have to agree with that teaching, but when people talk like "homophobia" is the result of a translation that occurred almost 2000 years into the history of the church, they are not being serious.
OP
Ignorant of what exactly? That most ancient civilizations did not stigmatize or punish homosexuality until 4th century AD when Constantine converted the declining Roman Empire to Christianity? Jesus had nothing to say about the matter giving us a sense that he did not regard homosexuality as an abomination before God in the same league as many other behaviors. He had plenty to say about other types of sin (attitudes and actions that separate us from the love of God) - such as those who were/ are judgmental, hypocritical and lack compassion for others who are suffering in different ways.
Ancient Rome
As long as a man played the penetrative role, it was socially acceptable and considered natural for him to have same-sex relations, without a perceived loss of his masculinity or social standing.
Was homosexuality accepted in ancient Egypt?
No ancient Egyptian document mentions that homosexual acts were set under penalty. Thus it was very likely tolerated, as there has never been proof suggesting otherwise. The Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century AD is said to have exterminated a large number of "effeminate priests" based in Alexandria.
Speaking for myself, many of my favorite priests and church leaders are gay. I am so glad that they can be their true awesome selves in our church (and in many others now). Jesus advised us that we will know a tree by its fruit. The gay people I know at my large church reflect the fruits of the spirit that St Paul talks about in Galatians 5: 22-23: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law or condemnation.
You are guilty of cherrypicking what you want to believe and making widespread assumptions about pagan civilizations with absolutely no knowledge of them. Pagan civilizations were not beau ideals when it came to homosexuality. There was never a time when two grown male adults could openly be married in the eyes of their civilization with all the due rights associated with it. There were no rights for homosexuality. The Romans were also very aware of the Greek (some Greek, not all Greek) man-boy love and it was controversial for them and not exactly something they accepted as "normal."
A great deal of your misunderstanding lies in that homosexuality was seen as a sexual act rather than a sexual identity, whether man-boy or man-man love, or woman-woman. Roman literature and history is filled with using homosexuality as a slur against a person, not a praise, just as other forms of deviant sexual behaviors were also used slurs. At the same time, it was an era when men could engage in homosexual activity and still be treated as a regularly married man with a wife and family, which they often did have. It was treated as one would treat a fetish.
You also ignore that the mindset of the ancient world was sharply different and based on entirely different outlooks. It was a world, for example, where men had complete "ownership" over family members so if the wife produced yet another unwanted daughter, the father could order the slaves to leave the baby to be abandoned outside the walls for the vultures, and then go sleep with his male lover, assuming he had one. And it was accepted and within the bounds of legality of the times. The consideration for the value of human life practically did not exist in any meaningful sense, people were viewed by their tribe/people, their status as free or slave, and if free, their family and wealth. Society operated against that framework. A wealthy man from a prominent family would receive far more freedom and flexibility in his private life than a slave or a poor man. And the vast majority were either peasants or slaves with preciously few rights or protection. So I would be very careful before trying to see that a "better" morality was lost with the arrival of Christianity.
When Christianity arrived on the scene, it did introduce a new morality that fundamentally changed how the world viewed itself and people viewed each other, but it wasn't invented by the early Church. A great deal of Christian morality derived from the strict rules governing family and sexual relationships of the Jewish people (there were multiple Jewish groups), along with adaptation and evolution as it spread out of the Eastern Mediterranean and across the known world. Still, Jesus makes it clear that he subscribed to the laws of the Jewish people before him. But the absence of information in the Bible shouldn't be taken to mean that Jesus would have given his thumbs up to open acceptance of homosexuality. Frankly, we do not know what he would have said or thought. But given the context of his time and his origin and his people, if he thought about homosexuality, it was as a sexual act, not an identity, and given that he deferred to existing Jewish laws in so many areas governing family relationships, it's likely he would have seen it against that backdrop.
I'd consider homosexuality a red herring in many ways because we're arguing about something that didn't have the same societal meaning and perspectives at the time. It wasn't important enough to Jesus to talk about it, yet he also didn't single out acceptance of homosexuality either, and that does tell you something. The concept of a "gay man" rather than someone who liked to sleep with men first emerged in Germany in the mid 19th century. But what would be much more intriguing is the modern concept of transgenderism and non-binarism and fluid sexual identities. Now what Jesus would have thought about that is surely an interesting question.
DP. Agree that pre-Christian societies were not the tolerant paradises some here would like to think.
The tradition of man-boy love, in particular, involves power imbalances that should give us all pause.
But you’re wrong in asserting that Jesus would “likely” have opposed homosexuality because of his time and background. It also seems meaningless to conclude that because he isn’t on the record as saying anything affirmatively in favor of homosexuality, this absence “tells us something,” and that something must be negative. Against all this, you should weigh his acceptance of and love for all types of people.
PS. Jesus broke many taboos of his time. Accepting foreigners (parable of the Good Samaritan), teaching women (Mary and Martha), eating with the despised and “unclean” tax collectors, and more. Plus he lived in a heavily romanized part of the world. You just can’t assert that because he isn’t on record as saying anything affirming homosexuality, this must mean he thinks what anyone of his background would have thought.
I'm a new poster. Good points, but the taboos Jesus broke weren't sexual. We know Jesus was against adultery and fornication, and had rather strict views on a man taking only one wife (an improvement for women's status at the time). We can assume that Jesus would not have approved of homosexuality during the first century, because it was only available in the context of an extra-marital / non-marital relationship. How this translates to gay marriage in the 21st century is a but less clear. We do know his response would have been compassionate regardless.
I have a difficult time with interpreting what compassionate looks like with regard to sin.
Because he loved everyone, spent time with, invited everyone,…to “go and sin no more”
—which we know is an impossible task. But we strive not to sin, fail, and ask forgiveness.
My issue with this is not in being compassionate toward others who are “in sin” as we ALL are. But it’s in the “pride” part of it. IF it is a sin—which many now claim it is not, then—as Christians—we can accept and live the sinner, but we can’t be celebrating ithe state of sin and refusal to repent from it with pride parades because if I acting on an attraction to same sex is sinful, God does not want us doing that.
And since God does not want us having sexual relationships outside of the marriage covenant, and has defined Biblical marriage as a covenant between man, woman, and God, it is difficult to reconcile affirming same sex relations in the context of what Jesus teaches is necessary for salvation (confession of sin and repentance).
On the other hand— one can probably argue that many many many (most?)heterosexual Christians have sex prior to marriage and then eventually stop doing that when they get married (“go and sin no more”) and churches don’t make a huge case out of whether they are or are not a “casual sex for 20-something singles” affirming church! There’s no flag for that outside the more liberal denominations.
It’s just sort of a non issue. The church accepts that we fall short of that expectation.
But there’s also not a casual sex parade for heterosexual that insists that we celebrate our lustful nature as part of our “identity” so it’s difficult to be consistent on this.
If “the church” can’t agreee on what behaviors are sinful, then one can’t acknowledge sin to repent from it. Simple as that.
I thought Jesus said we shouldn't be judging others and just be loving everyone. So why are we deciding what is a sin and what is not? That's is God's role, not ours. If someone wants to take pride in being gay, and God doesn't like that, then God will deal with that. We shouldn't be doing anything about it. We should just be loving everyone.
After saving her from execution, he told the adulterous woman to go and sin no more. Why did he do that?
DP. Jesus was definitely against promiscuity, against sex outside of marriage. But what would he say now that we've (finallly) legalized gay marriage? We don't know, and to pretend otherwise is to put words in Jesus' mouth... obviously not something anybody should do.
The Bible is clear that marriage is an institution created and ordained by God. It is the joining of one man and one woman. That we have “finally” legalized gay marriage does not change that.
Jesus was responding to a question about divorce, and his response is that remarrying is equivalent to committing adultery. Jesus quoted Genesis in this passage from Matthew: "He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Nothing in there either for or against gay marriage. Also, Jesus was talking within the legal framework of his time. Gays couldn't marry 2000 years ago. They can now.
The point is male and female together (not male and male or female and female) reflect the image of God, and God's glory is what the whole Bible is about. By definition that's against gay marriage.
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