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Christians and same-sex discussion – Round 2: My response (continued)

We continue the discussion here in the Dojo between myself and Sam, a fellow Methodist who I invited to dialogue on the subject of same-sex sexual relationships.

If you’re just joining us, read Sam’s initial guest post can HERE.

Then read my 3-part response to Sam’s main points HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Sam’s second guest post in which he responds to my first round of posts can be read HERE.

I am currently replying to that post, and the first part of my response can be read HERE.

Note: For ease of following along, the link addresses for the entire discussion are:

Guest post affirming same-sex relationships within the Church

The Church and Same-Sex Sexual Relationships: My response to Sam’s guest post

The Church and Same-Sex Relationships: My response to Sam (part 2)

The Church and Same-Sex Relationships (Conclusion)


…etc.

As always, Sam’s comments are in BOLD, followed by my response.

———————-

Let me a take a minute to thank you for making yourself—on the level of humanity, not of argument—vulnerable at the end of your third post, JM. You write that you “actually wish same-sex sex [weren’t] innately sinful,” which I found touching. This personal note confirms that for you, it really is only about how you read the Bible here. It can’t be about some harm done in the lesbian or gay relationships among which you live (since you perceive none, wishing as you do that the Bible didn’t say what you read it as saying). I appreciate the level of honesty that represents, my friend. And to extend this praise a little longer, it’s worth pointing out that I don’t think you’ve presented your case in a way that excludes reason or lived experience. I appreciate that a great deal, JM. You’re not a “Bible-only” conversationalist. But your commitment to your Scriptural interpretation trumps the desire you have to celebrate the queer relationships in your life, buoyed as they are only by reason or personal experience or whatever term you’d choose and not your biblical reading.

I appreciate the thanks, Sam. But I should nuance what I’m saying because I don’t think it came across accurately (mostly due to me not putting it very well, I imagine!).

When I say that I actually wish same-sex sex weren’t innately sinful, what I mean is that I actually wish it didn’t cause the spiritual and emotional harm that it does (that all sin does) because I care about the people who I know who struggle with it or engage in it and believe it to be good. It would be like me having friends who are addicted to heroin and thus saying “I wish heroin wasn’t destructive and addicting, but instead was like Coffee or Pixie Stix.” Because then my addict friends wouldn’t be in bondage to heroin. They’d just be enjoying something that was not necessarily harmful and destructive.

That’s how I feel about same-sex sexual relationships, spiritually speaking. I wish they weren’t sinful and that my friends who struggle with same-sex desire or engage in same-sex behavior didn’t desire something that is inherently sinful (and therefore, inherently destructive spiritually and emotionally). It would be much easier, in terms of this issue and its debate within the Church, if same-sex sex was in the same category, biblically speaking, as masturbation or oral sex, etc.–that is, a type of sexual activity that is not prohibited universally and thus not always spiritually destructive or invalid in terms of an accepted practice among God’s people.

Does that make more sense, in terms of what I’m attempting to say? I apologize for not being as clear as I should have been.

 

So with all that in mind, you’ve made clear your commitment to this Christian sexual ethics based only on (an interpretation of) the biblical command of God.

Yes. And I am suggesting that it is an interpretation that is no more questionable than the interpretation of “You shall not murder” or “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Also, because it is God’s command, it is therefore born out in the world around us in terms of consequences and spiritual (as well as emotional and at times even physcial) harm, as all sin is.

 

It’s fairly straightforward work to describe the moral arbitrariness I perceive here: God gives us an ethical proscription (lesbian or gay relationships are forbidden) that we interpret from the Bible that does not track to the church’s experience or reason. Not only does violating it not do any perceivable, scientifically verifiable harm—which, I agree, is not the only means of harm assessment available to Christians—it doesn’t do harm to God or our relationship with God or others besides the logically circular harm caused by violating ethical commands.

I disagree that it “does not track to the church’s experience or reason.

What you perhaps mean by this is something like it “does not track to Liberal Protestant assumptions of the past 40 years” maybe. But it very much tracks with the historic Christian Church universal’s experience.

But more than that, I disagree 100% that “it doesn’t do harm to our relationship with God”, as this is diametrically opposed to every Old and New Testament mention of same-sex sexual activity.

Like every other form of porneia, same-sex sex distorts human beings at one of our deepest and most intimate levels of being. That is why Jesus included porneia specifically as something that truly defiles us from the inside:

“For out of the heart come evil ideas, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are the things that defile a person…” (Matthew 15:19-20 NET)

and why Paul used it as his foundational example of the alienating nature of general human sinfulness which results in all kinds of corruption and harm (Romans 1:18-32)

Furthermore, far from being “circular”, violating ethical commands of God is the HEART of what it means to not love God. It’s a violation of the very first and most important command (according to Torah and to Jesus)!

This is what I find most disturbing about the position you are adopting (and as a side note, it is eerily similar to the arguments by Weston in C.S. Lewis’ masterpiece “Perelandra”, which if anyone has not read, should be at the top of one’s must-read list!).

Trusting submission to His commands as good, even when we may not be able to fully understand why or how they are so, is the very essence of what it means to love God—according to both Torah and the New Testament.

 

Again, responsible biblical scholarship aside, I have to think this is in violation of responsible Christian ethics. I posit that a Christian ethics rooted in Scripture, as we have and ought to have as United Methodists, cannot confuse the roots with the trunk, bark and leaves. Our lives of discipleship are neither independent from nor coterminous with our Scriptural interpretation; Christian behavior and biblical reading are inseparable but so are Christian behavior and a reading of the world. And though I have to admit at the outset that this is not a knock-down drag-out argument (since you are more than welcome to simply reply that you don’t see it this way), I appeal to you and to our third-party readers that an ethical principle that has absolutely no grounding in anything except a biblical interpretation is neither a Christocentric nor a well-advised principle for Christians to hold.

I want to emphasize again just how foreign, I believe, what you are positing is to what we actually see in the pages of Scripture throughout the history of God’s relationship with and self-revelation to His people.

The following are just a sample (doing a quick survey of only the NRSV…there would be more if we went from the original languages) of the Scriptural teaching on the intertwined nature of love and obedience to divine command. They are not given in order to “proof-text”…rather, I’m listing them so that you and anyone reading can see this most fundamental aspect of any ethic claiming to be Christocentric:

Torah…

“You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generationof those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:5-6)

“Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who maintains covenant loyalty with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and who repays in their own person those who reject him. He does not delay but repays in their own person those who reject him. Therefore, observe diligently the commandment — the statutes, and the ordinances — that I am commanding you today. If you heed these ordinances, by diligently observing them, the LORD your God will maintain with you the covenant loyalty that he swore to your ancestors; he will love you, bless you, and multiply you” (Deuteronomy 7:9-13)

“You shall love the LORD your God, therefore, and keep his charge, his decrees, his ordinances, and his commandments always.” (Deuteronomy 11:1)

“If you will only heed his every commandment that I am commanding you today — loving the LORD your God, and serving him with all your heart and with all your soul –” (Deuteronomy 11:13)

“If you will diligently observe this entire commandment that I am commanding you, loving the LORD your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him,” (Deuteronomy 11:22)

“…provided you diligently observe this entire commandment that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God and walking always in his ways…” (Deuteronomy 19:9)

“If you obey the commandments of the LORD your Godthat I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, ” (Deuteronomy 30:16)

Historical books…

“Take good care to observe the commandment and instruction that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to keep his commandments, and to hold fast to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.”” (Joshua 22:5)

“I said, “O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments;” (Nehemiah 1:5)

Prophets…

“A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.”
(Ezekiel 36:26-27)

“I prayed to the LORD my God and made confession, saying, “Ah, Lord, great and awesome God, keeping covenant and steadfast love with those who love you and keep your commandments,” (Daniel 9:4)

Jesus…

“Jesus answered, “The first [commandment] is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'” (Mark 12:29-30)

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)

“They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them…Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me. “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.”  (John 14:21, 23-26)

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” (John 15:10)

Apostles…

“And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.” (Acts 5:32)

“…Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,” (Romans 1:4-6)

“Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.” (Romans 6:16-18)

All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.” (1John 3:24)

“By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome,” (1John 5:2-3)

And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment just as you have heard it from the beginning — you must walk in it.” (2John 1:6)

In the history of God’s people, love and obedience are both essential and cannot truly be separated.

So my point in listing those, Sam, is to show just how unfathomable it is for anyone who reads Scripture as the authoritative self-revelation of God to His people, to accept the idea that one’s obedience to the commands of God (whatever they may be under whatever Covenant one finds oneself throughout history) can somehow be separated from one’s being in loving relationship with God. If God commands His people to not do something (as He has commanded His people under both the Mosaic Covenant as well as under the New Covenant not to do when it comes to same-sex sex), then regardless of whether or not we believe such actions to be harmful, we are not free to disobey God’s explicit commandment to not engage in them and yet still claim to be faithfully following God…and certainly any claim of “holiness” while actively negating God’s explicit command to us or condoning those who do renders that term meaningless…or at best, totally redefined in a way that is foreign to its actual meaning in Scripture.

Of course one can “obey” certain external commands outwardly without loving God inwardly…but as the Prophets, Jesus and the Apostles make clear, this is not true love—and therefore not true obedience. Likewise, one can claim to “love” God inwardly…but if they do not obey His commands outwardly, as the Prophets, Jesus and Apostles make clear, this not true love of God—and is thus in direct violation of the Greatest Commandment.

So I have to lovingly challenge your concept of how ethics are determined within the Christian faith proclaimed by God’s Prophets, God’s Apostles and God’s Son Himself. This is the wides chasm that currently stands between us, I think. It’s also the most foundational, I would argue.

I don’t mean this as an insult or an attack on your character, but I believe you have adopted a non-Christian framework for determining ethics, and have baptized it with Christian-sounding vocabulary in order to maintain a perceived (and undoubtedly sincere!) commitment to Scripture’s authority and faithfulness to Jesus.

But, I would argue, by any Biblical (or even Wesleyan!) standard of the concepts involved, such as ‘holiness’ and ‘love,’ if Scripture does in fact teach that same-sex sexual relationships are inherently sinful and prohibited by God for His people under both the Old and New Covenants, then your conclusions are simply untenable for any faithful follower of the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus.

[To be continued…]

Posted by on June 20, 2012.

Categories: Biblical Theology, Blog, Ministry, Political/Social issues, Relationships, Theological issues

10 Responses

  1. 1.You mention that you wish that homosexual acts were not sinful, and similar to oral sex.But most Christians (including the vast majority of christians” believe that oral sex is porneia.

    They think it violates the imageo dei, and the “original intentions” of God for sex.How would you defeat such arguments, since they appeal to invisible, intangible and esoteric concepts.

    It would seem that their argument is as valid as yours, and based on the same principles. So if there is objectivity in any way in your assesment, then how in any way, can you distinguish your argument from theirs?

    “Oral sex causes invisible spiritual harm that is unknowable in any way, outside of my interpretation of the Bible.”

    ^ Prove that the above statement is wrong.

    2. Claiming that your interpretation of an esoteric passage in romans is equivalent to the Law of Love is indefensible.

    Your personal interpretation of Romans or Corinthians isn’t equal to the law of love.

    And these aren’t “GOD’s Commands”, they’re PAUL’s writings of opinion given to specific Churches. Paul isn’t God, and he isn’t citing any universal command.

    Pauls editorial on Roman behavior and God’s commandments are not equatable. Things that are commandments are commandments. Paul’s opinion here is not a commandment.

    >Trusting submission to His commands as good, even when we may >not be able to fully understand why or how they are so, is the >very essence of what it means to love God—according to both >Torah and the New Testament.

    Translation: Trusting submission to my opinion and interpretation is good, especially when there is no comprehensible scientific, logical or ethical reason for it. Trust me when I tell you what God commands, even if it doesn’t have anything to do with loving one’s neighbor, and I can’t point to any ethical wrongness in it, other than not doing what I say.

    This is the very essence of loving God: obeying what I tell you about him even when what I say doesn’t make any sense. Because this is the point at which faith is most important: when I can use it to force you to do something which I want with no explanation given whatsoever.

    Appeal to Authority fallacy. Appeal to Mystery fallacy.

    >But, I would argue, by any Biblical (or even Wesleyan!) >standard of the concepts involved, such as ‘holiness’ and >‘love,’ if Scripture does in fact teach that same-sex sexual >relationships are inherently sinful and prohibited by God for >His people under both the Old and New Covenants, then your >conclusions are simply untenable for any faithful follower of >the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus.

    Translation: You aren’t faithful to God unless you discard the rubric of the law of love, and instead obey my interpretation of Scripture over and above it. Because there are higher, more important commandments that God has over the law of love, and we should follow those first, even if they contradict the law of love.

    by Chris McCauley on Jun 21, 2012 at 7:06 am

  2. “Prove that the above statement is wrong”

    Oral sex is ever prohibited in the Biblical texts of the Old and New Testaments. Same-sex sex is explicitly and consistently prohibited in both.

    by jm on Jun 21, 2012 at 4:52 pm

  3. >Oral sex is ever prohibited in the Biblical texts of the Old and New Testaments. >Same-sex sex is explicitly and consistently prohibited in both.

    Sorry, “porneia” includes oral sex. Sex without the possibility of procreation is explicitly and consistently prohibited in both New and Old Testaments, starting from Onan and proceeding up to Paul. That’s according to my Hermeneutic.

    And I won’t allow for any arguments except for MY hermeneutic.

    The entire bulk of tradition and Christianity stands behind my interpretation, and your claim that it is permissible is “revisionism”.

    I won’t allow logic to come into the argument. I won’t allow the law of love to come into the argument. I won’t allow ethics to come into the argument. I won’t allow science or psychology to come into the argument. I won’t allow any concept of “harm” to come into the argument.

    I believe it, and it’s traditionally been believed for centuries, and if you don’t
    agree you are violating God’s command, and you need to have more faith.

    ^ Now, prove the above statement wrong.

    by Chris McCauley on Jun 21, 2012 at 8:22 pm

  4. Fail. Oral sex between husband and wife is never anywhere prohibited in Scripture and thus cannot be feasibly said to be porneia. Same-sex sex, on the other hand, is explicitly prohibited multiple times in both Testaments.

    Apples and oranges.

    by jm on Jun 21, 2012 at 8:24 pm

  5. >Fail. Oral sex between husband and wife is never anywhere prohibited in >Scripture and thus cannot be feasibly said to be porneia. Same-sex sex, on >the other hand, is explicitly prohibited multiple times in both Testaments.
    >Apples and oranges.

    All sex between partners not open to the procreative end is explicitly condemned in both testaments. The condemnation of non procreative sex begins in Genesis and travels all the way through the Old and New Testament. All sex acts that don’t intend to produce offspring, such as anal, oral and masturbation are thus porneia.

    That’s how I interpret God’s commands, and that’s how the bulk of Christianity for thousands of years have interpreted God’s commands.

    I BELIEVE according to MY interpretation, that oral sex is explicitly condemned by scripture. And thus if you do it you should be condemned for violating God’s commandment.

    You only disagree because you are a liberal non-orthodox protestant American. The entire tradition of interpretation of scripture is against your liberal reading.

    My opinion is that God condemns oral sex as porneia, and I don’t have to give any explanation as to why oral sex is wrong. God said so (according to me and according to tradition), so that makes it unethical.

    And since the only thing that I use to determine my ethics is my interpretation of God’s commands, there is no way for you to disprove my argument. I disallow ALL evidence, EXCEPT my OWN OPINION on what scripture says, and the traditional interpretation of Scripture.

    Logic, ethics, and science, conscience, the law of love and so forth can have no bearing on the argument. God said it’s wrong and that settles it. You aren’t allowed to give any evidence to the contrary, because the only evidence that matters is my opinion that God condemned it.

    by Chris Bowers on Jun 21, 2012 at 10:00 pm

  6. I’d like to add that I wish that oral sex didn’t do horrible spiritual harm to people, and didn’t violate God’s first commandment but that unfortunately it does. It angers God horribly, and God has the right to proclaim things morally wrong with no reason whatsoever purely by divine fiat.

    We may want to question why such an act between two loving committed partners is morally wrong, since it does no harm to either person and is done out of genuine love.

    But that is not ours to question. We must accept with faith my interpre- oops, I mean God’s commandment

    For those women that are born in such a way that they can only orgasm during to oral sex, all I can say is that God has prohibited it, and even though that’s the only way that you as a woman can achieve orgasm, God has placed that behavior off limits do to his mysterious magical soul, and that cannot be questioned.

    So as a woman, you aren’t ever allowed to have an orgasm because of my interp-….. I mean, because God says so. Just think of this as a special cross you have to bear and If you don’t agree with me, you just have to increase your faith in my bullshi….. I mean faith in God’s divine word and commands.

    by Chris Bowers on Jun 21, 2012 at 10:10 pm

  7. http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a6.htm

    This is an explanation of why all orthodox Christians cannot engage in sex acts that do not intend towards the procreative end, including oral sex, anal sex, birth control, and masturbation. All such acts, according to Orthodox Christians (as opposed to liberal protestant revisionists) are equivalent to Adultery and violate the Imageo Dei according to Catholicism.

    Included is an explanation from Scripture of why these acts are wrong, even impure thoughts are morally wrong because they are not aimed at the procreative end.

    >Jesus came to restore creation to the purity of its origins. In the Sermon >on the Mount, he interprets God’s plan strictly: “You have heard that it >was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that every one >who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in >his heart.”123 What God has joined together, let not man put >asunder.124
    >The tradition of the Church has understood the sixth commandment as >encompassing the whole of human sexuality.

    Anytime you look at a woman sexually without thinking of or trying for the procreative end, you are comitting adultery and porneia, according to the Catholic Church. It violates the Imageo Dei, and the original intent of sexuality for man.

    In fact all persons, according to Orthodox Christianity, are called to chastity, even married couples. This has been the traditional interpretation of Paul’s letters on sexuality. Any sex act that occurs without the intention to procreate according to this is “severely disordered”.

    Any sexual act that doesn’t aim at procreation is porneia and adultery.

    by Chris Bowers on Jun 21, 2012 at 10:28 pm

  8. JMS, what this comes down to is the fact that you won’t accept any line of evidence except your own opinion. Your interpretation of scripture, to you, is the ONLY determining factor in if you believe homosexuality is morally wrong or not.

    Because your stance isn’t open to questioning of any kind along any kind of logical, ethical, or scientific standard, it’s true fundamentalist dogmatism.

    Your position is only based on your opinion of scripture, and you close off it’s examination by any other means.

    As such, it’s pure subjective sophistry, as it isn’t tied to anything objective whatsoever.

    That’s why the argument from my end, is so frustrating. You claim that you’re having an argument, or a debate, but you really aren’t. You claim that your argument is immune to everything that comes to bear in a debate, namely facts, logic, ethics, and science, and that the only factor that matters is YOUR interpretation of scripture.

    In the argument that I posted above, where I state that all non-procreative sex is porneia, you can’t argue against it, except to say “That’s not how I interpret scripture”.

    Once you put hermenutics as supreme or immune to all other forms of evidence, when someone has a different hermenutic, there can be no discussion.

    You say that you interpret scripture one way, and I say another. There can be no discussion, no argument, no debate. All you have is two unchangeable dogmatic positions, which cannot be changed because they SOLELY rely upon the opinion of the claimant.

    By putting your hermenutic above all other forms of evidence, you are essentially equating yourself with God. This strikes at the heart of what’s wrong with Religion (all religions, not just Christianity).

    ___________________________________________________________
    Fly planes into buildings? What about innocent lives? Sorry, my interpretation of the Koran dictates we must.

    Massacre the Cathars? Sorry, my interpretation of the Bible dictates that we must.

    Oppress homosexuals? Sorry, my interpretation of the Bible dictates we must.

    Only allow women to have sex if they intend to procreate? Sorry, my interpretation of the Bible dictates we must.

    Slavery evil? Sorry, my interpretation of the Bible dictates that original sin means that some should be in bondage.

    _________________________________________________________

    The moment you allow an interpretation of God’s word to reign supreme over the ethic of reciprocity, science, love, logic, justice, and so forth, that’s
    idolatry and evil of the worst kind.

    by Chris Bowers on Jun 23, 2012 at 4:29 pm

  9. No Chris, it’s not about “my own”…it’s about what is true and valid. I don’t accept lines of evidence that are lacking exegetical warrant, nor lines of evidence that are tangential or pointless. When actual Biblical evidence is presented that is based on careful scholarship and sound reasoning, I very much take it into account. But I don’t have the time, or the energy/desire to endlessly debate fringe arguments, inaccurate caricatures of what I am saying, or red-herrings.

    by jm on Jun 23, 2012 at 5:35 pm

  10. Jms, I don’t agree with you on an “epistemology” basis.

    If someone or something disagrees with your interpretation of scripture, your interpretation takes precedence. You discount any evidence as “non-evidence” if it in any way contradicts your interpretation of the Bible. You don’t allow logical, scientific or ethical arguments to be entered into evidence for consideration of the point. If any of that logical, scientific or ethical evidence or argument contradicts your interpretation of scripture, your interpretation of scripture takes precedence, even if the argument is contradicted logically, ethically, or scientifically.

    Your own interpretation of the Bible is supreme and immune to any argument which disagrees with that interpretation.

    And your interpretation rests on your own opinion of the Bible.

    Thus your argument is pure subjectivism, reliant on your own opinion and your own opinion alone. No objective measure can be brought to bear against it.

    You claim that God’s commands are not beholden to any logical, ethical or scientific standard and that we must obey it even if it contradicts everything we know and can demonstrate objectively.

    That’s pure dogmatic subjectivism.

    >When actual Biblical evidence is presented that is based on careful >scholarship and sound

    But you don’t consider anything “actual Biblical evidence” unless it agrees with your interpretation. Thus there is no way to present any evidence at all.

    That’s why I asked you to defeat other arguments that are solely based on an interpretation of scripture and tradition. Because you can’t, if you disallow the ability to use logic, ethics, and science.

    Once you claim that interpretations of the Bible are the only evidence that can be entered all that can be said is “Your interpretation is wrong, mine is right”. That’s it.

    You can’t demonstrate, from a logical or ethical standpoint that slavery is wrong, or that birth control is okay. Once you’ve abandoned everything but your hermenutic, you can only argue from your hermenutic.

    If I argue slavery is right, and you argue slavery is wrong based on interpretations of the Bible, I can cite passages which support it, and discount those passages against it. You can cite passages against it, and discount passages that support it.

    But the point is that the wrongness of slavery transcends just hermenutics. Hermenutics is not the only way to prove that slavery is wrong. There are ethical, logical and scientific arguments to consider.

    Since you won’t allow ethical logical or scientific arguments to come into play regarding homosexuality, it simply becomes a matter of your opinion, rather than something we can demonstrate objectively.

    by Chris Bowers on Jun 26, 2012 at 5:14 pm

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