Does Lev. 19:19 invalidate Lev. 19:11 or 19:17? If not, then why would it invalidate any portion of Lev. 18?

Lev. 18 tells us what was done in the land of Canaan, v. 3, “and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.” This judgment is repeated in v. 24 25, and 27, 28, “Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants…For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled”.

What then follows is a list of wickedness. Within this ‘list’ one finds the phrase, “thou shall not uncover her nakedness”, repeated in verses 7-19. I imagine this is where you get the idea of violent ‘rape’ or a sexual victim? Though “uncovering thy nakedness” has several connotations (H1540), it ought not be limited to rape; otherwise, we are caught in an exegetical predicament of incest possibly being justificable given it is mutually consenting. We also have a further problem to know God’s displeasure with Lot and his daughters.

Another OT idiom is to “lie with”. To “lie with”, in contrast to “uncover thy nakedness”, has no rape connotation, H7901. It simply means to have sexual relations. Of course any sexual relation, either violent or mutually consenting, with an animal is direly sinful. What is interesting is the same idiom, “to lie with”, is likewise used in verse 22, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination”. While two different hebrew words are used to explain a sexual liason, that used for homosexual relations has no connotation for violence. It is wrong because like bestaility, it is a ‘confusion’ and ‘corrpution’.

I don’t know how anyone can wiggle out of that. What is at stake is not our individual sense of ‘acceptance’ or ‘value’, but God’s value. Is God holy? Do His people accurately reflect this same Holiness or are they mocking?

That being said, Shawn, I don’t want to see you give up faith. We all fall short the glory. I will say we all deal with sins of flesh, and certainly concupiscence. You rightly point out the many other sexual sins which can be committed inside or outside marriage, hetero or homo. However, ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’. So, it would be wrong to relativize it. The history of the church is not gentle on this one: Christian Tradition (intro) on Homosexuality. Not until renniassance and englightenment did more ‘sex-positive’ attitudes regarding homosexuality (public) emerge, likely the influence of pagan greek. etc.

But regarding united voice of tradition and scripture, I beleive Christ does not hate those who hate sin. Though we may lust for others, we don’t have to act on this same lust. I have many friends, including myself, who are older and past the marriage age. What options do we have? We cannot have sex outside marriage. We shouldnt’ even think about it. Yet the church has always answered the unmarried state with the gift of celibacy. Scripture and tradition both gives a high place to the eunuch. When counseling friends who are struggling singles (men), I always advise them to embrace celibate life and be content with the state we find ourselves in either upon our baptism or ordination, etc. Since homosexuality constitutes an unlawful marriage, I would recommend the same to you as I have myself and friends. Be “a religious” and treat your state of life/condition as a greater blessing. I would not recommend you a discipline any greater than I want myself. Hopefully, someday, by grace, I will love Christ even more than my own life? 

My question with SSU in the church is why insist on something forbidden when celibate/religious life could be glorified and elevated instead? This is the proper answer to SSU/identity. Meanwhile, in time, the ‘urges’ are controlled by the Spirit which disciplines the flesh and old man. Not all battles are won overnight, and the hardest battles glorify Christ indeed. Yet if a man burns, then let him marry (Exodus ).

I hope you don’t think I am trying to hurt you. I am just trying to be firm. I would not bring it up if the conversation did not go this way. We are dealing with proper exegesis, faith to tradition, and the scriptural witness. However, given your last post, I felt my own ‘lifestyle’ choice might help you, and I can give you more assistance/prayer if you wish. I know how difficult it is. Frankly, I wish the church was more consistent in its admonitions and counseling against illicit sex of all stripes, especially hetero since this is even more rampant and abused. I believe when the church is lax in general (a sleeping bride?), it gives liscence to all other improprieties.

Daniel Weir - 18 June 2009 10:12 AM

Andrew Anderson - 18 June 2009 09:37 AM

Those would violate Christ’s Summary of the Law to love God and our neighbor as ourselves

Except, of course, that affirming same-sex sexual activty, in that it is encouraging a person to sin, is already violating those laws.

And on that point, Andrew, we simply disagree.

I understand that you disagree, but why? You still haven’t said what convinced you that the scriptural prohibition applies to “some but not all” same-sex activity. You haven’t told us (that I recall seeing here at Covenant anyway) why you think that ‘there is a “reasonable doubt” that Paul or Torah were condemning what we know as committed life-long same-sex relationships”.

The Bible contains a simple, plainly stated, blanket prohibition. What it says is: “don’t do it”. There are no “ifs, ands, or buts” in the text. In view of this clearly stated, unqualified command not to engage in same-sex activity, what exactly is it that leads you to believe that there are exceptions?

Karen

Shawn Strout - 18 June 2009 11:52 AM

Hi Karen,

I base my disagreement on the Gospel and the life of Christ.  Let’s take a look at His life and teachings for a moment.  I’ve often wondered why the writers of the canon so often chose His healing miracles that occurred on the Sabbath.  Surely, Christ also healed people during the week right?  So, why pick out those instance that happened on the Sabbath to include in our canon?  Well, Christ tells us that the sabbath was made for humanity not humanity for the sabbath.  He consistently went against the scriptural interpretations and traditions of the religious conservatives of His day.  He did so, not just to spite them, but to show that the point of them all is love and grace.

An argument in favor of SSB’s, based on the Gospel and the life of Christ, can only be made if you ignore the part of the gospel where Christ defines marriage as between one man and one woman, or where he includes sexual immorality [porneia] among “the things that…come from the heart, and…make a man ‘unclean.’” If there is any evidence that Christ would not have included all sex between two men or two women in the category of porneia, I have yet to hear it.

(snip) And then there were those who did cause harm.  There were the prostitutes, the woman with many husbands, the unscrupulous tax collectors and money changers.  He ate with them and socialized with them.  He commanded them to stop their harmful behavior but only after He first received them into His Presence.  They first needed to know His love.  If the religious conservatives of His day would have had their way, they would never have had access to Christ at all.

You have been received into relationship with Christ. You are baptized. You have received his love. Nobody here has said you should be cut off from any sacraments because you are gay. I do, however, believe that open, deliberate, unrepentant sinners should be barred from the sacraments. If I come into the church bearing an obvious grudge against someone, if I persist in, or even deliberately reinforce my bitterness and resentment against that person, and if I refuse to admit that I’m doing anything wrong, should I still be admitted to the Eucharist? If I set up an advocacy group for other people with grudges and encourage them to do the same thing, and ask he Church to bless our vendettas, should the Sacraments be open to me? The actions of participants/proponents of SSUs are exactly parallel: they openly and premeditatedly engage in or condone an activity which is forbidden by the teaching of both Christ and the Apostles, they refuse to admit that there is anything wrong with doing so, they encourage others to do the same, and demand that the church give all this its blessing.

It appears to me from what you’ve written above that you define sin as causing harm. Causing harm to another is sinful, but sin isn’t just a question of whether someone else is harmed or not, it’s any failure on our part to live the way that God has told us—for our good and his glory—that we should. Jesus said that in the scenario I described earlier, I’d be guilty just by being angry at that other person; just by calling them a fool I’d be worthy of hell-fire. He says that a lustful look—which the other person may not even realize has happened—is committing adultery in the heart. Sin is sin, whether there is any impact on another person or not. Jesus did not tell those individuals, like the woman caught in adultery, to “go, do no harm”. He said “go, and sin no more”. To me, he is saying, “Karen, go, and stop cherishing resentments against other people. Let go of bitterness. Stop refusing to forgive.” I believe he is also saying “Shawn, stop having sex with another man.” The question is, are we going to obey him?

Like the Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes of Jesus’ day, religious conservatives today have only one defense.  They quote Scripture out of context and Tradition as their only defense. 

I have said before that I base my belief that the prohibition of same-sex activity still applies to Christians today on the ruling of the Jerusalem council. This decision was specifically given in response to the question “how much of the Mosaic law should Gentile Christians observe?” How is applying the Council’s answer to the same question today “quoting Scripture out of context”? How is applying Christ’s definition of marriage to the question of what kinds of sexual relationships are appropriate for believers, quoting Scripture out of context?

They cannot show how a committed, lifelong same-gender relationship causes harm to anyone because inherently they don’t.

Again, even if there is no harm done, it doesn’t necessarily follow that no sin has occurred. But the idea that committed same-sex relationships are harmless is just an opinion. In order for this statement to be true, it has to be assumed that no aspect of such a relationship is inherently sinful. If sexual acts between two men or two women are, in fact, sin, the relationship is harmful, at a minimum to both participants, and possibly to others, because sin is inherently damaging to our relationships with God and with each other. 

Religious conservatives just continue to quote Scripture out of context and Tradition attempting to keep a group of people that they consider unclean away from the full sacramental grace of the Church.  Sound familiar at all?  Well, it should.  It was exactly what was being done in Christ’s day and He defied the religious conservatives of His day who would quote Scripture out of context and cite Tradition as their defense.  But He knew that Scripture and Tradition were never meant to keep people from the fullness of God’s grace and love.  So, He defied them.

I do not recall that anyone here (or in other places I frequent) has said homosexuals as a group are “unclean”, so your assertion that this is why conservatives object to SSB’s is nothing but a straw man argument. As far as I can remember, all the objections to SSB’s that have been raised in the Covenant forums are based on sinfulness of the behavior, not on the orientation of the persons. If homosexuals are “unclean” so are resentful people like me. We are all “unclean”, unless we have been cleansed by Christ. Nobody here that I know of, thinks you should be kept away from God. I do think that by persisting in doing what the Scripture forbids, you are tending to shut yourself out. I pray that someday you will come to see things differently.

(snip)No one has been able to cite one example to me of how a same-gender committed, monogamous relationship causes harm to anyone (with perhaps the exception of increased health insurance premiums).  But I have and could continue to cite example after example after example of how keeping homosexuals and same-gendered relationships from the fullness of the Sacraments of the Church HAS caused great harm to the individuals, to society and to the Church.  All that ever gets cited by conservatives are scripture passages thrust out of context and tradition.  Well, Christ knew how to handle those kinds of arguments.  He just kept on healing with His saving grace.

In Christ,
Shawn

If by “keeping same-gendered relationships from the fullness of the Sacraments” you mean the Church continuing to define marriage as between a man and a woman, I can easily imagine that you would view this as “harm” to yourself and other gay persons.  I am, however, unable to recall any example cited by you, or to imagine any way at all, in which the Church is harmed by retaining the original definition of marriage. What is the harm you are speaking of?

Karen

A sin which harmed no one…? Original sin had no obvious, immediate consequence yet it delivered man to death. What about, “Thou shall not covet”...? How about sins against God—“thou shall have no graven image; thou shall keep my Sabbath holy; thou shall not use the Lord’s name in vain”... ? No one is harmed…?

John said sin was ‘transgression of the law’. We do not use the particulars of the law (e.g., 10 commandments) against the summary. They are all God breathed.

That being said, Karen mentioned Acts 15 as an affirmation of sexual purity from OT. I agree but notice the church’s manner of “indulgence” (I use that word gingerly). There is an economy to the application of the law. Common good, wisdom, and pastoral concerns ought to be weighed. We want sinners to grow in Christ, mortifying the old self and the flesh, drawing closer to Christ, “we are no longer our own but belong to God in body, mind, and soul”.

However, pastors also have a duty to prepare a bride acceptable to the Lord, without spot or stain, raised in holiness and sanctified for Christ the groom. Pastors need to be jealous for Christ’s sake, and not call ‘evil’ good and ‘good’ evil. This mocks the holiness of God and ultimately makes the church look like a whore for the world to scorn. There needs to be a charitable yet firm teaching in the Church. This is primarily a problem of faithful ministry, “And whosoever shall cause one of these little ones that believe in me to sin, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.” (Mrk 9:32)