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The views represented on this blog are not necessarily those of Higher Things, nor does Higher Things necessarily endorse them.
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Posted At: 10:55pm by TripletThree
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The following is taken from a story a friend of mine showed me:
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"When I say love, I mean *all* love, no rules, no regulations, no boundaries. Why it was just in during the past forty years that love and marriage between a black person and a white person was legalized ... In the span of a lifetime, man has come to realize that love knows no color. I am hoping in my lifetime that man will come to realize that love knows no gender, either."
A few collective gasps were heard among the pews as a few whispered to themselves about what the good brother meant. Carlos sat up straighter and wondered if he had heard correctly.
"Now I know I am radical in my thinking; how can I go against what the Bible tells me. Well my fellow Christians, as I studied this topic, as I looked deep into my heart and prayed with all my might, I have come to the conclusion that the Bible, through its interpretations from the original Hebrew, through to Greek and finally into English, was, somehow, along the way, misinterpreted. We have long held certain passages dear to our heart that condemn same-sex relationships and have ignored those that seem to condone it. Why it was in I Samuel, Chapter 18, Verse 1 that it was written 'the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.' And in II Samuel, Chapter 1, Verse 26, that after both Saul and Jonathan were killed in battle, David lamented and recalled that Jonathan's love had been 'wonderful, passing the love of women.'
"I now want to ask you this ... for each and every one of you to look deep into your own heart and ask yourself if the God you know would put a restriction on love. Would He frown upon two people who had found each other, through all obstacles, through all their different paths and journeys, would He condemn them if they happen to be of the same gender? We all know that when we ascend to heaven we leave our earthly bodies behind, those earthly parts that make us male and female. So if our souls have no gender, why should we limit our love to the earthly opposite sex?"
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I’d like to briefly respond to this and then I’d greatly appreciate pastoral comments on it. :o)
First of all, it seems to me that the overall feeling of the “sermon” is selfishness… that is, how can I justify what I want to do? How can I twist the Bible to say what I want it to say? After all, embracing homosexuality would be so much easier than to attempt to stand against it in today’s culture.
Maybe that’s why the “sermon” sounds like a list of excuses. Maybe that’s why it sounds like caving in and saying, “Oh, no, God didn’t really *mean* that…”
In a way, I can understand. I’d never condone homosexuality. I believe it is a sin. However, it *is* hard to take a stand against it. The world is very good at making us feel like we’re unloving jerks who are just “homophobic.” How do we effectively stand against it?
Second, some nit-picking. To say that a love surpasses that between a woman and a man does not mean that it replaces it. It merely means that David and Jonathan were close, very close. It never says they were close sexually. They were like brothers to each other. I can understand that feeling, as I have some very dear friends who are like family to me. :o)
The part about our souls having no gender made me nearly laugh out loud. I’m wondering if it would be similar to gnosticism. At any rate, it’s really very stupid. If we’re only concerned with our souls, why even have relationships?
Going back to what I said earlier, perhaps the best defense of the relationship between men and women is to ask why, when God gave us something so precious, would we want to mess around with it? Marriage is a picture of Christ and the Church, the Bride of Christ. It is a concrete example for us of what our relationship with Christ is like.
Could, then, homosexuality be compared to idolatry?
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Posted On: January 10th, 2006 at 9:30am by Nathan Fischer [ + ] |
"Could, then, homosexuality be compared to idolatry?"
You are on to something here, but expand a little farther - all adulterous relationships are comparable to idolatry. This is so for the precise reason you mentioned: "Marriage is a picture of Christ and the Church, the Bride of Christ."
So, yeah, homosexuality and all other kinds of adultery are completely comparable to idolatry. There's a reason Christ used all those marriage examples...
Great response!
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Posted On: January 19th, 2006 at 10:45am by Madre |
This is the new direction of the homosexual movement. It is the subtext of "Brokeback Mountain". It says that gender is a spectrum - not polar opposites, and love is love is love is love, wherever the people involved in the loving relationship fall on that spectrum (and for some, however many there may be). This really isn't anything new, it was supported by the controversial ELCA study document on sexuality back in the 1990's.
If you buy the argument that our sex (being male or female) is a random extraneous add-on to the essense of "us" then sure, it's a great argument. But that's not what we believe, it's not what God has revealed to us. God created us male and female. He didn't just flip a coin and decide that Nathan was going to be male and Madre would be female and it could've just as easily gone the other way for either of us. Our Father knit (a very intentional verb) us together from the moment of the mixing of our parents' DNA and that was one of the first decisions he carries out for us. Our sex is not accidental. And even better, He created the two sexes to be in intimate relationship with one another. Love between a man and a woman is very unique and the claim that it is the same if it is between a man and a man or a woman and a woman is just patently untrue. It cannot be, because there IS a difference between male and female.
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Comment on entry entitled "Homosexuality"
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