I think most of the furor over the Newsweek piece from a few weeks ago has died down now, so I thought I'd make some too-late comments on the matter.
1) I hate it when people take scripture out of context -- which both sides of the issue tend to do quite liberally (pun intended). Had the author actually read the whole Bible instead of picking out a few pet passages, she would have been able to write a much fairer piece.
2) The end of the piece said something like "If Jesus were here, He would be reaching out to the homosexuals." This is probably the most correct, scripturally-based thing the author (Was it Lisa Miller?) said. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19) and routinely spent time with adulterers, prostitutes, tax collectors, and the like. But he was not condoning or tolerating their lifestyles. His message usually included an admonition to "go and sin no more." It still would. For the record, he would say the same thing to you and to me as well.
3) Paul tells us that the marriage relationship is a model of Christ's relationship to the church. The author left this out, likely because she could not make it work within her agenda.
God, thtough Paul, tells us that the husband is the head of the family just like Christ is the head of the church. The wife (woman) is to submit to the husband (man), and the husband (man) is to love the wife (woman) so much that he would lose his life for her. So much that her submission will be willingly given. In a same-sex marriage, who submits to whom?
4) Minor point: Yes, Abraham slept with Hagar in order to produce offspring. The Bible tells us that this was against God's plan and there were consequences. It is never used as a model for marriage.
5) Minor point: Similarly, yes, Moses did take a wife outside of the Tribe. According to the author of the Newsweek piece, this was in violation of God's commands. She doth err, however, not knowing the scriptures. First of all, Moses' marriage to Zipporah pre-dates the law. Secondly, God's command is for the Israelites to not intermarry with those nations whose land He was giving them (Canaanites, Amorites, Jebusites, and all the other-ites). His reason was that He wanted them to completely destroy these nations so that the Israelites would not, through personal relationships such as marriage with them, be tempted to adopt their pagan religious practices. Sure enough, some vestiges of these nations did remain in the land, and sure enough, the Israelites intermarried with them, and sure enough, they adopted their pagan religious practices, and sure enough, they were punished for it many times over. Even Solomon, the wisest man ever, fell into that trap.
6) I have no real Biblical fact with which to back this up, but I will go ahead and assert that David and Jonathan were NOT GAY. David was a ladies' man, a warrior. So many wives, so many concubines... did he ever know real romantic love? Probably not. He had a serious case of platonic guy love with his best bud... like Turk & JD on "Scrubs." This was basically the equivalent of "bros before hos," not an example of old Testament homoeroticism.
7) I Corinthians 6:9-10 lists homosexuality as one of the sins that would keep people from inheriting the Kingdom of God. It is listed among a bunch of other sins that people don't call out quite to the same degree... sins of which you and I are guilty as well. Any practice that legitimizes a sinful act should be discouraged.
8) It is not a sin to be attracted to members of the same sex. If having a sinful urge made one evil, we would all be hellbound. Every teenage boy that has ever drawn breath has had sinful urge after sinful urge thrust upon him. The sin is not the desire. The sin is GIVING IN to the desire. God wants us to turn to Him constantly to resist the temptation to act on these sinful urges. We all have sinful desires... some are just viewed as being more morally abhorrent than others. Again, it is not a sin to be attracted to members of the same sex. It is a sin to act on it.
I think I'm tired of discussing this.
Posted by podge at December 19, 2008 2:33 PM