A friend of mine sent me an email outlining the Christian stance on homosexulaity. Some of it is taken from
http://www.teihartford.com/hccr.pdf I gave him an answer. Here is a more polished up version of the answer to the article.
Mike, this is the problem non-christians/atheists would have with this article:
The entire article is based on the premise that Bible is the Word of God. But as has been repeatedly debated on secular web, this simply cannot be proved. Therefore non-Christians will not accept that the Biblical notion of sexuality is the only right one, merely because the Bible says so.
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In the face of the debate over homosexuality and civil rights, many homosexuals are caught in a similar crossfire – desiring heterosexual health on the one hand, while giving into homosexuality on the other. They strive for, almost embrace, then turn away from the truth, due to brokenness and fears within.
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Beginning the article with the premise that all homosexuals are really heterosexuals at heart who are afraid of their sexuality is nothing other than poisoning the well.
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And then a core minority of their number give up the struggle, as it were, and become aggressive promoters of homosexuality, seeking to impose it on the rest of society.
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There can be nutcases who want this, but most of the homosexuals want to be allowed to live a life in peace without being harrassed.
[lots on meaning of the Bible] [snip]
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Or in other words, the assumption that it is God alone who gives us unalienable rights, simultaneously assumes that a healthy society is based on one man, one woman, one lifetime as the definition of true marriage. The power of trust and unity in biblical and covenantal marriage is the social glue for the expression of religious, political and economic liberty. Genesis 1-2 sets all this forth, as a thorough review of the text demonstrates. The Declaration of Independence gives definition to the concept of civil rights and a limited government with these words:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. In the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, these rights are legally defined as protecting citizens from the deprivation of “life, liberty or property” without due process of law. The word “men” as used in the Declaration can be understood in its best literary sense as inclusive of all humankind – men, women and children. This commitment to unalienable rights as endowed by God has enabled the United States to overcome inherited evils – to thus remove religious tests as barriers to citizenship and public office, and later to legally emancipate blacks, women and native Americans to
receive such rights (at least in principle).
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The mention of God in The Declaration of American Independence had been, a hotly contested matter. The infidels in the secweb would be only too happy to provide quotations from the writers, including Jefferson, where the Biblical God is rejected as manmade since He is so egotistic and vindictive. The treaty of Tripoli emphatically declares that USA was not founded as a Christian nation. Therefore linking the Constitution with the Bible is sleight of hand, even if it turns out Jefferson was anti-homosexual.
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To me this approaches the heart of the debate – the ACLU Briefing Paper and posters do not reflect the order of liberties as stipulated in the First Amendment, and in its support of the same. The ACLU did not, in these instances, reflect the history of religious liberty that this nation was founded upon, nor its tracing back to biblical covenantal law.
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The original impulse might be Biblical, but USA constitution was established on separation of Church and State. Therefore it can only be a historical digression and nothing more.
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Historically, all forms of government based on any form of polytheism have no concept of unalienable rights, for the gods and goddesses are based on the power to take not the
power to give.
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None of the Christian monarchies of Europe had any notion of inalienable rights, or anything called human rights. Both Protestant and Catholic nations learned a new language only after the very violent French revolution that sought to replace the Church with Reason.
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Nadine then asked why it matters who the “Creator” is, so long as we celebrate the unalienable rights specified in the Declaration. I then responded and also concluded the evening by saying that it matters enormously, for it is only the biblical Creator who gives unalienable rights, and unless this historical reality is known and celebrated, then the slide back into ancient paganisms and tyranny in human government is assured. Jefferson et al. needed to appeal to a higher source than King George III in order to locate unalienable rights. Only in the God of the Bible.
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Where does it speak in the Bible of inalinebale rights? One can assume it, but where exactly does it guarantee the same rights as the US constitution gives? Did the writers of the constitution ever say from where these rights came from?
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In the Jewish theocracy, all Jews had the exact same equal and unalienable rights (inviolable life, liberty and property within due process of the Mosaic law) – and even the aliens and slaves in their midst had the same legal protections not to be violated.
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Sorry, sorry. Jewish women did not enjoy equal rights at all. Even today Jewish men thank God for not being born as women. As for slaves,
Exod. 21:2, 4-6. If thou buy an Hebrew manservant... If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he (the manservant) shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, “I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free”; then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever.
Lev. 25:44-46. Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families. ... And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever.
Only Jewish male slaves have some rights. But females, minors and aliens have none.
This is the same case as with the Greek city states.
Then the writer makes the connections
Greek = paganism = homosexuality
Rome = tyranny = homosexuality.
He is making the point that only evil societies allow homosexuality.
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And the Law of Moses was the only law in all antiquity that said a complete no to homosexuality.
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And that gives it some kind of authenticity?
The “Creator” of the Declaration of Independence is none other than the God of the Bible – as all the public debate among the framers of the Constitution gives evidence.
If he has evidence of it, let him produce the relevant speeches from public debate. Otherwise it is just an assertion.
[Then a long digression about how AIDs is punishment for homosexuality].
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This agenda is real, part of a larger “pansexual jihad.” “Pansexual” refers to having sex with anyone, or anything, regardless of gender or humanity (e.g., heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, fetish, bestial and necrophilial, and all interchangeably) – and ultimately, the homosexual rights movement is a subcategory of a pansexual rights movement that has a “holy war” (Arabic “jihad”) attitude toward those in the culture who disagree with them.
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Once again a not-so-subtle effort to discredit homosexuals by linking them with bestiality and necrophilia. If you support homosexuality, then you are supporting these things also. Notice however he does not again supply any proof that the homosexuals also want these things. Also notice the use of the term Jihad: he is trying to prejudice the Western mind which has a negative view of Jihad --- why does he not use the term crusade?
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The yellow stars of David, pinned on the clothing of Jews in Nazi Germany, began as a form of segregating censorship, then ended with the death camps. As well, the Nazis persecuted non-Aryan homosexuals with the infamous inverted pink triangle being pinned on their clothing, ending too with the death camps. Many homosexual activists today celebrate the inverted pink triangle as a badge of honor (and now, from pink to the rainbow colors, in a testament to the enduring presence of syncretism). In a boomerang to the injustice done to them in Nazi Germany, they are willing to prescribe the same censorship, willing to say that those who disagree should forfeit their own rights of life, liberty and property.
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So the Bible which condemns homosexuals to death, the Church that would actively discriminate against homosexuals are not doing anything bad. Instead an effort to rouse paranoia by saying that the homosexuals are going to kill other people or rob them for not being homosexuals. Great turn around.
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The nature of God’s image is that he made us male and female.
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So?
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Homosexuality cannot fulfill the yearnings of the image God, except in partial illusion for a short period of time.
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Assumption, not proven. Besides what about those who do not believe in image of God?
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In the Deuteronomy 30:11- 20 and Joshua 24:14-24 texts, Yahweh is telling the Jews that if they are not convinced of his goodness, and the goodness of the laws he has given through Moses, then they can leave anytime they want to. They can go and join the pagan nations and adopt their idolatrous customs if they please – they can indulge in homosexuality among the Babylonians, Egyptians or the Amorites if that is what they wish to do. They are free to say “no” to Yahweh, with the consequences of such a choice having been spelled out. But to refuse such freedom and to stay in covenant Israel, then to disobey any of the Ten Commandments or other laws, or to engage in any act of toevah – this equals a deliberate act of treason against Yahweh. It is a public rebellion against Yahweh’s political authority among his chosen people who were free whether
or not to accept their chosen status to begin with. Not only that, but the aliens in Israel’s midst were free to join the chosen people if they would submit to the law of Moses. On this basis, there was the death penalty for treason, including acts of homosexuality which were by definition treasonous. And their blood would be on their own heads, because they would have acted
deliberately against Yahweh’s authority.
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The problem with this formulation is that we do not know if God is saying this. What we have is a bunch of people saying God said it. Also this apologetic does not take away the simple fact that the Bible do call for death penalty for homosexuality. Again this is the same argument Islamic states give: a muslim who leaves his religion to become a Christian committs treason against the ultimate King Allah and so is put to death.
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First of all, homosexuality was almost unheard of among the Jews, just like human abortion – both of which were completely foreign to Hebrew nature from the outset.
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Amazing! And he knows that history because …?
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One reason why the Ten Commandments are so powerful is because they reflect eternal moral laws in summation,
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Keeping of Sabbath is an eternal moral summation?
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The rest of this stuff is from the email:
The writer says " I made the observation that in the order of creation we have male and female".
Actually scientifically speaking this is not true. Several lower order creatures, including the first life form, the amoebae, are females who give birth by parthenogenesis, thus reproducing the miracle of Virgin Birth on a routine basis. That the Bible does not mention this simply means either it is not from God or knowledge God gave out was incomplete. Of course he is speaking of human beings, but obviously then human beings are not the whole order of creation and this man cannot know all about the infinite diversity God has ordained.
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"and he uses his power for one purpose: to bless and benefit you and I who are made in God's image. This is in stark contrast to the pagan deities who are limited, jealous, petty, and they beat up on humanity. They use their limited power in a destructive way. And therefore the nature of God's power from the beginning is to give, to bless, and to benefit".
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Again a thoroughly dicey proposition. Jehovah plainly states he is a jealous God, who will send all who do not worship him alone to hell. Not to mention his sending the flood, killing of the first born of Egypt, and ordering the Israelites to wipe out several tribes to get their land. Many in secweb have left Christianity precisely because they feel God beats up on humanity too much.
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"I will argue that homosexuality in its brokenness and its lostness, and those who struggle with it, many people struggle with it very deeply, is ultimately incapable of that giving and receiving, because the emotional, psychological, and physical structure of male and female in God's image".
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What does he mean by brokenness? What is this lostness? Certainly many would feel estranged and miserable because they are not socially accepted, or because their religious upbringing condition them, but that is a different thing from saying that they are fundamentally flawed. Have you ever known enough homosexuals to judge their feelings? In Hinduism the homosexuals and transversites form a separate caste, called the third sex. They are no more lost and broken, or even feel alienated from whatever gods they choose to worship than any heterosexual. (perhaps to see this from their point of view you should visit Galva , run by a gay Christian who converted to Hinduism).
http://www.geocities.com/galva108 , and
http://www.nine9.ukshells.co.uk/cgi-...=galva-q-and-a
On a lighter note our only lesbian Chief Minister is definitely a woman --- she firmly believes diamonds are her best friends.
Again the belief that homosexuals are incapable of givng and receiving is based purely on the belief that heterosexual pairings are alone sanctioned by the Biblical God. Has this theory that homosexuals are incapable of loving others, be kind been backed up by real life experiences?
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Therefore I have no agenda toward homosexuals or against homosexuals.
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Here the speaker is being disingenious. When a man declares that homosexuality is against God's natural order of creation, and homosexuals are incapable of loving others, then his agenda is against homosexuality.
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"homosexuality does not lead to eternal life".
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How does he know this? because the bible says so. How does the Bible know this? because the bible is written by God. how do we know it is written by god? because the bible says so. You see the problem?
Regarding marriage he asumes that only heterosexuals can have a proper marriage. But that is only an assumption. Children need love more than they need a parent of each sex. Homosexuals couples can provide that. The only way this could be disproved is if they are given a chance to be parents, not by asserting from the beginning that homosexuality is bad.
Mike, the whole article is as I stated at the beginning, based on the idea that homosexuality is bad because the bible says so. The writer has not proven that it leads to brokenness and loss. I like it that he is willing to grant equal rights to homosexuals but in reality he is denying them the right to be a couple and raise children if they want.
04-19-2003, 07:14 PM
answer to anti-homosexuality
