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Source: (consider it) Thread: Biblical interpretation of apparently anti-gay passages
Joesaphat
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You're in very strange company exegeting that way, actually, Eutychus. The arguments you put forward are the very same that the Council of Trent used to counter the Protestant view that marriage was not a sacrament because it lacked a clear institution in Scripture (as the 39 articles still hold). They came up with this: marriage was literally instituted in paradise. It's quite a sight to see all the protestant churches now making use of this argument.

Also the arguments are not difficult to refute at all. Even if I were to grant that what Croesos wrote is wrong, even if one were to completely overlook the fact that sexual dimorphism is but an evolutionary adaptation, it's still difficult to see why because something is said to be so in the beginning in some mythical fable it ought to be so for all ages. Hume's naturalistic fallacy in all its splendour.

And yes, you're definitely stacking the deck in asking gay people to justify themselves.

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Joesaphat
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Furthermore, there has not been a constant will to justify coming from the gay community: we were burned if we tried, from Theodosius' reign onwards or suffered huge legal penalties more recently. People are still condemned to death for it in many countries or strung up by the mob. I'll repeat my argument however: the church has used very different reasons to blame homosexuality through the ages which should make us suspect that it has tried to justify its hatred rather than come to its position through dispassionate study of Scripture.

The church sounds every bit like my grandma:
'I don't like your new girlfriend, she's after your money'
-Can't see why, her family's loaded.
'She looks shifty.'
-She's a human rights lawyer
'She's foreign. Why did you have to pick someone foreign.
-You're a foreigner too
Is not the same thing, I don't like your new girlfriend.

Yea, the church sounds like a Spanish grandmother.

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
You're in very strange company exegeting that way, actually, Eutychus. The arguments you put forward are the very same that the Council of Trent used to counter the Protestant view that marriage was not a sacrament because it lacked a clear institution in Scripture (as the 39 articles still hold). They came up with this: marriage was literally instituted in paradise. It's quite a sight to see all the protestant churches now making use of this argument.

Noticing the same passage is by no means proof of exegeting it the same way.

It's been observed that Jesus mentions God creating male and female in the specific context of marriage. The question is why? A question made if anything more pressing by the fact that he lined up excerpts from two separate passages to do so. Howling that the Council of Trent noticed the same passage does not an explanation make.

quote:
it's still difficult to see why because something is said to be so in the beginning in some mythical fable it ought to be so for all ages.
Jesus referred to how things were in the beginning, explicitly acknowledged that things no longer were that way, and also that provision should be made accordingly. That's precisly where I stand, too.
quote:
And yes, you're definitely stacking the deck in asking gay people to justify themselves.
It's pretty normal to ask people to offer support for their arguments, especilly if invective is offered as a substitute; nowhere have I insisted any category do so any more than any other.

What I did say is that arguments deserve to be treated on their merits, not dismissed on the sole grounds of being (as you thought) wholly innovative, or concealing a "constant will to condemn". There is no fruitful discussion that way on either side.

[x-post, but I think what I said still applies in the wake of your second]

[ 12. April 2016, 06:47: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

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Joesaphat
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"It's been observed that Jesus mentions God creating male and female in the specific context of marriage. The question is why?"

He is mentioning it in the specific context of repudiation, but never mind. Why? Because there was no other type of marriage around. It is you who's arguing that there 'cannot' be other types of marriage 'because' Jesus said so. Again, you're deriving an ought from an is. Just because it was the case does not mean it ought to be the case.

If I were a betting man, I'd venture to say that our Lord never meant to offer a definition of marriage. He was offering a classic rabbinical rebuttal (binyan av min she ktuvim) no different from Shammai's in the Mishna: there can only be repudiation in cases of blatant adultery, although Shammai uses two other verse to justify his position on a third. Nothing more. It probably was worthy of note as in so many other places Jesus sided with Hillel and his school. Why do you see in there a definition of what marriage should be like today or that it should be confined to male/female pairings? What Christ had in mind was the acquisition of a woman from her dad. Should that too be normative? Or the fact that only men can initiate divorce, or more accurately repudiation (get)?

[ 12. April 2016, 07:12: Message edited by: Joesaphat ]

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Joesaphat
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The above is not invective, by the way. And I did not dismiss your arguments as innovative at all. How can you read my reaction like that? I said that they were actually quite traditional. It's just odd to read protestants making use of Tridentine doctrines, that's all. It's even odder that those who advocate for same-sex marriages are getting rapped on the knuckles by the CofE for pointing out that there is no clear institution of marriage in Scripture, it being one of those 'five commonly called Sacraments, that... are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel, being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the Apostles,... for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God.'

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat (emphasis mine):
He is mentioning it in the specific context of repudiation, but never mind. Why? Because there was no other type of marriage around.

That doesn't make sense. If male/female marriage was so obvious as to be unobservable, or an insignificant detail, why on earth did Jesus leap across a whole chapter of Genesis specifically to include the male/female verse - especially if, as orfeo and others have pointed out, it has nothing to do with marriage in the original context?

I cannot escape the conclusion that the male/female aspect was significant, at least for him.

(NB I have said nothing about "mustery" or "oughtery", and neither, tellingly, did Jesus here).
quote:
It is you who's arguing that there 'cannot' be other types of marriage 'because' Jesus said so.
I am? Show me where.

quote:
If I were a betting man, I'd venture to say that our Lord never meant to offer a definition of marriage.
I wouldn't necessarily bet against you, but I think his lining up those passages says something about what he thought about it.
quote:
Why do you see in there a definition of what marriage should be like today or that it should be confined to male/female pairings?
What makes you think I do?

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
The above is not invective, by the way.

No, no, that's all fine [Smile] I was referring to the "constant will to condemn", a little hyperbolically to be sure, but I didn't find it helpful (even if there may often be, alas, some truth in it). I probably took it too personally. To the best of my conscience, I don't have that will, honestly.
quote:
And I did not dismiss your arguments as innovative at all. How can you read my reaction like that? I said that they were actually quite traditional.
I was responding to what you posted here where as far as I can see, you claimed they were a) innovative b) not traditional at all c) they were suspect as a result of a) and b)!
quote:
This whole Genesis argument is not the one that was traditionally levelled to condemn 'sodomy.' It's not found in the Fathers, not in any medieval I know, not even in any Reformed theologian; in other words, it's been recently tailored to justify opposition when the old arguments proved ineffective.
Did you not?
quote:
It's even odder that those who advocate for same-sex marriages are getting rapped on the knuckles by the CofE for pointing out that there is no clear institution of marriage in Scripture, it being one of those 'five commonly called Sacraments, that... are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel, being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the Apostles,... for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God.'
I feel under no compunction to defend the CoE's position. I don't think marriage is a sacrament, and I don't think its institution is anywhere near as self-evident from Scripture as a lot of people would like to think.

But (you knew this was too good to last... [Biased] ) I do see male and female in the early chapters of Genesis.

I really don't have much more to say about that right now than I already have. I need to actually do some w*rk for once, and I would like some breathing space to think more about how grace and rights interface.

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balaam

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That passages about procreation mention male and female would be no surprise to anyone. That they say anything at all about same sex relationships, pro or anti, is a bit of a leap on the dark.

As for Jesus going back to this verse, he was answering a question about male female divorce, and that is the context. That alone, with nothing at all about same sex relationships, is the context of Jesus words. It is not anti gay, it is not pro gay, it does not mention gay at all.

The mentioning of male and female by Jesus is answered by the context. A question about can a man divorce his wife. That is it, nothing more, nothing less.

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
The mentioning of male and female by Jesus is answered by the context. A question about can a man divorce his wife. That is it, nothing more, nothing less.

That is the best objection to the line of thinking I have presented that I can see (I thought of it independently during the time between when I posted and you did!), but I'm still not sure it's entirely persuasive.

If (in the context of divorce) Jesus was quoting Scripture to highlight the existence of both man and wife (presumably to defend the latter's rights in particular in the context of marriage), it seems to me that quoting Gen 2:24, which already mentions both man and wife, would have been enough.

Since he already had Gen 2:24 in mind, why did Jesus need to reach for Gen 1:27, "male and female he created them", as well? What does it add (if all he is doing is acknowledging that marriages in his day involved a man and a wife)?

Many here have strenuously argued that Gen 1:27 has nothing to do with marriage*, (so far as I can see in order to put as much clear blue water as possible between "male and female" and "marriage"). The passage in Matthew 19 presents a real problem in this respect. If this verse has nothing to do with marriage, why does Jesus drag it in here?

Worse still, not only does he explicitly link this verse with Gen 2:24, by extending the quote to include the words "for this reason", he appears to makes it the grounds for Gen 2:24, understood (from the context in Matthew) as referring to marriage.

Alternative explanations for this text in Matthew can be put forward, but like I said, I don't think this passage falls into Croesos' category of "clobber texts" and I think it is much more difficult to deal with than the texts put forward to justify slavery.

==

*I wrote a long summary of how I understand the arguments framed along these lines, hit the wrong button and lost my entire post, so you are spared it.

[ 12. April 2016, 09:22: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

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Cottontail

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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
If (in the context of divorce) Jesus was quoting Scripture to highlight the existence of both man and wife (presumably to defend the latter's rights in particular in the context of marriage), it seems to me that quoting Gen 2:24, which already mentions both man and wife, would have been enough.

Since he already had Gen 2:24 in mind, why did Jesus need to reach for Gen 1:27, "male and female he created them", as well? What does it add (if all he is doing is acknowledging that marriages in his day involved a man and a wife)?

When Jesus 'reached for' Genesis 1:27, what I think he is doing is reminding his male listeners that women as well as men are made in God's image. What it 'adds' is an assertion of radical worth and equality that is at the base of the woman's rights in respect to marriage.

This equality of worth is God's ideal, and how it was 'in the beginning'. However in practice, as the question on divorce shows, women are being regarded as very much lesser than men. Their husbands can treat them abominably and leave them destitute, all entirely legally. By quoting Genesis 1:27, Jesus is asserting as a base line the worth and equality of the women who are being so abused here by those who are thinking only of their own rights, or - almost worse - who are treating it as an academic discussion with no thought to the devastating consequences of divorce for women. To me, the 'in the beginning' that Jesus is so concerned to address here is not a male-female ontology of marriage, but the equality of women in the eyes of God.

In essence, I read Jesus as saying something like: "In the beginning, men and women were created equal in worth and dignity. But with all your quibbling about divorce, you have forgotten that your wife is made in the image of God, and has full worth in God's eyes. Especially in a society which treats women in general so badly, her marriage should be a place of dignity and safety for her. You are meant to honour and cherish her as you honour and cherish your own self, and you cannot throw her out any more than you can throw out your own body. When two become one in marriage, they do so as equal halves of a whole, and you do not get to treat her as disposable."

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Barnabas62
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quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
In essence, I read Jesus as saying something like: "In the beginning, men and women were created equal in worth and dignity. But with all your quibbling about divorce, you have forgotten that your wife is made in the image of God, and has full worth in God's eyes. Especially in a society which treats women in general so badly, her marriage should be a place of dignity and safety for her. You are meant to honour and cherish her as you honour and cherish your own self, and you cannot throw her out any more than you can throw out your own body. When two become one in marriage, they do so as equal halves of a whole, and you do not get to treat her as disposable."

That's the most important thing I see there. The irony is that this essential plea for fair treatment for wives was turned into an absolute indissolubility "prison" for many women. It seems to get overlooked that it was a fundamental criticism of the social unfairness of divorce (either Shammai or Hillel version) in that 1st century Jewish context.

In general, all of Jesus' ethical teaching needs to be seen in the context of "setting at liberty those who are oppressed, proclaiming the acceptable year of the Lord" (sometimes known as the Luke 4 agenda). In my nonco context, we say that Jesus came to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. That may make us a bit too suspicious of "comfortable majorities". But when it comes to being fair to those who are marginalised for any reason, if it is an error, it is an error on the right side.

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Eutychus
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Great explanation.
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
This equality of worth is God's ideal, and how it was 'in the beginning'.

We are very clearly not "in the beginning" any more.

The Church in general very often fails to address this state of affairs with any pastoral sensitivity, wrongly seeks to put some form of "purity" above "inclusion" (sometimes at the cost of people's lives, either through fuelling persecution or by suicide of the desperate), wrongfully discriminates, and obsesses over people's sexuality when there are far more pressing matters at hand. All of this is disastrous, sometimes literally and fatally so for the oppressed.

All that said, and reiterating that we are no longer "in the beginning" and have to live in the light of that, I still find it difficult not to see 'male and female' in the context of sexual union as being part of God's ideal as it was 'in the beginning'; an ideal which recognises equal worth all the more so in that it is amid an essential difference.

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Eutychus
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Sorry, the "great explanation" credit was to Cottontail (not that you had nothing worth saying, Barnabas!)

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Barnabas62
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No probs. For me as well, Cottontail's post had very high value.

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:

Lilbuddha, also as outlined above, my take on "Jesus' overall teaching" is that, in terms of a church community, the overriding message is one of acceptance based on grace not rights.

I'll be honest here in saying I'm not really sure what this means in regards to this topic.
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:

Which is related to my belief in some sort of "Fall", which I think the debate in Purgatory has demonstrated cannot simply be consigned to the "Jesus riding a dinosaur" category, even if there is quite some disagreement about it.

Taking the "fall" literally is putting a lot of pressure on a transcription of a per-literate, Bronze Age general account.
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I agree the situation is unfair. As I said to lilbuddha some time ago, though, it is also unfair to use the unfairness as a kind of rhetorical judo hold.

How is it unfair? We have this notion that all debates are on equal ground when this is not true. Take climate change: every debate you see presents both sides on equal footing, when the reality is that they are not. If you want "fair" in that debate, you would have hundreds or thousands of debaters representing human-caused climate change and one denier. This is more representative of reality and therefore actually more fair.
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:

I was not suggesting the "condemners" be exempt from demonstrating the validity of their arguments, but saying (to Joesaphat) that starting by accusing the condemners of bad faith in preference to doing so was not persuasive or conducive to discussion.

Whilst I agree that tone influences reception, it is not the best reason to ignore the argument.
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:

Alternative explanations for this text in Matthew can be put forward, but like I said, I don't think this passage falls into Croesos' category of "clobber texts" and I think it is much more difficult to deal with than the texts put forward to justify slavery.

Why? Jesus was speaking of divorce. The bible has many examples of marriage that do not fit what his teaching of divorce, so he went to the one that did. To pull any prohibition on homosexuality on this is stretching.
And tell me why do Christians fail to recognise this part of the same speech:
quote:
The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
Not to mention Paul, who was even less pro-marriage.
When the church decided to embrace marriage, it did so with an enthusiasm which is decidedly counter to this.

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Crœsos
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I think you're missing the point. It's not that the issues are parallel, but rather that the same hermeneutic seems to be at work in the anti-gay arguments of today that was at work in the pro-slavery arguments of the past (legalistic references to various "clobber texts" without reference to context).

No, I get that.

But (whatever one thinks of it) I don't accept that the argument from the early chapters of Genesis falls neatly into that category. Unlike the "clobber texts", there is an appeal to creation, explicitly reprised by Jesus. I'm not saying this is bomb-proof, but I don't think it can be dispensed with quite so easily. And my parallel for this line of thinking is the various arguments about complementarianism, not slavery.

I'm not sure you do get it. Or if you do you seem determined to leave the question completely unaddressed. You give no reason as to why this hermeneutic of legalistic clobber texts is applicable in "the early chapters of Genesis" (by which you mean some conflation of chapters 1 and 2 cribbed together to get the desired result) but the same method is invalid when applied to chapter 9 of Genesis. Where exactly does the dividing line occur that separates "the early chapters of Genesis" where a proof-text based conclusion is perfectly valid (God hates fags!) and the rest of the Bible where such reasoning gives the "wrong" answer (certain races are meant to be enslaved)? I'm guessing it's somewhere between chapters 2 and 9, but is there any reason for suddenly changing how Biblical interpretation is done other than a personal like for one conclusion and a dislike of the other?

In short, why can't we use the same methodology to assess the validity of slavery that you're applying to assessing the validity of other people's loves?

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
It also seems to demonstrate that, while the grace of God may be open to all, it's more open to some than others. Some folks (descendants of Seth, heterosexuals, etc.) are invited to the metaphorical feast, while others (Canaanites, homosexuals, etc.) are only fit to get the metaphorical crumbs that fall from the equally metaphorical table.
I think the currency of the Kingdom of God is grace not rights, for everyone. We are all fit only to get metaphorical crumbs, but in the grace of God we get a seat at the table.
Unless you're a homosexual or a Canaanite. If you're going to insist on a literalist and legalist interpretation of scripture passages in isolation, that's the conclusion we're forced to reach. Jesus never disagrees with the Canaanite woman that the grace she'll receive is lesser than that available to an Israelite. What happened to your literal hermeneutic of interpreting texts in isolation? This passage would seem to reinforce the previous passage from Genesis about Canaanites being inferior persons to Israelites, but you abandon your methodology.

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
In a church context, I don't go round bashing people on the head to remind them they are miserable sinners, but I do spend a lot of time reiterating that we are all beneficiaries of God's grace and not possessed of any particular entitlements when it comes to being accepted. You may feel this is simply a sneaky way of maintaining the status quo, but locally at least, I think it has actually changed the latter over time.

Not at all! I don't think it's that sneaky, and I don't think it's to maintain a status quo. Since you asked after my opinion, it seems more like using a scriptural gloss to reach the "right" conclusions, as pre-determined by some other method.

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Eutychus
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A quick reply to libuddha: I think I have dealt with the answers to some of these questions already (the Fall has spawned an entire Purgatory thread!); answers to some others (grace and rights, what the rest of Mt 19 might mean) are going to require more time and thought than I have available over the next few days.

[ 12. April 2016, 15:58: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

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Eutychus
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And a quick one to Croesus:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm guessing it's somewhere between chapters 2 and 9, but is there any reason for suddenly changing how Biblical interpretation is done other than a personal like for one conclusion and a dislike of the other?

I'm not sure about the wording of your objection (it seems to me you've got "not clobber texts" and "clobber texts" mixed up) but the short answer is Genesis 3 circa verse 7. In the narrative, everything changes around then.

Sorry, but no more time now, except for more thought.

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Crœsos
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
All that said, and reiterating that we are no longer "in the beginning" and have to live in the light of that, I still find it difficult not to see 'male and female' in the context of sexual union as being part of God's ideal as it was 'in the beginning'; an ideal which recognises equal worth all the more so in that it is amid an essential difference.

For a lot of reasons I'm highly skeptical of asserting both "equal worth" and the inherent superiority (at least in the eyes of God) of heterosexuals over homosexuals. It puts me in mind of a speech by Frederick Douglass on another topic.

quote:
At the South I was a member of the Methodist Church. When I came north, I thought one Sunday I would attend communion, at one of the churches of my denomination, in the town I was staying. The white people gathered round the altar, the blacks clustered by the door. After the good minister had served out the bread and wine to one portion of those near him, he said, "These may withdraw, and others come forward;" thus he proceeded till all the white members had been served. Then he took a long breath, and looking out towards the door, exclaimed, "Come up, colored friends, come up! for you know God is no respecter of persons!" I haven't been there to see the sacraments taken since.
It goes on from there and is well worth the read.

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Leaf
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
We are very clearly not "in the beginning" any more.

Of course we are in the beginning! We are in the beginning, and in the middle, and at the end, all at once and at the same time.

If that sounds somewhat gnomic, I apologize. But the concept of time as it relates to Scripture is keeps cropping up in this discussion (and perhaps this belongs on the Fall thread in Purg).

I do not read the Genesis account as saying Something Happened, but rather Something Happens. It is a way of making sense of the beauty and pain in creation, and reconciling them with a loving and eternal God. Genesis explains why things are the way they are, and Who is with us as we are celebrating or coping with the way things are.

Reading Genesis as "Something Happens" also makes it accessible to an evolutionary understanding of creation. A loving and eternal God is present as things evolve in their beauty and pain, with the rise of life and the fall of death.

God is not bound by our understandings of time. We think it's linear; God appears to beg to differ. So creation is now, suffering is now, redemption is now, completion is now.

To visualize time in Scripture as only linear and sequential is, to me, like a child's drawing of a bullet heading straight for Neo in "The Matrix", with helpful dotted lines showing where it came from and where it will hit. Yes, if you visualize it that way, there is a certain logic and eventuality to it. But it is so much more complex and multidimensional.

Re the Matthew verse, I read it as Jesus affirming that God intends there to be love and unity between a couple. God also knows that Shit Happens, and so allowed Moses to allow divorce. It appears to be envisioned as something like chemotherapy, a destructive and painful but least-bad alternative to further deterioration, along with the hope that abundant life might happen beyond it.

"But it was not so at the beginning" speaks of God's intent for healthy relationships. I don't see that this verse has much to do with genitals, reproduction, or even whether a couple is same-sex or opposite-sex. All couples start out with the best of intentions, and then find that they have to cope with whatever 'serpent' or 'tumor' attacks their relationship.

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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
All that said, and reiterating that we are no longer "in the beginning" and have to live in the light of that, I still find it difficult not to see 'male and female' in the context of sexual union as being part of God's ideal as it was 'in the beginning'; an ideal which recognises equal worth all the more so in that it is amid an essential difference.

For a lot of reasons I'm highly skeptical of asserting both "equal worth" and the inherent superiority (at least in the eyes of God) of heterosexuals over homosexuals. It puts me in mind of a speech by Frederick Douglass on another topic.

quote:
At the South I was a member of the Methodist Church. When I came north, I thought one Sunday I would attend communion, at one of the churches of my denomination, in the town I was staying. The white people gathered round the altar, the blacks clustered by the door. After the good minister had served out the bread and wine to one portion of those near him, he said, "These may withdraw, and others come forward;" thus he proceeded till all the white members had been served. Then he took a long breath, and looking out towards the door, exclaimed, "Come up, colored friends, come up! for you know God is no respecter of persons!" I haven't been there to see the sacraments taken since.
It goes on from there and is well worth the read.

I'm not highly sceptical, it turns my stomach. 'Y'all gay people, why so upset? We're all broken.' Except we're supposed to be broken in the way we show love. What's for others a beautiful sacrament and God's ideal 'in the beginning' is the place where where the Fall hit us. They're quite able to comply with the greatest commandment in their coupled relationships, but we fail right there, from the start. No thanks. It's enough to drive me away from Christianity altogether. And I think I'll stop debating.

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mdijon
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
That is the best objection to the line of thinking I have presented that I can see (I thought of it independently during the time between when I posted and you did!), but I'm still not sure it's entirely persuasive.

I'm not sure any detailed theological exposition is entirely persuasive. Which is why I would not wish to base condemnation of same sex marriage on any of them. I'd want to be really sure of my ground before I did that. Are you so very sure on this passage?

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quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I'm not sure any detailed theological exposition is entirely persuasive. Which is why I would not wish to base condemnation of same sex marriage on any of them. I'd want to be really sure of my ground before I did that. Are you so very sure on this passage?

As far as I'm concerned, I don't condemn same-sex marriage, but that hasn't stopped my thinking being represented as doing so.

As to the passage and the line of thinking I've put forward, I'm not personally wholly sure, but neither am I wholly convinced by the alternative explanations.

From where I'm sitting and as already explained, in pastoral terms this issue is an area for compromises to be worked out. Some feel compromise and mutual concessions are possible and acceptable, some clearly don't; some have stories to tell explaining why they don't.

From experience I have learned that even when one takes the greatest care in wording posts here, they can be misinterpreted or sometimes misrepresented, as well as legitimately challenged.

For now, I feel as though I've got as far on thrashing out my ideas as I can in this context.

When I have something more to say, and the appropriate time and energy to devote to saying it, I'll do my best to do so.

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OK, not condemn, but you do think SSM is wrong and you are prepared to say and teach that publicly.

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You may not condemn outright but you describe a state of affairs where some mythical original 'plan' pretty much describes a ordinary family, married mum, dad (and kids? be fruitful and multiply is a commandment from the beginning) with everything else referred to as ‘complex’, ‘imperfect’ or the result of ‘human weakness’.

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
OK, not condemn, but you do think SSM is wrong and you are prepared to say and teach that publicly.

That's news to me.

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
You may not condemn outright but you describe a state of affairs where some mythical original 'plan' pretty much describes a ordinary family, married mum, dad (and kids? be fruitful and multiply is a commandment from the beginning) with everything else referred to as ‘complex’, ‘imperfect’ or the result of ‘human weakness’.

I can really tell you've been to a few weddings I've conducted too [Roll Eyes]

I'm not going to be drawn into restating my position right now, but I and those close to me IRL (I've checked) completely fail to recognise this description.

[ 13. April 2016, 20:48: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

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Eutychus, I've reread your posts on this thread and I can honestly say that I'm now confused as to what you do think.

A lot of the discussion is predicated on the assumption that you don't think SSM is right or should be encouraged from Christian point of view. You site misrepresentation on a number of occasions but I don't really get a sense of what your view actually is.

I'm now at the point where I if you think SSM is actually OK for a Christian after all then I wonder what the argument is about.

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Eutychus
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At this point I'm still resisting being drawn into a longer explanation beyond what I've already posted.

The most concise explanation of my position I can find on this thread is here, followed just afterwards by here.

You can take it that what I mean by "accommodation" here may include blessing a SSM* (all marriages here being civil, and re-iterating what I have already said, contra Joesaphat, that I do not believe marriage to be a sacrament).

I note that while differences between he and I remain, orfeo says immediately after this post that he "can live with" this stance of accommodation; I recorded my happiness that he and I had reached a position we could both at least live with.

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I'm now at the point where I if you think SSM is actually OK for a Christian after all then I wonder what the argument is about.

Discussions of Genesis and its implications aside, I think the argument is, essentially, about whether any form of "accommodation" is liveable-with.

==

* "may include" because
a) it includes and is not limited to
b) it does not entail automatic blessing of any SSM. Any more than I would consider the automatic church blessing of any different-sex marriage.

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Joesaphat
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
At this point I'm still resisting being drawn into a longer explanation beyond what I've already posted.

The most concise explanation of my position I can find on this thread is here, followed just afterwards by here.

You can take it that what I mean by "accommodation" here may include blessing a SSM* (all marriages here being civil, and re-iterating what I have already said, contra Joesaphat, that I do not believe marriage to be a sacrament).

I note that while differences between he and I remain, orfeo says immediately after this post that he "can live with" this stance of accommodation; I recorded my happiness that he and I had reached a position we could both at least live with.

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I'm now at the point where I if you think SSM is actually OK for a Christian after all then I wonder what the argument is about.

Discussions of Genesis and its implications aside, I think the argument is, essentially, about whether any form of "accommodation" is liveable-with.

==

* "may include" because
a) it includes and is not limited to
b) it does not entail automatic blessing of any SSM. Any more than I would consider the automatic church blessing of any different-sex marriage.

So yea, you do not condemn outright, I'll grant you that, but I cannot, for the life of me, see where I went wrong when I wrote that you describe an archetypal 'plan' for marriage in Eden, which is dad and mum becoming one flesh with everything else referred to as, ok not as imperfect, my memory failed me, but as an accommodation, due to life in a fallen world as you said a few commentaries later.

Still, no thanks. Most of the people I've met who read the Bible like that envisage 'real marriage' (TM) as therefore mirroring the love that Christ has for his church, as Paul said, for in its pristine form it is willed so by God and instituted as such, man and woman are literally 'created', made for each other

and the rests a pale copy, which may at best be allowed in a broken society this side of Eden... So: on the one side, an image of divine love, on the other an accommodation for some among fallen humankind. No thanks.

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Joesaphat
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Also, Eutychus, does it not necessarily follow from what you say that straight, undiluted marriage is 'God's plan' as revealed in Scripture, and the rest a consequence of fallenness, that is to say, something God tries to heal, something he died to remedy on the cross?

Your words are much kinder, but (and do feel free to explain), I cannot see how different your view is from the pope's, who recently wrote: 'there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.'

[ 14. April 2016, 07:10: Message edited by: Joesaphat ]

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
and the rests a pale copy, which may at best be allowed in a broken society this side of Eden...

As far as I'm concerned, everything this side of Eden is a pale copy, and will be until the eschaton (at which point the whole issue of marriage will be moot whether you're gay or straight).

Insinuating that I see (Joesaphat's term) Real Marriage™ as somewhow exempt from this, bringing Eden and divine perfection into the present day, such that hetero couples can legitimately be all smug, happily and self-righteously mirroring God while occasionally magnanimously throwing a few crumbs to the pale copy Canaanite gays to make sure they stay, not just firmly below the salt but away from the table altogether, is typical, mdijon, of what I mean by being misrepresented.

[x-post]

[ 14. April 2016, 07:13: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Your words are much kinder, but (and do feel free to explain), I cannot see how different your view is from the pope's, who recently wrote: 'there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.'

In view of your kinder words, I'll allow myself a brief answer to this.

I don't agree there are "absolutely no grounds". Pastorally, I think it's a mistake to think in terms of absolutes. The pope might have some theological arguments, but pastorally, his words are a slap in the face to many. I think the biggest problem for catholics is their sacramental view of marriage. (Although this doesn't stop a catholic church of my acquaintance blessing same-sex marriages).

I might conceivably consider thinking in terms of "God's plan for marriage and family", but I think life today is largely about making a best approximation to that, whether one is gay or straight, and I don't rule out SSM being a best approximation in some cases.

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Barnabas62
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Well, Eutychus is a pastor. I am as sure as sure can be that he has seen marriages between a man and a woman which started off as a very cracked reflection of the relationship between Christ and the Church - and then got worse. Indeed, in the absence of a real commitment to leaving and cleaving, and because like him I do not think marriage is a sacrament (it is a covenant) I'm not sure what is going on. In the Catholic context, for example, I think the present Pope recognises that a very high proportion of apparently Real Marriages are not real at all because of insincerity and/or ignorance. Marriage is a journey which tests the sincerity of the professed love. Is there agape or merely eros? Will the selfishness of one partner or another or both eventually hollow out the best intentions?

Where I may differ from Eutychus now (and it might have been different a few years ago) is simply in the use of the word 'marriage'. It no longer bothers me if the hopeful journey of a couple engaging in a lifetime commitment is called a marriage, regardless of gender. The journey from eros to agape is a difficult one in any case and I do think couples should be encouraged to recognise that at the outset. The old words 'not lightly or ill-advisedly' ring true whatever the gender of the participants. When a marriage is faithful, committed and expresses unselfish love, it does in some way reflect the love Christ has for the church. I think it can do that. Or fall short of doing that. Regardless of the gender of the participants. So I don't see why we shouldn't describe these hopeful, far from flawless, journeys, these reverent 'experiments in commitment', using the same word.

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Barnabas62
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An obvious cross-post!

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Eutychus I won't quote specific portions because I don't want to appear to be (or even to in fact to be) taking words out of context.

I still struggle to see what the point you draw from Genesis is then. If you may bless SSM on the same conditionality that you would HSM, then is there any practical or other importance of the argument based on Genesis or any other theological point of distinction between SSM and HSM?

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I suppose it is whether you regard the gender as just as important as the aloneness, the leaving and the cleaving. Or whether you can see that aloneness, the leaving and the cleaving can and do apply, regardless of the gender. Is it not good for man (the males of the species) to be alone, or is "man" simply representative of all of humanity, regardless of gender?

I'm not an expert in the philosophical field, but maybe the arguments relating to substance and accidents have something to say?

As you can also see, I'm trying to keep this as an argument, and steer at least some of you away from pejorative arguments about motives and intentions. If there is ever to be any sensible move away from doleful and sterile polarisation on this issue, it is important to avoid insinuation and rancour. And that is not easy, if you have been hurt.

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I still struggle to see what the point you draw from Genesis is then.

In brief, what I draw from Genesis, as a minimum, is that God is recorded as creating mankind male and female in the beginning, with the added detail that male and female become "one flesh"; this appears to me to be both significant and enduringly true.

I'm honestly not entirely sure what conclusions should be drawn from that* (I'm not sure precisely how it is significant, for one thing), but I don't think that state of affairs can be dismissed as entirely irrelevant†.

quote:
If you may bless SSM on the same conditionality that you would HSM, then is there any practical or other importance of the argument based on Genesis or any other theological point of distinction between SSM and HSM?
Theologically:

Heterosexual union is (to my mind) in the story of our orgins. More specifically, it's in Genesis 1 & 2, a passage which, regardless of considerations of chronology, literalism, or anything else, is I think pretty widely recongised as uniquely foundational in Christian belief.

Note this is an observation and not a value judgement.

Practically:

The Genesis archetype of man and woman becoming one flesh is still hugely and predominantly the case today.

On that basis, I think SSM is always going to be a minority case. It might combat discrimination, but it will not erase minority status. I think this point is at best largely overlooked and at worst deliberately obfuscated, and pastorally speaking it is my biggest concern.

Consequently, the related expectations and motivations need to be taken carefully into consideration from a pastoral point of view.

==

* I have been careful not to assert this line of thinking as mine. I'm thrashing out ideas here, not pushing a line, and I haven't come to what I regard as a satisfactory conclusion.

† When my musings from that are simultaneously dismissed as being both too traditional and too innovative to be taken seriously, it kind of suggests to me that there's something in there worth considering!

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Eutychus
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On a personal note I would just like to add that the above post took me the best part of an hour to write and resulted in me nearly missing a work deadline. Which is to say that I plead other stuff in life being a reason for not responding more fully, rather than an unwillingness to engage.

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Appreciated, and I won't press for a speedy reply. I wonder if the time taken to respond reflects a) the complexity of the area for you and b) that you are to some extent formulating this position as we discuss and therefore there is formulation time as well as drafting time in your response.

Or perhaps both.

Had we not had the recent discussion I would interpret "uniquely foundational" to imply some degree of privileged status of the alternative (SSM). Of course it is technically true, but taking the trouble to make the statement usually means something more than the technical sense.

In the same way that me saying "There may be a God" means something more than the technical sense that even Richard Dawkins might agree to. Technically it is correct that there is some possibility of there being a God but an unqualified "may be" means some more substantial probability.

Likewise "uniquely foundational" applied to HSM usually would mean that there is something more important, more worth, more Christian, closer to the ideal for HSM compare with SSM. I now understand you don't mean it like that. However despite now knowing what you don't mean, I'm not quite sure what the theological meaning actually is.

Your practical implications seem to me not really drawn from the passage. It is an inescapable conclusion that in societies across the world HSM is the majority choice and there doesn't seem a trajectory towards minorityhood anytime soon. Nevertheless I don't think we can conclude that because a thing is in the bible it is going to be a sustained state for most of humankind. The practical implications can be worked through in an entirely secular context in any case. By practical implications I was thinking of some Christian practice that would differ as a result. I think you are saying that there are none? Which is fine of course. Good even, as far as I'm concerned.

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:

† When my musings from that are simultaneously dismissed as being both too traditional and too innovative to be taken seriously, it kind of suggests to me that there's something in there worth considering!

Either that or a lack of clarity. [Razz]

[ 14. April 2016, 12:18: Message edited by: mdijon ]

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quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
a) the complexity of the area for you and b) that you are to some extent formulating this position as we discuss and therefore there is formulation time as well as drafting time in your response.

Or perhaps both.

Yes, plus the ease with which one can type one thing and be interpreted as saying another.
quote:
despite now knowing what you don't mean, I'm not quite sure what the theological meaning actually is.
I don't fully know either, but my intuition says there might be something there, which I don't want to jettison, at least not before I've clarified my thinking further.

The charge has been made that this indefinable something is simply latent homophobia, but I refuse to be boxed in like that. I'd rather have space to think it through than succumb to shaming attempts that preclude dispassionate thinking.
quote:
By practical implications I was thinking of some Christian practice that would differ as a result. I think you are saying that there are none?
Not quite. For one thing, there is the conundrum of widely differing views on SSM, both within the Church and more generally.

SSM is pretty new here in France, virtually without precedent in churches, and currently threatening to split the historic protestant federation right down the middle (more for reasons of political opportunism than for reasons of deeply-held and carefully reasoned convictions on the subject in my view, but the fact remains).

It would be ridiculous to pretend that the practical implications of blessing a HSM next week are exactly the same as those of blessing a SSM.

I mentioned upthread that I have a Christian friend who is in a gay relationship, convinced (having worked through the issues with no input at all from me) that it's sinful, and reluctant to go to any church in case his partner becomes a Christian and splits with him. Just citing him as an exemple of why SSM is a live issue in which any precedent, insensitively handled, could trigger major decompensation.

Even if such views are held to be erroneous, I don't believe they should be tossed aside with no consideration of the pastoral implications. That to me is just as inhumane as pretending the church has never stigmatised gays or made them suffer wrongly and unjustly.

I think that in a local church context, Paul's teaching on matters of conscience offers a way forward on both sides for this kind of issue, but that proposal got pretty short shrift here.

I also think catering for minority constituencies (not thinking just about homosexuality here) requires careful pastoral discernment.

I think some (not all!) people are drawn to minority causes, not because the causes in question are profound identity issues for them to start with, but because they are attracted for other reasons to the attributes of a minority culture.

In their quest to resolve some other ill-identified issue within themselves they find in such groups acceptance and a form of militancy that gives them a sense of solidarity, justice and purpose - but the cause in question may not in fact be the root issue for them.

There are already plenty of reasons for people to seek HSM misguidedly. I think SSM's minority status means there are even more potentially misguided reasons for people seeking SSM, and there needs to be an awareness of that.

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:

I think some (not all!) people are drawn to minority causes, not because the causes in question are profound identity issues for them to start with, but because they are attracted for other reasons to the attributes of a minority culture.

In their quest to resolve some other ill-identified issue within themselves they find in such groups acceptance and a form of militancy that gives them a sense of solidarity, justice and purpose - but the cause in question may not in fact be the root issue for them.

There are already plenty of reasons for people to seek HSM misguidedly. I think SSM's minority status means there are even more potentially misguided reasons for people seeking SSM, and there needs to be an awareness of that.

To clarify, do you mean that some LGBT will wish to enter into marriage because the reasons above, rather than because they truly wish to commit? This is a not a separate argument to HSM. People enter HSM for a lot of reasons that they shouldn't, including political statements. The argument is to properly evaluate one's motivations regardless of orientation, not separate HSM and SSM because of the potentially different poor reasoning.

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Eutychus
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I have said everything I want to say about that, including why I think HSM and SSM are different, practically, in this respect, especially in a church context, in my previous post.

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

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mdijon
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I'd rather have space to think it through than succumb to shaming attempts that preclude dispassionate thinking.

Fair enough. But until you state what you actually do think about this after your dispassionate thinking it is difficult to have a discussion - I get the impression that on this thread you have tried some things out on the theology that you maybe don't hold all that strongly to. Until you settle on an interpretation it is going to be a challenge to engage without misinterpretation.


quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
It would be ridiculous to pretend that the practical implications of blessing a HSM next week are exactly the same as those of blessing a SSM.

For sure. But my question was about the practical implications of your interpretation of the Genesis passage. I think that given your uncertainty of the theology as a "work in progress" it would be fair to say that a practical implication would therefore have to wait as well.

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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
For now, I feel as though I've got as far on thrashing out my ideas as I can in this context.

When I have something more to say, and the appropriate time and energy to devote to saying it, I'll do my best to do so.



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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

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Crœsos
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
All that said, and reiterating that we are no longer "in the beginning" and have to live in the light of that, I still find it difficult not to see 'male and female' in the context of sexual union as being part of God's ideal as it was 'in the beginning'; an ideal which recognises equal worth all the more so in that it is amid an essential difference.

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Insinuating that I see (Joesaphat's term) Real Marriage™ as somehow exempt from this, bringing Eden and divine perfection into the present day, such that hetero couples can legitimately be all smug, happily and self-righteously mirroring God while occasionally magnanimously throwing a few crumbs to the pale copy Canaanite gays to make sure they stay, not just firmly below the salt but away from the table altogether, is typical, mdijon, of what I mean by being misrepresented.

I don't see how it's a misrepresentation. Your reasoning, as I understand it, is that same-sex marriages are outside God's plan and therefore can't/shouldn't be blessed/approved of/whatever by proper religious organizations. Opposite-sex couples, on the other hand, can be so blessed/approved of/whatever, which would indicate that they are, if not Edenic, at least close enough that they don't suffer the same deficiencies in God's eyes as same-sex couples do.

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
On that basis, I think SSM is always going to be a minority case. It might combat discrimination, but it will not erase minority status. I think this point is at best largely overlooked and at worst deliberately obfuscated, and pastorally speaking it is my biggest concern.

Could you expand on this a bit? In what sense is the Church's treatment of people majoritarian in nature and how small does a minority have to be before its treatment is not really important? And why isn't combating discrimination an important thing in its own right? And is there anyone who thinks same-sex marriage will "erase minority status" or that this is what people entering in to a same-sex union are looking for?

"It worked! I married a same-sex partner and now I'm straight!" . . . said no one ever.

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
It would be ridiculous to pretend that the practical implications of blessing a HSM next week are exactly the same as those of blessing a SSM.

I'm not sure what you mean by "practical" here. Most religious organizations that bless same-sex unions have found that the practicalities involved (officiant, space, ritual, etc.) are pretty much the same as for opposite-sex couples. There may be social and theological implications, but I can't think of practical difficulties/variations unless a the "blessing" involves the couple actively using their genitals.

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Your reasoning, as I understand it, is that same-sex marriages are outside God's plan

I wouldn't say all SSMs are "outside God's plan" any more than I see all opposite-sex marriages as being "in God's plan". I don't think it's up to me to dictate what God's Plan™ might or might not be for other people. I put my energy into giving people the tools to make up their own minds on that kind of thing.
quote:
and therefore can't/shouldn't be blessed/approved of/whatever by proper religious organizations.
I haven't said that anywhere here. Frankly, I wouldn't be putting so much time and energy into this discussion if I didn't think that was an option.
quote:
Opposite-sex couples, on the other hand, can be so blessed/approved of/whatever, which would indicate that they are, if not Edenic, at least close enough that they don't suffer the same deficiencies in God's eyes as same-sex couples do.
In my view there is no de facto right of an opposite-sex couple to have their civil [the only official type of marriage here] marriage blessed in a church. A pastoral interview of some kind would be a minimum, just as it would for any SSM couple.

quote:
Could you expand on this a bit? In what sense is the Church's treatment of people majoritarian in nature and how small does a minority have to be before its treatment is not really important?
SSM accounts for a minority of marriages in society and while the proportion might grow, I don't see it being more than marginal any time soon (I could be wrong). Does that make society "majoritarian in nature"? Does the minority occupy the moral high ground simply by virtue of being a minority?

I also never said that addressing minority concerns was unimportant, nor did I say, as you imply, that combating discrimination wasn't important in its own right.

The fact remains that minority cases involve different pastoral considerations precisely because they are minority cases. Dealing with issues such as discrimination might well be part of those considerations.

quote:
"It worked! I married a same-sex partner and now I'm straight!" . . . said no one ever.
Including me.

quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
It would be ridiculous to pretend that the practical implications of blessing a HSM next week are exactly the same as those of blessing a SSM.

I'm not sure what you mean by "practical" here. Most religious organizations that bless same-sex unions have found that the practicalities involved (officiant, space, ritual, etc.) are pretty much the same as for opposite-sex couples. There may be social and theological implications, but I can't think of practical difficulties/variations unless a the "blessing" involves the couple actively using their genitals.
How couples of any orientation use their genitals is the last thing on my mind.

Mdijon first used the word "practical" here, I think you can probably substitute "social" if you prefer in terms of the concerns I'm addressing. I'm thinking mostly in terms of the immediate outworking on a community of believers whose consciences tell them different things about homosexuality.

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

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Crœsos
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Your reasoning, as I understand it, is that same-sex marriages are outside God's plan

I wouldn't say all SSMs are "outside God's plan" any more than I see all opposite-sex marriages as being "in God's plan". I don't think it's up to me to dictate what God's Plan™ might or might not be for other people.
Then why all the repetitive references to Genesis reiterating how opposite-sex relationships are God's plan? If that's an irrelevancy, why spend so much time on it?

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Could you expand on this a bit? In what sense is the Church's treatment of people majoritarian in nature and how small does a minority have to be before its treatment is not really important? And why isn't combating discrimination an important thing in its own right? And is there anyone who thinks same-sex marriage will "erase minority status" or that this is what people entering in to a same-sex union are looking for?

"It worked! I married a same-sex partner and now I'm straight!" . . . said no one ever.

Including me.
Gay people know they're a numerical minority. If you claim that they get married to "erase minority status", that means they think that getting married will either turn themselves straight or turn enough other people gay that they're no longer a minority. Neither of these makes sense or lines up with the motivations of the people of my acquaintance who have entered into legal same-sex unions, so I'm still confused as to how you think they're trying to erase their minority status by marrying. Explanation please?

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
If you claim that they get married to "erase minority status", that means they think that getting married will either turn themselves straight or turn enough other people gay that they're no longer a minority. Neither of these makes sense or lines up with the motivations of the people of my acquaintance who have entered into legal same-sex unions, so I'm still confused as to how you think they're trying to erase their minority status by marrying. Explanation please?

This is not how I interpreted Eutychus, I see two interpretations.
Either that LGBT people will enter into marriages despite their relationships might not be ideal because they are swept up in the cause or that "confused" straight people will do so for that reason.
I could be wrong, but this is what I see.

To be honest, I do think you are seeing him a little more harshly than is accurate. I think some of his issue is how to deal with his flock, not his personal feelings.
That said, I do not think he completely understands how some of his phrasing can be read as less than accepting. And is a bit confusing and appears contradictory.

--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou

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Eutychus
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# 3081

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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
why all the repetitive references to Genesis reiterating how opposite-sex relationships are God's plan? If that's an irrelevancy, why spend so much time on it?

I don't think I can improve (at least for now) on what I said in the first half of my post here.

I think talking in terms of God's Plan (a phrase I have only used to respond to Joesaphat's introduction of it) is potentially confusing. You can read about how I qualified any use I might make of the term, here.
quote:
I'm still confused as to how you think they're trying to erase their minority status by marrying. Explanation please?
I was thinking much along the lines lilbuddha has understood in her post above.

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

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