Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jarthur!ucivax!ucla-cs!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mls@sfsup.att.com (Mike Siemon) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Christians -- gay and otherwise Message-ID: Date: 13 Jul 90 08:35:42 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 80 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , jdd@db.toronto.edu (John DiMarco) writes: > This love is from God, > just like the love which flourishes in other relationships. God is love, > and whoever lives in love, lives in God and vice versa. Thank you; I want, from other Christians, little or nothing more than this recognition, which John has phrased very well. I do not claim perfection in Christ, and indeed am altogether too aware of my failings in the love of God. Too aware of my failings, in that the awareness itself can get in the way of my responding to God's mercy. I think we all know the difficulties of examining ourselves for sin -- that we can at the same time fail in our most conscious attempts to do the good, while forgetting how constantly God's grace sustains us in all we do. And if it is hard to examine myself on this, it is harder -- to the point of impossibility -- to examine another with justice. > Nevertheless, I don't believe that God intends homosexual relations to > be the proper use of our sexuality. Well, that *is* the problem, of course. To "use" sexuality "properly" we would have to understand it -- to know its "functions" sufficiently well for our human purposes, and such of God's purposes as we can hope to know. I'm not especially happy with talk of "use" or "functions" in this case, as it seems to depersonalize what is very deeply personal. But yes, we *do* know in part, looking in our dark intellectual mirror. Where our doctrinal theorizing seems to me to go astray is in thinking that this partial knowledge can substitute for what we will know *then* when all human partialities pass away. Certainly, reproduction of our species is *one* function of sexuality, and one that God blesses in us, as in all of life. But to see that as the unique function, the only blessing, of sexuality is an error, one that the Church at least once upon a time adopted, under the influence of Stoic ethics as far as I can tell. Most of us, now, even in Rome, recognize at least the further function of sexual bonding -- as an aid for sustaining that relationship of "helpmate" which is by no means the "normal" pattern of sexual reproduction among other species (but also not utterly unique to human beings, at least not unless we introduce all the other trappings of human culture along with this). > Throughout scripture and all through the > teachings of the Church, the proper domain of sexual exercise is within > heterosexual marriage, and nowhere else. Possibly scripture dwells on heterosexual marriage, and all the abuses to which people constantly subject it, because you heterosexuals are such a stiff-necked sort of people? :-) The feeling I get from most "traditionalist" discussions is one of "everything not compulsory is forbidden." But I think God's creation is much richer than such an attitude allows for. What about Leviathan that God made for the sport of it? People want to read the *absence* of clear scriptural examples of homosexual love as "proof" that God forbids it. The logic of that escapes me. Draw the conclusions you are most comfortable with, but at least realize *what* you have bought to scripture to be able to draw your conclusions. > To those who believe a homosexual relationship is an acceptable alternate > Christian lifestyle, I must respectfully and humbly disagree. Respectful and humble disagreement I can live with :-) What is more, John's statement manages that, without compromising his beliefs -- at least that's how *I* hear it. Too often I hear (maybe I'm oversensitive, maybe the writers insufficiently sensitive) neither respect nor humility; that almost always derails the discussion into mutual acrimony -- and I bear my share of guilt on that. Anger breeds anger, and patience has never been one of my strong suits. One of the best ways to call me back from angry confrontation is a clear restatement of the gospel as I know it, something like John's which I'd like to cite in closing as well as at the start: > God is love, and whoever lives in love, lives in God and vice versa. -- Michael L. Siemon Inflict Thy promises with each m.siemon@ATT.COM Occasion of distress, ...!att!sfsup!mls That from our incoherence we standard disclaimer May learn to put our trust in Thee