Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mtxinu!sybase!alf!maas@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Mike Maas) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Moral reasoning (was Re: draft of Identity Task Force statement) Message-ID: Date: 24 Dec 90 22:39:02 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Sybase, Inc. Lines: 185 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu [Elizabeth Tallant quotes I Cor 6:15-20 about the seriousness of sexual sin. "He who sins sexually sins against his own body". Even though fornication may not "harm" anyone, it is a sin. She goes on to say (underlined) that it is wrong to have marriage outside of sex. I suspect she means to say that it is wrong to have sex outside of marriage, though there are both Jewish and Christian views supporting the first version as well. --clh] Does this mean that the bible implies (I know it doesn't state it outright) that if I am married I must have sex? (Lots of smilies here Elizabeth!) >In regard to homosexual acts, they are strictly forbidden by the Bible. > >"...neither the sexually immoral....nor homosexual offenders.... >....will inherit the kingdom of God." I Chorinthians 6:9-10 You are right of course the bible does indeed say that. Do you have any idea of the situation to which Paul was speaking? Do you have knowledge of the Greek? Perhaps even more relevant do you have a deep enough understanding of Paul himself to be able to attribute the kind of intentionality to his words you seem to? I don't have absolute answers to any of these issues and therefore I feel safer in not accepting them as categorical imperatives, for regardless of how they were intended, they almost certainly were not intended in that way. When I think about issues like this I find them to be a very ambiguous and instead of looking for a statement in the bible to make a determination about the correctness of the issue at hand I look to the teachings of our Lord. Immediately two things come to mind about those teachings "Let he who is among you who is without sin cast the first stone..." and "...Love your neighbor as yourself." Moreover, if we wish to quote Paul "...and the greatest of these is Love." or John "God is Love" where I believe the verb is fully copulative. Taking all of this information I would like not to suggest an answer to the generic question of sex outside of marriage but rather to propose a way to examine more specific instances. It seems clear to me that as Christians our primary objective should be to love; to love God and to love our neighbors. Moreover, it seems to follow that when we love we come closer to being perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. Finally, then, I would argue that where there is Love there is no sin and where there is sin there is no Love. In other words, sin is not this act or that act, but any act that is done without Love. Most acts are a mixture of sin and Love and not wholly either. Let me move now to a specific example/application. Let us take a marriage which is by and large a happy one. The individuals have their differences as most if not all couples do. Sometimes those differences are over whether tonight is a good night to share their physical love with one another. Let us say that the husband is not really in the mood, but the wife is. He gives in not because he wishes to share himself in this way but rather to please his wife whom he loves very much. Let's also state that the wife's desire is primarily a physical one but tinted or shaded with a desire to share her love with her husband as well. How then might we describe their actions and attitudes in terms of Love and sin? We might say that the husband is acting selflessly to give his wife her desire even though he may not have the same desire; is this not love? I think so. We might also say that the wife while she does desire her husband in a truly loving and selfless way, is primarily acting out of physical desire. Might we say that she is in a sense "using" her husband. I think that this may indeed be the case. The point is that in most situations we are at best a mixture of motivations when we interact with others. It can be truly said in this sense that we are all sinners. Occasionally, this hypothetical couple is completely in touch with one another, completely and wholly interloving in such a way as to truly touch one anothers' souls. When this happens they may be nearer to God than at almost any other time. In such situations, the sexual aspect is nearly lost in the bliss of their mutual love. This is one of the great benefits of the marriage bed. Does Paul speak of this? Why not? I suspect it is because it was a very foreign experience to him. Now let's carry this example out a little further. Let's assume that the husband and wife we have been speaking of are not husband and wife but unmarried life partners. Does the quality of their experience change due to their not having been married? I would argue that it does not necessarily change as a result of that lack of validation of church and state. I would suggest that in fact they may be every bit as close to God in those moments as any married couple sharing similar experiences. Could this apply to a gay couple as well? I see no reason why not. The experience does not depend on anything other than themselves and their openess to God (Love). However, let me hasten to say I am speaking here of experiences that probably only happen for most of us a few times in a lifetime. What about the more mundane day to day existence we lead? Let's examine our hypothetical husband wife situation again briefly. When either of them uses the other to benefit themselves they are acting selfishly and are using their partner as an object with which they can gratify their needs. This objectification of others is the opposite of loving them and is how we fall into sin. Is it bad? Probably. Is it human? Absolutely. This is what it means to be a sinner. Insofar as we are separated from Love and God we are in sin, and this means things as minor as treating a store clerk as an object from which you will derive benefit or as major as ignoring someone who is desperately in need of lifesaving support we could give. Let's just come back to the partner examples for one more point. Unfortunately, many gay relationships are marked by exactly this kind of objectification of individuals. When this is the case, I condemn gay relationships, but not because they are gay, but because they are sinful in the way they allow the participants to treat one another as objects. However, not only is the same thing true of many heterosexual relationships, it even worms its way into holy matrimony. I think we will both agree that all three varieties of relationship fall short of the Glory of God insofar as they allow this objectification to happen. Moreover, this kind of objectification constantly threatens even the most dedicated and cautious of all of us. Lest I leave the impression I have somehow trivialized sin let me bring up one more factual example. With apologies to any oriental and Vietnamese in particular I want to relate something about my experience in Vietnam. While going through Field Medical Training at Camp Pendleton we were encouraged to begin thinking of enemies in less human terms. By the time I arrived in Vietnam we were not fighting men, we were fighting gooks. Now does a gook sound human? Not to us. It was in fact the very act of naming these people as something other than people that allowed us to objectify them and to them make them into something lower than human. What did this lead to? Have you heard of My Lai? Have you heard of Hitler? This kind of dehumanization is just exactly the same thing as we talked about above but carried out to a much more extreme example. >Why then do people become homosexuals? It is not because 'God created them ^^^^^^^^^^^ How about sinners instead of homosexuals, we heterosexuals are not exempt! >that way." NO, not at all! It is because : > >"For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks >to him, but their thinking because futile and their foolish hearts were >darkened....Therefore, God gave them over to the sinful desires of their >hearts to the sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one >another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served >created things rather than the Creator..... >Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women >exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men >also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for >one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in >themselves the due penalty for their perversions." Roman 1:21-27 For where their treasures were, there too were their hearts. It also looks like the context of this passage indicates frustration on the part of Paul with the fertility cults which practiced ritual prostitution. If Paul were here today, he might have a lot to say about cocaine, Michael Milken, maybe even some varieties of Christianity. What to you suppose our Lord would do if he were here walking the earth with us today? He who ate with imbibers and tax collectors. Do you have any idea how low a tax collector was considered to be? Do you think he might sit down with gays? I think he very well might; And when he did, what would he ask of them? He would call them to become Lovers of their fellows and their God in a new way just as he called his disciples then and as he calls us now as the risen Christ. >Notice that these passages forbid ALL homosexual acts. There are no conditions. >It does not matter if two homosexuals love each other or whatever. HOmosexual >relations are strictly forbidden. > I think that it might be worthwhile to point out to you that this is your opinion and nowhere in the text you have cited nor in the bible will you find this condition expressly considered. Paul was probably not dealing with homosexuals in long-term relationships, he was dealing with them in cultic prostitution and other general debauchery. >Saying that it is OK to commit fornication or homosexual acts as long as >"two people love each other" is like saying it is OK to murder someone >as long as you are angry with him. I think your analogy is poorly framed and unduly hostile. However, I must admit you are right in the first half of the analogy but probably for the wrong reasons. Fornication and a large number of homosexual acts as well as too large a number inside of good Christian marriages are not founded on a deep love that leads one closer to God but rather on a short lived physical urge that tempts us to use others for our own physical gratification. These are sins even if the participants truly love one another; when they are using one another they are not loving.