Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mib@churchy.ai.mit.edu (Michael I Bushnell) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Imposing Christian morality on nonbelievers Message-ID: Date: 1 Mar 91 07:57:11 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Free Software Foundation, Cambridge, MA Lines: 118 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article sc1u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Stephen Chan) writes: mib@geech.ai.mit.edu (Michael I Bushnell) writes: > Indeed. If my church chooses to exclude me, so be it. I recognize > their right to do so. But I believe that such exclusion is not > exclusion from the grace of God or from fellowship with Christ. I can > find a group of Christians who are accepting. > That last sentence seems to be a very damaging exposition of your relationship to religion: you seem to imply that religion serves to vindicate your own beliefs about right and wrong. Do you actually *follow* a set of beliefs, or do you fish around until you find one that accomodates you? I don't claim to follow a set of beliefs, rather, I claim to follow a person, the one man Christ. If a church were to exclude me for reasons relating to sexual orientation, I would conclude that they were sufficiently distant from Christ in that respect that I would be comfortable finding another congregation. The "office of the keys", given so much attention by the Roman church and by the Reformers, refers to just this ability of a church. If I were excluded, I would certainly consider the matter very carefully. The statements of my church *do* carry considerable weight with me, and I don't dismiss them lightly, if I do at all. The sentence before that includes "fellowship with Christ". Are you his follower, or his equal? The demands of following Christ are quite well known, we don't get to introduce exceptions or loopholes. One of the particularly nice things about Christianity, as it happens, is that following Christ is the same as being his friend. Did I say equal? No. I said "fellowship". I am his fellow, his brother, an adopted son of God. The words are Paul's, not mine. I'm not trying to introduce exceptions or loopholes. If you believe that then you will begin to understand what I'm saying here. Homosexuality, in orthodox jewish teaching, is wrong. It is also wrong in traditional Christian morality. If you're trying to argue that homosexuality is not a sin (in the context of Christianity), then you'll have to overturn not only 2000 years of Christian teaching, but also another ~2000 years of Hebrew teaching too. I'm more than willing to essentially disregard orthodox Jewish teaching about morality. Equally abhorent in the Torah is the wearing of clothes made with more than one color of fiber. Do you do that? The "traditional Christian morality" you claim is anything but that. Persecution of gay people started in about the 13th century AD. Prior to that, there is no evidence of any widespread harm done to gay people throughout Christendom, nor any widespread consensus on the morality of gay people. Also, note that homosexuality is not the same as gay sex. It is possible to be homosexual and never have gay sex, and it is possible to be heterosexual and never have straight sex. >How to you reply to my >assertion that being gay is an inalterable fact of personality? Your >statements offer no alternative but celibacy. Is that your true >belief, or do you contest (with no experience upon which to do so) >that sexuality cannot be changed? Personality is not inalterable. In fact, being a good Christian entails constantly altering your personality to bring yourself closer to the ideal. Being a Christian isn't just a matter of going to church and professing faith in Christ. It implies an all pervasive change in attitudes, desires and actions. I didn't say that "personality is inalterable". I said that being gay is inalterable. You, again, fail to take me at my word. This is the antithesis of Christianity. I have presented my experience, which you have no data save dogma to oppose it with. And, I'd like to turn this around. Did this all-pervasive change change your attitude toward homosexuality upon being a Christian, or are your ideas essentially the same as they would be if you were a non-Christian? Most people I've met that oppose gay people would do so regardless of whether they are a Christian or not. If this is not done, then being a Christian has no more significance than joining a club, or entering a new social group. Unfortunately, for many people, this seems to be the case. You don't have to tell me this! I'm the person who messes up too many comfortable church meetings pointing out that the church is more than another humanitarian social service group. >Ah, I don't blame you. I merely ask that you give me due credit. You have a right to your opinion. But the weight of tradition and experience makes your protests seem very hollow. Where is the weight of experience? Of tradition? Have you any documents attesting to this tradition? Historians have detected a marked shift in attitudes around the 13th century, but not before. They have plenty of documents attesting to the widespread acceptance of gay people prior to that, and to occasional vigorous debate. Christians have a duty to show charity to everyone, sinners and saints alike. But if you profess to be a Christian, then you should struggle to avoid sin - not just shrug it off as a personality trait. The easy, comfortable road is the usually the sinful one. You, AGAIN, miss the entire point. I don't claim that homosexuality is sinful, but that I can excuse it. Rather, I claim that being gay simply isn't a sin. It isn't any more sinful that being left handed, or eating with the left hand. It just has nothing to do with sin. And, how DARE you tell me that this is the "easy, comfortable road"?! The history of persecution, of the murders of thousands of gay people by bigots, of being excluded from the community claiming to show God's love, you call that EASY? It's not easy, it's very, very painful. So painful, in fact, that this will be my last post in this thread. We're just not getting anywhere. -mib