Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: jhpb@garage.att.com Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Gay Ordination in the Presbyterian Church Message-ID: Date: 1 Apr 91 07:27:56 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Labs (Liberty Corner) Lines: 74 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu > [Joe Buehler commented that homosexual thoughts can't be engaged in > if you want to enter the kingdom on heaven. Cathy Fasano objected > that considering the action is not in itself immoral. Unacted-out > temptation is never considered sinful, as resisting temptation is > a virtue. --clh] I didn't see Cathy's response, so can only quote the moderator's summary. I was referring to the trilogy found in the Confiteor: I confess to Almighty God, to Blessed Mary ever-virgin, to blessed Michael the Archangel, [etc.]... that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed... What I meant was that one can commit sins of homosexuality without anything but one's thoughts being involved. Don't confuse temptation with sin here. Just because bad thoughts pop into one's mind, doesn't mean that sin is involved. It depends on whether one consents to the thoughts. Our thoughts come from 3 things: ourselves, evil spirits, good spirits. Here's an example that happened to me, by way of illustration. I was driving along one night, on my way home. I had to stop behind a car at an intersection. The driver, an old woman, was taking her time making the turn. All of a sudden, a disparaging comment about this old woman popped into my mind. This thought had absolutely *nothing* to do with what I was thinking about at the time. I was thinking about work, as I recall. The thought was from an evil spirit, most probably, because it was *totally* unrelated to what I was thinking about. It was a temptation, and not a sin. Had I dwelt on it, and said "Right on!", it would have been a sin. A further comment: I gave the thought/word/deed categorization; there are others. For example, somone who defends homosexuality, while not strictly engaging in it himself, is guilty of it. I mean that quite literally -- someone who defends a sin has to answer for that sin at their personal judgement. This is sin by way of condoning, vs. doing. Joe Buehler [This comment does not refer specifically to Joe's posting, but to the discussion as a whole: I think this discussion may be based on an attempt to draw lines between black and white where there are often shades of gray. Someone who looks on all women as sex objects would seem to be seriously sinful, even if they don't actually commit rape. But suppose they have grown up in an environment where this was the common view, but have now come to realize how hurtful it is. They may still have the thoughts, but they are engaged in an internal fight against them. Are their evil thoughts sin? Yes, in some sense. A perfect Christian -- not to mention Christ -- would not have them. But they have already repented, in the deepest sense of rejecting the sin. In C.S. Lewis' autobiography, "Surprised by Joy", he describes his early experience among Christians. He found that they had a very different moral code than he was used to, and his immediate reaction was simply to make sure that his own uncouth principles weren't visible to them. An uncharitable view of this is that he still had evil thoughts, and this was simply hypocrisy. But I don't think that would be a fair assessment. It was the earliest stage of what came to be true repentance. I believe this is not an unusual situation, but in many ways the normal one. It's what is meant by being "at the same time justified and a sinner". We need to recognize that our thoughts are never pure, repent of our remaining unpurity, base our actions on our best thoughts rather than our worst ones, and trust to God's grace for the rest. At times Christians have tried to define exactly what degree of dwelling on the thought has to happen to make it a sin. If carried to excess, this sort of moral hairsplitting can lead people into spending their time diagnosing their own spiritual state when they should be out following Christ. --clh]