Fr. James Martin: ‘People take the Bible…out of context’ on homosexuality

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He is an apologist for the watering down of immutable Catholic teaching on the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts.
 
For me it’s simple.
We are not Protestants who believe Bible alone and each interpret how each feels like it.
It is quite clear what the Church has taught regarding this issue.
 
Very hard to take this out of context:

Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Looks like Father Martin is being “deceived”.
 
The article left me scratching my head wondering why anyone would think the Church teaching on charging interest changing with the times would logically mean a teaching on homosexuality should change with the times as well. 🤔

I go with Spock on this one your reasoning appears to be highly illogical. 😉
 
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LifeSiteNews does not report with either truth or charity. For these reasons I do not recognize them as a legitimate Christian news site.
 
whyeyeman said:
Very hard to take this out of context:

Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
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You just did take it out of context.
 
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It’s truly sad to see what Fr. Martin is doing here, and I really think that for the first time, I can honestly say that Fr. Martin is leading people astray with his interpretation of Scripture. I am appalled that he used the open letter to Dr. Laura Schlesinger (a letter that has been used by atheists and agnostics to openly mock Sacred Scripture and Church teaching) to prove his point that the verses of Scripture (at least those of the Old Testament) have been taken out of context. He also makes a horrible point about the evolution of the doctrine prohibiting usury. Thankfully, he has been rebutted by faithful priests and theologians already regarding these issues.

I also want to note, that since LFN is understandably a source that many will not even click on, I want to urge people to go to the original source, which is Joseph Sciambra’s video of the talk given by Fr. Martin at Georgetown. Mr. Sciambra is not directly affiliated with LFN; that website simply linked to the story that Mr. Sciambra published on Youtube. I urge all to watch that video, which you can find here.

First off, Fr. Martin’s assertion on usury is flatly erroneous. He claims in his speech that people take the Bible’s condemnations regarding homosexual sex acts out of context in a way that they do with no other teaching or condemnation. Around the 7:10 mark of the video, Fr. Martin says the following:
“I mean, it’s pretty clear the Bible’s against usury. But we’re okay with that now, because we say, ‘Well, we have to understand that in context.’ So I think part of it is inviting Catholics to understand the Bible, and to understand that tradition, within the context of history.”
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Fr. Martin couldn’t be more mistaken. Many people that hope for change in certain Church teachings tend to make false comparisons to changes in teachings that were either never infallibly proclaimed, or were in fact a legitimate development of doctrine. “We” are not OK with usury now. The Church never has been. Try to name one teaching of the Catholic Church that was infallibly taught by the Ordinary Magisterium that has changed. You won’t be able to. Disciplines have changed, but doctrine and dogma has not. Development can occur for the latter, but not change, i.e., that a gay or lesbian couple could ever, in any scenario, become married, or that sex acts between two males or two females could ever be called “not sinful” or even a “good”.

This is what happened with the Church regarding the sinfulness of usury. There was no change in doctrine here. There was no back-tracking. But there was a development in doctrine, so to speak. What changed in history was the nature of financial transactions, not the teaching of the Church. Author David J. Palm’s “The Red Herring of Usury” is a great resource.
 
Odd that you criticize taking Scripture out of context, when your very username…well…take Scripture out of context.
 
Second, Fr. Martin has made this claim before that the verses of Sacred Scripture regarding homosexual sex acts have to be taken in context. Indeed, they do have to be taken in context, but it’s clear that Fr. Martin has taken them out of context. Fr. Mike Schmitz, a good and orthodox priest who has a brother who has same-sex attraction, directly responds to similar comments that Fr. Martin made last year.

Fr. Martin says in part:
There’s a lot of other stuff in Leviticus that we sort of understand in its historical context, like what kind of slaves can we have, whether or not we can wear certain kinds of clothes, whether or not our crops can be next to one another. We don’t look at those passages in an a-historical way, so why should we look at passages on homosexuality that way?
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Fr. Mike Schmitz responds:
When it comes to the Old Testament—say, Leviticus—it’s troubling to me sometimes when people just lump Leviticus as one general book. It is one book, but there are divisions in that book with regard to different kinds of laws, and those laws are very clearly indicated. It’s very clear that when you read Leviticus, and understand it, [you can say] that, “Oh, these are laws regarding the temple. These are laws, strictly speaking, regarding the kingdom of Israel or the community of Israel. And these are laws that have to do with all human living.” If you want to go to the commandments regarding homosexual activity, those are clearly referencing not just the Jewish people, but the entire community surrounding the Jewish people as well, including the Canaanites and whatnot. …

I would say that we would take into account not just this biblical text that says x, y, and z, we would take into account the framework for the entire Scriptures. The framework for the entire Scriptures is this: it begins with the wedding, it ends with the wedding. It begins with that wedding of man and woman, Adam and Eve, it ends with the wedding of, in a certain sense, male and female. The Bridegroom, Christ, and the Bride, the Church. The template throughout the whole Scriptures is male/female. … The context itself is going to be that men and women are created both in God’s image and likeness and in a complementary way that is really unique. That’s absolutely clear in a thorough reading of Scripture.
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The entire interview with Fr. Schmitz is a must read. But I think it’s really clear that from the video in the OP, and from Fr. Schmitz’s comments on the other video done by Fr. Martin, we see that Fr. Martin has not done a thorough reading of Scripture. There are ceremonial laws, judicial laws, and moral laws in the 613 commandments of the Torah. Fr. Martin, like the uninformed and uneducated author of the letter to Dr. Schlesinger, would lump all these commandments together when it is clear that only some of these are to be applied universally.

Let’s keep praying for Fr. Martin, and for all those who attended his talk at Georgetown, as they were the ones listening to Fr. Martin’s confusing, obscuring and erroneous remarks.
 
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KMG said:
What exactly is untrue about this story?
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I clicked the first link and was immediately taken to a heavily edited & extremely biased video. That is not a source, that is opinion.
 
KMG said:
Odd that you criticize taking Scripture out of context, when your very username…well…take Scripture out of context.
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How so? There is no accompanying exegesis. In other words, nobody is telling you how to interpret the verse. By all means, read the entire chapter & commentary. It’ll be good for you. Reading the Bible is always good for people.
 
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Luke6_37 said:
I clicked the first link and was immediately taken to a heavily edited & extremely biased video. That is not a source, that is opinion.
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Luke, check out my two posts. I don’t like Life Site News that much either, because it oten reads like a tabloid. Same with National Catholic Reporter which is on the other side of the spectrum. Despite that, you have got to check sources. Joseph Sciambra’s original video is the story.

I also posted quotes directly from that video of Fr. Martin’s Georgetown talk, and also posted a link to the same video. Read my two above posts and then make an assessment of the original source and supplements I gave, including Fr. Schmitz’s response to Fr. Martin.
 
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Martin needs defrocked. At the very least he’s knowingly making statements that can be misinterpreted. At worst he’s intentionally using his position to further the LGBTQ agenda.
 
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