Same Sex sexual relationships: history in the Catholic (and Orthodox, Protestant) churches.

[NotTooSmart]

the Catholic Church has always taught that homosexual acts are wrong, and that if someone is a homosexual, they should be celibate. The Church has also never allowed gay marriage… if two people of the same sex get a civil marriage, that is not recognized by the Church, and that doesn’t make it ok.

God doesn’t hate homosexuals and they don’t have to become straight for God to love them… but it is important that they stay chaste and celibate. Chastity is something we should all pursue, whatever the sexual orientation, and state of life (single, or married, or divorced.)

So to recap, the idea being proposed is that same sex sexual relationships is OK with God within the context of a same sex marriage.

If this theory is historically valid theory within the traditions Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox, then there must be a record of denominations performing same sex marriages within the 2000 year span of church history in order to prevent same sex couples from sinning and to legitimize their union.

If there is no record of same sex marriage within the historical account of the church, then the only conclusion possible is that this theory is just a 30 year old innovation that totally repudiates traditional morality as recognized by all branches of Christianity. And this theory is a prime illustration of what Keith Matthison calls “Solo Scriptura” which would be reading the Bible totally separate from the historic church of Jesus Christ.

So you are saying there is no record of same sex marriages within the Catholic tradition. I know of no same record within the Orthodox tradition. Or within Protestant denominations save in the last 30 years or so (caveat: given the gazillion denominations that Catholic apologists say we have, it is impossible to keep tabs of all of them. I am not eliminating the possibility of an outlier here or there).

 

[manualman]

…

Note to my Catholic brothers and sisters. I strongly believe in tradition with a small “t”. Any nice, new, creative idea that overthrows 2000 years of moral teaching by the historic church, (Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox) is a prime example of what Keith Matthison calls “Solo Scriptura” and is a recipe for disaster.

Not to stir the pot, but it sure is curious that the first protestant congregations to OK homosexual relations are also the same protestant congregations to OK the use of artificial contraception (a century ago) - also a totally radical change in 1900 years of christendom. Coincidence or common trajectory? For your pondering…

 

[LondonIrish]

Hello NotTooSmart

I think that’s a very good summary. And why I pray constantly for the leaders of all churches, because it takes a lot of moral fibre, and confidence in the Christ and the churches founding fathers to resist the sea of modernism in todays world. It’s oh so easy to confuse love with toleration. Love for our brothers and sisters is much more than tolerating them and accepting them.

 

[2nd_Adam]

the Catholic Church has always taught that homosexual acts are wrong, and that if someone is a homosexual, they should be celibate. The Church has also never allowed gay marriage… if two people of the same sex get a civil marriage, that is not recognized by the Church, and that doesn’t make it ok.

God doesn’t hate homosexuals and they don’t have to become straight for God to love them… but it is important that they stay chaste and celibate. Chastity is something we should all pursue, whatever the sexual orientation, and state of life (single, or married, or divorced.)

You are aware that there are Christian Churches that perform same sex marriages throughout the world. Theses churches may also adhere to the essential Orthodox Christian doctrines which makes them Christians.

 

[2nd_Adam]

Not to stir the pot, but it sure is curious that the first protestant congregations to OK homosexual relations are also the same protestant congregations to OK the use of artificial contraception (a century ago) - also a totally radical change in 1900 years of christendom. Coincidence or common trajectory? For your pondering…

I keep forgetting I’m on a Cathoic Forum site. What’s wrong with artifical contraception? Does the Church reject other alertnative methods of conception that is common today?

 

[NotTooSmart]

Not to stir the pot, but it sure is curious that the first protestant congregations to OK homosexual relations are also the same protestant congregations to OK the use of artificial contraception (a century ago) - also a totally radical change in 1900 years of christendom. Coincidence or common trajectory? For your pondering…

Which reminds me that sometime I would like to study the history of this issue.

Was artificial contraception around in the apostolic church? And was it forbidden then? Was it forbidden in the Mosaic law? Do the Orthodox forbid artificial contraception.

Anyway that is a separate issue. And I have a hard enough time with one train of thought. So back to the history of same sex sexual relationships in all three branches of Christendom.

 

[PJM]

=NotTooSmart;5671753]I think I know the answer to this one, but I want to create a new thread to verify.

We know today that the Catholic church believes that same sex sexual relationships are outside of God’s design (ie sin).

My question is this?

Was there ever a point in time where the Catholic church believed that same sex sexual relationships were OK with God? If there was, at what point were the beliefs changed to the current? If there was not a point in time, then do I assume that it always believed that same sex sexual relationships were not OK with God.

I can also ask this question of Orthodox and Protestant denominations?

I am asking this because I maintain that historically the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches have all historically opposed same sex sexual relationships. Therefore I maintain that the recent change in some mainline Protestant denominations represents a new, 30 year old, creative interpretation of the written word of God.

However,

I am not an expert on church history. Therefore, I am open to being corrected on this point if I am shown to be incorrect in my assessment.

Dear “NotTooSmart”

Much better question than your other post. The simple and short answer is NO! God, Tradition and history have in the past viewed such behavior as unworthy and sinful, which is not to say in some pagan sects that it was not widely practiced.

Love and prayers,

 

[Nine_Two]

I have not read or studied much about the history of the church in regards to her views on homosexuality.

It would be wise to do so before taking such a strong view on the subject, would it not?

Of course, we are looking for sources outside of the Scriptures. What I gathered, the church has been very silent on the issue of homosexuality and same sex marriage.

Where did you pick up an idea like that? One does not have to delve very far into the Philokalia, for example, to find condemnation of the act.

If others disagree, I too would be very interested to read writings by the Church Fathers, Augustine, and similar sources.

Thankfully the works of the Church Fathers are no longer under copyright, so for the most part they can be downloaded legally and free of charge from the internet. If you want a paper copy, any respectable university should have copies.

Let’s see if it can be produced. Silence on the subject in church history does not support either side of the debate. Silence is a neutral position when appealing to church history.

Already been done so I won’t bother looking.

Ancient biblical commentaries on those Scriptures relating to homosexuality would be interesting too.

The two categories overlap to such an extent that there is little reason to count the categories separately.

The real debate in my mind is same sex marriage and not homosexuality.

If homosexuality is held to be wrong, and marriage, being the Holy Mystery which links two people under the auspices of God, then certainly homosexual marriage must be held to be an abomination.

We know heterosexual and homosexual sex outside of marriage is sin.

Homosexual marriage is not sinful purely because it is outside of marriage. If that was all it was would Paul not have written “You know, if you really can’t help yourself and have to have sex with men, I don’t see why you can’t get married!”?

Does God consider Christians of the same sex that are married in the church to be in perpitual sin, or does God bless that marriage?

They live in sin as long as they refuse to repent.

 

[Nine_Two]

You are aware that there are Christian Churches that perform same sex marriages throughout the world. Theses churches may also adhere to the essential Orthodox Christian doctrines which makes them Christians.

They are anything but orthodox in their doctrine. My experience with religious organizations which allow it is that they are non-creedal, non-biblical, feel-good mass therapy sessions with no understanding of their own history.

 

[2nd_Adam]

They are anything but orthodox in their doctrine. My experience with religious organizations which allow it is that they are non-creedal, non-biblical, feel-good mass therapy sessions with no understanding of their own history.

I think many of the churches who support same sex marriage may not be othodox on some essentials. However, there are churches who support same sex marriage who are very Orthodox on the essentials of the Christian Faith. There’s even a term called inclusive Orthodoxy for those groups who support Christian homosexual marriages and are Orthodox in the essential Christian doctrine. A churches view or position on same sex marriage is not a gospel issue.

 

[NotTooSmart]

To further stir the pot, I found this article claiming some precedence for gay marriage in church history:

It is repeated in this blog. The comments section mentions a rebuttal that is not online. Note that this rebuttal is by someone sympathetic to gay rights.

But Camille Paglia denounced Boswell’s research despite having everything to gain by supporting it (‘Plighting Their Troth’, Guardian Weekly, 11 Sept. 1994, p. 18.):

“Despite sporadic qualifications, Boswell repeatedly implies a genital subtext to intense spiritual alliances, even when his supporting manuscripts make clearly uncarnal invocations to martyred paired saints, who died in the service of Christ. …

“Whatever medieval ceremonies of union may have been found, Boswell has not remotely established that they were originally homosexual in our romantic sense. Their real meaning has yet to be determined. Sacrilegious misuse of such ceremonies may indeed have occurred, leading to their banning, but historians are unjustified in extrapolating backwards and reducing fragmentary evidence to its lowest common denominator.

“The cause of gay rights, which I support, is not helped by this kind of slippery, self-interested scholarship, where propaganda and casuistry impede the objective search for truth.”

I did find an online rebuttals here which was originally found in the New Republic which you would expect to be sympathetic to gay marriage. This article quotes the original language from Boswells work. When I read this liturgy, it hardly sounds like a gay marriage to me.

And there is also this online rebuttal in First Things.

Anyway I am just the messenger who thought I would post these before somebody else does. I am getting tired and going to bed. In fact I am finding that posting in threads and responding to stuff gets tiring for me. It must be my age.

 

[Guyonthestreet]

And there is also this online rebuttal in First Things.

From the above link given

Even the most cursory examination of
Boswell’s documentation exposes the way he has struggled to force a
group of documents to conform to his conclusions. Despite its facade of
scholarship, the book is studded with unwarranted a priori assumptions,
with arguments from silence, and with dubious, or in some cases
outrageously false, translations of critical terms

Sound familiar anyone?

 

[Nine_Two]

I think many of the churches who support same sex marriage may not be othodox on some essentials. However, there are churches who support same sex marriage who are very Orthodox on the essentials of the Christian Faith. There’s even a term called inclusive Orthodoxy for those groups who support Christian homosexual marriages and are Orthodox in the essential Christian doctrine. A churches view or position on same sex marriage is not a gospel issue.

I suppose it depends on what you believe to be essential Christian doctrine. One could argue that Oneness Pentacostals are “orthodox” if you define it narrowly enough.

“Inclusive orthodoxy” sounds like a term they came up with for themselves just to sound warm and fuzzy.

Out of curiousity do you have any examples of these organizations?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Irregardless on how one views the reformers, is there any hint that they changed the church teaching on same sex sexual relationships.

In other words have any Catholics here ever started a thread, “the reformers changed the church teaching on homosexuality” as specious as this charge may be.

What I am trying to ascertain is this…

In all of the religious warfare, verbal and otherwise, that has been going on for the last 500 years, and all of the charges that have been made on both sides specious or otherwise, does anybody know of any charges against the other side of supporting “homosexuality is ok” save some mainline Protestant denominations over the last 30 years.

I don’t think that verbal warfare on these lines has occurred between the two camps throughout the last 500 years. If that is the case, then this silence would be deafening.

The literature contains several sorts of attacks on Catholic sexual morality, but I’ve yet to come across that one.​

Some Traditionalist Catholics - I’m not thinking of the SSPX - have blamed the incidence of homosexual practice in the CC today upon Vatican II. That’s the closest to what you ask after that I know of.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Through the centuries, the Church has been anything but silent on the matter of homosexuality. Here’s the CA tract on the matter. Many of the ECF wrote against homosexual activity.

catholic.com/library/Early_Teachings_on_Homosexuality.asp

As for same-sex marrige, it is such a modern concept you aren’t going to find it mentioned in Biblical or ECF sources. The same goes for IVF, sex change surgery or genetic manipulation.

Christians of the same sex **cannot be **married in the Church so this question makes little sense.

So far being silent on it, the Church has on several occasions included sodomy under the heading of heresy:​

• Justinian I made it a capital offence in the 530s
• A local council at Jerusalem in 1120 decreed that sodomites were to be burned
• In 1570 Pius V promulgated Illud Nefandum Scelus (= That Unspeakable Crime), in which he laid it down that sodomotes were to be burned alive
• In 1586, under Sixtus V, a boy and a priest were burned for this at Rome
• Two 17-year olds were burnt alive for it in 1588 - they are significant because the Inquisition in Spain subsequently increased the age of criminal liability in order to avoid executing “teenagers”.
• As late as 1723, during the regency of Philip of Anjou, sodomites were burned alive in Paris.
• It was a capital offence in English law from 1540 to 1863

So far was the Church from being silent that it treated it as heresy and burned offenders alive for it.

Paul Halsall has a page on LGBT history here:

• [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/index.html (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/index.html)

He quotes the late John Boswell a good deal, & Boswell’s use of evidence has been subjected to very severe criticism by some reviewers of his books - it seems Boswell had a habit of slanting his evidence in favour of a pro-homosexual interpretation - but apart from that criticism, the page is very informative. It is after all quite true that attitudes among Christians cannot be reconstructed purely from Church pronouncements - and sometimes Christians were in practice less adamantly opposed to homosexual activity than Church teaching might indicate: during the Italian Renaissance, for example.

As for same-sex marriage - there was apparently a ceremony for something called adelphopoiesis (= “brother-making”) among the Orthodox; exactly what this amounted to, This article looks very informative & helpful:

• [http://www.newoxfordreview.org/reviews.jsp?print=1&did=1294-viscuso (http://www.newoxfordreview.org/reviews.jsp?print=1&did=1294-viscuso)

 

[2nd_Adam]

I suppose it depends on what you believe to be essential Christian doctrine. One could argue that Oneness Pentacostals are “orthodox” if you define it narrowly enough.

“Inclusive orthodoxy” sounds like a term they came up with for themselves just to sound warm and fuzzy.

Out of curiousity do you have any examples of these organizations?

I think we all would agree that the Trinity is an Orthodox belief which makes us Christians. Here’s a start on denominations who have changed or in the process of examining their position on the issue.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_Christianity

Here is an inclusive Orthodoxy web site.

truthsetsfree.net/

 

[Nine_Two]

I think we all would agree that the Trinity is an Orthodox belief which makes us Christians. Here’s a start on denominations who have changed or in the process of examining their position on the issue.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_Christianity

Here is an inclusive Orthodoxy web site.

truthsetsfree.net/

Believing in the Trinity may itself be orthodox, and perhaps may be the bare minimum to be “Christian”, holding to a sole orthodox belief while every single other belief is heterodox, does not make ones position itself orthodox.

I’m not going through the first link as I don’t have time to decipher where each group stands. The United Church of Canada, the first group that stood out when I skimmed it, is certainly not orthodox in any way, shape, or form. Any group which has had a head propose that they make belief in the divinity of Christ optional, whether or not it has passed, is just asking to be questioned on what it actually is.

As for the second link, having a liturgy does not make ones position “orthodox”, sadly enough. If one wants to count as orthodox anyone who uses the term “orthodox” to describe themselves then you are not going to find anyone who is unorthodox.

 

[2nd_Adam]

Believing in the Trinity may itself be orthodox, and perhaps may be the bare minimum to be “Christian”, holding to a sole orthodox belief while every single other belief is heterodox, does not make ones position itself orthodox.

I’m not going through the first link as I don’t have time to decipher where each group stands. The United Church of Canada, the first group that stood out when I skimmed it, is certainly not orthodox in any way, shape, or form. Any group which has had a head propose that they make belief in the divinity of Christ optional, whether or not it has passed, is just asking to be questioned on what it actually is.

As for the second link, having a liturgy does not make ones position “orthodox”, sadly enough. If one wants to count as orthodox anyone who uses the term “orthodox” to describe themselves then you are not going to find anyone who is unorthodox.

When it comes to who is actually united to Christ and truly an adopted child of God, I’m glad God alone makes that determination and not us…or a particular church or denomination. Sound doctrine and orthodoxy does not make you saved or reconciled to God. We know the demons believe God is one and shutter. The thief on the cross did not know much orthodoxy. I find it funny how some Christians try to make same sex marriage an essential to be Christian when the topic of same sex marriage is silient in the Scriptures.

 

[tweetymom]

When it comes to who is actually united to Christ and truly an adopted child of God, I’m glad God alone makes that determination and not us…or a particular church or denomination. Sound doctrine and orthodoxy does not make you saved or reconciled to God. We know the demons believe God is one and shutter. The thief on the cross did not know much orthodoxy. I find it funny how some Christians try to make same sex marriage an essential to be Christian when the topic of same sex marriage is silient in the Scriptures.

Adam you are ok!!!

 

[2nd_Adam]

Adam you are ok!!!

Thanks for the kind words again. Jesus said the road is narrow, but in our flesh… we try to make it more narrow than how Jesus revealed it to be. I think we all have a tendency to do this. In reality, I find these two verses to be helpful in regards to the topic.

Galatians 3:28
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Matthew 19:12
For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”