Sola scriptura gay marriage

[ericc]

I guess I could be wrong, but I thought that inter-racial marriage was thought to be morally wrong…

According to who? Source please.

 

[on_the_hill]

I guess I could be wrong, but I thought that inter-racial marriage was thought to be morally wrong. .

According to who? Source please.

This was discussed in another thread, and the consensus was that the Catholic Church had never prohibited it.

 

[JonNC]

Probably. Mark 10 is crystal clear.

So was St Paul. I don’t believe anything would change were he alive today

Jon

 

[mjwise]

I agree with you Paul is especially emphatic in Romans about acting on homosexuality and, unfortunately, there are churches who do not acknowledge the seriousness of the Word of God. In that respect, they may call themselves Sola Scriptura but they are not teaching it or actually understand its meaning.

Rita

St. Paul spoke of homosexual conduct in the context of the activities of pagan cults that used sexual acts of all sorts as part of worship (Romans 1 is where this is most clear, where he writes of people “exchanging the relations” they had before to group homosexual acts as part of worshiping a pagan god). There’s a lot more you can read about these cults and even by today’s standards, a lot of what they did seems bizarre. St. Paul was never presented with a situation in, say, Corinth, where the church had an adult male couple that wanted to join the community of believers that and to live as though they were monogamously married.

 

[annem]

mjwise

St. Paul spoke of homosexual conduct in the context of the activities of pagan cults that used sexual acts of all sorts as part of worship (Romans 1 is where this is most clear, where he writes of people “exchanging the relations” they had before to group homosexual acts as part of worshiping a pagan god). There’s a lot more you can read about these cults and even by today’s standards, a lot of what they did seems bizarre. St. Paul was never presented with a situation in, say, Corinth, where the church had an adult male couple that wanted to join the community of believers that and to live as though they were monogamously married.

Hi. First, what do you then say about Matthew 10:15 when Jesus says “Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.” Isn’t Jesus agreeing that Sodom and Gomorrah should be condemned?

And I am sorry, but I doubt very much Paul was talking about cults. Pedophilia was standard practice in ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and in much of the Roman empire. There were no moral judgments about this by the ancients until Christianity arrived.

Slaves, especially little boy slaves, were sexually abused, apparently, in great numbers, and they had no say in the matter at all. Then their owners put them in brothels to earn money. Little boys were treated like this until they were too old - too old being judged to be the moment the first body hair sprouted on the little boy. Really. This was just their culture, horrifying as it may be.

Thank you, God, for Christianity.

May God bless and flood you with miracles, Annem

 

[ephesians4]

Marriage is clearly defined as what it is in the scripture, homosexual marriage doesn’t exist as a marriage and I can’t see any way to misinterpret that, frankly.

Whilst it isn’t a marriage, it is probably a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, a deliberate attempt to reject forgiveness, reject salvation, refuse to accept the possibility of repentance and an attempt to swear to uphold that situation to the grave. A very serious matter in itself, whether you are a scripture-centric Christian looking to your Bible alone, or a Catholic with the catechism in mind. To me it seems possible/likely you blaspheme against the Holy Spirit by supporting it, really, which may be something to think about.

 

[Contarini]

Have any of the sola scriptura faiths accepted gay marriage? My simple understanding of the issue is that the acceptance of gay marriage would stem from a human interpretation of scripture.

I guess----to me, the Bible pretty clearly states that gay marriage can’t be, so to accept a belief in gay marriage is to veer away from the doctrine of sola scriptura.

You misunderstand sola scriptura. Sola scriptura is a limit on what can be defined. Catholics agree that doctrines can’t contradict Scripture. Sola scriptura says that you need Scripture to justify making a doctrine binding.

So if anything, sola scriptura works for the pro-gay side. All they need to do is show that Scripture isn’t entirely clear on the issue.

Edwin

 

[mjwise]

mjwise

Hi. First, what do you then say about Matthew 10:15 when Jesus says “Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.” Isn’t Jesus agreeing that Sodom and Gomorrah should be condemned?

When the Hebrew scriptures referenced Sodom and Gomorrah as a biblical lesson, no reference was made to homosexuality as being the reason for their condemnation. Isaiah 1 is probably the most thorough invocation of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Hebrew prophets and there is not a word about homosexual acts in that lengthy chapter.

The modern use of the term sodomite to mean nearly exclusively “homosexual” was an English language accretion.

And I am sorry, but I doubt very much Paul was talking about cults. Pedophilia was standard practice in ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and in much of the Roman empire. There were no moral judgments about this by the ancients until Christianity arrived.

Slaves, especially little boy slaves, were sexually abused, apparently, in great numbers, and they had no say in the matter at all. Then their owners put them in brothels to earn money. Little boys were treated like this until they were too old - too old being judged to be the moment the first body hair sprouted on the little boy. Really. This was just their culture, horrifying as it may be.

This is also the case re: the higher-class Roman practice of taking on sex slaves and St. Paul was most likely familiar with that as well, but St. Paul is pretty obviously referencing the behavior pagan sexual cults in Romans 1.

 

[annem]

mjwise

When the Hebrew scriptures referenced Sodom and Gomorrah as a biblical lesson, no reference was made to homosexuality as being the reason for their condemnation.

The reason Sodom and Gomorrah were condemned was due to homosexual behavior. Um, do you recall the townspeople who refused Lot’s virgin daughters because they only lusted after men??

This is also the case re: the higher-class Roman practice of taking on sex slaves and St. Paul was most likely familiar with that as well, but St. Paul is pretty obviously referencing the behavior pagan sexual cults in Romans 1.

St Paul was “most likely familiar”??? Good grief, pedophilia was rampant throughout the Roman empire. This was not merely the practice of the elite alone. Paul would be all too painfully aware of the thousands of people he met every day who had been corrupted. In Rome, parents had to hire a guard to walk their child to school because of what might otherwise happen to the child. I can suggest some good books to you on the subject.

May God truly flood you with miracles, Annem

 

[Contarini]

mjwise

The reason Sodom and Gomorrah were condemned was due to homosexual behavior. Um, do you recall the townspeople who refused Lot’s virgin daughters because they only lusted after men?

How do you know that that is the reason they refused them?

Lot’s daughters were betrothed to men of the city. One theory is that Lot was trying to shame them–saying, “if you want to rape, you will have to rape your own fiancees.”

Nothing in the text suggests that the men of Sodom were sexually uninterested in women. They were interested in humiliating strangers.

Note that in the parallel, but less well known, story in Judges, the rapists do accept the woman, because she “belongs” to the visiting stranger even though she’s the daughter of a man of the city.

“Prison rapists” are typically not 'homosexual" in our normal sense of the term.

Edwin

 

[annem]

Edwin

How do you know that that is the reason they refused them?

Hi Edwin. The Jews rejected pagan culture’s free sexuality and instead insisted that the sexual act was to be between a wife and a husband. Period. We have unvarying proof of Jewish rejection of pagan sexuality of any kind - including what we now call homosexuality.

So after a thousand years of Jewish belief against homosexuality you now want to convince me that it’s all been a silly, silly mistake?

And we have unvarying proof of early Christianity’s condemnation of all pagan sexuality, including homosexuality. Homosexuality was expressly forbidden in the Didache, in Paul’s epistles, and by one church father after another. Easy enough to prove.

And so we have two thousand years of condemnation of all sexual acts except those between a man and woman who are married. All those years of preaching as dogma and, what? God made a mistake about Catholic dogma?

I’m sorry. I just don’t see any way around it at all. It’s been Catholic dogma for two thousand years. It can’t change, unless there is no Catholic church and no Holy Spirit protecting us from error. Again, I just don’t see any way around this at all.

…Maybe you do? But how?

God bless, and may God flood you with miracles,

Annem

 

[Zachary]

Edwin

Hi Edwin. The Jews rejected pagan culture’s free sexuality and instead insisted that the sexual act was to be between a wife and a husband. Period. We have unvarying proof of Jewish rejection of pagan sexuality of any kind - including what we now call homosexuality.

So after a thousand years of Jewish belief against homosexuality you now want to convince me that it’s all been a silly, silly mistake?

And we have unvarying proof of early Christianity’s condemnation of all pagan sexuality, including homosexuality. Homosexuality was expressly forbidden in the Didache, in Paul’s epistles, and by one church father after another. Easy enough to prove.

And so we have two thousand years of condemnation of all sexual acts except those between a man and woman who are married. All those years of preaching as dogma and, what? God made a mistake about Catholic dogma?

I’m sorry. I just don’t see any way around it at all. It’s been Catholic dogma for two thousand years. It can’t change, unless there is no Catholic church and no Holy Spirit protecting us from error. Again, I just don’t see any way around this at all.

…Maybe you do? But how?

God bless, and may God flood you with miracles,

Annem

Can you imagine the Church crumbles because it was wrong on homosexuality?

Jesus messed up so badly that he left his church in the hands of idiots like Peter and Paul and the earlier fathers. Jesus was so inept at godliness that he forgot to tell Peter and co. to green light homosexuality? So, now, 2000 years later, he’s sending us POTUS to correct Peter?

Can you imagine?

That’s what I think of when I think about John Lennon’s song…“Imagine there’s no Jesus…Above us only POTUS”

 

[annem]

Zachary:

“Imagine there’s no Jesus…Above us only POTUS”

Great line!

May God bless you and flood you with miracles, Annem

 

[spedteacherita]

You sum it up pretty well. My denomination (The Church of Scotland) recently had an intense debate on the issue of accepting practicing homosexual ministers. There was no debate on what the Bible said. For both sides it was clear. What the Liberal Wing of the Church argued was that if Paul had been alive today and know what we now know about homosexuality he would not have made the same comments as he did.

Boy, they really don’t know Paul, do they?

 

[spedteacherita]

I guess*** I could be wrong, but I thought that inter-racial marriage was thought to be morally wrong***. I assume you believe one to be worse morally, but really this is besides my point. My point is that eventually “gay marriage” will just be called “marriage” like “interracial-marriage”. Just like gay people don’t has a gay lunch or take a gay nap the gay in front of marriage is unnecessary.

I guess it depends on where you are from and the group of people who you hang out with but I think that we, as a country, have left the belief that inter-racial marriages were/are morally wrong. I have many family members who are in inter-racial marriages and, besides my dad’s era (born in 1928) there were no moral discussions about them as they became a fact.

God bless!!

Rita

 

[Contarini]

Edwin

Hi Edwin. The Jews rejected pagan culture’s free sexuality

What pagan culture? What free sexuality?

I question how much you actually know about any ancient pagan culture if you think the phrase “free sexuality” describes any of them. Some more than others, no doubt. And perhaps I’m the one who doesn’t know–I certainly don’t claim to be an expert and am willing to be instructed. But on the face of it, it looks like you’re working with a stereotype.

and instead insisted that the sexual act was to be between a wife and a husband. Period. We have unvarying proof of Jewish rejection of pagan sexuality of any kind - including what we now call homosexuality.

That doesn’t answer my question:

How do you know that the men of Sodom rejected the offer of Lot’s daughters because they were not sexually interested in women?

You are bringing this assumption to the text.

Much more likely, they wanted to rape strangers as an expression of dominance, and raping Lot’s daughters wouldn’t accomplish that purpose. In fact, it would be horrifying, because Lot’s daughters were betrothed to men of Sodom (who may well have been there in the crowd of rapists). Some scholars suggest that this was Lot’s gambit–he was trying to shame them by “offering” to let them rape their own fiancees.

So after a thousand years of Jewish belief against homosexuality you now want to convince me that it’s all been a silly, silly mistake?

No. I am trying to convince you that this particular passage doesn’t tell us much on the subject. Unfortunately, the Sodom story has become a stand-in for the broader debate.

I accept the teaching of the Catholic Church on sexual matters.

But the story of Sodom is a bad place to go to argue for that teaching, because the story is about rape.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

I guess I could be wrong, but I thought that inter-racial marriage was thought to be morally wrong.

Not by the Catholic Church, or as far as I know by European Protestants except for the Nazi era in Germany.

Edwin

 

[Picky_Picky]

Not by the Catholic Church, or as far as I know by European Protestants except for the Nazi era in Germany.

Edwin

Unless the various Dutch churches in S Africa count as European Protestants, I suppose.

 

[Protestor]

And what of it? Reasonable people do tend to come to that conclusion and have for over 2 thousand years.

Cool story bro

Well, if Matthew Vines says it

You asked if people who believe in Sola Scriptura also support marriage equality. Well maybe not you but I think that was part of the original post

So wrong it ain’t even funny. The government defines “civil marriage” which is the legal relationship two people entered into voluntarily.Yet, the Church even non-Christian religions have had their own canonical and theological definitions of marriage.

The church has the ability to define the term just not in a legal sense.

Therefore, churches can define marriage however they like and neither you nor Congress nor the Supreme Court can tell any religious group "what marriage is."For purposes of this conversation, it means that yes churches do have the right to “define what marriage is.”

Sure and I can define things too, but my definition has no bearing on the legal definition.

 

[ltwin]

Sure and I can define things too, but my definition has no bearing on the legal definition.

OK. But just because there is a “legal definition” doesn’t make it a fact. The law used to define African Americans as chattel property. That was a “legal” definition, but it was also a glorified fairy tale. No law of man can reduce a human being made in the image of God to property, no matter how many voters or justices declare it so. The same holds for marriage.

The point is that your understanding of separation of church and state is distorted. The “legal” definition of marriage or anything else is not a sacred cow that all elements of society must bow before. The churches have a right to their own definitions of marriage, and if you support separation of church and state, then you should support that rather than castigating those who dare disagree with the government’s (really just the Supreme Court’s because Congress and the President never implemented any legislation) definition of marriage.