Posted on 05/11/2003 10:20:52 PM PDT by Remedy
Divine law has not made men so that they should ever abuse one another in that way."—St. Augustine
Postmodernists and homosexual activists have made a serious effort to remold public opinion regarding homosexual behavior. In a basic sense, these efforts are intended to show that the Biblical texts — from which Western culture has derived its concepts of homosexuality — have been misunderstood. They attribute these ‘misunderstandings’ to inaccurate translations and the confusion of modern commentators on the substance of what the writers of the Bible actually meant when they discussed homosexual behavior, or what the Bible calls "sodomy."
Fortunately, a significant number of writings by patriarchs of the faith and other early commentators express — in forthright and unambiguous terms— personal views of same-sex sexual behavior. The following commentaries reflect these views: Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 B.C. to A.D. 50), Jewish philosopher, theologian and contemporary of Jesus and Paul, writing on the life of Abraham:
"The land of the Sodomites, a part of Canaan afterwards called Palestinian Syria, was brimful of innumerable iniquities, particularly such as arise from gluttony and lewdness, and multiplied and enlarged every other possible pleasure with so formidable a menace that it had at last been condemned by the Judge of All…Incapable of bearing such satiety, plunging like cattle, they threw off from their necks the law of nature and applied themselves to … forbidden forms of intercourse. Not only in their mad lust for women did they violate the marriages of their neighbors, but also men mounted males without respect for the sex nature which the active partner shares with the passive; and so when they tried to beget children they were discovered to be incapable of any but a sterile seed. Yet the discovery availed them not, so much stronger was the force of the lust which mastered them. Then, as little by little they accustomed those who were by nature men to submit to play the part of women, they saddled them with the formidable curse of a female disease. For not only did they emasculate their bodies by luxury and voluptuousness but they worked a further degeneration in their souls and, as far as in them lay, were corrupting the whole of mankind." Flavius Josephus, Jewish historian (c. A.D. 37-100), commentary on the history of the Jews:
As for adultery, Moses forbade it entirely, as esteeming it a happy thing that men should be wise in the affairs of wedlock; and that it was profitable both to cities and families that children should be known to be genuine. He also abhorred men’s lying with their mothers, as one of the greatest crimes; and the like for lying with the father’s wife, and with aunts, and sisters, and sons’ wives, as all instances of abominable wickedness. He also forbade a man to lie with his wife when she was defiled by her natural purgation: and not to come near brute beasts; nor to approve of the lying with a male, which was to hunt after unlawful pleasures on account of beauty. To those who were guilty of such insolent behavior, he ordained death for their punishment. Methodius, bishop of Olympus and Patara (A.D. 260-312), commentary on the sin of Sodom:
But we do not say so of that mixture that is contrary to nature, or of any unlawful practice; for such are enmity to God. For the sin of Sodom is contrary to nature, as is also that with brute beasts. But adultery and fornication are against the law; the one whereof is impiety, the other injustice, and, in a word, no other than a great sin. But neither sort of them is without its punishment in its own proper nature. For the practicers of one sort attempt the dissolution of the world, and endeavor to make the natural course of things to change for one that is unnatural; but those of the second son — the adulterers — are unjust by corrupting others’ marriages, and dividing into two what God hath made one, rendering the children suspected, and exposing the true husband to the snares of others. And fornication is the destruction of one’s own flesh, not being made use of for the procreation of children, but entirely for the sake of pleasure, which is a mark of incontinency, and not a sign of virtue. All these things are forbidden by the laws; for thus say the oracles: Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind. For such a one is accursed, and ye shall stone them with stones: they have wrought abomination. St. Basil, archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia (c. A.D. 330-379), the first canonical epistle:
They who have committed sodomy with men or brutes, murderers, wizards, adulterers, and idolaters, have been thought worthy of the same punishment; therefore observe the same method with these which you do with others. We ought not to make any doubt of receiving those who have repented 30 years for the uncleanness which they committed through ignorance; for their ignorance pleads their pardon, and their willingness in confessing it; therefore command them to be forthwith received, especially if they have tears to prevail on your tenderness, and have [since their lapse] led such a life as to deserve your compassion. St. John Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople (A.D. 347-407), commentary on Romans 1:26-27:
ALL these affections then were vile, but chiefly the mad lust after males; for the soul is more the sufferer in sins, and more dishonored, than the body in diseases. But behold how here, too, as in the case of the doctrines, he deprives them of excuse, by saying of the women, that "they changed the natural use." For no one, he means, can say that it was by being hindered of legitimate intercourse that they came to this pass, or that it was from having no means to fulfill their desire that they were driven into this monstrous insaneness. For the changing implies possession. Which also when discoursing upon the doctrines he said, "They changed the truth of God for a lie." And with regard to the men again, he shows the same thing by saying, "Leaving the natural use of the woman." … For genuine pleasure is that which is according to nature. But when God hath left one, then all things are turned upside down. And thus not only was their doctrine Satanical, but their life too was diabolical. St. Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430), Confessions, commenting on the story of Sodom from Genesis 19:
Can it ever, at any time or place, be unrighteous for a man to love God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind; and his neighbor as himself? Similarly, offenses against nature are everywhere and at all times to be held in detestation and should be punished. Such offenses, for example, were those of the Sodomites; and, even if all nations should commit them, they would all be judged guilty of the same crime by the divine law, which has not made men so that they should ever abuse one another in that way. For the fellowship that should be between God and us is violated whenever that nature of which he is the author is polluted by perverted lust. John Calvin, Protestant reformer and theologian (1509-1564), commentary on Genesis 19 and Romans 1:
Moses sets before our eyes a lively picture of Sodom. For it is hence obvious, how diabolical was their consent in all wickedness, since they all so readily conspired to perpetrate the most abominable crime. The greatness of their iniquity and wantonness, is apparent from the fact, that, in a collected troop, they approach, as enemies, to lay siege to the house of Lot. How blind and impetuous is their lust; since, without shame, they rush together like brute animals! How great their ferocity and cruelty; since they reproachfully threaten the holy man, and proceed to all extremities! Hence also we infer, that they were not contaminated with one vice only, but were given up to all audacity in crime, so that no sense of shame was left them. …What Paul says, also refers to the same point: that God punished the impiety of men, when he cast them into such a state of blindness, that they gave themselves up to abominable lusts, and dishonored their own bodies (Romans 1:18.). But when the sense of shame is overcome, and the reins are given to lust, a vile and outrageous barbarism necessarily succeeds, and many kinds of sin are blended together, so that a most confused chaos is the result. But if this severe vengeance of God so fell upon the men of Sodom, that they became blind with rage, and prostituted themselves to all kinds of crime, certainly we shall scarcely be more mildly treated, whose iniquity is the less excusable, because the truth of God has been more clearly revealed unto us. John Wesley, Protestant evangelist, theologian and founder of Methodism (1703-1791), commentary on Romans 1:24-27:
Romans 1:24.Wherefore — One punishment of sin is from the very nature of it, as Romans 1:27; another, as here, is from vindictive justice. Uncleanness — Ungodliness and uncleanness are frequently joined, 1 Thessalonians 4:5, as are the knowledge of God and purity. God gave them up — By withdrawing his restraining grace.
25. Who changed the truth — The true worship of God. Into a lie — False, abominable idolatries. And worshipped — Inwardly. And served — Outwardly.
26. Therefore God gave them up to vile affections — To which the heathen Romans were then abandoned to the last degree; and none more than the emperors themselves.
27. Receiving the just recompense of their error — Their idolatry being punished with that unnatural lust, which was as horrible a dishonor to the body, as their idolatry was to God. Robert Haldane, evangelist and writer (1764-1842), exposition of the Book of Romans, chapter 1:
Romans 1:26— For this cause and gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature.
1:27 — And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.
The Apostle having awfully depicted the magnitude of Pagan wickedness, and having shown that their ungodliness in abandoning the worship of the true God was the reason why they had been abandoned to their lusts, here descends into particulars, for the purpose of showing to what horrible excesses God had permitted them to proceed. This was necessary, to prove how odious in the sight of God is the crime of idolatry. Its recompense was this fearful abandonment. It was also necessary, in order to give a just idea of human corruption, as evinced in its monstrous enormities when allowed to take its course, and also in order to exhibit to believers a living proof of the depth of the evil from which God had delivered them; and, finally, to prove the falsity of the Pagan religion since, so far from preventing such excesses, it even incited and conducted men to their omission.
Receiving in themselves that recompense. — As the impiety of the Pagans respecting God reached even to madness, it was also just that God should permit their corruption to recoil upon themselves, and proceed also to madness. It was just that they who had done what they could to cover the Godhead with reproaches, should likewise cover themselves with infamy, and thus receive a proportionate and retributive recompense.
1:28 — And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.
The Apostle shows here how justly the Pagan idolaters were abandoned since they had so far departed from the right knowledge of God. In the 18th verse he had declared that the wrath of God was revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. He had now conclusively established the first charge of ungodliness against the Gentiles, adding to it their consequent abandonment to the vilest affections. America’s Founders Agreed
In colonial times, sodomy was so reviled that Thomas Jefferson wrote a bill to penalize the act by castration. George Washington, as commander in chief of the Revolutionary army, ordered that an officer be ousted from the military for attempting to commit sodomy:
His Excellency the Commander in Chief approves the sentence and with abhorrence and detestation of such infamous crimes orders Lieut. Enslin to be drummed out of camp tomorrow morning by all drummers and fifers in the Army never to return.
Numerous other examples can be cited, but it is sufficient to say that sodomy has consistently been recognized as deviant sexual behavior from Biblical times to the present. Although homosexual rights activists wish to rewrite the historical record and infer that early writers did not understand what "homosexual love" was about in the modern sense, the facts show otherwise. As the writer of Ecclesiastes said:
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9).
Judaism's Sexual Revolution: Why Judaism (and then Christianity) Rejected HomosexualityWhen Judaism demanded that all sexual activity be channeled into marriage, it changed the world. The Torah's prohibition of non-marital sex quite simply made the creation of Western civilization possible. Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity. The acceptance of homosexuality as the equal of heterosexual marital love signifies the decline of Western civilization as surely as the rejection of homosexuality and other nonmarital sex made the creation of this civilization possible.
Homosexuality: A Political Mask For Promiscuity: A Psychiatrist Reviews The Data Indeed, the Torah reserves its most intense condemnation for homosexuality: "to'eva" - abomination...
BURGER, C.J., Concurring Opinion Decisions of individuals relating to homosexual conduct have been subject to state intervention throughout the history of Western civilization. Condemnation of those practices is firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards. Homosexual sodomy was a capital crime under Roman law.... During the English Reformation, when powers of the ecclesiastical courts were transferred to the King's Courts, the first English statute criminalizing sodomy was passed.... Blackstone described "the infamous crime against nature" as an offense of "deeper malignity" than rape, a heinous act "the very mention of which is a disgrace to human nature," and "a crime not fit to be named." W. Blackstone, Commentaries . The common law of England, including its prohibition of sodomy, became the received law of Georgia and the other Colonies. In 1816, the Georgia Legislature passed the statute at issue here, and that statute has been continuously in force in one form or another since that time. To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.
Hundreds rally for '10 Commandments judge' Moore wrote a separate concurring opinion, repudiating homosexuality on religious grounds, calling it "abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of nature and of nature's God."
Nations most often fall from within, and this fall is usually due to a decline in the moral and spiritual values in the family. As families go, so goes a nation.
This has been the main premise of thinkers from British historian J. D. Unwin to Russian sociologist Pitirim Sorokin who have studied civilizations that have collapsed. In his book Our Dance Has Turned to Death, Carl Wilson identifies the common pattern of family decline in ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. Notice how these seven stages parallel what is happening in our nation today. In the first stage, men ceased to lead their families in worship. Spiritual and moral development became secondary. Their view of God became naturalistic, mathematical, and mechanical.
In the second stage, men selfishly neglected care of their wives and children to pursue material wealth, political and military power, and cultural development. Material values began to dominate thought, and the man began to exalt his own role as an individual. The third stage involved a change in men's sexual values. Men who were preoccupied with business or war either neglected their wives sexually or became involved with lower-class women or with homosexuality. Ultimately, a double standard of morality developed. The fourth stage affected women. The role of women at home and with children lost value and status. Women were neglected and their roles devalued. Soon they revolted to gain access to material wealth and also freedom for sex outside marriage. Women also began to minimize having sex relations to conceive children, and the emphasis became sex for pleasure. Marriage laws were changed to make divorce easy.
In the fifth stage, husbands and wives competed against each other for money, home leadership, and the affection of their children. This resulted in hostility and frustration and possible homosexuality in the children. Many marriages ended in separation and divorce.
Many children were unwanted, aborted, abandoned, molested, and undisciplined. The more undisciplined children became, the more social pressure there was not to have children. The breakdown of the home produced anarchy.
In the sixth stage, selfish individualism grew and carried over into society, fragmenting it into smaller and smaller group loyalties. The nation was thus weakened by internal conflict. The decrease in the birthrate produced an older population that had less ability to defend itself and less will to do so, making the nation more vulnerable to its enemies.
Finally, unbelief in God became more complete, parental authority diminished, and ethical and moral principles disappeared, affecting the economy and government. Thus, by internal weakness and fragmentation the societies came apart. There was no way to save them except by a dictator who arose from within or by barbarians who invaded from without.
Although this is an ancient pattern of decline found in Greece and Rome, it is relevant today. Families are the foundation of a nation. When the family crumbles, the nation falls because nations are built upon family units. They are the true driving social force. A nation will not be strong unless the family is strong. That was true in the ancient world and it is true today.
Social commentator Michael Novak, writing on the importance of the family, said:
One unforgettable law has been learned through all the disasters and injustices of the last thousand years: If things go well with the family, life is worth living; when the family falters, life falls apart.
Although this is an ancient pattern of decline found in Greece and Rome, it is relevant today.
This decline extends well beyond the US. It is pertinent in most of the Western world and parts of the Eastern world as well. In Japan, the 65+ population is significantly higher that of the under 15 year olds. One report, issued by the UN, says that many countries will have to open their doors to immigrants, in order to care for their greying populations.
17 posted on 05/12/2003 12:40 PM EDT by BibChr ("...behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them?" [Jer. 8:9])
SEE POST #7
why The Arts sem to attract so many morally wrecked-up individuals
Attract &/or recruit? (and what the chicken-egg relationship is). I love movies, always have; but it conflicts me that, in some ways, I'm supporting people whose lives are wrecked up (in? by?) what I am supporting.
The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (Hays Code) era (and ones since, in compliance with that code) are probably your favorites.
Classical Greece and Classical Hollywood In stark contrast with today's films, the principles of classical restraint adduced by Lessing in his profound discussion of the proper portrayal of violence, both in the visual arts and in poetry, were applied with astonishing fidelity in movies of Hollywood's Golden, or Classical, Age—the 1920s to the 1950s. To be sure, these principles were applied not because Darryl F. Zanuck, Cecil B. DeMille et al., read Lessing (though with DeMille one cannot be sure!) but because they were part of the artistic legacy of Western culture, which until the 1960s informed the best of popular culture as well. The artistic imagination and technical skill demonstrated by Hollywood filmmakers in the dramatization of violence (and eros) in the manner advocated by Lessing is a major reason for the superiority of films of that era to those since. To understand a major problem with contemporary Hollywood movies—their uncontrolled, sordid treatment of violence—and the libertine culture of which they are the leading example,
…The craft employed by the sculptor to create an image of beauty is intended to evoke a moral reaction in the viewer (what we mean by being "moved"); a literal depiction of, in this instance, extreme violence, will only disgust and repel the viewer, forcing him to turn away and losing the cathartic benefit of a moral lesson. The literal is the enemy of art; the artist's "target" is the imagination of the audience: only there can the full horror of the awful event be conveyed. And to reach the imagination requires far more of the artist—artifice and craft, guided by moral inspiration—than mechanical literalism. (In the self-censorship Production Code that governed Hollywood movies from 1934 to 1966, drafted by a Jesuit, Father Daniel Lord, movie art is defined as an "appeal to the soul through the senses.") Or, as Lessing writes, "...that which we find beautiful in a work of art is beautiful not to our eyes but to our imagination through our eyes."
Communist Goals - 1963 Congressional Record
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
NewsMax.com: Commentmax Archives
Ronald Reagan served as president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1947-1952 and 1959-1960. In 1947, he testified as a friendly witness before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which was investigating communist influence in Hollywood. It was his discovery of the communist takeover of the Hollywood Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions (HICCASP), which had originally been formed as a support group for President Roosevelt, that inspired him to accept the nomination for the presidency of the Screen Guild.
Hollywood was being split by ideological differences. The unions around the country had been subjected to communist efforts to influence or take them over, especially in the 1930s during the Great Depression. Hollywood's unions were no different. On one side was the Conference of Studio Unions supported by communists like Dalton Trumbo. On the opposite side was the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. It was in the latter that Ronald Reagan found himself going to bat for as he and his friends faced the intimidation of the communists in Hollywood.
The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant ...
Twentieth-century Marxists, especially in Western Europe, radically shifted the main focus of revolutionary doctrine. The Bolshevik Revolution succeeded in Russia, but elsewhere in Europe, armed violence against the existing order failed. "Nothing the Marxists had predicted had come to pass. Their hour had come and gone. The workers of the west, the mythical proletariat, had refused to play the role history had assigned them" (p. 74).
What was to be done? According to the great Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, Communism must inevitably fail so long as people retained their faith in traditional Christian values. " ‘The civilized world has been saturated with Christianity for 2000 years,’ Gramsci wrote; and a regime grounded in Judeo-Christian beliefs and values could not be overthrown until these roots were cut" (p. 76, quoting Gramsci).
The task for revolutionaries is then obvious: they must undermine traditional values. To do so—and here precisely lies Gramsci’s greatest originality—revolutionaries should not "seize power first and impose a cultural revolution from above" (p. 77). Rather, they must first change the culture. Through a "long march through the institutions," Christian values would be undermined. "Then the people could be slowly educated to understand and even welcome the revolution" (p. 77, quoting Gramsci).
Congrats,your supporting Protestantism.Reap the wind,pal.
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. Leviticus 20:13
and
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Romans 1:26-28
"If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them." Lev 20:13
"For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,..." Rom 1:26-28.
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