Posted on 06/08/2015 2:32:02 PM PDT by SoFloFreeper
Fifty hand-picked Christians were part of a seminal conference last week planned by Matthew Vines, a 23-year-old Christian who believes Scripture allows for monogamous homosexual activity, in an effort to spread the idea in the American church over the next decade....
....Vines’s video has been convincing laypeople, even if he is “encountering resistance from Scriptural scholars,” because a rebuttal requires very specific knowledge about the texts involved, and the truth is, most of us haven’t looked into this issue closely enough to be ready with an answer.
(Excerpt) Read more at str.org ...
Sodomy is sexual dysfunction...
Matthew 7:15: Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. KJ.
Homosexuals in Judea, before, during and after the time of Christ were stoned to death.
I see no ambiguity on the subject of sexual sin in the Bible. What utter nonsense that refuting these arguments requires some deep knowledge of scripture. It just requires reading it.
“Scripture is crystal clear you cannot be an unrepentant homosexual and be saved.”
From my reading the cause and effect of that statement could perhaps be reversed. You cannot be saved and be an unrepentant sinner. Of course we all fall short of Christ’s perfection, but it is the nature of being saved that we wish to repent of our sin, not wallow in it. No truly repentant sinner could ask the church to accept and condone those sins.
I don’t think you can be saved and be an unrepentant adulterer, liar or porn aficionado either.
Matthew 7:23:
"And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
Get right with Jesus Christ before it's too late.
Exactly. He is arguing for an imaginary concept.
Thank you! Had not seen this!!
That image came to me very good!!!
Deception has been practiced in the church since the beginning. The Father of Lies is well named.
Homoeroticism mocks the creative power God has given to men and women.
I think that is a very famous painting depicting Sodom and Gomorrah. Seriously, I don't know a better argument than to point out God Burns cities to death because of Homosexuals.
The scary part is....
What is in store for the USA now that we are heading down same road..(?)
Obviously.
Thanks for the comeback.
We are thus to conclude: Scripturally-based prohibitions on gay marriage should be abolished. [We shall consent to censor God's Word in order to placate the vanities of a tiny minority of severely disturbed people.]
I do not know how it is logically possible to be a Christian and a cultural conservative and a champion of gay marriage at the same time.
This issue recently came to a head in my own family: My sister is gay, and has been in a thirty-year monogamous relationship with her partner, J. It was my sister who broached the subject of gay marriage: She asked me what I thought about it. So I told her what I believe to be true, that gay unions do not meet the definition of "marriage."
Marriage denotes a union of a man and a woman for the purpose of propagating and rearing children. That has been the meaning of the word "marriage" for thousands of years.
My sister did not object to my view at all. I further mentioned that I wholly supported the legalization of "civil unions." Indeed, it turns out that is all that my sister and J would like to have anyway.
At this point, some of my Christian friends might excoriate me for proposing such a concession — legal civil union for monogamous gay couples — as nonconforming with God's Word as revealed in the Holy Scriptures. (They have an excellent point; see more on this below.) But I do so on prudential grounds, invoking the Spirit of caritas....
Fact: There are gays among us. Fact: Not all of them are radical, left-progressive proselytizers of the gay lifestyle, folks who expect society will accommodate their every whim to their compete satisfaction, even if that means redefining every word in the dictionary, and forcing society to accept what societies in general, going back millennia, have recognized as fundamentally pathological to their well-being. They reject any notion of the public good. Indeed, such folks are devoted to the cause of totally destroying any notion of the good, of any objective moral order, personal or social: Their definition of personal freedom requires there being no constraining moral order at all.
My sister and her partner are both self-described Christians. (I won't quibble about that here.) They are also rock-ribbed constitutional and economic conservatives who are clearly aware of the profound dangers of Left Progressivism run amok. They are keen, intelligent, well-informed observers of the public scene. Hell would have to freeze before they would ever vote for a Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, or Elizabeth Warren — or any other such "donkey"....
In short, they vote Republican. What they most want in life is to live quietly, among neighbors with whom they have cordial relations. And this is the actual case.
"Civil union" status would recognize their equal ability with married persons to speak for each other in critical/terminal situations that would carry the same weight as a spouse speaking for the other spouse under such dire circumstances. They would be eligible for the same lifetime and surviving-spouse privileges regarding legal transfers of property occasioned by the death of the first spouse/partner to die. They would be eligible to file joint tax returns. Etc.
Though their relationship has been monogamous and long-lasting, and though they have been totally devoted to each other through thick and thin over three decades, they do not regard themselves as married persons. They regard themselves as "partners" for life.
My sister detests the desecration of language as much as I do. She strenuously opposes defining marriage down to accommodate people who seek to gut it of the very meaning it has always had, in human experience and understanding, from the beginning of human records to date.
Perhaps it will be argued that to say what I have said above only gives credence to the claim of the author of the article at the top, Matthew Vines. He advances the notion the God most of all rewards "virtuous" (i.e., monogamous) behavior. I find this expectation self-delusional.
The question boils down to: If (as Christians believe) God made each and every unique human person in his image; He made them male and female (no other gender category, real or potential, is mentioned); to what extent can a creature of God redefine himself to be something other than what God made him to be?
Here's a timely case in point, taking the LGBT question hard over into the "T" question, the question of transgenderism. I refer to the Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner fiasco which has been saturating the MSN recently.
Bottom line, it seems to me that all the self-mutilation in the world will not change one's DNA one iota. So if the self-mutilated person is presenting him/herself to the world as a person suddenly of the other sex, that person is perpetrating a willful hoax on the public.
Of course, said person would probably make a whole ton of money out of this hoax....
Then again, Bruce/Caitlyn probably will need a ton of money to pay for defense lawyers in his upcoming double-homicide case....
Just some thoughts, dear YHAOS. Thank you ever so much for the ping!
Truly, God has spoken to the issue in natural law and especially, divine law.
Man cannot change either. And although man can change language terms, he cannot make a matrimony holy - only God can do that (emphasis mine):
The civil union solution appears to address their needs without demanding Christians authenticate homosexuality (etc.) and thereby rebel against or ignore the words of God to their own spiritual peril.
“Marriage denotes a union of a man and a woman for the purpose of propagating and rearing children. That has been the meaning of the word “marriage” for thousands of years.”
But not anymore (apparently).
Well they could, dear caww — and many do that (e.g., wills, healthcare proxies, beneficiary/transfer on death provisions, etc.) . But this will not satisfy people who insist they are being denied fourteenth-amendment "equal protection of the laws" because they are not "straight." Ergo, they are being unlawfully discriminated against. [Even though they are the ones who first decided that they weren't "straight," as if one's biological sexual identity is a matter of option, or preference and not a matter of DNA.)
Why marriage is a matter for federal involvement is beyond me. There is no constitutional role or warrant for the federal government to involve itself in marital matters — unless you want to torture the Fourteenth Amendment into saying what it does not say and does not require. Remember, the constitutional amendments are designed to constrain federal congressional action. Certainly Congress is not authorized to exercise any role in marital issues: There is absolutely zero language in the Constitution authorizing its action in such matters. The constitution implicitly regards such matters as reserved powers of the several states and/or the people thereof (Ninth and Tenth Amendments). Still, there is a tremendous body of contemporary legal opinion that is motivated to carve out a "legitimate" role for the feds in such matters regardless.
It seems to me that if marriage is to come under the purview of government at all, the relevant government would be that of the individual sovereign states, not the feds. But this creates a problem of the recognition of a gay "marriage" contracted in one state by another state that does not recognize such a marriage. Possibly the idea of a "civil union" could avoid this problem.
At the very least, participants in a civil union who by law enjoy all the same legal rights as married persons cannot claim to have been denied equal protection under federal law.
Civil peace is important to me. Moreover, our Lord calls us to love, not to hate. I'm content to leave the hating up to the radical activist LGBT types, who most assuredly detest us Christians, and who attack Christianity at every opportunity for the purpose of delegitimating and ultimately utterly destroying it. Under the circumstances, to me it seems best to simply stand in the Lord, and to treat our neighbor as we would wish him to treat ourselves.
For what it's worth, dear caww. Thank you so much for writing!
Yes; this is how I see it, too, dearest sister in Christ! Thank you so very much for your kind words of support.
IMO no matter how this ultimately plays out in the courts and under the law it's going to open all kinds of "other" serious issues the courts will be contending with.
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