Bob Cameron - 19 March 2008 01:00 PM
As to the particular issue at hand - that of homosexual practice, not love - there is little doubt that the Bible condemns it. Attempts to say otherwise are very recent, and seem to be driven almost entirely by the desire to legitimse such behaviour.
It’s very easy to win a debate if you redefine the issue and make broad assumptions about your opponents’ motives. For the record, I have never interacted with a gay-theologian who wasn’t primarily motivated by a desire for Biblical truth and Christlike justice.
But if you insist the issue is about “practise”, let’s discuss it on your terms:
I can only assume that by “practise”, you refer specifically to male-male sex, which you are correct in outlining that the Bible forbids(The greek term arsenokoitai literally translates “man who beds men")
I wish to suggest an interpretational double standard I think you are applying by insisting that the issue boils down to practice, ie to physical acts, without taking into account the person’s motive and the act’s context.
The “practise” of Onan’s sin is “spilling his seed”
The motive/context of his sin - and more to the point, the thing that actually makes his act a sin - is that he is refusing to fulfil his obligation as kinsman-redeemer.
Some people take the Onan story as a ‘proof’ that masturbation is a sin, however this is faulty because it fails to note the context in which he masturbated ie that he was shirking a sacred obligation and therefore behaving blasphemously. From a Biblical perspective, there isn’t a direct command not to do it, so if we want clarity on the issue, we have to interpret more thematic passages like Jesus’ “lust in the heart” discourse.
My contention is that you are doing the same thing if you equate the word arsenokoitai with homosexual relationships. This is because the context, the motive of the day of those men “who bedded men” very likely had nothing to do with what characterises modern homosexual relationships. I heard it summed up somewhere that in both Roman and Greek societies, “wives are for children, men are for fun”. Prevalent also were practises of same-sex intercourse within temple prostitution and also pederasty, which would equate in todays language to pedophilic sex abuse. Within this context, it seems clear that Paul would call out arsenokoitai as a drastic sin - not because of the act per se, but because of it’s context/motive. In short, all the examples of arsenokoitai happening at the time were either idolatrous, profane or cruel. By distinction, respectful Homosexual marriage-like relationships weren’t common in Paul’s time. Was Paul prohibiting the act, or was he prohibiting the larger sins behind it? Can we logically contend that Paul’s prohibition of Arsenokoitai extends to a sexual practise that isn’t obviously idolatrous, profane or cruel, which he had probably never heard of?
Now you rightly contend that the Bible has a lot to say about heterosexual Marriage. Whether or not the assumption of heterosexuality that underpins all this scripture is incidental or intentional is a discussion that’s way above my theological capabilities. Perhaps one day in the future the Church will have more certainty on the issue (social change is often a driving force behind interpretation, which is a humbling thought), but for now the jury on this question will be out for quite some time.
You raise the notion that if we sit on our hands and wait until we are ready to speak out on an issue, the church will fade into meaninglessness in the mean time. This is a valid concern, but let me pair it with its counterpart: that if we speak in condemnation without total purity and clarity of conviction, we only create one more ugly point in Christendom’s history - and yet another reason for the world to write us off.
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