So, do I think same-sex attraction is inherently sinful? No. Do I think same-sex attracted people choose to be same-sex attracted? No, I think it’s purely biological.

Luke,

I know you like the word ‘nuance’ and I appreciate the careful points that you make, however I think you are not on the right track here in relation to the issue of homosexuality.

This is the way I would put it, and I do so in point form:

1. The Christian, and more particularly the Christian church as a community of believers is to live the Christian ethic and so consequentially demonstrate the excellence of Christ’s way of life before a watching world. Homosexuality is not the only or biggest sin impacting on the health of a nation or the Church for that matter. Far greater undermining of marriage results from the widespread prevalence of divorce and de facto arrangements.

2. When thinking of homosexuals, we take particular note of how Jesus dealt with the woman caught in adultery found in John 8:1-11 and the prostitute in Luke 7:36-50.

3. As Christians we understand homosexual activity is not God’s purpose for we are told that God created our first parents, male and female together, as His image bearers (Genesis 1:27). Furthermore, the scriptural pattern of marriage is established in the text “a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24). 

4. There are a number of clear texts indicating God’s judgment upon homosexual activity, which is described as unnatural and detestable: Genesis 19, Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:18f and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.

5. Christians understand the origins of homosexuality as one particular manifestation of man’s rebellion and idolatry. Adulterers, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, slanderers, swindlers and homosexuals are all equally condemned in the 1 Corinthians 6 text.

6. Further, without debating the existence of a gene for homosexuality or denying the shaping of upbringing or conscious decisions to embrace homosexual behaviour (all of which happens!), our doctrine of original sin helps us to understand that human nature has been corrupted through and through. Some people can have the same indwelling tendency to homosexuality as others have to rage, jealousy, or promiscuity, every bit as real as another person having congenital heart disease. So even as we hate the constant pushing and promotion of homosexuality, we feel compassion toward homosexuals, particularly for those who want to break the habit of homosexual activity and find it so hard to do so.

Anyway that’s my two pennies worth on the subject.

I think with KIrby we are not trying to convince him to break off with Johan, He won’t do that. I think we are simply called to bear witness to God’s truth re homosexual relationships since he professes to be a Christian (Anglican). We understand Isaiah 6:9-10, repeated ever so often by Jesus and Paul. Mr Lane we may presume understood these things as well.
.

David Palmer - 12 April 2008 10:38 PM

We understand Isaiah 6:9-10, repeated ever so often by Jesus and Paul. Mr Lane we may presume understood these things as well.
.

This morning I preached on Isaiah 6. It is humbling to me to think that a great one like Isaiah could still say “Woe to me, I am a man of unclean lips.” I struggle with my sins everyday, general and particular, but am grateful that there is mercy and forgiveness in Jesus and his cross.

I know this has been a difficult thread to not to generate heat about, but I have been grateful for some very thoughtful posts. People feel passionately about this subject, and if there has been any lack of pastoral sensitivity then I am sure no one intends it like that.

But thanks for your posts here, especially Luke’s recent respone to Craig S.

Regards,

Michael D

Luke said:

Anyway, Is gay sex within that context a sin? Possibly, but if it is, it’s at the very harmless end of the scale as an expression of love between two committed, loving, consenting adults, especially in light of most other sin, sexual or otherwise.

Underneath all the arguments the question of the seriousness of sin is often a big issue. Sin is never “harmless”. Something cannot be both a sin and an “expression of love” - after all, the way we love God is to obey his commands!

While we all appreciate the thought that has gone into Luke’s responses on this thread, I think he’s really let the cat out of the bag here. It seems to me he’s concerned about the supposed “harsh” words used because, ultimately, he doesn’t think Justice Kirby has done anything too bad.

This is very dangerous thinking. While some sins have greater consequences and some sins are more damaging, all sin is serious. It’s why humanity deserves death and hell, and why Jesus had to suffer the cross in our place. It’s why we all need to repent. 

As soon as we start saying that some sins are harmless we begin to question the wisdom, justice and mercy of God.

Jesus said, “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Matt 18:5). Unfortunately, this is exactly what Justice Kirby is doing and so he needs to repent. Not only is he practising sinful sexual relations himself, he is encouraging others to think that such activity is blessed by God.

As soon as we start saying that some sins are harmless we begin to question the wisdom, justice and mercy of God.

Well said, James.

Back in the garden of Eden the serpent tempted Eve to question the goodness of God.  She gave in, Adam agreed to follow, and that’s why we all now need God’s mercy so badly.  It’s also why so many of us think ourselves capable of reasoning out, by our own limited knowledge and brain power, right judgements concerning good and evil.

Is gay sex within Justice Kirby’s domestic context a sin?  God says it is so that should be enough for all of us.  We don’t have to know whether or not some particular persons have been harmed by it and precisely how they have been harmed in order to make that judgement.

As for the length of the relationship,

(almost 40 years! He’s doing better than most heterosexuals in that regard),

it may seem hard to attain these days but I can assure you, Luke, that the current frequency of divorce is quite a newish phenomenon, perhaps related to all the media time given to sensationalist, know-it-all, know-nothing, do-gooders who, for the last 30 odd years, have been offering to all and sundry their own judgements on the futility of staying within a marriage that has become difficult. 

Kirby was born in 1939.  Among heterosexual married couples of his age and older I very much doubt that a roughly 40+ year relationship is anything like uncommon.

Finally, given the length of time during which (I presume) Kirby has been justifying his behaviour to himself and anyone else who will listen, can there be any reasonable hope of winning the man by soft words?  His refusal to submit himself to Christ’s rule demonstrates folly.  It can’t be the naive folly of a young, ignorant person.  It has to be either self-confident or committed folly.  Either he is, “someone who is full of himself ... convinced that he is the master of the situation,” or he is someone, “who has decisively rejected wisdom, and instead pledged his allegiance to destructive ideas and behaviors”.  I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a “Scornful Fool ... [who] is even an abomination to men,” though, of course, some may regard him as such.  I don’t know enough to make that judgement.

From today’s ‘Daily Telegraph’ :

The head of the Anglican Church in Australia has backed gay and lesbian students taking same-sex partners to school formals.

Anglican Archbishop Phillip Aspinall said he had no “personal objection to a school deciding to allow boys to take friends who are boys, or girls to take friends who are girls to school formals”.....

Support for gay school formals

Yep,

More casualties in the back from ‘friendly fire’ than ever from the blokes in front we are supposed to be fighting.

Kevin Goddard - 15 April 2008 10:13 AM

From today’s ‘Daily Telegraph’ :

The head of the Anglican Church in Australia has backed gay and lesbian students taking same-sex partners to school formals.

Anglican Archbishop Phillip Aspinall said he had no “personal objection to a school deciding to allow boys to take friends who are boys, or girls to take friends who are girls to school formals”.....

Support for gay school formals

Why assume that those students were homosexual?  When I was their age, I simply didn’t know many females besides relatives and nuns.

Further to this discussion on school formals this article has been posted on the SMH website.

The lead reads:

A senior Anglican education official in NSW has declared that people who believe in the Bible should not expect to be allowed to take same-sex partners to school balls because Christianity frowns on homosexuality.

Laurie Scandrett, chief executive of the Sydney Anglican Schools Corporation, which oversees 15 of the 40 Anglican Schools in the NSW capital, has backed a controversial decision by a leading Brisbane Anglican boys school to prevent final year students from taking same-sex partners to its formal.

Dr Scandrett said there was no “edict” among its schools preventing gay students from taking their partners to school formals but it “would not be encouraged”.

Jeremy Halcrow - 15 April 2008 07:53 PM

Further to this discussion on school formals this article has been posted on the SMH website.

The lead reads:

A senior Anglican education official in NSW has declared that people who believe in the Bible should not expect to be allowed to take same-sex partners to school balls because Christianity frowns on homosexuality.

Laurie Scandrett, chief executive of the Sydney Anglican Schools Corporation, which oversees 15 of the 40 Anglican Schools in the NSW capital, has backed a controversial decision by a leading Brisbane Anglican boys school to prevent final year students from taking same-sex partners to its formal.

Dr Scandrett said there was no “edict” among its schools preventing gay students from taking their partners to school formals but it “would not be encouraged”.

While I’m not too keen on homosexuality either (since it strikes me as perhaps a touch iffy from a Natural Law standpoint), I fail to see what sexuality of any sort has to do with dancing (which in any case I’m too slothful to be particularly exercised about.)

Why assume that those students were homosexual?  When I was their age, I simply didn’t know many females besides relatives and nuns.

No assumptions have been made at all. Many media reports on TV and in print have talked about the gay students raising the issue themselves and identifying themselves as such. The quote from the Archbishop used ‘soft’ language which did not reveal the ‘full story’.

Why in a Church that professes to have the Reformed principle of “sola scripture” are we allowing our Church to be perverted by earthly wisdom?
May the heretics forsake their vain and superficial doctrines (including our own), and with the fear of God attain the Mind of Christ- let us be transformed by the renewal of minds to Christ- not persist to justify our sins (and the guy is right, we all have demons that we are fighting- but we do not for a second justify it- maybe some of us think this sin is worse than our Pride?) and be humble in the sight of God, and depend on Him.

I just imagine if Jeremiah had been in our times, his lamentations would be reminiscent of the ones of Old Israel. We are part of the New Jerusalem- let us go beyond our weakness, and derive strength from God.

Hi Antony, welcome to the forums.

...are we allowing our Church to be perverted by earthly wisdom?

Could you expand on this a bit more? Where do you see this happening?

Thanks Craig for the warm welcome.

Maybe I use wisdom loosely? I mean the reasoning of the world, based on the material world before them. In this age, (I am not implying we live in more turbulent times, but we are confronted with different challenges), we combat:

- increasing secularisation of the congregation’s mind; it is almost like we beocome schizophrenic, and by that I mean double-minded.

- modernism: where we allow fads to seduce us, forgetting that we should remain true to the sound doctrine delivered to us by Christ and His Apostles

- Prelest: where we think we are more enlightened somehow than the Apostles, and think we can change the moral law? As C.S. Lewis says in Mere Christianity, “morality..in this department Christ did not come to preach any brand new morality. The Golden Rule...summing up of what every one, at bottom, had always known to be right. Really great moral teachers never do introduce new moralities: it is quacks and cranks who do that.”

- Reductionism: we are thinking what is the minimum we need to do to get into Heaven; rather than “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness”.

It seems we are allowing the distortions of what our great Christian Teachers meant by “Agape love/ Charity”, “Forgiveness”, “Mercy”, “Holy Matrimony”.

I see this happening, when:
(1) we get sucked in to new trends
(2) we do not explain the whole Gospel; only purporting what we superficially want to hear
(3) when we get carried away with so few issues that we have already a very strong dogma for. I mean, homosexuality: that affects what? 2-5% of the congregation. How about fornication and adultery? These are the real issues- no wonder why same-sex attracted people feel victimised!

Please pray for me.

Welcome Antony!

There’s an introduction thread here which you might like to make use of, and if you feel comfortable about doing so you can post prayer points there or in the prayer thread, bearing in mind that the forums are read by many people!