The Great Homosexuality Debate (split from the Jesus Draws Thread)

[Trapped Pentecostal]

(08-29-2012 03:37 PM)Bob M Wrote:  I don't expect you, as an agnostic, to agree with me, or the Bible.

You are seriously claiming that "marriage" was invented in the Bible? That no humans had thought of that concept before the Jewish people existed?

[Persnickety Polecat]

(08-29-2012 03:23 PM)Bob M Wrote:  

(08-29-2012 03:10 PM)Xian Pugilist Wrote:  Errrrr, That's pretty much what I believe. I should start that thread, if you are Xian you should work FOR GLBT marriage rights. That ought to stir some bees up.

I disagree. Here's why. It is a summary of a sermon I heard at my church in July.

1. Marriage is created and defined by God in the Scriptures as the sexual and covenantal union of a man and a woman in life-long allegiance to each other alone, as husband and wife, with a view to displaying Christ’s covenant relationship to his blood-bought church.

2. There is no such thing as so-called same-sex marriage, and it would be wise not to call it that.

3. Same sex desires and same sex orientation are part of our broken and disordered sexuality owing to God’s subjection of the created order to futility because of man’s sin.

4. Therefore, same-sex intercourse, not same-sex desire is the focus of Paul’s condemnation when he threatens exclusion from the kingdom of God.

5. Therefore, it would contradict love and contradict the gospel of Jesus to approve homosexual practice, whether by silence, or by endorsing so-called same-sex marriage, or by affirming the Christian ordination of practicing homosexuals.

6. The good news of Jesus is that God saves heterosexual sinners and homosexual sinners who trust Jesus, by counting them righteous because of Christ, and by helping them through his Spirit to live lives pleasing to him in their disordered brokenness.

7. Deciding what actions will be made legal or illegal through civil law is a moral activity aiming at the public good and informed by the worldview of each participant.

8. Don’t press the organization of the church or her pastors into political activism. Pray that the church and her ministers would feed the flock of God with the word of God centered on the gospel of Christ crucified and risen. Expect from your shepherds not that they would rally you behind political candidates or legislative initiatives, but they would point you over and over again to God and to his word, and to the cross.

Just to clarify, I didn't call it "same-sex" marriage. I tend to think that's a divisive term.

But regardless, marriage is a secular institution. I don't agree that churches should be forced to marry anyone they don't want to marry (for instance, I was not permitted to marry in my church because my husband was not a member), but I don't think the church should dictate to the state who the state permits to marry.

[Bob M]

Angry much?

[lucrezaborgia]