Shawn, if the "gay agenda" manages to make marriage legal for anything married to anything, then I would be guilty of descrimination when I refuse to marry anything to anything. This is why several Christian ministers have been jailed in Canada. Marriage is not a "ceremony" or a civil show, but is a sacrement. Making it a legality does not change this fact. Look, our laws in the US are based upon Christian standards. The destruction of those standards in the law will make me an outlaw; I will only marry one man and one woman, two become one. The civil standard does not set this. Since there are civil authorities who have already given "rights" to gay couple, the only thing I see that the "gay agenda" is after is any Christian minister. The "rights" argument fails in this day.
Christ died for all. He did not die for their sin, but for them. Christ died for people who are afflicted with homosexuality. He did not die for their sin.
Had to do some actual work, sorry for the delayed responses.
@Daniel: Well, that's the nice part about it. You couldn't be in any way affected by not marrying gays were it to become legal. There's a HUGE number of churches in this country where you must be a member to marry, or attend a class of some sort, etc. There is no legal obligation on the part of any official to marry anyone. Even the Justice of the Peace has the right to turn away anyone he or she feels isn't suited for it. It doesn't get used often, but it exists. There's case law to support it, too, from a variety of religions that have had complaints filed against them. In all cases I know of the cases were dismissed as there's no compulsion to sign off on someone's license just because you're able. Even today you don't have to marry anyone you don't want to.
Repealing the DOMA and allowing states to continute defining their own marriage license laws wouldn't change that even if your state adopted a law allowing gays to seek marriage licenses, because the state government cannot compel you to use a skill you posess.
@Mark: Thanks for both the defense and the middle finger. You're right; when I come here I do not post about moral issues, strictly political ones. Your reasoning for why I do that is wrong, though. I can support my beliefs, but as I stated in my very first sentence in this thread I've no interest in touting it all out because it's pointless to discuss religion on this site. People come here to share conservative thoughts and ideas. Religious ideas are already formed and harden as soon as challenged here. You'll see that in a second.
@Jon: Please, enlighten me. Post for me every single instance in the bible of condemnation of homosexuality. Then post the original Hebrew and the original Greek, as needed. I will cite to you the etymological books I am using and you can go get them and we can go step by step through the translations and find out where exactly homosexuality is barred.
Incidentally, hypocrite doesn't mean what you apparently think it means. It means to be someone who pretends to believe one thing publically and not actually believe it. I never claimed a belief, so I can't be a hypocrite by definition of the term.
To the point you were trying to make, though: He posted his belief, that opened it to questioning. I didn't present mine, so it can't be critiqued. Your assertion would be that if I am a doctor I can only diagnose you if I present my medical chart to you for diagnosis or if I worked with you I could only give my opinion on your results if I showed you my results. That's ridiculous. You assume that either I don't wan tto give my opinion because I don't want it to be critiqued or am scared I'd be disproven. It's neither. I don't give it because I CAN prove it, but so far I'm 0 for 100 in finding someone who can counter my positions with anything more significant than "nuh-uh."
I thank you for your prayers. I likewise pray for you. I hope to see you at the Gates someday, as I do everyone who sincerely desires to follow God's will.
@Hassan: Indeed as a Christian my faith DOES inform my politics. The difference is that I don't distort either one to suit my own, as you would say, proclivities.
I am here on this thread because, exactly as I said in the beginning of my very first post, there's value to be had in the political issue that Burke brought up.
God has no agenda. An agenda is something to be done. God has no to-do list. His plan is not to come save us. If he were to do it for us there'd be no point. God has DESIRES and WILL, but these are separate from agendas. He desires for us to save ourselves through Christ. His will is that we will follow the path Jesus lay before us. All the cards are played, all the stages set. It is on us and us alone to find the right path with the tools he's given.
As Paul says, it's very simple: "treat your neighbor as yourself." Beleive in Jesus, follow his life, accept his love and forgiveness. In all things act out of love. This is a very simple filter backed by every single verse in scripture. You can roll through the brutality of the Torah that was assigned upon the newly formed Israelites, but this wasn't the rule. The fire and brimstone God was required to establish Israel from among the chaos.
When God first spoke to man after Adam the world was chaotic. Man lived in his lower brain with sin; killing, raping, performing incest, worshipping all manner of gods, and warring incessantly. He was able to convert some. But men were easily distracted and wont to return to their lower minds. So he took the more direct approach and led Moses to form a nation for his people where they could learn to live right.
When that didn't work out because of the corrupt nature of man he sent Jesus to try it again, this time appealing to the higher mind of man. This is the true challenge to man in following Jesus' word: can you learn to know the difference between instinct and divinity and follow it? Can you act in all things out of love, even as a leader or a punisher?
The devil is crafty. He is always there taunting you with the easy path. The path of the lower brain. All acts of violence, all acts of suppression, all acts of oppression fall into this category. I believe the church's choice is very clear. Are you refusing marriage out of love of God or out of disgust of their nature? I'd say the answers on this thread point very clearly to the latter...
If God had no agenda, nothing to be done, why did He say:
"It is finished."
Lower brain? Upper brain?
How do you torture such concepts from the Holy Bible? The devil is indeed crafty! I have no more disgust for the depravity of gay men than I have for the depravity that is my very nature. Sin is sin!
The God of the Torah you cal brutal (I call Him just) is the exact same God who died on the cross to cover our sin debt. It is not the philosophy that Christ taught that saves men, it is His shed blood! The blood of the perfect lamb! We are saved by the grace of God not by anything we do other than recognizing we are loathsome creatures deserving only death in desperate need of a Savior! We are only capable of apprehending the philosophy that Christ taught after we have accepted Him as our savior and His Spirit takes up residence in us.
You are following a different Gospel my friend.
You have not made a single true theological statement. Man is in the same situation today that he found himself "When God first spoke to man after Adam". It is our default setting since the sin of Adam!
"And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man." Luke 17:26
To paraphrase my latest article Bondage of Corruption Pt. 2:
Do you desire to be like the Christ who says?:
“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:6
and
“Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. 33 But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. 34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.” Matthew 10:32-35
This is an important question, because the Jesus Christ who says the liberal favorite:
“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:31
...Is the same Jesus Christ quoted above! You can’t accept the Christ of Mark 12 without the Christ of John 14 and Matthew 10! At least not if you are a Christian. It may cost you some friends but...
Dirty Hippie said:
You know hes right that religious debates here never go anywhere right? And sure enough, here you are bickering about how he won't bring out his religious beliefs. And why do you want him to bring them out? So you can bicker about those.
Well, if these debates never go anywhere, I suppose you just entered the hole to nowhere........and you're bickering about the conversation?
Eric Lundrbeck said:
I don't quite get what's wrong with two consenting adults who happen to love each other. However, I also believe that if religious institutions wish to NOT marry two gay couples, that's their right. It should be a choice left up to religious institutions.
I'm not sure where anyone said anything against two consenting adults loving each other. I haven't seen any of that. However, some people want to claim that Christians are wrong to object on moral grounds. Are you one of those?
Also, both you and Shawn are not entirely correct because you fail to recognize that whenever municipalities and jurisdictions pass laws which promote the gay lifestyle, this necessarily restricts the rights of others. You naively insinuate that a pastor's right not to marry gays is the only right of consequence. For example, with the passage of gay friendly laws in Canada, there have been a lot of pastors who have been arrested, or otherwise harrased by local and state/federal agencies because they preach against homosexuality. http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=66704
That Pastor ultimately had to pay $7,000 dollars in fines, not to mention what it cost him to defend himself. This was for speaking about his own religious beliefs regarding homosexuality. So, it is clear that a promotion of one man's ideals is a suppression of the other man's rights who has opposing views.
Shawn, You have now brought up questions concerning the original languages from which our Bible translations arise. You have suggested that using those languages would support a Chrsitian position that claims the Bible holds nothing against homosexuality. While I am not as well versed in the ancient Hebrew as I am the koine dialect of ancient Greek, I teach both of these in our church's college. With the exception of later 20th century scholars making some rather odd claims, no scholarship throughout the past 2000 years has ever fond that homosexuality was not bluntly mentioned. I could be persuaded to accept that semantic domain for PORNEIA could refer to any sexual deviation from what is natutral, but there is no need to do so, given that Paul makes other specific refernces to behavior. Shawn, like any language, context is king. The articles to which you refer must remove a word out of its context in order to bend its definition or understanding toward what clearly the writer desires it to mean. We really need to understand what the original author meant, don't we? I did not bring any of this up because I think it inappropraite in an audience who may not be versed in the origianal languages. So, I am addressing what you alluded to in your remarks. Incidently, I would welcome any correspondence on the subject from you. But I looked at this specific issue in my graduate work and was not persuaded by people today who think that they have a better handle on a non-spoken language after 2000 years than those who were working with it after 200 or so years. I really think that is an indefensible position; it has made great press in certain circles.
