Shawn Strout - 09 May 2009 09:28 PM

Hi Tony,

Tony Seel - 09 May 2009 06:53 PM

(snip)Frankly, with the evidence of medical science on the ill effects of homosexual practices (snip)

What on earth are you talking about?  What medical science?  (snip)

Shawn

Would “possible adverse health impact of anal sex” be preferable? No sarcasm here, I am asking seriously.

Karen

For Dale and Tony Seel,

  I guess we live in different universes.  The rhetoric with respect to gay and lesbian people that has fallen from the lips of Akinola and others is hardly more than hate speech.  Human Rights organizations world wide have tagged the criminalization of homosexuality as a human rights violation.  That means that we have Anglican Primates and others whose speech and practices incite violence against other Christians. Their opinion that glbt people are headed to hell unless the repent and get “healed” is what is ove the top.  They promote the abuse of internationally recognized human rights.

  Any group that embraces leadership that promotes the criminalization of homosexuality bears the consequences for that position. Dar Es Salaam anathematizes the promotion of violence against gays and yet no action is taken against those primates who use hate speech.  Those who support ACNA and the CANA folks in particular have aligned themselves with the abuse of human rights. You should not be naive in believing that the ongoing abuse of Scripture with respect to glbt persons does not lead to abuse and violence hear either.

  You speak of me being over the top, but frankly not since the most rabid segregationists utilized scripture to prove that African Americans were inferior, bore the mark of Cain, and deserved to be excluded from full humanity have so few and passages of scripture been so misused to generate hatred against a group of people.  You can claim to “love” glbt people all you want, but they know its a lie because they see the consequences exacted upon their brothers and sisters.

  The major adverse side affect of homosexuality is the result of the vilification and abuse of glbt by straight people in the name of God.  Were they not marginalized, hated, beaten and oppressed they would live the same quiet happy lives we all wish to live.

Michael Russell - 10 May 2009 10:06 AM

For Dale and Tony Seel,

  I guess we live in different universes.  The rhetoric with respect to gay and lesbian people that has fallen from the lips of Akinola and others is hardly more than hate speech.  Human Rights organizations world wide have tagged the criminalization of homosexuality as a human rights violation.  That means that we have Anglican Primates and others whose speech and practices incite violence against other Christians. Their opinion that glbt people are headed to hell unless the repent and get “healed” is what is ove the top.  They promote the abuse of internationally recognized human rights.

  Any group that embraces leadership that promotes the criminalization of homosexuality bears the consequences for that position. Dar Es Salaam anathematizes the promotion of violence against gays and yet no action is taken against those primates who use hate speech.  Those who support ACNA and the CANA folks in particular have aligned themselves with the abuse of human rights. You should not be naive in believing that the ongoing abuse of Scripture with respect to glbt persons does not lead to abuse and violence hear either.

  You speak of me being over the top, but frankly not since the most rabid segregationists utilized scripture to prove that African Americans were inferior, bore the mark of Cain, and deserved to be excluded from full humanity have so few and passages of scripture been so misused to generate hatred against a group of people.  You can claim to “love” glbt people all you want, but they know its a lie because they see the consequences exacted upon their brothers and sisters.

  The major adverse side affect of homosexuality is the result of the vilification and abuse of glbt by straight people in the name of God.  Were they not marginalized, hated, beaten and oppressed they would live the same quiet happy lives we all wish to live.

Please clarify. Are you saying it is hate speech to point out that certain things are forbidden by the Bible and the Apostles’ teaching; that doing forbidden things is a sin; that sin, if not repented from, will result in eternal separation from God (AKA hell); but that God offers victory over and healing from sin to those who turn to him? Or is it only hate speech to point out that sex between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, is among the above-mentioned prohibited acts?

Karen

Please clarify. Are you saying it is hate speech to point out that certain things are forbidden by the Bible and the Apostles’ teaching; that doing forbidden things is a sin; that sin, if not repented from, will result in eternal separation from God (AKA hell); but that God offers victory over and healing from sin to those who turn to him? Or is it only hate speech to point out that sex between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, is among the above-mentioned prohibited acts?

Karen

What I am saying Karen is that not everything identified as a sin then is seen as sin now. I am sure you know the difference between ceremonial, civil and moral law in Hebrew Scripture.  What’s more it is important as some scholars have pointed out to distinguish between what the words actually refer too.  All of this is of course hotly debated between progressive and conservative and the community is truly at an impasse.  You will never convince me and I will never convince you. 

And I know you sift among the 613 commandments and selectively enforce the ones that agree with your biases, otherwise you would be demanding the death penalty for violations of the first seven commandments as is commanded in Scripture. The fact is that supposed literalists, in my opinion, sift through all the commands to find the ones they like. Indeed Richard Hooker noted the same tendency among the literalists of his own day.

So, you are free to urge your position to people from the integrity of your belief.  When, however your urging becomes invective that leads to violence, imprisonment and murder you have a responsibility to eschew such speech and such actions.  To say you eschew it is not enough when people are still doing you, you must actively oppose those who use speech and scripture to injure people.

Your error is in how you read and use Scripture.

Karen Younge - 09 May 2009 11:37 PM

Shawn Strout - 09 May 2009 09:28 PM

Hi Tony,

Tony Seel - 09 May 2009 06:53 PM

(snip)Frankly, with the evidence of medical science on the ill effects of homosexual practices (snip)

What on earth are you talking about?  What medical science?  (snip)

Shawn

Would “possible adverse health impact of anal sex” be preferable? No sarcasm here, I am asking seriously.

Karen

Karen,

It is the reduction of loving, committed, monogamous, grace-filled relationships to “homosexual practices” that I find completely offensive.  And I am waiting to hear from the moderators of this forum about this use of offensive speech.  The relationships of heterosexuals on this forum is not reduced to their sexual activity, and I take great offense at the relationship between my partner and me being reduced to that as well.

This is not an uplifting of a person’s dignity and worth as a child of God.  It is a dehumanizing attempt to reduce me to less than human.  These same kinds of comments were made about blacks and supposed “studies” suggesting that they were less intelligent than whites or more susceptible to disease than whites, etc., etc.

It is beyond time that we gays and lesbians be viewed as persons not “practices” and that our relationships be viewed as whole, loving and complete relationships and not just sexual activity. 

I await comment from the leaders of this forum.

In Christ,
Shawn

Shawn, I just saw your comment.  I don’t know what’s going on here.  PM me on this to brief me on your concerns, please, so I don’t have to read thru 100 messages to understand your concern.  We certainly don’t want offensive speech here.  The night before worship is the time when most of us are preparing sermons, so we all probably missed it.

Time to get away from that victim language.  There is ample medical research that says that homoerotic male behavior leads to early death.  This is one reason among many that makes it clear that this behavior is not blessed by God.  What God has forbidden cannot be blessed.  I am holding to the line of love the sinner and hate the sin, especially when it causes an earlier than statistically normal demise.  To love the sinner means in this case to be very clear and outspoken about the consequences of people’s actions.

Hi Craig,

Does post #117 suffice?

Shawn

Ian wrote

Time to get away from that victim language.  There is ample medical research that says that homoerotic male behavior leads to early death.  This is one reason among many that makes it clear that this behavior is not blessed by God.  What God has forbidden cannot be blessed.  I am holding to the line of love the sinner and hate the sin, especially when it causes an earlier than statistically normal demise.  To love the sinner means in this case to be very clear and outspoken about the consequences of people’s actions.

There is a surfeit of scholars on all sides of these issues, especially about what can be attributed to God’s command or prohibition.  Rather than rehash it, I think it best to simply acknowledge an impasse. You can repeat “What God has forbidden cannot be blessed” until you are blue in the face and I will simply reply that you fail to understand the fullness of the Gospel.  And so there we are. 

Now it becomes about changing minds and hearts.  Conservatives have been working a coercive strategy, having failed to influence or persuade.  Fine and dandy, you are most welcome to do that.  Progressives, with equally qualified scholars and medical practitioners can seek to influence and persuade.  In the end the dividedeness will increase.  That is the future.

I am more than willing to live and let live, which has often been the Anglican Way, unity on essentials, diversity in the rest.  Sexual issues are not essentials, though you will debate that too, I know.  I have proposed some ways to incarnate live and let live, through Fr. Dan Martins and am still willing to work on that.  But part of that was a cessation of attempts to harm and humiliate TEC.  If conservatives cannot stop themselves from that, then, well they should expect vigorous opposition.

Where conservative positions lead to the imprisonment, torture or execution of glbt I am prepared to name it, expose it and condemn it.  I am tired of Christianity in America being stained by the perception of it as reported in the research of the book “unChurched.”  Mean spirited and homophobic is the net result of conservative efforts. Good work.

Dear Friends,

I regret that one of our Covenant friends has encountered language that he experiences as offensive here.  We certainly don’t want that for anyone.  We ought to refrain from language that reduces any human to an object.  As I taught my youth this morning during our ongoing catechesis on the Ten Commandments, it is a failure to obey the 2nd Commandment (“You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. (Ex. 20.7)) whenever we name ourselves or another human as anything other than which God has already named him or her, for this renders God’s word “empty” (Ephraim Radner notes that ‘empty’ is the best translation of ‘vain’ in the 2nd Commandment - ““Taking the Lord’s Name in Vain” in I Am the Lord Your God: Christian Reflections on the Ten Commandments).  And God has already named us “children of God.”  Moreover, in baptism, all Christians have been named by God as His very own, set apart to be part of a priestly nation.  So to objectify any human is therefore, among other things, disobedience of God’s law. 

Our brother experiences objectification through the repetitive use of the phrase ‘homosexual practice’ as a referent to what he understands to be a “loving, committed, monogamous, grace-filled relationship.” 

Therefore, I ask that we give the priority due the virtue of charity in dealing with one another, and to choose language that communicates the pastoral sensitivity to which we are called in wrestling with the issue of homosexuality within our common life.  Insofar as I am able to tell, Anglican teaching on this subject is best found in Resolution 1.10 from Lambeth Conference 1998, which has been repeatedly affirmed by our Instruments of Unity, and most recently by the ACC through its affirmation of the WCG report.   

Perhaps the most relevant part of that teaching is that “we wish to assure [persons who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation] that they are loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ.”  In addition, we are all called to “minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals, violence within marriage and any trivialisation and commercialisation of sex.”

That same teaching “reject]s homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture,” however, using the very language that our brother finds objectifying.  Since the Anglican teaching endorsed by all of our Instruments of unity use this language, I don’t see that it can be right for the moderators of Covenant to declare that language to be unacceptable here.  Therefore, I simply ask you to reflect on what it might mean to love your neighbor as yourself when that neighbor has made it known how painful it is to hear language that denies the substance he experiences in his loving and committed friendship with another man, and always to embody the highest levels of charity possible in our interactions with each other, with the special pastoral sensitivity to which our bishops call us in Lambeth 98.1.10.

Peace and Grace,
Craig Uffman

Resolutions from 1998
Resolution I.10

Human Sexuality

This Conference:

commends to the Church the subsection report on human sexuality;
in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage;
recognises that there are among us persons who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation. Many of these are members of the Church and are seeking the pastoral care, moral direction of the Church, and God’s transforming power for the living of their lives and the ordering of relationships. We commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual persons and we wish to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ;
while rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture, calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals, violence within marriage and any trivialisation and commercialisation of sex;
cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions;
requests the Primates and the ACC to establish a means of monitoring the work done on the subject of human sexuality in the Communion and to share statements and resources among us;
notes the significance of the Kuala Lumpur Statement on Human Sexuality and the concerns expressed in resolutions IV.26, V.1, V.10, V.23 and V.35 on the authority of Scripture in matters of marriage and sexuality and asks the Primates and the ACC to include them in their monitoring process.

Friends,

In my cursory review of some of these exchanges, it occurs to me that nothing has been said that has not been said many times before on both sides.  When one’s witness to the truth as one understands it is rejected by one’s conversation partner, its reassertion is unlikely to make any positive difference.  Indeed, it is more likely to close off any avenues of grace that were already there.

Might I suggest, therefore, that we turn from conversation that will not convert to that which might?  If in your commenting you are convinced that what you write will likely not convert either yourself or the other to greater love of God and deeper holiness of life, don’t send it.  There is no one on this thread whose positions are not already well-established in the archives at this point.

I suggest, further, that if your conscience so dictates, you may want to use the private message function to reaffirm your commitment to each other as brothers and sisters under the sovereign judgment and mercy of Christ.  You may all rest assured that you have fully discharged any duty you may have toward warning your brother or sister off the destructive behavior you see the other engaging in; it is now up to God to give the growth to the seeds you have in good faith planted.

Craig:  I am not sure if this helps, but I think that many use the words “homosexual practice” to make it clear that they are distinguishing between homosexual “orientation” and acting on that “orientation” (i.e. “practice”).  I think that Lambeth I.10 tried to distinguish between these two concepts also - hence the language structure of, on the one hand saying “those who experience themselves as drawn to X are loved by God” while on the other hand saying that “X is contrary to Scripture”.  Similarly, I think that many conservatives could affirm a number of the “non-sexual” qualities found in a same-sex relationship.  I see this use of language (imperfect though it is) as trying to distinguish exactly what is thought to run counter to Scripture, from what can be affirmed.  I wonder if Shawn and others could suggest a more respectful or helpful way to draw this distinction.  But perhaps this is more properly the subject of another thread.

I see it the same way, James.  I think all of us want to speak the truth and desire to be charitable.  From an epistemology standpoint, I deny that it is possible to differentiate between what we mean and what we practice; that is, the meaning of our words is inseparable from our practice.  So I am loathe to abandon language about practices on any count since that is where we know what truth is really being embodied. With you, I am eager to learn new ways to speak about a controversial subject such as this in ways that are both truthful and kind.

I am interested in the fact that a thread about the ACC’s non-forwarding of the Covenant swerves toward another discussion on sexual orientation.

As much as I would wish the sexual orientation component to be a secondary consideration, it appears that it is actually more central. And if central, there would not appear to be any possibility of finding a way through this *together*.

Agree with Charlie (#124), hence my suggestion for posting a new thread on this issue.

Charlie, I don’t think it’s more central, just that it’s easier to obsess and fulminate about maneuvers in the bedchamber than it is to obsess and fulminate about maneuvers in the chambers of any parliament.  Talking about amendments gets boring.  But sex?  Never!

Seriously, though, I suspect that people care passionately about the wellbeing of their brothers & sisters in Christ, and express this care in various ways, not all of them helpful.