lifestyle and morality

Okay, this is my second attempt at this post…

Just wondering if anyone has looked into which of the Levitical Laws are still applicable to Christians.  I have just come from a(n older) debate over homosexuality and Christianity, and one of the points raised was with regard to other forms of "sexual expression", like during a woman’s period, or similar.  Are any/all of those laws still applicable? And how does this pertain to us as the "emergent Church"?  How does it affect our practice of Christianity?

Ta!

 

This was originally intended as a response to comments added by Daniel Farmer to Justin’s ‘In Defense of Infant Cannibalism’ post, but as often happens it evolved into something else, becoming a distinct argument about the eschatological framework within which we attempt to address the problem of homosexuality.

While some within the emerging movement have renounced infant cannibalism, I think it’s time to reconsider the arguments being presented in light of the differences between the culture of our day and the cultures that existed in Bible times…

I originally posted this on my blog without further comment, and I got a few positive remarks, but we didn’t really get into discussing the point of the post.

Obviously, this is a satirical post intended to elicit discussion about the process we use to determine whether a moral prohibition in the bible is applicable today. In the discussion on "A New Way to Dialogue About Homosexuality," I again encountered the argument that loving, monogamous homosexual relationships were not an extant category in Paul’s day, nor was homosexuality recognized as a biologically influenced trait, therefore biblical injunctions against it are irrelevant. Can’t the same be said for certain forms of infant cannibalism?

The following is something I plan to propose to our denomination as a way to dialogue about this very divisive issue of homosexuality.  I hope to move us beyond the usual exegetical and experiental arguments in a way that brings the two together.  I offer it as a post because I want to "test the waters."  OST offers fewer vocational repercussions than throwing it directly to the wolves in the church.  I’m looking for your help on this one.  Thanks.

Our culture values upward mobility. Driven by commerce and the media people in the Western world strive for a bigger paycheck, a better car, a larger house, a nicer office, more possessions, a more powerful place on the corporate ladder, and more status. More is better, bigger is better, higher is better, seems to be the message. A not so subtle form of the Social Darwinist claim that we should always be evolving promotes the message ‘be all you can be.’ In the movies of Walt Disney this quickly becomes ‘reach for the stars’ and ‘dare to dream big.’ The mentality in Western culture has become ‘have all you can have, get all you can get and reach everything you can reach.

INTRODUCTION

In the following I have taken up where Peter Wilkinson left off and I have tried to summarise the debate on homosexuality. The posts and comments are now very extensive and some of the argument has been subtle and nuanced. While I hope I have accurately captured the main lines of argument, I may have inadvertently omitted some relevant comment and I may not have understood all that has been said. However, I thought it was worthwhile to try get an overview of what has been for me a very interesting and lively discussion in which the participants have by and large worked very hard at understanding other points of view and responding to them.

I’d appreciate some sort of summary of the arguments put forward so far on this forum topic (Homosexuality and the new creation).

1. As I see it, Andrew began by advocating an acceptance of practising homosexuals in the church. The church is a ‘sign’ of the kingdom, but not its full expression, and as such will continue to contain some/much of the ‘fallenness’ of creation - homosexuality being a ‘fallen’ sexuality.

The forum thread has seen views develop which call this proposition strongly into question, not least by Andrew himself.

2. Elsewhere, Andrew has argued with ingenuity and insight for a traditional biblical stance towards homosexuality. The parallels between Romans 1:18-27 and Genesis 1-3 point to a much more broadly based argument by Paul than a merely anti-gentile Jewish polemic. The rolling out of the same theme (creation fruitfulness/barrenness in their widest sense) elsewhere in Romans suggests that the passage is a major plank in a theology which integrates not just O.T. but God’s creation purposes - in the old as well as the new creation.

I would like this website to model a way of doing theological reflection and debate that gets beyond the old trench warfare manner of disputation. This is not going to be at all easy to do. As soon as we try to pick our way across these bloody, mangled battlefields, we risk becoming antagonists and victims in a war that is still going on. It’s very difficult not to feel that we are under attack, very difficult not to fall into one trench or another - and then someone thrusts a gun into our hands and tells us to start shooting. The debate over homosexuality is one of these battlefields. Somehow we need to turn it into something else - or at least create a reasonably safe space where we don’t have to behave like combatants in a mindless and probably futile war of attrition.

What I want to explore here in outline is the possibility that the sort of approach to eschatology that we have been discussing elsewhere might open up some new ways of framing the debate about homosexuality. It is also, obviously, a partial response to the ‘committed monogamous homosexual versus slave owner’ thread.

The Schiavo case may be seen, and so the case has been made by some, as a question of theology over a person. As a professed Catholic, the theology promulgated by the faith Ms. Shiavo ascribed to when she could has a very clear answer to the question being asked on her behalf — that food must not be refused in the face of death.

Can a person’s theologies be legally and practically real grounds for action? What if no direct wishes or opinions on the issue are expressed, only the indirect nod of Church belonging? Here it must truly be asked whether theology is a thing that can be soberly taken seriously; whether theology is a "canopy" that hangs over a person in entirety, in system, or an accidental creature of personal opinion. If theology is to be accounted as a real thing of any importance, it surely has some dominion, some answer regarding a silent adherent’s consent.

Consider two people, Jack and Fred. Jack is in a committed monogamous homosexual relationship of 10 years while Fred owns 10 slaves.

As is the custom at the time, Fred works his slaves in chain gangs and houses them in workhouses which are so low the slaves cannot stand up. Any children of the slaves became Fred’s property (these details are taken from The Dictionary of Paul and His Letters)

According to St Paul in Romans 1, Jack incurs the anger of God and is depraved; but about Fred, St Paul has nothing to say.

In the situation described, does it not seem morally more opprobrious to own slaves than to live in a homosexual relationship? Was Paul wrong about both?