While all sin is recognised as grevious in the Bible because it is first and foremost against God, it is worth noting that sexual sin is more profound in terms of its personal impact. In his letter to the Corinthian church Paul instructs: "Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body." (1 Corinthians 6:18)

The impact of sexual sin is that it changes us and stays with us, in our deepest selves. For this reason it is unsurprising that unfaithful desires persist, even while we enjoy spiritual renewal.

Nevertheless, Christian's enjoy the more profound changing and saving power of forgiveness from God through the cross of Jesus. Having received his mercy, and being sure of eternal life despite our desires, we can be changed by God.

Christian confidence is in the power of the cross, not the opinions of psychiatrists.

I suspect that you didn't read the article at all, did you Pseudonym (if that is indeed your name).

>>While all sin is recognised as grevious in the Bible because it is first and foremost against God<<

The entire point of the piece was to point out that it is becoming increasingly clear to all - even to the blinkered mega-Christian - that being gay is not a voluntary act, but is part of oneself.

Like ears. You can't choose whether you are born with ears either.

So how can being homosexual be a sin, asks the article, if being so was part of God's design?

Which is a pretty good question, as far as I am concerned.

The winds of change within the church to widespread acceptance of bearing false witness have been resisted with a lot less passion than some other changes. Perhaps it wasn't really a change, its just that christians get called on them more openly now.

R0bert

It's interesting that "sin"(according to some Catholic literature I have) comes from a German word (Sunde) for "sundering and division".

From Fr Barron, in his book "The Priority of Christ":

"So when Jesus of Nazareth said, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near, and believe in the good news." (Mark 1:15), he was not calling attention to general, timeless spiritual truths, nor was he urging people to make a decision for God; he was telling his listeners that Yahweh was actively gathering the people of Israel and, indirectly, all people into a new specific order, and he was insisting that his bearers conform themselves to the new state of affairs. In this gathering, he was implying, the forgiveness of sins--the overcoming of sundering and division--would be realised...."

It seems that some "Christians" go out of their way to create sundering and division by purposely pasting their own idea of "morality" upon whomever they deem "deviant"...when "sin" is merely separateness from God.

"…we can be changed by God."

Interesting concept Mr. Nym. So, we can just plod along trying to cope as best as possible and if or when God wants to change us, He will?

Or are you verging on the blasphemous in suggesting God got it wrong in the first place?

As long as you're happy I suppose… But not deliriously so.

On the face of it so called Gay marriage is a matter of supreme unimportance. Who gives a dam if a couple of homosexuals pair up-isn’t that what they have always done.
On the other hand religions (of all shapes and sizes) and the homosexual lobby have much in common. I offer a few examples of their typical mindset: intolerance of other points of view; bullying tactics to get their own way; an irrational certainty that theirs and only theirs is the one true path and so on.
Come to think about can anything be more absurd than a belief in God or an after life. Bigotry is endemic in both groups.

of course the kids come last in order the gratify the selfishness of a small minority who are sickening in their deceit in gaining the sympathy vote.

runner,

"...sickening in their deceit..."

Which "deceit" is that, runner?

Or was it a case of merely opening "Runner's Book of Vile Epithets and Intolerance" at a random page....?

D is for Deceit.

Got to keep up the daily quota.

Poirot I was pleased to see runner lashing out at the christian homophobes who use the think of the children call as a cover for their own intollerance. The wellbeing of the children are the last thing on their minds (as with most who hide behind children to push their own agendas).

Ok I may have used a little deceipt in suggesting that wasmrunners intent but it was fun and I doubt anyone would take the suggestion of runner attacking christain deceipt seriously.

R0bert

Just wondering which "conservative Presbyterian denomination in...Scotland" you are referring to?

Presumably you are aware that there is more than one presbyterian denomination in Scotland, and even more than one "conservative" denomination. But your unsupported reference sounds like rubbish to me.

an encouraging article - I hope Alan is right

it's sad that the churches are likely to be the last major institution to recognise gay equality, but ut will happen eventually

Poiret

did u read the article?

'For example, Uganda's anti-homosexuality legislation – popularly known as the Kill the Gays Bill – is strongly backed by U.S. evangelicals.'

Funny out of the thousands of evangelicals that I have met not one has called or condoned the death penalty for gays. Do you know some Poiret or will you find some small sect and try and use that to represent all evangelicals as the deceitful author has.

Start looking for that sect Poiret in an effort to confirm your Christophobic bent.

You would be the first to complain if Craig Thomson was used as an example of someone representing the union movement but I am sure you will find an obscure 'Çhristian' group if you try hard enough.

>>of course the kids come last<<

Kids? What kids? I didn't see any mention of kids in the article. It's a pretty pathetic and desperate debating tactic to be dragging kids into the argument as a stick to beat your opponents with. To paraphrase Pink Floyd:

Runner leave them kids alone.
Hey! Runner! Leave them kids alone!
All in all you're just another prick in the thrall.

Cheers,

Tony

Interesting discussion. Thank you.

Just a few observations and clarifications:

@ Pseudonym: Pericles is correct. And Poirot. The analysis of Scripture, Church history and Judeo-Christian theology now gaining ascendancy is that homosexuality is an orientation, just like heterosexuality - not intrinsically sinful or disordered.

Biblical scholars are increasingly coming to the view that the Scriptures warn against abuses of this gift, not the gift itself.

And historians are rediscovering periods in Church history where same-sex unions were celebrated in much the same way as opposite-sex marriages were.

@ Runner: Would you be encouraged to know that child-rearing outcomes are actually better for same-sex parents than opposite-sex? Or would this disappoint you? Happy to elaborate with the research findings, if this would be helpful.

Regarding the Kill the gays bill in Uganda, Runner, there are some Australian Evangelicals who support this. But as the article suggests and the link confirms, it is strongest in the USA.

@ Chris Ashton:
Yes, the Church of Scotland.
You can read a bit more about it here, Chris:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/14/gay-clergy-row-mass-resignation

Cheers, AA

Alan

I'm interested in the evidence for same sex marriages sanctioned by the church. I have seem this also mentioned elsewhere on these forums - could you supply a reference or link?

Thanks
Rhian

The Gay marriage debate is a non-issue for most people. In fact, even most Gays never intend to get married. So whats it all about? This is, like Atheism all about an attack by the Left on what they see as the institutions of Conservative Right under the guise of 'social justice'. Its a political and social assault meant to diminish the power of the what the Left see as Conservatives in society, nothing more.

What ever happened to the principle of separation of Church and State?

Atman
For as long as the state sanctions and defines marriage and churches carry them out, this is an issue for both church and state

Even if you are correct that most gays don’t want to marry, this does not affect the fact they should have a right to do so if they choose, the same as everyone else. Some do want to marry, so why should they be denied, even if they are a minority?

And by what authority do you speak on their behalf?

US President Grover Cleveland said in 1905, on the suffragette movement: "Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours."

Sounds to me a lot like the “they don’t really want it anyway” and “God ordained it so” arguments against gay marriage

G'day Rhian... Alan may wish to add others...

A start for your reading would be the late Yale University Prof of history John Boswell's academically dense but rewardingly informative books "Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe" and "Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the 14th Century". In the former he includes translations of many of the manuscripts containing ceremonies of same-sex union still held in the Vatican.

Atman, "Its a political and social assault meant to diminish the power of the what the Left see as Conservatives in society, nothing more."

I come at it from a different angle, I'm nominally to the right of politics and see it largely as an issue of christian fundies trying to impose their views on others lives. Something that's just as offensive to me as left wing moralists trying to impose their views on society.

I get the impression that the legal benefits of marriage are nominal (and could be dealt with by other means) but the straw man arguments and deceits used by the church and others to oppose gay (and lesbian) marriage make the issue more than it might otherwise be.

I don't see the churches and conservative christains putting much if any effort into reform of things that do real harm to families and those left after family breakup.

I consider the dysfunctional nature of our so called child support system and the motivation it provides for conflict between parents to be a massively greater threat to children from separated families than the possibility of small numbers of same sex couples getting married and a smaller number of then having children which they would not have had without the married status yet most of those opposed to same sex marriage seem to show no interest in that topic.

The evidence is very clear that kids from broken homes with parental conflict have a far greater risk of negative outcomes than kids from stable homes yet the protect the kids emphasis is on same sex couples not the cause of a lot of post separation parental conflict.

R0bert

Hi Rhian,

Here in France, Allan Tulchin researched mediaeval brother-making rituals. He wrote in the September 2007 Journal of Modern History that Christian ceremonies joined unrelated same-gender couples in lifelong unions which raised family, held property jointly, and were virtually equivalent to marriages.

Tulchin claims "considerable evidence that the affrèrés were using affrèrements to formalize same-sex loving relationships ... I suspect some of these relationships were sexual, while others may not have been. It is impossible to prove either way and probably also somewhat irrelevant to understanding their way of thinking."

The most thorough and credible research was done by Yale University’s controversial Professor John Boswell before his death in 1994.

"As late as the eleventh and twelfth centuries, there appears to be no conflict between a Christian life and homosexuality," Boswell wrote. "Gay life is everywhere in the art, poetry, music, history, etc. of the 11th and 12th centuries. The most popular literature of the day, even heterosexual literature, is about same¬sex lovers of one sort or another. Clerics were at the forefront of this revival of the gay culture."

Saint Aelred in the 12 century was a Cistercian abbot who incorporated his love for men into his devotional life by encouraging monks to love each other, "individually and passionately"!

Also Sergius and Bacchus, Patriarch Thomas and Theodore of Sykeon, and Polyeuct and Nearchos. Easily googled.

Randolph Trumbach of Baruch College claims "the Christian tradition on homosexual behavior has not been the same in all times and places," and "the Christian tradition has in some times and places blessed sexual relations between males."

William Eskridge of Yale Law School writes that "in the early Middle Ages the Church developed institutions - memorialized in liturgies that were included in the Church's formal collections - that combined the Church's spiritual commitment to companionate relationships with its members' desire to bond with people of the same sex.”

Documents exist showing Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox rituals of "brother-making," "enfraternization," and "spiritual brotherhoods."

These early brotherhood liturgies appear virtually identical to liturgies later developed by the Church for different-sex marriages.

Sexual orientation is mostly "hard wired" so in most cases we have as much control over who or what we are attracted to as we do over the colour of our eyes. How we act on our urges is of course a different matter.

God doesn't 'hate' homosexuals. The acts of sodomy and bestiality are however listed as 'abominations' in the old Testament. Fornication and adultery are big no nos also. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone .... Basically what happens between consenting adults in private is really no-one's business - or responsibility but theirs.

Nevertheless I don't support 'gay marriage rights'. I do support the same legal rights for same sex couples as enjoyed by hetero de facto couples. Marriage, the formal agreement under law, is between a man and woman. I am also highly skeptical of claims that 60% of Australians favour same sex marriage. within my circle of family and friends, the figure would be closer to 6%. Most of my family and friends have religious beliefs of some kind but the absence of does not equate to gay marriage support by any reckoning. I do not support adoption of children by same sex couples barring certain circumstances within families. I am also over the whole "I'M GAY & PROUD OF IT" thing. It's as distasteful as any other sort of overt public flaunting, not to mention the idiocy of defining oneself by ones sexualit

Thanks WmTrevor and Alan - some excellent sources and ideas there

I think it's pretty fair to say that the Church of Scotland hasn't been a "conservative denomination" in decades. And most CoS ministers and elders would affirm that.

Yes Alan, in the future people may look back at our current generation of church leaders also noting the promotion of homosexuality in the church.

Peter warned about these things in the second chapter of his second letter:

"But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed." (2 Peter 2:1-2)

Readers should not be deceived into thinking that God approves of sexual immorality. But he does forgive sinners who repent.

Hi again Pseudonym,

Our descendents will indeed look back. As we do today.

What we see through history are countless examples of religious communities just getting things disastrously wrong.

The OT prophets were continually calling God’s people back to obedience. The Scribes and Pharisees knew Scripture off by heart but were woefully astray in understanding God’s heart and mind.

Saint Paul and Saint Peter got some important things seriously wrong and were forced into painful repentance.

Every generation since has had to examine its teaching and practice to see where these are erroneous. All churches - Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox - persecuted for blasphemy astronomers who taught that the Earth revolves around the Sun.

For centuries the Church failed to teach the essentials of salvation by faith in Christ alone.

Thousands of unfortunates with mental illnesses were tortured or killed for demon possession.

Pope Zacharius opposed the search for the Antipodes, describing it as “a perverse and iniquitous doctrine”.

Scholars have only recently accepted that Moses did not personally write the Pentateuch and that various other books attributed to particular prophets had different authorship, often multiple contributors. In most churches, those who first made these observations were persecuted. Alfred Loisy was excommunicated for teaching that the Genesis creation stories were not literal history.

All denominations have failed in the past with regard to slavery, the subjugation of the black races, accepting the infinite universe, equality of women, inter-racial marriage and issues of economic justice.

Tragically, the Body of Christ throughout history has been slow to hear the Holy Spirit’s correctives to erroneous theology and praxis brought via Biblical and other scholars.

On same-sex unions, many churches are now discovering that texts traditionally used to condemn all homosexual behaviour really address only abusive acts - rape, paedophilia, adultery, prostitution and pagan ritual worship.

It seems there is a challenge to each generation to rediscover Biblical truth. Accepting that gay orientation is in fact a normal, natural, God-given variation in human sexuality seems to be ours.

There are, indeed, false prophets, Pseudonym. But Scripture rightly understood reveals who they are.

Alan

'Regarding the Kill the gays bill in Uganda, Runner, there are some Australian Evangelicals who support this. But as the article suggests and the link confirms, it is strongest in the USA.'

I suspect their are far more 'gays'that would support the killing of many Christians throughout the world than çhristians wanting to kill 'gays'. Besides the womb is the most dangerous place to be in the world today.

runner - is there any evidence at all for what you say, or are you just making this poisonous stuff up

@Alan "I suspect their are far more 'gays' that would support the killing of many Christians throughout the world than çhristians wanting to kill 'gays'"

Name two.

^ @Runner (not @Alan, sry)

Runner there is counselling available under the medicare system, as you are obviously in need of realising and ridding yourself, of what is giving you such bitterness and hatred towards others.