This debate is really heating up in the UK -

We can’t dissent against 'new gay orthodoxy’, says Christian charity

The new moral enforcers, or the enforcers of new morals?

Or in any society?

Within a democratic society with a freedom of speech protection, ANY belief is worthy of respect in the sense that it should not be silenced simply because other people don't like it.

The ruling itself is actually far more interesting:

If you believe that I'm sincere about being a Christian and following Jesus and the word of God, despite you not believing these things to be real, what would make you think I want to cherry pick anything?

If you remove all cultural, personal, and political biases, and examine the bible as an alien would, can you objectively say that homosexuality is not frowned upon? I'm not speaking about God, or the legitimacy of the bible, but just the actual text. Can you honestly read it and objectively say that it is written in a way that suggest that homosexuality is condoned?

While I understand that this is a sensitive issue, and some people through deep analysis may discover some other truths that satisfy them, I don't understand why my view that the bible says that homosexuality is frowned upon would be considered me making this up to feed my agenda, or my personal preferences, when the simple and honest interpretation suggests that the authors do not approve.

If the bible never suggested that homosexuality was sinful, I wouldn't care. As it is now, it's not an issue that really even comes up in my daily life, and as it stands I'm not too concerned with what people do behind closed doors, or whom they choose to spend their life with.

The Christian is not under law, they are under grace. Meaning we don't sit around and follow rules like the OT practitioners. That is not to suggest that we ignore any rule, we still try to live a Godly life, one surrendered to God.
This answer may require more time than I have at the moment, but this is the gist of it. When you are born again, you live a Christ centred life, putting God first. That's not to suggest that I don't sin, I screw up, but that's not the objective.

Ok, so given this breakdown, you are saying there are 3 types of laws given in the OT: those that separate the Jews from the others, those involving sacrifices, and those laws that are universal and still apply today.

How do you know which laws are ones that were there to separate the Jews and which ones are universal? If I gave you some examples of laws, what method will you use to determine the answer here?

It's not that difficult really, anything to do with sacrificial, cleanliness, and ritualistic laws don't apply. Only the moral laws are considered a sin. Let me post a better response than I could give. Source is BillyGraham.org.

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"In the Old Testament, God selected the nation of Israel to be His “special” people. As such, they were to be “holy”—separate from the unbelieving nations around them and God’s own possession. This was to be expressed by their obedience to the laws God gave them to direct their life as a nation.

There were civil laws, ritual laws, and moral laws. By the time of Jesus, the Jews thought that the law was a way to earn salvation—something God had never intended. The Bible stresses, “Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, ‘The righteous will live by faith’” (Galatians 3:11).

The New Testament says that the Old Testament law was intended “to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24). The ritual laws of sacrifice teach us that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22) and point us to Jesus on the cross.

The moral laws—those against lying, stealing, immorality, etc.—show us how far we fall short of God’s will and how badly we need salvation as a free gift, earned by Jesus’ death on the cross (Galatians 3:24).

Once we accept God’s free gift of eternal life through repentance from sin and faith in Jesus, the moral law becomes a guide for how we live out our new life in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:16-26). The civil laws of Israel have passed away, since the church is not a nation.

The ritual laws of sacrifice, priesthood, and temple have been fulfilled in Jesus, and are no longer applicable to the church (see the book of Hebrews). However, the basic moral law of the Old Testament is clearly reflected in the New Testament guidelines for the Christian life (e.g. Colossians, chapter 3) and is summarized by Jesus in Matthew 22:37-40.

Many people feel they can win God’s favor and have eternal life by following the old civil and ritual laws, and do enough good deeds so that they balance out their bad deeds. But this is a misunderstanding. You cannot save yourself—but Christ can, and He will as you commit your life to Him by faith (Ephesians 2:8-9)."
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See, this is the problem I have with this whole concept. It defines the moral laws, the ones we should keep today, as those that speak against immorality. Seems rather circular, don't you think? I mean, it basically says to take whatever you already (ie independent of the Bible) feel to be immoral, and the laws in the Bible against those things are the laws you keep, while you can ignore the laws that speak out against whatever you don't consider immoral.

Rather than providing a way to determine morality from the Bible, this seems to suggest a method for making the Bible appear to affirm your prior sense of morality.

I'm not entirely sure I understand you here. For those who believe that the bible is the word of God, they approach the bible as the source for the moral code.

I believe that for the most part, it overlaps with people's sense of morality, regardless of what you believe. Not entirely, obviously, as we have been discussing one of these issues at length, but generally people believe lying, stealing, murder, adultery is wrong regardless of your belief in a deity.

Yes, the problem with this is that by claiming the difference between gentiles and non-gentiles you implicitly invoke Paul, and once you invoke Pauline Christianity you also invoke the sections of the NT (the letters of Paul) which condemn homosexuality.

Thus the entire core subjects gets pegged squarely back to square one.

I pretty much take what I read here at face value so I have no reason not to believe you. You're a Born again Christian then?

No I can't, I've already conceded as much. But, I'm talking about all the other commands that the bible contains, do you also follow those as the divinely inspired word of God? If we examined those laws and commands, would we find anything that you think is wrong or that you simply choose not to obey?

What I'm challenging is what I see as your unthinking acceptance that Homosexuality is wrong, based on your view that the bible is an divinely authoritative source of right and wrong. If there are commands that you agree you should obey, but don't, then perhaps you are actually choosing what to obey and what not to obey and wouldn't that cast some doubt on exactly how authoritative you really consider the bible to be?

For example, Jesus said "For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' "

Do you agree? If your son or daughter cursed you, would you feel that they should put to death, even though we live in a society where that actually isn't going to happen?


What if it did come up in your daily life, if a gay couple moved in next door, or you had a son or daughter who were gay? I'm curious how you might behave toward them?

Some now are putting pedophilia under the "born that way" umbrella.

So, Boosh, what if a pedophile moved in next door to you, or you had a
son or daughter that was a pedophile? I'm curious how you might
behave toward them?

Why do you find this to be a relevant question?

Edit: to jump to my conclusion, homosexuality doesn't hurt anyone. Acting on pedophilia does. Therefore, anology failed.

Believing in Jesus means believing in the new covenant God has with us. From then, we accept the NT and it's teachings. I believe it's difficult to get around the fact that the bible claims homosexuality to be sinful, from either the OT or NT perspective. It's not impossible, it has been done, but it is more difficult than just accepting the text, imo.

Does the bible actually say this? Relevant passages pls?

Because this just sounds like backwards justification.


What about the "not one tiny bit of the law can be ignored" (paraphrase) that jesus is supposed to have said?

Yes, I'm a born again Christian.

I've seen you take a lot of heat around here, but I have to say that you admit when you've been wrong more than anyone else, myself included. I find that admirable.

Anyway, I'm not actively rebelling against anything that applies to the Church today. That doesn't imply I am perfect and never sin, but being honest and repentant about these things is more important than being perfect. The Christian walk is more concerned with a relationship with God, which leads to righteousness, than pulling out the rule book and trying to be obey the laws until we are sinless, since perfection cannot be achieved, and the Kingdom of God is not achieved by our works, or lack of sin, but by faith.

The scripture you quoted in Matthew is not a statement by Jesus, He is making a point here by quoting an OT law back at the Pharisees, as they are quoting one at Him, claiming Jesus and his disciples are breaking the traditions. This is the transition period where Jesus fulfills the law, where we no longer need to follow OT traditions.

Jesus doesn't condone killing, His teachings all point to forgiveness and non-retaliation. I don't need to judge or exact vengeance on anyone.

There is a huge misunderstanding about how Christians feel towards homosexuality. It's true that there are many Christians who have said and done disgusting things that don't adequately represent Jesus and His teachings, but that is not what the bible teaches us.
I feel no different towards someone in a homosexual lifestyle, than anyone else who doesn't believe in Jesus. I also don't feel any different for a Christian who struggles with homosexuality than I do with a Christian who struggles with having pre-marital sex. Homosexuality doesn't fall into a category of it's own, people have done that because of their own biases.

If I had a gay neighbour, it really wouldn't change anything, it's no different than the neighbours I currently have that do not believe in Christ.

Many years ago I attended a church where there was a young girl who was gay, and who wanted to have sexual reassignment surgery. We still went out with her and and loved her as anyone else, we simply disagreed with her choices, and encouraged her to trust Jesus. She went on to proceed with the surgery, and went her separate way, but we never condemned her, it's not what a Christian does, since we can clearly see Jesus spent the majority of his time with "sinners" not condemning them, but loving them, so much so that He Himself was called a sinner, since He spent so much time with them.

Unfortunately, many Christians aren't capable of loving people who they disagree with because of their own faults, but we are to emulate Jesus, who loves everyone despite of our sins.

The new covenant is not only implied by all the teachings of Jesus and the NT text (it's the New Testament for a reason), but it is also widely discussed.

The verses that come to mind without much digging are in Hebrews 8.

This coming new covenant was also discussed by the OT prophets, that waited for the Messiah. Remember that the Old covenant was only for the Jews, a promise made to Abraham and his descendants, but now we are all sons of God, whoever accepts Christ, thus a new covenant for all people.

so, backwards justification then?

I'm not sure what you're looking for. You don't have to believe in the bible, you can believe in what you think is right.

If you happen to believe in Jesus, you believe in the NT, since it testifies to Jesus. If you are Jewish, and don't believe Jesus was the messiah, you believe in the OT and follow the OT covenant and all it's rules.

I believe in Jesus and take the bible to be the word of God. If the NT said there is no new covenant and I still had to follow all those rules, then I would. As it stands, it says to live by faith. I'm not justifying anything, I'm just following Christ.

"homosexuality doesn't hurt anyone"

Take a look at the health and disease statistics for homosexuals, include mental health and physical health.

I typed too quickly. What I meant to say was that homosexuality involves two consenting adults (or similarly aged people) that can weigh the risks and benefits to themselves whereas pedophilia involves targeting someone who is unable to consent to such potential harms.

Now, to address your points as an aside to what I meant to say I believe that lesbians have the lowest incidence of transmitting take HIV so are you implying that women should be homosexual instead of heterosexual? And most if not all of the mental health problems are because of the bad people like you in our society.

But then how are you deciding that certain parts were just to keep the Jews separate from the other people in the area and not part of the moral code? What is it that you do to decide that a certain Biblical law speaks to morality that you should follow and not some other law that isn't about morality and so can be ignored?

Did the NT actually say " there is a new covenant, you can forget about all the laws and rules in the OT"?

This guy never fails to amaze me.

First off, lesbians aren't generally having sex involving penetration and exchange of blood like straight couples are.

Secondly, you can in no way prove your last statement. As we have discussed before, in countries where homosexuality is generally accepted, and policies and cultural attitudes are accepting, there is still very high rates of depression and suicide in homosexuals. The truth is that the people who claim to be "for" homosexuals are the ones doing the most damage to them.

The very idea that because I believe a homosexual act is a sin... causes someone else to commit suicide is so ridiculous on the face of it, well, why would I even waste my time with such nonsense.

I don't know which response to go with, so here are my options:

1) So? How is that a relevant criticism of my comment?

2) What is it that you think lesbians do to have sex?

3) Exchanging blood? What kind of sex are you having with your wife?

I don't remember discussing this specifically before so, not that I doubt you, but can you provide a link for reference?

What harm is being done by those supporting homosexuals?

FesteringZit supports this culture of hate that leads to things such as family members disowning others for being gay. To say it's just that some people believe being gay is a sin and otherwise don't have an impact is so missing the point you have to be playing ignorant on purpose.

This question is difficult to answer well by only quoting a few verses, because the entire NT deals with the new covenant, and what it means to be a Christian. If you really want to judge things for yourself, read through the NT as everything comes together in a way that singling out certain verses does not do the doctrine of faith justice.

Nonetheless, there are specific passages that say it literally, Romans 7:6 says "But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter."

Phillipians 3:9 says, "Found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith."

Romans 10:4 says, "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes."

Other passages relay the same message, In Luke 22, Jesus used the phrase "new covenant" describing his blood as a metaphor for salvation, that would be the essence of the new covenant, one of faith in Him, not by the law.

The tearing of the vail described in Galatians 3, describes the curse of the law in more detail. This was a sign that the old covenant had ended, since in the previous covenant the only way to approach God was through the rituals of the law, and found behind the covered veil. Hebrews 9 describes this well, that now we can all approach God without the law.

Hebrews 8 talks about the old vs new covenant pretty plainly, just as Jesus Himself speaks of these things in virtually all his teaching, which is why the phrases hated Him so much, as He undermined their legalism. For instance, when He saved the prostitute from being stoned, He showed the new covenant in action, like when he taught against an eye-for-an-eye.

There are many more passages that speak about these things, I think if you're really interested, it would benefit you to read and judge things for yourself, but these are the generally accepted tenets of Christianity, that we are now under grace, not under law, and that we live by faith.

Because I'm wrong a lot? I long ago gave up trying to save face, I gain nothing from stubbornly insisting that I'm right, and I am here because of what I gain, so if I see why I'm wrong I'll admit it and move on. Everyone wins, especially me.

Let's sidetrack for a moment. I'm curious what your attitude would be toward homosexuality if you weren't a theist, if you didn't think the bible was anything other than a human fabrication, what do you imagine your attitude would be? What was it before you became born again?


I wasn't really asking if you would try to exhibit Christian love for them, in fact I expected a 'love the sinner' type attitude from you. I was asking more about how you would react to living next door to sinners or the fact that one of your children is a sinner. What would you actually do?