I came across an article while clicking random links that started from a completely unrelated Facebook post. I thought it was interesting because I have not seen this particular presentation on the issue.

To "add" to the background, I know nothing about the author and her testimony, and very little about the original protest and presentation that she's referring to.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/...d-howyou-read/

Here are the "Three Unbiblical Points" in the author's words:

Given that these are theological positions, it would make sense that there would be disagreement between the viewpoint put forth and the viewpoint of a more secular-minded person. (In particular, the Freudian position is almost certainly contrary to that perspective.)

The rest of the article is interesting, and people wanted to go further and discuss the original event and protest, or the author's background and testimony, it seems appropriate to do so in this thread. This is yet another thread where I don't really have a lot to say to get things started.

Whenever I see statements like this:
I just know I'm in for a fair-minded treatment of the subject matter...

When I see Freud invoked as an example of contemporary secular psychology I know that I've stepped in a time-machine to the 1890's.

As you've been on a meme tip recently:

I'm always amused at how quickly people want to reduce positions to nonsense positions. At least when I was meme-ing it up with thekid, I was taking his actual statements and putting them in the meme. Between the two of us, this one makes you look like the absurd one.

Your opinions on homosexuality start out as nonsense positions; no need for me to reduce them to it. Fortunately, even the highly religious USA is turning away from your views so I don't feel it's worth much of my time pointing out the flaws in your strange obsession.

The essay uses the term "unbiblical", I will answer with that in mind (Christians differ in how they use the Bible, so these comments are not necessarily about Christianity and homosexuality):

I have difficulties understanding how some can think acceptance of the Bible as the word of God and an acceptance of homosexuality is compatible.

At best one could reasonably argue that the NT lacks the specificity of OT when it comes to condemning homosexuality (if one holds that Paul's commentary on homosexuality is badly translated). However, Jesus still affirms pretty much every other sexual moral code of OT - he is hardly the great reformer in that area.

For me the answer is simple: The Bible condemns homosexuality, it states that it is a sin and a grievous one.

You seem to have a - dare I say Freudian - interest in LGBT Christians who are gay but find such actions sinful

Seems like a bit of an odd list, is there anyone that holds to both two and three? Arguing against liberal Christians who whitewash what the bible says about Christianity and blasting conversion therapy wackjobs in the same post is a bit strange but okay i guess I broadly agree with her on two and three and think one is a reading too much into a semantic quibble.

I think Original Position would disagree with you. He and I go back and forth a little bit on the topic in this thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13...ppeal-1393280/

My understanding of the author's statement is that she sees all three of them when she gives talks or whatever, not that she sees all three of them simultaneously in the same person. That is, she's just attempting to categorize the types of beliefs of the people she runs into.

I'm finding the sociology within the thread to be far more fascinating than the article itself.

I have heard similar arguments, and I really don't buy into it. The reason the Bible doesn't speak specifically on homosexual marriage is much more likely because it wasn't even on the table. Imagine if you will trying to push legislation that allows homosexual marriage in the US of the 50s, when most homosexual acts were ilegal. I am certain the context of the bible is equivalent to this.

However, my position is falsifiable. All we need is reliable historical/archeological evidence of gay unions under Torah law. I'll reconsider it if this is found.

This seems to me an inaccurate description of how homosexuals view themselves. Yes, in the modern Western world people with same-sex desires will commonly view this aspect of themselves as part of their identity--even a very important central part. But surely not the "singular defining characteristic" of who they are. All the homosexuals I've known have also thought of themselves as students, or philosophers or artists, or husbands or children, men, women, black, Hispanic or any number of a myriad of other aspects of themselves as persons. They do not "partition" off the homosexual part of themselves as singular and different from the rest (except for those who feel guilty about their homosexuality). In fact, it seems to me that it is the author's view, the view that says those same-sex desires are temptations to be resisted that leads to a fragmented rather than a whole identity.

I also suspect a naivety here about identity. Identity is generally constructed by the assumptions and ideas of the majority rather than just those to whom it applies. That is, what it means to be black or gay, even for those who are black or gay, is often understood from the perspective of the majority white American or heterosexual person (see du Bois on double consciousness for an exceptionally vivid description of how this can work). It is not as if, any more than that they choose to have same-sex desires, a person can simply choose to have "homosexual" mean something different to people than it does.

I have said in the past that Jesus in particular never said anything about homosexuality, and that the Bible actually says very little about it, and so the claim that it is a sin on a purely Biblical basis is not nearly as strong as people seem to assume. I still think that is the case.

However, the major point here is more a hermeneutical one than purely interpretative. If you want to make a historical-critical case that the authors of (some) books of the Bible believed that homosexuality was immoral, I think that is likely to be true. Of course, you can make just as strong a case that they believed that lending money for interest is immoral, that menstruation makes you unclean, that the sky is held up by pillars, and so on. The question is what significance these beliefs of the ancients have for contemporary religious people.

Some religious people are "originalists" (using legal jargon). That is, they believe that the meaning relevant to contemporary people is the meaning intended by the author of the text. This is the common method of evangelicals and fundamentalists: people who claim to accept a "literal" reading of the Bible, who say that it is "inerrant", or that they accept the "plain meaning" sense of the text.

But just as in jurisprudence there are other ways of using and interpreting the Constitution, there are other ways of understanding the authority and function of the Bible. That is, other people think that what God means to communicate through the Bible can differ depending on the time and place--that God uses the Bible to communicate his message, but that the literal text of the Bible is not itself the message (to keep with my legal analogy, let's call it the "living scripture" view). So, for instance, reading how even such a great follower of God as Paul could still fall into the cultural traps of his time and condemn homosexuality doesn't mean that we also should condemn homosexuality, but rather is an opportunity for us to examine how the society we live in provides us with biases and prejudices that cause us to act in an unloving manner.

Now, this second view is just as focused on the Bible as the first, but understands its relevance and authority in a different way. Furthermore, those who hold it can be just as passionately devoted to God and the Christian message (as they understand it) as any other.

It is true that it is more difficult for skeptics to criticize the religious views of those who use this way of approaching Scripture. After all, this view can seem to make the Bible mean almost anything you want (though I think this claim is incorrect). Furthermore, it seems to get rid of all those easy criticisms of religion--why is it so anti-women, opposed to homosexuals, pro-slavery, permissive of genocide, anti-science, and so on. And if those who held this view of interpretation used it to construct a scientific theory of the world, I would agree. But that is exactly what is given up by accepting this view of Scripture.

Sure, and also intelligent design isn't creation science. I swear.

The issue isn't so much same-sex marriage as whether the Bible condemns all homosexual acts as sinful. Anyway, I would say that even fundamentalist Christians would acknowledge that it is not enough to show that something was generally regarded as immoral in the culture when the various books of the Bible were written, but must be condemned in the Bible itself.

Hence my first post in this thread. The post you responded to was merely to point out why, in all likelihood, marriage isn't specified. Both OT and NT condemns homosexual acts. Some claim Paul's condemnation in NT is a bad translation, but Jesus still affirms every other sexual moral code from the OT. There is no reason to suspect there exists some kind of pardon on homosexuality in NT.

Nobody has said that it is enough to show that something is regarded as sinful in the cultures where the books of the bible were written, so this is a strawman argument. Hermeneutical interpretation of the biblical text, however, requires us to understand and know those cultures.

I'm not a bible scholar and have nothing to say on whether it does or does not condemn homosexuality. I do however, have some good news...

I'm old enough to remember when being gay was something to be made fun of and looked down upon. When I was in school, it was a derogatory term. I was guilty of it myself a few times. We just didn't know any better.

I was talking to my kids the other day about homosexuality and they said something I thought was very interesting. My oldest daughter is now college age and she said kids today are much more accepting of gays, because some of their friends are gay. In her words, "It's like I knew this person my whole life and was friends with them! Now all of a sudden I'm going to look at them differently or not like them just because I find out they're gay?!".

This never happened in my time, because people were too afraid to come out! I honestly don't remember ANYONE from my high school or childhood friends as being gay. But what are the odds of that? Surely, I must have known quite a few people who were gay. The difference now is that they're coming out and people with a brain realize they are no different than anyone else. They are not bad people, etc. So the world, or at least my country, is finally changing to a more tolerant place and hopefully, leaving the intolerant behind. I just thought it was a cool conversation to have with my kids.

Curious. What's the biblical basis for stigmatizing and discriminating against gays?

The book says it's a sin, I get that. But everyone is a sinner, all sorts of things are sins, why does homosexuality require a social quarantine? Which is another way of arguing that if you want to follow the bible, fine, don't be gay. But as soon as you start judging and restricting others, you're just a bigot. What's wrong with that claim?

Was someone ITT suggesting it was? Here is Paul, for instance:
This puts it in a bad category, with a serious consequence, but not some specially bad category deserving of special condemnation above and beyond that of others on the list.

I think there's an entire conversation here about the social construction of sexuality and the notion/nature of sexual identity. It's certainly true from a probability perspective that someone from your childhood had a homosexual orientation. But the explanation is much more complex from a sociological perspective than simply "they were afraid."

Not necessarily. Whether ITT thread or outside, what would be the biblical basis for refusing to sell someone a wedding cake, or rent a room to them, or prevent them from adopting a child. You know, stigmatize, humiliate, and isolate them.

There are many responses to other people sinning, but one (from Galatians iirc) refers to trying to gently restore someone back from sin, presumably the opposite of participating and supporting said sin.

Can you expand on this? Because off hand, I can't think of a more compelling reason for not coming out. In fact, I'm having a hard time coming up with any other reason.

Even the idea of "coming out" is pointing to a social construction of sexuality. If sexuality were merely inherent, there would be no "coming out" and it would simply be about "being."

So once you accept that sexuality is socially constructed, then things like conforming to social norms play a role that cannot always be defined in terms of "fear" in a useful way (unless everything we do in social settings is out of fear of not fitting in, or some other vacuous definition of fear).

Well, the OT tells you to kill them, the NT tells you that they're not going to partake in the kingdom of God and to support interpreting the text we know:

a) that there was precious little acceptance of homosexuality throughout the different eras of biblical authorship. This has bearing on the encoding of the message.
b) that in our day and age the acceptance of homosexuality is fairly high in many countries. This has bearing on the decoding of the message.

We then combine a and b to try and get a better understanding of the biblical text.

I don't think it necessarily has to do with the psychological definition of fear, which is a very specific emotional state.

However issues such as conformity, culture, norms and other group phenomena can result in individuals choosing actions out of something that could qualify as "fear" in the sense we use it in everyday speech. For example: "He didn't stand up and state his opinion, because he feared the consequences". This doesn't necessarily point to a state of emotional fear, but more someone not willing to violate some perceived social protocol.