It's Not God's Problem

Hey, Susie,
Your "Is God so narrow-minded, and God's scope so limited, that God would only want to use straight, white men to do his or her work?
...
When the eunuch was baptized, as recorded in the book of Acts, that eunuch wanted to preach God's word. Hmmm. It doesn't say that he would be prevented from preaching. "

doesn't really make much sense. Anything God called an "abomination" in the O.T. (such as homosexuality) is STILL an abomination. Do you think God somehow changed His mInd? Is He that imperfect He'd do that? Of course not! And what does a eunuch have to do with this issue? Eunuchs were not gay, they simply had their testicles removed so they could serve their masters among the "kept" women. Other men would be too temp[ted for a king to trust around his harem, so they used eunuchs. Are you too ignorant to know that? I hope not. Why, then, are you hinting that being a eunuch was evil?
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"Can God use homosexuals? Yes! Can God use any sinner? Yes! The Bible is full of sinners God used. The key point, once God got a hold of them they didn't remain the same. They changed their lives and accepted God's way. God says, "Come as you are' not 'Stay as you are.'"

POSTED BY: AWV06 | AUGUST 7, 2009 2:32 AM

You forget that Christians are changed in their minds. If they continue in their evil lifestyle, there's something wrong. Jesus said, "Go, and sin no more." We make mistakes, but God offers to change, not accept as an ongoing thing, a sinful lifestyle.
A person cannot claim to be a Christian and remain actively homosexual. They may have urges, as do recovering alcoholics, but they have to allow God to take evil desires from them if they are truly saved. That's what the Bible says. I used to lie, cheat and steal. God took that away. Sure, it took a while for the desires to disappear, but if He can change ME, He can change ANYBODY! Not one of us is perfect, but Jesus did say, "If you love Me, keep My commandments." It's when we fail that grace comes in. We cannot continue in sin and expect God be happy with us.

Or, let's put it this way, Jvoran:

Thousands of years of moralistically-denigrating prostitutes hasn't done away with prostitution, only made it, and them, into something 'profane.'

"As I see it , part of the issue here is that sexuality is a part of religion. As in the temple prostitutes of Greece. As in the gods and goddesses that romped through Greek religious "mythology". As in the almost manic treatments of women and homosexuals in the Middle Eastern cultures that produced Judaism and Islam."

Of course, sexuality is part of religion. It just doesn't have to be a scorned, taboo, spank-the-'sinners-' oriented religious *taboo* in the way some choose to make it.

When you speak of 'temple prostitutes' in that way, you accept one religion's 'scandalized' view of *others.*

In the context of those temples, sexuality of any adult kind wasn't a 'sin' or 'evil,' or such a banal and tawdry affair some would make of it. It was seen as a communion, just as food or song or any number of other things, just more, ...intimate and involved.

Say what you like, but I'd prefer a world where warriors went to temples to purify themselves with sex after war, than going to churches to get wound up about making war to purify themselves about *sex.*

You can only think there's something inherently wrong about 'temple prostitutes' if you *choose* to be scandalized about it. In a manner some dictated to you precisely because they wanted to denigrate those who didn't follow their God, or believe in grabbing people by the stones to do it.

When you realize that there is no "God", it becomes a lot easier to correctly analyze this issue.

As I see it , part of the issue here is that sexuality is a part of religion. As in the temple prostitutes of Greece. As in the gods and goddesses that romped through Greek religious "mythology". As in the almost manic treatments of women and homosexuals in the Middle Eastern cultures that produced Judaism and Islam.

Christian theologians and leaders have been hardly better. They have little on which to pat themselves on the back, Priestly pedophilia which was hidden for how long? Probably since the beginning of the male priesthood? The subordination of women? Religious leaders who talk a great talk and walk a sordid walk.

Once religious leaders can confront and deal with the sexuality issue in religion as bearing on their own conflicts, religious leadership in morality make an important moral imprint. But that imprint will depend on addressing sexuality, not as an issue which men control, or an issue in which men determine those individuals who are separated from God, but as an issue that is decided within the individual conscience.

One of the theological tenets of all faiths that I have studied is that the individual conscience is the final authority. That is given lip service, but the religious leaders override this in their pronouncements and actions.

Apparently, we do read different Bibles. I almost agree with your statement toward the end of your post: "I don't think God has a problem with gay priests, any more than God has a problem with female pastors." God does not have a problem with these things; they are explicitly forbidden.

The Holy Bible, in Titus 1:5-9 says "5 For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you— 6 if a man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of dissipation or insubordination. 7 For a bishop must be blameless, as a steward of God, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, 8 but hospitable, a lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled, 9 holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict."

What does your bible say?

Clayjar said, "your problem is that you take a bit of the Bible here and a bit from there and when they seem to conflict you just raise up your arms and say it must not be relevant to today."

And what do you do with contradictory guidelines or with stories that depict a God who holds grudges or a God who punishes the innocent along with the guilty?

You are forced to ignore them or you are forced to utter phrases like, "we just can't understand his whole plan". And yet, your entire post is a claim to understand God, the "real" meaning of the bible and you have selected certain passages from the bible that you think important.

Read the passover story and tell me what moral values I should take from that? Or how about the moral values found in the story of Sodom and Gamorah?

I suspect that you cherry pick sections of the bible that you want to follow and have to ignore many sections which contain just awful depictions of God.

Explain to me if god were loving, why man is still estranged and in exile from paradise. Doesn't it seem a little petty to think that God holds a grudge for thousands of years? (Of course this presupposes that you believe in God.)

If your source for what God wants you to do is found in the bible, I think you are forced to ignore vast sections of it. If you believe it must be interpreted, I'd ask you how well Christians did at interpreting the bible during the Spanish and Italian Inquisitions. How well did Christians interpret the bible during the civil war when two areas of the country read the same bible and came away with vastly different interpretations?

You might claim that Christians no longer do these things and you'd be right. But they no longer do these things not because of the bible or because of God. We treat people much more equally today than ever before in spite of what it says in the bible, not because of what it says in there. Otherwise, women would still be second class citizens (as they still are in many religions and in the Roman Catholic Church).

I don't believe in a conscious, thoughtful, or sentient God. God is merely ambient energy that fills the universe.

To say that God wants this, or God wants that, is preposterous.

If we are capable of recognizing good and evil in the world, why do we have to pin it off on God?

P.S. Humans make the mistake of labeling that which they do not understand as evil, waaaaaaay too often.

Can God use homosexuals? Yes! Can God use any sinner? Yes! The Bible is full of sinners God used. The key point, once God got a hold of them they didn't remain the same. They changed their lives and accepted God's way. God says, "Come as you are" not "Stay as you are."

TWMatthews, your problem is that you take a bit of the Bible here and a bit from there and when they seem to conflict you just raise up your arms and say it must not be relevant to today.

The last time I checked, the world is still full of evil, of pain, of suffering, and our own sin. Of the things we shouldn't do and the good we fail to do. The Bible is the history of God's love for us and the lengths he will go to restore his relationship with us, his creation. A creation that has turned away from him and decided to live their way on their terms since the beginning of history. He set aside a people for himself, Israel, who despite all the guidelines to remain pure and dedicated to God had only a remnant that didn't turn their back to him and worship other gods. We can learn from this that sin is very serious and breaks our relationship with God in generations past and today.

We all hear about Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus died in our place so that we can have our sins forgiven and our relationship restored with God for those who believe in Him and call upon his name.

Jesus commands us to love one another and he also tells the woman caught in adultery to sin no more. He didn't say you are going to be all right just like you are. He said "sin no more." God loves us but he cannot just ignore the sin, the ungodly actions and thoughts, in the lives of people. In the same way the church cannot ignore the sin in people's lives or just accept it as "who they are" and allow them into roles of leadership. The church must preach against all sin (whether it is homosexuality or divorce or premarital sex). In proclaiming the truth and being interested in each person's life we are loving them by telling them that through Jesus our sins can be forgiven and that we can overcome the power of sin in our lives. This message is applicable yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

In John 8, "Jesus said, 'If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'... 'I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.'"

God is not being “narrow minded”; he is being wise and consistent.

His plan centers on the family with the contrasting balances that both man and woman bring to the family and how that ballance influences their children in a positive manor.

To pollute that plan by allowing same sex unions would be foolish.

Besides, marriage between a man and a woman is the highest ordinance one can achieve on this earth and it has lasting impact on your future when you return to his house. God needs the ballance men and women sealed for all eternity to carry on his plan in heaven.

As his plan centers around a family headed by a man and a woman even in the after life he would be narrow minded to allow same sex unions into his house.

Mark
Always seek the truth.

MGT2,
The verses supposedly "against" homosexuality are quite obtuse. In my reading, they condemn licentiousness. I agree that they may be interpreted otherwise. Licentiousness can be applied to ANY sexual action NOT made in loving patnership. What we are talking about here is actual loving partners having the rights and responsibilities of that partnership. I am as much against homosexual licentiousness as I am against heterosexual. Why do you people focus so heavily on homosexual issues, apparently totally ignoring the much larger issue of heterosexual issues, including 50% divorce rate, etc.? Recognizing homosexual partnerships (aka marriages) grounded in Christian faith is NOT the problem with the World!

It's time for the gridlock. It's not God's problem. Let the jokers deal with it. I got my head in a whiskey jar. Lots of jarheads out there. Shake your foundations. All the way or no way.

MGT2,
OT - God tells Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply.
NT - Paul says that it would be best if everyone were celibate, and that marriage is simply a consolation prize for those with high libidos. Who is right? They're both in the same "infallible" book.

To MGT2, and how do you differentiate between seemingly contradictory guidelines? Do you take God's claim that homosexuality is abhorrent to be more important that Jesus call to love one another? Or do you take God's words that eating shellfish is abhorrent to be equally as sinful as two men sleeping together? Both can be found in that ever-loving guideline for living; Leviticus.

The only reasonable thing to do is to conclude the bible was written by men over 2,000 years ago and has little bearing on how we should act, has few moral lessons and absolutely no relevance to the truth. Or, if you wanted to be like God, the next time you're driving along with you kids and they complain about being hungry, send poisonous snakes to teach them about gratitude like God did in Exodus. Now there's a loving God for you.

So why prohibit the act as he clearly does? Or do you proport to be wiser than God and so you decide to tell him that he really did not mean that?