Ancient Christian Witness

(Phatcat)In response to Part 1, "Mexjewel" attempted to make the argument
that a Christian could rightly live a homosexual lifestyle. I would like to
respond to this position below:


(Mexjewel)My Jesus makes the
definition of sin (and so sinners) easy. He bases and defines ALL sin on lack of
love (Matthew 22:36-40). Such obvious sins as theft, murder and adultery are
unloving because each has a victim, someone not receiving love. Can a Gay person
be sinful by themselves, with only the attraction to their own gender? So the
attraction is sinful?


(Phatcat)I, in accordance with the teaching of the Catholic
Church, do not believe that a person is a sinner just because he has a
homosexual attraction. Men and women are tempted every day to do things that
they shouldn't do. This doesn't make them sinners, it makes them human. The sin
is not in having the attraction or the temptation. The sin is in acting on it.
This is an important distinction that must be made whenever this topic is being
discussed.


(Mexjewel)And so, if that Gay person has a lover (as I
prefer to call my mate), which is the unloved victim in that homosexual
relationship? Neither, of course. Neither is unloved, neither is hurt. Who could
bring suit against the “sinner”?


(Phatcat)I would assert that neither person is being loved as they
should be loved. I realize that you feel very deeply for the person you are with
and that this may come as a grave insult to you. I'm not trying to deny your
feelings. What I'm saying is that God has made us for something better than what
you currently experience and that the love you share with your mate is not the
same as the love that God wills for us to share with each other.

You are
both victims in this homosexual relationship. You are sinning against God too,
by not living in accordance with His will. Of course, I realize that I have yet
to prove this. I hope to do that here shortly.


(Mexjewel)I guess you
alread have noticed that no Gospel writer nor prophet proclaimed homosexuality
as sinful? Jesus didn't, of course. My questions are not rhetorical; they
usually remain unanswered by those who refuse God's grace and live by working
the law.

(Phatcat)The Gospels and the prophets are not our only sources of truth
in Scripture, and you are creating a false dichotomy by pitting them against the
Pentateuch and St. Paul. Ultimately, there is only one author of Sacred
Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and He does not contradict Himself.


(Mexjewel)Certainly if God didn't want men to have sex with other
men, He would have said “Man shall not lie with man PERIOD (Leviticus 18:22,
21:13). God wanted Moses to eradicate rampant idolatry in the Jewish nation.
That whole “ . . . as with a woman” thing condemns straight men pretending to
make it with a woman, such as during idol worship. Paul explains it further when
putting down the straight Romans (1:26-28 ) for “leaving their natural
relations” (i.e.... as with a woman) and having idolatrous sex with men. Gay men
are attracted to other men by definition and by God. They can only imagine what
sex “ . . . as with a woman” would be like.


(Phatcat)This is a clever argument. If I understand you
correctly, you're saying that having sex with someone of the same gender is only
wrong when it is done by a heterosexual person within the context of idol
worship. I disagree with this for several reasons.

For one, Scripture
condemns the act itself. It says nothing of the orientation of the person
performing the act. As soon as men began to lay down with men, they sinned. It
doesn't matter if their actual sexual orientation is gay or straight. Secondly,
where in the context of the various prohibitions of homosexual activity do we
find that God meant to only forbid such acts that take place in the context of
idol worship? You seem to have pulled that out of thin air. Thirdly, don't
forget that any sexual activity, be it homosexual or heterosexual, that takes
place outside of marriage (which Scripture only envisions as being between a man
and a woman) is considered sinful. Thus, homosexual activity falls under every
prohibition of "fornication" as well, and Jesus did talk about that (cf. Mt
15:19; Rev 21:8).

Finally, when Scripture says that men had forsaken
relations with women to lay down with men, that doesn't mean that you have to be
with a woman first before your sex act with a man is sinful. What it means is
that they traded a natural form of sexual expression with an unnatural one. The
first form of sexual activity is pitted against the second form. The second form
is wrong b/c it's not the first form. Plus, if as a man you have sex with
another man, you are forsaking sexual relations with a woman, whether you've
actually had sexual relations with a woman or not.


(Mexjewel)“Homosexual” was coined about 1865, so any Bible
translation since then that uses a form of that word is a lie that needs to be
emended. My King James version is honest and homosexual-free. That word
premiered in a 1946 English Bible and continues to condemn loving Gays.


(Phatcat)Just because the word may be absent from the Bible, that does
not mean that the act it described is not a sin. At any rate, the KJV does
condemn "sodomites" (cf. Deut 23:17; 1 Ki 14:24; 15:12; 22:46; 2 Ki 23:7). What
do you make of that?


(Mexjewel)It is noteworthy that Gay people
employ themselves in loving professions like medicine, education and the
ministry. However, some Christians evidently work in the Biblical judicial
system.

(Phatcat)I never said that individuals with a homosexual orientation
are useless to society, or that they have an inability to love. Such individuals
are just as capable as anyone else to do good works for others. But, that
doesn't make their homosexual lifestyle morally acceptable, and when they try to
communicate love by participating in homosexual acts, they love wrongly.