GAY TRUTH

Is Paul making a blanket pronouncement that homosexuality is sin against God in Romans 1:26–27 when he speaks of a behavior (“men with men” and “women with women”) that is “against nature”? The Revisionist Answer It is not possible to read here a reference to a crime against nature or a so-called “natural law” because such a concept is Greek and was unknown to Paul. The Biblical Answer Natural law was known to Philo and Josephus, contemporaries with the apostle Paul , and it is reflected in literature contemporary with, or antecedent to, Paul. For Jews , it represented creation and God’s law brought into harmony. The Revisionist Claim In Romans 1, Paul condemns men and women who leave their natural state. He does not condemn those who are born homosexual, who have the homosexual condition, for that is their natural state. Ancient peoples did not know of the modern ideas of a mutual, permanent homosexual union and homosexual orientation . Rather, Paul condemns either homosexu...

Boswell revealed a blatant moral relativism in his struggle with the presence of adultery and incest in Leviticus 18 and 20 . He wrote,  “Although both chapters also contain prohibitions [e.g., against incest and adultery] which would seem to stem from moral absolutes, their function in the context of Leviticus 18 and 20 seems to be as symbols of Jewish distinctiveness.” Boswell must categorize these prohibitions as “symbols of Jewish distinctiveness” (forcing them to fit into his cubbyhole of ritual impurity) or else his entire argument fails. To admit that incest or adultery in this context is “inherently” or “intrinsically evil” would be to admit the presence of non-ritual uncleanness, which is described as toevah. A simple study of the word toevah reveals an insurmountable obstacle for Boswell interpretation. Numerous times in the Hebrew Bible we find that the word toevah refers to the sins that were committed by the pagan nations surrounding Israel . Now, if toe...

Homosexuality as “Against Nature” in Romans 1 Is Paul making a blanket pronouncement that homosexuality is sin against God in Romans 1:26–27 when he speaks of a behavior (“men with men” and “women with women”) that is “against nature”? The Revisionist Answer It is not possible to read here a reference to a crime against nature or a so-called “natural law” because such a concept is Greek and was unknown to Paul. The Biblical Answe r Natural law was known to Philo and Josephus, contemporaries with the apostle Paul , and it is reflected in literature contemporary with, or antecedent to, Paul. For Jews , it represented creation and God’s law brought into harmony The Revisionist Claim In Romans 1, Paul condemns men and women who leave their natural state. He does not condemn those who are born homosexual, who have the homosexual condition, for that is their natural state. Ancient peoples did not know of the modern ideas of a mutual, permanent homosexual union and homosex...

Christians who support same-sex marriage are not “abandoning the Bible ” the Archbishop of Wales has insisted, as he told leading Anglicans that sex in a committed gay or lesbian relationship is perfectly “proper”. Dr Barry Morgan used his final address to the governing body of the Church in Wales , ahead of his retirement, to urge members to rethink traditional beliefs about homosexual relationships as being sinful. Even Biblical texts often cited as condemning homosexuality, such as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone, could be “interpreted in more than one way”, he said.  The 'hospitality argument' is a well known liberal failed tactic written by Bailey and used by the Metropolitan Gay Churches.  Morgan should not be seeking to confuse and divert people away from the correct teaching of scripture. Dr Morgan, a prominent liberal figure in the church, is stepping down in early 2017 after 14 years as Archbishop, the longest serving primat...

Orthodox Rabbi Shmuley Boteach makes a bad case on this video for regarding homosexual practice as a purely religious offense rather than a moral one. Of course, to assert as I will do here that homosexual practice is a moral offense is not to deny that it is also a religious offense. Every moral sin is at one and the same time an offense against the Creator. Take the seventh commandment, the prohibition against adultery, which Rabbi Boteach classifies as a moral rather than religious commandment since it belongs to the second half of the Decalogue. Yet David acknowledges to God in his adultery against Bathsheba: "Against you, you alone, have I sinned" (Ps 51:4). Rabbi Boteach's problem is not that he characterizes the prohibition of homosexual practice as religious but that he does so to the exclusion of it being a moral offense. Here are six problems with his position: (1) In the Levitical chapters on sex laws (18 and 20), the prohibition of homosexual practice appe...

English: Cathedral of Christ the Saviour over Moscow River. Moscow (Russia). Français : La Cathédrale du Christ-Sauveur de Moscou, en Russie. Polski: Cerkiew Chrystusa Zbawiciela nad rzeką Moskwą. Moskwa (Rosja). (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The spiritual leader of Romania has called for Christians to change the country's constitution to explicitly support marriage properly understood. Patriarch Daniel issued an encyclical urging, "Orthodox believers must support the Church's effort to protect the natural, traditional, and universal family." The Orthodox leader added that Christians must "resist some new family models that consider the natural man-woman union only one model among others." Every year at this time, Orthodox Christians celebrate Epiphany, the baptism of Christ, and bless holy water for use throughout the year. Parish priests go from house to house, blessing the homes of the faithful. This year, clergy used the occasion to ask folks ...

Ireland has written a social suicide note and we grieve for her. But we will not follow her. More than half the Irish have voted for homosexual marriage , seduced by celebrities to violate something they once held sacred: the life between mother, father and child. From today, the Irish Constitution assumes a mother does not matter to a baby, and a father is irrelevant to his son. That is madness. A constitutional right to same-sex marriage means a constitutional right to same-sex adoption and surrogacy, and that means motherless and fatherless families are now enshrined as an ideal in the Irish Constitution. Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny said the vote was “Yes to love” -- but there are children who will never know the love of their mother because of Friday’s constitutional amendment. He said it was “Yes to inclusion” -- but it deliberately excludes children of same-sex couples from “the natural and fundamental group unit of society”, which is how the Universal Declaration o...

The Destruction Of Sodom And Gomorrah, a painting by John Martin (painter), died 1854, thus 100 years. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) IN Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality,1 John Boswell contends that the Greek LXX draws a fine distinction regarding toʿeba by using the translation anomia for violations of law or justice and bdelygma for violations of ritual purity or monotheistic worship. The evidence does not substantiate his distinction. Some references cited (Deut. 7:25–26; Isa. 44:19) do use the term bdelygma to refer to idols or idolatry, male shrine prostitutes (3 Kings 14:24 [1 Kings 14:24]), and child sacrifice and idolatry ( 4 Kings 16:3 [2 Kings 16:3]). Yet, in Jeremiah 16:18 both Greek terms occur, with anomia rendering toʿeba and bdelygma rendering šiqquṣ. To explain this reversal, Boswell claims that toʿeba is the “more general and serious” term. This assertion begs the question: “Why on this occasion does the Hebrew term take on a different significance...

Portal of the Church of Pilgrims, in Washington, DC, with a LGBT banner. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) It is the sin for which Sodom gains its reputation as ungodly, wicked, and deserving of divine judgment ( Genesis 18–19). Terms used in the Hebrew (yādaʿ) and the Greek (synginomai) meaning “to know” (Genesis 19:5) must have a sexual connotation and are among several euphemisms for sexual intercourse used in the Old Testament . Homosexuality is the sin or crime that the Benjaminites committed at Gibeah (Judges 19–20), which so enraged the rest of Israel that they almost eradicated the Benjaminites. None of the passages will sustain the view that the sin involved at Sodom or Gibeah was merely inhospitality or violence; none of the texts cites inhospitality. Revisionist attempts to use patristic interpretations fail. The church fathers simply do not support these arguments. The references in Deuteronomy and Kings refer mainly to male prostitutes used in religious settings. This mu...

The starting point must be the possible meanings of physis in Romans 1:26–27. Greek Usage Physis occurs in profuse quantity throughout secular Greek writings, especially philosophy. We can study only a representative selection. The LSJ lexicon, including its supplement, cites eight broad categories of use for physis:22 1. origin, including birth and growth;23 2. natural form or constitution of a person, animal, or thing, including nature or character;24 3. regular order of nature; 4. philosophical order, referring to nature as an originating, creative power25 or “Nature” personified or as an elemental substance (as fire, water, air, earth26) or in the idea of the creation, nature; 5. concrete term, as in the case of “creature” or “humanity”; 6. kind, sort, or species; 7. gender distinction;27 and 8. legal distinction, a term roughly synonymous with “law” (nomos). There is no suggestion here that physis means “what is natural to me” or “orie...