Well, I am not a liberal
Well, given all the debate about inerrancy, doctrine and belief going on in the comments of this post, I think it is great that I can just answer an internet quiz and find out straight away if I am a liberal:
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You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don’t think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.
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What's your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com
It is probably a reflection of this typing that I found it extremely difficult to answer some of the questions because I wanted to deconstruct some of the terminology.
June 20th, 2005 at 4:45 pm
So you’re all for a theocracy, Homer?
June 20th, 2005 at 4:48 pm
A selective theocracy. The abominations of pride and being haughty and without mercy and compassion would still be legal.
June 20th, 2005 at 4:56 pm
Luke and Lance you obviously cannot read.
A person who is convicted of said crime but doesn’t go to Gaol means they go back home again. I hope that is clear enough.
No this isn’t theocracy at all. It is merely a society saying we do not approve of such acts.
It clearly hasn’t occured to either of you how unlikely this would happen given they are all acts of sex ie you must catch people in the act and the police would have better things to do.
June 20th, 2005 at 5:02 pm
“A person who is convicted of said crime but doesn’t go to Gaol means they go back home again. I hope that is clear enough.”
So once a conviction is recorded against a homosexual…a fornicator or an adulterer, what is the penalty you believe should be imposed?
Should the case be heard by a judge/magistrate alone, or should the homosexual, fornicator or adulterer have the right to a trial before a jury?
June 20th, 2005 at 5:11 pm
Whence do laws derive their justification, Homer?
If you are trying to say that criminalisation is just a way of society saying, “oooh, we think that’s naughty”, you’ve got a couple of problems.
1) I don’t think 50% + 1 of the population think it is wrong, mate. Now, you get laws several ways - will of the majority (democracy), will of the ruler (dictatorship), will of the church/religion (theocracy), etc etc. I shan’t go on. However, I don’t think the “will of the majority” is against consenting adults having sex in whatever combination you choose to name. So there’s no justification for criminalising it, is there?
Or we base it on the opinion of (sections of) the church…that’s the only justfication you’ve got left. And that’s theocracy.
2) How is it any sort of law when there is no punishment? Surely someone as intelligent as you would know that the only power of a law in its enforcement. That’s why we have coppers. The law in and of itself is no law at all.
3) And what’s more…..”Police have bettr things to do”. Don’t politicians have better things to do as well?
June 20th, 2005 at 5:32 pm
If I understand my criminal law correctly, an offence which does not carry a penalty of imprisonment is not an indictable offence and therefore the defendant doesn’t have a right to a trial by a jury.
I think that the point that is being made is something different - if homosexuality were (re)criminalised, then that would be the government attempting to eliminate homosexuality surely? The aim of a criminal law system is to eliminate the undesirable behaviour. I don’t see that this is any less objectionable when the penalty is a fine than when it is imprisonment.
June 20th, 2005 at 5:37 pm
And BTW, this is my considered response to the gay marriage question..asked a few days ago.
“After giving some thought to the issue of gay marriage, this is what I can’t get out of my mind.
http://stuff.mit.edu/afs/sipb/user/ayshames/Python/LORETTA.PYTHON
I suppose my position is, I oppose gay marriage in principle, but support it in practice.
But my stance is not hard and fast…because I see it as pretty much as a silly non-issue.
My opposition to it comes from the words of romans 1…where homosexual acts are described as shameful acts. But the bible only gives fleeting references to homosexuality and does not see it as a serious issue (I can take people through verse by verse if they like). And neither should we.
My support for it in practice…comes from the hearts and minds of sincere gay Christians, whose own encounter with God shows there is no problem with it. I respect that.
I also believe gay marriage is a very good antidote to the terrible problem of gay men marrying women, and then bailing from the marriage 10 years into it….leaving the wife distraught and heart-broken.
If gay marriage means gay men no longer feel they have to prove themselves worthy of society’s approval by selfishly entering a hetrosexual marriage….then I believe there would be less heartache all round.
And of course, the concept of gay marriage being a threat to hetrosexual marriage is just ridiculous.
So I support gay marriage for those who want it, even though I, personally, think it’s a bit Monty Pythonesque.”
June 20th, 2005 at 5:44 pm
Thanks Lance.
June 21st, 2005 at 1:48 am
Le sigh Lance. le sigh. Sometimes I think you are just a bitter gay guy who goes to church. (which is a good place for you to be, i might add.)
The green man —If, as ABJ purports, the Bible is “the whole truth” then by definition things that do not appear in the bible cannot be true. There cannot be any “modern translations updated for Cultural use”. The absolute truth is the absolute truth.
The Bible is translated from the Greek and the Hebrew so to translate it in KJV, NIV or Plain Spoken text is fine, as long as the ideas, words and concepts remain the same.
See look :
The Lord Loveth a cheerful giver
The Lord Loves a Cheerful Giver
God loves it when you give cheerfully (to his work)
Same idea and concept -just stated in more or less litergical way
Paraphases take the idea one step farther and translate it into slang and sub-dialects
(laughing bird for New Zealanders, The Street Bible for New Yorkers and other urbanities
The whole of many things in emergent church and even in regular church is taking the word which does not change and expressing it in various ways -music art tc etc. In the states,not all crimes do you go to jail for. Many crimes (speeding, littering, etc.) are payable with a fine (unless you do them so repeatedly that you are put into prison) Now, it used to be that you could be put into prison for just being gay, but most gay people arrested are arrested for public indecensy laws (ie sodonomy in the woods, bathhouses, and in public. This is not targeting them by any means as a staight person will be arrested for public indecency laws as well. (watch Cops) As for sex, (forniation and adultery, you can only be arrested for abuse of wife or/and child, neglect, child prostition/regular prostition, thief. breaking and entering, destruction of private or public property, financial neglect, public nuisance or disturbance laws, assult/murder, emotional and physical disress,-There are plenty of laws to try to regulate the effects of people’s actions in the world today. As for jurdiendiction issues, it is often up to the court to try them there or send them back to where they came from or dismiss the frivious cases.
June 21st, 2005 at 3:50 am
“Le sigh Lance. le sigh. Sometimes I think you are just a bitter gay guy who goes to church.”
Nope …can’t help you there, except when I fell/stumbled, and visited the Phil Baker Show studios in Perth.
http://www.signposts.org.au/index.php/archives/2005/03/07/lance-posts-on-his-saturday-night-fever/
So Homer Well-I-am-not-a-liberal Paxton, what penalty should be given to homosexuals…adulterers and fornicators before they leave the courthouse after being convicted?
June 21st, 2005 at 8:20 am
Luke,
It is merely a society saying we do not approve of such acts. what exactly don’t you understand about this sentence.
Lance,
Havea real good think about how someone would be found guilty. It is black and white.
Again I say it is merely society saying we do not approve of such actions.
The laws derives from the same primnary source as the donogue vs stephenson case did.
Luke given your name you should know it!
June 21st, 2005 at 10:06 am
Lance, I really appreciated what you posted on your view on gay marriage. Thanks, that took guts. And now I’m going to do something I never expected I’d ever do - I’m going to disagree with you about Romans.
I agree with your Monty Python-esque comments, and that on the whole the bible has more pressing things that it talks about. But I don’t think we can take Romans 1 on the depravity of mankind who have “walked away from the truth” without hearing Paul’s very clear rebuke in Romans 2 of those who claim to be still “following the truth”:
‘Romans 2:1 You may be saying, “What terrible people you have been talking about!” But you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you do these very same things.’
The argument Paul is mounting in the first part of Romans, which all revolves around Jew-Gentile relations in the new Kingdom, culminates in Romans 3 where he declares that we’re all screwed - both those who had the law and those who didn’t - until this new way of being made righteous is revealed in Jesus. Romans 1 takes on an almost Amos-like tone whereby he starts off criticising the “other”, the “those over there” people, and once he’s gathered the crowd and got them booing at the evil doers, he swings the finger around and points it at those who comdemn.
Question this raises for me is that if Paul is in fact constructing a much larger argument about the nature of being made righteous, and he is building an argument that both those without the law and those with, both Jew and Gentile are all in the same category, then aren’t we doing violence to his intention to take the first part of that and turn it into a separate doctrine, rather than seeing the place it holds in his overall argument?
I don’t think I’ve explained this very well (and I’m certainly not having a go at you Lance) - I just think that sometimes we obsess on the tree and miss that we’re being told about the forest. It’s a bit like someone starting to tell the story of “there was this guy who was walking down the street, and he fell into a hole…” and we run with it…
“which guy?”
“which street?”
“I told you holes were bad.”
“Do you think that this means lazy council workers are used by Satan?”
“The roads in the wrstern suburbs all have holes - that must be because of their sin”
“We should legislate against roads in the western suburbs! Write to your local MP”
And again, we’re starting to sound a little Pythonesque.
June 21st, 2005 at 11:43 am
Ross, I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. You’re talking about the entire argument of Rom 1-3 and then you compare highlighting the sin spoken of in Rom 1 with focusing on the irrelevant details of a your story (potholes, walking down streets, etc.). Let’s assume that your reading of Rom 1-3 is correct, that doesn’t mean that Paul isn’t saying that homosexuality isn’t a sin. It is. There are a list of sins and we all fall in the list somewhere. But to all of us, those of us who struggle with pride, lust, or greed, Christ calls us to “Sin no more.” A man who lusts after another man is no more right with God than if a man (me) lusts after another woman. Both sins might be “natural” tendencies for each of us, but both sins are tendencies that we must turn from rather than embrace. So Rom 1 isn’t a separate doctrine, but it is part of a broader doctrine on sin.
If I’m misreading, please clarify.
Also, Green Man, on the Bible being “the whole truth.” Of course it doesn’t cover every truth in the universe. It can’t. But what it does cover is truth. God is bigger than the Bible, but there is no revelation that would enable finite man to fully understand infinite God. Not even Jesus.
Sola Scriptura is not saying that the Bible contains all of God’s truth. It was a reaction against the RCC (Sorry, Luke ; )) and church tradition during the Reformation. In other words, we hold to the teaching of Scripture and reject the teaching of the church that is more or less than what Scripture teaches. Sola Scriptura was never meant to be a statement of - “this is all of God’s truth in book form.” But the truth in Scripture is sufficient truth for all that is meaningful in life. And our doctrines concerning God should flow out of/be testable by Scripture.
June 21st, 2005 at 1:18 pm
well i am sorry for the crack at you lance, and I am sorry you didn’t like the church thing but God still loves you . So what do you do for fellowship and other christian practices ?
June 21st, 2005 at 3:27 pm
“Havea real good think about how someone would be found guilty. It is black and white.
Again I say it is merely society saying we do not approve of such actions.”
Umm….yes… and after someone is convicted there is a sentencing phase. So what is your suggested sentence for homosexuals, adulterers and fornicators? (if ‘no sentence’ then say so…but it would seem rather odd for a crime to be committed….the perpetrator to be convicted in court….. and no sentence, in the form of a fine, custodial sentence, community order etc to be imposed.)
On the Romans 1 front, I couldn’t agree more that it’s part of a much bigger case that is built through the letter to the Romans that all are sinful and depraved….and that the homosexual isn’t a ’special sinner’.
A favourite quote of mine is from John Stott, who, in his commentary on Romans 2, describes the self-righteous fuming of conservative moralists who point the finger at ’sinners’, while downplaying their own sinfulness - that as a human trait this is ’slick and sick.’
All I’m doing is trying to get Homer to understand the level playing field that is human sinfulness, but Homer wants to haul all the queers, the footballers, the office workers, the church youth group members, the nightclubbers, well, pretty much everybody up before a magistrate….so he can feel better and ‘more righteous’ about himself.
A policy that would make our legal system collapse through sheer weight of cases BTW.
Homer represents everything that is wrong with the church in Australia.
In his own world. Haughty. Proud. Impractical. Not understanding the gospel basics.
What’s sad is that the people running Australian churches, the pastors, the associate pastors, the youth pastors, the church denomination state Presidents, are eerily similar to Homer in their thinking.
As for my own ‘Christian practices’, my weekend work doesn’t allow me to participate in the rituals of the religion …but each Tuesday night for about 3 or 4 hours, I gather on-line with my Australian buddies at http://www.gaychristian.net for discussion about faith and sexuality issues.
I scout around regularly for audio sermons on-line…noting how some of the preaching is so banal and vague, particularly here in Perth…..and usually take in one sermon a week from http://www.vivalarevolution.org who are actually living Christianity..rather than just talking about it.
I’ve given up meeting with straight Christians though, because it’s just a totally frustrating experience. Straight Christians are from Mars, us gay people are from Uranus.
June 21st, 2005 at 3:31 pm
To clarify, I’ve been through several stages of unpacking and repacking my understanding of Christianity..and am just now at the stage of seeking a genuine expression of that faith, outside of the Sunday Pharisee Clubs and Pharisee home meetings.
(Just say that your orientation is gay …….in a church or a home group……if you’re wondering what I’m talking about)
June 21st, 2005 at 4:49 pm
thank you for your explanation. I hope you find some RL people to be kind and share faith with too.
June 21st, 2005 at 5:20 pm
Lance you really can’t read if you continue to ask about the sentence and you haven’t thought about it if you think a lot of people would be hauled before a court.
June 21st, 2005 at 6:28 pm
Scott, that’s ok I’m not sure I’ve explained it well. Bible study people arrive in 2 minutes so I can’t do it now but I’ll try and explain it better another time.
June 21st, 2005 at 6:53 pm
“Lance you really can’t read if you continue to ask about the sentence and you haven’t thought about it if you think a lot of people would be hauled before a court.”
Homer, you’re being obscure again. You’ve got something that’s ‘obvious’ (to you) in your head…that you’re not communicating …(what that is…I can only begin to imagine.)
You really think there are not many fornicators, adulterers and homosexuals in Australia?
Let’s see….20 million Australians….I’d say …conservatively 19 million of them fit within one of those categories.
Now…you believe fornication …adultery and homosexual acts should be made illegal. You believe a person convicted of those ‘crimes’ should not be jailed…but …what????……….allowed to walk free from court….given a fine…a community-based order….a caution…….a stern talking-to….mediation……….counselling…..having their tubes tied……….what????…..what????
What am I missing here? Could someone who speaks Homerese please tell me what I’m missing here?
Or is it Homer that you’re too proud and haughty to admit you’re talking total shit.
June 21st, 2005 at 6:55 pm
two things to cogitate about Lance.
to prove something you must have evidence. just how many cases would you expect?
Just what don’t you understand about letting the people go home?
June 21st, 2005 at 9:10 pm
“to prove something you must have evidence. just how many cases would you expect?”
Millions of cases per year.
Evidence is easy…because guys love to brag about who they’ve ’scored’ with.
And for all those church boys and girls who confess their ‘falls’..then pastors would be duty bound to report the ‘illegal’ behaviour..to authorities. So it would stop church youth seeking pastoral guidance…and go further underground in their secret double lives.
And apart from the millions of substantiated cases each year….there would be more false and unsubstantiated allegations that Police would be required to investigate if a complaint was made.
So yep Homer, one loopy idea of yours could single-handedly cause the entire justice and law enforcement system in Australia to crash.
And if there is no penalty involved..and people get to go home as if nothing has happened…what is the whole point of the loopy exercise? To shame people? How does this relate to Christ’s teachings?
Homer, if I were you…I’d be hiring a couple of Perth QC’s because you’re staring down down the barrel of another 20 years in the hellhole that is the Conservative Sydney church ….for importing dickhead ideas to a blog.
June 22nd, 2005 at 2:11 am
Actually, Lance0- Guys bragging would be inadmitible due to hearsay, and the priest/confessor role is outside the must-tell rule according to law (as it is a special counseling relationship similar to counselors and doctor records) I think what homer refering to is the pick and release law here (in the states) which they may not have in australia-Those who do minor inferations-littering, public drunkness, public fighting and the like are picked up fined and then get go (although the Public drunkness one may stay the night) they don’t often have to go to court-they are just run through the system-processed- fined and if need be- sent to court.
Now, I have a question homer-how you would enforce these law and how would you find them out? Yes, if they are doing bad things in the parks where children play or in the woods, they can be arrested. But if they are at home, and doing bad things, i am not advocating you bust in their except if you have a warrant drug use, child endangerment, or some other crime.
June 22nd, 2005 at 8:46 am
Lance, find out about what constitutes evidence in a court as ABJ has said.
ABJ,
I have said previously such laws are only there to show what Society thinks about such practices, an educational tool if you like.
Anyone who actually thinks abouts this will realise it is in fact very hard to prove.
I remember the old adultery rules for divorce and few people were actually caught in bed!
I would however put people in gaol for both bestiality and incest.
June 22nd, 2005 at 9:49 am
Hmm, strange conversation to be in. First, an admission to a third party by the person who is accused to have committed a crime is admissible - not as proof that s/he was guilty but as evidence that s/he admitted to it. So in the hypothetical situation, the priest would be able to give evidence of that conversation.
BUT the information would not be admissible if it was made in the context of seeking spiritual guidance because it would be protected by the priest-penitent privilege and could not be revealed unless the penitent waived the privilege.
But the guts of the issue is that Homer seems to be suggesting that we should have a law even though it would be difficult to prove people of engaging in homosexual acts unless they were ahem caught in the act. The purpose would be to make a public statement if you like that this sort of behaviour is unacceptable. With respect, I don’t think that this is the purpose of the law and could have some pretty bad side effects.
Years ago, suicide was illegal in Australia though largely something that was never prosecuted. But the law did have the effect of discouraging people from seeking help when they experienced suicidal thoughts because they would be admitting to the fact that they were contemplating committing a crime. Similarly, some of the anti-drug laws around the world which have prohibited the sale and purchase of “drug paraphenalia” such as syringes has merely resulted in drug users engaging in unsafe practices.
If you outlawed homosexuality, I imagine one of the effects would be that any discussion, expression or communication about homosexuality would cease. This may prevent gays and lesbians from obtaining information about safe practices. Similarly, it would be more difficult for gay people to access health support including mental health support. As Lance indicates, gay people might resist talking to their spiritual advisers (how many people are going to correctly understand the nature of the priest-penitent privilege and when it applies - better not to risk it).
In short, this simple statement by society that a certain behaviour is disapproved of will probably result in few successful prosecutions but could have a host of other unwanted effects.
June 22nd, 2005 at 9:56 am
Dan,
I would imagine it would be hard to preosecute some who committed suicide.
I am wondering why you are concentrating on homosexuality on ignoring adultery and fornication and for that matter why you are missing the major part of why I would advocate such laws.
Lance, I have a blog for you.
It is called dreadnought
June 22nd, 2005 at 10:12 am
Touche Homer, but neither were people who attempted suicide ever prosecuted for attempting to commit a crime.
For the sake of clarity, I believe that laws against adultery and fornication (leaving aside how you might legally define that) would be equally unworkable and undesirable. If you define fornication as sex outside of marriage, I doubt that it would even be supported by the majority of Australians.
I think that moral issues should be separated from legality, and I don’t think that democracy is the same as saying that the majority rules. The government while elected by the majority has to rule fairly over all people.
June 22nd, 2005 at 4:13 pm
I am afraid that few people have actually read what I said.
The laws would be primarily educative and examples of what society believes is best.
I told Lance that a person convicted would go home. It seems even that simple sentence cab’t be understood.
June 22nd, 2005 at 4:20 pm
But I don’t think “society” agrees with you, Homer.
June 22nd, 2005 at 4:29 pm
Well….some interesting figures pop up when you look at the research on who’s bonking who in Australia.
According to the 2001 census data, there were 951,000 people in Australia in de facto relationships (engaging in fornication) and 20,000 people in registered same-sex partnerships. So that’s not counting boyfriend and boyfriend and girlfriend and girlfriend, so we’re up over the million mark already in prosecuting the officially recognised fornicating and homosexual relationships.
Then there’s some more revealing stuff from Latrobe University’s research on Australians and their sexual habits.
From http://www.latrobe.edu.au/ashr/Sex%20In%20Australia%20Summary.pdf
“Half the men born between 1941 and 1950 had vaginal intercourse by age 18, and this declined to 16 for men born between 1981 and 1986.”
And…
“Heterosexual men reported more partners over their lifetime, in the last five years and in the last year than did heterosexual women, with 15.1 per cent of heterosexual men and 8.5 per cent of heterosexual women reporting multiple sexual partners in the last year, although these partnerships were not necessarily concurrent. People who identified as homosexual or bisexual reported more partners than those who identified as heterosexual.”
Could it be Homer that you’re still living in John Howard’s 1950’s White Picket Fence Australia…and haven’t come to terms with Australia in 2005?