Of sin and schadenfreude
So if you missed it, a prominent conservative evangelical preacher from Colorado, Ted Haggard was forced to resign from his church and confess to at least some of a homosexual escort’s allegations that he was paying for meth-fuelled gay sex while campaigning against same sex marriage. I don’t really want to add to the discussion of this. I actually don’t pay a lot of attention to US evangelicals so until the news came out, I didn’t really know who this guy was.
However, I had a couple of thoughts about this generally. It seems to me that if there is an element of the culture wars to be found in the worldwide christian church (and I believe that there is), it tends to show us all in the worst and least Christian light. For those that disagree with Haggard’s politics or theology, this dramatic downfall seems to be almost a gift. In one fell swoop everything he has ever preached, believed or created is completely undermined. His entire ministry will now forever be appended with an implied footnote - yeah, he grew this church from nothing to 14,000 people and had the ear of the president, but it turns out he was a fag, so what does that tell ya?
At once, he becomes the poster child for “those hypocritical conservatives” or, more broadly, “those hypocritical Christians”. However, none of this really logically follows in my view. A thriving sub-set of preachers and speakers on issues of sexual sin speak from a background of self-declared sexual struggle (a variation of the “I have conquered my evil thoughts” or “I have embraced that part of me that I once thought was sinful”). Obviously the guy is in crisis right now, but there doesn’t seem to me to be any reason why he couldn’t pursue his calling in some appropriately honest and forgiven way in the future.
As I have said, before the last week or so, I wouldn’t have known Ted Haggard if I tripped over him. With only the most casual glance over his political and theological positions, I am fairly confident that I would have disagreed with him on a whole range of issues. However I confess to being very uncomfortable with the implied breathless glee that comes with reports of yet another fallen moral crusader. I just can’t be pleased and self-righteous about the fact that a guy’s life has unravelled through his own sinfulness.
Similarly I can’t summon much shame and chagrin when people point out that leaders and speakers who influence my thoughts once wrote a couple of sentences which could be understood to be heretical, or that they once extended support to someone who it later turns out is not worthy of support.
I believe that in this “culture war” atmosphere, more and more we seem to take joy from the failings of others and use them as a reason to ignore or de-emphasise their point of view. Serious and major mistakes such as the ones I have been reading about appear to lend credence to the idea that smaller, even petty, shortcomings should similarly disentitle someone to express a political or theological opinion.
In Ben Elton’s book Blast from the Past he paints a picture of the US military in which the most important quality to acheive peace time promotion is to be innoffensive and free of controversy. The book suggests that in a climate which is anxious to stamp out scandal, the only people likely to assume positions of power are those that are too ineffectual to do the job. I wonder if the same can be said of moral leadership.
Some of my greatest spiritual heroes are people who have struggled with decisions about what is right or not. Sometimes they have made mistakes. But I always thought that this made them stronger. I like that Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrestled with his own conscience about whether to be involved in an assasination plot as an expression of his faith. I admire the fact that Oscar Romero was originally appointed ArchBishop of El Salvador because he had a record of turning a blind eye to injustice. I like that Luther made enemies and offended people. I like that one of the people I think most perfectly embodies the Christian ideal - Gandhi - was unashamedly not Christian.
However I wonder whether the church still has the ability to allow people to be flawed and in leadership. Our whole religion is based on the idea of redemption and forgiveness, but we allow so little of it with our leaders. I know that some of the people who comment here will jump to the situation of leaders who engage in spiritual abuse, but that is not my primary concern in this post.
My question is this. Does the global church and the public have the will and ability to embrace and support moral leaders with moral flaws? Or will we be unable to resist using those moral flaws to sink our opponents, and contribute to the elevation of the bland and inoffensive?
PS. I think that much of the conservative evangelical comment on this situation has been incredibly grace-filled, which is nice. The quotes from church members in the article I linked were lovely, but seemed to suggest that Haggard was no longer a part of the community - I hope that is not true, or at least that he and his family would continue to be pastorally cared for elsewhere.
December 22nd, 2006 at 8:32 am
*They should always be removed from leadership but they should NEVER be removed from the church unless they deny the sin.* However this event also happened yers ago before he was even married! Why should people be taken from leadership because of stuff that happened years ago.
We crucify people and punish them when they already feel like shit - Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery - go and sin no more - he didn;t say now enter a period of restoration and then we’ll talk about any ministry you might be able to excercise - should there be consequesnces for actions - absolutley - should people be removed from leadership for all time -NO WAY
What difference does it make if you committ a sin outside of leadership and then go into leadership or if you are already in leadership and committ a sin - Homer suggests that leaders are disqualifide from ministry for ever if they sin and yet he tell s us we have all sinned but apparently if you sin before you enter leadership it’;s ok you can still enter leadership at some future time but do it while your a leader and your screwed forever - ministry time over - end game
You are wrong Homre wrong wrong wrong
December 22nd, 2006 at 9:03 am
Janet, no it merely means 1-2% of the population want to indulge in homosexual activity.
Halieus I must admit I do not know what the question involves.
Sorry Greg but your view is directly and violently contradicted by both 1 timothy 3 and Titus 1.
Pastors/bishops/ ministers are clearly held to a higher standard than the rest of us
December 22nd, 2006 at 9:08 am
So why can you sin before your in leadership and then go inbto leadership?
December 22nd, 2006 at 11:54 am
Greg,
your question escapes me however both passages are saying it is the degree which is the problem.
In expurgation they both say look for the walker as well as the talker.
December 22nd, 2006 at 2:00 pm
umm … Homer, this is probably my bad and too much Christmas prep has totally addled my brain, But i can’t make head or tail of that last sentence …
December 22nd, 2006 at 2:54 pm
Janet, no it merely means 1-2% of the population want to indulge in homosexual activity.
Isn’t that a definition of an orientation?
December 22nd, 2006 at 4:21 pm
Janet,
I do not believe so.
bestpickle it means you look for a person that talks the talk abut also walks the walk!
December 23rd, 2006 at 7:17 am
What do you think an orientation is then?
December 28th, 2006 at 1:10 am
My loathing of the Christian right - which includes the average suburban Australian pastor, otherwise known as TPS (The Pond Scum) - has reached new heights…or depths, depending on which way you look at it.
In a bid to give some credit where credit is not due to the Christian right, I’ve written off their ongoing refusal to speak with compassion into the lives of gay people, as an outworking of their inability to feel and therefore convey compassionate generally.
My thinking has been - they’re not compassionate people, therefore, they can’t be expected to be compassionate. You can’t give what you don’t possess.
But what the Ted Haggard episode has revealed is they’re perfectly capable of expressing compassion, forgiveness, mercy (sprinkled with a little Mick Molloy-style tough love) to one of their own.
So it’s not a foreign concept to the Christian right. It’s not an alien world in which compassion to a homosexual is an unthinkable prospect.
Of course the compassion has a limit, because when Haggard’s returned from his exile in Arizona and ends up not straightening up and flying right as they’d like, then he’ll be written off as ‘the unredeemed’.
But that moment of realisation for the Christian right that it’s a futile exercise is maybe 10 years away, when Haggard is a 60 year old who’s come to terms with his own orientation and is no longer living in denial.
In the meantime, we have this rare spectacle (get your pinhole camera ready so you can view it safely) of pastors, and Christian bloggers, and churchgoers offering their support in a variety of ways, through prayer, through words of comfort, and words of perspective.
To a homo.
(Not that they can bear to utter the ‘h’ or the ‘g’ words yet)
This changes everything now, because the Christian right has inadvertantly shown that it IS capable of such compassion, and therefore culpable when that compassion isn’t displayed to gay people in the future.
I’m not naive` enough to think that the Haggard bizzo really changes anything, and normal transmission of Christian right angst against the ‘homosexual agenda’ will resume later in 2007.
Or maybe, hoping against hope, that this is the ice-breaker that gives permission for the Christian right to display public compassion to the struggling gay person, while ‘not condoning their sin’ (barf).
Whatever transpires in the US in the coming months, one thing is for sure in Australia.
Whatever is spoken by TPS on the issue will be the same as before - lame, half-hearted and contradictory, to tickle the ears of their financial backers (the church board that approves their salary, and the businessmen who fund the church).
(hat-tip to a quarter of a bottle of Margaret River red)
December 29th, 2006 at 7:05 am
I read your post Lance, then dusted off Yancey’s “What’s So Amazing About Grace” (The chapter called “Grace Healed Eyes”). And cried a lot.
Yep… Yancey is a conservative evangelical, no doubt about it. (Homer, if you’re out there, this is a book that must be on your reading list.)
The chapter is a bit of a gut-wrenching read. It does seem the American right… especially the far right… is so far from the Spirit of Jesus on this you’d have to think “depart from me, I never knew you” would be Christ’s probable response of judgment.
But there are evangelical writers like Yancey who remind us that each and every one of us are “abominations” to a Holy God, and articulates the utter hypocrisy of treating anyone with anything less than grace and love.
There are some small glimmers of hope out there Lance.
December 29th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
Janet,
I have the book. It is a great book.
Yancy is correct yet at no stage does he even come close to the antinomian claptrap that Lance implies.
Every one of the elect have had an appalling past. Homosexuality is not said to be worst than any of the other sins. Paul had the opportunity to say so and was mute apart from saying people who were formerly homosexual were now part of the church.
I have asked for evidence of people Lance has said unequivocally hated homosexuals and to date there is none.
December 29th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
“I have asked for evidence of people Lance has said unequivocally hated homosexuals and to date there is none.”
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/29Dec2006_news19.php
“Abuja, Nigeria _ The way he tells the story, the first and only time Archbishop Peter J Akinola knowingly shook a gay person’s hand, he sprang backwards the moment he realised what he had done. Rev Akinola, the conservative leader of Nigeria’s Anglican Church who has emerged at the centre of a schism over homosexuality in the global Anglican Communion, re-enacted the scene from behind his desk, shaking his head in wonder and horror.
”This man came up to me after a service, in New York I think, and said, ‘Oh, good to see you bishop, this is my partner of many years’,” he recalled. ”I said, ‘Oh!’ I jumped back.”
Rev Akinola, whose international reputation has largely been built on his tough stance against homosexuality, has become the spiritual head of more than 21 conservative churches in the United States that opted to leave the Episcopal Church over its decision to consecrate an openly gay bishop and allow churches to bless same-sex unions.
Among the eight Virginia churches to announce they had joined the archbishop’s fold last week are The Falls Church and Truro Church, two large, historic and wealthy parishes. In a move attacked by some church leaders as a violation of geographical boundaries, Rev Akinola has created an offshoot of his Nigerian church in North America for the discontented.
In doing so, he has made himself the kingpin of an alliance between theological conservatives in North America and the developing world that could tip the power to conservatives in the Anglican Communion, a 77-million member confederation of national churches that trace their roots to the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
”He sees himself as the spokesperson for a new Anglicanism and thus is a direct challenge to the historic authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury,” said the Rev Dr Ian T Douglas, a professor at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Rev Akinola, the 62-year-old son of an illiterate widow, heads not only the Anglican Communion in Nigeria, the most populous region with at least 17 million members, but also the council of Anglican leaders of provinces in Africa and those of the ”global South”.
He has also become the most visible advocate for a literal interpretation of Scripture, challenging the traditional Anglican approach of embracing diverse theological viewpoints.
”Why didn’t God make a lion to be a man’s companion?” he asked at his office in Abuja. ”Why didn’t He make a tree to be a man’s companion? Or better still, why didn’t He make another man to be man’s companion? So even from the Creation story, you can see that the mind of God, God’s intention, is for man and woman to be together.”
Rev Akinola’s views on homosexuality _ that it is an abomination akin to bestiality and paedophilia _ are fairly mainstream here. Nigeria is a deeply religious country, evenly divided between Christians and Muslims, and attitudes toward homosexuality, women’s rights and marriage are dictated largely by Scripture and enforced by deep social taboos.
Rev Akinola spoke forcefully about his unswerving convictions against homosexuality, the ordination of women and the rise of what he called ”the liberal agenda” that he said ”infiltrated our seminaries” in the Anglican Communion.
This deeply conservative view emanating from the southern hemisphere is hardly unique to the Anglican church.
More and more, churches of many denominations in what many Christian leaders call the ”global South”, encompassing Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia, are surging as church attendance lags in developed countries.
Bishop Martyn Minns, the rector of Truro Church in Virginia, who was consecrated by Rev Akinola this year to serve as his missionary bishop in North America, said Rev Akinola was motivated by a conviction that the Anglican Communion must change its colonial-era leadership structure and mentality.
”He doesn’t want to be the man; he just no longer wants to be the boy,” Bishop Minns said. ”He wants to be treated as an equal leader, with equal respect.”
Even among Anglican conservatives, Rev Akinola is not universally beloved. In November 2005, he published a letter purporting to be from the leaders of provinces, known as primates, in the global South. It called Europe a ‘’spiritual desert” and criticised the Church of England.
Three of the bishops who supposedly signed later denied adding their names. Some bishops in southern Africa have also challenged his fixation with homosexuality when Aids and poverty are a crisis for the continent.
He has been chastised more recently for creating a missionary branch of the Nigerian church in the United States, called the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, despite Anglican rules and traditions prohibiting bishops from taking control of churches or priests not in their territory.
”There are primates who are very, very concerned about it,” said Archbishop Drexel Gomez, the primate of the West Indies and a friend of Rev Akinola, because ”it introduces more fragmentation”.
One of Rev Akinola’s principal arguments, often heard from other conservatives as well, is that Christianity in Nigeria, where religious violence has killed tens of thousands in the past decade, must guard its flank lest Islam overtake it.
”The church is in the midst of Islam,” he said. ”Should the church in this country begin to teach that it is appropriate, that it is right to have same sex unions and all that, the church will simply die.”
He supports a bill in Nigeria’s legislature that would make homosexual sex and any public expression of homosexual identity a crime punishable by five years in prison.
The bill ostensibly aims to ban gay marriage, but it includes measures so extreme the US State Department said they would violate basic human rights.
Strictly interpreted, the bill would ban two gay people from going out to dinner or seeing a movie together.
It could also lead to the arrest and imprisonment of members of organisations providing all manner of services, particularly those helping people with Aids.
Rev Akinola urged in an official church letter that the legislature pass the bill. In an interview, he said he supported any law that limits marriage to heterosexuals but declined to say whether he supported the specific provisions criminalising gay associations.
”No bishop in this church will go out and say, ‘This man is gay, put him in jail’,” the archbishop said.
But, he added, Nigeria has the right to pass such a law if it reflects the country’s values.
”Does Nigeria tell America what laws to make?” he said ”Does Nigeria tell England what laws to make? This arrogance, this imperial tendency, should stop for God’s sake.”
Of course the Sydney Anglicans are more circumspect and use clever word games in how they get their anti-homo message across, but they’re still walking together with Akinola, hand in hand off into the sunset.
December 29th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
Have you actually read this?
where’s the evidence?
December 29th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
You really are a dickhead Homer.
December 29th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
Seriously Homer, I recommend you re-read that chapter if you doubt there’s evidence of hatred toward homosexuals by the religious right. Yancey copped hate mail that would make your hair curl because he was a FRIEND of a homosexual man… which was nothing compared to the mail his friend Mal received. Lance isn’t just making this stuff up.
December 30th, 2006 at 10:23 am
Janet,
I will take it off the shelf and re-read it today.
I do not doubt alleged Christians hate homosexuals however Lance always comes up with names of prominent people who ‘hate’ homosexuals and when asked for evidence fails to produce.
As is shown previously he either confuses disapproval with hate or deliberately conflates the two.
December 30th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
“As is shown previously he either confuses disapproval with hate or deliberately conflates the two.”
That’s right.
When whites created apartheid laws in South Africa or the culture of slavery in the United States, they didn’t ‘hate’ blacks, they just ‘disapproved’ of them.
You’re always right Homer.
Just the same as when Fred Nile said in 2004 that homosexuals should be jailed for having consensual sex with one another. He doesn’t ‘hate’ homosexuals, he just ‘disapproves’ of them.
December 30th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
thanks Lance for reinforcing my point.
it is obvious confusion is the issue.
A little advice read things you cut and paste.
December 30th, 2006 at 8:41 pm
“A little advice read things you cut and paste.”
I would if they made grammatical sense.
December 30th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
Well good on you Homer. The book is well worth repeated reads.
I haven’t been searching for this stuff… but last night I starting watched Michael Moore’s “The Awful Truth… The Complete First Season” (Any movies I was keen to see were already out, so I started browsing through the weekly stuff). The second episode was awful… it was a confrontation with a religious group in America who would picket funerals of homosexuals and chant about how the dead homosexual was now burning in hell (with apparent relish). Most famously at the funeral of a young man who was horrifically bashed to death because he was gay. Michael Moore and his gay entourage encouraged the group to sing “Amazing Grace”, but the woman they managed to get singing just kept repeating “God Hates Gays”.
It was sickening to see people allegedly connected with Jesus being vehicles of utter hatred… blasphemous, awful stuff.
But if you don’t find Yancey convincing Homer, check this out sometime… very confronting, but it really happens.
Having done so… you might find the idea that homosexual people may need particular pastoral care more convincing.
December 31st, 2006 at 6:41 pm
Janet,
only up to chapter 9 as we have had people over.
That woman and those people were not Christians.
One should gloat over people going to hell one should cry.
Unless something changes some of my family and a large number of my friends will go there.
That is nothing to celebrate. homosexuality is merely one of a large number of sinful acts humans do.
All are forgiven if repentance is shown
December 31st, 2006 at 7:20 pm
Janet,
That “religous” groups in the documentary would have been westboro baptist church run by Fred Phelps. His groups is nothing more then a family cult, certainly not chirstian. God hates Fags is their website I believe, I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to actually visit the site.
January 1st, 2007 at 9:23 am
Hey, I didn’t suggest you read all of it! Still… great book, well worth reading all of it!!!!
January 1st, 2007 at 9:25 am
All are forgiven if they have true faith in Christ I would suggest… we are all sinners and remain so even when we turn our hearts to Christ… fruit can take a while to grow!
January 1st, 2007 at 12:54 pm
if one has true faith in Christ then one repents and receives forgiveness.
Have read chapter 13 and I would have to say there is little I would disagree with.
I would have to say I view with great distaste any ‘christian’ who would go and say the things said in that chapter to homosexuals.
If they were consistent then why not protest against adulterers and fornicators!!!
January 2nd, 2007 at 9:28 am
Precisely.
But in fact, the experience of some homosexuals is revulsion and vitriol that is not meted out to adulterers and fornicators.
This reveals that the “driver” for this reaction is not passion for holiness or a passion for God’s word at all… the true “driver” is homophobia.
One phrase that kicks around at my work is to “name the elephant in the room” (ie the giant issue that affects everyone and noone is saying anything about). It’s about time evangelicals admitted their discomfort with homosexual people and dealt with it… it may then be possible to have a theological discussion in the context of love and grace.
January 2nd, 2007 at 10:29 am
at one stage you are correct in view of some of the things that come out of the US however I have yet to see that in Australia however what seems to be the major dispute here is whether homosexuality is sinful or not.
Biblical illiterates actually encourage homosexuals in their lifestyle and say they can be Christians at the same time.
THIS is the major bone of contention in Yancey’s book it is chapter 14 not 13
January 2nd, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Shadow Falls Over Haggard Writings
By Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News
January 2, 2007
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5251237,00.html
“Ted Haggard lost more than his pulpit and reputation when he admitted in November to sexual immorality and buying drugs.
He also cast into doubt his status as a Christian author who counseled readers to marital faithfulness and sternly warned that sexual activities like pornography and prostitutes “are poisoning you.”
The bleakest roadblock to Haggard’s career as author of a dozen books happened recently at New Life Church, which he founded 21 years ago in Colorado Springs.
“We’ve taken Ted’s books out of the bookstore - they’re in storage,” said Associate Pastor Rob Brendle about two weeks ago.
“We haven’t thought through plans for future works, but the fact of Ted’s moral failure and dismissal doesn’t necessarily negate the value of all his teachings.
“But we also recognize the congregation is going through the process of grief, and we want to be sensitive to that. We also want to make clear there is a transition, and Ted is no longer part of the New Life staff.”
Whether it’s his Pursuit of the Good Life, published this July, or Foolish No More, published a year ago, even Haggard’s book titles now ring with the tinny clang of hypocrisy. His admission of buying methamphetamine drugs and maintaining a relationship with a male prostitute hardly squared with the author who counseled against keeping secrets from your loved ones and who, in The Jerusalem Diet, counseled those craving even coffee, “Don’t let any substance determine how you live your day.”
While it appears few retailers have actually removed his current books from their shelves - unlike his church - Haggard’s ability to sell future books is questionable.
“His story - what more can be said? He has devalued his message,” said Don Pape, the former vice president and publisher at WaterBrook Press, a division of Random House. He is currently publisher of the trade book group at Cook Communications, which like WaterBrook is based in Colorado Springs.
In summer 2004, Pape signed Haggard to a multiple book deal that he said “is fair to say was in the six-figure range.”
Pape also signed Haggard’s wife, Gayle, to write about her marriage in A Life Embraced. He thinks the author with a real future is Gayle, who, when the lurid scandal crested in November, issued a courageous statement of painful yet abiding loyalty to her husband.
Pape emphatically said he would consider publishing Gayle Haggard again.
“I think her story is the bigger story, to be honest. She’s a very talented and gifted woman, and her heartache gives her a broader message: ‘How could you live with deceiving me and how could I not have known, and now how can I love you through this?’ ”
Would Pape also consider publishing Ted again?
“I would withhold comment on that,” he said.
Haggard’s contract had contained a standard moral turpitude clause that canceled the publisher’s obligations to the author in cases of moral failures ranging from infidelity to DUIs. Pape stressed that he couldn’t speak to Haggard’s current contract because he left WaterBrook nearly two years ago.
In late November, a spokesperson for WaterBrook Press indicated that no decisions had been made about Haggard’s publishing future.
WaterBrook liked Haggard’s potential as an author because of his growing evangelical influence and his charismatic ability to sell books, Pape said.
But he has never been a high-seller and never cracked anywhere near, for example, the top 50 list maintained by the international Christian Bookseller’s Association.
Even after his disgrace, there appears to be little change in his steady if unspectacular sales and - unlike New Life Church - few have actually removed books from the shelves.
There have been no sales of Haggard’s books since October, said Becky Sobeck, manager of Lemstone Christian Store in Parker, a large, independently owned franchise with corporate offices in Illinois.
The owner of a large Internet overstock business in Wisconsin said Haggard’s sales have remained unchanged, though many people have asked if his books were going to be dropped, said Jerry Bloom, owner of Treasures Christian Books of Racine, Wis.
However, Joan Hill, owner of Bible Discount in Commerce City, predicted a darker future.
“I think it will depend on his reaction (whether he will repent). In the meantime, his books will die,” said Hill. “The market is probably gone.”
In her 30 years of Christian bookselling, Hill said she’s seen many authors stumble, and even though they may have repented, never quite recover their huge followings.
She cited Grammy award winner Sandi Patty and author Joyce Landorf, who both suffered marital breakups. Then there was Jim Bakker, sent to prison for financial wrongs involving his huge television ministry. He admitted his wrongs and wrote a memoir, but has lived a low-key life ever since.
Haggard’s future as an author “depends on what he does with his life next,” said Becky Gorczyca, executive director of the Logos Association of Bookstores, a trade association for independent Christian retailers.
Even publishing veterans wonder how a man could write so convincingly of his moral certitude, while living the opposite way. Pape said he once posed that question to a Christian author who had also fallen into the net of “moral turpitude.”
Said Pape: “He told me, ‘I wrote about the man I want to be, not the man I am.’ “
January 3rd, 2007 at 1:55 am
I wrote about the man I want to be, not the man I am.’ “
doesn’t that sum up where we all are. Oh wreched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death.
January 3rd, 2007 at 9:30 am
We’re all sinners… but we’re not all extreme hypocrites.
NOT everyone writes about this… preaching against the evils of coffee… while addicted to something harder.
Personally, I find it easier to forgive someone who visits a male prostitute and who has a drug issue than to forgive a hypocrite… at least now he’s facing the truth (one hopes)… his reputation may be in tatters, but it seems to me he is more in a state of grace now than when he preached one thing and lived another.
And Homer… yes there is a theological issue to discuss in relation to homosexuality. Does faithful discipleship for a Christian involve lifelong celibacy if they are part of the the “1-2% of the population want to indulge in homosexual activity.”
(It gets very long winded in writing this if you refuse to describe this 1 -2 % of the population as having a homosexual orientation… I still cannot fathom the difference between wanting to indulge in homosexual rather than heterosexual activity and a homosexual orientation… seems entirely about semantics… but so be it).
I understand that Christians fall on two sides of the fence on this issue… I don’t think you can all those who argue for monagomous homosexual relationships all “biblically illiterate”… there are theological ignoramuses (ignorami?) on both sides of the fence, and the theologically well educated on both sides of the fence. It’s to do with the interpretative tools / framework you use.
The point I was making is that homophobia is a real element that is involved in these discussions. It’s not usually in the extreme form of the funeral picketers, but milder forms of homophobia still influence the lives of homosexuals, and can drive our theological impulses.
I listened to Pat Keifort last year, a pastor and theologian from the US, who said a lot of what underlies “theological discussion” (or any discussion for that matter) is something very primal… what is happening in our guts.
I can’t say whether there’s a tinge of homophobia in you, but it’s worth asking the question. Sometimes you come across as very insensitive… the appropriate response when someone shares about how a battle with their homosexual tendencies drove them to serious suicidal feelings is not to quote to Corinthians… it’s along the lines of: “How awful! I feel for your pain.”