This is in response to George Murphy's last post on my homosexuality
claim:
George wrote: "Of course I did not say that all unchosen tendencies are
sinful. What I said was "in some tension with" [Note that I am trying to
be careful here & didn't just say "contradicts" or "is falsified by"]
traditional understandings of original sin is the claim that any
tendency, if it can be
shown to be unchosen, is therefore not sinful. (I.e., "X, being
unchosen, CANNOT be sinful.")"
OK. I misread your claim. BUt I must still stand by mine. If I did not
choose to -- say -- have a tendency for drunkenness, but, instead,
inheirited that tendency from my ancestors, I cannot see where the
tendency is, by any stretch, "sinful" in and of itself. But yes, I can
see that such a tendency might fairly be called to be "in tension with"
God's ideas of how I ought to live my life.
Are we on the same wavelength yet, or am I still misreading you?
George went on to say: " Whether or not homosexual behavior is always
sinful is precisely the
question we're discussing."
We agree on this.
George continues: "If it is, then a tendency toward that behavior is, to
use my earlier language, at least "anomalous" if not sinful. If not,
not. But the question can't be answered just by saying that the tendency
is unchosen."
OK. I now see what you mean (I think). My argument is simply that the
homosexuality tendency, in and of itself, is not and cannot be "sinful."
Whether or not any resulting homosexual behavior is sinful is not part of
that particular claim. I agree that a determination of whether certain
homosexual activity is sinful (or not) is not at all tied to whether (or
not) the underlying tendency is. I'm sorry if I did not make this clear
before.
I am sensitive to this, as I have friends who live in monogomous gay
lifestyles, and I frequently get emails insisting that the very tendency
itself is "sin," "chosen by them," and "a judgement of God upon them as
well." Most of these come as a result of other LISTSERVs and not from
people who hang around this one. Not all though.
I had asked: "Are you arguing that all people who are not in a
conventional family (mother/dad/children) are necessarily 2nd class
citizens theologically? I think not, but that is how I read your
arguments."
George answered: " A good point, though I think not conclusive. I don't
want to say that singles &c are 2d class citizens. But as far as sexual
expression - or more precisely, genital sexual expression - is concerned,
heterosexual relations are biblically normative & homosexual ones
anomalous. But I wouldn't claim that that's a complete response to your
argument."
Yeah. So is polyagamy normative, at least in the OT. I am not comfortable
with your use of the word "anomalous." Each of us, being unique human
beings, is "anomalous" in some way.
Peace. Remembering the New York victims ...
John Burgeson (Burgy)
http://www.burgy.50megs.com
(science/theology, quantum mechanics, baseball, ethics,
humor, cars, God's intervention into natural causation, etc.)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Sep 17 2001 - 13:09:48 EDT