“3. Contraception. I apologize, but this is one of the two Roman Catholic positions that I have no respect for (the Marian doctrines are the other one). People are going to have sex outside of marriage. You can’t stop them from doing so, so if you want to prevent abortions, you need to make contraception available. You can not use contraception within marriage if you want to, but please stop trying to take it away from everyone else.”
I apologize, but this is one of the Protestant positions that I have no respect for (remarriage after divorce is another). It’s defeatist. The lesser of two evils is still evil. It’s also illogical. If people are willing to reject one command of the Church, why wouldn’t they reject another? I’d certainly consider artificial contraception a lesser sin than pre-/extramarital sex. I simply don’t believe that a fornicator would actually bother to observe injunctions against contraception.
“5. LGBT issues. I’ll divide this into 4 parts, corresponding to the four sources of revelation.”
“Scripture: The traditional and much abused proof texts don’t say all that much.“
I strongly recommend Love and Responsibility and Theology of the Body as defenses of the Scriptural rejection of homosexuality (and other disordered sexual passions).
“Tradition: Not as one-sidedly anti-gay as you might think. St. Paulinus of Nola and Ausaunius were two early Christians who were definitely a male/male couple, though weather
they were gay in the modern sense is debatable. Read John Boswell’s Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, and L. William Countryman’s Dirt, Greed, and Sex, for more examples.”
I am not well versed in the historical details of saints’ lives. I found a page called “Calendar of
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Saints”. I’d be very interested for someone with greater knowledge of Church history to review the claims made.
“Reason: The chief end of marriage is to contain lust, and a marriage where sexual desire is absent does not fulfill this end, ergo gay marriage is acceptable.”
Say what now?!? I thought the chiefs ends of marriage were unity (Genesis 2:24) and procreation (Genesis 1:28). And people say Catholics are ignorant of Scripture…
“The APA and the ASA both accept LGBT persons as psychologically normal and healthy. Reputable research has always pointed to this conclusion.”
I am a bit skeptical of the notion that reputable research always has and always will find homosexuality to be normal and healthy. Besides, since when does either group determine morality? Let’s assume LGBT persons are indeed normal and healthy. So what? That just tells me they choose their sin, rather than being predisposed to it in some way.
“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” – Isaiah 5:20
Hmmm…
“Experience: I have seen LGBT people get saved and be sanctified without their sexual orientation being affected. OTOH, they have universally exchanged promiscuity for monogamy, settling with ‘partners’ (effectively spouses) of the same sex, or dating chastely in pursuit of such a goal. Furthermore, on this issue it is impossible to love someone gay while hating his gayness, because gayness is not a sin, it is a condition of life, just like being black is a condition of life. See Fred Phelps for an example of the end result of calling ‘homosexuality’ a sin.”
First of all, I’ve seen a lot of people accept Jesus and fail to renounce all of their sins. Either they try and continually fail (which is ok, so long as they continue to earnestly try and confess their failures), they do not try because they are self-righteously picking and choosing which Christian doctrines they wish to adhere, or they do not try because some person or group has failed, through wilful or accidental negligence, to inform them of orthodox practices and beliefs. Secondly, what proof have you that gayness is merely a condition of life, like blackness? That’s a pretty strong claim to make without evidential support. Lastly, I am not Fred Phelps, nor do I advocate his kind of evanglization to gays. I don’t think unrepentant homosexuals are any more guaranteed hell-fire than unrepentant adulterers, thieves, liars, drug abusers, racists, or any other sinners. I do not hate gays. I simply do not find their
lifestyle to be consistent with orthodox Christian practices or the created order.
Actually, Eric, it seems to me that the matter isn’t as simple as that remarriage alone is the sin. That’s clearly wrong in our understanding, but divorce seems to be forbidden by the injuction not to “tear asunder” that which “God has joined together.” I may try and find the particular verse later. Anyway, I’ll have to think about the whole bit a little more, but I think there’s more nuance than most people give it.
Correction:
Above, I claimed that Paul wasn’t a Jew. Actually, he was, but unlike Christ, he was a Pharisee. Anyway, I had thought that Paul’s Roman citizenship (he was executed by decapitation, rather than crucifixion) and his Apostleship to the Gentiles implied that he wasn’t a Jew. Oops
FD,
What is the R.C. position on spousal abuse?
This is an area where I am puzzled by the silence of the Bible. When Nancy and I married, we agreed that no matter what, we would seek to preserve our marriage – with one exception. If either of us ever struck the other deliberately, that would be the end – no question.
As far as divorce in other churches…that’s a tough one. There are Bibilcal grounds for divorce that the R.C. Church doesn’t recognize – among them adultery and some Pauline situations.
Of course, most Protestants accept divorce far more readily than that. I don’t think I can make a theological argument for that. Given that I can make a theological argument for gay and lesbian marriage, you have to admit that’s something.
But I will say this – I’d rather see people divorce than have the relationship degenerate into abuse. I guess my time as a paramedic influenced me pretty strongly.
There’s something unspeakably horrifying about trying to keep someone alive, knowing that the trauma was done to the victim by a spouse.
From what I understand, the Wesley bros. had a fairly high view of a number of Catholic practices — they seem to have liked the sacraments and the public recitation of the Office, amongst other things. I’d bet that, had John Wesley been active one hundred years later, he would’ve been part of the Oxford Movement that gave us people like Frederick Faber and John Henry Newman.
It’s kind of a shame that has Methodism splintered so — there’re the AME and AME Zion Churches, the UMC, the Wesleyans, the Southern Methodists. . . and that’s just in the US. And it’s a shame that they don’t really have any unique characteristics any more; they’re either nondescript evangelicals or have followed the lead of ECUSA and ELCA and embraced the pan-sexual agenda wholeheartedly (as it seems the UMC will be doing any minute now).
Funky’s recommendation of Theology of the Body and Love and Responsibility is impeccable, but for those who are not up to buying new books at the moment, here are some online apologetics:
First:a series of articles by Christopher West, who is probably the English-speaking world’s most prolific popularizer of JPII’s Theology of the Body:
http://www.christopherwest.com/works.asp
Here are also some articles by Mary Shivanandran, also a noted popularizer:
http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/mshivana/maryshiv.html
Also for a broader spirituality of the human family, check out Women Affirming Life International. I just learned of this group, but they’re becoming a favorite of mine:
http://www.affirmlife.com
Funky, regarding that calendar… I looked quickly & was dismayed to see Sts. Perpetua & Felicity listed. The only “evidence” to support listing the two was a lot of stuff that any two people would do when faced with those kinds of conditions… Had they taken the time to research their story further, one of them had a young child, still nursing, and the other gave birth while in prison…
http://catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=48
It appears that the authors of this calendar are taking only what snipits of history suit them. If you plan on becoming a martyr, don’t comfort any same-gender prisoners or you’ll end up on the calendar 😉
I apologise for calling your origional post garbage. The only excuse I can offer is that it was late at night, and I had been studying, so I was in an rather grumpy mood.
I hope we can continue the discussion in a more civilized tone of voice.
I’d be glad to. 🙂 I hope you didn’t find my rebuttal offensive.
I’d just like to pick up on your assertion “Methodism denies the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist”
Do you suppose Methodists believe that Christ is absent from the Eucharist? It’s true that we don’t subscribe to the doctrine of transubstantiation, but that’s hardly the same thing. Perhaps a few lines of Wesley’s hymnody might be excused? This is from the 1745 collection, “Hymns on the Lord’s supper”:
We need not now go up to heaven,
To bring the long-sought saviour down;
Thou art to all already given,
Thou dost ev’n now thy banquet crown:
To every faithful soul appear,
And show thy real presence here!
Of course, Methodism denies the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Doing so is one of the main reasons I’m no longer a Methodist. By Real Presence, Catholics mean that the God the Son is present in the Sacrament, body and blood, soul and divinity, and that He is received thus by the communicant. Methodists do not, and never did, mean that at all. Whether they call something else a “real presence” is another issue.
Rob, most of the world seems to be confused regarding the Church’s policies toward divorce. In cases of abuse or adultery, the Church, to the best of my knowledge, does not forbid civil divorce. However, the crucial thing to remember is that though a marriage may be civilly dissolved, it is not necessarily a null sacrament. I’ll leave discussing of annulments for another day. The point is that the sin is not divorce. It is remarriage. Marriage, like baptism, confirmation, and holy orders, is a sacrament that cannot be repeated.
Yeah, the calendar of gay saints is pretty ridiculous. The guy seems to think that Paul was gay because he was an unmarried Jew, which was unusual for the time. First off he wasn’t a Jew. Secondly, he clearly believed celibacy was far more spiritually fruitful. This makes me doubt the veracity of their other claims regarding the sexual orientations of the saints. Also, the claims regarding Paulinus are pretty goofy too. It seems he wrote two poems to Ausonius, but they had much more to do with the fact that his lustful desires would be wiped away in the afterlife. Also, I couldn’t find any evidence that Ausonius returned his love, or was even remotely gay (though that’s not to say there isn’t any). It’s really rather baseless to call the two a “male/male couple.”
Also, as an aside, have you really seen people “saved,” methotaku dude? (If that’s not your handle, I apologize.) How do you know they were saved? I’d like to think that I am, but I dunno.