Monthly Archives: July 2006

Reflections on a Homosexual Bible Study (Part III)

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Read Part I of "Reflections on a Homosexual Bible Study"

Read Part II of "Reflections on a Homosexual Bible Study"

Finally, verses from the Old Testament were featured. First we studied the story of Lot and the men of Sodom in Genesis.

The two angels reached Sodom in the evening, as Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he got up to greet them; and bowing down with his face to the ground, he said, "Please, gentlemen, come aside into your servant’s house for the night, and bathe your feet; you can get up early to continue your journey." But they replied, "No, we shall pass the night in the town square." He urged them so strongly, however, that they turned aside to his place and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking cakes without leaven, and they dined. Before they went to bed, all the townsmen of Sodom, both young and old–all the people to the last man–closed in on the house. They called to Lot and said to him, "Where are the men who came to your house tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have intimacies with them." Lot went out to meet them at the entrance. When he had shut the door behind him, he said, "I beg you, my brothers, not to do this wicked thing. I have two daughters who have never had intercourse with men. Let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you please. But don’t do anything to these men, for you know they have come under the shelter of my roof." They replied, "Stand back! This fellow," they sneered, "came here as an immigrant, and now he dares to give orders! We’ll treat you worse than them!" With that, they pressed hard against Lot, moving in closer to break down the door. But his guests put out their hands, pulled Lot inside with them, and closed the door; at the same time they struck the men at the entrance of the house, one and all, with such a blinding light that they were utterly unable to reach the doorway. Then the angels said to Lot: "Who else belongs to you here? Your sons (sons-in-law) and your daughters and all who belong to you in the city–take them away from it! We are about to destroy this place, for the outcry reaching the LORD against those in the city is so great that he has sent us to destroy it." So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had contracted marriage with his daughters. "Get up and leave this place," he told them; "the LORD is about to destroy the city." But his sons-in-law thought he was joking. As dawn was breaking, the angels urged Lot on, saying, "On your way! Take with you your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city." When he hesitated, the men, by the LORD’S mercy, seized his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters and led them to safety outside the city. As soon as they had been brought outside, he was told: "Flee for your life! Don’t look back or stop anywhere on the Plain. Get off to the hills at once, or you will be swept away." "Oh, no, my lord!" replied Lot. "You have already thought enough of your servant to do me the great kindness of intervening to save my life. But I cannot flee to the hills to keep the disaster from overtaking me, and so I shall die. Look, this town ahead is near enough to escape to. It’s only a small place. Let me flee there–it’s a small place, isn’t it?–that my life may be saved." "Well, then," he replied, "I will also grant you the favor you now ask. I will not overthrow the town you speak of. Hurry, escape there! I cannot do anything until you arrive there." That is why the town is called Zoar. The sun was just rising over the earth as Lot arrived in Zoar; at the same time the LORD rained down sulphurous fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah (from the LORD out of heaven). He overthrew those cities and the whole Plain, together with the inhabitants of the cities and the produce of the soil. But Lot’s wife looked back, and she was turned into a pillar of salt. Early the next morning Abraham went to the place where he had stood in the LORD’S presence. As he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and the whole region of the Plain, he saw dense smoke over the land rising like fumes from a furnace. Thus it came to pass: when God destroyed the Cities of the Plain, he was mindful of Abraham by sending Lot away from the upheaval by which God overthrew the cities where Lot had been living. (Genesis 19:1-29)

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Charitable Interpretation

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Harmonious interaction between bloggers, particularly Christian bloggers, is very important to me. Blogs have tremendous potential for bringing folks of diverse backgrounds together. They can also contribute to fracturing the Body Christ. One courtesy I ask of my commenters is to use "interpretive charity" (aka charitable interpretation). It means, among other things, that we should imagine the blogger or commenter we're about to smite with a withering retort as our dear, sweet grandmother. It also means we should attempt to address in advance ways in which our statements might be misunderstood. Why? Well, apparently textual communication leaves something to be desired. The following statements about email could easily be applied to blogging.

"Though e-mail is a powerful and convenient medium, researchers have identified three major problems. First and foremost, e-mail lacks cues like facial expression and tone of voice. That makes it difficult for recipients to decode meaning well. Second, the prospect of instantaneous communication creates an urgency that pressures e-mailers to think and write quickly, which can lead to carelessness. Finally, the inability to develop personal rapport over e-mail makes relationships fragile in the face of conflict."

[…]

"To avoid miscommunication, e-mailers need to look at what they write from the recipient's perspective… One strategy: Read it aloud in the opposite way you intend, whether serious or sarcastic. If it makes sense either way, revise."

78% of email senders believe they are clearly communicating. 91% of email receivers believe they are correctly interpreting. 56% of the time, the receiver correctly interprets the message. I wonder what the stats for blog posts and comments would be.

Reflections on a Homosexual Bible Study (Part II)

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Read Part I of "Reflections on a Homosexual Bible Study".

In the next four chapter sessions, same-sex conduct was defended. Almost every well-known section of the Bible that dealt with it was analyzed to divert attention from its homosexual aspects toward something else. Only after attempting to strip down inferred homosexual aspects of each Bible passage was the most obvious disapproving Bible passage of same-sex conduct introduced from Leviticus.

"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; such a thing is an abomination." (Leviticus 18:22)

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St. Anne’s Novena

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Remember today is a great day to begin a St. Anne’s Novena. While this novena to the mother of the Blessed Virgin and Holy God-bearer may be said at any time, starting today will allow you to finish on the feast of St. Anne. Many parishes hold public novena’s during this time, so check the local churches, especially if one of them is named St. Anne’s.

EWTN’s website has the most common novena to St. Anne.

There is also the chaplet of St. Anne, which dates back to the 1800’s, to be found here.

And for those Oratoriophiles out there, a prayer translated by Ambrose St. Jean (pronounced "sinjin"), CO of the Birmingham Oratory.

The feast of St. Anne is quite old. It is celebrated as the "Dormition of St. Anne" in the East on the 25th, and the feast of St. Anne in the West is celebrated on the 26th (in the calendar of the Novus Ordo Missae the feast of St. Joaquin, the BVM’s father, is moved to this day, as well).

It is often observed that Grandmothers play a very important role in the return of many young Catholics to the Church during the last two decades. As this generation now grows older, it is an important time to pray to the grandmother of Christ for these grandparents, whose witness is still needed in the Church today. Few saints have shown the effectiveness that St. Anne has shown with countless miracles, no doubt due to the love Christ has for His own grandmother. We all have needs which St. Anne, who loves us as only grandmothers do, desires to present to her Divine grandson. So, join us in this novena, praying for your own needs as well as for the intentions of this blog and the Pittsburgh Newman Clubs.