How lesbian can be a minister of Memorial Church? Leviticus 18:22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. How LGBT activist can speak with god and tell about Holy Scripture which is against LGBT? I'm really sorry, but why she's talking this sh*t? church isn't circus, it's serious place and there is no place for "art" in church. Seems like they are trying to destroy not only our family values and marriage institute, but also, destroy our religion! http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=6164
I imagine she does it the same way everyone else does. With merely the hope that she'll 'measure up'. Just like every hetero minister who's 'sinned' might do. But I'm curious, why do you focus on this woman's sexuality, as though it mattered? Are you unable to see that your grubby interest in other people's intimate lives is a greater failing than that with which you accuse this woman? And how does her private life 'destroy' your family values and marriage institute? Exactly? Meantime, why don't you redirect all that wasted energy towards something more noble and worthwhile.
Do you take the entire Bible as literal? If the answer is no then your argument is moot. If the answer is yes then how do you live without violating any one of the many rules that if broken command a death sentence or some extreme punishment? All any of us can do is cherry pick the Bible because to take it literally would get us all killed or thrown in jail. - - - Updated - - - So much for freedom. Who gets to decide which Church is the true Church? You? Me? Someone else?
Paul said that if anyone preaches a different gospel than what he preached that the person should be accursed. So did Paul ever say that it's OK for a lesbian to preach in a Christian church? Galatians 1:8-9 (NKJV) = "8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed."
If some passages can be ignored or liberally reinterpreted then what does it matter what Paul said? Do you take the entire Bible as literal? If not then I see your point as moot as the Dean for Religious Life has the same right to interpret the Bible as much as anyone else. If all Christians took each and every word of the Bible literally then you may have a point... but they do not. Its all relative to the individual.
Good question. The bible seems only concerned about men lying with men. So a lesbian, since scripture doesn't address it has to be ok. Paul also said it is better to be celibate, but it is better to marry than to burn. Now burn, that term, was referencing sexual desire, to burn with sexual desire. So perhaps people that burn in hell are just burning from some desire? How many bible thumping Christians choose to be celibate? I never knew one, except if one is a priest, a RC priest. And then their celibacy tends to make them love the boys too much.
Once you start throwing stuff out you will end up with nothing. It was Paul who created the Christian doctrine so once you start dismissing things that he said that makes up the Christian doctrine you will end up with a different religion. Consequently if you want lesbian preachers you no longer follow Paul's Christian doctrine but you are following another religious doctrine. Know the rules. Follow the rules. If you don't like the rules create your own rules but you will not be playing the original game. You can't play baseball using bowling rules although they both use round balls.
I've also always thought that the people saying that "lying with a male as with a woman" applies to gays must have some pretty weird ideas of how gay sex works. Edit: Or how sex with women works.
Scripture does reference lesbians in Romans 1:26 (ERV) = "Because people did those things, God left them and let them do the shameful things they wanted to do. Women stopped having natural sex with men and started having sex with other women." https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans 1:26-32&version=ERV
Well, it's a step up from romping with the livestock. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus 20:15-16&version=ERV
Do you take everything in the Bible as literal? If not then the above point is moot. Each individual gets to decide what to take as a literal and what to reinterpret.
Not that I feel inclined to go through the ever same mantra of why the Bible no more tells us to despise homosexuality than it tells us to despise our modern textile industry for mixing materials (rather than for the exploitation of its workers, an exploitation which we should indeed despise ). As for our modern family values and notions of marriage: they are indeed rather unbiblical in many ways. Monogamy certainly is not an ancient Israelite ideal . Im sure weve heard each others arguments before. But what interests me: whats your problem with art in church? Art as an expression of worship has been around since time memorial in Christendom. Have you ever stood in a Gothic Cathedral? Awe-inspiring! I myself am the kind of Protestant Christian who likes to keep their church-building free of tat to be able to concentrate on the Word. But I must happily acknowledge that art can bring people closer to God. Has done over the ages and still does. And certainly helped me on occasion. IMHO thats wonderful!
Church is a circus that takes itself seriously, which makes it all the funnier to outsiders looking in.
It really is silly isn't it? I can understand a person praying or believing in spirituality but I have never understood why people believe in a Religion. AboveAlpha
As a former believer, I can offer this insight: Not all people are the same in their ways of thinking; some are more prone to superstitious thinking, to emphasising emotional satisfaction over logic and reason, to deceiving themselves and others for personal reasons, and so on. Plus, each religion can be understood memetically. As a meme, it is an evolving, competing idea or set of ideas that basically behaves like life itself, living or dying out according to how well it withstands adversarial pressures, whether from outright oppression or from competing ideas, a changing environment, and so on. Also like life, religions branch off at times in addition to simply evolving, meaning that you get off-shoots that fill other niches or perhaps even grow to compete with their predecessors, as the Cambrian Explosion of Protestant Faiths, to coin the phrase, did with Catholicism in Europe, or as Mormonism has done with Catholicism and the surviving Protestant faiths alike in the US, as Christianity did with the earlier religions and cults of Rome around the time of Constantine and with Judaism in Palestine, or as Islam has been doing with many other, older religions pretty much globally at this point, just to name a few examples. In each case, it's like having a new species emerge and take on the established populations. Also, returning to my own experiences, it helps a given religion to compete when it provides a balance of positive reinforcement (feel good, loved, social, like you belong, etc.) for joining and negative reinforcement (you will BURN in HELL for ETERNITY!) for rejecting it. The various species and genera of Christianity, as well as Islam in all its variants, have evolved to do this, and I would argue that this has happened by a kind of natural selection process. Their strategy is a highly successful one, obviously, or they would not have flourished as they have done. By comparison, the less aggressive and competitive Hindu faith has remained mostly a culturally and geographically isolated phenomenon. It doesn't proselytise, doesn't threaten people with eternal torment for rejecting it, doesn't promise eternal bliss and/or 72 virgins for accepting it, and so on. In sum, f*** religion.
There are many fine ideas associated with the character of Jesus, as well as some not so great ones. I think we're best off evaluating each on its own merits, though, rather than fussing over who allegedly said what.
What did Jesus say in Matthew 15:24 (TLB) = Then he said to the woman, “I was sent to help the Jews—the lost sheep of Israel—not the Gentiles.”
Matthew 15:28 Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour. I'm not one to defend the bible, but that one was easy. Turned out to be some sort of test of faith. Still, that makes Jesus look like a pretty strange character. And actually, what's even more bothersome is the whole story from verses 21 to 28 taken together. I don't like when people think they're "demon-possessed," and that prayer will then clear it up. We've seen how it goes in Baptist and other such churches - attention-seekers show up, act possessed, get 'cured' by prayer, then rinse and repeat. It can't be healthy to indulge those people like that. Then there's the fact that mental illness was not properly understood when the various biblical texts were written and their original stories concocted. It was thought of as demon-possession, yet we understand today (those of us who aren't jumping around and falling down in a trance every Sunday, anyway) that spirits don't exist as claimed, but rather are an ancient notion from a time before anyone knew what air and wind actually were (the words for spirit were the exact same word and concept in Greek and other old languages, precisely because they were one and the same in those people's minds), and that mental illnesses relate to the brain, our organ for thinking, where our effing minds live. In this, Christianity and other such religions are only holding people back with outdated, silly ideas. How many good scientists never were simply because they were diverted by religion and turned into superstitious nobodies instead? I'll bet there are quite a few out there. Such a waste.
Organized Religion has always been and is simply A SYSTEM OF CONTROL. Religion has shown itself to be a tool for those who desire power and wealth as after all....why do people donate money when they go to church beyond the amounts needed to simply keep the church operating?? Maybe...Jesus needs a few bucks? AboveAlpha
Countries that wish to control their people outlaw religion. As long as people are free to choose to believe what they want to believe, it isn't control.
I would never want to outlaw religion. I am simply looking at it for what it is. For some people....religion is a very necessary thing as some people simply cannot handle or come to terms with either the concept of death or be capable of living with an uncertainty of what might happen to them when the die. For these people....religious ideology gives them hope and a well defined concept of continuance after death which they need to reamin stable while living. For other people....such things are not necessary. But regardless of the benefits and detriments of religion and those who have overly strong religious beleifs....make no mistake.....Organised Religion has ALWAYS been a SYSTEM OF CONTROL. AboveAlpha
