Nashville Statement

[KingsGambit]

I think we have a misunderstanding here. I'm saying that Article 10 does state that this issue is non-negotiable for Christians.

[Jedidiah]

He was claiming it was a salvation issue.

Someone practicing and approving of homosexual immortality is as I understand it rejecting salvation by rejecting scripture. That does not make it unforgivable just not yet forgiven.

[hedrick]

As I see it either you are wrong or scripture is contradicting scripture. Which is it?

I give the references. They're pretty straightforward. (See also Acts 15:20 and 29.) Sorry, but various NT authors didn't always agree.

But that wasn't my point. My point was that Paul advocated tolerance even on an issue even more serious than the current one. But it's always easier for the liberal side to advocate tolerance.

(Yes, I do advocate tolerance. I know there are some more extreme folks who don't, but generally the accepting churches have done their best to encourage coexistence.)

[Leonhard]

I'm using the word "habit" as a catch all phrase that includes one's mental patterns, inclinations, behaviors, actions, etc. That should have been clear from the context.

We disagree on it being a habit then. Or whether it can appropriate be called a habit.

It's not about what satisfies me.

I have no doubt that my life is pleasing to God or that I'm on a good road in growing in spiritual perfection. You're the one who is not satisfied with gay Christians apparently, in their testimonies that its close to impossible to make serious change in their inclinations for many of them. That they settle for sublimating their desires and living chaste, celibate lives. You apparently see that as insufficient, and want them to do something more.

So I wanted to know what that would look like.

But I think God well be very pleased if those who struggle with the inclination towards sin were to continue seeking wholeness. Were to continue putting off the habits (and here I mean what I stated above) of the old man, and continued putting on the new.

Much of that is involved in the celibate life. Again I'm not getting something specific as to person changing their inclinations. A person living as a celibate isn't going of his way to check if he's attracted to women in a sexual way, he doesn't date, or flirt, and he definitely doesn't want to look up porn. Or to discuss what arouses him, or anything like that. So I just don't see what the relevance is. I'll deal with your 'angry man' example later.

I think a great start to that would be getting out of one's mind that "This is my lot in life. This is who I am. I will have these desires for the rest of my life, whether I want them or not."

We aren't our desires, while our sexuality is deeply integrated into who we are as people, what I'm attracted to doesn't define who I am as a person. We'd both agree on that, no problem. Celibate gay Christians do expect and pray for much change in their life, usually, as I've repeated, over and over again, that their desires lessen and their virtues grow. Both of which undeniable happen.

Very few with deep-seated homosexual urges will have a complete reversal. No matter what attempt is made. This is, and should be, uncontested and undeniable.

I don't think it's sufficient.

I think those prayers are more than sufficient. It is both significantly less than what I did before and not so anxiety driven and painful. Its done in obedience to a good spiritual adviser who ordered me to do no more than this for now, and during this time I've experienced actual growth. Making zeal out of it and trying to pound my fist against the door didn't produce anything except a lot of pain. God wasn't rewarding the zeal. He is rewarding this. There is no doubt of that.

Granted there's a different spiritual approach in the Catholic Church which doesn't see homosexual attractions as sinful, even venially (another Catholic term - read 'small sins') when not acted on. Which I think we've both come to an agreement on that they aren't. The Catholic Church sees people afflicted with deep-seated homosexual attractions as having a trial they go through. We can ask for the grace we need to overcome, and this grace can come in many forms, strength, patience, endurance, lessening of the trial (smaller concupiscence in this case), or even extradordinarily that the problem is completely reversed and is gone which also happens in rare circumstances.

I'm of course not asserting that all your prayers should be about yourself.

So we've established that morning and evening prayer isn't something that would suffice you, and we've established that committing all your prayer time to the issue would be too much.

That's a pretty broad spectrum between a small but dedicated devotion, up to it being a sole focus of prayer. Neither being something you're satisfied with.

You keep on tripping up on this idea of "morally evil". I haven't introduced that phrase into this conversation, and I replied to it when you initially did. I stated, "It doesn't seem accurate to me to say that it is 'morally evil' to simply have un-acted upon same sex attractions, but I certainly do not think it is God's desire for us to have same sex attractions."

Because it's a very useful term for describing this, and I'm surprised you wouldn't use it. Moral evil, vs natural evil, is a very simple distinction to make. And it seems you are as in this quote of yours, implicitly making this distinction: Having same sex attractions is not a moral failing on our part, nor however is it good, and God would desire to heal us of it.

I believe God would have you not believing that you are fated forever to be gay.

Hopefully I'll stand with the saved. There is no doubt that as saints we'll be pure like the angels. At that point there won't be anymore eros of any kind, for women or men.

I believe God would have you continuing to put off the desires and inclinations of the old man, even if it seems to no effect.

A lot of things have happened. I'm not sure its things that would satisfy you, but I have regained a lot of control I didn't have before. The frequency of my falls in vice have decreased over the past year strongly. I'm no longer as obsessed with sex as I was, which was driving me mad. There's still a long way to go, but I'm starting to see a point where I'm a well integrated human being.

I still can't foresee a time when I'd get sexually and romantically attracted to women. Nothing on that front has ever changed, and while I wouldn't mind seeing a change on that, its way down on my list of priorities. There are other virtues to cultivate, and patterns to break and things to learn.

I believe God would not want you in a state of anxiety about your situation, nor would he desire you to attempt change through sheer force of will, but in cooperation with the Holy Spirit in a peaceful, and present state of mind.

This is pretty much what is happening.

These are the same things that I think God would desire for all of us who struggle with one sort of sin or another. I've repeated this several times in this thread though, so I don't know why you keep asking me "what more should I do/what more would you have me do".

Because it doesn't seem to be enough for you. You seem to imply that there's more I should be doing.

I find it curious how you talk about your Christian faith as though the smallest nudge in your Christian worldview one way or the other would have you booking it rather than reevaluating your own understanding.

There are certain things that are unbelievable. If the Bible taught that the sky was red, but we could look outside and it was blue, and the red couldn't be interpreted as 'spiritually red', and furthermore couldn't be interpreted as 'it was red a long ago', then the Bible would be wrong. Same goes here, I reject your interpretation because it sounds ludicrous to me. I can't both affirm that we'll get everything we ask for, if we just ask for it in faith, and then turn around and notice that my nephew is dying despite hundreds of prayers for him, that my father has a heart condition that is not getting better, that there's all this evil in the world. I trust that God can heal my nephew. I do. Nothing is impossible to Him, but I also trust that God has his inscrutable Will and I can only hope that my nephew getting to live is part of that Will. If it is not, I submit and trust His Will.

Go to Africa and talk to starving children about they just need to pray 'with faith' expecting to get that food while they're wasting away. Don't you think people prayed to have WWI or WWII end, and for years those prayers weren't answered and entire peoples and towns were destroyed forever?

There is evil in this world. God allows this evil to be visited upon us. God allows natural defects to corrupt and destroy our bodies and minds, without lifting even a little finger to stop them. There is no denying this. Any Christian theology that can't work with this, I don't see how I could believe in. One evil is to be born blind, deprived from being able to see. One is to be locked-in, unable to move any muscle except sometimes your eyes. There are Christians who right now suffer severe cruelties because of other men's evil, and God allows those evils to be visited upon them. And don't you think those Christians are praying more than you'll ever do in your life to have that stop?

Does God do this because He delights in suffering? Of course not. But God has an infinite plan, and a timeless perspective.

I have other reasons why I suspect God wouldn't remove a trial from a person, even when that person asks of it. I have it as something implied in the morning and evening prayer I do. My spiritual adviser says that's enough, and being obedient to him I have no doubt that this is precisely what God wants me to do at this particular juncture of my life.

Yes. Right from the start in your first reply in post #16 you wrote that, matching your own experience, "voluntarily changing these inclinations is close to being impossible". So it wasn't enough for you to simply accept that you were gay. At some point in your life you desired change. Furthermore, you've stated that you continue to pray that your desires are weakened, and that it won't be something you have to deal with at all in heaven.

I have never said 'I hope its not something I have to deal with in Heaven', that is a given. There won't be any sexual attraction of any kind, shape, or form in Heaven. Eros will have come to an end. There won't be any married couples either, that too would have come to an end. All marriages end at death of one of the partners. So no, I have no fear of being beset by homoerotic attractions in Heaven.

And yes, I've said it was close to impossible to change. I have not in anyway said people should not hope or pray for change, just expect that its minority who'll go from deep-seated homosexual attractions to a well-integrated heterosexual lifestyle. If you can accept that rarity, you can still hope for it, and in hoping for it, you can pray for it. Even work towards it, hopefully under good counseling, if you desire. Personally I think its better for people with deep-seated homosexual urges to pursue the celibate life as the end goal.

I might have been confused about what you meant in 'it wasn't enough for me', yes a long, long time ago, and for a short time when I was a Catholic, I tried. It was one of the reasons I chose the Catholic Church though, as they don't call people with same sex attractions to become heterosexual. While this healing is possible, its not always seen, and there is a celebration of the celibate life so that can be pursued as an end goal. After that I pursued that end, and found peace.

You also strongly suggest that those who attempt to alter their thought patterns on this subject will likely be met with nothing but despair.

Sexual or romantic attractions are not merely a thought pattern, just as they're not merely a habit. And yes. People with deep-seated homosexual urges, peer-pressured into pursuing all sorts of attempts to change their attractions, will face despair. I have no doubt about that. If they believe that they only way that they can be good members of their Church is to be straight, they'll feel despair. Because the majority of them are going to die still with those urges.

I think a celibate life is a fine start. I don't think it's the end all be all.

We'll have to disagree on that.

Leonhard, I love you too, and I do not mean to psychoanalyze, but in order to write a response that I think is fair to both of us, it is sometimes necessary for me to anticipate the motivations of the person I'm engaging with. It's a style of discussion and debate that I believe Ravi Zacharias engages in, and I often find it brings much more to light.

Okay?

At any rate, I won't psycho-analyze you, please extend the same courtesy to me. I'll divulge that I'm mostly agitated because its hard for me to be completely cool and collected when talking about periods of my life that have been intensely painful. Beyond this I won't say anything more specific. Same when people "psycho-analyze" me on my depression periods. It very often becomes a way for the person talking to me to load up their arguments with their own personal judgements, and if I have to respond to anything you say I'd have to divulge publically very private and sensitive information about me, while you yourself sitting comfortably risk nothing. Personally I don't think that's fair, so I'll ask you politely to stop.

I'm not sure I understand the question, but to break it down into something that we might both relate to, if you and I were both to meet a man who suffered from issues with rage, but was able to reduce his interaction with people, or found some coping mechanism that didn't remove the rage, but at least didn't make it an inconvenience for him, and a problem for others, we might think, "well, okay, at least he's doing something about his circumstance." I would like to think, though, that both of us would recognize that, while this person is doing something, that they're not walking in the fullness of life.

The biggest problem with the analogy is that there's no antithesis to the angry man. The angry man, when he's not angry can still form friends, and live a normal and happy life. There is no... heterogry man. You wouldn't be satisfied with a homosexual who said "I no longer feel much if any inclination to seek out male relationships." if he didn't follow that up with "But I do feel inclinations to seek out female relationships. I'm cured."

So baring that in mind, that you're talking about more than merely for the homosexual to overcome their unnatural urges, and for those urges to disappear, but in fact for a complete new set of urges towards the appropriate sex to happen... this is what I'd make of your analogy.

So lets imagine this man who very occasionally have days when he's furious, easily agitated, a cinder-keg, short-fuse, etc... He knows this. He can deal with it, by staying home those days and engaging with other stuff. Or excuse himself from company a little early if he feels it coming on. He deals with it as good as anyone can reasonable be expected to deal with it. He's been like that since he was a kid, and has received all the natural and supernatural help he can be provided with.

God has not healed him. Should he accept that this is his lot in life?

Yes.

Does that mean that he couldn't hope for improvement, recovery, healing, even a completely miraculous recovery in the future?

No.

Should he pray for it?

Yes, it should definitely be one of his prayer intentions.

That's my stance on it.

[Jedidiah]

I give the references. They're pretty straightforward. (See also Acts 15:20 and 29.) Sorry, but various NT authors didn't always agree.

But that wasn't my point. My point was that Paul advocated tolerance even on an issue even more serious than the current one. But it's always easier for the liberal side to advocate tolerance.

(Yes, I do advocate tolerance. I know there are some more extreme folks who don't, but generally the accepting churches have done their best to encourage coexistence.)

Scripture does not contradict scripture.

[Adrift]

We disagree on it being a habit then. Or whether it can appropriate be called a habit.

I just told you that I'm using the word "habit" as a catch-all. I don't mean that homosexuality is a habit like smoking cigarettes, if that's what you're thinking. Any thought pattern could be said to be a habit in this sense. A heterosexual man's attraction to women could be said to be a "habit". If the word is tripping you up that badly then forget I wrote it. Substitute instead, "thought patterns", or "inclinations", or whatever.

So we've established that morning and evening prayer isn't something that would suffice you, and we've established that committing all your prayer time to the issue would be too much.

That's a pretty broad spectrum between a small but dedicated devotion, up to it being a sole focus of prayer. Neither being something you're satisfied with.

This sounds like you're just wanting to bicker to bicker. I don't think its as important how much you pray for yourself as much as what you're praying for, and if you're praying in faith. If you've already settled in your mind that change cannot or will not happen in this lifetime, then what's the point of praying for it? If you're praying as a form of a-hopin and a-wishin that it might come to pass, then I'm not sure how effectual that is. Pray expecting to receive. But I repeat myself. I've already mentioned this a couple posts up.

Because it's a very useful term for describing this, and I'm surprised you wouldn't use it. Moral evil, vs natural evil, is a very simple distinction to make. And it seems you are as in this quote of yours, implicitly making this distinction: Having same sex attractions is not a moral failing on our part, nor however is it good, and God would desire to heal us of it.

Yep. I don't see the problem here. Again, I feel like you want to feed me your strawmen, that way you have something you feel you can substantially argue against. But I don't accept your strawmen.

Hopefully I'll stand with the saved. There is no doubt that as saints we'll be pure like the angels. At that point there won't be anymore eros of any kind, for women or men.

I have no idea how you think this interacts with the sentence you replied to. I have no reason to doubt that if you believe Jesus is Lord that you will stand with the saved, or that there is unlikely to be any sexual attraction between people at that time (though Michael Heiser makes the case that this may not be true, but I digress), so I have no idea what you think you're accomplishing by repeating that when we get to heaven everything will be good. That's a sentiment I of course share.

Because it doesn't seem to be enough for you. You seem to imply that there's more I should be doing.

Nope. I think I've pretty much covered everything I could think of. If you don't have a problem with any of these things (though it does seem that you do), I don't really understand why you've put in so much effort to challenge me on the subject.

There are certain things that are unbelievable. If the Bible taught that the sky was red, but we could look outside and it was blue, and the red couldn't be interpreted as 'spiritually red', and furthermore couldn't be interpreted as 'it was red a long ago', then the Bible would be wrong. Same goes here, I reject your interpretation because it sounds ludicrous to me. I can't both affirm that we'll get everything we ask for, if we just ask for it in faith, and then turn around and notice that my nephew is dying despite hundreds of prayers for him, that my father has a heart condition that is not getting better, that there's all this evil in the world. I trust that God can heal my nephew. I do. Nothing is impossible to Him, but I also trust that God has his inscrutable Will and I can only hope that my nephew getting to live is part of that Will. If it is not, I submit and trust His Will.

Go to Africa and talk to starving children about they just need to pray 'with faith' expecting to get that food while they're wasting away. Don't you think people prayed to have WWI or WWII end, and for years those prayers weren't answered and entire peoples and towns were destroyed forever?

There is evil in this world. God allows this evil to be visited upon us. God allows natural defects to corrupt and destroy our bodies and minds, without lifting even a little finger to stop them. There is no denying this. Any Christian theology that can't work with this, I don't see how I could believe in. One evil is to be born blind, deprived from being able to see. One is to be locked-in, unable to move any muscle except sometimes your eyes. There are Christians who right now suffer severe cruelties because of other men's evil, and God allows those evils to be visited upon them. And don't you think those Christians are praying more than you'll ever do in your life to have that stop?

Does God do this because He delights in suffering? Of course not. But God has an infinite plan, and a timeless perspective.

Hmm. I hope I'm misunderstanding you, but it sounds like you're looking at this issue from the perspective of the flesh attempting to move the spirit (God) by a sort of wishful begging which you're calling prayer. I don't see things that way. I see prayer as powerful and effectual, especially to those who have faith in God's promises, and who expect to receive. Jesus over and over again discussed the faith of those he interacted with. I don't know why God doesn't always answer prayer, even of those who pray fervently and faithfully, but it isn't for us to question why prayer doesn't seem to get answered, especially if it aligns with God's will, and I have no reason to doubt that our perfect health and sound minds is within God's will for our lives. What father would want his children to suffer? Yet I recognize that many of us do, and will continue to suffer until we're with him in heaven. But the Bible tells me to pray, to meditate, to fast, to remain in communion with my fellow brothers and sisters regardless of the evil that I see. Regardless of the seeming unanswered prayer. I do it because he commands it, and because I know that he's good to his word. That for every person who doesn't see divine intervention, there are plenty that do. Missing from this entire picture, though, is the fact that what we see in the physical isn't all there is. There is a spiritual battle going on around us. There are angels attempting to intercede on our behalf while principalities and powers are working against us and them. We have an adversary who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy us. He prowls about like a lion to see whom he can devour. He would love nothing more than put in our heads that our prayer is to little effect. But I don't believe that is true. Our prayer is effectual, and our God is powerful. The devil is defeated, he just doesn't quite know it yet. ....But again, I digress. This is all well off topic.

Sexual or romantic attractions are not merely a thought pattern, just as they're not merely a habit.

Sexual attraction is very much psychological in nature. The desire for a female that I have certainly could be said to be a thought pattern. What clinical term to describe what goes on in the mind when a person is attracted to another person would you rather I use? Because that's what I'm referring to when I use words/phrases like "habit" or "thought pattern". I'm happy to use any other word or phrase you think would suffice. Psychological state? Mental phenomena? It seems like a weird thing to get hung up on, as it's peripheral to whatever point I'm actually making.

And yes. People with deep-seated homosexual urges, peer-pressured into pursuing all sorts of attempts to change their attractions, will face despair. I have no doubt about that. If they believe that they only way that they can be good members of their Church is to be straight, they'll feel despair. Because the majority of them are going to die still with those urges.

Most of my friends have been heavily addicted to drugs at some point within their lives. Often felt that those who encouraged them to receive help were "peer-pressuring" them, and felt great despair over it (though, much of the despair also came from the fact that they were also being peer pressured by others into continuing their drug use). Many of them believed that they would die with their addiction. Some did. Most did not. Many of us have dealt with great despair when it comes to dealing with sin and ungodly urges. There's nothing unique in the gay community about that, but we carry through it, and learn to renew our minds to Christ. And it is not my view that someone struggling with homosexuality cannot be a good member of a church. To the contrary, the church is the place for people struggling with sin, and ungodly urges.

The biggest problem with the analogy is that there's no antithesis to the angry man. The angry man, when he's not angry can still form friends, and live a normal and happy life. There is no... heterogry man. You wouldn't be satisfied with a homosexual who said "I no longer feel much if any inclination to seek out male relationships." if he didn't follow that up with "But I do feel inclinations to seek out female relationships. I'm cured."

So baring that in mind, that you're talking about more than merely for the homosexual to overcome their unnatural urges, and for those urges to disappear, but in fact for a complete new set of urges towards the appropriate sex to happen... this is what I'd make of your analogy.

I don't know what you're saying here. Of course there's an antithesis to an angry man. It's the pleasant man. Or the happy man. Or the man who is at peace with himself and with others. I question though, whether or not one who suffers from rage issues can live what I would consider a "normal and happy life". In fact, I specifically stated that even if he could find coping mechanisms that would make it so that his rage was less of an inconvenience to himself and others, he still wouldn't be walking in what we would consider the fullness of life. I think the analogy works perfectly fine.

So lets imagine this man who very occasionally have days when he's furious, easily agitated, a cinder-keg, short-fuse, etc... He knows this. He can deal with it, by staying home those days and engaging with other stuff. Or excuse himself from company a little early if he feels it coming on. He deals with it as good as anyone can reasonable be expected to deal with it. He's been like that since he was a kid, and has received all the natural and supernatural help he can be provided with.

God has not healed him. Should he accept that this is his lot in life?

No. Absolutely not. That sounds like a terrible life to live, and certainly does not encapsulate the "more than abundant life", and freedom that Jesus promises us when we make him Lord.

[NorrinRadd]

The debate in this thread has gone on about Article 8, but off this site, the most controversial article has been Article 10, which states that this is not an "agree to disagree" issue among evangelicals. Given that 1 Corinthians 6:10-11 says that this is a salvation issue, I must confess I don't understand the mindset that one can think homosexuality is sinful but be willing to agree to disagree on it. ...

I agree that vice list makes it sound as if salvation is contingent on avoiding certain behaviors, including homosexual practice. And I don't agree with those that say the context shows it is referring exclusively to pre-conversion lifestyles. It is clear to me that it is a rebuke and warning against *continuing* those lifestyles.

And obvious concern from the immediate context is that hardly anyone makes an equally big deal about adulterers and fornicators, and few show much concern at all about drunkards and greedy / covetous people.

From the larger NT context, one must be concerned about treating *any* of these things as a "salvation" issue, since that equates to salvation by works, and turns the written instructions of the NT into little more than a new law -- after all of Paul's warnings about the failings of the Law, and the fact that the LETTER brings death.

I like what I've read in reading the Nashville Statement. Basically all 'progressive' critiques I've seen of it veer wildly and enthusiastically into the realm of the heretical (and, we can make no mistake, affirmation of homosexuality and transgenderism within the context of Christian ethics is out-and-out heresy). ...

This kind of statement reveals the truth of the adage, "Everybody is somebody's heretic."

Article 10 is a particularly obtuse and weasely portion of the Statement. The authors go beyond those who *practice* homosexuality to those who "approve" of them. They do not define "approve," but the context implies that mere failure to condemn the practice amounts to "approval." They use the term, "[b]essential[b] departure," implying that one's stance on sexual practices is a test of primary orthodoxy, i.e. of salvation; then they change lanes and use the terms "faithfulness and witness," clouding the issue as to whether it really is about "being" a Christian as opposed to "looking like" a Christian.

I contemplated signing the Nashville Statement myself, but I do have a couple misgivings:[list][*]The fact that it originates exclusively from one sectarian wing of the evangelical world. I'm deeply disappointed with the CBMW for apparently not having reached out to, say, the CBE to co-sponsor a declaration on behalf of evangelical believers in general. As a result, although some signatories (e.g., Gagnon) have noted that nothing in the Nashville Statement requires an explicitly complementarian reading - and they're probably right about that - nevertheless, the CBMW threw away any avenue of escape out from under that cloud of suspicion of being a wholly sectarian expression, rather than having weight to really speak on behalf of Christianity or Evangelicalism as such. ...

I am highly suspicious of what is left UNsaid in Articles 3 and 4. Had the Statement been drafted by an impartial group, I would not have much trouble with those Articles. But since it comes from CBMW, and since I'm familiar with the arguments, I wonder what would be the answer if they were asked, e.g., "Aside from, per Article 3, 'equal before God as persons,' what is their status in terms of hierarchy in authority in the Church and home?" or "Per Article 4, do those 'divinely ordained differences' that are not 'a result of the Fall' include the idea that the highest leadership positions in the home and Church are limited to males?"

As I see it either you are wrong or scripture is contradicting scripture. Which is it?

and

Someone practicing and approving of homosexual immortality is as I understand it rejecting salvation by rejecting scripture. That does not make it unforgivable just not yet forgiven.

getting this response

I give the references. They're pretty straightforward. (See also Acts 15:20 and 29.) Sorry, but various NT authors didn't always agree.

Twenty years ago I would have heartily agreed with Jed. Now I heartily agree with you, at least on this particular point of hermeneutics.

Even the OLD Testament contributions don't always agree, at least when interpreted and applied by the NT authors. The Synoptists all, in varying contexts, record Jesus saying that the highest Commandments are love for God and love for neighbor, and that the entire OT depends on those. Paul twice says that the entire OT Law is fulfilled by obeying "Love your neighbor as yourself," not even bothering to include the "Love the LORD your God" part. Matthew records Jesus as saying that treating others as we wish to be treated "is" the Law and the Prophets. If we take those prima facie, it means that really, the only thing that is sin -- breaking of divine Commandments -- is failing to love one's neighbor as oneself; some forms of homosexual practice certainly fall into that category, as do some forms of heterosexual practice, but nothing *inherent* in homosexual practice does so. Even if we take the Golden Rule and Love your neighbor teachings as hyperbolic, meaning they don't *really* sum up *all* the Law, it seems obvious we should be extremely cautious about claiming that violations of the Law, Commandments, or NT instructions that are not clear violations of the Golden Rule are sinful.


FTR, I find Scripture sufficiently clear in teaching that homosexuality (both inclination and practice) is always aberrant and sub-normal. I cannot say with such certainty that it is always "sinful."

[Thoughtful Monk]

After hearing all the media coverage which has spilled outside the evangelical world (the mayor of Nashville has even stepped in to denounce it), I read through the Nashville Statement just now. I don't see anything I disagree with.

https://cbmw.org/nashville-statement/

I too don't see anything I disagree with.

I might add a paragraph something like "we believe society has put too much emphasis on sexual expression at the expense of other human relationships."

[Bill the Cat]

...
FTR, I find Scripture sufficiently clear in teaching that homosexuality (both inclination and practice) is always aberrant and sub-normal. I cannot say with such certainty that it is always "sinful."

I can say for certain that it does. Scripture paints a pretty clear picture that any sexual acts outside of one man-one woman matrimony is sinful.

[NorrinRadd]

I can say for certain that it does. Scripture paints a pretty clear picture that any sexual acts outside of one man-one woman matrimony is sinful.

I'm happy for you and your certainty. Twenty years I had a much more fundy view of Scripture and would have heartily agreed. I can no longer do so.

[KingsGambit]

I'm happy for you and your certainty. Twenty years I had a much more fundy view of Scripture and would have heartily agreed. I can no longer do so.

Where do you distinguish between suboptimal and sinful? If the Bible consistently describes it as wrong and even in the specific context of sin, what hermeneutical justification do you find for declaring it not sin?

[Raphael]

Where do you distinguish between suboptimal and sinful? If the Bible consistently describes it as wrong and even in the specific context of sin, what hermeneutical justification do you find for declaring it not sin?

http://babylonbee.com/news/progressi...ne-sola-feels/

[Cerebrum123]

http://babylonbee.com/news/progressi...ne-sola-feels/

[NorrinRadd]

Where do you distinguish between suboptimal and sinful? If the Bible consistently describes it as wrong and even in the specific context of sin, what hermeneutical justification do you find for declaring it not sin?

I thought my post was reasonably clear. Any aberrant behavior that does not in some obvious way run afoul of "Treat others as you would have others treat you" is not something I can confidently regard as sinful.

[Thoughtful Monk]

I thought my post was reasonably clear. Any aberrant behavior that does not in some obvious way run afoul of "Treat others as you would have others treat you" is not something I can confidently regard as sinful.

Isn't something sinful because God says its sinful?