In the ongoing culture war, this episode is eloquent:
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — A megachurch canceled a memorial service for a Navy veteran 24 hours before it was to start because the deceased was gay.
Officials at the nondenominational High Point Church knew that Cecil Howard Sinclair was gay when they offered to host his service, said his sister, Kathleen Wright. But after his obituary listed his life partner as one of his survivors, she said, it was called off.
"It's a slap in the face. It's like, 'Oh, we're sorry he died, but he's gay so we can't help you,'" she said Friday.
Wright said High Point offered to hold the service for Sinclair because their brother is a janitor there. Sinclair, who served in the first Gulf War, died Monday at age 46 from an infection after surgery to prepare him for a heart transplant.
The church's pastor, the Rev. Gary Simons, said no one knew Sinclair, who was not a church member, was gay until the day before the Thursday service, when staff members putting together his video tribute saw pictures of men "engaging in clear affection, kissing and embracing."
Simons said the church believes homosexuality is a sin, and it would have appeared to endorse that lifestyle if the service had been held there.
"We did decline to host the service - not based on hatred, not based on discrimination, but based on principle," Simons told The Associated Press. "Had we known it on the day they first spoke about it - yes, we would have declined then. It's not that we didn't love the family."
Simons said the decision had nothing to do with the obituary. He said the church offered to pay for another site for the service, made the video and provided food for more than 100 relatives and friends.
"Even though we could not condone that lifestyle, we went above and beyond for the family through many acts of love and kindness," Simons said.
Wright called the church's claim about the pictures "a bold-faced lie." She said she provided numerous family pictures of Sinclair, including some with his partner, but said none showed men kissing or hugging.
Read more about what happened from the man's partner here: "I fully understand the church’s right to deny us the use of their facilities. I also served in the military, (US Army, 1987-2002), and I have fought to defend their freedom of religion and freedom of choice. . . . I loved Cecil truly and deeply, and I am sorry that anyone considers a truly heartfelt, emotional, even spiritual connection to another human being to be sinful, simply because that love is between two people of the same sex."
Under the circumstances, the man is far more indulgent toward the church than I would have been. I understand, while I strongly disagree with, the mainstream Christian view that homosexual acts are immoral. But I doubt the church refuses to bury people it also thinks have sinned, like liars, blasphemers, and adulterers. Holding a service for a person is not an endorsement of anything they did in life; it is an act of compassion toward the grieving family and a mark of respect for the deceased as a person loved by God. If the church was worried about the content of the service it could have discussed this with the family, rather than simply canceling the funeral at the last minute.
I was raised in a Christian home and nothing the church did here resembles the values of respect for human dignity, and for the life of every single person, that I was taught. The most loving, understanding, and tolerant people I have known have been Christians. And they have been loving, understanding, and tolerant not despite their faith, but because of it. The shameful behavior of this church does not obscure that and I hope some of its 5,000 members come forward to disavow what their leadership did.
As its web address suggests, High Point is a "church unusual." If its actions here truly reflect its values, let's hope that's always true.
UPDATE: A few commenters speculate that the church in question might similarly refuse to hold a funeral service for liars, blasphemers, adulterers, and other sinners, if they refuse to repent their sins before dying. That's not a very plausible explanation for what happened here. I doubt High Point Church leaders would evenhandedly apply this hypothetical principle to all biblical sins. Note their claimed fear of appearing to "endorse" homosexuality ("that lifestyle") merely by holding a single funeral for a gay person. This is obsessive fear, not principle.
Moreover, church leaders did not inquire into the state of Cecil Howard Sinclair's soul before deciding to cancel his funeral. As they tell it, all they knew about him was that he was gay based on some pictures they saw of him "kissing" and "embracing" another man. They allowed their horror at this singular fact to overcome compassion for his family or respect for him as a whole person.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I suspect the real objection to his service was not that he was gay or that he might be in some sense "unrepentant." The real fear was probably that somebody -- perhaps his partner -- would get up and speak postively about their love during the service. If that's right, given the late hour, church leaders had two humane and decent choices: allow the service to go forward as the family planned it and be more careful about such things in the future, or discuss the content of the funeral with the family to minimize any affirmation of homosexuality. On the facts as we know them, they did neither.
It might refuse to bury openly unrepentant sinners. I'm not claiming to know whether this man was or was not repentant of what that church considers a sin, but that's often the explanation I've heard from various churches.
It's important to discuss situations like this so that if they arise again a better decision can be made. It's ridiculous to demand that gays "stop whining," take their problems, and crawl back into the closet
I agree it's rediculous to demand gays stop whining, take their problems, and crawl back into the closet. When facd with serious issues like marriage, employment, housing, and violence they certainly should advocate, and I will join that effort.
But, I really don't care if this church never buries a gay, Armenian, or Eskimo. Nor do I care if they do bury murderers, rapists, and pedophiles. I'm not trying to define their doctrine. That comes along with our acknowledgement that people are free to worship as they choose. I think it might be time for some people to stand up and acknowledge that we really do live in a pluralistic society, and not everyone chooses to follow their lead.
And this "openly homosexual lifestyle" argument is superficial. Everybody openly violates Biblical commands daily. Unless each morning you give the shirt off your back to a homeless person. If so, I'll except you.
Jesus isn't reported to have said a word about homosexuality, but he did say that anyone who divorces and remarried is committing adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced person is committing fornication.
--Or could it be that the church's prejudices are causing it to pick and choose its sins?
I suspect that if they had seen photographs showing him lighting up a cross, engaging in group sex (with females), and there was clear evidence that these weren't in his dim, distant path, they would have responded the same way.
Homosexuality is very clearly a sin to Christianity (along with a number of other sins that the Bible lists--no worse, either). Expecting a church to perform a funeral for someone who continued to revel in his sin to death, and when the funeral is going to be performed at least partly for the benefit of his fellow sinners is comparable to expecting the NAACP to invite the Klan to have a cross-burning at their national headquarters.
A number of churches have also recognized that if non-Christians married and then divorced, that marriage wasn't a Christian marriage, and thus not subject to Jesus' teachings. It smells a little of rationalization to me, but it was not entirely without merit.
Let me emphasize that Jesus did recognize one legitimate basis for divorce: adultery. There are also a fair number of people, like one of our pastors, who didn't have any choice in the matter. The wife just decided, after 20+ years (and after he had made a pile of money in a startup) that she didn't want to be married to him anymore. He didn't have the option of staying married.
Ah, but homosexuality is NOT clearly a sin to CHRIST, who never uttered a word on the subject.
When Enron CEO and convicted criminal and faithful Christian Ken Lay cheated justice with his untimely death, did his church refuse to allow his corpse to cross their threshold? Would any church have done so? What is the "Christian" policy on deceipt, lying, theft, and moral turpitude in general?
I would think that such a person faces the same hard choice that an immutably homosexually oriented person faces: Lifelong celibacy.
Did you actually read the post?
"[Wright] said she provided numerous family pictures of Sinclair, including some with his partner, but said none showed men kissing or hugging."
Clayton wrote, as he misrepresented the text of the story:
In this case, a **principle** of discrimination.
"No Homosexuality" is not one of the 10 Commandments, and yet I suspect that the Church buries Decalogue disgracers all the time. Their Church is probably filled with covetous people and sprinkled with more than a few adulterers, liars and petty thieves--all of whom, I suspect, will be allowed services at the church. I'll even bet that some people wear linen with wool...
(Actually, Rev. Gary Simons may qualify as a liar for claiming that their discrimination is not discrimination. While the church has a right to discriminate he should at least recognize that that is what they are doing. You can call it a principle but so is discriminating against "race-trators" (and no, I'm not causing the Church of being Racist, but being a "race-trator" is an example of an action or belief--as opposed to something people are born with--that southern Churches have advocated against in the past..))
From the Catholic Encyclopedia.
Obviously, this policy can be hurtful to the family of the deceased. But the rationale might be that denying a Christian burial can be the only disincentive that will affect a person who thinks life is not worth living. Further, one can be pretty sure that a suicide victim didn't repent their sin since suicide was their last act. Any other type of sin, including homosexuality, leaves room for repentance.
Not if you are born, raised, baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church. The church is very clear that it is the one true church, and the one true path to salvation, all others are not.
Therefore, as a Catholic, you cannot and presumably will not just go to any old church that will accept you. Catholics, in the eyes of the church's own teachings, simply do not have that option.
What if you can't stop?
I mean, consider the kleptomaniac. He steals. He can't help it. He may feel bad about it. He may wish he could stop. But he has a fundamentally unavoidable impulse to steal. Is it still a sin?
I've heard two different viewpoints on this. On the one hand, to steal is a sin, but if you are repentant and honestly wish not to steal you will be forgiven. So the sin is still a sin, but the sinner is immediately forgiven because he is appropriately distressed by his sin.
On the other hand, it's not a sin at all, because the sinner does not intend to sin. He is merely required to obey the impulses of his diseased and malfunctioning brain, and the lack of intent to sin means there can be no sin.
I think both of these arguments can productively be applied to homosexuality.
Many homosexuals are distressed that they don't feel attraction toward women, and instead are saddled with this burden of homosexuality. The first argument can quite easily be applied to say that while they sin, their guilt and honest repentance causes the sin to be immediately forgiven.
The second argument might be applied to the "born that way" theory: if homosexuals are born homosexual, and their behavior is merely a reflection of an abnormal psychology, they do not sin because they cannot be held responsible for their compulsions.
I think the church could easily find a justification to forgive homosexuality and overlook that component of a parishioner's life, if they chose to do so. If the objection is to the mention of a life partner, or to the display of a photograph, you have a baby and bathwater situation. Perhaps the life partner could be called his closest friend; that's arguably true anyway. Perhaps the picture could be taken down. But to cancel an entire memorial over these things is simply too extreme a reaction.
Since almost all gay people are 'immutably gay" you are very quick to talk about how we should live our lives. How easy it is for you to just declare that we should never have experience the same sexual satisifcation that you have!
But this really bugs me on several levels. Let's accept that God made us gay, since we are 'immutable' as you call it. Then God says, you, alone among other people, must remain celebate.
Why would any sort of God do such a thing? If you believe in a fair and just God, then this is the most unfair and unjust thing that I can imagine. Therefore, God is NOT fair, good, and just, but is an arbitrary tyrant, and certainly not worth worshipping.
The only possible way this could be made fair, if you accept the precepts, is that he made us gay, and if we remain celebate, we will obtain rewards in heaven that exceed those of heterosexuals.
However, there is no mention that gays will receive any special rewards, or have a special place in heaven, if we remain celebate. (And I daresay, it would really grate upon many people if they were told this is so.) So we are back to arrogant arbitrariness again.
So think again before you start saying that gays need to remain celebate. There is no requirement for doing so, and no special rewards for those doing so. If there are, than God is a jerk and not worth two minutes of my time.
No it isn't. All sin involves the matter of choice. You can choose to sin or choose not to.
Sexual desires, however, are not a choice. You might be attracted to blondes, someone else is attracted to brunetts, someone else might find redheads are hot. I know some guys who think Paris Hilton is the hottest thing, and other guys find her not at all attractive.
Is any of this a choice? Of course not. You might as well say that attraction to redheads is a sin. Not only is it silly and that you cannot change who you are attracted to, but an attraction for redheads doesn't harm anyone.
Being gay is no more different that being lefthanded. And there was a time was being lefthanded was sin. (Literally: the word left was is the basis for the word sinister) Two adult men having consensual sex affects and harms no one or entity on the planet, or the universe. The only possible way it could be construed a sin is to say that God makes up stupid arbitary laws that must be obeyed (like 3/4 of the so-called sins in Leviticus that no one follows today).
Frankly, those are more the actions of the devil than any fair, just or good god that I was taught about.
So, just like saying that all lefthanded people must use their right hand or simply refuse to write just to conform to a ridiculous rule is bizarre beyond belief. Likewise with sexuality.
Any evidence that the family intended to 'hijack' the service? Or is this mere speculation on your part? Or should I say, mere homophobia on your part?
Ah, yes. Of course. Those darn homos. Even in death, they can't stop converting everyone else.
More than that, we believe that God (in the person of Jesus) died in agony to reverse the Fall and take on himself the consequences of our wrongs. Again, believe it or not, but it's the mainstream Christian position--not so much that God killed some innocent third party and let us off, but that God took on himself the pain of our sins. If true, and if believed, it's life-changing stuff, though in my experience the life change comes slowly and with bumps.
So lefthanded people were once 'fallen'? And then Jesus died for their sin of using the left hand?
Sorry, but this doesn't pass the laugh test.
" most of us Christians wouldn't say God made us the way we are (insofar as the way we are is bad). We believe in the doctrine of the Fall, meaning that the world and humanity that God created was "very good" (Genesis 2) until humans started doing wrong (Genesis 3)."
I don't intend to make light of your theology, but this still makes no sense whatsoever. So God created us good? But then someone did something wrong, like eat an apple. And then from that point on, every single person is made bad? Again, then is clearly an arbitrary and ridiculous rule. If you truly believe in sin, then we should be accountable only for our own actions, not those of someone's made thousand of years ago. We should be judged individually. If God won't do that, and he judges me based on what an ancestor did, then this is truly ridiculous.
If I were god, I would simply make everyone good. If they do something that actually hurts another being, like kill a person, I would give them a chance to repent. Otherwise, everyone gets to heaven. simple, no?
But a god like that would mean that no earthly church could use power and control over people to discriminate against them, and so we have to invent these stories. And the stories have been very effective in discriminating against women, blacks, gays, the poor and the powerless for at least two thousand years.
It's not me declaring this, but rather reasoning from the perspective of a fundamentalist who thinks both homosexual behavior and divorce contrary to God's will (things in which I personally don't believe).
I argued, to be consistent, one doesn't necessarily have to give an "out" to a person whose spouse left them unilaterally. They would still be married in God's eyes. And the spouse who didn't desire the divorce still need not be permitted to remarry in the eyes of the Church, simply because otherwise the results seem grossly unfair.
Implicitly, I was making a pro-gay point. These churches seem willing to saddle homosexuals with grossly unfair results, they should likewise saddle people who divorce with those same harsh results.
Nothing could be more clear than this. Why can't the church, which claims to follow his teachings actually follow his teachings?
And so you say that we shouldn't show love towards a dead gay man and his family. Why? Because you fear that they will hijack the services! BAsed on nothing more than mere speculation. Why can't you just follow Christ's teachings? It would actually be simpler, you know.
Thank you, Jon. I misread your message.
Notaalawyer: Well, homophobia means fears of gays. If you fear that gays will disrupt a church service, you pretty much meet the definiation.
Don't you see a big difference between a sexual desire, and acting upon it? I guess you do, because you earlier said:
Gee, why would a God who was nailed to a cross ask you to bear your own burdens and suffer alongside him? Yeah, it's really strange that God said "whoever wishes to be my follower must deny his very self, take up his cross each day, and follow in my steps... What profit does he who gains the whole world and lose his soul?"
Why instead couldn't have Jesus said, "if it feels good, do it." What a real theological stumper you've posed! Oh, the wit of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Sir Thomas Moore couldn't solve the query you've posed to denounce God....
Heh. Justice becomes whatever Randy wants to do at the moment. So a God of forgiveness is called evil, and Randy sides with a philosophy that eventually turns into "might makes right." What fools these mortals be.
One of those commands was a very unequivocal command not to lie with a man as a man lies with a woman, and there is no evidence that Jesus disagreed with that. The early Christian leaders were his closest foilowers, and there's no indication that they had a view contrary to the predominant Jewish view at the time, and Paul's letters explicitly reaffirm it with no indication that anyone else at the time disagreed.
Now it's true that Jesus didn't say anything particular about this issue in what we have from him. But that's not surprising in a context where it was already disapproved of by the people he was confronting. Predictably, when the Christian message went out into the greater Greek realm the issue did come up, as evidenced by Paul's reaffirmation of its wrongness. So Jesus' silence on the issue says nothing.
Whatever else is true, though, the Bible does not emphasize this as a sin that's so elevated that it dwarfs all the other ones listed in the same passages (which include greed, gossip, slander, lying, disobedience to parents, and murder). I'd be very surprised to see a church refusing to hold a funeral for the brother of a congregant just because the brother was a murderer. I'd have some harsh words for such a congregation, especially because a funderal (in the Protestant view) is not for the person who died (whose destination is already determined) but for the family.
Examples of what I do not mean:
I doubt that even the most socially conservative church would refuse to hold a funeral for someone because they heard that he had gotten drunk or gambled or whatever once or even many times in the distant past. Would they even do for a single recent lapse, if it was not part of a pattern? Suppose a parishioner goes to Las Vegas, starts gambling for the first time in his life, and has a fatal heart attack when he wins a large sum of money: even that would not count as habitual, and I would think it rather cheap to refuse a funeral in such a case.
Examples of what I do mean:
Suppose the pastor of a teetotalling church is asked to do the funeral for a liquor-store owner, a professional wine-taster, or the editor of Modern Drunkard magazine. How about the pastor of an anti-gambling church asked to do the funeral for someone who made his living as a professional gambler or bookie? A mullah who teaches that charging interest is a sin asked to do the funeral for a loan shark or the loan officer at a bank? The pastor of an anti-smoking church asked to provide a funeral for a Big Tobacco lobbyist? A rabbi or mullah asked to provide a funeral for the author of 101 Favorite Pork BBQ Recipes, Personally Tested by the Author. Would anyone here really be surprised or offended if they all refused?
*The evidenc that Jesus approved of drinking alcohol is far stronger than the evidence that he approved of homosexual acts. He drank wine himself and even turned water into wine to facilitate the drinking of others.
I don't think these categories are mutually exclusive in the way Rev. Simons seems to think they are.
Anyone who is remotely familiar with Christianity will know how ridiculous and wrong Randy is, so I don't know if he expects that peddling this nonsense will gain him credibility or if he's just hoping to delude people who don't know any better. Gee, how could it be that Jesus didn't preach any commandments when he said "if your hand or your foot is your undoing, cut it off and throw it from you. Better to enter life maimed or crippled than be thrown with two hands or two feet into endless fire. If your eye is your undoing, better to gouge it out and cast it from you! Better to enter life with one eye than be thrown with both into fiery Hell."
Then there's Matthew 19:17-19, Mstthew 22:37-40, and its parallel doctrines in Mark, Luke, and John, where he basically re-states the 10 commandments and says in summary that the Greatest and First Commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and the Second is to love your neighbor as yourself, and that on these the whole law is based. (Hint: if you're supposed to love God, you're not supposed to break his laws).
Theology isn't necessarily logical and it would have been possible to give humans free will without making the options so disparate: eternal bliss or eternal torment. The argument from "free will" does not successfully counter the argument from evil.
If you are going to quote scripture and theology then I'd like to ask you about an analogy. Let's say I have a baby who is just crawling. I tell her, don't eat that apple sauce I've placed temptingly in the middle of the room. I leave and come back to find her sister helping her eat the apple sauce. Naturally, I then curse the baby for not knowing better, throw her out of my house, then wait till her children grow up, punish them, then punish her children's children and arrange for her decedents to be punished for all of eternity.
Why would that not be reasonable? After all, the baby had free will and I warned her! Oh, some would say that I, as the grown, up shouldn't have put the apple sauce in the room if I didn't want her to eat it and that she's a baby and doesn't know better. I respond that I had to give her free will! She disobeyed me and now must suffer the consequences.
Clearly my analogy is ridiculous, but only because the concept of original sin is as well, IMO. Adam and Eve were kept deliberately in ignorance of good and evil. Eve was incapable of recognizing the snake's true nature nor of realizing the possible consequences of her actions. What god would punish an innocent for being tempted by an evil that he allowed into the Garden of Eden and call it free will? And what all loving God would punish the children for the sins of the father and down the line for eternity?
I don't know, why would a God punish the decedents of and Eve for the sins of their parents for thousands of years but only forgive them by arranging to have himself nailed to across, given that he could have forgiven them at any time (even if he had no **reasonable** justification for punishing the decedents all along...in this case he is forgiving them for, well, nothing because they haven't **done** anything they are literally being punished for being born.)
Bottom line: if the church in question doesn't cavil at burying remarried divorcees (to say nothing of the other sorts of sinner mentioned in others' comments above), but does refuse to bury a gay person ... then they're bigots. Period. End of debate.
You certainly can choose whether or not to engage in homosexual conduct. If I give you $1,000,000 on any particular day to abstain from doing what you do for 24 hours, I would venture to say that you would feel differently about what is a choice. And Catholic Priests choose to abstain from sex for a lifetime, do you think that they are all naturally sexless?
I agree that many or most homosexuals do not choose their desires. Similarly, some people may have a genetic propensity for pedophilia, rape or murder and have no choice with respect to these desires (though like homosexuals they have the choice as to whether to act on it). Even if there is no genetic propensity to, say, murder, many murderers would say that when they committed their crime, they just felt the urge to do it and couldn't stop themselves.
You can of course distinguish homosexuality from murder, rape and pedophilia by saying that the former does not hurt anyone and therefore should not be a sin. That clearly would be a logical argument, even if not an argument that everyone would agree with. But I don't see any distinction that has to do with "choice" here.
Your irony knows no bounds. It is really more comparable to a white southern church having a funeral for a black person, of course you might argue that people don't choose their race...hey, I think there might be a comparison here... :-p
Depends upon whether the person considered his or her lying, blaspheming or adultery to be sins for which he or she later repented, for which he or she conceded they needed forgiveness. Such a person calls 'sin', what God calls 'sin'. The Church is obligated to forgive such a one and to treat the sinner (and we are all sinners) as a forgiven child of God, as John writes (1 John 1:9), "If we confess our sins, he [God] is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
On the other hand, the homosexual, although a member of a Church that acknowledges that the Bible calls his relations an abomination -- Leviticus 18:22, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination[]" -- considers his or her relationship as a God-pleasing one, then he or she is specifically contradicting the Church's understanding of God's word. He or she is calling 'godliness', what the Church believes and confesses that God calls 'sin'. To bury a known, unrepentant homosexual would be like burying a known, unrepentant adulterer. It would be like burying a man who openly cheats on his wife, a faithful member of the congregation. I could not and would not bury such a person unless, at the end of life, he had acknowledged his sin as sin and asked forgiveness of both his wife and his God.
Every Church member is a sinner whom we bury. Burying a repentant sinner who has died is what we do and burying a repentant sinner does not grant approval to his or her sin because the person, in life, confessed his or her sin as sin. However, burying an unrepentant homosexual does grant approval of his or her behavior. It tacitly proclaims that that Church is openly hypocritical, teaching that homosexuality is sin but granting the Church's approval to one who openly and, unrepentant, opposes God's own opinion of his or her behavior.
This man was not even a member of the church.
They were extending a courtesy to an employee who seems not to have a church. I expect that they turn a blind eye when burying members, but he wasn't. Holding a service for a member who is a sinner is a different order of magnitude of tolerance from holding a service for a non member who is a sinner. It certainly looks more like an endorsement of the sin when it's a non member.
Had he no church? Had his family no church? If they don't belong to a church, why would they want the service to be in one?
Those of us who do not find homosexuality wrong have no more right to impose that view on a church than a church has to impose their views on us.
The funny thing about homosexuality not the - we'll call it a "condition" - itself, but rather what it becomes associated with. Statistically, it is associated with much higher levels of drug abuse, insanity, partner abuse, self abuse, and general asocial behavior (seeking unsafe sex, multiple anonymous partners, etc).
The conventional wisdom is that all that destructive behavior is societally induced, because homosexuals are not not accepted. They then act out, engaging in risky behavior.
So, on a less fundemental level, I can then be excused for any antisocial behavior I engage due society's lack of acceptance of my "condition". Such as being a cranky middle aged white man, something my wife tells me I can't seem to control.
Whew, I feel so free now!
The Bible calls a lot of things an "abomination." The Bible says that handicapped and sick people are not allowed in church be cause they profane his sanctuaries. (Lev.21:17-23) And the Bible also says you must never wear linen and wool garments together (Deuteronomy 22:11) and that priests must wear only linen (Ezekiel 44:15-18).
Does the Megachurch allow sick and handicapped people in? Do they require linen and wool wearers to repent? Do the priests all wear linen exclusively?
The Church picks and chooses is prejudices. The Bible is like a "Magic 8 Ball," if you shake it enough times it will give you the answer you want.
It's the choice of the individual Catholic to do as he pleases. He is free to go to whatever church will have him regardless of his upbringing and regardless of the Catholic Church's tachings. This is entirely his choice. We see examples of this happening every day as people baptised and brought up as Catholics join other churches.
"In Adam's fall,
We sinned all."
A basic familiarity with the world would seem to confirm the conclusion if not the actual cause.
The question is, then, not whether we are sinners, but whether we are making a good faith effort, sometimes called "Struggling" against sin, particularly that sin which seems to afflict us particularly.
A kleptomaniac can't be judged for being a kleptomaniac. But he would be expected to avoid the occasions of sin--the Catholic Act of Contrition refers to that, and I understand Judaism refers to putting "a fence around the the law" which means not only don't eat the fruit, but don't approach the tree.
A klepto would be expected to get through life by, for example, asking friends or relatives to shop for him. To never go shopping without a clued-in companion.
Failing while trying is judged far less harshly than failing to try.
If the article is correct in that the pictures in question show contemporary behavior, then there is little evidence of trying.
I attended a church a couple of times whose membership pitch was we'd love to have you attend, take advantage of our ministries. But if you feel you're living in sin [not being the sinnner by the doctrine of original sin], we'd prefer you hold off applying.
Their membership growth is practically unsustainable.
This is a very important question in Christianity and I would suggest the issue is not the proclivity but the acts, and not the acts but the struggle.
The decedent didn't show any struggle.
I don't know. But to single out one small part of the population for extra burdens for no reason at all seems rather arbitrary and capricious.
Jesus said lots of things, but he was only asked about what his commandments were. He said very clearly he had none. He was quite familiar with the Ten Commandments no doubt. What he said otherwise may be teachings, they may be sayings, they may be parables, but commandments? No.
And so far, no a single person has given me an good reason why left handed people were considered sinners for centuries. Until the 1960s, nuns would beat students who tried.
I guess, sure, it's a choice for those lefties to use their left hand -- they could, with difficulty, use their right hand. But today, saner people have prevailed, and we now know that being left handed is not 'sinister', and using your left hand is not something you have to repent for.
"He is free to go to whatever church will have him regardless of his upbringing and regardless of the Catholic Church's tachings. "
I have a friend who, in the 1970s, wanted to attend the marriage of another friend, which would have been in a protestant church. He was told by his priest that even setting foot in another church is a sin. He went anyway.
Liam: If you really believe that gays people are drug addicted, insane, anti-social and so on, then you really have a problem with gays. Inner city blacks have much higher rates of depression, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity than the rest of the population. Guess you hate blacks, too.
But of course you don't. What you do is you find some reason to hate gays, and then once you hate gays, you can feel good about discriminating against them. That's your problem, of course, and not much can be done about it.
Oh, and by the way, the WHO has determined that 90% of all AIDS cases wordwide are heteros. So what's wrong with you people that you engage in such a destructive lifestyle?
Seriously though, I've seen the whole "sinner vs. sin" and "proclivity vs. acts" debate played out in countless threads. I find it very hard to believe that someone as smart as Randy R seems to be doesn't get it by now.
Try telling any teenager that he or she has a choice and can refrain from sex for the entirety of their lives. In fact, try telling any person that they must remain celibate every single moment of their lives.
Since even many priests can't do it, how do you expect any normal human being to do so? And yet, that's what you expect of gay people.
and for what reason? If God didn't want us to have sex, he would not have given us all the tools necessary for it, along with the hormones and the desires.
And I'll repeat it once more -- this prohibition against gay sex is ridiculous, stupid and silly. Any god who makes up stupid rules, just for the sake of rule-making, is an arbitrary and capricious god. He is by very definiation a Bad Manager.
If YOU don't want to engage in gay sex, that's fine with me. If you want to, fine with me again. I ask only that you give me the same respect.
While I understand that is a general principle of Christianity, I find such a tenant to be so completely arbitrary, capricious and unfair as to make the Abrahamic God seem rather unreasonable.
God really should have baby-proofed the Garden of Eden since Adam and Eve were complete innocents and lacked knowledge of good and evil. In a lawsuit I think God would be found 100% responsible for the "fall" given that it was completely foreseeable by a reasonable man, let alone an omniscient deity. Placing the Tree of Knowledge with in the Garden of Eden was completely unnecessary and constituted an attractive nuisance if not an outright danger. Further, allowing evil like the snake into the garden is like allowing wolves into a sheep pen. God had complete control and was negligent by allowing it to happen. Good thing for God that he's judgment-proof.
Not that God allows genocide, rape, disease, etc., but rather that God demands celibacy of homosexuals (and does not promise any special rewards) is the most unjust thing that you can imagine? Talk about petty human arrogance. Then again, such a limited imagination does make it that much easier for humans to make this a just world--and modern critics of religion seem to have an unlimited faith and hope that humans should and can make this a just world (as they arbitrarily define 'just').
Ah! A true beleiver!
Never said that I hated gays. Where did you read that? What I stated, indirectly, is that they gay lifestyle - which is not part and parcel of being homosexual - is a problem.
Being homosexual is condition which affects to less than 10% of the population. It is therefore not a "normal" condition of being human, statisticaly no more than a bump in the curve.
However, being gay is a choice people make. They choose to live a lifestyle (much like straight people who swing, engage in risky B&D behaviors, etc)which is either driven by, or creates other co-enabled destructive behaviors as enumerated in my prior post.
Blacks in our society are not universally poor/drug addicted. They can and do find ways out of the issues you enumerated. Homosexuals are not, oddly enough, nearly as disadvantaged as blacks are in this country. Gays however wish to be perceived as oppressed as blacks are/were. I loved Andrew Sullivan's hyperbolic imagery of Rosa Parks when lambasting those against gay marriage. Really.
I don't have to agree with someone's lifestyle if that lifestyle is non-destructive and doesn't scare the horses. Churches are arbiters of morality, and can make these judgements. The church in question, I noted in the AP article, went well past what someone who hated gays would have done. From the AP article:
"He said the church offered to pay for another site for the service, made the video and provided food for more than 100 relatives and friends."
That strikes me as a group trying to show compassion for someone. The issue here is that the church did not say he shouldn't be buried as a Christian, just not by their church. The odd thing about accepting someone's lifestyle is that if you accept the person but not their choices, you're construed as a "hater".
If people are going to use a book to prove the reasonableness of their actions then there is no reason that I shouldn't examine their proffered justifications and point out inconsistencies, irrationality, hypocrisies, prejudices and outright falsehoods where they occur. This is no different than I would behave in the forums about constitutional topics and I see no reason why religion should not be put to the same scrutiny that we apply to legal discussions. Religious tenants affect people's behavior, so it behooves us to critically examine religion especially when religion advocates actions that are not justifiable for any secular reason.
As to tolerance, well that's an ironic concept to bring up in this thread when the intolerance at issue is that of High Point Church. To try and suggest that a critical examination of their intolerance is "intolerant" is irony of the highest order.
Well, I guess that demonstrates that Catholics are free to go to whatever church will have them.
Randy R: "I don't know. But to single out one small part of the population for extra burdens for no reason at all seems rather arbitrary and capricious."
Of course it's arbitrary and capricious. So what? That's what freedom of religion is all about.
I've seen these stats you refer to and much of them are bunk. One thing I'd like to know: Many of these same right wing groups that posit this also turn around and argue that gays don't need antidiscrimination protection because they are better educated and have higher incomes. Honestly, I'm not sure of the veracity of those or quite frankly any social science on gays, which by the very nature of the phenomenon, will be quite contentious.
Though my anecdotal observations lead me to believe that gays, as a group, are not impoverished in the sense that blacks and hispanics are (in the sense that they are statistically underrepresented in wealth, education, income, and employment).
One thing I'd like to ask these anti-gay/social conservatives who push these stats is how is it that such a dysfunctional group like gays manage to be (or seem to be) so functional in our dog-eat-dog capitialist society where they, like Jews, make more money, become better educated, buy houses in nicer neighborhoods, all the while being subject to unpopular opinions.
I've seen some social science that shows when you compare true apples to apples, a gay man in an identical position is more likely to be discriminated against. But that's only when things like educational and credentials are controlled for (as they should be when you compare apples to apples). If gays, as a group, tend to be better educated, they would be a better crop of apples, even if such better apples are more likely to be discriminated against.
I was talking to a gay investment banker the other day about Fire Island, NY, which place, few people outside of NY realize, is mostly straight. He told me 2 out of their 12 beaches are gay. And he told me something that illustrates this phenomenon: He said real estate prices are much higher in the straight neighorhoods at Fire Island, suggesting discrimination. Still, Fire Island itself is one of the most expensive places of real estate in the nation (few ordinary people can afford to buy real estate in the cheaper gay beaches which still average probably in the millions). I also understand the Hamptons have a few gay beaches.
A typical gay person, for reasons yet unknown, seems much more likely to find himself living in an expensive neighborhood like Fire Island, NY, Dupont Circle, DC, New Hope, PA, San Francisco, Ca, etc. etc. than a typical straight person is likely to find himself living in Chevy Chase, Maryland, Princeton, NJ, etc. etc.
I'm on a confidential listserv with a number of prominent intellectuals where I asked whether my examples of real estate could be anecdotes that are exceptions to the rule. We tried to think of places gays tend to disproportionately congregate that were either poor, or modest. The only place that was found was Ft. Lauderdale, FLA, not exactly a cheap area, but more modest that Miami Beach, Provincetown, or Fire Island. And if you've seen some of the nasty things the mayor of Ft. Lauderdale has been saying about gays recently, I doubt it will be a gay hotspot much longer.
But back to the main point: if gays truly were dysfunctional as Liam Colvin seems to suggest, you'd expect their neighborhoods to look something like Newark, NJ and be dirt cheap places to live, the exact opposite of which is the case.
See also, Deuteronomy 14:9--10.
An earlier commenter mentioned lifelong celibacy as the only acceptable option for those who feel attracted to those of the same sex. If lifelong celibacy were a realistic option, at least one church (which in the global sense is the mega-est of megachurches) would not be facing humongous tort judgments.
Church says "no" to a non-member after it finds out non-member is contrary to church's doctrine.
We are talking about religion, not state laws.
Perseus: "Not that God allows genocide, rape, disease, etc., but rather that God demands celibacy of homosexuals (and does not promise any special rewards) is the most unjust thing that you can imagine?"
You are confusing two different issues. God does not allow genocide or rape, since those are called sins. And with good reason. I have no problem with that. Disease? God never promised that we would BE happy, but rather that we have the means to obtain happiness, even in the midst of disease. And in fact, Jesus cured the sick, right?. But today we know that disease is not something that God brings down upon us -- that's just superstitution. We know that disease is caused by germs, and if you eliminate the germs you eliminate the disease. Smallpox is officially eradicated from the planet -- does that mean we went contra God's will? Of course not.
But surely, if God picked out you and you alone, and said that you have to be celibate "just because I say so" and that if you fulfull his wishes, you get absolutely nothing in return. Worse, everyone else can have sex, and they will be loved and treated no worse than you are by God, you would find that pretty darn unfair.
And that's okay, if you want to believe that. But then don't try to tell me that God is fair and just and good and all that.
Wow, think of all the other things that are not normal by that standard! Better start discriminating against left handed people (8-15%) and their choice not to use their right hands. (Its not the left-handedness I object to, its the left- handed lifestyle.
Yeah, that compassion ranks right up there with building special water fountains for black people.
What's funnier is that the anti-gay crowd likes to say that gays are only a tiny, tiny minority of the people, so laws protecting are nonsense, yet we are so many, and have so much power, that we were able to singlehandedly get the APA and AMA to remove homosexuality from its lists of mental disease, we have the entire Democratic party under our control, along with all the educational systems from K to grad schools, and we control the entire media and entertainment industries -- all this while being drug -addicted, and insane!
That wouldn't make any sense. The Old Testament dietary restrictions were rescinded in the New Testament.
"There is nothing unclean of itself. -- Romans 14:2"
"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils ... commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. -- 1 Timothy 4:1-3"
Otherwise, Christians couldn't eat ham.
However, I'm sure there are plenty of interesting things the church has to say.
I'm of the mind that the gay/black analogy isn't the best. Gays are a much closer analogy to Jews. If you listen to the arguments anti-gay forces use, they strikingly parallel arguments anti-Semites use agaisnt Jews.
I though only the Jews had that kind of power? I'd hate to see homosexuals and Jews locked in a all out fight for pre-eminence in the secret body which stealthily battles for world domination. Oh, wait, that's just Cheney. Never mind...
No it isn't, any more than being lefthanded is a choice.
" They choose to live a lifestyle (much like straight people who swing, engage in risky B&D behaviors, etc)which is either driven by, or creates other co-enabled destructive behaviors as enumerated in my prior post. "
Well, yes, some gays engage in destructive behaviors. Some don't. Some straight people engage in destructive behaviors. Some don't. It all depends upon the PERSON, not their sexual orientation. And if you were truly a religious person, then your compassion would be to help those who are truly drug addicted or insane, and not stand by and laugh at them.
"Blacks in our society are not universally poor/drug addicted." Neither are gays. And I didn't say blacks, I said blacks who live in the inner city are affected by all those diseases. And not all of them, but merely at a higher rate than everyone else.
"I don't have to agree with someone's lifestyle if that lifestyle is non-destructive and doesn't scare the horses."
Horses aren't scared by gay men. Would that you had the emotional maturity of a horse! Of course you don't have to agree with my lifestyle. My lifestyle is pretty much that I go to work daily, I participate in numerous professional societies, I fed my cat, pay my taxes on time, and try not to be too deeply indebt. I also go to the art museums, teach piano, and go to the theater a lot. Perhaps you don't approve of any of this, but you don't have to. I don't have to approve or your lifestyle either, but I'm pretty sure neither I nor the horses would be scared of you.
" Churches are arbiters of morality, and can make these judgements." As David Chapman says, this is about approval. Yes, the church can make such pronouncements, and such pronouncements are ridiculous, especially since so many of its priests are in fact gay, so they can now add the hat of hypocracy to their teachings.
But the sad fact is that many people still follow the church in it's teachings, and so we have the teenagers who are thrown out of their homes because the church tells the parents that gays are immoral and sinful.
For me, I don't personally care what the church teaches, but the Catholic church has been at the forefront of opposing any sort of gay rights measures. They were always in favor of sodomy laws, for instance. And since they are trying to push their views upon ALL of us in a secular society, they deserve scrutiny and condemnation.
You, of course, would do the same if in my position, I assume.
Burying a fallen gay soldier is the moral equivalent of "expecting the NAACP to invite the Klan to have a cross-burning at their national headquarters."
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Wow. Clayton Cramer manages to minimize the evil of the KKK and compare a committed, monogamous gay relationship to a cross burning in the same sentence. What a piece of work.
His comment shows one reason why the once-strong anti-gay majority is disappearing.
The church clearly has the legal right to deny burial to a veteran, but we can still condemn the pastor as a bigot.
Whatever happened to hate the sin but love the sinner?
God will throw the sinner into outer darkness, not the sin.
Actually, some churches do actively discuss "prohibition" and lobby for anti sodomy laws or enforcement of the ones on the books in southern states. Trying to frame the issue as one of mere "disapproval" is inaccurate and disingenuous.
Curiously, the anti-homosexual church crowd likes to concentrate on the evil specter of Gay Men, it being so much fun with the bible's exhortation "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." and with condemnation's of anal sex that they tend to forget that Lesbians are not likewise sentenced to death in the bible nor are they known for anal sex.
Although Rom.1:26-27 alludes to Lesbians:
It is notable that Paul refers to the "natural use of women" to be objects of sexual pleasure for men. Note also that this lesbianism was actually **caused by God**.
Ironically among straights, gays and lesbians there is only one group of couples who can't commit sodomy with their sexual organs--Lesbians. In fact, since straights out number gays by such a large percentage, it is probably safe to say that the majority of all sodomy is committed by straight couples. So, if the church is really against sodomy they should kick out all of those straight people, especially the straight men, with their potentially sodomizing genitals and recruit sodomite free lesbians.
Get what? That I am supposed to accept that I am a sinner merely because I'm gay? And that I should stop right now and throw out all my Judy Garland recordings, because those are part of the sinful gay lifestyle? And for what reason? Just because you don't like the fact I am gay?
"Yes, the secular society in general is truly victimized when a church refuses to perform a religious burial ceremony for its own reasons."\
Um, David? As I argued above, the church takes an active role in advocating against gay rights, or even the teaching that gays exist in our society and can lead perfectly norman lives (See the Montgomery County fight over the Sex-ed curriculum).
Secular society is harmed when a church asks society to discriminate against a minority for no reason.
And for those gay people who truly believe in the teachings of the church, they have this to deal with: "God will throw the sinner into outer darkness, not the sin"
Lively: "I don't see what the big deal is. Church says "no" to a non-member after it finds out non-member is contrary to church's doctrine."
Yup. But they had no problem with accepting his services as an employee for years. And isn't this the funny thing: He was perfectly acceptable in the eyes of the church UNTIL they found out he was gay, even though he was gay all along.
AND the best part is that lesbians have the lowest incidence of AIDS of ANY groups in America. And they often take in homeless cats!
Truly, lesbians are God's real chosen people.
That really sums it up, doesn't it. QED.
His brother was a janitor at the church. The dead man was not the employee.
"And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Matthew 25:30
I stand corrected on that point.
Again, my name is not David. What's the deal?
How does that sort of thing get decided? I mean, either God's Law is constant and unchanging, or it isn't.
That being said, I don't have any trouble with a chuch excluding people from its membership. If you want to talk about a choice, it seems to me that religious affiliation and church membership is far more malleable than sexual identity. If a particular religion or church condemns you as a Hell-bound sinner and wants nothing to do with you, why torment yourself when there are lots of other religions and churches that would greet you with open arms and make you welcome?
My only problem in this case is that the church cancelled out at the last minute. Never mind theology; it's plain rude. Inexcusably rude when dealing with a grieving family.
See my earlier post.
The dietary laws are one of the few things that are fairly clearly rescinded by the New Testament. The rest is much more debatable and there is no clear guidance that all Christians can agree on. Some churches enforce lots and lots of old testament exhortations others drop the Old Testament entirely. This is an old and continuing problem for Christianity and leads to what I think of as the "Magic 8 Ball" bible--just shake it until you get the answer you want.
As to God's law being unchanging, if that were true there wouldn't have been a fall from grace, a flood, a new covenant with Moses or a New Testament. Oh, and the **two** versions of the ten commandments would match.
I guess you are right. I don't honestly believe that my sexual orientation or behavior is putting my eternal soul at risk. And not everyone else does either, although many do.
But my question is this: WHY should my sexual behavior put me at risk? Just because God says so? There is no problem is examining the underlying arguments. It IS possible that these honest believers are in fact wrong, just there were honest believers who once though that lefthandedness put their eternal souls at risk. At one time, eating meat was a sin, too, but even the church has backed off on that one.
Seems to me that the sole basis of your belief is because of a few lines in the Bible. But there are many lines in the Bible that have declared eating pork and shellfish to be sinful.
And yet here is the difference: I don't see parents throwing their kids out of the house because they eat pork. I don't see any religious groups trying to pass laws against eating pork. When the Bible and your beliefs are used to bash me, make up lies about me (see that stuff about being drug addicted and insane), and prevent me from marrying a man I love, then, yes, I will examine the basis for such beliefs. And I will call them hypocritical and nonsensical unless and until you can give me something other than, well 'that's my honest belief." I can honestly believe in the flying spaghetti monster, believe that he wants all blue-eyed people flayed alive, and believe that your name is David, but that' doesn't make it right, moral, or just.
"my name is not David. What's the deal?" Opps! Sorry -- just typing faster than I should.
I don't know. Are people born professional gamblers and drunkards? Granted, the "you are born that way" has its limits since some people are born sociopaths, but should people be punished for being attracted to other races? Southern churches used to think so...
I wonder who would be arguing what if we were talking about Quakers who refused to bury a veteran (not a likely scenario for the Quakers. Maybe some more strictly pacifist group.)
While I generally support your positions I don't think this is a strong example. There probably are Orthodox families who would through out kids for being consistent pork eaters or bringing it in to a strictly Kosher household.
Nobody has to believe you until you put it in book form...a nice binding and thin paper wouldn't hurt. Be sure to leave some passages vague and contradictory...
You mean at the Quaker Mega Church?
It does seem unlikely. But I think you are right in one sense, the level of controversy and outrage depends on the reason for the discrimination and the perceived reasonableness.
Are the advoates of gay marriage calling on all churches in the nation to marry same sex couples? Is the ultimate goal of the gay marriage movement to have same sex marriages in all churches?
Do gay marriage advocates condemn churches that choose not to officiate at gay marriage in the same manner they condemn churches that choose not to officiate at gay burials?
Who cares whether people are "born" drinkers or gamblers, or gay, for that matter. The question is whether a church that forbids something that most of us find unexceptionable should be allowed to apply that ban when it comes to providing funeral services for people who aren't even members. Yes or no?
Also, please note that some of the examples I gave in my first comment are not so easily dismissed as drinking and gambling. Some sects -- including most Hindus -- preach strict vegetarianism. I would find giving up all forms of meat forever just about as difficult as 'switching teams' sexually, and I've never had much in the way of bisexual tendencies. I consider that I was born a carnivore and will die a carnivore: I simply can't help my urge to eat meat. Would my loved ones be entitled to complain if a Hindu temple refused to hold a funeral service for me on the grounds that I'm a life-long, avid, and unashamed carnivore? I think that would be absurd. Don't you? If not, why not?
And please try not to drag the discussion off the rails again into why you consider Christianity absurd. It has precisely nothing to do with the original topic.