Adelphoi,
I make a resolution to write not more on this topic that is in the British papers daily and then I get a flood of correspondence and in it are new questions and points to ponder. Thus...
Was Jesus really and truly silent on homosexuality?
The Bishop of Oxford and other supporters of the Christian Lesbigay agenda say that Jesus was silent on homosexuality. Some of us have agreed with them but then we have attempted to show that the mind of Jesus is the same as that of the Old Testament and his apostles on this matter.
But maybe Jesus was not wholly silent on this subject and did say something about homosexuality; and perhaps he did so not directly but by implicit reference, for those with ears to hear and eyes to see.
Consider this possibility which has been put to me by a learned friend.
In Matthew 10 and Mark 6, where the twelve disciples receive their first commission for evangelization, Jesus gives them instructions as to what to do if they and their message are rejected. "And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, as ye go forth thence, shake off the dust that is under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city." (Matthew 10:14-15)
Now let us recall that modern apologists for homosexual conduct frequently allege that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is not that of homosexual conduct but rather that of non-hospitality, or of homosexual rape or something else. Further, the view (adopted by the apostolic church and church fathers) that it is homosexual conduct which is the sin is alleged by the same apologists to be false and to have originated in a corrupt Pharisaic rabbinical interpretation, which was received by Sts. Paul, Peter and Jude (Cf. Rom. 9:29, II Pet. 2:6, and Jude 7.) .
These same apologists further employ an argument from silence -- that if Jesus did not explicitly condemn something, then he was not against it, and thus implicitly accepted it.
The fatal flaw in the argument based on the supposed rabbinical teaching is that this alleged corrupt interpretation was already in place at the time of Jesus (since St. Paul was taught it). Jesus could have condemned this argument (as he condemned the corrupt Pharisaic traditions regarding divorce) but he was silent. And, further, and most significantly, in positively citing Sodom and Gomorrah, Jesus accepted this [alleged corrupt] interpretation. He made it his own. Therefore, Jesus did condemn homosexual conduct per se as sinful, and the writings of Sts. Peter and Paul on the subject reflect the mind of Christ here also, not an alleged corrupt tradition in opposition to Jesus.
If this is so, then the only avenue left open to the apologists for the homosexual position is to drop their claim that Jesus did not condemn homosexual conduct per se, and to fall back on the position that the modern Church can set aside His teachings here, just as it has on divorce. Of course, they then abandon any claim that their position is founded on Christ's teachings and reflects a proper Christian understanding of "love" [agape]. They accept that it is based on a modern foundation only.
And this journey of thought takes us back to the point that I have been making a lot recently. That the basic Christian position - based on the identity of God as the Lord God, the God of Order, the Blessed Trinity (Three Persons in holy Order) and upon His revelation to us - is that this God of Order created man and woman in order, man the first woman the second. He so made them as to order them toward each other. Any other kind of ordering is thus against divine Order and revelation.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
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