Well, Dog My Cats

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Okay, so here I am, off on another jag concerning the LGBTQ thing or, as others might call it, the QQQQQ thing. Some might wonder why I blog about this stuff all the time. They muse pensively about it, stroking their chins, querulously inquiring why this topic is on my brain so much. I dunno. Maybe I was born this way. Well, dog my cats—and stop being so judgey.

So let’s talk about reparative therapy, or conversion therapy, which respectable evangelicals have in recent memory handled as though it were a really hot rock. That is to say, they—having misplaced their sufficiency-of-the-Word-oven-mitts—dropped it like a really hot rock. A full court press was on, our guy inbounding the ball panicked and bounced it off the blonde head of the nearest cheerleader. And no, I am not mixing metaphors until I have him inbounding a really hot rock.

The first part of this to get out of the way is the religious liberty issue, or depending on the situation, the mere liberty issue. Many civic jurisdictions have outlawed attempts to “cure” teens with homosexual temptations, and you are bad and wicked and will be fined if you continue to act like repentance might be a thing for teens. So even those Christians who say they disagree with the value of reparative therapy—so long as they are not disagreeing with it as a way of covering their evangelobutt—should be also fighting for the right of any counselors anywhere to offer reparative therapy.

Shoot, it ought to be legal to offer to cure homosexual temptations with dark roasted juju beans. Because anyone who cannot identify the straight line that will be drawn from outlawing reparative therapy for teens (even when offered by mountebanks) to outlawing exegetically sound sermon series through Romans and Leviticus (even when not offered by mountebanks) is someone whose last name rhymes with naïve.

What has happened is that we are trying to have a debate over what is true and what is false, and we simultaneously have these bands of deputized thugs with socks full of deck screws wandering about, helpfully beating up anyone who suggests a wrong answer. This is neither the way of science, nor theology, nor law, but rather a simple and very raw totalitolerance move.Shoot, it ought to be legal to offer to cure homosexual temptations with dark roasted juju beans.

It is a totalitolerance move in defense of a rigid dogma, one that does not even command the assent of the homosexual world. The born-this-way thing is one side of an argument, and not a scientific fact. And it is an argument that is as lively within gaydom as anywhere else.

Now let us say that we have 100 teens from evangelical homes who say they struggle with homosexual temptation. Let us say that they are as eager for counseling that might help them win the victory in this struggle as their parents are. Show of hands. Who thinks that offering such help should be against the law? And let us narrow the circle further. Another show of hands. Who among conservative evangelicals who might themselves plausibly but erroneously be accused of offering such help thinks that it should be against the law? So my question to the evangelical establishment is this—do you oppose or support the criminalization of reparative therapy? As offered by others?

Back to those 100 teens. Even if you pass the test contained within the previous paragraph, and courageously come down on the side of liberty, we then come to the issue of the disagreement itself. To disagree with any attempts to turn any of them back to a normal sexuality betrays an incredibly simplistic approach to human sexual temptation. It assumes that inside each of these teens there is a toggle switch, and that the toggle switch was welded into the same-sex position at conception. “Sorry, nothing can be done for any of you.” The experiment in which this important datum was established has not yet, to this date, been published. This probably has to do with internal editorial politics over at the Journal of What All Scientists Are Supposed to Know.

Anyone with any counseling experience knows that the same temptation lies closer to the bone in some people than others. And I have twenty bucks here that says that out of those 100 teens, there would be profound cases of gender confusion and there would also be kids who were temporarily confused because of their parents’ inept handling of entertainment standards. So if you refuse to counsel someone in the direction of normal sexual expression because of that welded toggle switch dogma, then you have no right to the phrase biblical counseling in any of your brochures. Biblical counseling ought not to mean without-God-and-without-hope-in-the-world counseling.

What? Can you not think of any reversible conditions that might plausibly affect whether a teen-ager might come to think that he is experiencing “same-sex attraction?” Peer pressure? On their own terms, a B kid who mistakenly thought he was a G kid? A straight kid who was afraid of girls and drew the wrong conclusion? A charismatic sex ed teacher? A curious kid experimenting? A kid who had been molested years before and who concluded that this settled it for him? On the view that any attention is better than no attention, a kid who discovered that talking this way got him lots of attention from his dad? No, no, the cowards of counseling say. Welded toggle switch.

One last thing. By putting it this way, and by granting that some cases lie close to the bone, I am not assuming that there has to be such a thing as a genetically-determined same-sex temptation somewhere among the 100. That’s more than we know. But even if such a gene were one day to be discovered, this affects nothing to the purpose. We already knew that heterosexual sin is genetically determined, and we already knew that unregenerate man is a slave to sin. Sin is not defined by our native ability to avoid it, contra Pelagius. Sin is defined by Scripture. So even if someone one day discovered a gay gene, biblical Christians would just look at it through the microscope, shake their heads and say “by nature objects of wrath.” Just like it says in the Bible.

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adad0
adad0
6 years ago

A “same sex attraction gene”?

How exactly would that gene be passed on? ????

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  adad0

Adad, genetics is a bit more complicated than that. It could be several genes acting together. It could be a recessive gene that only haphazardly shows up.

adad0
adad0
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

‘Check, the only “complication,”, albeit induced, is the conflation of genetic traits with social behaviors.
An alleged gene that would make an offspring not reproduce is absurd on its face, in the context of sexual reproduction, which requires opposite sex attraction.

After that, asexual “reproduction” has not worked out for James Toback . ????

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  adad0

adad, even helpful genes produce all number of crazy side effects, especially when they interact with other genes. Plus there is data indicating there is some social benefit to having a small number of homosexuals in any given population. Not having children fees them up to do other things that benefit the community.

soylentg
soylentg
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

“Not having children fees them up to do other things that benefit the community.”

It only “fees them up” if they are charging for their sexual favors. ….sorry, couldn’t resist.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  soylentg

Classic Freudian slip. And I think Freud was a complete quack.

adad0
adad0
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Well ‘check, for what ever reason, the sense of humor gene at times seems unevenly distributed! ????

Hope you are well anyway!

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote:

Plus there is data indicating there is some social benefit to having a small number of homosexuals in any given population.

I’ll take the bait. What data?

Please note that Krychek_2’s science credentials are totally on the line right now.

soylentg
soylentg
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

Wait, I get it now.
” Plus there is data indicating there is some social benefit to having a small number of homosexuals in any given population.”
Obviously the key word is the adjective “small.” In other words , that statement could mean that the smaller the number the greater the social benefit.

The Commenter Formerly Known As fp
The Commenter Formerly Known As fp
6 years ago
Reply to  soylentg

I’m tracking with you, Soylentg. In mathematics and statistics it’s called asymptotic distribution. There’s a special case when the sequence of random variables always approaches zero; otherwise known as a degenerate distribution, corresponding to the value zero.

I think what Krychek is trying to say is that statistically, the closer to zero the homosexual population gets, the better it is for society.

Wow, that guy is smart!

adad0
adad0
6 years ago

FP “does the math”! ; – )

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago

No, small as in you wouldn’t want everyone to be gay or the species would die out, but there are evolutionary reasons why a society is better off with some homosexuals in it. I posted a link above, but if you google “homosexuality good for society” you’ll find quite a bit.

The Commenter Formerly Known As fp
The Commenter Formerly Known As fp
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

Next thing you know, Krychek will mention some data indicating that there is some social benefit to having a small number of “transgenders” in any given population.

Even though they have a near 50% suicide rate. And many of them effectively sterilize themselves so they can’t reproduce.

That’s Krychek for you: Promoting evolutionary dead-ends while worshiping at the altar of evolution.

All in the name of Science™.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

“I’ll take the bait. What data?”

Well, you can find lots on google, but here’s a good start:

http://www.newnownext.com/homosexuality-ted-talk-james-o-keefe/11/2016/

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

From your link: ” This is a trait that ought to go extinct in a few generations, yet down through recorded history in every culture and many animal species as well, homosexuality has been a small but distinct subgroup. If this were a genetic error, natural selection should have long ago culled this from the gene pool.” Almost like it’s not a genetic condition at all isn’t it? Almost like it’s a psychological condition. It doesn’t matter how few children or how high he suicide rate is amongst those with most psychological disorders, since your genetics aren’t the cause of… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Not that homosexuality is a psychological disorder, but genetics actually is responsible for some psychological disorders. Schizophrenia, for example, runs in families and has a genetic basis. But you very deftly changed the standard from “genetic error” to “genetic condition.” The two are very different.

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

You call that data?

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

I asked for the data, and Krychek_2, knowing that his science credentials were on the line, links us to a TED talk?

Probably time for him to just turn in that “science” card he is always playing here.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

I posted a link to a TED talk because the speaker does a good job of explaining the data. If you want more than that, you’ve got the same access to google that I do.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Let the record show that Krychek_2 refuses to cite any actual data to support his assertion.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

Let the record show that I told you how to find it.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote:

Let the record show that I told you how to find it.

This is what we have to put up with from the atheist peanut gallery. This is apparently what passes for intellectual integrity among them.

At this point all we have to do is declare that the data shows that atheism is bankrupt, and that Christ is the Truth. If Krychek_2 doubts this, he can google “atheism is false”, or “Christ is Truth”. There. Done.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

“but genetics actually is responsible for some psychological disorders. Schizophrenia, for example, runs in families and has a genetic basis. ” I said most. Your rebuttal is a straw man. I openly acknowledged that there are mental illnesses with a basis in genetics. You then completely ignored the bulk of my response. and the obvious deep problems with the information presented. It is anti-scientific at its base. “I posted a link to a TED talk because the speaker does a good job of explaining the data. If you want more than that, you’ve got the same access to google that… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

All right, point taken. Tied up at work now but I’ll post links to data later today.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Thanks,

Note that I got up this morning, got my coffee, and started writing the responses all at once. I neglected to refresh in the middle, so anything I’ve written elsewhere in that hourish time spam did not take your real time responses into account.

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

time spam

I was going to ask if you meant time span, but spending our time responding to people on internet forums probably is time spam.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: Not having children fees them up to do other things that benefit the community. Why does Krychek_2 assume that “homosexuals” aren’t having children, and why assume that they are exclusively homo-sexual? “There is data indicating” that 37% of surveyed LGB individuals have had at least one child, if not more (see http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/LGBT-Parenting.pdf on page 2) In the general population, about 52.4% of surveyed women have had a child (I couldn’t find a combined stat for men and women). So it’s invalid to assume that homosexuals aren’t having children. In regard to benefiting the community, the same linked report… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

First, Katecho, you’re assuming that today’s social conditions have already existed; when we talk about an evolutionary basis for something, we’re talking about an extended period of time. However, even if we just stick to the present, I specifically stated that *not* having children freed up gays and lesbians to do other things, so I’m completely mystified as to why you’re citing data about gays and lesbians who *do* have children.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: … I specifically stated that *not* having children freed up gays and lesbians to do other things Indeed. It was the “*not* having children” claim that I was refuting. Note that “there is data showing” that 37% of LGBs surveyed have had at least one child, which is only about 15% less than the rate of heterosexuals. And those LGB that have children are three times more likely to be near the poverty threshold than heterosexuals. So I’m not seeing the huge social benefit that Krychek_2 promised. Where’s the actual data? How is “benefit” being defined? Krychek_2 wrote:… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

” Is he going to declare that something that happens has no natural evolutionary basis? He would be blaspheming his god.”

Spot on. It would then follow, that if something having an evolutionary basis is a defense unto itself for its existence, and everything has an evolutionary basis, that everything is defensible. This would, presumably, include us and out interpretation of Scripture. I’m just happy to do my part to help the will of the random chance that guides us all.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek, surely the social benefit lies in the singleness and the childlessness. The nuns and maiden aunts of my youth were tireless teachers, nurses, parish workers, and visitors of the sick and homebound.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Jill, it’s the same idea, yes. Traditionally, gays were more likely to be single and childless, even though that may no longer be true today.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote:

Traditionally, gays were more likely to be single and childless, even though that may no longer be true today.

Citation please. Where’s the data for this claim?

Believe me, I’ve tried google already. I can’t even find current total fertility rates for LGBTQs, let alone historic trends. All I could find was a survey of 15-45 year olds, reporting how many have “had children”. It didn’t report how many children, or the gender or age mix of the respondents. The median age could have been 20, for all I know.

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

I read a recent link that mentioned higher rates of heterosexual sex and pregnancy among teenage gays/ lesbians that straight. It seems in this group hypersexuality was leading to more variable sexual experimentation.

jigawatt
jigawatt
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote:

Plus there is data indicating there is some social benefit to having a small number of homosexuals in any given population. Not having children fees them up to do other things that benefit the community.

Would our society be better or worse off if it forbid homosexuals from adopting children?

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  adad0

A broken gene could.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago

Is there any evidence that reparative therapy actually works? Because it seems to me that that’s the central issue. If it doesn’t work, then it should be illegal for the same reason it’s illegal for me to tell you that if you give me $5000 for my special swill it will cure your brain cancer. We have laws against other types of fraud, so why should this type be an exception? And the data I’ve seen indicates that it doesn’t work. You might be able to guilt-trip gay people into not having sex if they are highly motivated for religious… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Douglas Wilson

I suppose that depends on how firmly one defines “underlying”.

The church I grew up in took the position that homosexuality was proof positive that one was a vessel of wrath with no hope of salvation and grounds for immediate and permanent excommunication,, which at least has the benefit of being internally consistent. You then don’t have to go through the motions of pretending, on the one hand, the homosexuality can be “cured”, or on the other hand, that you care about whether it’s nature or nurture.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek, the old reprobate doctrine. There is a pastor on youtube still teaching that. I find this complicated. If a gay conversion clinic is operating as a business and advertising a specified cure rate, I think they should have to verify their claims. I think it is legitimate for the state to take an interest in any methods used on minors which a normal person would consider physically abusive. I mention this because, when I was young, gay conversion therapy often included using electrical shocks or nausea-producing drugs while forcing the subject to watch gay porn. I am not aware… Read more »

bdash
bdash
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

why is reprobate doctrine wrong?
Can someone point a sermon or article?
It seems to be really popular on youtube

The Commenter Formerly Known As fp
The Commenter Formerly Known As fp
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Jilly, you said: I mention this because, when I was young, gay conversion therapy often included using electrical shocks or nausea-producing drugs while forcing the subject to watch gay porn. A bloke by the name of Goldani claimed in front of the New Jersey Senate Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizens Committee that he underwent the very same treatment at a place called True Directions in Ohio. Here’s part of his chilling testimony: Twice a week I was hooked up to electrodes on my hands. I, a child, was shocked repeatedly by people who had my parent’s permission to torture… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago

I can see being skeptical of most things, but I didn’t learn this from the gay lobby or from anything recent. I learned it in my abnormal psychology class in 1969, and it was in the textbook. What g.ives it some credibility for me is that this was the heyday of behaviorism when many conditions were being treated with methods we would now find abusive. Alcoholism was also being treated at a couple of notorious Canadian facilities by giving the person a drink and then shocking him out of his wits. Autistic children were treated with electric shocks (the Lovaas… Read more »

Melody
Melody
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Nothing beats those good old 1969 psychology classes. They were great bastions of truth and sexual purity. Psychology is such a pure science that has made our culture a much more warm and cozy place for all. Just look at the drop in crime and mass murder since 1969. And now we leave our doors unlocked at night and the windows rolled down on our cars while we shop.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Melody

Hi Melody. I think it was probably different in Canada, where homosexual acts had just been decriminalized but most people including my professor thought homosexuality was a mental disorder to be treated with psychotherapy. I think by then the research showed that traditional analysis made no difference, and the only method in favor became aversion therapy. I think I remember the research so well because I did my clinical project on homosexuality. I remember my last paragraph saying that, perhaps, in another century or so, it might come to be seen as an alternative sexual response that met, not with… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago

Hi fp, I’m linking to a few sources I found. I have used only articles from academic journals written at the time aversion therapy was used to treat homosexuals. In England and Canada, consenting to this treatment was sometimes the alternative to a prison sentence.

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/115/529/1417

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1958601/

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/115/523/723.short

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01542019

https://ucdavis.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/aversion-therapy-for-sexual-deviation-contingent-shock-and-covert

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago

Hi fp, I posted a bunch of links to academic journals from the time studies were written, but it has been held up in moderation. I hope it pops up later. There is no doubt that aversion therapy involving emetics and electric shock was used to treat gays in the 1950s and 1960s because the psychiatrists and psychologists who used it wrote studies. It is important to clarify a few points: 1. There is no evidence that Christian conversion therapists were using aversion therapy. These were mental health professionals in western nations treating or doing research with homosexuals. 2. The… Read more »

Kilgore T. Durden
Kilgore T. Durden
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

First, thanks for the free will response on the other thread. I disagree, surprise!, but I do appreciate it. Secondly, I think we have discovered why this issue is so close to home for you. Did a child get excommunicated? Furthermore, how is the position of this church, which I assume is overly simplified, any different from the born-this-way mantra of the homo pushers? One says it is ingrained at birth, so sex it up all you want. The other says, with some solid biblical support in Romans 1, that going down this road is a path of no return?… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago

Kilgore, I think in large part sexual orientation is locked in, at least for men. Female sexuality seems a bit more fluid. I also think that from a Calvinist perspective, if Romans 1 and I Corinthians 6:9 are both talking about homosexuality they are in hopeless conflict with each other, because when God gives someone up and gives them over, there is no hope of them then becoming “such were some of you.” And my bottom line position is that if you think Romans 1 is about homosexuals, then let’s give up the charade of trying to repair them. The… Read more »

Vva70
Vva70
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek, you’re taking the argument of Romans 1 as though the book ended there. Paul’s argument continues through fifteen more chapters.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Vva70

Vva70, none of which offers any specific hope to gay people. With the harsh language Paul uses in Romans 1, if there were hope for gay people, one might have expected him to say so.

soylentg
soylentg
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

“if there were hope for gay people, one might have expected him to say so”
He did, every time he preached the Gospel.

OKRickety
OKRickety
6 years ago
Reply to  soylentg

,

You are right. Of course, what Krychek actually wants is hope for gay people without them changing their behavior. That is, have their cake and eat it, too.

adad0
adad0
6 years ago
Reply to  OKRickety

Hey Rick, other topic.

It seems like Sam Powell is an old school dogmatic, with regard to his adherence and espousal of “the three forms of unity”. I don’t know that I have run into anyone that dogmatic, at the expense of The Word, in 40 or 50 years!?

Well, except for maybe Bernie Sanders, but on other topics. ; – )

OKRickety
OKRickety
6 years ago
Reply to  adad0

,

I find it interesting that his brother (also a Reverend[?] in the same denomination) seems much more down-to-earth.

When it comes to deep  theological arguments of an ivory tower format, my eyes tend to glaze over. I am more interested in how we should live our lives every day than how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Vva70
Vva70
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

No hope in Romans? But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: Vva70, none of which offers any specific hope to gay people. With the harsh language Paul uses in Romans 1, if there were hope for gay people, one might have expected him to say so. While not in the book of Romans, the same author of Romans wrote: Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you.… Read more »

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

With the harsh language Paul uses in Romans 1, if there were hope for gay people, one might have expected him to say so.

Not just homosexuals, look who else has no hope.

They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness,
evil,
covetousness,
malice.
They are full of envy,
murder,
strife,
deceit,
maliciousness.
They are gossips,
slanderers,
haters of God,
insolent,
haughty,
boastful,
inventors of evil,
disobedient to parents,
foolish,
faithless,
heartless,
ruthless.
(Romans 1)

Perhaps you should read further into Romans.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

Oh, I’ve read Romans in its entirety. I can quote large sections from memory. The problem with your interpretation is that Paul didn’t just spend most of an entire chapter specifically singling out covetousness, malice, envy, etc. In this specific context, those sins are all add-ons to someone who is already a homosexual. Romans 1 must be read step by step, because it’s a step by step process.

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Paul’s point is Gentile sin (chapter 1) but Jewish sin so don’t get high and mighty (chapter 2) therefore faith (chapter 3) and further explanation on faith.

You are the one proposing conflict in Paul. But clearly Paul thinks all need to repent.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

But not all have been given up and given over. That status is reserved for gay people. If it’s just another sin, then why did Paul spend much of an entire chapter describing in special detail how people got that way and that God has given them up and over? If Paul singles something out for special treatment, there’s a reason.

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

It is an example of how corrupt Gentile society has become. So you are correct in that Paul uses this in Romans as an example of extreme corruption, but you are incorrect in applying it to the ability of an individual homosexual to repent.

The whole point of the next chapter is that Jews also stand condemned. All need faith.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

So, based on your interpretation, how do you deal with Romans 1:16? If Paul thought gay people were irretrievable, he already contradicted himself.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.

Does “everyone” mean something different to you than it does me? I more I read Romans 1 over again, the less plausible your interpretation seems.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Justin, because no one can come except the Father draw him. Faith itself is a gift from God, see Ephesians 2:8-9. And since God has given them up and given them over, he’s not likely drawing them or giving them the gift of faith.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote:

And since God has given them up and given them over, he’s not likely drawing them or giving them the gift of faith.

Uh huh. Because “giving over” to Satan (in excommunication) means that God isn’t likely to redeem the sinner back? (See 1 Corinthians 5:5.)

Once again, Krychek_2 has failed to show that “giving over to” is the same as “giving up on”. He has, so far, ignored the passages about “giving over” that directly contradict his exegesis.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

I Corinthians 5:5 explicitly says given over for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved. Romans 1 contains no such qualifying language; it just says given up.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

” it just says given up.” No, it says given up to specific things, none of those things being damnation without hope. Though your reading here is odd. A principle does not have to be included in every passage on a given topic to remain true and internally consistent. The Bible doesn’t have to repeat “honor your parents” every time parents come up in the Bible in order for the principle not to be in play every time. Romans 1 as you yourself point out contains no such qualifying language, so why do you assume the reading that puts it… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: I Corinthians 5:5 explicitly says given over for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved. Thus proving that “given over to” does not mean “given up on”, nor does it mean irredeemable. If that’s not good enough for Krychek_2, then he can check out Psalm 81:11-12, which I had cited awhile back, and which Krychek_2 continues to ignore. It refers to God’s judgment against Israel, to “give them over to” their stubborn hearts of disobedience without qualifier. But we know that Israel subsequently renewed covenant with God, so “giving over to” did not mean… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Ok, well I’m going to take a play out of the Krychek_2 playbook and say:

There have been thousands of arguments that defeat this idea Google them.

Now you have two options here. Either you can demand I actually have to prove my point, in which case you need to provide actual science up top, or you can google around looking for the answer, hoping I confirm whichever one you find is the one I meant.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: In this specific context, those sins are all add-ons to someone who is already a homosexual. Romans 1 must be read step by step, because it’s a step by step process. It’s interesting that Krychek_2 invites us to read Romans 1 “step by step”, but if he has ever done so himself he apparently didn’t notice that homosexuality and vile passion is the thing “given over to”, and not the cause of the giving over. So Krychek_2 has it exactly backwards. To use his words, homosexuality would be the “add-on” to someone who is already guilty of other… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

If and when I make a basic exegetical error, I’ll acknowledge it, but this isn’t one. Romans 1 sets forth a series of steps by which someone supposedly becomes a homosexual. (The fact that it matches the life experience of probably no actual homosexual who ever lived is a side note.) But once someone has been given over, it takes a literal act of God to bring them back, and there is nothing in this chapter that indicates that that ever takes place. Unlike II Corinthians 5, in which it explicitly states that restoration is the goal, here there is… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

“You’re trying to write an ending to the chapter that isn’t there, probably because what is there is so unpalatable.” I find this a particularly fascinating accusation. This is precisely what you are doing in literally every point of dispute on the thread. You claim conversion therapy can’t work (not doesn’t, can’t) not through evidence but because it requires homosexuality to be something different than your pre-supposed idea of it. You claim Romans 1 can only refer to God giving up on people forever, something it literally does not say, not because because it’s actually in the text (the text… Read more »

Farinata
Farinata
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

You are describing, more or less precisely, the Christian account of sin. We are all in slavery to sin, and it requires a literal act of God to save every one of us. You are insisting on a categorical distinction between homosexual transgression and all other sins that is nowhere present in the text: Paul’s distinction is purely quantitative.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: If and when I make a basic exegetical error, I’ll acknowledge it, but this isn’t one. Whether Krycheek_2 can acknowledge his error or not, he had claimed that “In this specific context, those sins are all add-ons to someone who is already a homosexual.” But Romans 1 actually states the reverse. The homosexual vile passions are, in fact, a late stage “add-on” result of initial sins like ingratitude, refusal to honor, and idolatry. Krycheek_2 had the order backwards. In this scenario, the vile passion isn’t what incites God’s judgment; the perversion is the result of judgment. Krychek_2 wrote:… Read more »

Jethro
Jethro
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2

” I am not familiar with any Biblical example of someone who was redeemed from being gay.”

Try 1 Corinthians 6.11. In context.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: I also think that from a Calvinist perspective, if Romans 1 and I Corinthians 6:9 are both talking about homosexuality they are in hopeless conflict with each other, because when God gives someone up and gives them over, there is no hope of them then becoming “such were some of you.” Hopeless conflict? On the topic, perhaps there should be a law banning apostates from continuing to engage in exegesis in their conversion therapy attempts on other Christians. It would at least cut down on some unnecessary embarrassment. Krychek_2’s alleged conflict is trivially avoided by simply postulating that… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

Katecho, your trivial resolution of what is not a trivial conflict fails in that if the descriptor in Romans 1 does not apply to all homosexuals, then the entire text doesn’t apply to all homosexuals, and Romans 1 cannot be considered a general condemnation of homosexuality. You can’t adopt the conclusions without accepting the premises. So if your position is that Romans 1 is a condemnation of all homosexuality, then Paul’s rationale for arriving at that conclusion must apply to all homosexuals. That it manifestly does not, basically kills your entire argument.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

“and Romans 1 cannot be considered a general condemnation of homosexuality. You can’t adopt the conclusions without accepting the premises. So if your position is that Romans 1 is a condemnation of all homosexuality, ”

If Christians needed Romans 1 to establish that homosexuality is evil, that would be a problem. Since there’s a variety of other verses to choose from, I fail to see how this carries any weight.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Justin, first, we’re not talking about those other passages, we’re talking about Romans 1. But more to the point, I’m not arguing that Romans 1 doesn’t condemn homosexuality; I’m arguing that a fair reading of it singles it out for special and irretrievable condemnation. But you can’t selectively read only part of the passage; if it applies to gay people generally, then everything in it applies to gay people. In which case it’s nonsense, since most gay people (if any) did not become gay by going through the steps in Romans 1.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: I’m arguing that a fair reading of it singles it out for special and irretrievable condemnation. Krychek_2 has asserted irretrievable condemnation, but what argument supports that bald assumption? I’ve provided several other passages where “given over” does not indicate irretrievable. Krychek_2 has yet to engage with any of those to try to rescue his case. Krychek_2 wrote: In which case it’s nonsense, since most gay people (if any) did not become gay by going through the steps in Romans 1. Another bald assertion. But even if only a few came to homosexuality through the stages of ingratitude and… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

The passage that you’ve cited, II Corinthians 5, explicitly talks about restoration. Romans 1 doesn’t. That restoration is talked about in other passages but not here suggests its omission is likely deliberate.

Jane
Jane
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

So your only warrant for an adamant insistence that restoration isn’t possible, is the lack of explicit mention of it, even though you’ve already been shown other passages by the same author that indicate that he believed that former homosexuals can be among the redeemed, and even though there’s nothing in the passage that indicates that restoration is impossible?

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: The passage that you’ve cited, II Corinthians 5, explicitly talks about restoration. Romans 1 doesn’t. Actually, the passage I cited was 1 Corinthians 5:5, but Krychek_2 seems to be stuck arguing from silence in Romans 1, and ignoring the other passages that demonstrate that “giving over to” does not mean “giving up on”. Krychek_2 wrote: That restoration is talked about in other passages but not here suggests its omission is likely deliberate. Can Krychek_2 cite some passages that talk about restoration from drinking of blood, or from mixing dissimilar fabrics? If not, does that mean that such an… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

” But more to the point, I’m not arguing that Romans 1 doesn’t condemn homosexuality;” I wasn’t suggesting you were. You clearly didn’t understand where I was going with this. “; I’m arguing that a fair reading of it singles it out for special and irretrievable condemnation. But you can’t selectively read only part of the passage; ” You’ve yet to come up with even a basic rationale for how it singles them out for irretrievable condemnation. It is literally not grammatically there in the text. So what else do you have? Aside from that, I agree. You can’t selectively… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Justin, because in other passages that talk about being given up, restoration is explicitly the goal. Here it is not. That restoration is mentioned in other places but not here suggests that this is a special case.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

And as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, this is you making assumptions based on what the Bible doesn’t say, rather than analyzing what it does say. God, a being that, even if you don’t believe in Him, is hypothetically all powerful, existing with complete knowledge of everything that has ever happened and ever will, as uncountable decillions of motivations for the verses in the Bible based on their effects all throughout human history and beyond. What you’re suggesting is, “If the Bible doesn’t specifically specify this exact intention in this exact way, every single time the topic of homosexuality comes up,… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Justin Parris wrote: It doesn’t matter if he specifically stated a goal of Salvation or not, that He didn’t mention it does not automatically mean it’s off the table. This point is well made, and true. But, even so, it should be noted that we still don’t have to concede that salvation was omitted from this particular context. Romans 1:16 proclaimed the goal of salvation loudly and irrefutably. God delights to demonstrate His power over our perversion and wickedness. The crowning demonstration is the cross itself. God could have destroyed all creation in a ball of space-time annihilation, but instead… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: Justin, because in other passages that talk about being given up, restoration is explicitly the goal. Here it is not. That restoration is mentioned in other places but not here suggests that this is a special case. Restoration is mentioned as the widely recognized theme verse of the entire book: Romans 1:16. It’s not omitted from the context at all. Restoration is explicitly the goal. Ironically, Krychek_2 is trying his best to get us to be ashamed of this redemptive Gospel that is powerful enough to redeem even the murderer and the sex deviant. Krychek_2’s agenda is just… Read more »

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

That restoration is mentioned in other places but not here suggests that this is a special case. No it does not. Even so, restoration is mentioned. What then? Are we Jews[a] any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin,… But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction [between Jews and Gentiles]: for all have sinned… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Justin Parris wrote:

He can attribute this entire passage to only refer to a specific subset of gay people, defeating your entire argument, and walk away smiling.

Exactly. Glad someone else is tracking.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 was supposed to show how Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6 were in “hopeless conflict”. He couldn’t sustain such an assertion. Homosexual behavior can be a perversion (worthy of condemnation apart from repentance) no matter whether someone came to it by the path of digression outlined in Romans 1, or by some other confused path. I was simply postulating that, even if Romans 1 taught that “given over” homosexuals were unredeemable (which it doesn’t) then there could still be another kind of homosexual that was not homosexual because of a “giving over” like that described in Romans 1. I… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

I’m not sure he’s managed to show the “given over” language in Romans 1 even denotes a noted change from how God treats all sinners. His standard operating procedure in the face of humans openly choosing to sin is to let them. In this case, human debauchery leads to certain mentally and spiritually damaging consequences. I merely reads this as “God did not prevent those consequences from happening”. Like the father of the prodigal son, when they ask for their inheritance to squander, you let them. Like the father of the prodigal son, they’re not banished forever under all circumstances.… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

Katecho, I don’t think I could prove to your satisfaction that 2 plus 2 equals four; you’d just sail right by whatever I said and continue to claim that I hadn’t proven it.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote:

Katecho, I don’t think I could prove to your satisfaction that 2 plus 2 equals four …

Krychek_2 shouldn’t blame me for his unwillingness to engage. That’s just intellectual laziness and excuse-making.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

No, it’s a reflection of the history of you sailing right by whatever arguments I’ve made, ignoring them, and then claiming that I haven’t engaged you. This conversation is not taking place on a blank slate.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: No, it’s a reflection of the history of you sailing right by whatever arguments I’ve made, ignoring them, and then claiming that I haven’t engaged you. I suspect others will testify that I engage with the substance of all of Krychek_2’s arguments, in detail, with lengthy point-by-point quotations, whenever he deigns to engage; often even when Krychek_2 regurgitates arguments that have already been refuted. On the other hand, Krychek_2 is the one who tells me to google if I want an answer. He’s the one who, for a long period, resorted to his schoolyard canned reply of “whatever… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote:

Kilgore, I think in large part sexual orientation is locked in, at least for men.

Apparently, so did a lot of inmates, before they got confined to prison.

Krychek_2 wrote:

The elders who ran the church of my childhood believed a great many silly things, but they at least understood what it means for God to give up on someone and didn’t pretend otherwise.

Speaking of pretending otherwise, does the text say, “gave up on”, or “gave over to”?

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: The church I grew up in took the position that homosexuality was proof positive that one was a vessel of wrath with no hope of salvation and grounds for immediate and permanent excommunication,, which at least has the benefit of being internally consistent. Which church was that, Westboro Baptist? Citation of the doctrine please. Color me skeptical, but let’s see if Krychek_2 can substantiate himself. Did Krychek_2’s former church simply ignore 1Corinthians 6:9-11? Did Krychek_2 never come across 1Corinthians 6:9-11 in any of his own personal reading? Or did the church he grew up in also discourage personal… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

Katecho, I often listen to sermon,s on youtube preached by Pastor Steven Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. He continually teaches that homosexual orientation is proof of damnation, and that gays cannot repent. Oddly, he hates Calvinism and believes that everyone (other than gays) has an equal chance at repentance and salvation. I don’t think this is as unusual a doctrine as you might think. He has planted other IFB churches and they all preach the same thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOcDndO7m4Q&t= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbSM_kxpObc If you wonder why I spend my time there, it is because the guy is very,… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

” And I always come away thanking all the angels and saints that God made me Catholic.” I find this a curious response. Catholicism has a long standing history of interpretations of Scripture to which it claims you must ascribe. If that same exact preacher were from a few hundred years ago and had enough influence, it could easily be church law that all Catholics must accept his interpretation. Protestantism is founded on the idea that I can point out where he’s obviously objectively incorrect, regardless of how powerful he may be within the Church. I have no need to… Read more »

lndighost
lndighost
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Interesting! And not to pile on, dear Jill, but why are you thanking the angels and saints for something that God did?

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  lndighost

Merely a Catholic expression, similar to “Angels and saints defend us!” But we believe we have a guardian angel beside us throughout our lives. So maybe my angel whispered in God’s ear.

Catholic children were always told to leave room at their desk for their angel. Catholic boys and girls at dances had priests and nuns come tell them there wasn’t enough room between them for their two guardian angels to fit.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Hi Justin, a reasonable question. There is little possibility that an individual preacher could foist an unscriptural or bizarre doctrine on the church because there are so many built-in safeguards. Only the pope (or by extension an ecumenical council called by the pope) can define doctrine infallibly. The doctrine must pertain to faith and morals, and it may not substantively contradict earlier teachings on major issues especially pertaining to salvation. So, if a preacher began to teach something that contradicted previous Church interpretations, he would have to convince the entire Vatican and then the pope that he was correct. Even… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

I appreciate your thoughtful response, though I don’t find it entirely satisfactory. My interest was in why you expressed thanks for being a Catholic in this instance, presumably in comparison to being a Protestant. What you described is, if you take everything as true, merely establishing that Catholicism isn’t an impediment to avoiding false teaching. It doesn’t tell us how you think you’re more able to avoid preacher’s like this man. After all, you just described Priests who teach communism. Isn’t that problematic in exactly the same way? That’s if we take all your conclusions at face value. “There is… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Hi Justin. Catholics come, as I noted earlier, in a huge variety of types and flavors, depending on background, education, geography, and many other factors. It sounds as if your ladies might have leaned toward being Trad Caths. There are Republican Catholics who are religiously and socially very conservative, and who view the theological positions of the last few popes with a lot of dismay. I have never personally had much contact with them. I come from a Lib Dem Catholic environment which was very academic and very much involved with social justice issues–what people call a “Peace and Justice… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Well, being a natural born smart mouth and pusher of buttons, I’m tempted to say something along the lines of “that Mary was sinless” or “that priests can’t get married when all men are instructed to take a wife 1 Cor 7:2, and that the church can’t be that wife because the verse specifically denotes that it’s to avoid temptation of sexual immorality” but I quite like you and have no desire to get into a serious argument that could breed bad will. Instead I’ll point to what I said before wasn’t about the Catholic “immune system” per se, but… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Hi Justin, I quite like you too and I don’t mind intense arguments, so don’t throw away your shot, to quote my beloved Hamilton. I see your difficulty and it is valid. But first, the issue of fallible cardinals electing an infallible pope. No one knows what goes on during the councils preceding the election of the pope because to breathe a word is an excommunicable offense. But the cardinals do not look for the candidate they believe is most likely to make infallible decisions; the infallibility is, we believe, a gift of the Holy Spirit conferred on whomever is… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Well first, before I address anything else, I want to commend you for this. “The most serious has been the emergence of “Cafeteria Catholicism” (of which I am personally guilty) where people feel free to pick and choose as long as they believe they are obeying the voice of conscience. ” Personally, I find both the most common and the most dire sin committed worldwide, by both believers and unbelievers, is making morality based primarily on your own personal feelings. Well all know when asked that it’s ridiculous, that truth is not defined by what we personally like, but then… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Hi Justin, I will start this and finish later as I have to take my daughter to the doctor. But I misled you through inaccurate phrasing. Infallibility does not belong to the pope but to the office. The person who is elected will be infallible (under the usual very tight restrictions), but only because he occupies the Chair of St. Peter. So the electors’ vote does not confer infallibility. It only elects a pope. We believe that the Holy Spirit guides their deliberations but there is no guaranteed good outcome. The electors could hear the Holy Spirit and choose to… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

” but only because he occupies the Chair of St. Peter. ” So this is clearly my situation 1, God consecrates whoever they pick, and the same argument applies. Why do you believe it? What doctrine do you use to establish that infallibility? Because someone already sitting in the chair told you so? How do you resolve the paradox without the direct words of Jesus that I fortunately have. “But we believe the infallibility attached to the office will protect the church from certain specific harms such as loss of the sacraments or the sacred body of the faith or… Read more »

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

I had the same merry-go-round with my own pastor on the concept of Biblical infallibility.

Wenham addresses this well in his excellent Christ and the Bible.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Hi Justin, part le deux: The benefit of a giant hierarchy is that it guarantees a glacial pace of change. So do the challenges of geography and the vast number of cultures within the church. A heretical bishop in, for example, Tanzania who begin to practice illicit exorcisms may damage his own flock but he can do no damage to the millions of Catholics in Brazil. The Catholic hierarchy gives quite an extraordinary degree of latitude before it starts cracking down. Part of that is syncretism, and part is the wisdom of giving local bishops a lot of autonomy. The… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

First, I didn’t see that you had responded here when I wrote the above. Apologies. “The Catholic hierarchy gives quite an extraordinary degree of latitude before it starts cracking down” A statement that itself assumes that it is capable of cracking down. If it can, you have to resolve my original hypothetical including the destruction of the apostolic line. If it isn’t, then again, why bother with the big system? The blessing of the HS protects you from that possibility doesn’t it? “When it began to divide parishes and when excessive displays of emotion began causing scandal, the local bishop… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

I think what Jill Smith is trying to convey is that the core, or root, of the Church will never fall to corruption. Of course I agree with this principle. The difference is that she locates the root of the Church in what is actually just a branch. She locates the infallible root of the Church in a papal office, rather than in Christ, who is the Root of the Olive Tree on which the branches of the Church consist. God wrote a letter (through Paul) to the churches (in Rome, ironically enough) not to boast as if they were… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Justin, are you making a proper distinction between infallibility and impeccability? The church has never taught that the pope, by virtue of his office, cannot sin. It is clear that popes sin, and sometimes they have sinned spectacularly. All that infallibility claims is that when defining, ex cathedra, doctrines of faith and morals for all Catholics to believe and obey, the Holy Spirit will guide the pope from error. Catholics believe that this special, seldom-invoked charism comes from Jesus who told his apostles: “He who hears you hears me” (Luke 10:16), and “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Jill Smith wrote: … the infallibility is, we believe, a gift of the Holy Spirit conferred on whomever is elected. Roman Catholics like to view infallibility as a transferable property of God. But they run into all sorts of problems when infallibility just doesn’t manifest in the thing they attribute it to. Justin Parris wrote: I maintained that while the Bible was 100% correct, it was fallible, because to say otherwise would require that all of the authors were themselves incapable of ignoring God’s influence and writing something contrary to his will. I don’t believe that infallibility is a transferable… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

“Clearly Bibles (the printed, syntactical works) can be fallible.” This is where the conversation started. I was reading the church bylaws as agreeing to them is a prerequisite to becoming a member, and I had to beg the question “What do you mean by Bible, and what do you mean by fallible, because at face value obviously the book I’m holding has a coffee stain on page 236” The result for awhile was kind of discouraging. “Well, we mean the oldest transcripts we have are infallible”. Ok, so I have to agree that a document I’ve never seen in a… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Apart from some space-time anomaly, I suspect that Krychek_2 has been apostate long enough to have never sat under any of Steven Anderson’s angry rants, let alone to have “grown up” under his teaching. Maybe Krychek_2 will provide a citation to substantiate the teaching he says he grew up under. Or maybe he won’t. I’m just curious if he can. I should also point out that neither of Jill Smith’s linked videos mention any support for the doctrine that homosexuals can’t ever repent and be redeemed. Does Jill have any citation for the issue that I actually asked about? If… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

Sorry, Katecho, I posted the first two videos I saw. Let me find better ones and get back to you in a moment.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

Here is a page from Anderson’s website. I think you will find it explicit enough. 1. Can Sodomites Be Saved? 2. How Do the Sodomites Recruit Others to their Lifestyle? 3. Do Sodomites Only Prey on Males? 4. Epilogue “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.” – Leviticus 20:13 1. Can Sodomites Be Saved? Homosexuality is totally unnatural behavior. According to the Bible, every one of is us born with a sin nature; we… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

I appreciate Jill Smith providing something that is directly relevant to the question. I hope Krychek_2 will provide a similar citation to substantiate his claim. It’s interesting how the question of homosexual repentance isn’t answered directly by Anderson, but is highly nuanced. After a bit of looking, it seems that Stephen Anderson’s position is that someone can actually engage in a full blown homosexual act, either through drunkenness, or drugs, or molestation, and not become irredeemable. He clarifies that it is only someone who actually lusts or desires same sex that is irredeemable. Note that this isn’t a distinction found… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

Krychek, and the elders of his former church, understood that if I Corinthians 6:9 is talking about homosexuality, it is in hopeless conflict with Romans 1, for the reasons I’ve already given. They, and I, take Romans 1 at face value. And if Romans 1 means what it says, then homosexuals are vessels of wrath with no hope. I realize that’s an unpalatable result, which is why you’re trying so hard to avoid it, but I do not see how you can reconcile “God gave them up” and “God gave them over” with the possibility of repentance. So rather than… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

“Krychek, and the elders of his former church, understood that if I Corinthians 6:9 is talking about homosexuality, it is in hopeless conflict with Romans 1, ” You keep saying this and completely neglecting to establish how that’s the case. You’re interpreting “God gave them over to shameful lusts” to read “God will ignore them forever and ever”. This interpretation itself is the thing that’s inconsistent with the rest of the Bible. The entire premise of the Book is that we are a people created by God, who were given the option to give ourselves over to sin. When we… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Justin, except that no one can come except the Father draw him. Which he’s probably not if he’s given them up and given them over.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote:

Justin, except that no one can come except the Father draw him. Which he’s probably not if he’s given them up and given them over.

Probably not? It appears that Krychek_2 is unsure, or is arguing from silence.

Krychek_2 has failed to show that “giving over to” is the same as “giving up on”. I’ve shown examples where it clearly isn’t.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

“Which he’s probably not if he’s given them up and given them over.”

Circular reasoning. The argument that this doesn’t refer to someone being irredeemable can not be refuted by a verse that requires you already believe the verse refers to someone being irredeemable.

One of these I do hope you’ll share with us why, grammatically, the sentence must mean something other than what it says.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: Krychek, and the elders of his former church, understood that if I Corinthians 6:9 is talking about homosexuality, it is in hopeless conflict with Romans 1, for the reasons I’ve already given. … Much as I hate to agree with Westboro Baptist, I think their exegesis on this issue is dead on accurate. Citation needed. What church teaches this doctrine, and can Krychek_2 demonstrate it with a citation from the period in which he was growing up? While there is some kooky doctrine taught under the name of Christianity, I think it plausible that Krychek_2 is actually misrepresenting… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

Katecho, I clicked on your link and read the following: “However, read Romans 1:18-32 where is says THREE times that God has given fags up. Now, if the only being who can save you has given you up, what hope is there?” So it appears that I’ve stated their position accurately. The article’s bottom line is that God can do anything so nothing is impossible, but that’s like asking if Judas Iscariot could be saved — theoretically possible but not gonna happen.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: So it appears that I’ve stated their position accurately. No, actually, Krychek_2 selectively misrepresented the linked response, and also completely ignored the quote of Steve Drain that I provided. Here’s the paragraph just above the one Krychek_2 snipped out: You asked it if is possible for someone to flee the sin of homosexuality after one has engaged in it – and the answer is, yes, it is possible. It requires true repentance (meaning you STOP it) and sincere mourning for sin. Meaning, it requires the grace and mercy of God. If Krychek_2 is not going to honestly represent… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

Katecho, Westboro’s position fits under the heading of “anything is possible” including, presumably, invasion by Martian UFO aliens. That’s because, in case you’ve forgotten, God can do anything (at least within your paradigm). But the fact that something *might* happen does not mean it *ever actually does* happen. It *could* happen that there is a china teapot in orbit around the moon. Not betting on it. This is an example of stretching “anything is possible” to mean “the highly unlikely will happen”.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

“That’s because, in case you’ve forgotten, God can do anything (at least within your paradigm). But the fact that something *might* happen does not mean it *ever actually does* happen. ”

So you’re admitting that there IS hope within Romans? Because this is a significant walk back from your previous “the Bible says it’s not possible for gays to be saved never ever ever to infinite under any circumstances” interpretation that’s extremely pivotal to this argument.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote:

But the fact that something *might* happen does not mean it *ever actually does* happen.

UFOs? Krychek_2 is just conceding the point while trying not to appear to have conceded it.

He’s also still running away from 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. He is arguing from silence, and we aren’t. We have the whole counsel of God on the matter. One wonders when, or if, he will ever get around to arguing that 1 Corinthians 6 doesn’t straightforwardly describe the actual repentance of “man-bedders” (arsenokoitai).

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek, we’re at a point where basic literacy has to be called into question. The sentences did not end “God gave them up”. It says he gave them up “to” something. So let’s look at what he gave them up to. 24 the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves 26 to dishonorable passions. 28 to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. Not pictured: Permanent damnation without hope In order for the verse to say what it does, you need to establish how ANY of these things, 24,… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Sorry for the double post, but this is rather important. That Paul goes into three separate descriptions I think is of paramount significance. If the first “give them over” denoted endless corruption and death without hope, why did he go on to list separate distinctly defined things God also gave them over to? A list of specific things inherently means it excludes other things. It is flatly impossible to rationally interpret this as “God forbade them salvation” because it isn’t on the list, and he bothered to give a list in the first place. So thank you for pointing out… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

No, not basic literacy; rather, your desperate avoidance of an unpalatable result. Show that chapter to anyone without a preconceived idea of what the answer should be, and I’ll bet anything that most of them would agree with me. I understand the desire to not have something that awful in the Bible, but your arguments only persuade the already converted. I know this, because in a college course, as an experiment, fifty people were shown this text and asked if homosexuals could be saved. Based solely on this text, 44 said no. I was in the class and heard the… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

“No, not basic literacy; rather, your desperate avoidance of an unpalatable result. Show that chapter to anyone without a preconceived idea of what the answer should be, and I’ll bet anything that most of them would agree with me.” I’ll happily try this experiment. All you need to do is find a large diverse sample size of people with no previous opinion whatsoever on religion. I’ll await your word when you’ve found such a group. ” I understand the desire to not have something that awful in the Bible, but your arguments only persuade the already converted.” You’re projecting a… Read more »

John Callaghan
John Callaghan
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek,

That story of the student poll brought to mind this little clip:

Leading Questions.

Nathan James
Nathan James
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

” Show that chapter to anyone without a preconceived idea of what the answer should be, and I’ll bet anything that most of them would agree with me.” There’s no way you will find someone who doesn’t have a preconceived idea about the nature of God or how he should/would deal with homosexuals. Impossible. Besides that however, reading chapter 1 as if it stands on its own is wrongheaded. The thesis of Romans is that the just must live by faith. Part one of proving this thesis is demonstrating that every one is truly guilty before God. Proving all are… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Nathan James

Nathan James wrote:

There’s no way you will find someone who doesn’t have a preconceived idea about the nature of God or how he should/would deal with homosexuals. Impossible.

Excellent response. Well argued points.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: I know this, because in a college course, as an experiment, fifty people were shown this text and asked if homosexuals could be saved. Based solely on this text, 44 said no. Uh huh. Krychek_2 apparently thinks this alleged survey should carry weight with us, but somehow he’s just now getting around to offering it into evidence? As a lawyer, shouldn’t Krychek_2 know that hearsay is not admissible? Or is he soliciting our faith in his personal testimony? Independent citation needed. What is the full list of questions asked, and who was sampled? What was their religious training?… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

“As a lawyer, shouldn’t Krychek_2 know that hearsay is not admissible? ”

He’s a lawyer, and he struggles this much with basic language and the concept of objectivity in interpretaton? Oh dear. This is the kind of snowballing that leads to someone reading

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

and thinks that’s a *restriction* on religion.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

If I recall correctly, Krychek_2 has been guilty of that very reading. He seems to think that separation of Church and State means that the State is completely free to usurp all of the charitable and educational roles and spheres of the Church (and the family) without limit, and all is good so long as the State silently and dutifully never acknowledges God in the process of breaching all those walls. As a self-professed utilitarian, materialist, determinist, Krychek_2 doesn’t have any access to moral expectations, fixed principles, or virtue ethics. It’s all down to consequentialism and pragmatism according to an… Read more »

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

So we are to believe the literature over the people we know who struggled with temptation to same sex and are now happily married to someone of the opposite gender?

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

They may be married; I’m skeptical that they’re not still gay. If you had a 14-year-old son, would you allow one of them to take him on a weekend camping trip? If not, then you don’t believe it works either.

John Callaghan
John Callaghan
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

If I owned a liquor store, I wouldn’t give the keys to a recovered alcoholic and ask him to watch over it for the weekend. I can believe that AA did him a world of good without believing that it rendered him impervious to temptation.

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

The point is that they are being taught to redirect their desires and mortify their temptations. I am fairly strict in my requirements for who my children remain in the care of. But I know of situations where men may be supervising my children, say in the context of a camp. There are men I know who have struggled with various sexual temptations in the past and I would be okay with them being a camp parent (I can think of specific names). There are others who have this background which I would not be happy with, and there are… Read more »

soylentg
soylentg
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

“If you had a 14-year-old son, would you allow one of them to take him on a weekend camping trip?

So then you do believe that homosexuals tend toward pedophilia.

Jimmy Says
Jimmy Says
6 years ago
Reply to  soylentg

Probably less so than heterosexuals. If you don’t believe me, ask Mr. Wilson. He’s had some experience with pedophilia in his congregation. Your logic is a bit off.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  soylentg

No more so than heterosexuals; if I had a 14 year old daughter, I wouldn’t allow an adult heterosexual male to take her on a weekend camping trip either.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

” If it doesn’t work, then it should be illegal for the same reason it’s illegal for me to tell you that if you give me $5000 for my special swill it will cure your brain cancer.” That’s only true if the therapy promises specific results. Services that require a great deal of their customers rarely make such promises. “And the data I’ve seen indicates that it doesn’t work. You might be able to guilt-trip gay people into not having sex if they are highly motivated for religious or other reason, but the literature all says that there’s no evidence… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Justin, same question to you as to Bethyada: If you had a 14 year old son, would you allow one of these ex-gays to take him on a weekend camping trip? If not, then you don’t believe it works either. I draw a distinction between individual pastors doing counseling who, while I think they’re misguided, are probably mostly honest. On the other hand, is what I call the racket of the reparative therapy establishment, whom I believe to be mostly charlatans selling what they know to be snake oil. Spend a few minutes thinking through whether you could become an… Read more »

Jane
Jane
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

“If you had a 14 year old son, would you allow one of these ex-gays to take him on a weekend camping trip? If not, then you don’t believe it works either. ” Absolutely false. The Christian conception of avoiding sin involves fleeing temptation, not thumbing your nose at it. Believing that someone has truly repented of homosexuality and has firmly established a chaste celibate or chaste married heterosexual life does not mean that we should be sanguine about known temptations, any more than trusting my husband means I want him to go camping alone with another woman. True repentance… Read more »

nate
nate
6 years ago
Reply to  Jane

Well said. This person obviously needs to embrace the gospel. After that, when the entire New Testament has been absorbed, the simple teachings about temptation versus living in and practicing sin will be clear for this person. Let’s pray for understanding.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  nate

John, Bethyada, Nate, and Jane, if they still have homosexual temptations, then they are still attracted to men, which means they’re still gay. Not having sex, perhaps, but still gay.

John Callaghan
John Callaghan
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

You could likewise say that there is no such thing as an “ex-alcoholic”. Even if that is a true statement, no one would except it as a valid argument to outlaw Alcoholics Anonymous.

John Callaghan
John Callaghan
6 years ago
Reply to  John Callaghan

“accept”

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  John Callaghan

There probably isn’t such a thing as an ex-alcoholic. The difference is that probably everyone here would recognize the difference between moderate drinking and being an alcoholic, which is probably comparable to the difference between a long-term same sex relationship and being promiscuous.

John Callaghan
John Callaghan
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Some individuals in both groups (alcoholics and homosexuals) recognize that they are suffering from urges that other do not. They then seek out therapy that, while it may not cure them of those urges, allows them to master and overcome them.

Why should the government intervene to prevent one of those two groups from finding the assistance they desire?

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  John Callaghan

If there’s evidence the assistance works, fine. Otherwise it’s a consumer protection measure.

John Callaghan
John Callaghan
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

So, if it does not produce ex-alcoholics, what evidence is there that AA works?

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Some may have them, some may not have them. I know of people for whom sexual desires have significantly changed, and others for whom they have not.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: John, Bethyada, Nate, and Jane, if they still have homosexual temptations, then they are still attracted to men, which means they’re still gay. Not having sex, perhaps, but still gay. Krychek_2 is just assuming the very thing that he needed to show. He’s assuming that a temptation equates to an immutable identity. However, we know that, in Christ, temptations can be refused, rather than reflexively indulged. But this concept is completely foreign to Krychek_2’s materialistic determinism. In Krychek_2’s hard-wired worldview, whatever appetite happens to strike the senses must be fed and cannot be denied without denying our identity.… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

Katecho, you’re still not getting determinism, but I’m lacking the energy to explain it again. Maybe if I use really simple words, next time it will click.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote:

Katecho, you’re still not getting determinism, but I’m lacking the energy to explain it again. Maybe if I use really simple words, next time it will click.

Odd how Krychek_2 doesn’t have energy to explain, but seems to have abundant energy to insult my intelligence.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

That’s because of how little energy it takes to insult your intelligence.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote:

That’s because of how little energy it takes to insult your intelligence.

Insults are indeed cheap, but Krychek_2 is just confirming his intellectual laziness.

lndighost
lndighost
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek, no one is “gay”. Aberrant sexual desire might be persistent and pervasive, but it’s not an integral part of one’s identity. (I’m getting déjà écrit here; I think we have had this discussion before.) Whether God will completely remove anyone’s temptation in this life, we don’t know. But by your reckoning anyone who suffers homosexual temptations, however brief or intermittent, is stuck with the gay label forever. No wonder sufferers despair, if this is the paradigm they are presented with. No chance for healing, no way out! By contrast, the truth that God can and will redeem, restore, and… Read more »

Jimmy Says
Jimmy Says
6 years ago
Reply to  Jane

If he’s been repaired, why would he be tempted to fondle a 14 year old boy? A girl, maybe, but certainly not a boy. As to your husband, I’m certain that you would have no problem with him going off a weekend camping trip with his buds.

Jane
Jane
6 years ago
Reply to  Jimmy Says

There may be some theologically illiterate advocates of “repair” who believe that means people never suffer from their former temptations again. They are silly and need to learn better. That does not mean there cannot be true repentance of a sort that resists, but is not immune, to temptation. I’m not concerned about my husband in such a scenario because he has never shown himself susceptible to homosexual temptations. I would be concerned about him going off and doing any activity that I thought would induce the temptations I know he has — even though I know he is a… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

” If not, then you don’t believe it works either.” I never said it works. In fact, if you look at my own response to the article near the bottom, I suggest the opposite. I was objecting to your rationale, not your conclusion. Similarly, I disagree with this rationale. Whether or not parents are comfortable with your hypothetical has no relevancy at all to its success. The entire premise of my point was that success is impossible to measure. That it’s impossible to measure necessarily means a parent, any parent, is also incapable of knowing whether or not it was… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

I’m ex-Navy, and while that doesn’t make me an expert on sexual behavior within the Navy (or for that matter China or prisons), my layperson’s perspective is that straight men who have sex with other men are doing what I would do if I found myself stranded on a desert island with nothing to eat but brussels sprouts. I despise brussels sprouts, but if my only choices were starving or eating brussels sprouts, I would eat them. Just not happily. And I don’t think the fact that a man “makes do” with what’s available means that he’s gay; it means… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Since you only responded to that contention, shall I assume you don’t object to the rest? Because I found my second paragraph on the topic far more directly relevant. Your hypothetical that I couldn’t imagine my sexuality changing was rather important to your argument. “And I don’t think the fact that a man “makes do” with what’s available means that he’s gay; it means he’s making do with what’s available. ” So, for clarity, a man who calls himself formerly gay. A man who professes that he used to be gay, but was “cured” you disbelieve on the face of… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

No, you should assume that that’s the contention I found most egregiously wrong, so that’s the one I responded to. If you make five points, and I make five points each in response, pretty soon we’re writing War and Peace, so I tend to just pick out the one or two points that I consider most important and respond to them. If there’s something you specifically want a response to, say so. I think sexual orientation is tied less to acts than it is to emotions. Suppose you have a man who is married to a woman and never has… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: Which takes us right back to the reprobate mind issue in Romans 1. The thing that makes God give you up and give you over is not the mere fact that you’re having gay sex, but that your mind desires gay sex. No. I suggest Krychek_2 read Romans 1 again, and take notice that the thing that makes God give them over is not homosexual desire at all. The vile passion is a thing that God gives them over to. It’s a result, not the cause of His giving them over. Given these basic errors of exegesis, Krychek_2… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote:

If there’s something you specifically want a response to, say so.

If only it were that simple.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

Katecho, this conversation may be an exception, but for the most part you’re usually asking me to respond to stuff I’ve already responded to multiple times. And insisting that I haven’t.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

“I think sexual orientation is tied less to acts than it is to emotions. Suppose you have a man who is married to a woman and never has sex with anyone except his wife, but the only way he can maintain an erection is by fantasizing about guys. What’s his sexual orientation?” He would be gay. This brings us back to my original point though. Your definition, a correct one, makes it functionally impossible to measure if conversion therapy is effective. You conclude, despite your own definition of what homosexuality is, that it definitely doesn’t work. This is because you’re… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

I started out agnostic on the question of whether homosexuals can change. I’ve seen no evidence that they can. That’s not conclusive proof that it’s an underlying condition, but it sure points in that direction.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

“I started out agnostic on the question of whether homosexuals can change. ” A claim you IMMEDIATELY disprove yourself “I’ve seen no evidence that they can. ” Ok, in the abstract, if homosexuals could change, what sort of evidence would you find of it? Certainly the only evidence that could exist is homosexuals who say they have, yes? Well it so happens that we have exactly that, but you assume them to be lying. Why? Because it contradicts your idea that homosexuals can’t change. Your presupposition is tainting your entire thought process. Homosexuals can’t change because that would mean that… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Justin Parris wrote:

Well it so happens that we have exactly that, but you assume them to be lying. Why? Because it contradicts your idea that homosexuals can’t change. Your presupposition is tainting your entire thought process.

Exactly.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. It’s as if Justin and I were separated at birth, or perhaps reunited in rebirth.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krycek, I would eat my companions before I ate the brussels sprouts.

The Commenter Formerly Known As fp
The Commenter Formerly Known As fp
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

I heard that among the meager possessions the survivors of the Donner party brought with them to California was a wagon-load of brussels sprouts.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago

I feel about brussels sprouts the way that Pastor Steven Anderson feels about gays: filthy, loathsome, and unnatural.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: Spend a few minutes thinking through whether you could become an ex-straight and begin to desire other men. Could you do it? If not, why would you assume gay men can do it in reverse? Krychek_2 seems to be assuming that the bulk of self-professed “gay men” are not, in fact, opportunistic in their appetites for sex in both directions (see prison system). What evidence shows that so-called homosexuals are so well-regulated and exclusive in their sexual appetites? In other words, I question the legitimacy of invoking a normal person’s response to an offer of homosex, and then… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

What puzzles me most, and what I find addressed almost never, is the emotional component of same sex attraction. We tend to talk as if the driving factor is pure (or impure) physical desire, devoid of romantic love, tenderness, or unselfish concern for the other. We don’t do this with other sinful attractions. We can believe that the adulterous couple is driven by romantic love and not merely a desire to have sex. I understand that gays who frequent bathhouses are looking for anonymous physical sex, as are straight men who go to our local Dames & Games. But I… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Homosexuality is generally discussed in terms of the physical act of sex in large part because of how we see it take shape in the world. It is overwhelmingly more common in men, and those men overwhelmingly more commonly have a high quantity of sex with many partners. That said, I don’t interpret that to mean that sex is the exclusive relational component that’s forbidden. This isn’t an understanding I have an exact verse for, and perhaps Katecho will immediately contradict me with exact reference. If so, I’ll be glad for the education. My understanding though is that more than… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Justin Parris wrote: That said, I don’t interpret that to mean that sex is the exclusive relational component that’s forbidden. Agreed. I don’t have any verse to suggest that the homo-sex act is the exclusive point of sin. In terms of judicial action, the civil magistrate would be limited to prosecuting the act rather than the things that may have lead up to that act, but the Church would have something to say about the lust, the rebellion, and the heart condition. Justin Parris wrote: Man is incomplete without woman and vice versa. … So, a basic assumption one could… Read more »

Lloyd
Lloyd
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

A good point. Except that we all know people who used to “be gay” and now they aren’t. Its hard to prove that something is never the case. To do that you have to prove a law. To prove a law you need empiric evidence. But to disprove a law, all you need is one case that negates the law. Ergo, reparative therapy, or whatever one wants to call it, works.

Anon
Anon
6 years ago

In my high school and college years, I was very promiscuous (hetero) and I also began smoking and taking drugs (after all it was the sixties). When I got married I decided to take my vows seriously. I expected my bride to do so (Christ had yet to reveal Himself to either of us but we realize now that it was He who directed us) and I began being faithful. Faithfulness has been a war for the past 50 years. It’s difficult today but the impulse has lessened over time. I began having kids and realized that I would need… Read more »

lndighost
lndighost
6 years ago
Reply to  Anon

Must’ve got something in my eye while I was reading that. 1 Peter 5:6-11 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God… Read more »

MeMe
MeMe
6 years ago

I don’t want reparation therapy to be legal because without love, Christians become nothing more than “deputized thugs with socks full of deck screws.” I have seen that in the approach to women,to marriage, to sexual abuse, and to homosexuality. I am so sorry but I doubt the heart, I doubt the motivation, and I distrust that the Lord will lead you, rather than being led by one’s own biases and desires. Epic score however, I’m quite the libertarian and would never dream of making anything illegal, but I get it now. It’s not about loving people it’s about an… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

“I don’t want reparation therapy to be legal because without love, ”

Why must the therapy be without love? God guided many to repentance in the Bible and God is love. Your objection seems to be ad hominem. You assume the worst of conservative Christians, therefore you assume that they would do this without love. Am I misreading you?

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

The problem is that even love and support and encouragement to live a sin free life will be interpreted as reparative therapy.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

That is my concern with it as a free speech issue. When I was an adolescent, youth group leaders discussed ways to avoid fornication. They were kind, gentle people, and they also talked about ways girls who had “slipped up” once might refrain from slipping up again. In an age when fornication is every highschooler’s birthright, does this kind of instruction become illegal? Would it be illegal to counsel somebody struggling with promiscuity?

OKRickety
OKRickety
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

,

“In an age when fornication is every highschooler’s birthright, …?”

I love this phrase, although, on further thought, it really is applied to every post-pubescent person, maybe even the married.

Oscar
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

“… even love and support and encouragement to live a sin free life will be interpreted as reparative therapy.”

That’s a feature, not a bug.

Eagle-Eyed
Eagle-Eyed
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

This was rather gay.

Kilgore T. Durden
Kilgore T. Durden
6 years ago

Human sexuality is a very complex mix of genetics, environment, beliefs, and circumstances. To try and boil this down to an unchangeably fixed A or B is simply not dealing with reality.

I think anyone over 12 knows this to be true. But we have to hold our political opinions, so let’s continue to oversimplify things!

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago

I have often thought that we can’t even have intelligent conversations until we are willing to follow where the data leads us. I used to believe that if a boy decided he was gay at 16, then he was gay for life. That his orientation was fixed and immutable. I also believed that he would never have sex with a woman (unless he was forced by some unlikely circumstance). I further believed that if a gay was allowed to live openly, he would settle down with a partner and act no differently from any heterosexual married couple. A lot of… Read more »

Andrew Lohr
Andrew Lohr
6 years ago

Don’t call it “therapy,” call it “sex education”??? Or “talking about sex.” Are Doug’s letters to Tomas here “therapy”?

John White (Chr author) somewhere wrote that one of his secular shrinkology professors, in the A.D. 1960s??, tried to cure same-sex-tempted men by teaching them to seduce women. Or at least taught or mentioned that method–been 30 years or so since I read it.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago

Personally, I find conversion therapy to be, more likely than not, the product of wishful thinking from weak knee’d Christians. The Bible clearly requires that we not have homosexual relationships. If someone were gay and truly “born that way” (an existent, though unproven possibility), then forcing them to be permanently unsatisfied seems so cruel. Unfortunately, the very nature of sin is that we, as fallen beings, are going to want to do things we shouldn’t. The Alcoholic is “born this way”, it doesn’t retroactively make constant excessive drinking acceptable. The abusive spouse is “born” with an overabundance of rage. That… Read more »

bdash
bdash
6 years ago

if feminist do not need therapy, why should those who are gay?
makes no sense to torture gays

Arwenb
Arwenb
6 years ago
Reply to  bdash

Ah, but your comparison requires one to accept the premise that feminists don’t need therapy.

To which I say “Assumes facts not in evidence.”

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Arwenb

Further, that therapy is by necessity torture.

Facts not in evidence indeed.

denjim50s
denjim50s
6 years ago

“therapy” sits on a swing. Should it not also be “outlawed” to prescribe hormone therapy to a trans teen? How about outlawing teen sex change surgeries? Aren’t both these types of “THERAPY” also a suppression of the teen body dysmorphic who was also just “born this way?” It is quite plain that there is a cultural agenda at work with-in the Med/Psych /Pharm professions, and their welded toggle switch can be welded in only one direction for allowing conversion/surgical or reparative/hormone “fixing”. If not for double standards they would have no standards at all.

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago

I generally agree with your argument throughout this post. In fact, I agree so much that I was left confused at one point. When you say: “What has happened is that we are trying to have a debate over what is true and what is false, and we simultaneously have these bands of deputized thugs with socks full of deck screws wandering about, helpfully beating up anyone who suggests a wrong answer. This is neither the way of science, nor theology, nor law, but rather a simple and very raw totalitolerance move.” I agree completely. However, I’ve been under the… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

“I agree completely. However, I’ve been under the impression that you has spoken positively of theocratic societies in the past (such as Calvin) who punished “wrong answers” via means even more brutal than socks full of deck screws, and that you would support the institution of such a society in the future.” This is an odd comparison. Any such society would have a source of truth declared at the foundation, such as the Bible, and so an objective source from which to discern the truth. If you’re a part of that society, you’ve agreed to submit yourself to the principles… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

Jonathan needs to provide a citation where Calvin endorsed “bands of deputized thugs” wandering about, with socks full of deck screws or not.

John Callaghan
John Callaghan
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

The Beeldenstorm featured “bands of deputized thugs” employing axes, hammers, ropes, tree trunks and flames. Socks full of deck screws would have made effective auxiliary tools to smash stained glass windows that were unreachable by ladders.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  John Callaghan

The context was thugs “helpfully beating up anyone who suggests a wrong answer”. Callaghan is actually referring to a period of vandalism and confiscation of property, although some of the destruction was also government ordered according to his source.

Does Callaghan have a citation of Calvin endorsing private vandalism or vigilantism? Calvin did believe that the lesser magistrate had authority to organize active resistance, but that’s not thuggery or vigilantism.

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

I didn’t think “deputized” meant “vigilantism”, but I really don’t know where you’re going with all that anyway.

Here are some sources for what you’re asking for, apparently. I don’t have any energy to chase down the original statements and their support.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2014/07/the-breaking-of-images/

I’ll say that Beldenstorm isn’t really what I’m talking about at all. I was simply referring to beating people up for suggesting wrong answers.

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

The half that I had the issue with was the people getting beaten up for suggesting wrong answers. If you (and perhaps Pastor Wilson, though I’d rather he answer for himself) are cool with that half of the scenario, and it’s only the “bands of deputized thugs” that you had issue with, well then. I guess in your world you can come up with a different name for the people assigned to beat up those who suggest wrong answers.

Farinata
Farinata
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

Are you objecting on the basis of your convictions regarding violence, such that any ruler who enforces anything is basically a thug? Or are you singling out Genevan-style government as especially thuggish?

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  Farinata

We’re talking about enforcing BELIEFS, not the regular enforcement of prohibited actions by government. I’m objecting based on a belief I held long before my more general convictions regarding violence, which is that theological debate is not to be adjudicated with a sword. You don’t prove your ideas are right by killing people who disagree, generally, and even more specifically you don’t win souls to the Kingdom of Christ by beating people who have a different theological formulation. Go back to Pastor Wilson’s statement: “What has happened is that we are trying to have a debate over what is true… Read more »

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

Enforcing right belief is often demanding men again against their conscience, a damnable practice.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

“If you (and perhaps Pastor Wilson, though I’d rather he answer for himself) are cool with that half of the scenario, ” This is kind of ridiculous. At a base level, all societies have some measure of people who’s job it is to use violence to enforce the basic truths that the society has accepted. The only particular difference between a secular society’s police, and a theocratic society’s police (to which you clearly take great exception), is that a theocratic society has a much more fully fleshed out list of agreed upon truths. A secular society like the U.S., has… Read more »

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

But there is a difference in enforcing behaviour and ideas.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

“But there is a difference in enforcing behaviour and ideas.”

That’s not necessarily true depending on the theocratic document you’re using. There are far left activists who regularly state that words are literal violence. If they’re the ones writing the document, ideas could be considered the behavior. That’s why I phrased it the way I did. A theocratic document as the base that everyone’s agreed is the standard for society could say any number of absurd things.

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

You appear to have taken Pastor Wilson’s statement: “This is neither the way of science, nor theology, nor law, but rather a simple and very raw totalitolerance move.”, and made it basically meaningless.

“Raw totalitolerance and the violent enforcement of ideas by thought police is just fine as long as you write it into the documents.”

Why would Pastor Wilson even put “neither science, nor theology, nor law” into the statement if he only meant the statement to apply narrowing to government sanction?

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

You appear to have mistaken me for taking Pastor Wilson’s statement at all. I wasn’t using him for the basis of my thought. So trying to show me in conflict with him is kind of a waste of time. Though I suspect when he sais “nor theology” he was referring to the way theologies do and have worked historically, not how they have the potential to work in the abstract. This is really the problem with the level of abstraction of your comparison. ” However, I’ve been under the impression that you has spoken positively of theocratic societies in the… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

bethyada wrote: But there is a difference in enforcing behaviour and ideas. True, with respect to which governing sphere is involved. And we can Scripturally critique whether Calvin and the civil authorities in Geneva got that distinction right, as a matter of exposition, church and civil enforcement. But I don’t think it’s a difference that matters very much to Jonathan’s brand of nonviolence. He doesn’t seem to allow that anyone but an unbeliever can actually be God’s minister of sword-bearing wrath. Christians are mysteriously barred from ministering in that capacity since it would involve actually employing a sword. So as… Read more »

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

My overall beliefs about violence in a completely different situation (which you are stating inaccurately, FWIW) are quite immaterial to our discussion of Pastor Wilson’s beliefs regarding violence in this situation. It’s a complete red herring.

Can you imagine how annoying it would be if I brought up your pro-slavery views every time we discussed the extent of government power, and said, “Since Katecho believes the government should be allowed to enslave people who have failed to pay their debts, his arguments about anything else the government is or isn’t allowed to do are immaterial.”

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

Jonathan wrote: My overall beliefs about violence in a completely different situation (which you are stating inaccurately, FWIW) are quite immaterial to our discussion of Pastor Wilson’s beliefs regarding violence in this situation. It’s a complete red herring. I don’t see that I’ve misstated Jonathan’s beliefs at all. I notice that he didn’t bother to even try to constructively correct what I stated about him. Such coyness suggests that one isn’t really all that interested in being understood. One’s actual ideas, when discovered, can sometimes be a liability. I’m convinced that Jonathan’s personal views are directly related to his challenge… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

I’m not familiar with Jonathan’s background or exegesis, but I take some serious issues with his basic definitions of words I don’t think you touched on. “Can you imagine how annoying it would be if I brought up your pro-slavery views” Then both you and he describe views that aren’t really pro-slavery, but pro indentured servitude. A slave is owned. An indentured servant is someone who owes something. A slave is an indefinite state in perpetuity, because a slave has no rights. An indentured servant is free to go once the debt is paid. Indentured servitude is not only not… Read more »

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Again, Pastor Wilson’s statement was: “What has happened is that we are trying to have a debate over what is true and what is false, and we simultaneously have these bands of deputized thugs with socks full of deck screws wandering about, helpfully beating up anyone who suggests a wrong answer. This is neither the way of science, nor theology, nor law, but rather a simple and very raw totalitolerance move.” There is a massive gulf between enforcing wrong actions, and enforcing wrongs answers to beliefs about what is true and false. The second may lead to the first, but… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

Jonathan wrote: There is a massive gulf between enforcing wrong actions, and enforcing wrongs answers to beliefs about what is true and false. Agreed. And I’m even willing to engage in a critique of the Genevan civil magistrates on that point, as well as any of Calvin’s exposition that could have contributed to overreach. I’m just not sure what it has to do with Wilson’s post. It seems like one of those red herrings that Jonathan is concerned about. Wilson appears to be concerned with activist thugs who seek to punish and prosecute the lawful activities of others. Whether they… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago

OK, as promised, links to hard data that supports the proposition that small amounts of homosexuality are good for society:

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/scientists-discover-evolutionary-advantage-homosexual-sex/

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26089486

That’s two that I found on google in five minutes. There’s plenty more out there.

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Re: 1st link First, and this isn’t an argument so much as a suggestion, but I heartily suggest not using iflscience as a source for anything. They regularly spread not just misinformation (and I’m not talking about I’m a Christian so I have different ideas than you, I mean like how big is the solar system), but a misunderstanding of what science even is. It’s like asking Breitbart to give an accurate accounting of the GOP. It’s purpose is, whether you like the site or not, to be a circus ringleader in its promotion so I see it and immediately… Read more »

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

Yeah, I found it. Haven’t had the chance to dig in yet. I just wanted to note that his consistently not giving the actual science hints that perhaps he doesn’t know the difference.

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Very complex paper but

Hypersexual male flies who do not care who they display mating behaviour to, have female relatives which out-reproduce other flies.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

bethyada wrote:

Hypersexual male flies who do not care who they display mating behaviour to, have female relatives which out-reproduce other flies.

Thanks to bethyada for the summary. Unfortunately, Krychek_2 was supposed to establish that a small amount of homosexuality was a social benefit. How do we know if out-producing other flies is a social benefit or not? What if it leads to overpopulation and resource depletion? I recall arguments that the barrenness of homosexuality is “nature’s response” to human overpopulation. So is out-reproducing a good thing, or a bad thing for society?

Justin Parris
Justin Parris
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

” I recall arguments that the barrenness of homosexuality is “nature’s response” to human overpopulation. ”

This is the argument I’ve gotten from every single atheist I’ve ever spoken to on the issue. They never take very kindly to my response of “Nature sure is wise. I’m glad we have such a great and powerful wise entity watching over us.”

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Justin Parris

Pluto is a planet again!

Ken B
Ken B
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

I thought Pluto self-identified as an asteroid. Which settles it.

Stephen Anderson
6 years ago

Sin is not addressed by therapy of any kind, but only by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. I say ban psychology, ban all false gospels, and strip the ungodly of their franchise to vote.