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Demur? Doesn't he really mean deny? If Saint Paul was wrong about homosexuality, what else was he wrong about? And if Saint Paul was wrong, what about the other Saints? The Catholic Church knew the game was over when Galileo proved the earth went around the sun...or whatever he proved they wanted to torture and kill him for. That's when their monopoly on truth evaporated. A hairline crack has opened into a chasm over centuries for all these religions. The problem for believers is trying to decide who and what to believe or not believe. Absolutely true yesterday, possibly true today but not necessarily true tomorrow? Religion has tried to separate itself from science but it postulates the way the universe and man were created and so as science treads more heavily invading its territory, it retreats into a smaller and tighter corner. I wonder what internal crises these contradictions would cause in my mind if I suffered them. It must be sheer torture. Mental waterboarding. And it's legal.

There is no clear scientific consensus on the causes of homosexuality. LeVay, Hamer etc all offer different explanations.
Furthermore Paul was referring to acts, not orientation. His view of nature was drawn from what he believed to be the original created order, not human nature as such (the Ancients could be quite determinist when it came to human nature). He was referring to God's design for human beings in Eden, not what people find themselves feeling from time to time.
So if Paul got it wrong on Homosexuality, then he did not understand God's purposes in creation, and probably misunderstood the Fall. In which case Mark is right. We should simply abandon his teachings all together.
A great deal depends on what we mean by naturally occurring. High neuroticism, narcissism, thrill-seeking extraversion, psychpathy could all be described as naturally occurring, as could conscientousness and high levels of empathy. There is undoubtedly some biological or neurological correlate for all these traits. Should we abandon moral judgment all together?

Graham Veale

gveale

"He was referring to God's design for human beings in Eden, not what people find themselves feeling from time to time."

"Todo, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

So we aren't in Eden anymore either as far as I can tell. So that means we just ignore the whole thing right? We'll save the book just in case we one day find our way back.

"Should we abandon moral judgment all together?"

Maybe, maybe not. But if we are going to have morals or ethics, how about we base them on what we think is true today rather than on something ancient we know is wrong.

Graham asks, "Should we abandon moral judgment all together?"

Why the hell would we do that?

"There is a through-otherness about Armagh
Of tower and steeple,
Up on the hill are the arguing graves of the kings,
And below are the people.

There is a through-otherness about Armagh
Delightful to me,
Up on the hill are the graves of the garrulous kings
Who can at last agree."

W. R. Rodgers 1909 - 1969

I am very proud of Alan Harper for stepping forward and making a serious statement in defence of gay people. His lecture is thought through and a coherent argument in favour of pro gay readings of the bible. what is impressive is that the archbishop has made this statement using a 16th century theologians writings. I hope he will be supported by many people.

Graham I agree with you 100% here. If we conclude that Paul was wrong about sexuality (and you are right to point out the difference between "natural" as being in conformity with the created order and "natural" in the sense of what individuals are driven or inclined towards by instinct) then whay should be believe that he was right about anything? Was he not equally prone to error when he wrote about justification by faith, the implications of the resurrection for the whole of creation? We cannot do that with Scripture. Skeptics do it, of course, for the whole of Scripture. There is no such thing for them as an authoritative and absolutely binding Word of God. It's all down to "common sense" (or rather "common sentiment"), pragmatic, eclectic, consequentialist ethics - and more often than not "whatever the prevailing culture happens to endorse". It really seems as if large swathes of the Christian church are sliding into this kind of skepticism: "Did God really say ...?" (Satan to Eve)

Gandalf and Graham,

Think carefully about what you are saying here. You say, if we accept Paul is wrong about ANYTHING, then EVERYTHING he says can be dismissed.

Every non-fundamentalist accepts that the Bible includes a number of historical errors. It doesn't follow from this that the Bible ceases to have any moral authority.

I think the outcome of your argument is that Christians need to believe the Bible is free of ANY errors, in other words it has to be inerrant. I do not accept the simple choice you offer between biblical literalism and throwing the Bible away entirely.

I would wish to add my support to that offered by Augustine.

It was bold and courageous of the Archbishop to take this step given both the climate in Anglicanism generally at this time and the persistent hostility of the church in his own province to the acceptance of practising gay people.

The Christian church (and the Anglican branch in particular) needs more leaders of this calibre who are prepared to give it genuinely prophetic direction.

It all depends what we mean by error.

Portwyne, this is not a historical error. It is the Bible's teaching with regard to what behaviour God approves of and what he does not. If Paul (and Christ himself for that matter) is wrong about what arrangement of individuals legitimately constitutes a one-flesh relationship, then why stop at homosexuality? Can any human sexual relationship reflect the covenantal relationship between God and mankind which is central to Paul's teaching and central to the whole Bible?

Augustine hit the nail on the head, guys - what say ye?

For my money, what the bible IS is what is in question here. Is it the inerrant infallible Word of God to his people? Or is it man's words about God, containing his people's own beliefs and opinions? If it's the former, then it cannot affirm anything contrary to fact, including historical fact. If it's the latter, then the Apostle Paul's words about homosexuality can certainly be viewed as what - in my opinion - they are; his own belief that homosexuality is "unnatural" (which is a curious argument in the 21st century in any case).

It doesn't bother me as a Christian whatsoever to think that the authors of the bible may have gotten some things wrong. What were they, gods? No, they were men. Inspired, sure, but men nonetheless. Their writings should not be elevated above the writings of mere men with earthly fallibility.

Well done, that man (as Foggy might have said). Let's have more like him!

Unfortunately, when a cleric speaks a bit of sense in NI, 'the wrath of god' or, rather, 'the keepers of holy writ' descend upon him.

It is no use appealing to science, whether physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy or psychology.
If they clash with the Word dictated to ancient tribesmen in tents, they must be in error (though, perhaps, it all depends what we mean by 'in error').

Augustine and Portwyne, see what you are up against? The Holy Men writing 2,000 years ago can't possibly be wrong. They knew that homosexuality is 'unnatural'; they knew God's intentions because he very generously told them. Psychologists today, to whom he didn't speak, are wrong in saying it is 'natural' for those people who are gay.

So if a man called Paul 2,000 years ago says homosexuality is wrong and poor Alan Harper says it isn't, then there's no contest, because either it's all true or it's all lies. It all stands or falls on its view of homosexuality (or women priests). We cannot, after all, disrupt the 'covenantal relationship between god and mankind', whatever that is.

This applies even when those ancient people had a 'covenantal relationship' with God to slaughter all the babies of Egypt and to eliminate entire ethnic groups in Joshua.

BTW, Augustine is entirely correct: the Bible is full of historical errors.

Gandalf

I applauded the Archbishop because, working within the limitations of general Anglican principles, he found a way (and a very good way) to advocate a change on the church's attitude to practising homosexuals. It does not mean I agree with the detail of his position - I am free to be much more radical.

I believe that the origin of homosexual attraction is irrelevant. Whether the decision of one person to have sex with another of the same gender is the result of a biological imperative or simply a wholly voluntary choice that decision, if it fulfils the criteria I set-out below, ought to be respected as wholly valid, moral, and acceptable.

I do not believe sex has anything to do with our relationship with God or in any way reflects it. I do not believe God has the remotest interest in or concern with human sexual behaviour. I believe that in matters of sexual morality the only considerations are that the parties have engaged with one another on the basis of mutual informed meaningful consent and that they treat each other with appropriate care and respect.

Portwyne:

A most interesting post. I fully endorse your last five lines. And it has always puzzled me that a god would be concerned about sexual behaviour in the way that many Christians are.

Sex happens throughout the living world and in other animals there is homosexual behaviour too. It is 'natural', one way or the other. Why we should be any different, or indeed morally have to be any different, escapes me.

The idea that sex is only for procreation in marriage is ludicrous. If it is, then it is a very inefficient device because it fails to achieve its aims on most occasions.

Religious believers seem to want to dress up or 'sanctify' what is basically an animal instinct. The average number of times people have sex in a lifetime must be approaching 5,000. If they really believed sex was only for procreation they would stop doing it after the woman could no longer conceive.

Post 13

"We cannot, after all, disrupt the 'covenantal relationship between god and mankind', whatever that is."

"This applies even when those ancient people had a 'covenantal relationship' with God to slaughter all the babies of Egypt and to eliminate entire ethnic groups in Joshua."

Does that mean you understand the concept of covenantal relationship or not?

Hi Peter:

Why do you insist on assuming that the Bible knows what it says? I don't happen to think it does. It contradicts itself on almost every page. The 'concept' of 'covenantal relationship' as you put it, makes no coherent moral sense if it implies on the one hand that God thinks good behaviour is to marry and have children and yet on the other to slaughter women and children of 'the enemy'.

I could accept that the Bible got the date of Qurinius census wrong, or some other factual error. But Paul was basing his argument on his understanding of human nature. He also believed that God had certain intentions for His creation.
This is not like saying Paul got it wrong on headcovering at Corinth. It's like saying he got his whole perspective on circumcision wrong.

If he's wrong on this point, his whole theology is suspect, as he is firmly placing himself in a very well defined Rabbinic tradition.
We should also note that Jesus' condemnation of "porneia" would have covered homosexual acts. Presumably, he was just a man of his time, a prescientific mind out of his depth.

As Pannenberg points out, we are rejecting so much of the Apostle's ethics if we accept homosexual behaviour as accpetable for Christians, we are leaving Orthodox Chrsitian ethics behind. Barth and Brunner also rejected homosexual acts as unethical. They were not inerrantists. Stanley Hauerwas also objects due to the Christian theology of marriage. This goes beyond Romans 1.

And as the Archbishop himself acknowledges, the scientific facts are not all in.

If we were wrong on Homosexual acts, the Church should just come clean and give up on Christian sexual ethics entirely. We should make it clear that we have nothing distinctive to offer - secular ethics, a Judaeo-Christian mutation, can do the job nicely.

Graham Veale
Armagh

The debate is very interesting, but there are other controversial ethical issues we could discuss. Stem cell research. Abortion. Environmentalism. Animal Rights. There's only so many times we can all repeat our opnions on this

Graham, you could say the same thing about anything else the church got wrong over the years. Slavery, divorce, taxation, etc. The church has changed its mind on scores of ethical subjects. Theologians have also concluded many times that the Bible's claims about those issues (eg leadership of women) reflect the prejudices of the contemporary period.

Why be so all-or-nothing about the Bible?

btw, graham we've debated all those subjects already on here! If you wait a while, they come round again ;-)

So with all this and more in mind, I ask all you Christians; Is the Bible the word of God or isn't it?

Augustine, the bible was NOT wrong about slavery, divorce or taxation. The kind of "slavery" that was endorsed in the Old Testament was more like our preset-day "wage dependence" employmet structure than it was like the kind of slavery that (mainly Christian) abolitionists launched their campaign against in the 19th century. Slaves in the Old Testament did not "belong" to their "owners". They belonged to God, and every 7 years all slaves who wanted to move on were liberated. The arrangement was the means whereby those who did have land of their own to farm could nevertheless make a living by farming someone else's. But they came and went as they wished, they lived with their own families - they were, to all intents and purposes, like employees. The Bible did not conceive of slavery as the purchase of another human being as if he or she were just another possession, or a "beast of labour". That kind of slavery would have (and did - if you read the prophets) incur divine anger and bring down God's judgement on the nations.

Yes the church IS in danger (as the Israelite people were then) of sliding sleepily into the moral quicksand of the surrounding culture, and of that, rather than the Word of God, becoming the "measuring rod" of the sexual and other practices they approve of and indulge in. That was how Israel in the OT and large swathes of Christendom throughout the history of the church sold out; that was why God's people (in the Old Testament) actually ended up depriving the poor and the "alien" of justice, sacrificing their children to Molech, engaging in ritual prostitution in the temple itself; that was why "Christian crusaders" stormed into Palestine wreaking havoc on the people living their and pillaging their towns and villages; that was why, in the 18th and 19th centuries, they looked for Scriptural "justification" for the trade in human flesh. If we are unfaithful to God we do indeed end up "reflecting the cultural prejudices" of the age we live in. That is why the Church must take a stand against this cultural tidal wave that would sweep aside the foundational (from the point of view of the stability of human society) principles regarding sexual morality. Christians who insist on this are not anachronistic kill-joys. They are arguing for adherence to a life-enhancing and society-enhancing Biblical paradigm without which the fabric of society is in danger of unravelling.

Hi Brain

I wasn't actually making a point in post 16; I was just wondering whether or not you had a grasp of the concept of covenantal relationship beyond 'whatever that is'.

Graham:

You say: "I could accept that the Bible got the date of Qurinius census wrong, or some other factual error. But Paul was basing his argument on his understanding of human nature".

This a reversal of the Guardian principle outlined by C.P. Scott, its famous editor: "Comment is free, but facts are sacred". In your conception, comment is sacred, but you can mess about with the facts till your heart's content.

Augustine is right: this all-or-nothing approach to Biblical ethics is ridiculous, especially in view of the supposedly divinely sanctioned slaughter in the OT.

And - despite Gandalf and Pb's protests to the contrary - its support for slavery and the denigration and subordination of women.

Is the NT ethic not an advance of the OT ethic. If they're both the same, then I certainly haven't grasped the message.

I heard the discussion on Sunday Sequence in which poor Alan Harper was described as a 'false teacher'. The knives are out already. As a teacher, I always thought that it was essential to encourage pupils to question everything, including what I said. in reactionary versions of religion, of which we in NI are replete, it is the opposite of teaching: question nothing, blindly obey all authority.

First ever post here, so I apologise for any possible repetition of previously debated points.

The move towards a reappraisal of St. Paul's views on homosexuality is, to my mind, yet another example of the intellectual and philosophical squirming in which religious leaders increasingly indulge in their futile attempt to reconcile reality with the preposterous Biblical guidelines which they try to impose on the rest of the world.

Brian, I'm sorry but your view on the Bible's position re slavery and the role of wome is just plain wrong. It was into a society that was systematically and visciously sexist and slave-ridden that the Christian gospel was first preached. And the results were revolutionary, with women (not just the members of the aristocratic elites as in Roman society) enjoying a status and respect within the Christian church that they could never even have dreamed of having in contemporary society. Here was a community too where slaves and masters were treated as equals, and treated each other as equals. Paul might not have launched abolitionist campaigns, but with the kind of dynamic inherent in the Christian gospel (when obediently adhered too) slavery could not survive, except as something akin to employment in the sense we understand it.

The Christian church caved in to surrounding culture, and ended up endorsing slavery in colonial times, with spurious justificatio. We cannot cave in to surrounding culture now!

Graham/Gandalf

We're going to have to face it, the atheist literalists are correct.

Jesus obviously isn't God; after all he said that the mustard seed was the least of all seeds, and I've seen smaller ones.

The game's up!

Peter:

I'll give you literalism (notice; I use the noun to describe a thought process, not to label the people) per excellence: an ancient, man-made, unscientific, inaccurate, contradictory and confused text is labelled as the unerring word of a god.

This text, if you are a Christian, is called the Bible; if you are a Jew it is called the Tanakh; and if you are a Muslim, is called the Koran. The last says that Jesus wasn't god but another prophet. But obviously it is wrong because only god knows the truth about mustard seeds.

Brian - international man of mythtery -

You give me too much choice in replying to you.

I am still waiting for a reply from about 8 weeks ago when I replied to your views about science. For starters try this one; do you still accept the "big bang" as an explosion? If I get an answer then I will ask about other issues that as yet you have remained silent on. I haven't gone away you know.

Now for present matters.

Post 15. Where exactly does the Bible state that sex is only for procreation inside marriage? Have you never read The Song of Solomon?

Post 29. Well, I will accept ancient and even man made - provided one means written by man under the sovereign direction of God.
Now we have already established that you cannot do science form our last interaction. So amuse me by explaining how the Bible is unscientific never mind how you have come to that conclusion.
Also based on the evidence of all your posts you are somewhat of an expert on inaccuracy, contradiction and confusion.

You could not make use of "home field advantage" when some of us invaded your pontiff like held views on science and logic - views which turned out to be broken vessels - so please take note your are not "playing at home" this time!

Now it is highly unlikely that any on this blog are experts in the languages that the Bible was written in - I look forward to being wrong here.

Perhaps Brian you are? Or are you back to "cut and paste" knowledge here?

Brian

Let's keep this simple.

Interpret for me, in your own words, Matthew 13: 31 - 32

Augustine
I hold a High view of Scripture for several reasons. One would be that I'm following the example of Christ.
I understand that many members of the Church don't take such a high view of Scripture, and are more willing to allow culture a greater role in guiding the Church.
Alan Harper's essay was an attempt to engage conservatives like me. It was erudite and irenic. I'm just pointing why this argument would not be persuasive to conservatives of my ilk. But if you hold a different doctrine of the authority of Scripture, or the sources of Christian theology, then of course Alan Harper's case would seem quite reasonable. I imagine it might seem like he was stating the obvious. I actually think it was quite a serious attempt to meet conservative Protestants on their own ground. This courtesy seems to have been overlooked by his critics.

Graham Veale

Hi David:

Just read your post 30. I have been dealing with your polite and mannerly remarks on the 'false teacher' thread. You seem to be totally ignorant of the fact that scientific opinions on the origins of the universe are tentative and speculative. No one knows whether there was anything before the Big Bang or why or exactly how it happened. There just isn't enough evidence.

You treat the whole notion with the facile dogmatism with which you approach religious belief. You KNOW that there was no explosion (despite the fact that countless scientists say there was) but an inflation. You KNOW what created space and time, just as you know that God was the grand inflater. He blew the cosmic balloon and it inflated.

You seem unaware that Alan Guth's views have been questioned and inflation theory has taken a kick in the pants from other scientists since the 1980s.
It is still all to play for in the Big Bang stakes.

Brian,

I was calling you to account for what you said. I never said that I accepted it to be true. I was just showing you that I have at least read the theory and understood it. By your own statements you have neither read the theory nor understood it properly.

I am only sure that God created and why he did so. I am not sure about how that was done.

David

David:

That's total rubbish. Perhaps your memory is fading.

You obviously don't understand the theory at all.

You have insisted all along (even two months ago) that there was no explosion but an inflation.

"I never accepted it to be true"? What on earth does that mean? What is "it"?

Brian,

So you have Hawking's book. How much about tensor field theory or quantum field theory did you learn from it. He really does not cover that in his books. You should go back to the men who introduced those ideas. Do you know their names?

It is not surprising that you are so bad at interpreting the Bible as you seem unable to stop yourself from reading into what other people write.

I have never said that I accepted or rejected the "big bang " theory as being true.

You brought the theory up. You described it incorrectly as an explosion. I correctly described it as an expansion.
I insisted only that an expansion is the correct way to describe the theory. I did not insist that an expansion actually happened.

David

David:

Cripes! End of story, mate. Bye, bye.

Brain,

What? Running away yet again! Now the fighter fails to put up a fight!

David.

Brian/David

The Rig Veda suggests that the 'Big Bang' was the coitus of Raudra Brahman with his daughter - might I suggest to you 'ejaculation' as an Anglican compromise between explosion and expansion...

If Paul was wrong then God was wrong as Paul was inspired by the Holy Ghost and spoke as God’s oracle, how absurd is this nonsense coming from an ordained priest, sounds like he’s in the wrong vocation.