Subject: Is homosexuality actually forbidden? |
Bible Note: benito: The English language, for all its richness, malleability and versatility does have an occasional Achilles' heel here and there, and one of its chief points of vulnerability is exemplified in the word 'love.' Whereas we English-speaking peoples commonly use the word 'love' to express any number of different types of affections or attachments that human beings develop one for another, other languages have different words to express the nuances of meaning embodied in what we in English must lump together in a single word and call all these kinds of emotions simply 'love' -- though we have a keen sense of its mundaneness and inadequacy. The paucity of our linguistic resources for expression precise meanings of different kinds of love have forced us to become slave drivers of the little word 'love' and we have overworked it so much that we've worn the little critter out. The ancient Greeks, for example, used one word to describe what we call brotherly love, another for erotic love, and still another for the kind of selfless love we speak of when we talk about Christian love or Christian charity of the sort Paul spoke of in 1 Corinthians 13. ...... So now, with this in mind -- the various kinds of love, I mean -- I cannot help but agree with you that the existence of homosexuality in the world is a lame excuse for any one to shy away from loving his neighbor as himself, because this kind of love is not understood by any sane person to be remotely connected to erotic (sexual) love. ..... I am a man, a Christian man, and I have a number of dear friends whom I love -- friends who happen to be male and others who are female. That does not mean that I am sexually attracted to them. I dearly love my wife of nearly 50 years, but the love I have for my wife is not the same kind of love that I have for my friends, my children, and my grand-children. I also love the Lord Jesus. But again, the love I have for Him is not the same kind of love that I have for my wife, my family and my friends. ..... And a departing comment: Erotic love such as a man has for his wife and she for him, is not the same as what is frequently called love but is in reality lust. Two unmarried people having sex, whether homo-sex or hetero-sex. are not 'making love' in the same sense that a married couple, loyal and devoted to one another in a lifetime relationship of commitment and trust, experience. More than likely what the couple who engage in sex outside of matrimony are making together is lust, not love. ...... By the way, I do believe that Doc spoke well and scripturally on the matter of judging, and that his words deserve careful consideration. It's all too tempting to say something like "that's not for me to judge, that's none of my business" as an excuse for not standing up for what's right and not opposing with vigor what's wrong! --Hank |