by Stanley Anderson » September 15th, 2006, 10:34 pm
I told Jo on another thread that I would reply here. It may be moot with her more recent messages about abstainance on these threads (and I've already spent way more time here today that I should have), but since I sort of committed myself...
First I want to say that in "the other" thread Jo responded to one of my replies with "how very predictable". Now, I don't mind being predictable, and I think that response was referring to my comments about whether Allan was being offensive or not. But I think there was possibly a hint of sarcastic suggestion that my views about the homosexual issue were also "very predictable". I don't at all mind the sarcasm (I rather enjoy such things actually, probably not to my edification), but the view she may think is "very predictable" may not be what she is predicting. And also, it may be noticed that I don't generally comment on the subject unless prompted to (and indeed my comments in the other thread were about reactions to Allan and not to the subject of homosexuality)
I preface all that because I don't claim to have a "procedure" to follow that would address my view of the problem. And I want to stress that my comments here are about homosexual activity as a prominent social issue as opposed to an issue about any particular individual. As such, I’m not sure what a best path to take at this point would be. But I can describe as what I think the situation is from my point of view.
Let me describe at least part of what I think the Bible (particularly the NT portion) has to say about Jo’s question of "why is it worse? And if it's not worse, why is it disproportionately referred to?"
Scripture certainly talks about it as sinful, and it seems to have a "prominence" in certain passages. But I don't think that prominence is meant to give it a "worse" status than other sins the NT talks about. Rather, it seems to be talked about as though its "prominence" in a society is more of an indication of how far the society has descended in other (and probably worse) sinful areas – sort of the "canary in the coal mine" indicator where if the canary dies, you know there is something really bad down there. Of course that image doesn’t quite fit perfectly because a canary is an "innocent bystander" and Scripture certainly says homosexual activity is sinful. Still, it is talked about more as though it were the surface indicator of a much deeper and nasty problem elsewhere. I have likened the situation to the image of a patient dying of emphysema and who is coughing as a result. The coughing itself may be causing harm to the esophagus, but that is hardly the main thing to be worrying about for the patient. But it is possibly the most visible thing that one sees if one does not examine the patient very closely.
And this image of the dying patient also fits in with what I think about various efforts by Christians or others to "contain" the problem. If a person, looking at the patient, hears the coughing and decides that the best remedy is to administer a cough drop, one can expect one (or more probably both) of a couple reactions. First, though the cough drop may (though probably unlikely) reduce the coughing or even stop it for a bit, it will almost certainly return and probably worse then before. And second, if the mere act of removing the cough with that surface solution allows the core problem to hide, it will almost certainly cause the core problem to become even more advanced and deadly beneath the surface. It will hardly matter later whether the eventually-returning cough is suppressed or not.
In our society, sexual immorality is so very far advanced and marriage so degraded as to be, ironically, nearly invisible since everyone is so immersed in it. But like the swaying and tottering canary in the coal mine in the presence of otherwise undetected carbon monoxide or methane, homosexuality is, essentially by definition (since unmarried "couples" are distinguishable when they are of the same sex), a very visible "sign" if you will. But getting rid of the canary will hardly solve the problem at hand. It seems to me that focusing on homosexual activity is futile at best and probably self-deluding and self-destructive more likely.
What would I propose as an alternative? I really don’t know. I certainly am not about to simply go along with the popular trend and agree that it is not sinful afterall and to just "go ahead and do what you like as long as everyone is consenting and no one is getting hurt", but I wonder if the Quality Control concept of the "Pareto" principle doesn’t apply here. For those unfamiliar with the term, it was apparently proposed by a fellow by the name of Pareto and states that "for many phenomena, 80% of the consequences stem from 20% of the causes". In other words, look for the 20% "big hitters" and work on solving them and you’ll solve 80% of the overall problem rather than working on the things that won’t have much effect from your efforts. Homosexuality, even if one sees it as a problem to solve, is very visible, but visibility does not necessarily indicate that it is a root problem in society and thus is probably not terribly fruitful to pursue at this point.
But I’m not at all sure about that. I can only pray that God will work his Will and do my best to act charitably to everyone, whether they sadly have no clue that sleeping around with the other sex is not good for their spiritual health or whether they have a committed same sex relationship that seems loving and wonderful. I think society has to attempt to work back to more traditional views of marriage, but it may require a complete overhaul at this point rather than here-and-there tinkering with the niceties of partner benefits and whether different states recognize other state’s laws on who can get married. We may just have to wait till it all disintegrates before anything can be done. I really don’t know. I do know that it is possible to treat others with respect and still think they are doing something wrong (and that applies to looking back at my own sinful self too).
In any case, I'm reluctant to even post this here because I don't want it to sound like MY opinion should be listened to so pridefully, and because I don't generally engage in debates on this subject, but as I said at the beginning, I sort of told Jo in another post that I would reply)
--Stanley
…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
