<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:x="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:excel" xmlns:st1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered medium)">
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="country-region"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="City" downloadurl="http://www.5iamas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="place" downloadurl="http://www.5iantlavalamp.com/"/>
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]-->
<style>
<!--
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:Arial;
color:windowtext;}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1027" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]-->
</head>
<body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple>
<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Joan Writes:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>It seems to me that we spend an inordinate amount of time concerning
ourselves with sexual sin (or what some believe to be sexual sin, i.e.,
homosexuality, sex outside of marriage, non-procreative sex, and etc.) at the
expense of examining the far more pervasive consequences of wrath, avarice,
sloth, pride, envy and gluttony. Why? Why do we focus so exclusively on sex?
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Hmmmm. Well, I don’t think we really talk about sex as much as
you imply here. However, let’s assume for the sake of argument that we
do in fact talk about it a lot, perhaps even more than the other parts of the
Wasp Leg. This seems potentially appropriate for two reasons. First, sex is
truly amazing; it is a large part of reality. It makes up more of our thinking
and willing than I think we are sometimes willing to admit (I speak for us men
anyways). It is a foundational part of society; without sex, it is hard to
know what the world would really be like. Likewise, it is a fundamental area
in Christian Theology. Sex is holy and reveals the nature of the Trinity and
the nature of redemption itself. The experience of, images of, metaphors of
sex are ways of getting deeper in Ultimate Reality. The pleasure and ritual of
sex are somehow an ultimate expression of love and affection. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Secondly, because sex is so potent and all around us, this is where we
need so much protection. Paul tells singles to get married and start having
sex in order to protect themselves. He tells marriage people to continue
pleasing one another sexually so that they will be protected. Suppression of
the right kind of sex doesn’t eradicate sex, it just provides means for
the wrong kind of sex. So I think Christians talk a lot about both the beauty
and danger of sex; warnings and accountability are very important. As Solomon
told his son: “For the lips of an adulteress drip honey and smoother than
oil is her speech. But in the end she is bitter as wormwood.” In fact the
entire book of Proverbs can be seen as a father using the potency of sex as a
way of contrasting foolishness from wisdom. Wisdom is to be grabbed on the
smooth bottom while you can get it; foolishness is a prostitute to fear. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Joan Wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Just to stick with the stories of the Bible, what were the ill effects
of homosexuality in comparison to those of wrath or avarice, pride or envy?
What led to the destruction of <st1:City w:st="on">Sodom</st1:City> and <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Gomorrah</st1:City></st1:place>? The better
Biblical translators would argue that it was inhospitality. And what was the
first sin, the sin that led to the fall? Eating the fruit of the tree of
knowledge. Adam eating the fruit Eve offered. After that? Cain killing
Abel. When does homosexuality -- or, to be more acurate, acts of homosexual
behavior -- come into the story of the fall? When are they first condemned in
the Bible? Leviticus, I believe, and then only in the context of a
wide-ranging list of kosher "thou shalt nots."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>There are thousands of ways to sin; bestiality is not listed in Genesis
either, but that does not mean it wouldn’t have been wrong or a perversion
of the goodness of creation. Likewise, the Lord’s design, as Jesus
points out, was one man and one woman. This is pretty clear in the Genesis
creation account. Like I’ve already noted however, the nature of
redemptive history does not mean we will find ‘condemnation’ as
some unchanging code from the fall to the recreation of all things. Also, if a
certain behavior was assumed wrong or was not prevalent, then we may not expect
to find it in a list of moral laws. In the ten commandments for example, only
adultery is listed. But I think a natural reading would cause us to understand
homosexuality and fornication as assumed in this command, not neglected by it. Hospitality?.....<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Joan Writes:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>And yet all discussion about our "sin condition" with fundamentalist
Christians (or fundamentalist Muslims, or fundamentalist Jews) seems to
invariably boil down to "where do you stand on homosexuality?" Again
I ask why? Is it because it's easier to fixate on a sinful few rather than the
sin-filled many? Who is willing to damn every stockholder in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region
w:st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>? Everyone who charges
interest on a loan? Every obese person? <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> Every lay-a-bed, everyone who spends too much on his or her credit
cards, who feels that they must keep up with the Joneses? How about people
with "My child is an honor student" bumper stickers -- is that not an
expression of sinful pride? And should we not condemn the dog-eat-dog free
market forces of capitalism? The Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple,
certainly thought so. He coined the term "the welfare state" and was
leading the Anglican Church straight into the arms of economic socialism before
his untimely death after only two years in office.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Well said. I really think you would enjoy many of Doug Wilson’s
sermons.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Joan Writes:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>There's an old joke (I know it's old because I've been telling it for
at least a decade) that you will never hear a fundamentalist preach a sermon on
gluttony. Jerry Falwell has apparently never met Jenny Craig. I'm a lesbian,
but relatively fit, while Jerry weighs about twice what he ought to. (I also
read somewhere that his wife was two or three-months pregnant when they got
married -- the old shotgun<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>wedding.) I ask you, whose sin is greater? Or are they equivalent? I
used to weigh a lot, but I went on a diet. I used to drink a lot, but now I'm
quite abstemious. I used to be married to a man I didn't love, but I divorced
him to marry a woman I do love. I have been completely faithful to her in word
and deed for thirteen happy years. As a Jew, I don't believe in the infernal
rotisserie, but Jerry tells me that that's where I'm headed. Am I? I don't
think so. But Jerry wants to legislate as if it's a certainty that I am.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Me:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I hope <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Wilson</st1:City></st1:place>
has preached a sermon on gluttony (blush)…..err, I’m sure I
remember something about that somewhere. As for Jerry Falwell, I don’t
know much about him, and perhaps he’s going to hell. I don’t know;
white, fat, fundamentalists would make as good a candidate as any other I
suppose. Anyone who does not have the Son does not have the Father. And I
must say, I am beginning to feel a bit guilty about my stomach. It is not too
bad yet, but I don’t like the looks of the overall trajectory. As for
your happy years, I guess Solomon had his too with…how many concubines
was that? But he concluded with wisdom at the end of his life that it is far
better to be pleasing to God and obey his commandments. I imagine you are a
lesbian in part because you want to be one. This doesn’t settle the sin
issue, since we usually sin because it feels good to us at the time. If there
are effects later, they may show up in very different ways. If your private
part causes you to sin, then cut it off. Jesus was fairly pragmatic about all
this.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Also, I should note that given the new rise in a public and legal
acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual marriage, which would have been an
amazing thought to just about anybody in our western culture 50 years ago, it
should not be surprising that this is a ‘hot issue’ right now.
Certainly, Christians did not give much thought to homosexuality a 100 years
ago.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Thanks<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Michael Metzler<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>