<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: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="City"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="place"/>
<!--[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="1028" />
</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 Wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I believe in one God in one piece, not a three-in-one, triune god. I
agree that sex can be amazing (and also, alas, amazingly dull), but it does
not, for me, reveal the Trinitarian nature of the divine. I also don't agree
that the "pleasure and ritual of sex" are an "ultimate
expression of love and affection." I'm not willing to accord my G-spot
that much significance. Sex is sex, and theology is theology; or, as Freud put
it, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. <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'>Then you worship a god who is eternally sexless; no warm embracing, no
dancing, no pleasure of communion. He was eternally alone before he decided to
create something else. This god did not look down on creation and say Let Us
make man and woman in Our image. Rather, you have, at best, something more
like a masturbating god. Right? It is interesting that you find the meaning
of sex to reside in your individual G-spot. Surely, the pleasure and ritual of
sex are not necessarily an ultimate expression of love and affection. In our
fallen world, they usually are not. This is due to a lack of love,
selfishness, emotional and physical problems, etc. But I would be surprised if
you argued that the pleasure and ritual of sex ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE the
ultimate expression of love and affection. Is this what you are maintaining? <br>
<br>
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'>Paul and Solomon are not in accord, and I would not quote them in the
same context. Solomon, like David before him, was an enthusiastically sexual
man. Solomon was a true ladies man; the James Bond of the ancient Hebrew world.
<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'>Paul and Solomon, at the end of their lives and after amazingly diverse
life experiences, both concluded with the same thing: all is vanity without the
blessing of God; it is best to obey his commandments. <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'>My mother never told me that sex with a donkey was wrong; somehow, I
just knew. <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’ve commented a bit to this in my response to Joe. To add to
that a bit however, I’d be interested to know how you morally distinguish
so strongly between sex with a donkey and leaving your husband for another
woman.<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'>I’m not sure how your argument from <st1:City w:st="on">Sodom</st1:City>
and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Gomorrah</st1:City></st1:place> is
supposed to work, and I’m still not sure how you see hospitality working
this way in the narrative. What we do know is that the Lord had already
determined to destroy <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Sodom</st1:City></st1:place>
and he had already included Abraham in on his counsels of war. “Their
sin is exceedingly grave” (18:20). The angels visited <st1:City w:st="on">Sodom</st1:City>
merely because the compassion of the Lord was upon <st1:place w:st="on">Lot</st1:place>
(19:16); the angels were showing hesed to the family, they were showing
lovingkindness (19:19). The brutality of the men demanding relations with <st1:place
w:st="on">Lot</st1:place>’s guests seems to show how the city was
unrighteous, but this was not the cause of the Lord’s determination for
its destruction.<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:<br>
This is not the case, but I think I'll let my partner, who has a PhD in
Victorian Literature, deal with this. In the meantime, I'll just admit here and
now that I've read more than my fair share of Victorian porn, and let me assure
you, they had an excellent understanding of homosexuality. So, too, did earlier
popular writers. Ever read Moll Flanders? Or Fanny Hill? And medieval
literature knew a thing or six about homosexuality -- the Decameron is little
more than a bag of dirty stories. Really good dirty stories, but dirty stories
nonetheless. If you want to go back further, to the Rome of Jesus' or Paul's
day, you'll find that homosexuality was commonplace. It was marriage between
one man and one woman, marriage for the sake of heterosexual love, that was
unusual.<br>
<br>
<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 was only referring to the public Christian discourse on
homosexuality. I agree that homosexuality was rampant in the ancient world;
women, in turn were more despised. The homosexually pedophilic and subordinated
marital culture of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Sparta</st1:City></st1:place>
was horrifying; admittedly, homosexual to the core. But what I would like to
know is that if the rise of homosexuality is nothing more than the natural
result of biological determination of sexual drives (the genetic thing and all
that; just the release of unnatural prohibition) then how can you have entire
civilizations that are at times almost entirely homosexual and then at other
times entirely heterosexual? <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>