Inclusiveness and Gay Children of God

[kllindley]

19 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

It’s OK, mate. He’s misread and/or completely misapplied what I wrote, and addressing it will only create the derail he accused me of. 

Fair enough. 

[The Nehor]

21 minutes ago, USU78 said:

You seem awfully certain. Wayback Machine?

No, reading old books.

[california boy]

3 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

It’s OK, mate. He’s misread and/or completely misapplied what I wrote, and addressing it will only create the derail he accused me of. 

And that it my point.  To start discussing this topic that you have introduced in a thread about being more inclusive is a derailment.  I didn't misread what you wrote,  and I have plenty to say about this notion your introduced into the thread.  But, as you now have also pointed out, it derails the thread.

Start another thread and I will be glad to comment on how the Church did this exact same thing by pushing gays into straight sexual behavior.  Still didn't make them straight.  Performing a sex act does not change your orientation.Even after years of performing those sex acts.

That is enough to show there is plenty to talk about the issue you brought up.  And that is all I will comment on unless you are willing to open a new thread on this new topic.

Edited August 13, 2019 by california boy

[USU78]

8 hours ago, The Nehor said:

No, reading old books.

Yes, of course, which recorded evidence of behaviors. Not "identities." Which are recent wholly imagined constructs by individuals in real time.

Edited August 13, 2019 by USU78

[Scott Lloyd]

14 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

This statement simply does not match the consensus of historians (including queer ones), anthropologists or even linguists. There is not only no evidence for it; there is abundant counter-evidence against it -- including all kinds of descriptors for sexual behaviours, roles and preferences in various languages, none of which even comes close to 'gay' or 'straight'.

But that's one of the most interesting challenges of really doing history: immersion in a particular historical moment tends to blind us to the reality of historical differences. In most cases, we simply cannot imagine the past as anything other than a version of the present where people wore different styles of clothes and didn't have mobile phones. And the same thing happens with differences across space. There's an entire literature now on how for most of the discipline's history, Western anthropologists simply tried to pigeonhole cultural differences into artificially fixed Western categories despite the fact that those categories often bore no relationship to the culture being studied and described. In most cases the categories didn't even make sense to the 'subjects'.

An example I've used before comes out of many* pre-Christian Melanesian societies that organised sexual behaviour so that it was divided between what occurred orally between older and younger males and what occurred vaginally between older males and their wives. Imagine that you were raised in the women's compound until you were about five and then you were taken to the men's compound by your father. There you entered a richly mythic world of dance, music, and ritual drama all designed to teach you that your future ability to father children depended on ingesting as much seminal fluid as possible for the next 10 to 12 years. Add in that the relationships you then developed with certain older males in the compound were deeply emotional and intellectual as well as sexual, and would last the rest of your life, even after you shifted from 'receiver of seed' to 'giver of seed'. Now imagine that a normal part of your maturation was to marry a woman and establish and provide for a household in the women's compound, which you visited frequently with gifts of food and the expectation of marital sex, after which you returned to the men's compound and fulfilled your culturally designated role as a provider of seed for younger males in the compound whom you had taken under your guiding and mentoring influence.

Now an anthropologist shows up and asks you if you're gay or straight. You tell her you don't know what those words mean, so she defines them for you. And you still don't know what those words mean.

Now imagine, if you will, if it had been Melanesian societies that expanded and colonised the globe, imposing their categories of being on the rest of us until the present day.

-----

* The fact that variations of this cultural complex occurred across many Melanesian societies but not across all highlights the immense diversity of how sex and sexuality have been defined and enacted over both space and time.

It has been said before: The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. 

[Scott Lloyd]

13 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Don’t be patronizing. Yes, the concept of being gay is relatively new in western culture and is a social construct but that does not contradict my statement that that there have always been those who wanted same sex sex and sought it primarily or exclusively.

The concept “member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints” is new and you had asked a living follower of Jesus or Moses of Enoch if they were a member they would be confused too but do you think you and I would argue there is no continuity or similarity between them and us?

The nomenclature might be new, but the concept is as old as the doctrine of the covenant people of God, which goes back to Adam and Eve and their posterity. 

[The Nehor]

5 hours ago, USU78 said:

Yes, of course, which recorded evidence of behaviors. Not "identities." Which are recent wholly imagined constructs by individuals in real time.

Continue giving that straw man a good thrashing if you like. He probably had it coming. I admit I am curious why you are quoting me though when you do it.

[The Nehor]

5 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

The nomenclature might be new, but the concept is as old as the doctrine of the covenant people of God, which goes back to Adam and Eve and their posterity. 

The concept was there but the identity claimed was distinctly different. If you teleported someone from the city of Enoch, someone from the Israelites following Moses, and a Christian from the days of Christ to our day it would induce severe culture shock and it is doubtful that they would recognize our Church as anything in their experience and the identity we have formed around that membership would be very foreign. They may acclimate to it in the same way an Ancient Greek who bought male slaves for his pleasure might eventually acclimate and go to gay bars and claim such an identity.

[Tacenda]

Just came upon this article:

https://www.forgeonline.org/blog/2019/3/8/what-about-romans-124-27

Has “Homosexual” always been in the Bible?

THE WORD ARSENOKOITAI SHOWS UP IN TWO DIFFERENT VERSES IN THE BIBLE, BUT IT WAS NOT TRANSLATED TO MEAN HOMOSEXUAL UNTIL 1946.

WE GOT TO SIT DOWN WITH ED OXFORD AT HIS HOME IN LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA AND TALK ABOUT THIS QUESTION.

YOU HAVE BEEN PART OF A RESEARCH TEAM THAT IS SEEKING TO UNDERSTAND HOW THE DECISION WAS MADE TO PUT THE WORD HOMOSEXUAL IN THE BIBLE. IS THAT TRUE?

Ed: Yes. It first showed up in the RSV translation. So before figuring out why they decided to use that word in the RSV translation (which is outlined in my upcoming book with Kathy Baldock, Forging a Sacred Weapon: How the Bible Became Anti-Gay) I wanted to see how other cultures and translations treated the same verses when they were translated during the Reformation 500 years ago. So I started collecting old Bibles in French, German, Irish, Gaelic, Czechoslovakian, Polish… you name it. Now I’ve got most European major languages that I’ve collected over time. Anyway, I had a German friend come back to town and I asked if he could help me with some passages in one of my German Bibles from the 1800s. So we went to Leviticus 18:22 and he’s translating it for me word for word. In the English where it says “Man shall not lie with man, for it is an abomination,” the German version says “Man shall not lie with young boys as he does with a woman, for it is an abomination.” I said, “What?! Are you sure?” He said, “Yes!” Then we went to Leviticus 20:13— same thing, “Young boys.” So we went to 1 Corinthians to see how they translated arsenokoitai (original Greek word)  and instead of homosexuals it said, “Boy molesters will not inherit the kingdom of God.” 

As I was talking with my friend I said, “I wonder why not until 1983? Was their influence from America?” So we had our German connection look into it again and it turns out that the company, Biblica, who owns the NIV version, paid for this 1983 German version. Thus it was Americans who paid for it! In 1983 Germany didn’t have enough of a Christian population to warrant the cost of a new Bible translation, because it’s not cheap. So an American company paid for it and influenced the decision, resulting in the word homosexual entering the German Bible for the first time in history. So, I say, I think there is a “gay agenda” after all! 

I also have a 1674 Swedish translation and an 1830 Norwegian translation of the Bible. I asked one of my friends, who was attending Fuller seminary and is fluent in both Swedish and Norwegian, to look at these verses for me. So we met at a coffee shop in Pasadena with my old Bibles. (She didn’t really know why I was asking.) Just like reading an old English Bible, it’s not easy to read. The letters are a little bit funky, the spelling is a little bit different. So she’s going through it carefully, and then her face comes up, “Do you know what this says?!” and I said, “No! That’s why you are here!” She said, “It says boy abusers, boy molesters.” It turns out that the ancient world condoned and encouraged a system whereby young boys (8-12 years old) were coupled by older men. Ancient Greek documents show us how even parents utilized this abusive system to help their sons advance in society. So for most of history, most translations thought these verses were obviously referring the pederasty, not homosexuality! 

So then I started thinking that of 4 of the 6 clobber passages, all these nations and translations were referring to pederasty, and not what we would call homosexuality today.

Q:HOW DID THE TRANSLATION TEAMS WORK?

Well, they didn’t operate out of a vacuum when they translated something. They used data available to them from very old libraries. Last week at the Huntington Library I found a Lexicon from 1483. I looked up arsenokoitai and it gave the Latin equivalent, paedico and praedico. If you look those up they means pederasty, or knabenschander, (boy molester, in German.) 1483 is the year Martin Luther was born, so when he was running for his life translating the Bible and carrying his books, he would have used such a Lexicon. It was the Lexicon of his time. This Lexicon would have used information from the previous 1000+ years, including data passed down from the Church Fathers. 

SO THERE IS HISTORICAL TRADITION TO SHOW THAT THESE VERSES AREN’T RELATING TO HOMOSEXUALITY?

Absolutely! Sometimes I’m frustrated when speak with pastors who say, “Well I believe the historical tradition surrounding these verses” and then proceed with a condemnation of LGBTQ individuals. I challenge them to see what was actually traditionally taught. For most of history, most European Bibles taught the tradition that these 4 verses were dealing with pederasty, not homosexuality. I am saddened when I see pastors and theologians cast aside the previous 2000 years of history. This is why I collect very old Bibles, lexicons, theological books and commentaries - most modern biblical commentaries adjusted to accommodate this mistranslation. It’s time for the truth to come out!

YES! MY BROTHER, WHO IS A PASTOR, ALSO TOLD ME THE SAME THING: THAT EVERY SECTOR OF THE CHURCH HAS SEEN SAME-SEX RELATIONSHIPS AS SINFUL FOR 2,000 YEARS. BUT THE MORE I READ AND STUDY THOUGH, THE MORE I JUST DON’T SEE THIS BEING TRUE.

WHAT WAS USED BEFORE HOMOSEXUAL SHOWED UP IN THE RSV VERSION?

King James Version triumphed the land and they used the phrase, “Abusers of themselves with mankind” for arsenokoitai. If you asked people during that time no one really wanted to tackle it. So that’s why I’m collecting Bibles, Biblical commentaries and lexicons, in order to show how theologians dealt with these passages.

Q: IN YOUR OPINION, HOW WOULD THE CHURCH BE DIFFERENT IF THE RSV DIDN’T CHANGE ARESENKOITAI AND MALAKOI TO HOMOESEXUAL IN 1946 ?

In my opinion, if the RSV did not use the word homosexual in first Corinthians 6:9, and instead would have spent years in proper research to understand homosexuality and to really dig into the historical contextualization, I think translators would have ended up with a more accurate translation of the abusive nature intended by this word. I think we could have avoided the horrible damage that was done from pulpits all across America, and ultimately other parts of the world. But let’s don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater — the RSV team did a great job on most everything else. It was an honest mistake.

Q: AND DO YOU THINK YOUR LIFE WOULD HAVE GONE DIFFERENTLY AS A RESULT?

Yes, absolutely! I think my life would have been starkly different if the translation would have been translated with the accurate historical contextualization - especially within my own family, since they rely so heavily on the English translation and put a lot of faith in the translators for the final product in English. Since most people haven’t studied Greek or Hebrew, they have no concept of challenging a translation, and any potential errors that may have occurred during translation. Therefore, many people are unable to consider the implications of the text beyond the English translation in front of them.

Q: BASED ON YOUR RESEARCH, WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU HAVE FOR LGBTQ CHRISTIANS TODAY?

My advice to LGBTQ Christians today would be three things:

1.) As difficult as it may be, try to extend grace and patience to the Church. The vast majority of pastors in America have not done their due diligence on this topic, so we can’t expect them to be any further along than they are currently. In the same way that God has extended grace and patience with us when we sin, we need to extend grace and patience toward others regarding their error on this topic. Bitterness will only manage to create further damage.

2.) Seek out other LGBTQ Christians who have already done their due diligence on this topic and reached a point of peace between their sexuality and God. We can learn a lot from others who are a little further up the trail.

3.) Often remind yourself that this mess is not caused by God, but instead is the result of people who have been entrusted with free will.

[The Nehor]

How the Europeans translated the text is far less important then what the original is. The European translators were probably reactionary to pederasty in the classical world that they knew well and could have forced the translation to target their “pet vice”.

There are several clever attempts to make Leviticus 18:22 not be about sex at all but that seems nuts. Most of the chapter is about sex acts. Attempts to make it a part of Josiah’s reforms as a condemnation of same sex fertility orgies have a little more credence and that could potentially match Paul’s condemnation and not be a general condemnation. It would also make sense to put that next to bestiality and the fires of Molech since they were used in similar rites.

[USU78]

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Continue giving that straw man a good thrashing if you like. He probably had it coming. I admit I am curious why you are quoting me though when you do it.

Because my grandkids think I'm adorable?

[Scott Lloyd]

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

The concept was there but the identity claimed was distinctly different. If you teleported someone from the city of Enoch, someone from the Israelites following Moses, and a Christian from the days of Christ to our day it would induce severe culture shock and it is doubtful that they would recognize our Church as anything in their experience and the identity we have formed around that membership would be very foreign. They may acclimate to it in the same way an Ancient Greek who bought male slaves for his pleasure might eventually acclimate and go to gay bars and claim such an identity.

I think it would be more like attending a ward in a foreign country where you didn't understand the language. You would be clueless about the lingo, but the forms and functions would be recognizable. 

[Calm]

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

They may acclimate to it in the same way an Ancient Greek who bought male slaves for his pleasure might eventually acclimate and go to gay bars and claim such an identity.

The Ancient Greek would likely also marry a woman to produce children at the very least if I remember the culture correctly (been awhile since I studied it), so might not claim the identity as not seen as a full description of himself.

Edited August 13, 2019 by Calm

[The Nehor]

48 minutes ago, Calm said:

The Ancient Greek would likely also marry a woman to produce children at the very least if I remember the culture correctly (been awhile since I studied it), so might not claim the identity as not seen as a full description of himself.

Yes, that is why I said might.

On the other hand the permissive culture may lead him to give up that duty. Or he might be arrested for sexual assault of a child (male or female) while following cultural norms. Or he might go insane trying to deal with the vast culture shock. Most people are unpredictable, especially when thrown into the unfamiliar.

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I think it would be more like attending a ward in a foreign country where you didn't understand the language. You would be clueless about the lingo, but the forms and functions would be recognizable. 

I don’t know. I suspect they would find a core of similarity but it would take time and our doctrinal emphases would be disconcerting for some time as we minimize things they find to be supremely important and emphasize teachings they thought were minor or did not even know about. I would hope the Holy Ghost would bridge the gap but that would screw up my whole analogy.

[Scott Lloyd]

On 8/13/2019 at 5:32 PM, The Nehor said:

Yes, that is why I said might.

On the other hand the permissive culture may lead him to give up that duty. Or he might be arrested for sexual assault of a child (male or female) while following cultural norms. Or he might go insane trying to deal with the vast culture shock. Most people are unpredictable, especially when thrown into the unfamiliar.

I don’t know. I suspect they would find a core of similarity but it would take time and our doctrinal emphases would be disconcerting for some time as we minimize things they find to be supremely important and emphasize teachings they thought were minor or did not even know about. I would hope the Holy Ghost would bridge the gap but that would screw up my whole analogy.

I think you’ve hit on something there. The Holy Ghost is the unifying thread that transcends ages and cultures. Which is why one of God’s people of ancient times would find himself at home with the covenant people of today. And why we today can glean life lessons from ancient scripture preserved for that very purpose. 

Edited August 16, 2019 by Scott Lloyd

[gopher]

On 8/12/2019 at 1:32 AM, The Nehor said:

No scripture that I am aware of. On the other hand something new coming out in the Last Days would not surprise me at all. This is the dispensation when all will be revealed so we will get some answer at least as to why at some point.

I would be surprised if that something new was homosexual behavior was no longer considered a sin.  As distasteful as polygamy may have been to early saints, at least they could open their bibles and find examples of righteous men and women who were highly favored of God that practiced it.  We have no such examples of homosexuals.  The point isn't to beat up on gays.  I just think it's important to be realistic.  I think some well meaning heterosexual members are making it even more difficult for gays in the church by predicting God will soon approve of homosexual lifestyles including gay marriage, or the church will eventually cave to public pressure, or because prophets are fallible they will soon realize they have been mistaken all these years, etc.  It seems like a foolish and vain hope that had been strongly refuted by every prophet that had spoken on the matter.  This is a sin serious enough for excommunication so it seems we should be devoting our energy to helping believing gay members keep the commandments instead of giving them a false hope that God will approve of them breaking these commandments today because He will allow it in the future.

[The Nehor]

6 hours ago, gopher said:

I would be surprised if that something new was homosexual behavior was no longer considered a sin.  As distasteful as polygamy may have been to early saints, at least they could open their bibles and find examples of righteous men and women who were highly favored of God that practiced it.  We have no such examples of homosexuals.  The point isn't to beat up on gays.  I just think it's important to be realistic.  I think some well meaning heterosexual members are making it even more difficult for gays in the church by predicting God will soon approve of homosexual lifestyles including gay marriage, or the church will eventually cave to public pressure, or because prophets are fallible they will soon realize they have been mistaken all these years, etc.  It seems like a foolish and vain hope that had been strongly refuted by every prophet that had spoken on the matter.  This is a sin serious enough for excommunication so it seems we should be devoting our energy to helping believing gay members keep the commandments instead of giving them a false hope that God will approve of them breaking these commandments today because He will allow it in the future.

I would be surprised too.

[Meadowchik]

There is a simple solution here. If the church can believe that gay marriage isn't real marriage, then it can also say that gay "relations" aren't real "relations." Problem solved!

[SeekingUnderstanding]

In other news (and related to the OP), Elizabeth Smart’s dad has both come out as gay, and announced he is leaving the church as it is not a place he can find solace in any longer:

https://www.deseret.com/2019/8/15/20807894/ed-smart-father-of-elizabeth-smart-announces-he-is-gay

[Calm]

Hope he and his family are processing it as smoothly as possible. They have already had plenty of pain and have been able to heal from all appearances with Elizabeth sharing her story. 

Edited August 16, 2019 by Calm

[Meadowchik]

5 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

In other news (and related to the OP), Elizabeth Smart’s dad has both come out as gay, and announced he is leaving the church as it is not a place he can find solace in any longer:

https://www.deseret.com/2019/8/15/20807894/ed-smart-father-of-elizabeth-smart-announces-he-is-gay

It is unfortunate that, apparently, Des News decided to out Smart. The Facebook message was intended for friends and family only, and was deleted shortly after being posted. 

[Kenngo1969]

21 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

It is unfortunate that, apparently, Des News decided to out Smart. The Facebook message was intended for friends and family only, and was deleted shortly after being posted. 

If one does not wish a matter to become public or general knowledge, one needn't use a public platform.  You'd have much more cause to indict The Deseret News, if, say, the recipient of a private letter from Brother Smart in which he communicated news of his orientation had turned the letter over to the newspaper.  And even if I use a platform such as Facebook, it's my understanding (while I rarely use or visit Facebook, and could well be mistaken), that one has the option of determining whether circulation of a particular item is confined to a circle of close friends and/or family or whether it is shared more generally.  I've posted things on my Blog that, upon further reflection, should probably make me blush.  If that's true, there's only one person or entity responsible for that, and it ain't the platform that hosts my Blog or the people who might read or might link to a particular post.

[Calm]

45 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

It is unfortunate that, apparently, Des News decided to out Smart. The Facebook message was intended for friends and family only, and was deleted shortly after being posted. 

Do you know this for sure or are you guessing?

They talked to him as reported in the article so it is quite possible he told them to do it. They shared a lot of what he said, if they were just outing him without regard to his choice, why would they bother?

[Meadowchik]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Do you know this for sure or are you guessing?

They talked to him as reported in the article so it is quite possible he told them to do it. They shared a lot of what he said, if they were just outing him without regard to his choice, why would they bother?

I believe this is the source. I cannot read it, but am going by those who paraphrased. I think some caution is called for.

 

https://fox13now.com/2019/08/15/ed-smart-father-of-elizabeth-smart-comes-out-as-gay/?fbclid=IwAR3EtvNKr-aqRHeyAQwoPND8g6zeI4jgbvIpz1FWUJ9E9rrFAqY3Q5czV2M

Edited August 16, 2019 by Meadowchik

[Calm]

“The Salt Lake Tribune said Smart plans to separate from his wife and doesn’t see a place for himself in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints anymore, according to a story in the Deseret News.”

That is just weird reporting. 

It is possible Smart saw it had been taken public by someone else and called Des News to get out in front of the rumor mill. It is also possible someone leaked it to Des News and they went ahead and published against his wishes. I explained why that seem atypical behaviour of the agency in the other thread. Hope that makes sense. I am just speculating. I am not invested in either position though I will be critical of Des News if they were just trying to be first and ignored his wishes as I would be of any news that did that to a private individual.   It just feels too positive of an article about Smart and his choice to be an outing to me. 

Edited August 16, 2019 by Calm