Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
Many proponents of gay rights will point to the Leviticus passages as the root of Christian opposition to homosexuality, when in actual fact, Romans 1 is really a much more powerful influence:
There is a clear progression of thought here in Paul's rhetoric, which really needs to be read as a sort of creation narrative:
First, God created everything and revealed his own divine character through creation. Second, human pride fostered a rejection of God's obvious glory, and produced a psychological impairment. In humankind's diminished intellectual state, they gravitated to forms of idolatrous religion as a cheap form of compensation. Third, the depravity increased and produced homosexual behaviour. Finally, homosexuality gave way to other forms of evil including murder, deceit, and ruthlessness.
Paul's Epistle to the Romans is quite commonly considered the cap-stone of Christian theology, and his doctrinal treatise begins with an account of creation in which homosexuality is presented as a compliment to paganism: the "original sin" which resulted in moral chaos and human depravity. It is a root cause which threatens all sorts of terrible harm; Paul pretty clearly believed it to have been a catalyst in the downfall of civilization.
Is it any wonder why many Christians feel as strongly as they do about the "dangers" of homosexuality?
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I really never did get why Paul is an apostle, he never met Jesus, he claimed God spoke to him but why does that make his heavily jewish influenced pronouncments the word of God? never could understand why, other than the obvius excuse it gave the church to become non jewish.
I have always thought that the church wuld have been better ff theologically if they hadn't adopted him as an apostle, just treated him as an early bishop.