Comments

I received a comment on the blog and I posted it with some hesitation, but I thought it was good for a discussion. The comment is attached to the post "Love your enemies." The comment was anonymous and I was hesitant to post a comment when someone refused to put their name to it. If this becomes a problem in the future I will refuse comments without names.

What saddens me about the poster's comments is the attempt to win points and the concluding attempt to save my soul.

It would have been more helpful had the poster desired to enter into a dialogue about those things that we obviously disagree about. A dialogue is an open discussion where we do not enter it trying to score points and to "win" but we enter the discussion in an effort to listen and learn.

The poster states, "And the Bible teaches that homosexuality is wrong. As a minister, you cannot ignore one section of the Bible in favor of another and ignore it in the name of truth and justice and your quest to "welcome" all people." I am not ignoring the Bible. I take the Holy Scriptures seriously as the foundation for my faith. I read these Scriptures with all the gifts God has given me with my ability to reason, with the traditions of the church and with my religious experience. The Bible's statements about sexuality are not clear to me. Our English translations of Hebrew and Greek are not universally agreed upon. We have some idea but not a clear understanding of what Paul was talking about when he used the words,
"arsenokoites" or "malakos." Is Paul condemning male prostitution or pedophilia or consentual loving partnerships? A strong case can be made for the first two, in which case I agree totally. Prostitution is immoral. Pedophilia a heinous immoral act. Is that the same as sex in a loving partnership between two people of the same gender? I don't think it is.

Grace and Peace,

Bruce