Christianity and Homosexuality

[RFayette 🇻🇦]

I really don't understand the "We don't know what God did regarding homosexuality, so it might or might not be okay, but the Bible says don't marry or have sex or you'll go to hell" thing.

If we don't know what God says about homosexuality in and of itself, it makes no sense that God would create LGBT people and then deny them intimacy and commitment, unless you think homosexuality is some kind of ultimate test in self-denial.

Plenty of gay people throughout history have been in straight marriages, and in pagan societies like ancient Greece, many men indulged in pedophilia with younger boys before getting married to a woman.  I don't buy that orientation is innately fixed and that the individual has no agency in the matter, but assuming that were the case, it doesn't matter, because when the Bible talks about homosexuality in the Old and New Testament, it's always referring to the actions that are sinful.

[RFayette 🇻🇦]

And the Bible is clear that no practicing homosexual will enter the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9).  If one takes the Bible seriously, then allowing gays as ministers is a sign of a church that does not take the full counsel of God seriously. 

I'll point out in passing that the meaning of arsenokoites as used by Paul in 1 Corinthians and Deutero-Paul in 1 Timothy is questionable, and has historically has not always been interpreted as a generic homosexual.  I say in passing because frankly, if one holds that the Bible is inerrant and that its teachings are immutable, then Leviticus alone provides a fairly clear place to decide upon it.  That said, I'm not one of those who treat the Bible as a fourth member of the Trinity.

There's still Jude 1:5-8 and Romans 1:26-28.  And I'll go with what the vast majority of Bible translations go by. Also, even of arsenokoiteswasn't historically interpreted as a generic homosexual, there was a virtual consensus that homosexual sex was sinful until very recently.  I see this issue as similar to women's submission in marriage......it only became "controversial" when the culture changed  and suddenly, scholars began to re-interpret the Bible because of it. 

Should women be submissive in marriage?

Yes.  My point was that the issue is similar in that scholars re-interpreted "submission" as just meaning "mutual respect" when the culture changed.