Is refusing to belong to any non-egalitarian and non-LGBT affirming church a progressive stance?

[Associate Justice PiT]

Those are theological issues, not political issues.  I wouldn't attend a church that wasn't complementarian and that didn't believe in Biblical sexual morality.  The Bible is clear on those issues.

It's a mistranslation form the 1940s and y'all are making it out to refer to homosexuality when it actually refers to pedophilia, which is a different thing entirely. Stop using your Christian beliefs as an excuse.

The Bible never condemns pedophilia or child molestation. It's an unfortunate moral failing that it has in common with most ancient documents.

I always wonder what people advancing the "mistranslation from the 1940s" talking point think about why Christian societies tended to be more institutionally homophobic before mid-century than after. Are we to believe that Paul or Jerome or Augustine or someone just spun the Wheel of Bigotry and won bigly on the "homophobia" slot?

I was reading Joseph Sciambra, someone formerly active in the LGBT Catholic sphere.

What an inventive description of him.

 What do you propose? I never heard of him until recently.

Self loathing?

I really don't have time for the whole, 'I did sex, I did parties, I did drugs. That's what ALL THE GAYS DO. Gay is bad' and how he 'escaped' and 'survived' when I've been married for ten f-cking years. It's an appeal to Christian titillation over what 'the gays' are up to.

It's interesting that sort of schlock appeals to you.

Though 'Swallowed by Satan' is a great name for a book, but the irony might be lost on him.

EDIT; I forgot this gem; 'Anal sex releases into the world rare demonic entities and that even in the body could be conceived as the devil and that would be given birth to anally.'

     The reason I bring him up is that, while his involvement in the LGBT community is now far into the past, he was a part of it and his experience with that overlapped with his experience of Catholicism. He has more insight into that scene than "random person preaching against homosexuality", even if his point of view is not the most favorable to them.

     I figure I ought to mention that I started reading him not because of his insights into gay Catholics, but because he is converting to the Orthodox Church and friends of mine mentioned him to me for that reason. Reading the comments on his tweets is a fascinating experience, because the tradcaths who loved him while he was a Catholic railing against homosexuality in the Catholic Church hate him now that he is quoting Orthodox writers.

He's not exactly a prize.

And you are in touching distance of people who can give a less self aggrandising, muggish and purile discussion of their experiences as a gay Catholic on this very forum.

     To be charitable to him, he has a great deal of trauma and God willing he can get the help to overcome it. I saw that he responded to a pro-life tweet just now by saying that people have the right not to be molested in the Catholic Church, which tells me that he has a very one-track mind with regard to this thing.

     I will ask you then, what is your take on the appeal of ideas like the 1946 mistranslation theory or Boswell's version of Church History? Did you believe in those when you were a Catholic, or did you know other people who did?

[afleitch]

    I will ask you then, what is your take on the appeal of ideas like the 1946 mistranslation theory or Boswell's version of Church History? Did you believe in those when you were a Catholic, or did you know other people who did?

My take is meaningless. With respect, it isn't worth my time or effort to dust down what I may have thought about it at some point in nearly twenty years of posting here to answer a question posed by someone who will not be moved in any way by a response. Someone else might take it up.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Those are theological issues, not political issues.  I wouldn't attend a church that wasn't complementarian and that didn't believe in Biblical sexual morality.  The Bible is clear on those issues.

It's a mistranslation form the 1940s and y'all are making it out to refer to homosexuality when it actually refers to pedophilia, which is a different thing entirely. Stop using your Christian beliefs as an excuse.

The Bible never condemns pedophilia or child molestation. It's an unfortunate moral failing that it has in common with most ancient documents.

I always wonder what people advancing the "mistranslation from the 1940s" talking point think about why Christian societies tended to be more institutionally homophobic before mid-century than after. Are we to believe that Paul or Jerome or Augustine or someone just spun the Wheel of Bigotry and won bigly on the "homophobia" slot?

     I was reading Joseph Sciambra, someone formerly active in the LGBT Catholic sphere, about this recently, and he theorized that these sorts of ideas don't function as serious arguments that historical Christianity was affirming (which it obviously wasn't), but rather exist because they appeal on an intuitive level to people who are confused about their sexuality. As such it was never meant to persuade, but rather to comfort.

This strikes me as deeply uncharitable, as does your connection of the "mistranslation" canard to Boswell's much more temperate and considered claims. It's not as if that canard is the only way to dispense with a harsh attitude towards homosexuality while maintaining an overall high view of Scripture. Off the top of my head, the idea that the Biblical authors held, and wrote based on, certain assumptions about "how gay relationships work", assumptions that have since been disproved, is both more supportable and more widespread among serious theologians.

[Mopsus]

EDIT; I forgot this gem; 'Anal sex releases into the world rare demonic entities and that even in the body could be conceived as the devil and that would be given birth to anally.'

Have you read his description of all the maladies his sex life causes him? I’d believe this too if I were him.

[afleitch]

EDIT; I forgot this gem; 'Anal sex releases into the world rare demonic entities and that even in the body could be conceived as the devil and that would be given birth to anally.'

Have you read his description of all the maladies his sex life causes him? I’d believe this too if I were him.

I know you do

Sodomy is forbidden in the Bible because it disturbs the digestive and excretioniary system, which is the source of one's feeling of being rooted in reality. When this system (referred to as the root chakra in Hinduism) is disturbed (whether because of indigestion or other means), one is much more open to manipulation by malicious spiritual and worldly forces. Thus homosexual and heterosexual sodomy are normalized by Hollywood and pornography, both of which exist primarily to manipulate the psyche of the masses.

[Mopsus]

EDIT; I forgot this gem; 'Anal sex releases into the world rare demonic entities and that even in the body could be conceived as the devil and that would be given birth to anally.'

Have you read his description of all the maladies his sex life causes him? I’d believe this too if I were him.

I know you do

Sodomy is forbidden in the Bible because it disturbs the digestive and excretioniary system, which is the source of one's feeling of being rooted in reality. When this system (referred to as the root chakra in Hinduism) is disturbed (whether because of indigestion or other means), one is much more open to manipulation by malicious spiritual and worldly forces. Thus homosexual and heterosexual sodomy are normalized by Hollywood and pornography, both of which exist primarily to manipulate the psyche of the masses.

That post is the closest I’ve ever come to having an Atlas meme. I feel like a proud father every time it gets reposted.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Those are theological issues, not political issues.  I wouldn't attend a church that wasn't complementarian and that didn't believe in Biblical sexual morality.  The Bible is clear on those issues.

It's a mistranslation form the 1940s and y'all are making it out to refer to homosexuality when it actually refers to pedophilia, which is a different thing entirely. Stop using your Christian beliefs as an excuse.

The Bible never condemns pedophilia or child molestation. It's an unfortunate moral failing that it has in common with most ancient documents.

I always wonder what people advancing the "mistranslation from the 1940s" talking point think about why Christian societies tended to be more institutionally homophobic before mid-century than after. Are we to believe that Paul or Jerome or Augustine or someone just spun the Wheel of Bigotry and won bigly on the "homophobia" slot?

     I was reading Joseph Sciambra, someone formerly active in the LGBT Catholic sphere, about this recently, and he theorized that these sorts of ideas don't function as serious arguments that historical Christianity was affirming (which it obviously wasn't), but rather exist because they appeal on an intuitive level to people who are confused about their sexuality. As such it was never meant to persuade, but rather to comfort.

This strikes me as deeply uncharitable, as does your connection of the "mistranslation" canard to Boswell's much more temperate and considered claims. It's not as if that canard is the only way to dispense with a harsh attitude towards homosexuality while maintaining an overall high view of Scripture. Off the top of my head, the idea that the Biblical authors held, and wrote based on, certain assumptions about "how gay relationships work", assumptions that have since been disproved, is both more supportable and more widespread among serious theologians.

     I make the connection because from what I have read of Boswell (which is admittedly far from comprehensive), he makes a number of bizarre claims about Christian attitudes towards homosexual relationships, such as saying Christians generally tolerated homosexuality until c.1150. I guess that is more credible a date than 1946, but it is still baffling that he could honestly arrive at such a conclusion given the history of canon law.

[Samof94]

No, the progressive stance in this case to to reject religion entirely.

My progressivism is correlated with my secular view of the world.