Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

["Karey L. Perkins" <karey AT charter.net>]

Title: Re: [percy-l] God's Gender and Ham Sandwiches

Tim -

 

Thanks for the reasoned response - quick reply:  You say we should judge for ourselves what is right and wrong.  Yes - but to apply to our own behavior.  (And, as a side note, it's a complicated involved and thoughtful process that isn't simply listening to what someone else says or a "literal interpretation of the Bible" (since it seems clear we've established that "literal" meanings vary depending on who's reading them - we here can't even decide on the meaning of "marriage" or "homophobe" or etc.). )

 

However, I don't think we do much good for anyone, including ourselves, by judging others -- if we're busy taking the mote out of another's eye often we have a log in our own - as someone on the list already said.  We have so many more important things to do for them. (Jesus declared our most important admonishments are to love God first, and our neighbor and ourselves next.)  

 

Do you really think the fact that the Pharisees never questioned Jesus about homosexuality is the reason that he never mentioned it?  Are all the things we have recorded about Jesus in direct response to the Pharisees or issues of the day?

 

I was being slightly facetious with the cross-dressing and ham sandwich thing (as I guess you picked up) - the point was we go around violating God's law probably multiple times every day and others could just as easily admonish US for that.  Better to pay attention to our own behavior than try to change others'....  If we judge them, we put ourselves above them (pride - the greatest sin), and usually we're not paying attention to what we need to do spiritually ourselves. 

 

Paul's comments were more culturally determined (the "po-mo-phobes" in the bunch will probably hate that remark) and much of what he said regarding social groups and social arrangements (women, homosexuality, marriage, dressing, etc.) can be read as influenced by his social context.  

 

Do you want to hear MY judgment (since I'm being accused of the "sin" of postmodernism by withholding it)?  OK, let's get technical here:   Dante places the sexual sinners in the first or second (I forget which one, but it's early) circle of his Inferno.  That's because the sexual sins (adultery, etc.) are a kind of "missing the mark" of the greatest virtue, love.  And that's where our homos would go IF indeed Paul is right that they are sinning.  But those guilty of the sin of pride are MUCH further down in Dante's scheme.  I'm with Dante on this (who was decidedly un-po-mo).

 

KP

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Tim Cole

To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion

Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 1:56 PM

Subject: Re: [percy-l] God's Gender and Ham Sandwiches

In addition, the surrounding words of this name of God have feminine inflection, further emphasizing the feminine nature of this side of God.

I think it’s reasonable to think that God is a mix of what we would label both male and female traits...and it has implications in what Genesis says about marriage between man and woman.

In Jewish tradition, to say that God is only male and not female is blasphemy because it is limiting God.
 
Agreed. We see through a glass darkly...

And I firmly believe not only should we not judge, but we accomplish nothing (only harm) by judging.
 
We are called to love.  

We are also called to discern, test the spirits, test doctrine, hold fast to that which is good. We can’t do that without making moral or epistemic judgments. If you’re saying that not judging means not being able to do this, then I disagree and think you have problems with both the OT and NT in what it affirms and commands with regard to conduct.

I think what we’re told not to do is judge the hearts of others...things that only God can know.

Jesus also never said anything against homosexuality.

Which is not surprising since there wasn’t a gay rights movement in 1st century Palestine. It wasn’t an issue, like divorce, around which there was much theological debate. The Pharisees tested Jesus on the hot potatoes of the day...homosexuality wasn’t one of them because Hebraic culture and theology condemned it una

 Leviticus DOES say a man shall not lay with a man as a woman, but the literal interpretation means "DRESSED" as a woman (hence literally it's a polemic against cross-dressing???)(!).  

The literal interpretation of what word(s) in Leviticus 18 or 20, exactly? Shakab means to lie with sexually. Odd that an admonition about cross dressing would be so badly misinterpreted by Jewish scholars for so many centuries.  ;^)

Leviticus says it's an "abomination" for a man to lay with a man as a woman.  However, Leviticus says exactly the same thing about eating pork - that is, uses exactly the same word - translated an "abomination" - to describe the act of eating pork.
  
At the risk of getting sidetracked into a protracted debate about the Bible and homosexuality, the revisionist arguments of Boswell and others have been refuted thoroughly and frequently. Suffice it to say that ham and cross-dressing comparison isn’t valid (there are both ceremonial and ethical abominations...they are different...one is associated with the Works of the Law that defined Jewishness [and about which Peter had to be sorted out via a vision in light of Gentile believers], the other is a fluxless universal ethical standard), and the Biblical teaching in the subject goes way beyond the statements in Leviticus. There’s Romans 1, and, perhaps more importantly, there’s the description of marriage in Genesis. You can understand the Biblical position on homosexuality not just based on the prohibitions, but also the affirmations.

The marriage of man and woman is a picture of the full nature of God (as referenced above), and it is the divine plan...according to the Bible, at least. This union is what the Bible affirms and what both OT and NT morality are designed to protect and help flourish.

Of course this is not an excuse for real ‘homophobia,’ whatever that is, or gay bashing, but it does constitute Biblical grounds for condemning the behavior...or so I believe. ;^)



Tim

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