A Conversation at the Christian Book Expo

Panthera,
Thanks on all counts.

Also, thanks for the walk through the languages. I was prepared to respond about the Greek (and I was even going to discuss the Vulgate too!) but the German! You are quickly approaching hero status in my book.

Kevin,
I agree with you that the conversation could not have gone other than it did, I've been through enough similar conferences in my field to know that there are always a few folks around who are bound and determined to accost and bring this that or the other speaker back to the 'right side.'

Where we disagree is, however, far more important (at least I think so) and that is on the question of whether being gay conflicts with being Christian.

All rational conservative Christians have long since accepted that medicine and science maintain sexuality is not a choice. You are heterosexual, I am homosexual, neither of us can change that.

The only arguments left for conservative Christians who don't want gays to be Christians, fall into basically two groups.

The first group is, 'OK - we won't stand on Leviticus, 'cause that means no more cashmere-silk sweaters, back to garters for our socks, no more shrimp and all that other hard-to-live-by kosher stuff. But we will stand on Paul. His word is literal and final.

Fine - and that is all Tony was asking the man - since you have decided that Paul wasn't talking about an idolatrous faith, but really about good ol' Panthera, personally, then as the day follows the night, you must also follow all his other dictates. Women must keep their heads covered in church, they must shut up, they may not wear gold, they can't teach a man anything...

That is a perfectly reasonable question to ask of someone who demands we take Paul's positions both literally and, of course, accept that the translation of modern day American fundamentalist Christians is the only true translation possible.

The other avenue left for conservative Christians who are too intelligent to argue conclusive medical and scientific findings and who not only like wearing polyester/cotton blends, and having toilets inside the city limits is to go down the community of faith line. For some reason, God has appointed one man after the other to evidence his will to the rest of us. The fact that these men frequently contradict themselves - and decisions made by the men who went before them is only proof that God's will for us changes. Frequently, mercurially, and with a remarkable similarity to making a solid profit, but never mind. Just as the LDS suddenly was 'permitted' to stop discriminating against blacks by God, so were priests suddenly not permitted to marry, unless, of course, they already were, but that only counts in those obscure places, far, far away.

I guess there is a third argument - the, well, salvation isn't really for ever, there is only one class of sin for which you can lose it, and that is being gay. But that one is so badly handicapped by it's illogic, we only see it taken by those folks desperately grasping for straws.

You're not on a hostile blog here, even tho' people like me are welcome. But the knee-jerk responses which pass for conservations on some other blogs we both participate in don't work here. I get regularly lambasted for insisting that 17 year old people are still children, for instance.

Oh, Basil, sugah - how often have I heard that. From both sides.

The irony of being attacked here because I am a gay Christian in a nearly quarter-century monogamous, faithful, true partnership that is now a legally recognized marriage (in the Civilized West, of course) has not escaped me.

Until everybody hit forty or so, I got just as much nastiness from many folks on our team who considered marriage and monogamy something which only boring people did. We have to be fair and recognize that there was a lot of hostility, especially among the intellectual gays towards those of us who are monogamous and desire marriage. That has faded (funny what getting older and surviving an epidemic will do), but the religious Conservatives refuse to acknowledge anything but the most flamboyant Castro street excesses...pretending, of course, that Ms. Speers and Bourbon Street don't exist.

Sigilaris posted a very sad and very brilliant commentary on this a few weeks ago. It is, as you so aptly note, a case of those who abuse the Bible and Christianity to maintain domination. They have lost on women, Negros, the geocentric world view, the flat earth, torture being a useful adjunct to war, the imperial presidency, the chastity of priests...

So now we are their line in the sand, if I may metaphors mix.

(That was a joke, dear anal retentive types).

I keep waiting for Rod Dreher to finally elaborate his views on just how, exactly, two men or two women or transgendered living together in faithful, loving, monogamous, true marriages (like mine!) are nihilistic and the ultimate culmination of the leftist-sexual-revolution.

Beats me. My gay lifestyle involves teaching, grading, reading, cleaning house, cooking, taking care of the animals (I love that stereotype most of all - the one about how we are all effeminate prissy sissies. I wonder how long the conservative Christians spewing their hatred over post after post after post here would survive holding someone's leg while their hoof is being scraped and this 17 hand someone thinks you are the most comfortable place to lean their weight they've ever known...)

Its sad. It's false witness. It is a useful lie, just as the one we see around here frequently that women are responsible for getting raped.

Far more serious, however, is the charge that you can not be gay and a Christian. This wrong on so many levels. Usurping God's authority for oneself is a pretty big sin, to put it mildly. Second, this lie has been the justification for all the horrible things Christians have done to women (witches!), Jews and gays throughout the centuries. The Nazis built their hatred on exactly the same basis, I see no difference, except that the American conservative Christians weren't quite able to see the power. Almost, but not quite.

Context matters. I have lived my whole life between two cultures - when some fool here lectures me on how I don't understand life in the Deep South, I just want to say, "bless your heart", God made you yankees, too. Living in a country which grants women, transgendered and gays human rights (such as marriage), and seeing that we have a lower abortion rate, crime rate, fewer children growing up in poverty and our divorce rate is lower than that of American Evangelical Christians, I do, again wonder, just what part of our society is nihilistic and destructive?