Jesus may have been homosexual

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by wannaJD, May 29, 2003.

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  1. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    (This exactly wasn't what the article posted in this thread did; I was thinking about a similar article written several years ago. The article cited at the top is actually pretty well done, though it does seem to focus more on the controversy than on the book itself.)


    Cheers,
     
  2. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    Hi Tom:

    We "Gnesios" (WELS, ELS) consider the Mo Synod liberal.

    Your comment is bang-on about LCMS and SBC: Kulturprotestantismus follows the culture. When politically conservative American culture says same-sex unions are OK, they'll do them. Not before, nor refusal then.

    :rolleyes:
     
  3. Nosborne

    Nosborne New Member

    I neither know nor care whether Jesus was a homosexual. I do wonder whether he was a legal mamzer.

    In some ways, that would have been worse.

    Nosborne, JD
     
  4. Guest

    Guest Guest

    You are correct Tom. The rather bizarre stuff that goes on between Lutheran groups is amazing. I remember one site 'dissing' the WELS for being unfaithful & liberal. WELS complains about the LCMS being liberal. Too any regular person the LCMS looks very......very...conservative. No women clergy. One church had a female Director of Relgious Education and they did not want her butt on the steps leading up to the altar when she did her children's talk (butt on the step is just feet away from behind the pulpit). Someone in the LCMS proposed having what amounted to orthodoxy police who could go from to church to church to ensure adherence to all of the orthodox Lutheran faith. They also issued a statement that they could no longer consider the ELCA an 'orthodox' lutheran body.

    I have attended services at ELCA , LCMS & a WELS church. My observations are not scientific or even a good sample. ELCA has much in common with the Epsicopal Chruch. The LCMS is very conservative (bible believing, etc). WELS was the most depressing service I have ever been in. The church was very small and the pastor's sermon made you feel like you should not go on living. It was very dour. The point is that these things are quite individual. That is why there are Episcopal groups who only use the 1928 Prayer book (thees & thous) and old hymns. It is as if they froze the culture at a certain point and said this is what it is to be 'christian'. My wife once asked one of these 'continuing' Episcoplains about some 'glory & praise' music and he said something to the effect "For God's sake this is a liturgical service". It is a sort of myopic perspective that has little to do with historic biblical christianity and more to do with a decision to freeze a subculture at a certain point in history and define it as orthodoxy.

    Christianity is alive and breathing. There are certain major doctrines derived & self evident from the bible which define what it means to be a 'Christian'. To call yourself a 'Christian' you must hold to these. Others are what are sometimes called 'minor doctrines' that are not so specific (arminianism vs Calvinism). Things like 'style' of worship is open to interpretation (within logical moral & ethical biblical guidelines).

    I think I veered off topic :eek:

    North
     
  5. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    Hi Nosborne:

    Now that is an interesting question (unlike the one that started this thread). I do not know enough about Jewish law at the time of Jesus to answer, but it's an interesting question.

    As a Christian, I believe that Jesus was miraculously conceived without a human father through a non-sexual agency of God--and appreciate your specification "legal mamzer." So biologically, Joseph wasn't his father. Is that mamzerut? Saying God is guilty would seem a bad business, so my guess would be that it couldn't be--God, after all, does not sin.

    Now, suppose Jesus were illegitimately conceived through some unnamed human father in the normal way. Then, he is accepted by Joseph as his legal son (as the NT indicates happened--naming, bris, pidyon ha-ben). Would that acceptance by Joseph clear a supposedly illegitimately conceived Jesus of the stain of mamzerut? Dunno.

    Suppose Jesus were actually the untimely son of Joseph and Mary. From what little I know, that would not be mamzerut.

    Would the acclamation as "Son of David" indicate freedom from mamzerut in the eyes of the community, or just indicate that the rabble did not know the law?

    Bear in mind, I reject these "supposes" based on the testimony of the New Testament, but to require a prior religious conviction (pro or con) in order to discuss a historical/legal question would be both childish and churlish. You have training in technical legal reasoning which I lack, and likely know far more of Jewish law and history than I.

    So:How does the legal question look to you?

    Best wishes, Janko
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 31, 2003
  6. Nosborne

    Nosborne New Member

    As it happens, the law of mamzerut is more complex than it might appear and this issue ALSO involves the mishnaic law of marriage.

    Put as briefly as I can, and also disclaiming a rabbi's level of understanding, here is why I wonder:

    The word "mamzer" is usually translated as "bastard", a close approximation of its Yiddish meaning but wildly inappropriate as far as Hebrew is concerned.

    A mamzer is the child of a legally impossible sexual union.

    The Rabbis went to GREAT lengths to avoid stigmatising anyone with the label because it is so obviously unjust to cause a child to suffer for the transgretions of his parents. In this respect, though they would never say so, the Rabbis understood that Torah was simply wrong.

    Anyway, a child of a married woman is ALWAYS presumed to be the child of her husband even where there is evidence that he wasn't around at the time. If M & J were fully married at the time, there would be no need for any inquiry or explanation.

    If M & J, or rather, even just M, were unmarried at the time, there would be no inquiry and the child would not be considered to be a mamzer. The reason J could be married is that Jewish men could have more than one husband. This is still the law, BTW. A man commits adultery per se ONLY with the wife of another man.

    Now, according to the gospels, M&J were what might be called "engaged" to each other. IN those days, one entered into the civil legal obligation of marriage a year before consummation. The parties are married for all purposes except sex; divorce required the payment of the ketuba and the delivery of the get and all that. There are some odd rules concering the woman's earnings, but they aren't germaine here.

    These two people had absolutely no business being alone together. This was a serious violation of the law and custom at the time. For M to turn up pregnant under these circumstances with J claiming not to be the father was a death penalty offense (though I doubt anyone was ever actually put to death for what must have been a fairly common circumstance!)

    However, since the child's father WASN'T J, he had the option to divorce without paying the ketuba. This is an important consideration.

    ANyway, the child WOULD be considered the result of an adulterous union and be therefore branded as a mamzer.

    He couldn't marry except another mamzer or a convert. His children also would bear the stigma for as long as anyone cared to remember their origins. He could participate in the life of the synagogue but in some ways could not be a member of it. I don't THINK he could be counted as a member of a priestly family, which has its own set of consequences.

    Looking at how he is said to have lived, it all seems consistant to me.

    But remember, I am NO EXPERT!

    Nosborne, JD
     
  7. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    "What is a Christian?" is an interesting question for me--interesting because the answer defines whether or not I can legitimately use the label to describe my own faith. I generally say that my theology is not Christian in any strict sense of the word, but I consider myself part of the Christian faith tradition. I can understand how other folks' mileage may vary on this, especially if they tend to think of religion in terms of doctrines rather than in terms of communities and semantic systems. But my current working definition of religion being "a community of worship using a shared system of symbolic value-concepts," Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John Shelby Spong, Meister Eckhart, Michael Servetus, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and I would all be Christians, even though none of us would be likely to accept a literal interpretaton of the Apostles' Creed. What a funny discipline religious studies can be.


    Cheers,
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 31, 2003
  8. Nosborne

    Nosborne New Member

    Tom Head,

    Your last post was a minor revelation to me! I have never understood the study of "theology" as being anything particularly useful; after all, how does one study God? Indeed, I consider that all such "doctrine" smells of the lamp.

    However, I had NOT considered theology as being an enquiry into what appears to be an almost universal HUMAN activity, that is, religion and belief, and therefore worthy of study on that ground alone! Theology as the study of MAN makes a good deal of sense to me.

    Nosborne, JD
     
  9. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    Speak for yourself, Uncle.

    I think that the question of how Jesus' sexuality might be characterized is very interesting. I also think that the question of the place of gay Christians both in their particular denominations and in their broader historical tradition is interesting. I even think that the nature, motivations and wider reception of un-"orthodox" theologies in general is interesting as well.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 1, 2003
  10. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I think that I would term what you are referring to as 'religious studies' rather than 'theology'.

    Religious studies in this sense is the treatment of religion in all of its manifestations by the means of history, sociology, psychology, anthropology, literary studies and so on. In other words, treating religion as if it is just another human phenomenon alongside all of the others.

    The difference between religious studies and theology becomes more obvious when we try to move beyond observing that a community believes Jesus to have been God incarnate (or gay), to asking whether or not they were right in believing those things, and if they were, what that means for them and for all the rest of us.

    Theology seems to imply commitments to just those sorts of propositions that religious studies doesn't attempt to (and probably can't) justify. There's a phenomenological tone to religious studies, a "bracketing out" of all the questions of transcendent truth and value that serve to drive and motivate the confessional approach to religion.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 1, 2003
  11. Guest

    Guest Guest

    First, let me say that I respect other faith groups and their right to believe as they do.

    Certain things (doctrinal issues) define the Christian faith. For example the Trinity, diety of Christ, etc. Other issues do not (church gov't). I cannot consider Bishop Spong to be 'Christian' in an orthodox sense. Howver, he is a spiritual person. Mormons are not Christians but they are a faith group to be respected. One of the reasons I left the Epsicopal Church was it's head long plunge into unitarianism and away from orthodox belief. Oneness Pentecostals are not Christians (denial of the Trinity for which there are solid biblical reasons to long to discuss here). I suppose these folks are variations on a theme.

    From what I sense of what you have written on degreeinfo, you are more of a unitarian than a 'Christian' per se (I do not mean this in a derogatory sense but respectfully). I know at one time you were considering becoming an Epsicopal priest and the shift in that church may well suit you. As an aside, I have great saddness over the church of my birth. It's movement away from the gospel and towards political agendas (such as gay rights, feminism, etc) and it's subsequent persecution of traditonal parishes was sad. But it lead me to a critical point where I had to ask myself whether my loyalty was to a cultural church or to the gospel of Christ. Understand that I understand that there are Epsicopal priests who are activists for gay rights or leftist causes that are compeltely sincere in their beleifs that they are doing the work of the gospel. The Espiscopal priest I knew at campus ministry (undergrad) was completely sincere, a socialist, heterosexual but strong activist for gay rights & inclusion, and did not believe the bible could be taken in any literal sense.

    Anyway, back to your original question....the bible defines these major issues for us (Systematic Theologians pull these doctrines together). A Christian for instance cannot believe there are many paths to God. The bible does not leave that open to us.

    North
     
  12. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    Glad to be of help! Bill is right in that what you're describing is more religious studies than theology, but there is so much overlap between the two fields that I'm not sure it matters.

    My definition of religion is actually a cereal box paraphrase of Conservative Jewish philosopher Max Kadushin's description of Judaism. He was attempting to solve the problem of Judaism-as-a-religion versus Judaism-as-a-culture by transcending it. Folks tend to think that he failed, but created a wonderful philosophy in the process.


    Cheers,
     
  13. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    And I certainly respect yours; I know you didn't wake up this morning, pick up a Bible, and decide you were a Christian. You've been at this for a long time, and I know you've been asking yourself the Hard Questions for years.
    Tertullian and most of the other church fathers would have agreed with you; they saw it as their duty to promote an orthodox Christian theology and make it clear that heterodox theologies were not really Christianity. But when liberal Christianity caught on in the 19th century, conservatives reacted by placing added emphasis on the fundamentals of the Christian faith. Those who adhered to these doctrines were called "fundamentalists," and it was presupposed that you could be a Christian without being a fundamentalist. (Since then "fundamentalist" has taken on a derogatory meaning, which I regret; it's a wonderfully useful word, and should imply nothing other than an orthodox Christian theology grounded in what has traditionally defined Christian doctrine.)
    I doubt Bishop Spong considers Bishop Spong to be Christian in an orthodox sense.
    I certainly couldn't claim to be a Christian by any standard that would not also include Mormons.
    I understand, and no offense taken. The "Who is a Jew?" debate has been going on for hundreds of years; I don't expect us to resolve the "Who is a Christian?" debate in this thread.


    Cheers,
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 1, 2003
  14. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Good luck to you Tom. If you do make that journey into the Epsicopal priesthood I wish you the best. I have found you to be a thoughtful, moderate and insightful man.

    North
     
  15. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    Bill Dayson: But I do speak for myself. Who else would want to? :D

    Nosborne: Thanks for the wonderful and intriguing reply. :)

    North: No, I'm not going to quarrel with you about stupid Lutheran tricks. :rolleyes:

    Tom: better an honest liberal than a fake confessionalist!:p
     

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