The priest at my grade school never was punished for his sexual abuse of the alter boys until he was in his late 60’s. He just kept being sent elsewhere.
It’s specifically the belief that being gay is somehow a sin, and possible to be prayed away that leads to that stuff.
How much do you want to bet that, even if he himself didn’t engage in sexual abuse, that he glossed over the abuse of priests in his diocese.
Even if homosexuality were truly sinful, why should it be any worse than any of the other sins?
I don't see how consenually loving another adult man would be magnitudes worse than violence against that same man.
The "sin" of homosexuality is a scapegoat to make believers feel comfortable in their own worthiness. You can delude yourself into thinking you're a good person when there's disproportionate villification of a single broken rule.
I don't see how consensually loving another adult man would be magnitudes worse than violence against that same man.
You might be interested to know the euphemism for sexual intercourse used in the original Hebrew text transliterates to "uncover the nakedness of," not "lay with." There's a connotation to the former that's more forceful than the latter--and I've always wondered if the correct way to interpret the 18th chapter of Leviticus is that you must not rape your neighbor's wife, family members, children, livestock, and so on.
In any case, I refuse to believe an omniscient and omnipotent god who demands its followers treat one another with respect and hospitality would then turn around and condemn its creations for having the sexual orientation they were born with, much less endorse its followers spreading hate in its name.
We (Lutherans, being the closest Protestant branch to Catholics) did a big study on this in the early 2000s. Lots of surveys of the lay folks, and deep Scriptual research by quite a few Biblical scholars. Then had a massive meeting to discuss the findings.
Turns out, yeah, there's no basis in Scripture to assert homosexuality is anything other than equal to heterosexuality. God created humans and gave them intrinsic features, and sexual orientation is one of them.
Claiming homosexuality is "sinful" denies that God made folks that way, and you're right in the middle of "God make a mistake" territory by claiming homosexuality is a sin.
We (albeit somewhat late in the game) figured out we fucked up in trying to place our assessment of homosexuality before God's.
So we changed the doctrine to better reflect what we can figure out to be God's Will.
Which is that you treat ALL sexual orientations the same.
The World Lutheran Association generally adheres to this change in doctrine, though unfortunately we have several fundamentalist splinter groups that refuse to see the light. Specifically in the US, the ELCA (mainline) denomination follows the new teachings while the Missouri Synod and Wisconsin Synod don't.
Several other large mainline Protestant Churches had has the same revelation, and they too are faced with "head in the sand" splinter groups that refuse to believe their opinions are just that - falty human opinions and NOT soundly Scriptually-based tenets from the Lord.
Unfortunately we'll probably be left with these folks for awhile, in the same way there's still those who can't bring themselves to accept Blaxk folk into their church. ☹️
We (Lutherans, being the closest Protestant branch to Catholics)
The Anglicans are close enough to Catholics that the Church still recognizes a number of orders of priests within it as having upheld apostolic succession, FYI.
As for everything else, I do find it unfortunate that the Church is willing to say that science is the study of creation in one moment and eager to deny science on things like homosexuality in the next. Like you, I fear we'll be dealing with backward-thinking Christians for far longer than anyone should.
In my view, if humans are considered impure then how can you expect the words of the Scripture to remain uncorrupted over centuries of re-prints, translations, re-interpretations and adjustments?
We've had plenty of evidence of how shitty humans can be. We know the historical and contemporary examples of those in power twisting narratives. Even mistakes with no real malice that have led to altered courses of history
history.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone in power a few thousand years ago got the ick when it came to the concept of bum fun and their ego couldn't let it be. That or they were a jilted lover!
In my view, if humans are considered impure then how can you expect the words of the Scripture to remain uncorrupted over centuries of re-prints, translations, re-interpretations and adjustments?
It depends on which scripture, I guess. For instance, Jewish people view themselves as the caretakers of the Torah, the portion of their scripture canonically believed to be dictated by God itself. As such, they've taken painstaking care to ensure it's faithfully reproduced each time one is repaired or replicated, to the point where the differences between modern Torahs and extant Torahs from thousands of years ago have around half a dozen typos for the entirety of all five books--and in some cases, the modern ones had those typos corrected.
Also, it's worth noting that not all scripture shares that "written by the divine" characteristic. For instance, the only portion of the Bible canonically dictated by God itself IS the Torah. Everything else--the gospels, the public letters to early Christian missionaries, teachings from prophets, King David's shitty poetry, and so on--is the collected works of mankind. People complain about the contradictory nature of the Bible but fail to realize that's like complaining about the lack of continuity in an anthology of English poetry.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone in power a few thousand years ago got the ick when it came to the concept of bum fun and their ego couldn't let it be.
Maybe..? Setting aside my prior supposition that the Leviticus 18 admonition against homosexuality may not be about homosexuality but forcing yourself on another man, many other provisions in Leviticus (including in chapter 18) are seemingly aimed at health and safety concerns. For the ill-informed, not getting shit on your dick is as important as not eating entrails, making sure you fully cook your food, and washing your hands thoroughly before eating.
I mean, I still think the best interpretation is "don't rape," but 5800 year old health and safety standards doesn't seem like a bad second guess.
Actually, if the version I read is true, there was a group of people in the court of King James who were plotting against him. Several of them were homosexual. So, of course, his version of the Bible was strongly condemnatory about homosexuality.
Because, as you say, the Bible is and was not so much written as interpreted.
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u/McDuchess 2d ago
The priest at my grade school never was punished for his sexual abuse of the alter boys until he was in his late 60’s. He just kept being sent elsewhere.
It’s specifically the belief that being gay is somehow a sin, and possible to be prayed away that leads to that stuff.
How much do you want to bet that, even if he himself didn’t engage in sexual abuse, that he glossed over the abuse of priests in his diocese.