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Shirky: the future of p2p filesharing
Kim Stanley Robinson’s utopian fiction
Rituals and culture in Christian history
Homosexuality and totalitarianism in Canada
The Ecology Psalm
Alzheimer’s & Grace
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have you got the day off or something?
Nah, just struggling to find things to do for work.
write a study for youth group
Not a horrible idea.
write a study about the imaging qualities of the Sodom and Gomorrah people. Now that would be cutting edge!
ha. I’ve thought about that topic a wee bit, indirectly: Does the imaging idea help understand why homosexuality is wrong? Can the Man:Woman – Christ:Church analogy be generalised to Man:Woman – God:The Universe? If so, is homosexuality fundamentally lying about God in some way?
(snigger)
How does the God:Universe relationship mirror the Christ:Church relationship?
O I was talking to a girl I used to like about sex and wondering why pre-commitment sex is wrong and thinking good marriage sex is participating in cosmic story, two things, God & universe, separate but v.closely intertwined ah I’m hungry and losing my train of thought…
well, there’s a good first topic for my up-&-coming cultural problems section: homosexuality. It would be good to be able to say
a) why there is a biblical prohibition on homosexuality (not merely that there is one), and
b) how a homosexual Christian, or a homosexual compelled by the Christian story, should deal with their situation. How can they see, in themselves, the image of God? What might that image mean for them, given that they’re being asked to deny something so seemingly central to the way they are? What can we say that would compel them to take on that burden, and persevere through the inevitable trials?
Perhaps Matt has the beginnings of an answer. Perhaps there is more in the biblical story that is waiting to be adopted, too. Perhaps, given the society in which we find ourselves, and our call to be healers and lightbearers, these questions are long overdue and worth our prayerful consideration.
Matt and I both have flea bites on our nipples. How freaky is that
well jono, as they’re the biggest part of your body, what do you expect?
This nipple biting behaviour, obviously by a fetishistic gay flea, proves that homosexuality is natural and should be accepted, not as an alternative lifestyle but the only rational behaviour. ;-)
matt, ‘pre-commitment sex’?? Is that sex before you enter into a de facto relationship? (or ipso facto). And ‘cosmic story’? Explain that term too cos it sounds a little hippy to my untrained ears.
look tim, get a blog
look matt, shirky is the man
look hans, no ma
yes, I liked the “pre-commitment” idea, very vague, very crazy stallion. Did you use “pre-commitment” to get away from obvious prejudices that a hearer would have about saying “Christian marriage” (you hear that and you turn off)? much the same way Maxim institute talks about “the civil society” rather than the society based on the Bible?
‘Pre-commitment’ because commitment was the facet of marriage that I wanted to emphasise. It’s not obvious to me what Maxim’s ‘civil society’ would look like, but then it’s perhaps even less obvious to me what ‘the society based on the Bible’ would look like.
Haha. You said sodom. Back there. Before.
So is ‘marriage sex’ living according to God’s commandments, or is it just a good way to take part in the ‘cosmic story’? I still don’t see the link between God and the universe. The God:Man relationship is clear because we are created in God’s image, but is the universe created in God’s image? Is there actualy a link there or are we clutching at metaphorical straws?
Sorry, replace ‘God:Man’ with ‘God:Church’
Collosians 1 shows that ‘cosmic story’ and ‘doing God’s commandments’ aren’t very far apart.
Also, if you are in the mood for another analogy – NT Wright says that the Church’s role in relation to the World is analogous to Jesus’ role in relation to Israel.
Not in the mood, sorry.
Right, after reading Collosians 1 I now see where you’re coming from. I guess if the girl in comment 9 was a non-xian I would be strongly against the use of terminology such as ‘cosmic story’ because it seems to be shrinking away from using potentially ‘offensive’ terms like ‘God’ and ‘commandments’. Actualy, I would be against the use of that terminology anyway because it gives the impression of searching to find alternative ways to explain the Bible. The words Paul uses are good enough for me. Gosh, lucky I spent so much time commenting here.
COLOSSIANS
But really good that it is being read, I agree with Sternum that use of Cosmic etc may will cloak any useful info about God and Salvation, probably OK-ish in-house with, at least some, shared presuppositions.
Tim, except that at the time (and most of the time) I was trying to explain myself, not the Bible. What I think about boys and girls and marriage and sex is informed by the Bible to some extent, but also by all sorts of other things, my own experiences, my impressions of others’ relationships etc.
Thank you Hans for getting in before Richface on the proper spelling of Colossians.
Matthew, appealing to your experience and putting it on the same pedestal as the Bible in informing your opinions is wrong. I presume that you mis-expressed yourself on that point? Sola Scriptura my good Reformed friend – that is the ticket.
Who knows where my opinions come from? I feed myself on the Bible (mostly Proverbs, of late), church services, conversations with people all over the place, innumerable books, innumerable articles, a bit of teev here and there, the odd movie, some nice sunrises and prayer and then when I ask my heart various questions it answers as best it can. Reading the Bible is part of my experience, it’s one of my eperiences, it doesn’t come outside of that. There’s no more direct route to my opinion-forming centre than experience.
What John said
Paul used certain words/phrases/imagery because his readers understood them and they communicated what he wanted to say. We should do the same. There isn’t a list of approved words to discuss what the bible says or means.
I believe Matt is saying that in the real world, his opinions get shaped by all sorts of things. Of course this is true. This should NOT be read (John) as an affirmation that all things are equally helpful or valid.
But John. are you saying that the *only* things that should directly inform our opinions are the scripture? And would you deny then that there is any useful mediation of the scripture (via common grace, one might say) in other things? So that we get informed by it indirectly? Like a godly friend’s conversation, or a CS Lewis novel, saturated in biblical categories?
Now, if you accept mediation in this way, why can’t you (and Tim) understand Matt’s point in that light? Your response seems to reflect an inability to think outside very literalistic ‘uber-reformed’ slogans – which I know is not true, of course. But using the slogans in that way doesn’t impress their value upon me at all.
what Aaron said
What I am saying is this: whenever I try to explain a Biblical concept to anybody, I try my best to use Biblical terms because the words contained in Paul, and the entire Bible, are God-inspired. While I have nothing against C.S. Lewis, xian friends, etc, I would always try to base any discussion (with unbelievers especially) on God’s Word. see 2 Timothy 3:16
But I bet Tim that you don’t speak the orginal Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew – the actual words that were inspired. And the reason you don’t is because what’s important is not the original words, but the meanings of them.
So, we have to communicate meaning, not particular sets of words.
though i appreciate your point that you’re trying to stick to the original meaning. that’s ccompletely commendable of course.
should we measure our opinions by the bible? Should scripture be a decisive part of the many influences that combine to produce my opinions?
I live yes and yes
I think the Bible is pretty self-explanatory most of the time. I just don’t think we need to think up new ways to explain it just because our hearers might not like the words used in the translations we have. I guess it just comes down to my aversion to words like ‘cosmic’. Also, our aims should be to have all of our opinions influenced as much as possible by God’s infallible (sp?) Word, rather than things written, said, or done by imperfect human beings.
I think today I understand the Bible better than I ever have. I think I don’t understand it very well at all.
tim, see my latest post . I agree with what you’re saying.
I still want to know the answer to Matt’s orginal question, asked before we got sidetracked: is homosexuality fundamentally lying about God in some way?
Yes
When I read #29, I don’t know whether I want to laugh or puke.
despair is me…Hans, I thank you for the short answer. But perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. The sense of Matt’s original question (and the bit I’m interested in) is HOW, exactly, homosexuality is a fundamental lie about God.
John. John, John, John. Ask yourself whether you think that Matt is really stupid enough to be saying what is so bad that you would puke. I had some other stuff here, but I’ve censored myself.
boringblogboringbrorodflfjkv,mcncvv myheart is hardeningng
45 comments is way too many, can we please continue this discussion under a different post? perhaps thursday 20th? ill get the ball rolling there.
Sternum: No. John: Puke. Matt: Soften. Aaron: God is a faithful Covenant creator of children who restores us unfaithful offspring back into his multigenerational family through the love of his begotten son. His son relates to us as a husband to a wife with sacrificial love. God’s greatest blessings are to us and our children’s children. God is not at all about dead-end relationships that are contrary to his express command and revealed nature. To pretend otherwise is to lie about his being, his word, his love and his actions.
when i tell people about the cosmic story they all associate with this stupid song by Jamiroquai. For that reason i stay away from it. Quite literally.
actually, just kidding guys, ive never used that phrase in my life
hmmm. Cheers, Hans. Well that’s about as far as I’ve got, too. I wonder if that might be worth developing into something that we could use to speak about the growing homosexual activism about the place. Where is it going; what ‘stories’ does it tell? Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, I realised the other day, is h/s lifestyle evangelism. Our kids are learning that story at the moment.