26.3.16
Robert Gagnon the Hypocrite
Snippet of E-mails Robert Gagnon received and his responses taken from Gagnon's own website that shows his bias:
"How do you think pastors should deal with the question of divorce and remarriage?"
Gagnon's response:
The divorce-remarriage thing is difficult. While a serious issue it is not as serious as... homosexual practice."
The question of heterosexuals living together outside of marriage asked Gagnon with the header; "Is heterosexual cohabitation grounds for denying church membership?"
Gagnon's response:
"My answer is: No, it is not as serious as homosexual practice..."
Robert Gagnon the Ass
A snippet of an E-mail Robert Gagnon received from a gay Christian and his response taken from Gagnon's own website:
"I pray that God will show you more compassion and love towards your gay brothers and sisters in the future."
Gagnon's response:
"Your prayers are self-serving and based on your own flawed logic and poor reading of Scripture. The remark is, frankly, arrogant on your part."
One blog critic had Gagnon prefacing a rebuttal with saying the blog author lost his job. The sole purpose of this was to embarrass him.
"I pray that God will show you more compassion and love towards your gay brothers and sisters in the future."
Gagnon's response:
"Your prayers are self-serving and based on your own flawed logic and poor reading of Scripture. The remark is, frankly, arrogant on your part."
One blog critic had Gagnon prefacing a rebuttal with saying the blog author lost his job. The sole purpose of this was to embarrass him.
10.3.16
9.3.16
MENTIRI TE
The newly started "Viceland Channel" played their segment on ex-gay therapy to a televised nation tonight (before you could only see it on their website and few did) and I wanted to re-post what I wrote about "ex-gays" a few months back that included the Vice link.
After watching it again it struck me that these men who want to be "real men" believe you can find being a man with being a husband, a father and having a white picket fence (what they actually stated). What they don't get is that's not what being a man is about. Being a man is rising above adversity with your head held high no matter the cost, having the strength, the fight, to come out and be true to yourself with who you are with what looks like, and sometimes is, institutions in our society like the Church fighting against you in finding peace in a grounded, gay, identity.
These are cowards you see in the Vice story. They just don't want to go through the tough life of being gay in a straight world... they've taken a coward's way out and that is not being a man.
4.3.16
Just Stop
Franklin Graham is in the news again (remember this publicity hound?) and this time he's aiming his guns on little girls who brave the cold outside of supermarkets to sell cookies. I have to be in agreement with Franklin on this one because ever have a Thin Mint Cookie? Only something that good can come from the depths of a burning HELL of delicious!
This is a good thing, again.
“We have allowed the enemy to come into our churches. I was talking to some Christians and they were talking about how they invited these gay children to come into their home and to come into the church and that they were wanting to influence them.”
“And I thought to myself, they’re not going to influence those kids, those kids are going to influence those parents’ children. What happens is we think we can fight by smiling and being real nice and loving. We have to understand who the enemy is and what he wants — he wants to devour our homes. He wants to devour this nation.”
- Franklin Graham
This is a good thing, again.
“We have allowed the enemy to come into our churches. I was talking to some Christians and they were talking about how they invited these gay children to come into their home and to come into the church and that they were wanting to influence them.”
“And I thought to myself, they’re not going to influence those kids, those kids are going to influence those parents’ children. What happens is we think we can fight by smiling and being real nice and loving. We have to understand who the enemy is and what he wants — he wants to devour our homes. He wants to devour this nation.”
- Franklin Graham
25.2.16
Thursday with John Holbert
Mr. Holbert is a retired Professor of Homiletics and Religion and has a PhD in the Hebrew Bible. He's Pastored in a Methodist local church, preached and taught in more than 1,000 churches in 40 states and 20 countries and authored 40 books.
20.2.16
18.2.16
Helping Francis
Like with my Tim Keller post, I like to give sane and reasonable Christians who differ with me on the Bible and homosexuality a little time on my blog when I can find them.
Que Francis Chan.
I found this little gem from Francis. What he said from the 5:00 mark on made me replay it to make sure I heard him right with saying he can be convinced homosexuality isn't a sin if you can give him the argument from Scripture.
Que Francis Chan.
I found this little gem from Francis. What he said from the 5:00 mark on made me replay it to make sure I heard him right with saying he can be convinced homosexuality isn't a sin if you can give him the argument from Scripture.
31.1.16
Mad*esh Kad*esh
I touched on the Quedesh, also spelled Kadesh, whose spelling I'll use here. The Priesthood from Deuteronomy in this post. Granted, the Leviticus verses don't state directly; "It's the Kadesh cult practices being talked about in Leviticus and not a prohibition of homosexuality as a general rule," but two points, if true, will leave the connection with the Kadeshem to Leviticus without question for the naysayers.
2. That the Canaanites frowned on homosexuality outside of cult worship settings and that the prohibition in Leviticus 18:22 can't be anything but homosexuality in the context of ONLY cult idolatry.
The first point is easily proven by the Bible Itself:
1. That homosexual cult prostitution already existed in Canaan before the time the Israelites entered the land.
The first point is easily proven by the Bible Itself:
Leviticus 20:5: "... then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut him off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Moloch."
1 Kings 14:24 and 22:46:
"There were even male shrine prostitutes Kadesh (qā·ḏêš) in the land... "
"He rid the land of the rest of the male shrine prostitutes (haq·qā·ḏêš)... "
This is also backed by the historical record.*
The second point clinches it because Leviticus 18;3 states the Israelites were not to do the practices of the Canaanites:
"You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices."
Now if it can be shown that the Canaanites did not practice homosexuality as a norm outside of their cult ceremonies or even prohibited homosexual practice, that means homosexuality was not one of the Canaanite "practices" God is forbidding to the Israelites and Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 falls ONLY in the 'cult male prostitution' category the Canaanites DID practice.
Records from the Canaanite civilization are silent on homosexuality either way, but In his book "The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship," Frederick Greenspahn states the Canaanite law codes where directly copied from Mesopotamian Law Codes and what do we find in MALC (Mesopotamian Law Code), Tablet A: 19, 20? A rumor of homosexuality being slanderous and a general prohibition of homosexuality outside of idolatry. We can now say homosexuality was not only not a "practice," but it was also prohibited by the Canaanites if they indeed copied Mesopotamian Law.
(note; there was no variance in views within the Mesopotamian Nations on homosexuality. What you read here is all there is on it.)
The Hittites would also have copied the Mesopotamian Law Codes on homosexuality because they lived in the same era and were close neighbors to the Canaanites, but nothing is stated outright about homosexuality either way with the Hittites. What we do have though are several Hittite historical documents that hint at how homosexuality was held by these people. One is the; "Siege of Ursu" text that had a Hittite army commander criticizing his men for acting as "Kulessar," what historians believe is acting like a passive homosexual. The other is an exorcism text called the "Ritual of Anniwiyani" whose purpose was to exorcise an "effeminate" demon.**
As for Egypt? The land the Israelites left to go to Canaan whose "practices" they were ALSO forbidden to follow by God? Even homosexual desire was condemned according to the "Egyptian Book of the Dead" and Derrick Sherwin Bailey states the ancient Egyptians regarded homosexual practices as; "... morally objectionable and personally degrading."
So there you have it. Homosexuality was rejected by the Egyptians whom the children of Israel left and from the evidence shown, also forbidden by the Canaanites whose land the children of Israel were going into. This would make "homosexuality" not one of the practices God forbids in Leviticus with the two lands and that would make homosexuality ONLY in the context of Canaanite idolatry the Canaanites probably abhorred as a people outside of idolatry
This is an angle no researcher has gone into as far as I know.
"There were even male shrine prostitutes Kadesh (qā·ḏêš) in the land... "
"He rid the land of the rest of the male shrine prostitutes (haq·qā·ḏêš)... "
This is also backed by the historical record.*
The second point clinches it because Leviticus 18;3 states the Israelites were not to do the practices of the Canaanites:
"You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices."
Now if it can be shown that the Canaanites did not practice homosexuality as a norm outside of their cult ceremonies or even prohibited homosexual practice, that means homosexuality was not one of the Canaanite "practices" God is forbidding to the Israelites and Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 falls ONLY in the 'cult male prostitution' category the Canaanites DID practice.
Records from the Canaanite civilization are silent on homosexuality either way, but In his book "The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship," Frederick Greenspahn states the Canaanite law codes where directly copied from Mesopotamian Law Codes and what do we find in MALC (Mesopotamian Law Code), Tablet A: 19, 20? A rumor of homosexuality being slanderous and a general prohibition of homosexuality outside of idolatry. We can now say homosexuality was not only not a "practice," but it was also prohibited by the Canaanites if they indeed copied Mesopotamian Law.
(note; there was no variance in views within the Mesopotamian Nations on homosexuality. What you read here is all there is on it.)
The Hittites would also have copied the Mesopotamian Law Codes on homosexuality because they lived in the same era and were close neighbors to the Canaanites, but nothing is stated outright about homosexuality either way with the Hittites. What we do have though are several Hittite historical documents that hint at how homosexuality was held by these people. One is the; "Siege of Ursu" text that had a Hittite army commander criticizing his men for acting as "Kulessar," what historians believe is acting like a passive homosexual. The other is an exorcism text called the "Ritual of Anniwiyani" whose purpose was to exorcise an "effeminate" demon.**
As for Egypt? The land the Israelites left to go to Canaan whose "practices" they were ALSO forbidden to follow by God? Even homosexual desire was condemned according to the "Egyptian Book of the Dead" and Derrick Sherwin Bailey states the ancient Egyptians regarded homosexual practices as; "... morally objectionable and personally degrading."
So there you have it. Homosexuality was rejected by the Egyptians whom the children of Israel left and from the evidence shown, also forbidden by the Canaanites whose land the children of Israel were going into. This would make "homosexuality" not one of the practices God forbids in Leviticus with the two lands and that would make homosexuality ONLY in the context of Canaanite idolatry the Canaanites probably abhorred as a people outside of idolatry
This is an angle no researcher has gone into as far as I know.
“Homosexual cult prostitution appears to have been the primary form in which homosexual intercourse was practiced in Israel.”
- Robert Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics; p.130.
*Two more resources on the Kadesh backing my claim:
*Two more resources on the Kadesh backing my claim:
"The Legacy of Canaan: The Ras Shamra Texts and Their Relevance to the Old Testament" by John Grey.
“The End of the Male Cult Prostitute: A Literary-Histoical and Sociological Analysis of Hebrew qadesh-qedeshim” by Phyllis Bird.
**To the ancients, a passive male, willingly, was what they would have the closest definition of a "homosexual," at least in their minds. A male who was penetrative in a homosexual act, either to humiliate the defeated in battle or as a sexual outlet was never considered a male desiring other males.
How much the ancients knew about a 'gay orientation' as we understand it today is for another discussion.
**To the ancients, a passive male, willingly, was what they would have the closest definition of a "homosexual," at least in their minds. A male who was penetrative in a homosexual act, either to humiliate the defeated in battle or as a sexual outlet was never considered a male desiring other males.
How much the ancients knew about a 'gay orientation' as we understand it today is for another discussion.
27.1.16
If Your Name Isn't On It Gagnon...
Steven Tuell, Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. I found him by accident when I stumbled across his blog. What's unique about Mr. Tuell is that he was at the same theological seminary Robert Gagnon went to, but unlike Robert, he is gay affirming with the Bible.
In honor of Mr. Tuell who loves Appalachian music.
In honor of Mr. Tuell who loves Appalachian music.
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