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Christianity Today, October (Web-only), 2007 |

Theology in the News

Itchy Ears and Tongues of Fire

Gay-rights group employs Scripture. Also: Pentecostal success invites new challenges.

Collin Hansen | posted 10/12/2007 09:27AM

Reading the weekly e-zine from Sojourners/Call to Renewal, I was surprised to see an advertisement for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Readers may recognize HRC as the leading gay-rights organization, ...

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CBob	Posted: October 24, 2007 6:29 PM


I concur wholeheartedly with gay activists and sympathizers that there are other sins, that all sins be taken seriously; indeed, holiness demands it.

Patrick

Posted: October 16, 2007 7:32 AM


So I guess this is a place where we can beat up the UCC. Never mind that the writer misrepresented that denomination's new emphasis on the Holy Spirit, even though many evangelicals also believe that "God is still speaking" through the Holy Spirit. CT is starting to look more like an in-club thing--but let's at least be fair. There was no justification in taking that potshot at the UCC.

specks and beams

Posted: October 14, 2007 10:09 PM

"Itching ears" is one of those handy polemical phrases that can be applied to anyone who believes something controversial that also aligns with her interests, like: Family-values Christians' ears itch for the gospel that tells them that the heterosexual nuclear family, preferably of the suburban variety, is ordained by God. These itchy ears are averse to dwelling too long on Jesus' clear suspicion of the family ("call no one father") and Paul's statement that marriage belongs to the order of the world that is passing away ("let even those who have wives be as though they had none"). These itchy ears prefer the pastoral epistles, whose author clearly is having to deal with people who took these sayings of Jesus and Paul all too seriously. Watch out! Gossipy widows! And so, unlike 1 Cor., where Paul advises celibacy to all who can (marriage is a prophylactic for the unable), the author of 1 Tim. advises that all young widows should get married, which evidently helps with the gossip.

Islwyn

Posted: October 14, 2007 4:22 PM

Alan P. "In saying this Jesus declared all foods clean." Isn't this about the method of eating and not what is eaten? Mark 7:1-8,13. In Lev.20:24-26 it is God speaking in the context of moral instructions. It makes clear these are not temporary ceremonial laws as the NIV inserts (V.5). When "Jesus declared all foods clean," he would have referred to food, not to what God had prohibited unfit for human consumption. It is in the context of sanitary practices that we find Lev. 11. To take a view out from what the Lion Handbook to the Bible (1987, p. 175) says: This list of clean and unclean animals in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 . . . have a significance often ignored. Far from being a catalogue of food taboos based on fad and fancy, these lists emphasise a fact not discovered until late in the last century and still not generally known, that animals carry disease dangerous to man." Read the whole article then exegete Mark 7. Then exegete statements in the Bible on homosexuality.

cheif68@aol.com

Posted: October 13, 2007 7:36 PM

you know i have went too several pentecostial churchs now maybe i miss understood what i read but i dont ever remember going to a pentecostial church are camp meeting that did not talk in tounges beleive in the Holy Ghost are the laying on of hands to heal the sick are to help pray though to God Jesue Christ and The Holy ghost by your self with others or the hole Church. if this is right i guess it is good that my Mother has past on I guess it has become like The Methodist church now Women Pastors I still havent found that in the Bible in Jesus Name Amen;;

AlanP

Posted: October 13, 2007 7:20 AM

John said, “Bible…also clearly condemns eating shrimp and bacon. When you pick and choose from amongst such admonitions, you are becoming a "cafeteria" Christian.” On the contrary Jesus said in Mark 7:18-19, “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’? For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”) NIV.

Rodler

Posted: October 12, 2007 2:08 PM

Amen to 2 Tim. 4:3-4! It describes perfectly what our President and his allies in the Religious Right do every time they want to start a war. Ignoring our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ's many plain teachings about loving our enemies, about not returning violence for violence, and about the blessedness of peacemakers, they twist their Christian faith to suit their own agendas--as if they believed what Jesus taught wasn't relevant for "real life" as you say. But, just like the Bible says, those who hear the words of Christ but don't do them are like foolish men who build their houses on sand. Which may or many not have anything to do with why we keep fighting so many wars in sandy desert regions...

Doug	Posted: October 12, 2007 12:11 PM


Itchy Ears: How thick the deception! The irony of gay pride--"I will come to God on MY terms, not His." Arrogance and narcissism seem to know no bounds, and continually hunt for any legitimate looking trick to bolster the position. What a pitiful and tragic situation.

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