From: cartercc{at}gmail.com

The reason you don't respond to the substance of the conversation is
because you can't. You think you can stay on the fringe and take potshots
from time to time, and that is the same as a full participation, but it
isn't.

On Mar 28, 12:00 pm, ChapelMouse  wrote:
>  >  So homosexuals led by the Spirit would pray to the
>
> > Lord for strength to stay away from such sexual behaviors, and not
> > accept a "gay lifestyle" (with all that entails) as correct.
>
> Pure ignorance.  There is no "gay lifestyle".  There are many
> different gay people, living their lives in many different
> ways, no different than straights.

THAT'S NOT WHAT DANIEL MEANT!!! (And you know it.) What he meant, and said
pretty clearly, was that the practice of sexuality outside of marriage is
sinful, and people truly led by the spirit would pray for strength to
resist sexual relationships outside of marriage. He used the indefinite
article 'a' and surrounded the words 'gay lifestyle' with double quotes.
This might not have been the most articulate way of expressing it, but it's
clear that he wasn't singling out a particular 'gay lifestyle' to
disapprove in distinction to others he might approve, but referred in
general to the practice of having a sexual relationship with a gay lover.
In this regard, the same can be said for straight lifestyles, that is,
having a sexual relationship outside of marriage with a straight lover.

Why don't you repsond to what he was saying -- which was that committed
Christians resist falling into sexual temptation, whatever their sexual
orientation, and try to remain abstinent if they are not married?
> > If the State wants to
> > allow same-sex unions and give homosexuals marriage rights, that's not
> > going to affect me or anyone I know.
>
> Probably it does affect someone you know.  We are indeed
> everywhere.  They just haven't come out to you.

Which is why this isn't like the civil rights struggle. If a person doesn't
'act' gay, he isn't for all practical purposes. By the same token, the only
way for him to show his sexual identity is for him to
'act' gay. A homosexual person who abstains from immoral sexuality for
all practical pruposes isn't gay. For such a person to 'come out' would be
tantamount to a rejection of Christianity.

> Maybe you would be less ignorant if you made an effort to
> get to know someone whom this *would* affect.  Like a real
> gay person, perhaps. That's what "listening" is all about.

As opposed to a fake gay person? Sorry, but I don't buy the notion that we
should seek out a person simply because of his sexual orientation.

> >  But, if such people want to come
> > into my Church,
>
> *Your* church -- I thought it was God's Church.

He specifically said 'my church' OR ANY OTHER CHRISTIAN DENOMINATION. He
wasn't talking about his local fellowship of believers, or making a claim
to ownership of the Church Universal, but was speaking about associations
of believers, denominations, like Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans,
Catholics, etc.

I also notice that you didn't respond to his last paragraph. Here it is:

>>> "Listening" to sinners means that the Church is in a position
>>> to change vis-a-vis their demands.  It's the other way
>>> around -- the sinner needs to "listen" to the Church.

How about that? The sinner needs to listen to the Church. Here, Daniel is
talking about the Church Universal, and the messsage is that extramarital
sexual relationships are sinful.

See I John 1:9. 'If we confess our sins ...' The trouble with people like
Imogene Robinson is that he has no concept of sin. Either TEC has changed
its theology that sex outside of marriage is sin, or it has changed its
theology that we no longer need to confess sins ... or Imogene Robinson is
an unconfessed and unrepentant sinner.

Go ahead. Make the argument that sex outside of marriage is not sin. Or the
argument that we no longer need to confess sin. Go ahead. Like Clint
Eastwood, you'll make my day.

CC

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