Discrimination Against Gays - What Would You Base That On?

[HAZARD]

Does the Word of God discriminate against gays?

Leviticus 18:   22, Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.

Leviticus 20:  13, And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

[Omegaman 3.0]

On 6/7/2019 at 1:37 PM, thomas t said:

Please BB, now the discussion isn't fruitful, anymore, I'm afraid... can we end this here?

Yes, that has been the case for the most of the discussion. we can end it here! It is going back and forth, without much being added after the first few pages. Nineteen pages is enough, the points have been made.

I will add a few things though, that basically will give me a sort of final word. That is not fair, but, that is what is.

First, I want to point out, that it seemed to me from the beginning, and seemed that way through out, that this thread was nor so much a question, a quest for knowledge or understanding, as it was an agenda to try to cast Bible believing Christians in a bad light, and to be critical of those denominations who choose to enforce Biblical church  discipline. Alsos, I though the way that the thread was directed by the original poster, was a bit disingenuous. By narrowing the focus to a very limited aspect - focusing on discrimination to the exclusion of what the Bible says is the way to deal with sin in the church, is to censor honest debate of what should be the real topic - How Should Christians Behave?

I do not disagree, that there are Christians who have prejudices, and that prejudices can be wrong, harmful, and unfruitful. While prejudices may not be desirable, it is also not-desirable to allow un-repentant sinners to stay in a congregation. The Corinthian church was proud of the fact, that they were tolerant of sexual sin in their midst. To them Paul said:

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

So, while discrimination is sometimes not good, indiscrimination is dangerous. Far from being an evil to eject habitual sinners from the congregation, it is the church's duty, to do exactly that. I will expound upon that in an edit to this post soon, with a flowchart that outlines the Biblical procedure, for how that should be done.

I have been very patient with this thread, my personal belief in general, is that debate is healthy. unending debate however, is just a waste of time and a clash of egos, with participants often getting sucked into having to be right, likely most of us are guilty of that, to various degrees.

A problem I have with deleting threads, is that a lot of good posts, and hard work by good people is lost. Therefore, rather than delete this thread (which some have encouraged and there are a few complaints about it), I have elected for now, to let the thread remain visible, but just closed it to further participation. It is no secret, that I like debate. Debate puts information out there, gives us options to chose from, and let's people see the merits and demerits of positions. Paul said:

 18For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, 19for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. 

That is the value of debate. Without differences, how will people know who are genuine believers, and who are not?  I think that thread makes it easy to spot the sheep from the wolves, the wheat from the tares,  the Bible believers from the Bible deniers. Here, I am not speaking of any participants in particular, but as a general practice of consideration for various opinionated threads around Worthy Christian Forums.

How do we tell who the genuine, and or sincere and informed ones are? We see what the debaters have to say, and we compare what they say, with what scripture has to say. It takes a little work, but that is how it happens.

[Omegaman 3.0]

I have been in a private discussion with the originator of this thread, thomas t. He felt, and he is correct, that for me to close the thread with some of the remarks I made, were a bit unfair, in that he had no opportunity to respond. I agreed to let him have on more input, in a sort of self-defense or a correction of what he believes were incorrect characterizations. Also, I informed him, that I would be adding a flowchart, that outlines the scriptural basis and procedure, off applying church discipline when a person in the congregation, is engaged in ongoing sin. Also, there is a good video, that addresses some broader issues, and the theology surrounding related topics.

The next post here, will be a quote from thomas t, which he sent to me, in the private message I mentioned.

[thomas t]

 In my opinion the tread is not disingenuous, I  honestly wanted to know the reasoning behind treating gays in a certain manner. For me, narrowing down a topic is not the same as censoring, 'gay partnership = sin' has been said some 20 times in the thread, at least. Last but not least, I never wanted to cast people in a bad light but actions alone. I'm being honest

[Omegaman 3.0]

The scriptural procedure for church discipline that I indicated that I would supply:

OK, after all that work, it looks pretty crummy on-screen. Will make a PDF file, for any interested for better viewing, or even printing hopefully. If I get ambitious, might even have hyper-links on it, we'll see!

If you right click the image, and choose open in new tab, it should display larger in most browsers, but it will still be a bit fuzzy, not as sharp as it should be.

Update:

OK, no fancy links in it, but you should be able to download a better copy (PDF file) here:

churchdiscipline.pdf