Category Archives: antiquity
An unbroken cloud of witnesses against sexual sin
As GCM Watch reported earlier here and here, gay christian researcher John Boswell set out to prove that the church was historically “tolerant” to homosexual unions. Liberally using what has been called “strained exegesis”, he formulated a religious fallacy in which he argued those unions were “normal” and comparable to those of the contemporary gay community. The gay christian movement consequently built on that particular tenet, but contrary to the voices of esteemed early churchmen. Those voices were exceedingly vocal and intolerant of any homosexual activity among self-professed followers of Christ. The record shows that both biblical witness and apostolic tradition uniformly condemned homosexual practice as destestable and certainly outside of the will of God.
First, read the excellent findings of Christopher Todd Bounds, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Theology at Indiana Wesleyan University.
Some additional highlights on homosexual issues from the early church fathers:
Though somewhat controversial, The Didache, yet reflects the prevailing Christian rejection of homosexuality within the Christian context:
“You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill one that has been born” (Didache 2:2 [A.D. 70]).
Justin Martyr (100-165 A.D.), one of the earliest Christian apologists whose works represent the earliest surviving Christian apologies of notable size:
“[W]e have been taught that to expose newly-born children is the part of wicked men; and this we have been taught lest we should do anyone harm and lest we should sin against God, first, because we see that almost all so exposed (not only the girls, but also the males) are brought up to prostitution. And for this pollution a multitude of females and hermaphrodites, and those who commit unmentionable iniquities, are found in every nation. And you receive the hire of these, and duty and taxes from them, whom you ought to exterminate from your realm. And anyone who uses such persons, besides the godless and infamous and impure intercourse, may possibly be having intercourse with his own child, or relative, or brother. And there are some who prostitute even their own children and wives, and some are openly mutilated for the purpose of sodomy; and they refer these mysteries to the mother of the gods” (First Apology 27 [A.D. 151]).
Tertullian, 2nd century apologist:
“[A]ll other frenzies of the lusts which exceed the laws of nature, and are impious toward both [human] bodies and the sexes, we banish, not only from the threshold but also from all shelter of the Church, for they are not sins so much as monstrosities” (Modesty 4 [A.D. 220]).
Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea whose work forged unity among pro-orthodoxy believers:
“[H]aving forbidden all unlawful marriage, and all unseemly practice, and the union of women with women and men with men, he [God] adds: ‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for in all these things the nations were defiled, which I will drive out before you. And the land was polluted, and I have recompensed [their] iniquity upon it, and the land is grieved with them that dwell upon it’ [Lev. 18:24–25]” (Proof of the Gospel 4:10 [A.D. 319]).
Augustine
“[T]hose shameful acts against nature, such as were committed in Sodom, ought everywhere and always to be detested and punished. If all nations were to do such things, they would be held guilty of the same crime by the law of God, which has not made men so that they should use one another in this way” (Confessions 3:8:15 [A.D. 400]).
HT: Laura
The legacy of John Boswell's brilliant lie
Yesterday, we explored the life, impact and tragic legacy of gay historian and intellectual John Boswell as well as the impact of his most controversial book Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality. Today we continue by further exploring Boswell’s impact on gay christianity.
Regardless of the stated purpose for writing the book, it was received by the heretofore voiceless gay christian movement as somewhat of a holy relic. We’ll call it CSTH worship because unlike any of his other books, this one catapulted him into savior status in the eyes of the gay christian movement. Without ever reading the book, one could sense the apotropaic essense it held for religious homosexuals.
Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality floated the far-fetched hypothesis that homosexuality had never been condemned by the church doctrinally, it was all just a matter of the church being influenced by social rejection of same gender relationships. Boswell seemed to know, since this was his last book, that no matter how completely absurd the suppositions, it would be received as a formidable opponent to the Bible. Of course, there was no bypassing what the scripture said about homosexuality, therefore Boswell (and others of the scholarly pedigree) set about to circumvent what it said with what they decided it meant. And predictably, through their scholarly discoveries, what it said was inconsequential compared to what history said and more importantly what history acknowledged. In that respect, Boswell accomplished his goal. The arguments presented in CSTH are now esteemed as gay theology’s magna carta with cum laude.
Speaking of contradiction in Boswell’s research and thus reasoning, in a 1979 speech, he told a convention of gay christians, “The real point I want to make is that there is absolutely no conscious effort on anyone’s part in the Roman world, the world in which Christianity was born, to claim that homosexuality was abnormal or undesirable.”
He did not make the connection that this is precisely what the Apostles Paul, Peter, Jude and others fought against. If Boswell is right, this was not homosexual rape and man-boy relationships gays try to distance themselves from. In Boswell’s view homosexual relationships under the Pax Romana in which Christianity was born and raised, were “loving, monogamus, consensual.” They were normal. And yet the Holy Spirit prompted the apostles to condemn such “normal” relationships in the strongest possible terms. The apostles observed the sexually permissive culture around them, and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, condemned it as antithetical to a life of devotion to Christ. Believers were therefore forbidden to accept it and participate in it. Quite frankly, it explains the intensity of Paul’s Romans 1 homily portraying homosexuality as the paradigm of rebellion against God.
Red letter love and war
Its no wonder that any attempts to discuss homosexuality with gay christians using the Bible as a compass in near impossible. Their belief system is primarily inlfuenced by CSTH and secondarily influenced by scripture. Although the secondary sphere of influence is scripture, it is strikingly minimal, opting only to “red letter” their positions and even further limiting scripture to “red letter love” texts.
Many of the gay christians I have engaged in debate about this issue immediately deploy “red letter love” points as a shield against any condemnation of homosexuality. Considering CSTH’s massive influence on gay christian thought, its necessary to address this weak and erroneous position. Consider two conversations with Jesus about what is important to a servant of God.
Luke 10:25 And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? 26He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? 27And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. 28And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.
Jesus let the man answer his own question. It a restatement of the shema, the most important Jewish recitation of all. Jesus affirmed its correctness. Conversely, the shema also includes a warning that failing to heed the commandments would incur God’s wrath.
In another place it records he was asked the same question, but with different wording:
Matt 22:36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38This is the first and great commandment. 39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Jesus places emphasis on loving God with the totality of heart, soul and strength. Everything (including our bodies). But the question is how? How do we love God like this?
Without fanfare and without any exemptions, Jesus answered that question in John 14:15 “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” Incidentally, the same greek word for love “agape”, is used in both instances. Additionally, red letter theorists seem to miss that Jesus said loving God and neighbor was the greatest commandment, not the only commandment.
How then, could John Boswell as a gay christian, love God like this and yet at the same time gut the commandment of God with CSTH? And how, by extension does the gay christian movement proclaim to love God, but follow the words of John Boswell?
Boswell could not even tell the truth to his closest gay friends. He consistently lied to them about his illness, telling them he had “lyme’s disease”. Are we to believe he was acting with the utmost of integrity and honesty in dealing with this eternal issue of souls? Hardly.
Boswell intentionally used CSTH as an alluring pipe in his pied piper experiement. And because they were so desperate for a reason not to obey God’s commandments, the gay christian movement followed him and continues to follow Boswell’s brilliant lie down a path to certain perdition.
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. Romans 1:21,22 KJV
John Boswell: a wasted gift of intellect
John Boswell’s life was tragic and short, but his revisioning of homosexuality in the Christian context became the basis of theological argument for much, it not all of, the gay christian movement.
His life was tragic because although he retained an enormous gifting of intellect, he used it to subvert Christian teaching on homosexuality. It was equally tragic because despite his stellar intellect, it did not protect him from contracting AIDS and eventually dying from it in 1994 at age 47.
Many of the arguments for the compatiblity of homosexuality and Christianity stem from John Boswell’s extremely controversial book Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality.
In fact, if any Christian is confused by the rhetoric of tolerance and acceptance preached by the gay christian movement of today, one would need to look no further than Boswell’s book as the origin. Boswell’s book, more than the man himself, was the fathering voice of gay christian movement.
Advocates of homosexuality hailed the book primarily because they saw it as long awaited proof the sexually restrictive moral codes and standards of Christianity were indeed wrong. In Boswell’s book, they found the “authority” required to assault those standards.
Using his extensive Yale training in history and medieval languages, Boswell shrewdly argued that homosexuality was both tolerated and admired in historical western Christianity.
But like many homosexuals who have written what could be termed brilliant exposition or some other form of self-enabling research (Simon LeVay And the Hypothalamus theory), Boswell was out to prove a point that would stand only to benefit himself and others who rejected predominant Christian teaching on homosexuality.
But James Brundage, a professor of history and law at the University of Kansas, was quoted in an Associated Press story of Boswell’s death that, while the “mainstream reaction” believed Boswell raised some interesting questions, he hadn’t proved his case.
Rebuttals to Boswell’s historical hypothesis came from both sides of the theological coin.
John Lauritsen, a gay writer and activist wrote in hisCulpa Ecclesiae: Boswell’s Dilemma
“It is not surprising that Professor Boswell has been enthusiastically hailed by the gay Christians, to whom he appears as a new Savior who will rescue them, not only from queer-hating religionists, but from gay liberation secularists as well, by demonstrating historically that it’s all right to be a gay Christian.
I cannot remember reading a more frustrating book. Undeniably, it is a formidable work of scholarship. Boswell has retrieved, and translated, charming medieval verse, letters and other materials from periods which were previously more or less blank in the pages of gay history.On the other hand, Boswell’s arguments, his use of evidence, are fatally flawed by his doomed attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable. In his effort to marry the gay liberation movement to the Christian Church, Boswell is too often required to compromise the former while becoming complicitous in the historic crimes of the latter. “
Gary DeMar, president of American Vision said Boswell’s book was so critical to the gay christian movement that “if you refute it, you refute all arguments that claim the Bible does not condemn homosexual behavior.” He further characterized Boswell’s work as “strained exegesis”.
“Boswell minimizes the importance of this [Sodom] story when he writes, “The sexual overtones to the story are minor, if present, and that the original moral impact of the passage had to do with hospitality. Briefly put, . . . Lot was violating the custom of Sodom (where he was himself not a citizen but only a ‘sojourner’) by entertaining unknown guests within the city walls at night without obtaining the permission of the elders of the city.” Boswell assumes what he must prove.”
Boswell’s adept ability at “assuming what he must prove” has become a chief characteristic of the gay christian argumentation [see this post and links to Neil's 5 part series on the problem of progay theology.] for the compatibility of homosexuality and Christianity. Boswell left a legacy which, in our opinion, will cause many well meaning individuals to be blinded by Boswell’s brilliant lie. For all the intelligence and intellect Boswell harnessed to construct such a web of deception, be himself seemed to be its greatest victim.
Religious idolatry at the roots of gay christianity
Pictured at left: Etruscan symposium in a fresco from a tomb wall-painting from Cereveteri, depicting a youth refusing the advances of his neighbour on a symposium couch.
Proponents of gay christianity go through great lengths to present opposition to homosexuality, solely as a product of biblical misinterpretation. But there were other prominent, non-Christian voices in antiquity on record against the act. Voices like that of Psuedo-Lucian, a native of Samosata on the Euphrates, born around 120 A.D. He was the most famous of ancient Satirists, greatly influencing both ancient and modern satire. His special forte was philosophical and anti-philosophical criticism of society and philosophers. In his Affairs of the Heart, he writes:
“In the beginning , human life obeyed the laws made by nature; and men, linking themselves to women…became fathers of children. But gradually the passing years degenerated from such nobility to the lowest depths of hedonism…The same sex entered the same bed. Though they saw themselves embracing each other, they were ashamed neither at what they did not at what they had done to them. And sowing their seed on barren rocks, to quote the proverb, they brought little pleasure at the cost of great disgrace.” >
Although influential with his satirical perspectives, Lucian’s view of homosexuality ran counter to a culture saturated with idolatry.
The Greco-Roman culture’s justification of homosexuality stemmed from their idolatrous worship. Within the pantheon of gods, examples of same gender sexual coupling came from the “highest” at Mount Olympus. The chief god Zeus (also known by his Roman counterpart name Jupiter), engaged in a sexual relationship with Ganymede, a young male. In the Encyclopedie van de Mythologie, Mia Gibson wrote that “Zeus’ torrid affair with Ganymede was a religious justification for homosexuality within the Greek culture.”
Thus, the actions of men mirrored the actions of their gods. Their sense of sexual morality derived from immoral creation of their own imaginations (reference Paul’s masterful summation in Romans 1:21-23).
Likewise, the ancient communities in the periperhals of Isreal, post wilderness, followed the examples of their gods. Namely, Baal-Ashtoreth whose followers engaged in rituals of imitative magic involving homo and hetero-sexual behavior. Contrary to gay christian ideology, God did not condemn this simply so that Isreal could grow in population, but Baal worship cut at the heart of God’s sovereignty in Isreal, and indeed over the whole earth (Psalms 24:1). Hoping to diffuse the strong prophetic denunciations constantly coming from God, some worshipped Jehovah along with the false gods. Yet, there is not one instance in the Old Testament records which even remotely indicate God was pleased at Isreal’s emulation of Canaanite idol worship and sexual expression. In contrast, He responded with “fierce anger.”
Some things never change
Contemporary religious based homosexuality, like its typological ancient practice, is yet attempting to “have it all” by claiming the worship of God in concert with the practices derived from religious idol worship. the ethical relativists of the gay christian movement engage in circular argumentation embedded with cultural loopholes. Like we pointed out with Bishop Carlton Pearson, a rejection of Biblical authority forces one to circumvent what is othewise clear teachings of the scripture. Such arguments must be rejected because both Christ and the apostles accepted the divine authorship, infallibility and absolute authority of the Old Testament. Although the proponents of religious homosexuality dismiss or explain away OT injunctions, Christ, his apostles and subsequent writers of the NT did nothing of the sort.
How many times do the writers of the New Testament quote the Old Testament? An index in the Jewish New Testament catalogs 695 separate quotations from the books of the Old Testament in the New (Jewish New Testament Publications, Jerusalem, 1989). There are many other passages where the Old Testament is referred to, as in cases where an Old Testament figure is mentioned, but no specific scripture is quoted. Depending on which scholar’s work you examine, the number of quotations and references in the New Testament to the Old may be as high as 4,105 (Roger Nicole, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1979, Vol. I, p. 617).
Compare those figures to the number of times other writers are quoted in the New Testament: four. The apostles quoted the Old Testament 695 times, but other writers only four times. Yet some people insist that the teaching of the New Testament is that the Old is obsolete, only valid for a specific people during a limited time in history.
Consider a few more statistics. Of the 26 books and letters forming the New Testament, 20 quote the Old. The only ones that don’t directly quote the Old Testament are the six shortest-Titus, Philemon, 1, 2 and 3 John, and Jude. However, Titus, 1 John, 3 John and Jude allude to Old Testament personalities or passages.
Thus, the religious homosexual movement is the worst form of idolatry because it willfully perverts the intent and practice of sexuality while prostituting the worship of Christ.
