SCIENCE'S INFLUENCE ON RELIGION - Consider Homosexual Inclusion - 1 views

• 
  #1 Frederick Smith on 10 Jan 10

   

  The interface between science and religion interests me greatly, since I define myself both as a devout Christian and as a world citizen who is deeply grateful for the scientific method and its enormous contributions, not only to medical and other technology, but also to the understanding of people's relationships to each other - an understanding that religious communities have, in recent centuries been unable to ignore in their own ethical formulations: biblically-derived justifications of slavery and racial segregation, divine right of kings, and female subservience seem to have few Western adherents today. (Barack Obama and Sarah Palin should be proof enough)
  
  ARGUABLY THE POST-RENAISSANCE TURN TO FREE EMPIRICAL OBSERVATION AND PUBLICALLY REVIEWABLE, REPRODUCIBLE SCIENTIFIC TESTING OF HYPOTHESES HAS ARGUABLY PLAYED AT LEAST AN INDIRECT ROLE IN THIS PROGRESS. (It may also be argued that certain rational, unitive streams within the Abrahamic traditions (Islam, Christianity and Judaism) contributed to the rise of empirical science with its faith that the material world is one and can be understood with the proper rational, non-magical, experimental approach.)
  
  What is the next stretching of the mental envelope the Spirit will ask us to make? It seems pretty clear to me that a science (and experience) point to (if not yet conclusively prove that) HOMOSEXUALITY IS A GENETICALLY IMPRINTED PREFERENCE, with all the libidinous power that suggestion implies. (Recall the apostle Paul's allowance for heterosexual union over the celibacy he preferred: "It is better to marry than to burn" (I Corinthians 7:9 - KJV). DOES NOT A GENETIC UNDERSTANDING OF HOMO-SEXUAL PREFERENCE IMPLY A SIMILAR EQUALIZATION OF RIGHTS, INCLUDING MARRIAGE [with the same understanding about fidelity that religious and other ethical people hold about heterosexual commitments], for our gay brothers and sisters? This is the position my own Episcopal national church is taking on this issue, and I believe it is the right one.
  
  The push in this direction presently seems a hurdle too high for most American Christians (although with no more supporting Scripture than the previous hurdles mentioned above) - as well as for other religious people and Christians in other cultures. (See the 1/4/10 NY Times report on the proposal by Ugandan Christian politicians to make homosexuality a capital crime - perhaps fueled in part by a visit from U.S. anti-gay evangelicals outlining the purported "evil agenda" of homosexuals, although these teachers deny any intent to criminalize gayness so severely: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/world/africa/04uganda.html?scp=1&sq=uganda,%20homosexuals&st=cse.)
  
  To my unpersuaded Christian relatives and friends, I encourage a re-reading of Acts chapters10 and 15 (New Testament), which describe the quandary mid-1st-century Torah-observing Jewish Christians faced with respect to Gentile converts who were clueless to Torah requirements, and who were deemed "unclean" and therefore inadmissible to the religious community - unless they gave up their culture, became circumcised and began observing stringent Jewish religious laws.
  
  See particularly the following words (to and by the apostle Peter) which seem to me to apply equally, in our time, to fellow Christians whom I know, who happen to be gay, and whose only agenda is to live in peace and harmony - without prejudice or persecution - within the larger community, with all the rights and responsibilities granted/expected for other citizens
  
  * "What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy." (Acts 10:15)
  * "Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did" [in the face of their manifesting obvious "gifts of the Spirit"]. (Acts 10:47-48)
  * "God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are." (Acts 15:8-11)
  (all references are from the New American Standard Bible Translation - ASBT):

   

  <div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">The interface between science and religion interests me greatly, since I define myself both as a devout Christian and as a world citizen who is deeply grateful for the scientific method and its enormous contributions, not only to medical and other technology, but also to the understanding of people's relationships to each other - an understanding that religious communities have, in recent centuries been unable to ignore in their own ethical formulations: biblically-derived justifications of slavery and racial segregation, divine right of kings, and female subservience seem to have few Western adherents today. (Barack Obama and Sarah Palin should be proof enough) <br /> <br /> ARGUABLY THE POST-RENAISSANCE TURN TO FREE EMPIRICAL OBSERVATION AND PUBLICALLY REVIEWABLE, REPRODUCIBLE SCIENTIFIC TESTING OF HYPOTHESES HAS ARGUABLY PLAYED AT LEAST AN INDIRECT ROLE IN THIS PROGRESS. (It may also be argued that certain rational, unitive streams within the Abrahamic traditions (Islam, Christianity and Judaism) contributed to the rise of empirical science with its faith that the material world is one and can be understood with the proper rational, non-magical, experimental approach.) <br /> <br /> What is the next stretching of the mental envelope the Spirit will ask us to make? It seems pretty clear to me that a science (and experience) point to (if not yet conclusively prove that) HOMOSEXUALITY IS A GENETICALLY IMPRINTED PREFERENCE, with all the libidinous power that suggestion implies. (Recall the apostle Paul's allowance for heterosexual union over the celibacy he preferred: "It is better to marry than to burn" (I Corinthians 7:9 - KJV). DOES NOT A GENETIC UNDERSTANDING OF HOMO-SEXUAL PREFERENCE IMPLY A SIMILAR EQUALIZATION OF RIGHTS, INCLUDING MARRIAGE [with the same understanding about fidelity that religious and other ethical people hold about heterosexual commitments], for our gay brothers and sisters? This is the position my own Episcopal national church is taking on this issue, and I believe it is the right one. <br /> <br /> The push in this direction presently seems a hurdle too high for most American Christians (although with no more supporting Scripture than the previous hurdles mentioned above) - as well as for other religious people and Christians in other cultures. (See the 1/4/10 NY Times report on the proposal by Ugandan Christian politicians to make homosexuality a capital crime - perhaps fueled in part by a visit from U.S. anti-gay evangelicals outlining the purported "evil agenda" of homosexuals, although these teachers deny any intent to criminalize gayness so severely: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/world/africa/04uganda.html?scp=1&sq=uganda,%20homosexuals&st=cse" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/world/africa/04uganda.html?scp=1&sq=uganda,%20homosexuals&st=cse</a>.) <br /> <br /> To my unpersuaded Christian relatives and friends, I encourage a re-reading of Acts chapters10 and 15 (New Testament), which describe the quandary mid-1st-century Torah-observing Jewish Christians faced with respect to Gentile converts who were clueless to Torah requirements, and who were deemed "unclean" and therefore inadmissible to the religious community - unless they gave up their culture, became circumcised and began observing stringent Jewish religious laws. <br /> <br /> See particularly the following words (to and by the apostle Peter) which seem to me to apply equally, in our time, to fellow Christians whom I know, who happen to be gay, and whose only agenda is to live in peace and harmony - without prejudice or persecution - within the larger community, with all the rights and responsibilities granted/expected for other citizens <br /> <br /> * "What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy." (Acts 10:15) <br /> * "Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did" [in the face of their manifesting obvious "gifts of the Spirit"]. (Acts 10:47-48) <br /> * "God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are." (Acts 15:8-11) <br /> (all references are from the New American Standard Bible Translation - ASBT):</div>

  ...

  Cancel

To Top