I thought this was VERy interesting. You don't have to read it all to get the idea.
Gay love, the Bishop and the Bible bashers GAY.COM Wednesday 18 April, 2007 13:25 This week, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams ruffled the stuffy feathers of conservatives when he agreed to meet with liberal Episcopalian bishops later this year. There will be more right-wing harrumphing following an address to theology students in Toronto in which Williams effectively snatched away the textual crutch of the anti-gay Bible bashers. He said conservative Christians who cite the Bible to condemn homosexuality are misreading a key passage written by Saint Paul almost 2,000 years ago. Saint Paul's Epistle to the Romans is the firebrand favourite for justifying everything from barring gays as priests to drowning them in boiling oil. Many current ways of reading miss the actual direction of the passage," Williams said on Monday, according to a text of his speech posted on the Anglican Church of Canada's Web site. "Paul is making a primary point not about homosexuality but about the delusions of the supposedly law-abiding." In Romans 1 v 27 that Williams referred to in Monday's lecture, Saint Paul said people who neglected the word of God fell into sin. "Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion," Paul wrote. Williams said these lines were "for the majority of modern readers the most important single text in Scripture on the subject of homosexuality." Following that passage, Paul warns readers not to condemn those who ignore God's word. "At whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself," wrote Paul. Williams pointed out that due to the fact that Paul was making the comment as part of a wider issue, neither the gays nor their detractors should overstate its importance. "It is not helpful for a 'liberal' or revisionist case, since the whole point of Paul's rhetorical gambit is that everyone in his imagined readership agrees in thinking the same sex relations of the culture around them to be as obviously immoral as idol-worship or disobedience to parents. It is not very helpful to the conservative either, though, because Paul insists on shifting the focus away from the objects of moral disapprobation in chapter 1 to the reading / hearing subject who has at this point been happily identifying with Paul's castigation of someone else ... Paul is making a primary point not about homosexuality but about the delusions of the supposedly law- abiding. " Coincidentally, Williams' warning to both sides of the debate comes as a number of liberal churches launch a billboard campaign in Indianapolis which challenge the fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. The Jesus Metropolitan Community Church, Faith In America and Metropolitan Community Churches have combined forces to produce the controversial boards which directs viewers to a website which explains the thinking behind such statements as, `Jesus said some are born gay- Matthew 19:10-12'. Pastor Jeff Miner of Jesus Metropolitan Community Church said: "Right now, most people think this is a debate between people who love the Bible conservative Christians and people who want to throw out the Bible godless homosexuals. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our Church welcomes hundreds of devout gay Christians who love the Bible deeply. Our goal is to rescue the Bible from misinterpretations driven by cultural prejudice, so its true message of grace, hope, and peace can come through." Obviously, the debate will continue to rage with no peaceful end in sight. Many observers view the arguments as ultimately quite pointless as it's impossible to escape from the fact that the rows are inspired by a 2,000 year old document, written in very hazy language which has been translated and re-interpreted by many people with differing agendas. For many, finding concrete meaning in the Bible is like the blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat, that isn't there.
