Homosexuality in the Church
With homosexuality being more visible and more accepted in our modern,
liberal society, the church, which has always been founded on very old and
very conservative views, must now struggle to decide where homosexual
Christians fit into the church. Several questions have been raised
surrounding this issue, such as the argument of right versus wrong, and the
debate on how people "become" gay.
Hayes and Furnish, in the first section of the book Homosexuality in the
Church, express their opposing views on whether or not the Bible clearly
answers the question of right or wrong. In examining various biblical
passages in order to prove their conflicting points of right or wrong, they
both come to one similar conclusion: one cannot simply use passages in the
Bible to prove without a shadow of a doubt that homosexuality is wrong, nor
to prove it should be an accepted part of the Christian lifestyle.
Hayes, a New Testament scholar, bases his discussions from a conversation he
held with his dying homosexual friend. Because of this, his views are much
more readable, and are also more substantial due to the context of his
views. Hayes and his friend both feel that the writings of the gay
apologists "did justice neither to the biblical text, nor the depressing
reality of the gay subculture (4)."
Furnish throughout his essay looks at " how the given passages functioned in
its original, multidimensional context (18)." According to Furnish, one can
rarely base specific moral views on direct quotes from the bible, especially
moral issues from modern society. In this case, he examines the idea that
no concepts nor terms existed for heterosexuality, homose ...