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Dan · Joined: 03 Dec 2003 Posts: 273 Location: midwest

Friend Kevin,

It is in thy rather unhumble opinion that those of us who are Evangelical Friends are not in the same spirit as the early Friends. In fact, we would see it that the early Friends were very much in the same spirit as we and not in the vein in which some of thee have taken the movement.

Please point out to me where early Friends condoned same sex unions?

wheatpenny · Joined: 17 Apr 2010 Posts: 41 Location: York, PA, USA

punkrainbow · Joined: 24 Dec 2007 Posts: 301 Location: Leeds

Shay · Joined: 01 Jun 2005 Posts: 885

kevin roberts · Posted: Fri Nov 4, 2011 7:14 pm Post subject:

kevin roberts · Posted: Fri Nov 4, 2011 7:28 pm Post subject:

CelticNorth · Joined: 22 Sep 2005 Posts: 755 Location: East of Eden

I think, Friend Kevin, one can also legitimately mention Mathew 19:4, Mark 10:6 and Romans 1:26-27 in addtition to 1 Timothy1; 9-10 and 1 Coringthia 6: 9-10, which you have already referred to. Going back to the original post which started this thread, I think it was a good post, both timely and worthy for the political and theological issues challenging the historical definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, not only within the politics of the OYM and Quarterly, but how it has also was reflected in State Legislature debates all over the country. Certainly, the process of disowning a Meeting is not a process frequently enacted within the Religous Society of Freinds. But I beg the question; why was not the movement for same sex marriage taken up firstly at the OYM, or the Quarterly ?

kevin roberts · Posted: Sat Nov 5, 2011 3:43 pm Post subject:

hi mcguffey

i think we've already discussed matthew 19:4 and mark 10:6 here recently, haven't we? if you read them, you'll find that homosexual relationships aren't mentioned. if you'd like to discuss them further, i'd be happy to go over them again.

and i'd be delighted to discuss romans 1 with you, because in my own opinion, that set of verses is so clearly misunderstood that it provides no valid direct support for condemning homosexuality at all.

CelticNorth · Joined: 22 Sep 2005 Posts: 755 Location: East of Eden

Friend Kevin, yes, to the offer to discuse Romans 1, but I wanted to go back to Wheatpenny's post of Pauls use of the Greek word "arenokites", and perhaps illuminate part of the social context of same sex love in Ancient Greece. There has been, I pecveive, a great deal of interest in various gay communites regarding this era, mainly to demonstrate a long history of same sex love. There are some points that everyone must consider, and I think with due caution. First, it seems the practice was brought into ancient Greece by the Dorians, who practiced male sexual domination over another through the kidnapping of young boys, and later as a form of spiritual and masculine subjectgation, with the belief that through the ejaculation of semen into another male, thier courage, intellignece, bravery and spirit would be transmitted. There were exactiing social distinctions made between the assertive / insertive role, the "hubrexein", and the subjugated, the "aselgainhein", with social status being the major deternimate factor. The subjegant, also called "muliebria pati" was held in low esteem and social discgace as "one who submits to what is done to women". Common homosexual relationships were accepted, but one execised cuation to elevate oneself and career to those of higher social status through its pracitice.In the practice of pedersty, it was an older male acting as a mentor to a young boy, usually romanticaly loved and sexually desired, although full penile penetration into the anus was rare, with the practice of palcing the erect penis in the thighs called eromenos, or intercrual sex. It appears that it was not the coming of Christianity which lead to changes and discontinuation of same sex love and sexual contact in Greek society, but the coming of Scorates and Plato. They began with the idea, and the ideal, that love of man and fellow man was at it highest level of expression through the love of the spirit, and began to instruct against the physical expressions of same sex love. This reached its high point in Greek philosophy in Plato's Laws 636c,which should be familiar to many. I sense that when we look at Timothy we see early Christian writers echoing the same concepts. This teaching of the love of the spirit became the substitute for the earlier practices. It seems in my mind that not only did Plato's Laws collaborate the coming of Chistian teachings on this subject, but may have been the source, or supplemental to the Jewish teachings in Leviticus. I am not certain that the exchange of ideas and religious thought was contained to one particular faith tradtion in the ancient Mediterranian, but given that the first Christian texts were written in Greek, there appears to be some of what Plato espoused in the spirit and writings of the later Christian texts. I pose one question: does Plato's 636c look and sound familiar as being part of Christian literature ?

Dan · Joined: 03 Dec 2003 Posts: 273 Location: midwest

Friend Kevin, was it not thee that said:

punkrainbow · Joined: 24 Dec 2007 Posts: 301 Location: Leeds

Hey McGuffey

It is undoubtedly the case that the sexual mores of Greek (and Roman) culture had a huge impact upon early Christianity, but it is important to treat the variety of sources we have with caution. There was no single 'Greek practice' across millennia. You imply for instance same-sex practices were pretty static ('a form of spiritual and masculine subjection'). In fact there were a variety of relationships in the ancient Mediterranean world, some involving pederasty, some more egalitarian in nature, like the relationship between Agathon and Pausanias in Plato's Symposium.

There are a variety of different attitudes according to different philosophical schools across time and space. There are even changes of attitude within the same philosophical school. Early Stoicism in Greece for instance tended to accept age-differential same-sex relationships. In later Roman Stoicism, some writers like Seneca saw homosexual acts as immoral. Even the views of Plato which you mentioned changed over time. In the early dialogues he generally accepts same-sex relationships, but by the time we get to Plato's later work (The Laws) he rejects them! We are dealing with tricky source-material. If nothing else all this shows how difficult it is to make big claims about sex-mores from remaining textual evidence.

While this is all really interesting scholarly stuff, the two questions we need to ask as Quakers are these. First, do we really know what the Biblical writers meant in the original? And secondly (and perhaps more importantly) are the mores of these cultures expressions of that which is 'eternal' or are they are merely a set of historically-bound human constructions? I'm not saying I definitely know the answer but we certainly have rejected many aspects of this ancient Mediterranean culture, including slavery and the confinement of women to the home and their general exclusion from politics. We need to ask ourselves, is everything in scripture meant for our instruction, or is some of it merely the clothes that scripture wears, because it emerged in a particularly time and place?
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I saw the infinite love of God. I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death; but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness.

Kiahanie · Joined: 25 Mar 2008 Posts: 464 Location: Oregon

CelticNorth · Joined: 22 Sep 2005 Posts: 755 Location: East of Eden

I am grateful we are wearing clothes, but the intent of my post on Plato's Law 636c was to explore the evolution of Greek philosophy on matters of the spirit over that of the flesh, and to discern if in Plato we see some of the same values being formed which appear later as Christinian sentiments. We also need to remember that the English terminology and use of the word "homosexual" was not known by Paul, or for that matter Plato- it is of 18th century origin, and therefore no exacting translation can exist. That Greek philosopy moved from an acceptance of same sex love to a position that male love should be expressed " as though that of a love of a father for a son" is a huge movement away from condoning and accepting homo-erotic love as the source for the transmission of knowledge, wisdom, the arts and literature trough the sexual practices then in custom. I agree we are in treacherous waters when attempting to discern all meanings taken from the Greek as it was transposed into Chrisitian literature, but I believe that Plato gives us a good foundation to support the statement that a revoluton of the spirit was on the coming horizon, and that same sex homo-erotic love as a accepted social insitution, which was also used to verify and obain status and dominance, was soon to be on the wane in ancient Greece. And, Like Punkrainbow has pointed out, it was carried on and articulated again in Seneca. That Plato rejected homosexulaity in his later years shows the stuggle over ideas did occur, and perhpas with his final word on the matter contained in 636c, he saw more clearly then what many want to deny now.

kevin roberts · Posted: Mon Nov 7, 2011 7:03 am Post subject:

kevin roberts · Posted: Mon Nov 7, 2011 8:10 am Post subject:

hi dan

can i focus on the points from your post that discuss homosexuality? the divergent trends of quakerism over the last few hundred years is a tangled subject, and isn't directly relevant here.

i'm going to quote the entire passage from romans, so that we can refer to it directly. this discussion is going to be a long one, and it's appropriate to actually have the scriptures in front of us while we discuss them: