C. Wayne Mayhall, who wrote the article, starts with telling us about his meeting with the Reverend Robyn Provis of MCC in Minneapolis. By his account, she stated that the sure fire way to stop inter-faith dialogues is for Evangelicals to bring up the supposed "Clobber Passages," what she believes is an underhanded tactic. First, this is the opinion of one woman. I, and all who advocate gay-affirming theology from the standpoint the Bible is God-breathed, not only want to engage these passages, we HAVE to engage these passages. Second, I believe he only brings this conversation up is because he's implying gay affirming Christians try to avoid having to look at these passages.
This article is big on personality and little with explaining arsenokoitai. I'm asking my self now why am I even at this party?
He next quotes Theologians Douglas Stuart and Gordon D. Fee. Now Fee is a respected theologian giving a sound approach to the quote. What Mayhall might have missed is Fee admits arsenokoitai is 'almost never (?)' used to mean "homosexual" and Paul would have used other terminology if he in fact wanted to convey that. Reading Fee, who's a prominent member of the First Assembly of God Church, you come away with a sense, at least with the 1 Corinthians passage, that he knows it probably doesn't mean homosexuality as we understand it today, but his church saying; "Clearly the Bible states homosexual practice is sin" stops him from coming right out and saying it. I wish Fee would man up and be true to the Gospel instead of pandering to the prejudices of men that keep him in the contented place he has in the AoG church I once belonged to. Only you will answer for your cowardice Gordon. God forgive you.
Not to take away from Mel White being a relevant voice in the dialogue with the Church on homosexuality, but I really don't see why his opinion is here in what should be a hermeneutics discussion on arsenokoitai. He is not a legitimately credentialed "Theologian" as claimed in the article and the only reason I see White here is that it's of his opinion; "... the Greek word arsenokoitai, used for “homosexual” in 1 Corinthians 6:9, seems to refer to same-sex behavior," what the author of this article wants to establish.
Mayhall then quotes White in saying; "Some scholars believe Paul was coining a name to refer to customers of ‘the effeminate call boys’ (White is talking about Boswell).
White says a biased translator put the word "homosexual" in the 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy passages (he's talking about Bruce Metzger, translator and editor of the RSV Bible).
Stanton L. Jones is a Psychologist and is as much as a Theologian as White. As with White, I don't know why his opinion is here in a hermeneutics discussion. Asking an Evangelical Psychologist about asenokoitai is like asking an Evangelical pastry chef about malakoi.
I do give credit to Mayall for including a gay-affirming theologian with legitimate credentials and whose opinion should be the only one that matters here. Even this biased article had to admit; "Theologian John H. Elliott has written one of the most thorough studies of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 to date."
This ends on Gagnon giving his 2 cents.
This is yet another example of why of this blog dedicates so much time on Robert Gagnon. Over and over Gagnon will be cited in discussions like these as the final say.
This is my response to Gagnon's 4 "propositions."
1. Ironically, Gagnon is broadening the Levitical prohibition from it's unqualified nature of Moloch worship forbidden to the ancient Jews entering the land of Canaan to narrow the ambiguous nature of arsenokoitai.
Proposition 2 is deceptive. The accounts of arsenokoitai being used outside of vice lists are exploitative acts of homosexual rape or pederasty (Zeus raping Ganymede, Nass sexually exploiting Adam).
3. This is refuted by 1 Timothy's absence of malakoi. Koites when used as a suffix in compounds always denotes a penetrative aggressor, never the passive. A passive homosexual would not be prohibited here.
4. A circular argument (what Gagnon does often). Romans speaks on 1 Corinthians as prohibitive of homosexuality - 1 Corinthians echoes back to Romans prohibiting homosexuality.
Romans should be unpacked according to its own context. It also begs the question. If Romans prohibits homosexuality regardless of its idolatry context, why doesn't Paul use arsenokoitai in Romans?
Equip also has less-than-fair article writers like Joseph Gudel who wrote these little tidbits:
" ... even from a secular perspective, the unbiased reader is forced to admit that homosexuality is neither a healthy nor a natural lifestyle.
"... influencing children at a very early age is part of the "gay rights agenda."
"It is extremely revealing to note that almost every pro-gay group within the church shares one thing in common: they reject the Bible as being fully the Word of God [italics his]."
Nope, no personal bias from Mr. Gudel here.
I also commented (RQC) on this site and my reply button was yanked away, stopping me from furthering the debate by making me look like I stopped responding. A Catamite is not a type of "homosexual." The closest you can come with catamite to any 'type' of homosexuality is a boy being feminized for sexual purposes or as an insult you are one to a grown man.
Brent Bolin wrote an excellent post on the error of people like Bruce who think Strong's Concordance should interpret the Bible.
