Connie and her Christmas Fruitcakes

When I set out to make this blog a source for affirming theology in understandable terms, I not only went to the names on the tags below who made the argument opposite to mine, but I also went to other blogs to see what they had to say. One that kept on coming up was one I once named here, but then took off then I realized I was sending traffic his way. It really was an ugly place with spider webs in the corner and packed with virulent content against homosexuality. He has a list on his "about" page with what he calls his inspirations naming benign "ex-gays," but look closer at his postings and you get a different story. In one post he hints that homosexuality should still be considered a mental illness and he tries his best, bless his heart, to link the Catholic pedophilia scandals with homosexuality. I can only stay at his blog for a few minutes before it starts making my skin crawl.

Years ago I made a comment on his blog post he made about the Frisch and Brønnum-Hansen study (gays have a higher mortality rate) with me saying he neglected to mention the study was done at the height of the AIDS epidemic. The authors of the comparative study said that their study shouldn't be twisted by those like that blog author with what is a; “agenda-driven, pseudo-scientific gobbledygook.” The authors also went on to say that the mortality rate between married gay men and straight men was the same after 1996.

This blog author responded amicably as I did in return, but later he tried to get back at me by linking to what Gagnon said about what I wrote on my Centurion post (he actually did me a favor because it gave me the chance to refute Gagnon yet again). We came across each other again in the comments of another blogger and I was glad I had the chance to refute him, again, which I hope will be a final banishment back to his blog full of witches.

The debate with this author was gracious and civil, but he didn't post my last comment that corrected him. This was my response to him he didn't post:

"You're mistaken. Three men are heterosexual with families, two have a Ph.D. and two are not Americans. If Solberg wanted men and women with PhDs, I could have given him a laundry list if that was his criteria. They also aren't all 'gay social activists.' Their writings and work are in the framework of the Church and minorities with respect to social injustices like women and other minorities. I also take exception to him saying; "I would encourage you to consider the wider body of Judeo-Christian scholarship on this issue. There are hundreds of brilliant luminaries whose names are widely known and have valid insight to  well." What was the whole point of our conversation? That the bible translators, early church fathers, and many in-between really had an axe to grind with homosexuality or were just wrong with it, a historical PROVEN fact with the links I gave him. If their bias can be shown, their opinion, no matter how brilliant in supposed scholarship, amounts to nothexceptn of excluding a group from the Kingdom of God. The Church has been horrible with its history of how it saw the Jews, the indigenous, women, minorities, animals, and those who didn't believe as they did at a given time remember, they also pointed to specific Scriptural verses to justify how they believed."

This blog is acting wonky (sentences that act like they are trying to escape through the window, postings that bleed into each other so they look like one gigantic post, fonts changing on their own, and now it wants to try different languages on me كيف يتم ذلك؟). One day that black bar just showed up on the upper right side I can't get rid of. Years back I tinkered with my blog codes to make it scratch-n-sniff capable and now my blog has taken on a life of its own. I swear I can hear it moving around at night like it's coming for me and that's why I have a baseball bat next to my bed "just in case."

 

   

   My blog probably on the prowl again.

Connie Fell On The Icy Sidewalk Again

The blogger Lyndon Unger (AKA Mennoknight) wrote about my favorite word arsenokoites. 

He starts the post by mentioning Gagnon (Gagnon doesn't believe the Bible is completely inspired, especially the writings of Paul, but that's glossed over by anti-gay Bible believers for the sake of embracing Gagnon), "Brownsville Revival" leftover Michael Brown, THAT Mohler and "Fake On-Line Degree" James White who have all been talked about on my own fine little site. He then goes into insulting my comrades in arms in this homosexuality and the Bible debate by saying they're part of a “Christian” QUILTBAG mafia (I'll make that my costume for Halloween). He has my man Brownson's book cover on a post for some reason, a book he never read (I can't really knock him for that because I didn't read it either), and bad stock photos that he thinks drive his points home.

Was the Bible unreliably translated by uninspired men who tried their best or other translators who let their bias bleed into what they translated? Absolutely. There isn't a scholar on either side of this debate who would say otherwise. Was Paul inspired by the Holy Spirit in what he wrote? Absolutely. We aren't talking about the words of Paul, we're talking about what happened to those words once they left Paul and fell into the hands of others with the book of Revelations saying what will be the consequences for those who change those words.

I'll just respond to what he wrote on his 5 points and leave you to go to his blog with what I was responding to. 

1. Saul, Paul to his Gentile friends, was a Pharisee who became an Apostle to the GENTILES (Galatians 2:8). That’s rather important to this all. Actually, Paul did bow to Greek social convention with terminology and he says so in Galatians 2:15. He used Greek slang and the ironic example is "koitai" which is vulgar slang for f*cking (Paul goes vulgar slang again in Philippians 3:8 saying the Greek slang for "sh*t").

Paul never saw himself as a lofty prophet, just the opposite (1 Corinthians 15:9, Ephesians 3:8).
The fact Paul DOESN'T use any Greek word for a homosexual man or even the slang word for a lesbian (Tribas) common in Paul's day (tribas) proves MY point Paul never meant to condemn homosexuality. If he did, he would first go to words that would have been absolutely clear he was talking about homosexuals (Greek slang Kinaidhos and Kolombaras for passive and masculine homosexuals) and not the mysterious Arsenokoite or the "I have an endless slew of meanings" word Malakoi. Remember, the Hellenistic Jews hearing Paul were as fluent in koine Greek as the Gentiles sitting beside them.

When this blogger writes; "The Spirit wrote in harmony with what he had previously written (which is important to remember)," He's only talking about Romans in the context of idolatry (Romans 1:22,23), that nasty habit man had of worshiping images of Goddesses and animals since he was created.

Now here is why this blogger and almost all anti-gay apologists who breathe think the word means "homosexuals." They say Paul got it from Leviticus 18:22 and to them, this is their "Gotcha!" moment. But this is the problem. If Leviticus doesn't condemn "homosexuality," neither will 1 Corinthians and you can put enough doubt with their claim Leviticus condemns homosexuality as a general rule by going to the actual Hebrew of the Leviticus verse that shows it's not so clear-cut as they want it to be. He links to the verse in the Hebrew that proves nothing and a follow-up link to the poor translation of the verse in the same Hebrew that proves the same nothing. I'm glad he brings up Numbers 31:17-18 and Judges 21:11-12 because it shows the variations of 'arseno' (male) and 'koiten' (beds) found in other places in the Bible have nothing to do with homosexuality, but in fact referenced hetero sex, MY point. I don't picture the Jewish believers pulling the gentile believers aside and saying; "O.K. So Paul is trying to tell you he's getting 'arsenokoite' from one of our ancient books you've never heard of. Thank G-d you had us explain it to you because how would you have known otherwise??? Now pass me the pork ribs I couldn't eat before."

Another blogger made a good point saying; "The idea (Paul got the word from Leviticus) is based upon the existence of the words αρσενος κοιτην in that verse, but this is flawed scholarship. Since αρσενος means male, and κοιτην means bed, ANY Greek sentence that mentions a male and a bed will have forms of those two words in it. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 are not the only verses in the Septuagint containing those words."



"Not all scholars are created equal…"

 …and not all are honest... including bloggers like yourself who thinks all Pentecostals are heretics.



2. What's funny is Unger starts off his 2nd point by saying; "The Bible decides what the Bible means by the terms it uses, not some pagan writers who come centuries later... "
Yet who does he go to later down on his point? Pagan writings that used the word closest to the time of Paul prove the opposite of what he's saying. The Sibylline Oracles puts the word in the category of SOCIAL injustice.

[This is how it works. If you can't find a context of a Bible word in other places of the Biblical narrative, arsenokoite is put in a vice list by Paul that gives it no context, you then go outside the Bible that uses the word at the closest time of it's Bible usage. There isn't one Bible scholar who doesn't do this]

Now this is where the blog author tries to fool you.

He first links to a part of Aristides Apology 13 in saying it's condemning "homosexuality," but this is only talking about Greek Gods who transform themselves into animals to lay with men AND women. It says more about bestiality or God/human sexual relations than homosexuality. Aristides wrote this to the notorious homosexual Emperor Hadrian as a goodwill gesture in explaining the worship practices of those in Hadrian's empire. It would have been stupid to write a condemnation of homosexuality, what Unger believes Aristides is doing here, to the gay emperor who might have pulled a Harod with John the Baptist act on him. This is all shown by Unger in his further examples below of putting what uninspired writers have to say on the level of the Holy Spirit-breathed inspired writers of the Bible, a favorite practice of Ungers' crowd because they expect and get the hatred of homosexuality from the writings of Catholic Church fathers.

He then says; "That would suggest that the usage of the term is in harmony with the previous uses of the term in the Bible (1 Cor. 6:9 & 1 Tim. 1:10) as well as outside the bible (Sibylline Oracles 2:70-78, the Epistle of Ignatius to the Tarsians [which is a citation of 1 Cor. 6:9], The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians [again, a citation of 1 Cor. 6:9], the Acts of John 36, Clement of Alexandria’s Instructor 3.11 [again, citation of 1 Cor. 6:9])."

Well yeah, it would put the term in the harmony it was intended, but the Epistle of Ignatius or Polycarp he names give no indication it's about homosexuality. It's just another word put in their vice lists like with Paul's. The Acts of John 36 text reads as; " ...so also the poisoner, sorcerer, robber, swindler, and arsenokoitēs, the thief and all of this band…” To put "homosexual" between 'robber,' 'swindler,' and 'thief' breaks the flow in the verse, but sex traders (for profit), also linked to the arsenokoitai word, would make perfect sense here. Notice Unger doesn't bring up other Christian writings like The Epistle of Barnabas who uses the word for pederasty or John the Faster who uses it for oral/anal sex between men and women? Unger will leave these and other sources out because they disprove his entire argument it was unanimous in the Church record the word means 'homosexual.'

The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae gives nothing on the word other than where you can find its placement in a vice list from Christian and pagan sources.

Boswell wrote:

"It was during the 4th Century the word became confused and lost its original significance, so by the 6th Century it was used to designate activities as different as child molesting and anal intercourse between husband and wife."

If Unger really cared about the Jewish perspective he's always bringing up, he'd know the Babylonian Talmud uses the word in the context of only pederasty with Maimonides doing the same. What? Did he forget to mention that to you? The Talmud is only second to the Torah itself to the Jews even today.



Nothing this blog writer has linked or written or pointed out what others have written indicates that this word means a homosexual or homosexuality as it stands alone, it just isn't there.

3. "I don't know of one scholar who thinks Paul was; “likely referencing an earlier Scripture about men sleeping with people that weren’t their wives.”  

It was neither Helminiak nor Boswell who make it about prostitution and pederasty). I think he's just throwing names out of gay-affirming scholars in wanting you to think he's read their books and found them unconvincing.

I agree with him here in that neither Moicheia nor Porneia would be terms used by Paul to mean homosexual sex. 


4. Number 4 says nothing.

"I've convinced myself I'm right, so I must be right. Find me more cheap-looking stock photos!"

 - Lyndon Unger.


5. Unger is right and the guy he's refuting on Facebook is wrong. Malakoi (lit; softie) ISN'T in 1 Timothy, but again this proves MY point in grand style by going back to my two points I've put on my blog before.

If arsenokoita' is the "aggressor" in a homosexual relationship and malakoi the "passive" partner in 1 Corinthians, why is malakoi absent in 1 Timothy? An arsenokoitai would be missing the other half of his relationship. If they are a word pair, no other vice list with either malakoi or arsenokoitai, and there are many with malakoi prior to Paul. Many with arsenokoitai after Paul, and never are they paired together.

If 'arsenokoitai' can be the catch-all word for both sides of a homosexual relationship, why does Paul bother using malakoi in 1 Corinthians? "Koites" was used centuries before Paul's usage and when used as a suffix in compounds it always indicated the penetrative aggressor, never the passive. That means it can't apply to both partners in an act and cannot be a catch-all term for all homosexual activity.

Now, what 5 points again? The blog author needs to take his blog title to heart or take up long-haul trucking because he isn't good at this.



  

Jewish hipsters think homophobes should Lign in drerd un bakn beygls.

Michael Craven

I made the big mistake to write a comment to Michael Craven on his site. I should have known better when he thinks all of America is going into some moral morass because I get googly eyed with boys and because of "secular humanists" (I thought that terminology went out in the late 80's with Evangelicals). Apparently Michael missed the Scriptures that we are to be set apart from the world and not in a tug of war with it. We are to live at peace with our neighbor, not demand our way with them, we are to preach the "Good News," not force un-believers to act like they were.
This is what I first wrote him and his response:
http://www.battlefortruth.org/ArticlesDetail.asp?id=236&rr=1#resp

The actual article is harmless enough with coming from an anti-gay Christian, but how does Michael really feel when in a different article on homosexuality he says:

"In short, social acceptance of deviant sexual behaviors (homosexuality) represents the final stages of a society working to rid itself of all traditional mores related to sexual conduct. The jettisoning of sexual morality renders the individual and its attendant society devoid of its productive energy. Such societies diminish because their collective creative energies are redirected toward the fulfillment of their personal sexual appetites (hedonism)."

Of course what you don't see is my final comment to Michael he didn't want to post with what he wrote me back so it looks like I had no response to him or the Scriptures he brings up (in one part of my post I say I believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God, breathed by God and is inerrant. I guess that popped his bubble of claiming I'm a "Liberal Progressive," so he just rather not post it).

Michael loves to put people in boxes who he believes are picking fights with Christianity in what's  his made-up; "Culture War." People he labels; "Secularists," "Homosexuals with an agenda," "Liberal Progressives" and a list of others with scary titles who are either fighting Christianity coming into the world or kicking out of the world the Christianity it still has left. Notice his fighting words (battle, war)? People like him are always needing to see a spiritual enemy behind individuals and "Homosexual Activists" are one of his combatants (Any homosexual who has the nerve to demand the same rights as a heterosexual is an "activist)." It's lost on Michael that there are not tiers of citizenship in America where you being a Christian American citizen somehow trumps the citizenship of a Gay American in the Bill of Rights or the Constitution in, like it or not, a secular society we all have to live in.

I DO believe in spiritual enemies, but not the ones Michael believes in, gay men and women. To Michael, the simple, and you could even say the boring way, of 'Loving your neighbor as yourself' just isn't thrilling or enough for him. Jesus wants us to love one another like we were in a love story movie, Michael wants to make it into a movie for boys with explosions and knife fights and kicking Satan's ass. To him, why should it be about anything else when he's all geared up and ready to go with fighting battles that will turn the tide in what he sees as a war of good and evil on a grand scale? Even accusing me of; "... attempting to transform the world to accommodate my behavior." I can do that??? This is my response to him saying to me; "...most Bible scholars agree” with the argument of omission, suggesting that since Jesus doesn’t directly condemn homosexual behavior then homosexual behavior must be okay. This is an oft quoted and erroneous rebuttal when trying to align homosexual behavior with Christian faith."

I love his last line of him saying he sees an "inner conflict" with me. He knows he doesn't see this, it's just a little trick to make his brittle followers second guess anything I have to say.

2 Chicken Thigh Meal

Remember my initial Centurian post? It all started with an anti-gay blog (these types of personal hate of the LGBTQ with Bible blogs are tired, predictable, and boring as spit) and his twisting to make the Centurion's story void of any homosexual element. I challenged him on his blog about that. Now I find out the author of the blog attacked me personally with his own follow-up post much later with what might be deeper issues with him. He doesn't respond to my Centurion post I did here with answering him, but what I wrote on his blog ages ago he selectively edited and moved to a new post hoping people won't bother with our initial exchange. This is the original exchange without the editing. His only real refute was falsely claiming I lied on what Gagnon said in is book about the Centurion story and he's since been proven wrong, ironically, by one of his blog followers who wrote me. The only reason I go the extra mile with this is because when you Google my blog name, this twits blog pops up right after.

Anne Rice the author left Christianity because she said she couldn't take the nastiness and bigotry she saw from most Christians and she hightailed it out of Salvation. This thing of Christians coming off like Fun House monsters is getting tired.

Bad Father

I had the unfortunate (for lack of a better word) luck of  having an exchange with a Fr. John W. Morris.*

Father Morris:  How is it that such commentators as St. John Chrysostom who died in 407 saw a condemnation of homosexuality in the Holy Scriptures. How is it that St. Basil the Great who died in 379 saw the same thing and advocated that a person who committed an homosexual act should be excommunicated for 30 years.

Me: Funny that you bring up John Chrysostom when it was he who stated 1 Corinthians had nothing to do with homosexuals. All Saint Basil did was put male homosexuals in the same category as adulterers, he didn't seem too worried about either.

Father Morris: You are quite mistaken St. John Chrysostom  actually taught that homosexual acts are sinful. Unfortunately the pro gay movement resorts to all sorts of deception such as misquoting the Fathers or rewriting the Bible to support their cause. St. Basil taught that a person committing a homosexual sin should be excommunicated for 30 years, a decision that was ratified at the Council in Trullo in 695 and the 7th Ecumenical Council, the 2nd Council of Nicea in 787.

Me: I'm not saying Chrysostom wasn't against homosexual acts in no uncertain terms, it's just he saw no homosexuals in any part of Romans 1. He saw heterosexuals who made a conscious decision to turn from their desired want of a woman to men.
As for Basil, it's a far cry from his excommunication for 30 years to being cast into a forever damning in Hell because you're a practicing homosexual. He's one of the least damning of the Church fathers on homosexuality.

Father Morris: You have been misinformed. I just looked at St. John Chrysostom's homilies on Romans. Read his 4th homily. The golden mouthed saint very clearly states that Romans 1:27 refers to homosexual and lesbian acts.
No one teaches that homosexual sins cannot be forgiven. The 30 years penance is applied after the person repents of the sin of homosexual acts. If they do not repent, they are excommunicated and not restored to the Sacramental Life of the Church until they repent. No one today would impose such a severe penance. In fact, I probably would not impose a penance for one act of homosexual sin if the person were truly repentant, but would have to increase the severity of the penance if the person repeated this sin, making the penance more severe with each offense.

Me: Ummm, do you even know what the 4th homily is saying? He's talking about heterosexual men who leave the use of a woman for another man in that it's against their nature. Since I was never heterosexual, how do you think that applies to us who have a homosexual nature?
"No one today would impose such a severe penance. In fact, I probably would not impose a penance for one act of homosexual sin if the person were truly repentant, but would have to increase the severity of the penance if the person repeated this sin, making the penance more severe with each offense."
*sarcasm* I thank you for that kind mercy you've extended to me.

Father Morris: (now he goes to personal insults) All of the ancient commentators agree that the Bible condemns homosexual acts as sinful. If I want to know the meaning of a Greek word, I will ask a Greek. I studied ethics and the Bible at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. I believe that since my professors were Greeks, that they had a much better understanding of the original Greek text than any modern American pseudo-scholar . The word "arsenokoitai" literally means men beders or men who have sex with men. Anyone who claims otherwise is either ignorant of New Testament Greek or is lying.

Me: You went to a lousy school if you believe the Church has been condemning homosexuality for 2000 years (Catholic historian and theologian John Boswell shows this wasn't the case in his unprecedented research). Who told you that? Homosexuality wasn't even thought to be the reason God destroyed Sodom until the 11th Century. Your great school "Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology" (in Massachusetts no less) is run by the Greek Orthodox Church of America with American teachers. You make it sound you came from a school of wise old sages in Greece. Of course they are going to tow the line of these crappy interpretations, the Greek Orthodox Church is especially virulent on the subject of homosexuality because it's so steeped in their dead traditions, screw tradition! It's the Word of God we need to dive into like it was a swimming pool, and if it goes against long-held tradition, so be it. 
I'll turn it around and say this. Anyone who claims 'arsenokoitai' means homosexuality outside the context of exploitation is either ignorant of New Testament Greek or is lying.

Father Morris: I suppose that if a person cannot answer an argument, they resort to personal attacks (after he just called me a "pseudo-scholar").

Me: Can you show me the personal attack here?

Father Morris: (now he turns arrogant) Just what qualifies you to pontificate on the meaning of any word in the Greek New Testament or the historic teaching of Christianity on any subject? You are simply wrong, the word "arsenokoitai" refers to homosexuality. I will trust the Holy Fathers and my seminary professors who were all of Greek heritage to tell me the meaning of the Greek text of the New Testament before I will trust any modern pseudo-scholar with a politically correct pro-gay agenda. If you want to reject the Bible, that is your right, but when you insist on misrepresenting the teaching of the Bible, as a Bible believing Christian, I certainly have a right to correct the false information that you are spreading.It is historical fact that all Christians agreed on this issue until a few dying mainline Protestant sects surrendered to the pressure from  the pro-gay movement. If your movement has to resort to fraud to prove its point, it obviously must be rejected by any intelligent person. I also trust what I have learned through a study of church history, since I have a PhD in history, which I earned before I even converted to Eastern Orthodoxy and went to seminary, and have taught church history on the college level above your ranting and raving on a subject about which you absolutely know nothing.

Me: "...before I will trust any modern pseudo-scholar with a politically correct pro-gay agenda."

Not only did you make a baseless claim of me making a personal attack (that you never showed), but you turned around and did that very thing. The rest of what you say are insults and boasting of  how smart you are. You noticed how in all of this you still haven't given me a point by point argument of how I'm wrong? All you've done is brag about your schooling (is it too late to ask for your tuition fee back?) and attack me for having the nerve to open a Bible to see for myself. The Koine Greek and Masoretic Hebrew translations of the Bible are not hidden in a deep vault somewhere, it is available for all to access, including the translations in other languages that preceded our own,  I also studied ancient Near-Eastern languages to flush out the more accurate rendering of words and phrases the Bible uses without being taught biases from church tradition, that unlike the Bible, are influenced by cultural, social and political prejudices of the time. What ever happened to the great sin of usary for instance?



At this point I think the kind Father Morris went to get another cruller with whole milk and forgot to come back. To bad, I would like to know what he thinks of Saint Basil (who he just quoted to me) saying; "For just as water that irrigates many furrows makes those furrows fertile, so also the vice of gluttony, proceeding from your heart, irrigates all of your senses, raising a whole jungle of evils within you, making your soul a lair of wild beasts" (St. Basil the Great, On Renunciation of the World). I don't think he realizes what an arrogant and pompous ass he's coming off as with attempting to belittle me.

*He now knows the truth in Glory. 

I blame all those crullers.