First 3 Religion Journal - Essay Example

27 May 2008 First 3 Religion Journal The issue of homosexuality is one of the most controversial in religion. The disputes are based on the issue of family role and its social values. Homosexuality does not fit this traditional idea and core of the society. In terms of Christian tradition, homosexuality is wrong but still wants "optimum" of morality. The main questions worried modern religious leaders are s Should "practicing" Christian homosexuals, bisexuals, and transgendered people be allowed to serve as ordained ministers Should the unions of gay and lesbian couples be recognized as legitimate marriages in the eyes of God These and other questions rend congregations, denominations, and sometimes even our families. One side asserts that people should be welcomed into churches, into the ministry, and into our understanding of the American family regardless of their sexual orientation; the other side insists that any sexual preference other than heterosexuality is a sin and should be proscribed by all faithful Christians. No apparent solution to these disagreements lies on the horizon (Rudy 54). The presence and social acceptance of homosexuality challenges the concept of a God who is known solely or primarily through gender. By their very existence, gay people, and particularly gay Christians, contest the notion that human beings are meant to live in nuclear, heterosexual families. As a result of their desire to be faithful to and known by God, conservative Christians today are producing an environment in which theological reassurance, salvation, American exceptionalism, homophobia, and political involvement have become gravely interdependent. The marriage doctrines of the Bible demonstrate that conservatives wholeheartedly support sex in instances that uphold the overarching structure of gendered theology. The vicious animosity directed toward homosexuals, along with other aspects of the family values, keeps women at home and dependent on men and thus guarantees every Christian man, woman, and child a relationship with God. Recognition that the bifurcation is not simply between "flesh" and "spirit" brings into sharp focus how hard conservative sexual ideology and the campaign for family values work to keep women in their place. The current struggle over homosexuality in the church, then, is not only a struggle about the morality of sexual preference; it is a conflict rooted in Christian identity and the nature of God (Rudy 51). The struggle among contemporary Christians over the moral acceptability of homosexuality is directly related to who God is perceived to be and how believers think God relates to us in the world today. While the Christian Right championed and developed an extensive discourse about the value of the family and the sinfulness of homosexuality, mainline Christian denominations failed to issue clear, unambiguous statements on these issues. Even progressive Christians marshaled no counterpart to conservative rhetoric. In part this is due to the fact that the belief that the heterosexual nuclear family was both superior to other configurations and in need of protection was hard to escape. It was advocated not only by religious conservatives, but also by an assortment of scholars, journalists, and cultural critics who asserted the family's superiority on sociological or psychological rather than religious grounds (Rudy 54). Homosexuality violates traditional institution of marriage as a core of the society but religious believers have no right to blame or reject homosexual men. In religious tradition, the family is the source of values necessary for resistance to power and tendencies in the modern world. Another Christian justification of homosexuality rests on the idea that homosexual activity is no less moral than intentionally heterosexual activity; that is, homosexuality is morally equivalent to the use of birth control. 2. One of the nine fruits of Spirits is "Goodness". I suppose that goodness is important for every person because it allows a person to overcome problems and difficult life situations. The goodness relates to ability or skill. Somebody, we say, is good at this or that. An attribution of goodness of its kind to some thing presupposes that there exists some purpose which is associated with the kind and which this thing is thought to serve well. Goodness logically presupposes a judgment of actions for some purpose. Not everything which is good for some purpose, also belongs to some kind which is essentially associated with this purpose. The fact that a judgment of goodness contains reference to a believer does not alter its character of a true or false judgment. Goodness is concerned with choice. Virtues are essentially connected with action. This connation is with act-individuals and not with act. Action in accordance with goodness may thus be said to be the outcome of a contest between 'reason' and 'passion'. There are certain things which a man shuns or regards as 'in themselves' unwanted. He may sometimes be willing to suffer those things for the sake of some end which he wants to attain. But unless he has some such end or some other wanted consequences in view, he will consider those things bad for him and try to avoid them. A man who deliberates about ends may come to see that there are certain things which he ought to do and, perhaps more often, must not do, lest he shall regret it later in life. He may come to the conclusion that he must take some physical exercise or else he will neglect his health or that he must afford some time for reading novels or listening to music or else his soul will dry up completely or, if he tends to be a spendthrift, that he must think of saving for his old age. In reaching such conclusions a man may be said to impose upon himself autonomous self-regarding duties. He, as it were, forces upon himself a certain course of action or way of living with a view to what he considers necessary for his welfare. There cannot exist an autonomous self-regarding duty to care for one's own good (welfare) in either of the two chief ways, in which such care takes place. Self-care is the foundation and source of all autonomous self-regarding duties. To say that a man imposes upon himself the duty to care for himself is to say that his care for his own good makes it necessary for him to care for his own good (Rudy 82). For YOUR part, brothers, do not give up in doing right. 14 But if anyone is not obedient to our word through this letter, keep this one marked, stop associating with him, that he may become ashamed. 15 And yet do not be considering him as an enemy, but continue admonishing him as a brother" (Thessalonians 3:1-18). The idea of "Goodness" involves mildness and tenderness, balanced spirit and fairness, strong personal control and ability to pardon insults. By respecting the good of another being one may understand the forbearance of any act which, if done, would be bad for this being. On this definition, the duty to respect is necessarily a duty to forbear. By promoting the good of another being, again one may understand the doing of something which will be good for this being. On this definition, the duty to promote a being's good is necessarily a duty to act in a certain way. It may, however, happen that a man by forbearing to act becomes responsible for damage to another man, e.g. because a third man does some harm to him. Then a duty to act (to interfere) can be called a duty to protect the neighbour's good, and this duty can be distinguished both from the positive duty to promote and from the negative duty to respect this good. That promoting his neighbour's welfare can be an intermediate end of a man's action presents no problem. This case simply amounts to that regard for his neighbour's welfare is a means to some ulterior end of the agent's. If the means is necessary, regard for his neighbour is forced upon the agent by autonomous practical necessity (Rudy 82). 3. Marriage is a core of Christian morality. In the book of Ephesians, Paul emphasizes several concepts important for both wives and husbands: love, respect and submissiveness. The book of Colossians pays a special attention to such principles of marriage as faithfulness, washing and purity, female purity and female honor. Indeed, from the perspective of many Christians, the movement to keep sexual encounters confined to marriage constitutes the heart of Christian ethics. The Christian Right reacts against these changes by insisting that sex is moral only inside marriage. However, Christianity's emphasis on purity is also intricately connected to theological concerns in general and specifically to the gendered theology presented. Although the relationship between sexuality and Christianity is a long and complicated one, it is the developments related to the Cult of Domesticity that serve as the theological foundation for the contemporary Christian campaign for purity. "Accordingly, as God's chosen ones, holy and loved, clothe yourselves with the tender affections of compassion, kindness, lowliness of mind, mildness, and long-suffering. 13 Continue putting up with one another and forgiving one another freely if anyone has a cause for complaint against another" (Colossians 3:1-25) The ideology helped women cope with the economic changes by valorizing the work associated with the home also addressed the problem of fertility by granting women control over the sexual domain. That is, a new discourse about sexuality and romantic love emerged, in which women -- as part of their spiritually and morally superior nature -- were encouraged to control the number and type of sexual encounters they had with their husbands. This emerging ideology reconfigured sex itself as a sinful act of lust; it cast sexual desires as one of the more degrading of human needs. Only women could make sex right by surrounding it with romance and purity. Sex, under their control, was transformed into a sweet, sensitive, dainty act, which the larger population could then accept. Outside of marriage, this transformation could not take place. Sex was only acceptable, the Victorians claimed, when it occurred within the framework of romantic love and marriage, and women were enlisted to police the boundary between love and lust. Women, then, wielded a great amount of power in the ordering of sexual activity, and were thus able to limit the number of sexual encounters within a marriage (and consequently to regulate the number of children they conceived). Romantic love provides the firm foundation for a Christian family as well as a satisfying sex life. These manuals and the relationships they help produce not only reinforce women's spiritual and moral superiority; they also emphasize that good and moral sex is available only within the confines of committed, heterosexual marriage. The belief that God's direct intervention will bring about the reign of peace lends itself to a deep pessimism about human progress -- be it national policy or sexual liberation. In this view humanity is traveling further and further from the righteous Kingdom of God. While individual people may be redeemed, history itself is doomed; its only hope is in its destruction. Yet there is a role for human action. Christians believe that the righteous must continually do battle with the evil forces of history in order to be chosen as one of the elect at Christ's return. In past years, this battle had been waged between the evils of science, Darwinism, and higher Biblical criticism -- seen as efforts to distort or ignore God's word -- on one side, and the truth of the Bible on the other. Works Cited 1. The Bible. n,d. www.bible.com 2. Rudy, K. Sex and the Church: Gender, Homosexuality, and the Transformation of Christian Ethics. Beacon Press, 1997. Read More