Even if you are not a believing Christian, and don’t follow the inner workings of the Church, you must acknowledge the importance of both. A major tumult in Christian ranks, such as what is happening in Germany-speaking nations, and its ramifications, is worthy of considering.
Now there is no way to reconcile Christian scripture—which is defined as the Old and New Testaments together, and not either alone—and the sinlessness of sodomy.
The unity of the texts is important. For in the New Testament, Jesus of course declared himself to be God. He and the Father and the Holy Ghost are one. The Trinity is God. So much is dogma, and recognized, even if not believed, by all.
The implications of this are often unheeded or unnoticed. For the unity of scripture means that when God was speaking in the “Old” Testament, so was Jesus. So when God was condemning sodomy, so was Jesus — and, of course, so was the Holy Ghost.
This realization puts to shame those attempts to reinterpret passages such of these as ackshually saying the opposite of what they are saying.
For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable…
or professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.
And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and of fourfooted beasts, and of creeping things. Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves…
For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error.
Et cetera.
Since this isn’t the place to justify traditional, and obvious, interpretations, which we here accept as true, we won’t dwell on the subject. Except to point to Robert Gagnon’s book if you have more interest.
Traditional interpretations are the law of the Church, written into its catechism, taught by the Fathers, Doctors and saints. And so on. In short, it’s easy for priests, bishops, and Cardinals to understand their duty on these matters. Why deviations from these duties and understandings exist is therefore important.
Enter the boss of German bishops, Georg Batzing. He says (in translation) sodomy “does not harm a person’s relationship with God.” He said relationships centered on one man masturbating into the rectum of another man are fine, “as long as they are carried out with loyalty and responsibility.” Loyalty might be possible. Responsibility cannot be—not within the Church.
Which is why he says Church teaching ought to change, because “Sexuality is a gift from God. It’s not a sin.” He justifies this by saying “We can no longer proceed solely from natural law, but have to think much more in terms of care and personal responsibility for one another.”
Yet if care is the criterion upon which relationships are judged or made “valid”, all things are allowed. You care for your dog, yes? You care for the kid down the street? You care for your deceased mother?
We have seen all of these desires painted as “orientations” (yes, even necrophilia), and all justified using “desire” and “love”. Natural law (in its classic form) is the only thing standing against these arguments. So it is not surprising Batzing dismisses it, without arguing against it.
Another non-surprising discovery is that Batzig describes himself as a “conservative.” This is so if we take the word in its modern connotation as one who surrenders, gracefully, to the left. Surrender is precisely what he wants, saying he wants the Church to “change.” Yet given the Church is supernaturally ordained, it cannot change. So the natural suspicion is that Batzig does not hold with the supernatural nature of the Church.
It is not only Batzig. Cardinal Reinhard Marx also claims sodomy is not a sin. “I speak of the primacy of love,” he says, “particularly in the sexual encounter.” The encounter between two men is never sexual, but only a crude simulation of sexuality, as natural law (and old school science) asserts.
Marx also says the Church, and not he, needs to change. We saw earlier that the catchphrase those who want the Church to embrace sodomy is synodality. The Church needs to be synodal, they claim. It’s greatest strength is that the word has no definite meaning, except as a signal, though perhaps worldly or heretical are useful synonyms.
The synodalians believe they have a friendly Vatican, and so are becoming more brazen, such as on Austrian bishop who hung an upside-down cross-like nude “transsexual activist” behind an altar. That is about an abrupt departure from an object of worship as you’re likely to find.
The synodalians are concentrated in German-speaking countries, though there are a fair share of them in other Western lands. They do not seem to have any prospect of success, because Germany and Austria are not the whole of the Church, and because the Church cannot change on this matter.
There is therefore a possibility the Germans peel off and form their own church, as has happened before. Given the synodalians are never punished and rarely admonished, and because of financial considerations, it’s more likely they’ll continue on their synodal path, preaching and acting falsely, the German church becoming more decadent and slowly dissolving. With nothing much done by anybody.
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Anal sex causes cancer
Oral sex causes cancer (Ask your dentist. Currently an avalanche of teenagers coming in to get their teeth
cleaned & walking out with a stage 3 mouth cancer diagnosis)
The combination of these practices leads to horrific gastrointestinal diseases
People who cannot live without these practices & chronically have these diseases get antibiotic-resistant staph
CDC in 2006 was terrified that a SanFran outbreak of antibiotic resistant staph would spread into general pop.
Doesn’t matter if the penetration is exclusively male into female. Sodomy is deadly. Promoting it to schoolchildren ought to be a crime.
Paraphrasing Gimli: “”Let them stay there. Let them rot! Why should we care?”. They will dissolve, they’ll dissolve in their rot, they’ll dissolve into oblivion. And the Church of Christ will continue on, unbeatable, until the Return of the King
So…when I say “peer review,” this is what I mean: that a conclusion is subjected to perhaps hostile criticism.
You are peer-reviewing this clown, Batzing.
Doing a helluva job, too.
Pingback: What is a conservative? – Zoopraxiscope
The men who run the church have been ignoring doctrinal reality for many years, for example
(1) Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus
(2) Doctrine of Christ the King
(3) Casti Connubii
(i) …
So this development is really not all that surprising – although it does and should fill us all with a certain foreboding – to see the scope of this only requires a brief read of Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors 1864 !!!!!!!!! or perhaps Romans 1 – God bless
Additionally see The Kingship of Christ and Organized Naturalism by the prophet Father Densi Fahey – online free here: http://www.freepdf.info/index.php?post/Fahey-Denis-The-Kingship-of-Christ-and-organized-naturalism
A summary here: https://catholicism.org/catholic-world-of-fahey.html
Wisdom 10 She delivered the just man who fled from the wicked that were perishing, when the fire came down upon Pentapolis:
Saint Bonaventure on the destruction of the Pentapolis for Sodomy:
She delivered the just man who fled from the wicked that were perishing. Here he shows the benefit of the wisdom given to the person of Lot when he was delivered from the destruction of Sodom, and, firstly, he treats of the deliverance of Lot; secondly, the punishment of the others: when the fire came down upon Pentapolis; thirdly, the equity of the punishment: For regarding not wisdom, they did not only slip in this, that they were ignorant of good things.
(Verse 6). She, namely, wisdom, the just man, ‘namely, Lot’ as a Gloss[520] says; also 2 Peter 2:8 says of him: ‘In sight and hearing he was just’; from the wicked that were perishing, namely, from association with the wicked who were perishing, that is, of the people of Sodom; She delivered the just man who fled, also from association with sin, according to 2 Peter 2:7: ‘And delivered just Lot, oppressed by the injustice and lewd conduct of the wicked’ and from association with punishment; Genesis 19:14ff. speaks of both deliverances. When the fire came down, sent from heaven not from earth; Genesis 19:24: ‘The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven’; upon Pentapolis, Gloss[521]: ‘That is, in the region of the five towns’, namely, Sodom, Gomorrah, Bela, Zeboiim and Admah.
All the people living in the Pentapolis- not just the sodomites- were destroyed by God for the sin of sodomy so what might that truth mean for America which has positive law – sodomitic “marriage, non-discrimination against sodomites, special grants/loans/programs for sodomites, special ceremonies for sodomites etc -?
Sodomy is a sin crying to Heaven for vengeance, worthy of contempt and condemnation , not a sin to be blessed and celebrated.
America has just elevated to the SCOTUS an evil Ivy League educated nitwit who succors pedophiles (sodomites are way over-represented statistically in this despicable crime) apologised to the perps she had to sentence to a mandatory minimum and dared to compare collectors of kiddie porn to collectors of others items (collectors qua collectors) as though collecting baseball cards or stamps is akin to collecting vids of men sodomising babies.
She defended an 18 yo black sex criminal who was caught in possession of kiddie porn by claiming he was just interested in peer activity – as though the 8 yo boy who was a vidicm of child rape was a peer to an 18 y.o.
I guess she thinks an 8 yo boy can join the military, get married, buy liquor, get a driver’s license etc, just like an 18 yo.
O. and of course the 18 yo has since committed more sex crimes since she let him off with a light sentience.
America is worthy of destruction…
O, did I mention she also denied the Bill of Rights applies to individuals?
That line is only in the movies and it is immediately rebuked for its foolish disregard for long-term consequences.
The respectful decision is to resign when you disagree with the terms of membership. But then self-respect would be necessary. The lack of self-respect would be a failing and shortcoming for a leadership role.
I think “synodal” does have a meaning. Traditionally councils were viewed as merely confirming doctrines perceived (rightly or wrongly) as going back to apostolic times. Until Vatican I and II which invented wholly new doctrines that novody who is not insane could claim go back to the beginning (this is includes papal infallibility from Vatican I). And since then the push is for “synodality”—i.e. to replace occasional councils that confirm ancient doctrine with more frequent councils (synods) that follow the tactic laid down in Vaticans I and II of a council being like congress voting to make new doctrines. So by “synodal” they mean a church that has an annual synod where the so-callee bishops vote to change doctrine and make new doctrine.
Germany.
It had to be Germany.
Whenever I come across headlines like, “Police called to assisted living facility after complaints of noise from geriatric sex party;”
or “Paramedics train to remove stuck sex toys.:
whatever,
It’s from Germany 4 times out of 5.
Spot how may straw men and false premises in the following: *see below
There is so much in the above to talk about and that is misinterpretation on your part, but as always, you drop the article and fallacies in all their ugliness and expect others to clean up. It’s a spiritual equivalent of cock fighting.
In short the argument is biblical literalism. It is a hashing and mashing together, Mel Gibson style, of what is believe by “most” Christians.
With just a wave of a hand.
Here is the truth:
Catholic moral teaching comes not from the bible but from natural law.
The Old Testament requires careful and knowledgable reading to understand or interpret more accurately, what is going on. ,It also helps to read it.
If what is knowingly and erroneously taught, causes people to fail and fall in their Faith; that sin won’t go unmarked by God. It is not your friends or subscribers you need to fool, it’s God.
More than one apostle said, God is Love.
Contemplation of many individuals with less knowledge, more or less intellect, of all ages and nationalities have come to the same conclusion, that includes me. As a non bible reading, *to speak of, but trusting and listening Christian teenager, so much went over my head yet so much really stayed with me all my life. Through the years, as more and more falsehood is shown for what it is, there is very little left but those statements made by Apostles who knew Jesus and by Paul who encountered His true Holy Spirit. So take heed, what THEY said, literally. Not what mankind believed God was saying in the Old Testament.
Don’t forget to prune and feed your fig tree.
*Particularly about the Trinity and why most Christians dodeduce that the Trinity exists, if they believe what Jesus says. What they don’t believe is what some say about the Trinity, such as is evidenced in the quote.
So mixing what IS with what is said about what IS, can be clearly shown in the quote above to anyone who really sees God
“catholic”:
Etymology. The Greek adjective katholikos, the origin of the term catholic, means ‘universal’.
Romans chapter 2, 3, and 7 in particular seem to me to explain what the truth is about what Paul is really saying in the above link to Romans chapter 1. Very important to know who Paul was and what he was doing. Why he was doing it and where his motive to be grateful and thankful comes from. Understand the history as well as the words.
“if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ in them, does not belong to Christ”
“If by the spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live”.
Paul also speaks of being put to death and then brought to life, so some more careful reading is essential.
Maybe all of Romans is so important, just like so much of the New Testament is so vital. Crucial and leaves t3he Old Testament as a shadow, I disagree with briggs evaluation of the two. They are both necessary for understanding but only one gives the Message of God’s will and his true nature.
Joy: “Here is the truth:
Catholic moral teaching comes not from the bible but from natural law.
Where does the Bible come from? Where does natural law come from? If what you interpret as “natural law” differs from what is in the Bible, then you are not following God.
As for the argument that “The Old Testament requires careful and knowledgable reading to understand or interpret more accurately, what is going on”; I’ve never found anyone with good intentions whose argument was that the Bible can only be interpreted by an expert class. “Don’t believe your lyin’ eyes, believe my convoluted post hoc justification for what I want you to believe.”
Most of the Bible, Old and New Testament, is in clear language easily understood by the layman and it means what it appears to mean.
does your name mean you hack the cloud? Just asking…
If the questions are rhetorical, very sorry:
Yes, I ought to have said “Roman Catholic moral teaching”. It is a fact not a criticism, necessarily.
If what you interpret as “natural law” differs from what is in the Bible, then you are not following God. No:
“You” being a “for argument’s sake Roman Catholic”, perhaps, yes, but you won’t get one to agree that what you say may be one consequence!
What you point out is the protestant argument against non biblical moral teaching. That took me several YEARS of going in circles with YOS arguing about this amongst many things, only to discover form elsewhere, that the bible is not the source of moral teaching for Roman catholics!
Yet when a Protestant demands that all morals must only come from the bible then that argument also falls. There’s a lot that isn’t in there. The law and the commandments are not the same thing. The law comes from common law, old testament examples, civil and criminal law. What Jesus gave as his two commandments about loving God and loving others as yourself. Come first though. Love can’t be enforced by written ‘law’, you see? The rest flows from that.
Re experts? I agree entirely with your sentiment. Someone reading the bible, if they can, for themselves, is a “God given” right. That’s not how the church intended/s it to work though.
To say I haven’t been helped by those who know far more than me would be untrue. So, for example, why should I care about so much of what happened in the Old Testament? and why is it included? NOT that it has no value to others, or that it is not inspired by God. God did not write the Old Testament verbatim as is believed by Muslims. A key difference.
Where does the Bible come from?
It is compiled /collated, as a library of the wisdom of God. It is inspired by God and notions of God. For Christians, it is the received wisdom of God which Jesus knew as a Jew , called:
The TeNaKh,(Old Testament books)
They were treasured Hebrew texts which were copied, written and saved over the centuries.
The Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and numbers) are ‘the law” of Moses: God formed a pact, a Covenant with the Israelites. (At that time having believed they had different Gods for different nations). God is recorded to have made certain promises to inherit the land. The law requires loyalty to God and it is where the ten commandments are given.
“Prophets”,Moses plus 16 prophets(?) Who were those believed to have had the direct experience or word of God through revelation of some kind; they often contain predictions that ‘will’, did come to pass…at the time or in the New Testament. Jesus fulfilled these scriptures prophecies and there are references back to those in the New Testament.
Writings: In form of poetry, Job, Psalms, lamentations, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, song of Solomon were sacred inspired and traditional texts.
And Historical books/manuscripts.
They were passed on through time as precious lessons of wisdom.
New Testament: Those who wrote about the life of Jesus who knew him or were close to those who did. Then from an arch enemy of early ‘Christianity’ in Paul, who was converted. He wrote multiple letters in the New Testament. Those who knew Jesus or who had a link to him directly are thought to have written all of the New Testament *including the last book of Revelations from John)
Where does natural law come from?
Presumably, as I’m not a Roman Catholic, if you can get one to tell you, (maybe you are one, you can tell me), from Thomas Aquinas? From what is understood of the natural world? Wisdom and general knowledge? The birds and the bees? Rules of the jungle… Tarzan?
Here:
https://youtu.be/P2uvuu5xXZE
Most of the Bible, Old and New Testament, is in clear language easily understood by the layman and it means what it appears to mean.
There’s been so much argument, war, cruelty and destruction, about what the bile means, that I can’t say I agree interpretation is easy.
I thought the same, history seems to contradict that claim, although I think my interpretation is clear enough.
Everybody thinks it! Yet many disagree.
There’s quite a few things even in the New Testament which `i still don’t understand
Sure there is! If it’s possible to reconcile the Bible’s endorsement of slavery, rape and genocide with a good and all-powerful God, it should be much easier to do the same with gay sex. What are you even complaining about?
Slavery: It was the good kind of slavery / when it wasn’t, it was better than killing people / it was acceptable then but isn’t now / God didn’t want to destroy the economy(!) / Jesus changed things (but didn’t condemn slavery?)
Rape: It was better than killing them / it wasn’t *technically* rape because they were married (by force).
Genocide: It was the good kind of genocide (the Nazis thought the same) / it wasn’t genocide because there were some survivors / it wasn’t *technically* genocide for some or other contrived reason.
Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque,
What a moron. Paedophiles aren’t gay or straight. The majority of child molestation happens within families (like the good Christian Duggars), and the organisation best-known for actually offering literal succor to paedophiles, by sheltering them from the criminal justice system for decades, is THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
Slavery, rape, genocide:
Have nothing to do with God and everything to do with mankind.
God’s kingdom is nothing like Earth. Why Earth? That is the question.
The two are brute facts, (to the believer). Nobody asks, why rocks? Why leaves? Except those like me, who’s asked all the silliest questions there are to ask.
Seems we’re not the first to have had these thoughts, Ecclesiastes is full of this kind of reasoning.
As a child I used to ask “why is that bus red?”
To my mother’s irritation.
So mankind has been trying to understand since the bible was written and collated.
Ask yourself if there’s anything that could happen that might change your mind?
Then if there’s anything that seems impossible that would change it
Bishop Batzig. You can’t make this stuff up. “Batzig Crazy”.
His view is so fundamentally against the Church that it seems ludicrous to try to debate it. And so it goes with most all leftist (progressive?) people. There are no common grounds where we can meet.
That this man is a Bishop simply beggars disbelief.
Listen to Starsky on Russian style homophobia:
Don’t tie your allegiance to a regime just because you think it supports your own prejudice.
Being Christian has nothing to do with hating gay people.
It has nothing to do with hatred at all.
https://youtu.be/h4WEBwsuQf0
At 1 minute mark you see why it is not the essence of goodness to promote such hatred.
If your religious belief leads you to hatred it is a false belief. If your belief is that God hates anyone it is a false belief
Joy,
They’re in his holy book.
The comments here indicate otherwise.
Swordfish,
Do you really think thees people represent the faith of Christianity?
Clue…I don’t, nor do many others like me who remain silent or walk away, as should I.
The comments here, by which I mean generally on the topic are political, personal and gut felt, with all the stench such gut felt remarks tend to create.
“his holy book”
It is “our holy book”. It is not to be worshipped. It is inspired by God, since he is the subject.
]Just as the sabbath was made for mankind so was the bible. Jesus confirms this in the New Testament.
John b kind of denied it the other day but I note the word “their laws”
Briggs blog is not christianity, it is sometimes about christianity. It often represents the exact opposite, where judgement is poor and pride runs high
Swordfish,
Here’s a New Testament take on slavery, Jesus’s word, according to Paul, who hated Christians:
https://youtu.be/aW9Q3Jt6Yvk
Overcoming suffering and oppression , is one of the hopeful messages of the New Testament.
Joy,
No True Christian fallacy. It doesn’t make any difference to me whether they represent Christianity perfectly or hardly at all; they act and vote according to their ‘faith’, and the rest of us have to live in a worse world because of that.
In any case, Christians have been arguing about what Christianity means since it began, and have never reached a consensus other than by force.
Paul never met Jesus, nor any of Jesus’s disciples, nor does he ever indicate that he thought Jesus existed as an historical figure. I watched your linked video twice as it’s so vague it’s difficult to pin down what argument it is making. In the gospels, Jesus NEVER condemned slavery, but he did condemn divorce (for example), so he had his priorities bass-ackwards.
Swordfish,
Arguing since the beginning, too. Not on the big stuff. Although some have killed for some of it. Others have had to be like christ for their own faith. We are all supposed to be prepared to die for it.
“no true Christian fallacy” I wasn’t using an argument at all I was asking a question.
You are saying there are no true Christians effectively, no?
I am saying, to me anyway, to the universe even, regardless, it doesn’t matter what [they] call me or themselves, in that it doesn’t affect what is ultimately true. I mean this in the theoretical sense.
Of course it matters how people behave and what they do, but those things won’t affect ultimate truth which can’t be shaken by someone’s behaviour or opinion. If something is/isn’t true, no matter how hard you will it, hope it, or ‘believe, it won’t make it so. I see a lot of despair and fear, anger, hopelessness which is the opposite of The Christ in the bible, not people who believe in a Spiritual messiah, but that they’re still looking for the messiah of he Jewish contemporaries to Jesus..
Whether you believe / like the idea also makes no difference. I was really asking you if you thought they represented what you know of Christianity. It seems you tacitly answer this.
The video is an explanation of the acknowledgement of the suffering of mankind. In this case, slaves or ‘servants’. Slavery was a fact of life, along with a multitude of things which we don’t do to each other today, although human beings tend to invent new oppressive entities and devices to keep the supply going. In Christianity, God is a suffering God. Through the physical demonstration and passion of Jesus.
So actually believing or even slightly suspecting, that something extraordinary happened (forget proof or adequate evidence for the moment) Christians are able to take heart and take strength from the hope which is brought through his message. Not just that he was “a lovely man”, although he was. Most people who don’t believe in his word do still think he was a good man and a wise teacher.
Jesus was a suffering servant, not a king who lauded over people with power of the sort normally associated with dominant oppressive powers. He ruled by love.
We love because we are loved, and that is why the slave master was able to accept his servant back, (who it seems wanted to return) don’t forget. So the truth set him free in a sense. I believe there’s a lot more one could say about that interlude but I understand you’re not looking for that kind of spiritual interpretation.
I believe the historical evidence that might be interesting to you, would be those historians who are not Christians but who investigated the validity of his life. I’ll look out for it if I find any.
Ask the atheists to do the investigation.
So Paul’s relationship was obtuse, in that he knew so much about he old Testament, rules an regs, he was sure that they were upstarts and disobedient hippies or whatever. He thought they deserved their fate, Putin style, (Steven was stoned, Paul condoned it.
Yet he did a complete about face and changed his character completely due to the ‘light” and the voice he heard. A personality transplant.
The voice asked him “Saul, why are you persecuting me I am the one who you are persecuting”.
After this, Paul was a changed man. For me that’s a large part of why I find the story valid as evidence, although not proof. It’s based on relating to the story in a small way and understanding human nature a little bit. People don’t change their views, generally, let alone totally alter their philosophy as an intelligent adult without some good reason for it. So maybe Paul had a neurological moment? But I don’t think so. That he understood the message so well and it seems he was identified for his personality. As a witness for the transformative love of God. He met Jesus through a spiritual encounter. Like scrooge but non-fiction?
Swordfish,
Realised I didn’t really answer your point. For what it’s worth!
RE Paul never indicated that he believed Jesus existed:
I didn’t answer properly. That he was preaching about Jesus as the spiritual saviour of all the world and organising the churches internal operations. So that he was involved at that level and in direct personal knowledge of the other disciples, it’s hard to believe that he (paul), didn’t know that Jesus existed, historically. Since he makes the argument about his being risen from death. You can’t have one without the other:
risen dead alive.
Found this, too as it’s short. Not condoning the source by the way, it just seems to have some brief explanations and references from the relevant bible sections.
https://hbu.edu/news-and-events/2016/07/01/paul-witness-r-esurrection-jesus/
Oh, the equalses disappeared
alive =>dead => risen historically speaking,
“Risen” :: => dead :: => alive, by my logic, it’s tacit that he knew he existed.