"Your mention of Kinsey & of evidence for homosexuality as limited to "statistics and correlations" makes me suspicious that you're unaware of the hard data on the bio dimension of homosexuality. - Willis (below)
      Firmly believing that God is the Creator of all life (who does abortion thwarts the very will of God at his peril), there can be no denial that some of His creation is without heterosexual orientation.  Jesus said that some are born eunuchs by the will of God ("eunuchs who have been so from birth" - Mt. 19:12).
      However, same sex relations is a denial of God's will for their lives, doing what is contrary to their created nature - i.e. disobedience and sin. Similarly, the heterosexuals are under constraints of chastity until united in marriage, and fidelity thereafter, according to their created nature as the two become one.
      (The name Kinsey came up, and we must recollect that his work was discredited as he purposely skewed his "findings" to suit his preordained results.  However, psuedo-scientists and libertines used them to rationalize their social theorums or immorality.)
  Al
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Willis E. Elliott
    To: confessing-christ@googlegroups.com
    Sent: Friday, March 30, 2012 5:34 PM
    Subject: hermeneutics: FACTS and OPINIONS

    Solid, orthodox thinking, Jim, except for the continuing evasion.

    Your paragraph's end proves the falsity of its beginning.

    E.g., I said that we (you & I) believe that we can praise God after death even though a psalmist (6.5) doesn't believe it.  What you need to give "some thought" & prayer to is why you categorize a matter of fact (viz., this psalmist's opinion) as a matter of opinion.  The God of Truth denies you the right to treat a fact as an opinion.  Further, you insult a brother by claiming that he's claiming as a fact what is no more than his opinion, his "conclusion": an evasion converted into an attack.  What's at stake here, Jim, is not hermeneutics but your integrity.

    Grace and peace--
    Willis

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: <linkc...@aol.com>
    To: "Confessing Christ Open Forum" <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>
    Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 7:11 AM
    Subject: Re: Homosexuality, science, Bible

    Dear Willis,

    I'm not trying to evade your questions regarding what I believe or
    don't believe in the Bible, I honestly don't have an answer, other
    than that there are things written that I believe in the Bible, with
    the Church which acknowledges the canon, and that I believe what it
    says about human nature being created male and female for the covenant
    fellowship of the two as one humanity, according to the image and
    likeness of God, as a sign of the mystery of Christ and the Church.
    As for the texts you cite, I will have to give them some thought; you
    seem to have come to your own conclusions regarding them, I have not.

    Jim

    On Mar 21, 10:00 pm, "Willis E. Elliott" <elliot...@charter.net>
    wrote:
    > Jim
    > 1
    > We would be in real conversation if neither of us evaded the other's questions. I have evaded none of yours. Your evasions here:
    > In my sec.5, I asked whether you agree with Paul that "there's no bio element in sexuality." Your evasion: "even if there are bio elements in sexuality."
    > In my sec.7, I ask "can you mention even one error in the Bible" (& to make it easy for you, I cite the Bible's "denial that we can praise God after we're dead [Ps.6.5].")? Your evasion: You ask God to help you believe whatever in the Bible you don't believe! That prayer, after saying you "would not dare to claim to believe everything the Bible says"! Then you blame your self-inflicted mental confusion on God & hand your problem to him, who will "have to sort that out"! (It's none of your business to "sort out" what's un/believable [that's two categories]? That's God's business, & he won't tell you?) Do you sniff no blasphemy in that? / Also in my sec.7, you evade the question (implicit in my citing 1Cor.11.7) whether you agree with Paul that women are not made in the image of God.
    > Need I tell you, Jim, that evasions are blockages to conversation? They are as solid cut-offs as the 20-ton Grand Central Station concretes that for 18 years prevented my computer trains from proceeding. / Of course you don't have to answer any of my questions. But if you respond without doing so, you are deluding yourself if you think you are conversing with me.
    > 2
    > Your first sentence uses "nature" with a sense unavailable to natural science. That evades my email's use of "nature."
    > 3
    > Your second sentence, without admitting it, evades Paul's limitation of "image of God" to males (1Cor.11.7) - & evades my reference thereto.
    > 4
    > Your third sentence, contrary to natural science, assumes that human beings are entirely responsible for what you call "a sundering".
    > 5
    > Your fourth sentence presupposes the possibility of a non-essential "bio-element" in homosexuality - a hypothetical category functioning only to (1) blur the objective meaning of "bio element" & (2) confuse my use (in my email's first sentence) of "essential".
    > 6
    > I continue to hope for conversation with you, though this is not the first time it has failed.
    > ,
    > Grace and peace--
    > Willis

    > ----- Original Message -----
    > From: <linkc...@aol.com>
    > To: "Confessing Christ Open Forum" <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>
    > Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 7:31 AM
    > Subject: Re: Homosexuality, science, Bible

    > Dear Willis,

    > The apostles and prophets, as witnesses to Jesus Christ, testify to
    > human nature as it is revealed in him. Notably, from the beginning, we
    > hear that humanity was created male and female, according to the image
    > and likeness of God. Homosexuality is a sundering of the two who are
    > intended together to be humanity. There is no "essential" bio-element
    > in homosexuality, even if there are bio-elements in homosexuality.

    > I would not dare to claim to believe everything the Bible says, let
    > alone everthing Paul says. God will have to sort that out! I do
    > believe Paul, and the rest of the prophets and apostles in this
    > matter, God help my unbelief!

    > Jim

    > On Mar 20, 8:56 pm, "Willis E. Elliott" <elliottwlm...@gmail.com>
    > wrote:
    > > Thanks, Jim.
    > > 1
    > > As a Brother Christian, I agree with you on essentials. But your email makes it sound as if we agree, period.
    > > 2
    > > Wrongly, you fuse "nature" as physical (as in "the natural sciences") & the "nature" in "true human nature" (a complex reality transcending physics). E.g., asexuals (ca.1% in our species) have no physical "natural" sexual interest / s. orientation / s. preference, but that's irrelevant to their "true human nature".
    > > 3
    > > Since WW2 there's been a steep cumulative rise in evidence of the bio-factors in the variety of human sexual orientations. All human societies, each in its own pattern, restrict sexual behavior, keep the flow of sexual desire within controlled channels, more or less effectively punish (by social & legal sanctions) violators of the restrictions, deviants from the channels. / Until the modern scientific bio-psycho-socio study of sex, customs & laws assumed that the baby-producing correlation between sexual organs was as universal as is + / - attraction in magnets. / Societies need no customs & laws regulating magnetic attraction: it's only "physical" (the English transliteration of the Greek word meaning "natural"). Not so in the case of sexual attraction, the complex involving everything it means to be human (including all five of our "minds": emotional, esthetic, moral, religious, rational). / By punishments administered by customs & laws, societies pressure their members to be "moral," i.e. responsible for whatever is defined as "good behavior" & blame-worthy for violations & deviations.
    > > 4
    > > In "Rome," the empire of Christianity's birth, Stoicism was the most influential philosophy & ethic, & its primary ethical sanction (thought-support for "good behavior") was *kata physin* ("according to nature"). In writing to Rome (Roman Christians), Paul used it in its negative form (*para physin* ["against nature"], 1.26; 11.21,24bis - all three, tree-grafting as "unnatural"). (Paul was agreeing only with the Stoics' sanction; they did not teach, as Paul did, that homosexuality is unnatural. Neither favored a libertine style of sexuality.)
    > > 4.1
    > > Tree-grafting is indeed unnatural (*para physin*) as a human interference with nature, but its purpose is to improve on nature - an improvement possible only if the grafting process is "according to nature"

Rev Al:

It is always painful to read your notes on this topic.

I would simply suggest that your matter-of-fact and essentialist argument in
point 4 (really 3) below would convict many of your heterosexual congregants
and, I suspect, a number of your ordained colleagues, of "sexual organ
misuse."

As just one example, I mentioned Onan in an earlier note; he got the death
penalty and now lives forever in eponymy for his version of "sexual organ
misuse" (Genesis 38.8-10).

Your point of view, though, does resonate with Clement of Alexandria:  "To
have coitus other than to procreate is to do injury to nature" (The
Instructor of Children 2.10.95.3), circa 190 AD.  As Bob Roberts sang:  "The
Times they are a-changing BACK!"

(For more useful quotes in the current political context, see:
http://www.scripturecatholic.com/contraception.html)

Ted Trost

From: "Rev. AWKovacs" <rev...@comcast.net<mailto:rev...@comcast.net>>
Reply-To:
"confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om>"
<confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om>>
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 05:24:29 -0500
To:
"confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om>"
<confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om>>
Cc: "Kovacs, Rev. Albert W." <rev...@comcast.net<mailto:rev...@comcast.net>>
Subject: Re: Jesus on ASEXUALITY - HOMOSEXUALITY

No foolin' today, Willis - we've cleared the April Fool's hurdle (as we did
Groundhog Day).

1. That Jesus didn't address the homosexual issue probably was because it
wasn't much of an issue then  (if at all) - since the community "knew" by
its moral code that it was an "abomination."  It's much like "same sex
marriage," which wasn't a part of the discussion even fifty years ago. Then,
everyone knew marriage was between a man and a woman - period!  When a
homosexual couple lived together, it wasn't a matter for conversation -
usually hiddden or one ignored in polite conversation. ...  Abortion wasn't
table conversation fifty years ago either, and whoever thought we'd be so
dissolute that we tolerate without a gasp over a million a year just in the
USA? ... Jimmy Carter was/is wrong about a lot of things - he couldn't find
any persecuted churches in Russia either.

2. To have a homosexual nature for me means that the person, because of that
God-given nature, isn't intended to be sexually involved. There are some
things in life that have to be accepted. Societal history is full of the
stories of fine people who have accepted the limitations of their physical
or mental attributes (I suppose we all have may have several, perhaps less
noticeable). Some are born blind, others albino, still others with Downs
Syndrome,  and some low IQ, etc. They are all valued, human beings of God's
creation. The God who creates us all differently is not unjust.  We all have
relatives who may be "slow," yet whom we love unconditionally, and so with
God who cares for all.

4.  What is unnatural is the misuse of the sexual organs, which are
complementary in heterosexual intimacy and in harmony with God's design for
their use. Tradesmen will tell you that it's imperative to use the right
tool for the right job - kitchen knives aren't supposed to be used for screw
drivers, and socket wrenches for hammers. Lesbian and gay intimacy requires
the misuse of the organs, e.g. by "sex toys" or sodomizing.  It is readily
manifest and we know it is sinful to misuse them so.
Al

Rev Al:

It is always painful to read your notes on this topic.

I would simply suggest that your matter-of-fact and essentialist argument in
point 4 (really 3) below would convict many of your heterosexual congregants
and, I suspect, a number of your ordained colleagues, of "sexual organ
misuse."

As just one example, I mentioned Onan in an earlier note; he got the death
penalty and now lives forever in eponymy for his version of "sexual organ
misuse" (Genesis 38.8-10).

Your point of view, though, does resonate with Clement of Alexandria:  "To
have coitus other than to procreate is to do injury to nature" (The
Instructor of Children 2.10.95.3), circa 190 AD.  As Bob Roberts sang:  "The
Times they are a-changing—BACK!"

(For more useful quotes in the current political context, see:
http://www.scripturecatholic.com/contraception.html)

Ted Trost

From: "Rev. AWKovacs" <rev...@comcast.net<mailto:rev...@comcast.net><mailto:rev...@comcast.net>>
Reply-To:
"confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om><mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>"
<confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om><mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>>
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 05:24:29 -0500
To:
"confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om><mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>"
<confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om><mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>>
Cc: "Kovacs, Rev. Albert W." <rev...@comcast.net<mailto:rev...@comcast.net><mailto:rev...@comcast.net>>
Subject: Re: Jesus on ASEXUALITY - HOMOSEXUALITY

No foolin' today, Willis - we've cleared the April Fool's hurdle (as we did
Groundhog Day).

1. That Jesus didn't address the homosexual issue probably was because it
wasn't much of an issue then  (if at all) - since the community "knew" by
its moral code that it was an "abomination."  It's much like "same sex
marriage," which wasn't a part of the discussion even fifty years ago. Then,
everyone knew marriage was between a man and a woman - period!  When a
homosexual couple lived together, it wasn't a matter for conversation -
usually hiddden or one ignored in polite conversation. ...  Abortion wasn't
table conversation fifty years ago either, and whoever thought we'd be so
dissolute that we tolerate without a gasp over a million a year just in the
USA? ... Jimmy Carter was/is wrong about a lot of things - he couldn't find
any persecuted churches in Russia either.

2. To have a homosexual nature for me means that the person, because of that
God-given nature, isn't intended to be sexually involved. There are some
things in life that have to be accepted. Societal history is full of the
stories of fine people who have accepted the limitations of their physical
or mental attributes (I suppose we all have may have several, perhaps less
noticeable). Some are born blind, others albino, still others with Downs
Syndrome,  and some low IQ, etc. They are all valued, human beings of God's
creation. The God who creates us all differently is not unjust.  We all have
relatives who may be "slow," yet whom we love unconditionally, and so with
God who cares for all.

4.  What is unnatural is the misuse of the sexual organs, which are
complementary in heterosexual intimacy and in harmony with God's design for
their use. Tradesmen will tell you that it's imperative to use the right
tool for the right job - kitchen knives aren't supposed to be used for screw
drivers, and socket wrenches for hammers. Lesbian and gay intimacy requires
the misuse of the organs, e.g. by "sex toys" or sodomizing.  It is readily
manifest and we know it is sinful to misuse them so.
Al

Enough people have stormed off.

We were just lamenting Scott's absence before you came back to the
conversation. . . .

So the last word is yours.

From: "Rev. AWKovacs" <rev...@comcast.net<mailto:rev...@comcast.net>>
Reply-To:
"confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om>"
<confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om>>
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 18:20:50 -0500
To:
"confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om>"
<confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om>>
Cc: "Kovacs, Rev. Albert W." <rev...@comcast.net<mailto:rev...@comcast.net>>
Subject: Re: Jesus on ASEXUALITY - HOMOSEXUALITY

Bro. Ted:

    The pain goes with the subject, as it has throughout the ages, as
prowler and seducer are everpresent.  God is no less pleased than we would
be to discover our child has yielded to temptation and surrendered to sin -
sexual or otherwise.
    That some close to me, family or colleagues or members, are convicted is
not by my judgment but by the laws of God manifest in nature and scripture.
Onan is not alone, nor his sin worse than that of many in the generations
since.  I am called to teach, not to make or amend or suspend the rule of
God's law.  If I fail to do that, the sins fall upon me - and I have enough
of my own already.
    Ursinus, addressing the Seventh Commandment concerning adultery, in
clarification of Questions 108 & 109 of the Heidelberg Catechism, his
extends his comments on the latter: "therefore he fforbids all unchaste
actions, gestures, thoughts, desires, and whatever can entice men thereto."
As Calvin told his correspondents that his appeal to the hurch Fathers was
not that they had inordinate authority, but to show that his insights were
not novel and in concord with such wisdom, I share the insights of the
Reformer Ursinus.
    Of particular note, he said: "When God singles out adultery as the most
shocking and debasing vice of all the sins whwich are repugnant to chastity,
he at the same time prohibits and condemns all wandering and wanton lusts,
whether they be found in married or unmarried persons, and prohibits all
other sisn and vices contrary to chastity, together with their causes,
occasions, effetcs, entecedents, consequents, &c." ...  "All the various
species of lust may be rerferred to these three classes: - The first class
or kind are those which are contrary to nature, and from the devil - such as
are even contrary to our corrupt nature; not only because they corrupt and
spoil it of conformity with God, but also because this our corrupt nature
shrinks from them and abhors them. The lusts of which the apostle Paul
speaks in the first chapted of the Epistle to the Romans, are of this class,
as the confounding of the sexes, also abuses of the female sex."
    Of course, those who wish to throw out Paul will also want to ignore
Ursinus and the Law, the latter recognized by Jesus, and choose instead
Smorgasbord Christianity acceptable to their appetite, teachers inclined to
affirm their idolatry.
Rev Al

----- Original Message -----
From: "Trost, Theodore" <ttr...@as.ua.edu<mailto:ttr...@as.ua.edu>>
To:
<confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om>>
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 12:01 PM
Subject: Re: Jesus on ASEXUALITY - HOMOSEXUALITY

Rev Al:

It is always painful to read your notes on this topic.

I would simply suggest that your matter-of-fact and essentialist argument in
point 4 (really 3) below would convict many of your heterosexual congregants
and, I suspect, a number of your ordained colleagues, of "sexual organ
misuse."

As just one example, I mentioned Onan in an earlier note; he got the death
penalty and now lives forever in eponymy for his version of "sexual organ
misuse" (Genesis 38.8-10).

Your point of view, though, does resonate with Clement of Alexandria:  "To
have coitus other than to procreate is to do injury to nature" (The
Instructor of Children 2.10.95.3), circa 190 AD.  As Bob Roberts sang:  "The
Times they are a-changing BACK!"

(For more useful quotes in the current political context, see:
http://www.scripturecatholic.com/contraception.html)

Ted Trost

From: "Rev. AWKovacs"
<rev...@comcast.net<mailto:rev...@comcast.net><mailto:rev...@comcast.net>>
Reply-To:
"confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om><mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>"
<confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om><mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>>
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 05:24:29 -0500
To:
"confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om><mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>"
<confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om><mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>>
Cc: "Kovacs, Rev. Albert W."
<rev...@comcast.net<mailto:rev...@comcast.net><mailto:rev...@comcast.net>>
Subject: Re: Jesus on ASEXUALITY - HOMOSEXUALITY

No foolin' today, Willis - we've cleared the April Fool's hurdle (as we did
Groundhog Day).

1. That Jesus didn't address the homosexual issue probably was because it
wasn't much of an issue then  (if at all) - since the community "knew" by
its moral code that it was an "abomination."  It's much like "same sex
marriage," which wasn't a part of the discussion even fifty years ago. Then,
everyone knew marriage was between a man and a woman - period!  When a
homosexual couple lived together, it wasn't a matter for conversation -
usually hiddden or one ignored in polite conversation. ...  Abortion wasn't
table conversation fifty years ago either, and whoever thought we'd be so
dissolute that we tolerate without a gasp over a million a year just in the
USA? ... Jimmy Carter was/is wrong about a lot of things - he couldn't find
any persecuted churches in Russia either.

2. To have a homosexual nature for me means that the person, because of that
God-given nature, isn't intended to be sexually involved. There are some
things in life that have to be accepted. Societal history is full of the
stories of fine people who have accepted the limitations of their physical
or mental attributes (I suppose we all have may have several, perhaps less
noticeable). Some are born blind, others albino, still others with Downs
Syndrome,  and some low IQ, etc. They are all valued, human beings of God's
creation. The God who creates us all differently is not unjust.  We all have
relatives who may be "slow," yet whom we love unconditionally, and so with
God who cares for all.

4.  What is unnatural is the misuse of the sexual organs, which are
complementary in heterosexual intimacy and in harmony with God's design for
their use. Tradesmen will tell you that it's imperative to use the right
tool for the right job - kitchen knives aren't supposed to be used for screw
drivers, and socket wrenches for hammers. Lesbian and gay intimacy requires
the misuse of the organs, e.g. by "sex toys" or sodomizing.  It is readily
manifest and we know it is sinful to misuse them so.
Al

> We were just lamenting Scott's absence before you came back to the conversation. . . .

> So the last word is yours.

> From: "Rev. AWKovacs" <rev...@comcast.net<mailto:rev...@comcast.net>>
> Reply-To: "confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om>" <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om>>
> Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 18:20:50 -0500
> To: "confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om>" <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om>>
> Cc: "Kovacs, Rev. Albert W." <rev...@comcast.net<mailto:rev...@comcast.net>>
> Subject: Re: Jesus on ASEXUALITY - HOMOSEXUALITY

> Bro. Ted:

>     The pain goes with the subject, as it has throughout the ages, as
> prowler and seducer are everpresent.  God is no less pleased than we would
> be to discover our child has yielded to temptation and surrendered to sin -
> sexual or otherwise.
>     That some close to me, family or colleagues or members, are convicted is
> not by my judgment but by the laws of God manifest in nature and scripture.
> Onan is not alone, nor his sin worse than that of many in the generations
> since.  I am called to teach, not to make or amend or suspend the rule of
> God's law.  If I fail to do that, the sins fall upon me - and I have enough
> of my own already.
>     Ursinus, addressing the Seventh Commandment concerning adultery, in
> clarification of Questions 108 & 109 of the Heidelberg Catechism, his
> extends his comments on the latter: "therefore he fforbids all unchaste
> actions, gestures, thoughts, desires, and whatever can entice men thereto."
> As Calvin told his correspondents that his appeal to the hurch Fathers was
> not that they had inordinate authority, but to show that his insights were
> not novel and in concord with such wisdom, I share the insights of the
> Reformer Ursinus.
>     Of particular note, he said: "When God singles out adultery as the most
> shocking and debasing vice of all the sins whwich are repugnant to chastity,
> he at the same time prohibits and condemns all wandering and wanton lusts,
> whether they be found in married or unmarried persons, and prohibits all
> other sisn and vices contrary to chastity, together with their causes,
> occasions, effetcs, entecedents, consequents, &c." ...  "All the various
> species of lust may be rerferred to these three classes: - The first class
> or kind are those which are contrary to nature, and from the devil - such as
> are even contrary to our corrupt nature; not only because they corrupt and
> spoil it of conformity with God, but also because this our corrupt nature
> shrinks from them and abhors them. The lusts of which the apostle Paul
> speaks in the first chapted of the Epistle to the Romans, are of this class,
> as the confounding of the sexes, also abuses of the female sex."
>     Of course, those who wish to throw out Paul will also want to ignore
> Ursinus and the Law, the latter recognized by Jesus, and choose instead
> Smorgasbord Christianity acceptable to their appetite, teachers inclined to
> affirm their idolatry.
> Rev Al

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Trost, Theodore" <ttr...@as.ua.edu<mailto:ttr...@as.ua.edu>>
> To: <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om>>
> Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 12:01 PM
> Subject: Re: Jesus on ASEXUALITY - HOMOSEXUALITY

> Rev Al:

> It is always painful to read your notes on this topic.

> I would simply suggest that your matter-of-fact and essentialist argument in
> point 4 (really 3) below would convict many of your heterosexual congregants
> and, I suspect, a number of your ordained colleagues, of "sexual organ
> misuse."

> As just one example, I mentioned Onan in an earlier note; he got the death
> penalty and now lives forever in eponymy for his version of "sexual organ
> misuse" (Genesis 38.8-10).

> Your point of view, though, does resonate with Clement of Alexandria:  "To
> have coitus other than to procreate is to do injury to nature" (The
> Instructor of Children 2.10.95.3), circa 190 AD.  As Bob Roberts sang:  "The
> Times they are a-changing—BACK!"

> (For more useful quotes in the current political context, see:http://www.scripturecatholic.com/contraception.html)

> Ted Trost

> From: "Rev. AWKovacs" <rev...@comcast.net<mailto:rev...@comcast.net><mailto:rev...@comcast.net>>
> Reply-To:
> "confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om><mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>"
> <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om><mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>>
> Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 05:24:29 -0500
> To:
> "confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om><mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>"
> <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om><mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>>
> Cc: "Kovacs, Rev. Albert W." <rev...@comcast.net<mailto:rev...@comcast.net><mailto:rev...@comcast.net>>
> Subject: Re: Jesus on ASEXUALITY - HOMOSEXUALITY

> No foolin' today, Willis - we've cleared the April Fool's hurdle (as we did
> Groundhog Day).

> 1. That Jesus didn't address the homosexual issue probably was because it
> wasn't much of an issue then  (if at all) - since the community "knew" by
> its moral code that it was an "abomination."  It's much like "same sex
> marriage," which wasn't a part of the discussion even fifty years ago. Then,
> everyone knew marriage was between a man and a woman - period!  When a
> homosexual couple lived together, it wasn't a matter for conversation -
> usually hiddden or one ignored in polite conversation. ...  Abortion wasn't
> table conversation fifty years ago either, and whoever thought we'd be so
> dissolute that we tolerate without a gasp over a million a year just in the
> USA? ... Jimmy Carter was/is wrong about a lot of things - he couldn't find
> any persecuted churches in Russia either.

> 2. To have a homosexual nature for me means that the person, because of that
> God-given nature, isn't intended to be sexually involved. There are some
> things in life that have to be accepted. Societal history is full of the
> stories of fine people who have accepted the limitations of their physical
> or mental attributes (I suppose we all have may have several, perhaps less
> noticeable). Some are born blind, others albino, still others with Downs
> Syndrome,  and some low IQ, etc. They are all valued, human beings of God's
> creation. The God who creates us all differently is not unjust.  We all have
> relatives who may be "slow," yet whom we love unconditionally, and so with
> God who cares for all.

> 4.  What is unnatural is the misuse of the sexual organs, which are
> complementary in heterosexual intimacy and in harmony with God's design for
> their use. Tradesmen will tell you that it's imperative to use the right
> tool for the right job - kitchen knives aren't supposed to be used for screw
> drivers, and socket wrenches for hammers. Lesbian and gay intimacy requires
> the misuse of the organs, e.g. by "sex toys" or sodomizing.  It is readily
> manifest and we know it is sinful to misuse them so.
> Al

Rev Al:

It is always painful to read your notes on this topic.

I would simply suggest that your matter-of-fact and essentialist argument in
point 4 (really 3) below would convict many of your heterosexual congregants
and, I suspect, a number of your ordained colleagues, of "sexual organ
misuse."

As just one example, I mentioned Onan in an earlier note; he got the death
penalty and now lives forever in eponymy for his version of "sexual organ
misuse" (Genesis 38.8-10).

Your point of view, though, does resonate with Clement of Alexandria:  "To
have coitus other than to procreate is to do injury to nature" (The
Instructor of Children 2.10.95.3), circa 190 AD.  As Bob Roberts sang:  "The
Times they are a-changing—BACK!"

(For more useful quotes in the current political context, see:http://www.scripturecatholic.com/contraception.html)

Ted Trost

Jim:

It's a busy season and there are many responsibilities to attend to during
the high holy days.  Tempers flare.  Even Jesus got upset with the Temple
cling-ons and stormed out. . . .

My rather oblique submission to Reverend Al was intended only to cut myself
off from further debates (at least with Al) about homosexuality in this
forum.  I was handing the last word to him in that particular iteration and
taking a vow of silence.  Who is up to arguing this matter endlessly?  It
has been a topic of impassioned theological reflection since a gathering of
Confessing Christ in Boylston, MA, back in 1993 or so.  Before that, circa
1978, it was one of the distinguishing foci of the Biblical Witness
Fellowship.   Not to entrench an us vs. them, then, but in the hope of
maintaining an us that had already been diminished by two at that point
(with explicit mention, in my note, to an earlier departee), I just offered
the last word to Al.  He took it.

Ted

From: "linkc...@aol.com<mailto:linkc...@aol.com>"
<linkc...@aol.com<mailto:linkc...@aol.com>>
Reply-To:
"confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om>"
<confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om>>
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 21:50:49 -0500
To: Confessing Christ Open Forum
<confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om>>
Subject: Re: Jesus on ASEXUALITY - HOMOSEXUALITY

"We" vs. "you"?

Jim Link

On Apr 2, 8:19 pm, "Trost, Theodore"
<ttr...@as.ua.edu<mailto:ttr...@as.ua.edu>> wrote:
Enough people have stormed off.

We were just lamenting Scott's absence before you came back to the
conversation. . . .

So the last word is yours.

From: "Rev. AWKovacs"
<rev...@comcast.net<mailto:rev...@comcast.net><mailto:rev...@comcast.net>>
Reply-To:
"confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om><mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c om>"
<confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om><mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c om>>
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 18:20:50 -0500
To:
"confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om><mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c om>"
<confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om><mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c om>>
Cc: "Kovacs, Rev. Albert W."
<rev...@comcast.net<mailto:rev...@comcast.net><mailto:rev...@comcast.net>>
Subject: Re: Jesus on ASEXUALITY - HOMOSEXUALITY

Bro. Ted:

    The pain goes with the subject, as it has throughout the ages, as
prowler and seducer are everpresent.  God is no less pleased than we would
be to discover our child has yielded to temptation and surrendered to sin -
sexual or otherwise.
    That some close to me, family or colleagues or members, are convicted is
not by my judgment but by the laws of God manifest in nature and scripture.
Onan is not alone, nor his sin worse than that of many in the generations
since.  I am called to teach, not to make or amend or suspend the rule of
God's law.  If I fail to do that, the sins fall upon me - and I have enough
of my own already.
    Ursinus, addressing the Seventh Commandment concerning adultery, in
clarification of Questions 108 & 109 of the Heidelberg Catechism, his
extends his comments on the latter: "therefore he fforbids all unchaste
actions, gestures, thoughts, desires, and whatever can entice men thereto."
As Calvin told his correspondents that his appeal to the hurch Fathers was
not that they had inordinate authority, but to show that his insights were
not novel and in concord with such wisdom, I share the insights of the
Reformer Ursinus.
    Of particular note, he said: "When God singles out adultery as the most
shocking and debasing vice of all the sins whwich are repugnant to chastity,
he at the same time prohibits and condemns all wandering and wanton lusts,
whether they be found in married or unmarried persons, and prohibits all
other sisn and vices contrary to chastity, together with their causes,
occasions, effetcs, entecedents, consequents, &c." ...  "All the various
species of lust may be rerferred to these three classes: - The first class
or kind are those which are contrary to nature, and from the devil - such as
are even contrary to our corrupt nature; not only because they corrupt and
spoil it of conformity with God, but also because this our corrupt nature
shrinks from them and abhors them. The lusts of which the apostle Paul
speaks in the first chapted of the Epistle to the Romans, are of this class,
as the confounding of the sexes, also abuses of the female sex."
    Of course, those who wish to throw out Paul will also want to ignore
Ursinus and the Law, the latter recognized by Jesus, and choose instead
Smorgasbord Christianity acceptable to their appetite, teachers inclined to
affirm their idolatry.
Rev Al

----- Original Message -----
From: "Trost, Theodore"
<ttr...@as.ua.edu<mailto:ttr...@as.ua.edu><mailto:ttr...@as.ua.edu>>
To:
<confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om><mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c om>>
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 12:01 PM
Subject: Re: Jesus on ASEXUALITY - HOMOSEXUALITY

Rev Al:

It is always painful to read your notes on this topic.

I would simply suggest that your matter-of-fact and essentialist argument in
point 4 (really 3) below would convict many of your heterosexual congregants
and, I suspect, a number of your ordained colleagues, of "sexual organ
misuse."

As just one example, I mentioned Onan in an earlier note; he got the death
penalty and now lives forever in eponymy for his version of "sexual organ
misuse" (Genesis 38.8-10).

Your point of view, though, does resonate with Clement of Alexandria:  "To
have coitus other than to procreate is to do injury to nature" (The
Instructor of Children 2.10.95.3), circa 190 AD.  As Bob Roberts sang:  "The
Times they are a-changing BACK!"

(For more useful quotes in the current political context,
see:http://www.scripturecatholic.com/contraception.html)

Ted Trost

> It's a busy season and there are many responsibilities to attend to during the high holy days.  Tempers flare.  Even Jesus got upset with the Temple cling-ons and stormed out. . . .

> My rather oblique submission to Reverend Al was intended only to cut myself off from further debates (at least with Al) about homosexuality in this forum.  I was handing the last word to him in that particular iteration and taking a vow of silence.  Who is up to arguing this matter endlessly?  It has been a topic of impassioned theological reflection since a gathering of Confessing Christ in Boylston, MA, back in 1993 or so.  Before that, circa 1978, it was one of the distinguishing foci of the Biblical Witness Fellowship.   Not to entrench an us vs. them, then, but in the hope of maintaining an us that had already been diminished by two at that point (with explicit mention, in my note, to an earlier departee), I just offered the last word to Al.  He took it.

> Ted

> From: "linkc...@aol.com<mailto:linkc...@aol.com>" <linkc...@aol.com<mailto:linkc...@aol.com>>
> Reply-To: "confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om>" <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om>>
> Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 21:50:49 -0500
> To: Confessing Christ Open Forum <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om>>
> Subject: Re: Jesus on ASEXUALITY - HOMOSEXUALITY

> "We" vs. "you"?

> Jim Link

> On Apr 2, 8:19 pm, "Trost, Theodore" <ttr...@as.ua.edu<mailto:ttr...@as.ua.edu>> wrote:
> Enough people have stormed off.

> We were just lamenting Scott's absence before you came back to the conversation. . . .

> So the last word is yours.

> From: "Rev. AWKovacs" <rev...@comcast.net<mailto:rev...@comcast.net><mailto:rev...@comcast.net>>
> Reply-To: "confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om><mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om>" <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om><mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om>>
> Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 18:20:50 -0500
> To: "confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om><mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om>" <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om><mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om>>
> Cc: "Kovacs, Rev. Albert W." <rev...@comcast.net<mailto:rev...@comcast.net><mailto:rev...@comcast.net>>
> Subject: Re: Jesus on ASEXUALITY - HOMOSEXUALITY

> Bro. Ted:

>     The pain goes with the subject, as it has throughout the ages, as
> prowler and seducer are everpresent.  God is no less pleased than we would
> be to discover our child has yielded to temptation and surrendered to sin -
> sexual or otherwise.
>     That some close to me, family or colleagues or members, are convicted is
> not by my judgment but by the laws of God manifest in nature and scripture.
> Onan is not alone, nor his sin worse than that of many in the generations
> since.  I am called to teach, not to make or amend or suspend the rule of
> God's law.  If I fail to do that, the sins fall upon me - and I have enough
> of my own already.
>     Ursinus, addressing the Seventh Commandment concerning adultery, in
> clarification of Questions 108 & 109 of the Heidelberg Catechism, his
> extends his comments on the latter: "therefore he fforbids all unchaste
> actions, gestures, thoughts, desires, and whatever can entice men thereto."
> As Calvin told his correspondents that his appeal to the hurch Fathers was
> not that they had inordinate authority, but to show that his insights were
> not novel and in concord with such wisdom, I share the insights of the
> Reformer Ursinus.
>     Of particular note, he said: "When God singles out adultery as the most
> shocking and debasing vice of all the sins whwich are repugnant to chastity,
> he at the same time prohibits and condemns all wandering and wanton lusts,
> whether they be found in married or unmarried persons, and prohibits all
> other sisn and vices contrary to chastity, together with their causes,
> occasions, effetcs, entecedents, consequents, &c." ...  "All the various
> species of lust may be rerferred to these three classes: - The first class
> or kind are those which are contrary to nature, and from the devil - such as
> are even contrary to our corrupt nature; not only because they corrupt and
> spoil it of conformity with God, but also because this our corrupt nature
> shrinks from them and abhors them. The lusts of which the apostle Paul
> speaks in the first chapted of the Epistle to the Romans, are of this class,
> as the confounding of the sexes, also abuses of the female sex."
>     Of course, those who wish to throw out Paul will also want to ignore
> Ursinus and the Law, the latter recognized by Jesus, and choose instead
> Smorgasbord Christianity acceptable to their appetite, teachers inclined to
> affirm their idolatry.
> Rev Al

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Trost, Theodore" <ttr...@as.ua.edu<mailto:ttr...@as.ua.edu><mailto:ttr...@as.ua.edu>>
> To: <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om><mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om>>
> Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 12:01 PM
> Subject: Re: Jesus on ASEXUALITY - HOMOSEXUALITY

> Rev Al:

> It is always painful to read your notes on this topic.

> I would simply suggest that your matter-of-fact and essentialist argument in
> point 4 (really 3) below would convict many of your heterosexual congregants
> and, I suspect, a number of your ordained colleagues, of "sexual organ
> misuse."

> As just one example, I mentioned Onan in an earlier note; he got the death
> penalty and now lives forever in eponymy for his version of "sexual organ
> misuse" (Genesis 38.8-10).

> Your point of view, though, does resonate with Clement of Alexandria:  "To
> have coitus other than to procreate is to do injury to nature" (The
> Instructor of Children 2.10.95.3), circa 190 AD.  As Bob Roberts sang:  "The
> Times they are a-changing—BACK!"

> (For more useful quotes in the current political context, see:http://www.scripturecatholic.com/contraception.html)

> Ted Trost

> Brother Theodore: Hope all hang in here for more fruitful talk. It is a
> wonderful week of intensity for all. Hope "that" subject has been
> exhausted(again) for this group. Stay on Debra and others+++please!+++ Grace
> abounds! Roger
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Trost, Theodore" <ttr...@as.ua.edu>
> To: <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2012 1:55 PM
> Subject: on (ex)communication

> Jim:

> It's a busy season and there are many responsibilities to attend to during
> the high holy days.  Tempers flare.  Even Jesus got upset with the Temple
> cling-ons and stormed out. . . .

> My rather oblique submission to Reverend Al was intended only to cut myself
> off from further debates (at least with Al) about homosexuality in this
> forum.  I was handing the last word to him in that particular iteration and
> taking a vow of silence.  Who is up to arguing this matter endlessly?  It
> has been a topic of impassioned theological reflection since a gathering of
> Confessing Christ in Boylston, MA, back in 1993 or so.  Before that, circa
> 1978, it was one of the distinguishing foci of the Biblical Witness
> Fellowship.   Not to entrench an us vs. them, then, but in the hope of
> maintaining an us that had already been diminished by two at that point
> (with explicit mention, in my note, to an earlier departee), I just offered
> the last word to Al.  He took it.

> Ted

> From: "linkc...@aol.com<mailto:linkc...@aol.com>"
> <linkc...@aol.com<mailto:linkc...@aol.com>>
> Reply-To:
> "confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om>"
> <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om>>
> Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 21:50:49 -0500
> To: Confessing Christ Open Forum
> <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om>>
> Subject: Re: Jesus on ASEXUALITY - HOMOSEXUALITY

> "We" vs. "you"?

> Jim Link

> On Apr 2, 8:19 pm, "Trost, Theodore"
> <ttr...@as.ua.edu<mailto:ttr...@as.ua.edu>> wrote:
> Enough people have stormed off.

> We were just lamenting Scott's absence before you came back to the
> conversation. . . .

> So the last word is yours.

> From: "Rev. AWKovacs"
> <rev...@comcast.net<mailto:rev...@comcast.net><mailto:rev...@comcast.net>>
> Reply-To:
> "confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om><mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om>"
> <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om><mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om>>
> Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 18:20:50 -0500
> To:
> "confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om><mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om>"
> <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om><mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om>>
> Cc: "Kovacs, Rev. Albert W."
> <rev...@comcast.net<mailto:rev...@comcast.net><mailto:rev...@comcast.net>>
> Subject: Re: Jesus on ASEXUALITY - HOMOSEXUALITY

> Bro. Ted:

>    The pain goes with the subject, as it has throughout the ages, as
> prowler and seducer are everpresent.  God is no less pleased than we would
> be to discover our child has yielded to temptation and surrendered to sin -
> sexual or otherwise.
>    That some close to me, family or colleagues or members, are convicted is
> not by my judgment but by the laws of God manifest in nature and scripture.
> Onan is not alone, nor his sin worse than that of many in the generations
> since.  I am called to teach, not to make or amend or suspend the rule of
> God's law.  If I fail to do that, the sins fall upon me - and I have enough
> of my own already.
>    Ursinus, addressing the Seventh Commandment concerning adultery, in
> clarification of Questions 108 & 109 of the Heidelberg Catechism, his
> extends his comments on the latter: "therefore he fforbids all unchaste
> actions, gestures, thoughts, desires, and whatever can entice men thereto."
> As Calvin told his correspondents that his appeal to the hurch Fathers was
> not that they had inordinate authority, but to show that his insights were
> not novel and in concord with such wisdom, I share the insights of the
> Reformer Ursinus.
>    Of particular note, he said: "When God singles out adultery as the most
> shocking and debasing vice of all the sins whwich are repugnant to chastity,
> he at the same time prohibits and condemns all wandering and wanton lusts,
> whether they be found in married or unmarried persons, and prohibits all
> other sisn and vices contrary to chastity, together with their causes,
> occasions, effetcs, entecedents, consequents, &c." ...  "All the various
> species of lust may be rerferred to these three classes: - The first class
> or kind are those which are contrary to nature, and from the devil - such as
> are even contrary to our corrupt nature; not only because they corrupt and
> spoil it of conformity with God, but also because this our corrupt nature
> shrinks from them and abhors them. The lusts of which the apostle Paul
> speaks in the first chapted of the Epistle to the Romans, are of this class,
> as the confounding of the sexes, also abuses of the female sex."
>    Of course, those who wish to throw out Paul will also want to ignore
> Ursinus and the Law, the latter recognized by Jesus, and choose instead
> Smorgasbord Christianity acceptable to their appetite, teachers inclined to
> affirm their idolatry.
> Rev Al

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Trost, Theodore"
> <ttr...@as.ua.edu<mailto:ttr...@as.ua.edu><mailto:ttr...@as.ua.edu>>
> To:
> <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com<mailto:confessing-christ@googlegroups.c om><mailto:confessing-chr...@googlegroups.c­om>>
> Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 12:01 PM
> Subject: Re: Jesus on ASEXUALITY - HOMOSEXUALITY

> Rev Al:

> It is always painful to read your notes on this topic.

> I would simply suggest that your matter-of-fact and essentialist argument in
> point 4 (really 3) below would convict many of your heterosexual congregants
> and, I suspect, a number of your ordained colleagues, of "sexual organ
> misuse."

> As just one example, I mentioned Onan in an earlier note; he got the death
> penalty and now lives forever in eponymy for his version of "sexual organ
> misuse" (Genesis 38.8-10).

> Grace and peace--
> Willis

> Okay, Willis, I am going to do some "straight talk" with you, which, contrary to any other thoughts, is not related to any kind of sex.  It's corporate-speak for being able to say what needs to be said.  Good executives rank high in the competency of "straight talk."

> So, on my walk tonight, my very vigorous walk, I was thinking of you and of this entire mess that we are currently in, in this Open Forum, with people wishing to drop out, and others, such as Al, feeling that they have been forced out, and people like Ted partly admitting that he may have experienced high tensions such as those that the Bible say were rampant during Holy Week (I had been thinking much the same about this mess, even before reading Ted's posting today).  In fact, because of my thoughts about tensions and anger in Holy Week, I read the descriptions of Jesus' last week, after his entry into Jerusalem, in Mark and Luke, late last night and first thing this morning, just to prepare myself to jump into this very unfortunately dialogue here.  So I was glad that Ted at least brought Holy Week up.  Even though this example does not fit, and I could not find a way to make it fit, I was still reminded of some of Jesus' "main men" arguing about who was the greatest, after he had told them a few times what was in the works for his future.  (That happened before Holy Week, but not too much before!)

> I was also thinking, on my walk, of how you love to exercise what you believe to be your right to "admonish" people, which I do understand comes from scripture.  I was thinking, as I pressed up the hills, that I hate that concept, and I would never dream of seeking to "admonish" you. I'd much rather just "chew you out" and shoot "straight from the hip" (again, no pun intended given recent dialogues).

> And, to engage in straight talk, I was thinking about your health and age, and I was very annoyed with you that one of our last communications with you might be you jumping in, after days and days of silence, to "admonish" someone.  I was thinking how awful it would be, if one of your last postings to us was in that category, and how truly wonderful it would be if you would engage in the kind of postings that would impart to us more of your wisdom and insight and intense scholarship, without all the criticisms of other people. That's how I want to learn from you and remember you.  But of course I figured I could never mention your health or age to you --- or even to Al, who also has not been well lately, but who then jumped back into the dialogue, with unfortunate results.

> BUT you have given me the opening.  You have shared with us here that you are experiencing what you describe as a severe decline in health and eyesight. I am very sorry about that, and I want you to last forever.  I want your huge brain and your heart and your passion to go on and on and on and on.  But it is Holy Week, and during holy week, we all face many facts of life --- including many we hope never to personally experience.  So I am going to ask you (not admonish you, but ask you) if you would consider doing some "legacy" type postings of the good kind.  No admonishments.  No long lectures against Jim Link or Chris or whomever.  Just share from your huge brain and huge heart.  Consider this another form of "digitizing" your archives, as your son is going to do (bless him, because I could not figure out what to recommend to you).  I want to hear from you and read you and learn from you --- minus all the other stuff wrapped around it.

> And, just for the record, I agree with those folks who left because they are tired about arguments about sex.  I don't want to leave.  I'd be lost without you all.  But I too can hardly stand all the dialogues that have taken place lately.  I agree with the person who said that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is so much more.  And if we can't believe THAT this week, during Holy Week, when will we ever believe it?  This week, as Ted alluded to, is the week when so much happened in Jerusalem, from Jesus' exhilarating entry into the city, to his anger in the temple and with the fig tree and against scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees and others, to his silence or cryptic remarks in front of the authorities.  Not to mention his betrayal by Peter, Judas, others, and the horrible tortures and pain he experienced, and his death on the cross.  And yet, as Herb has already pushed us to think about, we are about to make it to Easter Sunday.  Jesus appeared again fully in the flesh, fully human and fully divine, recognized by Thomas as his God, even as Jesus called Thomas and the other disciples to honor Jesus' God and their God.  And the Spirit was there too, with Jesus breathing the Spirit on them, and giving them peace.  There is SO MUCH GOOD NEWS IN ALL THIS.  Let's try, as Herb is now pushing us on to do, to make it to Easter together, as a community that confesses not only Christ, but also the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

> Jane Ellingwood

> On Apr 3, 2012, at 7:04 PM, Willis E. Elliott wrote:

> > Amen, Roger!
> > Please, fellow-witnesses, no self-"(ex)communication"!
> > 1
> > Among us on OpenForum, the illusion seems widespread that we have been talking homosexuality.  Not me (either the illusion or the subject): as my "Subjects" show, I have steadily been talking HOW, NOW, TO READ THE BIBLE.
> > 2
> > To talk HOW, NOW, TO READ THE BIBLE, one must get specific.  The most recent specific I've suggested was Ps.6.5.  Before that: in Ro.1, Paul's reading of God in nature (vs.20) & his strategic use of Stoic philosophy & ethics (within the rest of the chapter & elsewhere in Romans: his use of a nonbiblical way of thinking bridges & models for our
> > use of nonbiblical ways of thinking).  Before that....  Homosex?  It's not mentioned in Ps.6, & in Ro.1 it's only a side-remark on the subject of idolatry.  I've dealt with homosex only in its relevance to HOW, NOW, TO READ THE BIBLE.
> > 3
> > I must mention two ways NOT to read the Bible (& I'll use sex to illustrate);
> > 3.1
> > THE LEGALIST.  All not-intending-conception sex is sin.  (Yes, Ted, Cl. of Alex.)  Against this mentality in the Southern Baptist leading fundamentalist, I cited Jimmy Carter's pointing past marginal matters (specifically, in that interview, homosex & abortion) to Jesus.  For the early Christians, the incarnation radically changed biblical hermeneutics.
> > God came, & now we have God as the "lens" to look at God's Book through.  But not all human beings use this lens to read Scripture, & to witness to them we Christian need to try to see the Bible as they see it; & for our own understanding & praise of the Lord, we need to see how God prepared the world for the incarnation.  (For this latter purpose, the best resource I know is a visual: Chart 12, relating the developing of the understanding of God to the entire inner & outer life of God's people: "Socio-Literary Theological Sectors..." [pp602-607, Norman K. Gottwald, THE HEBREW BIBLE: A SOCIO-LITERARY INTRODUCTION (Fortress Press, 1985/87].)
> > 3.2
> > THE LIBERTINE.  Anything goes.  Call it (in, e.g., Ro.1) orgasm idolatry.
> > 4
> > According to Jesus, the historical story as three categories of dramatic personae - the divine, the demonic, & the human.  /  The aims of the demonic are (1) to divert attention from the divine (beginning in Gn.3) & (2) to damage the human.  When I mentioned this in a Craigville Colloquy & concluded by the final petition in the Lord's Prayer (in Mt.: "and deliver us from the evil one"), David Bentley Hart said "*Ton poneron*" (the Evil One [personal], who in both versions of the Lord's Prayer [Mt.6 & L.11], is the Tempter).
> > 4.1
> > Since our founding in 1957, The Diverter-Tempter has succeeded in reducing our UCC population by 50%.
> > 4.2
> > Since the foundings of our UCC Confessing Christ & OpenForum, the Diverter-Tempter has been succeeding in reducing our populations, weakening our witness in the UCC.
> > 5
> > There may be other good reasons for dropping out of our UCC OpenForum, but I can think of only two.  Death, & severe decline in health.  In the past three weeks, I have experienced the latter, including a decline in sight.  I'll continue to pray for our OpenForum community, & read everything y'all write as long as I can, but have little energy or time to write much. (As to time, our son Bill soon arrives from China  to digitize my archives.)
> > 6
> > One more plea: please stop the Devil's winning streak!  Don't drop out!

> > Grace and peace--
> > Willis

Dear Jane,

We should all post in the knowledge that it could be our last.

Willis may outlast us all. Long live Willis!

As for discussing sex this week, this week in particular, I have heard
any number of sermons, and read many commentaries, which note the
prominent place of the female sex in the events leading to Jesus'
arrest, at his execution, and, most notably, in the witness to the
resurrection. We try to de-sex things with the word "gender," but of
course, gender, which means kind or form, is sex when we are speaking
of human beings, who are essentially male and female. Having sex means
more than "having sex," as I have tried to make clear in my
discussions with you, Willis, Al, Ted, Scott, Chris and others. I'm
not the least bit ashamed to bring up sex, for it is right there in
the story, from the beginning "male and female God created humanity,
according to God's image and likeness," it is there in the life of
Jesus, his eternal life, and it is there in Paul's mystery of Christ
and the Church, and it is in John's new Jerusalem, the bride of the
Lamb.

Jim Link

On Apr 3, 7:57 pm, Jane Ellingwood <bctj...@aol.com> wrote:
> Dear Willis (and anyone else who wishes to read this),

> Okay, Willis, I am going to do some "straight talk" with you, which,
> contrary to any other thoughts, is not related to any kind of sex. It's
> corporate-speak for being able to say what needs to be said. Good
> executives rank high in the competency of "straight talk."

> So, on my walk tonight, my very vigorous walk, I was thinking of you and
> of this entire mess that we are currently in, in this Open Forum, with
> people wishing to drop out, and others, such as Al, feeling that they have
> been forced out, and people like Ted partly admitting that he may have
> experienced high tensions such as those that the Bible say were rampant
> during Holy Week (I had been thinking much the same about this mess, even
> before reading Ted's posting today). In fact, because of my thoughts about
> tensions and anger in Holy Week, I read the descriptions of Jesus' last
> week, after his entry into Jerusalem, in Mark and Luke, late last night
> and first thing this morning, just to prepare myself to jump into this
> very unfortunately dialogue here. So I was glad that Ted at least brought
> Holy Week up. Even though this example does not fit, and I could not find
> a way to make it fit, I was still reminded of some of Jesus' "main men"
> arguing about who was the greatest, after he had told them a few times
> what was in the works for his future. (That happened before Holy Week, but
> not too much before!)

> I was also thinking, on my walk, of how you love to exercise what you
> believe to be your right to "admonish" people, which I do understand comes
> from scripture. I was thinking, as I pressed up the hills, that I hate
> that concept, and I would never dream of seeking to "admonish" you. I'd
> much rather just "chew you out" and shoot "straight from the hip" (again,
> no pun intended given recent dialogues).

> And, to engage in straight talk, I was thinking about your health and age,
> and I was very annoyed with you that one of our last communications with
> you might be you jumping in, after days and days of silence, to "admonish"
> someone. I was thinking how awful it would be, if one of your last
> postings to us was in that category, and how truly wonderful it would be
> if you would engage in the kind of postings that would impart to us more
> of your wisdom and insight and intense scholarship, without all the
> criticisms of other people. That's how I want to learn from you and
> remember you. But of course I figured I could never mention your health or
> age to you --- or even to Al, who also has not been well lately, but who
> then jumped back into the dialogue, with unfortunate results.

> BUT you have given me the opening. You have shared with us here that you
> are experiencing what you describe as a severe decline in health and
> eyesight. I am very sorry about that, and I want you to last forever. I
> want your huge brain and your heart and your passion to go on and on and
> on and on. But it is Holy Week, and during holy week, we all face many
> facts of life --- including many we hope never to personally experience.
> So I am going to ask you (not admonish you, but ask you) if you would
> consider doing some "legacy" type postings of the good kind. No
> admonishments. No long lectures against Jim Link or Chris or whomever.
> Just share from your huge brain and huge heart. Consider this another form
> of "digitizing" your archives, as your son is going to do (bless him,
> because I could not figure out what to recommend to you). I want to hear
> from you and read you and learn from you --- minus all the other stuff
> wrapped around it.

> And, just for the record, I agree with those folks who left because they
> are tired about arguments about sex. I don't want to leave. I'd be lost
> without you all. But I too can hardly stand all the dialogues that have
> taken place lately. I agree with the person who said that the Gospel of
> Jesus Christ is so much more. And if we can't believe THAT this week,
> during Holy Week, when will we ever believe it? This week, as Ted alluded
> to, is the week when so much happened in Jerusalem, from Jesus'
> exhilarating entry into the city, to his anger in the temple and with the
> fig tree and against scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees and others, to
> his silence or cryptic remarks in front of the authorities. Not to mention
> his betrayal by Peter, Judas, others, and the horrible tortures and pain
> he experienced, and his death on the cross. And yet, as Herb has already
> pushed us to think about, we are about to make it to Easter Sunday. Jesus
> appeared again fully in the flesh, fully human and fully divine,
> recognized by Thomas as his God, even as Jesus called Thomas and the other
> disciples to honor Jesus' God and their God. And the Spirit was there too,
> with Jesus breathing the Spirit on them, and giving them peace. There is
> SO MUCH GOOD NEWS IN ALL THIS. Let's try, as Herb is now pushing us on to
> do, to make it to Easter together, as a community that confesses not only
> Christ, but also the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

> Jane Ellingwood

> On Apr 3, 2012, at 7:04 PM, Willis E. Elliott wrote:

> > Amen, Roger!
> > Please, fellow-witnesses, no self-"(ex)communication"!
> > 1
> > Among us on OpenForum, the illusion seems widespread that we have been
> > talking homosexuality. Not me (either the illusion or the subject): as
> > my "Subjects" show, I have steadily been talking HOW, NOW, TO READ THE
> > BIBLE.
> > 2
> > To talk HOW, NOW, TO READ THE BIBLE, one must get specific. The most
> > recent specific I've suggested was Ps.6.5. Before that: in Ro.1, Paul's
> > reading of God in nature (vs.20) & his strategic use of Stoic philosophy
> > & ethics (within the rest of the chapter & elsewhere in Romans: his use
> > of a nonbiblical way of thinking bridges & models for our
> > use of nonbiblical ways of thinking). Before that.... Homosex? It's not
> > mentioned in Ps.6, & in Ro.1 it's only a side-remark on the subject of
> > idolatry. I've dealt with homosex only in its relevance to HOW, NOW, TO
> > READ THE BIBLE.
> > 3
> > I must mention two ways NOT to read the Bible (& I'll use sex to
> > illustrate);
> > 3.1
> > THE LEGALIST. All not-intending-conception sex is sin. (Yes, Ted, Cl. of
> > Alex.) Against this mentality in the Southern Baptist leading
> > fundamentalist, I cited Jimmy Carter's pointing past marginal matters
> > (specifically, in that interview, homosex & abortion) to Jesus. For the
> > early Christians, the incarnation radically changed biblical
> > hermeneutics.
> > God came, & now we have God as the "lens" to look at God's Book through.
> > But not all human beings use this lens to read Scripture, & to witness
> > to them we Christian need to try to see the Bible as they see it; & for
> > our own understanding & praise of the Lord, we need to see how God
> > prepared the world for the incarnation. (For this latter purpose, the
> > best resource I know is a visual: Chart 12, relating the developing of
> > the understanding of God to the entire inner & outer life of God's
> > people: "Socio-Literary Theological Sectors..." [pp602-607, Norman K.
> > Gottwald, THE HEBREW BIBLE: A SOCIO-LITERARY INTRODUCTION (Fortress
> > Press, 1985/87].)
> > 3.2
> > THE LIBERTINE. Anything goes. Call it (in, e.g., Ro.1) orgasm idolatry.
> > 4
> > According to Jesus, the historical story as three categories of dramatic
> > personae - the divine, the demonic, & the human. / The aims of the
> > demonic are (1) to divert attention from the divine (beginning in Gn.3)
> > & (2) to damage the human. When I mentioned this in a Craigville
> > Colloquy & concluded by the final petition in the Lord's Prayer (in Mt.:
> > "and deliver us from the evil one"), David Bentley Hart said "*Ton
> > poneron*" (the Evil One [personal], who in both versions of the Lord's
> > Prayer [Mt.6 & L.11], is the

> These writers reject these ways of dealing with biblical violence.

> Although Brueggeman claims these writers don’t address a real God, but the social context and the voice of the prophet to a society in more trouble than it is able to acknowledge, such as Jeremiah Wrights, “God Dam America” sermon. These writers claim the rhetoric is necessary to draw close to the lived reality of an unbearable social reality that will not be covered over by smooth speech, pious doctrine or elite cant.

> Walter claims these essays push us beyond the old liberal notion that the prophets finally arrived at an ethical monotheism that recognized the “brotherhood of man”under “the fatherhood of God.”  such a familiar formula indicates the way in which we conform out reading to our ideological permits.

> How do you deal with violence in the Biblical texts?  I don’t have a good answer. Herb

  FOR THE RECORD:  I did not initiate the dialogue on homosexuality, as one can see below.  It grew out of an exchange between Willis and Jim, from which I refrained ten days,
      Interestingly,  the discussion also considered Sheol, possibility of God, etc., but no one jumped in with insights on those, silence until this issue triggered a knee jerk reaction.  However, today Ted commented - I'll reply to it, with due respect to his input.
      To those who want to drop out, may I suggest - since we've  been down this road before, and without changing one another's opinion - that we return to consideration of the current ones above, or yet others.  
      I'm concerned about the multi-issue of the loss of relevance and impact of Christianity, especially in America, in the face of growing vocal opposition by atheists, Islamists, etc. - and yet avoidance of theocracy.
  Al
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Rev. AWKovacs
    To: confessing-christ@googlegroups.com
    Cc: Kovacs, Rev. Albert W.
    Sent: Friday, March 30, 2012 7:56 PM
    Subject: Re: hermeneutics: FACTS and OPINIONS

    "Your mention of Kinsey & of evidence for homosexuality as limited to "statistics and correlations" makes me suspicious that you're unaware of the hard data on the bio dimension of homosexuality. - Willis (below)
        Firmly believing that God is the Creator of all life (who does abortion thwarts the very will of God at his peril), there can be no denial that some of His creation is without heterosexual orientation.  Jesus said that some are born eunuchs by the will of God ("eunuchs who have been so from birth" - Mt. 19:12).
        However, same sex relations is a denial of God's will for their lives, doing what is contrary to their created nature - i.e. disobedience and sin. Similarly, the heterosexuals are under constraints of chastity until united in marriage, and fidelity thereafter, according to their created nature as the two become one.
        (The name Kinsey came up, and we must recollect that his work was discredited as he purposely skewed his "findings" to suit his preordained results.  However, pseudo-scientists and libertines used them to rationalize their social theorums or immorality.)
    Al
      ----- Original Message -----
      From: Willis E. Elliott
      To: confessing-christ@googlegroups.com
      Sent: Friday, March 30, 2012 5:34 PM
      Subject: hermeneutics: FACTS and OPINIONS

      Solid, orthodox thinking, Jim, except for the continuing evasion.

      Your paragraph's end proves the falsity of its beginning.

      E.g., I said that we (you & I) believe that we can praise God after death even though a psalmist (6.5) doesn't believe it.  What you need to give "some thought" & prayer to is why you categorize a matter of fact (viz., this psalmist's opinion) as a matter of opinion.  The God of Truth denies you the right to treat a fact as an opinion.  Further, you insult a brother by claiming that he's claiming as a fact what is no more than his opinion, his "conclusion": an evasion converted into an attack.  What's at stake here, Jim, is not hermeneutics but your integrity.

      Grace and peace--
      Willis

      ----- Original Message -----
      From: <linkc...@aol.com>
      To: "Confessing Christ Open Forum" <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>
      Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 7:11 AM
      Subject: Re: Homosexuality, science, Bible

      Dear Willis,

      I'm not trying to evade your questions regarding what I believe or
      don't believe in the Bible, I honestly don't have an answer, other
      than that there are things written that I believe in the Bible, with
      the Church which acknowledges the canon, and that I believe what it
      says about human nature being created male and female for the covenant
      fellowship of the two as one humanity, according to the image and
      likeness of God, as a sign of the mystery of Christ and the Church.
      As for the texts you cite, I will have to give them some thought; you
      seem to have come to your own conclusions regarding them, I have not.

      Jim

      On Mar 21, 10:00 pm, "Willis E. Elliott" <elliot...@charter.net>
      wrote:
      > Jim
      > 1
      > We would be in real conversation if neither of us evaded the other's questions. I have evaded none of yours. Your evasions here:
      > In my sec.5, I asked whether you agree with Paul that "there's no bio element in sexuality." Your evasion: "even if there are bio elements in sexuality."
      > In my sec.7, I ask "can you mention even one error in the Bible" (& to make it easy for you, I cite the Bible's "denial that we can praise God after we're dead [Ps.6.5].")? Your evasion: You ask God to help you believe whatever in the Bible you don't believe! That prayer, after saying you "would not dare to claim to believe everything the Bible says"! Then you blame your self-inflicted mental confusion on God & hand your problem to him, who will "have to sort that out"! (It's none of your business to "sort out" what's un/believable [that's two categories]? That's God's business, & he won't tell you?) Do you sniff no blasphemy in that? / Also in my sec.7, you evade the question (implicit in my citing 1Cor.11.7) whether you agree with Paul that women are not made in the image of God.
      > Need I tell you, Jim, that evasions are blockages to conversation? They are as solid cut-offs as the 20-ton Grand Central Station concretes that for 18 years prevented my computer trains from proceeding. / Of course you don't have to answer any of my questions. But if you respond without doing so, you are deluding yourself if you think you are conversing with me.
      > 2
      > Your first sentence uses "nature" with a sense unavailable to natural science. That evades my email's use of "nature."
      > 3
      > Your second sentence, without admitting it, evades Paul's limitation of "image of God" to males (1Cor.11.7) - & evades my reference thereto.
      > 4
      > Your third sentence, contrary to natural science, assumes that human beings are entirely responsible for what you call "a sundering".
      > 5
      > Your fourth sentence presupposes the possibility of a non-essential "bio-element" in homosexuality - a hypothetical category functioning only to (1) blur the objective meaning of "bio element" & (2) confuse my use (in my email's first sentence) of "essential".
      > 6
      > I continue to hope for conversation with you, though this is not the first time it has failed.
      > ,
      > Grace and peace--
      > Willis

      > ----- Original Message -----
      > From: <linkc...@aol.com>
      > To: "Confessing Christ Open Forum" <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>
      > Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 7:31 AM
      > Subject: Re: Homosexuality, science, Bible

      > Dear Willis,

      > The apostles and prophets, as witnesses to Jesus Christ, testify to
      > human nature as it is revealed in him. Notably, from the beginning, we
      > hear that humanity was created male and female, according to the image
      > and likeness of God. Homosexuality is a sundering of the two who are
      > intended together to be humanity. There is no "essential" bio-element
      > in homosexuality, even if there are bio-elements in homosexuality.

      > I would not dare to claim to believe everything the Bible says, let

Dear Willis,

I gave given Ps 6,5 a little thought with regard to your question.

The verse does not seem to me to be either "a fact or opinion."
Rather, within a psalm in conjunction with the pronouncement of
judgment or perhaps even war (vs. 9 reminds me of Mt 25:41, although
the LXX Greek uses different words from the NT Greek), the verse is a
protest within a prayer to God (vss.1-8), a confession of the need in
which the psalmist finds him or herself in the face of evildoers, who
are manifestations not only of evil, but of the wrath and displeasure
of the Lord toward the psalmist and the people that is to be
characterized by "remembrance" and "praise" (technical cultic terms!)
for the Lord, for which Lord has assembled them as his holy people
under David. 6,5 seems closely linked to verses 7,8: the dead, sheol/
worn out, a bed in which there is no final rest, melted away as it is
with his tears, unless the Lord delivers and rescues and gives cause
for remembrance and praise. He is essentially praying for the healing
of fearful bones, for strength and integrity after sleepless nights of
awareness of his own guilt (And how does the President ever sleep???),
in prelude to the pronoucement and execution of judgment after his own
petition and prayer for mercy has been heard by his King. Amen to
that!

Jim Link

On Mar 31, 6:50 pm, "Willis E. Elliott" <elliot...@charter.net> wrote:
> Thanks, Jim.
> 1
> I agree you did not intend to insult me.  The insult is implicit in your
> solipsistic use of "fact" - "opinion" - "conclusion".
> 2
> On Ps.6.5, we agree on the need for "clarification" between us.
> 3
> Do you agree we need to clarify how we use "fact" & "opinion"?
> ("Subject")
> 4
> We are entitled to our opinions but not to our facts: we own no facts.
> The earth & the facts are the Lord's, not ours.
> 5
> Do you deny that it's a fact this psalmist's opinion is that when dead
> (6.5.a) we'll not be able to remember God, so (6.5.b) we'll not be able to
> praise him?  By an anachronistic (later-meaning) eisegesis of "Sheol"
> (NRSV), Al tried to deny that that was this psalmist's opinion.  But the
> distich's first line shows "the dead" as unqualified, comprehensive: all
> the dead - which the second line, in parallel synonymity, confirms as "the
> grave" (the metaphor for the afterlife, in Jewish and Christian Bibles the
> common translation of "Sheol" here).
> 6
> You here misuse "conclusion".  Looking at Ps.6.5, I saw something you & I
> don't believe.  I observed it, did not conclude it (go through a
> thought-process to get to it).  But if I thought our Book to be ERRORLESS,
> I would indeed have to go through a thought-process & come to a
> "conclusion" - that the Book is not errorless, or that my observation that
> it has a particular error is incorrect & I need help to correct my
> observation, or that the text's meaning is a mystery to be revealed in
> God's good time.
> 7
> An alternative to the bibliolatrous notion that the Bible is errorless is
> the fact that the Bible is SELF-CORRECTING.  Written over more than a
> millennium, the Bible records God's progressive revelation: would he have
> come in & as Jesus if previous revelation had been adequate?  Scores of
> scriptures tell us we are to praise God both here-&-now & hereafter:
> should we be surprised when we come upon one (here, Ps.6.5) not aware of
> the afterlife's potential for remembrance of, communion with, praise of
> God?
> 8
> Greatly strengthening the "progressive" against the "errorless" position
> is the fact that all the stages of everything revealed in the Bible can be
> studied from below, as emergents in bio-psycho-socio-historical life:
> "natural" studies confirm "supernatural" revelation.  As the father of
> natural science, Francis Bacon, put it (on the page facing the title-page
> of Darwin's THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES), "the book of God's word" (the Bible) &
> "the book of God's works" (nature, including human life) deserve parallel
> study of the highest "proficiency".  (Ro.1.20 presumes this parallel
> study.)
> 9
> I must add the divine sanction to "Subject": we are insulting the God of
> Truth when, for our convenience (personal, religious, political), we treat
> facts as mere opinions or mere opinions as facts.

> Grace and peace--
> Willis

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <linkc...@aol.com>
> To: "Confessing Christ Open Forum" <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>
> Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2012 8:24 AM
> Subject: Re: hermeneutics: FACTS and OPINIONS

> Dear Willis,

> I intended no insult, just a statement of clarification based on what
> I perceive to be the facts presented to me. You seem to me to have
> come to the conclusion that there are several texts in which opinions
> are expressed that you and I don't believe, e.g. Psalm 6,5, whereas I
> have not come to the same conclusion. If you want me to say "you seem
> to be of the opinion that.." whereas I am not of the same opinion" I
> could probably live with that also

> The peace of Jesus Christ be with you!

> Jim

> Thanks Jim,  I hope this will help Willis.  Herb

> -----Original Message-----
> From: linkc...@aol.com
> Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 9:56 AM
> To: Confessing Christ Open Forum
> Subject: Re: hermeneutics: FACTS and OPINIONS

> Dear Willis,

> I gave given Ps 6,5 a little thought with regard to your question.

> The verse does not seem to me to be either "a fact or opinion."
> Rather, within a psalm in conjunction with the pronouncement of
> judgment or perhaps even war (vs. 9 reminds me of Mt 25:41, although
> the LXX Greek uses different words from the NT Greek), the verse is a
> protest within a prayer to God (vss.1-8), a confession of the need in
> which the psalmist finds him or herself in the face of evildoers, who
> are manifestations not only of evil, but of the wrath and displeasure
> of the Lord toward the psalmist and the people that is to be
> characterized by "remembrance" and "praise" (technical cultic terms!)
> for the Lord, for which Lord has assembled them as his holy people
> under David. 6,5 seems closely linked to verses 7,8: the dead, sheol/
> worn out, a bed in which there is no final rest, melted away as it is
> with his tears, unless the Lord delivers and rescues and gives cause
> for remembrance and praise. He is essentially praying for the healing
> of fearful bones, for strength and integrity after sleepless nights of
> awareness of his own guilt (And how does the President ever sleep???),
> in prelude to the pronoucement and execution of judgment after his own
> petition and prayer for mercy has been heard by his King. Amen to
> that!

> Jim Link

> On Mar 31, 6:50 pm, "Willis E. Elliott" <elliot...@charter.net> wrote:
>> Thanks, Jim.
>> 1
>> I agree you did not intend to insult me.  The insult is implicit in your
>> solipsistic use of "fact" - "opinion" - "conclusion".
>> 2
>> On Ps.6.5, we agree on the need for "clarification" between us.
>> 3
>> Do you agree we need to clarify how we use "fact" & "opinion"?
>> ("Subject")
>> 4
>> We are entitled to our opinions but not to our facts: we own no facts.
>> The earth & the facts are the Lord's, not ours.
>> 5
>> Do you deny that it's a fact this psalmist's opinion is that when dead
>> (6.5.a) we'll not be able to remember God, so (6.5.b) we'll not be able to
>> praise him?  By an anachronistic (later-meaning) eisegesis of "Sheol"
>> (NRSV), Al tried to deny that that was this psalmist's opinion.  But the
>> distich's first line shows "the dead" as unqualified, comprehensive: all
>> the dead - which the second line, in parallel synonymity, confirms as "the
>> grave" (the metaphor for the afterlife, in Jewish and Christian Bibles the
>> common translation of "Sheol" here).
>> 6
>> You here misuse "conclusion".  Looking at Ps.6.5, I saw something you & I
>> don't believe.  I observed it, did not conclude it (go through a
>> thought-process to get to it).  But if I thought our Book to be ERRORLESS,
>> I would indeed have to go through a thought-process & come to a
>> "conclusion" - that the Book is not errorless, or that my observation that
>> it has a particular error is incorrect & I need help to correct my
>> observation, or that the text's meaning is a mystery to be revealed in
>> God's good time.
>> 7
>> An alternative to the bibliolatrous notion that the Bible is errorless is
>> the fact that the Bible is SELF-CORRECTING.  Written over more than a
>> millennium, the Bible records God's progressive revelation: would he have
>> come in & as Jesus if previous revelation had been adequate?  Scores of
>> scriptures tell us we are to praise God both here-&-now & hereafter:
>> should we be surprised when we come upon one (here, Ps.6.5) not aware of
>> the afterlife's potential for remembrance of, communion with, praise of
>> God?
>> 8
>> Greatly strengthening the "progressive" against the "errorless" position
>> is the fact that all the stages of everything revealed in the Bible can be
>> studied from below, as emergents in bio-psycho-socio-historical life:
>> "natural" studies confirm "supernatural" revelation.  As the father of
>> natural science, Francis Bacon, put it (on the page facing the title-page
>> of Darwin's THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES), "the book of God's word" (the Bible) &
>> "the book of God's works" (nature, including human life) deserve parallel
>> study of the highest "proficiency".  (Ro.1.20 presumes this parallel
>> study.)
>> 9
>> I must add the divine sanction to "Subject": we are insulting the God of
>> Truth when, for our convenience (personal, religious, political), we treat
>> facts as mere opinions or mere opinions as facts.

>> Grace and peace--
>> Willis

>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: <linkc...@aol.com>
>> To: "Confessing Christ Open Forum" <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>
>> Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2012 8:24 AM
>> Subject: Re: hermeneutics: FACTS and OPINIONS

>> Dear Willis,

>> I intended no insult, just a statement of clarification based on what
>> I perceive to be the facts presented to me. You seem to me to have
>> come to the conclusion that there are several texts in which opinions
>> are expressed that you and I don't believe, e.g. Psalm 6,5, whereas I
>> have not come to the same conclusion. If you want me to say "you seem
>> to be of the opinion that.." whereas I am not of the same opinion" I
>> could probably live with that also

>> The peace of Jesus Christ be with you!

>> Jim

> I hope this helps.
> 1
> Please re-read section 5 in my Mar.31 (below).
> 2
> Jim, I have underlined these words of yours: "technical cultic terms!"  Cultic means liturgical, (in your use) the Israelite-Jewish cult.  I.e., worship terms.  But the Hebrew of our verse has no "terms"; it has only one term, the usual word for "memory"; the second line has a verb sometimes translated by a noun.
> 2.1
> You should tell the Jews what you know.  Here's a well-known Jewish translation of our verse: "For there is no praise of You among the dead:
>             In Sheol, who can acclaim You?" (p1113, TANAKH: A New Translation of the Holy Scriptures [JPS/1985)  /  So far from reflecting that the Hebrew word for "memory" or "remembrance" is cultic, this translation ("praise") doesn't even contain the idea! (Notice: as in the Hebrew, this translation's synonymous parallel to "praise" is a verb, not a noun.)
> 2.2
> In Jewish liturgical works, a cultic word names an area of ritual-ceremonial.  My library has a section of such works.  E.g., for The Ten Days of Awe from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, the word is *teshuvah*: GATES OF REPENTANCE (CCCC/1978).  (The editor told me that he wanted to call it GATES OF TURNING [since the literal meaning of the Hebrew for repentance is turning {cp. Lat. "conversio"}], but the official committee wouldn't let him.)
> 3
> During my few teen-years as an inerrantist, I developed the cover-up skill of evading Bible verses the plain meaning of which my Perfect-Book dogma would not permit me to accept.  And if my skill failed me, I could always "look it up" in a fundamentalist commentary.  There's no semantic wiggle-room in Ps.6.5 (e.g.), but those commentaries could provide "virtual" wiggle-room in pseudoscholarly pious language.
> 4
> Of course it's probable one could find, in ultra-orthodox Jewish literature, some support for your "technical cultic terms" evasion of the plain meaning of Ps.6.5.  But I must confront you & Herb with the first rule of inductive Bible study: "When the plain meaning makes common sense, seek no other sense."

> Grace and peace--
> Willis

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Herb Davis" <herb.da...@mindspring.com>
> To: <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, April 06, 2012 7:13 AM
> Subject: Re: hermeneutics: FACTS and OPINIONS

> > Thanks Jim,  I hope this will help Willis.  Herb

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: linkc...@aol.com
> > Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 9:56 AM
> > To: Confessing Christ Open Forum
> > Subject: Re: hermeneutics: FACTS and OPINIONS

> > Dear Willis,

> > I gave given Ps 6,5 a little thought with regard to your question.

> > The verse does not seem to me to be either "a fact or opinion."
> > Rather, within a psalm in conjunction with the pronouncement of
> > judgment or perhaps even war (vs. 9 reminds me of Mt 25:41, although
> > the LXX Greek uses different words from the NT Greek), the verse is a
> > protest within a prayer to God (vss.1-8), a confession of the need in
> > which the psalmist finds him or herself in the face of evildoers, who
> > are manifestations not only of evil, but of the wrath and displeasure
> > of the Lord toward the psalmist and the people that is to be
> > characterized by "remembrance" and "praise" (technical cultic terms!)
> > for the Lord, for which Lord has assembled them as his holy people
> > under David. 6,5 seems closely linked to verses 7,8: the dead, sheol/
> > worn out, a bed in which there is no final rest, melted away as it is
> > with his tears, unless the Lord delivers and rescues and gives cause
> > for remembrance and praise. He is essentially praying for the healing
> > of fearful bones, for strength and integrity after sleepless nights of
> > awareness of his own guilt (And how does the President ever sleep???),
> > in prelude to the pronoucement and execution of judgment after his own
> > petition and prayer for mercy has been heard by his King. Amen to
> > that!

> > Jim Link

> > On Mar 31, 6:50 pm, "Willis E. Elliott" <elliot...@charter.net> wrote:
> >> Thanks, Jim.
> >> 1
> >> I agree you did not intend to insult me.  The insult is implicit in your
> >> solipsistic use of "fact" - "opinion" - "conclusion".
> >> 2
> >> On Ps.6.5, we agree on the need for "clarification" between us.
> >> 3
> >> Do you agree we need to clarify how we use "fact" & "opinion"?
> >> ("Subject")
> >> 4
> >> We are entitled to our opinions but not to our facts: we own no facts.
> >> The earth & the facts are the Lord's, not ours.
> >> 5
> >> Do you deny that it's a fact this psalmist's opinion is that when dead
> >> (6.5.a) we'll not be able to remember God, so (6.5.b) we'll not be able to
> >> praise him?  By an anachronistic (later-meaning) eisegesis of "Sheol"
> >> (NRSV), Al tried to deny that that was this psalmist's opinion.  But the
> >> distich's first line shows "the dead" as unqualified, comprehensive: all
> >> the dead - which the second line, in parallel synonymity, confirms as "the
> >> grave" (the metaphor for the afterlife, in Jewish and Christian Bibles the
> >> common translation of "Sheol" here).
> >> 6
> >> You here misuse "conclusion".  Looking at Ps.6.5, I saw something you & I
> >> don't believe.  I observed it, did not conclude it (go through a
> >> thought-process to get to it).  But if I thought our Book to be ERRORLESS,
> >> I would indeed have to go through a thought-process & come to a
> >> "conclusion" - that the Book is not errorless, or that my observation that
> >> it has a particular error is incorrect & I need help to correct my
> >> observation, or that the text's meaning is a mystery to be revealed in
> >> God's good time.
> >> 7
> >> An alternative to the bibliolatrous notion that the Bible is errorless is
> >> the fact that the Bible is SELF-CORRECTING.  Written over more than a
> >> millennium, the Bible records God's progressive revelation: would he have
> >> come in & as Jesus if previous revelation had been adequate?  Scores of
> >> scriptures tell us we are to praise God both here-&-now & hereafter:
> >> should we be surprised when we come upon one (here, Ps.6.5) not aware of
> >> the afterlife's potential for remembrance of, communion with, praise of
> >> God?
> >> 8
> >> Greatly strengthening the "progressive" against the "errorless" position
> >> is the fact that all the stages of everything revealed in the Bible can be
> >> studied from below, as emergents in bio-psycho-socio-historical life:
> >> "natural" studies confirm "supernatural" revelation.  As the father of
> >> natural science, Francis Bacon, put it (on the page facing the title-page
> >> of Darwin's THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES), "the book of God's word" (the Bible) &
> >> "the book of God's works" (nature, including human life) deserve parallel
> >> study of the highest "proficiency".  (Ro.1.20 presumes this parallel
> >> study.)
> >> 9
> >> I must add the divine sanction to "Subject": we are insulting the God of
> >> Truth when, for our convenience (personal, religious, political), we treat
> >> facts as mere opinions or mere opinions as facts.

> >> Grace and peace--
> >> Willis

> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: <linkc...@aol.com>
> >> To: "Confessing Christ Open Forum" <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>
> >> Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2012 8:24 AM
> >> Subject: Re: hermeneutics: FACTS and OPINIONS

> >> Dear Willis,

> >> I intended no insult, just a statement of clarification based on what
> >> I perceive to be the facts presented to me. You seem to me to have
> >> come to the conclusion that there are several texts in which opinions
> >> are expressed that you and I don't believe, e.g. Psalm 6,5, whereas I
> >> have not come to the same conclusion. If you want me to say "you seem
> >> to be of the opinion that.." whereas I am not of the same opinion" I
> >> could probably live with that also

> >> The peace of Jesus Christ be with you!

> >> Jim

----Original Message-----
From: linkc...@aol.com
Sent: Monday, April 09, 2012 9:13 AM
To: Confessing Christ Open Forum
Subject: Re: how to read the Bible - Ps.6.5

Dear Willis,

The point of the JPS translation "praise" is that "remembrance" as in
the NRSV translation, is cultic! "Memory" here is not simply an
interior, personal matter, but of public celebration. The parallel
verb in 6a is quite frequently used in the Psalm for the advertising
of God's name that goes on in the worship realm.

I knew the verb zakhar [sorry, can't type the macron or any other
diacritical  marks on e-mail] fairly well because I happened to do a
paper on it for my Hebrew class in seminary! This morning I looked it
up in the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament and found this
regarding the noun " zekher,  'Memory.'" : "...late psalms still show
that the zekher [no italics on e-mail] of God's name involves an
element of proclamation: according to Ps. 111:4, God has made a zekher
for his wonderful works and Ps. 145:7 states: 'They shall proclaim the
memory of thy abundant goodness.'45 [45 H. Gunkel, Die Psalmen, Hand-
Kommentar zum AT, ed. W. Nowack, Gottingen, II/2 (1926, (5) 1968),
609.] These passages could actually represent cultic  festivals that
serve to celebrate this memory. 46 [46 H Zirker, Die kultische
Vergegenwartigung der Vergangenheit in den Psalmen. Bonner Biblische
Beitrage, 20 (1964).] The fact that there is no remembrance of God in
Sheol (Ps. 6:6 [5]) can even be the motive for a lament in which the
worshipper prays that God will remember him and let him live. Man
lives because God remembers him, and is obligated to remember God's
wonders with praise." (H. Eising , "zakhar," TDOT, IV, 77.)

God bless you, Willis!

Jim Link

On Apr 8, 9:39 pm, "Willis E. Elliott" <elliot...@charter.net> wrote:
> Herb & Jim

> I hope this helps.
> 1
> Please re-read section 5 in my Mar.31 (below).
> 2
> Jim, I have underlined these words of yours: "technical cultic terms!"
> Cultic means liturgical, (in your use) the Israelite-Jewish cult.  I.e.,
> worship terms.  But the Hebrew of our verse has no "terms"; it has only
> one term, the usual word for "memory"; the second line has a verb
> sometimes translated by a noun.
> 2.1
> You should tell the Jews what you know.  Here's a well-known Jewish
> translation of our verse: "For there is no praise of You among the dead:
>             In Sheol, who can acclaim You?" (p1113, TANAKH: A New
> Translation of the Holy Scriptures [JPS/1985)  /  So far from reflecting
> that the Hebrew word for "memory" or "remembrance" is cultic, this
> translation ("praise") doesn't even contain the idea! (Notice: as in the
> Hebrew, this translation's synonymous parallel to "praise" is a verb, not
> a noun.)
> 2.2
> In Jewish liturgical works, a cultic word names an area of
> ritual-ceremonial.  My library has a section of such works.  E.g., for The
> Ten Days of Awe from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, the word is *teshuvah*:
> GATES OF REPENTANCE (CCCC/1978).  (The editor told me that he wanted to
> call it GATES OF TURNING [since the literal meaning of the Hebrew for
> repentance is turning {cp. Lat. "conversio"}], but the official committee
> wouldn't let him.)
> 3
> During my few teen-years as an inerrantist, I developed the cover-up skill
> of evading Bible verses the plain meaning of which my Perfect-Book dogma
> would not permit me to accept.  And if my skill failed me, I could always
> "look it up" in a fundamentalist commentary.  There's no semantic
> wiggle-room in Ps.6.5 (e.g.), but those commentaries could provide
> "virtual" wiggle-room in pseudoscholarly pious language.
> 4
> Of course it's probable one could find, in ultra-orthodox Jewish
> literature, some support for your "technical cultic terms" evasion of the
> plain meaning of Ps.6.5.  But I must confront you & Herb with the first
> rule of inductive Bible study: "When the plain meaning makes common sense,
> seek no other sense."

> Grace and peace--
> Willis

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Herb Davis" <herb.da...@mindspring.com>
> To: <confessing-christ@googlegroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, April 06, 2012 7:13 AM
> Subject: Re: hermeneutics: FACTS and OPINIONS

> > Thanks Jim,  I hope this will help Willis.  Herb

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: linkc...@aol.com
> > Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 9:56 AM
> > To: Confessing Christ Open Forum
> > Subject: Re: hermeneutics: FACTS and OPINIONS

> > Dear Willis,

> > I gave given Ps 6,5 a little thought with regard to your question.

> > The verse does not seem to me to be either "a fact or opinion."
> > Rather, within a psalm in conjunction with the pronouncement of
> > judgment or perhaps even war (vs. 9 reminds me of Mt 25:41, although
> > the LXX Greek uses different words from the NT Greek), the verse is a
> > protest within a prayer to God (vss.1-8), a confession of the need in
> > which the psalmist finds him or herself in the face of evildoers, who
> > are manifestations not only of evil, but of the wrath and displeasure
> > of the Lord toward the psalmist and the people that is to be
> > characterized by "remembrance" and "praise" (technical cultic terms!)
> > for the Lord, for which Lord has assembled them as his holy people
> > under David. 6,5 seems closely linked to verses 7,8: the dead, sheol/
> > worn out, a bed in which there is no final rest, melted away as it is
> > with his tears, unless the Lord delivers and rescues and gives cause
> > for remembrance and praise. He is essentially praying for the healing
> > of fearful bones, for strength and integrity after sleepless nights of
> > awareness of his own guilt (And how does the President ever sleep???),
> > in prelude to the pronoucement and execution of judgment after his own
> > petition and prayer for mercy has been heard by his King. Amen to
> > that!

> > Jim Link

> > On Mar 31, 6:50 pm, "Willis E. Elliott" <elliot...@charter.net> wrote:
> >> Thanks, Jim.
> >> 1
> >> I agree you did not intend to insult me.  The insult is implicit in
> >> your
> >> solipsistic use of "fact" - "opinion" - "conclusion".
> >> 2
> >> On Ps.6.5, we agree on the need for "clarification" between us.
> >> 3
> >> Do you agree we need to clarify how we use "fact" & "opinion"?
> >> ("Subject")
> >> 4
> >> We are entitled to our opinions but not to our facts: we own no facts.
> >> The earth & the facts are the Lord's, not ours.
> >> 5
> >> Do you deny that it's a fact this psalmist's opinion is that when dead
> >> (6.5.a) we'll not be able to remember God, so (6.5.b) we'll not be able
> >> to
> >> praise him?  By an anachronistic (later-meaning) eisegesis of "Sheol"
> >> (NRSV), Al tried to deny that that was this psalmist's opinion.  But
> >> the
> >> distich's first line shows "the dead" as unqualified, comprehensive:
> >> all
> >> the dead - which the second line, in parallel synonymity, confirms as
> >> "the
> >> grave" (the metaphor for the afterlife, in Jewish and Christian Bibles
> >> the
> >> common translation of "Sheol" here).
> >> 6
> >> You here misuse "conclusion".  Looking at Ps.6.5, I saw something you &
> >> I
> >> don't believe.  I observed it, did not conclude it (go through a
> >> thought-process to get to it).  But if I thought our Book to be
> >> ERRORLESS,
> >> I would indeed have to go through a thought-process & come to a
> >> "conclusion" - that the Book is not errorless, or that my observation
> >> that
> >> it has a particular error is incorrect & I need help to correct my
> >> observation, or that the text's meaning is a mystery to be revealed in
> >> God's good time.
> >> 7
> >> An alternative to the bibliolatrous notion that the Bible is errorless
> >> is
> >> the fact that the Bible is SELF-CORRECTING.  Written over more than a
> >> millennium, the Bible records God's progressive revelation: would he
> >> have
> >> come in & as Jesus if previous revelation had been adequate?  Scores of
> >> scriptures tell us we are to praise God both here-&-now & hereafter:
> >> should we be surprised when we come upon one (here, Ps.6.5) not aware
> >> of
> >> the afterlife's potential for remembrance of, communion with, praise of
> >> God?
> >> 8
> >> Greatly strengthening the "progressive" against the "errorless"
> >> position
> >> is the fact that all the

> John seem to have sympathy for those who find it hard to believe. Mary Magdalene can’t recognize Jesus when she is talking to him.  Thomas refuses to believe unless he can see and touch the  wounds.  John knows how difficult it is to believe.  He also knows that belief is not dependent on seeing or touching the risen Christ.  We who gather on the Sunday after the Resurrection believe and confess, Jesus is Lord and the Lord is risen indeed. Belief, the faith to confess is a gift which we cannot explain.

> Many of us have made the same confession that Thomas made, “My God and my Lord.” v28  Some of us have come to that conviction like Paul on the road when he heard Jesus speak.  Some of us have moved through the night into the dawn without any super natural assurance.  We  have all moved from doubt and embarrassment to joy and gladness.

> So on Sunday we will say in the hearing of those who are not sure, who doubt or want some proof, “Christ the Lord is Risen and he is My God and My Lord.”  We will confess that the one with the wounds in his hands and side is ‘very God of very God.”   It is a miracle of faith, the work of the Holy Spirit that we gather together as church to testify to the gift that only God can give, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” v29

> Rather than focus on the doubt of Thomas and our doubts this text celebrates the miracle of faith that allows us, empowers us to say without seeing and without touching, “My God and My Lord.”   This is truly the work  of the Holy spirit that we will sing, “Christ the Lord is Risen.”  After 2000 years there are still a people who have the gift of faith and believe without seeing and without touching.

> This is our faith, a gift we cannot understand.  It is a faith we do not attempt to impose.  It is a confession that we do not use as a club.  It is a witness we make because of a gift that we can only accept. We did not earn our faith. We can only share it.  The gift that is given to those Blessed because they “have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  Praise the Lord!

> Any additions or corrections?  Herb

> John seem to have sympathy for those who find it hard to believe. Mary Magdalene can’t recognize Jesus when she is talking to him.  Thomas refuses to believe unless he can see and touch the wounds.  John knows how difficult it is to believe.  He also knows that belief is not dependent on seeing or touching the risen Christ.  We who gather on the Sunday after the Resurrection believe and confess, Jesus is Lord and the Lord is risen indeed. Belief, the faith to confess is a gift which we cannot explain.

> Many of us have made the same confession that Thomas made, “My God and my Lord.” v28  Some of us have come to that conviction like Paul on the road when he heard Jesus speak.  Some of us have moved through the night into the dawn without any super natural assurance.  We have all moved from doubt and embarrassment to joy and gladness.

> So on Sunday we will say in the hearing of those who are not sure, who doubt or want some proof, “Christ the Lord is Risen and he is My God and My Lord.”  We will confess that the one with the wounds in his hands and side is ‘very God of very God.”   It is a miracle of faith, the work of the Holy Spirit that we gather together as church to testify to the gift that only God can give, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” v29

> Rather than focus on the doubt of Thomas and our doubts this text celebrates the miracle of faith that allows us, empowers us to say without seeing and without touching, “My God and My Lord.”   This is truly the work of the Holy spirit that we will sing, “Christ the Lord is Risen.”  After 2000 years there are still a people who have the gift of faith and believe without seeing and without touching.

> This is our faith, a gift we cannot understand.  It is a faith we do not attempt to impose.  It is a confession that we do not use as a club.  It is a witness we make because of a gift that we can only accept. We did not earn our faith. We can only share it.  The gift that is given to those Blessed because they “have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  Praise the Lord!

> Any additions or corrections?  Herb