Let’s see; we’re turning ourselves into pretzels over what is, at most, 2-3% of the population, because that overly vocal, strident 2-3% is an effective club for the liberal progressives to use to beat up on orthodox Christians.  I am so sick of people telling me that if I don’t loudly affirm their behaviors and acts, I am being judgmental.  This article also makes little distinction between same sex affection and homosexual acts.

The joining of two people as one flesh is much more than just a physical act and the Bible makes this clear time after time.  I have some sympathy for the gentlemen who has chosen celibacy.  I would really like to know what in his background set him on a course to feel that same sex attraction and celibacy are his only options.

Paris’s book seems to be nothing but a restatement of the feminist ideas of the 70’s to do away with gender so that we can do away with the God given and notated roles of men and women. Look what that has given us, illegal “ordiantions” that were reatified by the feminists and their sycophants, and when did the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and whatever other sexuality you want to claim start taking over society and the Church? Look back to the feminist movements of the 1970’s. I am not trying to stir up a sexist argument, just stating what happened. From Genisis to Revelation there is a role for men and women that God established, and they are not the same and are not interchangeable. I feel like that is when the beginiing of all the chaos we have bee seeing got fanned into the burning mess it has become. The issue is not about homosexuality, heterosexuality or any other alleged sexuality, it is about the authority and Truth of the Bible. Either it is or it isn’t. When you twist it to justify, rationalize, or just plain approve sin, you have departed Christianity. Yes, all of us as humans and Christians are sinners, that is part of the central tennent of Christianity, Christ came into the world to save sinners. What is so hard to understand?

Drummie writes ......

From Genisis to Revelation there is a role for men and women that God established, and they are not the same and are not interchangeable. I feel like that is when the beginiing of all the chaos we have bee seeing got fanned into the burning mess it has become. The issue is not about homosexuality, heterosexuality or any other alleged sexuality, it is about the authority and Truth of the Bible. Either it is or it isn’t. 

That is right on the mark.  This is about our obedience to God.

The money quote for me was:

Hill quotes philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, “I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’” It’s this prior question that gets ignored in the debate on homosexuality because the church has mistakenly given primacy to ethics over the narrative functions of doctrine and ministry.

Clearly, if we declare ourselves to be part of God’s grand narrative from creation to new creation then that narrative will be what will inform our thoughts and actions.  Of course this then explains why so many want to revise the story to their own liking.

Ross

The challenge, I submit, is for the church to develop a ministry of recognition, in which same-sex attracted persons are dignified—alongside others—as “beloved,” while avoiding a ministry of difference, where such persons are excused from integration, licensed to innovate beyond Scripture and tradition. Put differently, same-sex attracted persons should be grafted onto—not subtracted from—the one tree of Christ, nourished from that root (Rom. 11:11–24).

This is the way forward.

Hill is the new NT hire at Trinity in Pittsburgh.

Yes, that’s right, Chris:  we’re very honored to have Wes Hill join us on the faculty here at Trinity.  I also appreciated the reviewer’s citing of O’Donovan.  Excellent resources all in all.