• Pec@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    What I’m referring to, specifically, is the past decade … Christianity & Judaism condemning (from the pulpit) LGBTQ+ persons is a minority position mainly held by fundamentalist and/or conservative groups.

    I don’t think they are the minority though. I crosschecked the U.S. religion statistics and Catholic, Southern Baptist and United Methodist seem to be the largest denominations.

    There, simply, is not any textual evidence to support this. I have studied the early Jesus movement leading up to the second century of Christianity and there is no condemnation toward personal sexual practices.

    After reading other resources, I changed my stance on this but not entirely convinced of either side. It could be just that the issue of non-heterosexuality didn’t arise enough to be explicitly addressed in the early Christianity, or some political movement were at play, or some confounding factor of how homosexuality behaviors were expressed at that time.

    • Chris Remington@beehaw.org
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      2 years ago

      I don’t think they are the minority though

      At the very top of that wiki: “The examples and perspective in this section deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject.”

        • Chris Remington@beehaw.org
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          2 years ago

          This makes no sense. My point was about the global scholarly consensus that the biblical texts do not address LGBTQ+ issues as they are understood today AND Christendom globally does not consider homosexuality to be a sin.

          • Pec@beehaw.org
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            2 years ago

            Ok, I reread the comments and I think I found the issue: (me, lisko etc): we might’ve mixed up “scholarly” and “theological” approaches (the latter of which is more evangelical-conservative, while the former is more anthropological).

            I would still argue that the latter is more prevalent in communal practice, and thus is representative of what the majority (or at last a significant minority) of U.S. Christians currently think.

            • Chris Remington@beehaw.org
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              2 years ago

              I understand where you are coming from. If you knew my personal backstory and what I have experienced, then I believe you and others would at least entertain where I am coming from.

              People are going to believe whatever they want to believe. That fact is bittersweet and sometimes it saddens me.

              Let me put it to you plainly. If there is a ‘god’ or ‘higher power’ that wants human beings to suffer in every way imaginable, then I don’t want to have anything to do with it.

              The ineffable has shown me, on several occasions, that this is not the case.