When I read this comment, I wondered how the writer

interprets Romans 1:24-28. This was written by the Apostle Paul. I can see only one way to interpret these verses.

Just for clarification, are you part of the transcribed or the inspired camp?

Regarding calling the Bible the “Word of God” — it’s just my Southern Baptist background showing itself. WE used to pruounce it the “Word of Gawwwwwd….) Of course, I understand Jesus is the eternal Word of God. So, I agree with Timothy as well.

Even though the Bible IS the word of God…

no, no, no

According to the first chapter of John, it is Jesus that is the “Word” of God. Only Jesus is deity and has the authority to speak for God and carries the title “the Word”. When we assign the Bible a title that belong to Christ, we come close to itolatry. The Bible is not God, it is ABOUT God. Regardless of the extent to which we believe that the Scripture is inspired by God, other than those passages that contain the words of Christ, it is not “the Word” of God.

EMPATHY, to quote the band BOSTON, “is more than a feeling!”

As I use it in the equation above it means “getting the world of the other person and getting how I effect the other person.”

That means getting not only their feelings, but their values, their experiences and character.

When you equated EMPATHY with feelings, I felt a combination of URGGGh, eeeeyeeeekkkkk and ucky. Like I was on the Oprah Winfrey Show or something.

You may not have meant it that way though. When you have empathy for me and I have empathy for you…it means we really get each other. Although not impossible, it is harder to hurt people we understand, respect and admire; and yes, feel for.

Best Michael in your journey, you are a blessing.

David

Barak Obama was on Oprah sometime back and made a similar comment about “good politics” — they they must be based of the question “How would that make YOU feel”? He said his mother taught him good morals by asking him that question repeatedly.

Disagreeing with other Christians on certain Biblical passages does not mean we abandon the Bible. On the contrary, the BIble is the bedrock our Christian morality. It is where we go to learn, through Christ’s life and teachings, how we are expected to treat God and His children.

No need to “throw out Scripture”: to make good moral decisions”. We don’t toss it out. Instead, we explore its truth with open minds and hearts — keepiing in mind that that the word of God is perfect — but we are not perfect in our ability to understand it our live it. We don’t assume we are RIGHT.

Instead, we ask the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth. And when we do this, we see that EMPATHY seems to be the very heart of Jesus’ teachings — “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Hmmmm.

I am not sure the tenor of my reply carried through my postings.

The phrase I wrote is as follows: When you ask me to throw out scripture as a means of making moral decisions, I think you are asking me to throw out absolutism.

I believe the invitation to talk about SSA previously, rationally and objectively, meant looking past scriptural explanations for prohibition.

The point I am trying to make is that moral decisionmaking always involves absolutes (“all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights” cannot be supported by a utilitarian or rationalistic moral model alone).

How about this?

Absolutism+Utilitarianism+Rationalism+EMPATHY= a sound moral system.

In the meantime, sincere, born-again, evangelical Christians can (and often do) disagree. Even though the Bible IS the word of God, we do not have a perfectly clear mirror, but a somewhat cloudy one instead — obscured by our own personal limitations, experiences and prejudices.

I understand that Robert Gagnon believes that anyone who does not agree with HIS interpretation of Scripture regarding homosexuality cannot rightly call themselves “Evangelical Christians”. Is he the final authority?If you want to talk about a “narrative” that tends to stop dialog, how about that one?

Frank Worthen of EXODUS takes Gagnon’s rather un-humble attitude even further. He says that those call themsleves “gay Chritians” are “anathema”, “greatly to be detested” and doomed to everlasting Hell. Gentlemen, I thought we were saved by GRACE, not our particular take on a handful of (obviously) debatable Scriptural verses. Or, did I miss something?

When you ask me to throw out scripture as a means of making moral decisions,…

David, I’m not asking you to throw out anything. In fact, I’m not asking you to do anything at all.

I can share with you my own personal theology based on a lot of thought and study and introspection and (as I’m sure you can tell) a decent working knowledge of Scripture and faith. But I’m not even going to begin to suggest to you that you should accept my theology. You have to work out your own salvation.

All I request is that you resist the temptation to work mine out for me. That you resist Dennis’ compelling need to offer me “a list of sins as warnings out of love”.

(incidentally, Dennis: how do I know when I’ve fallen short? By the propting of the Holy Spirit, of course.)

Oh, and perhaps also I might request that you resist the urge to use civil law to force others to conform to theological doctrine or dogma when preaching and teaching is ineffective.

No matter what effort is spent or how many churches sign up voters, Salvation cannot be legislated. If the moving of the Holy Spirit is unable to convince hearts and minds of your position, well… it may not be because you haven’t passed enough constitutional amendments.