Did Paul Set Faith Against Sex?

“Therefore [a]consider the members of your earthly body as dead to [b] immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which [c]amounts to idolatry.” (NASB)

(a) Lit ‘put to death the members which are upon the earth’
(b) Lit ‘fornication’
(c) Lit ‘is’

Paul does seem to hint stuff like sex, passion (which I see no issue with), and greed ‘amount’ to idolatry. So I can see where it can be said these things are ‘idols’. However, and this is my opinion, show me this same sentiment over and over when discussing this term and I will agree it’s authoritative.

This may be the lone example, or of 2 passages in the whole bible, where idolatry is even used in this manner. Most other times, in fact all of them, it’s about worship of a physical thing.

However, and this is the pretty funny thing about this passage – the way the writer despises ‘sex’. Immorality (or fornication – according to the literal translation) and passion are both used here (both of which are not actually ‘bad’). In fact, if you have a wife then you are an idolator because you (a) fornicate and (b) are passionate for one another. And if neither of these are occurring in the marriage – then it’s ‘dead’.

Also funny, Paul says ‘consider the members of your earthly body as dead’ in regards to sex….does he mean the ‘members’ as in the sexual organs of the body? Is Paul setting up a wall between sex and faith?

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The ‘Jesus’ Syndrome

“when we are so critical of the church we need look no further than ourselves for the solution of what is wrong with the church” (Carolyn)

Nice in theory and I would normally agree with it (and partially do – we need to be the change we want to see). However, in the case of the church it’s dictatorship, which i am going to call the ‘Jesus syndrome’. In that most Evangelical leaders, and Catholic leaders, take the role of a Jesus (or Moses) figure to their congregation. In this sense, their teachings become untouchable and unchangeable until they are removed as the problem blocking change. They play leader in the new gospel story (theirs) – played out in each church.

“Our pastors could be a whole lot healthier spiritually if we would pray for them” (Carolyn)

They won’t be (better off) because even at their most humble – their position doesn’t allow them to change. I can see some of the pastor conundrum, not only do they let the power get to their ‘ego’s’ but the parishioners allow it and want it (IE: a sense of security and safety in that leader). The problem isn’t we can pray for them, but to what end…isn’t some of our hopes in that they are stable and do not change?

Abortion and Gay Rights – The Want of Control for Christianity

I had a discussion with a few Christian friends this week, via facebook, and I am kinda puzzled. The convo’s were these 2 areas:

(1) Abortion – Pro-life and Pro-choice movements

(2) Gay rights/marriage

I think we can all safely assume what side the Christians (more Evangelical in nature) landed on with these 2 issues. What puzzles me is how little the sides of issues were considered on each issue by the Christian friends. It was like they were living in a bubble where nothing gets in except that which lines up with their perceived agenda. Maybe this is so?

My issues start on each issue with their responses and what they support about both issues.

Abortion

• They backed the rights of the rapist in a rape victim case in forcing a woman to keep the child – carry it for 9 months – and endure even more pain (from an already horrible situation)
• They support the idea of ‘free will’ however in the case of rape and incest, free will was usurped for the rights of the child; In that the woman, who was given no choice in those scenario’s was further robbed of her rights in not being able to choose to not keep that unwanted and unplanned child
• There are no scriptures on this issue, yet they back the issue like it was in the 10 commandments and of vital importance and mentioned everywhere. How come, they are willing to be progressive in interpretation and extrapolation of scripture on this issue but on other issue’s they stay so literal to the text as to not betray said texts?

Gay Rights

• Extrapolation and interpretation on this issue is not progressive and they follow some ideas line by line and word by word…how come exactly? They are willing to make movements on abortion, which is never covered biblically, towards being progressive on interpretation but with gay rights they cannot.
• They do not support any gay rights because they view it as a ‘sinful lifestyle’. How can this be sin when the right the choose, which is what makes a sin a sin by definition, is not evident? For example, I didn’t choose to be straight, I just am.
• Gay marriage ruins marriage, according to these friends. How exactly? Marriage, as far as I can tell, is a bloody mess as is with a 51% divorce rate and now multiple marriages seems to be the trend. Marriage is muddy as is.

I guess I don’t understand this type of thinking, even when presented with ideas that kind of demand empathy and a honest answer they respond with canned words from a playbook. Is this really anything anyone would want to follow?