Jesus stance on homosexuality
What the New Testament Says about Homosexuality
The Fourth R Volume May-June
Mainline Christian denominations in this country are bitterly divided over the question of homosexuality. For this reason it is essential to ask what light, if any, the New Testament sheds on this controversial issue. Most people apparently take for granted that the Fresh Testament expresses powerful opposition to homosexuality, but this simply is not the case. The six propositions that obey, considered cumulatively, conduct to the final word that the Brand-new Testament does not provide any manage guidance for sympathy and making decisions about homosexuality in the modern nature.
Proposition 1: Strictly speaking, the Brand-new Testament says nothing at all about homosexuality.
There is not a single Greek word or statement in the entire New Testament that should be translated into English as “homosexual” or “homosexuality.” In fact, the very notion of “homosexuality”—like that of “heterosexuality,” “bisexuality,” and even “sexual orientation”—is essentially a up-to-date concept that would simply have been unintelligible to
If homosexuality is a sin, why didn’t Jesus ever mention it?
Answer
Many who aid same-sex marriage and same-sex attracted rights argue that, since Jesus never mentioned homosexuality, He did not think about it to be sinful. After all, the argument goes, if homosexuality is bad, why did Jesus treat it as a non-issue?
It is technically correct that Jesus did not specifically address homosexuality in the Gospel accounts; however, He did speak clearly about sexuality in general. Concerning marriage, Jesus stated, “At the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh[.]’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, grant no one separate” (Matthew –6). Here Jesus clearly referred to Adam and Eve and affirmed God’s intended design for marriage and sexuality.
For those who follow Jesus, sexual practices are limited. Rather than take a permissive view of sexual immorality and divorce, Jesus affirmed that people are either to be s
Same-Sex Attraction
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints acknowledges that same-sex attraction is a sensitive issue that requires kindness, sympathy and understanding. The “Same-Sex Attraction” section of reinforces the reality that, in the words of one Latter-day Saint scripture, God “loveth his children” (1 Nephi ), and seeks to help everyone enhanced understand same-sex attraction from a gospel perspective.
The Church does not take a position on the generate of same-sex attraction. In , Elder Dallin H. Oaks said, “The Church does not have a position on the causes of any of these susceptibilities or inclinations, including those related to same-gender attraction.”
Feelings of same-sex attraction are not a sin. President M. Russell Ballard said: “Let us be clear: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that ‘the experience of same-sex attraction is a complex truths for many people. The attraction itself is not a sin, but acting on it is. Even though individuals do not choose to have such attractions, they do select how to respond to them. With love an
This article is part of the What Did Jesus Teach? series.
Silence Equals Support?
In a article for Slate online, Will Oremus asked a provocative question: Was Jesus a homophobe?1
The article was occasioned by a story about a gay teenager in Ohio who was suing his high college after school officials prohibited him from wearing a T-shirt that said, “Jesus Is Not a Homophobe.”
Oremus was less concerned about the legal issues of the story than he was about the accuracy of the expression on the shirt. Oremus suggests that Jesus’s views on homosexuality were more inclusive than Paul’s. He writes,
While it’s reasonable to assume that Jesus and his fellow Jews in first-century Palestine would have disapproved of queer sex, there is no tape of his ever having mentioned homosexuality, let alone expressed particular revulsion about it. . . . Never in the Bible does Jesus himself offer an explicit prohibition of homosexuality.
Oremus seems to suggest that since Jesus never explicitly mentioned homosexuality, he must not have been very concerned about it.
There are at least two reas