The day after the Pope said the Church must apologize to gays, the Orthodox Church in America made this declaration. Coincidence?
>The statement outlines the Orthodox Christian’s "sincerely held religious belief" that marriage is "a lifelong, exclusive relationship between one man and one woman," and therefore any sexual relations outside of natural marriage "is immoral, and therefore sin."
>The encyclical continues, "We believe that God created the human race, male and female, and that all conduct with the intent to adopt a gender other than one’s birth gender is immoral and therefore sin
>Even more explicitly, the document states, "Marriage can only be between two people whose birth sex is male and female.
Meanwhile Russia has the highest aids rate in the world and is half atheist
Kayden Barnes
Russia was under an atheist regime that taught atheism in public schools and required it for any position of influence.
Anyway, what is your point?
Levi Phillips
Based Russians showing the degenerate West how it's done. I can't wait till we get strong leaders who will make our countries respected again, stamp out degenerates, and make our economies as strong as Russia.
Angel Brooks
Why is this man allowed to have any influence in world affairs anymore
Connor Brown
>Russia has the highest aids rate in the world The rate is about 1%. The highest countries in the world have 10%.
They do, however, have the best education in the world
>Russia has the most college-level or higher graduates in terms of percentage of population in the world, at 54%.[311]
Jacob Clark
The Orthodox Church in America said this, not Russia.
Ryan Hill
They've still got the highest AIDS rate outside of Africa though.
Xavier Phillips
No, that would be Jamaica.
Owen James
And yet, God openly approves of polygamy in the OT.
Colton Turner
are you by chance a flaming faggot?
Nathan Lopez
God permits it, it's not his ideal, his ideal is clear when he gives Adam one wife. God designed humanity as two halves that form a united microcosm in marriage
Jack Sullivan
2 of the 3 patriarchs are polygamous. The explicitly mentioned best prophet ever is polygamous. Most of the Israeli kings are polygamous. A lot of the prophets are polygamous.
God talked to all of them, yet somehow they all failed to pick up on
>hey, you only really ought to marry one woman, marrying more is technically permitted, but wrong.
Which, btw, opens up a huge hole in Christianity. Isn't the old law supposed to be rigid and impossible to follow? There is no "good enough but not perfect" in Paul's conception of things.
Landon Morales
I've got a couple friends in Russia and they say that most college degrees there are worthless. Like, "engineering graduate who doesn't know trig" worthless.
Landon Green
Would any one seriously want to live in an orthodox shit hole over italy or austria, orthodoxism is like communism where the reality doesn't hold up to the ideology
Isaiah Richardson
> Isn't the old law supposed to be rigid and impossible to follow? No.
>The explicitly mentioned best prophet ever is polygamous. Moses only had one wife.
>There is no "good enough but not perfect" in Paul's conception of things. In Paul's conception, being righteous according to the Law of itself doesn't do anything for you.
Ryder Foster
Most Orthodox countries were in the former soviet block.
Ethan Wood
What about Lilith?
Samuel Reed
>Moses only had one wife. I think he means Elijah.
Leo Perez
I don't know about all this, but what I do know is that any believer of God and Jesus Christ shouldn't push any one away from God and Jesus Christ. Homosexual, murderer, or anyone. All deserve to know Him.
Render unto caeser that which is caesers'.
That women, who made a public display, that she didn't want to give gay's a marriage license....even though it was permitted by "caesar" so to speak...
Correct me if I'm wrong, edify please, but I seriously think she should have walked away from her Job and quit on the spot through her convictions instead of creating a display that pits Christian against Homosexuals in general.
I mean in the new testamaent, Paul describes a certain type of homosexual as a deviant, which we all know exist. This example of deviant that he described can be found among heterosexuals as well, they might even be the same thing....but he said judge not, less we be judged.
It's almost as if we are supposed to let them walk their walk of whatever sin, but not abandoning our beliefs, speaking as we speak among ourselves freely, but not judging them. If that makes sense, and isn't too vague.
I'm curious to what other Christians think about this.
Wyatt Lee
>No.
Romans 8:3
>Moses only had one wife.
He marries Tzipporah in Exodus 2:21, and an unnamed Kushite woman in 12:1,. That makes 2 wives and thus polygamy.
>In Paul's conception, being righteous according to the Law of itself doesn't do anything for you.
Because it's impossible to do and done as a direct demonstration that none can live by the law of God and as a demonstration as to why we all need grace.
Christian Walker
>"Marriage can only be between two people whose birth sex is male and female. So intersex peoples can go get fucked then I guess.
Jordan Cook
What is greece
Camden Kelly
>Romans 8:3 The old covenant is carnal, the new one is spiritual. The old covenant initiates by circumcision, the new one by baptism. The old covenant says fairness is an eye-for-an-eye, the new one says forgiveness. The old one says cleanliness is sanitation, the new one says cleanliness is spiritual. Christ brings the spirit, he's saying the old law can't save your spirit by itself.
>He marries Tzipporah in Exodus 2:21, and an unnamed Kushite woman Same woman.
"The Midianites themselves were a dark-skinned people often called Kushim, the Hebrew word used to describe dark skinned Africans.[12][13]"
>Because it's impossible to do and done as a direct demonstration that none can live by the law of God and as a demonstration as to why we all need grace. No, Paul is saying even following it perfectly doesn't make you sinless, and in fact he is very aggressive against those who try to get others to follow it (Philippians 3:2)
Joshua Garcia
Right, but Spain is in similar shambles.
No, that would be a sin.
Adrian Baker
Well no, they can do it themselves
Nathaniel Nelson
They should have made the African contender the Pope. He would have been able to tell white western liberals to STFU while laying down the Law.
Carson Cruz
Midian isn't in Afeica you idiot. Kush is a kingdom in what is now Sudan. Not to mention that his second marriage is years later than his first.
Ethan Clark
>He would have been able to tell white western liberals to STFU Most cardinals want the opposite of this
Ryan Harris
"Cushite" was used by Hebrews to mean the descendants of Cush in general (black people, in other words)..
Gabriel Lewis
Yes, and Midianites were descended from Abraham and Keturah, and this fellow Semites. They were not the same woman, and to insist on such demonstrates unfamiliarity with the source text.
Alexander Robinson
You realize Russia's falling apart and desperate for a war to make themselves feel relevant/restart their war economy, right?
Henry Young
*shhh* Just let him roleplay his little quasi-religious existential breakdown until it's all out of his system, he'll get there one day.
Ian Hall
See Genesis 2:13
Eli Price
I really just wish at this point that the government would've decided "fine, marriage is marriage" and just changed the legal name to civil union conferring all the same benefits and such as marriage. That way Christcucks can keep their marriage and homos don't have to whine about MUH EXCLUSION even though they'll do that anyway because they don't want to just be gay, they want you to know that they're gay and you better deal with it.
Christian Clark
That would have worked ten years ago, but today everyone would know its just because we dont want to call gay marriage marriage and it would be labelled homophobic
Oliver Nguyen
Hey, Constantine, so I take it that in line with the new Orthodox declaration, you believe it's sinful for someone with a hermaphroditic to marry?
On...what Biblical justification, may I ask?
Brayden Miller
>hermaphroditic disorder Pardon, edits.
What I mean is someone with genitals which could be construed as biologically male or female depending on the doctor but occupying a biomedical grey category.
Luke Fisher
Can the person both ejaculate and be impregnated?
Sebastian Watson
In most cases of human biomedical hermaphroditism, neither.
Elijah Carter
Then marriage is probably out.
Colton Perez
But I can't speak as an authority, it depends on if the Church recognizes your birth sex. There might be one applied to the condition you describe.
Tyler Hall
This is my church... and even the Catholics are being smarter about this shit than we are.
I heard from my parents that a friend of my godmother had committed suicide. He was active at his local church and knew our priest. I don't know if it had anything to do with his death, but he was gay and had married a man outside of the church. Our priest couldn't bless it obviously, but he had visited with them and prayed with them. My parents said he was heartbroken that because of our church's stance, he couldn't do more for them.
A cousin's sister in law also loved her church, but was a lesbian and had to get married out in Hawaii (only place at the time) in a private ceremony. She had passed of cancer and only then did most of the family learn about her sexuality and spouse.
It is absolutely disgusting that my church is turning away our brothers and sisters in Christ just because they are attracted and want to marry the same gender.
Are two excepts from Paul's letters really worth it? To me the Holy Gospels and their teachings of Christ do no support it. That trumps some interpretation of a couple lines from Paul.
Thomas Roberts
I remember my church school teacher aunt talking about a book she read about hermaphrodite / intergender people. I shouldn't have been, but I was a bit surprised how understanding she seemed about it.
Tyler Allen
25:2 is far more dispositive to the issue at hand.
Matthew Hall
They can't even afford to upgrade their AK-74Ms with a hinged dust cover for a better optical sight mount, new rifle trials for stuff like the AN-94 have been repeatedly canceled due to "cost issues", and the Indians are paying for half their new "stealth" fighter that they're only buying 12 of.
And they're supposed to be also building a new super tank, a new IFV, a new Nimitz-sized aircraft carrier, new nuclear submarines, etc, etc, etc, and all on a GDP that's less than Brazil's.
Michael Gray
Doesn't really change that "Cush" could be used to refer to a land on the east side of the Red Sea.
Parker Ortiz
It actually does, given that "kushites" are dark skinned, and descendants of Ham, and Midianites are Semites not all that different from the Israelites, what with the common descent from Abraham.
All to defend the notion that Moses somehow married the same woman twice, which is all kinds of stupid.
Andrew Martin
>point at the Chalcedonian heretic >point and laugh Nestorius did nothing wrong.
Jace Bennett
Cush is certainly used to refer to a land on the East Side of the Red Sea, you can't argue with that if you define the river Gihon with the river Gihon in the Bible.
Whose saying he married her twice? Numbers 12 doesn't describe any new marriage, it just says his wife was a Cushite.
Nestorianism can't be reconciled with the Word becoming flesh. In Nestorianism, the flesh is not the Word.
Aiden Richardson
*Who's
Jose Long
Yes, and Midianites doesn't have any common line of descent from Cush, or even Ham.
You are incredibly stupid.
Jeremiah Richardson
>can't be reconciled But that's only true if you buy Cyril's lies about the doctrines. How does it feel knowing the Copts have a more legitimate claim to Alexandria then you guys?
Josiah Cox
They didn't genealogically, but they were grouped as such geographically.
No, it's true if you think Christ's human and divine nature did not share one existence.
Copts aren't Nestorians, they love Saint Cyril.
Jaxon Kelly
>>The encyclical continues, "We believe that God created the human race, male and female, and that all conduct with the intent to adopt a gender other than one’s birth gender is immoral and therefore sin >The encyclical continues, "We believe that God created the human race, male and female, and that all conduct with the intent to adopt a gender other than one’s birth gender is immoral and therefore sin
>Still not recognizing that white matter in the brain gender and chromosomal gender can be mismatched in a horrible birth defect
>"Oh you have a terrible mental illness? No you don't its SIN now PRAY and come to the Church that denies your problems exist."
I don't expect Christian churches to just accept Trannies, but this sort of bury-head-in-sand approach is what made cafeteria catholicism so strong. You can't ignore something exists without sacrificing your claim to absolute truth.
Robert Sanchez
One, pardon my implication that Copts were Nestorians; though they are surely not Chalcedonian heretics. I don't have a horse in the Oriental Orthodoxy, though I think it's closer to right than the Easterns.
You seem to be fundamentally misapprehending pre-consolidation notions of Christian non-dualism. The council rejection of monophysitism inherently implies a rejection of miaphysitism, so I'm not sure why Copts get a pass on the latter and Nestorius didn't.
Liam Brown
Christ told sinners to sin no more.
He didn't say to the adulterer "go and live however you see fit"
Nathaniel Richardson
There's probably a middle ground; the Catholic Church seems like its trying to find it, but it still looks at relationships today as if they were the same thing as relationships 600 years ago.
Just bless same sex relationships built on love and fidelity, but maintain a biblical condemnation of same sex relations. It will force the Church to acknowledge that love =/= sex, which will be hard for an institution born before romantic love was the basis of coupling, but otherwise it remains stuck in neither being able to condemn all homosexuals in a Nazi-style holocaust, nor allowing them within its walls.
Robert Collins
Gender signifiers are cultural things, not something you're born identifying with.
Elijah Cruz
*bless same sex unions, condemn same sex sexual relations
Liam Gonzalez
That's some Social Justice bullshit you're swallowing. Like, hardcore SJW. Most SJWs wouldn't even go that far.
>Source: at massive SJW school, know SJW trannies, literally none think gender is *purely* a social construct
Elijah Reyes
So again I ask what the deal is with someone born biologically intersexed.
Jason Harris
Eastern Orthodox position: Christ is two natures, human and divine.
Coptic (and all Oriental Orthodox) position: Christ is one nature, human and divine.
Copts get a pass because the Fifth Ecumenical Council issued anathemas against criticism of Saint Cyril's Twelve Anathemas.
Josiah Long
I mean things like pronouns and skirts.
Christian Reed
God created us perfect. It is our punishment from the Fall that causes things like birth defects, pain, and in this case homosexuality.
Nicholas Myers
Where does it say homosexuality is a sin?
If the church does not allow for such marriage, then they are forcing these people to live in adultery.
They have painted gays into a corner.
Honestly, aside from a couple lines from Paul and some old testament rules (that are not part of Christ's new covenant anyway), there is nothing in the Holy Bible about homosexuality being a sin.
And if I remember the lines from the epistles, Paul was talking about people that had fallen away from God anyway. He never said it was because of their homosexual fornication.
Christopher Williams
I already answered that. If the Church recognizes your birth sex as either male or female, you can marry as such. If not, then you are probably out of luck.
Ryder Nelson
No fuck that. Fags are lying if they say they're not having sex.
Toss them with the goats and others ready to burn in hell.
Cooper James
You are implying that the actual percentage of the people is any more than .1 percent. It´s not a sin to have a birth defect, it is a sin to parade as a member of the other gender.
Isaiah Gray
I actually find transgenderism to be too Gnostic, rejecting too much of the physical world.
I also find that there is a big push for it by doctors and companies who stand to make shit tons of money off people looking for surgery and treatments to change genders. So there's a corporate greed aspect to the movement that bothers me.
Yet we have the US Constitution and people are free to follow whatever beliefs they have and do what they want to alter their bodies.
Of course Christ teaches me to love these people no matter what their beliefs are.
Noah Johnson
But that's not what we're discussing. We're discussing physical gender and physical transition.
>In this case, homosexuality
But we're not talking about homosexuality, we're talking about transgenderism. And either way, punishment for the fall or not, it is an issue that has to be addressed. We can't just say "transgenderism is punishment for the fall" and offer nothing else to transgender people. Are they or aren't they allowed? Why or why not? What relation does this have to the medical research? etc etc
Not me you're responding to, but -
Isn't the Church supposed to be Catholic? Universal? Even if its an incredibly tiny portion of the population, how can a Catholic church just not have a place for intersex people?
Did the Lord God not seek out the One Good Man in Sodom? Who is to say there is not One Chaste Man afflicted with Homosexuality?
Thomas Robinson
Christ considered fornication sin, that would naturally include homosexuality.
Josiah Gray
Intersex are people who are naturally born between male and female genders. They are rare, but it is a natural occurrence. They are God's children too even if they were born with genetic and physical anomalies.
David Turner
You just pointed out where and Paul is very clear about homosexuals not receiving salvation.
It also fits considering God gave Adam a wife for sex and companionship, not a bro with benefits.
Logan Perry
>the church What about the doctor who jots down 'intersex' on the birth forms after seeing some genetic freak's God given faulty plumbing.
Essentially: >Isn't the Church supposed to be Catholic? Universal? Even if its an incredibly tiny portion of the population, how can a Catholic church just not have a place for intersex people? Except replace Catholic with Orthodox.
Caleb King
It specifically says homosexuality is a sin, they will live in adultery anyway. "Don't misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose." It doesn´t matter if a single sentence is dedicated to it, it is still a sin.
Leo Perry
>But that's not what we're discussing. We're discussing physical gender and physical transition. Which seems mostly influenced by cultural signifiers to me. I mean, I've seen a lot of people who watch anime and then get who enraptured with the illusion that they wish they were girls.
If gender identity disorder were something purely biological, then animals born in the "wrong sex" would a thing.
Brayden Peterson
So only fornication between a husband and wife for procreation is not a sin?
What about a couple that finds out one of them is infertile?
Are they then as sinful as an unmarried homosexual couple?
And, again, homosexual couples can only fornicate outside of marriage because the church does not allow them to have a marriage.
Alexander Sanders
No one is saying they're not.
Josiah Kelly
>What about the doctor who jots down 'intersex' on the birth forms What about him?
Lincoln Ward
are you seriously going with the old, "It ain't Adam and Steve" line?
Cameron Hall
A chaste homosexual won't demand to be married or live with a homosexual partner.
Gavin Jones
>So only fornication between a husband and wife for procreation is not a sin? Sex between a husband and wife isn't fornication.
And no, it doesn't have to be for procreation, as per Saint John Chrysostom. But you do have to have kids in a marriage, even if not all sex in a marriage is for that.
>What about a couple that finds out one of them is infertile? Then they should adopt.
Gabriel Reed
>Copts get a pass because the Fifth Ecumenical Council issued anathemas against criticism of Saint Cyril's Twelve Anathemas. I should also note that this is a hugely unintuitive and "because I said so" answer about why one iteration of miaphysitism flies and one doesn't but I'll thank you for at least attempting an answer this time.
Mason Ross
Maybe I'm a little biased because I know so many transsexual people, but I think you're perspective might be lacking some ... well, perspective. You judge what you think is a movement (which is actual a mental illness recognized by the APA) by possible connections to gnosticism (which I'm sure plenty of trans people would reject) and corporate greed (at which point we should reject most medical research into unusual mental problems). Not saying you're wrong, just saying some new perspective might be worth considering.
>If gender identity disorder were something purely biological, then animals born in the "wrong sex" would a thing.
It could. After all, we see animals with homosexuality.
The medical research is pretty conclusive; white matter in the brain being mismatched with chromosomes is what causes transgenderism. Its physical. And this is built of lots of research that indicates gender as a whole is neurobiological as well as cultural.
I'm beginning to suspect you haven't read any of the medical literature on this topic at all. If you're interested in talking about it, I strongly recommend doing so. Start with Zhou et al. (1995).
Dominic Bailey
It fits.
Christ got rid of rituals and harsh physical punishment for sins from the OT not hard morals like the rule against homosexuality.
Justin Perez
Well, this is why I don't want my Church in my Biomedicine, because when there's a biomedical category that can be demonstrably proven to be a genetic malformation, and the Church refuses to even address the issue of its existence, there's a problem...and it ain't with the doctors.
Christian Green
Constantine hasn't even read the Bible. You're expecting him to understand medical literature?
Asher Morris
I'm afraid I don't actually know him outside of the comments I've replied to. Hopefully, though, I can help open his mind to new ideas and interpretations.
Jacob Bennett
He's also (in your first reply) essentializing an incredibly diverse and contradictory set of denominations under the header of "Gnosticism", which, given the wild variety of Gnostic groups, is essentially a meaningless term, as where some sought rejection of the material, others embraced the material.
Colton Garcia
Can man really "force" anyone to live in adultery? God's the judge of that. Homosexuals are in a tough spot no question and I genuinely feel for the ones that aren't just degenerates. It's a tough spot to be in for them at the moment.
Jonathan Wright
Once again, overarching assumptions based on an unwarranted generalizations. The Lord God sought one good man in Sodom; could there not be one chaste homosexual partnership?
The idea here is that non-sexually active homosexual people might live an honest, godly, and chaste life in the light of the Lord. The Church does not recognize this on the basis that any couple must be sexually active - a false notion, which the Church should at least recognize, even if they don't change doctrine.
Adam Scott
> white matter in the brain So people are diagnosed with gender identity disorder based upon brain scans to see what gender their brain is?
>It could. After all, we see animals with homosexuality. We don't, however, see them with homosexual identity.
Eh? I've read the Bible
Thomas Ward
Chaste Christians with homosexual inclinations can exist sure. That doesn't mean scandal should be allowed by allowing them to live with a partner and definitely does not mean they should be allowed to marry in the Church.
Joshua Edwards
Two men can be as brothers. That's not a marriage or anything like a marriage.
Nicholas Baker
>So people are diagnosed with gender identity disorder based upon brain scans to see what gender their brain is?
No, the expenses for that would be astronomical. But people who have been diagnosed that have had their brains scanned show enough cross-sex white matter that the scientific community has largely entrusted psychologists to make the right call (dissent on the medical consensus largely rests on whether or not this is an accurate causal chain).
>We don't, however, see them with homosexual identity.
Homosexual identity is just homosexual activity and human self-awareness. But that doesn't change the realities of sex/gender disorders in all creatures.
This both still looks at marriage and cohabitation as synonymous with sex. It leaves romance out of the equation entirely. You can have non-sexual but romantically engaged couples.
Being romantic without sex is not the same as "being as brothers."
Romantic but willfully chaste hetero couples are not scandalous, and I don't see how homo couples necessarily are either.
Adam Williams
>This both still looks at marriage and cohabitation as synonymous with sex. Sex is certainly a key function of marriage.
Jack Powell
>Romantic but willfully chaste hetero couples are not scandalous A chaste marriage is strongly discouraged in Scripture (1 Corinthians 7:5)
Luke Nguyen
Marriage =/= sex =/= romance
They are all related, but equating them causes severe problems when dealing with real people in real relationships today.
We need to have a way to address romantic relationships that may not be eligible for marriage, marital relations without romance. We have sexual relations without marriage down pat, though, so good on us?
The context is clearly in one of heterosexual marriage, and with the intent of lowering adultery. If there's one thing our Mother the Church on Earth teaches us, its not to read scripture without an eye for context and intent.
It can't just be copy-pasted onto homosexual relations, is my point. It's clearly meant to speak exclusively to married men/women couples.