What Does It Mean that Scripture Forbids Homosexuality?

So is mixing fabric and mixing crops. Milk and meat. Eating pork.

The statement of injunction against homosexuality is not helpful to working through the issue unless we understand what this kind of statement actually means. Is it just sex? Properly directed sex? Properly constituted relationships?

Or, we can step out from this a bit. What was marriage in the same context? What was the role of women? Was polygamy allowed in the same context as Leviticus? Were all God fearing men monogamous? How about stoning those who work on the Sabbath which is really Saturday? Does it say anywhere that slavery should be forbidden? Does the mixing of the races equate with a good that God commends?

The argument should never be that since A and B are now forbidden or acceptable where the opposite was once true, that C must now be acceptable or forbidden on those grounds. The point is that we all draw lines of purity and impurity that are by necessity extra-biblical since we are living and communing with the Word in a context that is extra-biblical. "We" are all extra-biblical and understand the Scripture through that lens before any other we choose to employ. And this last point is also important. We choose to employ different hermeneutic lenses for different reasons. We need to understand why we make those choices in some cases and not others to make positive ground on issues like these.

The task before us is understanding why we draw those lines and on what grounds they exist that will lead us down the road to healing. The either/or discussion exacerbates the division on both sides. The moment anyone does not make amends with the arbitrary nature of their own purity/impurity boundaries even when it comes to Scripture, is the moment the discussion will go nowhere. The casualty is always and always has been the very Body of Christ that is the Church.

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