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- Just today I've been rereading Judith Butler's Undoing Gender, which touches on a lot of the issues you've raised. I think from her perspective, all of the LGBT categories have in...
- i agree it is the way we relate to our comfort as opposed to the idea of being comfortable. yet, the question is how much our comfort blinds us to what is demanded of us....
- It's hard to figure out at what point we are to live without our material comforts. If we give it all up and become homeless for God I'm not sure we'd be doing anyone any good. I have...
- i used to listen to him years ago - but after his 1994 ? stuff i figured i would move on down the road - he did help me break out of the uncertainty of free will thinking that i had to manage my...
- i agree that pragmatism does not always equate with rationality, or even good behavior given the social circumstances that define what works for people in a given situation. yet, nonetheless, my...
Notes From Off Center
Life from the view of a pragmatist Christian and educator.
For those of you interested, my testimony can be found here as a guest post. I want to thank Tony Hoshaw for the opportunity.
SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Why I am Gay-Friendly", url: "http://notes-from-offcenter.com/2008/07/01/why-i-am-gay-friendly/" }% ... Continue reading »
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1 year ago
I'm glad you got over your hate. I hope that you aren't implying that people opposed to homosexual behavior are either hateful by default (though some are) or have simply never met (or realized they met) a real live homosexual.
My twin is transgendering (though for 6 years that was expressed as homosexual). I even struggled with feelings of homosexual attraction. However, that didn't change my convictions about what the Scriptures say about homosexual behavior.
I've termed this sort of ethical sleight-of-hand relative moralism.
1 year ago
I would hope never to generalize anyone with terms like that. That was just my own journey.
Admittedly I have a very different way of understanding Scripture and its role relative to the furthering of the Kingdom of God than you do which I think we both know well enough. What we both can agree on is that Scripture is essential to further that Kingdom. The good news is that we both worship a God who is gracious enough to work with both of us in spite of the foolishness that we as fallen humans are so apt to practice.
What I have also learned is that propositional and prepositional truth are analogous to our own cognitive development. That is to say, the conditions of our knowing are irreducibly structured by our relationality and our relationality then structures what we know. I am an interactionist here. We always come to a situation with assumptions (prespositional) and those assumptions will either change over time or they will remain rigid (propositional if you will). Conviction should straddle between these two poles and tie them off in order that our experience achieves equilibrium. Prayer and communion with God is what supplies the energy to make this possible for it is clear that we cannot do it on our own.
James Loder was a significant influence to me at PTS and my own thinking is greatly influenced by him. That and Simone Weil as taught by Diogenes Allen (just so you know what influenced me during this time and from that point on).
1 year ago
The observation that presuppositions, or as I would put it, pre-judice, is often overcome when one is put into the actual circumstances of having to make a decision is very true. My understanding is that this often happens to those who are against abortion and are confronted with an unwanted pregnancy.
Given your experience, what do you now think of the notion of "Love the sinner, hate the sin"? I have read an essay by Eric Reitan (unavailable on-line) in which he claims (if I remember correctly) that this is not actually possible or entirely honest, at least in the case of homosexuality.