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Mar. 25th, 2008 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mari4212So I'm updating twice in one day. Or at least, it was twice in one day when I started typing, but this got a bit longwinded. Yeah, I know, I'm kind of shocked at it myself, considering my recent lj patterns.
But my roommate is working on a PT project for class that's due tomorrow, and I'm still pulling myself down out of my religion major's high, so it kind of works out.
The reason for said religion major high is that first we had a really good class on Prophets today. Second Isaiah is made of shiny awesome and win, what with the chronologically first explicit mention of monotheism versus monolatry [Only one god exists, period, versus the earlier concept of yes there are other gods, but we only worship the one, and that god is better than those other gods], as well as the suffering servant passages and going into a long digression of the problem of interpreting the prophetic texts as originally meaning to refer to events which happen centuries later, versus acknowledging the earlier meanings, but still drawing new concepts out of the text.)
And then Dr. Stein announced that class was going to be cut short today because PRIDE was holding a panel discussion on religion and homosexuality, and about half the class followed her over to listen in. The panel was comprised of four different Christian affiliated ministers and preachers, who all found themselves to be socially on the spectrum of moderately liberal to very liberal, which made for a lot of uniformity of basic opinions about homosexuality, but coming at it from slightly different angles. We had a self-described left wing Baptist minister, who I've had several classes with and is just made of shiny awesome and win already, the university's Methodist chaplain, and representatives from the UCC and the Unitarians. Halfway through the talk, which was mainly question and answer format, I started taking notes on fun lines that came out.
Highlights:
Unitarian Panelist: "There was no understanding back then (referring to the Biblical time period) of human sexuality, there was no concept of the 'homosexual lifestyle' back then. There were just people having sex."
Student: "So there were no showtunes or fashion back then?"
Methodist Panelist: "I'm also from Alabama, which sort of calls the validity of this panel into question, that half of it is from Alabama."
Methodist Panelist a bit later on in the evening: The church has failed on the issue of homosexuality in terms of not reaching out to those of the gay community in committed relationships. (In the context of the issue many churches seem to have with the stereotypes of the gay lifestyle being all about casual sex. This part struck me as very true, and very interesting.)
Still more from the Methodist Panelist: (in the context of sexual morality, and that sex gets used a lot improperly in both heterosexual and non heterosexual relationships including as a way of dealing with or avoiding conflict) "Many of you are the product of arguments."
Unitarian Panelist: "I believe in evolution, and for procreation there's a certain way things have to fit together, but for pleasure, there's a whole bunch of ways for people to fit together. (Cue the entire audience starting to laugh)
More from the Unitarian Panelist: "Jesus doesn't care about penises and vaginas."
Baptist panelist: (I'm paraphrasing her a bunch here because I didn't get it all down and it was a rather long argument)She started by talking about how the church's stance on immorality doesn't have to be an either/or situation, you don't have to chose between either very narrow definitions of what is acceptable sexuality or letting anything be acceptable. She talked about how on the one hand, she doesn't believe in condemning anyone for something that's as much an unchanging part of them as their sexual orientation, but that she's not an absolute relativist. She holds that it's just as possible for GBLT people to act badly and hurt others, in terms of their sex life or anything else, as it is for a heterosexual person. Basically, that as far as she's concerned, not being heterosexual isn't a sin, but that she still doesn't hold to an anything goes policy. If you cause harm to others, it doesn't matter whether you're straight or gay, it's still harmful and it's not something to ignore.
The Methodist Panelist yet again: (he said a lot of cool things this evening. Paraphrasing again.) He talked about how it was relatively easy to discuss things tonight, when most of the room was in agreement on the generalities and might differ a bit on specifics, but not insanely much. It was relatively easy for us to say that the Biblical texts could be understood in one light, as not having that much to say about modern concepts of homosexuality, especially with how we chose to view them in the context of other things which the Bible supports which we do not view as acceptable today (the main example being the large amount of Biblical support for slavery, which we all believe is wrong today). He pointed out that in his ministry, there are still a lot of people for whom this subject is something they are deeply divided about, and that for them it can be very painful to approach different ways of dealing with GLBT issues. It struck rather close to home, because I have people I know who fear telling some of their friends about their sexual orientation because of that issue.
Overall, there wasn't much said that was particularly new knowledge for me, but it was good to hear the discussion and have people get a chance to talk.
But my roommate is working on a PT project for class that's due tomorrow, and I'm still pulling myself down out of my religion major's high, so it kind of works out.
The reason for said religion major high is that first we had a really good class on Prophets today. Second Isaiah is made of shiny awesome and win, what with the chronologically first explicit mention of monotheism versus monolatry [Only one god exists, period, versus the earlier concept of yes there are other gods, but we only worship the one, and that god is better than those other gods], as well as the suffering servant passages and going into a long digression of the problem of interpreting the prophetic texts as originally meaning to refer to events which happen centuries later, versus acknowledging the earlier meanings, but still drawing new concepts out of the text.)
And then Dr. Stein announced that class was going to be cut short today because PRIDE was holding a panel discussion on religion and homosexuality, and about half the class followed her over to listen in. The panel was comprised of four different Christian affiliated ministers and preachers, who all found themselves to be socially on the spectrum of moderately liberal to very liberal, which made for a lot of uniformity of basic opinions about homosexuality, but coming at it from slightly different angles. We had a self-described left wing Baptist minister, who I've had several classes with and is just made of shiny awesome and win already, the university's Methodist chaplain, and representatives from the UCC and the Unitarians. Halfway through the talk, which was mainly question and answer format, I started taking notes on fun lines that came out.
Highlights:
Unitarian Panelist: "There was no understanding back then (referring to the Biblical time period) of human sexuality, there was no concept of the 'homosexual lifestyle' back then. There were just people having sex."
Student: "So there were no showtunes or fashion back then?"
Methodist Panelist: "I'm also from Alabama, which sort of calls the validity of this panel into question, that half of it is from Alabama."
Methodist Panelist a bit later on in the evening: The church has failed on the issue of homosexuality in terms of not reaching out to those of the gay community in committed relationships. (In the context of the issue many churches seem to have with the stereotypes of the gay lifestyle being all about casual sex. This part struck me as very true, and very interesting.)
Still more from the Methodist Panelist: (in the context of sexual morality, and that sex gets used a lot improperly in both heterosexual and non heterosexual relationships including as a way of dealing with or avoiding conflict) "Many of you are the product of arguments."
Unitarian Panelist: "I believe in evolution, and for procreation there's a certain way things have to fit together, but for pleasure, there's a whole bunch of ways for people to fit together. (Cue the entire audience starting to laugh)
More from the Unitarian Panelist: "Jesus doesn't care about penises and vaginas."
Baptist panelist: (I'm paraphrasing her a bunch here because I didn't get it all down and it was a rather long argument)She started by talking about how the church's stance on immorality doesn't have to be an either/or situation, you don't have to chose between either very narrow definitions of what is acceptable sexuality or letting anything be acceptable. She talked about how on the one hand, she doesn't believe in condemning anyone for something that's as much an unchanging part of them as their sexual orientation, but that she's not an absolute relativist. She holds that it's just as possible for GBLT people to act badly and hurt others, in terms of their sex life or anything else, as it is for a heterosexual person. Basically, that as far as she's concerned, not being heterosexual isn't a sin, but that she still doesn't hold to an anything goes policy. If you cause harm to others, it doesn't matter whether you're straight or gay, it's still harmful and it's not something to ignore.
The Methodist Panelist yet again: (he said a lot of cool things this evening. Paraphrasing again.) He talked about how it was relatively easy to discuss things tonight, when most of the room was in agreement on the generalities and might differ a bit on specifics, but not insanely much. It was relatively easy for us to say that the Biblical texts could be understood in one light, as not having that much to say about modern concepts of homosexuality, especially with how we chose to view them in the context of other things which the Bible supports which we do not view as acceptable today (the main example being the large amount of Biblical support for slavery, which we all believe is wrong today). He pointed out that in his ministry, there are still a lot of people for whom this subject is something they are deeply divided about, and that for them it can be very painful to approach different ways of dealing with GLBT issues. It struck rather close to home, because I have people I know who fear telling some of their friends about their sexual orientation because of that issue.
Overall, there wasn't much said that was particularly new knowledge for me, but it was good to hear the discussion and have people get a chance to talk.