#[the next time I ask why I’m unlovable cite this post and go ‘what the fuck kat’

[godblooded]

thought about sam as cap and spontaneously began to tear up while i was rolling a j.

[faithfulnews]

Matthew Vines and Michael Brown debate homosexuality and the Bible on Moody radio

Details:

Can you be gay and Christian? Matthew Vines says you can and he’s created a viral video and best-selling book defending his view. This Saturday on Up for Debate, Vines joins host Julie Roys to debate author and leading evangelical apologist, Dr. Michael Brown. Is gay monogamy an option for Christians? Is it unloving to reject gay marriage? Listen and join the discussion this Saturday at 8 a.m. Central Time on Up for Debate!

Audio:

The audio of the Matthew Vines vs Michael Brown debate is streamed here on the Moody site.

Summary key: Julie Roys (JR), Matthew Vines (MV), Michael Brown (MB)

Summary:

Opening speeches:

JR: Why should Christians be open to reinterpreting the Bible on homosexuality?

MV: Consider the lives and testimonies of gay Christians. Here is my personal story.

MV: According to the Bible, a person with same-sex attractions would have to embrace lifelong celibacy. I refuse to do that.

MV: There are 6 passages in the Bible that are relevant to the goodness of homosexuality. All are negative.

MV: None of these passages address gay relationships that are “long-term” and “faithful” that are based on “commitment” and “love”.

JR: You say that it is “damaging” for Christians to disagree with you views, is that true?

MV: Yes. One of my friends declared his homosexuality and he did not feel safe to come home. He felt pain because Christians disagreed with him.

MV: You cannot ask a person with same-sex attractions to be celibate, it causes too much harm to ask gays to abstain from sexual relationships.

JR: Respond to Matthew.

MB: The Bible only permits heterosexual sexuality and in every case condemns homosexual acts.

MB: Matthew is taking his sexual preferences and activities as given, and reinterpreting the Bible to fit it.

MB: Genesis talks about women being made to help men, and to fulfill God’s commandment to procreate and fill the Earth.

MB: The Bible speaks about the complementarity of the sexes when talking about how two become one in marriage.

MB: I am very sensitive to the stories of people who are gay who experience discrimination as “gay Christians”.

MB: You can feel sad for people who have two conflicting commitments, but that doesn’t mean we should redefine what the Bible says.

JR: Stop talking, we have a break.

JR takes a caller for the next topic:

Caller 1: I had same-sex attractions and I was able to change my sexuality.

JR: Matthew, respond to that.

MV: Alan Chambers of Exodus International says that 99.9% of people he worked with had not changed their gay orientation.

MV: Lifelong celibacy is not acceptable to gays, so the Bible must be reinterpreted to suit gays.

MB: Matthew thinks that God himself did not understand the concept of sexual orientation and inadvertently hurt gays because of his lack of knowledge.

MB: There is a solution in the Bible for people who cannot be celibate, and that solution is heterosexual marriage

MB: If a person is only attracted to pre-teen girls, do we then have to re-write the Bible to affirm that so they won’t be “harmed”?

MB: Alan Chambers was speaking for his own group, and his statement does not account for the fact that thousands of people DO change.

JR: What about the Jones/Yarhouse study that found that 38% of reparative therapy subjects were successful in changing or chastity?

MV: (no response to the question)

MV: (to Brown) do you accept that the Bible forces gays to live out lifelong celibacy

Another break, then Brown replies:

MB: Yes. But change is possible.

MV: Do you know of any Christian who acknowledged that this was the consequence of the Bible’s teaching for gays?

MB: Paul’s explanation that the options for ALL Christians are 1) celibacy or 2) heterosexual marriage. For 2000 years.

MV: Paul (in Romans 1) is talking about people who are not “long-term”, “faithful” gay relationships.

MV: Paul was not aware of “long-term”, “faithful” gay relationships at the time he wrote his prohibitions in Romans 1.

JR: How do you know that fixed sexual orientation is true? And that the Biblical authors would written different things if they knew?

JR: Are there any references in the first century to “long-term”, “faithful” gay relationships?

MB: Yes, in my book I quote prominent historian N. T. Wright who documents that those relationships were known.

MB: Matthew’s view requires that God did not know about sexual orientation when ordaining the Bible’s content.

MB: Leviticus 18 is for all people, for all time. This was not just for the Jews, this was for everyone.

MV: I am not saying that Paul was wrong because he was ignorant.

MV: Paul was writing in a context where “long-term”, “faithful” gay relationships were unknown.

MV: NT Wright does not cite first century texts, he cites a problematic 4th century text.

MV: Absence of 1st-century references to “long-term”, “faithful” gay relationships means that God did not intend to prohibit them.

MB: Whenever the Bible speaks about homosexuality, it is opposed to it – Old Testament and New Testament.

Another break, then the conclusion:

JR: Respond to the Leviticus prohibition, which prohibits homosexuality for everyone, for all time.

MV: It is a universal prohibition on male same-sex intercourse, but it does not apply to Christians.

MV: For example, Leviticus prohibits sex during a woman’s menstrual period. And Christians are not bound by that.

MV: What is the reason for this prohibition of male-male sex in Leviticus? It’s not affirm the complementarity of the sexual act.

MV: The Bible prohibits male-male sex because it is written for a patriarchal culture.

MV: In a patriarchal culture, women are viewed as inferior. That’s why the Bible prohibits a man from taking the woman’s role in sex.

MB: The prohibition in Leviticus is a universal prohibition against male-male sex, applicable in all times and places.

MB: Homosexual sex is a violation of the divine order.

MB: We can see already the consequences of normalizing this: gay marriage, and supports for polygamy and polyamory.

MV: So the earliest reference there is to a “long-term”, “faithful” gay relationship is a 4th century text.

MV: But that gay relationship is not like modern gay relationships.

I have a few comments about Vines’ points below.

My comments:

Even heterosexuals who have not married are called upon to embrace lifelong celibacy. I am in my early 40s and am a virgin because I have not married. I wouldn’t seek to reinrepret the Bible to allow premarital sex just because what I am doing is difficult. I would rather just do what the Bible says than reinterpret it to suit me. And it’s just as hard for me to be chaste as it would be for him to be. In short, it’s a character issue. He takes his right to recreational sex as non-negotiable, and reinterprets the Bible to suit. I take the Bible as non-negotiable, and comply with it regardless of whether it seems to make me less happy. With respect to the purposes of God for me in this world, my happiness is expendable. If I don’t find someone to marry, I’m going to be “afflicted” with the lifelong celibacy that Vines seems to think is torture, but let me tell you – God is happy with the contributions I am making for him, and if I have to be chaste through my whole life, I am 100% fine with that. I serve the King. And not the reverse.

Notice that he talks about “long-term” but not permanent relationships, and “faithful” but not exclusive. This is important because the statistics show that gay relationships (depending on whether it is female-female or male-male) are prone to instability and/or infidelity. I just blogged on that recently, with reference to the published research on the subject. Vines is talking about a situation that does not obtain in the real world – according to the data. Gay relationships do not normally value permanence and exclusivity in the way that opposite-sex marriage relationships do, especially where the couple regularly attends church. The divorce rate and infidelity rate for religious couples is far below the rates for gay couples, depending on the sexes involved. Vines is committed to the idea that marriage is about feelings, e.g. – “love”, but that’s not the public purpose of marriage. Marriage is not about love, it’s about complementarity of the sexes and providing for the needs of children. We have published studies like this one showing that there are negative impacts to children who are raised by gay couples, which dovetails with studies showing that children need a mother and that children need a father. We should not normalize any relationship that exposes children to harm. We should prefer to inconvenience adults than to harm children.

Matthew Vines made an argument that Christians have to stop saying that homosexuality is wrong, because it makes gay people feel excluded. I wrote previously about the argument that gay activists use where they say “if you don’t agree with me and celebrate me and affirm me, then I’ll commit suicide”. In that post, I quoted a prominent gay activist who made exactly that argument. I don’t find the threats to self-destruction to be a convincing argument for the truth of the view that gay marriage being the same as heterosexual marriage. In fact, this is confirmed by a recent study which showed that features of gay relationships themselves, and not social disapproval, is to blame for high rates of suicide in the gay community.

Vines seems to want to argue that the context in which the Bible authors were writing did not allow them to address the problem of gays in “long-term”, “faithful” relationships. Well, we have already seen that statistically speaking, those relationships are in the minority. One British study mentioned in the post I linked to above found that only 25% of gay couples were intact after 8 years. The number is 82% for heterosexual marriages, and that doesn’t filter by couples who abstain from premarital sex and who attend church regularly. If you add those two criteria, the number is going to be well above 82% in my opinion. Studies show that premarital chastity and church attendance vastly improve the stability and quality of marriages.

In addition, Vines is trying to argue that 1) the Bible authors were not aware of “long-term”, “faithful” gay relationships and 2) their failure to explicitly disqualify these “long-term”, “stable” gay sexual relationships means that the Bible actually condones them. A friend of mine pointed out that this is a textbook case of the argument from silence, where someone asserts that because something is not explicitly condemned, then it must be OK. Carried through to its logical end, that would mean that things like identity theft are OK, because they are not mentioned explicitly. Brown asserted that there was a blanket prohibition on homosexual acts. He is arguing from what we know. Vines says that “long-term”, “faithful” homosexual relationships are not mentioned, and are therefore OK. He is arguing from what we don’t know. And he is trying to reverse the burden of proof so that he doesn’t have to show evidence for his view. Brown wouldn’t take the bait. The fact of the matter is that no one for the last 2000 years of church history have taken Vines’ view. Every single Christian before Vines, who were closer to Jesus’ teachings than Vines, understood the verses that Brown cited to be providing a blanket prohibition on homosexual sex acts. If Vines wants to claim that the Bible condones what he wants it to condone, he has to produce some positive evidence from the text or from church history or church fathers. He has nothing to support his case that could convince anyone that this is what Christians have believed, and ought to believe.

Finally, if you are looking for another debate, I blogged about a debate between Michael Brown and Eric Smaw. There’s a video and summaries of the opening speeches in that post.

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[bandbacktogether]

If You Don't Take Care Of This

New Post has been published on https://www.bandbacktogether.com/posts/painful-sex-virgin/

If You Don't Take Care Of This

“Can you not do the whole, um, pap smear?” I quickly made eye contact with the nurse, who, up until then, had been fumbling with the crinkly OB gown, the one she wanted me to put on.

“Any reason?”

“I’m not sexually active and, I just, it’s really not necessary I know I’m fine.”

“Well,” she hesitated, “I can certainly let Dr. Jeffrey know your request, but just so you know,” she quickly flipped through my chart, “it looks like you haven’t gotten an internal exam in…over 2 years.” She stared at me. “And we really like our patients to have an annual exam once they turn eighteen.”

With that she closed the door and left me alone to change into the paper dress, waiting for the knock from the doctor. I sat on the edge of the table and took deep breaths.

You’re fine…you’re fine…this is routine…everyone does this.

The knock came.

“Hi Caroline.”

“Hi.”

“You don’t want an internal?”

“No.”

“Can I ask why?” She wasn’t warm. She wasn’t kind. She didn’t sit down and pull her chair in close to me and put me at ease. She didn’t see that I was clearly bothered, tell me to put my clothes back on and come into her office to chat with her about what “the issue” was. She just stared at her clipboard. “You’re 22, Caroline?”

“Yes.”

“Sexually active?”

“No,” I started, “I mean, yes, I’m sexual but, I don’t have sex, not,” I motioned to my vagina, “intercourse.”

“So other things?”

“I guess.”

“Oral sex?”

“Yes.”

She looked at me again. “What’s “the issue” with the pap smear?” she asked.

“It makes me uncomfortable. I squirm. I just…it hurts. I don’t like it, I tense up. It happens when I try to have sex, too. I mean I don’t try that often I’ve just tried a few times. With my boyfriend,” I added.

She “mmhmm”d and continued to look at her chart, “and how long have you been with you boyfriend?”

“Two years.”

“And you’ve never had sex?”

“No. But we’ve tried…I’m really just overwhelmed by the idea of it…I can’t get myself to um, open up…”

“Caroline,” she flipped all the pages so that her thumb rested on the top page, “we won’t do an internal today. But you need to take care of this. Or your boyfriend is going to leave you.”

And with that she left the room.

Her last sentence continues to echo in my head. And that conversation?

That conversation happened two years ago. And my boyfriend did leave me. And I am a 24 year old virgin, terrified of sex.

***

Instead of drinking, I dyed my hair. Instead of partying at 15 years old, I would go for car rides with boys and let the lyrics to popular songs guide my adolescence.

Shy. Self-conscious. 16 years old. The bottles in my backpack read: clinical depression. Therapy since I was 13 years old. Would later attain more bottles. Bipolar disorder.

Friends started to have sex. There were stories of bleeding and awkward mornings after.

I’d say “I haven’t had sex yet because I haven’t found anyone I loved and trusted enough to want to roll over and see next to me in the morning, and not, you know, like, puke.”

“You’re so smart,” they’d tell me when their high school boyfriends were sleeping with girls at other lunch tables.

I met Chris on the first day of college and the outline of his body pressed into my bed sheets for 8 months. Both virgins, we planned on being each other’s firsts. But in the dark moments we moved together not knowing how or what to do. And so we would kiss, and feel, and love so hard, sharing smiles that said this was enough for both of us. And then we broke up.

I spiraled downward with my first broken heart. I threw away the bottles of medication that made me fat. I tried to sleep over the soundtrack to the rest of my friends going out and living life. I was not meant to live, I thought. But I ended up living anyway.

My parents could see I was unhappy. So they did what they thought good parents should and would do – they bribed me in order to motivate me. 6 months later, I traded an unhealthily lost 47 lbs for a brand new car.

Overnight I went from being fat, awkward, unpopular, and lonely, to being beautiful, thin, living in my first apartment up at school for the summer, dating the popular guy at work and sought after.

My phone would ring all day long.

What are we doing tonight? Party at your place?

For 30 days in my 19th year, I led my idea of a perfect life.

On the 31st day, I woke up alone in my bed after a party to find my popular boyfriend asleep with another counselor in the living room. He continued to fuck her all summer long, but pose as my boyfriend in our happy relationship.

And I let him. I wanted the pictures of me in a bikini being tossed over the shoulder of my hot boyfriend much more than I wanted someone to hold me as I fell asleep.

I had tons of pictures from that summer.

Not an ounce of trust.

I didn’t know what I had done to deserve so much continual rejection, but I was determined to pick myself up and keep going. After all, this was college, I would tell myself. It doesn’t mean anything.

College was coming to a close when Dave and I were four months into our relationship. Our love started out as best friendship – the kind of partnering you pay 13.00 to watch in a movie theater on a Friday night. I was sure this was it. I surrendered and waved the white flag, fully prepared to leap.

“I’m ready,” I breathed.

“Ok,” he kissed my forehead and pushed forward.

I tightened up.

“Babe, relax,” he said.

I started breathing in and out, in and out.

“Is it in?” I asked, wincing.

“No, babe.”

“Now?”

“No.”

A single tear rolled down my face. I was twenty two fucking years old with the sexual capability of a senior in high school. I felt like a fucking idiot. Why did I think this would be so fucking easy?

“Just fucking put it in, Dave.”

And then I felt it. Immediately my legs closed and went into fetal position and I kicked Dave off of me, the balls of my feet against his chest.

“What the HELL?!” he shouted, “Are you fucking out of your mind?”

“I AM NOT DOING THIS,” I screamed, “I can’t. It hurts. I’m not ready. I just can’t. I can’t do this, Dave.”

He stared at me.

“My body won’t let me,” I whispered.

Days and weeks and months passed by. Seasons ran their course, semesters ended, final grades were received.

“Do you wanna try, babe?”

“Um…maybe,” I’d say, but then we wouldn’t.

A year had come and gone and Dave stopped asking, and I stopped trying to put tampons in or finger myself with lube or even read up on “the issue”.

Our relationship became tense and unloving. It was strained. I found myself in a mindset that I imagined infertile women were in when they’d see their pregnant friends, the ones who “weren’t even trying to have a baby.” I’d watch shows like Teen Mom, or hear my 17 year old cousin ask me for sex advice and I’d become beyond agitated.

I wanted to shake them and tell them they were way too young to be having sex. And I wanted to shake myself because I WASN’T too young. But I couldn’t do it.

Dave eventually did leave me, citing “you need to learn how to fuck” as the largest of our irreconcilable differences in our almost three year long relationship.

I became his survivor story. I was the sentence said over tall glasses of Blue Moon in dark bars with friends.

“I can’t believe you haven’t fucked in 3 years, dude.”

“I know,” he’d say.

“We need to get you some pussy, dude.”

“I know,” he’d say.

No longer a lover. No longer a friend. Just someone he never fucked.

And now I lie in bed awake almost every night in my apartment alone. I think about the secrets I won’t tell people, I think about the guys who I won’t go home with. I think about the amount of time it will take for a guy to become invested in me for him to not want to leave when I explain this ridiculous fear that manifests within me.

I think about the marriage I want, and the children I want. I think about how it must feel to be loved unconditionally for every flaw.

And I think about the fear of letting go and letting someone in. And I think about how not metaphorical that idea is.

I think about that conversation with my OB/GYN 2 years ago. I think about how I drove home that day, determined to figure out my fears and my anxiety and my thoughts as soon as possible. I think about how 2 years ago I swore that in 2 years, I’d be fine. I’d be on track.

And then I think about how quickly two years can come and go.

And then I cry, hard and heavy tears.

The only things I am able to let go of.