After reading an article which lamented the Anglican Communion's Standing Committee's refusal to chastise, punish and exile the Episcopal Church for its treatment of gay and lesbian people as full members of the Body of Christ and worthy of the full dignity of being human. How, the author of the article asked, could they have failed to exile the Episcopal Church?
I then noted, "Apparently the Standing Committee and others are not ready to elevate Paul's condemnation of ritual prostitution between males to the level of belief in the Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus, the Christ." An unnamed respondent reproduced my observation and added "That Paul. Just no fun at AT ALL down at the bath-house."
What a gift! Now I think I understand better than I had before. The respondent illustrated a good bit of the problem with Dissident Theology. Bathhouse Sexuality is precisely what Paul does attack in Romans. Of course. However, progressives and moderates are not advocating Bathhouse Sexuality - we are talking about faithful, committed, intended to be life-long relationships between homosexual persons - relationships that are marked by the presence of the Holy Spirit as spelled out by Paul in Galatians 5.
Perhaps the Standing Committee finally got it right – this is not about Bathhouse Sexuality, despite the confusion perpetrated by those who cannot conceive of homosexual relationships being anything but Bathhouse. Well, one can always hope.
Using the logic of the Dissidents (all gay and lesbian relationships are nothing more than the distorted relationships of the bathhouse), we should probably do away with marriage because there are men who abuse their wives.
