http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com/2009/12/the-new-season-the-emerging-shape-of-anglican-mission/

carl - "In any case, you haven't proven that homosexual behavior is anything other than a choice.  It manifests as a chosen behavior." Did you choose to be straight? I certainly didn't. But it makes it easy for you to say: "The man who struggles with homosexual desire is no different from the man who struggles with temptations to adultery".

For us straights, there is a way our physical desires can find an expression that doesn't involve sin. Traditionally, for homosexuals, there isn't. No way at all. And I find your comparing  homosexuality with paedophilia and alcoholism frankly distasteful - I guess it's nothing that gays haven't had to put with in the past, present or future, but I thought I'd register my displeasure.

"To call good what God has called evil is an act of rebellion". I'll take my chances. If the Bible really does authorise me to keep slaves, commit genocide, stone adulterers and deny the witness of women, then frankly, that God isn't worth following. I have it on good authority, though, that He's not like that.

BMS - Have I seen God? Blessed is he who believes without seeing...

"As to human reasoning, there are two sexes in the human species which sexually reproduce together, one sex relations which you call homosexual is therefore evidently dysfunctional,and  that can be observed and reasoned with ones own eyes..." This is so full of holes, I barely know where to start. There are something like 200 different species documented so far which exhibit same-sex sexual behaviour. I suppose they're all choosing to sin, too...

To Simon Morden,

Have you seen God? I ask that because you talked about reasoning and believing with our own eyes rather than what is in an ancient book. This doesn’t make much sense to me. Our faith is in one whom appeared to our ancestors and it is faith. Spiritually I know it is the same faith and same relationship with God from reading the Biblical testimony. You then refer to someone not having to repent of part of what they are. Once again have you actually got proof, a gene or something before you start claiming that?  

The reasoning part of faith in God is that we live by the spirit and by the word which shows us we don’t live by human reasoning. As to human reasoning, there are two sexes in the human species which sexually reproduce together, one sex relations which you call homosexual is therefore evidently dysfunctional,and  that can be observed and reasoned with ones own eyes... but Christians should be living by faith in God.

Actually, I'm kind of surprised at being called post-moderist as well.  Normally I am called pre-modern, and the description is laced with all sorts of pleasant modifiers like "obsolete" or "troglodyte" or "neanderthal" or "the last gasp of Romanticism."  Normally, I just say "Thank you for the compliment."

"How can someone repent of part of what they are..."
You mean like sinners, as in "We poor sinners confess unto thee that we are by nature sinful and unclean?" 

In any case, you haven't proven that homosexual behavior is anything other than a choice.  It manifests as a chosen behavior.  What besides the testimony of the homosexual establishes this behavior as intrinsic to his nature?  Without observing the behavior, or accepting the testimony of the homosexual, how would you establish the presence of natural homosexuality?  Going further, why is an intrinsic behavior inherently self-justifying?  If a man says he is naturally attracted to pre-pubescent girls, we do not accept his testimony, and we do not care whether the behavior is intrinsic to his nature.  If it was established beyond reasonable doubt that this desire was intrinsic to his nature, we would still not justify it.  We expect that he would rise above his nature and behave accordingly.  And yet this same logic is not applied to homosexuality.  There is a hidden a priori sifting function in this argument that allows only certain morally approved-behaviors to be justified according to nature.  But the basis of the sifting function is never revealed.

"...presumably because God made them that way?"
Or presumably they are commiting rebellion against God by denying the nature they were given.  They shake their fist at heaven and say "Why did you make me thus?  Who made you to rule over me, and set boundaries on my behavior?  I shall do what I want!"  If you wish to show me that God created homosexuality before the presence of sin and called it good, then show me from Scripture.  But are you willing to follow this logic all the way to the end of the road?    If a man says he is by nature promiscuous, why is he not similarly justified because God "made him that way?"  If a man is by biological nature an alcoholic, why is he not similarly justified because God "made him that way?"

"That makes your statements about homosexuality revealing, too - you think even celibate homosexuals need special repentance, but I say for what?"
And again "We have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone."  To call good what God has called evil is an act of rebellion.  Your hypothetical is otherwise not specific enough to answer.  But the general principle is clear.  The man who struggles with homosexual desire is no different from the man who struggles with temptations to adultery.  You call homosexuality a state of being.  I call it the result of a collision between human sexuality and human sin.  Like every other illicit sexual temptation in the life of the believer, it is to be put to death.  That defines the need for repentence.

carl

wg - yes, I'm unashamedly modernist. I'm not sure it's right to call Carl post-modernist, however. I've come to see the more fundamentalist evangelical stream as the last gasp of Romanticism, especially when it harkens back to a time-that-never-was.

I do think you misrepresent me here though: "Simon argues either that the Bible writers were ignorant or wrong. Thus we are clearer where he stands on the issue of scripture, that it is fundamentally untrustworthy". No. I noted some relatively uncontroversial areas in which it can be demonstrably shown that the writers of scripture were either ignorant or wrong: six-day creation, the shape of the Earth and its place in the solar system. So unless you believe in a newly-minted flat Earth which lies at the centre of everything, your description of me will also apply to you. My position on scripture is unsurprisingly orthodox.

Carl - okay: homosexuality is not a sin that needs to be repented. How can someone repent of part of what they are, presumably because God made them that way? That makes your statements about homosexuality revealing, too - you think even celibate homosexuals need special repentance, but I say for what?

Metaphysical truths have a way of meeting the physical world. Is disease caused by sin, or demons, or virus and bacteria? Is homosexuality a deviance against the natural order of things, or part of that natural order? You say " To understand the things of God, we must be told the things of God". Yet there is a general revelation that is open to all in the created world. Paul argues as much on the Areopagus.