Thought for the day

Does Paul teach that homosexual intercourse is always sinful? For the reasons I have been indicating, I think that’s a question on which honest Christians can disagree. Is homosexuality one of the sins Christians should worry most about? That’s by contrast an easy question, and the answer is “no.” Scripture discusses same-sex intercourse only briefly, and in complicated contexts. However we interpret those passages, there’s something very wrong in current attitudes in many churches, where condemning homosexuality appears to be the most important of all ethical topics. Moreover (and this is how, I believe, this topic fits into a general discussion of Jesus’ ministry), Jesus clearly did not deliver his most forceful condemnations about the sins that generated the most social antagonism in his culture, as homosexuality often does in ours, but rather reserved them for the flaws in those his society viewed as most respectable. — William C. Placher