At this point, I’m closing comments for this thread. This is not something I usually do, but the potential for trolls and really angry people is quite high on this sort of subject matter, and I think it best to let the conversation stand as it is, let each one consider the discussion presented here, and if interested, continue following over at The Dumbledore Dialogue.

I am quite sorry that my previous comments came across as less kind than our interaction thus far. I’m just as sorry about the nature of your recent comment to me. I thought we were seeking to better understand one another. You’re seeking to “win” and to “school” me concerning my “lack of knowledge of the Bible” (what? I don’t generally like to say things like this…but I was known in my last church as the “walking Bible encyclopedia;” I had a 4.0 in my M.A. in theology; at one point, I could read NT Greek, but I’ve lost the practice over the last 7 years).

Look, there’s a LOT to respond to in your comment, but presently, I have an insanely busy schedule. I WANT to continue this discussion, but I have no interest in discussion/debate in which my “opponent” pulls the tired, old technique, “You haven’t responded to X,Y, and Z, and it must be because you can’t handle my arguments.” Please, let’s avoid that kind of thing. Let the arguments themselves do the talking, and not the accusations about my “tone” (which is often SO misread in online text discussion) being some sort of proof that I’m crumbing under the weight of your arguments and so have taken to whining.

I’ll give you what my schedule looks like right now – for what it’s worth, I’m just buried in work at the moment.

One point in particular, because it gets at the nature of your entire line of argument right now:

You’re still not accurate to say there can be a distinction between what something “says” and “interpretation” of that text. It is literally, philosophically impossible to read something without interpreting. Interpretation is a necessary first step to discovering what something “says.” The question is not whether or not we interpret; it is how we interpret. You, for example, seem to employ a “proof-text,” Book, Chapter, Verse sort of interpretation. This verse flatly says this or that. No regard is given to the genre of the text, its cultural implications, or its relation to everything else in biblical history, nor the trajectory of redemptive history.

I take a different approach. What did this text mean when it was written? What historical and cultural considerations from that time must be given to the text? What is its place in the overall trajectory of the biblical story?

I don’t think I’ve ever portrayed myself as either neutral or agenda-free in this discussion. Your problem with me isn’t that I’m biased or following my agenda, but rather that my biases and agendas don’t match yours. Unsurprisingly, that’s also my problem with you, so we have another thing in common.

Agreed. But you have portrayed yourself as a more neutral reader of the Scriptures, which was my point; and I think that’s false.

Fair warning: my primary weapon against you will be the Bible.

Can we put down the “weapon” language? I am more than ready to discuss the Bible with you on this.

Update: I’m creating the blog now. Here’s the plan. Over the next week or so, a day at a time, I’m going to post the dialogue as it’s happened so far. Once we’ve reached the point that we’re at in this comment thread, we’ll move forward from there. I’ll email you with a username and password when we’re ready to go.

I’m going to post notices to get publicity, and start the posting in a couple days.

The frustration that some of us have with you has to do with your lack of willingness to see anyone’s point of view about the Bible than your own. And that makes it very difficult to have any kind of discussion or open exchange of ideas.

Travis, my friend, you have a whole lot more patience than I do.

Pat

None of that has anything to do with whether or not Christians should stop abusing gays (they should).”

I don’t think anyone here has argued that Christians should abuse gay people. That quite simply is not what the Bible teaches. But going back to one of my other posts, I think you are stretching the definition of abuse. It is not abuse to think someone’s actions are wrong.
What I said before has a lot to do with this issue. I was saying that there are places in this world where there is horrible abuse taking place. Here in America, you are not subject to that kind of thing. Yes, maybe you run into some people who throw verbal sticks and stones at you. No denying that those can in fact hurt sometimes. But this is also a free country. If people in one area of your life cause you problems, you have the freedom to get yourself away from that. You can change jobs, move to a different neighborhood, city or state, or just choose not to think of yourself as a victim. Some of those things are difficult and maybe impossible in your present circumstances, but you have the freedom to try to change things.
That is what is great about America.

But see, the problem is that you are providing a single verse that seems to support your point. In almost every case where you’ve listed a verse and said “See?? See what the Bible says about this??”, you completely fail to consider the context of that verse. And in reading the Bible or classic literature, context is very important. It’s not about interpreting something to fit your preconceived notions. It’s about understanding that words mean different things in different contexts.
For instance, say we’re at a high school football game, in the locker room before it starts. The coach is trying to get his team revved up for the game. Among other things, he says “Okay guys, we’re going to go out there tonight and kill the other team.” Now, is he meaning they literally are going to kill the other team? Of course not. The context of the culture, the slang, and the situation tells you that they are expecting to win the game decisively.
To use one of your previous examples of the verse talking about hating your parents, siblings and friends or you can’t follow Christ, the context is fairly important. The verse is not suggesting we should hate everyone. It IS saying that our commitment to Christ should be so important in our life that BY COMPARISON everything else falls by the wayside. It means that our commitment should be such that if we were ever called to choose between Christ and our other relationships, we would not hesitate to choose Christ. The Christians back in Roman times faced choices like that a lot. They were frequently arrested by people like Nero. They were put into an arena with hungry lions, and told that their lives would be spared if they renounced their belief in Jesus. If they did not, they were thrown to the lions. That is what the verse means when it talks about hating your own life relative to your commitment to God.
And that is where context is important. Sure anyone can find verses that seem to support all kinds of things. The church has been doing that for centuries. It’s how they justified things like the Inquisition. That does not mean the Bible is really supporting that.
Context, context, context.

This is presently Christians’ most frequently-employed “out” for their horrible treatment of gays. “At least we aren’t as bad as the Muslims!”

Islam is worse than Christianity in every way possible. Christians are my allies in the fight against jihad and Islamic supremacism.

None of that has anything to do with whether or not Christians should stop abusing gays (they should).

I consider you to be a very kind, thoughtful, and considerate person, and I have appreciated the attention that you’ve given me thus far. Your most recent reply, however, is not of the same generous spirit which you have given me earlier. I sense that I’m getting under your skin and your patience will soon run out.

SuprKufr, there’s no such thing as “just reading what is says.” There’s no such thing as reading without interpretation. Interpretation is not “changing what it says into something else.” It’s trying to understand what it says.

Interpretation is trying to understand what what something *means*. You already know what something *says* because you can just open your eyes and see the words written on the page!

But how do you know what something means if it doesn’t mean what it says? I maintain that you use your culture as your compass in that problem.

Saying that you read it “literally” is vapid.

Vapid to you, I’m sure, because that would mean that the Bible means what it says and that’s something that no Christian can bear. Sometimes the Bible says some weird, ambiguous, disgusting, inaccurate, and wicked things. I am not a Christian, so I have no incentive to “interpret” it to mean anything else. When the Bible is ambiguous, stupid, or wrong, then, to me, it’s ambiguous, stupid, or wrong. I don’t think Christianity is true, so I have no compelling reason to interpret scripture to harmonize the Bible with what I know is true.

The rest of your post is so full of the oversimplification (you’ll ignore that charge) of the issues involved, I’m not even sure where to start.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with simplifying something. Was I obligated to write a detailed treatise on this blog? If I misrepresented something, then please let me know and I’ll attempt to clarify my position. Perhaps you “don’t know where to start” because my arguments have overwhelmed you and you’re employing the accusation of “oversimplifying” as a defense mechanism. Since you failed to indicate any invalidity in any of my numerous examples of Scripture being a crude tool to enforce cultural norms (or blithely ignored when it violates cultural norms), it’s hard to know whether or not you are truly crushed by my argument.

That the Bible describes polygamy in the OT doesn’t mean in condones it, and where on earth you get NT polygamy is beyond me.

I can provide chapter and verse for all my arguments (whereas you will fail at providing chapter and verse showing that bigamy is a sin), but I’m getting the feeling you won’t appreciate my quoting scripture here. Perhaps you can set up that other blog where I will school you in your lack of Biblical knowledge? I look forward to it.

I don’t even see where teetotaling fit in, as that was nothing more than a brief insanity on the part of Christians

I don’t see how it DOESN’T fit in, considering that it was a Christian movement and justified by Christians with scripture. That’s because teetotaling was a cultural norm, and Scripture was used to uphold it. That’s the point I’m proving that you don’t want to see.

But again, I can’t respond specifically to your four points, because this isn’t a place to debate biblical texts.

But you went ahead and debated them anyway, albeit very poorly. I think the reason you can’t respond specifically is because you haven’t thought about this issue very much and thus you have nothing more to offer me than angry whining. Perhaps if you set up that other blog you can go about proving me wrong, but you’re looking pretty defeated to me at this point. My guess is that you won’t set up that other blog, but time will tell.

I think you use scripture like a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not for illumination. You are exactly like me in that regard — the key difference being that our goals are very different.

But I’ll answer your last challenge:

They’d take me to Romans 1, explain what the text means, and demonstrate my position to be biblically incorrect, and I believe they’d be right. If I experienced social rejection (I’m sure I would in some quarters), that would be wrong, and they’d need to repent.

Take the experiment a little bit deeper. What if you refused to believe they were right and stuck to your guns about your interpretation. Suppose you continued to do that for years and years. What kind of effect would that have on your friends, family, and church?

I’m still having trouble with the overall argument that keeps running through your comments: Christians have been inconsistent and messed up a lot, therefore they should just give on the homosexuality issue.

I don’t think you should “give up on the homosexuality issue” because “Christians have been inconsistent and messed” up a lot. I need to repeat this to you because it seems like you aren’t hearing me: I do not care if Christians are inconsistent, hypocritical, or mess up. All I want is for Christians to stop abusing gays, and I do not think that is too much to ask. Clearly, you disagree, though you will deny that it is abusive for you to tell me that if I don’t abandon the love of my life and forsake him forever then I deserve eternal torture in hell. (Let me know if that is not actually your belief.)

But if you want to argue that Christians have primarily done this, as opposed to the other way around (affecting culture based on Scripture), then once again, I have no idea what to say. A look at the way belief in the Scriptures changed and shaped sexual norms in the Roman Empire would demonstrate that Scripture set the tone there, counter to culture.

There is not one single culture, even among Christians. When I speak of your culture, I’m talking about your Christian culture. I’m not sure which particular Christian sect you happen to follow. But whatever it is, its a group of people with shared beliefs and customs that are called norms. And that tells you what is true as it has for all people. We are social creatures, after all, and we find our truth and meaning from others around us. Not from scripture, and certainly not from “god”.

I can hardly buy the reasoning that, as a Christian, I’m unable to just read what the text means and have to impose all sorts of cultural implications onto it, but you, as a homosexual non-Christian, can just “read what it says,” or read it objectively.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say that you’re “unable” to do that. After all, I’ve met a few Christians who admit that the Bible supports bigamy in spite of our own cultural norms which forbid it. That would be an example of a Christian who is certainly able read what the text means without imposing cultural norms onto it. Whether or not you go against your own culture for scriptural reasons is something we’d have to examine on a case-by-case basis, and I don’t think either of us is interested in that.

The fact remains that Christians use or ignore scripture as their culture tells them to. (I notice you didn’t complain about my bringing up how the Bible “describes” slavery or how it “describes” the subjugation of women.)

You hardly come at the Scriptures neutral and agenda-free, since by far the easiest way to accomplish your goal is to convince Christians that they have no basis for their belief that homosexuality is a sin.

I don’t think I’ve ever portrayed myself as either neutral or agenda-free in this discussion. Your problem with me isn’t that I’m biased or following my agenda, but rather that my biases and agendas don’t match yours. Unsurprisingly, that’s also my problem with you, so we have another thing in common.

Send me an e-mail when you want to set up that other blog. Fair warning: my primary weapon against you will be the Bible.

However, I was certain she had been asked that question before and gave a vague response. From just prior to the release of DH:

ROSE: My question is did Albus Dumbledore ever fall in love?

JKR: Ummmm… Well, in the course of a long life, I think nearly everyone falls in love, but you probably shouldn’t read too much into that answer.
http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2007/0720-bluepeter.html

Of course, believing that Dumbledore’s infatuation was a key plot point, she would not want to out Dumbledore just before the release of the final book. But she must have forgotten that she had been asked this question before.

We Christians could all use a large helping of the humility you espouse here. The war – and there is one – is against ideas and attitudes, not people. Rowling has said more than many people admit, that she struggles with her faith. Don’t we all! Yes, I think she’s wrong on one point, but that doesn’t mean I can deny that she’s given us one of the most beautiful pictures of biblical sacrifice I’ve ever found in fiction.

Thank you for your thoughts. They were well-put, and carry a lot of truth.