Referenced Articles 2 - 
The Apostle Paul

What is the Significance of Corinth in the Bible.                                       34                                                                                                   

Articles on Abortion

What the Bible actually says about abortion may surprise you, et. al    36                                                                    

Jews, outraged by restrictive abortion laws, are  invoking 

the Hebrew Bible in the debate                                                                   37

Want to Lower Abortion Rates?  Look to Canada’s Example.                 42  

Champion of the unborn                                                                              44                                                                                                                                           

Hate Pastor Threatens to Kill Gay Pastors After Same-Sex 

Couple Delivers Sermon                                                                              45 

Bibletalk.TV Forbidden Topic

FORBIDDEN TOPICS                                                                                    46                               

Anti-Trans Laws Linked to Trans Youth Suicide Attempts                       54                               

Anti-LGBTQ+ Policies Across American Schools 

Are Seriously Impacting Queer Youth                                                         55                                                                                                             

Forced Marriage                                                                                             57                                                                                                                                                           

Conservatorship                                                                                             61                                                                                                                                                                

Evangelism and Apologetics Question - The Bible and Divorce               64                                          

The Invisible Romans by Guy de la Bedoyere.                                            66          

Trapped in Servitude - Ancient Greek Slavery                                             70                                                                                 

What did Jesus Mean by “Upon this rock I will build my church” 

in Matthew 16:18?                                                                                            72

Is There a Christian Litmus Test?                                                                   74                                                                                                    

Homosexuality in Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman Cultures 

EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT ANCIENT GREECE           75                               

Homosexuality in the Roman Empire                                                              75                                                                                                                           

Homosexuality, the Bible, and Christianity Evangelism and Apologetics    

               What about homosexuality?                                                               76                                                                                                                        

               Six Biblical Passages That Discuss LGTBQ Issues                         77                                                                                

               Marriage of a Couple Compared to Christ and the Church             78                                                                           

              John 8:1-8 reinterpreted                                                                       78                                                                                                                             

             What did Jesus teach?                                                                          79                                                                                                                                        

             Judging homosexuals:  BEWARE (he without sin…)                         79                                                                                        

              Christian Doctrine by Shirley Guthrie                                                  80                                                                                                                   

               A thousand years ago, the Catholic Church paid little     

               attention to homosexuality                                                                   81                                

              The American family moving to Russia to flee 

              ‘moral decline’ of US - Opinion                                                             84

              The Bible verse proving anti-LGBT Methodists have 

               not truly read the Bible                                                                         86

What Does Romans 13 Mean?

               What does Romans 13 mean?                                                             87                                 

               Context Is Key to Interpreting Romans 13:1-7                                   88   

              NO, ROMANS 13 IS NOT ABOUT OBEYING 

              THE GOVERNING AUTHORITIES.                                                        92  

Does the Christian faith condone slavery?                                                      93

34

What is the Significance of Corinth in the Bible

GotQuestions.org

Corinth was significant in the ancient Roman world because of its geography, its wealth, and its regional influence. In the Bible, Corinth is significant because of its connection with the apostle Paul’s missionary work. Corinth was the capital of the Roman province of Achaia and was situated on the Isthmus of Corinth, and about 40 miles west of Athens in Greece. It was a large city that controlled two harbors: Cenchreae on the eastern side of the isthmus, and Lechaeumon on the western side. Providing a natural refuge for the city was the Acrocorinthus, a large monolithic rock rising about 1,800 feet above the surrounding plain. Corinth had a large population of both Jewish and Gentile residents.

Paul spent about eighteen months in Corinth during his second missionary journey (Acts 18). Both Jews and Gentiles believed Paul’s message about Jesus, and these new believers became the Corinthian church. The New Testament epistles of 1 and 2 Corinthians are letters Paul later wrote to these believers. Notably, Corinth is also the place where Paul met Aquila and Priscilla, fellow tentmakers who became ministry coworkers (Acts 18:2, 18–19, 24–28).

Paul first traveled to Corinth after spending time preaching in Athens (see Acts 17:16—18:1). Upon arriving in Corinth, Paul met Aquila and Priscilla, who were tentmakers like the apostle, so Paul lived and worked with them (Acts 18:2–3). As was his custom, Paul reasoned in the Jewish synagogue every Sabbath, sharing the truth about Jesus, for as long as the Jews and God-following Gentiles there would endure it (Acts 18:4–5). When opposition and abuse arose, Paul took the message of the gospel more directly to the Gentiles (Acts 18:6). Utilizing the house of Titius Justus, a Gentile who worshiped God and lived next door to the synagogue, Paul continued to share the message of the gospel. Many Corinthians placed their faith in Christ, including the synagogue ruler and his family (Acts 18:7–8).

In Corinth the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision, telling him not to fear but to keep speaking. God promised, “For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city” (Acts 18:10). Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, teaching the word of God and successfully establishing a group of believers there. Paul returned to visit the Corinthians at least twice (2 Corinthians 13:1). He also wrote them several letters to address problems in the church. Two of those letters are in our Bibles today, known as 1 and 2 Corinthians. At least one letter Paul wrote to them before 1 Corinthians has been lost to history (see 1 Corinthians 5:9), and there was possibly another letter he wrote between 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians (see 2 Corinthians 7:8). We have in our Bibles the words that God intended for us. These other letters were important for the church at Corinth in that time, but are evidently not necessary for us today.

35

In 1 and 2 Corinthians, Paul addresses multiple issues. These range from division in the church, to immorality in the church, to freedom concerning foods, to voluntary restriction of rights, to spiritual gifts, to generosity, to explaining the glorious depth and beauty of the truth of the gospel, and more. Paul also defended his ministry in Corinth and his calling as an apostle because false teachers were leading the Corinthians astray. The words in these letters are theologically rich and of practical use in the church and our lives today.

First Corinthians addresses several issues of sexuality. There was a large following of the cult of Aphrodite among the Gentiles in Corinth—her temple was atop the Acrocorinthus, and her worship involved temple prostitution. In fact, the city had so many prostitutes that well-known Greeks, including Plato, openly referred to prostitutes as “Corinthians.” Although many natives of Corinth placed faith in Jesus, many were still influenced by their immoral surroundings, which promoted sexual immorality. In 1 Corinthians, Paul mentions the problem of sexual sin in the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 5:1–2). God ultimately used this problem to bring about Paul’s inspired writing on sexual purity, marriage, and singleness (1 Corinthians 6—7). These inspired teachings have continued to instruct and guide the church regarding sexual issues. They are certainly beneficial to us in our sex-obsessed world.

Corinth was home to many people with diverse backgrounds, a characteristic reflected in the Corinthian church that contributed to some division and confusion. Previously legalistic Jews needed to hear about the freedom of the New Covenant in Christ; previously pagan Gentiles needed to be reminded that the gospel is not a license to sin. Both groups needed to learn to love the other and live at peace. Paul famously explains what true love is in 1 Corinthians 13. In our fractious world, this message of self-sacrificial love based in the person and work of Jesus Christ is equally important.

The city of Corinth was steeped in all the sins attendant upon a prosperous society, including idolatry and gross immorality, but the gospel still made a way through. We may fear our surrounding culture is too far away from God for people to hear His truth, but nothing is impossible for the Lord (Luke 1:37; Matthew 19:25–26). Paul gave the Corinthians a list of sinful behaviors that characterize those who will not enter God’s kingdom, then he declared, “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). God changes lives! In fact, “if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:17–18). Just as Paul was an ambassador of Christ to the Corinthians, we can be His ambassadors in our world, imploring people “on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:20–21).

36

Articles on Abortion

 What the Bible actually says 

about abortion may surprise you

Melanie A. Howard, Fresno Pacific University   Published: July 20, 2022 8.22am EDT

In the days since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which had established the constitutional right to an abortion, some Christians have cited the Bible to argue why this decision should either be celebrated or lamented. But here’s the problem: This 2,000-year-old text says nothing about abortion.

As a university professor of biblical studies, I am familiar with faith-based arguments Christians use to back up views of abortion, whether for or against. Many people seem to assume the Bible discusses the topic head-on, which is not the case.

Ancient context

Abortions were known and practiced in biblical times, although the methods differed significantly from modern ones. The second-century Greek physician Soranus, for example, recommended fasting, bloodletting, vigorous jumping and carrying heavy loads as ways to end a pregnancy.

Soranus’ treatise on gynecology acknowledged different schools of thought on the topic. Some medical practitioners forbade the use of any abortive methods. Others permitted them, but not in cases in which they were intended to cover up an adulterous liaison or simply to preserve the mother’s good looks.

In other words, the Bible was written in a world in which abortion was practiced and viewed with nuance. Yet the Hebrew and Greek equivalents of the word “abortion” do not appear in either the Old or New Testament of the Bible. That is, the topic simply is not directly mentioned.

What the Bible says

The absence of an explicit reference to abortion, however, has not stopped its opponents or proponents from looking to the Bible for support of their positions.

Abortion opponents turn to several biblical texts that, taken together, seem to suggest that human life has value before birth. For example, the Bible opens by describing the creation of humans “in the image of God”: a way to explain the value of human life, presumably even before people are born. Likewise, the Bible describes several important figures, including the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah and the Christian Apostle Paul, as having being called to their sacred tasks since their time in the womb. Psalm 139 asserts that God “knit me together in my mother’s womb.”

However, abortion opponents are not the only ones who can appeal to the Bible for support. Supporters can point to other biblical texts that would seem to count as evidence in their favor.

Exodus 21, for example, suggests that a pregnant woman’s life is more valuable than the fetus’s. This text describes a scenario in which men who are fighting strike a pregnant woman and cause her to miscarry. A monetary fine is imposed if the woman suffers no other harm beyond the miscarriage. However, if the woman suffers additional harm, the perpetrator’s punishment is to suffer reciprocal harm, up to life for life.

There are other biblical texts that seem to celebrate the choices that women make for their bodies, even in contexts in which such choices would have been socially shunned. The fifth chapter of the Gospel of Mark, for example, describes a woman with a gynecological ailment that has made her bleed continuously taking a great risk: She reaches out to touch Jesus’ cloak in hopes that it will heal her, even though the touch of a menstruating woman was believed to cause ritual contamination. However, Jesus commends her choice and praises her faith.

Similarly, in the Gospel of John, Jesus’ follower Mary seemingly wastes resources by pouring an entire container of costly ointment on his feet and using her own hair to wipe them – but he defends her decision to break the social taboo around touching an unrelated man so intimately.

Beyond the Bible

In the response to the Supreme Court’s decision, Christians on both sides of the partisan divide have appealed to any number of texts to assert that their particular brand of politics is biblically backed. However, if they claim the Bible specifically condemns or approves of abortion, they are skewing the textual evidence to fit their position.

Of course, Christians can develop their own faith-based arguments about modern political issues, whether or not the Bible speaks directly to them. But it is important to recognize that although the Bible was written at a time when abortion was practiced, it never directly addresses the issue.

37

Jews, outraged by restrictive abortion laws, are invoking the Hebrew Bible in the debate

Lindsay Schnell USA TODAY. July 24, 2019

When Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, signed into law in May one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans, she invoked her faith. 

“To the bill’s many supporters, this legislation stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians’ deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God,” Ivey said in a statement. 

This is a familiar argument for the Republican Party when it comes to abortion access. In January, Kirk Cox, speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, cited biblical scripture when he came out against a proposed bill that would lift late-term abortion restrictions. 

"You knit me together in my mother’s womb,” he said, quoting Psalm 139. “You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born.” 

But for many leaders in the Jewish faith, such interpretations are problematic and even insulting.

“It makes me apoplectic,” says Danya Ruttenberg, a Chicago-based rabbi who has written about Jews' interpretation of abortion. “Most of the proof texts that they’re bringing in for this are ridiculous. They’re using my sacred text to justify taking away my rights in a way that is just so calculated and craven.”

Across the country, as a wave of anti-abortion legislation reinvigorates the fight over reproductive rights, Jewish religious leaders, activists and women are speaking out in favor of a woman's right to choose, buoyed by their faith.

It’s not just that the U.S. shouldn’t be deriving law from poetic language, Ruttenberg said. It’s that the Jewish tradition has a distinctly different reading of the same texts. While conservative Christians use the Bible to argue that a fetus represents a human life, which makes abortion murder, Jews don’t believe that fetuses have souls and, therefore, terminating a pregnancy is no crime.

While some Orthodox rabbis have denounced abortion, within Jewish communities there’s considerable support for keeping it legal. Studies from the Pew Research Center show that Jews overwhelmingly (83%) support abortion rights. The National Council of Jewish Women, a 126-year-old organization that helped establish some of the first birth control clinics across the country, considers reproductive rights a cornerstone issue and has publicly condemned the strict abortion bans recently handed down in Alabama and Mississippi. 

What to know about abortion laws:

Republicans have been pushing for decades to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that recognized a woman's right to an abortion. Now, with two Supreme Court appointments from President Donald Trump giving the court a conservative bent, the law seems more at risk than ever before. Restrictive laws are being passed all over the South, and, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion legislation, 30 states now "demonstrate hostility toward abortion rights" while 14 demonstrate support.

38

It’s common in this debate to hear the Christian perspective. But what’s often left out of the conversation is how Jews, who read the Hebrew Bible – referred to in Christian circles as the Old Testament – argue that their tradition condones abortion. Sometimes, if the mother's life is at stake, it even insists on it. 

This is a big deal for us,” Ruttenberg says. “We’re very clear about a woman’s right to choose. And we’re very clear about the separation between church and state.” 

What Jewish lawmakers say about abortion rights

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., likes to joke that she took tikkun olam so seriously, she wound up in politics.

Within the Jewish tradition, tikkun olam – Hebrew for “repair the world” – is a sort of call to action, a concept defined by acts of kindness and service that help heal the world. Wasserman Schultz, the first Jewish woman to represent Florida in Congress, says her faith informs her politics every day. 

“I have always served and looked at policy through a distinctly Jewish lens,” Wasserman Schultz says. “And so for me, when I’m thinking about a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices, the Jewish tradition that I’ve always been taught holds that existing life should take precedence over potential life, and a woman’s life and her pain should take precedence over a fetus.” 

Abortion poll: Most Americans oppose 'fetal heartbeat' laws, closing of all clinics in a state

The strongest argument in the Hebrew Bible for permitting abortion comes from Exodus, Chapter 21, Verse 22-23: “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take a life for a life.” 

In this passage, "gives birth prematurely" could mean the woman miscarries, and the fetus dies. Because there's no expectation that the person who caused the miscarriage is liable for murder, Jewish scholars argue this proves a fetus is not considered a separate person or soul. 

The Talmud, a two-part Jewish text comprised of centuries worth of thought, debate and discussion, is also helpful when discussing abortion. The Talmud explains that for the first 40 days of a woman’s pregnancy, the fetus is considered “mere fluid” and considered part of the mother until birth. The baby is considered a nefesh – Hebrew for “soul” or “spirit” – once its head has emerged, and not before. 

Jewish tradition and scholars have also acknowledged a pregnant woman’s potential “great need” to terminate a pregnancy. 

Rabbi Elizer Waldenberg, a leading authority on Jewish law who died in 2006, wrote in Tzitz Eliezer, his major text, that "it is clear that in Jewish law an Israelite is not liable to capital punishment for feticide. ... An Israelite woman was permitted to undergo a therapeutic abortion, even though her life was not at stake. ... This permissive ruling applies even when there is no direct threat to the life of the mother, but merely a need to save her from great pain, which falls within the rubric of ‘great need.’”

39

“There’s a lot of ambiguity about what that need means,” Ruttenberg says. “A psychological need is considered real.” 

Wasserman Schultz references pikuach nefesh, the principle in Jewish law that the preservation of a human life overrides nearly all other religious considerations, which also allows a woman to seek an abortion, especially if her own life is in danger. 

“You can use that same principle to show that women, more than anyone else, understand their bodies and what medical decisions are right for them,” Wasserman Schultz says.

For Wasserman Schultz, abortion access should be unrestricted, regardless of faith. “I’m not going to tell you that you’re interpreting Scripture incorrectly,” she says. “But don’t prescribe rules for me and my decisions based on your interpretation of your scripture.”  

Retired U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer was one of the most prominent Jewish lawmakers in the country while she represented California for 24 years. There’s no doubt, Boxer says, that faith informs each person's views on a variety of subjects. But that’s exactly what they are – personal views, not something for everyone else to comment, or legislate, on.

“If you respect religion, then you should be pro-choice,” Boxer says. “We can’t always agree 100% with each other, but we can respect each other … and I feel I am respecting religion by saying I would fight for your rights regardless of what you believe.” 

Religious freedom concerns

To Rabbi Michael Adam Latz of Minneapolis, the fight over abortion rights – and lawmakers who reference their faith as a reason for why certain laws should exist – is a larger issue. That shouldn’t just worry Jews, whose tradition teaches something other than Evangelical Christianity, he says. It should worry anyone who believes in religious freedom. 

“While I certainly understand that there are people who disagree with me, in a nation for which religious pluralism is a hallmark, to impose one religious tradition on this is not actually how a democracy functions, it’s how a theocracy functions,” Latz says. 

Every person of conscious, he says, regardless of their personal views on abortion, should be deeply concerned. 

That sentiment is echoed by Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women. Katz has been in her role only since June, but she says she was struck in her first few days on the job by the number of volunteers and activists she saw in the streets engaging in the debate over abortion rights. It makes her angry, she says, when men try to govern women’s bodies. As a member of a religious minority, she’s particularly wary of one dominant religion trying to govern based on its faith texts. 

40 

“As Jews, we know that true religious freedom is a shield to protect all religions and never a sword to discriminate,” she said. “It often feels like religion is used to discriminate – and that is not something we stand for, regardless of the issue.” 

Latz has spent time speaking on women’s rights both from the pulpit and in smaller conversations with his congregation. He says his directness can catch some people off guard. But a rabbi’s job is to teach the Torah, he says, and the Torah itself is “inherently political." 

“It’s important to recognize that this is not a new fight,” Latz says. “This is just the latest chapter. Our tradition teaches that women don’t have abortions they want – they have abortions they need.” 

Abortion felt like only option 

For at least one Jewish activist, that rings especially true. She didn't necessarily want an abortion – she felt she had no other choice. 

It was 1967, and Nancy Litz didn’t want to be pregnant. 

Six years before the Roe vs. Wade ruling would guarantee a woman’s right to a safe and legal abortion, Litz, then a freshman in college, believed terminating her pregnancy was a necessity. Her father had recently died, and her mother, who had dreamed of going away to college herself, was at what Litz described as “a horribly traumatic point in her own life.” She never considered what she did destroying a human life. 

“I don’t believe that clump of cells, while it was potential life, was actual life,” Litz says. “And it certainly wasn’t more important to me than the lives of the people I already knew and loved.” 

Through a friend, Litz connected with a doctor, a man she says told her he was compelled to perform the illegal procedure because he had daughters of his own who were college age and he wouldn’t want them opting for a dangerous, back-alley operation in hopes of extracting themselves from a desperate situation. 

Fifty-two years later, Litz, 71, lives in St. Louis and owns a small business.  Her abortion story isn’t gruesome, and there were no lingering consequences. Litz, who has two grown daughters, is now an activist and volunteer with the National Council of Jewish Women and shares her story whenever she can. She’s disturbed by both the potential of Roe being overturned, and the way other faith leaders frame the conversation around abortion. 

41

“The right word is shame,” Litz said. “What I heard were women telling stories about having an abortion and the suffering with giant regrets and self-condemnation, and I couldn’t help but thinking, I couldn’t help but wondering – how much of that was genuinely the feelings that they had about the procedure, and how much of it was layered onto them by messages from specific faith traditions telling them that what they had done was terrible?” 

Litz came to Judaism later in life. Raised Protestant, she wasn’t practicing by the time she went off to college. Even if she had been active in the church at the time she got pregnant, she can’t imagine she ever would have consulted a minister – in the '60s, abortion wasn’t something you talked about openly. She recalls a couple of girls in her high school disappearing for a stretch, then magically showing up again, presumably after they’d given birth. The media, she remembers, was consumed for a time with a woman who traveled all the way to Japan to access abortion services. But even then, discussions stayed quiet. 

Ending Roe v. Wade wouldn't end abortion in America. This is what happens next

She wonders, too, if people really understand the risk women will be under if Roe is overturned. Like many activists, Litz is adamant that criminalizing abortion won’t stop it – it’ll just make it deadly. Women will continue to terminate pregnancies and put their lives in danger in the process. Years after her abortion, Litz got emotional when she read that in 1967, 42% of the nation’s maternal death rate was attributed to botched abortion. She’s terrified of those numbers resurfacing. 

Litz says she’s often praised privately by other women who have had abortions, women who comment on her bravery and honesty, admitting they could never share publicly the way she does. 

“It just doesn’t make sense,” she says. “Why can’t we, as people of faith who have different specific beliefs about the significance of terminating a pregnancy, be equally free to express our truth? 

“It’s distressing to me that extreme right wing conservatives, that specific segment of Christianity, has co-opted this entire discussion. ... They present themselves as speaking for all people of faith when that is really not the case.” 

42

Want to Lower Abortion Rates? 

Look to Canada’s Example.

Susan Ostermann, Tamara Kay. 08.27.22 11:35 PM ET

The U.S. could learn from its neighbor to the North, where access to health care, family leave, and contraception led to far fewer terminated pregnancies.

Many conservatives believe the demise of abortion access in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade will bring a new dawn in which fewer abortions take place and more children are born. This promised new reality is likely to remain fantasy.

Why?

Because limiting legal abortion access does not result in fewer abortions.

A better course of action, if reducing the number of abortions is the goal, is regulatory pragmatism—a flexible approach to the design and implementation of a regulatory system that avoids legal doctrine and dogma, while prioritizing effectiveness and durability.

Regulatory pragmatism adapts for context and on-the-ground realities, sets ideology aside, and focuses on the goal—sometimes even employing tactics that seem antithetical to that goal, simply because they work.

Take the current state of the battle over reproductive rights in the U.S.

Conservatives’ stated goal is “saving babies.” If serious about achieving that goal, it would make sense to look at a similar country that has significantly fewer abortions per person.

Canada is democratic, comparatively wealthy, and, in 2020, had a quarter fewer abortions per women than in the U.S. For women of typical childbearing age (15-44) Canada had 10.1 abortions per 1,000 women that year compared to 14.4 per 1,000 in the the U.S.

Though it may seem counterintuitive, Canada did not achieve its lower abortion rate by banning abortion. Quite the opposite, in fact. Canada decriminalized the procedure in 1988. It is now legal, at all stages of pregnancy, and publicly funded. The most pressing concern is access to care, as most clinics are located near large population centers, and those living in rural Canada often have to travel significant distances to secure an abortion. But it is safe to say that very few Canadians who want abortions are denied them by their government.

Canada’s example suggests that completely free access to abortion does not cause high abortion rates. That means if the goal is to “save babies” and reduce abortions in the U.S., we need to take the broader context into account when considering how to regulate.

43

Canada consistently supports women and babies throughout their lives. Women have easy and inexpensive access to contraception. Should they choose pregnancy, they have good health care throughout the process, including prenatal care.

Maternal health is better and pregnancy is less dangerous in Canada. In 2018, the most recent year for which statistics are available, Canada’s maternal mortality rate was 8.82 per 100,000 live births. This stands in stark contrast to the same statistic in the U.S.—which was 17.4 in 2018 and then increased to a shocking 23.8 in 2020. Among high-income countries, the U.S. has the highest rate of maternal mortality—a rate that multiplies 2.5 to 3.5 times for Black women.

In Canada, biological and surrogate parents who have given birth receive 15 weeks of maternity leave, during which time they receive their regular pay and benefits. Afterward, all parents, biological or adoptive, can receive an additional 35 weeks of “parental benefits.” These provide for partial pay, with most receiving at least 55 percent of their average earnings. Either parent is eligible for this benefit and it can be split between the parents. Through the Canada Child Benefit, the government also helps eligible parents with child-care costs with a monthly tax-free payment.

The U.S., for its part, offers no guaranteed paid family leave, nor subsidized childcare, nor universal basic health care. And it has far more abortions than its neighbor to the North.

A system with almost unlimited abortion access, when combined with decent health care (including contraception), and good support for new parents, goes a long way towards creating ideal conditions for bringing babies into the world. Indeed, one might even call Canada’s policies more accurate examples of what pro-life should mean: policies that support the health and well being of pregnant people and their children.

But can such pragmatic regulatory policies work in the U.S.?

One Colorado program suggests that they can.

In 2008, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment launched a program to offer low-or no-cost long-acting reversible contraceptives to low-income women across the state. The results were astounding: Between 2009 and 2014, the teen abortion rate was nearly cut in half. In addition, teen birth rates were nearly cut in half, births to women without a high school education fell 38 percent, second and higher order births to teens were cut by 57 percent, and rapid repeat births declined by 12 percent among all women.

The decline in rapid repeat births is particularly important for the lives and health of low-income women and their children. Research shows that low-income women with shorter intervals between pregnancies have higher odds of precipitous labor, and infants whose birth was not spaced have higher odds of low birth weight, NICU admission and mortality. Medical research shows that spacing babies is critical to their survival.

With the demise of Roe, we have the opportunity to re-envision and redefine in the U.S. what it means to be pro-life.

Those who are “pro-choice” are rarely against saving babies and most will easily shift their support to a pragmatic strategy that preserves freedom and lowers abortion rates. Those on the right who are more traditionally “pro-life” will have to decide whether their anti-abortion stance is really about “saving babies” or about something else entirely. The evidence is clear and regulatory pragmatism suggests that we follow Canada’s lead.

44 

Champion of the unborn

Pastor Dave Barnhart / Birmingham, Alabama

The unborn are a convenient group of people to advocate for. 

They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don't resent your condescension or

complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don't ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don't need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don't bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege,without reimagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn."

45

Hate Pastor Threatens to Kill Gay Pastors After 

Same-Sex Couple Delivers Sermon

BIAS WATCH

Hate pastor threatens to kill gay pastors after same-sex couple delivers sermon.

"They should get the death penalty, not be preaching behind the pulpit."

By Daniel Villarreal  Wednesday, August 28, 2024

 Pastor Dillon Awes, a hate preacher at the Stedfast Baptist Church in Watauga, Texas, is upset that some Christian churches affirm LGBTQ+ people—or “sodomites” and “sexual predators,” as he calls them—and he’s especially angry that some pastors even allow queer people to speak from the pulpit.

“These faggots should get a bullet in their brain,” he said in a recent sermon. “They should get the death penalty, not be preaching behind the pulpit.”

Awes made his comments in response to Pastor Charles Andrew Stanley—founder and senior pastor of the nondenominational evangelical Christian megachurch North Point Ministries—who invited a married same-sex couple to deliver a sermon at a recent conference.

“In this conference, he invited two sodomites that were married to each other to preach,” Awes said. “These two sodomites were talking about how they’re so excited to be able to preach that because it’s the message that the children need to hear. So they’re literally just admitting their heart, like, ‘We’re here behind the pulpit so that we could defile children with our message.'”

“That’s where we’ve gotten as a nation by being nice to sodomites,” he ranted. “You know, first, it was, ‘They can get married.’ Then it was, ‘They could have all equal rights.’ Then it was, well, ‘We could have drag shows out in public.’ Then it was, ‘Well, we could take children into the drag shows too.’ Then it was like, ‘Well, we could allow homosexuals to attend church.’ Then it was ‘Well, we can now let drag queens attend church.'”

“Now they’re behind the pulpit. Why? Because of nice guys like Andy Stanley that won’t say what needs to be said, which is that these guys should get a bullet in their brain, that they should get the death penalty, not be preaching behind the pulpit.”

Of course, LGBTQ+ people do not have full equal rights, and children have viewed age-appropriate drag performances in cartoons, TV shows, and films for decades. Also, numerous Christian churches embrace queer congregants, preachers, and drag performers as a way to spread the gospel.

“What a nice guy Andy Stanley is,” Awes added. “What a nice guy you are for letting children in your congregation be abused by pedophiles. How nice of you, Andy Stanley. How nice of all the pastors today that are enabling sexual predators in their church to harm people permanently, to scar them for life, to hurt them spiritually, because you just want to be nice. Well, you know what? Go to Hell, Andy Stanley, and every single pastor like you—go to Hell.”

Notably, anti-LGBTQ+ figures who accuse LGBTQ+ of sexually harming children rarely, if ever, comment on the tens of thousands of documented cases of child sex abuse happening in Christian churches.

This isn’t the first time that Awes has made such comments. In June 2022, he said the government should criminalize homosexuality because of the Bible and then line homosexuals against a wall to be shot in the back of the head. Two months later, he said that allowing a woman to preach in church is like “spitting in the face of God.” 

In August 2023, locals in Watauga protested the church’s hateful messages.

“I cannot believe you expose kids to that garbage,” town resident Mandi Skinner said at a protest outside the church. “That’s not freedom of speech. That’s vile, threatening, slanderous, dangerous language. And I don’t think it should be protected just because they call themselves a church.”

Awes and others like him call themselves New Independent Fundamental Baptist (New IFB) preachers. New IFB isn’t affiliated with any mainstream Baptist denomination, although both Baptist and New IFB teachings exhibit anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry, antisemitism, and misogyny. But while Baptists merely condemn queer people to hell, New IFB goes a step further, calling for the execution of LGBTQ+ people.

The Southern Poverty Law Center considers Stedfast Baptist Church to be a hate group.

 46

 Bibletalk.TV Forbidden Topics

BibleTalk.tv   Pastor Mike Mazzlongo

1.  FORBIDDEN TOPICS

A discussion of sensitive topics involving morality/immorality and right/wrong with a conservative Pastor of the Church of Christ.

The following are notes, observations, questions, and comments, and from this online presentation. 

1)  Mercy Killings or Selective Killing?

Assisted suicides - The dangers of euthanasia

1. Reduces the value of life – no matter who it is.  Every life is valuable.

2. Mercy killing leads to selective killing.  

If we justify killing a fetus it is only a small step to kill someone in a nursing home, or the mentally insane, or criminals.  Once society accepts it the government will control it.  (Don’t we already kill criminals?  Government will kill nursing home residents to save money?)

God’s promises

1. God will listen – does that reduce your pain?

2. He will help.  No suffering will be greater than you can bear.  

God will not allow pain beyond what you can bear?  Do you forgo painkillers?  (Jesus did)  

You can escape the pain and suffering by prayer (pray that your life ends???)

He will be there.  So don’t feel bad if grandma dies alone.  God is there.  (Huh?)

For mercy killings, for abortion.  Here is their warning:

“In Germany, they came first for the Communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.  They came next for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.  Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.  Then they came for the catholics, and I did not speak out because I was a protestant.  Then they came for me – and by that time there was no one left to speak up.”  - Martin Niemoller

Then again, Pastor Mike also said THIS:

From Pastor Mike (BibleTalk.tv), Church of God, regarding Covid, vaccines, and masks:   I agree that we are going through difficult times, however, this is nothing new for believers. In my opinion, this is strictly a matter of earthly concern. How we die, when we die, how we delay our dying is pretty much a personal decision and people should be left to decide for themselves.

47

Like Paul the apostle I prefer to exercise my Christian freedom when I can and submit to human laws as well as the weakness of my brethren when required. I am convinced, however, that this too shall pass and we will be better for it if we put our trust in the Lord each day since, in the end, He has the power of life and death and not some Asian virus or American lawmaker.

(Rejecting vaccination or treatment to prolong life - a personal decision.  Seeking assisted suicide for a painful, prolonged illness?  SIN!)

2)   Superstition, Astrology, and the Occult  (omitted)

3)  The 4 Phases of Addictions

Getting AIDS is not a sin, but the sexual act that transmits AIDS is a sin.

Alcoholism is not a sin, but taking the first drink is...

Stages of addiction:

1) Learning the mood swing – certain chemicals produce euphoria.  If you only use pain meds AS DIRECTED and only take them for pain, and STOP TAKING THEM WHEN THE PAIN STOPS, you will NOT become addicted.  (Crazy...)

2)  Seeking the mood swing – keep looking for the high.

3)  Chemical dependence.  Growing anticipation and preoccupation with needing the high. Changes in your personal moral system – you steal.  Your peer group changes – fellow users.  Your self esteem declines but you refuse to accept why.  Your peers do not challenge your behavior – they help you accept it.  You experiment with type and quantity.  Your health and spiritual stability declines.  Now your normal is high and the abnormal is the crash – pain.  Your friends desert you.  Dependence needs drugs to stay nomal.

4)  Addiction.  Drugs now must be used to stay alive.  Euphoria cannot be achieved any more. Chemicals are now used only to avoid withdrawal – pain.  Desire to live is reduced.  Fatalism – there is no way out so I may as well continue to use.  Morals decay.  Risk taking increases.  Your personality changes.  You will steal from those you love.  Addicts will reject every authority.  Your addiction is stronger than any love of any person – including self.  A pimp will start with getting a girl addicted to drugs and she will do whatever she is told.

4)  The Bible and Addiction

Types of addiction:  A) Psychological     B) Physical

Steps to addiction:

1)  Ingestion   2)  Infatuation  3)  Infection - I NEED this. 4)  Imprisonment – I cannot live without this.    Control > Dominate > Kill

Your body is a temple.  Do not risk your body.  (Stay out of the military?  Were all in Israel’s army sinners?  Is a missionary who is martyred a sinner?  Paul made his body a slave so he is not disqualified.  Did he not glory in his beatings?)

48

Drug abuse is a form of idolatry.  

5)  The Sobering Truth about Alcohol

Statistics on Alcoholism 

1)  alcohol is addictive  

2)  alcohol is involved in 28% of highway deaths

3)  alcohol is involved in 40% of violent crime.

4) 12% of all teens are alcoholics.

5)  alcohol is involved in 30% of all suicides.

6)  Alcohol is directly linked to cancer.

7)  Alcohol is involved in 50% of domestic violence and child abuse.  50% of drowning victims were drunk.

8)  $175 billion is spent each year to treat alcoholism

9)  1/3 of all prison inmates were drunk during or prior to committing their crimes.

10)  alcohol is legal.

The first step of drug or alcohol use is as much of a sin as anything else assocciated with addiction or alcoholism. 

5 Best Reasons to Drink   

1) Makes you feel good  

2) Alcoholic drinks taste good

3) Most people can drink without getting 

drunk or addicted.

4) Alcohol is inexpensive and easily 

obtainable.

5) Everybody drinks.

5 Best Reasons Not to Drink

1) Alcoholism is the #1 drug problem in the world.

2) Alcohol is a major factor in illness, accidents, death, crime, and family destruction.

3) Alcohol contributes nothing to a person’s well-being.

4) 1 Corinthians 6:9-10  Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men,  nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

5) Christians who drink undermine their spiritual lives and witness.

6)  Pro-life or Pro-death  (part 2)

Abortion and miscarriage differ.  Miscarriage is death by natural causes.

There is no such thing as a fetus.  Only an unborn child.

In the case of the health of the mother, doctors must make a decision like a battle field medic in triage – who has the better chance of survival?  The baby or the mother?  And then you have to roll the dice.  Because the stress of killing an unborn baby would be too much for the father.  He is affected mentally by the abortion as well.  (Although he will be just fine if his wife died.  The price you pay for being in the line of battle.  Tubal pregnancy be damned.  Mom, I am so very sorry…)

50

On the Day She Died.  An ultrasound identifies a malformed baby that will survive no longer than an hour or two.  The family is told the baby will not suffer.  Do you carry to term?  Is it important to hold a baby even if it’s for just an hour?  How do you feel if the baby drags on for a week?  What if the baby does suffer?  Does it make a difference if the mother’s life would have been in jeopardy?  Does it make a difference if the baby was doomed to terrible suffering before he died?  Is there a socioeconomic impact here if the mom is poor and barely making ends meet?  Is there an issue here if the mom is of limited intelligence?  Is the family doing this for the baby or for themselves?  Does that even make a difference?

7)  Pro-Life or Pro-Death  (part 2)

The Bible says thou shalt kill (kill or MURDER?). 100%  In the Law.  But not buried in the Law, right there in the top 10, the Ten Commandments.  This despite the death and warring and killing in the Bible.   And except for the right of your government to sanction killing.  In war.  In capital punishment.

The only place in the Bible that murder or killing is sanctioned:  Romans 13:4  For he (the authority, the government) is God’s servant to do you good.  But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing.  He is God’s servant, an angel of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.  

God permits the taking of life in certain situations:  in war, in self-defense, in accidents, in legal executions.  Not for convenience.  Abortion is an inconvenient killing.  Kyle Rittenhouse was convenience?  Wrongful execution?  Convenience?  

Besides, they are pressured by someone into the abortion in the first place.  There is no pressure to NOT have an abortion?

Medicine shows us that the fetus is more viable than we thought.  We should trust science.  Wait.  Science says this is an nonviable baby.  Well you can’t trust science.

8)  Pornography and Behavior

If you make pornography illegal where will it end?  You will stop my free speech.  That is ridiculous.  For porn.  Certainly the case for gun control, though.

Pornography is a psychological narcotic.  It is addictive.

There is no limit to the creativity that occurs in the marital relationship.  Huh?  Like doing WHAT?  Like sex for pleasure?  Like certain sex acts that do not involve procreation?  Like certain things homosexuals would do?  That God has given sex such pleasure that you can explore what you want?  As long as you are married…

Porn has the same effect on the brain as crack cocaine.  The same area of the brain lights up in the same way as drugs.  Porn is a drug.

Except in the marriage relationship nudity is SHAME!  Some people would rather DIE than be naked in public.  Then again some don’t.  Maybe a lot don’t.  

50

You cannot be holy and watch porn.  You are not acceptable to God.  And our bodies are to be holy to God.

In the Old Testament God wanted ENTIRE PEOPLES to be wiped out because they were unholy and would pollute the Israelite people.  The did sex acts and unholy acts.

The only sexual fantasy should be for your marriage partner.  God says ENJOY YOURSELVES!!!!  “Let her breasts satisfy you AT ALL TIMES!!!”  Be completely satisfied with your wife, and in turn each wife should be satisfied the same.  Communicate!  What do you want???   For 5 minutes Pastor Mike has put NOTHING in the sex world off limits as long as it is with your spouse.

9)  The Alphabet Gender Wars

16% of Gen-Z identifies themselves as LGBTQ.

Homosexuals commit suicide.  

(See below.  Do homosexuals commit suicide because they are homosexuals?  Or because they cannot live their lives openly as homosexuals?  See article below: Anti-Trans Laws and Suicide and Anti-LGBTQ+ Policies Across American Schools Are Seriously Impacting Queer Youth.)

 It is a mental illness.  The LGBTQ community claims they were BORN gay (“Pre-wired”).  There is NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE to back that up.

LGBTQ advocates as a persecuted MINORITY so they can use it TO RAISE MONEY!!!  (Do LGBTQ+ opponents use the issue to raise money?  Ditto for abortion opponents?)

The Freedom Act for LGBTQ trumps the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 which backs churches, businesses, and individuals from snubbing LGBTQ events.  

People want to only elect Christians to power and force these issues on the American people.  Amazingly Pastor Mike DISAGREES.  Jesus would NEVER address issues through political means or through earthly power!  Jesus said we are only provided with earthly bodies to use as a vehicle to get to heaven.  (So much for life is supposed to be fun – eat, drink, and be merry…)

God has given man “absolute free will,” meaning despite overt evidence man has the ability to even deny his creator.  This also gives God the right to send these people committing these evil acts into eternal hell.  

Our mission given us from Jesus is to save souls.  Our calling is not to save the world.  This world is doomed to pass away, so it is not our job to save the world.  2 Peter 3:10  But the day of the Lord is coming like a thief in the night… and the earth and its works will  be burned up.  Seems like a reprieve from addressing climate change or providing a safe environment for our children.  The world is ending.  Of course, Paul thought that too.  What did that get us?

51

 Homosexual acts.  Why are they different?  Is sodomy ok if between members of the opposite sex? 

Pastor Mike:  There is no limit to the creativity that occurs in the marital relationship.  Huh?  Like doing WHAT?  Like sex for pleasure?  Like certain sex acts that do not involve procreation?  Like certain things homosexuals would do?  That God has given sex such pleasure that you can explore what you want?  As long as you are married…

In the Old Testament God wanted ENTIRE PEOPLES to be wiped out because they were unholy and would pollute the Israelite people.  They did sex acts and unholy acts.

The only sexual fantasy should be for your marriage partner.  God says ENJOY YOURSELVES!!!!  “Let her breasts satisfy you AT ALL TIMES!!!”  Be completely satisfied with your wife, and in turn each wife should be satisfied the same.  Communicate!  What do you want?   Once again, Pastor Mike has put NOTHING in the sex world off limits as long as it is with your spouse.

While we are at it, let's try transexuals…

Bibletalk.tv having sport with Rachel Levine:  The speaker is not a woman.  He does not act like a woman.  He cannot feel like a woman.  He also cannot understand there are people who do NOT feel that way.  He is pre-wired to be a man.  But God does not pre-wire you to be a woman in a man’s body.  (So there).  Nor does he prewire you to be gay!

Every cell in your body has been stamped with the code “male” or “female” and that is how you will be judged.  God will judge you according to how he made you.  Woe to those who try to change that.  He will judge your soul on how you respond to faith in Christ.  You can come to Him no matter how lost and broken you are and He will ALWAYS receive you.    WAIT.  You just said God will receive you.  Do you have to change?  Will this change if the genetic code identifies a link to LGBTQ behavior?  

Besides, if this is a “mental illness,” a deviant behavior, are all other mental illnesses that result in deviant behavior unforgivable sins for people?

Anyway, if God will always “receive you,” are WE allowed to abandon these people?

10)  The Great Illusion: Gambling

Gambling gives the same high and creates the same addiction of other issues discussed here.

Gambling: Easy money at the expense of others.

People use their welfare checks to buy lottery tickets.  Governments are simply recycling money.

Our job is not to win elections.  It is to win people to Christ.  Our job is not to make laws but to warn people which laws are contrary to the laws of God.   Renounce the world in all its unholy actions.

Even Bingo is part of the world, part of the darkness.  It is NOT part of the kingdom.

Gambling hurts many and benefits the few.

 52

11)  Genetic Engineering: Playing God – part 1

Genetic screening is acceptable to help the parents prepare or plan whether they should CONCEIVE or try to have a baby.  Screening during pregnancy is acceptable to prepare the parents for a child who may need treatment (prenatal surgery perhaps?).  But having screening during pregnancy is NOT a reason to have an abortion, AT LEAST NOT FOR THE CHRISTIAN.  And if not a Christian?  Do we legislate to apply our values and ideals on THEIR LIVES?  And if the baby is deformed, certain to die, risking the life of the mother?  Allow it to be born, allow God to let it die a “natural death,” and if mom dies, well, thems the breaks…

12)  Genetic Engineering: Playing God – part 2

Do not abort a child because of disability.  The cost is not an issue.  The inconvenience is not an issue.  The quality of life is not an issue.  Society is responsible for this child.  (TELL THAT TO THOSE THAT MAKE BANNING ABORTION THEIR LIFE’S MISSION.  And quit calling them retards.)

Do you think there is not someone investigating cloning and other genetic engineering in the world?  Like Donald’s friend Vladimir?

(If a child born has no potential for developing any type of relationships the child has no value.  Food and nutrition were withheld.  Does this handicapped person have the ability to have an enjoyable life.  No person has the right to end the life of any other person.  Does any person have a right to live if they can NEVER support themselves or contribute to their world?  Would you want to live that way?)  

(Just about everything this guy bases his theories and positions on abortion, genetic engineering, certain fertility treatments are not even mentioned in the New Testament, but are based on the Book of Genesis written at least 3600 years ago – one man, one woman.  So critical: Is Genesis to be accepted as verbatim truth?   Or is it an allegory of Moses describing the birth of the chosen people through Abraham and written to motivate the Israelites perseverance in the exodus to the Promised Land. ) 

13)  Prejudice and the Bible

All people are the same because they came from the same one woman and the same one man..  Blacks are the same as whites because they also came from Adam and Eve.  There was only ONE language in the world until the building of the Tower of Babel.  At that point people scattered as God had ordered years before.  Only after the Tower of Babel were different languages used in the world.  People are different today ONLY because they separated into different groups and encountered different experiences and different ways of life.   INCLUDING skin pigmentation by the way.  And NOT over many thousands of years, but over about 5000 years of life.  

Ham’s curse was that he would not be more prosperous than Shem and Japheth (if that was a curse).  Ham’s son Japheth, on the other hand, WAS 

53

cursed to be slave to Shem and Japheth IF Japheth allied with Shem. 

Comments:

Slavery is wrong Biblically because it is wrong to enslave someone because we all come from Adam and Eve and it is wrong to treat a person in the image of God improperly.  But death penalty executions are proper? -  killing a person in the image of God? 

The OT also says slavery is OK.   David did it.  Solomon did it.  Judah did it.  Israel did it.  They just couldn’t enslave a fellow Jew.

Then again treating someone as a slave is going against God’s will.

We are all equal before God.  But not all BEHAVIOR is equal(or acceptable) before God.

It is our responsibility to shine the light on bad or unbiblical behavior, even if it brings push back and accusations of prejudice.

54

Time Magazine 

Anti-Trans Laws Linked to Trans 

Youth Suicide Attempts 

By SOLCYRÉ BURGA. SEP 26, 2024 6:46 AM PDT 

The passage of anti-trans laws caused suicide attempts among trans and nonbinary youth to increase from 7 to 72%. 

Anti-transgender policies have caused a rise in suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary youth, according to a new Trevor Project study published in the journal Nature Human Behavior. 

The peer-reviewed study found that when states pass anti-transgender laws—with policies like bathroom bans, which bar trans students from using the bathroom that matches their gender identity, or challenges to gender marker updates, which make it more difficult for trans people to have their accurate gender on state IDs—suicide attempts among trans and nonbinary youth ages 13 to 17 increased from 7% to 72%. 

“There's nothing inherent in transgender, nonbinary young people that makes them at greater risk for suicide,” says Ronita Nath, vice president of research at the Trevor Project. “They're placed at greater suicide risk because of the stigma and mistreatment experienced in society, including these discriminatory laws and policies.”

Reseachers compared suicide-related outcomes for trans and nonbinary youth in states that had enacted one or more anti-transgender laws to states that did not enact such laws. They also accounted for outside factors that could affect suicide rates—including a state’s pre-existing suicide rate, national suicide prevention efforts, and more. 

It’s the first study to establish what the researchers call a causal relationship between such policies and higher suicide attempt rates. The study used data from 2018 to 2022 from the Trevor Project’s national survey on the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth. The answers of more than 61,000 people ages 13-24 across five years were used. 

The research shows that the adverse effects of anti-trans state policies on minors were seen earlier, or shortly after the law was passed, and were much more pronounced compared to the broader sample size that encompasses adults. 

Part of the reason why may be because of the greater access adults have to LGBTQ+-affirming spaces. “Many state-level anti-transgender laws [are] targeting minors under the age of 18, and therefore really limiting the ability of young people to access gender-affirming-care or facilities to participate in school activities and sports that align with their gender,” says Nath. 

Researchers did not find a link between the introduction of anti-trans policies that never moved forward and suicide attempts. Experts say more research is needed regarding the negative consequences of such policies.

“The results of the study point to an urgent need for protected policies that support transgender, nonbinary youth,” says Nath. “I would just urge all lawmakers to stop risking the health and safety of young people in hopes of scoring political points.” 

55

Time Magazine 

Anti-LGBTQ+ Policies Across American Schools 

Are Seriously Impacting Queer Youth

By Solcyré Burga   August 21, 2024 12:00 PM EDT

Nearly one in three LGBTQ+ students say their school has at least one anti-LGBTQ+ policy, a survey released Wednesday found. 

The survey was conducted by the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention organization that provides 24/7 crisis support for LGBTQ+ youth. About 18,000 LGBTQ+ youth, ages 13-24, were polled about whether students were able to do things like use their chosen name or pronouns and use locker rooms that matched their gender identity.

Many anti-LGBTQ+ rules in schools target students’ access to support services and affirmative spaces, though others were much broader—limiting conversations about LGBTQ+ topics both during classroom instruction and out of it. Schools with at least one anti-LGBTQ policy were also less likely to have a gay-straight alliance—a student-led club that is intended to be a safe space for queer individuals—or a gender-neutral bathroom, according to the survey. Seven percent of respondents also said that their school used to have a gay-straight alliance but stopped offering it.

The new survey adds to another Trevor Project survey published in May that found 40% of LGBTQ+ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the last year. The latest study didn’t re-measure suicidal ideation, but found that LGBTQ+ students attending more supportive school environments had lower suicide risk rates and reported fewer depressive symptoms compared to queer youth attending schools that were less supportive. Attending a school with anti-LGBTQ+ policies also meant students were more likely to be exposed to verbal and physical attacks, as well as unwanted sexual contact, because of their gender identity or sexual orientation.   

“These alarming findings signal that anti-LGBTQ+ school policies have real-life consequences on the mental health, well-being, and overall safety of LGBTQ+ youth,” Ronita Nath, Vice President of Research at The Trevor Project, told TIME. “Young people learn harmful and discriminatory behavior from the adults, communities, and institutions that raise them…When anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment is normalized in school environments, it is then internalized by students and creates a culture of intolerance and hostility towards LGBTQ+ people in general.”

School districts and local legislatures have become hotbeds for culture wars across the U.S. At least eight states—including New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Alabama—explicitly forbid curriculum about LGBTQ+ people or topics, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank. By contrast, only seven states have laws that require LGBTQ+ inclusion in state education curriculum.  

56

And while anti-LGBTQ+ policies impact the queer community as a whole, transgender and nonbinary students are disproportionately impacted, according to Nath, as they confront barred access to sports teams and bathrooms, as well as parental notification laws, which require staff to inform parents or guardians of their child’s gender identity or pronouns. Other data by the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute looking at the broader effect of anti-LGBTQ+ policies, including those outside of classrooms, found that 93% of transgender youth ages 13 to 17 were living in a state that had passed or was considering a bill that targeted access to gender-affirming-care, the ability to use pronouns that match students’ gender identity, and more.

Anti-LGBTQ+ policies appear to be more prominent in certain regions. For instance, the survey found that 34% of LGBTQ+ youth living in the South reported going to a school that had at least one anti-LGBTQ+ policy—the highest rates in the country—followed by the Midwest at 29%.  

The impact of such policies is perhaps best seen in states like Florida, which Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, calls the “frontline in America’s fight against the far-right anti-LGBTQ agenda.” Gov. Ron DeSantis made headlines in 2022 when he signed a bill dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” that would ban public schools from teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity. (This March, the state settled a lawsuit that allows students and school staff to write and speak about LGBTQ+ issues and people in classroom discussion, though the ban is still active in terms of classroom instruction.) A January 2023 study by UCLA’s School of Law’s Williams Institute found that 88% of LGBTQ+ parents living in Florida were concerned about the impact Don’t Say Gay would have on their children, and more than half of LGBTQ+ parents considered moving out of the state because of the bill. 

“Despite what proponents of anti-LGBTQ+ policies say, these efforts do not make school safer or better for any student. Instead, they stop LGBTQ+ students from being able to bring their full selves to school, and prevent school staff and allies from providing them with the support they need,” says Nath. “Making schools inclusive of LGBTQ+ students can provide a life-saving sense of belonging for young people.”

57

Forced Marriage

At 19, I Was Forced To Marry A Stranger And Was Sexually Assaulted Every Month For 12 Years

"I love my daughters, but I did not consent to having them."

By Fraidy Reiss    Jan 9, 2024, 08:30 AM EST 

They sent me off to be raped, with a party and a tube of K-Y Jelly.

The lubricant was to reduce the intense physical pain they explained I would endure while being penetrated by a stranger-turned-husband, without foreplay, without consent. Every month. Until death do us part.

The party — a low-budget wedding in 1995 at a Brooklyn venue aptly nicknamed Armpit Terrace — was to distract me from the horrific reality of my forced marriage to the stranger.

“Mazel tov!” they told me, beaming.

In the reclusive Orthodox Jewish community in New York City where I grew up, choices about whether, when and whom I would marry did not belong to me. At home and at the all-girls religious school I attended, where I learned to cook and sew and keep house, I was groomed from early childhood to expect a teen marriage to a stranger my family and a matchmaker would choose for me.

I was allowed to meet the stranger several times before my engagement, but I was not allowed to be alone with him nor to have any physical contact with him. I was a clueless 19-year-old who had never been allowed to “talk to a boy,” and suddenly I was given a matter of hours, over a period of a few weeks, to answer my family and his family and the matchmaker and everyone in the community standing there, tapping their feet, looking at their watches, waiting for me to tell them: You’ll marry this man we chose for you, right?

“No” was never really an option.

During my six-week engagement, I still was not allowed to be alone with the groom nor to have any physical contact with him, which left more time for me to begin experiencing the myriad other abuses that come with a forced marriage.

First, a virginity exam. The groom’s rabbi sent me to an Orthodox Jewish gynecologist, where I was instructed to disrobe, get on the examination table and put my feet in the stirrups. The doctor inserted her gloved fingers into my vagina and confirmed that my hymen was intact.

“Mazel tov!” she told me, beaming.

I attended one-on-one bridal classes, where the curriculum centered on the requirement that I have unprotected sex with my husband on my wedding night and on a monthly basis thereafter. A lifetime of rape.

58

Yes, the rapes probably would hurt, the bridal class teacher explained. Hence the K-Y Jelly.

“Mazel tov!” she told me, beaming.

My stranger-turned-husband turned out to be violent and abusive. I learned this exactly one week after our wedding, when he became enraged because he had woken up late, and he punched his fist through the wall — hard enough to leave a sizable hole. 

His first threat to kill me came only days later. Soon these threats became more frequent, specific and gruesome. He was brimming with creative ideas for how he would end my life, and he took the time to describe them to me in vivid detail. A lifetime of fear.

Yet I was trapped.

My forced marital sex was carefully timed each month for when I was ovulating. The reason for this was obvious: My first child was born 11 months after my wedding, and soon I had a second child.

I love my daughters, but I did not consent to having them. A lifetime of forced parenthood.

This denial of sexual and reproductive rights was not the only shackle preventing me from leaving my marriage. My husband did not allow me to have my own bank account or credit card, and I was taught that, under Orthodox Jewish law, if my husband allowed me to work, any money I earned belonged to him. A lifetime of domestic servitude and financial dependence.

I had limited legal rights too. Under Orthodox Jewish law, only a man can grant a divorce. I, as a woman, did not have the legal right to end my own marriage. A lifetime of being locked in unwanted wedlock.

One escape route for me would have been to move back in with my family as an agunah, a “chained woman” who is bound to a husband who refuses her a divorce. The life of an agunah is brutal; she is shamed for her powerlessness, blamed for her failed marriage and treated as an outcast. 

But even this dreadful escape route was closed to me, because my family refused to take me back in. A lifetime of betrayal.

So I remained trapped in my abusive forced marriage. In accordance with Orthodox Jewish law, I was considered “unclean” every time I menstruated. While I was “unclean,” I was prohibited from having physical contact with my husband, sleeping in the same bed as him, handing him anything or undressing or singing in front of him. A lifetime of shame.

Once my period ended, I needed to count seven “clean” days without any menstrual blood, during which time the rules against physical contact continued. To make sure I stayed “clean” for the full seven days, I was required to wear white panties and, twice a day, to insert a white cloth into my vagina, swish it around and inspect it in sunlight to make sure it did not have blood spots. If I found questionable marks on my panties and could not tell whether they were blood, the rabbi would inspect them and give his pronouncement.

58

And the rabbi would keep my panties. A lifetime of extreme patriarchy.

Each month, after the seven “clean” days, I was forced to strip naked in front of an attendant who watched me immerse in a mikvah, or a ritual bath of rainwater, which frequently left me with a yeast infection and always left me shaking uncontrollably. A lifetime of violation. 

All I wanted, every time I left the mikvah, was to take a hot shower and scrub the violation off me. That was prohibited. Instead I was required to go home and have non consensual sex with the man who had spent the day describing to me in graphic detail how he was going to murder me. The man who would not let me close the door when I used the bathroom, because “what was I hiding from him in there?”

No matter. I had to get on the bed and spread my legs and forget what had happened to me at the mikvah and ignore the pain while I waited for him to finish, and I had to remind myself how lucky I was that he usually was done after only three or four thrusts. A lifetime straight out of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

Forced marriage — in which one or both parties do not give full, free consent — is recognized globally as a form of modern slavery. My story is far from unique: Around the world, 22 million people were in a forced marriage as of 2021.

Yet, even though the United States acknowledges that forced marriage is a human rights abuse, few laws and policies are in place to prevent or punish it, and the nation has paid such scant attention to this issue that we do not even know how often forced marriage happens here. 

What’s more, child marriage remains legal in most U.S. states, even though it is recognized as a form of forced marriage and a human rights abuse. Some 300,000children were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018, mostly girls wed to adult men. At least 60,000 marriages occurred at an age or with a spousal age difference that should have been considered a sex crime.

My husband would regularly search through my personal belongings in front of me, including in the pockets of the clothing in my closet and in my bag of tampons under the bathroom sink. A lifetime of subjugation. When I finally realized at age 27 that I was the only person who would help me leave my abusive forced marriage alive and I decided I would secretly save up cash for my escape, I found the only safe hiding place in the house: a box of Whole Grain Total in the pantry.

60

I saved more than $40,000 in that cereal box over the next five years.

During those years I also defied my community and did something no one in my family had ever done: I became a college student. My husband forbade me from attending classes. I informed him, calmly, that nothing he did to me would stop me from getting my education.

And I did something no one I knew had ever done: I threw out the limp, ugly wig I was required to wear as a married woman to cover my own thick, healthy hair. I walked outside with my uncovered head held high — the equivalent, in that community, of walking outside naked.

My family retaliated immediately by shunning me. One of my sisters notified me that my family was planning to sit shiva — or observe the Jewish mourning ritual for me — as if I had literally died. I have had almost no contact with my family since that day. A lifetime of being dead.

But I graduated from Rutgers University (as commencement speaker, the equivalent of valedictorian) at age 32, and I escaped my abusive forced marriage on my own, with my daughters and my box of Total. I fled the Orthodox Jewish community too, and I rebuilt my life.

In 2011 I founded a nonprofit organization, Unchained At Last, to combat forced and child marriage in the U.S. through direct services and systems change.

The U.S. is one of 193 countries that agree forced and child marriage are harmful practices, particularly for women and girls, and have promised to eliminate these abuses by year 2030 to help achieve gender equality, under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Yet the U.S. is not on track to keep its promise. 

I refuse to accept this. Not after I escaped my lifetime of oppression.

We at Unchained are fighting back by providing crucial wraparound services to a long-ignored population: those who are fleeing an existing or impending forced marriage in the U.S. To date we have provided legal and social services, always for free, to nearly 1,000 individuals, to help give them a lifetime of dignity, safety and hope.

We also started a national movement to end child marriage. In the last few years, our groundbreaking research and relentless advocacy have allowed us to help change the law in 10 U.S. states to ban child marriage — a stunning victory for the 7.5 million girls who live in those 10 states — and we are working on the other 40.

A lifetime of preventing other lifetimes of rape.

“Mazel tov!” I now tell myself, beaming, with each triumphant step closer to ending forced and child marriage in the U.S.

61

CONSERVATORSHIP 

The Daily Beast July 25, 2021

The Romans, the Supreme Court, and Britney Spears—Conservatorship Abuse Has Been Happening for 2000 Years

Conservatorship was born in ancient Rome, focusing on the power and privileges invested in the father. It was, “quite literally the patriarchy.”

This week iconic pop star Britney Spears gave stirring and emotional testimony about living under the conservatorship granted to her father in 2008. Likening her experience to enslavement, Spears said she had been forced to work against her will, compelled to enter a mental-health institution, drugged, and prevented from having children. The shocking revelations drew instant support and raised questions about the nature of the conservatorship system. How could an international star who earned millions of dollars be exploited and controlled in this way?

For years the #FreeBritney movement led by fans of Ms. Spears has questioned the legality of the system. Conservatorship, sometimes known as guardianship, is a last-resort legal measure that is typically invoked on behalf of those with severe disabilities or dementia. Recent news coverage coupled with the release of films like I Care A Lot has shone a spotlight on the ways in which the system is open to abuse. Conservatorship has ancient roots and when you look at its history it’s unsurprising that socially marginal people—mostly the elderly and those with disabilities—are susceptible to this kind of legal manipulation. In fact, some might say that was always the point.

Conservatorship was born in ancient Rome. Roman law focused on the power and privileges invested in the pater familias (the citizen father and head of household), who were seen as the protectors of minors, their wives, and enslaved persons who lived in their home. Discipline began here: Roman law invested the pater familias with the power to administer punishment and justice within his own household. It was, University of Iowa ancient historian Sarah Bond told me, “quite literally the patriarchy” and “both the young and women were seen as vulnerable and often mentally incapable” of making their own financial decisions. If the father died, therefore, then a different male relative (usually an uncle) was appointed as a guardian (a tutor or curator). With a few exceptions, adult women as well as children needed the approval and support of their male tutor to take any kind of legal action of their own. Technically, their assets were the property of the tutor for as long as the tutelage continued.

62

It wasn’t just women and children who could find their legal and financial privileges revoked. As early as the fifth century BCE, when the Laws of the Twelve Tables, were formulated “diminished mental capacity” became a category in the legal system. A Roman magistrate, Bond told me, had the power to appoint a curator to oversee the finances of someone who was mentally incapable (potentially because of age) or a spendthrift. The assumption here, as in our own system, is that certain kinds of “bad” decisions render one incapable of making any decisions. Money and the preservation of wealth is often the key element. Implicit in this institution, as Bruce Frier writes in his Casebook on Roman Family Law, is a focus on “the protection of the ward’s property, mainly in the interest of potential heirs.” Even today it is mainly those with assets and money who are likely to find themselves in conservatorship.

The basis for this whole system, Bond said, was the power of the father as the supreme authority in the lives of women and children. The only way a woman could hope to gain any kind of personal legal status was through childbearing. The ius liberorum introduced by Augustus around the turn of the Era granted women who had had three children the opportunity to escape from the constant oversight of guardianship. For male children tutelage and curatorship ended when they became men in their teens, but could be extended until the age of 25. For female children it could continue in perpetuity.

This may seem to be 2,000 years and 5,000 miles removed from our own world, but the U.S. legal system is a direct heir of Roman law. The legal system that flourished and expanded from the second century BCE onwards in Rome and was codified in the centuries thereafter affected the development of European and ecclesiastical legal systems that, in turn, shaped the US Criminal Justice System.

You only have to visit Washington DC with its neoclassical architecture, said Bond, to see that how true this is. Half of the bas-reliefs that adorn the bronze doors of the Supreme Court depict ancient legal scenes and lawmakers. The Supreme Court website describes the overall scheme as representing “the evolution of justice according to 

63

the Western tradition.” The founding fathers read classical legal texts and thought with their systems of classification. You can see a copy of the Institutes of Justinian, the emperor Justinian’s sixth-century CE attempt to codify Roman law, alongside other important legal texts in Thomas Jefferson’s library.

One of the most troubling aspects of Ms. Spears’s claims was her statement that she has been prevented from removing an IUD so that she could not become pregnant. Not only has Spears expressed a desire to have more children but, at 39, the clock is ticking. Spears compared her experience to that of an enslaved sex worker. The comparison is apt: while historically most enslaved women have been coerced and forced into bearing children that would add to their enslaver’s workforce, the situation was different for sex workers whose ability to earn would be adversely affected. As an entertainer known for her slim build and energetic dance routines it seems that her “guardians” were concerned about her image. The implicit logic here seems to be that Spears’s career and, thus, earning potential would have suffered were she to become pregnant.

There is, however, another layer to this particular attempt to control Spears’s body and that is the history of ableism and eugenics in the American legal system. As activist Judy Heumann tweeted this week, conservatorship is “an abusive system that has been used against disabled people and older people for decades.” Those with mental health issues are especially vulnerable. In 1927 the Supreme Court upheld eugenic sterilization: in the decision Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously wrote that “three generations of imbeciles are enough.” As Adam Cohen observed in his book Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck over 70,000 people were forcibly sterilized in the U.S. as a result and—shockingly—the 1927 Buck v. Bell case has not been overturned despite opportunities to do so. As recently as 2001 a case heard at the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a sterilization case by citing Buck v. Bell.

Britney’s experience is part of a lengthy history in which able-bodied people use medical diagnosis and mental health in order to control the reproductive rights of others. The situation is especially tragic when you consider that Britney’s conservatorship began as the result of a “meltdown” that took place in the context of an embittered custody dispute. Her desire to be a mother is denied and exploited at every turn.

Even in ancient Rome—a world in which women and children were considered legally and intellectually inferior—lawmakers were aware of the ways in which the system could be abused. They introduced measures, albeit ineffective ones, to prevent caretakers from taking permanent control of the wealth of their wards and allowing guardians to be sued for maladministration. They were expected to take an inventory of the ward’s assets, invest their money promptly, collect any debts owed to them, and ensure that they were well educated. If they didn’t do these things, they might be liable to pay interest. The responsibilities and burdens of guardianship were so high that many tried to avoid it citing infirmity or disability as a reason they could not serve.

It is, therefore, an indictment of our own system that someone as visible and demonstrably capable of supporting themselves as Britney Spears could be treated in this way. It makes you wonder how many others are stripped of their rights and civil liberties. As writer and activist Eric Michael Garcia put it “if the state can do this to one of the most influential pop stars in my lifetime, think what it can do to others.”

64

 Evangelism and Apologetics 

 The Bible and Divorce

 The Bible and Divorce

1 Corinthians 7:39  A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives.  But if her husband dies she is free to marry anyone she wishes BUT… HE MUST BELONG TO THE LORD.  (let the beating begin.  Unless a woman murders her husband…)  This is written for 1st century Greek society.  We are not there anymore.

Matthew 19:10-12  (Jesus speaks about divorce.)  The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”  Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given.   For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”  

Explained:  The disciples have listened to Jesus' response to the Pharisees' question about the grounds for divorce. The Pharisees have asked for Jesus' perspective about what "indecency" means in Deuteronomy 24:1, where the law seems to allow a man to divorce his wife for this reason. Jesus has stated that divorce is never allowed except in cases of sexual immorality.  (Of whom?  The woman, the man, or either?  Is the man ALLOWED to be sexually immoral?)
The disciples respond to Jesus' declaration by saying that it's better not to get married at all. Most commentators agree that what the disciples mean by that is, if divorce is not an option, it would be better not to marry than to be stuck for life in an unhappy marriage. The presumed right to divorce if things did not go well was held dearly by many Jewish men of the time, including many of the religious leaders. Divorce had become common in Israel. The disciples said, perhaps foolishly, that marriage is too big of a risk without the possibility of divorce.  Add to that marriages were arranged by the parents, NOT based on love necessarily.  
Jesus will respond that though some can live without marriage, not everyone can. 

Is this applicable today with society’s norms?  Do women have rights?  Should women have rights?  Is the women’s rights movement a bad thing?  If divorce was forbidden in Biblical times to “protect the woman” because she had no means of support, no education, no ability to provide for herself, has that situation changed today where colleges and many professions are now more attended by women.  Is THAT non-Biblical?

65

Verse 12b: The one who can accept this should accept it.”  Is Jesus advocating celibacy?  For his followers?  Celibate priests - even though Peter was married?  FOR ALL MEN???  WHERE ARE THE BELOVED LITTLE CHILDREN GOING TO COME FROM???

Can women divorce?  Even if the husband commits adultery?  In the Old Testament, if a man has multiple wives and/or concubine(s) does THAT constitute adultery.  

Ahhh  then there is Paul… 1 Corinthians 7:12-14  12 To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord):) If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. 13 And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

15 But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so.  (so divorce is ok if one is not a believer?  Abuse is ok, but being married to an unbeliever justifies divorce???)

66

BBC History Magazine

The Invisible Romans 

by Guy de la Bedoyere  

Rome’s slaves were brutalized, mocked, and exploited - or simply ignored. Yet the Roman Empire could hardly had functioned without the labors of this captive population…

In AD 61, Pedanius Secundus, prefect of Rome, was murdered by one of his slaves. One story had it that the killer had been denied his freedom after agreeing the price of his liberty with Pedanius. An alternative version of events claimed that he had been infatuated with another of his master’s slaves. Either way, the law was clear: the murderer would have to die. 

But the punishment didn’t end there. For, according to an ancient tradition – reinforced by a recent senatorial decision – every slave in Pedanius’s household would have to be executed, too. This grim prospect led to protests among the ordinary people of Rome, but the emperor Nero upheld the law. And so the hapless (and innocent) slaves were put to death. 

Ancient Rome was a grisly and a glamorous place. The sun was barely able to creep down the narrowest alleys beside which most Romans lived, briefly illuminating the dirt, peeling plaster and filthy streets. Only a short distance away that same sun burnished the glittering temples of the forum with their garishly painted statues of the gods, the emperors and other greats. This bustling metropolis was home to the obscenely wealthy, to the middling sort of soldiers, bakers and actors, and, at the bottom of the pile – subject to the brutalities meted out by the Roman justice system – to thousands of slaves. 

A huge proportion of the population in Rome was made up of slaves, former slaves, or the descendants of slaves. They were merely the tip of an iceberg: untold numbers worked on vast estates and mines across Italy and the empire, out of sight and out of mind. 

Even in and around Rome, slaves were both visible and invisible. They were visible in the sense that they were to be found in every home, factory and farm; invisible in the sense that most of them were simply part of the background noise of life. Just as we ignore the hum of our fridges and the buzz of electric fans, so the Romans often took little notice of the human beings whose servitude and labour made their lives possible. 

Looking the other way
The range of jobs slaves performed ranged from the hard labour of working in the mines or on vast agricultural estates to being the secretaries or personal assistants of Rome’s most senior magistrates or even the emperors. In the household a slave might find herself at the beck and call of a demanding domina (mistress) to help her dress, while also being subject to the sexual demands made by the dominus (master). The Roman general Scipio Africanus’s wife, Terentia, was highly regarded for looking the other way and ignoring her husband’s activities – if she had spoken out, she might have damaged his reputation. 

67

Slaves were also required to haul rainwater by rope out of the cistern in buckets under the atrium (hall) floor. They cooked, they tended the garden. And they fulfilled tasks like dashing out of the house carrying a tray of hot food kept warm by a brazier all the way to the Forum for the master while he dealt with politics and deals. 

Slaves arrived for sale in Rome and Italy from all over the Roman world. They formed a huge part of the booty from wars of conquest and could then be used or sold on by the generals responsible, with some soldiers also receiving an allocation. Julius Caesar had a reputation for collecting slaves of “exceptional figure and training”, and this had supposedly attracted him to invading Britain. 

There was a vast and ceaseless second-hand market in slaves. Pliny the Younger, a wealthy senator and writer in the early second century AD, received a recommendation from Plinius Paternus, probably a relative. Having looked at them himself, he wrote to say: “I think the slaves you recommended I buy look fine. The only other thing I care about is that they are honest. On this, I can only rely on their reputations rather than their appearance.” 

A writing tablet from Pompeii refers to the sale of slaves “on 13 December next… at Pompeii in the forum publicly in the daytime”. Slaves for sale could expect to be stripped and inspected by a slave dealer, usually known as a venalicius. Pliny the Younger referred to slaves casually, using the related word venalibus, which was a synonym for saleable, and in this case sentient, commodities. It’s the origin of our word venal, which now means something associated with corruption – and indeed the trade was notorious for sharp practice. 

Threats and punishments
Slave dealers had plenty of tricks up their sleeves because there was a vast amount of money to be made from the trade. Hyacinth root could be placed in sweet wine to help delay signs of puberty (how this worked, if indeed it did, is not clear) and was clearly designed to help sell a slave to a buyer interested in having children either as a decorative ornament or for sexual purposes. Castration was another method. Meanwhile, resin dissolved in oil made an ointment used by dealers to rub all over the limbs of slaves. According to Pliny, this had the effect of “relaxing the skin upon all parts of the body, and rendering it more capable of being plumped out by food”. 

One trader, Gaius Sempronius Nicocrates, detailed on his tombstone how troublesome and arduous long sea and overland journeys with slaves were. The tombstone of Aulus Caprilius Timotheus, who died around the end of the second century BC, showed his chained slaves being pulled along like mules. At least two children were involved. Timotheus, ironically, was a freedman and thus a former slave who made a living out of enslaving others. 

68

When another slave-owner, Marcus Antonius Creticus, was asked by a friend for money, Creticus gave him a silver shaving bowl and told him to make what use he could of it. His wife, Julia, was furious when the bowl was discovered to be missing. She was about to interrogate the slaves individually, believing that one of them had been responsible. Her husband had to come clean to save them from punishment. 

In a Roman household, the servile staff were seen as a potential threat to such an extent that they were automatically believed to be culprits. Of course, in practice they probably often were since theft was one way of supplementing their marginal existences. 

The poet Juvenal (cAD 55–128) slated a woman whose husband seemingly turned his back on her at night. She took out her angst at her marital woes by presiding over the beating – and execution – of their slaves. “While the flogging goes on, she daubs her face, she listens to her girlfriends or considers the measurements of a gold-embroidered gown,” wrote Juvenal. “Her household is no mellower than a Sicilian [tyrant’s] court.” 

These instances of cruelty were far from isolated. Slaves were subjected to an array of punishments. They might be punished by being sent to an ergastulum (‘slave prison’ or ‘workhouse’) throughout Italy where they had to work in the fields in chains. The managers of these establishments also increased their labourers by capturing travellers, or those trying to dodge military service. 

69

Any mutiny within the household, or an attack on an owner, could result in all the household slaves being executed – as was the case following the killing of Pedanius Secundus in AD 61. In the early second century, the emperor Hadrian had to ban masters from killing their slaves and ordered that a slave who had been accused of a capital crime should be tried by the courts instead. 

Also in around the early second century AD, Largius Macedo, a senator, was relaxing in the baths at his country villa when he was surrounded by some of his slaves. While one grabbed him by the throat, a second punched him in the face and more began to kick and trample him, including his private parts. Macedo was soon unconscious, or had the wit to pretend to be. The slaves threw him on the floor of the heated bath and decided to pretend that he had been overcome by the temperature. Macedo only survived a few days. Most of the guilty slaves were caught and would undoubtedly have been executed.

69 

The motive is the one key factor missing from Pliny the Younger’s account of the incident. But the assault on Macedo’s body, and his genitals, suggests that he had gone too far with his prerogative to impose sexual demands on the female or young male slaves.

From bondage to business
Rome differed from other slave-owning societies in the ancient world in one key respect: its relationship with its freedmen and freedwomen class. No other ancient civilisation distinguished freed slaves so clearly and in such huge numbers. Rome’s senatorial upper classes spurned the idea of earning money through commerce and trade. But by freeing selected slaves they were able to create retainers who were tied to them through personal obligation and could run businesses on their behalf. 

Freedmen and women became merchants, shop owners, managers of public baths, or pimps, and indeed almost any profession imaginable. Freedmen could not stand for office or even vote, but their sons could. Success in business enabled them to raise the funds to bankroll their sons’ political careers. 

Some freedmen did exceptionally well. Euhodus was a freedman dealer in pearls (margaritarius) who lived and worked in Rome in the second or first century BC. We have no idea whether Euhodus was thought well of or not by his family and descendants. However, he was undoubtedly impressed by himself. His epitaph reads: 

“Stranger! – stop and look at this mound to the left where the bones of a good, compassionate man and friend of those of modest means are contained. I ask that you, traveller, do nothing bad to this tomb. Gaius Ateilius Euhodus, freedman of Serranus, pearl seller on the Via Sacra, is preserved in this tomb. Farewell traveller. Under the terms of the will, it is not lawful to preserve or bury anyone in this tomb except those freedmen to whom I have granted and assigned [this].” 

Euhodus’s name was Greek. He probably came from the eastern half of the empire, perhaps being sold in a Rome slave market as a child or youth. The Via Sacra, where he sold his wares, ran through the forum in Rome. This was a prime location that brought Euhodus sufficient success that he could afford to have his tomb and epitaph prepared, free his own slaves, and offer those whom he specified in his will a place in his tomb, too. 

Just outside the Porta Maggiore in Rome is an incongruous sight. A prominent Roman tomb, made in the shape of a stack of bins for kneading dough, stands surrounded by modern streets and overhead cables, silent among the racket from the traffic that churns around it. This was the burial place of the ashes of a successful freedman (libertus) called Eurysaces who lived in the first century BC. He had a sense of humour. “It is obvious this is the tomb of Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces, baker, contractor,” proclaims the inscription. The tomb is an elaborate joke, hence the substitution of dough bins for the usual cremation urns. Eurysaces and his wife, Atistia, had made a small fortune from his nearby bakery business and was keen for everyone to know it for all eternity. 

Eurysaces’s tomb towered over a road junction and the endless cavalcade of carts, animals and pedestrians that entered and exited the ancient city on either side. It’s fascinating to stand there today and imagine the cluttered drama that took place all around it as Romans of all types from rich to poor, free and enslaved, passed by. Thanks to the boastfulness of men like Eurysaces, we have an unparalleled window on this period in the ancient world – and of the men and women who emerged from the agonies of bondage to make a success of their lives.

Guy de la Bédoyère is a historian and broadcaster. 

70

BBC History Magazine

Trapped in Servitude - Ancient Greek Slavery

Treating other humans as property was part and parcel of Greek life, with enslaved people ‘used’ across virtually all areas of society.

 Enslaved people were an integral part of society in ancient Greece. Or, rather, the work they were involuntarily charged to undertake was an integral part of society – tasks, duties and jobs that the Greek citizens were broadly loath to carry out themselves.

Servitude was widespread in Greek antiquity. Athens alone was home to an estimated 60,000–80,000 slaves during the fifth and fourth centuries BC, with each household having an average of three or four enslaved people attached to it. Athenian slaves tended to enjoy more freedom than those elsewhere. A typical Athenian slave formed part of his master’s household and was initially welcomed with ceremony, offered nuts and fruits, just as a new bride might be. While denied many of the judicial rights possessed by Athens’ citizens, Athenian slaves enjoyed a few personal liberties: they could follow their own religious customs and they couldn’t be struck by their master.

VARIED FORTUNES

But, as the property of their master, Athenian slaves could still be sold off in the blink of an eye. Even Aristotle, arguably one of Athens’ more progressive thinkers, referred to enslaved people as ktêma empsuchon – a phrase that roughly translates as ‘animate property’, or ‘property that breathes’.

If they fell on hard times, Athenians could become a slave themselves through a practice called debt enslavement. For instance, if they leased land from a landowner but fell behind on the rent payments, they would become ‘enslaved’ to that landowner until the debt had been fully paid off. Many enslaved people were foreigners who had been captured during wars; the sons of defeated enemies might also be forced into slavehood, sometimes ending up serving the clients of male brothels. Or enslaved people were simply born into servitude, resigned to a life of comparative captivity as they inherited the family ‘trade’.

71

So-called chattel slaves were those owned by a master who viewed them as his possession, while dêmosioi were public slaves owned by the state and who worked for the civic good, whether in non-manual roles, such as clerks, or undertaking more physical work, such as road construction. All, though, were united in being denied civic rights and disqualified from participating in politics.

The most common type of work for enslaved people was within the agricultural sector, although many were otherwise set to task in quarries and mines. Domestic slaves arguably had less physically demanding existences; some would accompany their masters on their travels, perhaps even being becoming informal confidantes. Enslaved people might also work in professional trades, perhaps as artisans or shopkeepers or bankers. These – known as chôris oikountes – didn’t actually live under their masters’ roofs, but did work on their behalf, and paid them a commission. Their lives would, unsurprisingly, not be as harsh as those forced into heavy manual labour every day.

So, just as there was great variety in the nature of the work undertaken, when it came to status, being an enslaved person in ancient Greece was by no means a uniform experience either; there was no neat slave/non-slave binary distinction. Several shades of grey existed. For instance, enslaved people in Sparta were known as helots (pabox, above), a group that, at least in the eyes of the scholar Pollux, occupied a status “between free men and slaves”. In the region of Thessaly, the closest equivalent to helots were penestae who, like their Spartan counterparts, were tied to the land they inhabited. While their status was similar to serfs in later medieval times, the land of Thessaly was notably fertile and uncrowded, ensuring the penestae could comfortably pay the proportion of their produce due to their masters. The third-century BC writer Archemachus even claimed that “many of them are richer than their masters”.

FINDING A WAY OUT

Enslaved people who lived and largely worked independently of their masters were those least likely to feel the iron rod of discipline. Athenian slaves, too, could be physically punished and even tortured, and enslaved people elsewhere were also subject to beatings. As the statesman and intellectual Demosthenes argued, “the body of a slave is made responsible for all his misdeeds, whereas corporal punishment is the last penalty to inflict on a free man”.

While most enslaved people remained in servitude until death, it was possible to be freed by a master – the process of manumission, or enfranchisement. In all but the most benevolent of cases, an enslaved person effectively had to buy their way to freedom for this to happen, paying their master a sum that at least equated to their value were they to be sold off to a new master. If the slave had sufficient savings to be able to do this, their emancipation was likely to be total, meaning they couldn’t be enslaved again at any point in the future.

But if, as was distinctly likely, the enslaved person didn’t have access to sufficient funds, they might request a so-called ‘friendly’ loan from their master. In these circumstances, it was probable that they would still have to fulfill particular obligations to their former master until the loan had been repaid. That is, emancipation would only be partial. Completely escaping the control of a master was an ambition seldom realized.

72

What did Jesus mean by “upon this rock I will build my church” in Matthew 16:18?

GotQuestions.org

Jesus’ words in Matthew 16:18 are the focus of an ongoing debate over who or what “the rock” is that Jesus mentions. The immediate context contains a question that Jesus put to His disciples: “Who do you say I am?” (verse 15). Peter answers, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (verse 16), to which Jesus replies, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it” (verses 17–18).

Is “this rock” on which Christ promised to build His church Peter? Is it Peter’s faith? Is it the truth of Peter’s statement? Or is the rock Jesus Himself? In all honesty, there is no way for us to be 100 percent sure which view is correct.

First view: the rock is Peter

One view is that Jesus was declaring that Peter would be the “rock” on which He would build His church. Jesus appears to be using a play on words. “You are Peter [petros] and on this rock [petra] I will build my church.” Since Peter’s name means “rock,” and Jesus is going to build His church on a rock, it appears that Christ means to link Peter with the founding of the church. It’s true that God used Peter greatly in the foundation of the church. It was Peter who first proclaimed the gospel on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:14–47). Peter was also the first to take the gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 10:1–48). In a sense, Peter was the rock “foundation” of the church.

Second view: the rock is the truth contained in Peter’s statement

Another popular interpretation is that the rock Jesus was referring to is not Peter, but Peter’s statement in Matthew 16:16: “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” In this view, the “rock” is the truthfulness of that statement—the church is built on the rock-solid truth that Jesus is God’s Chosen One and the eternal Son of God. In confessing Jesus as the Christ, Peter, the “rock,” was demonstrating his own stability as he stood on that truth. He was, in a way, showing his character and why Jesus nicknamed him “Cephas” or “Peter” (see John 1:42).

Third view: the rock is Peter’s faith

Jesus had never explicitly taught the disciples the fullness of His identity, and so it was God who had sovereignly opened Peter’s eyes to that revelation. Jesus marks the source of that truth in Matthew 16:17. Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God poured forth from him as a heartfelt declaration of personal faith. Since personal faith in Christ is the hallmark of the true Christian, those who place their faith in Christ, as Peter did, are the church. Peter, writing to believers dispersed through the ancient world, likens them to stones used to build the church: “As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:4–5). The faith of believers is what makes them “living stones” able to be built into the church.

73

Fourth view: the rock is Jesus

After Jesus declares that God the Father had revealed the truth to Peter, He says, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18). The word for “Peter,” Petros, is a masculine noun that means “a detached stone, a stone that might be thrown or easily moved” (Zodhiates, S., The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament, AMG Publishers, 1992, p. 1,154). The word for “rock” next mentioned is a different Greek word, petra, a feminine noun that means “a mass of rock” or “a cliff” and therefore something foundational (ibid.; see also Matthew 7:24–25). The difference in the two terms may suggest that Jesus was contrasting Peter with Himself. That is, Jesus was saying, “You are the small rock, but I am the foundation of the church.” This view finds support in other passages that present Christ, not Peter, as the foundation of the church (1 Corinthians 3:11) and the life-giving rock (1 Corinthians 10:4).

Of course, the apostles played a foundational role in the building of the church, but the role of primacy is reserved for Christ alone. So, Jesus’ words in Matthew 16:18 are best interpreted as a simple play on words: a boulder-like, foundational truth came from the mouth of one who was called a small stone.

Christ Himself is called the “chief cornerstone” (1 Peter 2:6–7; cf. Matthew 21:42). The chief cornerstone of any building was that upon which a building is anchored. If Christ declared Himself to be the cornerstone, how could Peter be the rock upon which the church was built? Believers are the stones that make up the church. They are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets (not just Peter) and anchored to the Cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20). “The one who trusts in [Christ] will never be put to shame” (1 Peter 2:6).

The Roman Catholic Church argues that Peter is the rock upon which Jesus built His church, confers upon Peter the title of pope, and claims to be the one true church. As we have seen, however, identifying the rock as Peter is not the only valid interpretation of Matthew 16:18. Even if Peter is the rock upon which Jesus promised to build His church, it does not give the Roman Catholic Church any authority. Scripture nowhere records Peter being in Rome. Scripture nowhere describes Peter as being supreme over the other apostles. The New Testament does not describe Peter as being the all-authoritative leader of the early church. The origin of the Catholic Church is not in the teachings of Peter or any other apostle. If Peter truly was the founder of the Roman Catholic Church, it would be in full agreement with what Peter taught (Acts 2, 1 Peter, 2 Peter).

74

 Is There a Christian Litmus Test?

Obery Hendricks, Jr.  Christians Against Christianity

Is there a Christian Litmus Test?  A Litmus Test for Politics?  Do these views define a Christian?  Are these the TRUE FAMILY VALUES that define a Christian?

It does NOT MATTER how much one attempts to love their neighbor or responds to the needs of the weak and vulnerable.  What matters is that a person is:

1. Anti abortion

2. Anti divorce

3. Anti LGBTQ

4. Anti IVF

Note that NOWHERE does Jesus define or even SUGGEST a dogmatic religious litmus test as requirements for following him, let alone a test to determine if one is fit for heaven.  NOT ONCE did Jesus say that God would judge anyone based on adherence to any particular creed.  In fact, in the entire gospel, Jesus says virtually NOTHING about what to believe.  

What Jesus DID teach were 2 ethical precepts: Love the Lord your God and Love your neighbor as yourself - better stated as TREAT THE PEOPLE’S NEEDS AS HOLY.

Matthew 25:31-46    The Sheep and the Goats

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,  I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

75

 Homosexuality in Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman Cultures

EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW 

ABOUT ANCIENT GREECE

BBC History Magazine

Q: Why were homosexuality and bisexuality accepted in ancient Greece but not in Rome?

A: It’s very, very hard to say. I think one possible explanation is that if you conquer a people and you think yourself, therefore, superior to them, you look for the things that differentiate your civilisation from theirs. And the Romans singled out their abhorrence, their rejection, of this ‘deviant custom’ of homosexuality among the Greeks, which they thought was effeminate. So I think that’s the answer: the Romans conquered the Greeks; Greeks were therefore seen as feeble; and one manifestation of their feebleness was seen to be their acceptance of homosexuality.

Homosexuality in Ancient Greece

In cities such as Sparta and Thebes, there appeared to be a particularly strong emphasis on relationships between men and youths, and it was considered an important part of their education. On the night of their wedding, Spartan wives were expected to lie in a dark room and dress as a man - presumably to help their husbands make the transition from homosexual to heterosexual love. While in Thebes, the general Epaminondas commanded a regiment composed of 150 pairs of lovers. This 'Band of Lovers' became a formidable fighting force, with lover defending lover until death. 

Homosexuality in the Roman Empire

Wikipedia

Homosexuality in ancient Rome often differs markedly from the contemporary West. Latin lacks words that would precisely translate "homosexual" and "heterosexual". The primary dichotomy of ancient Roman sexuality was active / dominant / masculine and passive / submissive / feminine. Roman society was patriarchal, and the freeborn male citizen possessed political liberty (libertas) and the right to rule both himself and his household (familia). "Virtue" (virtus) was seen as an active quality through which a man (vir) defined himself. The conquest mentality and "cult of virility" shaped same-sex relations. Roman men were free to enjoy sex with other males without a perceived loss of masculinity or social status as long as they took the dominant or penetrative role. Acceptable male partners were slaves and former slaves, prostitutes, and entertainers, whose lifestyle placed them in the nebulous social realm of infamia, so they were excluded from the normal protections accorded to a citizen even if they were technically free. Freeborn male minors were off limits at certain periods in Rome.

Same-sex relations among women are far less documented and, if Roman writers are to be trusted, female homoeroticismmay have been very rare, to the point that Ovid, in the Augustine era describes it as "unheard-of". However, there is scattered evidence—for example, a couple of spells in the Greek Magical Papyri—which attests to the existence of individual women in Roman-ruled provinces in the later Imperial period who fell in love with members of the same sex.

Overview:

During the Republic, a Roman citizen's political liberty (libertas) was defined in part by the right to preserve his body from physical compulsion, including both corporal punishment and sexual abuse. Roman society was patriarchal (see paterfamilias), and masculinity was premised on a capacity for governing oneself and others of lower status.[6]Virtus, "valor" as that which made a man most fully a man, was among the active virtues. Sexual conquest was a common metaphor for imperialism in Roman discourse, and the "conquest mentality" was part of a "cult of virility" that particularly shaped Roman homosexual practices. Roman ideals of masculinity were thus premised on taking an active role that was also, as Craig A. Williams has noted, "the prime directive of masculine sexual behavior for Romans". In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, scholars have tended to view expressions of Roman male sexuality in terms of a "penetrator-penetrated" binary model; that is, the proper way for a Roman male to seek sexual gratification was to insert his penis into his partner.Allowing himself to be penetrated threatened his liberty as a free citizen as well as his sexual integrity.

Then again… Apollo, the god of sun and music, is considered the patron of same sex love, as he had many male lovers and was often invoked to bless homosexual unions.

76

Homosexuality, the Bible, and Christianity

Evangelism and Apologetics  What about homosexuality?   

(Statements, opinions, quotations, Bible references meant to stir the mind and initiate the discussion on same sex relationships and homosexuality.  From 3+ years of religious and Bible studies.)

Leviticus. 20:13 If a man lies with another man as one lies with a woman he must be put to death.  Their blood will be on their own hands.

“For Christians, the problem is not how to reconcile homosexuality with scriptural passages that condemn it, but how to reconcile the rejection and punishment of homosexuals with the love of Christ.”

-- William Sloane Coffin

Why does discussion about LBGTQ always go straight to intimate acts and not about a loving relationship?

What bothers people?  What is the sin?  Attraction of love of the same sex or the intimate acts they may (or may not) perform?  Were arranged marriages by parents, mainly the father, where love may not even be involved (pretty much the norm in Biblical times - Did Joseph “love” Mary?  Is “old Joe” what Mary had in mind for her life?  Or was she told “that’s gonna be your man.”) better than love between 2 people of the same sex?

Rep. Ted Lieu:  This is how many words Jesus spoke about homosexuality… followed by 20 seconds of silence…

1 Timothy 1:10  Compare the King James version to the NIV to the Fresh Start Bible.  We have gone from “immorality” to full blown condemnation of homosexuality.  …it’s always the sex part…

An aside: What causes “love?”  According to Dr Helen Fisher, a renowned anthropologist, there are 3 distinct phases of falling in love.

Stage 1: Lust is driven by the levels of testosterone (men) and estrogen (women) in our bodies. This isn’t so different from other mammals on the planet.

(The initial happy feelings of being in love is stimulated by 3 chemicals in the brain: noradrenaline that stimulates adrenaline production causing that racing heart and sweaty palms; dopamine, the feel-good chemical; and phenylethylamine that is released when we're near our crush, giving us butterflies in our tummies.)

77

Stage 2: Attraction is similar in feeling to the effect of certain drugs or alcohol. The emotion of euphoria, and the release of a jumble of chemicals in the brain, including dopamine (pleasure), adrenaline (fight or flight) and norepinephrine (alertness), can make falling in love feel like an addictive rush. Adrenaline, in particular, is the reason your cheeks feel flushed, your palms feel sweaty and your heart races when you meet someone you like for the first time.

Stage 3: Attachment sees the release of dopamine and norepinephrine replaced with oxytocin (the ‘cuddle’ hormone), which is when you may begin to feel closely bonded and start making long-term plans together.

While the 3 phases of love might seem straightforward, there are several other factors that affect who you end up falling in love with. Many of us say we have a ‘type’, but is that true? Here are 4 scientific reasons why you might fall in love with someone.

Their smell.   How similar they are to you.  Their appearance.  Their BMI (body mass index).

More:  Reasons for love: intimacy, passion and commitment. 

What are the main signs of love? Here's what these feelings might look like in action.

1. You feel charged and euphoric around them. …

2. You can't wait to see them again — even when they've just left. …

3. Everything feels exciting and new. …

4. You always make time for them. …

5. You don't mind making sacrifices for them. …

6. You have fantastic sex. …

7. You idealize them.

Six Biblical Passages That Discuss LGTBQ Issues

While the six passages that address same-sex eroticism in the ancient world are negative about the practices they mention, there is no evidence that these in any way speak to same-sex relationships of love and mutuality. To the contrary, the amount of cultural, historical and linguistic data surrounding how sexuality in the cultures of the biblical authors operated demonstrates that what was being condemned in the Bible is very different than the committed same-sex partnerships we know and see today. The stories of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19) and the Levite’s concubine (Judges 19) are about sexual violence and the Ancient Near East’s stigma toward violating male honor. The injunction that “man must not lie with man” (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13) coheres with the context of a society anxious about their health, continuing family lineages, and retaining the distinctiveness of Israel as a nation. Each time the New Testament addresses the topic in a list of vices (1 Corinthians 6:9, 1 Timothy 1:10), the argument being made is more than likely about the sexual exploitation of young men by older men, a practice called pederasty, and what we read in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans is a part of a broader indictment against idolatry and excessive, self-centered lust that is driven by desire to “consume” rather than to love and to serve as outlined for Christian partnership elsewhere in the Bible. While it is likely that Jews and Christians in the 1st century had little to no awareness of a category like sexual orientation, this doesn’t mean that the biblical authors were wrong. What it does mean, at a minimum, is that continued opposition toward same-sex relationships and LGBTQ+ identities must be based on something other than these biblical texts, which brings us back to a theology of Christian marriage or partnership.

78

Marriage of a Couple Compared to Christ and the Church

Evangelicals have a core belief that sex differentiation is an indispensable part of Christian marriage. The latter being of tremendous importance, because according to the New Testament, marriage is a primary symbol of the love between Christ and his beloved “bride,” the church. To them, same-sex couples (and single people for that matter) are uniquely excluded from participation in this symbol on the basis of a failure to perform one or more dimensions of an often vague category referred to as ‘gender complementarity.’ 

And yet, those who are not married but are not LGBTQ+, like single people or people whose spouses have passed, are embraced as Christians.

Is the larger point that God’s design for Christian partnership is about reflecting the truest and sweetest love that anyone could know; that is the self-giving, ever-enduring, liberating love between God and creation made possible for us through Christ?

(This is a profound comparison.  However, it raises this question:  At the time, and in Israel’s past as well, marriages were ARRANGED by the parents.  Love may have had little or NO factor in a marriage.  In fact it appears LOVE is way down the list of importance in a marriage, purity of the religion and producing a son-heir being FAR more important.) 

(Was Jesus rejected by encouraging marriage based on LOVE and not on PURITY OF THE RELIGION  and PRODUCING A SON-HEIR with pure Jewish blood?  Jesus, then Paul to an even greater extent, advocated for LOVE.  For devotion to spouse and to family.  Wouldn’t this put a risk to the ever ending power of the religious leaders?  Put an end, eventually after many generations, to the purity of the Jewish people?)

John 8:1-8 reinterpreted

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a man caught in relations with another man. They made him stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this man was caught in the act of homosexuality. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such men. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first first to throw a stone at her.” 

One of the Pharisees bent down to grab a stone anyway and when he stood up he looked at the accused. “This man is my son.” And then he ??????

I wonder why Jesus never addressed circumcision in the Gospels since I think he knew it would be the biggest theological hurdle the disciples would face. But now I see it was purposeful. The life and ministry of Jesus showed the disciples how to read Scripture and apply it in a way that doesn’t exclude, but instead offered life to as many people as possible. So even though the disciples knew what Genesis said about circumcision being an eternal sign of the covenant between God and the people of Israel, the disciples chose to remove the requirement of circumcision. They said that there shouldn’t be a stumbling block for those who choose faith in Christ. 

*****If Romans 1 doesn’t address woman with woman relationships, then there are no passages in all of Scripture that condemn intimacy between women. This would make sense because much of the understanding behind what was “natural” is that sex ought to lead to procreation. Culturally, marriage between Roman citizens was valued primarily for cementing one’s status as the head of a household and contributing to society by opening the avenue for procreation. A marriage ensured offspring you could impart your inheritance to. So men pursued marriage and women accepted it not primarily because they fell in love, or because of attraction, but for social status and for procreation. Unlike today, Roman marriages were not based on romantic attraction. A marriage was the result of two families coming together to agree on an arrangement. People whose marriage was arranged for them didn’t have a valid objection if their sole reason for not wanting to marry was because they weren’t in love. Having children was considered a social responsibility to one’s family and to the Empire. So one significant reason why gay marriage wasn’t addressed in Scripture was because it wasn’t a cultural issue; marriage between two people of the same gender was out of the question, since romantic feelings were not the reason for marriage—procreation was. 

79 

*****What did Jesus teach?  

Matthew 5:28 But I say to you everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent (is this “she is beautiful, attractive, hot?” or is it “I want to have sexual relations with her?”) has already committed adultery in his heart.  (Are women allowed to ogle a man???  Or is she just not allowed to lustfully desire another woman?)

Matthew 15:19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality (what is that?  Any sex other than for procreation?  Who decides this?  St. Augie thought ALL sex was a result of lust, so all sex other than procreative efforts - and you evidently need forgiveness for THAT! - is EVIL!), theft, false witness, slander.

More on Augustin:  Augustin of Hippo - the 5th century.  A slave to his own sensuality, uncontrollable sexual desires.  Romans 13 changed him.  He became chaste.  He felt Paul tormented as much as himself.  Pelagius, an Irish monk, felt that Jesus was a moral teacher who showed us the way.  Man can do good.  Augustin was outraged!  He felt humans ARE INCAPABLE OF DOING GOOD UNLESS THEY ARE SAVED BY THE GRACE OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST.   

The good:  The teacher of grace, an important interpretation of Paul.

The bad:  Human depravity - especially human sexuality - is the problem.  

Theory: Homosexuality is a learned behavior.  

You are not “hard-wired” to be homosexual.  But…  from DTS lectures.

Corinthians DTS  Tom Constable worked as a counselor at a summer Bible camp and wanted to continue that position so he could counsel the campers.  The staff kept giving him administrative positions.  He was told because they recognized his ADMINISTRATIVE GIFTS from God.  He had to accept that HE WAS HARDWIRED TO BE AN ADMINISTRATOR.  As homosexuals try to explain that they are HARDWIRED to their preference for a partner.

The Story of Scripture  Mark Yarborough  Week 7  I need to get outdoors sometimes to be with God – JUST THE WAY HE IS WIRED.

Judging homosexuals:  BEWARE (he without sin…)

Leviticus 20:13  If a man lies with a man as he lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable.  THEY MUST BE PUT TO DEATH.  (See Romans 1.  In the same vein those of sexual immorality DESERVE DEATH.)

All other sexual taboos – most requiring death, are listed in Leviticus 20.  Beware of judging homosexuals.  If you: have sex during a woman’s period, if a man commits adultery, if a person turns to a spiritist or medium, if a person curses his mother or father, they must be put to death.  If a man marries his brother’s wife (WAIT!  I thought a man HAD to marry his brother’s wife if the brother died… Matthew 22:24 …Moses told us if a man dies without having children, his brother MUST marry the widow and have children for him…) they will be cursed.  

Leviticus 24:17  If anyone takes the life of a human being he must be put to death (including the one who KILLS THE HOMOSEXUAL COUPLE?  And the guy who kills HIM?  Pretty soon EVERYBODY is gonna be dead.

Leviticus 24:20  ...fracture for fracture, eye for an eye.  (Thank heavens for Jesus!)

Follow these laws.  KILL these offenders or I will evict you from “THEIR LAND” which I have given to you.  (God gave the chosen people SOMEONE ELSE’S LAND!)  

80

Christian Doctrine 

by Shirley Guthrie

Sexual, racial, and cultural differences are not bad in themselves, they contribute to the richness and variety in God’s world.  But they become demonic when such attributes result in sexism, racism, and classism that seeks to humiliate or destroy, even wipe out, such people with whom one disagrees.  We are ALL created in God’s image.  

Take a culture like Jamaica where religion is front and center in people’s lives but adultery and procreating children with no intention of raising them (on the part of the father) is pretty much the way of life there.  

More Guthrie:  Pg 202  Man is made in God’s image, MALE and FEMALE.  This defines our humanity.  Does God have male or female attributes?  Or both?  Or none?  Guthrie postulates NONE.  Second point, marriage or being sexually active does not define humanity.  One may be human without engaging in either.  Relationships do NOT have to be between male and female to be human.  The Bible has MANY same sex relationships - Ruth and Naomi, David and Jonathan, Jesus and his disciples.  Does the Bible question homosexual relationships as “immoral”?  How much does translation, societal norms, interpretation, medical advancement have to do with how we define the term “immoral behavior?”  

Why do same sex relationships go straight to “Sexual Activity?”  

81

A thousand years ago, the Catholic Church 

paid little attention to homosexuality

Published: April 10, 2019 6:49am EDT

Author:  Lisa McClain, Professor of History and Gender Studies, Boise State University 

Pope Francis has spoken openly about homosexuality. In a recent interview, the pope said that homosexual tendencies “are not a sin.” And a few years ago, in comments made during an in-flight interview, he said,

“If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”

However, the pope has also discouraged homosexual men from entering the priesthood. He categorically stated in another interview that for one with homosexual tendencies, the “ministry or the consecrated life is not his place.”

Many gay priests, when interviewed by The New York Times, characterized themselves as being in a “cage” as a result of the church’s policies on homosexuality.

As a scholar specializing in the history of the Catholic Church and gender studies, I can attest that 1,000 years ago, gay priests were not so restricted. In earlier centuries, the Catholic Church paid little attention to homosexual activity among priests or laypeople.

While the church’s official stance prohibiting sexual relations between people of the same sex has remained constant, the importance the church ascribes to the “sin” has varied. Additionally, over centuries, the church only sporadically chose to investigate or enforce its prohibitions.

Prior to the 12th century, it was possible for priests – even celebrated ones like the 12th-century abbot and spiritual writer St. Aelred of Riveaulx – to write openly about same-sex desire, and ongoing emotional and physical relationships with other men.

Biblical misunderstandings

The Bible places as little emphasis on same-sex acts as the early church did, even though many Christians may have been taught that the Bible clearly prohibits homosexuality.

Judeo-Christian scriptures rarely mention same-sex sexuality. Of the 35,527 verses in the Catholic Bible, only seven – 0.02% – are sometimes interpreted as prohibiting homosexual acts.

Even within those, apparent references to same-sex relations were not originally written or understood as categorically indicting homosexual acts, as in modern times. Christians before the late 19th century had no concept of gay or straight identity.

For example, Genesis 19 records God’s destruction of two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, by “sulphur and fire” for their wickedness. For 1,500 years after the writing of Genesis, no biblical writers equated this wickedness with same-sex acts. Only in the first century A.D. did a Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, first mistakenly equate Sodom’s sin with same-sex sexuality.

 82

It took centuries for a Christian consensus to agree with Philo’s misinterpretation, and it eventually became the accepted understanding of this scripture, from which the derogatory term “sodomite” emerged.

Today, however, theologians generally affirm that the wickedness God punished was the inhabitants’ arrogance and lack of charity and hospitality, not any sex act.

Religious scholars have similarly researched the other six scriptures that Christians in modern times claim justify God’s categorical condemnation of all same-sex acts. They have uncovered how similar mistranslations, miscontextualizations, and misinterpretations have altered the meanings of these ancient scriptures to legitimate modern social prejudices against homosexuality.

For example, instead of labeling all homosexual acts as sinful in the eyes of God, ancient Christians were concerned about excesses of behavior that might separate believers from God. The apostle Paul criticized same-sex acts along with a list of immoderate behaviors, such as gossip and boastfulness, that any believer could overindulge in.

He could not have been delivering a blanket condemnation of homosexuality or homosexuals because these concepts would not exist for 1,800 more years.

Gay sex, as such, usually went unpunished

Early church leaders didn’t seem overly concerned about punishing those who engaged in homosexual practice. I have found that there is a remarkable silence about homosexual acts, both in theologies and in church laws for over 1,000 years, before the late 12th century.

When early Christian commentators such as John Chrysostom, one of the most prolific biblical writers of the fourth century, criticized homosexual acts, it was typically part of an ascetic condemnation of all sexual experiences.

Moreover, it was generally not the sex act itself that was sinful but some consequence, such as how participating in an act might violate social norms like gender hierarchies. Social norms dictated that men be dominant and women passive in most circumstances.

If a man took on the passive role in a same-sex act, he took on the woman’s role. He was “unmasculine and effeminate,” a transgression of the gender hierarchy that Philo of Alexandria called the “greatest of all evils.” The concern was to police gender roles rather than sex acts, in and of themselves.

Before the mid-12th century, the church grouped sodomy among many sins involving lust, but their penalties for same sex-relations were very lenient if they existed or were enforced at all.

Church councils and penance manuals show little concern over the issue. In the early 12th century, a time of church revival, reform and expansion, prominent priests and monks could write poetry and letters glorifying love and passion – even physical passion – toward those of the same sex and not be censured.

Instead, it was civil authorities that eventually took serious interest in prosecuting the offenders.

 83

The years of hostility

By the end of the 12th century, the earlier atmosphere of relative tolerance began to change. Governments and the Catholic Church were growing and consolidating greater authority. They increasingly sought to regulate the lives – even private lives – of their subjects.

The Third Lateran Council of 1179, a church council held at the Lateran palace in Rome, for example, outlawed sodomy. Clerics who practiced it were either to be defrocked or enter a monastery to perform penance. Laypeople were more harshly punished with excommunication.

It might be mentioned that such hostility grew, not only toward people engaging in same-sex relations but toward other minority groups as well. Jews, Muslims and lepers also faced rising levels of persecution.

While church laws and punishments against same-sex acts grew increasingly harsh, they were, at first, only sporadically enforced. Influential churchmen, such as 13th-century theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas and popular preacher Bernardino of Siena, known as the “Apostle of Italy,” disagreed about the severity of sin involved.

By the 15th century, however, the church conformed to social opinions and became more vocal in condemning and prosecuting homosexual acts, a practice that continues to today.

Priests fear retribution today

Today, the Catholic Catechism teaches that desiring others of the same sex is not sinful but acting on those desires is.

As the Catechism says, persons with such desires should remain chaste and “must be accepted with respect and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.” Indeed, Catholic ministries such as DignityUSA and New Ways Ministries seek to serve and advocate for this population.

Yet gay priests are in a different category. They live and work under mandatory celibacy, often in same-sex religious orders. Pope Francis I has encouraged them to be “perfectly responsible” to avoid scandal, while discouraging other gay men from entering the priesthood.

Many fear retribution if they cannot live up to this ideal. For the estimated 30-40% of U.S priests who are gay, the openness of same-sex desire among clerics of the past is but a memory.

84

The American family moving to Russia to flee 

‘moral decline’ of US

Marc Bennetts       August 16 2024, The Times

Kremlin claims the Heyers from New York — part of a steady trickle of western citizens relocating — believe they are safer in Moscow after being granted asylum in their new homeland

The middle-aged American held up his blue Russian residency permit for the cameras and expressed his gratitude to the Kremlin for allowing his family to escape from the United States to Moscow. 

“I feel like I’ve been put on an arc of safety for my family,” Leo Heyer said in a video published by the Russian interior ministry. “The person I want to thank is President Vladimir Putin for allowing Russia to become a good place for families in this world climate.” His wife, Chantel, said: “In a small way, it feels as if I just got married to Russia.” 

The Heyers, along with their three school-age children, were granted asylum in Russia this week after fleeing “moral decline” in their homeland, state media said. 

Irina Volk, the interior ministry spokeswoman, said they were a Christian family who had decided to move to Russia due to fears about the “abolition of traditional moral and family values” in American society. “[They] were concerned about the future that awaited their children. They say it is safer here and the level of education is better,” she said. 

Very little is known about the couple apart from that they come from New York. Neither of them appear to have social media accounts and Moscow did not reveal their children’s names or ages. They are planning to apply for Russian citizenship, the interior ministry said.

Extracting Americans from Russia’s brutal prisons has proven a major diplomatic challenge for the United States, requiring it to hand over spies, a Kremlin-linked arms dealer and a convicted FSB assassin to secure their freedom. The White House has accused Moscow of seizing Americans to use as “bargaining chips” in prisoner swaps, while the US state department has repeatedly warned against travelling to Russia.

Yet despite the obvious risks, a small but steady trickle of western citizens are relocating to Russia, drawn by the Kremlin’s depiction of the country as a bastion of Christian values. In recent years Putin has told his people that Russia is engaged in an existential battle with the West for the future of humanity’s soul. He has accused western countries of of “Satanic” LGBT-friendly policies that he says have destroyed the traditional family unit. 

The Kremlin recently outlawed the “international LGBT movement” as an extremist organisation, even though no such group exists. It has also enshrined the concept of marriage as a union between a man and a woman in its constitution. 

 85

On social media, Americans and Europeans actively seek advice on how to move to Russia. This week a woman from Texas wrote on a Facebook group called Expats in Russia that she was planning to move to the country with her family to escape “fake people, politics interjected into everything, [and a] lack of family values”. She also claimed there was no such thing in Russia as racial discrimination.

Some of the westerners who hope to begin new lives in Russia appear to have little knowledge of the country. “Is it possible to move and live in Russia as an American citizen? What jobs are available? Where do I go to apply? Then what would I need to do to get to Russia?” read another recent post. 

Arend and Anneesa Feenstra, a couple from Canada who moved to Russia this year with their eight children to get away from “LGBT ideology”, ran into difficulties when their bank accounts were frozen. Anneesa posted an angry video to YouTube saying that she was “disappointed” in Russia and was ready to “jump on a plane and get out of here”. The couple, who remain in Russia, later deleted the video and apologised. 

Putin’s depiction of Russia as a stronghold of traditional Christian family lifestyles is not backed up by the facts. About a third of Russian families have been abandoned by their fathers, according to official statistics. Half of all marriages end in divorce, with infidelity, poverty and alcohol cited as the leading causes. 

The Kremlin has also allowed the imposition of strict Islamic laws in Chechnya, where women are forced to cover their heads and the sale of alcohol is banned. Putin’s government has even cracked down, often violently, on its own citizens who adhere to Christian faiths other than Russian Orthodoxy. 

The stories of couples like the Heyers who move to Russia on ideological grounds have echoes of the western citizens who relocated to the Soviet Union to help Moscow “build communism”. Many ended up in Gulag labour camps when Joseph Stalin unleashed his campaign of political terror in the 1930s. 

Note:  This is not a new phenomenon.  From Christians Against Christianity/Hendricks, Jr. pages 57-58: In 1977 Anita Bryant unleashed attacks against Miami, FL’s gay community telling the Cuban community that gays were “recruiting their children to homosexuality.  Miama was becoming a second Sodom and Gommorah and the Cubans would have to flee again and RETURN TO CASTRO’S CUBA to escape them.”

86

Opinion | The Bible verse proving anti-LGBTQ 

Methodists have not truly read the Bible

Dec. 31, 2023, 6:00 AM EST.   by Robert Allan Hill | MSNBC Opinion Columnist

On Dec. 31, the United Methodist Church will officially complete its realignment, a period of several years during which congregations could vote to leave the denomination. Up to a quarter of American congregations have chosen this option. The percentage of churches and percentage of congregants is not the same — it may be a smaller percentage of actual members who split off — but this schism has changed the shape of Methodism. And yet, while the schism will bring challenges, it also has provided a way forward for the vast majority of members to affirm and love its LGBTQ members, as well as their many family members and other allies.

Like other Protestant denominations (for example the Episcopal, Presbyterian and Lutheran churches), the United Methodist Church has faced decades of conflict, largely over the full humanity of gay people. Also like other denominations, after years of national and other meetings, the denomination has at long last come to a conclusive point after deliberations by the General Conference (the church's governing body). 

These divisions are by no means a surprise, and in fact have existed openly since at least 1970. Over the past 50 years, the question of how to treat LGBTQ Methodists has been debated, avoided, postponed — and dreaded — since before I entered the ministry in 1979.

Politics has played a clear role here, as it has in church decisions for the more than 200-year history of Methodism. The United Methodist Church has always been the most national, most representative Protestant denomination, with at least one church in every county in the United States.

Given this reality, LGBTQ rights is not the only wedge issue dividing the denomination. Our current Book of Discipline affirms a moderate pro-choice position on abortion, something many of those leaving the denomination similarly oppose. Methodism also has a long track record of advocacy for the rights of women, including the right to ordination, which some of those leaving the denomination oppose. And even broader cultural issues related to lifestyle, parenting and schooling have percolated not only through the body politic of the country, but also through the community and communities of faith.

There is a direct relation and correlation between the denominational debates and national political currents. Some of this is simply the societal: John and Mary argue at the school board meeting on Tuesday evening and then worship together on Sunday morning. But it’s also tied to differing churchgoers’ divergent perspectives on local versus national authority, and state versus federal authority.

Having had the privilege of preaching from 10 different pulpits, I’ve observed just how localized and culturally distinctive each congregation becomes, in matters great and not so great. 

But while our faith communities, like our country, have become polarized across a wide range of issues, differing stances on gay rights have contributed most directly to the current denominational move forward. This is an issue that is biblically misunderstood. There are, in all 66 books of the Bible, including both Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament, some 30,000 verses. Exactly six of those — six out of 30,000 — arguably have anything directly to say about same-gender relationships. It was not exactly a central theme for the biblical writers.

But what makes this matter so devilish for modern Methodism is not the utter paucity of any biblical material related to this theme, but rather the very clear, centrally admonished teaching otherwise. Take Galatians 3:28, often a favorite verse for conservatives. Paul writes: “In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female." Martin Luther called Galatians “the Magna Carta of Christian liberty.” And in it, Paul very clearly sets aside religious, economic and sexual distinctions, on the power of the unity of faith, of baptism and the Gospel of Christ. “There is no male and female,” but rather the unity of faith, hope and love in the person of Christ, crucified and risen. (For more analysis on this topic, see J.L. Martyn’s magisterial “Anchor Yale Bible Commentary.”)

Thus, many of those now leaving the denomination, purportedly on biblical grounds, have apparently not read all of the Bible, or at least have not read some parts of it carefully, faithfully and fully, especially Galatians 3:28 and similar passages within the full and fully liberating arc of biblical theology.

Nevertheless, the separation is happening. And for the future, that means hard work for Methodism. It means the ongoing struggle to support urban ministry with poor and underprivileged people, the struggle to support growing churches in Africa and Asia, the struggle to support summer camping ministries, campus ministries, elder care ministries and many other forms of service that our connectional system has effectively and efficiently provided over decades, will have to go on with fewer people, churches and far less money. We will have to cut in all these mission-driven areas and of course in many other administrative ones (number of Bishops, superintendents and other).

Politics is downstream from economics, which is downstream from culture, which is downstream from religion (and here I mean religion very broadly construed).  What happens in religion really matters, and it both conditions and reflects the broader American landscape, for good or ill or very ill. Our divisions flow downstream into others.The work of the church will get more difficult after today. But 2024 also brings a new day, a chance for creative repositioning, a moment for younger clergy coming of age to find their voice and influence, and the kind of freedom that comes with change.

87

What Does Romans 13 Mean?

(Do you willingly submit to authorities?  Continue to speak the truth despite what the authorities say, even if you create conflict?   Or do you shake off the dust and move on to a more receptive audience?)

In Romans 12, Paul described what it means to be a living-sacrifice Christian. In short, it mostly has to do with setting ourselves aside to serve the Lord, each other, and even our enemies in love. 

Now Paul turns to the issue of how Christians who are saved by God's grace should interact with our present governments. He describes the biblical doctrine of submission to human authorities, something Peter also teaches (1 Peter 2:13–17). Again, those in Christ are called to set themselves aside and to trust God to provide what is needed through those in authority, whether good or evil. 

Paul is clear that this applies to every person. He calls for us to be in submission to government authorities, though he does not say that we must obey them in all cases. Paul and the other apostles refused to obey commands from people in authority to stop preaching the gospel, for instance (Acts 5:27–29). They did, however, submit to those in authority in all matters that were not in contradiction to the will of God. 

Why should we submit? Paul is clear: Every authority in the world was established by God. This would include, of course, good leaders, evil leaders, and everyone in-between. Paul's instruction here, then, is not about blind nationalism or absolute obedience to men. Rather, it is a recognition that human government—in general—is a legitimate authority, and that Christians cannot use their faith as an excuse for civil lawlessness. God puts all leaders in place for the specific reasons Paul will describe in the following verses. 

We should remember that Paul is writing this letter to Christians in Rome. The government of Rome ruled much of the known world at the time. It was led by the Emperor Nero from AD 54–68. Nero is famous for his cruel and unfair treatment of Christians, among other groups. We must not assume that Paul is writing these words lightly. He was aware of the implications of his teaching.

Well this raises a lot of questions. Like Hitler. Putin. Trump. Raiding abortion clinics.   Slavery. Misogyny. If we are not to rebel WERE THE FOUNDING FATHERS SINNERS???

AND:  When is the only time it is justifiable to kill?  THOU SHALT NOT KILL…

Romans 13:4  For he (the authority, the government) is God’s servant to do you good.  But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing.  He is God’s servant, an angel of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.  (What say we to Hitler?  Stalin?  Capital punishment?  What would Jesus say??)

88

 Another take:

Context Is Key to Interpreting Romans 13:1-7  

by David May | May 9, 2012 | Opinion

A critical factor for biblical interpretation is context, context, context. Nowhere is this point truer than Romans 13:1-7.

As Robert Parham’s recent editorial, “Romans 13 Is Weak Proof-Text for Anti-Immigration Church Members,” illustrates, Romans 13 is often the go-to proof-text for urging compliance with and allegiance to government authority.

But here is the rub: Romans 13 has absolutely nothing to do with one’s relationship to the government, whether the Roman Empire in the first century or any government today.

That’s right: We have misunderstood, misapplied and missed the point of these verses all because we have divorced them from the original context.

The original Judean context, specifically believers worshiping in the Roman synagogues, makes all the difference in the world how verses 1-7 are understood.

Let me illustrate this neglected context. First, rarely does a reader consider it odd that these few verses suddenly appear out of nowhere related to the Roman Empire and taxes.

Paul has spent chapter after chapter focused on internal community issues related to Judeans and Gentile believers. Why does Paul change direction from dealing with these issues and digress to a totally off-the-wall subject about Roman rule?

He doesn’t. We have wrenched these verses out of their Judean context and made them service a de-Judaized interpretation – a thing they were never meant to do.

Mark Nanos, author of “The Mystery of Romans: The Jewish Context of Paul’s Letters,” has pointed out this disservice to the text with brilliance, clarity and impeccable research.

What I am suggesting below is indebted to his research, and fuller detail is found in his chapter, “Romans 13:1-7: Christian Obedience to Synagogue Authority.”

In Romans 13:1-7, Paul is writing to Gentile believers in Rome to obey, not Roman secular/pagan authority, but to obey the God-ordained authority of the synagogue rulers in Rome.

This presupposes that the early Jesus believers were continuing to meet with Judean non-believers within the synagogues.

89

We too quickly have early believers divorcing themselves from the synagogue, discarding Judaism, and establishing something totally new.

Instead, they (Judean believers and Gentile believers) continued to meet and worship in the synagogues.

These believers would also gather for special times in homes to eat, sing and read correspondence, but they did not abandon worshiping with their brothers and sisters who were Judeans – at least not yet.

The possibility of believers leaving the synagogue was Paul’s greatest concern in Romans.

It cut at the heart of theological understanding of what had happened in Jesus Christ. It defied his belief that the new age had dawned in Jesus, a very Judean Messiah.

In Rome, however, Gentile believer arrogance had raised its head. Some believers wanted to cut themselves off from their Judean roots and do their own thing.

Paul would have none of it and gives very clear instructions about how they were to relate to the leaders of the synagogue.

This Judean context makes perfect sense of verses 1-7 as one reads Romans. For example, Paul speaks of authority that exists from God (v.1) and is appointed by God (v. 2). This hardly sounds like a description of Caesar and his predatory legions.

It does, however, ring true about Judean synagogue rulers who can also be called “God’s servants” (v. 4) and “ministers of God” (v.6).

When Paul tells the Gentile believers to pay taxes and revenue (v. 6), he is telling his readers to pay the two-drachma Temple tax. Even the Roman historian Tacitus mentions Gentile converts sending contributions to the Temple.

Paul is dealing with a group that hesitated to send contributions, and he urges them to contribute because it shows that through Christ equality has come upon both Judeans and Gentiles.

Some might question, however, the one image that sounds like it originated in a Roman Empire context: “for the authority does not bear the sword in vain!” (13:4b).

As Nanos points out, this word for sword can also be used for the knife in circumcision (Joshua 5:2), or it could be used metaphorically as a symbol of the authority of the synagogue rulers to inflict punishment.

Paul himself has submitted to such punishment according to his account to the Corinthians: “Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one” (2 Corinthians 11:24).

Or perhaps this reference is a metaphor for Scripture as the “Word of God.” At least one New Testament writer is familiar with this image by noting that the Word of God is “sharper than a two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12).

89

In this sense, the synagogue rulers are the interpreters of the Torah, and Paul encourages Gentile believers to give them their due respect.

No doubt many will not be convinced that the original context is a Judean one. They have been too mesmerized by only one perspective.

They will continue to drink deeply from this passage to support giving allegiance to this program or that agenda of a secular government – but it is a dry hole.

To see government authority as the focal point in this passage is an interpretative mirage.

Context, context, context causes the mirage to fade into the clear vision of Paul’s very real concern about Judean nonbelievers’ and Gentile believers’ relationship.

AND...

Political meaning and use

 Some interpreters have claimed that Romans 13 implies that Christians are to obey all public officials under all circumstances. Many interpreters and biblical scholars dispute this view, however. Thomas Aquinas interprets Paul's derivation of authority from God as conditional on the circumstances in which authority is obtained and the manner in which it is used:

The order of authority derives from God, as the Apostle says [in Romans 13:1–7]. For this reason, the duty of obedience is, for the Christian, a consequence of this derivation of authority from God, and ceases when that ceases. But, as we have already said, authority may fail to derive from God for two reasons: either because of the way in which authority has been obtained, or in consequence of the use which is made of it.[11]

90

According to biblical scholars John Barton and John Muddiman:

Few if any passages in the Pauline corpus have been more subject to abuse than w. 1–7. Paul does not  indicate that one is required to obey public officials under all circumstances, nor does he say that every exercise of civil authority is sanctioned by God. No particular government is authorized; no universal autarchy is legitimated. Instead, Paul reiterates the common Jewish view that human governance operates under God's superintendency (Jn 19:11; Dan 2:21; Prov 8:15—16; Isa 45:1—3; Wis 6:3), that it is part of the divine order and so is meant for human good (i Pet 2:13–14; Ep. Arist. 291–2).[12]

On occasion, Romans 13 is employed in civil discourse and by politicians and philosophers in support of or against political issues. Two conflicting arguments are made: that the passage mandates obedience to civil law; and that there are limits to authority beyond which obedience is not required. John Calvin, in Institutes of the Christian Religion[13] took the latter position: "that we might not yield a slavish obedience to the depraved wishes of men". Martin Luther employed Romans 13 in Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants[14] to advocate that it would be sinful for a prince or lord not to use force, including violent force, to fulfil the duties of their office.

91

Theologian Paul Tillich is critical of an interpretation that would cast Romans 13:1–7 in opposition to revolutionary movements:

One of the many politico-theological abuses of biblical statements is the understanding of Paul’s words [Romans 13:1–7] as justifying the anti-revolutionary bias of some churches, particularly the Lutheran. But neither these words nor any other New Testament statement deals with the methods of gaining political power. In Romans, Paul is addressing eschatological enthusiasts, not a revolutionary political movement.[16]

Romans 13 was used during the period of the American Revolution both by loyalists who preached obedience to the Crown and by revolutionaries who argued for freedom from the unjust authority of the King. Later in US history, Romans 13 was employed by anti-abolitionists to justify and legitimize the keeping of slaves; notably around the time of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 which precipitated debate as to whether the law should be obeyed or resisted.[15] It was also used by the Dutch Reformed Church to justify apartheid rule in South Africa.[17][18]

In June 2018, Romans 13 was used by Jeff Sessions to justify the Trump administration family separation policy, saying:[15][19][20]

I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws Of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order. Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.[21]

Commenting on the fight to define Romans 13, historian Lincoln Mullen argues that "what the attorney general actually has on his side is the thread of American history that justifies oppression and domination in the name of law and order."

92

NO, ROMANS 13 IS NOT ABOUT OBEYING THE GOVERNING AUTHORITIES. 

By Craig Greenfield. 

Another take:  You may protest, but if you do and it is against prevailing laws, you will have to pay the penalty of those laws. Be they right or wrong. ( Jesus did. So did Paul. 

So did many Christian martyrs.)

“Historically, the most terrible things: war, genocide and slavery, have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.”    - Howard Zinn

If I ever get to meet the Apostle Paul, I’m hoping to have a little chat about some of the things he wrote.

It’s not that I disagree with him. It’s just that I wish Paul had been a little clearer at times. Especially when he wrote the original King James version of the Bible ;)

Take Romans 13. This chapter is one of those classic clobber passages, used to make sure we are all being obedient citizens, which historically has led Christians into all KINDS of problems:

“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities...” (Romans 13:1)

His fellow Bible-writer, Peter, wrote something very similar:

“Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority…” (1 Peter 2:13)

I call these clobber passages because they are too often used to crush dissent, stifle protest and discourage civil disobedience.

But we live in times where dissent is more important than ever. All around the world we are witnessing the rise of the “strongman” – brutal leaders like Putin, Erdoğan, Duterte and yes, Trump. These are hard-line men who rule with an iron fist and with little regard for justice or the downtrodden.

I’m concerned that if we don’t get this right, we could easily find ourselves treading the path of the German church under Hitler’s Nazi government.

In those days, too many good citizens – good Christians! - stood by, while their vulnerable neighbours were crushed by the governing authorities.

So, let’s take a closer look at these passages.

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, King Herod got super mad and arrested some of the believers, including James and Peter, and put them on public trial. The night before the trial, an angel of the Lord woke Peter up, removed his chains, opened the prison doors and led him out the main gate of the prison.

Yet after escaping from jail, where he had been imprisoned for breaking the law, Peter went on to write in a letter:

“Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to the governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.”

And similarly, while Paul was in Damascus, he escaped from a strongman city governor who was trying to arrest him, by concealing himself in a wicker basket and having himself lowered down the city wall through a window.

Then after reaching safety, Paul wrote a surprising letter:

“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities which exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.”

So are Peter and Paul hypocrites, asking Christians to do as they say, but not as they do?

Though these passages have been used to maintain the status quo (ever since the Emperor Constantine became a Christian and made it the official religion of the Empire), there is a BIG disconnect between Peter and Paul’s actions and the way we have traditionally interpreted their words.

The key to undertanding is in the word "submit". Take a look at this. The Greek word hupo-tasso, which has been translated as “submit” or “be subject,” literally means to arrange stuff respectfully in an "orderly manner underneath".

This simple meaning of "social orderliness" would have been understood by original readers, but it is a little obscured in our English translation.

This word is used in Ephesians 5:22 to encourage husbands and wives to submit to one another, and it reflects God’s concern for order and respect.

Here’s the main point – Paul and Peter believed that governing authorities are necessary for keeping the peace. God is a God of order – not anarchy or chaos.

But here’s where we go wrong. There’s ANOTHER word, hupo-kouo, which is best translated as “obey,” which literally means to conform, to follow a command, or to kowtow to an authority as a subordinate.

Peter and Paul could have used this word, "obey," but they chose not to.

Used twenty-one times in the New Testament, hupo-kouo always suggests a hierarchical context, as in the relationship between children or slaves and their parents or masters (Eph 6:1 and 6:5).

And so here’s the most important thing to remember - in the New Testament Greek, to submit does not always mean to obey! They are two separate actions or postures.

Though Paul, Peter and other followers of Jesus deliberately disobeyed laws that were in conflict with God’s commands, they still submitted to the authorities by accepting the legal consequences of their actions.

I’m proud to be friends with a bunch of clergy, activists and other serious Christian types who are willing to pursue justice in costly ways.

Some of them stage hippie sit-ins on the floor of their local government representative’s office to protest unjust treatment of refugees. Others chain themselves to bulldozers to protest environmental injustice.

I won’t mention everything online, but suffice to say, many of them are willing to break laws that are wrong and unjust. 

This is nothing particularly new. As far back as the book of Exodus, the Hebrew midwives refused to carry out the Pharoah’s repugnant order to murder newborn babies.

The first people who sought to worship Jesus, a trio of spiritual gurus from Asia, deliberately disobeyed the orders of King Herod, a criminal offence punishable by death (the first recorded act of civil disobedience in the New Testament). Many of the disciples ended up in prison.

As Christians, the law cannot be our ultimate moral guide.  Slavery was lawful. The holocaust was legal. Segregation and apartheid were legally sanctioned. Many of today's laws are created to protect corporations rather than people.

Simply put, the law does not dictate our ethics. God does.

But when my radical clergy friends break unjust laws you won’t see them struggling to avoid arrest. You won’t see them acting violently or promoting chaos. In fact, they gladly submit to the legal consequences of their actions.

They show us the way to interpret Romans 13 as Peter and Paul meant - if we break an unjust law to highlight and protest its injustice, we should be willing to submit to the punishment for breaking such laws, so that we demonstrate our respect for the role of government in general.

We do not follow a God of chaos, each doing whatever we want. But a God of order and respect for one another and the governing authorities.

There are times when we, as followers of Christ, will be called upon to stand up with a holy ‘NO!’ in the face of evil and injustice. 

Romans 13 does not undermine that posture - it informs it. 

93

Does the Christian faith condone slavery?

Bible Study on Slavery was a substantial portion of the early APSE activities.  Here is a collection of thoughts and articles.

BIBLICAL COMMENTS ON SLAVERY MUST BE PUT IN THE CONTEXT OF THE TIME.  Something that has frequently been ignored.

Romans 13:1-7  Submission to authorities.  Does this legitimize slavery?  Racial prejudice?  Misogyny?  WERE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARIES SINNERS?

Ephesians 6:5-9 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.  Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.  Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people,  because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.

And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.

(Masters, treat your slaves well.  IS THAT POSSIBLE?  No matter how good the treatment a slave has NO FREEDOM.  That’s what being a slave means,)

1 Peter 2:18   18 Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, NOT ONLY TO THOSE THAT ARE GOOD AND CONSIDERATE BUT ALSO TO THOSE WHO ARE HARSH.  

For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God.  But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.  To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

(WOW!  What does this mean?  Enjoy the  whipping?  Or prepare to suffer for Jesus?  Does this even refer to “slavery” or does it reference the treatment to expect if  being a slave to Christ?)  (Regardless, how many slave owners used this reference to justify slavery?  You serving me is just like you serving Christ.  I’m treating you so well…)

(Or is Paul saying Jesus is coming very soon.  Days, weeks, months - but not very long.  Ride it out.  You will be free soon.  Except it didn't happen that way.  Why not?  Paul said he was getting his info directly from Jesus whom he met.  Met in the flesh?  Or was in a vision?)

Ephesians and Philemon  Christians and Slavery

Using the Bible to justify slavery

Biblical References that support the concept of slavery:

• Abraham, the “father of faith,” and all the patriarchs held slaves without God’s disapproval (Gen. 21:9–10).

• Canaan, Ham’s son, was made a slave to his brothers (Gen. 9:24–27).

• The oldest son of Ham was Cush, brother of Canaan.  He is traditionally thought of as the “ancestor of the land of Cush,” an ancient territory along the Red Sea.  The kingdom of Kush is ancient Ethiopia (read black - infer “slave“).

• The Ten Commandments mention slavery twice, showing God’s implicit acceptance of it Ex. 20:10 The Sabbath… on it you shall do no work, nor your son or daughter, OR MAIDSERVANT OR MANSERVANT…  Ex. 20:17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, OR HIS MANSERVANT OR HIS MAIDSERVANT…

• Slavery was widespread throughout the Roman world, and yet Jesus never spoke against it.

• The apostle Paul specifically commanded slaves to obey their masters (Eph. 6:5–8).

• Paul returned a runaway slave, Philemon, to his master (Philem. 12).  (He asked Philemon to accept Onesimus as a “brother,” but never spelled out to set him free.)

94

Was Slavery a Benefit for Charitable and Evangelistic Reasons?

• Slavery removes people from a culture that “worshiped the devil, practiced witchcraft, and sorcery” and other evils.

• Slavery brings heathens to a Christian land where they can hear the gospel. Christian masters provide religious instruction for their slaves.

• Under slavery, people are treated with kindness, as many northern visitors can attest.

• It is in slaveholders’ own interest to treat their slaves well.

• Slaves are treated more benevolently than are workers in oppressive northern factories.

Was Slavery a Benefit for Social Reasons?

• Just as women are called to play a subordinate role (Eph. 5:22; 1 Tim. 2:11–15), so slaves are stationed by God in their place.

• Slavery is God’s means of protecting and providing for an inferior race (suffering the “curse of Ham” in Gen. 9:25 or even the punishment of Cain in Gen. 4:12).

• Abolition would lead to slave uprisings, bloodshed, and anarchy. Consider the mob’s “rule of terror” during the French Revolution.

Are There Political Reasons That Justify Slavery?

• Christians are to obey civil authorities, and those authorities permit and protect slavery. (Romans 13:1-7)

• The church should concentrate on spiritual matters, not political ones. (At least when it is convenient?)

• Those who support abolition are, in James H. Thornwell’s words, “atheists, socialists, communists [and] red republicans.”

Is Slavery Biblical?

Ephesians 6:5-8  Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.   Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.   Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people,  because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.  ((OUCH!))

When we think of slavery we think of the evils of the African slave trade – family separation, chains, rape, beatings, murder.... 

In the Bible slaves were a product of 1) spoils of war.   2) debts – there was no banking system.  In OT times there was no currency (QUESTIONABLE - THE SHEKEL CAME OUT PRETTY EARLY).  In a bad crop yield year how did you pay debts?  Should you be put in prison?  Killed? Exiled?  Slaves most often, especially in Jesus time, had rights.  Some people, including early Christians raising money for the church, sold themselves into slavery for the money.  It meant they were indebted to their masters, they owed something to their masters.  They could save and buy their way out of slavery.  In Roman times slaves were to be freed upon their 30th birthday.  

Not to say all slave owners were kind, honest, and respectful, but slavery seen in this context is actually a good thing in its day and progressive given the options.  Slavery was often a positive economic arrangement, slave and master living in the same household, almost an extended family arrangement.

At the time of Paul it is estimated 1/3 of all people were some sort of slave and it was NOT based on race.  People became slaves through birth, abandonment, parental sale, captive of war, inability to pay a debt, or voluntary enslavement for security.  (Still slaves were the dregs of society and life was pretty bad.  In fact is was pretty bad for everybody - there wasn’t much of a middle class.)

However … 

ODB – Philemon.  Although Paul hints he would like Onesimus made a free man and even be free to work with him he does not address slavery as we would have wished.  1) In the ancient world slavery was not the evil that we think of in the modern context.  Some were mistreated persons, but many were servants, butlers, etc. of noble people.  2)  Slavery was not a product of racism. More the subjugation of conquered territories.  3)  Christianity had no power at that point to be any force to radically change the social norms.  (would this new religion grow if it disrupted the whole economic and social norms of the day?  Maybe it should have!!!)  4)  Paul’s concern was more about inward spiritual liberation than outward slave liberation.   5)  Paul did say in 1 Corinthians 7:17-24  if slaves have the opportunity to become free persons they should do this.  According to history Onesimus was freed and made a leader in the church.

95

(Be sure to read below.  Jesus’ take on the economic conditions and social justice as FAR DIFFERENT than those of Paul, perhaps a result of Jesus growing up as a poor Jew and Paul being a ROMAN CITIZEN as well as being a Jew.  Paul’s viewpoint is drastically different than that of Jesus.  Reading the gospels closely one can see Jesus is deeply concerned with the oppressed.  He would NEVER be an advocate for slavery and NEVER state the positions that Paul has put forth.)  

BOTTOM LINE:  THERE IS NOTHING SCRIPTURAL TO JUSTIFY OR RATIONALIZE ANY CONDONING OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE, THE PRACTICE OF AFRICAN SLAVERY IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, OR THE RACIAL HATRED SEEN IN THE UNITED STATES TODAY.  AND YET…

Never is the U.S. more segregated than Sunday morning church services. 

90% of all churches in the U.S. are either 90% white or 90% black. 

Whatever the dividing walls in your community, it is the church that should knock them down and bring people together. 

In fact, look at Deuteronomy 23:15  Here is a law the Confederacy didn’t bother to teach in their churches:  If a slave has taken refuge with you, DO NOT HAND HIM OVER TO HIS MASTER.  Let him live among you wherever he likes in whatever town he chooses.  DO NOT OPPRESS HIM!

AND… really the verses on slavery refer to our relationship to God as our master, and that slave master DOES NOT treat his slaves poorly.  In fact he gave his son to save us from sin.  Harsh treatment does not come from the master but from others who persecute you for following the master.  Stand tall and reflect on the power of God. 

Abraham had 2 sons (Genesis 20-23), Ishmael, born to the SLAVE Hagar, and Isaac, born to the FREE woman Sarah.  Ishmael associated with Arabs, darker, slaves of the Israelites.  Isaac, the Jew, a bit paler, the owners of the slaves.

Read the lesson on Noah’s sons, the curse of Ham

Then again… Titus 2:9  Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.  

(Religion was very important to the slaves in the South.  And they got to sit and listen to this stuff...)

From: Jesus and His Times

The concentration of wealth in Jesus’ time was extreme.  The aristocracy, a few upper and middle class, but mostly poor.  Even the Pharisees had to work day jobs to support families.

Tradesmen had steady work but were heavily taxed to fund the building they did.  Day laborers lived just that way - day to day.  Some professions were nasty.  Weavers were in the least desirable neighborhood - near the Dung Gate where refuse was dumped.  Trade guilds were developed to provide a bit of help to these workers.  

Copper smelting, tanner, or dung collector were atrocious jobs.  A wife was PERMITTED to divorce her husband if he had one of these occupations as his smell would be unbearable.  She could even divorce him if she had known he had one of these occupations before marriage and still married him as the stench could not be foreseen.  (Tanners and dung collectors were linked - the dung was used in the tanning process.)

Unemployables were in desperate straits.  Crippled, diseased, blind, insane.  Lepers had to stay out of the city gates to fend for themselves.  There was no hospital, no aid, no hope.  The Jewish tradition of haves sharing with the have-nots was over.  All free cash went to taxes.

But the lowest class was the slaves.  

Slavery was an old institution in Palestine.  There were Jewish laws protecting slaves.  Work was limited to 10 hours a day.  Slaves did not work on the Sabbath (Saturday).  They did not do jobs that interfered with their faith - bath attendants, for example.  If a master killed a slave the master was killed as punishment.  If a slave was mistreated he was set free.  If he fled his master he was not to be returned.  

Female slaves were not as well off, but did also have some protections.  A female slave, usually a concubine, could always hope her owner might find her desirable enough to make her a wife. 

Most slaves in Jerusalem were Gentiles, but some Jewish slaves existed out of the city.  

A person may be made a slave as a punishment, for unpaid debts, or one may sell oneself into slavery to provide emergency funds for his family. 

96

Hellenistic influence changed this.  By Jesus’ time slaves were objects, not persons - a tool with a voice.  ONE MORE reason why this class, as with the others (tradesmen, priests, farmers, vendors), looked longingly for a Messiah.  Jesus was the advocate for these people - oppressed free men and oppressed slaves, which many free men became due to DEBT.)

Crossan adds:  Sanitizing slavery as a means to “humanely” handle debt is a pipe dream.  Just as in the American South, slaves were treated very poorly.  Pg 47  …slaves were bought in vast numbers in slave markets… applied marks and brands… treated with a heavy hand, granted the merest of care, food, and clothing… beaten beyond all reason.  A way out?  Or a mere final last gasp before death.  They were EXPENDABLE.  

BibleTalk.tv  Good ol’ Pastor Mike (Mazzalongo) sees it differently.  Slavery in the first century was quite different than the slavery that existed in early American history. Slavery in New Testament times was not based on culture as it was here when innocent Africans were seized and sold into slavery by both African and European traders. In the first century a majority of slaves in the Roman Empire were the spoils of war and all kinds of people, conquered by the Roman military, became slaves. In many cases individuals sold themselves into slavery because of debt - these were called "bond servants." Roman masters usually treated their slaves with a measure of respect and many of these had responsible positions in their owners' households. Slaves could marry, accumulate wealth and purchase their own freedom. Under Roman law slaves were to be set free at the age of 30.

As many as two-thirds of the Empire at that time were slaves but this number decreased rapidly in the first century and continued falling as Christian ideals began to take hold in that pagan society. Of course this brings us to consider the ownership of slaves by Christians in the first century. We know this is the case because Paul provides instructions for both slaves and masters in his letters:

 Ephesians 6:5-9

5 Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; 6 not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. 7 With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men, 8 knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. 9 And masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.

Note the instructions that he gives to masters and slaves:

Sincere obedience

Serve unto the Lord

Serve with the hope of a blessing from God

Masters should treat slaves with sincerity and not violence

Remember that God will judge both slaves and masters

22 Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. 25 For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality. 

Masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you too have a Master in heaven. - Colossians 3:22-4:1

97

We notice here that there was a certain consistency as far as the instructions to believing masters and slaves:

Sincere obedience

Serving unto the Lord

Serve with the hope of a blessing from the Lord

Realize that the Lord is serving with you

God will punish slaves who do evil

Masters should judge slaves as they themselves will be judged (justice/fairness)

Masters remember that they too have a master in heaven

In other passages (I Corinthians 7:17-24) Paul urges slaves to accept their present situation but if the opportunity to gain their freedom comes up he says they should take their freedom. Paul's approach to this social evil was not to start a movement or to use violence to attack the established order of things. He worked through the church in providing God's Word and will on this issue.

97

The early church recognized no difference in status between slave and master since everyone sat together in the assembly. Slaves in the early church were allowed to serve as elders and, unlike pagan gravestones that noted if the deceased was a slave, Christian graves did not make this distinction. According to Ignatius (second century Bishop) church funds were often used to buy the freedom of slaves. Some Christians even surrendered their own freedom in order to ransom and free others (1 Clement AD55). Marriage among slaves was protected, and early Christians urged non-Christians to free their slaves or allow them to purchase their freedom.

Beginning with Paul's teaching on this issue and the equal status given to slaves in the church, the evil of mass slavery eventually died out in the Roman Empire. It is in this historical and social context that Paul wrote the brief epistle to Philemon, a Christian brother, urging him to free a runaway slave.

(Perhaps this is true.  APSE Ministries includes this piece, as all other articles, for purpose of study and discussion.)

Referenced Articles: The Apostle Paul 3

Return to Top of Page

Return to Home