Was Israel Folau a missed opportunity?
Maybe it’s me getting old and seeing looming economic crashes and environmental meltdowns that will demand a level of co-operation amongst our squabbling tribes that is making me so reflective but the entire Israel Folau issue just seemed like a terribly missed opportunity.
On one side you have the Christian Community who pride themselves on being loving and inclusive and on the other side you have the rainbow community who pride themselves on being loving and inclusive.
Where did all that love and inclusiveness go to in this debate?
Here are the two things that seemed to stick out to me.
The first is that Israel Folau didn’t call a press conference and announce to the world that he thought Homosexuals should burn in hell. He made a throw away comment on his bloody instagram account. Sadly in this day and age where news rooms are run by micro-aggression policing Millennials trawling social media feeds, throw away comments suddenly become major cultural events. It also turns out that Folau may have been goaded into making the response by Mike Sephton-Poultney who was trying to get that exact outcome.
The second is that while our media’s myopic and cheap focus on social media is a total degradation and bastardisation of what Journalism should actually stand for, words do matter. The rainbow community have horrific levels of suicide and self abuse caused by the stress of just being themselves in a heteronormative culture that is still overtly judgmental. These youth need support and acceptance as they navigate their agency, they don’t need out dated ideas of eternal burning.
So where does that all leave us?
The way the debate ended up was the threat to have Folau expelled from his team which would have only enraged his huge young brown support base and ended up seeing more young queer youth getting the Christ beaten out of them. Christians went ultra defensive, the Rainbow community went into several stages of rage.
I think the better approach to all of this would have been to counter Folau with his own scripture.
Corinthians 6: 9-10 says…
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor the drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
…now here’s the problem. It is only in modern times that this scripture had ‘homosexuality’ included. The original text used the word ‘arsenokoites‘ which is a very old word that means the dominant partner in a homosexual relationship. Catamites were pubescent boys who were the sexual slaves of older men, the word arsenokoites could actually mean the older mean who used Catamites, it certainly is not and can not be interpreted as meaning the consenting relationship between two male adults.
As Reverend over at Liturgy points out…
There is no use of arsenokoites in those early centuries after the New Testament to mean homosexual activity. In fact, arsenokoites is used to describe the sexual relationships of men and their wives (Jonannes Jejunator, 6th century). And whenever, in those centuries, writers explicitly write about homosexual activity, they do not use arsenokoites.
…so attempting to use Corinthians as a justification for hating on Homosexuals is about as pointless as Clarke Gayford asking Deborah Hill Cone for a character reference.
Using the very scripture Folau is trying to hold up as his justification to point out he has misinterpreted his own religion is a far better way of debating this issue rather than straight out condemnation and attack.
God isn’t a homophobe and the Bible talks waaaaaaaaaaaay more about love, kindness and empathy than it does about punishing homosexuals.
Of course, to reach and teach requires an enormous amount of love and acceptance, which ironically is what both Christians and the Rainbow Community claim they have.
If we can’t deal respectfully with each other at a time of mild economic and climate conditions, Christ only knows how we are going to do it when the shit really hits the fan.
Like I say, this all seems to have been a terribly wasted opportunity.
Indeed, a bit less high dudgeon and more simple compassion would go a long way – all round.
As the mercury, sea level and flood waters rise it’s going to need cool heads to get us through.
My View Of Israel’s Mistake.
There is no denying that Mother Nature herself has endowed animals with sexuality.
But the texts of the bible are written by human animals. Not by Mother Nature.
Sex gives animals considerable pleasure, as well as offspring if every physical natal thing is in place for a child to emerge. Mother Nature did not need to write any text about that. It is virtually self evident.
The only thing that Israel Folau needs do is to take care of his Brother and his Neigbour. Let him look after his own Penis and his own Testicals.
And stop lighting imaginary fires and bonfires.
For even the Bible written for animals by human animals – preaches Love and Responsibility and Sharing.
To even attempt to do God’s work is a Blasphemy. As if God the Creator was a weakling. We know next to nothing about Creation or the Creator. Let’s accept our humility.
The mainstream media is primarily concerned with ratings -the number of people watching, listening to, reading etc. a particular storyline- in order convince advertisers that their particular medium or channel or link will enable a manufacturer (and the whole downstream system) to sell stuff.
Completely lost in the consumption-based society we live in is the concept that Christians are supposed to be good custodians of the Earth. Indeed, many Christians seem to believe that they have the right to destroy the Earth for their own pleasure because they have ‘dominion over it’.
The weird and highly distorted perspective of faux Christians extends to other areas of life, and many so-called Christians believe that have a duty to castigate people with different sexual orientation, to kill doctors who perform abortions, or even go the extreme of suggesting that it is a Christian duty to exterminate Muslims in a final battle that will take place in the Middle East during End Times.
‘missed opportunity’. The opportunity to prevent economic and environmental meltdown was missed in the mid-70s, when bankers, industrialists and opportunists attacked the ‘Limits to Growth’ movement and effectively crushed it. All the chickens are now coming home to roost. Had the greed meme not been promoted so vigorously from the mid-70s until now we certainly would not be in the kind of mess we are now in. As it is, the next generation is pretty much doomed, whatever their religious beliefs or sexual orientation or lifestyle.
As George Carlin put it, the Earth was unable to make plastic, so allowed humans to evolve. Now that the Earth has plastic, our job is done and we can go away (and will).
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/27/the-hills-are-alive-with-the-signs-of-plastic-even-swiss-mountains-are-polluted
Thank you Martin. This is very good. Love your image of Jesus.
No where in the bible is it ever said that God is against homosexuality and Jesus never said so either. All there is are some opinions of the human writers, none of which amounts to a clear condemnation of homosexual acts as sinful per se. None of them refer to consenting and loving homosexual realtibhsips – what the bible passages are talking about is pagan temple prostitution, pederastry, or male slave owners abusing their male slaves. We must be very careful to interpret the bible in its original context and not impose unjust and prejudicial attitudes on the text.
These writings from very reputable, and fairly conservative Catholic scripture scholars writing in standard and authoritative scripture commentaries may be helpful:
Fr Raymond Collins STD in his Sacra Pagina commentary says: “Malakoi is a term that was pejoratively used in Hellenistic Greek to describe passive partners, often young boys, in homosexual activity”. The link with pederasty seems clear.
In the Anchor Bible Commentary Fr Joseph Fitzmyer SJ writes: “Arsenokoites should not be translated as homosexual, because that is a modern term for male or female sexual orientation as well as activity, coined only in the 19th century to denote the affectional preference of a person for someone of the same sex, and was unknown as a name for sexual intercourse between such persons in antiquity”.
Thank you for speaking out and shedding light and love.
Many blessings
What bible are you people reading? Or have you ever read a bible? God is against homosexuality, they will be going to hell. God forbid people should be told they are going to hell. What are you more offended about, that Isaiah told the truth, or it was a Christian that said it, if the pope or a muslim said it, nobody would care
when was the last time you picked up a bible, chris? Have you ever read one?
All over the world zealots take what they can from the Bible, their version of it anyway and say what it all means. And will continue to do so.
A lot of those same zealots will condemn others who have some other book they use and flaunt in the same.
https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats/videos/1783783215048058/UzpfSTM0NjkzNzA2NTM5OTM1NDoyMDM5MDQ5MzI5NTIxNDQ0/
“A lot of those same zealots will condemn others who have some other book they use and flaunt in the same.”
Sometimes with the SAME book, Pete.
“A lot of those same zealots will condemn others who have some other book they use and flaunt in the same.”
Sometimes with the SAME book, Pete.
.
If, as it appears, Israel Folau was set up, then the character responsible has some growing up to do.
The message of all the great world religions is the message of the Sermon on the Mount – Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
The only shit-stirring that Jesus did was against the money lenders in the temple, but that message still hasn’t got through has it ?
God’s Kingdom and Hell don’t exist anyway, so what does it matter?
Yeah nah. I’ve got no respect, nor feel the need to show any to a man who thinks I should be eternally tortured for who and what I am. It’s funny how you’re always telling queer people and women to “show compassion” (i.e. shut up and do what you telll them).
“Using the very scripture Folau is trying to hold up as his justification to point out he has misinterpreted his own religion is a far better way of debating this issue rather than straight out condemnation and attack.”
As if any fundamentalist Christian is going to be persuaded by reason. My own experience has been that they simply find some part of the Bible that they think proves their point. The Bible is full of contradicting ideas put together over thousands of years and probably originally pilfered from the ancient Sumerians (for the Genesis part at least). It’s a virtual feast for anyone who wants to prove anything. A relative of mine even found something to prove that the existence of dinosaur remains still didn’t contradict the world being just 6000 years old. You can’t reason with a religious fundamentalist whether Christian, Muslim or Jewish. It’s all the same psychology wearing different coloured coats.
I am not knocking religion, but the bible is an ecclesiastical Harrods – one can find anything one wants in it.
When I tutored some years ago, the students decided that Confucianism was their favourite religion except for where it placed women. Chinese respect for their elders, and the importance of correct relationships is a direct result of good old Confucius, and I gather it is still evidenced in Japan – where I haven’t been – and in Sth Korea where I worked, and where the people are among the nicest on earth.
Esoteric Pineapples is dead right about fundamentalists; they can be scary and bullying, and very counter productive when they get power or control of resources – as evidenced by politicians who wear religious cloaks and behave dishonestly just to suit themselves.
Nice to read the anti-Christian jack-in-the-boxes.
However the bloke in question is Mormon.