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Faith has no expiry date
• DAVID Joseph purports to be a “follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ”, yet he obviously disagrees with a better-known follower, St Paul, with regard to homosexuality (see Romans 1:24-32) (Gays and the bible, October 9).
As for things “endorsed by lawful government”, there was a time when slavery came into this category. It may have been legal, but this did not make it ethical. Church teachings on faith and morals are handed down to us from the great saints such as Paul and, unlike chocolate cakes from the supermarket, do not carry an expiry date.
It is, of course, quite wrong to persecute practising homosexuals. This is why Christians have a duty to “love the sinner, but hate the sin”.
It is no kindness to offer an alcoholic a bottle of whisky or drug-addict a shot of heroin. In the same way, it is no kindness to homosexuals to approve their errant behaviour.
Homosexuality can be cured, just as alcoholism and drug addiction. There is no scientific evidence to support the myth that homosexuals are “born that way”.
Patrick McKay
Goswell Road, EC1
• “ANGRY Islington Council employee” tells us that “Jesus would do civil partnerships” because “he loves everyone, regardless of who they are, and accepts them” (It’s disgusting to use faith to discriminate against others, September 25).
Had your correspondent taken the trouble to consult the Four Gospels, he would have found that Christ upheld the original divine institution of marriage between two sexes, authorised only the union between a man and a woman, and warned against any dividing asunder of what God has joined (see Matthew 19:4-6).
The claim that Christ would “do civil partnerships” because “he loves everyone, regardless of who they are, and accepts them” is equally spurious. A careful reading of the Four Gospels reveals that, in dealing lovingly with great sinners, Christ’s aim was to bring them to repentance and newness of life.
But your correspondent, having ignored the New Testament teaching about marriage being authorised only between a man and a woman, then goes on to make the ridiculous statement: “If Jesus thought that homosexuality was a sin, he would have said so.”
If he really wanted to know God’s view of homosexual practices, I suggest he turns to Romans, where we have the most comprehensive exposure of the sinfulness of homosexual practices found anywhere in the Bible, as well as the biblical explanation for Aids.
Sadly, one of your other correspondents, Ian Morris, concludes his short letter by giving us yet another example of ignorance of Christ’s teaching, when he writes: “Theresa Davies’s personal beliefs are her own affair, and I suggest she leaves them out of the workplace.”
Christ’s teaching in his great sermon on the Mount does not allow his disciples to leave their beliefs in the cloakroom, along with their hat and coat, when they arrive for their daily work, only to be taken down again when the hooter blows.
Rev Peter Johnson
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