Episcopal Church & Issue of Homosexuality

In his book Living in Sin: A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality, Spong suggests that the Bible cannot be taken literally when it demeans women and deems homosexuality to be an abomination against nature and against God. Instead, Spong says that the Holy Scripture should be read as a metaphor embodying deeper spiritual truths. He believes the Christian Church must look closely at what it is teaching its people about the Bible and at the enormous gap that exists between what biblical scholars know and what the leaders of organized religions say to their congregations about any number of issues facing individuals and society including the question of the morality of homosexuality. Spong is very clear in this book that he views intolerance of diversity as sinful, and that he wants and expects all people who consider themselves to be Christians to learn the virtues of tolerance. He makes the point that Christian lov

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and mischievous in regard to the correct understanding of human sexuality. (p. 343) Like Doell (1995), Bermant (1995) also decries the politicizing of the subject, noting that these active political and legal disputes about homosexuality exemplify a continuing reliance on reductionistic models of the causes of conduct. He notes that part of the problem is in differing views of how the brain relates to behavior, and asserts that discourse relying on public misapprehension about biological causality can alter the course of subsequent science and public opinion and thus affect personal experience as well. According to Bermant (1995), it is time for people to realize, particularly scientists, that both dualistic and reductionistic models are traps that bar real scientific understanding and progress regarding homosexual preference. Instead, Bermant states that what is needed is an explanative model that examines sexuality in general and does so using a multidimensional framework consisting of psychological, biogenetic, sociodemographic and other contributors. In an effort to examine homosexual preference from a bioenvironmental perspective, Gallagher, McFalls and Vreeland (1993) assessed the current thinking of mental health
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Approximate Word count = 5319
Approximate Pages = 21 (250 words per page)

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