If you were to quote Romans 1 as proof of Christianity's condemnation of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity, and then someone attempted to refute you as quoted below, what would be your response?

Before we get into this example, can I just point out that you (and
the translation you're using) fail to distinguish between eros (love
between consenting partners) and cupiditas (lust in which a person
satisfies their desires at the expense of another person). St.
Augustine and other medieval authorities, who come between us and the
Scriptures, tended to translate cupiditas broadly as sensual pleasure,
in line with their own moral attitudes (and also, in the case of
Augustine, because he was fighting polemical battles against the
Manichees, Donatists and other "heretical" groups, and so tended to
adopt positions opposed to theirs). Contemptus mundi, in short, is a
Stoic and medieval ethic, not the Bible's. Luther, a better Bible
scholar than you or I, correctly pointed out this distortion,
translating "cupiditas" as any expression of selfish desire for
pleasure at the expense of others. OK, turning to the example:

>  cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For
> their women have changed the natural use into that use which is
> against nature.

Love became lust. ("against nature" is one way of translating the
Greek; you could also say "against kind" or "unkind", i.e. cruelly,
selfishly, not lovingly).

[27] And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the

> natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards
> another, men with men working that which is filthy,

I.e. lust not love, self-gratification.

Homoerotic acts per se are not condemned here. Only lustful acts. The
reason why the focus is on same-sex acts is that since such couples
could not marry, the socially inferior member in such pairings was
vulnerable to being abused. The text seeks to protect such people.

Feel free to include Tradition and Magisterial docuмents in your response.

Luther, a better Bible
scholar than you or I, correctly pointed out this distortion,

Need one say more, as to this person's point of reference.  Who could concede this point. To the Protestant, all roads of dissent lead back to blaming St. Augustine. Correctly pointed out?  In whose opinion?



"For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error. "God delivered them up"... Not by being author of their sins, but by withdrawing his grace, and so permitting them, in punishment of their pride, to fall into those shameful sins. "

" Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them."

It is noted as sin, and all sin is condemned.

Worthy of death sounds definitive enough for me. When placed in context the meaning is clear. Luther's spawn will usually pluck out a word or phrase and argue it's
meaning to death, so as to imply yet another understanding of that Scripture. ( which suits them better)

JMJ

Sodomy "cries to heaven for vengeance."  What more CAN be said?