ALL in

As we inch towards Season 2 of AllIn Pod, here are some insights into the stages of faith development, moving from Simplicity to Complexity, then deconstructing to Perplexity and ultimately resolving to Harmony.  Brian McLaren might have the best work on these four stages in his book, "Faith After Doubt". Listen to his discussion with Pete Enns and Jaryd Bayis on "The Bible for Normal People" here: 

https://thebiblefornormalpeople.com/episode-174-brian-mclaren-the-four-stages-of-faith/ 

This is the second half of Part 2 of our series on LGBTQI inclusion. Please listen to the first half before this one - it gives important context about how I believe we should read and understand the Bible. It should be in your podcast feed just before this episode. This was recorded at the We Are Church gathering on 28 August 2022 in Waverley, Johannesburg, and focuses on what the Bible says about marriage. This second half looks at what Jesus and Paul (and the rest of the Bible) actually say about marriage. It's way less - and a little bit more - than you think. It's not as obvious as it is made out to be, and it definitely does not exclude same sex marriages. For more information about the We are Church faith community, email Jane : jane (at) codrington (dot) biz

This is the first half of Part 2 of our series on LGBTQI inclusion. Please listen the first part of this series before listening to this podcast episode - it should be the previous file in this podcast feed. That looks at the seven "anti gay" passages in the Bible, and shows clearly that we have misinterpreted them.

This podcast is the audio feed of a video  that was recorded at the We Are Church gathering on 28 August 2022 in Waverley, Johannesburg, and focuses on what the Bible says about marriage. This first half looks at how we use - and misuse - the Bible, and the importance of looking at the character of God (as revealed in Jesus) for our theology.

The second half of this message focuses on what the Bible says about marriage, and will come into your podcast feed next. 

I know this podcast has been quiet for a long time. Covid has taken it's toll on the amount of time I can commit to this work. We will be back at some stage with Season 2.  For now, here's a surprise bonus episode for Pride Month 2022. I was asked to speak at our faith community about the seven verses in the Bible that have been used to say that God is against gay people. For more information on 'We Are Church' faith community, contact Jane Codringon at jane at codrington.biz

For more on the work I have done on this topic, see my blog at http://www.futurechurchnow.com

A look back at the key Bible verses that talk about homosexuality and why they don't apply to loving LGBTQI relationships today, with a positive reading of the book of Romans. This ends season 1 of the ALLin Pod. Season 2 will focus on what the Bible says about marriage, and whether LGBTQI people can get married. 

For many Christians, Romans 1 is the key passage against same gender sexual activity, so we need to cover it thoroughly. In this episode of the ALLin Podcast, we look at seven additional interpretative options for Romans 1. TAKE NOTE: This is a dense episode, with lots of detailed arguments and references. You probably can't listen to this one in the background. It needs your focus.

We are spending a lot of time in Romans 1, because this is the passage that most people point to when they want to exclude LGBTQI people from the church and Christian faith. This is the fourth part of our mini-series in Romans, and looks in even more detail at the original text and specifically at Romans 1:26-27, "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error."

What were the women, and men, actually doing? And what did Paul condemn in these verses?

We will discover that Paul's issue is temple prostitution and pederistic relationships. And that he is not actually condemning same gender sexual activity in these verses. That's right: the verses don't say what you've been told they say. And once you see what they do say, you won't be able to unsee it.

In Romans 1, Paul says that women and men were "given over by God" to their "shameful lusts" and did what is "against nature". What did he mean by this? And does that apply to LGBTQI people today who want to get married to their lifelong, loving partner? In this episode of the ALLin Pod we do detailed word studies of what it means for something to be shameful and unnatural. Neither of them are what you might expect: they're related to things that are socially unacceptable, rather than something that is morally wrong or evil.  This changes completely how we should understand this passage. 

This is part 2 of the mini-series in the book of Romans, Paul's letter to the church at Rome. In the first chapter of this letter, Paul appears to list a whole lot of sins, including same gender sexual activity. But if you read on into Romans 2, and in fact the rest of the letter, the tone and purpose of the first chapter seems to change. So, what was the purpose of the letter, and what light does that shine on how we should understand chapter 1. Graeme Codrington explores these questions, and comes once again to the same conclusion: that Romans 1 is not addressing loving, consensual LGBTQI relationships at all.

This is a long episode, and we highly recommend that you have a Bible handy to follow along the readings. In fact, we recommend you read the whole letter to the Romans before listening to this episode.

We finally get to the book of Romans in our study of the verses that have traditionally been used to oppose gay marriage and the inclusion of the LGBTQI community into churches. This is the start of a four part mini series on Paul's letter to the church at Rome, and in this episode we read through the text looking at the plain meaning of Romans 1 and 2. We'll get into more detail in the next episodes, but even on the plain reading of the text, it is clear that Paul is not talking about loving, committed, monogamous same gender relationships - he's talking about something else.