Re: Why do Christians eat pork?
So, is pork most likely haram in Christianity as well, based on original doctrines?
It seems to me that if a person was born into a faith that saw eating pork was haraam, there would have to be some very clear written documentation as to why all of a sudden it is Halal.
Here is a very interesting commentary:
Bible says no to gay unions, but it says a lot of things
Many old laws have lost their force - we don't kill smart-alecky kids
What's the difference between homosexuality and a ham sandwich?
This isn't the setup line for a joke. It's an important question for many Christians who consider their Bible in its entirety to be God's authoritative word.
The recent headlines about gay marriage represent the latest round in an ancient debate involving Christianity's Jewish roots. Those who oppose sanctioning gay unions often cite Scripture – specifically, passages in the Old Testament Book of Leviticus – as evidence that God condemns homosexual behavior. Those on the other side say that's hypocritical cherry-picking – that there are many other prohibitions in the Torah – the first five books of the Bible – that few modern Christians support.
Thou shalt ... or not?
The Bible includes commandments (such as Leviticus 20:13) that get a lot of attention in Christian discussions of homosexuality. But it also includes – in the New Testament as well as the Old – many less familiar commandments that most Christians, for various reasons, do not feel bound to follow. Here's a sampling from the New Revised Standard Version:
All persons, citizens or aliens, who eat what dies of itself or what has been torn by wild animals, shall wash their clothes, and bathe themselves in water, and be unclean until the evening; then they shall be clean. (Leviticus 17:15)
You shall not let your animals breed with a different kind; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; nor shall you put on a garment made of two different materials. (Leviticus 19:19)
You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. (Leviticus 19:27)
As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you, and from their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. (Leviticus 25:44, 45)
If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him, then his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town. ... Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. (Deuteronomy 21:18,19;21)
Do not adorn yourselves outwardly by braiding your hair, and by wearing gold ornaments or fine clothing. (1 Peter 3:3)
Leviticus not only condemns a man "who lies with a male as with a woman" and the eating of pork. It also prohibits seafood without fins. And tattoos.
So what makes one law still in force and another seemingly obsolete? Particularly when Jesus himself said "not one jot or one tittle" of the law would change?
It's a discussion that is playing out in many Christian pulpits. According to a poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, two-thirds of evangelical Protestants who attend church at least once a month say their ministers speak out about homosexuality. About half of Catholics and a third of mainline Protestants say the same thing. Many of those ministers, presumably, cite Scripture in support of the view that homosexual conduct is sinful.
"One wonders why several other Torah rules have been generally ignored while this one is elevated to the status of 'the word of God,' " wrote John Shelby Spong, a retired Episcopal bishop, in a recent online column.
"The Torah prescribes a kosher diet which fundamentalists today ignore. The Torah says that a person cannot make a garment of two different kinds of fabric. It says that those who worship a false god should be executed and so should those children who are disobedient and who talk back to their parents!"
Some theologians counter that Bishop Spong and others who make that case should know better. They say the question of which Old Testament laws to follow is a not a new one, as the bishop implies. "This is a debate that is as old as Christianity itself," said Dr. Bruce Marshall, a professor of historical theology at Southern Methodist University.
In the beginning
Christendom's abandonment of some aspects of Jewish law started even before the word "Christian" was born.
Jesus, in the Gospel of Mark (Chapter 7), seems to revoke the laws concerning food. Debate about circumcision – required of Jewish men – is prominent in many of Paul's letters: "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything." (Galatians 5:6)
Many Christians say that even the "jot and tittle" line contains an explanation for why their faith no longer follows some Jewish law. The end of the verse says there would be no change until all is "accomplished" or, depending on the translation, "fulfilled."
And Jesus himself represents the fulfillment of some laws, these Christians say. For instance, in this view, his death on the cross fulfilled the many Jewish laws concerning atonement and sacrifice.
"It's not that a command has become obsolete,'" Dr. Marshall said. "It has become fully enacted."
Old and New
Some Christians look to see which laws of the Torah are specifically mentioned in the New Testament. The one prohibiting the mixing of threads in the same fabric, for instance, is not. But Paul specifically discusses homosexuality.
"The New Testament is not concerned with ceremonial uncleanliness but it is concerned with the sanctity of marriage," said the Rev. Kendall Harmon, a conservative Episcopal theologian from South Carolina.
Debate in the early church was largely about the Torah obligations of Gentiles, said Dr. Markus Bockmuehl, a professor at Cambridge University and the author of Jewish Law in Gentile Churches: Halakhah and the Beginning of Christian Public Ethics.
As Gentile converts began to swell the ranks of the church, early Christian leaders turned to halakhah – Jewish law – as a guide for deciding which Jewish laws the new faith would follow, he said. Gentiles were never prohibited from eating the Bible-era equivalents of ham sandwiches, for instance. And that's one reason the prohibition against pork didn't survive, he said.
Jewish law identified three kinds of Torah commandments that applied to non-Jews as well: those against idolatry, those that defined appropriate sexual behavior and those that generally established the sanctity of life. And the law against homosexuality was included in the definition of appropriate sexual behavior.
Those three broad categories of law that applied to Gentiles cover most of the Torah laws that conservative Christians still say are actively in force, Dr. Bockmuehl said.
Times change
Modern Catholics rely on the long history of authoritative church teachings to divide laws into those that should be heeded and those that needn't be, said the Rev. Brian Daley, a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame.
"There's a desire to stay in touch with the sources, but there is a constant interpretive process going on," he said.
Lending money with interest is prohibited in the Torah and was considered sinful by many Christians until the 17th century, he said. That has clearly changed.
"Most people would not say it was an abandoning of a major moral activity but a viewing of it in a new context," Father Daley said.
That, of course, is exactly the argument made by those who support gay bishops and gay marriage, he acknowledged: They say times have changed, and the Bible should be read in a new context. That's where church authority comes in, said Father Daley. "You need a community to draw the line, unless it's going to be every individual for himself."
Many Christians draw distinctions between those laws that are considered ceremonial, those that are civil and those that are moral.
Laws about kinds of food or fabric fall into the first category. Laws about how to run a court system fall into the second. Deciding which laws are clearly moral is much harder to do and is part of the current debate.
'A litmus test'
So to some people of faith, homosexuality is immoral. And others, who equally revere the Bible, disagree.
The Rev. Susan Russell is an Episcopal priest and the president of Integrity, an organization of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered Episcopalians. She said she's found a simple way to parse the Torah's teachings: She turns to what Jesus said in Matthew 22: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart," and "You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
"If I need a litmus test for whether ... our tradition needs to change, it is whether what we're considering meets those two criteria," she said. "I contend that lifelong committed relationships between people of the same sex meet the criteria."
The Rev. David Roseberry, rector at Christ Church Episcopal in Plano, reads the same Bible and comes to different conclusions.
"It's the best book on the most important subjects," he said. "You cannot get the Bible to endorse homosexuality. It just isn't there."
(Jeffrey Weiss, The Dallas Morning News)
