Can a Christian explain a certain idea to me? Why is the ban on homosexuality kept but not the dietary one?

Question

In Leviticus, there is a ban placed on homosexuality, calling it an abomination. However, the Bible also places restrictions on what people can eat. Jews and Muslims follow these restrictions by adjusting their diets to remove foods such as pig. Eating restricted foods is the only other sin referred to as an abomination.

Here's the question: How can Christianity accept the ban on homosexuality, yet not encourage its followers to keep kosher? Why is one ban kept and the other ignored?

I'm not trying to offend Christians. I am just confused.

Answer 1

Because of the words of Jesus. Talking to his disciples, he explained in Matthew 15:11 that it is not what goes into the mouth (what you eat) that defiles a man, but what comes out of him. It is not his diet, but his lifestyle and actions that matter to God.

The law against eating "unclean" food was later lifted in Acts 10:9-16. There Peter sees a vision in which he command to eat for a group of unclean animals. When he protest, saying that they are unclean, God rebukes him asking how he can dare to call unclean what God has cleansed. After that vision, Christians were permitted to eat non-koser foood. You will find several discussions about this in the letters of Paul. In Galatians Paul even reports an incidence where he had to stand up to Peter because he had allowed himself to be intimidated into not eat non-kosher food again for a short time.

Since what a person eats does not affect their moral behavior, that was no reason to continue a ban on foods. The dietary laws however are still useful as a guideline for what foods are healthy and what are not. But they do not determine "heaven or hell". Even in the Old Testmament they didn't. Nowhere is a person to be executed for eating ham.

The laws against homosexuality are different. They come from within a person. They are driven by their own desires to commit homosexual acts. Therefore it is a moral decision, not a ritual act. It remains just as wrong in the New Testament as it was in the Old. Jesus' death does not throw out moral absolutes and right and wrong. Rather it gives us the ability to live up to this absolutes. In the Old Testament, the penalty for homosexuality was death. That shows how serious the act was considered.

Unlike the dietary laws, there is no place in the New Testament where Jesus or his followers ever lifted the law against homosexuality.

Paul, in Romans 1, list homosexual acts as a vile affection. He also places in amoung the works of flesh, and list homosexuals as being among those who can not enter the kingdom of heaven. So the New testament does treat it as a "heaven or hell" issue.

You are welcome to debate all day whether it is or isn't right. I am just answering the question why homosexuality is still seen as wrong by Christians, and eating pork is not.

Answer 2

Christians do not keep the dietary laws for these are in the old testament and were written because the Rabbis or teachers noticed the correlation between pigs and illness. Pigs were infected with trichinosis which is a parasite. Made people very sick but you could only contract it if the food was not cooked well enough. I guess by the time the Christian sect came into being , and since they were mainly people of the Jewish faith, they were tired of the dietary laws and eliminated what they didn't like. If I started my own religion I could do the same!!! And I guess, they knew the Greeks and Romans practiced homosexuality it was something they didn't like.

Answer 3

Everyone's going straight to Hell... ;)
I guess we should just get used to the idea right now...
JK! ;)

I think their are certain days in which Jews and Muslims follow this "rule".. I just don't think it is it everyday.

Just as their are "Jack Mormons" there are "Jack Christians/Muslims/Jews"...

*****I think the main reasoning behind why certain "abominations" are tolerated in today's society and why they are not is that one is simply more "socially acceptable" than the other one. That and people pull from the Bible which "abomination" suits them the best (Biggots for instance need to see homosexuality as bad and therefore these "homosexuals" need to have it reinforced that they are going straight to Hell.

No one in today's society gives a s*** what you eat... the more you eat, pig or no pig, the more money society makes and money makes the world go round....

And the more you try to figure out why, the worse of ya get. There will never be the answers to the questions we seek.

Answer 4

I, also, follow all of the Biblical bans on what we are to eat, drink, wear, listen to, think upon, watch, do, and talk about. As a denomination, the Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) church accepts and believes the Bible as a whole -- both Old and New Testements. However, that does not mean that all SDA's (or the peoples of other Christian demoninations) live up to all of these standards. Romans 14 teaches that following such things is a growth process as we are convicted by teh Holy Spirit. Not everybody is at the same level of spiritual growth -- and I am not perfect either (by any means).

Answer 5

It is just bigotry. May I please explain something about basic human biology also.

All fetuses are gender neutral for the first 8 weeks or so after conception.

It is not until androgens influence the fetus that Mullerian ducts atrophy and the Wolffian ducts develop into male sexual organs. If there is no androgens or the fetus has Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS) then the fetus will develop into a female even though the fetus may have XY chromosomes the same as most males.

Conversely, a fetus that should be a little girl may develop male sexual organs if androgens are present during fetal development.

Then we also have "so called" normalization surgeries on newborns when the doctor makes a mistake thinking the "supposedly male" infant has hypospadias when it is actually clitoromegaly in a normal female infant. Or he surgically restructures a "supposedly female infant" with what he believes is clitoromegaly in a normal male infant.

Intersex conditions are probably more common than most people realize.

Here's a list of intersex conditions that anyone could look up if they felt like it to understand common intersex conditions: Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, Androgen Resistance Syndrome, Testicular Feminization Syndrome (Testicular Feminisation Syndrome), Feminizing Testes Syndrome (Feminising Testes Syndrome), Male Pseudo-hermaphroditism, Morris's Syndrome (CAIS), Goldberg-Maxwell Syndrome, Reifenstein Syndrome (PAIS), Gilbert-Dreyfus Syndrome (PAIS), Rosewater Syndrome (PAIS), Lubs Syndrome (PAIS), 5 alpha-reductase deficiency, 17 keto-steroid reductase deficiency, XY gonadal dysgenesis (Swyer Syndrome), leydig cell hypoplasia, Denys-Drash Syndrome, Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome, Mayer Rokitansky Kuster Hauser (MRKH) Syndrome, Mullerian dysgenesis, vaginal atresia.

Try cornering a religious fanatic and have them explain these conditions and define which are males and which are females.

Answer 6

You asked a very good and sincere question. The law you quoted is correct and was originally kept for health issues, much of what they were banned from eating was very dangerous food to eat at that time because of the plagues and diseases in the land. They were sparred many of those diseases by avoiding certain food. Jesus addressed that very law in trying to explain that its not eating the food that is a sin.

Matthew 15:10-11

"And He called the multitude, and said unto them, Hear, and understand: It's not the food that goes into the mouth that defiles a man; but that which comes out of the mouth that defiles man."

He is referring to matters of the heart that are the real sin, not what a person eats.

Answer 7

If you read the new testament you would know.Christ reminds us of the ban on homosexuality,M't 10:15,11:23,11:24.M'r 6:11.Lu 10:12,17:29.Ro 9:29.2Pe 2:6.Jude 1:7.Re 11:8.
While we are given this as to keeping Kosher.Acts 10:10 through 10:15.
If you really want an answer you will look up these passages.

Answer 8

It's called hypocrisy. Most Christians that quote Leviticus in order to hate homosexuals are picking and choosing their Bible quotes. They are not only ignoring the dietary requirements of the Old Testament, but the fundamental message of the New Testament which is to love thy neighbor as theyself.

Answer 9

Many keep what they want to keep and throw out the rest. There are many Christians that do believe in both and do keep the rules on the diet as well as condemn the homosexuality. Not just Jews and Muslims either.

Answer 10

There are Moral laws, and Mosaic laws. When Jesus Christ died for our sins, there were no more Mosaic laws we had to follow like sacrificing sheep, lambs, oxen. Only the moral laws are we to uphold. Unlike the other answers, there are no contradictions in the Bible. They just need to study harder. We are no longer under the law. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Not works which is the Mosaic laws like what food to eat animal sacrifices or being circumcised, etc.. But we should try very hard to keep the moral laws. No sodomy, murder, adultry, etc. But the reason the old laws are in the Bible is very important too.