Whenever I try to defend our faith against some atheists I know, they always use the argument that in the Bible, it states that gay people should be killed. They then go on to say that God is cruel, and that He supposedly loved everyone. I try to counter them as best as I can. Since the Bible is free from error, does this mean that in present-day, gays really should be killed? Or is that a symbolic statement that they are taking too literally?

In the Old Testament period, God related to humanity in a manner different from the New Covenant. Think of human history as a timeline of growth from infancy to manhood. In earlier periods, God punished much more immediately and directly, not only the pagans but also his own people. Mortal sin was often punished with physical death, either by an act of God directly or by command, such as those imposed through Moses. Sodom and Gomorrah are examples of pagans living in persistent mortal sin--active homosexual perversion--and they were deserving of their fate. In the New Covenant, God does not necessarily punish so immediately or dramatically, though it does not mean that the unrepentant sinner escapes punishment. For all who die in mortal sin/without sanctifying grace are damned for eternity, a fate much worse than physical death--it is eternal death. By the way, there still remains natural physical punishments for unnatural acts: drinking poisenous substances leads to death; sodomy often leads to disease, some of which can be fatal.

Arguments such are these folks propose to you are their way of rationalizing their perverse behavior and obstinancy in sin.

Father Echert

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