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From: sdyer@bbnccv.UUCP (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: modern Christianity's lack of responses to Boswell
Message-ID: <278@bbnccv.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 3-Feb-85 22:16:05 EST
Article-I.D.: bbnccv.278
Posted: Sun Feb  3 22:16:05 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 8-Feb-85 03:47:23 EST
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Actually, the responses to the arguments in Boswell's book have not been
forthcoming from what one would consider the traditional audience for
this scholarship: Protestant and Catholic moral theologians, Bible scholars
and Church historians.  Some early reviews took issue with his background
as a medieval historian, unspecialized in some of the particular times
covered by his book, the early Christian era up to the 14th Century,
but these were all rather ad hominem and unsubstantive, and glaringly
evasive of any discussion of his conclusions.  So far, there have
been NO articles disputing any of his major points.  Clearly it cannot
be his credentials which would prevent him from being taken seriously,
an assistant professor of history at Yale, and the book published by
the University of Chicago Press.  To my mind, the topic is too aversive
to many who should be reading the book, and the implications too
frighteningly revolutionary to risk being persuaded by the evidence
he presents.  In a curious way, modern Christianity is trying to neutralize
Boswell's arguments without being "contaminated" by them, and that is
to ignore them and feign ignorance of the book and its conclusions.

This is unfortunate, and it serves no one well in the long run.
Scholarship never advances in a vacuum.  I am sure that most people
who have read the book would like nothing more than to see some
intelligent responses from the Christian mainstream and the dialogue
which it would engender.  To present evidence against Boswell's own
and argue it persuasively, is not necessarily to be labelled a
"homophobe", nor do I think that label would dissuade anyone with a
serious opinion of the work from presenting it.

So, Paul, the ball is squarely in the Church's court.  As good as
are Ron Rizzo's summaries of the book and lectures by Boswell, I
invite you again to pick up the original, if you intend to address
its points.  It's in most college and religious bookstores (at least
the liberal Seabury kinds) as well as your public library.  The reference
is: Boswell, John, "Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality",
University of Chicago Press, 1980.
-- 
/Steve Dyer
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