Not Inheriting the Kingdom of God

Hon. Bill Shorten, Australia’s Federal Opposition Leader, has declared, “I actually think that the meanest commentary that I’ve seen in this election is actually the proposition that gay people are going to go to hell.”

Mr. Shorten claims to be Christian. Does he or does he not accept as scripturally-established doctrine the statement of St. Paul to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10 that among the unrighteous who, if unrepentant, cannot inherit the Kingdom of God are effeminate men and those men who bed men?

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

The two words translated as “effeminate” and “abusers of themselves with mankind” in the KJV (μαλακοὶ and ἀρσενοκοῖται) may be translated into modern English as “pansies” and “arse-bandits”. The Vulgate’s translation of ἀρσενοκοῖται, masculorum concubitores, in English is “[male] bedmates of men”.

Koine Greek: ἢ οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι ἄδικοι θεοῦ βασιλείαν οὐ κληρονομήσουσιν; μὴ πλανᾶσθε· οὔτε πόρνοι οὔτε εἰδωλολάτραι οὔτε μοιχοὶ οὔτε μαλακοὶ οὔτε ἀρσενοκοῖται οὔτε κλέπται οὔτε πλεονέκται, οὐ μέθυσοι, οὐ λοίδοροι, οὐχ ἅρπαγες βασιλείαν θεοῦ κληρονομήσουσιν.

Vulgate: An nescitis quia iniqui regnum Dei non possidebunt? Nolite errare: neque fornicarii, neque idolis servientes, neque adulteri, neque molles, neque masculorum concubitores, neque fures, neque avari, neque ebriosi, neque maledici, neque rapaces regnum Dei possidebunt.

By the way, why do those who denounce the proposition that men who bed men might go to Hell not also condemn the proposition that unrepentant fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, thieves, coveters, drunkards, defamers and graspers are similarly hell-bound?

The PM and the People Agree

“Discite justitiam moniti et non temnere divos.” 

—P. Vergilius Maro, Aeneidos, VI, 620.*

 

Our Heroic Leader or εἰς κόρακας

Hark!   “I have been to hell and back,”†
our honest PM said;
she met, perhaps, Persephone,
or walked among the dead.
She says she’ll journey thither more—
“a dozen times” or so—
and there, for once, her folk concur
on whither she should go.

Like Heracles and Orpheus
(who, retrospectively,

made a woeful error there

and lost Eurydice),
our leader crossed the River Styx
or over lakes which burn:
such heroes—once—could come back home,
but must she, too, return?

Some might consider it quite weird,
or rather more than odd,
that one who’s seen the site of hell
does not believe in God.

*  Poor Phlegyas all loudly warned:  “Learn justice; let not gods be scorned!”  (So Aeneas hears as he passes through the underworld.)
†  At a media conference in Canberra, today, our mendacious leader said, “as I think is well known, I’ve gone to Hell and back, and I’ll go there a dozen times more to change the distribution of opportunity in our nation.”  Malcolm Farr of The Australian, reported: “Julia Gillard says she has been ‘to Hell and back’ promoting Labor values as she again drew a stark line between her Government and the Greens.”  This, however, was not the first time that the Prime Fibster has announced that she (or her party, or both) traversed the infernal regions:  at the National Press Club in August, 2010, she averred, “you’re talking to the leader of the political party that literally went to hell and back to modernise the Australian economy, including reducing tariff barriers.”  Note that the PM said that she (or her party) literally went to hell and back—either she refers to herself with “that” instead of “who” (which she sometimes does) or she meant that her entire political party took a fact-finding tour of the pit of eternal damnation.  Many will scorn her inability to pronounce such words as hyperbole but, escaping media scrutiny:  Gillard misunderstands “literally.”
See also “The Wisdom of Julia Gillard”.

UPDATE I (6 July):  In Parliament, yesterday, the PM said:  “I will be wearing out my shoe leather literally, Mister Speaker, around the country, making sure that Australian families who want answers about the carbon pricing package get those answers.” 

UPDATE II (9 September):  Thorfinn, my younger son, adds a little joke on the subject to his site:

I told a son of
Gillard’s claim.  His opinion
of her hellish trick

immediately
was to say she’s no minion
of hell; she’s Old Nick.

UPDATE III (21 September):  in question time today the PM said that the Leader of the Opposition “literally slept through the global financial crisis”. 

UPDATE IV (11 November):  see also “Incredibly Challenging”.