Having a gay old time

Maybe I'm just being dense, but when I read those quotes it seems as though Rogers is completely misunderstanding the point of Romans, specifically the first few chapters.

In Chapter 1, Paul produces a litany of sinful acts. It's not exactly clear from the text that he's speaking specifically of Gentiles; all it says is "men who suppress the truth by their wickedness". However, his use of the past tense and the context of this and subsequent chapters makes it not entirely unreasonable that he is, in fact, talking about how the Jews have historically viewed the Gentiles.

In chapter 2, he indicts his audience (presumably the church in Rome, comprised of Jews) that they are equally culpable in their stubbornness and unrepentance for the same acts. This is where Paul sets up one of his main points: Jews are not innately saved by their Jewishness any more than Gentiles are innately condemned by their Gentile-ness.

However, in the middle of describing God's mercy and grace, he pauses to address some false doctrine. At the first part of chapter 3, he says "Why not say—as we are being slanderously reported as saying and as some claim that we say—'Let us do evil that good may result'? Their condemnation is deserved."

Indeed, he reprises this argument at the beginning of chapter 6, and again starting in 6:15. Indeed, I think the entirety of chapter 6 is very telling.

Let me sum up his thesis thus: Both Jew and Gentile are equally condemned, but receive grace and forgiveness sufficient to overcome that condemnation. However, this grace and forgiveness comes when we forsake our very selves through baptism--the symbolic death and resurrection which hearkens back to Christ's literal death and resurrection. We abandon our old selves and our life of sin (as described in Romans 1) and take on a new nature.

(Romans 7, which we discussed before, addresses the logical next question of "if I've abandoned my old self and have taken on this new nature, why do I still feel the sinful desires that characterized my old self?". I wanted to type, as a punchy answer to this question, "salvation is an event but sanctification is a process", but I need to spend more time thinking about whether that accurately characterizes what I believe before I commit to it.)

I feel like if Rogers was correct, Paul would not spend so much time belaboring the point that even though we are saved and our sins forgiven, we must not continue to lead a life of sin.

(The logical argument is, of course, that "life of sin" is different for Gentiles than for Jews. But even if that's true (and I see little evidence that it is), Paul's inclusive terminology suggests to me that after he showed how Jews and Gentiles were essentially the same, he addresses the rest of his comments to both. His words in 12-14, for example (using words such as wicked and evil), are not the words of someone who believes that this behavior is OK for Gentiles but not for Jews.)