Some Biblical Reflections Upon Being Gay and Christian

I first want to welcome those who have come to this blog via the ongoing debate on the Olivet Nazarene Univserity's Glimmer Glass online newspaper page, where we have been responding to the recent articles (click HERE) that have sparked controversy concerning the place of gay students on our campus.  For those unaware of this now somewhat lengthy debate, you can access it by means of the link I've provided; however, I have written this post so as to be accessible (though lengthy) to all, regardless of your familiarity with that debate.  I invite responses from any and all who visit this post.

My purpose here, as the title suggests, is to lay out some biblical reflections on what most of us would refer to as 'homosexuality', although I am aware that even this term carries some offense when wielded inappropriately.  I hope my readers will believe me when I say I do not mean for it to cause any offense; this is why I did not use it in the title of this blog.  Furthermore, I would encourage those who choose to respond to this blog (in the comments section below) to keep the conversation accessible, as I have tried to do here.  Although there ought to be well thought out and articulated comments, let's do our best to not engage in the 'big word wars', precisely because those who are not familiar with all the technical language need nevertheless to be encouraged to join in the discussion.

I believe that the current, popular level debate within Christian circles in America concerning homosexuality has been encumbered by several misconceptions (1) concerning what the biblical witness is to this issue, and (2) concerning the Christian doctrine of sin.  I want to here address these issues in turn.

The Biblical Witness


First of all, let me say that I engage in this debate with fellow Christians--both gay and 'straight'--who believe that, at least in some way, the Bible still has a central place in the faith of the person who--and Church that--claims that Jesus is their Lord and Savior.  There are, however, many who would call themselves 'Christians' who have essentially given up on the Bible.  A recent commenter in the Glimmer Glass debate, whom I'm assuming is a Christian, wrote: "People, please, please, please, stop quoting bible verses as if it were a text that speaks divine magic. Please stop limiting God to an ancient book that was written by violent desert dwellers just as flawed as we are, with mortal agendas, not to mention, canonized by even more flawed humans. For the sake of pete’s goodness, the bible advocates slavery, murder, inequity of women, and condemnation of homosexuals. Not to mention, has been used to start countless wars. How can you bible quoting fiends ignore these inconsistencies and still claim that the bible is absent of flaws, and endorses love. . . . God works through the hearts of individuals, not through an ancient book."  While I hear my friend's plea here, and would agree with some of his sentiments--for instance that the Bible is not "divine magic" and that its words have been and still often are used to support atrocities--I have to say that I disagree with his basic conclusion: My very life is a testimony to the fact that God does, in fact, somehow, mysteriously, transformatively  work through these ancient books.  To say that he does not is simply to contradict the experience of millions of Jews and Christians throughout the millennia.  It is to the community of faith that still believes that we must be faithful to the scriptural witness (not in a fundamentalist sort of way, but faithful nonetheless) that I direct my reflections here.  If you are not of that number, then I am not sure that we even have enough common footing to engage in this particular debate--a fact for which I am very sorry.


The Bible does not have much to say explicitly about what we would today call 'homosexuality'.  This certainly does not mean that it has nothing to say, nor that we can leave it at that and call it a day.  Unfortunately, however, the Bible has often been hijacked by fundamentalists and other half-wits who simply shout out 1 Cor 6:9 to their gay neighbors and think that this settles the debate.  Let me clear: I abhor this approach and condemn it as essentially anti-Christian.  My gay Christian friends are right in saying that Jesus (and for that matter, Paul!) would not have approached the matter this way, and I will not do so here.  Besides 1 Cor 6:9 there really are only a few other biblical texts that explicitly address the issue: I am thinking of 1 Tim 1:10, Rom 1:26-27 (which is the only text that I am aware of that references what we call 'lesbianism'), and Leviticus 18:22/20:13.  I will deal with each text in turn, beginning with the last two, which need to be considered in tandem.


Leviticus 18:22 "You shall not lie (Heb. shacab; LXX: koimao koites) with a male (Heb. zacar; LXX: arsenos) as with a woman (Heb. 'eesha; LXX: gynaikos); it is an abomination." (NRSV)  Leviticus 20:13 "If a man lies with a male as with a woman (LXX: arsenos koites gynaikos), both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them. (NRSV)  (The scholar will recognize that I have listed the infinitive form of the Hebrew and Greek verb in 18:22, and the nominative singular form of the Greek nouns in parentheses.)


There are many Christians who seem to start with the assumption that appeals made to Old Testament texts have no validity within a Christian argument.  Let me say that if by "Christ" we intend to refer to Jesus of Nazareth, the 1st century Galilean Jew, and if we are in some way trying to identify his (or Paul's) opinion on the matter at hand (not just simply "what the Bible says"), then we are compelled to look at the Old Testament.  Why?  Because these are the scriptures that formed and shaped Jesus and Paul; for them there was no "New Testament."  When they made theological appeals, they made them on the basis of what we call "Old Testament" texts.  The Protestant Christian world has put up a large wall between "Old" and "New" Testaments--between "Law/Torah" and "Gospel/Grace"--that would have been foreign to any 1st century Jew, including Jesus and even Paul.  (For more, read E.P. Sanders's Jesus and Judaism and Paul and Palestinian Judaism)  If we are to speak on not just what "the Bible says" but on what Jesus and Paul said and why they said it, then we must pay attention to these texts from Leviticus, which come from the very heart of the Hebrew Scriptures--the Torah.


Now both Jesus and Paul had quite a lot to say about the Torah, and we cannot go into it all here.  Both of their attitudes (unlike modern Protestants') were quite positive toward Torah.  Jesus at least once said "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." (Matt 5:17)  Paul, despite what we Protestants think of him, regularly noted that the Torah was "good" and "holy." (e.g. Rom 7:12; 7:16; 1 Tim 1:8)  Both Paul and Jesus radically critiqued points of the Torah, to be sure, as did most intelligent 1st century Jews, especially of the sect known as the Pharisees (this was more common than most Christians today realize), but we can be confident that at the end of the day neither Jesus, nor Paul, nor any of the Pharisees they would have debated with advocated--as many Protestants do today--a wholesale rejection of the Torah.  (To be fair, even most Protestants want to hold that the 10 Commandments are  still valid commands for the Christian era, despite the fact that these are found in the Torah.)  The question of the relationship between the Torah in the pre-Christian era and the Torah in the Christian era is one that could take us far afield of the current debate, however, so I must move on.


I want to argue, then, that it is historically very probable that both Paul and Jesus would have been in harmony with the basic sentiments of the Torah, especially when it spoke on ethical concerns (over against, for instance, dietary or cultic [i.e. 'religious'] concerns).  It is especially the ethical dimension of the Torah that both Jesus and Paul want to hold onto: Hence why each can basically summarize the Law as "Love thy neighbor." (Lev 19:18;  Matt. 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27-28; Rom 13:9; Gal 5:14; cf. James 2:8 where this injunction is called "the royal Law")  Now you can be sure that by "love thy neighbor" Jesus and Paul--as 1st century Jews--would not have meant what we 21st century, American pluralists often mean by it: That is, "Love thy neighbor" for Jesus and Paul would not have meant "Accept everything that your neighbor does that doesn't physically or emotionally harm another individual."  (Notice, for instance, that this command "Love they neighbor" in the Torah comes in the chapter immediately before ch.20, where various sexual sins [including the one we are presently considering] are condemned as being worthy of execution!]  Once again, however, we will go too far afield if we further discuss the issue of defining "love" in its 1st century Jewish context.


Now I know that especially the Lev 20:13 text causes us to object immediately.  Am I saying that I think Jesus and Paul would have supported the execution of men who lied with other men as if with women?  No, I am not; let me tell you why.  We are here speaking of the sexual ethics of the Torah, so I think that the passage from John 8:1-11 is instructive (regardless of whether or not it was original to the first edition of John's Gospel).  Here we see Jesus presented with a woman "caught in the act of adultery" (v.3)--a sexual sin that the Torah had said was punishable by execution. (Lev. 20:10; cf. Deut. 22:22, both passages require the execution of both the woman and her male partner--a fact those presenting the woman to Jesus seem to have failed to take account of.)  In fact this requirement is found in exactly the same part of Leviticus (three verses earlier) as the passage presently under consideration.  But what does Jesus do with the woman?  We all know the story.  He condemns, not her, but her accusers implicitly by uttering those powerful words, "He who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her."  Then what happens?  He looks right at her and utters even more powerful words: "'Woman, where are they?  Has no one condemned you?'  She said, 'No one, sir.'  And Jesus said, 'Neither do I condemn you.  Go your way and from now on do not sin again.'" (vv.10-11)  That's Jesus!  The one who could take a sinner condemned to death and turn her accusers away, restore her, and empower her with his own lack of condemnation.  Whether this is a text original to John's Gospel or not, I want to claim that it is faithful to the portrait of Jesus we see throughout the Gospels.  But notice what happens here:  Jesus both fails to follow through with the execution prescribed by the Torah (and, by the way, whether such practices frequently occurred or not in ancient Judaism does not change the fact that the Torah prescribes them), and he also makes it very clear that the adulterous sexual relationship she was involved in was sinful. Jesus turns her accusers away, not because she is not sinful but because they all are sinful (perhaps precisely because of their misogynistic interpretation of the Torah that caused them to neglect to also bring forth the male adulterer?).  He sends her on her way not because she is innocent but in order that she might "not sin again."  This is a microcosm of some of the Christian reinterpretations of Torah: Jesus both says "this is sin" and also says "the strict Torah requirement of execution is unnecessary."


All of this leads me to this conclusion: Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 clearly express that "men lying with men as with a woman" are in violation of God's Torah--that is, they have sinned.  Jesus and (as I will presently show) Paul both accepted this basic sentiment, though at least Jesus felt that the requirement for execution could be replaced by forgiveness through himself.


These passages are not unimportant to the present debate between Christians concerning homosexuality in the Christian community.  If both Jesus and Paul would have read, been shaped by, and accepted the Torah's sentiments on this issue, then--if the word "Christian" is going to retain any meaning whatsoever--we modern Christians ought to follow their example.


One other note on this passage, though.  I notice that Leviticus does not say, It is detestable for a man to be sexually attracted to a man as if he were a woman.  It says, however, that the specific action of lying with a man as if with a woman is detestable.  I do not think that we can use this text to justify an argument that says that it is overtly sinful for men and women to be sexually attracted to the same sex.  There is, in other words, a biblical precedent for distinguishing between "the sin" and "the sinner"--no matter how often that distinction has been abused.  (And as a sinner, I thank God for the distinction!)


1 Cor 6:9-11 "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived: Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate (malakos), nor homosexuals (arsenokoites), nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.  Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God." (NASB: I have chosen this translation because it retains two separate words in v.9 and does not use the archaic and misleading term "sodomites" as the NRSV does, not because I am completely satisfied with the translation.  In fact, I have yet to find any translation of this passage that completely satisfies me. Once again the scholar will here recognize that I have provided the nominative singular form of each of the nouns under consideration.)


The two key words in this passage--malakoi and arsenokoites--are notoriously controversial in modern biblical scholarship, and I've noticed these scholarly debates over Greek semantics have even spilled over into the popular level discussions, which surprises me to some degree and illustrates just how passionate people are about this topic--that people who never cared for Koine Greek before would become entrenched in arguments about it!  The weight of the controversy often falls on the second of these terms, arsenokoites, as the first is much more widely attested in Greek literature than the second and has a more established semantic range (that is, range of possible meanings).  I have nothing unique to offer to this debate, but I will obviously state my position.  I would refer the reader, however, to a few sources where she/he can encounter the debate full on: (1) As I mentioned in my Glimmer Glass critique, Richard Hays's book The Moral Vision of the New Testament, specifically the chapter entitled "Homosexuality," is the best resource that I am aware of which presents a compelling Christian, and throughly scholarly (he is Dean of Duke University's Divinity School), appraisal of this and other biblical passages concerning homosexuality.  He began co-writing the chapter with a gay friend of his before the friend died of AIDS prior to its publication.  It is a powerful, humble, and honest appraisal of the situation by both a homosexual Christian man and a heterosexual Christian man.  (2) Dale Martin is the head of Yale University's New Testament program and is an openly gay man.  His article entitled "Arsenokoites and Malakos: Meanings and Consequences," which appeared in an edited volume entitled Biblical Ethics and Homosexuality (Westminster: John Knox, 1996), is the best articulation of which I am aware for the argument that the New Testament is silent on the issue of modern homosexuality.  While I ultimately find his arguments unconvincing, they are a helpful and welcome voice in the debate.  (3) A critique of Martin's article that I have also found helpful was written by Gary R. Jepsen.  It is entitled "Dale Martin's 'Arsenokoites and Malakos' Tried and Found Wanting," and was published in Vol. 33.5 of the periodical Currents in Theology and Mission.  If you are associated with ONU, any of these resources can be apprehended through our library and inter-library loan system.


Since this discussion is already becoming quite lengthy (how could it not?), I will attempt to summarize my position on this text briefly, recognizing that I am a student and not an expert of the nuances of the debate which rages over this text.  First, I believe that the meaning of the word malakos is ambiguous, and if it had not been followed immediately after by the word arsenokoites we would be hard pressed to understand to what Paul is referring here.  Malakos had a wide semantic range in the ancient Greek language, which included the ideas of being "soft"--either literally (for instance of a fabric) or metaphorically (for instance of a effeminate or "wimpy" man).  I am inclined to believe, based on its context in 1 Cor 6:9-11, that Paul meant here to refer to men who accept sexual favors from other men, but I am not dogmatic about that interpretation.

Second, the word arsenokoites is a much more interesting and unique word.  You need to know before we proceed that the ancient Koine Greek language did not have a technical word for "homosexual" like we do today, even though what we would call "homosexuality"--even amongst consenting adults--was probably as common in Paul's time as it is in ours.  Richard Hays notes that the word arsenokoites "is not found in any extant Greek text earlier than 1 Corinthians."  (Moral Vision, 382)  That is, we have no knowledge of this word's usage prior to Paul's words here in 1 Cor 6:9.  Could it be that Paul invented the word?  Both Richard Hays and the professor currently presiding over my thesis--a man who did his dissertation under Charles Talbert at Baylor University precisely on the sexual ethics of Paul--think that it is quite possible.  (I have not mentioned my professor's name because I do not wish to drag him into all of this without his knowledge.)  Since we have much extant ancient Greek literature, I am inclined to agree.  If Paul made this word up, though, how can we know what it means?


It is time to recall the Levitical passages we just looked at.  I provided the Septuagint translations of certain words precisely for this point. (The Septuagint--abbreviated LXX--was the standard Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible/"Old Testament" during the time of Jesus and Paul, and is the version of the Bible that Paul most often quotes.)  In the LXX version of Lev 20:13, the phrase "lie with a male as with a woman" is the translation of these Greek words: koimethe meta arsenos koiten gynaikos.  The first word is a verb meaning to go to the marriage-bed with, or, euphemistically, to have sexual relations with.  The second word is a preposition meaning "with."  The third is a noun meaning "a man/male."  The fourth word is a noun related to the verb, meaning "marriage-bed," but euphemistically meaning sexual relations.  The fifth word is a noun meaning "a woman."  The two Greek words that are translated "a man (having) a marriage-bed/sexual relations" are arsenos koiten, which--I am convinced--is the place from which the word we have here in Paul (whether he or some other Jew reading the LXX invented it) has originated.  The New Testament Greek word arsenokoites seems clearly to be a compound word, invented by a Jew who read the Greek Septuagint (whether Paul or someone else) that was used, in lieu of the absence for a specific Greek term, to describe those who "lie with a man as if with a woman"--or as we would say in modern language, a homosexual or gay man.


This is obviously a point that Dale Martin disagrees with, and I would reference you to his article to hear his argument.  I would also reference you to the critique of Martin's article that I cited to see a clear argument on where Martin's logic breaks down.


In light of the semantic discussion, what can we say about the meaning of this passage in Paul as a whole?  There are several things that must be pointed out briefly: First, "inherit the kingdom of God" is not a one-to-one correlation with what many Evangelical Christians call "going to heaven when you die."  For the sake of space I will not go into all the implications of our misinformed view of the so-called 'afterlife', but it must be stated that when Christians assert that "Gays won't go to heaven when they die" they are not getting this view from Paul here--at least not in those confused of terms.  Second, Paul composes "vice lists" like this frequently in his epistles (Romans 1:29–31; 13:13; 1 Corinthians 5:10–11; 6:9–10; 12:20–21; Galatians 5:19–21; Ephesians 4:31; 5:3–5; Colossians 3:5, 8; 1 Timothy 1:9–10; 2 Timothy 3:2–5) and we Christians trying to be faithful to the whole of Scripture need to remember that much less (in our time) controversial sins like "quarreling and jealousy" (Rom 13:13), "greed" (1 Cor 5:10), "anger, selfishness, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder" (2 Cor 12:20) are to be found in these "vice lists" as well.  Christians who disproportionately place an emphasis on the two times that Paul mentions homosexuality over against the other sins in these vice lists need to take heed that they do not sin themselves in "anger, gossip, slander," etc.  That said, Paul does place a particular emphasis on sexual sins at least in 1 Cor 5-6. (cf. esp. 6: 18-20)  Third and finally, Paul makes explicit in this passage--which is why I quoted more than just v.9--that all the vices listed in these verses are exactly what the Corinthian believers were freed from: "  Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God." (emphasis mine)  Paul's point is that they, as a result of Jesus and the Spirit, are no longer to be described in the ways listed in the "vice list."  They were changed.  Why would we expect anything less for ourselves as those also washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit?  I doubt this was an easy change for any malakos or arsenokoites Paul may have been thinking of there in the Corinthian church, but there was a change that Paul could celebrate nonetheless.


1 Timothy 1:9-10 basically reiterates the point we have just made about 1 Cor 6:9-10 because it, too, is a Pauline "vice list" that includes the term arsenokoites (the only other occurrence in the New Testament, and certainly a later one than 1 Corinthians).  There is, therefore, no need to do a full exegesis of this passage here. (If you're even still with me, I appreciate it greatly!)


Romans 1:26-27: "For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions.  Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another.  Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error."


Richard Hays says that Roman 1:18-32 (the broader context) is "the most crucial text for Christian ethics concerning homosexuality . . . because this is the only passage in the New Testament that explains the condemnation of homosexual behavior in an explicitly theological context." (Moral Vision, 383)  It is also, as I noted earlier, the only passage in the Bible that deals directly with what we would call "lesbian" sexual relations.  The thrust of this opening chapter of Paul's magnum opus is, however, much different from what many Christians today suppose that it is.  We must understand the broad thrust of this passage in order to understand his specific statements here in vv.26-27.


Romans 1 is not about a list of specific sins and how God punishes them.  It is Paul's comprehensive theological assessment of the entirety of humanity as basically fallen, rebellious, and idolatrous.  All of us, says Paul, "worship the creation instead of the Creator." (v.25)  All of us, says Paul, are, in our wickedness and godlessness, "without excuse." (v. 20)  All of us, says Paul, are idolatrous fools! (vv.22-23)  And all of us are under "the wrath of God." (v.18)  The scope is universal.  No one is exempt--neither Jew nor Greek, neither heterosexual nor homosexual.  We are, all of us, fallen creatures in a basic stance of rebellion against our Creator.


It is only after making this universal point that Paul then goes on to say, "Therefore God gave them [all of us] up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves . . . to degrading passions [like unnatural sexual relations, as mentioned in vv.26-27] . . . and to a debased mind and to things that should not be done.  They [all of us] were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice.  Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they [all of us!] are gossips, slanderes, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents [!!!], foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.  They [all of us!] know God's decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die--yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them." (vv. 24-32)


This is not Paul saying, These are the kinds of sins that will get you punished by the wrath of God.  No, the point Paul is making is much more dramatic, much more universal, much more startling to us today than that.  The point is not that we sin and then God's wrath comes on us for it; the point is that God's wrath has been poured out on essentially rebellious and idolatrous humanity and because of this we sin in all these various ways!  In short, as Ernst Kasemann, a prominent mid-2oth century New Testament scholar put it, "Paul paradoxically reverses the cause and consequence: moral perversion is the result of God's wrath, not the reason for it." (qtd. in Moral Vision, 385)  God's wrath is viewed precisely as God's "giving us up" (vv. 24, 26, & 28) to our own sinful desires.  God's wrath = letting rebellious humanity go its own way.  THE RESULT is all the sinfulness he characterizes here, including homosexuality.


Is Paul here calling God the author of sin, then?  Of course not. (cf. Rom 5-6)  He is simply, as Richard Hays has put it, "cast[ing] forth a blanket condemnation of humankind." (Moral Vision, 385)  As Paul will say elsewhere, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Rom 3:23)  Paul really believes that statement, as chapter 1 of Romans indicates.


So how does this passage come to bear on the current issue, then--especially in light of the fact that this reading may be unfamiliar to many Christians?  I think that this passage provides a good segue into the (I promise briefer) discussion of the Christian doctrine of sin.


The Christian Doctrine of Sin


Quite often I am frustrated to hear my conservative Christian brothers and sisters making the following argument in the debate over the place of homosexuality in the life of the Christian: They say, "Sin is a choice, and homosexuality is sin; therefore, you simply need to stop choosing to behave homosexually!"  


To this wrongheaded notion of sin the gay man or lesbian woman is going to inevitably respond: "You simply do not understand what you are talking about.  I didn't choose to be gay.  I am gay.  God does not condemn people for who they are!"


It is clear that both of these arguments are misinformed about the nature of the Christian doctrine of sin.  Let me bring back in Paul's Epistle to the Romans to help illuminate the issue.  Paul clearly states, as we saw, that "all have sinned (this is an aorist verb, scholars) and fall short of the glory of God."  He also clearly argues in Romans 1 that there is a blanket of condemnation over all mankind: God's wrath is poured out on us all, precisely because we are all essentially and fundamentally rebellious and idolatrous fallen creatures.  There is surely a sense, then, in which sin pertains to--as the popular definition goes--"willful transgressions of a known law of God," but there is also a sense in which--over and beyond these individual "willful transgressions"--wickedness and godlessness and sinfulness abounds in the entire creation, permeating every aspect of our being as individuals, as societies, and as the human creation as a whole.


Sin is much bigger than the conservative Christians believe it to be, and the wrath of God--his condemnation for our godlessness and wickedness--is much more comprehensive than the gay Christian community seems to often presented it as.  To my fellow conservative Christians I want to say, Sin is at work in this world in a much more comprehensive manner than simply individual behaviors.  Take, for instance, the girl who is raped at 5 years old and prostituted by her parents for the next 8-10 years before she leaves her home and lives a life of rampant promiscuity.  (My wife has counseled girls like this.)  I have gotta tell you conservative Christians that that girl does not just wake up each morning and decide to be sexually promiscuous each day.  It is simply a part of who she is, precisely because she has never known any differently.  Does that make the sexual promiscuity admirable or praiseworthy?  Of course not!  It's still sin, but it is far more than the sum of her behavioral choices.  Sin has been at work on her life as much as it is now at work through her life.  That is to conclude that sinfulness, wickedness, godlessness (call it whatever!) is much bigger than the sum of individual choices.


To my gay Christian friends, however, I also have a corrective to offer.  Saying that God does not condemn anyone for who they are is not, in fact, faithful to the scriptures either.  Romans 1 is just one text, but it is a clear articulation of a theme that runs throughout the Jewish and Christian scriptures--that theme is that everyone is under the wrath and condemnation of God, precisely because "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." 


The power of the Christian Gospel is usurped when we deny this fact, because the power of the Christian Gospel is precisely that Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah/Christ, has now made a way for us to escape the condemnation and wrath of God (or, more truly, to stand "justified" under it) by means of his own death and resurrection and our appropriation by faith of his death and resurrection.  


The Christian doctrine of sin, then, is much broader than the conservative Christian community often recognizes, and the Christian articulation of the condemnation brought upon us all by our essential sinfulness is much broader than the gay Christian community often recognizes.


I want to propose a way forward that I think remains faithful to the biblical witness concerning sin and condemnation, but perhaps uses some concepts and language that are more readily helpful to our modern situation.


Often the conservative Christian community has compared the sin of homosexual relations to the sins of murder, theft, adultery, and the like.  While I understand that there are some parallels--namely the argument that all sin is unacceptable to God--there are some hindrances to these comparisons that the gay Christian community rightly points out.  Most importantly, it seems to me, is the fact that gay Christians often object saying, "I do not choose to be gay in the same way someone chooses to murder someone else, or steal something, or even to commit adultery with another person's spouse."  And by the way, I believe my gay Christian friends when they say something like this to me.  


I do not think that gay and lesbian persons choose to be gay and lesbian in the same way that I choose to drink Pepsi today for lunch instead of Coca Cola.  They do not choose to be attracted to the same sex in the same way a child chooses to steal a candy bar from the grocery store.  These comparisons are naive at best and destructive at worst.


What I am getting at here is that I do not believe being gay is a simple behavior that one consciously chooses to engage in at any given moment over against heterosexual behavior . . . anymore than I believe that, for instance, my being a consumeristic, materialistic, gluttonous, environmentally wasteful American are behaviors that I consciously choose to engage in at any given moment.

These comparisons are helpful to me, and let me tell you why.  Many American Christians--myself included--do not realize on a moment by moment basis just how consumeristic, materialistic, gluttonous, and environmentally wasteful people we truly are.  But there can be no argument that we are all these things and more.  When someone calls us out on these things, we often respond quite similarly to the gay Christian, saying, "This is just a part of who I am."  Or rather, we sometimes say, "That's just the way the world and/or this society is."  Does that make all these characteristics of ourselves or our society good, godly, admirable, or praiseworthy?  Of course not!

We are a wicked, self-centered, greedy, fattened society that regularly engages in all kinds of materialistic, consumeristic, gluttonous, and environmentally wasteful behaviors--and this is all a part of what is broadly called "sin/godlessness/wickedness/unrighteousness."  Sometimes we have a moment of insight where we realize that these things are far from the intentions of our Creator for ourselves and for the world, but it is almost impossible to retain this insight in the front of our minds at all times precisely because these types of sins are so prevalent in the society within which we live.

It is my contention--and I truly pray it will be received as a humble and yet hopefully illuminating suggestion, not as dogma--that this is how homosexuality operates as "sin" in our American culture.


I truly do believe my gay Christian friends when they say, "I'm not choosing to be gay.  I am gay."  And I hope they'll hear me when I say that "I am not choosing to be consistently a consumerist, a materialist, a glutton, or an environmentally wasteful person (all things I am guilty of being, mind you!).  I simply am this way."  I think that in both of our cases, we are this way precisely because of the comprehensive nature of sin/wickedness/evil/godlessness/unrighteousness in our world, not because God made us this way or intends for us to stay this way.


That makes all of these sins something to be recognized as more difficult to reject than, say, simple petty theft; but it also recognizes that at the heart of all of these unconscious identities and behaviors is still sin.  


God didn't intend for me to be a consumerist, a materialist, a glutton, and an environmentally wasteful person, but I am this way because of where and with whom I live--namely, in a fallen world with fallen people.  This doesn't make my sin acceptable to God; therefore, I have to cast my full reliance upon him in ways that stretch me beyond my own limits.  I do not think that because I am a consumerist, a materialist, a glutton, and an environmentally wasteful person that God cannot wait to deny my entrance into his heaven.  Nor do I believe that God wishes to do so for the gay person who clings to Christ as Lord and Savior.  He alone must be our central identity and the Spirit through which our identities and behaviors are molded (i.e. "are sanctified").

I do think, however, that God expects us all to repent (lit. to "turn away") from sin insofar as he enables us to do this--whether that sin is an overt, one-time action like looking at pornography, or a more central part of our identity as fallen creatures, like being a materialist, or a consumerist, or a homosexual.  The Good News ("Gospel") is precisely that, in Jesus and the Holy Spirit, God has himself (wow!) provided the way to repent, to turn away from our own rebelliousness and to embrace his identity and intention for us.  We are all of us called to receive this good news--homosexual and heterosexual sinners alike--and I pray that you will accept it, whomever you are reading this.

History and Inspiration

"The Christian faith is worthless apart from the validity of the central historical claims that it makes."


That was my argument in the previous blog (and I apologize that I have not come back to it as quickly as I had hoped to).  I believe this strongly; again, I draw your attention to Paul's word in 1 Cor 15: If the resurrection (an historical event) has not occurred, then your faith is futile.  I am convinced, as I think Paul was, that if the Christian interpretation of history is incorrect, then our faith is worthless and we are fools.


The rubber meets the road in an often ugly way, however, when we take this strong conviction to the Bible.  If the Christian faith is based on historical events, do we therefore have to accept everything written in the Bible at historical face value?


If you're pulse just increased a bpm or two, that's probably a good thing.  The minute we fail to take this question seriously, we have fallen into "Lessing's ditch"--that is, we have privatized our faith and renounced its relationship to historical events.  This question is a very important one, but it does not have an easy, one-line answer.  And part of the problem lies precisely in the fact that easy, one-line answers are what people usually expect to this question.


Because I come from a more conservative church upbringing, I constantly hear the affirmative, one-line answer: "Yes, everything in the Bible happened exactly as it is recorded."  Those who come from a more liberal church upbringing probably laugh at this because they've been fed the opposite answer all their lives: "No, only un-thinking, radical, right-wingers still believe that the Bible can be used to talk about actual history."  As I said before, however, one-line answers are inadequate to answer the question.


The most frustrating thing to me, as a student of the Scriptures and as an historian, is that I find that most of the people I hear answering either of these one-liners (and I am, because of my environment, more prone to hear the first answer) are not nearly as familiar with the scriptures as they pose to be.  It would be laughable to me, if I didn't think the issue was one of great importance, to hear--as I often do--a layman or even a minister in a conservative church swear by heaven that everything recorded in the scriptures is historically accurate, who can't tell me what even the basic contents of a book like Haggai or Zechariah or Ezra are!


I mean, what if you met a doctor who had never studied cancer?  Or what if you met a physicist who hadn't ever heard of Einstein?  This is how I feel when I encounter these claims, because it is so blatantly obvious that the person has formed their conclusion before actually dealing with the data.


What causes this?  Why do good, well-meaning Christians make themselves look so foolish by making great claims for which they have no real, studied basis?


The problem is our view of inspiration.  Specifically, the problem is that we have 
formed our view of the Bible's inspiration before we have even read the Bible!


I can't tell you how many great Christians I've met who tell me with one breath (not always in so many words) that they are completely committed to the view of inspiration that says that everything in the Bible is historically accurate, and in another breath tell me that they're hoping to make it past 2 Samuel this year in their attempt to read through the Bible.


This, as you can probably tell, often throws serious students of the scriptures like myself into a frenzy.  The sad truth is that many who get to a serious graduate level of biblical studies like myself often leave the faith because they see just how irreconcilable this view of inspiration is to the actual data of the scriptures.


So is this the answer?  If the Christian faith is based on history, but our history in the Bible is not always entirely accurate, should we abandon the faith?


I want to argue that this is not the appropriate response.  No historian throws out an historical source just when one, minor (or perhaps at times even major) detail is examined and found lacking in accuracy.  Why would we do this with the scriptures?


(At this point it might be worth noting that I am perfectly aware that some reading this blog are saying, "Where's your evidence that not everything in the Bible is historically accurate?"  To this I make no lengthy reply at this time because I have seen how worthless those arguments so quickly become.  Let me simply say that, in light of 250+ years of critical study of the Bible, the burden of proof no longer lies upon the person who says that there are historical problems in the Bible, but upon the person who contends there are none.  It is very difficult to prove a negative.  Even if the Bible contains a mostly accurate portrait of events in the ancient world--which I believe it does--this does not make it perfectly accurate.  In fact, the very definition of "written history" rules out any perfectly accurate historical account [because of, for instance, the perspective of the historian writing the history], and the scriptures are most certainly written history.)


I think that the better response is to tweak our conception of "inspiration," and perhaps also our definition of "written history."  Contrary to what fundamentalists have been arguing since the advent of the evolution-Creation debate, "inspired word of God" does not mean the same thing as "historically and scientifically infallible account."  We are afraid.  We are afraid that letting go of this view of inspiration will mean that we are turning our backs on the Bible.  While I appreciate this fear, as one conservative Christian to (hopefully) many others, I want to say that this fear is unfounded.


The Bible is a great historical resource, and ultimately I believe that the Christian faith depends on the Bible's being historically accurate on a great deal of what it says.  We need our doctrine of inspiration to be built upon what we find there, though, not on what we bring to it.


I leave you with these thoughts, because my post is already getting quite long, but invite your responses--any and all!  I may continue this train of thought in another post if I feel that it will be helpful to do so; there is so much more that could be said.