Christianity and homosexuality
Recently, as politics have gotten, for lack of a better word, spicy, I want to examine one specific belief of the evangelical conservative platform: their dislike and reluctance to accept the LGBTQ+ community. For years, this felt wrong to me, and so with this piece I hope to state my opinion on the matter. For the record, this piece is not in response to anyone nor attacking people in this sub. All I want to do is offer my perspective and encourage discussion. My secondary objective is selfish. I don’t think it’s healthy to ever accept anything blindly, and so forcing myself to think about this subject is an exercise of my faith as a Christian as well.
Having been a Christian since I was seven years old, I’ve heard a fair share of pastors talk about their interpretations of the Bible. However, sometimes passages from the Old Testament, understood as about before the coming of Jesus, used some sort of supernatural or outlandish elements in them. Some examples include the story of Lot and Sodom (Genesis 11-14, 19), Joshua’s trumpets destroying the walls of Jericho (Joshua 6), and Elisha and the two bears (2 Kings 2:23-25). The Old Testament is filled with these, and oftentimes atheists would call on some of these stories as a means to attack religious beliefs.
As a contemporary Christian with some common sense, the question is: how do we make sense of these stories? The Bible is the foundation of the Christian faith, so does that necessarily translate to a blind acceptance of the Word, no matter how outrageous the acts may be? For many pastors, the answer was simple – to interpret the Bible symbolically, considering the lessons that these stories are teaching and letting the details fall to the waist side. Similarly, we Christians are told to consider the events in a historical context and to reevaluate the choices of wording to better understand the intent of the passage.
I’d like to address the idea of taking things metaphorically. In this regard, I find Christians confusing. On one hand, some events, like the story of Creation, are taken for face value and interpreted as is, but on the other hand other narratives are looked at metaphorically. One famous story is Moses parting the Red Sea (Exodus 14 if you want to follow along). The Lord lead the Israelites out of Egypt, but they are stuck at the edge of the Red Sea. Moses, out of his faith in God, parts the Sea for the Israelites to cross. The idea here is that God has your back, and if you put your trust in him he will provide. The discussion of the actual parting of the freaking Red Sea usually doesn’t go very far, but the emphasis will nine out of ten times be on trusting the Lord. Thus, I find this whole cherry-picking what to take literally as kind of dumb. What exactly goes into choosing what to believe varies from person to person. However, I think that convenience, i.e. believing in something because it’s convenient, plays a big role in the choosing process for many people.
In a similar vein, some of these stories are taken in a historical context and explained that way. Using the same story, a popular belief is that Moses had knowledge about the tides of the Red Sea, and therefore led the Israelites across during low tide instead of parting the sea himself. I think that this method is of paramount importance because it enriches our Christians’ understanding of the Bible and what the Word of God is trying to tell us.
Why do I mention these methods of interpreting the Bible? I do so because from my perspective, many evangelical conservatives seem to drop these methods of interpretation when it comes to homosexuality. As Matthew Vine, author of God and the Gay Christian, notes on his website, there are six verses out the 31,000 in the Bible that explicitly mention homosexuality: “Three of them are neutral, and three are negative,” he writes. The verses talk about homosexuality as a visible sign of sin entering the world, where men become perversed and start lusting after other men. Homosexuality is seen as unnatural and evil. It seems that for many conservatives, the conversation stops there. The Bible says this, so that’s the end of it. However, this argument completely neglects the interpretation strategies developed to make sense of the Bible in the modern world.
One argument that sums this up pretty well is this: the Bible says that “Whoever curses his father or mother shall be put to death” (Exodus 21:17), but we clearly don’t follow that anymore. By today’s standards, that’s a terrible punishment. Since we don’t follow that rule (given to Moses by God himself, by the way), why should we follow what the Bible says about homosexuality to the ‘t’ as well? Other rules ordained by God include not eating shellfish or pork. As mentioned earlier, note that these are the same types of things that non-Christians often use as examples to attack or probe Christians. My response is that without context, these rules are as dumb as they say. However, from these rules we can understand the intention of such laws, and adjust accordingly to modern society.
One example of adjusting accordingly can be found in the following: “If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son… all the men of his town are to stone him to death” (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). It is clear that such a behavior is not warranted today, but the intent is this: that the children have respect and not be rebellious towards their parents. In the same vein, the New Testament also commands filial piety many times (see Ephesians 6:1, for example). To conclude, we are to understand the idea of respecting our parents from that original verse, taking the verse for its intent rather than its literal value.
This is my belief and the hill I will die on: because many aspects of the Old Testament are not interpreted literally anymore for one reason or the other, I think what the Old Testament says about homosexuality should also be subject to the same standard.. Instead, like the aforementioned stories, homosexuality should be generalized and understood to symbolize perversion and evil behavior, and that homosexuality itself is not evil. Just like how cursing at your mother or father is no longer considered a crime punishable by death, homosexuality is not evil and does not deserve the disgust that so many Christians have for it.
In addition, I resonate very heavily with the belief that Christians show love to everyone. This was the root of my uneasiness with disliking gay people, as I’ve always been taught to be loving, kind, and understanding to everyone else. Suddenly switching to being hostile towards the LGBT community just felt wrong, and so I never did it. Though this debate about accepting homosexuality will no doubt continue, I think that in the meantime, is it such a terrible thing to show love to our non-heterosexual brothers, sisters, and everyone else in between?
Though I specifically mention that instances of being gay in the Old Testament should not be taken literally, how do I deal with homosexuality in the New Testament? Those doctrines tend to be taken more literally in the Christian paradigm. For this, we shall examine those on a case by case basis in their proper historical contexts. There are three specific passages in the New Testament that mention homosexuality: Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, and 1 Timothy 1:9-10.
Romans 1:26-27: Paul wrote to the Christians living in Rome at the time around the 1st century AD. Sexuality in Rome was very much not constricted to homosexual and heterosexual. Rather, sexual relationships were more a status symbol than anything else. Any man who would submit and be penetrated was considered inferior, feminine, and would be lower in status. Thus, status in Rome was not just about powerful men, but the ones who would not submit sexually to other men. Thus, homosexual relationships, while not the norm, were not considered unnatural during this time in Rome. In addition, the Romans were persecuting the Christians, so Christian life was very tough and discouraging at this time. Paul is writing to them to encourage them and keep up their faith. In the process, he denounces homosexual relations with other men. The way I see it, in condemning homosexual behavior, Paul is indirectly attacking the Romans, who are making Christians’ lives miserable. Here, homosexuality really is just a vehicle to denounce the Romans, and being gay isn’t necessarily bad.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10: Similar to Paul with the Christians in Rome, he also visited and wrote epistles to the church of Corinth. Corinth was a thriving city, due to it being a commercial center. Due to this, the city had a large population and grew rampant with sin too. We see in verse nine that all these people will not inherit the kingdom of God: idolaters, adulterers, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, slanderers, and swindlers. This may be a stretch, but I think he’s saying that evildoers will not go to heaven. Because the default at the time was to consider homosexuality as evil, Paul lumped gay people in with everyone else he thought were evil. Therefore, I see this list as groups of people that Christians at the time thought were evil and not a comprehensive list, nor should we take all of these terms 100% literally. The idea is that people who sin and don’t accept Jesus Christ will not go to heaven. Gay people, because they were considered evil at the time, happened to make it into the list.
1 Timothy 1:9-10: Paul is writing to Timothy, someone who he considers his mentee. In this passage, Paul is warning Timothy about those that teach the law but do so not out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith in God. “We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels,...” (1 Timothy 1:9), and he goes on to list all these people that are looked down upon by SOCIETY. Similar to the case in 1 Corinthians, being gay is only mentioned because it is seen by society at the time as something evil. It is impossible to isolate narrative from its context, because doing so detracts from its original intended meaning. Though these epistles are now a part of the Bible, they no doubt contain influences from society at the time - one that shuns homosexuality. Thus, using this as a basis to reject gay people is the equivalent of following ancient laws out of context.
Much of the New Testament was written by Paul, someone who would’ve been well versed in the Old Testament. Therefore, he would’ve no doubt read about God’s thoughts on homosexual people and been influenced by that viewpoint. In fact, any Christian of the time with access to the Septuagint would’ve been influenced by the Old Testament, so we can’t say that these epistles and Christian beliefs of the time can be separated from society. We have to interpret everything as such too. I know that in saying this it may seem that I am denying the validity of Paul’s words. In fact, I am doing the opposite. In considering the contexts in which he writes his letters, I am seeking to understand his intentions in a timeless sense, free from the chains of society.
Finally, though I started by talking about conservatives rejecting the LGBTQ+ community, and then proceeded to only address homosexuality, I’d like to apologize by saying that I’m not familiar with instances in the Bible dealing with the full spectrum of genders. However, I feel my arguments apply to all other identities as well. After all, loving everyone is loving EVERYONE, and so I feel no problem extending my arguments to apply to everyone as well. I’d like to thank anyone who took the time to read this, as I do feel like I’ve rambled a bit.
Posted Nov 7, 2019, 3:10 AM UTC
If we as Christians believe that God is all powerful, why should we not take the miracles in the O.T seriously?
I think this just comes down to what we choose to believe. One thing I did not address is the fact that the miracles of God don't have to be comprehended by man, and so we technically shouldn't meddle in justifying and choosing which miracles to believe because doing so would be a fruitless effort. I hope you recognize that I'm still very conflicted on the issue, but I appreciate your input.