Can I Love the Bible if I Welcome a Homosexual?

I spent quite a bit of time today answering this email that was one of many that came in response to the op-ed on homosexuality. I’m posting the email and my loooong reply in hope that perhaps others might be interested in this exchange on this important, complex and many-layered topic.

From my in-box:

I would like to understand how you could read something into the Bible that is so starkly differing from what is openly stated as an abomination in several instances in the Old and New testaments. 

Can you explain to me how you can discount verses in Leviticus, First Corinthians and Romans?  I would truly like to believe your view but then how do I believe anything in the Bible?  How do I believe that Christ died on the cross and was resurrected if something stated so cut and dried as homosexual relations being an abomination isn 't true?

I, like you, believe love for all fellow men and women is not only commanded by God but a very desirably way to cope with life.  I truly believe in love for ALL people including homosexuals.  I don't judge anyone, but I also firmly believe what is said in the Bible.  God didn't wipe out Sodom and Gomorrah because he blessed homosexualism. Or is that something else in the Bible that I shouldn't believe because of evolving social mores.

I, like you, can accept advancements in science and make them reconcilable to the Bible, such as God's creation of the universe over eons rather than a few thousand years and by methods that are not fully explained in the Bible.  But homosexualism doesn't even reconcile with the laws of nature, let alone the laws of God.

If I am wrong, please explain how I am because my heart aches for my child.  I don't want to hear arguments about because such and such seemed barbaric in the Old Testament, we shouldn't believe in it now.  Times were obviously different in a primitive world and God had his reasons for things we don't totally understand now.  But if you can explain how we can disregard where it says so clearly that man embracing man and women embracing women is an abomination, then I would like to know it.  Are you saying that you accept homosexuals as not only people to be loved but people who are leading an acceptable lifestyle to be endorse by the church and society and by law?

My reply:

I feel your pain and tension between wanting to be faithful to the Bible that we understand as God’s Word which cannot be disregarded and the desire to welcome and include your beloved child.  

Your question about if you could hear scripture as something other than a blanket condemnation of homosexual acts “then how do I believe anything in the Bible?” raises a foundational issue: is the Bible true or not?  And if so, what do we mean by “true”?  

This leads us into all kinds of complicated but necessary questions about how we read the Bible, the kind of authority we grant it, how we hold it over against (or alongside) other understandings of creation, science, history, human nature, etc.  And which biblical prohibitions will we hold as “eternal” and which as culturally-conditioned (e.g. women should not cut their hair).  So when you say “I firmly believe what is said in the Bible” I believe you mean it, but also assume that, either consciously or unconsciously, you’ve already nuanced this statement to a degree.  No one I’ve heard of (thankfully) believes that we should follow literally the instructions in Leviticus 20:13 that “if a man lies with a man... they shall be put to death.” So we believe what the Bible says, but we are alway interpreting the Bible.  But to what degree and by what standard?

Some hear these questions as a prelude to relativism and a reduction of the Bible’s authority.  For me, these questions are needed to allow the Bible to be what it is, and not to make it what it is not by reading it with my western, 21st century presuppositions.  To read it without consideration of context actually makes ME more the authority than the Bible itself, as much as I might veil my assumptions in biblical language.

For example, there was no actual word “homosexuality” in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek, the three original languages of the Bible.  The word first appears in the English language in the late 19^th century.  This is an important point to keep in mind when attempting to understand the sociological background of Biblical texts is essential in trying to determine meaning and interpretation of that particular word.

 You mention Sodom and Gomorrah.  Is this the story of an entire city made up of gay men who prefer males over virgins (nice touch here: Lot offers his daughters to the crowd!)?  No, what is being described here is a primitive (remember these are old stories!) way of heterosexual men shaming, curbing, showing-who’s-boss to these strangers by forcing them to take the “lesser role” of the woman in the act of sex.  What is condemned by God is inhospitality to traveling strangers (a big no-no in ancient times), rape and domination by the majority against the strangers. Who, gay or straight, would disagree with this condemnation?   Many years later Ezekiel writes, “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy” (Ezek. 16: 49).

Or take Leviticus 18:22.  It may seem clear when read in isolation, but what is its context?  Is it condemning homosexuality as we understand it today?  Written during the Exile, the primary concern in that portion of the text was for Israel to remain holy and identifiable from other cultures and faiths.  It says, in essence, don’t be like those guys.  Other cultures have cultic practices that included presumably heterosexual persons committing homosexual acts, as well as having sex with temple prostitutes.  Don’t do that, says Leviticus.  The Hebrew word in 18:22 for “abomination” is the word “to’ebah” which usually has to do with ritual impurity or with idolatry.  To keep this label in perspective, it is important to consider other behaviors are also called “to’ebah:” mixing of fabrics in garments or eating dairy and meat products together (eg. a chee

seburger or a pepperoni pizza).  

One other point, the Holiness Codes of Leviticus were not intended to be separated out, with some laws being observed and others not.  They were intended to be taken as a whole.  Most Christians do not abide by the other 600+ laws, so it is tricky to pick out one law and hold it as important.  Here are a few examples.*

 Or take Romans 1:26-28.  Here Paul is describing what happens to persons of faith who turn to idols and follow other religions.  The Greek phrase, “para physin,” translated in the NRSV as “unnatural,” is best translated as “unconventional or “unusual.”  It is the same phrase used in 1 Corinthians 11:14 to refer to men having long hair, something we do not see today as sinful.  Further, the behaviors described in this text probably were connected to practices by Greek religions.  So, these folks were guilty of idolatry, and thus their behavior was unconscionable to Paul.  Again, it refers to heterosexuals going against their natural orientation due to their worship of idols.

You are right: homosexuality is not “natural” anatomically or in terms of humanity’s ability to procreate. But couldn’t the same be said for couples who marry but cannot or do not have children?  Or of a person who refuses to marry?  Humans were made to procreate; to not do so could be considered “unnatural.”  When Paul uses “unnatural” in Romans he is assuming that all people are wired as heterosexual and that some are intentionally and volitionally defying their heterosexual orientation.  What else could he assume-- he was a man of his day with no frame of reference for the possibility that some people are born or develop to be gay, not of their own choice (I’ve never met a person out of the hundreds of gays I’ve talked to who claimed they chose to be gay; to the contrary everyone tell heart-wrenching stories of how they fought being gay with all their might)?  His other references in 1 Corinthians 6 and a few other places, often translated “sodomites,” (there’s actually several Greek words) refer to effeminate men (Living Bible: “sissies”), men who opt for boys over women for intimacy in the gymnasium systems of the day, and men who use homosexual sex as a form of domination, much like the story of Sodom.  These latter references condemn actions that everyone, including gays and lesbian Christians, would also condemn today.

So is what the Bible condemns as clear as it appears to be in a first reading?  For me, it is not.  None of the references refer to people who are constitutionally gay despite their efforts to reprogram themselves (check out the failure rate of groups like Exodus that try to reprogram; I had a woman in my last church commit suicide because of the pressure Exodus put on her to change when she could not).  None of the Bible’s references address the reality of homosexuality as a person’s unchangeable orientation, as a small minority of our population, who find themselves to be gay and who find the same kind of deep, abiding sense of “home” in a same-sex person as I do with Terri.  They cannot alter this reality in them any more than I could alter mine.  For me and my reading of these texts, there is not a direct connection between what is being addressed and homosexuality as we understand it today as an orientation that is different than the majority of humans, but not something that is chosen or alterable.  Generally, what these texts condemn most believing people, gay and straight, would also condemn, but that is not the same thing as a monogamous, loving, respectful, mutual relationship between two people who are constitutionally gay.

Some will argue “ok, people may be gay, but they must remain celibate.”  But Jesus is clear that celibacy is a gift given only to a few; it is not something we can force on another person.

I’ve offered a very brief overview.  Entire books have been written on this subject, and of course rebutted by those who begin with a different set of assumptions.  I encourage you to check some out.  One I commend is Jack Rogers' Jesus, the Bible and Homosexuality.  

Take whatever part of this might be spiritual fodder for you.  Ignore the rest.  I have no desire to argue or to try to sway you to my beliefs.  I simply offer them as a reply to what I perceived to be a heart-felt question.

Joe Phelps

* These questions about Levitical prohibitions appeared in a tongue-in-cheek letter some years ago:

 When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors.  They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. How should I deal with this? 

I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as it suggests in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

 I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell?  I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

Lev. 25:44 states that I may buy slaves from the nations that are aroundus.  A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans but not Canadians.  Can you clarify?

I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 10:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?

Lev. 20:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses.  Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?