This was a response I wrote in response to my brother commenting on my Prayers for Bobby Blog. This is the most in-depth blog I wrote, and finally answers and challenges some of the deepest christian beliefs out there.
My Response to my Brother's Response regarding “Prayers For Bobby”
By Casey Wooley
Good morning everybody:
I posted a bulletin/blog yesterday about my response to “Prayers for Bobby,” the Lifetime Original movie. Ryan, my brother, in turn posted a response feeling the need to correct some of the statements I made. His post in full reads the following:
I dont typically do this, but again Casey posted a bulletin about homosexuality and religion that I feel needs to be corrected. I'm not here to bash anyone that feels they are or happens to be gay, I'm just correcting some false information that was put out there.
First off, Casey said "Homosexuality isn't something that can be cured. Just as a person's skin color, eye color, hair color, mental capacity, and any other genetically born trait cannot be "cured," homosexuality is something that just is."
Thats wrong. God does not create a person with homosexual desires. The Bible tells us that a person becomes a homosexual because of sin (Romans 1:24-27), and ultimately because of their OWN CHOICE. A person may be born with a greater susceptibility to homosexuality, just as people are born with a tendency to violence and other sins. That does not excuse the person choosing to sin by giving into their sinful desires. If a person is born with a greater susceptibility to anger / rage, does that make it right for them to give into those desires and go shoot up a school or market place? Of course not! The same is true for homosexuality.
Casey went on to say: "Lastly, it's not about abandoning you're religion. Gay people will be in Heaven. No, instead it's about interpreting your religion differently and realizing that everything you read in the Bible, or some other religious text was written and interpreted by those who came before you, shaped by societal views, and passed along by those in power, with the ability to make change. As the reverend in the movie, says, sometimes blind faith is just as bad as no faith at all."
The Bible consistently tells us that homosexual activity is a sin (Genesis 19:1-13; Leviticus 18:22; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9). Romans 1:26-27 teaches specifically that homosexuality is a result of denying and disobeying God. When a person continues in sin and disbelief, the Bible tells us that God “gives them over” to even more wicked and depraved sin in order to show them the futility and hopelessness of life apart from God. 1 Corinthians 6:9 proclaims that homosexual “offenders” will not inherit the kingdom of God.....BUT....
The Bible does not describe homosexuality as a “greater” sin than any other. All sin is offensive to God. Homosexuality is just one of the many things listed in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 that will keep a person from the kingdom of God.
However the Bible also states that God’s forgiveness is JUST as available to a homosexual as it is to an adulterer, idol worshipper, murderer, thief, etc. God also promises the strength for victory over sin, including homosexuality, to all those who will believe in Jesus Christ for their salvation (1 Corinthians 6:11; 2 Corinthians 5:17), so Yes they will be in heaven, just as murders, adulters, theifs, all who turn away from it and accept Jesus as their savior.
Hope that helps everyone. Remember, hate the sin not the sinner.
I read his post around 9:00 pm on Sunday evening, and decided that it was time to back some of the views I had using the same passages he listed in his response. It's 1:40 in the morning now, which tells you how long I researched, and studied my own Bible, along with commentary by Dan O Via, the Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Duke University Divinity School. Be warned, this is a long blog and post, but tackles each of Ryan's arguments head-on, with fact, and interpretation, and in the end I offer a closing remark. Unlike Ryan, I don't claim this to be the “clarification” of statements he made. Instead, I point out opinion offered by other religious scholars, along with common scientific thought prevalent in the modern Christian community today. As I speak about in my closing, no interpretation is right or wrong, there just “is.” I will say that the ability to research the passages in the Bible that pertain to homosexuality, helped strengthen my belief that there is room for homosexuals in the Christian church, because context lends itself to the idea that the condemnation of homosexuality in the early writings was more of a societal influence, than a deity-influence. Enjoy!
Casey
Ryan's Arguments:
Point #1
"God does not create a person with homosexual desires." He cites Romans 1: 24 -27 as his evidence.
Romans 1:24-27 states:
“Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity, for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Because of this,God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”
RESPONSE: The problem with Ryan's use of this particular passage to support his argument, is that Ryan does not consider context. I cannot blame Ryan for not considering context, because in fact, this is a common mistake used among many Christians when trying to defend their stance against homosexuality. In fact, homosexuality is oftentimes never afforded the same rules as other passages within the Bible. Basically, Christian scholars are saying that under no circumstances is the act of homosexuality permissible, because the Bible says it. However, they don't apply this same standard to other ethical issues that the Bible raises (i.e. slavery, theft, murder, women clergy, etc.). For other ethical issues, context is always used, or at least considered, and therefore a double standard is created on the ethical issue of homosexuality.
In Ryan's case, the above can be said. The passage he states above as his evidence, is in fact taken out of context, and without proper look at the historical contexts of the time, it cannot be properly used to defend his hypothesis. The idea that homosexuality can be termed “unnatural” needs to be addressed from Paul's viewing lens. It is unclear, whether or not Paul was aware of the homosexual sexual orientation, though some scholars lean towards the idea that he was not. Presumably at some point near birth, all men and women develop an orientation. Just as heterosexuals “know” who they physically attracted to, homosexuals “know” who they are attracted. It is impossible for a homosexual man to “know” the attraction to a woman as a heterosexual man does. Just as it is impossible for a heterosexual man to know the attraction to a man, as a homosexual man does. Paul, in saying that homosexuality is “unnatural,” says this simply because he is unaware that this orientation actually does exist, even in his time. Even if he was aware, Paul is obviously of the heterosexual orientation, and therefore it is difficult for him, especially in the historical context of the Roman society, to comprehend the idea of a homosexual sexual orientation. In either case, modern science has proven that there is a sexual orientation in all humans.
How do we know that it exists? Well, the Bible does make room for Christians to put their faith in the sciences of the society of which they live. The question really is, should Bible-believing Christians take serious the claims of scientific studies that show that sexual orientation is in fact a reality and then draw ethical conclusions from it? According to Dan O Via, a professor of New Testament at Duke University Divinity School, “there is a strand in the Bible, especially of the Wisdom tradition, which attests that the natural world and human nature and experience are possible clues to knowledge of God and of moral propriety.” These examples can be found in Romans 1:19-20, 2:14-15, Acts 10:34-35, and in Psalms 19:1-2 where the Bible says “The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands, day after day they pour forth speech, night after night they display knowledge.”
According to O Via, part of the Wisdom teacher's task was to observe the natural world for evidence of God, just as modern science studies the world with its own technical method, not for evidence of God, but just to understand the world. He says the Bible does itself imply that some findings of science may be recontextualized and made theologically and ethically useful. He says science is the technical extension of the Wisdom teacher's observation of nature.
Obviously not all science will be useful, and scientific claims, like all human claims, are subject to questioning and revisions. However, the Bible does allow, that in principle, scientific understanding may be theologically important. And the gospel, according to O Via, calls on believers to be faithful in the particular culture they are placed in by God. So he surmises that the church “should listen—critically and in light of its own theological horizon—to the best cultural voices.”
In other words, listen to what modern science has been telling us. There are really two views by most modern scientists on the origin of homosexuality within humans. Some view that sexual orientation is in fact innate—biologically or genetically caused, while others view that it results from the interaction of psychological and social forces on the person. As of now, there appears to be evidence for both.
Again O Via alludes to studies on homosexual and heterosexual people who are not psychiatric patients which suggest that there are no significant differences between the two with “regard to psychological health, criminality, dependability, or social responsibility.” This also implies that homosexuality is not pathological, and also suggests that “homosexual practice need not injure—deform the hearts—of those involved.” Basically the studies show, that the orientation exists, and is not harmful to those who participate in homosexual acts.
To surmise, there is evidence that homosexual desire comes from genetics and biology and there is evidence that homosexual desire comes from the environment of which a person is part of. The point is that homosexual desire does exist, and despite what Ryan, and some Christians want to believe, in a “choice” of one's sexual desires, the majority of homosexuals don't “choose” their orientation—there is a desire to be attracted to the same sex that is usually prevalent at birth or is quickly determined by the environment factors of the child. And, if we follow the Bible's guidance to give credibility to modern science, then, we can assume that homosexual desire is something to understand and take as reality.
Point #2
Ryan then makes an analogy. He states that “a person may be born with a great susceptibility to homosexuality, just as people are born with a tendency to violence and other sins.” He compares the predisposition of anger/rage to the predisposition of homosexual desire. He says that somebody may be born with a predisposition of anger/rage and CHOOSE to shoot up a marketplace or a school, and compares this act to the act of homosexual sexual activity.
RESPONSE: A man who has a predisposition of anger/rage who chooses to take a gun into a crowded marketplace and shoot others, or into a school full of children to shoot others, has committed harm, mainly to others, but to himself as well. So to make this link of the two acts Ryan has listed, we must assume that homosexual sex in itself causes injury, or harm to either others, or to oneself. Studies have shown that it cannot be demonstrated that homosexual acts are harmful in themselves—speaking specifically of mutual, and consensual, committed relationships. (See the reference above to modern scientific studies).
What Ryan has actually done in one paragraph is contradict himself. He first says that homosexual desire is a choice, and then with this argument says that some people are prone to homosexual desire, but choose whether or not to act on it. That's beside that point now, because if we as Christians are to follow the Bible's guidance, we can put faith into modern scientific thought, and give credibility to the fact that sexual orientation does exist (point #1).
Along Ryan's vein of thought, we can compare the predisposition of alcoholism, which most scientists agree is genetically inherited, to an alcoholic taking a drink. We know that it is harmful for alcoholics to drink alcohol. But again, homosexual desire, and a homosexual act cannot be compared—because again, homosexual acts do not cause harm in the context of mutual, and consensual committed relationships.
Point #3
Ryan quotes my original blog entry, and then makes a point of his own. Ryan says:
“The Bible consistently tells us that homosexual activity is a sin (Genesis 19:1-13; Leviticus 18:22; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9).”
RESPONSE: The stance against homosexuality is, in fact, in the verses Ryan has listed above. And for any reasonable discussion for the view of homosexuality to take place, we must look at each verse, and consider it within the context of which it was written. So that's what we'll do.
There are in fact four old testament texts that in fact seem to condemn the homosexual lifestyle. Two of which are narrative, and two of which are legal.
The narrative texts of the old testament
Genesis 19:1-29 is the story of Sodom. Lot, Abraham's nephew, welcomes two Angels of the Lord into his home. The men of the city come to Lot's door demanding to see the two men, so they may have sex with them. Lot says no, and in fact offers his daughters up instead, but the Angels pull Lot back into the house and tell him and his family to get out of the city, because of the depravities of the city, the Lord is going to destroy it.
Judges 19 is a similar story to that of Sodom. In this passage, a Levite from Ephraim goes to Bethlehem to bring back his concubine who had become angry with him, and had run away. On his way back home with this woman he spent the night in Gibeah, and an old man takes him in as his guest. The men of the town want to have sex with the male guest, but the old man offers instead his virgin daughters, and the concubine. The concubine does go out and was repeatedly raped until she died the next morning.
These two passages, according to Christian scholars such as Dan O Via, have no bearing on the validity of contemporary consensual homosexual relationships, but instead are told in such a way as to condemn homosexual gang rape. They also provide context as to how ancient Israel understood homosexuality. Specifically homosexuality compromises the ability to produce male heirs to rule the land. Homosexual sex is not for procreation, but rather for pleasure, and as such, Israel viewed this as a compromise to produce heirs to rule in generations to come. Secondly, in a patriarchal society, such as ancient Israel, for one homosexual partner to become the passive partner—the one who is penetrated—is seen as a violation of his masculinity. This attitude is seen across centuries. For example, the Christian preacher John Chrysostom, believes that homosexuality is worse than fornication, because it makes a man into a woman.
However, this societal view, is just that—a societal view. This view is within a context of the society of which the narrative was written and gives credibility to why it appears in the old testament—a historical text of ancient Israel. It would appear, because that was the view of the society.
The legal passages of the old testament
As mentioned, there are two passages in the old testament that center around homosexuality that are legal in context.
Leviticus 18:22 -- “Do no lie with a man as one lies with a woman, that is detestable.”
Leviticus 20:13 -- “If a man lie with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood with be on their own heads.”
Again we have to look to context for clarification on these two seemingly linked passages. In ancient Israel there were in fact two types of human evil, or conditions and acts that are against God, and create distance from the divine, and injure the human subjects. These two were sin, and uncleanness or impurity. So the question we have to ask, of which of these things does homosexuality belong?
Let's start by defining them, as Dan O Via does. Sin is “a conscious, intentional, personal attitude and act. It originates in a corrupted heart, the seat of will and understanding.” Evidence to support this can be found in the Bible in Genesis 3:1-7, Isa 1:2-5, Jer 7:13-14; 13:10; 17:1, 9-10. Basically it's religious rebellion against God. Rebellion against the Will of God was also seen as an offense against one's human community. Uncleanness, however, occurs “from contact with some physical object or process—certain animals or foods, corpses, pagan rites, sexual process, etc. It is like a contagion, it gets on you.” Evidence of this can be found in Leviticus 15:19, Number 29:22. And it has nothing to do with motive, intention, or the disposition of the heart. The only thing that matters is physical contact with the source of the uncleanness, and the effect is automatic.
Ancient Israel had many consequences for uncleanness. You may not be able to enter the sanctuary to worship God, or in less serious cases you may be able to have a sacrifice or ritual washing to remove the impurity. The most radical cases involved death.
The question now is what makes something “unclean.” And, there is no direct answer to this. However, a contemporary Christian scholar, Mary Douglas argues that it may have something to do with Israel's idea that the human body should be a perfect, unflawed, unblemished container. Sexual emissions and other bodily discharges would make a person unclean, such as menstruation in women (Lev 15:19), childbearing (Lev 12:1-5), and marital sexual intercourse (Lev 15:18). These all breach the body as a perfect container. She argues that the quest for holiness requires that individuals conform completely to the class that they belong to. The requirement of completeness, or perfection, means that classes or categories must be kept distinct and not mixed. Leviticus 19:19, for example, points out that garments made of different kinds of material are not to be worn.
So if we apply this principle of the unclean to the acts of homosexuality—we can see the context of which ancient Israel was implementing this law. An individual cannot belong to two different classes at the same time. A person cannot be both human and animal; a man cannot be both a husband and son; a man cannot be both a male and a female. So as O Via points out, using Biblical support to prove his claims, “hence sexual intercourse with an animal (Lev 18:23), incest (18:6-18), and homosexuality (Lev 18:22, 20:13), are condemned as defiling—as unclean.”
The point to take away from this is that the condemnation of homosexuality in Leviticus, when looked at in a historical context, is condemned as “unclean” not as a “sin.” Motive, intention, and disposition of the heart are not looked at.
Technically, Ryan's argument still holds—it's in the old testament, it's from God because it's unclean, so therefore, it should not be done. The ironic part though, is that the New testament annuls this idea. It cancels it out, it invalidates it. It invalidates the very principle of uncleanness and impurity. And even more so, Jesus himself is the one who invalidates it to the Pharisees in Mark 7.
The Pharisees have just seen Jesus' disciples eating food with “unclean” hands, and criticize Jesus for not having his followers follow the way of the elders. In Mark 7:14, the Bible says
“Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said: “listen to me, everyone, and understand this, nothing outside a man can make him “unclean” by going into him. Rather it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean.” He continues in verse 18, “are you so dull? He asked. Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him “unclean?” For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body. (In saying this, Jesus declared all food clean). He went on “what comes out of a man is what makes him “unclean.” For from within, out of men's hearts come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man unclean.”
What Jesus has done is declare that the rules of Ancient Israel no longer apply, and in fact, it is what comes out of a man that makes him, in fact, “unclean.” As such, any old testament passage that speaks of homosexuality as “unclean” is no longer validated. And as such, the laws of the old testament that revolve around homosexuals no longer are valid in post-Jesus societies.
New Testament Passages that pertain to Homosexuality
There are in fact two passages in the new testament that pertain to homosexuality. Both of which were authored by Paul. The first of which, Romans 1:26-27, has already been discussed in Point #1. The second, Ryan also points out is 1 Corinthians 6:9.
As stated, both of these passages are authored by Paul, a man who was unaware of what modern science has proven—homosexual desire does exist among humans. Sexual orientation is part of nature. What Ryan is trying to say, or at least, what I think he's trying to say, is that even though somebody may have the feelings of being gay, he can turn away from them. And he's using these passages as proof that it is in fact against God's will.
The problem is that these passages include other things that are not singled out nearly as much as the ethical question of homosexuality in today's society. In 1 Corinthians 6:9, Paul calls out sexually immoral, the idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, the thieves, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, and swindlers, and says they will not inherit the Kingdom of God. In that context, he also includes those who practice homosexuality.
Homosexuality in the time, believed by many Christian scholars, included many forms of pedastry—or pedophilia, older men having sex with young boys. It is possible, as many scholars believe, that Paul viewed this as the only type of homosexual activity, and wasn't speaking of grown, consensual, mutual homosexual relationships. But that's where the problem lies—interpretation.
In Closing
The church is at a cross-road. For too long, we have held a traditionalist view of the few passages in the cannon of religious texts known as the Bible, that have condemned homosexual practices. But modern science, other historical texts, and of course, the issue of context, has brought a non-traditionalist view into perspective. For too long, homosexuality has been singled out as a sin separate from all others, without context to give it clarity.
The problem facing the church is what view to take. The problem facing Christians is that an increasing number of people identify themselves as Christians and as gay. I'm one of them. Perhaps the words of Dale Martin, a gay Christian, and a distinguished New Testament scholar can put it into perspective:
He says “Any interpretation of scripture that hurts people, oppresses people, or destroys people cannot be the right interpretation, no matter how traditional, historical, or exegetically respectable. There can be no debate about the fact that the church's stand on homosexuality has caused oppressions, loneliness, self-hatred, violence, sickness, and suicide for millions of people. If the church wishes to continue with its traditional interpretation it must demonstrate, not just CLAIM, that it is more loving to condemn homosexuality than to affirm homosexuals. Can the church show that same-sex loving relationships damage those involved in them? Can the church give compelling reasons to believe that it really would be better for all lesbian and gay Christians to live alone, without the joy of intimate touch, without hearing a lover's voice when they go to sleep or awake? Is it really better for lesbian and gay teenagers to despise themselves and endlessly pray that their very personalities be reconstructed so that they may experience romance like their straight friends? Is it really more loving for the church to continue its worship of “heterosexual fulfillment” (a “nonbiblical” concept, by the way) while consigning thousands of its members to a life of celibacy or endless psychological manipulations that masquerade as “healing?”
He continues: “The burden of proof in the last twenty years has shifted. There are too many of us who are not sick, or inverted, or perverted, or even “effeminate,” but who just have knack for falling in love with people of our own sex. When we have been damaged, it has not been due to our homosexuality, but to your and our denial of it. The burden of proof now is not on us, to show that we are not sick, but rather on those who insist that we would be better off going back into the closet. What will “build the double love of God and of our Neighbor?”
Ryan closes his argument by preaching the word of God in regards to salvation of the sinner. The two of us are brothers, who were raised in the same church, by the same Pastor (PJ), around the same Christian people teaching the same Christian philosophy of sinners go to hell unless forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ. And while I still hold true to the beliefs that all men have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and without Jesus Christ will not make it to Heaven, I also realize that unless we take a view of the Bible within context, we will only see it as those members of Main Street Baptist Church taught us.
He says “hate the sin, not the sinner.” I will agree—in cases where a person has committed a sin, we should love the sinner, and hate the sin. However, I'm not 8, I'm not 12, I'm not even 17 anymore. At a certain point you have stop regurgitating what Pastor Jeff and all our Sunday School teachers taught us, and take it upon ourselves to research, understand, learn, and see what a passage of the Bible could really mean according to other interpretations. It's not as black and white as he makes it out to be. The Bible may say specific things—but there are very many schools out there who interpret these things very differently. Add to that any historical and societal context, it makes it very cloudy to say “the Bible says it, so it must be.” Because every time you use that argument, another person can ask “the Bible says what? Because I'm reading it like this.”
Perhaps it's true that you can twist and contort the words of the Bible to support or oppose any ethical question you may ever encounter in your life. I don't really have an answer for that. The answer I do have though pertains to interpretation. My interpretation of a passage, of a text, of a book, or of the entire cannon of the Bible is no more right or wrong than yours, or any other Christian who takes it upon themselves to research and respectfully reason why it says what it says. All I can say is that in the world today, where we have so many injustices—poverty, racial inequality, drug use, child obesity, disease, sickness, rape, torture, war, terror—why, WHY is it so important to judge somebody based upon who they fall in love with, based upon your interpretation of a 2000-year old text?
Thank you for taking the time to read. God bless.
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