Pro-Con Bible & Gays/Lesbians

Cal Thomas piece in WaPo arguing homosexuality is a sin. Now I know he is not a professional theologian, but his arguments are fairly mainstream within this position.

Thomas writes:

Does one believe that the Bible is God's Word and that He gets to set the rules for those He wishes to speak for Him; or does culture, political correctness and "the times" allow us to make up, or change, or obliterate the rules whenever it suits us? I choose the former, believing that the God who created us gets to set boundaries inside of which we are to live for our benefit and for His glory. Imagine a sports contest without boundaries and rules? Life lived without boundaries is chaotic, full of disappointment and despair.

First off, I often question such strict binary thinking. Why does one have to choose between believing the Bible is God's word setting the rules AND culture? Why not both?

His argument is undermined by his lack of historical thinking. The Bible has no explicit support for the abolition of slavery. Some point to the Letter of Paul to Philemon, which is not an argument for the end of slavery, but Paul wanting a master to give up one slave to him Paul so he (Paul) could gain from his (Philemon's slave Onesimus) help.

The Bible, both Old and New Testaments support---or at least assume and do not criticize--the institution of slavery. Full stop. What abolitionists, who were evangelical Christians btw, is work from their own reason and their reading of the main themes (God is Love, Jesus' work among the poor) to make the case against slavery.

Was that "political correctness", changing the rules and obliterating God's rule? If it was, then it was good they did because I do not want to worship such a vile deity. Better the atheism of Harris if that were the case.

I agree with Thomas that there are boundaries, that we do need them, but I think this specific issue in the post-industrial world mind you (gay/lesbian rights & responsibilities and acceptance in monogamous relationships in church) is one where we have set the boundary too sharp and that boundary is now working as a wall to keep people out of the kingdom.

So a brief run down of the Biblical citations against homosexuality.

First The Book of Leviticus 20:13

“If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them.”

Pretty straightforward. Now this section of the Book of Leviticus comes from the Priestly worldview/theology (known as P Source in Lit.). The Priestly worldview is based on the idea that the world is created into holy/unholy and transgressing the bounds into unholiness requires varying degrees of cleansing--from the minimal ritual bath for a woman just out of her menstrual cycle to the ethnic cleansing of land by killing non-believers (Book of Joshua) or in this case homosexuals.

In this view the world is made into natural modes, prototypes if you will and those that deviate from that pattern are unclean. So this theology/worldview is the one that gives the Jewish dietary kosher laws. A shrimp is unclean because it lives in the water and yet is not a fish. A pig is unclean because it has cloven hoofs which means it should be a mountain animal (like a goat) but lives on the land.

Men should penetrate women and if instead a man lies like a woman--i.e. he is penetrated--then he is unclean.

So what is the problem with this for Gentile Christianity? Gentile Christianity, i.e. Pauline Christianity (as opposed to Jews for Jesus), one of the key revolutions of Christianity was that it did not enforce Judaism on Gentile converts to Jesus. Whether or not it should have is a different question, but it did.

Hence this selective reading of Leviticus is a non-starter. Unless Cal Thomas is suggesting (as some have to their credit) that Christians should "re-Judaize" themselves as it were. Also it means the US should, if one is being consistent, attempt to enact legislation for public execution of homosexuals in the United States. Of course that's ludicrous--but is that because are standards have changed like on slavery?

So Leviticus is out. Because reading back into the Old Testament what one has already decided is right from the New is a heresy known as Marcionism. I don't think Thomas is meaning to promote heresy. Christians affirm that the God of Jesus Christ is the God of the Hebrews and that given the eschatological understanding of the kingdom in and through Jesus different choices are now open. Jesus was himself very anti-nomian (anti-law): e.g. stories of him healing on the Sabbath, allowing women to touch him, calling the kingdom a mustard seed (an unclean seed), etc.

Which leaves Paul, where the argument for/against homosexuality must take place for the Christian.

Now sociologically Paul was from traditional patriarchal society. Both his Jewish and Greek influences were opposed to homosexuality. The Greeks had an acceptance of young male love as well as raping slaves/war captives, but a proper Gentile man was never to be the "receiver"--i.e. in their minds be a woman. Paul also accepted slavery as normal and assumed a woman's place was in the home. Traditional patriarchal views, both good and bad. He did however make the insane statement by those days standards that a man should love his wife. And that he belonged to her.

The 10 Commandments recall prohibited coveting your neighbor's wife and coveting your neighbor's possessions--i.e. your neighbor's wife was his possession. That backdrop is in Paul, even though he did make the radical jump to saying the Gentiles no longer had to hold the Jewish Law.

The mediate position, so says the Book of Acts between those who said no Jewish law for Gentiles and those who did was to get rid of the Holiness Code in things like diet, circumcision, but keep basic moral standards....do not kill, steal, murder, sexual morality.

Paul also believed the end of the world was coming in his lifetime so that it was better people not marry in the meantime if they were still single at the time of his preaching. So worth keeping this all in mind.

Moreover we know that contrary to arguments made by conservative Christians (and others) the acceptance of monogamous gay & lesbian relationships is nothing approaching this shattering social revolution they claim it is. The real change was moving from arranged marriages and in many cases polygamy to monogamy and more importantly the choice of the young people themselves as to their partner would be based on love. That marriage was about love. Hear echoes of Paul? This only took place in the Western world on a social wide scale in the 19th century among the middle classes mostly.

Those who pushed for those standards were for that day and age "liberal". The conservatives back then argued this would ruin the institution of marriage (heard that statement before?) because marriage was an economic property arrangement not considered the way of finding true happiness. In that way they were much smarter than many of us today in North America.

But once the move went from marriage as arranged, alliance, economics to based out of love then the momentum is heading inexorably I would argue to homosexual monogamous relationships. Conservatives by todays standards look back to the 1950s which is when for a moment the two tensions of marriage for love and male-female patriarchal values were held together. Of course the 60s revealed from their children the multitude of dark sides and lies that existed behind the closed doors of the Ozzie and Harriet home.

Which is why conservatives today in North America are not in favor of polygamy and arranged marriage and are therefore social revolutionaries when they head as missionaries to other parts of the world where original conservatism still holds sway--and in other cases even they have realized that one must make compromises with local culture but just won't admit that for the West. It also explains their bind--they are promoting this tension filled 50s ideal and yet trying to hold back the momentum of which they clearly are a part against gays, divorce, etc.

So back to Paul.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10:

"Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites....none of these will inherit the kingdom of God."

Notice again the issue of male homosexuality. Male prostitutes (do the female ones not inherit the kingdom either?) and sodomites. Again the emphasis is on being, as they say it, "like a woman".

The other key passage is Romans 1:24-29. Again the passage begins with idolatry interestingly enough. God, Paul says, because of the sins of the Gentiles (he is speaking of here) gave them up to "unnatural intercourse". So homosexual and lesbian activity was then seen as a punishment for the prior sin of idolatry.

So although Paul has jettisoned the dietary laws, you still see the influence of the Priestly view upon him. As a modern example of how this passage could still challenge us. Or bathhouses or truck stops where anonymous sex takes place.

I think the real alliance should be between traditional (so-named) gay/lesbian and straight, monogamous, children, Godfearing, and those of a more tribal and/or narcissistic elitist godless sensibility. For there the effects of idolatry are as Paul named.

But there is nothing in any of this about committed partnerships. I'm not for free love--the other word Paul uses is porneia, as in pornographic. And does it make sense given what we are learning through biological studies as well as the experience of such committed partnerships to talk about natural and unnatural--remember the whole issue of Judaism/Gentile started because the Jews experienced holy Gentiles coming to faith in Christ without being Jews.