Traditional Marriage According to the Bible

Getting to the Bottom of Bigotry & Hatred, i.e. Understanding the American Family Association of Pennsylvania

by Dr. Joe Wenke - Huffington Post - June 18, 2013:

Hatred and bigotry are very old news. Yet they're in the news every day. More than that, they're in our face constantly, particularly on the Web. The Web is great, but the anonymity of social media provides the perfect breeding ground for haters to spew their hate speech.

Last week, when Sebastien de la Cruz, an 11-year-old Mexican-American boy wearing a mariachi outfit, sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the third NBA finals game in San Antonio, Texas, his performance was met with a torrent of ethnic, anti-immigrant hatred. The bigoted response to this little boy, who was invited back to perform the national anthem for the fourth game, was shocking but hardly surprising.

Hate speech is absolutely pervasive on major social media sites 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For example, check out the comments on just about any YouTube video featuring a member of any minority group. They're disgusting. I've also found that if you hit the wrong button, so to speak, on Twitter (like if you type the words "gun control"), you are immediately treated to a barrage of vitriol and contempt.

Hatred is so pervasive that there's the danger that we may actually get used to it, become numb to it, write it off as "same old same old." If you feel yourself drifting in that direction, consider the anti-LGBTQ comments that were generated by a recent HuffPost story on the extremely high incidence of suicide attempts among LGBTQ youth in San Francisco. Some of the comments are downright pathological. Consider, for example, the following remark, which has since been removed: "This [i.e., the high incidence of suicide attempts among LGBTQ youth] is really good news. It is nice to see these kids care enough about the pain & embarrassment that they brought upon their parents, to end it once and for all."

Comments like that make me ashamed to be a human being. They also make me ask the obvious question: Why do people hate other people? What's at the bottom of hatred and bigotry?

For example, what exactly is it about a human being's sexual orientation that triggers such hate? What's it to them -- the haters of gay, lesbian and bisexual people -- whom other people are sexually attracted to and love? Why are transgender people so hated, so marginalized? Why is there so little respect for these courageous people?

Why do so many men hate women (and there seem to be a lot)? Why do they, the hateful men, think that they are superior to the women they hate? And what about hatred based on race, ethnicity, country of origin, religious or political beliefs? What's going on? Why is hatred so prevalent? Why is it such a big part of the human experience?

It's pretty weird when you think about it: Bigots hate people they don't know. They hate them because of the group they belong to. If you're a member of the group they hate, then they hate you even though they know nothing else about you. That's the very definition of bigotry.

But why hate a group of people? Well, in almost every case, people don't hate people from the group they belong to. They hate people from a group they don't belong to. For example, straight people don't hate other straight people just because they're straight, and white people don't hate other white people just because they're white. Haters, bigots, seem almost invariably to hate people who are different from them. To the haters, "different" is bad. Are they afraid of the different people? Do they feel threatened by them? On the other hand, are they perhaps secretly attracted to them? If they do feel threatened, however, what exactly is the threat? Do they think they are going to be hurt by the different people? Do they think the different people are going to take something important away from them -- like a job or a girlfriend? Are they going to change the neighborhood? Do they speak a language that the haters don't speak or understand? Do they dress differently? Eat different types of food? Celebrate different holidays?

It certainly appears to be part of the character of some human beings to hate whomever is different from them. That's really bad. That's really disturbing, but the whole truth is even worse. What's the whole truth? Two more things. Number 1: Bigots don't think they're bigots. They think they're right. Number 2: Often the justification for bigotry is based on religion. The justification for the denigration of women goes all the way back to the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible. Similarly, the justification for believing that black people are inferior to white people, indeed the justification for slavery itself, was for hundreds of years based on the Bible story of the curse of Ham. Anti-Semitism has often been justified by the absurd idea that all Jewish people are responsible for killing Jesus, who was, of course, Jewish. Then there's the belief that your religion is the one true religion and that other people not only have no right to different religious beliefs but have no right to live. That incredibly lethal idea comes to fruition in the oxymoronic notion of "holy war," which is perpetuated today by the radical Islamic interpretation of jihad but which has a long and bloody history in Christianity as well, as evidenced by the Crusades and the Inquisition.

Most LGBTQ bigots base their bigotry on their religious beliefs, only they don't see their beliefs as bigoted; they think they're right, and they believe that their bigoted view of LGBTQ people is sanctioned by God. According to these people, being homosexual is unnatural, perverted, or, to use the Catholic Church's term, "disordered." I cannot conceive of a more hateful or disgusting characterization of another human being than to say that the very way that they are, their very being, is unnatural or perverted, but that is exactly what LGBTQ bigots believe. That's why "love the sinner, hate the sin" is really just a form of hate speech rather than legitimate Christian compassion. It says, "I don't hate you. You're my neighbor. The Bible tells me to love my neighbor, and I do, but you, my neighbor, need to change. Being homosexual is not an essential part of your being. You weren't born that way. Something went wrong somewhere. You need to acknowledge that and get some therapy. Go straight. Love someone of the opposite gender. If you can't do that, well, then you can never marry or have sex. By the way, you can't be a Boy Scout either."

I don't think we'll ever really know why human beings hate, but we do know how they most often justify their hatred. They do it through religion. It is profoundly disturbing but true: When it comes to sanctioning hatred and bigotry, religion is most definitely the root of all evil.

Biblical Marriage Not Defined Simply As One Man, One Woman: Iowa Religious Scholars Say

By Meredith Bennett-Smith in The Huffington Post - June 6, 2013:

A trio of Iowa-based religious scholars penned an op-ed in a local paper this week, reminding readers that despite popular opinion, the Bible does not simply define marriage as between one man and one woman.


The joint editorial was written by Hector Avalos, Robert R. Cargill and Kenneth Atkinson and published in the Des Moines Register on Sunday. The men teach at Iowa State University, University of Iowa and University of Northern Iowa, respectively.

"The debate about marriage equality often centers, however discretely, on an appeal to the Bible," the authors wrote. "Unfortunately, such appeals often reflect a lack of biblical literacy on the part of those who use that complex collection of texts as an authority to enact modern social policy."

The Bible's definition of marriage can be confusing and contradictory, noted the scholars. They stated in their column that a primary example of this is the religious book's stance on polygamy, a practice that was embraced by prominent biblical figures Abraham and David. Furthermore, Avalos, Cargill and Atkinson point out that various Bible passages mention not only traditional monogamy, but also self-induced castration and celibacy, as well as the practice of wedding rape victims to their rapists.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Iowa University Professor Robert R. Cargill said the column was the brainchild of his colleague Hector Avalos, who suggested local scholars put together an "educated response" to the often-touted claim that the Bible defines marriage as solely between one man and one woman. "[T]hat's not the only thing the Bible says," Cargill told HuffPost.

He explained that it is obvious to scholars (and some religious leaders) that the Bible endorses a wide range of relationships. But he noted, however, that professors are "terrified" of the potential backlash that might result from opening a dialogue about these relationships. Cargill also noted that the initial response to the Register column has included its fair share of vitriol.

Ultimately, said Cargill, a Biblical "argument against same-sex marriage is wholly unsustainable. We all know this, but very few scholars are talking about it, because they don't want to take the heat."

He suggested that academics who continue to be cowed by a strident opposition do a disservice to their communities.

"Most people aren't dumb, they want to make an informed decision" on religiously charged questions, Cargill said. "If scholars aren't talking to them, they have to rely on talk show hosts and pundits, and that's not the most reliable source of information."


Cargill also realizes that there are some people he may never be able to convince.

Many politicians have made a career out of using the Bible to justify opposition to hot-button topics like same-sex marriage or abortion. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), for example, told a crowd of evangelicals in April that Americans cannot "retreat from our values and fail to make the case on issues like marriage -- because it is one man, one woman -- because God said it is."

Cargill said Bachman and her like-minded colleagues use a strategy he calls "cherry picking" to appeal to their base.

"Politicians who use the Bible aren't necessarily interested in the truth or the complexity of the Bible," he said. "They are looking for one ancient sound bite to convince people what they already believe."

Anyone who argues that "the Bible speaks plainly on one issue, especially something as complicated as marriage ... haven't take the time to read all of it," he added.

What Cosmology Can Teach Us About Morality

by Joel Primack - Big Think:

Morality is a complicated subject because it depends so much on human traditions and human understanding of how we live and how we interact with each other. Cosmology, as the term is used by anthropologists, represents the big picture of the world and how we humans fit into it. We scientists use the word, “cosmology” to refer essentially, exclusively to the science of the whole universe, its origin, evolution, structure and composition. But in the larger sense, cosmology is the big picture that we humans all live in.


Now one of the problems of morality has been that a crucial part of traditional moralogy is an “us versus them” attitude. That there’s the "in crowd" and then there’s the outsiders. And the rules that apply to us are very different than the rules that apply to them and to our interactions with them. So, for example, in the Bible, in the Ten Commandments, the “Thou shalt not kill,” obviously doesn’t apply to the enemies of the Hebrews who were killed with abandon and, in fact, God commands that they all be annihilated under certain circumstances. So that’s because that, “Thou shalt not kill,” really only applies to us, in this case the Hebrews.

Now, the problem is, that as the world has become more and more integrated and when things that happen in one place don’t stay in that place, but affect the whole world, this us/them mentality has to break down. We have to start to see “us” as being all humanity, and in fact, maybe all life on Earth or Earth itself. And, cosmology can help us do that because cosmology makes it clear that Earth is a gem of the cosmos; it’s an extraordinary planet. We’ve now discovered more than a thousand planetary systems. There isn’t any that resembles our own.

And in many respects, our planetary system is truly extraordinary. And Earth is, in some ways, the most extraordinary planet of them all. It’s been in what we call the habitable zone around the sun for its entire lifetime and will continue to be in the habitable zone for a long time. And it’s the only planet that has been.

And if we can simply preserve the good features that we’ve inherited on Earth, Earth can become, can remain, the Eden of the universe, at least, the known universe. And it’s very important that humans understand that we are more closely related than almost any species is. We humans seem to have come through at least one bottleneck where there were a very small number of humans, something like 50,000 years ago, and we’re all descended from that small number of humans.

Genetically, we humans are more closely related to each other than almost any other species is related. And we all face many problems, which are essentially the same across the world. So to the extent that modern cosmology, the understanding of our origin and evolution, can give us this understanding that we’re all in this together, we can break down that crucial column of traditional morality of the “us versus them” and see it all as “us.” And I think that that could be one of the most important achievements of humankind, especially over this critical transition at the end of our exponential inflation on our home planet.

David Barton's Crusade: Faith & Values Based On Lies

The Most Influential Evangelist You've Never Heard Of

Listen to the story on National Public Radio:

David Barton, friend & ally of the Venango County-based hate group the American Family Association of Pennsylvania, says Americans have been misled about their history. And he aims to change that.

"It's what I would call historical reclamation," Barton explains, in his soft but rapid-fire voice. "We're just trying to get history back to where it's accurate. If you're going to use history, get it right."

Barton has collected 100,000 documents from before 1812 — original or certified copies of letters, sermons, newspaper articles and official documents of the Founding Fathers. He says they prove that the Founding Fathers were deeply religious men who built America on Christian ideas — something you never learn in school.

For example, you've been taught the Constitution is a secular document. Not so, says Barton: The Constitution is laced with biblical quotations.

"You look at Article 3, Section 1, the treason clause," he told James Robison on Trinity Broadcast Network. "Direct quote out of the Bible. You look at Article 2, the quote on the president has to be a native born? That is Deuteronomy 17:15, verbatim. I mean, it drives the secularists nuts because the Bible's all over it! Now we as Christians don't tend to recognize that. We think it's a secular document; we've bought into their lies. It's not."

We looked up every citation Barton said was from the Bible, but not one of them checked out. Moreover, the Constitution as written in 1787 has no mention of God or religion except to prohibit a religious test for office. The First Amendment does address religion.

What about the idea that the founders did not want government entangled in religion? Wrong again, says Barton. On his tours of the U.S. Capitol, for example, he claims that Congress not only published the first American Bible in 1782, but it also intended the Bible to be used in public schools.

"And we're going to be told they don't want any kind of religion in education, they don't want voluntary prayer?" Barton asks his audience rhetorically? "No, it doesn't make sense."

But historians say Barton is flat-out wrong in his facts and conclusion. Congress never published or paid a dime for the 1782 Bible. It was printed and paid for by Philadelphia printer Robert Aitken. At Aitken's request, Congress agreed to have its chaplains check the Bible for accuracy. It was not, historians say, a government promotion of religion.

Vision For A Religion-Infused America

David Barton is not a historian. He has a bachelor's degree in Christian education from Oral Roberts University and runs a company called WallBuilders in Aledo, Texas. But his vision of a religion-infused America is wildly popular with churches, schools and the GOP, and that makes him a power. He was named one of Time magazine's most influential evangelicals. He was a long-time vice chairman for the Texas Republican Party. He says that he consults for the federal government and state school boards, that he testifies in court as an expert witness, that he gives a breathtaking 400 speeches a year.

Seeking his endorsement are politicians including Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz of Texas and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who's mentioned as a possible running mate for Mitt Romney. Newt Gingrich is a fan. So is Mike Huckabee.

"I almost wish that there would be like a simultaneous telecast," Huckabee said at a conference last year, "and all Americans will be forced, forced — at gunpoint, no less — to listen to every David Barton message. And I think our country will be better for it."

John Fea, chairman of the history department at evangelical Messiah College, doubts that. He says that Barton is peddling a distorted history that appeals to conservative believers.

"David Barton is offering an alternative vision of American history which places God, the providence of God, Christianity, at the center," he says.

Barton On Thomas Jefferson 'Lies'

Most recently, Barton has focused on Thomas Jefferson. His new book, The Jefferson Lies, made The New York Times best-seller list. Barton's aim is to bust the "myths" about Jefferson. One of them, he told Huckabee on Fox News, is that Jefferson was a religious skeptic. Barton argues that for the first 70 or so years of his life, Jefferson was a "conventional Christian," although he did express doubts in his final 15 years. As evidence of the third president's religiosity, Barton showed Huckabee an original document signed by Jefferson.

"Jefferson, unlike the other presidents, closes his documents: 'In the year of our Lord Christ,' " Barton said, not mentioning that this was a pre-printed form that was required by law.

"But we're always told he was such a secularist and didn't believe in religion," Huckabee protested.

"Exactly," Barton said. He goes on to say that Jefferson started church services at the Capitol, that he ordered the Marine Corps band to play at the services and that he funded a treaty to evangelize the Kaskaskia Indians — three claims that experts say are demonstrably false.

"That's why I say he's the least religious founder," Barton concluded, "but he's way out there further than most religious right today would be."

"Mr. Barton is presenting a Jefferson that modern-day evangelicals could love and identify with," says Warren Throckmorton, a professor at the evangelical Grove City College. "The problem with that is, it's not a whole Jefferson; it's not getting him right."

Throckmorton co-authored Getting Jefferson Right, a book detailing what he says are Barton's distortions. As to Jefferson's faith, Throckmorton says there is no dispute among historians: Jefferson questioned the most basic tenets of Christianity.

"He didn't see Jesus as God," Throckmorton says. He didn't believe that Jesus performed miracles, he dismissed the Trinity. Throckmorton notes that when Jefferson decided to write his own version of the Gospels, now called the Jefferson Bible, "he said he was taking 'diamonds as if from a dunghill.' So he picked out the Sermon on the Mount and the golden rule — those were the 'diamonds.' But the 'dunghill' was the virgin birth, the resurrection of Christ, the Great Commission."

There's another "lie" about Jefferson that Barton sets out to debunk. He says Jefferson — who owned nearly 200 slaves — was a civil rights visionary.

"Had his plans been followed, Virginia would've ended slavery really early on," Barton says. "They would have gone much more toward civil rights. He was not as advanced in his views of slavery as say, John Adams in New England, but he certainly was no racist in that sense."

Barton quotes Virginia law that he says prohibited Jefferson from freeing his slaves during his lifetime — but Barton omits the section of the law that says Virginians could free slaves. Confronted by this, Barton says that Jefferson could not afford to free his slaves.

Yearning For The Past?

The idea that Jefferson was a civil rights visionary appalls the Rev. Ray McMillian, pastor of Oasis Church in Cincinnati.

"Thomas Jefferson hated African-Americans," McMillian says. "He hated the color of our skin. He talked about how inferior we are, in both mind and body."

McMillian is president of Cincinnati Area Pastors, which is boycotting the publisher of Barton's book, Thomas Nelson Publishers. He says by "whitewashing" Jefferson — and all the other slaveholding founders, for that matter — Barton is rewriting history to make it palatable for Christians today.

"All in their hearts they're saying, 'If we could just go back there, America would be right,' " McMillian says. "Right for who?"

Not for blacks, not for women, not for Native Americans, he says — only for white men.

Besides, historians say, this golden age never existed.

"None of the founders were necessarily interested in promoting a specifically Christian nation," says Fea at Messiah College. "Many of the founders believed in something akin to separating church and state even though they didn't use those terms. And in fact, most of the people in America were not regular churchgoers. So what is that great culture that we're returning to?"

"I'm not trying to throw the nation back 200 years," Barton responds. "I don't want the technology to go backward, I love the health [care] stuff we got now. What I try to use is principles that are timeless." And surprisingly relevant. On The Daily Show last year, Barton told Jon Stewart that he's amazed that the founders' insights apply to today's problems.

"I got a call from three congressmen off the floor and they said, 'Hey! Anything in history about bailout and stimulus plans in Congress?'" Barton recalled. "It turns out in 1792 there was a big debate in Congress about bailout and stimulus plans."

Barton says the founders didn't like them. He says they had insights on other modern issues as well. They would oppose abortion because the first inalienable right is the right to life. They even opposed the theory of evolution.

"You go back to the Founding Fathers, as far as they're concerned, they already had the entire debate on creation-evolution," he said on Daystar Television Network. "And you get Thomas Paine, who's the least religious Founding Father saying, 'You've GOT to teach creation science in the classroom. Scientific method demands that.'"

Of course, that was years before Charles Darwin was born.

'A Corrective To Historians'

Still, Barton has many supporters, though few of them are historians. One is Mat Staver, dean of Liberty University's Law School.

"I think he's a corrective to historians," Staver says. "In fact, I would put him against any historian and would have no question who would win in a debate."

Barton says he has a policy of not debating anyone. He adds that he doesn't care if historians disagree with him: He believes his trove of documents proves his points — although historians have seen the same documents and draw different conclusions. Barton also believes his critics might be envious, since his books — and world view — sell so well.

"I don't know if it's jealousy or liberalism," he says. "I certainly know the guys who come after me have made it very clear usually in the introductions of their stuff that they disagree with me, and my religious faith, and my view on America."

Fea, who is an evangelical himself, says he believes Barton is a danger because he's using a skewed version of the past to shape the future.

"He's in this for activism," he says. "He's in this for policy. He's in this to make changes to our culture."

Rewriting Texas Textbooks

Nowhere is that more visible than in the Texas textbook controversy. In 2010, the Texas Board of Education voted to rewrite the history textbooks to make them more conservative and Christian-friendly. One of the advisers was David Barton.

Barton later said on the cable talk show Chapter and Verse that it would take another 16 or 18 years before kids go through the entire curriculum, "then another 10 years after that before those kids get elected to office and start doing things. So we're talking 30 years from now. But, it's in the pipe coming down."

Asked about this 30-year plan, Barton says of course he wants to shape future leaders, any educator does. But he says he doesn't see himself as a particularly influential person.

"I'm going to be an active citizen and be involved and do everything I can to help move these principles forward," he says.

Barton's next stop: the Republican National Convention, where as a Texas representative to the GOP Platform Committee, he will lay out his vision of America.

Clobbering "Biblical" Gay Bashing

This piece, from The God Article, is a small retort to Venango County-based Hate Group, the American Family Association of Pennsylvania, and its subjects, who do the thing they do best: misinterpret the Bible and ruin lives with it.

"Clobbering "Biblical" Gay Bashing"

This is a bit long for a blog post, but some may find it to be a helpful resource. I wrote the piece for another project and it just wasn't a good fit. Honestly, if you are well read on the issue of the Bible and its take on homosexuality (or lack thereof), there is nothing new in here. For you, I hope this can be a quick reference. If you are not well read on such things, this may be a bit of a bumpy ride, but bumpy rides can be a lot of fun. Either way, I hope I was able to take what is sometimes thick reading, albeit important reading, and make it at least bearable and mostly straight forward.

Christianity and “Biblical” Hatefulness


We Christians are good at a lot of things. Helping others. Dressing up on Sunday. Quoting scripture. Pot luck meals. Taking care of church members. Weddings. Funerals. Worship. But perhaps the thing at which we are the most persistently exceptional is misinterpreting the Bible then running amuck in the world because of it. Honestly, mad skills. And history backs me up on this one.

We have used the Bible to support, promote and act upon some pretty un-Christian things: slavery, holocaust, segregation, subjugation of women, apartheid, the Spanish Inquisition (which, no one ever expects), domestic violence, all sorts of exploitation and the list could go on and on. Oddly, if you ask theologians to pick one biblical theme to rule them all, most of them would say “love”... well, love and grace. Okay, love, grace and forgiveness. Fine. They probably would not specifically agree on a single term, but they would most likely name something that is, in every way, the opposite of the oppression, belittlement, hatred and marginalization represented by the numerous atrocities committed by the Christian Church.

More times than not, these atrocities are the result of trying to play God, pretending as if one group of people has complete knowledge of God's will and is more blessed or chosen by God. Not surprisingly, the people who see the world this way are always exactly the people who also happen to belong in the group they believe to be the uber-blessed. Lucky them.

Time and time again, Jesus made it clear that we should not put ourselves in the place of playing God and that, unlike far too many humans, God welcomes and loves us all equally. Period.

But we keep doing it. We keep doing it even though each time after we argue, name-call, suppress others and fight for centuries, falsely playing the role of heavenly judge and jury, we slowly realize that we got it wrong. We realize that, in fact, Paul was not promoting slavery. We learn to contextualize his statements and letters. We become more skilled at interpreting the original Greek and, over time, we decide to stop quoting the Bible to support slavery (or the subjugation of women, or racism, etc.) because we finally come around to realizing that, as Rob Bell's book points out, biblically love wins. Always.

And so we find ourselves here again. Doing the thing we do best: misinterpreting the Bible and ruining lives with it. We are, once again, ignoring the biblical bias for those who are marginalized, abused, belittled and negatively judged. Ignoring the biblical directive to show all the children of God love (and grace... and forgiveness).

Hate By Any Other Name

Oh sure, this time around we have “softened” our approach, saying things like “hate the sin, love the sinner,” but we fail to recognize that what we are calling a “sin” and the person we are calling a “sinner” are one and the same. A person whose sexual orientation is homosexual, or bi-sexual, or queer can no more separate themselves from their sexuality than a heterosexual person can. It's like saying “hate the toppings, love the pizza.” It's just not the pizza without the toppings. We just aren't loving the person if we don't love the whole person.

I suspect the “softening” of the language we use has everything to do with making us feel better and very little with making LGBTQ folk feel better, because it certainly doesn't make them feel any better. As a matter of fact, the love/hate (emphasis on hate) relationship that the Church continues to push on this group of people only serves to push them into closets and into even darker places, which sometimes leads to suicide. The Church and its approach to this issue are at fault for most of the hurt, anguish, self-doubt, abuse and death associated with being LGBTQ. Not very loving. Not very grace filled. But it certainly leaves us in need of forgiveness.

Many Christians have lost their way in this twisty, turny maze of how to practice our faith. We would much rather reinforce the things we want to believe than believe the sometimes difficult teachings of Jesus. Who, on a side note, never said a word about homosexuality but did tell us to gouge out our lustful eyes. Which seems to me is more likely to leave us all blind than the “eye for and eye” thing.

The Bible As A Sex Manual

So, as others have pointed out before, we use the Bible as if it is a sex manual, telling us what is and isn't acceptable in the eyes of the Lord your God. Thereby delineating out those whom it is okay for us to judge, and toward whom it is okay to direct all kinds of nastiness and holier-than-thouisms.

The reality is that the Bible is not a sex manual. I know, shocker. Right? Actually, it's a good thing (depending on your particular level of sexual prudishness – personally, compared to the Bible, mine is pretty high). You see, the Bible not only promotes marriage between a man and a woman, but it insist that that marriage be within the same faith. Not only should a wife be subordinate (Ephesians 5:22), but she should also prove her virginity... lest she be stoned (Deuteronomy 22:20-21). Oh, and the whole thing would probably be much better if it were arranged (Genesis 24:37-38). And that's just the warm up act.

According to the Bible, if a woman's husband dies and she hasn't had a son, she must marry his brother and have intercourse with him until she has a son (Mark 12:18-27). Sometimes, biblically wives are good, but concubines are better. Many of the “men of God” were not only married, but at least three of them had more than one concubine (Abraham, Caleb, Solomon) and they remained “men of God.” But like I said, “biblically wives are good” and there's no such thing as too much of a good thing. Right? So, why not have may wives? God frequently blessed polygamists (Esau, Jacob, Gideon, David, Solomon, Belshazzar).

As far as sexuality and the Bible's perspective on woman as property and as slaves... well, as you can imagine, it does not get any better.

Making Choices

The point is this: most of us have matured enough theologically to recognize that we need to contextualize the writings of the Bible, and because of it we have moved passed using these examples as the end-all-be-all on acceptable practices of sexuality. However, somehow, we have not managed to apply the very same understanding to the Bible verses that have become known as the “clobber verses” in the Bible. “Clobber" because they are the verses most used to clobber people who are gay or who support gay rights.

That is really interesting when you consider that, of all the topics I just mentioned, sexual orientation is the only one that is not a choice. Polygamy, concubines, marrying your brother's widow? All choices, and we have decided to “get over” the biblical directives for them. Sexual orientation? Not a choice. (There are those who still argue otherwise, but the science is clear, so I'm not even having that discussion). So many Christians just aren't able to get past that one. Equally interesting to consider: it is actually more of a choice to judge and marginalize people over being homosexual, or, bi-sexual, or queer; than it is a choice to be homosexual, or, bi-sexual, or queer. Yet we judge them and not ourselves.

Since we clearly have a difficult time letting go of the clobber verses, let's take them one by one and very briefly consider what is really going on in them. It should help us arrive at a clearer picture of what the writers of these scriptures were trying to tell us. What we will find is this: as we get caught up in judging others over what we want the verses to say, we miss the opportunity to understand how to be the people God is calling us to be.

As we get started, we all need to be on the same page on one thing. When the Bible was written, the earth was flat, the sun orbited the earth and the idea of a person having a sexual 'orientation' was completely foreign. There is some debate about who actually kick-started the understanding of sexual orientation (Heinrich Hoessli or Karl Heinrich Ulrich - personally, I am on Team Heinrich), but it is clear that the concept of people having a sexual orientation was first introduced in the 1800's making it a thoroughly modern construct.

Clearly, there are a few Bible verses that involve same-sex acts (and of those, almost all of them are male-male sex), but given the modern advent of recognizing the existence of sexual orientation, we must accept the reality that the writers of those verses were in no way trying to, let alone capable of, acknowledging, understanding and addressing homosexual orientation. What then, might they have been trying to tell us in the clobber verses? Let's take a look.

The Clobber Verses

Let me just say right off the top, three of the verses that are sometimes considered clobber verses have nothing to do with the question of homosexuality. Putting Genesis 2:21-25, Deuteronomy 23:17 and Jude 1:6-7 in the category of anti-gay verses is nothing more than an attempt to beef up the number of verses that are supposedly “against” homosexuality. They have nothing to do with it. So, I am simply going to ignore them. If someone attempts to use them as proof of the “abomination” of homosexuality, I suggest you simply ignore them as well.

Genesis 19:1-11

The great thing about defending the Bible against people who want to use Genesis 19:1-11 to gay bash is that you really don't have to do any work. The Bible does it for you. For better or for worse, this is also the verse with which the general population is probably most familiar in terms of what they think of as verses about homosexuality. Even the term “sodomy” is linked to this Bible passage.

It is the story of two travelers (messengers from God) being given shelter by Lot and his family. Hospitality was a very big deal in those days. In this story, the men of Sodom decided to approach Lot's home and to make less than hospitable demands on him and his guest. To get a sense of how important hospitality was, when the men of the town say they want to force themselves (most likely sexually) on Lot's guest, Lot actually offers up his daughters instead. Despicable, deplorable, a great way to permanently damage your relationship with your daughters and the rest of your family (to say the least), but a sure sign that hospitality was a big deal.

In the end, the men of the town did not get what they wanted. They wanted to exert their dominance of the guests. They wanted to humiliate them, as warriors after conquering a foe might do in those days, sexually putting another male into the position of a woman (who after all was thought of as property, as weak, and as soft and therefore less than a man).

Even though the men never actually exerted their power over Lot's guests in a male-male sex act, people still insist on using this text as proof that homosexuality is an “abomination.” Well, like I said, “the great thing about defending the Bible against people who want to use Genesis 19:1-5 to gay bash is that you really don't have to do any work. The Bible does it for you.”

Sodom is referenced multiple times in the Bible as an example of great sinning. And what might that sin be?

In Isaiah 1:10-17 it is thought to be injustice, not rescuing the oppressed, defending the orphan, pleading for the widow. In Jeremiah 23:14 it is adultery. In Ezekiel 16:48-49 it is the sin of not aiding the “poor and needy.” In Zephaniah 2:8-11 the sin is bullying, boasting and pride. In the Wisdom of Solomon it is “the bitter hatred of strangers.”

The sin is not about being gay. It is not about non-straight sexual orientation. The sin of Sodom was lacking hospitality, not being just, bullying, hating strangers, not caring for those marginalized. Funny, they are all things Churches (and individuals for that matter) sorely need to keep in mind and be better at practicing when it comes to how we do or do not welcome LGBTQ folk into our lives. After all, in today's society, who is more marginalized, more bullied, more treated like a “stranger,” than them? Come to think of it, not so funny.

Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13

If someone were to canonize a buzz-kill, it would look remarkably, and uncomfortably, like the book of Leviticus. Honestly, this three-thousand plus year old holiness code is not exactly a big ball of fun. For starters, just try reading it. On second thought, I like you, so don't. Fortunately for you, I've done it for you. (I know, nice. Right? I'm just that kind of guy).

Among the jewels you'll find in it are a mandate to kill disobedient children, a dietary restriction to not eat shellfish (God Hates Shrimp!), a law that would prevent bowl-cuts (or “rounding off the side-growth of your heads” – and to think I liked the Beatles), direction to not touch or eat the flesh of a pig (no bacon and cheddar soup for you!), and a prohibition on the rhythm method of birth control (you know who you are!). Oh, and presumably, gay sex (which, of course, is why I bring it up).

The section of Leviticus where we find the clobber verses is often called the Purity Code. “Purity” was mostly about two things. First, it was about keeping things the way they “should” be. “Should” is in quotes because the guidelines they used for what should and shouldn't be were mostly made up. Said differently, they arrived at their conclusions in a time that didn't have any science or at least not science like we have today. Which is to say, they didn't have any science.

What they had was mostly superstition based on observation. A big part of this purity code was the idea that the world is consistent or follows particular preset rules. For the Israelites this meant things like: all fish have fins, animals with divided hooves chew cud, and male sperm contains the whole of life (women provided the incubation chamber). When things didn't adhere to this particular three-thousand year old way of understanding the world, they were considered an abomination or more precisely impure.

The second thing the purity code did was define the Israelites as purely not Canaanites. That is, much like many Christians receive the mark of a cross on their forehead on Ash Wednesday or give something up for Lent, the codes in Leviticus helped define the people of Israel as the people of Israel. For the Israelites it was particularly meant to define them as not Canaanites. Basically, it's a way of showing “we are not them.”

It is true that there are other reasons for many of the laws (just like there are many other reasons to give something up for Lent), but these are two of the larger ones, and they are ones that most directly apply to these clobber verses.

So what do we, presumably enlightened Christians of a scientific age, do with this code? Clearly shrimp are good to eat (for most of us). For that matter, as far as I'm concerned, to borrow from an old Benjamin Franklin quote, they are proof that God loves us* – that's just how darned delicious they are.

What we do is recognize Leviticus for what it was: a good thing for the people of God based on how they understood the world some three-thousand years ago. Interestingly enough, when it comes to things like shellfish, eating and touching pigs, cutting our sideburns and beards, and stoning children who mouth off to their parents, we have already managed to do exactly that. Why? Because we understand that they are just flat out silly laws. Not all “fish” have fins. Some come in the shape of pink commas and are delicious with a nice Riesling. Because not all split hooved animals chew cud. Some roll around in the mud and make breakfast just that much better. For that matter, wrap them around a shrimp, throw them on the grill. I promise you, God will not smite you and once you bite into them you'll agree, they are not an abomination (they might, however taste slightly “impure” if you do not devein them well).

What many people have not been able to do is extend that simple understanding to these clobber verses. We have already established that it would have been impossible for these texts, or any biblical text, to be about sexual orientation. However, they do clearly describe a male-male sex act (sorry ladies, this one's just for the guys). But what we have to begin to understand is that the issues which these specific laws presumed to address within their society, much like the other laws I've mentioned here, are no longer recognized as true.

Scholars have pointed to various reasons for ancient Israel's seeing male-male sex as taboo in Leviticus. It may be the same reason the rhythm method was thought to be wrong in the eyes of God, which presumably is that, as I have mentioned, they thought sperm contained the whole of life (how typically male-dominated-society of them). Therefore, in their way of seeing it, “Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is great. If a sperm gets wasted, God get quite irate.” On the other hand, it may be that they thought it was taboo because it went against their understanding that mixing of kinds, just like the mixing of two kinds of cloth was taboo. Male-male sexual relationships, in that way of seeing things, mixes up their understanding of gender roles.

Whatever the reason, the perspective in these clobber verses were based on an understanding of sex and sexuality that was just as misinformed as their understanding of the earth in relationship to the sun, of fish, of pork and of reasons for stoning children. In our scientific age, it is time to let go of archaic perspectives and start recognizing the things that are truly an abomination in the eyes of God: lacking in compassion and love, exercising judgment against others, and practicing and encouraging hate.

(*The actual quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin is, “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” Sadly, while Ben most probably enjoyed a mug of beer from time to time, the actually quote is, “Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine, a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.” In a happy coincidence, the same rains nourish the barley and hops that are changed into beer. In an even happier coincidence, wine and beer both pair exceptionally well with shrimp. God is good).

Romans 1:26-28

Good news ladies! Up until now, all of this clobbering has been about the guys. In Romans, you get to join in. Lucky you.

Romans is the one place the Bible speaks specifically about a female-female sex act. If you listen to Bible Thumpin' Gay Bashers, you'd be surprised to learn that, while the counts vary on how many places the Bible directly address heterosexual relationships, it is a lot. Then again, compared to the precisely one verse the Bible has about female-female sex, even two is one hundred percent more.

The number of heterosexually oriented verses isn't exactly clear. One thing is really clear, there's plenty of them and, much like the Levitical purity code, we've managed to ignore many of them. So, if you aren't also denouncing the divorced, then get off your lesbian judging high-horse, because otherwise you are just picking and choosing who to judge out of your own accord, and then quoting the one Bible verse that seems to support your choice. And even then, as we will see, it doesn't actually support your argument. It actually does just the opposite.

In Romans, we have the most extensive discussion of same-sex intercourse in the Bible, a whole two seemingly specific verses – astounding.

There are plenty of approaches to understanding what Paul is trying to teach us in these texts. Any good exegesis ultimately points to the reality that what Paul is talking about and what people who use these verses as clobber verses want Paul to be talking about aren't the same thing. That is, this is not about homosexual people having consenting homosexual relationships.

One convincing analysis of these texts looks at the fact that one of the most prevalent forms of same-sex sex in the Greco-Roman world was male prostitution which frequently involved boys. In that analysis, the texts become a condemnation of pederasty and prostitution, things of which most Christians (conservative to liberal) disapprove even today. There is also the perspective that Paul's pointing to same sex intercourse as being idolatrous could be referring to the practices of priests and priestesses of Mediterainian fertility gods who regularly practiced that type of prostitution but elevated it, within a religious context, to the state of idolatry. Those approaches are valid and mostly convincing perspectives, but they do require a small leap of logic to arrive at their conclusions. Much less of a leap of logic, mind you, than believing that these texts are about something of which people at that time had absolutely no comprehension, but slight conjecture all the same.

The analysis that I find the most convincing concerns itself with the word “natural.” It is the word that has led many to speak of LGBTQ behavior as “unnatural” acts even though they occur throughout nature (in one study they were found in more than fifteen-hundred species).

As it turns out, the word is actually not “natural.” Not surprisingly, Paul did not speak English. While Paul performed a number of miraculous things, speaking English (which wasn't around even in its earliest Prehistoric Old English form yet) was not one of them. Not to bore you too much, but the word Paul used was the Greek word, physikos. (Now that didn't hurt too much, did it?).

It's important to know the word in Greek because when it is translated into English, it loses a little of its original meaning. Without even knowing it, Lady GaGa has provided a better modern and contextual translation of physikos than the frequently used translation of “normal.” We will get to that in a minute. It doesn't mean “natural” or “nature” so much as it means “produced by nature.” Those who use these verses as clobber verses tend to understand “natural” to mean something closer to “normal” than “produced by nature.” Not surprisingly, they also then define what is and isn't “normal” based on their personal biases rather than on science or the reality of the world around them (e.g.: “I think gay people make me feel creepy, so I henceforth do hereby dub it as an act of not-natural.”).

In reality, physikos has more to do with how things naturally occur in God's Creation. At this point, you may have begun to guess that physikos is based on the same root word from which we get the word “physics” which is, of course, the study of the realities of nature. Conveniently, the way Paul uses physikos here in Romans, it also means something very similar to “the realities of nature.” It is concerned with what is of our nature and not with what is defined as acceptable. That is to say, Paul is concerned with how God created something or someone to be. He is concerned with people going against their nature or in the words of Lady GaGa herself, if they are “born that way” he's concerned with them behaving as if they were not.

That is the sin here in Romans, acting against the very nature of who God created you to be. In this case he seems to be addressing the idea of a same-sex sex act in which at least one of the two are not attracted to someone of the same sex; they just are not born that way.

Understood this way, it would be equally sinful for someone who is only attracted to someone of the same sex to have sex with someone of the opposite sex. It goes against their nature; they just weren't born that way. Ironically, those telling LGBTQ folk that these verses mean they have to stop being LGBTQ folk are actually telling them to commit the very sin against which these verses warn, going against their nature. God has a wicked sense of humor.

Because these texts have been used so much to address homosexuality, it was important to address the issue directly, but the worst thing we could do is to think it is primarily about homosexuality. It is not.

Immediately following verse 28, Paul provides an extensive list of sins. It is so extensive that we all fall into at least one of the categories. “So there you have it,” says Paul, “we all sin. Don't try to deny it.” And let's face it, we all go against who we know we were created to be. How many times have you done something, felt guilt or shame, and then said, “I shouldn't have done that. That's not who I am.”?

As Paul says in the very next chapter, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” As he also says to start that chapter, “Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.”

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 & 1 Timothy 1:9-10

So, remember back a few paragraphs ago when we talked about a Greek word? And remember how it didn't even hurt one little bit? Good. We are going to do it again.

I have put the 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy clobber verses together because they both use a particular Greek word in a particularly similar way. The word is arsenokoitēs and it means “male prostitute.” (Behold the Greek scholarship. See that it is good and rejoice). Actually, it could also mean “the customer of a male prostitute,” or “boy molester” or “someone who abuses themselves with a man” or “using sexual manipulation to acquire money” or … (eh hem, “Behold the great and powerful Greek Interpretation!” ).

So, the word in these two verses, that is frequently interpreted as “homosexual” (which is absurd because, in Greek, it is clearly only a word referring to men) or “sodomite” (which is absurd, among other reasons, because that was not the sin of Sodom, as we have already discussed), is really difficult to translate. Why? In part, because it is only found in these two places and also, in part, because it is entirely possible that it is a made up word. It is very likely that Greek speaking Jews created this word to port a Hebrew word to Greek and over time the meaning has been lost. So, it is just hard to translate. So difficult, in fact, that scholars can't agree on a single best translation. What most biblical Greek scholars can agree on is that it is not meant to be a blanket statement about a male-male sex act. Moving on.

There is another word used in 1 Corinthians 6:9: malakos. The good news about this word is that it is found in lots of literature, so there are plenty of references about its typical intended meaning. It literally means “soft.” Some say it means “soft” as in “effeminate, but not in terms of sexual orientation.” Others, say it is connected with being wasteful of sexual and financial resources. Still others convincingly point to it singling out a particular type of male prostitution involving young boys. Also in the list of contenders: sexual perverts, sodomites, weaklings, the self-indulgent. (“Behold the great and powerful Greek Interpretation!” ). Like with arsenokoitēs there really is no expert consensus on this.

Malakos was a word that could be used to refer to things as diverse as men who were weak in battle (or who were “soft”), to men who lived extravagant and pampered lives (or who were... well, “soft”). It was not specifically about sexual relationships. If Paul was actually trying to describe something about a submissive male in a male-male relationship (which is still not the same as homosexuality as we understand it today), it's very likely that he would have used kinaedos, which was frequently used to describe that very relationship. But he didn't. So, stop acting like he was.

Clobbered

In summary of my look at the Christian Church's use of the clobber verses, if you want to call homosexuality a sin, go ahead. But you are going to have to admit that it is not biblically a sin. Which means you are also going to have to admit that you are calling it a sin simply because that's what you want to do. Because of that, you are going to have to admit that you are a sinner for using God's name for false pretenses (it's a little thing we like to call using God's name in vain). And then, Paul has something to tell you, “...you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.” (Romans 2:1).

Homophobic? Re-Read Your Bible

An Op-Ed Classic by Peter J. Gomes, an American Baptist minister and professor of Christian morals at Harvard who passed away in March 2011. The article was published in the New York Times on August 17, 1992.

Homophobic? Re-Read Your Bible

Opposition to gays' civil rights has become one of the most visible symbols of American civic conflict this year, and religion has become the weapon of choice. The army of the discontented, eager for clear villains and simple solutions and ready for a crusade in which political self-interest and social anxiety can be cloaked in morality, has found hatred of homosexuality to be the last respectable prejudice of the century.

Ballot initiatives in Oregon and Maine would deny homosexuals the protection of civil rights laws. The Pentagon has steadfastly refused to allow gays into the armed forces. Vice President Dan Quayle is crusading for "traditional family values." And Pat Buchanan, who is scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention this evening, regards homosexuality as a litmus test of moral purity.

Nothing has illuminated this crusade more effectively than a work of fiction, "The Drowning of Stephan Jones," by Bette Greene. Preparing for her novel, Ms. Greene interviewed more than 400 young men incarcerated for gay-bashing, and scrutinized their case studies. In an interview published in The Boston Globe this spring, she said she found that the gay-bashers generally saw nothing wrong in what they did, and, more often than not, said their religious leaders and traditions sanctioned their behavior. One convicted teen-age gay-basher told her that the pastor of his church had said, "Homosexuals represent the devil, Satan," and that the Rev. Jerry Falwell had echoed that charge.

Christians opposed to political and social equality for homosexuals nearly always appeal to the moral injunctions of the Bible, claiming that Scripture is very clear on the matter and citing verses that support their opinion. They accuse others of perverting and distorting texts contrary to their "clear" meaning. They do not, however, necessarily see quite as clear a meaning in biblical passages on economic conduct, the burdens of wealth and the sin of greed.

Nine biblical citations are customarily invoked as relating to homosexuality. Four (Deuteronomy 23:17, I Kings 14:24, I Kings 22:46 and II Kings 23:7) simply forbid prostitution, by men and women.

Two others (Leviticus 18:19-23 and Leviticus 20:10-16) are part of what biblical scholars call the Holiness Code. The code explicitly bans homosexual acts. But it also prohibits eating raw meat, planting two different kinds of seed in the same field and wearing garments with two different kinds of yarn. Tattoos, adultery and sexual intercourse during a woman's menstrual period are similarly outlawed.

There is no mention of homosexuality in the four Gospels of the New Testament. The moral teachings of Jesus are not concerned with the subject.

Three references from St. Paul are frequently cited (Romans 1:26-2:1, I Corinthians 6:9-11 and I Timothy 1:10). But St. Paul was concerned with homosexuality only because in Greco-Roman culture it represented a secular sensuality that was contrary to his Jewish-Christian spiritual idealism. He was against lust and sensuality in anyone, including heterosexuals. To say that homosexuality is bad because homosexuals are tempted to do morally doubtful things is to say that heterosexuality is bad because heterosexuals are likewise tempted. For St. Paul, anyone who puts his or her interest ahead of God's is condemned, a verdict that falls equally upon everyone.

And lest we forget Sodom and Gomorrah, recall that the story is not about sexual perversion and homosexual practice. It is about inhospitality, according to Luke 10:10-13, and failure to care for the poor, according to Ezekiel 16:49-50: "Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy." To suggest that Sodom and Gomorrah is about homosexual sex is an analysis of about as much worth as suggesting that the story of Jonah and the whale is a treatise on fishing.

Part of the problem is a question of interpretation. Fundamentalists and literalists, the storm troopers of the religious right, are terrified that Scripture, "wrongly interpreted," may separate them from their values. That fear stems from their own recognition that their "values" are not derived from Scripture, as they publicly claim.

Indeed, it is through the lens of their own prejudices and personal values that they "read" Scripture and cloak their own views in its authority. We all interpret Scripture: Make no mistake. And no one truly is a literalist, despite the pious temptation. The questions are, By what principle of interpretation do we proceed, and by what means do we reconcile "what it meant then" to "what it means now?"

These matters are far too important to be left to scholars and seminarians alone. Our ability to judge ourselves and others rests on our ability to interpret Scripture intelligently. The right use of the Bible, an exercise as old as the church itself, means that we confront our prejudices rather than merely confirm them.

For Christians, the principle by which Scripture is read is nothing less than an appreciation of the work and will of God as revealed in that of Jesus. To recover a liberating and inclusive Christ is to be freed from the semantic bondage that makes us curators of a dead culture rather than creatures of a new creation.

Religious fundamentalism is dangerous because it cannot accept ambiguity and diversity and is therefore inherently intolerant. Such intolerance, in the name of virtue, is ruthless and uses political power to destroy what it cannot convert.

It is dangerous, especially in America, because it is anti-democratic and is suspicious of "the other," in whatever form that "other" might appear. To maintain itself, fundamentalism must always define "the other" as deviant.

But the chief reason that fundamentalism is dangerous is that, at the hands of the Rev. Pat Robertson, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and hundreds of lesser-known but equally worrisome clerics, preachers and pundits, it uses Scripture and the Christian practice to encourage ordinarily good people to act upon their fears rather than their virtues.

Fortunately, those who speak for the religious right do not speak for all American Christians, and the Bible is not theirs alone to interpret. The same Bible that the advocates of slavery used to protect their wicked self-interests is the Bible that inspired slaves to revolt and their liberators to action.

The same Bible that the predecessors of Mr. Falwell and Mr. Robertson used to keep white churches white is the source of the inspiration of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the social reformation of the 1960's.

The same Bible that anti-feminists use to keep women silent in the churches is the Bible that preaches liberation to captives and says that in Christ there is neither male nor female, slave nor free.

And the same Bible that on the basis of an archaic social code of ancient Israel and a tortured reading of Paul is used to condemn all homosexuals and homosexual behavior includes metaphors of redemption, renewal, inclusion and love -- principles that invite homosexuals to accept their freedom and responsibility in Christ and demands that their fellow Christians accept them as well.

The political piety of the fundamentalist religious right must not be exercised at the expense of our precious freedoms. And in this summer of our discontent, one of the most precious freedoms for which we must all fight is freedom from this last prejudice.

Monumental Cryptography Discovery Reveals Homosexuality Not Forbidden in Bible

by Kevin Farrell:

We don’t necessarily run in cryptography circles here at UB, but even we have to admit that “internationally acclaimed cryptographer” Michael Wood’s publishing on the Apostle Paul’s teachings on homosexuality piqued our attention.


Apparently Paul’s paradoxes laid out in the book of Romans in the Bible have plagued theologians and historians for thousands of years. A classic argument against cultural permissiveness toward homosexuality stems from Romans, in which Paul appears to say homosexuals need not apply for an all-inclusive pass to Heaven – because they will be denied.

But Wood’s discovery has turned the entire scripture upside down, and it appears that the Bible has had a welcome mat out for the gays all along.

“Michael Wood’s discovery is remarkable because it solves a colossal paradox regarding Paul’s Greek that has baffled scholars for 2,000 years,” says Dr. William Berg, who taught Greek and Roman Classics at Stanford University.

Paul’s only unequivocal reference to homosexuality is found within Romans 1:18-3:20, a Biblical passage that has mystified scholars for two millennia. “The interpretation of Romans1:18-3:20 has been notoriously difficult for almost every commentator,” Richard Longenecker, the Distinguished New Testament Scholar at Wheaton College, writes in his book Studies in Paul. “Earlier interpreters such as Origen, Jerome, Augustine, and Erasmus wrestled with this issue and it continues to plague commentators today.”

The passage is riddled with paradoxes. It says that “only the doers of the law will be vindicated by God,” and “by the works of the law no one will be vindicated.” The passage also mysteriously separates idolatrous, homosexual orgy fests from transgressions worthy of spiritual death. “In finding the definitive solution to Paul’s legal paradox, I inadvertently discovered why he separated the idolatrous, same-sex orgies from the things he considered worthy of spiritual death,” said Wood.

Wood’s solution is definitive, elegant, and verifiable. Romans 2:13-26 teaches: Only the doers of the “Justices of the Torah” will be vindicated before God. Romans 3:20 says, “By the ‘Jobs of the Torah’ no one will be vindicated.” Not only is there no contradiction, but the two teachings have always been simple restatements of each other; the “Great Paradox” is no paradox at all!

This legal solution fully explains Paul’s treatment of homosexuality. Paul’s passage excludes idolatrous, homosexual orgy fests from things which he considered worthy of spiritual death, things such as “bad-mouthing others,” “deceiving,” and “inflicting pain.” Those engaged in idolatrous, homosexual orgies weren’t violating the Justices. (They weren’t violating the precept “Love your neighbor as yourself.”) Therefore, Paul was obliged to separate this from his list of things which did violate the Justices.

The finding is significant because it documents that Paul purposefully separated the same-sex acts; it was a conscious, deliberate decision consistent with the rest of the passage. In fact, it was demanded by the rest of the passage. The resolution of the paradox empirically proves that Paul’s view on homosexuality was very different from what Christians had thought for 2,000 years.

Although Romans 1 contains the only unequivocal reference to homosexuality, anti-homosexual statements have been introduced into other passages in newer versions of the English Bible. As for these modern changes to the Biblical text: “Michael Wood has gone the extra mile in being faithful to Paul’s Greek,” said Dr. Berg. “He shows, time and again, that the words traditionally mistranslated as ‘homosexual,’ ‘effeminate,’ ‘impure,’ and so forth, are really targeting selfish, unloving, unjust activity and have nothing to do with sexual orientation. He shows that once again Paul was condemning those who violate the Justices of the Torah, and nothing more.”

Wordy, we know. But how about them apples? Real talk, we’re full grown, non-robotic, autonomous adults capable of making our own decisions regarding morality here at UB, thankyouverymuch – but it’s always nice to hear that those who promote the idea of an all-loving God that hates some of the things He created have been reading their Bibles the wrong way all this time.

What say you about this biblical development?

Amen!

Movie: Fish Out Of Water

A documentary that explores the impassioned relationship between homosexuality and the bible.



The feature documentary begins with an animated recollection of the fallout at Vanderbilt University when the films director, Ky Dickens, came out to her sorority sisters. Their rabid rejection sparks her search for Bible-based condemnation.

Crisscrossing America and listening to the country's impassioned speech on this divisive issue, she speaks with ministers of all denominations, recording the experiences of the oppressed and the justifications of the oppressors.

At the film's core are interviews with GLBTQ folks from every religion, class and ethnic group who have survived intolerance, most often from their own families. Their searing but soul-soaring stories give the fight for equality a human voice and face, offering inspiration to those still ensnared in struggle.

Check out the film web site HERE.