The Bible and Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity

The Bible and Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity

Paul Simpson Duke

First Baptist Church, Ann Arbor

April 15, 2018

 

By way of full disclosure, I should say at the outset that I come to this issue, as most do, with strong convictions firmly in place. I believe with all my heart that the church should be welcoming and fully including of all people irrespective of sexual orientation or gender identity. I believe in gay marriage and in the ordination of anyone who demonstrates clear and healthy commitments to Christ and a real sense of calling. I don’t pretend to be neutral, so as I speak today, you will hear some unapologetic advocacy.

At the same time, however, on this issue I respect the fact that Christians can hold different positions in good faith. I do not respect meanness or self-righteousness; but I know that the easiest way—for me not the right way, but the easiest way—to read Scripture on this issue is to conclude that Christians should reject same-sex physical intimacy. Historically this has been the conviction of the vast majority of Christians, so I respect those who in good conscience disagree with me who also give evidence of seeking to love and to serve all people. This means I’m committed to push no one into a corner, but to leave space for everyone to reach and stand by your own conviction. I love you people, and the love of Christ constrains us to be of this mind together. We can live in the balance of being advocates on either side, and of remaining open to each other.

And now to the subject matter at hand, and we begin with a question. Why start with the Bible? Let’s admit that for many Christians, what the Bible might have to say on the subject of same-sex orientation and behavior or on the subject of gender identity, doesn’t matter all that much. If we are on the side of full equality and inclusion, then if the Bible seems to tell us otherwise, we may set it aside as irrelevant. But the same thing happens on the other side of the issue. I’ve known very conservative Christians who oppose full LGBTQ inclusion in the church, who when shown that the Bible doesn’t necessarily support their position, have essentially said, “I don’t care. I just think it’s wrong.”

Where an issue is so emotionally charged and feelings are so fixed and the subject matter is so psychologically primal and layered and for so many held in shadow, how much does it really matter in actual terms to your or me what the Bible says? And is this really the place to start?

For me, one reason to start here is to reclaim the Bible from those who badly misuse it. On our subject, a little handful of sentences, scattered here and there in the Bible, have been weaponized to shame and condemn and ostrasize people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer. The words are lifted from context, enlarged, twisted, severed from the larger witness of Scripture and of Jesus, to do great harm. In this as in other subjects, Scripture has been an instrument of abuse, and I invite you to join me in taking it back.

That’s not to say that what these texts have to offer is all to our liking. But we need to know what they say and what their context was and how they fit into the whole scope of the Bible. None of us takes the whole Bible literally, but we ought to take it seriously. Which means also taking seriously the criteria we use when interpreting Scripture. More on that in a bit.

And now we turn to the five texts in the Bible that make reference to some sort of same-sex sexual behavior. First the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, as told in Genesis 19. Two angels, disguised as men, come to visit Abraham’s nephew Lot in the city of Sodom. While they are in his house, the men of the town come to his door and demand, “Bring them out to us that we may know them,” which is a euphemism for sexual intercourse. What the men of the city clearly mean is: “Bring out the strangers so we can rape them.” Lot says “No, but I’ll give you my virgin daughters to rape instead.” Before that can happen, the men are struck blind by the angels.

Soon after, God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah. Surprisingly, the prophet Ezekiel says the sin of Sodom was “pride” and “prosperous ease,” and refusal to “aid the poor and needy.” They are certainly brutal toward strangers in their midst. The rape they intend is an act of violence to show dominance and to humiliate the stranger or the enemy. This form of brutality has not been uncommon through history, and has nothing to do with our subject. There’s a twin story of it in the book of Judges. A man and his concubine are guests at an old man’s house. Men come to the door and demand the male stranger to rape him. The host gives them the concubine instead, and they use her till she’s dead. Do I need to point out that this is not a story about men loving men? Yet this and the other story are used to condemn same-sex relationships.

Next we turn to Leviticus 18:22, where these words occur: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” And Leviticus 20:13 repeats: “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed abomination; they shall be put to death.”

These two verses are the only prohibitions against same-sex sexual interaction to be found in the Old Testament. They are part of what is called the Holiness Code, a ten-chapter unit packed with many briefly stated laws. Among them are laws against sex during a woman’s menstruation, against the cross-breeding of cattle, against the planting of two kinds of seed in one field, against wearing two kinds of fabric at the same time. The word we translate “abomination” is used over and over, but what scholars of the language tell us is that, as used in Leviticus, it’s not so much a moral term as a cultic term for ritual uncleanness.

The Torah laws go on to stipulate that a person who picks up sticks on the Sabbath shall be put to death, and that a son who disobeys his parents shall be put to death. See how we pick and choose?

While we are on the subject of Torah laws, there is also one that says women shouldn’t wear men’s clothes, and men shouldn’t wear women’s clothes (Deuteronomy 22:5); and this text is now used to condemn transgender people. Before this, it was used to condemn pantsuits. The only other Bible text I know of that they’re using against transgender people is the creation story, where God makes a male and a female, two genders clear-cut, and that, they say, is how simple it is.

Now we turn to the New Testament, where the Apostle Paul makes three negative reference to same-sex sexual interaction. How shall we read them? At very least, we read them aware of their context in the first century world. What we must know is this: in that world, a particular form of male same-sex practice was rampant. It is called pederasty, which means the love of boys. It was practiced throughout the Greco-Roman world.

That world was male-dominated. Women were devalued, their purpose being to bear children and manage the house. All public life was for men and for boys. A man, from the time he left home in the morning till he returned at night might, might spend his entire day without ever having to speak to a woman. A man’s partnerships intellectually and emotionally were with other men. Most men married, but their wives did not function much as relational companions.

In this gender-segregated, misogynist system, the ideal of beauty was the male body, especially the adolescent or young-adult male body, particularly those whose features can be construed as feminine. Having made women mostly invisible, men transferred the feminine ideal to boys and young men. The schools, for boys only, were called gymnasia. The subject matter there was music, poetry, writing, and athletics. In this gymnasium, the youth exercised in the nude, the aim always being to create a beautiful body.

It was widely practiced that an older male would take on a pubescent or adolescent male as a protégé. The older man, called the lover, was a kind of mentor to the youth, who was called the beloved, and would teach and sponsor him. In some instances, the lover would train the beloved in military prowess, and in battle they would fight side by side, all the harder because of the bond between them. Adult men would seek out young men for these relationships, and often the older man used the youth sexually. I say he “used” the youth because the sexual encounters were not mutual. The youth was to be the passive one. The older male received the gratification.

Some of the literature from those times indicate a noble ideal in which the adult was to be only a teacher, not sexually involved. Much was made of Socrates not engaging that way with his protégés. The roots of our word platonic, meaning a non-sexual friendship, is that Plato was not in a physical relationship with his mentor Socrates, and thought the whole business was wrong. But much of the literature indicates that in a great many places these relationships had this erotic component.

Pederasty was practiced by men who were heterosexual, most of them married, and many of them promiscuous with other women. Yet their idealizing of the young male body found sexual expression. The relationships were characterized by inequality—the older experiencing what the younger did not—and by impermanency—the older proceeding from one youth to another as the boys grew older, and often accruing a long succession of young partners. Given what we now understand about power dynamics, we know that even if the youth entered into the arrangement with apparent consent, this was abuse.

But in addition to pederasty, there were other well-known practices of male-with-male sexual activity, which many cultured people did not approve, but which were common. One was the sexual use of male slaves. Boys captured by slave-traders were placed in brothels patronized by men. Or household slaves would be required to give such services for their masters and guests. Typically, they were made to look feminine, their beards and body hair pulled out by the roots. Castration was sometimes done to prolong this appearance.

In addition, there was a practice involving call-boys, not slaves but young men who worked as prostitutes. They would grow their hair long and have it coiffured and perfumed, they would rouge their faces, remove body hair, wear feminine clothes, and they were lewd. It may interest you to know that Mark Antony, the famous lover of Cleopatra, was in his youth such a call-boy. There was a word for such young men: malakos. It means “soft.”

I don’t enjoy detailing all of this to you, but these facts—and they are facts—are important to our discussion. In the first-century these perversions were rampant, and everybody knew. And it bears no resemblance to the life or conduct of people understood in our time as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. The Greek world didn’t even have a generic word for homosexuality. There is no evidence of a public conception of fundamental sexual orientation, much less of lifelong loving commitments grounded in that orientation. The vocabulary they had was used for the practices I’ve described, a system that was abusive, corrupting, sexist, perverse. It is a wonder to me that the New Testament doesn’t denounce it more often.

Do hear me say this:  I cannot claim with certainty, nobody can claim with certainty that the Apostle Paul didn’t denounce all forms and context of what we call homosexuality. Maybe his negative remarks were not referring only to pederasty and boys in brothels and the sexual use of male slaves and of call-boys. But there’s reason to think that these are what was on his mind, because these were what was known. These are the same-sex behaviors described in the literature of the time, and there is no reference in that literature to same-sex couples in loving, mutual, intimate relationship.

So here are the three texts.1 Corinthians 6:9-10 is the earliest recorded Christian statement on the subject. This is the New Revised Standard Version: “Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.”

This is one of the several lists of sins that Paul gives in his letters. He has three such lists almost back to back in these two chapters of 1 Corinthians. There’s a lot of repetition in these three lists; for example, “the greedy” appears in all three. The same-sex stuff appears in just one. He gives an even longer list of wicked practices in Galatians, 15 vices, with no mention of same-sex conduct.

He uses two words for same-sex sexual interaction. The first is the word malakos, which as we said, means “soft,” a euphemism for effeminate and used in that culture for the effeminate male prostitute, the call boy. The second word he uses may have been his invention, as this is the earliest recorded use of it. It means literally, “one who beds a male.” Does he mean all male-with-male physical intimacy? Maybe. But since he pairs it with the word widely used for call-boys it’s not unlikely that he means specifically the man who hires or otherwise uses such a youth.

But listen to what various Bible translators do with these two words. The NRSV has, “male prostitutes” and “sodomites.” The Revised Standard Version has simply, “sexual perverts.” The King James Version has, “the effeminate” and “abusers of themselves with mankind.” But guess how the New International Version translates it—“homosexuals.” So you open your Bible, and there it is: “Homosexuals will not enter the kingdom of God.” It’s a terrible rendering into our language and time of what Paul wrote in his language and time. You cannot get from Paul’s two Greek words to the single, sweeping English word, homosexuals, unless you want it to mean that, or unless you come to the text unconsciously biased enough that it’s all you can see.

But even if Paul did mean to denounce all same-sex intimacy between men, notice again how selective we are. There are vices in these lists that don’t bother us: quarreling, gossip, and greed, for example. Can you imagine us spending six sessions deliberating over the question of whether or not for the church should fully welcome and include people who are greedy? Or who gossip?

Now we turn to 1 Timothy 1:9-10. It’s another list of vices, with fourteen listed: “The law is laid down not for the innocent but for the lawless and disobedient, for the godless and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their father or mother, for murderers, fornicators, sodomites, slave-traders, liars, perjurers and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching.” Again, by “sodomites” does he mean all those who have male-with-male physical intimacy. Maybe. It’s the word that means, “one who beds a male.” But for what it’s worth, the word translated “fornicators” was often used of those call-boy prostitutes, and “slave-traders” often sold young men and boys for the practices we’ve talked about; so some have said that what the text refers to is male prostitutes, those who use them, and those who procure them. But that may very well be a stretch.

The most sited New Testament text in this discussion is Romans 1:26-27: “For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.” Those words are part of an extended theological argument. Paul is showing how every person on earth is fallen and in need of grace. He speaks first of typical Gentile sin, then moves on to Jewish sin. In a moment he will say, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” and we are all in need of God’s grace.

What we’ve read is part of his description of pagan fallenness. Their core sin, he says, was idolatry, and so God “gave them up.” Three times he says, “God gave them up.” ‘God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts to impurity,” a word that usually refers to heterosexual promiscuity. Then the text we’ve read, “God gave them up to degrading passions,” which he illustrates with male and female same-sex passion. Then for the third time, “God gave them up,” the Gentiles, “to degraded minds and things that should not be done,” such as…. “envy, lying, murder, gossip.”

Notice the following assumptions he makes about same-sex desire. He seems to assume first that it’s something a person chooses. He speaks of women who exchanged the love of men for the love of women, and speaks of men “giving up” natural intercourse with women. Secondly, Paul assumes that this choice is made because of their “insatiable lust”—these people are “consumed with passion.” And finally, he says, they “go against nature.” What does he mean by that? It seems obvious enough. It’s biology, and there it is in Genesis; God creates male and female to be partners, to care for the earth, and have babies. Hence the attraction and the propagation of the species. That’s nature.

It is worth noticing, though, that on at least one occasion Paul was less convincing about what is natural. In 1 Corinthians he says it’s against nature for a woman to wear her hear short or for a man’s hair to grow long.

Beyond that, what about people who from early in their lives were attracted to people of their own sex? It’s their natural inclination, and it is for them unnatural to want intimacy with the opposite sex. Do you think the text condemns them for the fulfilling of nature in them?

The other thing about this text is that as soon as Paul finishes his description of pagans and what God has given them up to, he says, “Therefore you have no excuse whoever you are to judge; for in passing judgment on others you condemn yourselves, because you the judge do the very same things.” It’s almost as if Paul has set a trap. He shows a picture of depravity that he knows will likely lead his readers to recoil and judge, then springs on them/us the point that we have no right to judge because we’re all in the same boat, all of us idolatrous, all of us sinners if our ultimate allegiance is to anything or anyone but God. It’s only those of us who judge others who double our own sin.

And those are the texts, all the texts, that pertain, or seem to pertain, directly to our subject. And here is one that’s not there, though it’s so often alluded to that you’d think it was there. People will tell you: The Bible defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. But the truth is that nowhere in the Bible is there any such definition. True, in all the stories of the Bible all the marriages are heterosexual, just as has been the case with forml marriage almost always and everywhere until some began lately asking: We love and commit as the rest of you do; can marriage not also be for us? And the Bible gives no definition.

And now we turn to Jesus, who is our ultimate authority. Jesus said not a single word about homosexuality, nothing at least that anyone would write down. He is on record against sexual promiscuity, had some harsh words for men who leave their wives. Consistently, though, he shows particular tenderness to people whose sexual behavior was to be disapproved. Some men brought a woman to him whom they’d caught in adultery—they didn’t bother to bring him the man—and Jesus said to her, “I don’t condemn you. Don’t do that again.”

He had a commitment to friendship with outsiders, the excluded and despised of his day. He took a lot of heat for that, but said to his critics: “These people get to heaven ahead of you.” Personally, I have not the slightest doubt that if he were here in the flesh today he would count people in the LGBTQ community among his friends, and not for the purpose of making them what they are not. Whether or not you agree with that, the core of Christian faith is this, that Jesus Christ is Lord. And if that is true, he is Lord also of Scripture, and every biblical text is finally to be interpreted in the light of who he was in his time—and as the book of Hebrews tells, us, he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

All of this being the case, I find as a Christian who takes the Bible seriously that there is no sin at all in being gay or transgender or etc., and there is no sin in brining one’s sexual orientation or gender identity to faithful physical expression. And every one of us, no matter who, is called to live a holy, righteous, faithful life.

But may I take you now to another story? Not so long after Jesus’ death and resurrection and the birth of a new community, his disciple Peter was taking a nap one day, and had the strangest dream: a great big sheet lowered from the sky, and on it, pigs and shellfish, and all manner of living creatures that a Jew shouldn’t eat. But in the dream a voice says, “Get up, Peter, kill and eat.” Peter says, ‘No. The Bible says that’s unclean, my Momma said that’s unclean, and so do all my friends.” And the voice replies, “What I’ve called clean, you don’t call unclean.” Then up goes the sheet, then down it comes again. Same conversation: “Rise, Peter, kill and eat.” “No sir, the church says it’s unclean.” “What I have called clean, don’t call unclean.” Then a third time it happens—goes up, comes down, dinner on a yoyo. Same words: “Partake!” “Unclean!” “Stop calling it that! I’m God, and I say it’s clean!”

Suddenly a knock at the door. Gentiles. Italians. Sent to Peter by a Roman Centurion, who has prayed and been told by an angel he must bring this man Peter to his home. Peter goes, and the first thing he says when he walks through the door is, “I’m not supposed to be here.”—meaning the Bible has said he’s not to be in Gentile homes, and all the more so if eating together is involved; and he can smell the garlic. But Cornelius tells his story, and Peter starts to talk about Jesus, but he’s hardly gotten started when the Holy Spirit fills the room and fills them all; and it’s obvious, and Peter turns to his companions and says, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these who have received the Holy Spirit, just as we have?” And he baptizes the whole household.

Word of it gets to Jerusalem that he’s and he’s in trouble. He goes down, and there’s a big meeting, and he just tells them the story and says, “Who was I to hinder God?” And they rejoiced.

Do you think God still speaks? Do you think the Holy Spirit makes new discloses, even some that transcend some bits of what the Bible says, or what we thought it said? In fact, you do. All of you already believe that, because that’s what you’ve done with reference to women in the church. Paul says not only that women must not cut their hair short, but that they must not teach in church, or even speak in church, that if they have any questions they should ask their husbands at home. Now the Bible and Paul himself contradict that kind of thing elsewhere, but nonetheless, there it is, on the page. Some churches abide by it. How come we don’t? Because we say that those instructions were all culturally conditioned, and the Spirit of God has opened our eyes and used our own experience to open our eyes.

That part—our experience—is key to the story of Peter and Cornelius. Peter had the Bible and what it clearly seemed to mean. The voice of God came and said, “Not so anymore.” But for Peter, that changed nothing. What changed him was being with people he’d thought were unclean, and witnessing how alive God was with them. It’s the experience God was pushing him toward. So far as I can tell, there’s very little knowing the real truth about people who seem different from us without entering into real relationship. That’s how the Spirit works. If you haven’t spent much time with gay people or transgendered people, and all the more so if they are people of faith, you’re less likely to understand. So, if nothing else, believe the testimony of those of us who have. Who are we to hinder God?

One more thing. It is possible to hear all of this and to be mostly in agreement, and still to think: But do we have to advertise? Do we have to stir things up like this and make some statement about what we believe about this for all to see? Biblically speaking, yes, we do. At its very heart, to be the church is to be a community of witness beyond our own doors. These were the final words of the resurrected Christ: you go, and you share the good news with everyone you can.

He told a great story about a king who gave a big wedding feast and sent out messengers to invite the people most likely to come, but who turned out to be rather snooty, self-important, indifferent. So the king told his servants: “You go outside the walls of this town to the highways and the hedges and find the outsiders, the folk who assumed they’d never find welcome to such a feast, and tell them I want them here.” And the invitation was taken to those people, and they came, and the feast was joyous.

If we are the church, we are an outreaching, missionary people, and all the more with those who’ve been told repeatedly and loudly by preachers and their followers and their politicians that they are sinners and not welcome unless they become what they cannot be. How do they, or those who care about them, know how welcome and included they are, if we are not clear? How can we not be invitational to come and live as the new creation together and the new righteousness together? On this point, the Bible is urgently clear. What the love of God and of Christ and the Holy Spirit has shown us, we share beyond our walls. We tell what we know so that others will know, and let themselves, if they will, be embraced by Good News and join in living and serving that news, all of us together.