Understanding Homosexualit in Biblical and Contemporar
Last semester, a lot of ink was spilled, state-
ments made, and protests enacted over the perennial issue of Intervarsity’s (and by extensions SCF’s) stance on Christianity and LGBTQ issues. But in the furor over what the administration may or may not do and how the Christian community should organize itself, there has been little theological discussion. Reading over the quotes of SCF members in the Swarthmore Voices article, and commentary in campus publications, I was surprised at the vagueness of arguments on both sides: “you can context your way out of anything” on the non-affirming side, and little more than “Jesus never said anything about it” on the affirming side. These are obviously deficient—the Bible is inscrutable (and uninteresting) when read outside of its historical and moral context, and while Jesus never mentioned homosexuality explicitly, Paul certainly did, as did most every Church Father. In this article, I want to start a respectful, faithful conversation about this complex topic. The focus will be narrow: I have no desire to talk about campus politics, and I’ll be dealing only with the Biblical passages on homosexuality (the topic of transgender deserves to be discussed in a separate article by someone who knows more than me). This won’t settle the debate, of course: abstract arguments rarely do, and I’m speaking without any church authority or theological qualifications (I suppose student publications take what they can get). But I hope to
show a brief overview of the “affirming” stance by first dealing with the issue of Biblical interpretation, then what the Bible says about marriage, and finally with some of what are known as the “clobber verses:” the seven passages (out of roughly 31,000 verses!) that directly mention homosexuality. A criticism often made of the affirming case is that it undermines Biblical authority by relativizing scripture. The accusation that liberals (on this issue) who emphasize reading Leviticus and Paul in light of their respective histories “context their way out of anything,” reducing specific Biblical claims to vague calls to justice and love, is actually not without some merit. I’m baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal church, and there can often be a tendency to gloss over or intellectualize parts of the Bible we find uncomfortable. And I actually think Mainliners are more guilty of this than those in other denominations. I can’t recall gay marriage being explored in anything more than a cursory way in my church; it was like the issue was so clear it didn’t merit any discussion. That was a mistake. Paul is not some backwards preacher to be left in the past, nor was he a passive supporter of cultural norms during his time. If Christians say the Bible is the Word of God, it requires serious thought and reflection, not just appropriation of the parts we like. Of course, the opposite and equal sin is to hold the Bible over
16 | Understanding Homosexuality in Biblical and Contemporary Times
