4. A Biblical Exploration

Up until this point, I have only explored the consequences of staying with the UMC or disaffiliating. There is still much more to explore, but going too far down each of those rabbit trails before we address this issue will be time wasted. This blog is not an attempt to convince you of one particular stance or another. This is instead a blog about how hundreds of church leaders, many whom spent nearly a decade getting a doctorate in theology, with combined centuries of experience have come to completely different conclusions about what the Bible says about this issue. And trust me, both sides fully believe that they are interpreting scripture as best as they can.

I suppose the best place to start is by looking at what the Bible actually says about homosexuality. It sounds easy enough, and if you were expecting a long list of passages you might be surprised to know that there are only six verses that directly talk about homosexuality, three in the Old Testament and three in the New.

The first one we’ll talk about is found in Genesis 19 and is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Let’s read how this story starts off:

The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2 He said, “Please, my lords, turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you can rise early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the square.” 3 But he urged them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house; and he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. 4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; 5 and they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.” 6 Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, 7 and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly.

I won’t go into detail with the rest of the story, but essentially because of the wickedness of these men, sulfur and fire rained down from heaven and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. I encourage you to read the rest of the story on your own so you’re not just taking my word for it, but you won’t find any other references to homosexuality in this narrative. It might surprise some of us to realize that this is actually one of the passages that people have been using to condemn homosexuality. You hopefully noticed that it never actually uses that word or even similar language. One of the strongest ties to this passage is the use of the word sodomite, which comes from the name of one of these cities and is used as a name for homosexuals in later passages.

One of the key things we will have to deal with as we explore these passages is the difference between a surface reading and deep dives. What I mean by surface reading is that when we read it in English, whichever translation we might be using, we take it basically as it’s written. I understand that this description doesn’t really give this the merit it deserves. Believe it or not, there is a whole lot to be said for a plain surface reading of scripture. The first thing is that dozens of people have worked extremely hard to translate the Bible so that we can read it in English. Depending on which translation you use depends on if they do word for word translations or thought for thought, but either one is extremely accurate. They have also been the result of centuries of tradition for why it’s been translated that way. So in full fairness, the Bible we see in English is really the result of very smart people doing deep dives of their own to present us with an easy way to read scripture.

Deep dives will include word studies and cross references. In the Wesleyan tradition that means we use something called a quadrilateral to look at scripture through the lens of tradition, experience, and reason. It’s looking at it from many different perspectives including the culture and context of the original author, the context within the larger collection of scriptures, how people throughout the centuries have interpreted that passage, and so on. We don’t have enough time to do true deep dives on each of these passages, but we’ll hit some of the more important points, although I have to admit these are more the conclusions of deep dives than the act of exploring them.

Let’s look back at Genesis 19 at a surface level. Does it mention homosexuality? By name, no. Does it mention an act of attempted homosexuality? Yes, it does. But I also have to ask, would this event have been any less wicked if the attempted rape had been on women? Would we be completely comfortable with the men’s actions if the two angels had been female instead of male? I shouldn’t have to say this, but rape is wrong regardless of which genders the parties are. There are two Biblical clues that suggest the real wickedness here wasn’t homosexuality. The first one is the very next verse which says

Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.”

Lot’s main concern seems to be the shelter he is providing for the angels. He didn’t say do nothing to these men because they are men. He says do nothing to these men for they have come under the shelter of my roof. This makes sense when you look at the hospitality laws and customs. One of the repeated phrases and themes in the Old Testament is to look after the foreigner in your midst, and while those laws weren’t written down in the Torah yet, it appears Lot was still concerned about how foreigners were treated.

The second clue comes much later in the Book of Ezekiel. In chapter 16 he says: This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. This seems to confirm that Lot wasn’t really concerned about the gender issue. If you take the Ezekiel passage into account, it would leave you wondering why the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is the default story for opposing same sex relationships. Nothing in the surrounding verses points back to same sex being the issue, but rather points to not helping the poor and needy and the foreigners in their midst. I think that the reason this passage is continually brought up is because of the use of the word sodomite. But no matter how we read it, the most we can say about Genesis 19 is that same sex relations wasn’t the primary cause for the destruction.

The next two passages I’m going to put together because they come from the same book and have similar readings.

Leviticus 18:22 says You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

And later on in Chapter 20:13 it says If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.

As with any passage of scripture, here we have the two different levels of interpretation. We have the surface reading, which is probably pretty clear that the Bible says this is an abomination, or something that is vile, shameful, or detestable. The deep dive level though is where this seemingly clear reading can take on a different meaning. First, looking at the larger context of Leviticus, which is basically a book of laws for the Israelites, we find several verses that we obviously don’t follow. Not only are there the laws about the clean and unclean animals which bacon lovers are happy we don’t abide by, but there are commands against messy hair, shellfish, going to church too soon after giving birth, reaping to the very edges of your fields, wearing mixed fabrics, trimming your beard, tattoos, doing any kind of work on Saturday, and even charging interest on loans.

A plain reading of all of these verses would suggest that all of us have done things against the levitical code. Some of the penalties for these things include death. And so we run into a bit of a catch 22 here. If we say that due to a plain reading that homosexuality is wrong, we would also have to say that all of these other things that we regularly do are also wrong. But if we say that bacon cheeseburgers are ok, how do we justify saying homosexuality is still wrong? If we still think these verses point to homosexuality as an abomination, do we as strongly agree that homosexuals should have rocks thrown at them until they die?

Beyond just the context of other Levitical laws, some people will point to New Testament passages such as Hebrews 8:13  (In speaking of “a new covenant,” he has made the first one obsolete. And what is obsolete and growing old will soon disappear.) as a proof that we aren’t bound by the Old Testament laws anymore and therefore are free to eat all the bacon our arteries can handle.  Context within the larger collection of scripture is just one of the aspects of a deep dive. Word studies are on a whole other level of depth. A word study is just taking a look at an individual Greek or Hebrew word and analyzing it’s uses in other parts of scripture, in historical and cultural extra-biblical works, and determining the best translation and interpretation of that word. Let’s take a look at one word in particular that appears in both passages, what does the word abomination even mean? I’m not talking about the English meaning of the word, but the original Hebrew word. If you read these Leviticus passages in Hebrew, you’ll see the word we’ve translated as abomination is “toevah”, which when cross referenced with all the other times that word is used you find it is usually connected to idolatry. There is an argument that within the larger context of Old Testament holiness laws which set Israel apart from the surrounding religions,  the use of this word that is generally used in reference to idolatry means that what is being described is actually homosexual relationships through Canaanite religious prostitution. In other words, what Leviticus is describing is an act of worship to a Canaanite fertility God.

I know what some of you are thinking right now. How in the world can you get that out of what we just read? Like I said at the beginning, we don’t have the time to do true deep dives on all of these passages, and this one takes quite a bit of time to understand. But you can follow the process how people have come to this conclusion. It’s taking into context historical and cultural views, it’s taking into account the larger context of the verses within Leviticus, and it is connecting ancient Hebrew words with their other uses. Even if you don’t agree with the conclusion, it’s hard to say that people who hold that view are disregarding the Bible.

And that creates the tension. A surface reading, which I said at the beginning isn’t necessarily a bad reading and contains within it a lot of research to get there to begin with, may lead you in one direction, and a deep dive might lead you in another. And then when you throw in the New Covenant versus old Covenant issue it might not matter either way.

So for now, we’ll leave the Old Testament passages alone and shift our focus to the three New Testament passages. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 says “Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, 10 thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.”

And 1 Timothy 1:9-10 says This means understanding that 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, 10 fornicators, sodomites, slave traders, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching.

Traditionally, the key word has been translated as sodomites. Sometimes when you translate a word from one language to the next there just isn’t a direct correlation. The word we translate into sodomite is one of those words. There is no equivalent in Greek and some scholars say that the original Greek word means something like softy or one who likes sex too much. Another possible interpretation is that this word is referring more to an adult male and young boy relationship, a term known as pederasty. Those are possible alternate meanings in addition to the translation  we usually see as sodomite. There are strong arguments for each of these very different interpretations of a word. It’s a debate that hasn’t been resolved by much smarter people, so I will not attempt to persuade you one way or another here on which translation and true meaning is the best. I will however point to the other things included in those lists.  Greed, drunkenness, profanity, liars, and the godless. While we attempt to ensure that our clergy don’t fall into these categories, we have no policy in place that prohibits our clergy from marrying atheists who drink and curse, or preventing those couples from using our buildings for their wedding.

The last verse addressing homosexuality is Romans 1:26-27. For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, 27 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.

By now you can probably guess what I would say. A surface reading calls homosexual behavior unnatural. Even word studies won’t lead you to a different conclusion. But far from being a nail in the coffin for a definitive stance on today’s same sex issues, there is a slightly different perspective. If you start reading a few verses before, say starting at verse 18 and read through the end of the chapter, you realize that while Paul calls this unnatural, his bigger concern is about people who know God and yet exchanged the Glory of God for images resembling humans, birds, reptiles, and animals. It’s almost as if the mention of same sex relations is a passing phrase in condemnation of a larger issue rather than being it’s own thing.

And that’s it. That is the entirety of what the Bible says about homosexual relationships. There are some other passages that get thrown around sometimes, but it can become an endless cycle of points and counter points. What about the story of Adam and Eve? What about Paul saying everything is permissible? And it could go on and on and on.  I told you at the beginning that this isn’t a blog about whether or not this is a sin. The truth is some very smart, devoted followers of Jesus have come down on either side of this issue. None of them are trying to subvert the gospel or lead people astray. They are all doing their best to determine the will of God.

But what I want you to take away from this isn’t necessarily a particular interpretation of scripture, but rather the notion that those who disagree with you are not the enemy. If the church down the road interprets scripture differently than you do, they are not the enemy, they are not ignoring what the Bible says. They are part of the body of Christ. Their mission is the same as ours, of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.