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Category: Gays and the Bible

Cathleen Falsani: Is Evangelical Christianity Having a Great Gay Awakening?

Written by ECWR Web
Thursday, 13 January 2011 17:02
2 Comments

Cathleen FalsaniReligion Columnist aka “God Girl”
Posted: January 13, 2011 06:10 PM

Is Evangelical Christianity Having a Great Gay Awakening?

Some of my dearest friends are gay.

Most of my dearest friends are Christians.

And more than a few of my dearest friends are gay Christians.

As an evangelical, that last part is not something that, traditionally and culturally, I’m supposed to say out loud. For most of my life, I’ve been taught that it’s impossible to be both openly gay and authentically Christian.

When a number of my friends “came out” shortly after our graduation from Wheaton College in the early ’90s, first I panicked and then I prayed.

What would Jesus do? I asked myself (and God).

According to biblical accounts, Jesus said very little, if anything, about homosexuality. But he spent loads of time talking, preaching, teaching and issuing commandments about love.

That was my answer: Love them. Unconditionally, without caveats or exceptions.

I wasn’t sure whether homosexuality actually was a sin. But I was certain I was commanded to love.

For 20 years, that answer was workable, if incomplete. Lately, though, it’s been nagging at me. Some of my gay friends are married, have children and have been with their partners and spouses as long as I’ve been with my husband.

Loving them is easy. Finding clear theological answers to questions about homosexuality has been decidedly not so.

That’s why I’m grateful for a growing number of evangelical leaders who are bravely offering a different answer.

In his new book Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self and Society, Jay Bakker, the son of Jim Bakker and the late Tammy Faye Messner, gives clear and compelling answers to my nagging questions.

Simply put, homosexuality is not a sin, says Bakker, 35, pastor of Revolution NYC, a Brooklyn evangelical congregation that meets in a bar.

Bakker, who is straight and divorced, crafts his argument using the same “clobber scriptures” (as he calls them) that are so often wielded to condemn homosexuals.

“The simple fact is that Old Testament references in Leviticus do treat homosexuality as a sin … a capital offense even,” Bakker writes. “But before you say, ‘I told you so,’ consider this: Eating shellfish, cutting your sideburns and getting tattoos were equally prohibited by ancient religious law.

“The truth is that the Bible endorses all sorts of attitudes and behaviors that we find unacceptable (and illegal) today and decries others that we recognize as no big deal.”

Leviticus prohibits interracial marriage, endorses slavery and forbids women to wear trousers. Deuteronomy calls for brides who are found not to be virgins to be stoned to death, and for adulterers to be summarily executed.

“The church has always been late,” Bakker told me in an interview this week. “We were late on slavery. We were late on civil rights. And now we’re late on this.”

Examining the original Greek words translated as “homosexual” and “homosexuality” in three New Testament passages, Bakker (and others) conclude that the original words have been translated inaccurately in modern English.

What we read as “homosexuals” and “homosexuality” actually refers to male prostitutes and the men who hire them. The passages address prostitution — sex as a commodity — and not same-sex, consensual relationships, he says.

(The word “homosexual” first appeared in an English-language Bible in 1958. Bakker is part of a group petitioning Bible publishers to remove the words “homosexual” and “homosexuality” from new translations and replace it with terms that more precisely reflect the original Greek.)

“We must weigh all the evidence,” Bakker writes. “The clobber scriptures don’t hold a candle to the raging inferno of grace and love that burns through Paul’s writing and Christ’s teaching. And it’s a love that should be our guiding light.”

Bakker’s clear voice on homosexuality is not alone in the evangelical community.

Tony Jones, a “theologian-in-residence” at Minnesota’s Solomon’s Porch, one of the pre-eminent “Emergent” churches in the nation, echoes many of Bakker’s arguments. Peggy Campolo, wife of evangelist Tony Campolo, has been saying this kind of thing for years, despite her husband’s disagreement.

And while he stops short of explicitly saying “it’s not a sin” in his 2010 book, A New Kind of Christianity, Brian McLaren, godfather of the Emergent church movement, condemns a Christian preoccupation with homosexual issues as “fundasexuality.”

“We could really use someone like Rob Bell to step forward and say this, too,” Bakker said in the interview, referring to the 40-year-old pastor of the Michigan megachurch Mars Hill and author of bestselling books such as Velvet Elvis and Sex God.

Bell, a classmate of mine at Wheaton, is a rock star in emerging Christian circles, despite eschewing the “Emergent” label or any other apart from “Christ follower.”

Only time will tell whether more evangelical leaders — Emergent, emerging or otherwise — will add their voices to the chorus calling for full and unapologetic inclusion of homosexuals in the life of the church.

But I’m sensing a change in the wind (and the Spirit.)

Might the evangelical church be on the verge of a Gay Awakening?

I prayerfully hope so.

 

Hypocrisy shrouds the gay marriage debate

Written by ECWR Web
Monday, 08 November 2010 16:39
3 Comments

By Kirsten Powers
USA Today

The issue of same-sex marriage has receded into the background during this past election cycle, mostly because voters are overwhelmed by the state of the economy. But the recent spate of gay teen suicides has thrust the issue of anti-gay bigotry back into the spotlight.

Even some Christian leaders are re-thinking their approach to this issue. Exodus International, a Christian activist “ex-gay” group, pulled its sponsorship of the annual “Day of Truth,” where high school students are encouraged to express their disapproval of homosexuality.

But why did it take multiple suicides to make a Christian group realize that heaping condemnation and judgment on others is not its job? A reading of any of the Gospels would teach you that in about two minutes. Let’s remember, Satan wasn’t kicked out of heaven for being gay: It was pride. The people who really ticked off Jesus were the Pharisees, who were self- righteous and hypocritical, which could fairly describe many of today’s Christians.

The Bible or the Constitution?

When novelist Anne Rice declared this year that she was quitting Christianity — though remaining dedicated to Christ — in part because she refused to be “anti-gay,” it struck a nerve with many Christians.

Many complained that they weren’t anti-gay, that they just opposed same-sex marriage because the Bible, they said, defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Yet, we don’t live in a theocracy. The Bible is not the governing legal document of the United States. The Constitution is.

Tuesday, for the first time in Iowa’s history of electing judges, voters threw out three state Supreme Court justices for invalidating an Iowa law prohibiting same-sex marriage. It was a unanimous 7-0 decision based on the law, not ideology. What a novel idea. The $800,000 campaign to unseat them was led by Bob Vander Plaats, who ran unsuccessfully as the conservative Christian option in the Iowa governor’s GOP primary. When Focus on the Family’s James Dobson endorsed Plaats, Dobson lauded Plaats’ Bible-based crusade against gay marriage.

But if people really want to use the Bible as our governing legal document, then we need many constitutional amendments, including one that bans divorce except in the very narrow circumstances the permits it. This would be a tough one for evangelicals, since their divorce rate is almost identical to that of atheists and agnostics. This might explain why you don’t see evangelical leaders pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaigns to keep the government from providing divorce.

Why does this double standard and selective morality matter? Because it reinforces the idea among Christians that gay people are morally inferior and don’t deserve to be treated fairly. Is bullying by teens that much of a stretch when you consider the same-sex marriage rhetoric?

Evangelical superstar Rick Warren (of whom I’m a fan when he sticks to preaching the Gospel) said in an interview, “They can’t accuse me of homophobia; I just don’t believe in gay marriage,” but then he went on to compare same-sex marriage to pedophilia and incest. So, being gay is fine, just like it’s fine to be a child molester?

Come on, people.

What about heterosexuals?

If this movement isn’t driven by anti-gay bigotry, then where is the outrage and “Day of Truth” over heterosexuals who are engaging in sex outside of marriage? Why aren’t Christians running around confronting their sexually active heterosexual co- workers and friends about their “lifestyle”? I guess because there is no “ick factor,” to borrow a phrase former presidential candidate and Southern Baptist minister Mike Huckabee used recently to describe gay men and lesbians.

This double standard might have something to do with the fact that many Christians also violate the Bible’s condemnation about sex outside of marriage with impunity. (I’m still waiting for the constitutional amendment banning extramarital sex.)

A few years ago, I attended a talk on the plague of pornography in our society at a New York City evangelical church. At one point, a speaker asked the group of about 300 young Christians, “How many of you are pursuing purity?” About 10 people raised their hands.

Has anyone noticed that there is this special little area carved out where the Bible’s teachings must be enshrined in U.S. law, but only when it applies to others, i.e. gay people?

It seems as if Christians have enough issues to deal with in their own community on the issue of promoting marriage.

Perhaps Christian leaders such as Warren and Dobson should spend less time trying to prevent a tiny percentage of the population from having the right to marry, and help Christians get their own house in order.

Or, as Jesus warned: Take the log out of your own eye before focusing on the speck in your neighbor’s eye.

Kirsten Powers is a freelance writer and political analyst on Fox News. She served in the Clinton administration from 1993 to 1998 and has worked in New York state and city politics.

 

SQUARE B CHRISTIAN

Written by rjames
Thursday, 28 October 2010 17:48
1 Comment

There is a principle which is a bar against all information,
which is a proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—
that principle is contempt prior to investigation.
~ Herbert Spencer

He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.
~ J.S. Mill

Have you ever been so sure of something that you were determined nothing could ever change your mind or persuade you to think and feel differently no matter what might come your way? Then one day you have an experience (or perhaps a series of experiences over time) that does not make sense, that simply does not jive with the notion you currently hold as hard fast truth, calling into question what you’ve always taken for granted. It’s a rather uncomfortable place to be, wouldn’t you agree?

I imagine that you – like me, and certainly many before us – have had this experience. It’s a part of human growth. There are numerous examples from history that we could draw upon that would highlight this truth and occurrence. In a few moments we will look at some. But in the meantime as we begin to think about such things, here are some questions to entertain: What do we do with these experiences? How do we deal with the seeming incongruity especially when the clash comes against something that has been for so many of us highly foundational to our entire world-view: our faith tradition, and more specifically, our reading and understanding of the Bible?

Faced with this situation, should we just hold fast to what we “know” to be true, or should we explore another side that perhaps we’ve not considered before? Should we just accept without question what we’ve been taught, or that which a literal reading of the Bible appears to say on any given issue, or should we pay attention to what other mediums of truth and revelation have to offer us, no matter how vast the perceived chasm between what is suggested and what we’ve always understood and believed?

This problem has occurred time and again down through the history pages of Christianity and of the Church. And it has affected a great many lives at many levels. It is the saga of thousands upon thousands of people in our history books.

But this is not just the story of those in days gone by. This is also my story. And it just might be yours, or the story of someone you know and love, too.

You see, once upon a time, I was one who accepted almost entirely blindly what I was taught on many issues as they intersected with my faith and my world-view. I trusted those who claimed to have the answers because of what the Bible said. Never once did it occur to me that someone’s interpretation of God’s Word could be flawed, perhaps because of a lack of understanding of both the written text and from believing that the scripture’s authority trumps any and all other mediums of truth and revelation. The assumption that I held to was that what I read in the Bible, as well as what I heard from my conservative religious mentors, were God’s definitive answer for all of life’s questions – even when it did not jive with reason and experience.

Yes, once upon a time I was a Square B Christian …that is, until my own experience led me to a crisis of faith that challenged – no, …threw into mayhem – my world-view.

Perhaps you’re asking yourself: what in tarnation is a Square B Christian?

If you’ll bear with me for a few more moments, I’d like to try to answer that question by going first to the dictionary to look at a legal term that will be used interchangeably with our term in question. Additionally, we will use an analogy that I hope will bring clarity and light to the term in question. The legal term to which I refer is an a priori judgment or assumption.

Let’s look at what various Internet-based dictionaries tell us about this terminology.

a priori – a latin phrase, meaning “from the former”. a-priori-assumption denotes propositional knowledge; something that comes beforehand without experience; something that is assumed to be true. The opposite is a posteriori assumption.

An assumption that is true without further proof or need to prove it. It is assumed the sun will come up tomorrow. However, it has a negative side: an a priori assumption made without question on the basis that no analysis or study is necessary, can be mental laziness when the reality is not so certain.

1a: deductive b: relating to or derived by reasoning from self-evident propositions (compare – a posteriori: presupposed by experience)

2a: being without examination or analysis: presumptive b: formed or conceived beforehand

Involving deductive reasoning from a general principle to a necessary effect; not supported by fact; “an a priori judgment” derived by logic, without observed facts based on hypothesis or theory rather than experiment

Conclusion or judgment based on deduction, a hypothesis based on conclusions or judgments previously assumed. Latin for, from what comes before.

1) from a general law to a particular instance; valid independently of observation. 2) existing in the mind prior to and independent of experience, as a faculty or character trait. 3) not based on prior study or examination; non-analytic: an a priori judgment.

And now, moving toward a definition of the term in question, I would like to suggest that a Square B Christian is a follower of Christ who bases his/her belief of a particular issue on what, in legal terms, is called an “a priori judgment or assumption.”

Now, to be fair, there are many a priori assumptions that we make on daily basis …and with good reason. One example was cited above regarding the rising of the sun. But there is one question that I think should be obvious as we look at the additional points of our dictionary designations:

What if the a priori judgment or assumption, and the belief system based thereupon (lacking, not seeing the need for, or ignoring proper scrutiny), is wrong?

Let’s explore that question by using a hypothetical – or perhaps an analogous – situation that was once a widely accepted concept.

There was a day and an age in which many – but not all – people believed that the world was flat, and that if you went too far you would fall off the earth’s edge. This is an excellent example of an a priori judgment/assumption, and it’s quite easy to understand why some humans (among others of no scientific schooling, those who did not use spherical start-charts to navigate the world’s oceans) would assume this to be true. The curvature of the earth is very difficult to perceive of with the naked eye.

So, let’s go back in time for a moment, but for proper perspective later, not out of our current scientific understanding, as we look at this scenario.

Christian is an explorer. He has decided that he is going to set out to find the earth’s end. Because no one has accomplished this before, and because the knowledge of this “fact” by more recent findings have begun to cast doubt on this long-held idea, Christian has developed a great desire to be the one who once and for all finds the ends of the earth. Furthermore, would there not be a great deal of excitement associated with the task? Certainly the glory of this discovery, and the confirmation of a lifetime of “the facts,” satisfied by the tangible, is a worthy goal. Hence, Christian packs his exploration gear into his backpack and sets off to find the drop-off, his a priori assumption intact and also along for the mission, informing his every move and thought upon the subject.

Now, quite some time after Christian has launched his venture he arrives at some cliffs that allow him to see father than he’s ever seen before. He looks down, studying and contemplating the fog that is far below the cliff-line. He says to himself, “This must be it. This has to be the edge. I can see nothing further.” Christian is about to turn for home, having satisfied his curiosity, having discovered what no one has ever beheld when suddenly the fog dissipates revealing that there is still more land over which he must pass to reach his destination. So, with his a priori judgment/assumption firmly in place he resolutely sets out once more on his expedition to find the finish.

Each time Christian comes to a set of cliffs, he reaches the same conclusion. But once the fog below clears he is driven to move on. Over mountains, over barren lands, and over oceans Christian travels in pursuit of his goal.

But one day, not realizing that he has traversed the entire curvature of the earth, Christian arrives at the same set of cliffs that were his first discovery and stopping point.

What happens now is key to understanding the a priori judgment/assumption.

You see, Christian has been told all of his life that world is flat. In fact, according to his instruction from early childhood, any other belief is seen as non-truth, as going against what the inerrant Bible says about the earth’s four corners (Isaiah 11:12 KJV). Because Christian trusts those who taught him almost everything of what he knows about life and the Bible, he has to reach one conclusion …or face the unease of another.

But what of the experience Christian has had? Should he not consider that there just might be “more ground to cover,” another premise to consider?

Will Christian allow the a priori judgment/assumption to keep its reign over him? If so, he will likely conclude that he must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, though the evidence seems to contradict that assessment. Surely the earth’s edge is still out there somewhere to be discovered, if he can just find the right path. After all, Christian has been taught to reach such conclusions no matter what the studied say, no matter what experience and reason have to offer. Everything else on the subject that the other voices proffer is horse-pucky.

The second option – God forbid! – would simply be going too far. It is an option that has the potential to bring great discomfort on a personal level, and with others, including the Church. The second option is to call into question the a priori judgment or assumption – which up until this point, to Christian, has been hard fact. But to do that would mean that Christian has to think and to ask questions about things which everyone else around him already “knows,” rather than to trust blindly what he’s always been told.

What will Christian do? Will he bow to the larger part of what his culture demands, or will he set out on a quest of a different nature – one that will surely be frowned upon and considered apostasy by the believing masses that are still bound to the presupposition?

The other explorers that have gone before Christian have allowed their learned assumption to continue informing their every thought and action as it pertains to the world’s flatness. Many of them have stayed their quest. They’ve continued the search, while still others have given up. But rest assured, for those who are no longer in pursuit, their confidence is unshaken. After all, it’s what the Bible says that really matters – their mantra will ever be: “God-said-it-I-believe-it-that-settles-it!”

The problem for Christian and for the other explorers is that they have started at point B. Because of it, point A is a moot issue. Hence, they have never once stopped to inquire of point A : “Is it possible that what I’ve been taught is not right? Could it possibly be that my presumption, the foundation upon which my beliefs about the earth’s edge are built, is flawed?”

Surprisingly, the answer to which many explorers arrive is NO! Why would they question that about which they already have the definitive answer from the Bible? But what the explorers have not yet understood is that when your foundation is flawed, when you start at point B – data that has only been informed by an assumption not tested or tried – will likely cause the conclusions drawn from this starting point to also be in error. If only the explorer would go back to point A and ask oneself: “Is there any possibility – no matter what the source of the acuity – that my ‘knowledge’ that the world is flat is incorrect?”

When one begins to open one’s mind to the prospect that their foundation might be flawed, any data that is assimilated from that point on is not simply dismissed for the sole reason that it might stand in direct opposition to the once held a priori judgment or assumption, as it had been previously. One is then free to re-discover the Bible and the observed world, unfettered by an immovable a priori judgment/assumption that does not allow for any other interpretation to occur.

Now, before we return fully to our time, I would like to make mention of the fact that this has been the posture of the Church on a recurring basis down through its history. The Church has often constructed its beliefs upon ideas that are merely a priori, and that have not been tested by empirical evidence, but that are based on surface observation, by supposition, and more specifically, by what a surface and out-of-context reading of the Bible appears to be saying.

Such was the state of affairs for both Copernicus and Galileo who were condemned by the Church for the proliferation of the idea that the earth was not fixed (as the Bible seemed to indicate) and that it revolved around the sun instead of the opposite. Why would anyone trust science over the inerrant Word of God? Perhaps it would have something to do with an a priori assumption that the Bible is the final authority on science?

On that note, it may interest you to know that in 1992 the Roman Catholic Church issued a formal apology to Galileo for the Churches’ condemnation of him for carrying the Copernican Revolution forward. It may also fascinate you to find out that just last Saturday (Aug. 1, 2010) the Vatican exhumed, blessed, and reburied the bones of Copernicus in an attempt to make amends for putting him to death for what is today a known fact of our universe, arrived at by the same scientific methods that Copernicus (and later, Galileo) had come to utilize and trust 500 years ago.

Likewise, not much more than 200 years ago in this “Christian nation” the evangelical church argued, based on an a priori belief that it was part of God’s plan – again, according to their understanding of certain biblical passages – that slavery was an ordained order of life. To go against it was to go against God’s intention for certain segments of society. Today, however, having divorced ourselves from the a priori judgment/assumption that was once commonplace among our church forefathers and which was upheld as God’s standard, we look back and shake our heads in bewilderment and disgust. How is it, we wonder, that the Church could have arrived at such a debase way of looking at things?

Unfortunately, many more examples from our Christian past could be cited and brought to our attention here. But for the sake of expediency, let us now return fully to our day and age. But before we do, taking one more glance backwards, I think you’d agree with me that it is glaringly obvious where Christian, the other explorers, and our historical church forefathers went wrong. As we look back with 20/20 hindsight, we can recognize promptly that their a priori judgments/ assumptions were indeed in much need of re-examination. But I wonder: are some people of faith in this very day, age, culture and context capable of recognizing and calling into question any a priori judgments/ assumptions under which the larger part of our Christian culture might be operating? It is an intimidating undertaking, to be sure.

If you would indulge me, I would like for us to turn our attention to an issue that I believe is being treated this very day in exactly the same manner with which the previously mentioned analogy and examples of our church-culture in eras gone by were dealt with. It is my conviction that an a priori judgment/assumption is securely in place regarding an issue that has profoundly impacted and scarred my life, and the lives of countless dearly loved children of God.

When I was growing up, nurtured by my loving, Christ-centered family and a Christian heritage rooted in a denomination that I, to this day, dearly love, I learned early to have deep, deep affection for spiritual matters. It has always been my desire and my goal to be attentive to God, and to what God wants for human beings, in relationship to God and other persons. From day one, I have striven to be firmly planted on a spiritual plane that would lead me to a higher plateau – to health, wholeness, and to a life enriched with God’s blessing.

To this end, I prepared myself for a life in ministry in every way that I knew how. I participated in every aspect of church-life. As a teenager, when the rest of my family dropped out of church because of some precarious life-circumstances, I was the only one who stayed the course. I went to a private Christian college to hone my skill and to seek training for what I thought would be a lifetime of ministry in music and in Christian Education. Several years after my college career had ended and after my ministry had begun, I became an ordained pastor in the denomination my family and I had participated in as far back as 5 generations.

I did everything I knew to do to be pleasing and acceptable to my family, my Church, and to my God (and even to myself) …and yet it was never enough to free me from my prison and from a hell that the larger population will never fully understand without the benefit of experience.

I am gay …and I grew up hating and isolating myself to a closet of self-rejection, fear and shame because of Square B.

You see, I had heard all of my life that homosexuality is nothing but sickness and sin, a deviation from God’s plan. In fact, according to my instruction from early childhood, any other belief was seen as non-truth, as going against what the inerrant Bible says about intimate, love relationships between two people. Because I trusted those who taught me almost everything of what I knew about life and the Bible I had to arrive at a certain conclusion …or face the unease…

But isn’t there something extremely valuable to be said of the collective experience of tens of thousands of gay Christians? Have you ever really bent your ear and listened to their cries that there just might be “more ground to cover,” another premise to consider? Could it not be that you have started, and stopped, at Square B ?

I can already hear your words of protest. In fact, I have heard them a thousand times: “But the Bible says…!”

May I take this opportunity to remind you that that is exactly what the Churches’ response was to Copernicus and Galileo when they stumbled across their scientific findings as far back as 500 years ago? May I call your attention again to the fact that it was evangelical Christianity in the USA that championed the fight for the “God-given right” to hold slaves, based on what the Bible said?

If we had more time, we could also talk about anti-Semitism, or the oppression and subjugation of women. We could talk about interracial marriage, or African-American civil rights. We could discuss numerous other issues down throughout our Church history in which an a priori judgment/assumption had been made based on a very poor (literal, surface, out-of-context/ out-of-historic-culture) interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. But let’s save those issues for another time.

The issue at hand is pervasive enough.

I ask you today: will you allow the a priori judgment/assumption to keep its reign over you? Will you conclude that my gay brothers and sisters and I have taken a wrong turn somewhere, though all the empirical evidence conclusively seems to contradict that assessment? Will you persist in your argument that “the cure” is out there waiting to be discovered, if we can just renounce our “sinful choices” and find the right path. Will you continue to accept blindly what you’ve always heard, even though because of it much harm is being done to thousands of God’s beloved? Will you carry on in the insistence that your interpretation is THE correct understanding of scripture without looking, in fear and trembling, at any other perspective?

It saddens me that Christians have been taught to discount the conclusions of the studied when it behooves them to do so. But when it suits their purposes, when it fits their world-view, look out! They will trample right over you while holding their banner of “truth and love.” How is it that Christians hold in such high regard the “secular” Magi that studied the stars and knew to follow them to Bethlehem, celebrating them from year to year, but when it comes to an issue such as homosexuality, reason, experience, and the very best of empirical evidence from those who study the genes, hormones, brain differences, and other influencing factors, that which the “other voices” have to say, is perceived as nothing more than horse-pucky?

I do realize that what I am asking of you has the potential to bring you great discomfort …on a personal level, with others, and with the Church. But I believe that the only viable option is to call into question the a priori judgment or assumption – which up until this point, to much of Christendom, has been hard fact. And yes, I realize, too, that this undertaking would mean that people of faith will have to think and ask questions about things of which many others around them already “know” the answers, rather than to trust blindly what we’re accustomed to hearing.

Christian? What will you do? Will you bow to the larger part of what your religious culture demands, or will you set out on a quest of a different nature – one that will surely be frowned upon and considered apostasy by the believing masses that are still bound to the presupposition?

I’m begging you on behalf of my gay family: don’t do as those who have gone before you have done. Don’t allow your trained assumption to continue informing your every thought and action as it pertains to faith and homosexuality. Please reconsider the staying of your current stance.

If you are one, as I was, that has been raised and reared by the “God-said-it-I-believe-it-that-settles-it!” band of believers, would you not agree with me that you’d better make sure, damn sure, as a fallible created being, that your interpretation of God’s Word is not in error?

I have to be honest and say that as a former pastor in the Church of the Nazarene, as I look back over my ministry and training, I am appalled at how often I allowed myself to start from Square B – completely ignoring the point that lay before it. Because I did so, because I did not see the value and the necessity of going back to Square A , and because I allowed the a priori assumption to have control over my every thought and conclusion on the gay issue, many people in my life suffered a great blow.

I can never again allow myself to be a Square B Christian. I will never again just assume that I have all the answers based on a few Bible passages that I just might have interpreted improperly, read at a surface level only, or have somehow taken out of historical-cultural context and, instead, have imposed upon them mine.

I don’t have a great many answers anymore. Honestly, I have a good deal fewer than I thought I did as a pastor, and as a participant in a legalistic, fear-based, religious, church-culture that claims to have them all based on what the Bible says – or, in the very least, what people think it says. I do have some answers that I believe I can hold onto despite what the majority still says – some very important answers that directly affect my life and the lives of countless LGBT individuals.

I will never again claim to have them all, however, and I distrust those who say they do, or that say they know beyond a shadow of doubt on subjects they’ve never experienced on an intra-personal level, or perhaps by thorough association with those who have.

Today, I have turned over a new leaf. I have given my life over to becoming, and staying, a Square A Christian. Will you join me?

Hi, new friend,

I’m Rick James. I am a passionate follower of Christ who lives in the mile high city of Denver, Colorado. Among other things, I enjoy riding my bike, hiking in the mountains, singing with a local male chorus, participating in ministry with two metropolitan-area churches, and helping people understand a very complex and controversial issue that faces us today.

A former pastor of Worship Arts and Christian Education, I recently began a new life of openness, honesty, transparency, authenticity, and integrity. One would think that those would be a given as a Christian, and especially as a pastor. But, for a certain constituency of persons among those who share my conservative Christian heritage, this is very hard to achieve and to have, at the same time, the level of love, support, and understanding that we need to live courageously in the kind of life I described above.

The world is beginning to open its eyes to this fact, however, and is slowly changing. The same Spirit that – among New Testament believers – erased the division between Jew and Gentile is moving among us again, opening hearts and minds. Yes, God is pouring out His Spirit on a people who are viewed in much the same way as early Jewish Christians regarded the Gentiles. Lines are being erased.  People of great diversity are being united in communion at God’s banquet table.

Thank God that His ways are higher than our ways.

 

Anti-gays hide their bias behind the Bible

Written by ECWR Web
Thursday, 03 June 2010 22:25
1 Comment

By LZ Granderson, Special to CNN
June 2, 2010 9:13 a.m. EDT

Grand Rapids, Michigan (CNN) — My partner and I recently took our mothers to Las Vegas for a week for Mother’s Day. It’s not our favorite city, but for a pair of 60-somethings who can sit at the penny slot machines for hours, it was heaven.

When they were not being robbed by one-armed bandits, we saw a couple of shows and had some amazing dinners. We also enjoyed trying to figure out which women were hookers and which were just dressed like one. And of course saying “public drunkenness” is pretty redundant after 11 a.m.
But that’s why we go to Vegas, right? Life on the Strip. What happens here stays here … and all that good stuff. By the end of our trip, the four of us had seen just about everything you would expect to see in a place nicknamed Sin City — except for faith-based protesters.

Funny, a week of walking up and down the main artery of the self-proclaimed heart of moral debauchery, and nary a Bible verse could be heard. In the many times I’ve been to Las Vegas over the years, I’ve never seen a religious protest. And yet let a midsize city try to add sexual orientation to its municipal nondiscrimination policy or a high school senior bring a same-gender date to prom, and you would think it was the apocalypse.

Where are the faith-based organizations trying to make adultery a crime punishable by death, as suggested in Leviticus 20:10?

The Bible doesn’t state that one sin is greater than another, but you wouldn’t know that by counting the number of comments that quote Scripture on news stories about the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community. Compare them with how many address murder, or the environment, or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and well, the word “hypocrite” comes to mind.

I am never ashamed to say I follow the teachings of Christ, but I am not always proud to say I am a Christian. That’s because I am bothered by the continual mutilation of my religion’s basic principle of love by the extremists in my religion who construct a hierarchy of sin — which does not exist in the Bible — for no other reason than to protect their own prejudices.

We’ve seen this throughout this country’s history, and perhaps with the exception of abortion, no current issue illustrates this transgression more so than gay rights.

Some conservatives might attend church only twice a year, but ask their opinion about gays in the military. They can find Leviticus 18:22 blindfolded, handcuffed and sinking underwater: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind; it is an abomination.”

Rarely do you hear them mention the other “sexual sins” in Leviticus, such as making love to your wife while she’s menstruating. There are some people who say Jesus freed us from the old laws with one side of their mouths while using old laws to condemn GLBT people with the other.

Many turn to the destruction of Sodom as proof against homosexuality. But the King James version lists fornication, greed and lying as sins committed in Sodom as well, and never specifies which particular sin caused God’s wrath.

In fact, the word “Sodomite,” which some like to toss around as an anti-gay insult, is a mistranslation and is not used in the original Hebrew text. The actual word is “kadesh,” and it does not refer to the city, its inhabitants or a specific sexual act. It refers to the occult male prostitutes in the shrines, just as “kedesha” refers to the female equivalent. Neither word reflects sexual orientation.

It may be convenient to say Sodom was all about homosexual people, but historically and scripturally, that isn’t accurate. This is why I, like so many other Christians, do not follow a literal interpretation of the Bible.

I’m not ducking Leviticus, I’d just rather go directly to the source. Concepts get lost in translation, and we all know history is filled with influential people and institutions that have defined religion for the masses based upon their own selfish needs. For example, King Henry VIII, the man who authorized the first English translation of the Bible, was married six times and essentially had the British Empire separate from the Roman Catholic Church so he could divorce in peace. Then there’s King James, whose own writings suggest he was secretly gay or bisexual, according to historians such as Michael B. Young and Caroline Bingham.

He was directed to marry for the sake of the throne before authorizing the version of the Bible that swapped “kadesh” for “Sodomite” in the first place. Hmm, where have we heard that story — closeted gay politician with an anti-gay policy — before?

But theology and history aside, it is clear from the lack of consistent reaction to and organization against the litany of other present-day sins that a large number of people who call themselves Christians do not follow the literal interpretation of the Bible either. So, if some of us are picking and choosing which Bible verses to follow, why are so many opting to pick and choose verses that appear to condemn homosexuality and not the one against marrying a woman who isn’t a virgin?

If sin is sin, why such Christian angst directed at the GLBT community and not the greedy corporate community, which, quite frankly, has more direct impact on the average person’s life?

The answer is simple: Those who are uncomfortable or fearful of someone who is different from them sometimes hide behind religion to gain power, nurture their ignorance and justify their prejudices.
It’s no different from Christian slave owners using Scriptures to feel better about enslaving Africans, or men pointing to Jezebel as a way to keep women out of the clergy, or Bob Jones University picking verses that supported the school’s ban on interracial dating.

The extremists aren’t fighting gay rights because of sin and honoring Leviticus 18:22. If they were, then where are the faith-based organizations spending millions trying to make adultery a crime punishable by death, as suggested in Leviticus 20:10? Is 18:22 more true than 20:10, or does it just support a more common and entrenched prejudice?

Granderson is a senior writer and columnist for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com, and has contributed to ESPN’s Sports Center, Outside the Lines and First Take. He is a 2010 nominee and the 2009 winner of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) award for online journalism as well as the 2008 National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) winner for column writing.