CLOBBERING “BIBLICAL” GAY BASHING
Here’s the thing about “Biblical” gay bashing: It isn’t actually Biblical at all.
The article I’ve linked here contains brilliant exegesis by the Rev. Mark Sandlin. It’s short and sweet and to the point, beautifully written and brilliantly argued. Spoiler Alert: the Bible does NOT say that homosexuality is a sin. As Grumpy Cat would say: NO! Just, NO! It. Doesn’t.
For the record, I’m totally against Biblical literalism, which basically means that some people believe the Christian Bible is inerrant, kind of like a transcript from God to humanity: “Are you getting that down, Paul? No, add a comma to paragraph three.” It simply doesn’t make sense.
I have an anthropology degree and I can assure you that the fossil record is real. The world was not created in seven twenty-four hour periods. Noah’s ark is a great story, and it was fun to watch the giraffes march around the feltboard in Sunday school when I was six-and-a-half (the half being VERY important to me at the time…not so much now that I’m, er, not six-and-a-half anymore). So, to be clear: I am not a Biblical literalist. Far from it. But even if you ARE a Biblical literalist, the fact is that the Bible in no way says that homosexuality is somehow “sinful.” In fact, the contrary is true: what’s sinful is judging and stigmatizing and trying to change people from the way God made us. Sandlin, a minister, with, like, degrees and an unreasonable knowledge of Greek and Latin and stuff, argues this beautifully.
Here’s an excerpt:
by Mark Sandlin
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 little 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).
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Sandlin goes on to clearly delineate and take down every verse that supposedly points to homosexuality as “sin.” According to the Bible, it’s okay to be Takei, and those who say it isn’t are twisting the Bible’s words.
And here’s Sandlin’s conclusion:
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).
So, basically, love wins.
maggielovesequality 