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Primitive Christianity Revived, Again

Five Snippets

So it comes down to five Bible verses.

The argument that homosexuality is wrong, that homosexuality is sinful, has no other leg to stand upon – if it has any at all – than these five verses: two from Leviticus, one from Romans, one from First Corinthians, and one from First Timothy.

Some want to argue that homosexuality is wrong because it is harmful to others, but there simply is no evidence that homosexuality causes harm to others. The allegations made on this score are in error, and are offered only out of ignorance or sometimes malice.

Some want to argue that homosexuality is wrong because it is “unnatural.” And yet beyond a shadow of a doubt, homosexuality (a sexual attraction to those of the same sex) arises frequently in human beings and frequently in hundreds of other animal species. Nature is far from homogeneous; nature is given to variety and diversity. It is only out of ignorance (or, again, malice) that one would try to argue that homosexuality was unnatural. And is the naturalness of something our test of its morality?

The Indiana Yearly Meeting Minute on homosexuality says that “We believe the Holy Spirit and Scriptures witness to this” [homosexual practices as contrary to the intent and will of God for humankind], but I hear in our discussions only appeals to Scripture, not appeals to the Holy Spirit.

No, the only argument that might have any standing is the claim that there are five verses in Scripture that supposedly proclaim homosexuality to be sinful. Some people have come to call these the “clobber texts” because they have been repeatedly used to clobber gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people as sinful.

And so it matters how we read the Bible. The Bible is really a complex collection of books, some histories, some prayers, some letters, some imaginative stories, some poetry, some prophecy. Some of it is written in Hebrew, and some in a 1^st century conversational Greek even though Jesus spoke Aramaic. So translations have to be worked through. In the face of this complexity, we need a consistent approach to reading the Bible: we cannot read some passages one way, and some passages another. How we read the five clobber texts has to have some consistency with how we read what the Bible says about war, adultery, the role of women in the church, what foods we should eat, what we should do about wealth, what we should do about our desires, or hundreds of other questions.

At an Indiana Yearly Meeting annual session a year or two ago, the Bible came up in one heated session, and a pastor said “God-breathed” in the midst of the discussion, and others murmured, “God-breathed” in agreement. They were quoting 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”

“God-breathed.” Yes, useful to remember. But what does it mean? What was “Scripture” when the author of 2 Timothy wrote these words? 2 Timothy was likely written towards the end of the first century C.E. There wasn’t yet a New Testament to which he could refer. Paul’s letters were written before the Gospels. The various manuscripts that are compiled into our New Testament were written and circulated in various collections over the first two or three centuries C.E., and weren’t accepted as an authoritative corpus until the late 4^th century by action of various gatherings of bishops (the Synod of Hippo, 393, the Third Council of Carthage, 397).

And who wrote 2 Timothy? The letter begins “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, in keeping with the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my dear son: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.” But there are a good many reasons to doubt that it was Paul who wrote this letter. It doesn’t match the style of his other letters, and we can’t fit it into the sequence of his known travels as reported, for example, in Acts. Most Bible scholars take it to have been written by a follower of Paul, someone trying to copy his example. But what are we then to make of a letter that begins by telling us something that probably isn’t true?

2 Timothy is a letter with a good deal of holy wisdom in it. It is worth study and reverence. But we can hardly take it to be absolutely the literal, end-all truth because the not-Paul who wrote it, claiming he was Paul, tells us that other Scripture (not specified) is “God-breathed.”

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5-17). Jesus uses the Scriptures, which like his Jewish compatriots he would have considered holy but neither complete nor inerrant. More importantly, He invariably turns the meaning towards a new teaching. And his teachings often come in parables, the meaning of which we are led to puzzle through. His disciples were often confused and on the wrong track – the Bible tells us repeatedly. The parables do not yield their meanings easily.

So how come we to think that the Bible gives us its meanings easily and plainly to us? How can we grab a snippet of text and say “there, that’s clear,” especially when the snippet runs against the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount or the two Great Commandments? Especially when the snippet runs against the srong current of Jesus’s good news.

George Fox knew the Bible by heart as did many other early Friends. He already knew it by heart, however, when he was in his time of seeking and despair – and yet it did not suffice. When he had his epiphany on Pendle Hill, he didn’t say, “I see, the Bible is all we need. It’s a finished revelation that is utterly sufficient in all ways.” Instead he said, “Jesus has come to teach His people Himself.” We need the Holy Spirit to help us understand the Bible, a treasured book of incomparable wisdom and instruction. But to substitute the Bible for the Holy Spirit is not what Jesus has in mind when he tells us to “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37), reaching back to Deuteronomy 6:5.

Revering the Bible doesn’t mean thinking it an easy look-up reference, a closed book of act-by-rote-rule instruction. Jesus came to breathe a new spirit of love into the old law.

1 member likes this

Comment by Ken Baxter on 4th mo. 1, 2012 at 2:59pm: Is it not possible that what we know of what Jesus said and the Bible, as it exists today, can simply inform our religious views?? If documents were discovered tomorrow in which Jesus said he believed in fairies, would all Christians have to believe in fairies?? I, for one, have a relationship with God in which I can read Matthew 19.4 and feel zero compulsion to rag on homosexuals. But then I seldom stone shrimp eaters either.

Comment by Aaron Clark on 4th mo. 2, 2012 at 10:00am: Good one Ken!

Comment by kevin roberts on 4th mo. 7, 2012 at 10:43pm: hi thomas--

you've quoted matthew 19:4, but haven't quoted the verses around it, in which jesus makes it plain that he is discussing heterosexual divorce:

Mat 19:3

The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?

Mat 19:4

And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,

Mat 19:5

And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?

Mat 19:6

Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

it seems to me that to read a judgement of homosexuality into jesus's words regarding heterosexual divorce is to ignore the plain sense of what he said. had jesus intended to make a condemnation of homosexual orientation, he could easily have done so in this conversation.

but he clearly didn't.

your use of this passage in this subject actually depends on matthew 19:5, where jesus says, " . . . for this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife . . ." your interpretation of the verse is this one:

" . . . for this cause shall every man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to . . ."

but that's not what jesus said. the bible is very clear on that.

jesus very clearly stated that there are men who leave father and mother, and seek female wives.

jesus very clearly did not say that all men must do so. were that to be the case, any unmarried heterosexual men would be as guilty of sin as any homosexual.

in my opinion, there are many passages in scripture that can be used to assign homosexuality as sinful.

this clearly isn't one of them.

Comment by Forrest Curo on 4th mo. 8, 2012 at 1:17am: Where "tempting him" comes into this... Herod Antipas has decided to marry a Hasmonean (Maccabean) princess, Miriam, in hopes that this can set up a dynasty acceptable to his Jewish subjects.

Unfortunately, the princess is already married to his brother. Hey, marrying your brother's wife is a good thing, right? Herod just tells them they're getting a divorce, and she will marry Herod. She's okay with that. But according to custom, the brother is supposed to be dead first, & the object is to give him children, not you. John the Baptist points this out in an impolite manner, and is taken off to prison, where he dies.

Asking Jesus what he thinks about "divorce," in these circumstances, isn't really about "divorce," not as a purely theoretical issue.

Comment by Howard Brod on 4th mo. 8, 2012 at 5:54pm: I assume Friend Thomas Kent also believes a woman should cover her head and be in subjection to her husband, and that women should not speak during worship, and that slaves should obey their masters [a command that tacitly approves of slavery], and that over-eating (glutony) is a sin [if so, it should disqualify one from pastoral service just as homosexuality does in FUM yearly meetings], and that a woman should never cut her hair, and on and on. And if you are going to use the old testament to clobber your brother, you will want to stone misbehaving children and adultering woman just to make sure you are following the Bible. There are many things in the Bible that modern people choose not to follow because time and experience has shown these things are legalistic judgements from humans and are NOT borne from the Holy Spirit, nor the Living Jesus. Quakers were persecuted BECAUSE they refused to choose following the Bible over the Holy Spirit. By what right do any modern Quakers reject that heritage to return to the legalism of Christendom.

Comment by Forrest Curo on 4th mo. 8, 2012 at 7:26pm: As I understand the one about stoning a "disobedient child." A group of rabbis-- all of whom had lost children-- got together to discuss this. "What kind of child could this be?-- that you should just take him out and stone him?"

They tried and they tried, and they just couldn't imagine anyone being that bad. "So why did Hasshem put that on in there?"

"So," they concluded, "we'd have the pleasure of this argument."

Comment by Barbara Harrison on 9th mo. 25, 2012 at 7:20pm: More attention to cultivating that ( the Divine/human courtship) -- might leave less attention to spare on other people's sexual behavior. Comment by Forrest Curo on 3rd mo. 26, 2012 at 2:03pm

Friend Speaks my heart

Comment by Christine Manville Greenland on 9th mo. 30, 2012 at 9:38am: When I read Leviticus 18 in its entirety, what impresses me is the apparent intent, given that the book itself is a collection of laws, including dietary, sacrificial, allowing rest from work and production, as well as mixing fibers in clothing.

The overall intent (of the particular chapter) seems to favor keeping a community whole in the face of all sorts of temptations. Women were honored in their roles as mothers, sisters, sisters-in-law, nieces, aunts... The restrictions involve subjugation of men and women within the extended polygamous family, and may have more to do with admonitions against incest and abuse in general than homosexuality in particular.

Both in the Torah and in the Gospels, there is the repetition that what we must attend to (as Jews or Christians) is loving God with our whole being -- and similarly, loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Scattered through the texts are implications that judgment comes with wisdom, and that punishment/vengeance is God's to enact. This is not our place.

Going back to the Leviticus 18 discussion, there are two sets of "advices"... One in Leviticus (without stating the course of community action) and the other in Deuteronomy in the time of Josiah) with consequences of the law at that time.

That was then. For the most part, we no longer admit to life in a polygamous society, though with the divorce and remarriage rates, that is open to question.

My question is how we might apply the whole of this set of rules to modern life. If we are to be consistent, we might well take another look at the dietary restrictions (pork, in particular, which is the only other part of the book in which the term often translated as "abomination" appears. I understand from discussions with many others that the implication in both cases is one of avoiding deceit. Secondarily, there is a matter of subjugation of individuals within a community -- female or male.

My larger questions concerning Christian practices involve how/whether we avoid subjugation within our own communities -- whether family or the local community. At the time these texts were compiled/written, the family unit was the community, and was contiguous.

How does this apply in our modern nomadic situation in which families are not the community extensions they were?

Comment by Barra Jacob-McDowell on 9th mo. 30, 2012 at 11:34pm: Friend Thomas, I have two brothers. One is biologically part of my family. He has never done any unselfish, loving act toward me except to once put a fan in my window when I was struggling to breathe after an asthma attack. My other brother is a dear friend who "adopted" me and I him. When I was grieving over my 1st husband's tragic death after our divorce, he called me every week on the phone long-distance to comfort me; he acknowledged the otherwise-disregarded loss of my three stillborn babies by sending me Mother's Day cards, and ensuring that my 2nd, current, best husband does the same. I love both my brothers, although I feel more warmly towards the 2nd--and yes, he is gay. Would an intelligent, loving person choose a lifestyle that is decried by others as immoral and wrong, choose to be villified and discriminated against--unless it *isn't* a choice, but simply the way he was created.

I have another question for you: would the Jesus who ate with those his society villified prefer the callous, outwardly "respectable" brother, or the one who is gay?

Comment by James C Schultz on 1st mo. 15, 2013 at 12:14pm: This discussion is never going to get resolved as there is a basic difference of opinion on the words sin and sinners.

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