The LGBTQ+ Conversation

According to the latest Gallup poll, those identifying as LGBTQ+ in the United States continues to increase.  Millennials (those born between 1981-1996) identifying as LGBTQ+ increased from 5.8% in 2012 to 10.5% in 2021.  Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) identifying as LGBTQ+increased from 10.5 % in 2017 to 20.8% in 2021.  Currently approximately 7.1% of Americans consider themselves to have an LGBTQ+ identity.  Conversations surrounding this issue are ever present, and often the agenda supported by this community is promoted in the media, society, and politics.  

During the past 20 months I have devoted hundreds of hours to the current conversation concerning gender and sexual identity.  I have approached this venture with much prayer and with a determination to actually “listen” to the biblical texts in an honest manner.  To understand both sides of this dialogue, I have amassed a current library of over forty books and many theological articles, and have listened to hours of presentations.  Undoubtedly this study has caused me to be challenged by the questions and research done by the revisionists—ideas that for the most part I was unfamiliar with previously.  What you are reading now are my findings that have allowed me to better understand my brothers and sisters in the Lord who are in a real struggle to understand their own feelings and identities.  My purpose is not to debate nor pronounce judgements on anyone, but to help all of us understand these issues from the Scriptures.  Certainly, my thoughts are not the final word on this or any matter.  My prayer is only that what I have discovered will serve as a springboard to encourage you toward your own study and reflection. 

A large part of my study has centered on the writings and information of the affirming community itself.   The following Twelve Assumptions of the Affirming Community are a summation of their own observations.  Significantly, my writings focus on the Christian affirming community and NOT the LGBTQ+ community at large which has no desire to be pleasing to God.  

In this post I will simply list the twelve assumptions and in weeks to come I will attempt to unpack each of them.  The following definitions will prove helpful:

1. Revisionists, progressives, and affirming community describe those who affirm modern same sex relationships as acceptable to God.
2. Traditionalists are those who reject all same sex relationships as acceptable to God.
3. The phrase “modern same sex relationships” means same sex relationships must be monogamous, committed, consensual, and covenantal.

Twelve Assumptions of the Affirming Community

1. The Leviticus’ texts are not applicable to modern same sex relationships.

Karen Keen writes:

Progressives argue that the prohibition is applicable only to the Israelites and their cultural context.  The mandate is no more binding on Christians than the law against eating shrimp (Lev 11:9-12). ¹Karen Keen, Scripture, Ethics & the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018), 44.

Justin Lee writes:

The Leviticus and Romans passages had a clear context of idolatry, not committed relationships.² Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate (New York: Jericho, 2012), 186. 

2. The background for Rom 1:18-32 is the Wisdom of Solomon.

Keen writes:

The point is that Genesis is not the backdrop for Paul; the Wisdom of Solomon is the text he is engaging. That has crucial implications for understanding the meaning of Romans 1.³Keen, Scripture, Ethics & the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships, 38. 

Martin writes:

There is compelling reason to believe that these fifteen verses were not written by, or at least original to, Paul.  This composition, word choice, and overall flow of the Greek are notably un-Pauline in comparison to the rest of his body of work.⁴Colby Martin, UnClobber: Rethinking Our Misuse of the Bible on Homosexuality (Louisville: John Knox Press, 2016),118.

3. Paul was only opposing pederasty (sexual behavior between an adult male and adolescent boy) including prostitution, sex with slaves, and rape and does not address modern same sex relationships.

Robin Scroggs writes: 

I know of no suggestions in texts that homosexual relationships existed between same-age adults…Thus what the New Testament was against was the image of homosexuality as pederasty…⁵Robin Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality: Contextual Background for Contemporary Debate (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983), 35, 126.

Matthew Vines writes:

Remember, the most common forms of same-sex behavior in the Greco- Roman world were pederasty, prostitution, and same sex between masters and their slaves…That isn’t to say that no one pursued only same- sex relationships, or that no same-sex unions were marked by long-term commitment and love.⁶Matthews Vines, God and the Gay Christian, The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships (New York: Convergent Books, 2014), 104. 

…he wasn’t addressing what we think of today as homosexuality. The context in which Paul discussed same-sex relations differs so much from our own that it can’t reasonably be called the same issue.⁷Vines, God and the Gay Christian, 106.

Keen writes: 

To put it simply, to say that the biblical authors object to prostitution or pederasty is not to say that the authors object to monogamous, covenanted relationships.  That would be comparing apples and oranges.⁸Keen, Scripture, Ethics & the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships, 20.

In essence Paul does not address the question of gay people who love God and want to share their life with someone in a caring, monogamous relationship.⁹Keen, Scripture, Ethics & the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships, 39.[/mfnj]

In this they are correct: the Bible doesn’t address covenanted same-sex relationships as we know them today.⁹Keen, Scripture, Ethics & the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships, 58.

Jack Rogers writes:

Most Christians have been told at one time or another that the Bible condemns all homosexual relationships. That view is simply incorrect.¹⁰Jack Rogers. Jesus, The Bible, and Homosexuality: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church (Louisville: Westminster Knox Press, 2009), 66.

4. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and 1 Timothy 1:10 refer to only abusive relationships and does not include modern same sex relationships.   

Vines writes:             

So even the sexual use of malakos doesn’t necessarily refer to same sex behavior…as we’ve seen malakos doesn’t refer to merely a single act.  It encompasses an entire disposition toward immoderations.¹¹Vines, God and the Gay Christian, 122. 

So even if the compound word arsenokoitai did originate from Leviticus, that still wouldn’t tell us what it means in 1 Corinthians 6.¹²Vines, God and the Gay Christian, 124. 

One of the most prominent forms of sexual exploitation in the ancient world was the practice of pederasty.  If arsenokoitai does refer to male same sex behavior, it’s likely that it refers to pederasty.¹³Vines, God and the Gay Christian, 125. 

Keen writes:

The apostle Paul likely had in mind (referring to 1 Cor 6:9-10 and 1 Tim 1:10 JJ) what he saw around him namely, pederasty or sex with male slaves and prostitutes.¹⁴Keen, Scriptures, Ethics & the Possibility of Same-Sex relationships, 18.  

5. The words “against nature” (unnatural) refer to heterosexuals acting like homosexuals or rather engaging in non-coital sexual relations.¹⁵Lee, Torn, 183. ”Even so, Paul’s view toward the same-sex aspect of those rites didn’t seem very positive at all and he did call the sex acts (as the NIV put it) “shameful” and “unnatural.” Perhaps he would have condemned the gay sex even if were not in the context of idolatry” (Emphasis mine JJ).

Brownson writes: 

…Romans 1:26 probably does not refer to same-sex activity but to dishonorable forms of heterosexual intercourse.¹⁶James V. Brownson, Bible Gender Sexuality: Reframing the Church’s Debate on Same-Sex Relationships (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 222.

…Romans 1:26…was understood to refer, not to lesbian sexual activity, but to nonproductive forms of heterosexual intercourse.¹⁷Brownson, Bible Gender Sexuality, 244.

6. Paul had no knowledge of the modern concept of sexual orientation.

James Brownson writes:  

Writers in the first century, including Paul, did not look at same-sex eroticism with the understanding of sexual orientation that is commonplace today.¹⁸Brownson, Bible Gender Sexuality, 166.

7. Same sex relationships were condemned only in the context of pagan idol worship.

Lee writes: 

The Leviticus and Roman passages had a clear context of idolatry, not committed relationships.¹⁹Lee, Torn, 186. 

If gay sex was being condemned for its connection to idolatry and cult prostitution, that would explain the harsh punishment and the description of it as “abomination,” it wouldn’t apply to modern-day relationships at all.²⁰Lee, Torn, 178. “But if gay sex was being condemned because gay sex is inherently sinful in all situations, then that condemnation would apply today, even in a committed relationship (Emphasis mine JJ). I wasn’t going to be able to solve this by looking at Leviticus in isolation.  I had to consider it in light of the New Testament.”

If this is about sex rites during idol worship, that didn’t seem to have anything to do with committed gay relationships.²¹Lee, Torn, 183.

8. Paul was opposed to same sex relationships in the context of excessive passion and lusts.

Brownson writes:

It is not desire itself that Paul opposes, but excessive desire, which directs itself toward what is not rightly ours, overcoming self-control and obedience to God.²²Brownson, Bible Gender Sexuality, 164.

The essence of lust (epithumia) lies in its intense passion (thumos). To the extent to which Paul’s rejection of same-sex eroticism is based on his assumption that which behavior is inherently lustful, marked by passions that are out of control.²³Brownson, Bible Gender Sexuality, 169.

9. Covenant fidelity, not sexual union or procreation is the foundation (or cornerstone) of Biblical marriage.

Keen writes:

Progressives agree that male and female are part of God’s good creation, but they believe loyal, covenantal love, not sexual differentiation is the foundation of biblical marriage… Progressives argue that the cornerstone of biblical marriage is covenant fidelity, not sexual differentiation….²⁴Keen, Scripture, Ethics & the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships, 30, 43.

10.   Genesis 2:24 stresses sameness and not difference between males and females.

   Keen writes:

When Adam marvels that Eve is “flesh of my flesh” he announces a kinship bond.  This kinship language appears elsewhere in the Bible. Laban tells Jacob, “Surely you are my bone and flesh?” (Gen 29:14). The story of Adam and Eve demonstrates that marriage is, first of all, a union founded on commonality and not differentiation.²⁵Keen, Scripture, Ethics & the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships, 30-31. 

11. Paul objects to same sex relationships because they do not lead to procreation, and it requires one male partner to act in a submissive role—something that Paul thought was shameful.  

Brownson believes Paul objected to same-sex activity for two reasons: 

(1) Paul felt same sex activity was “selfish and socially irresponsible” because it did not allow for the possibility of procreation. 

(2) A man treated like a woman (passive) was “shameful” and “violated the understood gender roles in the conventions of the ancient world.”²⁶Brownson, Bible Gender Sexuality, 267.

12. Historical evidence does not indicate early Christians held a negative attitude toward same sex relationships.

         John Boswell writes:

Not only does there appear to have no general prejudice against gay people among early Christians; there does not seem to have been any reason for Christianity to adopt a hostile attitude toward homosexual behavior.²⁷John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 135.

The early Christian church does not to appear to have opposed homosexual behavior per se. The most influential Christian literature was moot on the issue; no prominent writers seem to have considered homosexual attraction “unnatural,” and those who objected to physical expression of homosexual feelings generally did so on the basis considerations unrelated to the teachings of Jesus or his early church followers.²⁸Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 333.

Conclusion

Not every revisionist²⁹Revisionists would be the same as “progressives” or the “LGBTQ+ community.” would necessarily embrace all twelve assumptions,  but all the assumptions are shared by some revisionists.  Certainly, revisionists do not represent a united front in their understanding of the teachings of Scripture related to same sex relationships.  Even some affirming writers are not sure gays or lesbians have the right to act upon their perceived orientations.                                                       

Just because an attraction or drive is biological doesn’t mean it’s okay to act on, (Emphasis mine JJ)…³⁰Lee, Torn, 62.  

Granted, the Bible’s silence on committed same-sex relationships doesn’t necessarily mean those relationships are blessed.³¹Vines, God and the Gay Christian, 131.