A few weeks ago, I blogged about my hunger and thirst to see justice in relation to the way Christians treat people who identify themselves as homosexual. That blog was just the start. With the next few blogs I write, I want to address some of the traditional objections to my “radical” statement that homosexuality is not wrong and that homosexuals people should be welcomed into the community of God.
I realize my position is not popular, and that, for a couple hundred years, Christians have assumed that the Bible speaks strongly against the homosexual lifestyle. And this assumption has been sold well by the Church. Find anyone you know and ask him or her what the Bible says about homosexuality. The almost unanimous answer you will get is that the Bible is against it. Most people can’t tell you where it’s written in the Bible, but they know it’s in there somewhere. This is probably one of the Church’s best marketed talking points: The Bible says homosexuality is wrong.
But when you take a minute to consider where this idea comes from, you learn that there are about 6 verses in the Bible that mention something close to what we would consider homosexuality. In the spirit of full disclosure, let me say this: I believe the Bible really has very little to say about what we understand as homosexuality in today’s culture, and that the more recent interpretation of scripture that labels homosexuality as a sin does not stand up to proper biblical exegesis. Bottom line – we got it wrong. We misinterpreted scripture, and many people have had to suffer as a result of our irresponsible interpretive practices.
I’d like to take a few blogs to talk about each one, and with the next blog in particular, I’ll address the first: Genesis 19 and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. My goal with this is to show you that the Bible really doesn’t have very clear teaching against homosexuality. If anything, I want you to walk away from this with an understanding of how complex this issue really is, and that simply saying “The Bible says homosexuality is wrong,” is just not quite fair.
Let’s get going!
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Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them,
Comment by 2 TIMOTHY 3 March 10, 2010 @ 11:10 pm