“Do you pray.”

Here is my answer as to why I don’t pray:

“The answer to this question is kind of complicated. First, I’m not sure my theology allows for a kind of prayer that radically changes those things outside of my control. For example, I don’t often pray for immediate healing of illness, the successful execution of a job interview, relationship guidance, etc. I’m not sure God cares enough about some of these parts of my life to take direct action on my behalf. Since I get frustrated when I see US Christians thanking God for their many blessings (that new Benz, that game winning touchdown, that Oscar), I tend to want to distance myself as much as possible from that theology of prayer/interacting with God. I guess I don’t really think that prayer changes God’s mind or actions.

“Second, I’m bothered by how prayer has become, for some Christians, a kind of “good luck charm.” Being involved in church music programs, it gets frustrating to see church leaders throw up a quick and panicked prayer for “anointing” before the worship set. It’s the Christian equivalent of knocking on wood.

“My third reason is probably more profound and terrifying than I’d like to admit, but I can’t leave it out. I don’t pray because I feel shame. I make some decisions in life that I know aren’t exactly healthy for me, and it feels weird to address God when I know, in the back of my mind, I’m not really addressing God with my decision making. So I just tend to avoid addressing God at all. As Black Thought said, ‘I would pray to God, but I’m tired of lying to him.’

“If I think about it, I think prayer and therapy are very similar. It’s a way to put words to your internal processes, and by doing so, you find the power (or God gives you the power) to make progress. I think God designed us this way. God gave us an incredible ability to create real change in the world just by putting a little mental effort into it. When we start putting words to our feelings/emotions/fears, we start seeing new ways to approach problems. We may pray for the healing of a friend, and as we pray, we start seeing ways that we can be a comfort to our friend – ways that may ultimately bring real healing. We may pray for a way out of financial distress, and as we do, we begin to see ways we can make changes to our budget that set us on the right track. In this sense, prayer does change things. It changes us.

“My question is this – does prayer always have to address God? If I do my best to give words to my internal processes, can that be called prayer? Or is it only prayer if I’m directing those words to God?

“My hope is that prayer is bigger than we think it is.”

Thoughts?

1. “How is a degree in Marital and Family Therapy the next step in your personal and vocational development? How is it an outgrowth of your present or previous career? What factors have contributed to your current desire for a career in this field?”

God’s calling on my life has taken many forms over the last decade as I have worked in formal church ministry, higher education, and in various capacities in the marketplace. Yet each form, each vocation, has pivoted around one central ministerial impulse. I am called to walk alongside young men and women as they navigate the complexities of transitioning into adulthood. These complexities often include dealing with the powerful motivators of shame, guilt, insecurity, and self-esteem. It is also during this important time in their lives that men and women make important decisions of marriage, family, spiritual trajectory, and vocation.

Initially, I believed this calling would be fleshed out in a formal ministry setting as I worked as a pastor. Soon, God shaped my calling toward the world of higher education, and I began an educational journey that I hoped would result in a PhD and a position as a professor in a university. To make this calling a reality, I completed a Master of Arts in Theology at Fuller Seminary, and over the past six years, I have had the pleasure of serving in Fuller’s admissions office counseling students towards degrees in theology, psychology, and intercultural studies.

Recently, God’s calling on my life has taken shape in a new way. Through deep, transforming experiences in a therapeutic setting (which I will discuss in an essay below), God has begun to develop in me a passion for psychotherapy. It is now my greatest desire to work as a marriage and family therapist with men and women who are contemplating marriage, family, spirituality, and vocation as they wrestle with insecurity, shame, guilt, and the complexities of autonomy and independence.

2. “Describe the most important personal experiences that have shaped your interest in seeking training as a marital and family therapist.”

At various times throughout the last seven years, I have been in therapy. At first, while living in Pennsylvania, I met with a therapist to work through relational conflict I was experiencing. Admittedly, I was skeptical about the therapeutic process, but I soon became a believer. As I began to work through deep seated issues with a trained therapist, I started to see life in new ways. I began to mature emotionally and spiritually, and I began to understand myself as the man God created me to be.

When I moved to California to attend Fuller Seminary, I wanted to continue my work in therapy. After a long search of therapists, I met Dr. David Jacobs, a Rogerian psychotherapist. I met with Dr. Jacobs on a bi-monthly basis over the course of three years, and it is difficult for me to properly express the profound impact my discussions with Dr. Jacobs had on my life. I owe much to Dr. Jacobs, not only for the emotional and spiritual healing he helped me experience, but also for developing in me a love for the world of psychotherapy.

In 2010, my wife and I separated and decided to end our seven year marriage. While I cannot, in this short essay, describe in detail the myriad of reasons my marriage came to an end, I can say for certain that the last two years have been some of the most difficult years of my life. Were it not for the work I had done in therapy and the small measure of self-possession and self-understanding I had achieved, I am not sure where I would be today. Because of therapy, I was able to survive a painful chapter of my life and emerge a stronger, more healthy man. Because of the deep healing my therapists help me realize, I hope to pursue training as a marital and family therapist and to provide a similar service to men and women in difficult situations.

3. “Describe your work or volunteer experience in the counseling field, particularly in marriage and family.”

As the executive director of a singles ministry and a worship pastor, I have had the privilege of working with men and women as they navigate the more sensitive moments of their lives. On several occasions, I counseled men and women who were part of the ministry I led. I have sat with men and women as they worked through conflict, addressed relational issues, and discussed spirituality and theology. On one occasion, I mediated conflict between a pastor and a lay minister and helped them reach a workable solution.

As the admissions recruiter for Fuller seminary, I have provided admissions counseling for men and women as they consider God’s call on their lives and whether or not that call includes a seminary education. The men and women I counsel as Fuller’s Admissions Recruiter come from various faith traditions, cultural backgrounds, and marital statuses. On several occasions, I counseled prospective Fuller students and their spouses as they discerned whether a seminary education was not only good for their future careers but also what possible successes and difficulties it may bring to their marriages.

Admittedly, during these times, I was not a trained therapist, and my work and volunteer experience in the field of psychology and marriage and family therapy was not at a formal level. I was not particularly trained to counsel in any official capacity, and my knowledge of the therapeutic process was colloquial. Yet these experiences have only served to fuel my desire for formal training in marriage and family therapy.

4. “Briefly describe your goals for emotional and interpersonal growth during the next few years.”

Life is a journey, and journeys are ultimately about progression. We (rightly) say that the journey is more important than the destination; that we should not rush the process of life to reach a conclusion. At the same time, we must continue to progress, or we will stall. When I consider my life to this point, I see a progression. I see the process of my own maturation because of and in spite of some of my life experiences. I also see times when my mind was too focused on the end result causing me to skip necessary relational and interpersonal skill building experiences. Inversely, I have also observed periods of time when I have stalled out in emotional and spiritual progression.

My goal for the next few years in a general sense is to continue to progress on the journey of emotional and spiritual health. More specifically, I would like to move toward a measure of self possession, self-understanding, and security. I would like to continue to move toward living a proactive life and to learn to better manage my reactivity in interpersonal interactions. I would like to build a healthy understanding and practice of romantic love that will last a lifetime. Finally, family is of paramount importance to me. I am blessed to be part of a large, loving family which, like many families, is not without a measure of dysfunction. Much of my time in therapy over the last seven years has centered around the impact – both healthy and unhealthy – my family has had on me and I have had on my family. I would like to grow as a son, brother, and uncle which will help me grow into the husband and father God has created me to be.

5. “In applying to Fuller’s Marriage and Family program, do you have a vision (tentative or otherwise) for how your training might serve the needs of a local congregation? In what ways do you anticipate using your skills in some form of marriage or family-oriented ministry? How important is this to you?”

I believe local congregations have a profound influence on people’s lives, and this influence can be both positive and negative. I have seen marriages restored because of the work of a loving and caring pastor or church staff person. I have seen families brought back together from the brink of disaster because of an outpouring of love and support from the church community. At the same time, it would be naive to assume local congregations are void of conflict and dysfunction.

While I do not necessarily see myself working as a therapist in a local congregation in an official capacity, I am a committed church member, and as such, I would hope to make use of my training in my church community to address the issues of guilt, shame, and insecurity, and to help identify how these motivators can deeply damage marriages and families. Admittedly, I do not have a specific vision for the local congregation beyond the general idea of being connected to a church community as a marital and family therapist.

Just as I was starting to panic, a stranger came out of nowhere, walked right up to me, and asked me if I was lost. He helped me find my way back to the Westin, jumped back in his car, and disappeared.

I was so grateful to this stranger because without him, I’m not sure how long I would have wandered downtown Atlanta. He saved me a lot of time and stress. After reflecting on my interaction with him, I became convinced that he was an angel sent from God. As proof, I cited the fact that he seemed to appear out of nowhere, knew to approach me and ask if I needed help, and left just as quickly as he came. There was no other explanation than the simple truth of which I was convinced – he was a physical manifestation of a supernatural being.

That was my assessment at the time. Since then, I’ve become much more critical of stories of people’s interactions with angels and demons – maybe to a fault. It now bothers me that people so quickly jump to a supernatural explanation of an event that doesn’t have an immediate natural explanation.

The same is true of my experience in Atlanta. I thought to myself, “There’s no way a normal (read: evil) human being could be so intuitive and kind as to offer me help when I most needed it.” It was just not possible, so I needed a supernatural explanation.

Here’s my problem with this line of thinking, especially in the case of my experience in Atlanta – What little faith I have in the goodness of humanity! Put more theologically, what little faith I have in inherent goodness God has placed in all of humanity! Maybe even taking in one step further – What little faith I have in the redemptive work of Christ to usher in the dawn of the kingdom of God on earth!

So my seemingly noble and pure desire to see the supernatural in what was really an every day event has caused me to actually overlook the reality of the kingdom of God on earth. I refuse to see God’s redemptive work in humanity, so I just chalk it up to “Gabriel with skin on.”

Kind of sad if you think about it.

Back to my confession. So much of what I’ve been doing here with these blogs about homosexuality is starting to feel like apologetics to me, and it’s really turning me off. I’ve been so tempted to end this series by channeling Inigo Montoya and saying, “You keep using that verse. It doesn’t mean what you think it means.” Period. End of discussion. But that wouldn’t be fair, would it?

So here I am, trying my best to muster the energy to tackle Paul, or, better yet, the common misinterpretation of Paul’s comments on human sexuality – and doing so in a fair way instead of going the way of Mr. Montoya. With that, I’ll make my first pithy statement:

1. When Paul talks about homosexuality and when we talk about homosexuality, we’re not talking about the same thing.

Paul’s understanding of homosexuality is very different from ours. To Paul, it’s all about the act. That’s all he sees and all he knows. He doesn’t talk about homosexual desire or homosexual orientation. In fact, sexual orientation or sexual identity in general – hetero or homo – are not concepts in Paul’s mind.

He sees the raw data that is the act of homosexual sex, and to make matters worse, in the culture in which he writes, homosexual sex acts are mostly performed in connection with ritual pagan worship. Paul sees heterosexual men participating in pagan temple worship, and this participation often included homosexual sex with one of the many male temple prostitutes. The concept of men and women having a homosexual orientation and living in monogamous, homosexual relationships is something unheard of for Paul.

2. When we translate any of Paul’s so-called references to homosexuality using the word “homosexual,” we’re mistranslating.

I’m not sure how to approach this point. I could lay out all the details about the various Greek words Paul uses, and I could go through a detailed lexical analysis of each word. However, I’m not sure I could do that and keep your attention. It’s all a bit technical and nuanced – as language tends to be. So I’ll spare you and just say this:

As I mentioned above, Paul, when he uses words that have been translated over the last hundred years or so as “homosexual,” he’s not thinking about the same thing as we are when we use those words. There’s a lot of evidence that he has pedophiles and child molesters in mind, not adult homosexual men and women. As with all discussions of sexuality in scripture, the only condemnation we see is condemnation of deviant forms of sexuality, and this is no different. When grown men sexually abuse and manipulate young men, it’s wrong. When heterosexual men have sex with male prostitutes, it’s wrong.

But what would Paul say if he came across a homosexual couple who are involved in a loving, committed relationship? Who knows! He didn’t have that category, so he didn’t comment on it. And the words he used didn’t take this category of human sexuality into account.

So to translate the Greek words Paul uses in Romans and 1 Corinthians as “homosexual” or some form of that word is, at best, missing the mark, and, at worse, a gross mistranslation.

3. When we focus on homosexuality, especially in Romans 1, we miss the point entirely.

Sometimes we forget, when we’re reading Romans 1, to continue on to Romans 2:

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?

Oopsie! Sorry Paul, I didn’t know you were trying to teach us about a kind of self-righteousness that causes us to be intolerant, impatient, and judgmental. I liked it better when you were just talking about icky homosexuals (sorry, Inigo is coming out again).

In all seriousness, there is a reason Paul sets up what he sets up in Romans 1, and that is what follows in Romans 2. We have no room to pronounce judgment on others based on what they do or how they live. I believe Paul might also say it this way: “When you point the finger, there are three fingers pointing right back at you.” Or maybe you prefer Jesus’ approach in Matthew 7:4: “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?”

(Down Inigo! Down boy!)

So even if we come to the conclusion that Paul’s understanding of homosexuality is the same as what we call homosexuality today and that it should be condemned, we still have no room for intolerance, impatience, and judgment – Paul’s words, not mine.

The way I see it, this is pretty simple. What we thought we knew about the Bible and homosexuality just isn’t based on proper exegesis. We’ve approached the Bible backwards for too long. We’ve allowed our current cultural understanding and our own negative feelings toward same-sex relationships to inform our reading of the Bible. We’re projecting our own prejudice on the witness of scripture. We decided that we don’t like something, so of course the Bible agrees with us. It’s something that has happened many times throughout history, and no one is immune to the tendency to read personal prejudice into the text.

(My apologies for taking so long to finish this discussion. To be completely frank, I grew weary of it – not because the issue isn’t important to me, but because, for lack of a better phrase, I moved beyond it. People are gay. That’s a fact. We can’t ignore it anymore or pretend scripture has our back on this issue. We have to move beyond the debates and start doing something about the fact that there are millions of gay and lesbian Christians, and God loves them as much as he loves us. Let’s lay down our swords and start opening our arms. The fight is over.)

(Hi, by the way. I know I’ve been gone a long time. It’s a very long story, and I may get into it someday, but for now, let’s just move on. Cool?)

You know what I mean when I use the term “Apologetics.” It’s that defending of the Christian faith – that ability to provide an air-tight defense of what Christians believe. Apologetics done “well” usually sound or read like the closing statements of an expensive lawyer. They involve compelling language and hard facts. At times, the detail to which the apologist goes is astounding, parsing phrases and words in order to caulk the edges of his or her defense.

I gotta admit: I’m not a fan.

One of the biggest reasons I struggle with the Apologetics approach is that the Apology is almost never wrong (I almost wrote “never wrong,” but I should probably leave some room here). With enough clever wording and tricky maneuvering, a good apologist can prove almost any point.

To be fair, I’m mostly referring to Christian Apologetics. I think this is where we can observe the dangers of the Apology most readily. Just consider how much ink has been spilled to prove, without a doubt (and to pick a hot topic right now), the existence of a hell – i.e. a literal place of eternal conscious torment. Many good Christians have written millions of words on this very topic, citing Bible verse after Bible verse, building their air-tight case that proves, without a doubt, that hell exists.

Yet so much more ink has been spilled in defense of the exact opposite position – that there is no hell, or that God will save everyone, or that evil people cease to exist when they die, and on and on. And with each of these Apologies, the apologist provides Bible verse after Bible verse, creating his or her own air-tight defense of whatever point of view he or she is defending.

So who wins? The person with the best Apology? Because both are pretty good. Who gets to judge which is best? Me? You? The community of believers?

And that’s my problem with Apologetics. Anyone can defend just about anything and find enough evidence to do so. There’s got to be a better way.

Yes, I’ve had quite the year, and that’s a big part of the reason I haven’t finished my blog series on the Bible and homosexuality.

But there’s another reason. I’m starting to feel like an apologist. I’m starting to feel like an evidence peddler.

“Step right up, folks! I’ve got a bunch of cool verses that prove my point. And check out what I can do here with a little Greek word study. Pretty nifty, eh?”

And honestly, I’m at the point in the process where becoming an apologist is necessary. The kinds of things Paul has to say about homosexuality in his letters and the words he uses are just not normal for us. In short, us and Paul, we’re on different pages on the issue. But that takes some time to explain.

Don’t get me wrong. I want to explain it, and I will very soon. Part of the reason I want to talk about Paul’s understanding of homosexuality is because I genuinely believe, based on theological reflection, that God loves homosexuals, and that a homosexual Christian is not an oxymoron.

So even though I have to get over my current disgust of Apologetics to do it, I will. I just might need a couple more days.

We all know Jesus’ famous words in Matt 22:36-40 when he was asked which commandment in the law is greatest:

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Profound words, indeed. But I wonder how much the second command, “Love your neighbor as yourself” is less a command and more a statement of fact. In other words, I wonder if we could read that differently: “You will love your neighbor to the degree you love yourself.”

I don’t know about you, but I am most hostile toward those around me when I am most dissatisfied with myself. When I feel I’ve failed in some way, or if I have fallen short of some expectation, I tend to take out my frustration on others. In other words, when I have no self love, I fail to love those around me, or, better yet, I cannot possibly show love for those around me.

The great theologian, Jim Carrey, recently tweeted, “The biggest problem we have in the world is lack of self love. Every cruelty comes from those who don’t understand what they’re worth!” What a great way to reword Jesus’ simple phrase, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

We all need to practice self love a little better than we have. I’m not talking narcissism or some kind of inflated self image. I’m talking about an honest realization of a human being understanding that he or she is “fearfully and wonderfully made,” that he or she matters to the Creator, and that he or she is exactly who he or she was designed to be. If we can grasp this simple concept, love for others comes natural. It become the most natural expression of our love for God and our love for ourselves.

I guess you can look at it like a progression – a love of God produces a love of self, and a love of self fuels a love for others. When we love God and see God as a loving creator, we begin to value ourselves so much more. When we value ourselves more, we value those around us more. One leads to the next, and none can exist without the others.

Food for thought before we jump back into the discussion of homosexuality in the Bible.

There are so many issues with these two short passages that I’m not sure where to begin. Of the many compelling arguments against the use of this passage to condemn homosexual orientation and gay relationships, there are three that I’ll note here.

The first is fairly obvious. This is the Levitical law. There are over 600 such laws in the Torah, and most Christians pay attention to only a tiny percentage of them. Most Christian’s I know eat shrimp, lobster, and pork, wear clothing with mixed threads, have sexual intercourse during menstruation, etc. The Levitical law is relatively ignored by Christians with the exception of a few passages like the two above. It would seem, from the point of a casual observer, that some in the Christian community have determined beforehand that homosexuality is sinful, and instead of being faithful to the witness of scripture, they find passages that fit their agenda and ignore the neighboring passages as if they didn’t exist. If this isn’t a twisting of scripture, I’m not sure what is.

Added to the problems of “picking and choosing” which Levitical laws are worth keeping and which don’t matter anymore is this: Leviticus 18 and 20 both exhort the reader to put men caught having homosexual sex to death. If we are going to be sticklers about the law, shouldn’t we follow through with the whole thing? Shouldn’t we be consistent in our selective reading and at least obey the whole verse? Or could it be that want homosexuality to be wrong, so we only focus on the few words in scripture that support our agenda? Few people would advocate for the execution of homosexuals even though the verses they hold in such high esteem command them to do so.

Yet another problem arises with our understanding of the word “abomination.” For most of us, when we read “abomination,” we think it’s a superlative. We think God is saying that a particular practice is “really, really, really bad.” So we adopt the mentality that there are bad things to do; i.e. sinful things, and then there are these “abominations.” Nothing could be worse than an abomination, right?

We’ve been conditioned to think this way. Our culture seems to be a culture that is crazy about superlatives. We overuse words like “amazing,” “fantastic,” “awesome,” “incredible,” “huge,” etc. People often say they are 100,000 (or some other large number) percent into something or sure of something. Just watch 45 seconds of Maury Povich, and you’ll see what I mean. “I’m 25 million percent sure he is the father!”

One of my favorite professors at Fuller, Dr. Joel Green, would often chastise his students for using the phrase “very unique” in their papers. He would say something like, “Nothing can be ‘very unique.’ It’s either unique or it’s not. There is no extra measure of uniqueness.”

We love our superlatives. And I think this is what hooks with passages like these. We consider the word “abomination” to be a superlative. We think God is saying something like, “I hate homosexuality 100,000 percent!” But that’s not the case here. The word is actually connected to ritual practices. It is most often used in connection with the sacrificial practices of Israel. So, an abomination is something that makes an Israelite ritualistically unclean, but it is not necessarily something that is fundamentally evil. For instance, it is not fundamentally wrong to eat shrimp, but it is considered an abomination in the context of Israel’s ritualistic practices.

To reiterate, an abomination makes a person ritualistically unclean. But we don’t live in a culture of rituals any longer. We don’t, like the Egyptians, consider it an “abomination” to eat with certain groups of people (Gen 43:32). We also regularly partake in a great number of things that would be considered abominations in the minds of the Israelites under Levitical law. Does this mean these particular practices are immoral or sinful? No! We are no longer under the law, and we no longer live in a society concerned with sacrificial ritual. Passages like Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 simply no longer apply to us.

If we object to homosexuality and people who have same sex attraction, we cannot do so on the grounds of Levitical law. If so, I would venture to say that we should be consistent and uphold the entirety of the law. To focus on the sections that confirm our own discomfort with a particular way of life is not only unfair, but it cheapens scripture. The Bible becomes secondary to our own desires, and it no longer informs faith: it becomes a cheap tool to confirm our own bigotry. This cannot stand any more.

Next, we move into the New Testament and hear what Paul has to say.

Pretty clear, right? Well, no. There’s much more that we weren’t told.

We read in the text that God has some serious issues with these two cities. In Genesis 18:20, we’re told that a great outcry has reached God from these cities, and that God decides to investigate. What, exactly, is Sodom’s and Gomorrah’s “grave sin?” God sends some angels in the form of men to visit the city to “test the waters” if you will. Lot, Abraham’s nephew, invites the visiting angels into his home and entertains them. Later, the men of the city demand that Lot give up the visitors so that these men can brutalize and rape them. And the rest is history.

Simple, right? Well, not really. There are much deeper layers to this little story that need to be uncovered before we can begin to understand the exact nature of Sodom’s and Gomorrah’s sin, and many of these details can be uncovered when we consider how the Jewish mind understood Sodom and Gomorrah. To do that, we need to check out some other mentions of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical literature.

First, consider Ezekiel 16:49: “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” What? No mention of homosexuality? That’s a little strange, considering how we understand “sodomy.” It seems the real problems have to do with excess wealth and an ungenerous attitude toward the poor.

Consider, also, Josephus’ explanation of Sodom and Gomorrah. To Josephus, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah “pride themselves on their power and wealth, they brutalize outside people, and are ungodly.”* Hmm… Again, nothing about homosexuality. The focus seems to be on the cities’ excess wealth and treatment of outsiders and visitors.

Philo had a similar concept of Sodom and Gomorrah. He painted the city as rich and materialistic to the point that the inhabitants became greedy and violent.*

In Targum Psuedo-Jonathan, a story is told of a young girl named Peletit who took bread to a poor starving man. When the people of Sodom and Gomorrah realized what she had done, they seized her, covered her with honey, and hung her on the wall of the city to be devoured by bees. Some consider the cries of Peletit while she hung on the wall to be the very cries that rose to God inciting God to act against Sodom and Gomorrah*

These accounts of Sodom and Gomorrah are important to note. First, there is very little to no evidence outside of the Hebrew Bible or Hebrew literature of the existence of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. So what we know about Sodom and Gomorrah, we have to find from the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical literature from the Hebrew tradition. We have to learn what these writers thought of Sodom and Gomorrah before we can understand the nature of their sin. Second, Sodom and Gomorrah are used regularly throughout both the Hebrew Bible and the NT as an example of an adulterous city that turned from God. Often, the comparison is made between something that Israel has done with the ways of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Israel doesn’t come out looking very pretty. Finally, we cannot properly understand the importance of hospitality and inclusion of visitors/aliens to the ancient Hebrew mind. It’s not part of our culture, so it’s very hard for us to think such a thing would be so grievous. But this is no reason to discredit an interpretation of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah that focuses on the cities’ inhospitality and treatment of visitors. If we do decide to discredit such and interpretation, we are illegitimately imposing our own cultural understandings on a text instead of letting the text’s own culture and setting dictate translation. This is nothing short of twisting scripture to fit our own cultural mind. It shouldn’t be done.

And this is exactly where we’ve gone wrong in the past. The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is not homosexual orientation. The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is their complete lack of pity for the poor, the sick, the visitor, or those whom society deems unworthy. Beyond this, their sin was not just a sin of omission (not caring for the poor); their sin went much further. They tortured the poor and persecuted anyone who tried to be hospitable. Lot shows hospitality to visitors, and the men of the city are enraged! Their desire to rape these men is not because of sexual orientation or lust. Their desire is to show their dominance over these visitors and to shame Lot. Rape is often understood not as an act of sexuality but as an act of power and domination. Yes, it is connected to sex in some way, but rape is primarily a way to express power and dominance. Consider what brutal armies would do to their conquered foe – they would rape and kill them. It was a way to humiliate their enemies and show their superiority. It wasn’t because they were horny.

Think about what these messengers from God came to do: They wanted to spend the night in the city square, and they fought Lot when he showed the hospitality. God wanted to see what would happen to the messengers. Just exactly how bad would they be treated? If they entered the city as visitors and made their status clear by spending the night in the square, what would happen to them? This was God’s test – would the people of Sodom and Gomorrah show love and compassion and care for the visitors, or would they brutalize them and treat them as if they were worthless?

So what is the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah? They were rich, content, and selfish. They abused the poor and mistreated the alien. They refused to include those who were outside of their cultural circle. To express their dominance over visitors, they raped and killed them.

So, then, what is sodomy? In my opinion, sodomy is not male homosexual sex, but the refusal to include others and show love to the less fortunate among us. How ironic that many of us practice this kind of sodomy on a regular basis. Some of us even pride ourselves on how exclusive and uncaring we can be toward those we deem “sinful.” It’s sad, really.

My main point here is this: Genesis 19 and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is not God’s vengeance on homosexuality. It’s God’s vengeance on people who refuse to show love and compassion. God is not punishing men who love other men or women who love other women. God is punishing those who love no one but themselves.

Next, we’ll talk about Leviticus.

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!

Let me back up a little by giving you a quick (and probably lacking) overview of Bell’s approach to the Beatitudes. In short, the Beatitudes aren’t instructions on how to receive the blessing of God as much as they are proclamations of who God sees as blessed. For instance, when Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” he is not saying, “In order for God to bless you, you have to find some way to become poor in spirit.” Jesus’ point is that God is with the least of these. God is with those who are not spiritually rich. God is not with those who “deserve it,” whatever that may mean. So Jesus is attempting to help his listeners understand this deep truth: God blesses the people whom you don’t expect to be blessed.

Again, Bell is emphasizing that these sayings by Jesus should NOT be used as formulas to earn God’s blessing. To do this, we fall into the trap of a works based theology.

With Matthew 5:6 in particular, Bell explains how he understand Jesus’ words: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” For Bell, Jesus is talking to those who have a deep and unquenchable longing to see justice in a broken world. So often, these are people who experience oppressions, injustice, and, well, wrongness. Because of this, they hunger and thirst for rightness, or righteousness to prevail over injustice.

We all have a little of this in our lives. We see oppression, hunger, poverty, and pain in the world, and we want it to be made right. Sometimes we misdirect this desire to situations that don’t deserve such attention.

I have been most guilty of this recently with the whole NBC debacle and their dealings with Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno. I saw what happened to Conan O’Brien as an injustice, and my hunger and thirst for righteousness was temporarily misdirected to that cause. But in reality, Conan is a multi-millionaire. He’ll be fine. He doesn’t need my help. My hunger and thirst was wrongly directed for a time.

But many times, our hunger and thirst to see justice is properly directed. We begin to side with people who experience real and damaging trauma, most often inflicted by those in power, and we ache for them. Sometimes we find ourselves in need of justice, and our hunger and thirst for righteousness drives us to cry out to God for his grace and blessing. In this, we find the words of Jesus comforting. God is with those who hunger and thirst to see God’s justice in a real way.

Now, all of us have different areas where we direct our “hungering and thirsting.” A friend of mine at work has a heart for racial reconciliation, and her desire for justice is most directed there. Another friend sees the poverty and oppression in Latin America and puts his energy and resources to work to see justice there.

We all have our areas where we hunger and thirst.

For me, there are a few areas, but none so great as my desire to see my gay brothers and sisters in Christ accepted into the community of God where they belong. Yes, I know. Not a popular thing to say in some Christian circles. Gladly, I’m not alone, even though it may feel this way sometimes.

In short, I feel the Church has done a serious disservice to a large number of gay Christians who find their identity in Christ and have come to terms with their sexuality. The Church has wrongly interpreted a few vague passages in the Bible in order to condemn what they do not understand, and quite honestly, I can no long stand idly by.

This injustice has to stop, and the wheels are finally in motion. Many devout Christian men and women are beginning to see that, for the last 150 years or so, the Church has gotten it wrong. The Bible does not, in fact, condemn homosexual orientation, and, in reality, the writers of the Bible know nothing of homosexual orientation.

What I would like to do over the next few blogs is to tackle a couple of the more recent “anti-homosexual” misinterpretations of scripture in hopes that I can show where we as a Christian community have erred. I’d like to start with one of the most commonly misunderstood biblical narratives, the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Hopefully you will hear my heart through all of this. I have a deep hunger and thirst to see God’s justice in this world. I have an unquenchable desire to see wrongs righted. And above all, I approach this topic out of love – love for God, the Bible, and my gay brothers and sisters in Christ.

Also, please remember that this is me writing – Jon. Your son, brother, uncle, and friend. I am not being deceived by Satan. I am not trying to justify sin. I am not trying to send the Bible down some slippery slope. I have enormous respect for scripture, so much so that I refuse to allow it to be read at face value. I also have a deep love for God, and I want more than anything else to see God’s will done on earth. And for me, God’s will is that we no longer oppress people because of their sexuality.

I pray that you would come along with me on this little journey. I also understand that you will disagree with me, and that’s fine. But please, hear me out.