Gays and The Problem of a Flat Bible

One saying that circulates among the more conservative biblical interpreters is "Let Scripture interpret Scripture." This is codified in such statements as "verses must be in harmony with other verses on the same subject." It's based on certain assumptions that prove false, such as the notion that all the biblical writers mean the same thing when using the same terms. So that once a particular understanding is made, it is transported, intact, across the entire Bible. This has led some to describe this method as reading a flat Bible.

The reality is that there is much argument going on in the Bible. Job argues with Deuteronomy. 1 and 2 Chronicles argues with 1 and 2 Kings.  James argues with Paul. One topic that appears throughout the Bible is the nature of God. Is God a God of mercy or of vengeance? Many would say both, because the Bible depicts God as both. Yet it is clear that Jesus, by his life and death, rejected a God of vengeance. Yet the notion of a God of vengeance persists and is the staple of conservative Christianity. It's their basis for a fiery hell, legalistic judgment, and retributive justice.

This is not a new issue for Christians. The first attempt to deal with it was the radical proposal of Marcion (2nd century CE) who claimed that the father of Jesus Christ was not the God of the Old Testament, and excised it from his Bible. He was (of course) declared a heretic. Yet the notion of a god wholly other than that described in Jesus persists.

A new book from John Dominic Crossan, How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian, offers a fresh answer. Briefly summarized, it is that God is a God of distributive justice whose egalitarian dream for the world gets co-opted by human greed, which turns the biblical story (often) into a god who justifies vengence in its name. Crossan's challenge is to help us distinguish how the story gets corrupted in human hands.

Here’s a quote from the book that puts much into perspective for me:

If the Bible were all good-cop enthusiasm from God, we would have to treat it like textual unreality or utopian fantasy. If it were all about bad-cop vengeance from God, we would not need to justify, say, our last century. But it contains both the assertion of God’s radical dream for our world and our world’s very successful attempt to replace the divine dream with a human nightmare.

What Crossan attempts is to separate out the dream from the nightmare, even though both are couched in the name of God. How successful he is awaits a critical assessment.

So, why is a blog dedicated to LGBT themes and issues dealing with this? Simply because (whether Crossan's approach is right or wrong) the reading of a "flat Bible" has proved harmful, over and over again, to LGBTs. So when certain texts that purport to condemn homosexuality are used to justify vengeful behavior, some believe they are acting with the approval of a vengeful god.

Once, Mel White, author of Stranger at the Gate, was being interviewed on the radio. A caller quoted Lev. 20 to him and stated that, since Mel is gay, he should be executed. Annie Dillard's quote is particularly apt: "You know you have created God in your own image when it turns out he hates the same people you do."

Although I am happy Crossan has tackled this subject with his usual scholarly detail, there is a simple way to cut to the chase. In my book, I'm Right and You're Wrong:Why we disagree about the Bible and what to do about it, I propose using a "canon within the Canon." Jesus basically reduced all of the Old Testament to two useful propositions we term the two Great Commandments. Love God with all your heart, mind and soul, and your neighbor as yourself. If we use this to judge the value of any biblical statement, story, or conclusion, we will never be wrong.

Jesus used it himself on several occasions. When a dispute arose over whether his disciples violated the Sabbath by working (harvesting corn for a meal), Jesus simply said, "The sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the sabbath." In other words, when a law, even as sacrosanct as the Sabbath, conflicted with human need or dignity, it need not be observed. Human rights trump any law that would subvert human need, whether it's in the Bible or not.

Today we are beginning to understand that same-sex love is no different in quality from opposite-sex love. And that those who are attracted to those of their own sex are incapable (for the most part) of any meaningful relationship with one from the opposite sex. To deny them the right to love the one of their own choosing is to deny them of their human dignity and need. It is to deny them of their humanity. I don't think Jesus would approve, nor would his Father, regardless of how much you may want the god of vengeance to prevail.

Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson Is a Blessing

The controversy surrounding Phil Robertson's anti-gay remarks and his revisionist retelling of how African Americans loved their lives during the Jim Crow era found both supporters and detractors across America. I probably don't have to quote him here, so you can skip to the next paragraph if you're already sick of this coverage.  In an interview in the January issue of GQ, Robertson says homosexuality is a sin and equates it with bestiality and promiscuity. Here's the quote:

It seems like, to me, a vagina -- as a man -- would be more desirable than a man's anus. That's just me. I'm just thinking: There's more there! She's got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I'm saying? But hey, sin: It's not logical, my man. It's just not logical. ...Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men. 

 He also made comments regarding race and growing up in Louisiana during the Jim Crow era.

I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I'm with the blacks, because we're white trash. We're going across the field. ... They're singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, 'I tell you what: These doggone white people' -- not a word! ...Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.

Added to this is the most recent revelation that Robertson married his wife when she was only 16 years old and counsels other men to do the same, even to marry 15 year old girls.  Video here  

Recently his congregation's church secretary, Luanne Watts, told MailOnline they had been bombarded with calls and emails from Americans showing their support. She said: "What has happened is a blessing. Phil believes in the word of God and he will not shift from that." He is actually a very prominent elder and his fellow parishioners are solidly behind him.

Yes, Phil Robertson is a blessing. He is a portal into the mindset of homophobic America. As you know, nothing happens in a vacuum. His patriarchal views about women, his visceral reaction to same-sex love, his "Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare" notions of the Jim Crow South, all stem from his literalistic view of the Bible.

A clear distinction needs to be made here. Following World War II, America began to see the rise of so-called "Bible believing churches." Now they are found in every city and small town. I am asked all the time if my church preaches the Bible. This is code for "literal preaching of the Bible." Any church that doesn't read the Bible literally is, in their minds, considered heretical. But the issue really isn't belief or unbelief, it's literal belief, or as I like to call it, informed belief. I definitely believe the Bible; I just read it, and therefore, understand it differently than literalists.

The literal belief system is a "face value" understanding of words on a page, that leaves the meaning at the surface level. Literalists understand words in the Bible just like the words in their newspapers without reference to the changed worldview involved. "The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it!" You see, you can't take the Bible literally and seriously at the same time. Why? Because to take the Bible seriously you need to delve deep into the text.

The surface reading will more often than not lead you astray. Biblical hyperbole is a handy example. Proverbs 22.6 says, Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. I know from experience counseling mothers and fathers of children who departed from the faith, never to return, or ended up addicted to drugs, or incarcerated, who blame themselves and their parenting for the outcome based on this proverb. In their minds they didn't adhere to the way they should go well enough. They failed.

Literalism also accounts for the lingering doubts about racial equality. The "curse of Ham," reproducing only "after their kind," and certain Levitical instructions about keeping things separate (no planing of two kinds of crops in the same field, no wearing of garments composed of two kinds of cloth, etc.) are seen as mandates for segregation, And in case you think the issue of slavery has been decided, a world-class scholar in New Testament backgrounds told me that slavery would not be sinful today if conducted under biblical conditions. This notion is not uncommon in fundamentalist circles. We likely can't charge Robertson with endorsing slavery, but we can say he is comfortable with Jim Crow life.

Literalism is also why some fundamentalists believe that all LGBTs should be executed, based on the literal reading of Leviticus 20:13 while blithely ignoring all the other acts requiring the death penalty (including juvenile delinquency).  Roberson actually acknowledges this. "Do I call for homosexuals to be put to death? No, because if I did, I would have to include those that live in premarital sex, masturbation, adultery, violating the God given ability to divorce and re-marry..."1 In other words, he acknowledges that the Bible calls for all these and more to be put to death, but can't bring himself to go that far. But there are many who would.

Phil Robertson enables us to see the confusion, inhumanity, and twisted outlook that comes from a literal reading of the Bible. Yes, he is a blessing.

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1 http://patriotaction.net/profiles/blogs/phil-robertson-was-it-all-a-set-up-to-try-and-control-his-values

Leviticus: When Is an Abomination Not an Abomination?

This is the third in a series of posts that support same-sex marriage by examining the biblical passages that are used to condemn it and homosexuality in general.

Here are the two passages in Leviticus that are at the center of the controversy:

Leviticus 18:22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.Leviticus 20:13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.

Quite straightforward, aren't they.  After reading this in my seminar, I would close the Bible, and announce that the seminar is over.  This is so clear, how could anyone with any credibility believe that God approves of LGBTs after hearing this?  Moses wanted them executed; how could we possibly defend this?

One might be excused in believing that this is the last word on the subject who reads the Bible strictly on a “face value” basis.  “It says what it means and means what it says.”  But that is often a very misleading way to read the Bible, as we shall see.

Just what is meant by a biblical abomination?

Here a couple of other interesting abominations in the stories about Joseph.

Genesis 43:32 They served him by himself, and them by themselves, because the Egyptians could not eat with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination to the Egyptians. 

Genesis 46:34  When Pharaoh calls you, and says, 'What is your occupation?' you shall say, 'Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth even until now, both we and our ancestors'—in order that you may settle in the land of Goshen, because all shepherds are abhorrent [toévah] to the Egyptians.

Some abominations are clearly culturally derived.

Here are some other notable abominations (all from the Hebrew toévah).

Observing the nakedness of a relative
Sex during menstruation
Eating shrimp, lobster, rabbit, pork, etc.
Wearing of other gender’s clothing
Planting two different crops in the same field
Wearing clothing of two different fabrics
Spots on a priest’s bald head
Eating fruit from a tree less than five years old

Abominations, all.  So, if you are a woman reading this wearing bluejeans, you are an abomination.  If you are anyone wearing a cotton/polyester shirt, you are an abomination.  If you are a farmer planning hybrid crops, you are an abomination.  If you raise most cattle or livestock, all hybrids, you are an abomination.  If you had a shrimp cocktail or lobster at Red Lobster last night, you are an abomination.

I think you get the point.  However, some miss it entirely, as they know that all these are also biblical abominations which require the trespasser to avoid all such behavior, yet blithely, even cavalierly, think nothing of ignoring these biblical abominations.  Yet they insist on holding steadfastly to the ONE and only ONE regarding same-sex loving.

The problem, though, is that this is a package deal.  We can’t just pick and choose what abominations we will observe and which we will ignore.  They all stand or fall together.   We have no problem ignoring the shrimp prohibition or any of the others, except the ONE that bothers some people the most.  I’ll let you decide why this one and only this one is picked as the inviolable one, “because the Bible says so.”

This clip from the West Wing TV show nicely sums it up:

Yet, it is said that this prohibition carries with it capital punishment, as both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.  What about it?  Shouldn't we place this into a special category, since, well, how could God not still consider this worthy of death?

Let’s see.  Well, here are other Laws that require the death penalty:

Not impregnating your brother’s widow according to the Levirate marriage laws
A child cursing one’s parents
A woman’s lack of virginity on the wedding night
Adultery
Incest
Working on the Sabbath day

Would those who insist on upholding Lev. 20:13 insist also on making each of these a capital offense?  I think not.  So why the ONE?

If we executed every child who cursed its parents, and every person who committed adultery, there would be few adults left to raise the remaining children.  (Let alone, serve in Congress.)
And as loathsome as incest is, we are not about to begin killing its perpetrators.  So let’s cut the hypocrisy here and admit that there are no grounds for insisting on keeping the Levitical prohibition in place.

But there is one more piece of work left to do.  I introduced the cultural aspect of how abominations are formed with the examples of Joseph in Egypt.  In America, I might ask if you had sauteed Poodle for dinner last night?  That would appall you, wouldn't it.  Other cultures might find it appetizing.  It’s how the culture creates what is approved or not.  In Israel, coming into the Canaanite territory, the temptation was always to adopt the habits and mores of their neighbors.  All the prophets railed against this, and Moses stipulated against certain things that would draw the Israelites closer to worshiping Baal.  

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying:Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: I am the Lord your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan. Lev. 18:3

One example is male temple prostitution.

1 Kings 14:24 …there were also male temple prostitutes in the land. They committed all the abominations of the nations that the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.

The Levitical prohibition certainly was aimed at forbidding this abomination and may have been the only reason for it, as nowhere in the Mosaic Law is female to female sex banned.

Okay, the fallback position is Romans 1.  This shall be the subject of tomorrow’s post. Please tune in.

TOMORROW: Romans 1