Tom's Life Strategy Portfolio

By Reverend Ralph Lasher, M. Div, Associate Pastor, Bethel Church UCC, 2004

Christianity is a religion based upon the ministry and teachings of Jesus, whose life was clearly one of love, healing and forgiveness. He summarized his own teachings: “Love the Lord, your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…Love your neighbor as you love yourself” (Matthew 22:37-40). Jesus’ message was inclusive: “For God so loved the world that God gave the one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not parish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “Whoever believes” is inclusive!

Yet we all know that atrocities have been cloaked in Bible verses and committed in Christ’s name. Several examples include:

The Crusades, in which men, women and children were slaughtered in Jesus’ name.

The Inquisition, which included torture and murder and was called “holy.”

The enslavement of persons throughout the world by “Christians” and others, who bred, branded and beat fellow humans.

The lynchings, floggings and castration of African Americans in the United States of America by hymn-singing, white sheeted members of the Klu Klux Klan.

The murders and rapes during the conquest of Mexico and the destruction of an entire civilization.

The persecution and discrimination in the United States against persons of color and women.

The Holocaust in Germany, during which two national Christian denominations turned their heads while millions of human beings were exterminated.

The massacres and bombings in Ireland.

The burning of “witches” in our own country.

Today another monstrous injustice cloaked in Bible verses is being committed against people for whom Christ lived and dies. It is the oppression, bashing and sometimes even murder of persons who are gay, lesbian, Bisexual and/or transgendered. Those who seek to justify their own hatred and the behavior it encourages cite several Biblical passages which they claim support their beliefs. Most often these people quote from the King James Version of the bible.

I was raised on the King James Version and can recite large portions of it. I love its poetry and beautiful language, but I don’t use it or recommend it for study. For study, I prefer the New International Version (NIV) of the bible.

Before being written down, the bible was circulated in oral form, some parts for several hundred years. The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek. The King James Version, which was written in 1611 when King James I was King of England, is not the oldest English language translation of the bible; the Bible was first translated into English 229 years earlier in 1382, by a man names Wycliffe.

King James Version
Modern Biblical scholars do not regard the King James Version of the bible as the most accurate English Translation. They cite its numerous misspellings, as well as the use of a variety of English words to translate the same Hebrew or Greek word, the overuse of terms derived from Latin which resulted in inaccurate translations, and the obscurity of Elizabethan English to today’s speakers of English. In addition, more accurate Hebrew and Greek manuscripts of the bible have been discovered since the mid-nineteenth century. However, perhaps because of its longevity and poetry, the King James Version of the bible is still the best known and most widely used translation, though more and more churches today also use the new, more accurate translations. Accuracy becomes an issue, for example, when the translators of the King James Version use the word “sodomite” to mean “homosexual.” There is no word for “homosexual” in the original language of the bible. Respected English translations such as the New revised Standard Version and the NIV speak of “male cult prostitutes,” which is obviously not the same as “homosexual.”

The Sodom Story
Persons who use Scripture to condemn sexual minorities usually begin with the story of “Sodom” and Gomorrah (Genesis 13-19). The word Sodom has given birth to the word “sodomy,” which is a legal term usually refers to sexual activities between two males. But the story of Sodom would more accurately be called “The Story Of Lot.” Whatever else it is, the Sodom Story is not a condemnation of a loving relationship between two men or consensual sexual intercourse between two men.

Lot, a righteous Hebrew, invited two men traveling through his town to spend the night in his house. In those days, there were no Holiday Inns for travelers and it was customary for good Hebrews to be hospitable to Hebrew travelers. Lot was hospitable. Shortly after he had taken the two strangers into his house, a mob of angry men vegan banging on Lot’s door, shouting for Lot to send out the guests so the men could “know” them. The Hebrew word translated as “know” is a euphemism for sexual intercourse. In this case, rape was intended. The rape of a man in that part of the world was a custom usually reserved for prisoners captured in battle. It was an extreme humiliation since it treated a man like a woman, and women were then considered inferior to men. Lot, the good Hebrew and righteous man, had a different suggestion. He told the mob they should not rape his male guests who, as a guest in his home, were under his “protection.” Instead he suggested that the men rape his two virgin daughters. Lot and his family were allowed to escape from the city before it was destroyed. Scripture contains two explanations for the sin of Sodom, neither which refers to anything having to do with sex between two males (see Ezekiel 16:48-58 and Luke 10:8-12). The explanations given in scripture clearly tell us that the sin of Sodom was failure to meet the needs of the poor and the worship of false gods. To complete the Lot Story, his wife was turned into a pillar of salt. Then Lot and his two daughters had sexual intercourse and both of the daughters became pregnant by their father. The Lot story is a story of the rape of men and women, violence and incest. It has nothing to do with same-gender love. It is not a condemnation of persons who are not heterosexuals.

Levitical Holiness Code
The Levitical Holiness Code compromises the majority of the biblical book of Leviticus. It specifies what a Jew had to know in order to be a good or righteous Jew. In the heart of this codification of Laws are two verses, both of which say the same thing, “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman. It is detestable” (Leviticus 18:22), and “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a women, both of them have done what is detestable” (Leviticus 20:13). It is these two verses that the Religious Right and other verbal bashers of persons who have sexual contact with someone of the same gender quote as “proof” that homosexuality is an “abomination” and “detestable” to God. The Hebrew word translated as “abomination” is the same word translated as “detestable” and simply means “ritually unclean.” In the context used in the Holiness Code, this word referred to practices associated with idol worship, i.e. persons whose religion worshipped a god other than the God of the Hebrews. The practice condemned in the two passages from Leviticus is the practice of male prostitution in the temple. Yes, pagan cults often had male and female prostitutes “working,” so to speak, as members of the temple staff. It is this practice, rather than loving relationships between persons of the same gender, that the Holiness code condemns. The Hebrew religious leaders had reason to be concerned about this pagan practice.

For three hundred years, even the temples in the Holy Land had male prostitutes until they were finally removed once and for all (see Deuteronomy 23:17-18, I Kings 14:24-25, 15:12 and II Kings 23:7). Yet those who claim that “Gods Law” condemns gays, lesbians and other sexual minorities never claim that the hundreds of other provisions of the Holiness code also apply to Christians. The rest of the holiness code forbids such things as eating shrimp, clams, crawfish, lobster, and oysters, eating meat with blood in it, eating pork or rabbit, drinking milk while eating a roast beef sandwich or putting butter on the bread used to make that sandwich, men shaving or cutting their hair, planting tomatoes and carrots in the same garden, having sexual intercourse with one’s wife during her menstrual period, a woman talking in church or going to church during her menstrual period and wearing clothes made from two yarns (such as cotton and polyester). It even forbids touching the skin of a pig, living or dead. How can one say that two verses are “God’s Law” while completely ignoring all the other hundreds of provisions in “God’s Law?” Even if Hebrew Law condemns homosexual behavior (and it does not) both Jesus and Paul stated that Christians are not bound by the Law of the Old Covenant but by the Law of Love as described in the New Covenant.

Celebrated Relationships
Loving relationships between persons of the same gender were not condemned. In fact, they were celebrated in Scripture: Jonathan (son of King Saul) and David (great hero of the Hebrews) were lovers. Jonathan, we are told, “became one in the spirit with David and loved him” (I Samuel 18:1). He made a covenant with David and stripped himself of much of his clothing, giving it to David (I Samuel 1:3-4). They embraced and kissed one another (I Samuel 20:41). When Jonathan was killed, David wept and said, “Your love was greater than the love of a woman” (II Samuel 1:16).

Ruth and Naomi also may have been lovers. Ruth’s pledge of her love for Naomi, as bizarre as it may seem, is often quoted at heterosexual weddings: “May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me” (Ruth 1:17).

The New Testament
The most important fact to note about homosexuality and the New Testament is that Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Jesus never mentioned it. Why then, do the Religious Right and others speak as if Homosexuality is their most important concern? Bigotry! A prominent contemporary Episcopalian Bishop and theologian attribute this to fear and insecurity. The absence of discussion of these activities in the New Testament leaves the Religious Right only two passages in the writings of the Apostle Paul which they attempt to condemn homosexuality. The first passage is in a letter written to the romans while Paul was in Corinth. The second is in a letter written by Paul to the people of Corinth. Rome and Corinth were both appropriate targets for someone like Paul who was concerned about morality, especially sexual morality. Both cities were centers of Pagan worship which used idols in their worship of gods and goddesses of fertility.

For more than half a century, several Biblical scholars have speculated that Paul himself was gay and that his “thorn in the flesh” was a homosexual orientation. This may or may not have been true, but in any case, Paul didn’t approve of anyone having sex. Convinced that the end of the world with the return of Jesus was imminent, Paul believed that marriage and reproduction were unnecessary. For Paul, the only justification for marriage was a man’s inability to control his sex drive and remain celibate. Though Paul was essentially opposed to all sexual activity, the passages from Romans and Corinthians are not condemnations of loving relationships between persons of the same gender.

The first passage is found in Romans 1:26-27 and speaks of “women exchanging their natural relations for unnatural ones” and “men also abandoned natural relations with women and were consumed with lust for one another…” These references are in the context of the condemnation of idol worshipers who worshiped images of gods “made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles” (Romans 1:23). The references in Romans 1:26-27 are in context of the worship of idols and speak about male and female prostitution in the pagan temples. These references have nothing whatsoever to say about loving relationships between gay men or lesbians.

The second New Testament reference to homosexuality is found in I Corinthians 6:9-10, which equally condemns idol worshipers, drunks, slanderers, swindlers, thieves, the greedy, and people whom in the Greek are called “malakos” and “arsenokoitai.” These words have been translated in many different ways, and scholars can’t agree on what Paul meant.

The word “malakos” has been translated variously as “people who wear cloths of soft cloth” (i.e. rich people) or “effeminate persons,” or “masturbators” or “homosexual.” Based on other usage of this word in the New Testament, the latter translation is the least likely to be accurate.

The word “arsenokoitai,” possibly invented by Paul, combines two words meaning “bed” and “males.” It is often translated as “anal intercourse.” An early Greek church leader, John Chrysostom, assigned different penances for anal intercourse, depending with whom is was done: one’s wife, a woman not one’s wife, another man and so on. The most likely meaning of the word used by Paul, however, is “male prostitutes.”

It is regrettable that the Religious Right and others who oppress gays, lesbians and other sexual minorities have taken the bible captive and try to use it to further their own private agenda. This, unfortunately, is nothing new. People in the same state of mind and persuasion wrote and published a book in the United States in 1904 titled, “The Negro: A Beast.” The Bible bigots tried to use Biblical quotations to prove that African Americans aren’t human and, therefore, do not have souls. Not surprisingly, they arrived at the conclusion that African Americans could not have eternal life. Sexual minorities were simply next in line, the last group of “different” human beings who could be oppressed in Christ’s name.

The Bible does not condemn homosexuals or other sexual minorities. Numerous books examine this subject in great detail. I recommend “Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality” by John Boswell, “Jonathan Loved David” by Tom Homer, “Living In Sin?” and “Rescuing The Bible From Fundamentalists” by Bishop John Spong and “Don’t Be Afraid Anymore” by Troy Perry.

Scientific and medical Professionals have long ago shot down the view once held by oppressors of gays and lesbians that homosexuality is a sickness. The same disciplines are in the process of destroying the myth that homosexuality is a matter of choice. Researchers have clearly established the fact that sexual minorities constitute a substantial portion of the people on our planet. Bigotry, unfortunately, is based upon fear and insecurity rather than reason. I find consolation in the history of the Christian church. God has always raised up persons within the Church, to purge the church of the inquisitors and others who murder and abuse other human beings and claim they act in God’s name. this purging may already be underway as clergy and lay persons force denominations to reexamine their long standing beliefs about sexual minorities.
In the past 30 to 40 years, more and more Biblical scholars and theologians have recognized that Scripture does not condemn us. One by one, those who oppress lesbians, gays and other sexual minorities in the name of God are being stripped of their respectability. As this happens, more persons who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered are coming to understand that our sexuality is a gift to us from God. The Bible does not condemn us for that gift.