[Vision2020] Alternative Biblical View of Homosexuality

[Art Deco]

My Take: What the Bible really says about
homosexuality<http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/15/my-take-what-the-bible-really-says-about-homosexuality/>

*Editor's note: Daniel A. Helminiak <http://www.visionsofdaniel.net/>, who
was ordained a priest in Rome, is a theologian, psychotherapist and author
of “What the Bible Really Says about
homosexuality"<http://www.amazon.com/What-Bible-Really-about-Homosexuality/dp/188636009X>and
books on contemporary spirituality. He is a professor of psychology at
the University of West Georgia.*

By *Daniel A. Helminiak*, Special to CNN

President Barack Obama’s support of same-sex marriage, like blood in the
water, has conservative sharks circling for a kill. In a nation that touts
separation of religion and government, religious-based arguments command
this battle. Lurking beneath anti-gay forays, you inevitably find religion
and, above all, the Bible.

We now face religious jingoism, the imposition of personal beliefs on the
whole pluralistic society. Worse still, these beliefs are irrational, just
a fiction of blind conviction. Nowhere does the Bible actually oppose
homosexuality.

In the past 60 years, we have learned more about sex, by far, than in
preceding millennia. Is it likely that an ancient people, who thought the
male was the basic biological model and the world flat, understood
homosexuality as we do today? Could they have even addressed the questions
about homosexuality that we grapple with today? Of course not.

CNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest
stories<http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/>

Hard evidence supports this commonsensical expectation. Taken on its own
terms, read in the original languages, placed back into its historical
context, the Bible is ho-hum on homosexuality, unless – as with
heterosexuality – injustice and abuse are involved.

That, in fact, was the case among the Sodomites (Genesis 19), whose
experience is frequently cited by modern anti-gay critics. The Sodomites
wanted to rape the visitors whom Lot, the one just man in the city,
welcomed in hospitality for the night.

The Bible itself is lucid on the sin of Sodom: pride, lack of concern for
the poor and needy (Ezekiel 16:48-49); hatred of strangers and cruelty to
guests (Wisdom 19:13); arrogance (Sirach/Ecclesiaticus 16:8); evildoing,
injustice, oppression of the widow and orphan (Isaiah 1:17); adultery (in
those days, the use of another man’s property), and lying (Jeremiah 23:12).

But nowhere are same-sex acts named as the sin of Sodom. That intended gang
rape only expressed the greater sin, condemned in the Bible from cover to
cover: hatred, injustice, cruelty, lack of concern for others. Hence, Jesus
says “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 19:19; Mark 12:31); and “By
this will they know you are my disciples” (John 13:35).

How inverted these values have become! In the name of Jesus, evangelicals
and Catholic bishops make sex the Christian litmus test and are willing to
sacrifice the social safety net in return.

The longest biblical passage on male-male sex is Romans 1:26-27: "Their
women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also
the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with
passion for one another."

The Greek term *para physin* has been translated *unnatural*; it* *should
read *atypical* or *unusual*. In the technical sense, yes, the Stoic
philosophers did use *para physin* to mean unnatural, but this term also
had a widespread popular meaning. It is this latter meaning that informs
Paul's writing. It carries no ethical condemnation.

Compare the passage on male-male sex to Romans 11:24. There, Paul applies
the term *para physin* to God. God grafted the Gentiles into the Jewish
people, a wild branch into a cultivated vine. Not your standard practice!
An unusual thing to do — atypical, nothing more. The anti-gay "unnatural"
hullabaloo rests on a mistranslation.

Besides, Paul used two other words to describe male-male sex:
*dishonorable*(1:24, 26) and
*unseemly* (1:27). But for Paul, neither carried ethical weight. In 2
Corinthians 6:8 and 11:21, Paul says that even he was held in *dishonor *—
for preaching Christ. Clearly, these words merely indicate social
disrepute, not truly unethical behavior.

In this passage Paul is referring to the ancient Jewish Law: Leviticus
18:22, the “abomination” of a man’s lying with another man. Paul sees
male-male sex as an impurity, a taboo, uncleanness — in other words,
“abomination.” Introducing this discussion in 1:24, he says so outright:
"God gave them up … to impurity."

But Jesus taught lucidly that Jewish requirements for purity — varied
cultural traditions — do not matter before God. What matters is purity of
heart.

“It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what
comes out of the mouth that defiles,” reads Matthew 15. “What comes out of
the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the
heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false
witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed
hands does not defile.”

Or again, Jesus taught, “Everyone who looks at a women with lust has
already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Jesus
rejected the purity requirements of the Jewish Law.

In calling it unclean, Paul was not condemning male-male sex. He had terms
to express condemnation. Before and after his section on sex, he used truly
condemnatory terms: godless, evil, wicked or unjust, not to be done. But he
never used ethical terms around that issue of sex.

As for marriage, again, the Bible is more liberal than we hear today. The
Jewish patriarchs had many wives and concubines. David and Jonathan, Ruth
and Naomi, and Daniel and the palace master were probably lovers.

The Bible’s *Song of Songs* is a paean to romantic love with no mention of
children or a married couple. Jesus never mentioned same-sex behaviors,
although he did heal the “servant” — *pais*, a Greek term for male lover —
of the Roman Centurion.

Follow the CNN Belief Blog on Twitter <http://twitter.com/cnnbelief>

Paul discouraged marriage because he believed the world would soon end.
Still, he encouraged people with sexual needs to marry, and he never linked
sex and procreation.

Were God-given reason to prevail, rather than knee-jerk religion, we would
not be having a heated debate over gay marriage. “Liberty and justice for
all,” marvel at the diversity of creation, welcome for one another: these,
alas, are true biblical values.

*The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Daniel A.
Helminiak.*


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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