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This is the second of this series revisiting in a shortened form, my original essay. In my last blog post I addressed the question whether being LGBTQ+ was a natural condition — a complete accident of birth – perhaps due to some genetic, hormonal or environmental component or whether it was as a result of choice, or some sort of social/cultural influence. I concluded that homosexuality was a completely natural occurrence. I pointed out that homosexuality has been observed in more than 1500 other species and is not limited to humans. I expect that sometime, we will probably find some sort of chemistry within the body that explains why one person is born with the propensity to be gay, and another straight — but maybe we won’t!
There have been numerous studies in the fields of genetics, biology, and psychology which have contributed to our understanding of sexual orientation. These studies consistently support the idea that homosexuality is not a choice but rather a complex interplay of genetic and hormonal factors, and that the environment can either foster or hinder a person’s exploration and understanding of their own identity. There is no credible scientific evidence supporting the notion that individuals choose their sexual orientation. Many individuals report experiencing same-sex attractions from an early age, often long before they have any understanding of sexuality or sexual orientation.
So, if I believe the Bible text to be condemnatory towards homosexuality — which, as I say nobody has a choice about, I must ask whether I have understood it properly, since my belief would make God unjust and capricious? Have I, or indeed, have others misunderstood the words of the Text? If so, what is the problem, and when did it occur? Is it that a translator was perhaps inadvertently and unwittingly a bit careless? Has the writer written about an apple, and the translator thought they were describing a pear, and we think it was a banana? What is going on?
Background
Before I head into the choppy waters of looking at texts that the non-affirming like to cite, I need to provide the context within which I believe we should read the Bible. To use an analogy: when a painter paints a picture, they start by painting the background, then they move on to paint the middle-ground, and finally finish by painting the foreground, which is normally the main focus for the picture. In the picture at the top, you’ll notice that there is a dog at the foot of the picture, and although it is in the foreground and may have been one of the last things to be painted, the painting isn’t about the dog. (Is there a message there?) So, let’s use this picture which is John Constable’s “The Hay Wain” (not “The Dog and The Hay Wain!): it would look odd if the Hay Wain was there on its own, with no background or context. Also, it would look equally odd if instead of the horses and cart, there was a girl riding a jet ski across the duck pond.
And yet this is the way we can often treat scripture. We take a verse or a part of a verse and hang our theology on it.
The wrong use of a verse to deal with Trans issues
As an example, the verse most frequently cited against trans people is found in Deuteronomy 22 and says:5 A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this. (Click the reference to see the full chapter.)
What is the context? There is no easy context. At least there is no context that genuinely allows you argue that trans folks should stop dressing as the gender they identify with. To be quite blunt, they are fulfilling the words of this verse anyway. If they identify as a man, they tend to dress as a man, it’s just that others project their own ideas onto what they think they should look like. When I was a child, because many of my relatives had been missionaries, people projected that idea on me, asking where I would go as a missionary! Other peoples expectations and projections can be both wrong and spiritually damaging – I can verify.
Back in Deuteronomy 22, the previous few verses talk about straying sheep or oxen, or what you do if you find a fallen animal. The verse after it is about what you do if you are hungry and find a bird’s nest. After verse 5 you have verses about making flat roofs safe, not mixing seeds when sowing in your fields, not mixing animal types (ox and donkey) when you are ploughing, not mixing wool and linen, but you must wear tassels. How many Christians have you seen wearing tassels? Bizarre! They happily discard this verse, but resolutely cling onto verse 5! Then verses 13 to 30 discuss various violations of marriage, and what happens if sex occurs outside marriage – usually it involves the death penalty. In addition, this chapter also requires that a rapist marries his victim (vv 28-29) with no chance of later divorce (even for the violated woman), and everyone – bar none, regards both concepts as unconscionable today. We simply say we can ignore that verse, so why not verse 5? Normally it is simple prejudice because the advocate looks to find a verse to despise the trans person.
Besides, if you still regard verse 5 as being in play, is it also wrong for actors to play characters of the opposite gender? Who’s been to a Christmas Pantomime? What about someone hiding their identity to escape from a brutal regime. How many Christmas services have had children playing across gender, because there were too many girls (boys) for the roles available? Many commentators today would say that the verse has something to do with the worship of Canaanite fertility gods where you might, at certain festivals, dress “differently”. That would also make a lot more sense as a prohibition. So, to say verse 5 is God speaking against trans people is to pull up a picture of a Jet ski without any background, instead of the classic masterpiece!
Hence, it is utterly wrong to assume that verse is dealing with trans issues, and, because we know that choosing to be trans is not a valid factor, we must look at what the rest of scripture talks about in how we treat others — and that is very different. There is love, compassion, generosity, provision, grace, and mercy — and I’ve not quoted them all!
How should we deal with Scripture?
So, now let’s begin painting the background before we look at the foreground.
A big element is that Scripture must be consistent with itself, and if the teaching in one passage seemingly contradicts the teaching in another, we should recognize the problems and ask questions. Right from my earliest days I have believed Scriptural teaching to be reliably consistent, but in recent years I have needed to ask many questions. I’ve then reassessed my understanding, and, providing this new understanding is still consistent with the Bible, I adapt how I read certain things, because it’s important to me that I can trust what I read.
In many places in the Bible, we have examples of God apparently commanding the ethnic cleansing of the nations around Israel. How are these pictures of God consistent with the God who is patient and compassionate, and who wants to, in the words of Jesus, “draw all people to myself”. I try and read Scripture through the lenses of what Jesus exemplified and taught, looking not just at the words, but behind them as well to see what the Spirit is saying.
Hence in my last blog, read it here if you haven’t already, I quote from John 3 and Micah 6, and I want to also quote from a few other passages as well in a moment. When we look at what have become known as the “Clobber passages” we MUST use the filter of all these other verses and ask whether what we are reading in these six or so verses, is consistent with the character, love, and mission of Jesus. If it is inconsistent, we need to dig much deeper, or even set aside our initial, and possibly superficial, understanding.
Desiring mercy, not sacrifice
The first passage I want to look at is in Hosea 6 where we have a verse that has echoes that Micah text (“And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”). Hosea 6 says:
6 For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.
Both Micah and Hosea are telling us that God wants spiritual integrity, not something where we simply go through the motions out of some sort of rite, or superstition. It doesn’t matter if you can’t match what the Law says you must do, just make sure your heart doesn’t lack integrity, that you are honest with God, and showing mercy and grace to those around you.
Jesus himself seems to have the Micah quote in mind when he says in Luke 11: 42 “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.”
Since 2013, I have been keeping to a programme of reading the Bible through from Genesis to Revelation, once every year (though I prefer to read it chronologically and not in Book order). As I write this, I am going through the Gospels, and I keep finding my attention drawn to passages from Matthew. So, my next reference is from Matthew 9: 12-13 where Jesus echoes that passage from Hosea 6:
12On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Jesus quotes that same passage from Hosea again in Matthew 12 (vv1-8), when he is walking through some fields and his disciples picked some corn heads to eat the grain. Jesus refers the grumpy Pharisees back to what their greatest king, David — and his men, had done when hungry. He also pointed out that priests regularly “desecrated” the Sabbath themselves as a part of their Priestly duty. They kill animals for sacrifice and handle the dead bodies. If the animal slips over — and we must assume that some will have struggled, the Priest will lift it back up. They also performed circumcision on the sabbath (see John 7: 22-23), and again this was work, but was viewed as part of their required duty. So, in verses 5-7 Matthew writes:
5 Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? 6 I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. 7 If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.
Note that in both places Jesus echoes that passage from Hosea 6, which as I said just now, has some similarities with the Micah 6 passage. This is a significant teaching of Jesus as he comes back to this several times. He is not saying you must dot all your i’s, and cross all your t’s, but must find ways to show mercy and grace. What Jesus is also saying here is that there were people he was talking to who regarded themselves as spiritually healthy, and He wasn’t there to waste His time with them. He was there to spend time with those who recognised they were in need. Those who thought they were righteous were needing Jesus every bit as much as the so-called sick — it’s just that they sadly didn’t recognize it.
Compassion
Just now we looked at Matthew 9, and later in that chapter we read: “36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” This outpouring of the heart of Jesus is repeated in Matthew 14:14; Matthew 15:32; Matthew 20:34; Mark 6:34; Mark 8:2, Getting the message yet? See how many times the word “compassion” is attributed to God in the Bible. Here’s a starter. Jesus himself uses it in His parable about the Prodigal Son in Luke 15 v 20:- “So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” The father in this parable is a picture of God.
This is the picture of God as He runs to welcome that brand new LGBTQ+ Christian to faith.
While you are doing Bible searches, checkout the contexts where you find the words “whoever” and “anyone”. We have already spoken about John 3, and these are some other passages that convey a similar message using inclusive language:
- Matthew 10: 32 “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven.”
- John 6: 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life.
- Romans 10: 9 “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
- John 10: 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”
- Matthew 10: 40 “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. 42 And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”
Are there any exceptions or caveats to the words “whoever”, or “anyone” there? No? So, how dare some Christians say that gay people cannot be saved! The language includes everyone who believes (good or bad!). They really need to go and learn from Jesus’ message in Matthew 9 – and understand it.
The Wedding Banquet
One more passage also appears in Matthew, and that is in chapter 22: 1-14 (and also Luke 14: 16-23). I haven’t quite got to this chapter in my daily Bible readings (though I probably will have by the time this is published!), but it was preached on in a recent Sunday service in common with many, whose churches also use the lectionary! I won’t reproduce the full text here but will summarize it. Click the link to read it.
Basically, this is the story that Jesus told of the wedding banquet, and how a king had invited lots of people to come, but they all refused. Indeed, some of his servants were killed when they went out with the good news, having intended to bring back to the feast, those who had been invited. In the end the king tells his servants to go out and bring back anyone they could find, and they [in verse 9] “gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.” Only those who rejected the invitation could not come, but whoever accepted the invitation, whether they were bad or good, were made welcome. Here I believe the term “bad” is a human descriptor, NOT the way God views them. God can and frequently does use those whom society rejects. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 1:26b-28, writes:
“Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him.”
God sees people in a very different way to church and society. Indeed, He will see them in a different way to me, and I need to continually grow and learn. He sees them by what they can do, not by what they can’t. He sees their potential, and where their heart is focused. He sees how far they will go in showing love to those around them. He sees whether people are being honest in what they say, or whether it is simply to look good.
Clobber passages
So, there is a lot more that can be said, but with all that in mind as a scene-setter, those are the glasses you need to wear when exploring the “Clobber passages”. The passages we’ll look at are:
- Genesis 1, 2 and 19,
- Leviticus 18:19-22 and 20:1-18,
- Romans 1,
- 1 Corinthians 6:9,
- 1 Timothy 1:9-10 and
- Jude 1: 7.
Obviously, I won’t complete that in this blog, but I’ll see whether we can at least deal with the Creation story, and then pick it up again next time starting with our old favourite, Sodom and Gomorrah.
One of the major obstacles I keep coming up against is the issues about how literally we should take the Bible. As I say in my essay: “I don’t hold to a literal Creation that occurred 6,000 years ago – to me, it now seems unjustifiable.* The fossil record along with rock ages, formations (including the time it takes to form rocks), erosion, together with the known time it takes to form stalagmites and stalactites in deep caves¤, would tend to kick that idea into the long grass.
In addition, when you look at stellar distances and how long it takes light and radiation to reach us from distant galaxies †, [it] just adds to the notion that this 4/5k-year timeframe before Jesus, is bonkers. My own thinking leads me to accept a God who creates, but not in the traditional limited scope. Recent scientific studies in our solar system, seem to be going in the direction of declaring that organic life existed on Venus, Mars, Titan, or on one of Jupiter’s moons in the past, which will be a game-changer to the once traditional Christian Creation model where created life can only exist on Earth, and no-where else.”
*I would probably now say I am happier to identify with the term Theistic Evolutionism, which is that God has guided evolution. I would also describe my general outlook from my earliest days, is that I tend to follow the principles of Occam’s Razor, even before I heard of William of Ockham, or knew where he kept his razor! 😊 According to this principle, when faced with multiple explanations or hypotheses, the one that is simplest is usually the best, or most preferable — until it can be proved otherwise.
¤ In 2010, I was on holiday in Brazil and was fortunate to be able to visit the Gruta Rei Do Mato caves (to read the text you’ll need to get your browser to translate it from the Portuguese – but enjoy the pictures, which are impressive, and just as I remember it.) near Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais. In these caves there are two columns called the Twin Towers which are over 12m high and first started forming well over 60 thousand years ago. The limestone that became the source for the stalagmites and stalactites must have formed millions of years before that. Then you have many other rock formations like the Grand Canyon, Alps, and Himalayas. When did they first start forming? How long ago was it the land masses squeezed each other so that rocks were pushed up and began to fold over, and then start to slowly erode?
† “There are 2 trillion galaxies by some measures, in the observable universe, but then you think [about just] one of those galaxies, the Milky Way, [and] our galaxy has 400 billion Suns, give or take, and it takes light around 100,000 years to cross it.” (Prof Brian Cox – BBC Sounds. “The Infinite Monkey’s Guide to … Infinity”. Released: 25th Oct 2023)
The Creation Stories
So, the Biblical book of Genesis starts with an explanation about how the Earth began, and how life first formed. It has two creation stories that differ from each other. For example, in the Genesis 1 text, Adam isn’t created until Day 6, whereas in the Genesis 2 account, man was created before the vegetation. In addition, light, day and night are created on the first day, but the Sun, Moon and stars aren’t created until Day 4. This is odd, because we only know what light and darkness is, from the presence of the Sun, Moon and stars! Neither story can ever be regarded as telling us literally and scientifically how it was formed, so will never appear in a reliable textbook, instead it is telling a very different narrative.
Genesis 1 focuses on God emphasizing His divine power and authority as the sole creator of the universe, whereas Genesis 2 places a greater emphasis on the creation of humans and their relationship with God and each other. Genesis 1 states humanity was made in the image of God, whilst chapter 2 talks of God’s intimate relationship with Adam, and Adam’s relationship with Eve. Both chapters convey the message of God’s role as the Creator, and the significance of humanity in God’s plan. These accounts complement each other in providing a fuller understanding of the creation narrative.
However, the problems arise because many people like to say that at creation “27 [ ] God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”… “31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”
By this they mean that God SOLELY made one male and one female and encouraged them to get on and breed like rabbits – well, “28 Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” Close enough! Sorry. Tongue firmly in cheek!
Here lies our problem, as I’ve talked about before. Non-affirming folk say that being trans or some aspect of gay or bi, isn’t part of God’s creation. Well, using the same rationale, neither is having white, yellow or black skin. We are obliged to think Adam would have a middle eastern skin tone because the Garden of Eden is frequently thought of as being somewhere around the Iraq/Saudi Arabia area, if it existed in a literal form. Also, if Adam and Eve were the molds or templates for everyone who followed, it’s likely that everyone alive today has a body part somewhere that doesn’t match that original template. I’ve previously written about us having different sizes of fingers, hands, toes, feet, bones, heads, noses, ears, eyes, brain sizes, lung capacity, – you know the list. We grow to different heights and widths! We have different eye-colours, we have different ideas of what tastes good. We have people who score highly on IQ tests and others who don’t. Use your imagination. If we MUST adhere to the Adam/Eve template, who are the damned, and who make the grade? Who decides? Prejudice rules!
Everything that makes me, me, will be different to some extent, to the man or woman sitting next to me or you. I have deliberately ignored diseases, because I don’t regard being LGBTQ+ as any type of disease or negative health condition, but simply as something as innocuous as you might be 3 inches taller, or shorter, than me, or have a different eye colour to me.
God – male or female?
One final thought. Both men and women are made in the image of God, yet I do not believe God has either a penis or a vagina. What would be the purpose? God, being intangible, doesn’t need to procreate or expel fluids. Is sexuality therefore that important to God? It seems the Bible is more interested in how we treat one another. Sexuality doesn’t make us more, or less, like God, but only defines us among people while we live here.
So, I personally believe it is badly flawed thinking to appeal to the creation story to back up an argument against those who identify as LGBTQ+, whether you take the story literally, or not.
My question for the non-affirming is how do you offer God’s mercy and grace in a way that can be easily experienced? People cannot stop being LGBTQ+, just like I can’t suddenly naturally grow taller overnight. As Matthew writes in chapter 11
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Definitely no hint there that God requires a change from being LGBTQ+ (that would be an impossible burden to carry) so get on and be the best LGBTQ+ Christian you can be!
Next time I hope to cover the story that always gets trotted out – the Sodom and Gomorrah story. If you want to get a heads up on what I’ll be covering you can find the story in Genesis 13-14; and 18-19. Most people focus just on chapters 18-19, but you also need to have in mind the background story. I’m hoping we might also get on to Leviticus, but we’ll see how it goes!
Changing Minds 