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Short answer – “No”. That will make this the shortest blog ever!
But we need to answer the question properly.
This month I wanted to respond to two stories hitting the news pages, one on either side of the Atlantic. As I’m based in the UK I’ll deal with the UK one first. The story I wanted to take a look at was the appointment of the new (gay) Archbishop of Wales. I’m a little uncomfortable about adding those parentheses, because they shouldn’t be necessary, but we are where we are.
On the 30th July, Cherry Vann who has served as the Bishop of Monmouth for the past five years, was chosen as the Archbishop of Wales. This is a good news story in that not only is it a woman that has been elected, but that she is in a long-term gay relationship (30 years), and was elected, securing a two-thirds majority vote of the Electoral College. To get a two-thirds majority in the current climate is very significant, where the feeling has been that there has been a hardening of positions in the last year. It has been interesting to read many of the press statements announcing the news of her appointment. Clearly many are just repeating the press briefing from the Church of Wales, which simply talks about her previous jobs and how other bishops think she is the best person for the job, but others have obviously done the hard research work themselves. No comment is made about her partner – which is really as it should be, but nevertheless this is a significant moment for the LGBTQ+ community. The stress has been on the job that needs doing in Wales, and how the role that she has performed in Monmouth needs to be expanded across the whole of Wales.
Since her election, the very conservative GAFCON (The Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans) have unsurprisingly criticised her appointment. Dr Laurent Mbanda, chairman of GAFCON and Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Rwanda, said the church had “bowed to worldly pressure that subverts God’s good word“. GAFCON is a signicant group of Anglican church leaders that broke away from the church in 2008, following the appointment of Gene Robinson, who was the first openly gay bishop of the Anglican Church, which, in the US is known as the Episcopalian Church.
Additional criticism has come from Anglican church leaders in Pakistan who expressed their “deep concern and grief” over her appointment which they believe, “contradicts the teachings of the Bible on which the unity of believers worldwide is supposed to rest”.
The second story I wanted to look at this month has a link, in that it is the way the Bible is (mis-)understood, and that was one centred on the US. In June 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), decided that in the case of Obergefell vs. Hodges, marriage was a constitutional right for all US citizens. Following that, also in 2015, a small-time clerk in a place called Rowan County in Kentucky refused to issue marriage licences to queer couples, because she believed it would contravene her Christian understanding that marriage could only be between a man and a woman. (Adulterers, thieves, idolators, drunkards – fine, so long as it’s male/female! But see 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11; 1 Timothy 1: 8-12. Slight inconsistency I think!)
Her name was (and is!) Kim Davis, and long story, short (for a change) she was found guilty in 2022 of violating the constitutional rights of a queer couple by refusing to give them a marriage licence, and fined about £333,000 in UK money, for the couple’s expenses and legal fees. She is now filing an appeal to SCOTUS, because she contends that the original SCOTUS decision was egregiously wrong, deeply damaging, far outside the bound of any reasonable interpretation of the various constitutional provisions to which it vaguely pointed. Whilst some commentators say that the original decision is settled law, there is the potential that given the direction of travel in this anti-Christian administration, SCOTUS might decide to accept the case and change its original decision. This would mean that queer couples would no longer be able to marry in every State, constitutionally. This WOULDN’T be the end of gay marriage in the US, but it would depend on the law in each individual state, so you would probably see most Republican states banning gay marriage and most Democrat states allowing it. Those queer couples already married since the initial ruling would be “grandfathered”, meaning they would remain married. Although the Trumpian leadership is opposed to gay marriage, within the populace it still has popular appeal, so SCOTUS may decide not to take the appeal. So, if you are a gay/queer couple thinking of marrying in a State that does not itself support it, this is deeply worrying.
If you as a reader live in the UK, I perhaps need to give some geographical context here. In simple terms, 31 of the 50 states are bigger than England which is slightly bigger than 50k square miles, so if you are queer and live in a state likely to refuse gay marriage, it’d be a huge decision to uproot and go to a different state, especially as the next state over, may also be anti LGBTQ+, and maybe the one after that – depending on direction! So it’d be like moving from the UK to Europe – not impossible at all, but a big decision.
I’ve dealt with this a few times before but not for a while so it’s worth doing a refresh, but what is the Biblical problem in being gay or queer? Our primary source should be Jesus. Going back to probably when I was in my twenties, it was popular to ask: “What would Jesus do?” You could buy wrist bands and the like, with WWJD as a reminder, and today the tat is as grim as it ever was! However, it is probably better to ask, what would Jesus say? Surprisingly, he said absolutely nothing while on earth. We know he would have come across those who we would today label as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning and all the rest, but he simply doesn’t address the issue because it wasn’t relevant within the culture. Marriage wasn’t so much about love, but who the family had arranged for you. Remember Jesus’ mum was betrothed to Joseph at an early age. Love might come later.
It is wrong to suppose Jesus didn’t meet people like this because documents pottery, paintings and sculptures portray all of these identities going back thousands of years before Jesus. If being lesbian or gay was such an abhorrence to Jesus, surely one of the Gospel writers would have recorded an incident of Jesus forgiving and healing someone who we would identify as LGBTQ+. But there is nothing obvious to be seen. However, there is one very tenuous possible example where Jesus heals a servant “dearly beloved” by his centurion. The story is told in Matthew 8:5–13 and Luke 7:1–10. At its heart, the passage emphasizes the centurion’s extraordinary faith and Jesus’ authority to heal with just a word. Whereas Luke uses the Greek word “doulos” (coupled with dear) which has the straightforward understanding of slave/servant, Matthew uses the much more flexible “pais” which can mean boy, son, servant, or even a younger male companion. Some scholars note that pais could sometimes be used in contexts of intimate or even sexual relationships between an older man and a younger male in Greco-Roman society. I have dealt with pederasty a few times before and don’t want to get too sidetracked here. We’re sure to come back to that some other time. Anyway, I’m cautious about making too much of the word “pais”, but it’s significant that Matthew uses the word which has a deeper emotional content. So, let’s just say, there may be an LGBTQ angle, or there may not, and that he was simply a servant who was dearly loved.
One of the strange and irritating angles about the current typical Christian attitude towards those who identify as LGBTQ+ is that Christians in general are looking for ways to exclude people from God’s Kingdom, which is in diametric opposition to the teachings of both Jesus and the Bible. Jesus spent his time with those that the “church” of his day rejected. He spent time with society’s rejects (tax collectors, sex workers, fishermen, etc. He taught everyone from the pharisees to the beggars on the street. He healed the sick, whether they were a slave, centurion, leader of a synagogue, fisherman’s mum, leper, children, a woman who had some sort of haemorrhaging issue, the blind, and to top it all he raised people from the dead. Jesus looks to find by whatever means were possible, ways to attract people to His Kingdom. He does not look for ways to exclude people, though some people exclude themselves because they think they’ve got it completely sussed – they don’t need Him and reject his teaching. “17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’” (Mark 2: 17)
Paul made a point of saying everyone has an equal worth in the sight of God. If you have been working as a church leader for many years you are no more valuable to God than a person who decided to follow Jesus five minutes ago: “28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3: 28)
This isn’t just a New Testament idea, as Micah writes in Chapter 4: 6 The Lord says, “At that time, I will bring back to me the crippled. I will bring back to Jerusalem those who were sent away. I will bring back to me those who were hurt. 7 I will keep alive those who were crippled. I will make a strong nation of those who were sent away.” Not the nice people, the clever people, but those who have been rejected.
Last time I mentioned the fact that the word “whoever” appears many times in the Gospels. Go back and check the Blog if you need to. “Whoever” is an inclusive word, so why is it that so many Christians don’t believe the words they read? They end up saying that sinners can’t be included, but didn’t we just read that Jesus did “not come to call the righteous, but sinners”? Oops! I know I personally haven’t done well dealing with sin, and have to keep coming back to God to ask for yet more forgiveness. So, do some Christians think their sin is not as bad as other folks? There is some blind arrogance there. Whether my sin is great or small it still breaks my relationship with God, and I need to come back and ask for forgiveness. Oh, and by the way, I am not saying that being LGBTQ+ is a sin, it is not – whichever of the LGBTQ+ flags you identify with and wrap yourself in, does not make you a sinner. You don’t choose to be who you are. You choose to sin, you choose to steal, to be violent, to commit adultery (and that applies within the LGBTQ+ community as well if you have a committed relationship with a partner), to be greedy, and all the rest – you do not choose your identity. Being condemned for being trans, gay or queer is like being sent to hell because you have ginger hair! It’s ridiculous.
So, let’s have a very brief overview of the so-called “Clobber” passages of the Old and New Testaments. For a much more detailed look at the issues, download my essay that I wrote mainly between 2015 and 2017, but made further updates till around 2020. You’ll find it on the Download pages of the website. One day I’ll need to rewrite it, but I don’t have enough time or motivation right now. I’ll run through the main passages quoted against the LGBTQ+ community in the order they appear in the Bible
The first passage that tends to be used is Genesis 1: 27, which says: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” So, the argument goes that as he created “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”, he didn’t create gay people. It’s a rather simplistic argument, in that we are led to believe that every person born must be either exactly like Adam, or exactly like Eve – no other options are available. Adam and Eve are likely to have looked like a modern day Middle Eastern couple. The argument goes that because being gay, queer, trans, or whatever, was not part of the template image that resulted in Adam, it is a disease that needs healing, or a sin that must be repented.
Problem: I am white man; Adam was a shade of brown. Using the flawed logic, all white-skinned people (or anyone not Middle Eastern!) do not match the Adam Template and are therefore an abomination. In addition, we all have different sized hands, feet, arms, legs, body shapes and sizes. Why do clothing stores need such a wide range of clothing and shoes? Furthermore, I’ll try and be careful, but the same is true for our genitals – whether male or female, sizes and shapes differ. Our brains are also fantastically different from each other: different IQ’s, interests and hobbies, we visualise things differently as I mentioned in a blog last November. Some people are resistant from birth to viruses and illnesses; others have varying levels of resistance. My gut microbiome will be different to my wife’s, although we live together, and probably almost everyone around me. Why are some people interested in collecting stamps or coins or reading science fiction, or history, or competing in, or watching a sport (some people love one sport and hate another!), or… If we all matched the original Adam Template wouldn’t the world be boring? So, it is plain scientific nonsense to say there can be an infinite variety of physical and character facets, but strictly only either male or female with no crossover. It’s errant nonsense.
Another problem with the literalist understanding of the creation story is that there are two versions – in Genesis 1 & 2, and they are different to each other. Adam and Eve are created on Day 6 in chapter 1, but in chapter 2 they are created very early on before any rain came and before vegetation is created – the description sounds like wet and muddy! So which version do you discard? 😉 From now on assume I say at the end of each section “the essay I mentioned earlier has far more detail in each chapter”!
Genesis 14, 18-19
The first of the proper so-called “Clobber” passages is the Sodom and Gomorrah story which you really must read in Genesis chapters 14, 18-19. Genesis 14 provides the context. Many people from Sodom, including Lot, Abraham’s nephew, had been captured following a battle, and Abraham and his fighting men ride after the invaders, routing them and freeing the captives. Some time later God appears to Abraham and tells him he’ll destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham pleads for the cities, bartering God down, eventually agreeing that if ten righteous people are found, he would spare the cities. So already the punishment has been decided, well before the perceived crime that Christian leaders get excited about, has been committed. Besides when God is chatting to Abraham, the sense is that God is punishing them for what they had already done, and what they were doing right now. So that raises questions.
In chapter 19 the two angels go to Sodom. Lot sees them and invites them to stay at his house. They accept. Lot was offering hospitality in line with convention. He himself was only a fairly recent resident, and the problem may have been that as a relative newbie who was entertaining strangers, it might have looked very suspicious given it was “shortly” after the battle where so many people were captured. Was Lot in cahoots and plotting with enemy spies? We are not told what the people were thinking.
We are told in Genesis 19 v 4: “Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house.” Lots of problems here. Later, in verse 12, we read the angels asked: “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, 13 because we are going to destroy this place.” Lot says yes and goes to find his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. Bit awkward, shouldn’t they be outside the house, and also, if they had been, how would they feel with Lot offering his daughters to the crowd a short time before? I thought we had just been told that “all the men from every part of the city” were outside Lot’s door. Clearly the sons-in-law were unaware of what had gone down because they laughed at Lot’s news that the city was to be destroyed. And if the sons in law weren’t outside the house, presumably others weren’t either. Was life going on as normal in other parts of the city? Was it simply a large group of men that in our culture, would have been coming home, half‑cut, from the pub having seen the visitors arrive earlier, and got their suspicions worked up over a few pints?
Getting back on track, Lot tries to appease the men battering on the door wanting to have sex with the visitors, by offering his daughters. Ignoring the obvious offensive idea of being willing to offer your own daughters, if this was a rabidly gay mob, offering women is frankly stupid if they are only attracted to men. Lot knew what was going on, and it was nothing to do with homosexuality. This is a story about violent rape used to exert dominance, and we hear stories of this happening in prisons today, as a method of showing power.
There are more angles so don’t be afraid of asking questions. One final nail in the coffin is an identical story which has equally devastating results and can be found in Judges 19-21. In your own time, compare and contrast it. I’m sure you’ll agree when you read both stories you’ll realise that the story of Sodom is not about homosexuality, but violent rape. This is sexual violence and is utterly unacceptable whether gay or straight and has nothing to say against monogamous and loving homosexual relationships.
The final point to make here, is that the story we have read, only involves Sodom, but the disaster involved Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, and possibly other small villages. Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim were not involved in the attempted rape of the angels, so why were they destroyed? Ezekiel 16 explains that Jerusalem and Samaria were far worse than Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, yet Jerusalem was not wiped off the earth. Instead, Ezekiel explains that “49 ‘“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.” Verse 51 goes on to say “Samaria did not commit half the sins you did. You have done more detestable things than they”. At no point in Biblical history is there any allusion to there being homosexual crime in Jerusalem, yet Jerusalem (capital of Judah) was twice as depraved as Samaria (capital of Israel) and they were both far worse than Sodom.
The verses are very similar and say: ‘“Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.” The second verse add the penalty that if you do, you must be killed. I have linked the full chapters in each case. Firstly, very few Christians adhere to the idea that we should follow the laws of Moses (other than when they can be applied to people they don’t approve of). Jesus came to do away with the penalty of the Mosaic Law. Jeremiah told his audience that the law would be done away with and that “‘This is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel after that time,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” It is not about following rules but, as Micah says, “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
No reasonable person advocates for the death penalty these days, and it’d be troubling if people were put to death for adultery or cursing their mother or father. The Leviticus 18: 22 passage comes after the switch from talking about unacceptable family sexual relationships to that of not allowing children to be sacrificed to Moloch. And the fact that we don’t have a clear context within which this law was to be applied makes it very unsafe. We do know there was a lot of cultic sexuality involved within the Canaanite worship of Ba’al and Asherah, and it is highly likely to be linked to that.
Deuteronomy 22: “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.” This is the Evangelicals go-to verse when they want to attack the trans person. However it is a pretext for prejudice, and you know that “a verse without a context, is a pretext for a prooftext.” For context, (skim?) read the whole chapter. Verse 5 is a verse without any context at all. It’s between a verse about what you do if a neighbour’s donkey or ox has fallen, and what you do if you find a bird’s nest beside the road. You cannot/must not use this verse against a trans person. No-one has any idea what the issue was Moses was addressing, and as we have said, the verse, in the context of Jesus, no longer has any power. Is it okay for actors to dress as another gender – if not, goodbye Christmas Panto’s? What about someone escaping from a country that would torture you if you were caught? If I identify as a woman and God can see into my heart and know how and why I feel as I do, is that okay? Don’t forget that there are studies in the last ten years that have demonstrated that brain scans of trans people show their results differed significantly from cisgendered persons. The science is new, but research shows that many brain structures in transgender individuals shift toward characteristics of their gender identity rather than assigned sex at birth—both before and especially after hormone therapy.
I have never heard a preacher teach that verses 28 and 29 are okay! There MUST be consistency if you insist that one law is applied, you have to do the same with all the others. Jesus taught that laws can be set aside if people are helped by setting aside the law. See Matthew 12: 1-13.
We now move to the New Testament, and Paul writes in chapter 1 verses 26 and 27: 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.” At first glance that sounds like a slam-dunk against the gay person, but what is the context? Well, the key verse 26 starts with “Because of this…”, so we need to look at the previous paragraph to see what caused this. Interestingly, the previous paragraph starts with “Therefore”, so we need to go back further and see what the word “Therefore” was there for!
In the end we need to start at verse 18 and through verse 21 and on into verse 23: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people … For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him … and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.” What the passage is saying is that people who may at one time have believed in God, then rejected Him and turned to worshipping idols, and from the wording, probably got involved with orgiastic sex possibly fuelled by drink and drugs (yes, they had drugs way back then!), and God gave them over to their depravities. The behaviour may have included homosexual sex, but it is not that of two loving and caring people, but of those who are only interested in being utterly focussed on themselves and their own gratification. In addition, this is likely to have been heterosexual people engaging in homosexual sex. The vices in verses 28-30 cannot have anything to do with gay people, and in that context may not be used. These people Paul is describing are idol worshippers who are exceptionally debauched – using whatever metric you choose, but they are not gay.
1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1
I’m taking these two passages (1 Corinthians 6: 9-11; 1 Timothy 1: 8-12) together as they can be tackled in one go, and fairly quickly. The 1 Corinthians passage says: “9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” The 1 Timothy passage is similar, but not the same, so click the link to view both.
If you look at the two vice lists there are two things that all the other activities have in common, that homosexuality doesn’t: 1) People can choose to change; 2) Others are being harmed by the activity being condemned.
The homosexuality we think of today does no harm to either person, and when both love and respect each other, their relationship mutually builds up both. So, if people cannot choose whether to be gay or not, the correct response is to ask whether the translators have used the right word. One alternative might be that Paul was addressing pederasty, which was common in his day and is where an older male takes a younger male to teach him the social mores. One could easily see the damage being done to the younger male, of an unwanted and unsolicited sexual relationship.
That verse 11 that says “And that is what some of you were” has been the source of many Christians thinking gay people can be healed or forgiven, but with our understanding today it makes far more sense if it were referring to something like pederasty, pimping or sex trafficking, because those are things you can choose to stop.
Jude
Jude 1: 6-8: – 6 And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling–these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. 7 In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. 8 In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings.
To quote from my essay: … this is the only passage that alludes to the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah as being sexual in nature [but not necessarily homosexual]. All the other passages, as we have seen, refer to other sins, indeed Deuteronomy, in two places, indicates it was due to Idolatry. Deuteronomy was written around 1400BC probably about 650 years after the destruction of Sodom, whereas Jude was written between AD 65 and AD 80 [2100 years after the destruction]. Jude was addressing a church that had received an influx of early Gnostics who were teaching that since God’s grace forgave them their sin, they were free to sin as much as they liked because God’s grace would cover all their sin. Jude makes good use of pseudographical books: in this section, that of “I Enoch,” and later, the “Assumption of Moses”, neither of which were included either as part of the canon of Scripture or the Apocrypha. With that as a background, although Jude uses the term ‘sexual immorality and perversion’ there is no real clue what he was talking about. Even within a heterosexual environment, ‘sexual immorality and perversion’ can easily be labels for certain behaviour (consider group sex, or a “swingers party”, which for a Christian would be unacceptable, and there are plenty of other behaviours, that could be given this label), so no case can be made for an anti‑homosexual based stance.
As I have said repeatedly, I have written about this in a lot more detail in my original essay which you can download here, but this is just intended to encourage you to ask questions and explore what the Bible really says. As you can see the Bible doesn’t condemn any part of the LGBTQ+ community – it’s misguided people that do that.
Changing Minds 