So far, we've discussed marriage as a precursor to discussing gay marriage. We found that the so-called biblical definition of marriage is actually many definitions of marriage - and definitions that most of us don't really believe or uphold as 21st century American Christians.
Next, we turned to biblical ideas on homosexuality, examining the Old Testament first. What we found is that one of the most cited texts on the issue, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, is not really about homosexuality at all. And the only texts that do speak to the issue are found in Leviticus, a code of laws that we are generally quick to dismiss, so it's curious when one law is singled out as still applicable today. Moreover, the ancient logic of sexuality is bound up in a hierarchy of male dominance - and female subservience - that modern Christians do not accept.
This brings us to the New Testament.
In this post, we'll turn to Paul's letter to the Romans. Then, in the next post, we'll look at Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.
Jesus, it should be noted, does not address the issue of same-sex relationships.
Romans 1.16-32
In the letter to the Romans, Paul starts out with his reason for writing, his solution to the problem of the human condition (salvation, the Gospel) and then builds a case for the problem itself (sin), before coming back to his solution in more depth.
The structure of Paul's letter is important to the issue of homosexuality. Paul first addresses the sin of the Gentiles and then, once he's lured his Jewish audience into looking down on the Gentiles, launches an attack on Jewish sinfulness. But there's a crucial difference: Jewish sinfulness does not, according to Paul, include sexuality.
Let me repeat, for this is an essential point: Paul condemns the Gentiles for their sexual sins, but the Jewish sins he lists are not sexual in nature. In other words, sexual sin seems to be a Gentile problem, related to idolatry, not a Jewish problem since the Jews worship the one true God. The implication is that, if we could only get rid of idolatry, then we'd get rid of sexual sin as well in the process. Paul does not make this argument explicitly, but it's implicit to the case he's making.
So let's look more in depth at his case against the Gentiles.
The Gentiles are without excuse because God is revealed in creation. They - the Gentiles - knew God, but then they exchanged the worship of God for worship of idols. He's talking about actual idols, monuments built in human and animal form.
The outcome is lust and passion, impurity of heart, the degrading of their bodies, and sexual immorality.
I want to emphasize the link Paul is making between idolatry and sexual sin. For him, there's a direct connection. Idolatry leads to sexual immorality.
Now, whatever we believe about homosexuality, I don't think that's it. I don't know anyone who would look at our gay brothers and sisters - and accuse them of idolatry, of explaining their sexuality by referencing idol worship. That's just not how we think. That's not a narrative we accept as true. Even those who hold to the sinfulness of homosexuality would not explain the sin with Paul's logic here.
And that's important because, if you want to use Paul's teaching to condemn homosexuality, then you have to accept his reasoning.
Let's review. So far, we've seen that sexual sin is, for Paul, a Gentile problem. More specifically, it's a Gentile problem that's directly tied to idol worship. And, unless we are ready to accept this logic, a logic that says that homosexuality is the outcome of Gentile idol worship, then we probably shouldn't use Romans 1 to argue against homosexuality.
Again, I'll repeat a point I made in the last post, the point I'm making is not that you can't make a case for the sinfulness of homosexuality, but rather that you can't use this passage to do so.
However, say you do accept Paul's logic. What then?
Well, there's a still a couple layers here to unpack: the issues of "passion" and "natural intercourse."
Paul says that "God gave them up to degrading passions," and then "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."
First, passion. In the Greco-Roman world, passion is a problem. Sometimes the solution is moderation, balance, keeping the passions in check; some passion is okay, but it can easily become a problem when you have too much. This is a common them in both philosophy and in medicine. But then you have the Stoics, who believed that passion itself was bad. The Stoics even went so far as to argue that you should have sex without passion, a position that Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7.1-9, seems to accept as well.
So, even if you accept Paul's logic of the connection between idolatry and
homosexuality, which I would argue is a stretch, you still have to deal with
his understanding of passion. And that's quite a stretch too.
But then you have Paul's understanding of "nature" and
"natural intercourse."
For Paul, mirroring the Old Testament view, there was a "natural"
hierarchy that went like this: God-male-female. When a man assumes the female
role (e.g., as penetrated), the natural and divine hierarchy was thrown into
flux. Male-male sex was "unnatural" because it upset the
"natural" hierarchy. Since most of us believe in the equality of men
and women, we don't accept the male-female hierarchy as natural, much less as
moral comprehensible.
Moreover, in 1 Corinthians 11.1-16, Paul writes that it is against nature (para physin, the same phrase he uses in Romans when discussing same-sex acts) for women to pray without covering their heads and that it is against nature for a man to have long hair.
What? Isn't it actually more natural for a man's hair to grow out? And isn't it more natural for a woman to not cover her head?
And so the point is that, when Paul talks about "nature," he includes customs and social norms in that category. But that definition of nature just won't cut it in today's world.
Thus, if you want to base your claim on Paul's appeal to nature, then you are forced to admit that you really don't mean biology, in which case you discredit your case.
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In closing, I'll repeat a claim that I've made throughout this series. I am in no way arguing that Paul would be in favor of homosexuality. Rather, my claim here is that you can't use Romans 1 to argue against same-sex relationships.
The broader point is that, so far, the Bible doesn't speak for or against homosexuality, especially as it applies to the marriage of two equal partners. Thus, if we are intellectually honest, we will admit that. Using the Bible to support your position is fine. Just don't claim that your position is the biblical one. Because it's not.
* * *
In our next post, we'll continue to look at the New Testament, this time digging in to the Greek words found in 1 Corinthians 6.
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