In the Presbyterian Church today, a very vocal group believes that gays and lesbians who make active use of the sexuality God has given them, are by that fact alone, sinful and that if unrepentant they should be barred from ordained leadership in the church. The vast majority of those persons base that opinion on what they believe the Bible says about homosexuality. In the battle over lesbians and gays in the church, that is the basic sticking point and until enough voting presbyters become convinced that the Bible does not support the exclusionary policy of the church, we are going to continue to be stuck in the present unpleasant and regrettable controversy.
The church appears to be the victim of two unfortunate cultural tendencies. First, the typical human fear of "the other" and a resulting bias against it leads many heterosexual persons into prejudice about even the very idea of persons of the same gender making love to each other. Second is the irrational treatment of the Bible as an unimpeachable source of wisdom and truth on any subject one wants to use it for. When these two predispositions are combined, the result is that people of otherwise good sense and fair mindedness arrive at what is for them a compelling opposition to homosexuality which they have no compunction about supporting with quotations from the Bible.
Last year I was struck mightily by the testimony of two of our well known social scientists who in separate interviews presented their homophobic views with great confidence and comfort on the basis of similar conclusions -- "After all it's in the Bible." I refer to Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott. But of course they were only following the commonly held notions of so many who revel in the convenient dodge such self serving comments allow. After all, the typical American citizen still considers that "if it is in the Bible, it must be so."
But what that usually means is that our citizen merely seeks biblical approval for a particular personal opinion or private notion. Among that typical citizenry a serious understanding of the distinctive nature of biblical literature simply does not exist. That leaves the average person with a pretty steep hill to climb when it comes to dealing with what the Bible says or does not say about same sex relationships.
It seems to me that we have two basic options when we examine the biblical material traditionally associated with homosexuality. The first approach is to study the half dozen or so passages purporting to deal with the subject very thoroughly and with all the exegetical tools available to us, but then honestly compare the results of that study with our contemporary understandings of homosexuality. In the other option, for the sake of simplifying the argument, we stipulate that the passages do deal with same sex relations but then consider honestly the extent to which the Bible is today as reliable a standard for private personal conduct as conservative folk continue to try to make it, albeit usually on a very selective basis. My own use of either of these options leads me to the conclusion that a biblical prohibition of what we observe today as same sex relations is entirely fallacious.
The best test I have found for exploring particular bible passages comes from the work of the biblical scholar Robin Scroggs in his book, *The New Testament and Homosexuality*. He maintains that, "Biblical passages may have meaning for us today, provided: 1. The biblical statement itself is consonant with the larger major theological and ethical judgments which lie at the heart of the scripture and the church's experience through the ages; and 2. In order to serve as a guide to life today, the context today must bear reasonable similarity to the context of the biblical statement at the time of its having been written." When each of the famous passages from Genesis 19; Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13; Judges 19:22, ff.; Deuteronomy 23:17-18; I Corinthians 6:9-10; I Timothy 1:9-10 and Romans I:26-27 are tested by the Scroggs formula they inevitably fail.
In my own experience in leading study groups in the church on what the Bible says -- or doesn't -- about same sex relationships, I developed two study tools which proved helpful as we worked through each passage. I present them here as illustrations of the kind of questions which need to be taken seriously when we consider what the Bible says, or doesn't about same sex relationships.
Having done that, it is then possible to make comparison between our conception of relationships and what the Bible is dealing with in a particular text. This exercise is intended to assist us in drawing honest conclusions about what the Bible says about relationships, whether they are homosexual or heterosexual.
I. Respectful Relationships:
A. Union: Loving, caring, mutually consenting adult relationships where there is monogamous sexual expression.
B. Dating: Exploratory relationships which develop within a continuum from initial tentativeness to possible eventual commitment but are essentially mutually consenting adult relationships and if a sexual expression is involved it is usually monogamous and is a step toward considering union.
II. Abusive Relationships:
A. Promiscuity: Less caring, serial relationships, often resulting in abuse of at least one partner.
B. Prostitution: Less mutuality to none at all, primarily the abuse of one person by the other.
C. Rape: No mutual consent; abuse clearly involved as an expression of violence rather than sex.
2. Does the word homosexuality itself appear in the original texts of the Bible? If not, what Greek and Hebrew words have been translated to refer to homosexuality and what did they mean at the time they were written. (Word study: *arsenokoitai* and *malakoi*.)
3. Where do references to female homosexuality occur in the Bible?
4. What is the model of homosexuality some biblical authors opposed?
5. What was the cultural context of their opposition?
6. Does the Bible deal with homosexual acts which are practiced by mutually consenting people with a same sex orientation? Or does it deal with homosexual acts practiced in a degrading way by heterosexual people?
7. If the Bible's references traditionally associated with homosexuality always deal with dehumanizing and abusive sexual practices, are not the nature of those practices the proper target of condemnation rather than same sex relationships themselves?
8. Is the Bible dealing at all with the subject of homosexuality in general?
9. Does the Bible deal with loving, caring adult relationships of mutuality between persons of the same gender?
10. Is there only one natural expression of human sexuality: heterosexual intercourse and that being for procreation?
11. If sex between two persons is also natural when mutual pleasure and a genuine expression of human love is involved and not just procreation, why should the consideration of naturalness deal with the gender of the partners?
12. With Christ's teaching about life so central for Christian belief patterns, what are his words on the subject of homosexuality? Was he not always quite vocal regarding what he opposed?
13. How do loving, faithful sexual relationships between persons of the same sex violate Jesus' teachings or what we know as the basic principles of the Bible?
(These two study tools were developed by Gene Huff for a class on "What the Bible Says About Homosexuality," March 1985.)