Homosexuality

John Dwyer is a gay Episcopal priest who is married to another man. Dwyer’s book is a valuable survey of the revisionist interpretations of Genesis 19, Judges 19, Leviticus 18 and 20, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, and 1 Timothy 1. Dwyer makes no original contributions and produces his survey of the texts on a five-step process:

1. The biblical authors know nothing of loving, monogamous same-sex relationships. Rather, sex was about power, lust and violence that stemmed from a society that devalued women.
2. Sexual relationships in the 21^st century are different.
3. The biblical authors cannot have a Jewish worldview informed by the Tanakh, they are influenced by secular culture.
4. In the passage’s context, the text is really about something else. This is typically done by only a cursory examination of the Scripture.
5. Therefore, these passages are inapplicable for loving, monogamous same-sex relationships today.

Rather than provide a detailed look at how Dwyer handles each text, I’ll examine how he handles Genesis 19. His behavior here is a representative sample of what he does with each text. Dwyer says the following:

Wesley Hill is a same-sex attracted (“SSA”) Christian who is committed to celibacy. In this fine book, he makes many good points in an odd way. Reading his book is like speaking to someone who learned English abroad; he’s fluent but he’s not a native! Hill challenges the reader to re-imagine real Christian friendship. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, one cannot help but suspect Hill wants friendship as a substitute for a romantic relationship.¹

He denigrates marriage by claiming it cannot fulfill all its promises. Hill asks us to imagine what friendship could be like if it ceased to be “casual,” and became committed.² Unfortunately, Hill struggles to marshal Scripture to support his theology of robust friendship; certainly not at the expense of marriage. The passages he does cite are rarely substantive or not didactically about friendship at all (Prov 17:17, 18:24; Ruth 1; David and Jonathan; Jn 11:3, 15:13), or are otherwise desperate (Lk 23:26). His best discussion is Mk 3:32-35 and the implications of Christian brotherhood and sisterhood. However, it is doubtful Mk 3 can bear all the freight Hill wishes it to.

In their 2015 book Transforming Homosexuality: What the Bible Says About Sexual Orientation and Change, Denny Burk and Heath Lambert present “ten exhortations on how we might love our same-sex–attracted neighbors better than we have.”¹

1. Be a friend

And by that, we mean be a real friend. Don’t make changing your same-sex–attracted neighbor a condition of your friendship. A friend loves at all times, And a brother is born for adversity. (Prov. 17:17 NASB)

2. Listen

Your same-sex–attracted neighbor may have a story to tell, and you need to hear it. Not just for his sake, but for yours. There is nothing better to wipe away erroneous caricatures than to listen to someone else’s story. Listening does not equal approving an unbiblical ideology. It just means that you care and are open to learning. He who gives an answer before he hears, It is folly and shame to him. (Prov. 18:13 NASB)

Debate over whether there can be such a thing as a “gay Christian” has raged for a while now, and it’s not going away anytime soon. Much of the conflict is over deeply incompatible views on the authority of Scripture, and the right basic approach to interpreting it. Some of the conflict, though, might not be necessary at all—because it arises from a combination of unclear language and slightly (but consequentially) faulty interpretation.

If we could clear some of this up, we’ll relate the Bible better to the times we live in and—as much as possible—avoid sending the wrong message. Three principles may help.

1. Scripture doesn’t condemn anyone for an “orientation.”

The currently popular idea of sexual orientation as a person’s unalterable sexual wiring has no equivalent in Scripture. Many of us doubt that orientation, in this sense, is even a thing. That aside, what’s clear is that the Bible nowhere judges anyone for unbidden feelings of attraction toward those of their own sex rather than (or in addition to) those of the opposite sex.

Some passages may seem to do that.