A response to 40 Questions asked of evangelical Christians who are now waving rainbow flags.
Growing up in an evangelical environment, I am still surprised by the flood of reactions to the decision of SCOTUS last week. I do not mean the flood of reactions of my LGBT friends who are celebrating what they consider as a recognition of their equality as citizens and by extension as human beings, but the deluge of blogs, post and reactions of Christian celebrities to the decision. One of the latest reactions appearing in my timeline is a post in which evangelicals who dared to add the celebratory rainbow-filter to their facebook profiles are called to account. How dare they? What follows here is my commentary on the post, partly for those who might be feel challenged in the face of the interrogation. Perhaps it is wise to issue a cynic-warning for those with weak stomachs.
I will proceed to quote the text and give a response: Pastor Kevin's text in black, mine in red. (Unless I got lost somewhere in my rant, which is quite possible... ;-) )
“For
evangelicals who lament last Friday’s Supreme Court decision, it’s been a hard
few days. (I can understand this, but can you also
undertand the hard days, no years of LGBTs inside and outside your churches who
have often been exposed to years of being treated as second class citizens,
often having to listen to the harsh rhetoric of preachers who rather enjoy the
Amens to their bold statements on the issue than consider the effect of these
on the minority for whom this is not an issue that is out there, but part of
who they are.) We aren’t asking for emotional pity, nor do I suspect
many people are eager to give us any. Our pain is not sacred. (You could have fooled me.) Making legal and
theological decisions based on what makes people feel better is part of what
got us into this mess in the first place. (Not sure I
understand what the author refers to, but nevertheless). Nevertheless,
it still hurts.There are many reasons for our lamentation, from fear that religious liberties will be taken away to worries about social ostracism and cultural marginalization. (If evangelicals do not want to be marginalized, they need to stop retreating into the safety of their own little worlds from whence they send the occasional raiding party with banners, posters and preachers with megaphones to ‘evangelize’ ‘the world” by means of mediocre attempts to shout their message in a language no-one any longer understands or relate to. If evangelicals do not want to be marginalize, they need to engage in those issues that interest society in an intelligible way. That means they will need to accept that phrases like ‘because the Bible says so’ or using arguments based on fear and fantasy will not get them anywhere. They will also need to be willing to get to know people outside their own world and accept that morality is not the exclusive possession of evangelical Christians. The best way to prevent ostracism is to give people the chance to really get to know who you really are. One of the sad things of how this debate has developed is that the association most secular people have when they think about Christians is that Christians are dumb superstitious bigots. Insisting that Christians are doing all of this shouting and lamenting because of their high consideration for marriage while many of their preachers are with wife number three, shouting that the world is coming to an end because of gay-marriage while God did not seem to destroy America even when it had institutionalized slavery, and connecting gay-marriage to natural disasters, do not really ad to the credibility, do they? Try to image for a few moments that you are not an evangelical Christian, how would you feel and react to the way evangelicals behave in this debate?
But of all the things that grieve us, perhaps what’s been most difficult is seeing some of our friends, some of our family members, and some of the folks we’ve sat next to in church giving their hearty “Amen” to a practice we still think is a sin and a decision we think is bad for our country. It’s one thing for the whole nation to throw a party we can’t in good conscience attend. It’s quite another to look around for friendly faces to remind us we’re not alone and then find that they are out there jamming on the dance floor. We thought the rainbow was God’s sign (Gen. 9:8-17). LGBT’s chose the rainbow as a sign because they like diversity. For many of them the rainbow is a sign that there is hope for them. And a place in society. It is a choice between a black-white God, a man-and-wife God, and a God who could perhaps make all daisies individually, each one with its own distinctive nature, even though most may look similar to the quick observer.
If you consider yourself a Bible-believing Christian, a follower of Jesus whose chief aim is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, there are important questions I hope you will consider before picking up your flag and cheering on the sexual revolution. (The whole sexual revolution thing is a bit of a dangerous argument. Anyone using anticonception, be that the Pill or condoms, are in essence not only partaking in the discoveries that made the sexual revolution possible, but also accepting one of the outcomes of the sexual revolution, seeing sex as something to enjoy, without the potential of conceiving children.) These questions aren’t meant to be snarky or merely rhetorical. (Again, reading some of the questions, you could have fooled me…) They are sincere, if pointed, questions that I hope will cause my brothers and sisters with the new rainbow themed avatars to slow down and think about the flag you’re flying. (This does not come across as an inquiry. The author is not so much interested in learning from others or even dialoguing with them, he just wants them to reconsider their support. This do put the questions squarely in the rhetorical category, I am afraid, so we need to reconsider the sentence about the questions as being a rhetorical device. So do not be too offended if the response is rhetorical….)
1. How long have you believed that gay marriage is something to be celebrated?
Hard to say. I would say probably between 7 and 5 years. My support grew with the years, as my reading of the Bible developed and as I got to know gay couples and noticed no difference in the degree of love and tenderness which I admired in straight couples.
2. What Bible verses led you to change your mind?
Well, the whole Bible actually, but you are asking for
verses, so here are a few that played an important role.:
Paul’s letter to the Romans – all of it, including Romans 1:18-3:20 and 11:24 and 13:8-10.
Genesis 1 -3
Paul’s letter to the Romans – all of it, including Romans 1:18-3:20 and 11:24 and 13:8-10.
Genesis 1 -3
Genesis 18-19
3. How would you make a positive case from Scripture that sexual activity between two persons of the same sex is a blessing to be celebrated?
How do you make a positive case for driving a car, wearing glasses? In my opinion making a case for anything from the Bible is a bit of a dangerous thing, because we tend to read the answers to OUR questions in the answers to questions that may have sounded similar, but often are not because they were asked in a different time with different issues dominating the consciences and challenging the unity of believers at that time. Unless we can agree on a few basic assumptions about how to read scripture in a healthy way, quoting a few verses are pointless, if not in danger of abusing scripture for our purposes.
4. What verses would you use to show that a marriage between two persons of the same sex can adequately depict Christ and the church?
Christ is male (at least in all the iconography he has a beard), about half of the church is male, I don’t see the problem. ;-)
5. Do you think Jesus would have been okay with homosexual behavior between consenting adults in a committed relationship?
Okay, so we are starting to play the guess and guilt game. Let me ask a few questions in return to this one. Do you think Jesus would be okay with us spending money on nice church buildings, two cars, brand clothing, holidays at a beach resort while there are people going to bed hungry tonight? (I wanted to mention the private planes of celebrity pastors, but as long as it is labelled ‘for the spreading of the word’ it is a bit off limits, so I won’t). I do sometimes wonder if Jesus would be okay with some of the harsh words spoken about LGBT’s, and some of the hate and veiled racism aimed at the president of the US, but perhaps he would. He did say some pretty harsh things about people himself, but then again they were mostly all very religious and thought they were doing pretty well, so now I am getting more and more confused. And what would he have said about our treatment of refugees and immigrants (Mexico, Eritrea etc?) The chocolate we eat? Our clothes made in factories where people sweat for hours to be paid a wage they can hardly live on? If homosexuality was such a great disaster, why didn’t Jesus say something clear about it? Wouldn’t it be great if the gospels contained a story of a gay guy that became straight? Would have cleared things up a bit, wouldn’t it? And while we are at it, why didn’t Jesus just told people straight away to stop keeping slaves, and that the earth was round an revolved around the sun. Would have saved Galileo’s ass and spare successive pontiffs a lot of embarrassment. But back to what would Jesus say question. I think the ‘What would Jesus say’ question works best if one ask oneself the question. What would Jesus think of the way I am acting? When it is asked of someone else, it usually ends up in an attempt to remove the speck from someone else’s eye while ignoring the forest in our own. I wonder if Jesus would have been okay with that. Not too sure though.
6. If so, why did he reassert the Genesis definition of marriage as being one man and one woman?
Wait a minute, Jesus reasserted that marriage is between a man and a woman? As far as I can remember the question Jesus responded to was not: Jesus, tell us, do you think two guys can get hitched? As far as I remember Jesus was asked what he thought of divorce. In typical rabbinical fashion (you really should read the Talmud, to appreciate the way Jesus used scripture) Jesus responded to say that a man was not allowed to divorce his wife. (Leaving the interesting equality parts of the story on the side for now, isn’t it reading too much of the current issue into both the words of Jesus then and the initial verse in Genesis? What is the point of the Genesis verse? That it has to be two people of a different gender, or is the point rather faithfulness and exclusivity? The idea that sex and family should not be casual thing, but something imbedded in a faithful commitment? And let’s be honest, I do not hear anyone in church lobbying to only allow divorce in special instances, are you? So much for the sanctity of marriage and all the other rhetoric about families…
7. When Jesus spoke against porneia what sins do you think he was forbidding?
Your guess is as good as mine. And your fantasies are probably better.
O yes and just a side note Jesus probably never used the word porneia. Porneia is a Greek word, and Jesus probably spoke Aramaic, so hanging a whole decision on a dictionary definition of what porneia would include, or better still, going the way of the root fallacy is not answering all the questions….
8. If some homosexual behavior is acceptable, how do you understand the sinful “exchange” Paul highlights in Romans 1?
It may be very interesting to look at how Paul plays with the idea of exchange in Romans 1. Have you ever done that? And considered his rhetorical point as part of Romans 1 to 3? I would encourage you to do so….
9. Do you believe that passages like 1 Corinthians 6:9 and Revelation 21:8 teach that sexual immorality can keep you out of heaven?
Again one of those yes-no questions, sounding more like an advocate trying to coerce a witness into a trap. No room here to discuss the ideas of heaven in these texts etc. But back to the sexual immorality thing. I thought the idea of gay-marriage was to ask of gay people the same we ask of straight people, being faithful to one partner, if they do that, the sexual immorality issue is irrelevant right? Or are you drawing a hastily conclusion from the translation of the word arsenekoites in 1 Cor. 6:9? You should really read what Jack Rogers wrote about it.
10. What sexual sins do you think they were referring to?
Just give me your list. As I said, your fantasy is probably better than mine.
11. As you think about the long history of the church and the near universal disapproval of same-sex sexual activity, what do you think you understand about the Bible that Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and Luther failed to grasp?
Hmm…so what did they all actually write about sexual activity? You really studied it? I must admit I am not too sure. I know that some of them like Augustine was not all too positive about any kind of sexual activity, irrespective of the sex, pardon gender of the participants. And that Luther also wrote some very anti-semitic things, but I am digressing.
12. What arguments would you use to explain to Christians in Africa, Asia, and South America that their understanding of homosexuality is biblically incorrect and your new understanding of homosexuality is not culturally conditioned?
Maybe the missionaries who taught them? (You should really look into some of the ways some of these cultures dealt with same sex relationships before we taught them to wear dresses that covered their bodies from neck to ankles in temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius.
Also very interesting to examine the case of Uganda, and the role of evangelical Christians in promoting a climate of hate against LGBT’s that even led to laws to enforce the death penalty. What is your view on that? Is that the type of godly government you would rather want in the West?
13. Do you think Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were motivated by personal animus and bigotry when they, for almost all of their lives, defined marriage as a covenant relationship between one man and one woman?
I really don’t know. Perhaps they were honest. Perhaps they changed their mind. What do you think motives the viewpoints of Jeb Bush, Donald Trump and the rest of the Republican circus?
14. Do you think children do best with a mother and a father?
I think children do best with love. There are plenty of children with abusive mothers or fathers that would probably be better off with a single mom or dad, or two moms and two dads. Or their grandparents.
15. If not, what research would you point to in support of that conclusion?
I would point to no research without also pointing to who funded it.
16. If yes, does the church or the state have any role to play in promoting or privileging the arrangement that puts children with a mom and a dad?
I think it is good if everybody try to do what is best for the children, considering each case on its own merit, and in fairness. I do not really trust a instances with too much of political stake and a made up mind on the issue to do that though….
17. Does the end and purpose of marriage point to something more than an adult’s emotional and sexual fulfillment?
What? Could you explain what answer you wanted to hear with this question?
18. How would you define marriage?
Two people who promised to love and cherish each other above all others, till they are parted by death. .
19. Do you think close family members should be allowed to get married?
WTF? Where did this question get smuggled in, I thought it was about SSM. What’s wrong with you people? Got fantasies you need to talk about?
20. Should marriage be limited to only two people?
I thought my definition in 18 was clear….
21. On what basis, if any, would you prevent consenting adults of any relation and of any number from getting married?
This is getting tiresome….
22. Should there be an age requirement in this country for obtaining a marriage license?
I thought we had that already, we don’t?
23. Does equality entail that anyone wanting to be married should be able to have any meaningful relationship defined as marriage?
Read my answer to 18, dumbass…
24. If not, why not?
No further comment…
25. Should your brothers and sisters in Christ who disagree with homosexual practice be allowed to exercise their religious beliefs without fear of punishment, retribution, or coercion?
Yes, as long as they don’t break any laws and harm people physically or mentally.
26. Will you speak up for your fellow Christians when their jobs, their accreditation, their reputation, and their freedoms are threatened because of this issue?
Unless they are being daft, I certainly will. I am not a monster you know….
27. Will you speak out against shaming and bullying of all kinds, whether against gays and lesbians or against Evangelicals and Catholics?
I certainly hope that I will always do that. I hope you would do the same, and consider what the rhetoric on this issue is doing to LGBTS in church.
28. Since the evangelical church has often failed to take unbiblical divorces and other sexual sins seriously, what steps will you take to ensure that gay marriages are healthy and accord with Scriptural principles?
I will try to listen, love and work on being a better example….
29. Should gay couples in open relationships be subject to church discipline?
A church should treat their gay and straight couples in the same way in all instances. That is what equality is about.
30. Is it a sin for LGBT persons to engage in sexual activity outside of marriage?
See the answer to question 28.
31. What will open and affirming churches do to speak prophetically against divorce, fornication, pornography, and adultery wherever they are found?
Affirming churches should do everything to help their members to live healthy christlike lives, free from anything that harms or hinders people to fully love God and their fellow humans.
32. If “love wins,” how would you define love?
1 Corinthians 13.
33. What verses would you use to establish that definition?
See 32.
34. How should obedience to God’s commands shape our understanding of love?
See Romans 13:8-10.
35. Do you believe it is possible to love someone and disagree with important decisions they make?
Yes, but it is also very good to ask oneself if oneliners like ; loving the sinner, hating the sin are not cheap cop-outs of confronting one’s own sin instead of that of others. (The beam and speck thing again).
36. If supporting gay marriage is a change for you, has anything else changed in your understanding of faith?
Certainly. Didn’t anything change in your understanding of faith?
37. As an evangelical, how has your support for gay marriage helped you become more passionate about traditional evangelical distinctives like a focus on being born again, the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross, the total trustworthiness of the Bible, and the urgent need to evangelize the lost?
Hmmm…I thought being evangelical was not being traditional. Has evangelicalism become institutionalized?
38. What open and affirming churches would you point to where people are being converted to orthodox Christianity, sinners are being warned of judgment and called to repentance, and missionaries are being sent out to plant churches among unreached peoples?
Whoah, you have a nasty list of things that define an orthodox church. Sounds like a strong dose of Neo-Calvinism ). I rather prefer the list of Jesus in Luke 4:18ff. Good news to the poor etc. I do not know too many ‘affirming churches as you call them. In fact the only one I heve ever been to is a little congregation in Newcastle England. I was doing an internship there for three months. It was a very busy stressful time in my life. They had a service on a Sunday night with about thirty to forty people attending. I went there after a weekend of preparing lessons. That hour and a half every weak was my only real moment of rest. For the first time in years I could listen to Hillsongs without feeling the irritation and hurt at everything evangelical. It felt like coming home. I wish I had a church like that in my home city.
39. Do you hope to be more committed to the church, more committed to Christ, and more committed to the Scriptures in the years ahead?
See question 38.
40. When Paul at the end of Romans 1 rebukes “those who practice such things” and those who “give approval to those who practice them,” what sins do you think he has in mind?
Glad you ask. I have wrestled with these verses for some years in my own journey. Nevertheless I will try to make my answer concise. I suggest that first of all you read the whole letter of Romans as one document. Pay attention to the role of Jews and Gentiles in the treatise and how Paul seem to switch between addressing these groups. Pay attention to theme of unity and acceptance between these two groups. The issues at stake then were hot potatoes: should non-Jewish Christians keep the Jewish law with regard to things like circumcision, keeping the sabbath, food laws etc. At least for some of these things Jews had a lot scriptures to support their view. They also had the slippery slope argument. If you do not require Gentie converts to keep the law, next thing they will commit all sorts of sexual immorality. They knew enough examples of masters who used their slaves, both male and female for sexual pleasure. How does Paul respond to this culture war in church? Paul’s theological argument runs from 1:18 to the end of chapter 11. The basis of this argument is that neither Gentiles nor Jews have any reason to be proud and to look down on each other.
So do not stop reading at Romans 1:32, but also read 2:1 and further. The list of things Paul refer to include shocking ‘sins’ like murder and ‘smaller sins’ like gossip. I think Paul does this on purpose. In chapter 1 he echoes a common view Jews had about non-Jews, connecting the worship of idols to everything that Jews saw as the sins of the Gentiles. A similar line of thinking can be found in the Wisdom of Solomon, a Jewish treatise from about the same period. Paul, however does not stop where Wisdom of Solomon stops, in pointing at the sins of the Gentiles. He subverts this line of thinking by including ‘lesser’ sins in his list and then telling his Jewish readers that they are no better than their Gentile fellow men. He first shows them they are all equally rotten before celebrating the grace of God in Christ and calling them to bear with one another in love, even though they have different opinions.
What then is Paul to us today? We could use Rom. 1:24-27 to answer our question on same sex marriage. The question is whether we do justice to the rhetoric of Paul and social circumstances regarding homo-erotic behaviour of the time. I have done some study on it and I think not, but others have a different opinion, which I want to respect, in the hope that they will allow me the same favour. I think that we can benefit more by looking not at a few verses to answer our question, but taking to heart the attitude of Paul in his letter to the Romans. He pleaded for allowing each other a difference of opinion, and loving each other – Rom. 14-15. I hope I can stick it out.
Food for thought, I hope. At the very least, something to chew on before swallowing everything the world and Facebook put on our plate.
Chew I did, even though it was a bit of a though meal. And raw. To those who have read this far I will admit that I gave some very stupid answers. But that is what you get when as stupid questions.
