Dear Jerri, #9

Dear Jerri, 

For the last two weeks we have looked at how the prophetic, intertestamental, and New Testament writers spoke about the destruction of Sodom (and sometimes Gomorrah). The story of Sodom – an attempted gang rape of two visitors to the city – is a horrific story of extreme wickedness and utter destruction. The reason I have looked at how other biblical stories make reference to Sodom is not to minimize the wickedness or the destruction, but to show that there are differences regarding what, exactly, the wickedness of Sodom was. From what I can tell, when other biblical writers make reference to the story of Sodom, they do not make a connection between Sodom and same-sex sexual activity. That is something that the English language and many churches do, not the Scriptures themselves. 

This week, I want to look at Romans chapter one. It seems that any time the issue of homosexuality has arisen in a Presbytery meeting (a meeting of local church representatives), someone will get up and quote Romans 1:26-27. Sometimes they will quote a few verses more on one side or the other of these two verses, but these two verses are at the heart of the reading: 

For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. 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. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. 

That is a very difficult text for gay and lesbian persons and their allies to hear in the context of a church discussion regarding the rightness or wrongness of same-sex relationships. But, let me be clear what I mean by that. To the extent that a biblical text is painful to hear because it convicts us of our sin or challenges our point of view, then so be it. I don’t like to hear “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Reign of God” – especially when I return from a developing country and remember how excessively wealthy we are in the US. Again, so be it. In that case, I would assume that the problem lies with me, not the Scripture. So, on the one hand, if I don’t like what Paul says in Romans simply because I disagree with it, then so be it. That’s my challenge. 

On the other hand, for someone to read these Scriptures asthe open-and-shut case against each and all same-sex relationsis painful because it is offensive. Disciplined students of the Scriptures know that in order to take the Scriptures seriously – and not just to use them to further our purposes – we have to allow the Scriptures to speak for themselves by reading them within their literary context and not taking them “out of context.” To imply that Paul is talking about conscientious, faithful persons in a committed, covenantal relationship in Romans 1 is simply false. 

The topic in this section of Romans 1 is idolatry. Particularly, Paul is speaking of a way that people (this is plural, communal language) exchange the glory of the immortal God to serve and worship of something mortal, such as humans or animals. We cannot overstate the effects of a people who live as if there is no God. Paul agrees with the consistent witness of the Old Testament in believing that the absence of God would mean there is no punishment for wrong, no reward for right, no motivation for ethical action beyond what pleases us and no sense of justice beyond “might makes right.” Idolatry is high stakes sinfulness, because it denies any ultimate, transcendent value or arc to life. For Paul, reflecting his training in the Hebrew Bible, idolatry makes us less than human, because humanity is created in the image and likeness of the divine, not the other way around. 

Within this worship and service of the creature and not the creator, the idolatry Paul describes is a religious way of degrading God andhumanity, including all things sexual. And as people exchanged the immortal for the mortal, God gave them up “in the lust of their hearts” to where they degraded themselves and exchanged their natural sexual proclivities for what is unnatural to them. But that’s not all. They further spiraled downward into all kinds of evil, including: Envy, murder, strife, deceit, insolence, gossip, haughtiness, rebelling against their parents, and being hateful, heartless, and ruthless. Aside from murder, we tend to give a lot of these evils a wrist slap at the most. Paul says they are outgrowths of idolatry, where God and humanity have been debased among us. 

I beg anyone who cites Romans 1:26-27 to please honor what Paul is truly saying, by keeping this larger description in mind. The topic is idolatry and its effects. To exchange the immortal God for a mortal replacement has enormous effects that devastate the human mind, human desires, and human community. These devastating effects of idolatry are serious matters. And Rome, with its worship of Caesars and human violence, was chock full of the worst effects of idolatry.

However, there is one place here where I believe those who disagree over what the Scriptures teach about same-sex relations can have a fruitful conversation. Paul clearly sees a difference between “natural” and “unnatural” sexual intercourse. What is not so clear is whether he is speaking of an individual’s own “natural” proclivity or whether he is speaking out of what might be called a “natural theology” perspective, where there is only one kind of sexual intercourse that is “natural” for all creatures and everything else is unnatural. I don’t know if any of us can read Paul’s mind on that question. Still, it could be a productive question to discuss because in exploring what Paul might be thinking, we could also uncover questions about ourselves that could be mutually beneficial. Do I, should I, operate out of a “natural theology” set of assumptions? Do I, should I, think a problematic text indicates a problem on my part or the text’s part? Am I, ought I be, willing to let a text convince me of something when my heart feels otherwise? To me, this is how the church ought to be gathering around our differences: Letting our differing perspectives of the Scriptures reveal how God is at work among us. We can do that if we cultivate a context of mutual trust and support, not of fighting to win the day. 

Next week we’ll look at this text a little more. Until then, God be with you.