MetaCatholic

At this point in my short series on those texts most frequently quoted in the fight over the place of gay people in the church, it seems worth pausing to take stock. I have looked at:

• Some of the questions with which we might approach the texts
• The levitical legal texts
• Two OT narratives: the dominant narrative of Sodom and the subsidiary narrative of the Levite at Gibeah
• The vice lists of 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy
• The place of same-sex activity in Paul’s narrative of the fall in Romans.

Although very few things are clear in this debate (which is one reason it is so acrimonious) it does seem to me (at least) to be clear that whenever there is a reference in Scripture to same-sex sexual activity, it is a negative reference. It is not so clear whether this reference is only to male same-sex activity, or to all same-sex activity. I noted that there may be some reason to think that in his reference to the unnatural behaviour of women (Rom 1:26) Paul is actually making a reference to the story of “the sons of God” and “the daughters of men” in Genesis 6, as he tells a particular Jewish narrative of the disordering of creation.

There are, arising from the limited nature of the texts themselves, problems about what we do as readers and interpreters. The texts of Leviticus are embedded in a system of purity embracing the whole ordering of life, about which even the most conservative of Christians are selective, on the basis of their understanding of the gospel. The mainline of biblical intertextual interpretation of the Sodom narrative does not focus on the sexual element in the story, although it can’t be suppressed. The vice lists are too stereotypical to represent theological reflection, yet at the same time their reflexive nature, not expecting significant disagreement, shows we are dealing with an almost axiomatic ethical response in the Jewish tradition, which may also be part of what attracts Gentile admirers. The condemnation of same-sex activity does not seem to be controversial in the circles to which the letters are sent. Finally, in Romans, while Paul embeds what he is saying in a larger Jewish narrative of creation and fall, same-sex activity is portrayed (probably as a reference to the Sodom story) as a consequence of the world’s disordering, but the sins which Paul lists specifically as deserving of death in the world that results from this fall include a wide range of sins, but, intriguingly no sexual ones at all among them.

What then, do readers and interpreters do with these texts which have only recently come to be seen as problematic, as in many places the social scripts and frameworks that made them seem obvious have fallen away, and exposed their more difficult nature? (I need to note that I am only focussing here on our own late modern Western culture, not because I wish to ignore others, but in order to keep my focus manageable.) I want to suggest that the range of responses being argued about among Christians can be placed on a spectrum. At one end are those who simply quote the text – often the levitical text –and say without further ado, “This is what the Bible says”. It is an easy position for atheists to mock by asking questions about mixed fabrics and shellfish. It is also easy to accuse those who hold it of homophobia, and in my experience, in at least some cases that accusation has merit. At the other end of the spectrum are those who simply say “The Bible is just out-of-date on this question: we know more and better today.” It is an easy position for conservative Christians to mock as unbelieving and unfaithful: another gospel. Again, in my view, there are at least some instances when that accusation has merit.

In between these two extremes, however, is a fairly wide range of perspectives that draw on several broader biblical themes, as they seek to adjudicate between the Tradition’s reading of Scripture and fresher scriptural and theological understandings of creation, humanity and sexuality, that are informed by modern rather than Aristotelian science, and that pose difficult questions for that traditional reading. Indeed, in referring to sexuality, one of those modern concepts is often automatically introduced into the debate. I have tried quite hard to avoid using the term “homosexuality” and its cognates in looking at these specific texts, because it is anachronistic: a modern term that when initially coined typed same-sex behaviour as a medical condition, and more recently has come to type it as an aspect of personality and identity. In that sense, the Bible has nothing in it about “homosexuality” since it is a concept alien to the writers of scripture. Even if, say, first century Graeco-Roman culture knew of men who preferred sex with other men as a permanent disposition, it did not (could not) categorise them as homosexual. How the interpreter negotiates their reading of the text is bound up with how they negotiate their reading of the cultures ancient and modern. How does the understanding of the former relate to the understanding of the latter, as we stand in one reading a text written in the other? Does the different conceptualisation make any real difference to the reading of the text?

That interpretation will, however, not simply be influenced by such things as reading the text, or contemporary scientific understandings of sexuality, and sound objective reasoning based on them. It will be influenced (perhaps far more) by the realities of experience. Straight people who are instinctively homophobic, and gay people who are unable to come to terms with their same sex attractions will bring heavy emotional baggage to a conservative reading of the text. Gay people who enjoy a sexual relationship that they experience as loving, affirming, and healthy, and people who have gay friends, children or parents whom they love dearly living in such relationships, will have a strong personal investment in a liberal reading of the text. People who describe themselves as ex-gay or post-gay (especially if a move from a homosexually active existence to either a homosexually restrained or heterosexually active one was understood as part of their conversion or deeper discipling) will have a significant part of their Christian identity tied up in conservative readings of the text. People who have been unsuccessfully through an ex- or post-gay programme may find themselves particularly hostile to conservative views. These are just examples of some of the ways in which entirely non-theological factors may affect or determine the theological reading of the text. It is not unreasonable to exercise a hermeneutic of suspicion all round, including one’s own interpretation.

In mentioning the category of ex- or post-gay, I realise I tread on controversial territory. Admitting or denying the existence of such people is taken by some as a litmus test of whether one’s views are sound. It seems to me, however, that part of the respect for people that I have asked for from all those who comment, includes respectful listening to how people describe themselves and their experience. People are people, and it would be surprising if we were simply able to put ourselves into a few neatly defined boxes. While there is a considerable amount of evidence to suggest that most people’s sexual orientation is fixed from an early age (at least), there is enough evidence to suggest that this is not true of everybody. What we are seeking is a better theological understanding of what God’s calling for all people is, and what a faithful following of that calling might be as it touches on our sexual lives, gay, straight and in-between. If we are to be faithful to God, we need to be honest with all the evidence, not just that which serves a line of argument.

As I try to take this question of interpretation forward, I offer the analogy of the optician. I have often sat in the chair as different lenses, or combinations of lenses were tried. Sometimes it was obvious that this or that lens brought the letters into sharper focus or made them more blurred; sometimes I had to ask the optician to repeat the change, and was quite unsure whether I could see any difference at all. In subsequent posts I think I will be trying to do something similar, taking this or that biblical theme or text from elsewhere, and asking whether it helps us see things more clearly. Again, at this stage I am not mounting an argument for a particular view, but trying to explore ways in which we might ask the questions more profitably.

(This post is one of a series exploring the Scripture texts dealing with same-sex sexual activity. Earlier posts are listed at the end of this article.)

And so we come to Romans, which has increasingly become the key text in the ongoing quarrel. I think there are two reasons for this. The primary one is that it does appear to relate the question to a broader theological canvas than any of the other references. The secondary one, I suspect, has something to do with the iconic status of Romans as Paul’s gospel within traditional evangelical circles (of the sort that get very upset with Tom Wright and the New Perspective).

Exactly how one assesses this particular reference in Romans, then, will probably have some significance for one’s understanding. Those who continue to hold to Romans as a comprehensive Pauline theology of salvation, the Bible’s own book of systematic theology, will be inclined to give more weight to this as a major piece of teaching on homosexuality. Those who see Romans in the same way as all Paul’s other letters, responding to a particular situation, may or may not consider this a major piece of teaching, but will at least want to consider it in the overall context of the letter and it’s argument.

I place myself among the latter group, a conclusion I came to a long time ago, and entirely without reference to this particular passage. I was considering the very different chapter 13 initially, and later chapters 9-11. Those latter passages have a far greater complicity in any history of oppression and violence, especially against Jewish people, than the brief remarks in Romans have ever had against gay people, but it is a reminder that people use texts, and indeed abuse them, often as a means of using and abusing people. It is why I ask commenters to be careful in what they say here. In the end, we are talking about God and people, not texts, even when the text is our primary conversation partner.

There are quite a few competing arguments about Romans, its situation, reasons, and the exact pattern of its argument. I think Romans is written to a very specific situation in Rome, where there are significant divisions between Jew and Gentile Christians. I think Paul both wants to secure a welcome for himself as a character some saw as divisive, and to encourage them to mend the breach. In the opening chapters he is keen to get both sides to agree that in fact all, Gentile and Jew alike, have sinned. He first expounds a common view of Gentile sinfulness from a Jewish perspective, then a typical Gentile criticism of Jewish hypocrisy. Both of these are examples of a rhetorical device – speech-in-character (prosopopeia). They serve to get heads nodding in agreement first on one side, then on the other, until both have been led together to the conclusion that “there is no-one righteous, no, not one” (Rom 3:10). From this point Paul is able to introduce Jesus as the pattern of faithfulness to death which both reverses this sinful pattern and provides the means of atonement for it. (Rom 3:25)

On this analysis, Paul’s words on homosexuality are part of what is presented as a typical Jewish attack on Gentile morality.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

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. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die– yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them. (Romans 1:18-32)

This is certainly painted on a larger canvas than previous denunciations we’ve looked at, yet its nature as speech-in-character, and its place in the argument of the letter means that it must be recognisable as commonplace, not as startlingly original Pauline theology. There is, however, nothing to show that Paul wouldn’t share this prosopopeic critique; indeed, there is good reason to suppose that he would hold pretty much the same view as his rhetorical Jewish character.

The passage (and this is one good reason for assuming Paul chose his speech-in-character carefully and to mesh with his broader theological picture) locates itself in a narrative of creation and rebellion, at the heart of which lies idolatry. There are many recognisable parallels between what Paul writes here and Wisdom 13-14 and this is the core of the shared analysis: idolatry, which leads to degrading, unnatural and wicked behaviour. One possibility is that Paul may be alluding to two stories in his treatment of what is unnatural (Rom 1:26 “against nature” = τὴν παρὰ φύσιν). I suspect that behind the accusation against the women is the story of the Nephilim in Genesis 6 where there is a mingling of angels and women. Likewise, I wonder whether the story of Sodom is behind what Paul says about men: otherwise it is a little hard to see what he means in context by “the due penalty for their error”. This would, unlike OT interpretations of the Sodom story, align Paul with Jude 6-7, which also seems to combine the two stories in close proximity. Paul is more explicit than Jude in linking this behaviour to a disordering of God’s creation, presumably a part of what he later refers to as its having been made subject to futility (Rom 8:20). The sexual disordering, however, is a consequence of the primary disordering, which is worshipping the created (idols) instead of the Creator (God). It is as much as anything a sign of human estrangement from God.

I enter a note of caution about Paul’s terminology of natural and unnatural, because I think we assume too readily that he means what we mean, and that what we mean is obvious. But perceptions about what is natural are often quite strongly cultural in their shape. Paul is not simply mounting an argument from biology. Note the way he can say, for example, “Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him?” (1 Cor 11:14). But long hair is biologically normal, even if men lose it more easily than women. It takes cultural intervention to provide men with short hair. “Nature” is quite a complex word, and we need to be very cautious in assuming we know exactly what Paul means by it. I am not convinced it adds anything significant to his more theological perspective on the disordering of creation.

Perhaps one of the oddest things about the passage (and another reason for thinking Paul has these “past events” in mind is that the sexually unnatural behaviour, symptomatic of the disordering of creation, seems to fall between the primal sin of idolatry, and the everyday sins of humanity, where Paul’s list, oddly, includes no sexual sins. “They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.” If you haven’t ever committed even one of those sins, please leave your name in the comments.

Where then does this leave us?

• Paul’s treatment of same-sex activity doesn’t belong in any straightforward way to his list of sins, It belongs primarily to his narrative of how creation became disordered.
• Paul’s whole argument in the first half of Romans, into which this speech-in-character fits well, is that the whole of creation is disordered, and is being re-ordered in and through Christ.
• Exploring that context of order and disorder, creation and recreation in Christ, offers perhaps the most fruitful way forward, and picks up on a concern I’ve noted in looking at some of the other texts.
• Whatever else Paul is saying, he has influenced the whole Christian tradition in ways which are generally supported by our perceptions of life. The way the world is is not the way it is meant to be. It is deeply problematic simply to read off from where we are or what we are, and say “this is how God made me”.
• Given that Paul sees same-sex behaviour as a consequence of idolatry, it is hard to imagine how he might respond to the idea of same-sex activity between those who on every other index except this one appear to be faithful Christians.
• Despite the fact that there is more theological context here, it is not a context dealing with same-sex behaviour, which is part of the argument, not the point of the argument. Thus this is not Paul’s creative and considered pastoral theology. It is, if you like, part of his theological hinterland, which as his missionary and pastoral context calls for, he can either draw upon, and drastically reshape around the Christocentric core of his gospel. It is, I suggest, more a case of “Paul thinks” than “Paul teaches”.
• Paul’s oft quoted words in the context of this discussion “those who practice such things deserve to die – yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them”are in fact applicable only by implication to the sexual behaviours he references, and directly to a wide range of sins including being gossips, slanderers, haughty, boastful, heartless, ruthless and many more. See why I told you to be nice in the comments!

I will attempt in a subsequent post to pull some threads together and see where we go next, but in my view this text does offer a more significant contribution towards exploring what it means to be caught up in a disordered creation which God is drawing into a new Christ-ordered one. Nonetheless, I find it poses more questions than answers, and we need to consider further some of the biblical, theological and pastoral themes that might help us explore those questions.

Previous posts in this series are:

• Gay questions to straight answers
• Texts of Queer Terror (1)
• The stranger angel: texts of queer terror (2)
• Queerly unclear vice lists.

I have been in two minds whether to continue with the series looking at the texts most often deployed in discussions, arguments and battles over the potential re-evaluation of Christian teaching on same sex relationships. Partly this is because there promise to be more interesting engagements such as that Mike Higton is currently starting, Partly it is the sense of futility of picking over the field of a battleground long since scavenged for treasure. Partly it is a sense of not really knowing what to do with two of the New Testament texts. I will (if I stay the course) come to Romans in a subsequent post. Here are 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and 1 Timothy 1:8-11 from the NRSV.

Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it legitimately. This means understanding that the law is laid down not for the innocent but for the lawless and disobedient, for the godless and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their father or mother, for murderers, fornicators, sodomites, slave traders, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me. (1 Timothy 1:8-11)

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers– none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)

I will get to the gory detail, but it seems to me that we need to note that these are lists, and the rhetorical effect of a list is not normally the drawing of detailed attention to any one listed vice, but to make a more general point. In the case of 1 Timothy there is very little context to appreciate the general point. It stands between an abrupt opening dealing with false teachers, and a section dealing with Paul’s conversion from his own sin as a persecutor, interestingly also characterised in an ethically generic way as being “a man of violence”. What we seem to have is a list of sins which appear to blur Torah into secular law, and associate the offences listed with false teaching.

Even so, one must doubt that any of the false teachers the letter has in view were so easily distinguishable: no community will regard as a teacher that most heinous of offenders in the Roman world, the parricide. It would be foolish to assume any human community didn’t have liars in it, and even more foolish given all our experience, to assume that in any ecclesiastical dispute there would not be some on both sides who would simply accuse the other of lying! So the list ranges between sins it is highly unlikely anyone has committed, to those some (many?) have almost certainly committed. The most that can be said with certainty about the list overall is that a range of sinful behaviour is associated with false teaching, and this recitation is followed by the example of a man famously rescued from both false teaching (blasphemy) and unethical behaviour (a man of violence) by the mercy of God.

It seems to me that the same is likely in the vice-list from 1 Corinthians. In so far as there is evidence of fornication, adultery, greed and drunkenness at least, around in Corinth, it seems to be going on the present and not the past. Yet “this is what some of you used to be” seems to suggest otherwise. It has long seems to me that the most likely interpretation of this list is that it is a typical piece of Jewish characterisation of the Gentiles, and what Paul is saying is, effectively, “some of you used to be Gentile sinners but you were converted – now leave your old life behind.” The list again does not mean that there was at least one of each type of sinner within the Corinthian church, just that this is Paul’s characterisation of their way of life. The bulk of the letter attests to the way in which both some of these types of behaviour were in fact not only past but present, and for all except a particular and difficult case of apparent incest, Paul seeks to cajole and argue them into changed behaviour, rather than casting them out.

Embedded within both lists as one of these “typical” sorts of sinner, is the one the NRSV chooses to translate as “sodomites” – ἀρσενοκοῖται (arsenokoitai). As far as I can see, whether reading conservative authors like Robert Gagnon, or liberal ones like Dale Martin, in the end what we think this word means is a best guess. The argument from etymology (not one I normally like) is, in the absence of better arguments from usage, something to which we have to give more weight. That etymology indicates something like “those (men) who go to bed with men”. It seems to me quite likely that it’s a made up word, possibly within Jewish or Christian circles (based on the language the Greek Bible used to translate Leviticus), and probably as a term of abuse. Since the first use of the word we know about is in these lists, and much of its subsequent usage is also in lists, we don’t have much help in finding out whether it had a precise or a general meaning. It could have a very broad context, and include a wide range of sexual activity between men. It could have a much narrower context, whether in the context of allowing oneself to be a passive partner, the abuse of a slave, rape or the “educational relationships” between men and boys, or something else. The point about a best guess is that we don’t know. Most of the English translations not only make it sound as though we know.

I haven’t said anything about the other word sometimes enlisted in the argument. That malakoi (μαλακοί) means “soft ones” or “the effeminate” is fairly clear. However, since effeminacy could also mean anything from being far too interested in women’s company, and dressing up to seduce them, through cowardice, to being a man willing to be penetrated by another and so on and so on, we need more context to know how to translate it here. It could just as easily be paired with the preceding adulterers (μοιχοί) as the following arsenokoitai (ἀρσενοκοῖται.) It is better, probably, to look for a neutral and inclusive term such as the NJB’s “the self-indulgent” than risk being wrongly specific.

This is where it is important to remember just how much interpretation goes into reading and translation. If “the Bible said” what the NET says: “The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, passive homosexual partners, practicing homosexuals, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, the verbally abusive, and swindlers will not inherit the kingdom of God” – if that was the text, we might all know better where we stood. But it does not, and there is far too much interpretation in such a translation. It is this sort of sure and certain over-interpretation which raises a suspicion (however unjustified) of other influences affecting the reading.

In short, I find that these texts have comparatively little to say. Some form of not entirely clear sexual activity between men is listed in two vice lists, one aimed at distinguishing the behaviour of pre-conversion Gentiles from the life that fits the kingdom of God, the other at distinguishing the sort of sinful behaviour that might characterise false teachers. Both lists appear to be associated with what one can be redeemed from. But whatever the behaviour is, the writer(s) of these vice lists take(s) it as axiomatic that it is wrong, and seriously wrong at that. But in my view that’s part of the problem. There’s no hint of theological reflection at all, so we have no idea why they’re saying what they’re saying about whatever form of sexual activity between men they have in view. We’re not quite sure precisely what is condemned, and we’ve no idea why, not on the basis of these texts. We are however, pretty sure it’s condemned. That makes the task of faithful interpretation more difficult than is often admitted.

Previous posts in this series are:
Gay questions to straight answers
Texts of Queer Terror (1)
The stranger angel: texts of queer terror (2)

Note that the previous posts in this series (asking for moderation and courtesy in the comments) are:
Gay questions to straight answers
Texts of Queer Terror (1)

This may only be early days, but I’m already half-wishing I hadn’t started this series ruminating on some of the texts most regularly deployed (sometimes in full armour) in discussions about the appropriate forms of discipleship for gay Christians. Part of my trepidation comes from the fact that today’s text is the story of Sodom, and I have by now a long history of frustration with those who casually equate a story of forceful rape with any kind of loving relationship between adults, purely (impurely?) on the basis of the gender of those involved. Partly it comes from the way in which I am trying to ruminate on and engage with the texts, and some of those who are commenting are treating this as an argument in which I am simply making a case for something. I am trying very hard not to do that yet, since marshalling the texts in battle order risks suppressing significant nuances and questions in order to score points. Partly it comes from the ways in which discussing these questions doesn’t seem to do justice to the way in which, in the end we are talking about people, perhaps friends, perhaps relatives, perhaps ourselves. Partly my anxiety comes from the fact that (you may chose not to believe this) I genuinely don’t know exactly where this rumination will end up. Even if I have some broad directions in mind, I haven’t really worked out how to resolve what look to me like conflicts between some of my principles. This is an uncomfortable, but I hope helpful (not least to me) way of thinking out loud where friends and others can drop in on the conversation.

After that rambling and semi-confessional introduction, I will try to get to grips with the story of which I quote only the beginning, before the visitors rescue Lot and bring about the destruction of the city.

The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and bowed down with his face to the ground. He said, “Please, my lords, turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you can rise early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the square.” But he urged them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house; and he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; and they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.” Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” (Genesis 19:1-8)

It follows hard on the heels of another story of angelic and divine visitation, as three strangers visit Abraham and receive model hospitality. In return, God reveals his plans for the destruction of Sodom to Abraham, and the two haggle over what might be enough to make God hold back his destruction. The wickedness of Sodom, first introduced in Gen 13:13, is again introduced by God. The nature of the wickedness is unspecified, but it is particularly bad. The way in which the townsmen of Sodom respond to the angels is not, in itself, their appalling wickedness, though it is no doubt presented as the strongest examples of their corruption. But how exactly are we to understand the value judgements of the narrator in this portrayal?

The immediate juxtaposition of Abraham’s hospitality and Sodom’s inhospitality strongly draw attention to that aspect of the story, as something that dominates the themes of sexual violence and male-on-male rape. It seems to me that we don’t dwell enough on Lot’s response in our telling of the story. Surely to our modern ears what he is willing to do is even more shocking than the threat of aggression to (adult) strangers: “Come on guys, don’t be so evil. Look, I’ve got two tasty teenage daughters, gang-bang them instead and leave my visitors alone.” (I’m assuming their age from their virginity.) I’m not fully sure exactly where the sharpest divide between the biblical culture and our own is: is it the comparative value placed on the duty of hospitality? Or is it the comparative value placed on daughters? I’m not sure, but it’s a sharp reminder of how problematic this text is.

Alongside it, we also need to consider another similar story, that of the Levite who visits Gibeah.

When the old man looked up and saw the traveller in the town square, he said, “Where are you heading? Where do you come from?” The Levite said to him, “We are travelling from Bethlehem in Judah to the remote region of the Ephraimite hill country. That’s where I’m from. I had business in Bethlehem in Judah, but now I’m heading home. But no one has invited me into their home. We have enough straw and grain for our donkeys, and there is enough food and wine for me, your female servant, and the young man who is with your servants. We lack nothing.”

The old man said, “Everything is just fine! I will take care of all your needs. But don’t spend the night in the town square.” So he brought him to his house and fed the donkeys. They washed their feet and had a meal. They were having a good time, when suddenly some men of the city, some good-for-nothings, surrounded the house and kept beating on the door. They said to the old man who owned the house, “Send out the man who came to visit you so we can have sex with him.”

The man who owned the house went outside and said to them, “No, my brothers! Don’t do this wicked thing! After all, this man is a guest in my house. Don’t do such a disgraceful thing! Here are my virgin daughter and my guest’s concubine. I will send them out and you can abuse them and do to them whatever you like. But don’t do such a disgraceful thing to this man!” The men refused to listen to him, so the Levite grabbed his concubine and made her go outside. They raped her and abused her all night long until morning. They let her go at dawn.

The woman arrived back at daybreak and was sprawled out on the doorstep of the house where her master was staying until it became light. When her master got up in the morning, opened the doors of the house, and went outside to start on his journey, there was the woman, his concubine, sprawled out on the doorstep of the house with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, “Get up, let’s leave!” But there was no response. He put her on the donkey and went home. When he got home, he took a knife, grabbed his concubine, and carved her up into twelve pieces. Then he sent the pieces throughout Israel. (Judges 19:17-29)

The same mix of values are seen here, but without the angelic intervention that rescues Lot and his family, the story plunges deeper into depravity. Presumably the Levite’s concubine is a slave. She suffers a night of gang-rape by a crowd who don’t seem too bothered whether they catch a man or a woman, and then is chopped up (dead or alive, the story is ambiguous) by her master, and her dismembered body is sent throughout Israel as a rallying cry for vengeance. The stories of Sodom and Gibeah partially illuminate each other, and suggest to me that the key issue is the choice of violent rape over the obligation of hospitality. However, for me, the main impact (especially of the less familiar story of the Levite) is to leave me feeling just how far some of the biblical narrators’ values are removed from some of mine. Is there more horror in the rape of an adult, or a child? Of a stranger, or of your own young daughter? Both may be horrific, but I think, given the awful choice, none of us would choose as Lot chooses. I can’t see any comfortable and easy way of domesticating this brutal text for contemporary ethics.

There are, however, some inter-textual interpretations to attend to. The story of Sodom enters the biblical tradition as a byword first for the utter and complete destruction God might wreak on a faithless people (see Deuteronomy 29:23, Isaiah 1:9, Jeremiah 49:18 among other references), and then wickedness. The prophet Ezekiel refers to it, but the sins he singles out for specific mention are that: “she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me” (Ezekiel 16:49-50 – It’s interesting that he uses the accusation “she and her daughters” when the story is so specifically about the men, and perhaps an example of how free one part of the Bible can be with interpreting another part.) Presumably the sexual sins of Sodom (or perhaps better the sexual expression of Sodom’s sins) are part of what Ezekiel finds abominable, but he doesn’t single them out in the same way.

Jesus also refers to Sodom as an example of judgement in the gospel tradition. One example refers to the suddenness of God’s judgement (Luke 17:28-32), but two refer to its sinful behaviour and judgement (Matthew 10:14-15; compare Luke 10:11-12, and Matthew 11:23-24). Neither of these comments, though they take Sodom as a byword for wickedness, focus at all on the sexual nature of Sodom’s sins. The first focuses on inhospitality, the second implies that the sin of refusing to recognise the work of God’s Spirit in Jesus’ actions is considerably worse even than the legendary wickedness of Sodom. So it would seem that later biblical interpretation tends to stress the sin of inhospitality and failure to welcome the stranger. I also note the implicit comparison between Sodom which rejects God in rejecting the angels, and the villages who reject Jesus and the kingdom when they reject the disciples. Both rejections lead to judgement. Not only does this imply a certain equality between rejecting God and rejecting Jesus, rejecting angels and rejecting disciples, but it implies that the one hope for God’s mercy lay in welcoming the stranger. That is a strand we should not lose sight of in this discussion.

There is one clear exception to this tradition of interpretation, and it comes in the letter of Jude.

And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great Day. Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 6-7)

This is hardly the world’s most transparent text! A full exploration is beyond me, not least because it wold also involve convoluted arguments about the relation of Jude and 2 Peter (and how we understand the differences), and the importance of the Enoch literature. However, I take the reference in verse 6 to “the angels who did not keep their own position” to be a reference to the “sons of God” of Genesis 6 who came down and enjoyed sexual relations with human women, a view that fits the text and Jude’s later references to Enoch (apparently as inspired scripture). If I’m right about that, then the “unnatural lust” of Sodom in verse 7 could be either the lust of men for men, or, given the shape of Jude’s argument, a mirror image of the lust of the angels in verse 6. Where in Genesis 6 angels lust for humans, in Genesis 19 (albeit unknowingly) men lust for angels. I rather assume that Jude is probably holding both ideas of unnaturalness together, but I wonder if the angel-human unnaturalness is the major note.

Now, to be honest, I really don’t know entirely what to make of this rather rambling engagement with the text. I suppose the following pointers are things to take forward into the discussion:

• The text is very strange to us, and if we really take in the horror of it, ought to hit us hard as coming from a very different culture. The harshness of the difference means that listening to scripture is not the same thing as adopting “a biblical culture”.
• The overwhelming note in the story and its later interpretation is about the place of hospitality and the welcome of the stranger. This is not the same thing that we mean by “inclusivity” but probably does have something to say to us about the welcome we give to those who are different.
• The addition of the note of male-male rape in the story is almost certainly intended as the worst possible example of being inhospitable, and saying it is about inhospitality does not remove what the writer expects us to feel as abhorrence for the nature of the “welcome”.
• Jude, in his rather odd way, seems to keep the interest in a proper ordering of things that we noted in the previous post about Leviticus. At the heart of what he means by order here, however, is less the ordering of male-female relationships, and more the ordering of human-angelic relationships.

This is a pretty meagre haul for the story that has given its name to the English word for anal sex. It turns out to be mainly about something else, and the sexual component is an important intensifying detail. Its primary theme seems to be the sin of offering humiliating violence to those who should be welcomed, and missing the chance for God’s mercy in the stranger. I can’t help hearing the slow drip of irony in that observation.

Michael expresses his surprise at a Sydney Morning Herald article on Christian Sex Guides. I’m not quite sure why, since evangelical Christians (the only sort who would buy a separate “Christian” guide) seem to me to have bought fully into a late modern Western hedonistic relational pleasure-giving-and-receiving understanding of sex as a necessary means of human fulfilment – only adding the proviso that it really ought to happen only in marriage (straight of course!) whether it’s your first, second, third or more.

If the SMH article surprised Michael, he should take a look at this site, where you will find advice on the proper place of anal sex, oral sex, rimming, spanking and more. In case you were wondering, the proper place is marriage. While they think divorce ought to be avoided, their argument, if I have them right is that refusing to have sex with your spouse is “porneia” and so included in the Matthean exception as a reason for divorce.

The site says above the menu: “Got Jesus? Please donate.” It does rather make him sound like a disease looking for a research cure.

(Note: this is the second in a series, following this post. The same requests for courtesy and careful argument apply.)

There is a whole range of texts which we ought to discuss with special care, that include those that have been used to justify or inspire violence against women, against Jews, against children and against gay people. That does not mean that we should make them say something other than what they do say. It only means we should handle them with care, knowing that past users of these texts have been complicit in a range of abusive, threatening, violent and (literally) murderous behaviour not unrelated to their use of the texts. The two texts I want to address in this post are among them. (And yes, dear reader, I know there are other texts, but one post at a time, please!)

You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. (Leviticus 18:22)
If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Leviticus 20:13)

Curiously, the first of these texts was quoted today in a letter in the Church Times. (Sadly, I can’t link to it, since the CT doesn’t quite get the internet or indeed the general principle of subscription – bizarrely it costs more to subscribe than it does to buy it weekly in a newsagent.) There a certain Felicity Crow writes from rural Gloucestershire:

Christ came to remove not one jot or tittle of the Law. The Law says a man shall not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is an abomination. This is not a question of opinion.

Those who teach or preach otherwise … should be stark staring terrified. … To those who go against him and pollute his teaching Christ is totally terrifying.

That is one point of view (he says drily) and I’ll come back to it in a moment. (I hope questioning is allowed as Jesus readies the thunderbolts.) Ironically it is printed next to a very different letter, from someone whose name and address have been withheld.

I have been a worshipping Christian my entire life, but where I once found solace and friendship at church, it is true to say that I now feel like the enemy – a second class citizen … I spent many years coming to terms with my sexuality, and had a nervous breakdown in doing so.

This illustrates, I think, exactly why I am pleading for care. Let us assume for a moment that the end result of all these explorations will be a defence of the traditional position. Then I would note that Jesus was able to say to the woman caught in adultery “Go and sin no more” because he had first become her rescuer and protector. We can, I think, hear hard things from those we know love us, but if we never hear anything but hard things, it leaves us feeling very doubtful that we’re loved at all. Why would anyone want to know, far less trust and obey, a Jesus who sets out to terrify?

At one level, it seems to me that we can have some agreement about these texts themselves. They say pretty much the same thing, although the second elaborates and adds the punishment. It seems most likely that “lie with a male as with a woman” primarily refers to anal sex, although the euphemism is wide enough to embrace the possibility of other activities. It seems clear that it is specific actions that are being spoken about. It is worth noting that, unlike a fairly common view of the Roman world, both the penetrator and the penetrated are equally guilty. The implication, although rarely noticed, is also that, since this is a matter of purity, anal rape of an unwilling partner would still lead to the death penalty for both rapist and raped alike.

Moving beyond that to further interpretation is far from straightforward, however. At the most basic level, there is little obvious historical context. The development of the legal materials, the possibility of a separate Holiness Code (Lev 17-26) being incorporated into (later?) P material, the dating of earlier and final recensions all leave much of this lacking a clear cultural context within which to understand it. One possibility might well be pagan temple prostitution, or other cultic sexual activity. But it might not have that kind of connection at all. It may, as with so many other features of the priestly writings, be concerned with a particular construction of what is order, and therefore safe, and what chaos, and therefore dangerous. It could be held that there is a quite rational emphasis on the maintenance of sex for procreation, and procreation alone, at a time when mortality rates made this a matter of elementary survival and the common good. Non-procreative sex threatens the well-being of the community of Israel.

It seems to me impossible to adjudicate between these possible interpretations, and quite likely that there are elements of all three. In every case, the text is implicated in a particular context. The third context is one that some parts of the world can still identify with, and it also raises some awkward questions for heterosexual people, and the ways in which the modern West (at least outside the Roman Catholic Magisterium) conceptualises sex. The second possibility may lead to some of the more interesting and fruitful questions in cross-cultural interpretation. Order and chaos are primal categories, theologically, culturally, politically and psychologically. Saying the text needs interpretation is not the same as immediately kissing it goodbye.

The other issue that confronts and confuses the interpreter however, is one of selection. I go back for a moment to Ms Crow’s letter. Note that she has selected Lev 18:22 over Lev 20:13. In saying that not a jot or tittle in the Law are altered, she has nonetheless chosen the verse that omits the death penalty. Everyone selects, and so everyone interprets. These troubling verses are surrounded (staying within the boundaries of the so-called Holiness Code)by some very different ones. It includes laws that are reinforced in the New Testament and are regarded effectively as universal moral laws, such as “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). It includes laws that no Christian even begins to think might be applicable today, such as “You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard.” (Leviticus 19:27).

It contains laws that the Church now regards as incompatible with its understanding of the will of God: “As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves.” (Leviticus 25:44). Nonetheless, for a large part of Christian history, tradition saw this law as perfectly acceptable. It contains laws that the Church, or modern society, has effectively sidelined, and which are rarely debated: “Do not take interest in advance or otherwise make a profit from them, but fear your God; let them live with you. You shall not lend them your money at interest taken in advance, or provide them food at a profit.” (Leviticus 25:36-37). By contrast with the law on slaves, for the larger part of Christian history, the church thought this law was of ongoing significance, and revealed the will of God for Christian society.

Laws dealing with sex are mixed up with laws dealing with sacrifice, conduct for priests, general ethical behaviour, and other matters. The question of interpretation is not a cop-out, nor a way of avoiding difficulties. It is a necessary response to the nature of the text and in particular to the reading of Leviticus, where the selective and variable nature of Christian interpretation is perhaps at its most obvious. We Christians, at least, do select, and our selections appear to change. The question is “have we made the right selections?” Are our selections truly refracted through the gospel?

The broader themes of order and chaos, and the place of the communal good offering a context in which to think about sexual behaviour that seem to relate to the specifics of these texts will be important ideas to return to in placing one cultural reading in tension with another. But the whole must be related to the Christ who enters the ultimate undoing in death of God’s created order in order to recreate it, and the one who creates a new community reordered around the pattern of his faithfulness, rather than Torah-obedience.

This may be a bigger task than I intended to take on (or indeed am capable of).

I have (with considerable trepidation) decided to offer some periodic posts on some of the ways Anglicans (okay – and others) are reading, are not reading, could be reading and should be reading their Bibles about same-sex relationships. This is partly in honour of the Lambeth Conference, where these texts and their readings are the ghost at the feast. But it is also because I have reached that point of irritation with both the lack of rigour in so many arguments, and the lack of love in so many comments. Those are, incidentally, criticisms I would aim fairly indiscriminately at some on all sides.

What’s the point to this exercise? If you’re asking that question, believe me that I am too. It does, however, seem to me to be worth considering that one or more of us may have got something to learn from going back to these texts and asking questions rather than necessarily finding answers. It is too much to hope that any significant new meaning might be found in texts as well quarried as these. It may not (I think) be too much to hope that we might see one another as having some integrity and being serious about engagement with the texts.

I think we’re standing at a point where, in the light of all our knowledge, it seems reasonable to ask whether this is one of those occasions for the church to engage in the kind of drastic re-reading of texts we thought we knew. This is the relevance of, for example, the admission of Gentiles, or the banning of slavery. In those debates, which were as divisive and acrimonious as the present one, what won the day for the overturning of traditional readings of scripture was the conviction that other readings of scripture were truer both to the overall reading, and to the core of the gospel. That is, even if it remains the case that specific texts and the traditional reading of them did support the exclusion of the Gentiles, or the owning of slaves, they were texts that needed to be placed in the tradition’s archives in the light of reading the text as a Christocentric, salvific and truly life-giving whole.

It does not seem to me that those seeking such a drastic re-reading of the texts have yet made a fully-convincing case, far less a compelling one. Some have simply seen no need to do so. That does not mean that others will never do so. I personally hope they will. Equally, while I think that absent such compelling arguments, the traditional readings need respecting, I have to say that the venom and desperation of some, together with some dubious arguments, suggest to me that the traditional reading not only has its weaknesses, but that it produces some very sour fruit. It is possible, of course, like 1066 and All That’s roundheads and cavaliers, to be respectively right but repulsive, and wrong but romantic. But as Jesus might well have said: “It shall not be so among you.” Repulsiveness is not a Christian virtue.

The answers we get are of course shaped by the questions we ask. It seems that the question many are asking is “Does the Bible condemn same-sex practices?” Apart from the dubious idea that the Bible says or condemns anything, I think this is the wrong question, because it is focussed on an abstracted behaviour, not on people. What matters, it seems to me, are the questions about how we can love one another, share God’s love with and for each other, and seek to respond as faithfully as we can to God’s calling. In that light the questions are perhaps better framed as “How do we (given that some of us are gay and others straight) follow Christ faithfully”? and “How do we (given that some of us are straight and others gay) love our brothers and sisters and help them follow Christ faithfully?” The parenthetical part of those questions could easily be omitted (or written vice versa) without significantly affecting most of the answers.

When framed in those terms, it is quite clear that 90% (at least) of the answers we get from our reading of scripture will be just the same in relation to both gay and straight people. Questions of sexuality are a small (but significant) subset about the ways in which we love God and our neighbour. We are not talking two headed Martians but fellow disciples and fellow creatures, alike the favoured recipients of God’s love and vocation. Any attempts to read or re-read scripture that seem to forget or disregard that common graced humanity will not take us very far. There may be better questions than the ones I suggest here, but they’re the best I’ve come up with, and the ones I intend to take forward on this effort at reading.

I request all commenters to commend their arguments by grace, charity, reason and restraint.

The Sunday Telegraph is almost certainly the most right-wing of all the British broadsheets. It also seems to be the Bishop of Rochester’s favoured vehicle, first for announcing the presence of Muslim run no-go areas in this country (no-go areas no-one else has managed to actually evidence), and now for telling the world he isn’t going to accept his invitation to the Lambeth conference. It is also, of course, the second time that he’s announced this.

At one level, we have to recognise Nazir Ali has a consistency of views here. Eight years ago he made headlines by condemning married couples that could but choose not to have children.

In an age of excessive self-regard and encouragement on every side to the new religion of the `me’, it is very important for the Church to continue saying that having children and their nurture is a basic good of marriage and not an optional extra.

This idea, that a moral sexual relationship is one that is also open to children, is one step back from the Roman Catholic view that every sexual act must be open to the possibility of having children, but fundamentally coming out of the same theological tradition. Holding such a position means that the Bishop of Rochester is consistent in his views on heterosexual and homosexual relationships alike.

However, as far as I know, in the last eight years he has never repeated his remarks about married couples needing to keep their relationships open to procreation. Over the same time period he has been increasingly vociferous about condemning homosexual behaviour. The first proved deeply unpopular all round, the second has rallied many of those who oppose Rowan Williams to him.

It is this mismatch that leaves me deeply suspicious of his motives. He believes both are wrong, but spends all his time attacking (what he sees as) the gay error, while falling silent on the (what he sees as) the straight one. I’m not sure whether this smacks of homophobia, conservative populism, or the deeply frustrated ambition that has left him embittered that he never got Canterbury, and determined to do all he can to destabilise the man who did.