~A Christian Baptist Minister's View on Christianity and Homo***uality~
When Religion Loses its Credibility
By Oliver "Buzz" Thomas - Baptist Minister
USA Today, November 20, 2006
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2006/11/when_religion_l.html#more
What if Christian leaders are wrong about homo***uality? I suppose, much
as a newspaper maintains its credibility by setting the record straight,
church leaders would need to do the same: Correction: Despite what you
might have read, heard or been taught throughout your churchgoing life,
homo***uality is, in fact, determined at birth and is not to be
condemned by God's followers.
Based on a few recent headlines, we won't be seeing that admission
anytime soon.
Last week, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops took the position that homo***ual
attractions are "disordered" and that gays should live closeted lives of
chastity.
At the same time, North Carolina's Baptist State Convention was
preparing to investigate churches that are too gay-friendly.
Even the more liberal Presbyterian Church (USA) had been planning to put
a minister on trial for conducting a marriage ceremony for two women
before the charges were dismissed on a technicality.
All this brings me back to the question: What if we're wrong?
Religion's only real commodity, after all, is its moral authority. Lose
that, and we lose our credibility. Lose credibility, and we might as
well close up shop.
It's happened to Christianity before, most famously when we dug in our
heels over Galileo's challenge to the biblical view that the Earth,
rather than the sun, was at the center of our solar system. You know the
story. Galileo was persecuted for what turned out to be incontrovertibly
true. For many, especially in the scientific community, Christianity
never recovered.
This time, Christianity is in danger of squandering its moral authority
by continuing its pattern of discrimination against gays and lesbians in
the face of mounting scientific evidence that ***ual orientation has
little or nothing to do with choice. To the contrary, whether ***ual
orientation arises as a result of the mother's hormones or the child's
brain structure or DNA, it is almost certainly an accident of birth. The
point is this: Without choice, there can be no moral culpability.
Answer in Scriptures
So, why are so many church leaders (not to mention Orthodox Jewish and
Muslim leaders) persisting in their view that homo***uality is wrong
despite a growing stream of scientific evidence that is likely to become
a torrent in the coming years? The answer is found in Leviticus 18. "You
shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination."
As a former "the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" kind of
guy, I am sympathetic with any Christian who accepts the Bible at face
value. But here's the catch. Leviticus is filled with laws imposing the
death penalty for everything from eating catfish to sassing your
parents. If you accept one as the absolute, unequivocal word of God, you
must accept them all.
For many of gay America's loudest critics, the results are unthinkable.
First, no more football. At least not without gloves. Handling a pig
skin is an abomination. Second, no more Saturday games even if you can
get a new ball.
Violating the Sabbath is a capital offense according to Leviticus.
For the over-40 crowd, approaching the altar of God with a defect in
your sight is taboo, but you'll have plenty of company because those
menstruating or with disabilities are also barred.
The truth is that mainstream religion has moved beyond animal sacrifice,
slavery and the host of primitive rituals described in Leviticus
centuries ago. Selectively hanging onto these ancient proscriptions for
gays and lesbians exclusively is unfair according to anybody's standard
of ethics. We lawyers call it "selective enforcement," and in civil
affairs it's illegal.
A better reading of Scripture starts with the book of Genesis and the
grand pronouncement about the world God created and all those who
dwelled in it. "And, the Lord saw that it was good." If God created us
and if everything he created is good, how can a gay person be guilty of
being anything more than what God created him or her to be?
Turning to the New Testament, the writings of the Apostle Paul at first
glance lend credence to the notion that homo***uality is a sin, until
you consider that Paul most likely is referring to the Roman practice of
pederasty, a form of pedophilia common in the ancient world. Successful
older men often took boys into their homes as concubines, lovers or
***ual slaves.
Today, such ***ual exploitation of minors is no longer tolerated. The
point is that the sort of long-term, committed, same-*** relation****ps
that are being debated today are not addressed in the New Testament. It
distorts the biblical witness to apply verses written in one historical
context (i.e. ***ual exploitation of children) to contem****ary
situations between two monogamous partners of the same ***. ***ual
promiscuity is condemned by the Bible whether it's between gays or
straights. ***ual fidelity is not.
What *would* Jesus do?
For those who have lingering doubts, dust off your Bibles and take a few
hours to reacquaint yourself with the teachings of Jesus. You won't find
a single reference to homo***uality. There are teachings on money, lust,
revenge, divorce, fasting and a thousand other subjects, but there is
nothing on homo***uality. Strange, don't you think, if being gay were
such a moral threat?
On the other hand, Jesus spent a lot of time talking about how we should
treat others. First, he made clear it is not our role to judge. It is
God's. ("Judge not lest you be judged." Matthew 7:1) And, second, he
commanded us to love other people as we love ourselves.
So, I ask you. Would you want to be discriminated against? Would you
want to lose your job, housing or benefits because of something over
which you had no control? Better yet, would you like it if society told
you that you couldn't visit your lifelong partner in the hospital or
file a claim on his behalf if he were murdered?
The suffering that gay and lesbian people have endured at the hands of
religion is incalculable, but they can look expectantly to the future
for vindication. Scientific facts, after all, are a stubborn thing. Even
our religious beliefs must finally yield to them as the church in its
battle with Galileo ultimately realized.
But for religion, the future might be ominous. Watching the growing
conflict between medical science and religion over homo***uality is like
watching a train wreck from a distance. You can see it coming for miles
and sense the inevitable conclusion, but you're powerless to stop it.
The more church leaders dig in their heels, the worse it's likely to be.
_____
Oliver "Buzz" Thomas is a Baptist minister and author of an upcoming
book, 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can't Because He
Needs the Job).
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