Can a person be both gay and Christian?
Can a person be gay and still believe the Bible?
In this blog I propose to show why I believe the answer to these questions is “yes”.
There are very few passages that people say refer to “homosexuality”, including the so-called “clobber passages”. I will try to explain what I understand as the true meaning of these passages. I will discuss each passage without quoting it, to save space in this blog. I hope that you all will take the time to read the passages, as well as the verses that come both before and after each passage here, since all of the Bible needs to be understood in two contexts: the context of the passage itself, and the cultural context of the writer.
Though the content of the Bible was written two thousand to three thousand years ago, it is still valid for life today. We probably all realize, however, that the way someone describes something today is different than the way someone a hundred (let alone two thousand) years ago might describe something. That is what I mean by the “cultural context of the writer”.
Before I proceed, I suppose I should share with you my “credentials”. Of course, nowadays, most anyone who knows how to do an internet search can find answers to most anything. (Determining which answers are accurate and true, however, is often more difficult.) Still, a Bible education helps in understanding the Scriptures. I attended Bible College and graduated with highest honors (summa cum laude). During my five years, I studied one year of Greek, the original language in which the New Testament of the Bible was written. I was youth pastor for eleven years and worked summer Christian camps for twelve years.
Genesis chapter 19
This is the supposedly well-known story of Sodom, but very few people seem to have read it for themselves. Ezekiel points out (Ezekiel 16:48-50) that the real sin of the people living in Sodom was that they were arrogant, and that they had plenty of riches yet they did not help the poor and needy. When the angels visited the city to help Lot and his family leave the city before its destruction, the men of the city wanted to have sexual intercourse with them. This act of “sodomy” (actually, it would have been gang rape) is commonly recognized as a form of humiliation, rather than being lust. During wars, both in ancient history and in modern times, such sodomy is sometimes committed against captives — again, not from lust but as a form of humiliation. (Indeed, do not some gay bashers sodomize their victims just to show their supposed superiority over them?) Before the angels arrived, the city was already going to be destroyed, and not because of homosexuality.
Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13
The book of Levitcus is written to show the way the people of Israel should differentiate themselves from other cultures (Leviticus 18:1-4). The word “abomination” in the original Hebrew language refers to anything forbidden for the Israelites, and includes many things that people commonly do today and don’t think twice. (Please read in Leviticus the many things that are forbidden but which are in common use today.) These are some of the laws by which the Hebrew people lived, or rather, TRIED to live. These laws basically show that everyone disobeys God. These laws do not apply to us today, because Jesus obeyed every last one of them (the only one who ever has), thus “fulfilling the law” (Matthew 5:17-18), and then gave His life to pay the penalty of our sins, to pay the penalty of our disobedience to God.
Romans 1:26-27 (but please take it in the context of at least verses 18-32)
This passage is pointing out one way God can show His displeasure with the way some people behave. It is almost as though God is saying in disgust, “Whatever!” (just as we sometimes say when we are frustrated with someone). The writer Paul is pointing out to his readers how bad some people can behave. This is debauchery at its worst. This is not merely someone being gay or even having sexual intercourse with someone of the same gender; this is degradation. This is not a condemnation against homosexual love, but against a lifestyle that is so debased that the person sometimes does not even seem to be in his or her right mind (”depraved mind”, verse 28).
The words “natural” and “unnatural” in the original Greek refer to something that is the culturally accepted norm, just as long hair on a man is “unnatural” (I Corinthians 11:14 — and this written by Paul, a Jew who was taught all his life that it was a sin to cut one’s hair). Just think of some of the “culturally accepted norms” of even twenty years ago.
I Corinthians 6:9 and I Timothy 1:10
These verses SEEM to come closest to condemning homosexuality (as well as condemning liars, thieves, and even straight people having sex outside of marriage), but the original Greek word does not refer simply to homosexual intercourse (which is probably why the New International Version of the Bible translates the word in the Timothy passage as “perverts”). The Greek word means literally “male bed”, and so it likely refers to SOME sort of homosexual act, but from the Roman society of Paul’s day, it is believed to be referring to a married man having sex with a young boy. This is why the list includes adultery and fornication, pointing to sexual acts OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE. It is not a condemnation against someone for being gay or even against a man having sex with another man, but again, for having sex outside of marriage. If the writer of these passages (Paul) wanted to refer to merely the sexual behavior between two males, he could have used a different common Greek word.
The above are the “clobber passages”, the only passages that I know of that people use to try to condemn homosexuality. As I have shown, none of them does.
There are also some passages in the Bible that COULD (and I stress the word “could”) be showing two people of the same sex in love. I will list just two of these for your study, if you like:
Ruth and Naomi (Ruth 1:16-17 - a passage that is often quoted in marriage ceremonies today!)
Jonathan and David (I Samuel 18:1-4, I Samuel 20:30-42, 2 Samuel 1:26)
Now for the “bad news” –
Though being gay and even having sex with someone of one’s own gender is not forbidden or condemned in the Bible, having sex outside of a committed relationship most certainly is condemned, as we have seen in some of the passages mentioned here. It is not the fact that I am a homosexual that God finds offensive. It is how I use my sexuality, just as it is the way a straight person uses their sexuality, that can offend God. God doesn’t consider it a sin to LOVE another person, whatever their gender.
Yes, it is possible to be a gay Christian, to be gay and also believe the Bible. But this makes us the weird ones, sometimes accepted by neither other Christians nor by other gays. Some Christians disapprove of us because we are gay, and some gays disapprove of us because we are Christian, because we love God, because we believe the Bible.
If you are a gay Christian, you may enjoy reading and even chatting with others at the Gay Christian Network (with which I have no affiliation other than having signed up for an account).
http://gaychristian.net
Yes, there are others out there who are both Christian and gay! (Be sure especially to read the very well written “Great Debate” section, and the video “Straight to Heaven” is a hoot!)
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