CHRISTIANS AND GAYS, Part 5

Well let’s make this the fifth installment of my “Christians and Gays” series and the last one for the time being. I promised to go through all the Biblical so-called references to homosexuality but I think I have the patience for only one.

Recently, when I asked a anti-gay Christian for the Bible reference that demanded or instructed him to persecute gays or risk the wrath of the Biblical God, he threw out Romans 1:18.

This is a letter (Epistle) written by Paul to the Romans. This is a New Testament reference and was written after Jesus was put to death.

Paul was not an apostle, even though he called himself that. Paul never met Jesus and was not part of his famous twelve (12). He was a Johnny-come-lately and actually pissed off the apostles by preaching something that they felt Jesus never wanted – a new religion. Jesus was all about reforming Judaism.

Paul claimed he saw Jesus in a vision but hell; he could have been drunk or suffered a concussion when he fell off his ass. Paul is a real enigma. He is basically the founder of Christianity but did not pay too much attention to what Jesus taught; he kind of made up his religion as he went along.

He went from “the world will end soon so prepare” to, “well maybe it won’t end right now but someday so let’s wait and see”. He was a bit confused and at the end probably doubted his own sanity.

Paul’s letters in the New Testament are not all written by him. Historians tell us that it was quite common in those days to write something LIKE someone else and sign it with that person’s name. A number of Paul’s letters were not written by him but by people who wanted to write something with the force and believability of Paul the so called Apostle.

The Letter to the Romans was written by Paul according to scholars. The part cited by the anti-gay Christian (1:18) basically says “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness”. OK what the hell does that mean? Sounds pretty general to me!

What I think comes closer to saying something about homosexuality or homosexual acts at least is Romans 1:26-27: “For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural” and “And in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire towards one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error”. Now that is more like it!

To be fair, you need to read the whole letter so as not to take things out of context and you need to read the letter in Greek because the English translators and copyist throughout the centuries have really drifted away from the original Greek copies of the original letter Paul wrote in Greek – whew!

Sure sounds like a condemnation of homosexual acts to me. Some even say that the words “…due penalty of their error” refers to the AIDS epidemic, originally started by homosexuals infecting other homosexuals but now infecting and affecting many heterosexuals.

This is where the “HISTORICAL-CRITICAL METHOD” of reading and interpreting the Bible comes in handy. What did Paul mean? What was he talking about and to whom? Greek society at that time accepted homosexual acts as normal. He thought they were unnatural because Jews thought they were unnatural. Logic tells us that they WERE against nature. What is Paul telling his audience in the first century AD?

Paul’s Letter to the Romans is historically, the most influential of any of his letters. St. Augustine based his theology on it, Martin Luther and John Calvin based their “Protestant Reformation” on what they thought the Letter said. But for all the above, the Letter meant an exposition of the road to salvation, it did not have a homosexual reference to them at all or at least they did not indicate that it did – don’t forget homosexuality as we know it today did not exist then.

So what the hell was Paul talking about? I cannot tell you and historians can only guess, albeit more accurately than me. They think he was referring to pederasty and temple prostitution. He was also commenting on Greek culture. He was trying to convey what type of behavior is appropriate for salvation and which is not.

There is no question that he did not think homosexual ACTS were acceptable. So there you have it!

I cannot fault Christians for reading this passage the way they do and coming away with an understanding that Paul condemns homosexual acts. Would he do the same if he knew homosexuals are born that way, well we just don’t know.

My argument against using this particular Biblical text against homosexuality is only general. Since Paul was writing in the first century to first century people, we should not assume that his words apply to us today. Since Paul is not an apostle or a follower of Jesus, we should not take his words as somehow sanctioned by Jesus.

Janusz