Never mind those pesky prohibitions against eating shrimp, Warren advises his flock, because those verses don’t mean what they say, for Christians at least. He articulates a typology that distinguishes the parts of the Torah binding on everyone from those which are mere Jewish tradition. Rules about eating shellfish are “civil laws” which apply only to the nation of Israel (i.e. Orthodox Jews). Bible passages endorsing animal sacrifice are “ceremonial” which apply to the Jewish priesthood, which has been unable to conduct its temple rituals since the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. Yet there are “moral laws” in the Torah that are meant to govern everyone, Jews or Gentiles, whether their own faith endorses them or not. The “moral laws” in the Torah, in Warren’s view, appropriately inform public policy in the 21st century, even where religious groups other than his own dispute their present-day relevance.
The distinctions Warren would engraft onto the Torah represent what scholars call an “accretion,” or an add-on to the scriptures. His categories are not rooted in the framework of the Torah itself but represent an interpretive gloss developed by the medieval Catholic Church. A dichotomy was introduced between things that were “malum in se” (inherently bad) and things that were “mala prohibita” (only bad because of the restriction itself.) So Christians can safely eat pork without being “inherently bad.”
The difficulty is that Warren’s typology begs the question of how you sort between the categories of Jewish tradition and universal “moral law.” Leviticus is no help. It uses the same characterization for homosexuality as it does for eating shellfish: “abomination.” If the activities are both, as said in the Torah, abominable, how is one now permitted while the other is forbidden? More fundamentally, the Torah makes no distinction between a law addressed to the Jews and a law binding on Gentiles. The “law” has a oneness, a unitary character which echoes God’s own singularity. The Torah is a sign of the Covenant between God and the Jewish people. It applies to those within the Covenant of Abraham and Moses. Gentiles, who are outside the Old Covenant, follow other rules altogether.
Warren uses the conceptual apparatus he superimposes on scripture to preserve a vestige of Biblical legalism. Without a contrived rationale to update certain Levitical proscriptions, the legalistic prohibition of male homosexuality would fall to the New Testament doctrine that “Christians live not under the law, but under grace.” Warren would change that cornerstone Christian belief to mean that Christians live partly under the law and partly under grace. By the grace of God, we can eat shrimp or wear cotton-polyester blends, but God’s grace stops and the law survives where “immorality” (as Warren defines it) is implicated. Warren’s typology must somehow differentiate the parts of the Torah binding on Christians from the Jewish traditions God has dispensed with by grace. Necessarily there are close cases: what about the rule about keeping the Sabbath–Saturday–holy? Is that a “civil law” or a “moral law?”
Warren’s comprehensive typology centered on the Old Testament would seem to leave little room for the restatement of the law by Jesus Christ, who elevated the commandment to “love one another” to the highest priority. Whether a rule is “moral” vs. “civil” is Warren’s criterion, not whether it is consistent with the supreme ideal of love. Accordingly, Warren would probably differ with Jesus regarding applications of the law in particular cases. Warren would undoubtedly describe adultery as a “moral wrong” where the Levitical proscription retains its full force. Yet Christ impeded the due course of the law–stoning to death of the adulteress–when it was being carried out to the letter by teachers of the law, the Pharisees. That episode suggests that Christ meant to modify the operation of the law, even Warren’s category of “moral law,” to depart from the literal terms of the Torah. Christ would probably say that a missionary program to see the law upheld, which the Pharisees put into practice, can conflict with the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. Perhaps His denunciations of the Pharisees as missing the point of true spirituality suggest that rigid adherence to the letter of the law may be incompatible with the central message of Christianity. How does one reconcile the harsher aspects of Old Testament “moral law” with Christ’s command to love one another? Is there a way simultaneously to love and carry out the acts of violence prescribed in Leviticus for homosexuals or adulterers?
What if Warren has simply misfiled the ban on sodomy into the wrong category–it’s a “civil law” for Israel, not a universal “moral law?” He cannot escape the need for line-drawing because the Bible does not tell us whether a given verse in the Torah applies to Christians as opposed to Orthodox Jews only. The Torah itself is addressed to the Jewish people, not Gentiles, and doesn’t delineate a separate corpus of law binding outside God’s covenant with Abraham and Moses. Shouldn’t the judgment of what rules extend from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant (between Christ and His Church) follow the guiding principle of the highest law–love?
At the end of the day, “Prop 8–the Musical” is right. Fundamentalists like Warren pick and choose from Leviticus. What’s more, Warren would have us believe that fundamentalists alone have the magical sorter that separates those rules in Leviticus which are universally binding from those applying to Orthodox Jews only. Their magic sorter says homosexuality is so evil that God meant to prohibit it universally-the freedom of Gentiles to eat shrimp gives no license to LGBT people. Unfortunately, the magic sorter hasn’t progressed much since the Middle Ages, when St. Thomas Aquinas said some rules reflect moral absolutes, while others are less categorical. His logic was of the ipse dixit variety-the distinction exists because he said so and he’s a Saint after all.
Fundamentally, Warren states a conclusion without explaining how it was derived when he chooses some Old Testament rules but not others to apply in the present day. Homosexuality has long been condemned as immoral, so without question Christians must deny fellowship to unrepentant gays and lesbians. But Gentiles can eat shrimp just as they have always done. The rationale reduces to Warren says so and Warren speaks for God. To paraphrase Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes, it is revolting to have no better justification for a rule of law than “so it was laid down in the time of Henry VIII,” where the reasons for the law are obsolete and continued adherence reflects blind imitation of the past.
Warren and his followers are entitled to believe as they choose, and preach hellfire and brimstone to those who believe differently. He is free to claim an authority that enables him and his cohorts to decide for everyone whether a given Bronze Age norm applies today or not. He is not entitled to speak for all Christians, as though Southern Baptists had the only magic divining rod. And Warren and his fellow fundamentalists cannot justly employ secular coercive power to impose their sectarian values on people with different beliefs. Secular law should be neutral between those who believe gay marriages are ordained of God (or believe in no God) and fundamentalists like Warren. It is wrong for government to take sides in a doctrinal dispute by legislating one belief system over another.
He has removed from his website the prohibition of “unrepentant homosexuals” from his church. Now his gay friends can finally join him for the christmas service, because I’m sure he’s had a great epiphany. / eye roll /
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p>What a loser. He can’t even stand by his “religious” convictions. At least Fred Phelps is honest in his bigotry. Warren is clearly a gratuitous hater, a political schemer.
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Pre-sanitized webiste, featuring Bitchslap at Teh Gayz
… had a post today on gays and the bible and what an ‘honest’ reading would force one to conclude about christianity.
I give their interpretations as much consideration as I do this doggie smear on my shoe. And then they’ll still have to convince me that there weren’t inadvertent “grapevine” alterations from the First Telling, since the stories were initially passed along verbally. And then they’ll have to convince me that the manuscripts assembled into “The Bible” were the right ones, and why (I bet they can’t name the guys who decided what would constitute “the word of god”, and explain the political context of their thoughts and actions!). If we get that far, then I may concede that they have a reasonable understanding of a document that has no legitimate bearing on my life whatsoever.
… while other consider Hebrew a variant of Aramaic…
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p>I’ve always wanted to learn German so I could read Einstein in the original. But that doesn’t mean I don’t trust the translations.
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p>You’re premise rests upon the assumption that many people don’t speak or understand Aramaic, Hebrew or (Koine) Greek today and thus we can’t attest to the accuracy. This is not true. This is an (altogether understandable) outgrowth of early (Catholic) church zealousness in hiding behind latin mass and mass illiteracy to provide for themselves as gatekeepers of the word. This really hasn’t been a problem since Martin Luther broke with the Church and legitimized laity exegetical practices in the early 1500’s.
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p>In addition, septuagint and masoretic texts, along with ‘worldly’ period documents can be contrasted ‘side by side’ by scholars and, while not entirely aligned contextually, they are enough of a ‘rosetta stone’, linguistically, to provide translations that are (relatively) free from controversy.
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p>If you are really interested, you ought to read “The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart” by Peter Gomes. It’s an excellent primer in the basic controversies of the day and what the Bible has to say (or not say) about them. Gomes is a fantastic preacher and a professor at Harvard Divinity School. He’s also gay.
…that I knew how to read these books (yes, that’s plural; only the institutional religions see the Bible has a single coherent document.) in the respective original languages. Unfortunately, I have read that the King James Version, which may be the most familiar and most poetic, may also be one of the worst translations from a scholarly standpoint, but as they say if English were good enough for Jesus – oh, wait a second!:)
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p>There are some good books out there that explain some of these things. Off the top of my head I can think of “The Sins of Scripture” by the aforementioned Bishop Spong, and “Misquoting Jesus” by Bart Erhmann. There is also “101 Myths of the Bible”, for which I forget the author, but it explains the origins of some of the Old Testament stories, which either were adopted from other religions with which the ancient Hebrews had contact or were trying to make a political point.
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p>Christians differ on which books should be in the Old Testament. Roman Catholics and some Orthodox add books which Protestants would call deuterocanonical/apocryphal, whereas Protestants follow Martin Luther’s example of sticking with just what the Jewish people themselves consider scriptural. There is more of a record for the New Testament as early Church Councils promulgated a canon based more or less on what had become generally accepted, with strong favoritism for St. Paul. Personally, I believe it is important to be exposed to the non-canonical texts for a full picture of the debates.
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p>I’m sorry you see the Bible as having no bearing on your life. My guess is you’ve had some negative experience with it especially regarding what Bishop Spong calls the “terrible texts”, such as those condemning homosexuality. I’m not going to try to convert you, but I do want to point out that taken in its entirety, the verses that call upon us to create and maintain a just society vastly outnumber those invoked by some as an excuse to hate, condemn, etc.
it has everything to do with being an atheist.
But please indulge me in wishing you and everyone else peace in this season:)
You do indeed have to reject a lot of scripture with eyes wide open to be a liberal Episcopalian, since factors like context and science and historical irrelevance bear on many a verse of the Bible. But it’s easy to identify a core of belief around which a framework can grow up without overreliance on Bronze Age values. The proscriptions of homosexuality in Leviticus and Romans are as obsolete as the Hebrew avoidance of blended fabrics.
I’m not saying that it is “gay-friendly” either. (And of course I agree that the Bible should have no bearing on or policy and that we’re not exactly sure what the original documents say.)
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p>We can have a discussion about what “The Bible” “clearly” says about homosexuality, but since “The Bible” means different things to different peoples – Jews, Christians and various branches of Christianity, etc – I want to work from the premise that the Old Testament purity/sex laws aren’t applicable to Christians. It’s a debatable point, but I’m convinced that Christians being exempt from Leviticus is on solid ground.
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p>First: the bible says nothing about loving and committed same-sex relationships.
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p>Second: Homosexuality as a term and concept did not exist until 1869. The concept of a homosexual identity did not and could not have existed in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. Of course, consensual same-sex action occurred between two parties of equal power back then, but it was clandestine.
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p>The idea of male-on-male sex was vastly different back then. In the Roman world, men who had the privilege of Roman citizenship were not allowed to engage in sex with another citizen. However, it was not looked down upon for a citizen to penetrate slaves or young male prostitutes, since they weren’t humans and were looked upon as objects. Also, roles were big – the top/penetrating partner would be able to retain his masculinity while the bottom partner would be viewed as passive and therefore feminine, and feminine meant weak. In fact, for men to receive oral sex from a woman was an act of shame; it was shameful to receive a blowjob from a woman but ok to anally penetrate a male slave or prostitute.
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p>Based on this, I reject that the New Testament can in any way, shape, or form can be commenting on the physical and mental that we modern people identify as homosexuality.
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p>Third: There are two passages in the New Testament about homosexuality: Romans 1:18-29 and 1 Corinthians 6:9.
Now, if you can read the Romans passage and figure out exactly what Paul is saying here, kudos. To me, it says not that God is punishing men that have sex with other men, rather that same-sex action is inflicted as a punishment for not honoring God properly. Nothing about two consenting, loving and equal adults.
And 1 Corinthians 6:9:
A.) If this is the New Testament basis for denying equal rights to Gays, then the same prohibition must be thrust upon fornicators, adulterers, metro-sexuals, and everyone who is not a Christian B.) I’ve already explained my objection to applying the term ‘homosexual’ to anyone in the time of Paul and C.) ‘Homosexual’ is translated from the ancient Greek arsenokoiati; this means “male prostitute”, which would be the younger passive and feminine men/boys who hang around pegan temples to be bottoms for their Johns.
“Effeminate” here appears in some translations as “homosexual”. This word is translated from malakoi (singular: malakos). Wikipedia describes the term here:
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It very well could be that “those who wrote the [New Testament] clearly did think that homosexuality was a terrible thing”. But they did not leave a written record of such a belief. And perhaps they did not explicitly void the Levitical laws against same-sex love, but they did not make it a priority to include commentary endorsing it, either.
I don’t see any reason to believe that Paul and the Church fathers intended to be “gay-friendly” and radically inclusive of what we now know as homosexual-oriented people. But Biblical textual evidence of a prohibition against loving and consensual adult same-sex romantic relationships and/or marriages simply does not exist.
Based on the evidence, it is impossible to conclude, as Brayton does, what the authors of the New Testament believed about homosexuality other than it might be used as punishment and that it is bad to be male prostitute who plays the passive sexual role.
… scholar, so I offered the post without comment.
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p>However, some points:
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p>Also, roles were big – the top/penetrating partner would be able to retain his masculinity while the bottom partner would be viewed as passive and therefore feminine, and feminine meant weak.
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p>I’m a little confused here. You say the concept didn’t exist but then go on to describe specific contemporaneous acts that can be described as homosexual. I’m guessing that you are restricting the definition of what you mean by the ‘concept’ to include some context that requires further elaboration.
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p>”Also, roles were big – the top/penetrating partner would be able to retain his masculinity while the bottom partner would be viewed as passive and therefore feminine, and feminine meant weak.”
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p>This would be news to the Greeks, who (as I understand it) viewed homosexual sex among equals to be among the highest expression of camaraderie.
(First, I don’t know my way around this topic that well and it’s a little clumsy in my hands. So if you don’t buy it right away, I wouldn’t blame you. )
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p>Of course there was same-sex sexual activity and same-sex love. These acts are literalhomosexual acts – ‘homo’ meaning same – but it isn’t homosexual with any significant relationship to the modern construct we call homosexuality, which would include committed partnerships. Today homosexuality not only means two people of the same sex engaging in sexual activity, but it’s another label for what today might also be called queer, and this might be a better way to distinguish between acts between those of the same sex and an over all identity and orientation. Today homosexual is an identifier for a person and an identity, but applied to the ancient world, ‘homosexual’ isn’t a meaningful way to identify a person. There were certainly acts of homo-sex and even love, but people weren’t identified that way.
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p>As far as ancient Greece: it is my understanding that what a modern person considered a homosexual relationship was extremely rare. Pederasty, an obviously power-imbalanced relationship, would be the most common form of same-sex relationships. I also understand that the dynamic of a stigma being attached to the passive/feminine partner was also at work in ancient greece. And even Greeks expressing there camaraderie and affection through same-sex relations is problematic in the sense that it seems that these men would still be married to women and not view themselves as belonging to any type of homosexual partnership. In todays terms, these guys would be straight-oriented.
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p>Now, history does show that ancient men were in long term relationships, but this notion would be so eccentric to the average ancient.
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p>One thing we can take away from all this is that in the ancient world, as far as men who liked to have sex with other men, the men who committed these acts were judged based on the role they played in the sex acts, and all these men were judged differently. That’s unlike today – when people look down on gay men, it doesn’t matter if they are the top, the dominant, the bottom, the feminine, or if it’s two masculine guys or two feminine guys who are engaging with one another. They’re all equally “gay” and equally looked down upon by the anti-gay people. That fact alone – that some ancient men that participated in homo-sex were not looked down upon while others were – indicates that it is impossible to draw an analogy between modern homosexuals and the men who slept with each other in the ancient Mediterranean.
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p>I don’t know if I made my point clear?
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p>The main reason I replied was because I respect and enjoy the work of Ed Brayton greatly but I think he’s wrong here. I would usually take Ed at his word, but I wouldn’t want people to think that what Ed said is as open and shut as he would have it appear.
I agree about the Pederasty, but this I don’t think this is particular to same sex relationships. That is, it was the nature of being the head of an Oikos (household – not sure of the spelling) that one has as much sex as one wanted with their underlings or ‘lessors’ and there wasn’t much distinction made with regard to sex or age.
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p>No with regard to same sex acts among equals. It was eccentric in that heads of houses were expected to be competitive, and the sex act was seen as a public expression of a strong bond. This made it rare, but when it did happen it really should be noted that it was celebrated. So while you could call it ‘eccentric’, it’d be a mistake to think of it as ‘eccentric-weird’ but rather ‘eccentric-rare’.
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p>While it is true that “homosexuality” (the term) did not exist prior to (circa) 1860. The concept and other terms did very much apply and were even more concise: “sodomite” was used to refer to the active partner and “catamite” was used to refer to the passive, or receptive, partner. Other terms were used as well.
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p>It’s instructive to read more that one translation. I forget which translation, but I’ve seen “catamite” in place of ‘effeminate’ and “sodomite” in place of ‘homosesual’. (and I’ll note, too, that, according to the Saddleback website, the ‘The Living Bible [TLB] translation is used… IMHO, a rather ‘loose’ translation).
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p>It’s important to note that a central tenet of “The Law” was to go out from amongst the unclean and be separate and NOT to do what they did. For instance, the cult of Baal would boil a newborn sheep in it’s mothers milk as a form of worship. From this (and other prohibitions like it) derives ‘kosher’ law and thus observant Jews don’t eat cheezeburgers (because the meat and dairy are together). All fine and good. We don’t have that problem much today do we… Well, they did in the history of early Christianity. Many early civilizations were pagan. Seen in this light, and against the backdrop of Greek and Roman paganism (and, believe me, the Romans could get pretty depraved) in late BCE and early first and second century we can easily see how sexual behavour in any form was easily defined as ‘other’, specifically pagan, and therefore not to be indulged in. Combined with earlier prohibitions against same sex coupling and lacking distinct permission… well, by default (I guess) the prohibitions continue. there doesn’t seem to be much reason to them, but there isn’t really any reason for Jews not to enjoy cheeseburgers either.
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Queerty passes along this communication from SaddleBigot
Thank you
I’ve long thought that the Bible is an excellent tool to justify one’s morality, almost completely independent of what it is. A book that long, from that many sources, in language the nebulous is a wonder resource. There’s plenty there to excuse all manner of bigotry, and plenty there to invalidate it. From the nitpicky rules of Leviticus and the Epistles, to the blood and triumph of Exodus and the Revelation, to the erotic Song of Solomon, to the message of love and justice in the Gospels, and so on.
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p>It comes down to each person, their beliefs, their history, and their motivation. Those who want peace and justice will find it in the Bible and the world; those who do not seek peace and justice will fail to do so. Minister Spong clearly searches for it, and thus finds it. Peace to him.*
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p>*Feel free to substitute your favorite Holy Book for “Bible” in the passage above.
I forget his name, but his book is The Children Are Free, that makes the case for affirmation of loving same-sex couples in the Bible. He argued that the story of the Roman soldier whose servant is healed by Jesus uses a word for servant that indicates a sexual companion. Yet Jesus doesn’t condemn the relationship – he in fact praises the centurion’s faith. It’s a slim little volume, but worth a read for anyone interested in dialogue with biblical literalists.
It’s great to get one’s thoughts on the scriptures in order, but is it possible to have an honest debate with the Warrens of the world? Warren himself is afraid to even have a conversation with the people he vilifies.
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p>From Pam’s House Blend:
My sister and her family are evangelicals.
but i’m not following your point.
With Rick Warren. But there are lots of other folks who take the Bible seriously out there who can possibly be educated & some of us have not just political reasons, but also family ties, invested in trying.
thank you for clarifying.
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p>it took my mom* about 10 years of persistence, but she eventually got my evangelical baptist preacher grandfather to consider that perhaps aids was just a disease after all, and not god’s judgment. so anything is possible, especially when family relationships are involved.
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p>*she was a nurse who was appalled at the lack of testing and support services in her area, so created an organization to provide what was missing. this was over 20 years ago.
It seems to me it’s mainly about ‘comfort level’. Fundamentalists are comfortable about the idea of eating shrimp and decidedly uncomfortable about the idea of gay sex. Over simplistic perhaps…
i’m sure you’re right about that. but the thing about the ick factor is that, how many people find the thought of their parents having sex very appetizing? yet they’re not out to dissolve that marriage. so yes, some people are icked about gay sex, but they should never be allowed to use that as an excuse to discriminate unless they’re willing to apply the test across the board.
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p>the other side of the coin is that a lot of people aren’t icked at the thought of gay sex. in fact, just the opposite. but they’re conditioned by the Warrens of the world to be ashamed of that, and so they attack the people who make them feel “that way”.
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p>And finally of course, some people are completely agnostic about gays, but are happy enough to hate us for profit. I suspect that Warren is one of these, as are Brian Camenker, Peter LaBarbara and countless others. Hating on gays is a good gig. If Warren suddenly had an “epiphany” and stopped hating the gays, he’d probably lose a huge chunk of his base who use him as “legitimate” cover for, among other things, hating gays. But since Warren is a professional chriastianist, I’m not expecting anything but the most ephemeral and thin surface changes. He knows who pays his paychecks and, probably most importantly, whose votes he can deliver to the candidates.
I’m not holding out much hope that Warren doesn’t really believe these things. After all, he is quite well off and I suspect people would continue to buy his books. What I’m saying is, if it were just the money he could certainly afford to change his tune.
In almost every form of communication, the expressed horror at homosexual acts among men greatly outpaces that of acts between women. ick factor at work.
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p>The Law was given by Moses, or as some would have it, by God through Moses (though there’s some that think Moses was given a lot of leeway…) and was fulfilled in Jesus. This is the essence of Pauline doctrine. Jesus had a lot to say about the law (but, so far as we know, nothing about homosexuality) and this is the basis of modern day evangelicalism. Jesus repudiate strict legalism regarding the sabbath and re-affirmed other tenets, like adultery and the seriousness of marriage (divorcing someone and marrying someone else makes you an adulterer.) Without rigid formalism, like Moses used, Jesus teachings touch on many parts of the law and provide a deeper understanding of the spirit of the law and explains that the law was given for people to learn how to get along. (‘do unto others…’) This is important.
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p>Because Jesus said little about homosexuality it was left to Paul to (obliquely) condemn it in Romans and Corinthians and this all that many Christians need as an affirmation of Leviticus. So this isn’t a case of ‘accretion’ so much as timidity in the face of silence: the belief being that while following/not following the law isn’t any longer relevant to sin, there remains things that might remain sinful and, barring specific permission to engage in these acts, they remain sinful.
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p>A little contextualism is in order here. Apropos, because my readings of Jesus teachings and of Moses Law are exactly as context creation. That is to say, people who’s bodies were newly freed from bondage (exodus from Egypt) but who’s minds remained enslaved (think; the golden calf) needed the rigor and the structure of the law in order that they get to a place where ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ is the finest expression of community. There’s certainly no reason to think that they would stumble upon that by accident wandering in the desert for forty years. It’s not like the Egyptians, who thought nothing of enslaving an entire peoples were going to suddenly teach them community building. In that context anything that is ‘abomination’ (which is defined as “that which causes disgust” and is sometimes translated as “that which is detestable”) works against community building. A sufficiently disgusted populace can’t cohere around a community and, in the Law, community is the highest goal. It’s worth noting, I think, that the specific prohibition in the Law against homosexuality occurs as one of a long list of prohibitions, including (yes) incest and cheating on you father with his wife or with your neighbors wife or having sex with animals. Though they are lumped together as sexual prohibitions they really are prohibitions against busting the community (through sex). After all, what’s more destructive to a community than jealousies that arise when people are sleeping around. Not much.
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p>But we’re in a different place, and we have the addition of Jesus’ commandment to ‘love one another.’ And so, rather than prohibiting those select few from from doing things that might cause disgust, we might refrain from being disgusted and thus free us all from mental bondage.
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p>The specific prohibition against eating ‘unclean’ food (shellfish), and also against Jews eating with Gentiles, was ‘overturned’ in Acts 10 where Peter has a vision wherein the Lord tells him it’s OK. A lot of 1st and 2nd century Christian angst revolved around their relationship to the law and the relationship of new (non-Jewish)converts to the Jews. Paul cut through a lot of the angst with his views on the law and Jesus. Interestingly, Paul himself was raised and trained as a Pharisee and was fully acquainted with every ‘jot and tittle’ of the law… certainly far more so than either Peter (a fisherman who may or may not have know how to read) and James (Jesus’ brother, presumably a carpenter, certainly a carpenters son) who were the putative leaders of the Christian sect in Jerusalem after Jesus’ death.
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