{"id":12222,"date":"2019-05-31T23:32:09","date_gmt":"2019-06-01T03:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=12222"},"modified":"2019-05-31T23:43:57","modified_gmt":"2019-06-01T03:43:57","slug":"transcending-interpretation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=12222","title":{"rendered":"Transcending: Interpretation"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m writing a blog series Transcending: They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll Know Us By Our Love<\/a><\/em>, about the church and LGBTQ people, beginning with transgender people.<\/p>\n

The Situation<\/a><\/em> told why this is personal for me.<\/p>\n

Creation<\/a><\/em> looked at what the Bible says about gender and how what transgender people say about themselves matches that.<\/p>\n

The Science<\/a><\/em> looked at the considerable scientific research that also matches both what the Bible says and what transgender people say about themselves.<\/p>\n

Self-Definition<\/a><\/em> looks at why we should believe people when they tell us who they are.<\/p>\n

What Does the Bible Say?<\/a><\/em> looks at what the Bible says about transgender people changing their bodies to match their gender. Spoiler alert: It says nothing against it! And has plenty to say about supporting and accepting who they are.<\/p>\n

Not Conforming to the World<\/a><\/em> looks at how transgender people are a marginalized group of outsiders \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and the church should not be piling on.<\/p>\n

Choice and Non-Choice<\/a><\/em> looks at some evidence that LGBTQ people are born that way.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been meaning to finish talking about transgender people first, but tonight I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to talk about same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n

My church is indeed pursuing adding a policy to its constitution stating that transgender people changing their bodies to match their gender identity dishonors God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s design and that marriage can only be between one man and one woman. In the first members\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 meeting to discuss this, the pastor read from Romans 1 and said that the plain meaning is that homosexuality is sinful.<\/p>\n

[After that, he admitted that there is nothing in the Bible that speaks against transgender people changing their bodies to match their gender identity. But said we can conclude it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wrong because of creation. I covered that reasoning in Transcending: Creation<\/a><\/em>.]<\/p>\n

I will grant you that reading Romans 1 in English in 2019 does give the impression that the Bible condemns homosexuality.<\/p>\n

But what if one of Paul\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s contemporaries who was a native Greek speaker came forward in time? If we explained same-sex marriage to that person, would they think it had anything to do with what Paul was talking about?<\/p>\n

Look more closely at what Paul is saying. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a prohibition. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all in present tense. Paul is saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Look at how terrible our society has gotten!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I recently read Paul Among the People,<\/a><\/em> by Sarah Ruden, an expert on Graeco-Roman literature. She writes about what people were doing in that time period. It was commonplace for men to prove their manhood by preying on the weak \u00e2\u20ac\u201c slaves, boys, men of lesser standing. It was even part of their idol worship, especially of Priapus, an idol of sexual aggression. She points out that Paul\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attitude was completely different from other writers of the time:<\/p>\n

Paul could have, like generations of Greek and Roman moralistic and satirical commentators, lit into passive homosexuality, into the victims. But in Romans 1 he makes no distinction between active and passive: the whole transaction is wrong. This is crucially indicated by his use of the Greek word for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153males,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d arsenes<\/em>, for everybody; he does not<\/em> use the word for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153men,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as the NRSV translation would have us believe. The Classical and<\/em> New Testament word for a socially acceptable, sexually functional man is aner<\/em>. In traditional parlance, this could mean an active but never a passive homosexual. But Paul places on a par all the male participants in homosexual acts, emphasizing this in Romans 2:1 and clearly implying that they are all<\/em> morally degraded and that they all<\/em> become physically debilitated from the sex act with each other. Such effects were unheard of among the Greeks and Romans when it came to active homosexuals: these were thought only to draw their passive partners\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 moral and physical integrity into themselves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This has nothing in common with a loving, committed, monogamous same-sex relationship.<\/p>\n

What if couples in same-sex marriages are not sinning? What if the act of homosexuality is not sinful unless you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re hurting someone?<\/p>\n

For that matter, does the New Testament call anything else sinful that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t harm anyone \u00e2\u20ac\u201c either the person doing it or someone else? If Paul was talking about preying on weaker people, then it makes sense for him to condemn it. But how does a committed same-sex marriage hurt anyone?<\/p>\n

If we exclude people in same-sex marriages from membership in our churches, aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we saying to a part of the body of Christ \u00e2\u20ac\u201c \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need you\u00e2\u20ac\u009d?<\/p>\n

For that matter, we agree that everyone<\/em> who comes to Christ comes as a sinner. We expect, after they accept Christ, for His Spirit to work in their lives and that He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll help them overcome sin. Christians are not under Law, but under Grace \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in the past, my church has let the Holy Spirit decide what sins other people should work on. The important thing has been that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a gathering of people who have accepted Jesus as the Lord of our lives.<\/p>\n

There are verses about coming alongside Christians who are trapped in sin \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but always gently and with humility. And those verses never call out a specific sin ahead of time. There are many, many more verses about how important it is not to judge others. Remove the beam from your own eye before you try to take the speck out of your brother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eye!<\/p>\n

If we add a Code of Conduct (even if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s called a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Christian Living Statement\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re saying that these particular sins have to be cleaned up before you can be a member of this church. And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s questionable whether they are actually sins.<\/p>\n

And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the biggest problem I have with calling same-sex marriage sinful. The only<\/em> reason to do so is because you believe one particular interpretation of the Bible \u00e2\u20ac\u201c an interpretation that many, many other Christians don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t agree with. But it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t harm anyone. In fact, same-sex marriage, like heterosexual marriage, is all about love. Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Love a good thing?<\/p>\n

People say that they believe same-sex marriage is wrong because the Bible says so \u00e2\u20ac\u201c so this way they can be proud of how faithful they are to the Bible. But please be aware that this is your interpretation of what the Bible says, and it is by no means certain. And it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fit well with the rest of the Bible message to love one another, to include all parts of the body of Christ, and not to judge.<\/p>\n

Judging others indeed does harm. And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much easier to judge about things you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll never be tempted to do. As I covered in Choice and Non-Choice<\/a><\/em>, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plenty of evidence LGBTQ people are born LGBTQ people. Do we really believe that God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best for every single one of them is a life without a committed, loving, monogamous partnership? And we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re basing that on one interpretation that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s quite weak if you look at the historical context.<\/p>\n

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