Queer Christian Resources

I've been Christian for the majority of my life. The conflict between Christianity and homosexuality was huge for me for a few years. Here is some information that has helped me and others.

OLD TESTAMENT

LEVITICUS 18:22 & 20:13

The Levitical prohibition of male-male sexual activity was based on:

• a response to such practices as they related to idol worship in the Canaanite culture
• an ancient Jewish understanding of the ideal in creation
• protecting the system of patrilineal land tenure, purity descent, and dwelling securely in the land
• an ancient Jewish male's horror that a man might be treated as a woman - especially in gang-rape or war

There is no mention of any thought that a woman snould not lie with a woman as with a man. Somehow that thought was inconsequential to the Hebrew creation ideal. It was the Hebrew perception that the male was compromised by placing himself in what they considered outside the norms of the communities' best interest.

SODOM & GOMORRAH (GENESIS 19:4-9)

Eight major observations serve to question the theory that Sodom/ Gamorrah's destruction was due to homosexuality:

• God knew all along that the two cities would be destroyed.
• Lot's house was surrounded by "all the people of Sodom without exception" would indicate that someone must have been engaging in heterosexual acts.
• Lot offered his daughters to appease the mob(all men?) outside his house.
• The verb vadha (to know) was used 943 times in the Old Testament. Only 10 times does it refer to sexual intercourse and then it always refers to intimate heterosexual relations.
• If the cities were destroyed because of homosexuality, did God destroy the women because their husbands and sons were gay?
• Christ compared the sin of Sodom with the sin of a city of his own time and makes it clear that the sin of Sodom was rejecting God - inhospitality. (Mt 10:14-15)

NEW TESTAMENT

ROMANS 1:25-27

Here, St. Paul describes the fall from true obedience to God. The intent of Paul is to show the Jew that he is on the same level as the Gentile - both are sinners and are in need of grace. Paul is speaking of passions out of control - that become an end in and of themselves - that are, in fact, idolatrous. Dishonorable passions refer to the worship of sexual pleasure, an excess to be condemned with all other excuses.

Since the purpose is not ethical exhortation, it is illegimate to use the passage to establish Christian objections to same-sex acts. The point of the passage is not to stigmatize sexual behavior of any sort, but to condemn the Gentiles for their general infidelity to God.

1 TIMOTHY 1:10 & 1 CORINTHIANS 6:9-10

Malakoi and Arensenoikoitai Here are the texts - as reported in our modern Bibles - seem to say one thing when actually they are total mistranslations.

In the Greek we have:

• Immoral people
• Idolaters
• Adulterers
• Effeminates
• Pederasts

The oldest extant version of the 1 Corinthians text translates:

"Do not be led astray by immoral persons. Not by idolaters, adulterers, not by those who sell others or by those who are overly masculine (abusive) with their women."

There is nothing in the texts that relates to same sex relationships. Nothing!

*These texts were taken from Chris Berrys pamphlet "Responding to Personal Attacks Based on Biblical Proof-Texting"

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

• Emergence Ministiries
• gaychristians.org
• whosoever.org
• Christians Against Bible Abuse