Does Paul's Teaching on Homosexuality Apply Today?

In my re-visitation of the topic of homosexuality, I decided to re-read Victor Paul Furnish's chapter on homosexuality in his book The Moral Teaching of Paul.(1) What resulted was another revision of my thinking on the issue, to include even more nuances. I found this passage particularly challenging, in which Furnish talks about the presuppositions of Paul and the first century mind:

First, it was commonly presupposed that all human beings are erotically attracted to the opposite sex. . . . [It was also] commonly presupposed that all homoerotic sex is against nature . . . because it violates the male's superior and dominant role in relation to the female. The reasoning was that a man who, like a woman, submits to penetration by another male is surrendering his manliness. . . . And sex between females was denounced because imitating the male's role amounted to a challenge of male superiority. . . . [It] was widely viewed as undermining the patriarchal and hierarchical structures of the political order and of society as a whole.

Finally, it was commonly presupposed that all homoerotic sex, consensual or not, is the wild raging of inordinate passions and lusts, the wanton indulgence of one's sexual appetite. . . . None of these presuppositions, and none of the stereotypes that went with them, has stood the test of time. [Because of more] than a century of research in the biological, social, and behavioral sciences . . . , the ancient presuppositions about sex and gender have been rendered obsolete.(2)

This understanding is supported by examples of ancient literature that Furnish provides. Philo said of male homosexual activity that it "forces the male type of nature to debase and convert itself into the feminine form, just to indulge a polluted and accursed passion."(3) He elsewhere described it by saying that men who engage in homoerotic activity "emasculate their bodies" because they "submit to play the part of the women."(4) With regard to female homosexual activity, Furnish provided a quote from Pseudo-Phocylides, who said, "let not women imitate the sexual role of men."(5)

We have to take into account the social constructs under which Paul operated, which included an assumption that natural attraction is towards one's opposite sex, that the proper order of society includes men acquiring women and women coming under men, and that homosexual behavior is a perversion of the natural order.

Because of these presuppositions, homosexual activity was considered perversion from a spirit of perversion, depravity from a spirit of depravity. I am inclined to deny that this idea applies to homosexuality as seen in our culture. Today, there are many people who have never had an attraction to the opposite sex but have only ever been attracted to their own sex. These people often seek a faithful and loving union with one person of their own sex. This is not the result of wild, untamed lust, but merely people following their own seemingly natural attractions.

Could it be that this particular teaching of Scripture does not perfectly represent God's opinion of homosexuality today? Could it be that homosexual activity, which was once thought to be wholly unclean, should now no longer be thought of as such, just like the Gentiles in the early church? After all, the person considered unclean in the story of the good Samaritan was the one who represented Christ. 

These are not easy questions to answer.

For more on this issue, see my blog, "Is Homosexuality Sinful?" (here)

Notes:
(1) Victor Paul Furnish, The Moral Teaching of Paul, 3rd ed. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009).
(2) Ibid., 90-91.
(3) Quoted in Ibid., 68.
(4) Quoted in Ibid., 69.
(5) Quoted in Ibid., 68.

Part II of "What makes you doubt Christianity?"

Here are the contributions I received from the original blog (here). I respond to some of them with reflections and/or suggestions for what to study. If you would like to contribute, please email me at johndanielwashere@gmail.com. 

The tension between law and grace, faith and works.

I've struggled with this one before, and have written on it here. One has to shed a lot of what Luther read into the text in order to come to terms with the seemingly contradictory statements regarding Christian life in Scripture. Christianity is about living the kingdom of God, embodying the reality that Jesus accomplished on the Cross. Thus, works consist of our active participation in the kingdom of God, in Christ's reality. The law is not made up of rules, but ways we can apply the kingdom to our lives. It is easy to turn this into legalism, but that's when we start regarding Scripture as a rule-book.

It's hard to deal with/love fundamentalists and/or people who believe and teach damaging doctrines.

How patriarchal the Bible mostly is.

One major consideration needs to be made when dealing with this issue: context. It also needs to be addressed on a text-by-text basis, and often simply considering the historical context will remedy the problem. There are so many good books on this topic. Why Not Women? is one that was highly recommended to me, but there are many others. That would be a good place to start. For an assessment of one text, see my, "Does Genesis 2 Support Complementarianism?" (here). It should be said, though, that the "patriarchal nature" of Scripture is often over-stated. In many places, the Bible is quite woman-exalting.

Most Christians are so certain of what that they believe that they never question it. A great many Christians do not engage in critical thinking.

Christian hypocrisy and self-righteousness, manifested in things like treatment of/talk about homosexuals, or people of other religions.

What about those who have never heard the Gospel?

I can see this one being very hard for Calvinists, but it isn't hard for me at all. While it is unfortunate that so many people in history, as well as in our time, are not subjected to the Gospel, if one affirms a great wideness in God's merciful saving love, we can feel at peace about this issue. I have written about this here. A good book to look at on this is A Wideness in God's Mercy by Clark Pinnock, as well as those cited in my blog on the subject.

"I know my level of intelligence and understanding and there are a lot of better equipped thinkers out there who do not believe what I believe. So I wonder, who am I to think this stuff is true?"

Prayer. How come some prayers are answered but most aren't? How come someone's headache is healed, but someone else's cancer isn't? Don't we serve an all-powerful, all-loving God? Why wouldn't he heal everyone if he could?

I have some pretty bad back and neck problems that I wake up with every single morning, so this was something I struggled with for a while (and still do, depending on how bad I feel on a particular day). I have written on the subject here, "Petitionary Prayer: What is it Good for?", but I also recommend Greg Boyd's book Is God to Blame?, as well as his chapter, "Praying in the Whirlwind" in Satan and the Problem of Evil. Vincent Brummer's What Are We Doing When We Pray? is another good one. There is a lot of really good literature on this topic, but those are good places to start, as well as the works cited in my blog.

The problem of evil and suffering. It is difficult to reconcile God's benevolence with the existence of things like cancer and AIDS.

All honest Christians struggle with this at one point or another. While I have read a lot on the subject, I can think of no better person to go to than Greg Boyd. Specifically, his book Satan & The Problem of Evil. If you're really into the topic, supplement it with his God at War. For a shorter, easier read, see Is God to Blame? There are tons and tons of books on this topic, but Boyd would be the perfect person with whom to start.

Pluralism. If I were born in other parts of the world, I would not be a Christian. Do I think Christianity is true simply because of my context? How can I be so bold as to claim that the religion I follow is THE truth? There are thousands of religions all over the world, and plenty have their holy books, what makes Christianity so special?

This is an issue that is often daunting to me, and very humbling when I speak of things that I 'know'. For me, this is where the rubber meets the road, faith-wise. I wrote a personal reflection on pluralism here, saying that, in the end, one has to look at the subjective truth claims of this world and ask oneself, "Which one is more worthy of my faith?" because we can't know that Christianity is actually true.

Angels and Demons, Heaven and Hell. They seem so make-believe, as if they were made up to deal with death.

This is a tough one. What makes it worse is how angels, demons, heaven and hell have been portrayed over the years. We tend to have a shared concept of angels as winged, effeminate and covered in white; demons as ork-like or dragon-like beasts; heaven as a golden city in the sky; and hell as a fiery pit with black castle-like buildings, where people are tortured by demons. I have tried to re-word these terms in an effort to steer away from these preconceived ideas--using terms like "metaphysical" instead of supernatural, forces of chaos, instead of demons, and others. Sometimes, when words have been ascribed images that make them ridiculous, we just have to come up with new ways of referring to them.

Another thing that helps me is to recognize the signs of their existence in the world. We have desires that go beyond our experience, that go beyond what we can satisfy. We have urges to do horrible things sometimes, and we often don't know why we do such things. Sometimes things happen that can only be sufficiently explained by divine hands (I find all other "natural" explanations dissatisfying). Other things can only be explained by an actual force of evil at work--attributing the misfortunes in nature to the trial-and-error process of evolution isn't going to do it for me. I can think of many examples, but you get where I am going. There are signs in the world around us that point us beyond, and affirm what we see in Scripture.

Does Genesis 2 Support Complementarianism?

Complementarianism vs. Feminism is quite a battle these days. A huge part of this debate is due to the fact that complementarians find the basis of their beliefs in Scripture. One of the passages they use to support their views is Genesis 2. I have been studying this passage for a theological collaboration with a friend of mine, and my research has inspired me to write a blog addressing this. Before I do, I must preface it by saying that I am only going to deal with Genesis 2 here. The conclusion drawn will be, "As far as Genesis 2 is concerned..." and not "As far as the Bible is concerned..." I have not done significant research in the other passages used to support complementarianism, so I will not comment on those at this time.

Man is Created First

Does the fact that man is created first imply that the woman has a subordinate role to play under the man? Many believe it does. Elizabeth Cady Stanton criticizes Genesis 2, saying that Genesis 1:26-28 "dignifies woman as an important factor in the creation, equal in power and glory with man," which is in contrast to Genesis 2, which she says "makes her a mere afterthought."(1) Phyllis Trible rightly criticizes this understanding, saying that the woman in the story "is not an afterthought; she is the culmination."(2) Just as creation in Genesis 1 led up to the creation of humanity, followed by God's rest, so this narrative leads up to the creation of woman and their subsequent union. The climax of the narrative is found in the creation of woman.

Furthermore, the fact that the woman is created from the man does not imply that she is inferior to him or destined to be his subordinate. Bill Arnold observes: "As the human was formed from the dust of the ground (‘ādām from ‘ădāmâ), so woman is built from the man (‘iššâ from ‘îš)."(3) That woman was created from man does not imply that she is inferior to man anymore than the fact that man was created out of dust implies that dust is superior to man.(4) In fact, as Terence Fretheim provides, the phrase "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh"--what Adam says in response to the woman's creation (v.23)--"literally highlights mutuality and equality."(5) These words that explicitly state woman's equality with man are man's first words in all of Scripture!(6)

Finally, Adam's short poem in response to the creation of woman strengthens the argument that this creative act is the climax of this passage. In Hebrew, the poem begins and ends with zot ('this'), referring to the woman. Gordon Wenham says of this poem, "by opening the tricolon and bicolon with 'this' and then by concluding with the same word, the man's exclamation concentrates all eyes on this woman."(7)

Man Gives Her a Name

While John Bailey recognizes the profound place of woman in this narrative--saying it is "all the more extraordinary when one realizes that this is the only account of the creation of woman as such in ancient Near Eastern literature"--he makes the mistake of seeing the facts that she is called 'woman' by Adam and deemed a 'helper' as signs of a "certain subordination."(8)

While it is true that "name-giving in the ancient Orient was primarily an exercise of sovereignty,"(9) there is a difference, in Hebrew, between what one calls someone and what one names someone. Trible observes this difference. Throughout the narrative, and in other places in the Hebrew Bible, call (qārā') and name (shem) are used together and denote the command one has over the other by naming the other (see Gen. 2:19-20; 4:17, 25, 26).(10) However,‘ādām merely calls (qārā') her woman. Fretheim cleverly observes that for man to call her 'woman' does not imply his authority over her anymore than Hagar calling God "El-roi" implies that she had authority over God (Gen. 16:13).(11) 

Trible reasonably suggests that the action in v.23 is the man recognizing sexuality.(12) Or, as Fretheim says, it "involves discernment regarding the nature of relationships."(13)

That being said, in chapter 3, Adam does name the woman Eve (v.20). However, Trible observes that this takes place after their sin and judgment; Adam asserts his rule over her and gives her a name when sin has entered his life (v.16).(14)

I am of the mind that the author of this passage was explaining why things were the way they were in their society. Thus, after humanity sinned against God, they assumed degraded roles. In a sense, they were downgraded to the service of that from which they were created: man would toil over the land, and woman would serve the man. First, this has to be understood as the result of sin, and not the way God created things to be. Second, given that this was the author's way of explaining why things were the way they were in his culture--men toiled over the land, and women served the men--I don't think it can be said that this is the God-given role of women that they are to fulfill today.

The Woman is a Helper

Bailey, referred to above, sees the woman's role of helper as a sign of subordination. However, this is not at all implied by the Hebrew word. Rather than suggesting any hint of inferiority, Trible recognizes that 'ezer (helper)  is a relational term.(15) Furthermore, if the word did denote inferiority or subordination, we would have to explain why the majority of its uses refer to God's being a helper of humans!(16) The use of 'ezer does not imply subordinate service to the one being helped, but rather that the strength of the one being helped, Wenham provides, "is inadequate by itself" (cf. Eccl. 4:9-10).(17) Furthermore, Fretheim says of this passage that humans were created to be "social, relational beings—male and female—and thereby correspondent to the sociality of God (‘let us’; see Gen. 1:26; 3:22; 11:17; cf. 9:6)."(18)

Side note: Many complementarians might agree with most, maybe even all of this, and would say that their complementarian views don't put women in lesser roles. However, when one says, for example, that women should not be pastors and should not exercise authority over men in church, this puts women in a lesser role. Genesis 2 does not support such an understanding. The Hebrew word for 'helper' does not limit the role of the woman to serving the man, nor to being under his authority, nor does it deny her the right to exercise authority over him. In Genesis 2, both humans are equal and under the authority of God alone.

After reviewing the creation narrative, I have found that the passage does not support complementarianism, or any view that places women in a lesser role under men. The way God intended things to be includes the equality of man and woman, partnering with God to preserve a beautiful creation and form a relational human history.


Notes:
(1) Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Woman's Bible, Part 1 (New York: European Publishing Company, 1895), 20.
(2) Phyllis Trible, "Eve and Adam: Genesis 2-3 Reread," Andover Newton Quarterly 13, no. 4 (1973): 251-252.
(3) Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (New Cambridge Bible Commentary), ed. Ben Witherington, III (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 61.
(4) Terence Fretheim makes the same point. See Terence E. Fretheim, "Genesis", in Vol. 1 of The New Interpreter's Bible, ed. Leander E. Keck (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 353.
(5) Ibid.
(6) I recently heard a sermon from Brian Zahnd, in which he said that the first recorded words of man in Scripture are found in Adam's response to God's question "Where are you?" in the garden. Man says, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid" (3:10). While the sermon was beautiful, this, as we can seen, is absolutely incorrect. I like Zahnd a lot, but I'm a little surprised he made this claim again and again, since it would have been so easy to check and see that it wasn't true. On top of Adam's words when seeing woman for the first time, Eve's response to the serpent is recorded in Gen. 3:4-5, just a few verses before the verse Zahnd quoted.
(7) Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, Vol. 1 of Word Biblical Commentary, eds. Bruce Metzger, David Hubbard, and Glenn Barker (Word Books, 1987), 70.
(8) John Bailey, Quoted in Trible, 251-252, n. 5.
(9) Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1972), 81.
(10) See Trible's more elaborate explanation, p.254.
(11) See Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005), 60.
(12) Trible, 255.
(13) Fretheim, "Genesis," 353.
(14) Fretheim supports this understanding. See Ibid.
(15) Trible, 252.
(16) Arnold, 60.
(17) Wenham, 68.
(18) Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament, 55. Trible says: "God is the helper that is superior to man; the animals are the helpers inferior to man; woman is the helper equal to man." See Trible, 252.