Conclusion

The literal approach to the Bible claims not to interpret the Bible but merely to take it for what it obviously says. The words of the Bible in modern translation are taken to mean what they mean to the reader today. On this basis the Bible is said to condemn homosexuality in a number of places. But a historical-critical approach reads the Bible in its original historical and cultural context. This approach takes the Bible to mean, as best as can be determiend, what its human authors intended to say in their own time and in their own way. Understood on its own terms, the Bible was not addressing our current questions about sexual ethics and does not condemn gay sex as we understand it today.

The sin of Sodom was inhospitality, not homosexuality. Not a single Bible text clearly refers to lesbian sex. And from the Bible's positive teaching about heterosexuality, there follows no valid conclusion whatsoever about homosexuality.

Only five texts surely refer to male-male sex, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, Romans 1:27, 1 Corinthians 6:9, and 1 Timothy 1:10. All these texts are concerned with something other than homogenital activity itself, and these five texts boil down to only three different issues.

First, Leviticus forbids homogenitality as a betrayal of Jewish identity, for supposedly male-male sex was a Canaanite practice. The Leviticus concern about male-male sex is impurity, an offense against the Jewish religion, not violation of the inherent nature of sex. Second, the letter to the Romans presupposes the teaching of the Jewish Law in Leviticus, and Romans mentions male-male sex as an instance of impurity. However, Romans mentions it precisely to make the point that purity issues have no importance to Christ, only what's in our hearts and minds. Finally, in the obscure term arsenokoitai, 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy condemn abuses associated with homogeital activity in the First Century: exploitation and lust.

So, the Bible takes no direct stand on the morality of homogenital acts as such nor on the morality of gay and lesbian relationships. Indeed, the Bible's longest treatment of the matter, in Romans, suggests that in themselves homogenital acts have no ethical significance whatsoever. However, understood in their historical context, the teaching of 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy, makes this clear: abusive forms of male-male sex -- and of male-female sex-- must be avoided.

While the Bible makes no blanket condemnation of homogenital acts and even less of homosexuality, this does not mean that for lesbians and gay men anything goes. They are certainly still bound by the core moral teachings of the Bible: be prayerful, reverence God, respect others, be loving and kind, be forgiving and merciful, be honest and be just, stand up for truth, give of yourself for all that is good, and avoid all that you know to be evil. To do that is to love God with your whole heart and soul. To do that is to be a true disciple of Jesus. Living by the Bible, gay and lesbian people are still bound by those moral committments, and those requirements apply also to sex and to intimate relationships.

That is all that can honestly be said about biblical teaching on homosexuality. If people would still seek to know outright if gay or lesbian relationships or sex in itself is good or evil, they will have to look somewhere else for the answer. The Bible seems deliberately unconcerned about it.

In biblical times, there was no understanding of "homosexuality as a sexual orientation.. there was only a general awareness of same-sex acts or contact as "homogenital acts". Our question today is about people and their relationships, not simply about sex acts. Because this was not a question in the minds of the biblical authors, we cannot expect the Bible to give an answer.

The Bible supplies no real basis for the condemnation of homosexuality. What it does do, however, is speak strongly about those who are immoral, lustful, and so forth. These are things that any of us can be guilty of and must stay away from.

http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/ip/sigs/life/gay/religion/bible

discussion of Matthew and other verses

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References used in this discussion

Main excerpts from:
What the Bible Really Says About Homosexualtiy, Daniel A. Helminiak, Ph.D., Alamo Square Press, 1994.

Homosexuality and the Conservative Christian, Rev. L. Robert Arthur, STI Publications,1982.

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devold@badlands.nodak.edu Ronda DeVold
last updated 12-6-97