Gay And Lesbian Christians, You are Not Alone

I’ve often pidgeon-holed Evancelicals along with the term “Fundamentalist”. This implies a strict adherence to the Bible, and a hatred for all those “pro-choice” ideas. That is, anything where it is perceived you have a “choice”. From this point of view, they believe you have a “choice” to be Gay/Lesbian, and as such can change. It’s not something you should choose. In the same way that you shouldn’t choose an Abortion, whatever the circumstances.

Regular readers of this blog will know that that’s not in anyway my stance, and will have read the numerous pro-choice stuff that’s on here. It hadn’t occurred to me that there would be a Christian Organisation that identified with the moniker “evangelical”, and be positively pro-Gay or Lesbian. The very fact of it’s existence surprised me.

It’s called Evangelicals Concerned, and was started by Dr. Ralph Blair in 1975 after the president of an evangelical college came out to him over dinner, saying that he was a tortured man. The orginisation is small, with only a few thousand members, but seems to be a growing organisation.

Their website has much that you’d expect to find on a Christian pro-Gay/Lesbian website. The interesting take, however, is that they see the Bible as an empty closet. That is, there are no mention of what we would identify today as “Homosexuality” in the Bible.

In studies of sex in history, Stanford classics professor John J. Winkler warns against “reading contemporary concerns and politics into texts and artefacts removed from their social context.” This, of course, is a basic principle of biblical hermeneutics.

(Taken from Evangelicals Concerned)

There are many answers to the “Clobber” passages (passages that are used as anti-homosexual), like Genesis 1:27, Leviticus 18:22, and of course, 1 Corinthians 6:9.

The interesting point they make, unlike the usual liberal view of disregarding, or down-playing the writings of St. Paul, they take his writings on head-on. They point to Galations 3:28:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

(source: BibleGateway)

Thus, there can’t be a way of a man joining to a woman, because we are already one in the salvations of Christ. As such, where our hearts lead us, male or female, is where our hearts lead us, and that is fine with God, because the old distinctions have been taken down. It is fine for a Jew to love a Gentile in Christ, (something not previously allowed), as well as it being okay for a Man to love a Man.

Galations 1:25 reads:

Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

(Source (in context) BibleGateway).

If this is the case, then the law of Leviticus no-longer applies. Thus, the passages that are against Homosexuality in the writings of St. Paul must be read in the light of this revelation. The site argues that the Homosexuality that is mentioned in the Bible, is sex with young male “sex-pets” who were kept around for sex purely for pleasure. Not a definition most people would see as a definition of modern Homosexuality, which is (mostly) a loving relationship between two men.

There is much more on the site, and it’s all fascinating. I’m guessing that bits of the teaching I pick up there will filter into future posts. I just hope I remember where I read it so I can give credit where it’s due. If I don’t, let’s hope this posts stands and an acknowledgement of the arguments that I’m learning.

~BX

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