27
Q.
What does the Bible really say about homosexuality?
Then comes Paul. Paul reduces homosexuality to pederasty (men using
boys) and cultic male prostitution. He had no concept of faithful, monoga-
mous, same-sex relationships or of sexual orientation. Therefore, the Bible says
nothing about homosexuality as we under...
But wait! Christian biologist Joan Roughgarden argues that we’re look-
ing in the wrong place. She says we need to see how the Bible treats eunuchs,
for the term “eunuch” also referred to “effeminate” men, men with both sets
of genitals, and men with same-sex attraction. This last one comes closest to
contemporary understanding: “For some are eunuchs because they were born
that way” (Mt. 19:12).
In the Law, eunuchs are condemned. But in Acts 8, a eunuch is baptized
by Philip and portrayed in the text, and in later Ethiopian church tradition, as
a righteous leader in the church.
And most powerfully, in Isaiah 56:4–5, 8,
“To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths,
who choose the things that please me...
I will give, within my house and within my walls.
a monument and a name...
I will give them an everlasting name...
I will gather others to them besides those already gathered.”God is gathering the gays... awesome!Scriptural References
Genesis 19; Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; 19:20; 20:9; Ezekiel 16:49; Romans 1:26–27; 1
Corinthians 6:9–10; Isaiah 56:1–8; Acts 8:26–40; 1 Timothy 1:10
Suggested Additional Sources for Reading
- AllorNotAtAll: http://www.ALLorNotAtAll.org/resources.
- John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People
in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth
Century (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2008). - Martin Copenhaver and Anthony Robinson, Words for the Journey: Letters
to Our Teenagers about Life and Faith (Pilgrim Press, 2003), especially
chap. 34, “Homosexuality.” - Evangelicals Concerned: http://www.ecwr.org.
- For the Bible Tells Me So, fi lm, 99 minutes, VisionQuest/Atticus Group, 2007.
- Sally B. Geis and Donald E. Messer, Caught in the Cross re: Helping
Christians Debate Homosexuality (Abingdon Press, 1994).