156 FEMINIST VIEWS BASED ON UNTRUTHFUL CLAIMS
demned, not faithful relationships between consenting adults. In addi-
tion, they say that when Paul spoke of people giving up “natural rela-
tions” he was speaking only about people whose “natural” desires were
for heterosexual relationships. But there are other people whose “natu-
ral” desires are for homosexual relationships, and Paul was not speak-
ing about them. In essence, then they narrow the meaning of Romans
1:26-27 as follows:
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their
women who were not born with homosexual desires exchanged nat-
ural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men who
were not born with homosexual desires likewise gave up natural rela-
tions with women and were consumed with passion for one another,
men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves
the due penalty for their error.Thus, they claim, the Bible does not condemn all homosexual con-
duct, only that by people who are naturally inclined to be hetero-
sexuals. For these people, homosexuality is “unnatural.”^1 But they say
these verses are not even speaking about people who were born with
homosexual desires, and so the verses do not apply to many homo-
sexuals today.
Once again, by incorrectly limiting the verses to a special situation,
these people change the meaning of the words of Scripture. And in that
way they undermine the authority of the Word of God.
In the material that follows, I see similar patterns of wrongly chang-
ing the meaning of key words, or wrongly limiting the application of
verses because of incorrect claims about “special background situa-
tions” that limit the application of the verses today. Such changes to the
key verses are supported by claims about words or claims about histor-
ical situations that I believe to be wrong because they are either (a) con-
trary to the evidence we have or (b) mere speculation based on no hard
evidence at all. Because these claims change the meanings of several
(^1) These claims about the ancient world, and about the meaning of Romans 1:26-27, are exten-
sively refuted in several writings. See, for example, Thomas E. Schmidt, Straight and Narrow?
(Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1995); and Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1998), 92-97.