Homosexuality in Christianity: Sins and Contradictions

In the context of the cultural debate about homosexuality, which has of late flared up again in the United States because of the gay marriage debate there, the religious aspect is not to be overlooked. The traditional Christian opposition against homosexuality in general and homosexual sex in particular plays an important part in the 'anti-gay camp' of the public debate, placing the moral sides of the issue in the Biblical framework. Progressive Christians, however, are increasingly arguing against this, stating that the dictum of "love thy neighbour as thyself", considered the most important law by Jesus himself, argues for a tolerance or acceptance of homosexuality and the accompanying erotic side rather than a moral opposition.

But is this 'modern' version actually intellectually honest? The Bible being what it is, many if not all of the passages in the Old and the New Testament allow for multiple interpretations, and the many translations and retranslations from and into various languages makes this even more complex. Nevertheless, one can use the ancient Greek meanings for the New Testament rather well (as ancient Greek is a well-known language, as millennia old languages go). Also, one does not even need the Old Testament, considered by many to be laws only applicable to the Jewish people and no longer to other nations since Jesus formed a new Biblical law, to find references fordbidding homosexuality, most specifically in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Romans 1:26-27.

The Corinthians reference of St. Paul, usually translated more or less as "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God" (King James Version), contains the phrase 'abusers of themselves with mankind', which is commonly considered to mean 'homosexuals'. The word in Greek used here is arsenokoite, which literally means 'man who beds men'. Some people oppose interpreting this word as meaning homosexual, however, because Paul construed this word himself and did not use any of the already existing words for homosexual; others that the phrase is supposed to refer to male prostitutes, which were a well-known scene in public (and religious) life at the time.

However, this argument will not hold. The obvious reason why Paul uses this new word instead of an existing one is because it directly refers to the related moral rule of Leviticus 18:22 concerning homosexuals: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." The words in Greek used here are meta arsenos ou koimethese koiten gyniakos, in which you will recognize the very same combination of arsenos and koite. So the fact that he coined a new phrase here is because he wants to remind the reader, presumably, of the rule against such behavior as mentioned before.

The idea that he is actually mentioning male prostitution is equally unlikely. This is commonly presented in the context of the "idolatry" referred to, but even though this is certainly an important theme of his, it is not the same thing here. The word for male prostitution in Greek is pornos, from which incidentally the word 'porn' is derived. The koite (sex, eroticism) part of arsenokoite however is exclusively used in the Bible in the context of personal sexual immorality, not anything like prostitution (compare the occurrences of the word in Romans 13:13 and Hebrews 13:4).

As for the reference to gay sex in Romans 1:26-27, King James translates it so: "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion". This seems to clearly indicate homosexual acts, the 'inflamed in lust for one another' indicating that we are dealing with actual gay people as opposed to the explorative straight or bicurious, so to speak. This is again reinforced by Paul's choice of words: he uses for the "men" and "women" involved the Greek words arsenes and theleias, which are words used to specifically stress the gender of the persons involved, as opposed to more neutral words. Clearly, both the Romans and the Corinthians reference establish that in the New Testament, and so presumably under Jesus' new covenant, homosexual sex is considered a grave sin.

With that out of the way, the progressive Christian view of this is that the act may be a sin, but the homosexuality itself is not. So this can be reconciled with Christianity because one can still love a homosexual as he is (loving one's neighbour), even if the act itself is not to be supported. Yet this is a false construct. One cannot, in actually homosexual people (leaving the swingers, bisexual, etc. out of this) separate the act from the nature in any moral view of the whole. After all, the desire to have gay sex is instinctively present in a homosexual man, as is the eroticism of the idea; and this is so essential to the concept of 'homosexuality', that any separation of the two as unrelated or disconnectable is artificial and silly. Just as one cannot separate the average straight guy's view of sexuality from erotic associations with women, one cannot separate the average gay guy's view of sexuality from erotic associations with men. Pretending the two are fundamentally of a different nature is harmful both to understanding of Christianity and understanding of homosexuality, and goes against common sense. So one cannot say that one disapproves of the act but approves or accepts the urge that causes the act, as both are irrevokably linked in the concept of homosexuality itself.

Well, the invisible progressive Christian of this dialogue might rejoin, this may be, but nevertheless we are not to judge. After all, is not one of the basic rules of the Bible "judge not, lest ye be judged"? Who are we to say what is good and what is not?
Pleasant as it sounds to the modern ear, it is nevertheless an irrelevant argument. If one is a Christian, then it follows that the Bible is to be considered God's word, whether literal or merely divinely inspired. Most progressive Christians, in fact probably most Christians on the whole, would assume the latter. But since there is no measurable way to separate the non-divinely inspired parts in the Bible from the divinely inspired ones, the only way to follow God's word and will is to assume all of it counts. This means that if something is considered a sin in the Bible, one has to reasonably assume that God himself (or itself, perhaps) considers it a sin, or else the idea of the Bible reflecting God cannot be reasonably maintained. So whether or not one is considered to judge homosexuality as a sin personally or not is not the issue; in either case the Bible's mentioning of it as a sin means it is such, whether one personally follows this rule or not.

One might counter this by saying that though it is divinely inspired, it is written by men, and as such imperfectly reflects God's will, because of cultural influences, misunderstanding and the like. Again this is a modern and sane interpretation of the historical context of Biblical rules, but again this is irrelevant to the matter. If you desire to follow the rules of Christianity, or feel you have to, you have to reasonably consider the Bible accurate enough to follow. After all, if it can be believed within the theology of Christianity that the Bible so imperfectly reflects God's view for whatever reason that it reflects "homosexuality is fine" as "homosexuality is a sin", then the whole foundation of the belief goes right out of the window. Because if such is within the range of human error in the Bible, then how can anything in the Bible at all be assumed to accurately reflect God? One might as well read any other philosophical or ethical book and it would reflect God no worse. So it is impossible to maintain that any form of human error or cultural influence made the rule that homosexuality is a sin without abandoning the religion altogether. At that point it ceases to be Christianity and it is no longer relevant to this discussion.

Then there is the issue of forgiveness. God is by many (modern) Christians considered all-forgiving. Forgiveness following repentance is one of the core concepts of the belief, and has become one of the foundations of the cultural moral code of the West because of it. If God forgives anything, he will also forgive homosexuality, right? So that would seem to make the problem nonexistent.
Unfortunately there is a snag here. For sin to be forgiven, one has to repent. Now repentance, in the cultural context as well as the linguistic one, implies an acceptance of guilt or wrongdoing. One cannot repent something if one does not feel that it was wrong. So for homosexuality to be forgiven, the homosexual involved has to feel that the thing itself, homosexuality, was wrong. And here we are back to stage one: homosexuality does not combine with the Christian moral code.

The aforementioned invisible modern Christian, annoyed at this exposure of bigotry, might finally interject that yes, perhaps it is a sin, but we are all sinners. And since God does not in a very clear way define one sin as worse than another, or make any kind of ranking or categories anywhere in the Bible, saying that Christianity considers homosexuals sinners becomes rather pointless, as if one points out that a particular raindrop is, in fact, wet.
This may be so, but it also clearly shows how incompatible homosexuality and the Christian moral code are; it is an implicit admission of that moral code considering, both in the past and now, homosexuality a sin, even if only a sin among sins. Saying otherwise is therefore clearly intellectually dishonest, and if a Christian is the one saying so, rather unfaithful towards the religion's rules.

Now mind you, this point is not meant to indicate any moral opposition to homosexuality or gay sex whatsoever; quite on the contrary really. But what it does intend to show is that, whether one likes it or not, Christianity and the basics of Christian morality cannot be said to not be opposed to homosexuality without the speaker losing all intellectual honesty and credibility. Were it otherwise, it would have been better, but the two just don't mix. So let's all be honest and not confuse the debate and muddle the issue by pretending they do.
Posted by Matthijs Krul @ 15:59