As I have tried to learn as much as I can about the issue of homosexuality and the church, I have consulted three sources.  When I began this project on February 2, 2023, I began with Peter Gomes’ book The Good Book.  Gomes was a preacher to Harvard University and was a homosexual [and a defender of the role of the homosexual in the church].  I countered his thoughts with Kevin DeYoung’s book What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality.  I wanted a very conservative, non-confirming view on this topic and DeYoung gives the reader that.  Preston Sprinkle tries to “bridge the gap” between the affirming Gomes and the non-affirming DeYoung with his book People to Be Loved.

Gomes defends his position by examining the Bible and the changing positions toward certain various practices over the years.  As the culture has changed, the Bible seems to have changed.  Maybe more accurately, how we view the Bible has changed.   He discusses the Bible and hard drink, the Bible and race, the Bible and Anti-Semitism and the Bible and women. 

He builds his thought toward the Bible and homosexuality which he calls “the last prejudice” (Chapter 8).

He builds his thought about “the last prejudice” to a key part of his book in Chapter 8, “Testimony in the Yard.”  He is referring to his testimony about his sexual preference in a very public forum.

I have been in an audience when a homosexual announced his sexual preference. I taught speech communication for thirty- six years in a college setting.  In those years, I had a student named Adam who gave a speech on what it feels like to be a “gay” person.  I had no idea that he was going to do that.  He changed his topic at the last minute.  I remember being surprised but I don’t remember having negative feelings about Adam.  I always strongly encouraged respect in my classes and I don’t remember having students who acted in a negative manner.  He just got up and revealed an innermost secret in a very public forum.

This is what happened to Gomes on the steps of The Memorial Church at Harvard.  He was invited to speak to a rally for homosexual students who felt they were being attacked by a group of Roman Catholic Harvard students for being gay.  The Roman Catholic students published a periodical denouncing the homosexual lifestyle as bad for people and bad for society.  The homosexual community at Harvard was outraged and as Gomes describes: “this community was a diverse and secular one, and that while many of its members were doubtless devout practitioners of a number of religious faiths, it would be less than accurate to call the community as a whole particularly visibly religious” [163].

It is in the context of that rally to support the besieged gay students that Peter Gomes declared his homosexuality.  Gomes was well known as a Republican, having prayed at the inauguration of Ronald Reagan and preached at George Bush’s inauguration.   His declaration was indeed a surprise and it was followed by outrage from Harvard’s more conservative factions.  His American Baptist affiliation threatened to disown him.  How did he respond?  “I prayed a lot, and was prayed for, and the support of friends who were secular and could not understand the problem, and of religious friends who did, and did not, and of strangers who heard not me but what I said, served to sustain me in those difficult times” [165]. 

I find it interesting that Gomes had a very private response to all the uproar: he studied his Bible.  Even then people accused him of reading another Bible than theirs, he assured them he did not.   There were many arguments with people who did not appreciate his position and in many cases “anathemas were hurled and damnations promised.”  I find it interesting that he felt in those days that he got to the true heart of homophobia: he said it was fear.  The same fear that he expressed in his chapter on racism.  “Religion—particularly the Protestant evangelical kind that had nourished me—was the moral fig leaf that covered naked prejudice” [166]. 

He states “I further concluded that more rather than less attention must be given to how we read the Scriptures, what we bring to the text, what we find in the text, and what we take from the text.  This transaction has brought me to the present moment and I am grateful for that” [166].

As a commentator and learner about this issue, I have worked through The Good Book to get to these pages.  What will Gomes say?  How will he speak directly to this issue in his book?  Let me say that he does not get “weak-kneed” at this point.  In upcoming posts we will discuss his view of the “last prejudice,” what it is founded upon.

Here is a preview of coming thoughts on this matter: it is all about sex, it is about our attitude of shame about sex, it is about what the homosexual does to have sex and how society needs to move beyond the idea that sex is only for procreation.

Will all readers agree with what Gomes has to say?  Of course they won’t.   I am not sure I do, but one thing I do admire is his is frank and honest in his discussion.  At times as I read his pages I feel he is getting right to the heart of the problems that non-confirming people have with homosexuals. 

I lived through a church-wide discussion of this issue as my church decided whether it was going to be an affirming congregation or a non-confirming congregation.  Church members got up and stated that they would leave the church if we became non-affirming.  Their argument was that “some of their best friends were gay; how can you do this to them?”  No one really had a lot to say in response to that statement.  What was the church going to do to them?  My church took a non-confirming position and to my knowledge no one has been turned away from the church door because they are homosexual.  Those people who felt their gay friends were so important to them, left the church.  Church members got up and stated they would leave the church because they had family members who were gay.  No one really had a lot to say in response to that statement.  What was the church going to do to them?  To my knowledge no gay family member has been turned away from the church door because they are homosexual.  Those with gay family members left the church.  We even had a well-respected lawyer comment that the last great wedge that split the United Methodist Church was over chattel slavery.  He said that this issue is very much akin to that.  No one said no.  No one said yes.  If Peter Gomes was in attendance, I guess he may have agreed, but maybe not.  Maybe he would have felt that being a slave on a plantation was much worse than being a homosexual in today’s world?

What is the point?  I am not sure that people have much knowledge about this topic.  I agree with Gomes; they react with fear or even anger.  This past year the United Methodist Church has grappled with this topic.  My church has grappled with this topic.   I have seen a lot of emotion in peoples’ reactions: fear is an emotion, anger is an emotion. 

Many people have left the church, friends of mine, people I miss being around.  Just yesterday I saw someone who was a close friend at the grocery store.  I spoke first and I got a very frosty reply.  I got the distinct feeling that she was not glad to see me.  Why?

Could she really tell me or was she just feeling something.  Why have I become a Christian that she does not like anymore?  I know her son is a homosexual and I like him just like I used to like him when he was in youth group with my son at my church.

This issue has resulted in brokenness.  Like so many things in our world today, this issue has become all about picking sides.  You pick your position and hate those on the other side.

I have a question that I just can’t resolve yet and maybe it will never be resolved on this topic…

WWJD?