St. John Studies

Here we are again, switching from one book to another. In this case we are moving from Peter Gomes’ The Good Book to Kevin DeYoung What does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality. Again, two diametrically opposed views.

Gomes has a plan in place it seems, to discuss all the instances when The Bible has not provided solid guard rails for human behavior, so far a discussion of how Christians have felt about indulging in hard drink and how southern Christians have justified the owning of slaves. When we return to Gomes again, we will comment on his discussion of anti-semitism.

Hard texts: places in God’s word where man struggles to find his way.

Hard texts: places in God’s word where differing views emerge.

Hard texts: places where God shows man how to exercise His grace in the process of loving fellow man.

Can the LGBTQ+ community be included in the church, as leaders? Can LGBTQ+ people be accepted, approved and absolved of their sin?* Is this a place where God’s loving grace can be applied?

DeYoung says “no” and to make his case, he turns to Leviticus.

Leviticus speaks directly to the issue of homosexuality; his chapter is entitled “Taking a Strange Book Seriously.”

I majored in history in college.  I have always had a love for history, especially history of the American civil war.  I had an aunt [Anna Carter Revel] who was our family genealogist.  I once asked her for information about my relatives on my Father’s side of the family who fought in the war and I found out I had three great, great uncles who served.  That fueled my interest as I began to see that I had some tangible ancestral contact with this turning point in American history.

The war was devastating for the America. The breakdown of deaths by side is uncertain, but one common figure is that the Union suffered 360,222 casualties and the Confederacy suffered 258,000 casualties. However, these numbers may not include all the deaths from disease, captivity, suicide, murder and other causes.

The southern economy was wrecked.  The war essentially destroyed the infrastructure of the south; railroads, bridges, factories, farms and plantations.  The Union Army had a “scorched earth” policy where vast areas of the south were totally destroyed as Union soldiers marched all the way to southern coastal cities.   Of course slave labor was no longer legal so workers were not available to tend crops on southern plantations.   

The losses mounted as the way of life in one large part of the United States suddenly changed.

What is amazing is the statement by Peter Gomes in his book The Good Book when he says, “The chief victim of the Civil War was not the vanquished south, but the Bible” [Gomes, 96].

Why would he say that?

In my previous post [“The Hard Text of Slavery in the Bible,” St. John Studies, Sept 19, 2023], I discussed the justification for slavery that many southern slave owners proposed.  In short, they felt that Biblical Scripture allowed them to own slaves and still be Christians.  With the conclusion of the war, the righteousness of the southern case for slavery was dealt a blow.  It seemed like the whole southern Biblical worldview was defeated with the fall of the confederacy.

Gomes points out that the Bible suffered because so many people relied on it for guidance in morality.  With the war, the authority of Scripture was challenged.  How could northern abolitionists read the Bible one way and southern slave owners read it another?

Slavery was approved of in both the Old Testament and the New Testament so how could it be overturned on moral grounds?  However anti-slavery adherents felt they had the moral high ground: humans should not own other humans.  Chattel slavery was even more horrible; humans could be bought, sold and owned like objects.

Still at the end of the Civil War, southern minds were not totally changed.  Racism did not go away.  Segregation was born as a way to preserve the southern way of life.  Southerners still felt that the Bible supported their desire to keep African-americans from having the full rights of American citizenship.  It was there in the black and white type of the Bible.

One has to still ask, how did anti-slavery Bible readers enact change that resulted in slavery being overturned?  Gomes says it all came about by changing hearts and minds.  The text remained fixed but people changed their attitudes toward slavery.  “Scripture…may be the same yesterday, today and forever, but our capacity to read Scripture and to appropriate Jesus Christ and His teachings is not.  No one in contemporary America, except perhaps the most hard-bitten white supremacist would read Scripture with regard to race in the same way it was read a century ago” [Gomes, 99].  Antebellum slave owners saw Paul as the apostle of the status quo [slavery is ok].  Today Christians read the same Scripture and see Paul as the apostle of liberation.

Gomes thinks that Scripture has not changed as much as the “moral imagination” of America has changed.  What is this moral imagination that he speaks of?

This requires a complex explanation and we should not lose sight that Gomes is building a case for acceptance of the LGBTQ+ Christian to be accepted in the church.  It is all about context.  In the context of the ancient world, slavery was accepted as a basic part of life.  No one actually questioned its existence.  Gomes feels the Holy Spirit had a lot to do with changing attitudes.  He references the book of Hebrews citing the Scriptures as a two-edged sword.  He references the idea that Scripture is referred to as the “lively oracles of God,” the notion that God’s words are not dead letters, but living and powerful.

How can we explain the Southern Baptist clergymen who wrote Dr. Martin Luther King to explain that his actions to end racism and segregation were “unbiblical”?  How can we explain that a few years later another pastor named Floyd Bryant wrote an article in the Southern Baptist Review and Expositor that “God makes no distinctions in people whatever their race.  Segregation is not the work of man.  If it occurs at all, God does that in the final judgement.” Bryant admits that he has come to grasp the meaning of the Apostle Paul’s plea “Be not conformed to the world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is good and acceptable and the perfect will of God.”

The renewing of the mind is at the heart of many southern people changing their attitudes toward African-American citizens.

Billy Graham, a proud southerner from North Carolina pens the following thoughts:  “Our consciences should be stirred to repentance by how we have fallen short of what God asks us to be as agents of reconciliation….Of all people, Christians should be the most active in reaching out to those of different races, instead of accepting the status quo of division and animosity.”

Changing hearts and minds is hard to do, especially when Scripture supports institutions that uphold the owning of human beings.

Can hearts and minds be changed regarding the acceptance of the LGBTQ+ people in the church?  Can the acceptance of African-american people by southern white people signal that the same thing can happen for this group that Gomes refers to as “the last prejudice”?

He says yes, “it is about how we read the Bible, and about the creation of the moral imagination that allows us to do so.  In that same moral imagination, is it never too late to be right or to be good.”

Before we get to another chapter from Gomes regarding the need to change our minds about Scripture, let’s revisit Kevin DeYoung, a pastor who says “not too fast!”  What does the Bible really teach about homosexuality?  That is his focus and he is not ready to accept the idea that homosexuality is “the last prejudice.”  To him, homosexuality was and always will be a mortal sin.

Obviously, DeYoung does not have “moral imagination.”

What does Peter Gomes mean when he says about the Bible, “there are hard texts.”

Are certain rules within the Bible hard to follow?  Are certain parts of the Bible hard to understand?  Are certain parts of the Bible no longer relevant?  Within today’s culture, they are “hard?”

We have already seen in his discussion on the use of strong drink, America went through a period of nineteen years of prohibition.  What happened during that period?  Some Americans did not drink.  They felt that strong drink was harmful or sinful and they liked prohibition.  Some Americans found ways to drink that were illegal.  They liked alcohol and wanted it; no one could tell them not to drink, even their government.  Other Americans made untold riches providing the alcohol that the American people craved.  Did the ban on strong drink work?  I guess not; it only lasted nineteen years.

How did the ban work?  Even though the Bible did not provide “rock solid” Scriptural support for banning alcohol, anti-alcohol forces got legislation passed with a “Bible-based foundation” anyhow.

Gomes next turns to the hard text of racial injustice.  Surely the institution of slavery had no Bible basis.

Sadly, it did.  American slave-owners felt within God’s good graces as they owned other human beings.  Yes, one could even say they felt justified.

There are Biblical allusions to slavery throughout the Biblical text, one of the earliest being the story of Hagar, the slave girl who bore Abraham’s first child Ishmael.  When Abraham had a legitimate child by Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael were banished from the household and sent to the desert.

The Canaanites were put into slavery by Joshua after they were defeated, to “always be slaves, hewers of wood and drawers of water” [Joshua 9].

The Old Testament story of Noah had multiple references to slavery as some say there were references that introduced not only slavery but also segregation and even apartheid.  Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and eventually Joseph was put in charge of Pharaoh’s production of crops.  Part of his responsibility was the enslavement of a workforce to supply Egypt with food. 

Is the New Testament any better regarding slavery?

Even though Paul condemns the practice of slavery in places, it was widely accepted in the society of his day.  Gomes says this of New Testament Scripture: “Not only did New Testament morality fail to liberate the slaves or even to mitigate their lot in this life, but it required of the slaves obedience to their masters, even those masters who were not Christian, as a part of their duty to Christ” [Gomes, 89].

With all this as a background, it would seem that making a case for slavery would be easy.  The Bible does not condemn slavery, and everywhere in the Bible the practice of slavery is common.   The curse of Ham [Noah’s son] provided southerners justification for slavery.  Noah curses Ham’s descendants as slaves forever.

American large property owners in the south needed slaves to put crop on their sprawling properties because there was no machinery to do this and certainly they were needed to harvest that crop.  America’s revered leaders like George Washington owned slaves as well as Thomas Jefferson.  Instead of being condemned by Biblical Scripture, Southern slave-owners actually took solace in the comfort of their Bibles.  They felt their “peculiar institution” rested on Biblical grounds. 

Northern ideas about slaveholding were vastly different.  In essence, they saw the idea of a Christian owning slaves as sinful.   It was not enough to point to Noah, Abraham and Joseph.  When Paul said that slaves should be obedient to their masters as they should obey Christ, that was not enough to justify owning human beings.  They felt that  moral principles were in play here.  God’s people should not own God’s people.  Social practices like slavery might be evident in the Bible but moral principles outweigh the social norm or the need for some human solution for the production of crops.  Abolitionists  said Jesus preached love and charity and in most slave-holding situations, love and charity did not abound. 

Methodists [my denomination] like John Wesley and George Whitfield argued that the slave trade should be stopped since it was based on English maritime power.  “The holding of slaves, although permitted in Scripture was inconsistent with an understanding of the New Testament’s paramount teachings on spiritual rebirth, sanctification and evangelism” [Gomes, 94].   In sum, slave owners were guilty of “gross materialism and greed” because they regarded human beings [God’s children] as property for gain and loss.  Wesley and Whitefield knew that Scripture supported slaveholding, but also they felt that New Testament teaching supports the idea that slaveholders should release their slaves and make Christians of them, as an act of evangelism.

Like the shaky theology of prohibition, antislavery sentiment grew based on social reform not found in Scripture.  Abolitionists felt that the need to change this institution was there and it was a moral need. 

Would southerners budge?  Slavery supporter James Boswell wrote “to abolish a status which in all ages God has sanctioned…would not only be robbery…but it would be an extreme cruelty to the African savages, a portion of whom it saved from massacre and introduced to a happier life.”  Most did not want to change their practice of slaveholding at all.

Abolitionists argued that “chattel slavery” was more cruel that slavery in the Bible.* Comparing Biblical forms of slavery to chattel slavery is incorrect.  Chattel slavery is much more dehumanizing.  Abolitionists were compelled to use the moral principles of the Bible, applying the idea that injustice was being done to human beings.  Citing Revelation 22: 11-12 “Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.  Behold, I am coming soon, bring recompense, to repay every one for what he has done.”  Abolitionists felt that there was no doubt; slaveholders would be held accountable for their acts on judgement day.

“Abolitionists had no patience with the…niceties of their Christian slaveholding opponents, and thought of them as Pharisees, who, while straining a gnat from their soup, would willingly swallow a camel” [Gomes, 96].

Abolitionists knew the devil could quote scripture for his own purposes and they felt their efforts to abolish slavery would not only free human beings but redeem Scripture itself.

They were serious in their task; in my next post on the hard text of race, we will see they are serious enough to fight a war. 

A war over the “hard text” of race…

*Chattel slavery. In this system, enslaved people were the personal property of their owners for life, a source of labor or a commodity that could be willed, traded or sold like livestock or furniture.  Biblical slavery was oppressive but human beings were not seen as a commodity?  [I use a question mark because I am not sure about the strength of this opinion, generally.]

We are now ready to return to “hard texts.”  On August 5^th, I wrote my comments on the second part of Peter Gomes hard text of the Bible regarding strong drink.  His argument is that the Bible does not literally support the idea that alcohol use should be totally prohibited. 

Then we moved on to Kevin DeYoung’s discussion of Sodom and Gomorrah [August 17] , scripture that is used by “nonaffirming” Christians to support their case that there is something very wrong with LGBTQ+ individuals.

From there Preston Sprinkle looked for evidence in Scripture that opposite sex relationships are necessary for God-ordained marriage.  He did not find what he would call “rock solid” evidence.

Now we are ready to return to Peter Gomes, who will discuss the “hard text” of Christian attitudes toward race relations. 

Is this confusing? 

Two authors [DeYoung and Sprinkle] zero in on homosexuality in the Bible and Gomes talks race? 

The reason I believe he does this is that he is taking a long view.  The essence of his strategy is “look how the Bible does not support the prohibition of hard drink, look how the Bible does not support negative attitudes toward race, look how the Bible does not support Anti-Semitism.”  Then he will make the argument: look how the Bible also does not support LGBTQ+ discrimination.

This is where we are going next—the idea that Scripture does not support the idea that one man is better than another just because one person’s skin color is white and another person’s skin color is black.

Today many people say they accept this and can they can claim that racism is over? I don’t think so.  Today all people will say that slavery is a practice of the past but the fact that many who practiced it used God’s word to justify the practice needs to be understood. Gomes will take us there, to that awkward discussion.

But do not lose sight: he will eventually lead us to the idea that the most heinous discrimination today is against LGBTQ+ people.

As I move from one book to another it is easy to get confused. Maybe we need a “scorecard.”

My long view is a fair and balanced discussion of the issue that is at the forefront of Christianity today: the LGBTQ+ community and the church.

I am learning so much as I continue to blog on three books, three different viewpoints on the same subject—homosexuality in the church. 

As I begin to post on an author who tries to bridge the gap between Christians who are accepting of same-sex pastors and same-sex marriages in the church to an author who does not accept either, I find that he uses a word that I have heard before.

I have a very close pastor friend who has always spoken against same-sex expression in the church and years ago, he said he knew the problem in a nutshell:  same-sex people want to be affirmed.   They want to be told that they are ok. 

In Chapter Two of Preston Sprinkle’s book People to be Loved: Why Homosexuality is Not Just an Issue he uses the word “affirming and nonaffirming” regarding churches.  Some churches and Christians are affirming and some churches and Christians are nonaffirming. 

Sprinkle tries to understand both views regarding this issue, trying to be fair in his interpretation of Scripture.  He has done extensive study of the Bible regarding homosexual behavior in the church and has founded The Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender, a collaboration of Christian pastors, leaders and theologians who desire to be a trusted source of sound Biblical teaching and practical guidance on questions related to sexuality and gender.

In this blog, I have already commented on Kevin DeYoung’s view of same-sex marriage, that he thinks it is not a part of God’s plan for man and woman.*

Now Sprinkle takes parts of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 and opens those Scriptures up to possibilities.  “Nonaffirming” Christians see Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 as clear evidence that homosexual marriage was not meant to be.  God created man and woman in the Garden and they got married and had children.  This sets the acceptable pattern for marriage from creation to today; it must be man and woman.  Affirming Christians don’t see Genesis 1 this way.  Opposite-sex marriages in Genesis don’t necessarily rule out homosexual marriages.   Sprinkle goes on to say that same-sex marriage was not an option in the ancient world.  Homosexual activity did occur but not within a marriage context.   The bottom line on this issue is this:  is heterosexuality a necessity for marriage.

Let’s look at the idea of man and woman coming together to become one flesh.  Many just assume that means anatomical complementarity or two people of opposite sex having intercourse.  Sprinkle has studied the idea of “one flesh” extensively and concludes that the phrase means forming a new family.  A man leaves his father and mother and forms a new family unit (one flesh united).   Can sexual union be a part of that?  It can, but the primary emphasis of one flesh means “kinship bond”; therefore there is not an emphasis on male-female intercourse.   Becoming one flesh does not necessarily mean sexual union and it does not rule out same sex unions.  For nonaffirming Christians that statement is just not plausible.**

Genesis 2: 18 is a verse that gives further evidence for the creation of the first woman.  By today’s standards, to explain that God created woman for man to have someone to have sex with may be intolerable for many, but there had to be some plan for procreation.  Explaining that woman had to be created for man to leave his mother and his father may be a bit better, but Genesis 2:18 is really a problematic Scripture for many women today.  “It is not good for man to be alone.  I will make a helper suitable for him.” Helper implies an inferior role for women.   Sprinkle looks at God’s plan for the wild animals of the world.  He brought them to man to name them.  Man gave names to livestock and the birds of the sky.  But in Genesis 2: 21 “for Adam, no suitable helper was found.”  Adam needed a helper and no helper is suitable in the animal world.

At this point Sprinkle introduces the word kenegdo which is the Hebrew word for suitable [used in Genesis 2: 18 and 2: 20].   He breaks the word down as ke which means like or as, neged which means opposite.  It is a complicated word which explains how Eve qualifies for a perfect partner for Adam.  She is human which makes her like Adam, but she is female which makes her different.  This seems to support the need for heterosexuality and diminishes support for homosexuality.

Some interpret kenegdo as the difference of Adam and Eve may be due to a difference of Eve’s personality.  Regarding that,  Sprinkle writes “Quite frankly this is a stretch.”  The “difference” of Eve is due to her biological sex.

At this point, Sprinkle seems to be trying to open interpretation of the need for heterosexuality in marriage with his thoughts on “one flesh” but he seems to be limiting the interpretation of homosexuality in marriage with his thoughts on “suitable helper.” 

In the examination of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 he admits that sexual difference seems to be necessary for marriage, but in a rush to judgement, too many nonaffirming Christians make what he calls “hasty conclusions.” 

Are there other Scriptures where we can look for evidence that God prefers male and female marriage over same-sex marriage?   

Sprinkle will turn to references in the New Testament to examine the issue further.  The big question about this is the following: Is he going to have affirming conclusions about same-sex behavior or nonaffirming conclusions?  One must remember his is trying to “bridge the gap” between two extreme views.   How does one do that?  Is his position plausible?

We will see…

*see “Sticking Your Finger in Someone’s Ear” June 10, 2023 St. John Studies and “God’s Purpose for Marriage” June 17, 2023 St. John Studies.

**see “A Christian School Apologized After a Guest Speaker Wasn’t Anti-LGBTQ Enough” Friendly Atheist March 29, 2021. [The speaker was Preston Sprinkle].

I have never juggled a discussion of three books at once on this blog before.  I have discussed a simple book by John Stott [Basic Christianity] with a more complex book by John Stott [The Cross of Christ] but I have never bounced back and forth between three books at once.

From time to time, feel that I need to write a “Don’t Lose Sight” post just to keep anyone who is reading clear about where I am going. 

I wrote “Sodom and Gomorrah and Revisionism” [August 17, 2023] about Kevin DeYoung’s chapter on Sodom and Gomorrah.  DeYoung emphasizes that God intended to destroy those cities because they had a preponderance of same-sex activity within their population.  DeYoung is a “traditional Christian” who feels that same-sex activity is a mortal sin.   He also discusses revisionist Biblical critics who don’t see that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for that reason.  Their views are designed to put forth the idea that arrogance was the real reason for God’s retribution and those homosexual men who come to Lot’s door wanted to have sex with angels, not ordinary men [that clears them of desire for same-sex human activity].  Revisionist criticism of the Bible is often opposed to traditional Biblical criticism.  DeYoung discusses revisionism but does not defend it; in essence, he attacks it.

Now we are poised to move to the third book in this trifecta, Preston Sprinkle’s  People to be Loved: Why Homosexuality is Not Just an Issue.  Sprinkle’s title tells it all.  While Peter Gomes and Kevin DeYoung present opposite sides of the issue of homosexuality and the church, Sprinkle tries to straddle the divide on this issue by focusing on the human element: that LGBTQ+ people are people to be loved, not just an issue to be debated. 

We have already looked at male and female sexual difference as a bedrock for marriage.  DeYoung says it is essential.  What will Sprinkle say?

We will see, as he titles his Chapter 2 “Holy Otherness: Is Male and Female Sexual Difference Necessary for Marriage?”