I want to start off by once again thanking everyone who has read and everyone who has contacted me in various ways, and those friends who have come out to me in the past few days after seeing by my actions that they can trust me.
I also want to issue a public apology for my facebook status a few days ago, "Joshua Alkire thinks that anyone with half a brain should read his note and comment." That was unacceptable and snotty. Besides, it's not true. I need all of you to help me find out what I believe on these issues. I need you whether you've thought about this all your life or never. There are many things in this world more valuable than a brain. Besides, how am I the ultimate judge of intelligence?
The note has caused a stir. It has made many people stop and think. It has made many people cry. It is not at all perfect. It may not by adequate. In this post, I would like to expose some of the problems with my note that people have pointed out in the past few days, as well as a few self-criticisms that I have noticed.
Several people have been bothered because they can't figure out where I stand on the issues. This is because I still don't know about a lot of them. My views as of Wednesday are expressed in the note. Since then, I have come to understand that many of the things people believe on both "sides" are based on very bad information, and as I obtain better information and hear stories from real people, my beliefs are changing quickly. If you want to know what I believe, keep up with the blog. Don't stop reading, because the nuances of what I beleive may change next month. That was the whole point of why I started this conversation: to learn, and as one might expect, people have shown up in astounding numbers to share what they have to offer. Thank you.
So is this moral? How long can I remain in a nebulous state of indecision? Can I be preacher if 20 years down the road, I still don't know if love between to members of the same sex is wrong? Can I look a homosexual in the eye and say, "I'm not sure if this is okay. It might be a sin and it might not."
Several people have told me how much they appreciate the part where I said that I wouldn't mind having a homosexual babysit my kids. I'm still pretty set on that belief. They are not going to corrupt my kids, and saying so is a way of showing love and trust and setting myself apart from the hate that they may have experienced from other Christians. If you asked me today whether or not gay couples should be allowed to adopt, I would have to say that I don't know. I realize that this is inconsistent. What am I saying, that they can babysit but not raise children on their own? What does everyone think? A hard question to ask me would be, "If they can't have kids, how long can they babysit and how often? Can they run a daycare?"
Some people thought that by saying, "I want you to influence them," I meant "I want you to turn my children gay." That was not what I intended at all. If I come to believe that homosexuality is fundamentally okay, I still don't think that I will believe it is what everyone should do. What I meant was that I want my kids to have memories of homosexuals who were real people and good friends.
I am deeply regretting that I said the Bible is "ludicrously unclear" on this subject. To some it is very clear. To others it is fuzzy. Those who agree that it is clear might disagree about what it means. Hence...it is unclear, right? Because so many people disagree. Yet that is not, perhaps, much different from any other major issue that people disagree about in the Bible. It is unclear, perhaps, but not "ludicrously unclear". That puts too much blame on the text and not enough on us. I would like it if there was a red-letter saying of Jesus that when something like "Do not love a member of the same sex because..." But what does it matter what I want? A future post will deal with each of the main passages traditionally used in this type of conversation and the problems I have with traditional interpretations. (It will also address some of the problems of my reinterpretations of them.) However, one thing I have learned from second year Greek, if nothing else, is that we often pick the wrong verses for our arguments. I believe that Scripture has a lot to teach us about this issue, especially in the specifics, if not the generalities. I just think we're not looking in the right places. For example, most people I know agree that whatever else, we shold love homosexuals. Some people say, "as Jesus loves". The word "homosexual" doesn't show up in the Bible a lot. The word "love" does. We need to read these passages to find out what loving our homosexual brothers and sisters actually looks like.
I am quickly finding out that many people feel that homosexuals on the ACU campus are sort of pushed into Sally Gary's group Center Peace. It is perceived that ACU fully endorses her and that her views are ACU's views. I have a lot of respect for Sally Gary and the things she does, but I don't know if her name is what the person who wrote the card needed to hear, and I don't know if her and I will agree on everything by the time I have become set in most of my beliefs.
I thought that my examples of a pedophile born with pedophelia and a heterosexual who loves a married person really changed the debate, but now I'm not quite so sure. To be clear, neither homosexuality nor pedophelia has been proven to be caused by genetics yet, at least not to my knowledge. Even if homosexuality is proven to come from our DNA, that doesn't mean that pedophilia does as well. That will have to be shown separately. We live in an age where it is assumed that everything is caused by genetics, even though people don't always have the resarch to back it up. Also, the comparison between a pedophile, who causes severe psychological and physical harm to the child, and a homosexual in a loving consentual relationship, who loves his or her partner beyond a cheap sexual relationship, is unbearable. I acknowledged this, but it has been reiterated by others. The comparison is unbearable.
As for a person who genuinely loves someone else who is married, I still think that this is an example of unrequited, genuine love that must nevertheless be endured without satisfaction. Adultery is sinful. Divorce hurts people. If children are invovled, the problems only increase. However, this is the only example that I can think of. Also, I have come to understand that this comparison is also unbearable to some. A homosexual who loves a heterosexual, married or not, must live in fear, not only that their love must go unrealized, but that if they confessed their love, the other person will probably be perturbed and disgusted, might break off all ties of friendship, might return love with hate and fear and ignorance.
Those are the problems I remember discussing the most. Do we see any more? Please help me refine.
A few more questions: Does my approach to this issue exclude females? I have already talked to one homosexual female who said no. What do other's think?
Also, you may have noticed that when you check my blog, there is an adult content warning. How do we feel about this? Is that consistent with my belifs about babysitting?
Thank you all.
Joshua
Joshua,
ReplyDeleteThere are a number of things I wanted to comment on, but you seem to have taken care of most of that yourself in this more recent note. Specifically, I was going to ask how you deal with labeling all the other sexual sins enumerated in Leviticus as wrong but not labeling homosexuality wrong. I will posit this question though: Why now? Why are Christians now reconsidering the ages old answer to the question of homosexuality?
I am going to venture a guess that it is because it is such a pressing issue to culture. If there was no drive for the equality of homosexuals in our society, then the Church would not be grappling with this question. The fact that homosexuals are an identifiable group, and are thus oppressible, means that their oppression has, in the past and even now, been politicized. The primary force behind the political oppression of homosexuals are Christians. The primary forces behind the "no on 8" campaign were the Catholic Church and the Church of Latter Day Saints. The only reason there is even an attempt to answer the question differently than it has been answered since the day the law was given to Moses, and even before, is because whatever answer the Church gives will have political repercussions. The Church has never been challenged with trying to come up with a reason that adultery is actually ok. This is because adulterers are not an identifiable group capable of being oppressed. My point is this: If the church bows to the pressures of society to redefine some of its moral code, then the Church is not the proclaimer of absolute truth that we all thought she was. If the group in question were murderers instead of homosexuals, if society wanted rights for murderers, would the Church feel obliged to cleverly re-interpret scripture in an effort to say that it is ok to murder? "Oh, well, that whole do not murder business is just in the Old Testament. And, well, when Jesus was talking about murder all that he was actually concerned with was anger. So, as long as you only murder in cold blood you are gold." That is just ludicrous.
Yet, by your own admission, it is murder which appears alongside homosexuality as an abomination in the New Testament. "When it's used in the New Testament, it's almost always used as evidence of human depravity, rather than a warning against it's dangers. It almost always appears in a list, thus equating it with things like adultery and idolatry and murder-- to an ancient mind, undebatable examples of human sin." Now this is just confusing. If we take the scriptures to be the inspired word of God (It would be difficult, though not impossible, for me to have a meaningful conversation with you if you do not believe in the inspiration and innerancy of Scripture simply because you could just take a marker, cross out the verses you don't like, call them antiquated, and move on.) then when the New Testament explicitly lists homosexuality among the other abominations, you can't just ignore it, unless you are prepared to assert that things like adultery and murder are ok as well. In addition, I find it confusing and ultimately unhelpful to create a distinction between "evidence of human depravity" and "warning against the dangers of." If it is evidence of human depravity, then it is utterly dangerous and is capable of separating us from God.
This conversation is indeed stimulating and I am thankful that I am able to be a part of it.
-Greg Jeffers
p.s. I am in no way endorsing the "no on 8" campaign or other political oppression of homosexuals. My point is it is only because this issue has political life that it is also a spiritual question. Oppression is wrong. People ought to be politically free. Gay couples should be allowed to marry. People's ability to choose what to do, within obvious limits like not hurting other people, ought not be curtailed.
ReplyDelete-Greg Jeffers
Greg,
ReplyDeleteI promise to respond soon!
Joshua
Greg,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your thorough comments. Apparently by "soon", I actually meant "two weeks later".
I believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures, absolutely. That does not, however, mean that I believe they are easy to interpret. In fact, I am spending 7 years of my life learning about them in school specifically because they are NOT easy to interpret. I would never cut a verse out of the Bible, but as I study different verses, I may come to the conclusion that it means something different than I've heard others tell me that it means. Just because I conclude that a particular verse does not mean what other people think it means for a particular situation doesn't mean that I'm ignoring the verse or saying that it means nothing, it only means that I've concluded that it means something different. I believe that every single verse, both New and Old—from the genealogies to the detailed descriptions of tabernacle artifacts to the obscure metaphors of Revelation—has something to speak directly into my life. However, this does not mean that the message it’s trying to speak is the first one that pops into my head during an initial reading, nor is it necessarily the most popular interpretation that I’ve heard growing up, nor is it always the most literal.
Many people have grilled me about the "inevitable" consequence of "creatively interpreting" the OT, which is apparently that I will have to sanction murder. This is not true at all because I am not messing with the authority of Scripture. I am merely messing with the authority of other people's interpretation of Scripture.
To give an example of how hard the Old Testament is to interpret for our present time, ask yourself these questions:
Do you believe it is sinful to cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip your beard?
Do you believe it is sinful to cut your body with a knife while grieving at a funeral?
Do you believe it is sinful to get a tattoo?
Do you believe it is sinful to sell your own daughter into prostitution?
My guess is that many Christians would answer no, probably, probably not, YES!!!
Yet all of them are prohibited in Leviticus 19:27-29. Are you getting that? All of these rules are right next to each other. Does that mean that because that one guy in our Lit Crit class has "Walk Humbly" tattooed on the back of his neck that he believes it is okay to sell daughters into prostitution? Do you think he would cut himself at a funeral? Is he inconsistent in his beliefs if he gets the Scripture tattoo and then doesn't sanction prostitution or blood-mourning? No! Of course not. A closer reading of the Scriptures with a look at their historical context tells us that letting the hair grow long and abstaining from pagan funeral rituals would set Israel apart from the surrounding peoples. But tattoos are no longer associated with pagan funerals, nor is short hair associated with sinful, backward, pagan people.
You ask me how I can justify homosexuality and not justify any of the other sexual sins in Leviticus 18. I am not yet convinced that homosexuality is not a sin, but I am willing to consider the possibility carefully. Leviticus 18 gives reasons why all of the sexual sins listed therein are prohibited. The reason given for the prohibition of male homosexuality is that it is “detestable”. There are certainly many homosexual acts which are detestable to God and to humanity, such as those described in the Sodom and Gomorrah story of Genesis 19. However, I’m not sure that the loving, committed, sacrificial relationships that homosexual Christians argue for today are detestable to God, just as I am not sure that tattoos, especially those which quote Scripture, are still prohibited by God’s law.
I might also ask you how you can justify “ignoring” Leviticus 20, where most of the sexual offenders listed in Leviticus 18 are listed again, with clear instructions to punish most of them (including the male homosexual offenders) by putting them to death. Now are you confident that you could put any male homosexual acquaintance to death without being guilty of murder? I pray to God that you are not.
The reasons why I am skeptical of traditional interpretations of 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, which I poorly described as being “evidence of human depravity” rather than “a warning against the dangers of it” are harder to explain, but I hope to eventually make a post about each of the 6 or 7 passages that most nearly address homosexuality. The quickest explanation is this: the kind of homosexuality that is undebatable evidence of human depravity and the kind of homosexuality that my friends describe seem so far apart from each other that I have to wonder if Paul and my friends are even talking about the same thing. If they are, then my friends are wrong. If they are not, then both Paul and my friends may be right.
As for your question about, “Why now?” the answer is not because of politics for me, nor because I am bowing to the culture, but because I think that the culture (and more importantly, my homosexual friends) may have a good point. If we are doing things right, the culture should be able look at us and say, “Wow, those people answer to a higher morality than I do. I wonder what that’s all about?” All too often, though, the culture looks at us and says, “I agree with their morality, but I just don’t see the hypocrites living up to it.” Concerning the issue of homosexuality, the culture looks at us and says, “Their code of ethics is immoral! I want nothing to do with that!” This reaction is the polar opposite of what should be going on. That tells me that one of us is preposterously wrong. For all of my life, I have assumed it was our culture. Now I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be a bad idea to step back and reexamine ourselves again, just to make sure.
Joshua