The Bible and homosexuals: four questions, four answers

Reflections by Reverend Durrell Watkins* published on the Jesus in Love blog (United States) on 24 October 2013, freely translated by Silvia Lanzi

Here are four questions I've often been asked about spirituality and LGBT people. My ministry takes place in a Church that has its roots in both the Christian tradition and the gay rights movement. In any case, I am a spiritual humanist and a religious pluralist, and while I speak primarily from a Christian point of view, the message I seek to offer is universal. Here are the questions and my answers.

Is it a sin to be gay?

“Sin” means to miss the target (a metaphor from archery). “Being” something is a question of ontology (“of essence”). So, to discover that you are something and to be honest, you must never miss the mark. Self-discovery and expressing your truth with integrity is like making a perfect center!

Did jesus condemn homosexuality?

Jesus condemned very little. One of the few things he has condemned is the tendency of religious people to take part in the condemnation! It seems that Jesus has a lot of patience with pretty much everyone except self-righteous people who try to apply religious laws to oppress and control others.

Was Jesus understanding towards homosexual people?

The word “homosexual” was never part of Jesus' vocabulary. However, in the eighth chapter of Matthew's gospel (and the story is repeated in the seventh chapter of Luke's) Jesus is said to have healed a centurion's servant. The original hearers of this story must have assumed that the servant was the centurion's lover. From what we know of first-century Roman culture, these relationships were not uncommon. And for a person of such high status to be so concerned about a servant that he approaches a healer of lower status in a desperate attempt to help him suggests a much greater intimacy than one might expect between a military officer and his “servant.” How did Jesus respond to the centurion? He praised his faith! He did not condemn or even doubt his relationship.

Thus, in Matthew 19, Jesus uses the definition of “eunuch” in a broader sense than we normally do. he says there Are castrated ones, which is the common definition. but he also Says that there are two other types of eunuchs. he says That some “choose” To be eunuchs (living A celibate life) and that others are “born” Eunuchs (people Who are, by nature, sexually different). he also Says that not everyone will accept this broad, inclusive, non-judgmental definition of eunuchs, but that “anyone who Can accept this, should accept it.”
Jesus was setting an example of sexual diversity – some are different because they have been surgically changed. Others for the individual choice not to marry or to remain celibate (for example friars and nuns). And still others are born different, that is, their difference is innate. Jesus does not suggest that there is anything wrong with one type of eunuch, and he certainly does not propose an “ex-eunuch” program. Some of us are “different” from the majority, and it seems that Jesus thinks that's okay, that those who can accept diversity do so! His teachings remind us of Isaiah 56, where the prophet puts these words into the mouth of God: “Let not the eunuch say, 'Behold, I am a withered tree!' …I will grant in my house and within my walls an eternal place and name that will never be erased… because my temple will be called a house of prayer for ALL peoples”. In any case, Jesus never condemned homosexual love or attraction.

But are there any biblical verses that condemn homosexuality?

It depends on how you read the Bible. The people who wrote the documents that eventually became our Bible were products of their time and culture. They had specific agendas and wrote to particular communities, usually in response to well-defined events. None of them had any idea that 21st-century Americans would read their work. In fact, none of them knew that there was a North American continent or that the world was not flat. And so we read in the Bible arguments for slavery, which claim that women are somehow inferior to men and which seem to suggest that God takes sides in bloody conflicts.

Today we DO NOT accept that women are in any way inferior to men.
Today we believe that slavery is one of the greatest evils in human history.
Today many of us believe that war is almost never God's will.

Do we read the Bible with an awareness of its historical, cultural and linguistic context? Or do we cling to isolated verses that seem to support one prejudice or another? How we choose to read the Bible will determine whether we believe the Bible promotes homophobia. And How we choose to read it says more about the reader than it does about the text.

Of the entire Bible written by many people over the course of more than a thousand years, there are only a half-dozen phrases that are commonly used to shame, condemn, harass, or terrorize gays and lesbians! Each of these rare and isolated passages, when taken in their cultural, historical, linguistic and literary context can be deconstructed in a liberating way for gay people! Love or even mutual attraction is never condemned in the Scriptures.

The Bible is against raping, exploiting, and harming your neighbor (and rightfully so!). It is not a collection of books intended to condemn love, reciprocity, or any life-affirming situation.
Now, consider these Bible passages that some of us believe accurately summarize God's message to the human family: “God is love and WHOever is in love abides in God and God abides in him.” 1 John 4.16; “For I know the thoughts that I think for you,” says the Lord, “thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29.11; “But by the grace of God i am what i am” 1 Corinthians 15.10; "But the fruit of the Spirit is: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law." Galatians 5.22-23.

There is no law against love, and we are all one. This is the message of the Bible. It doesn't tell us who to hate; it tells us how to love. We know for a fact that LGBT people are as capable of living a life full of love as anyone else.

*Reverend Durrell Watkins is the lead pastor ofSunshine CathedralOf Fort Lauderdale, Florida since 2007. The church is affiliated withMetropolitan Community ChurchesAnd all 'International New Thought Alliance. The article “The Bible and Gays” by Reverend Durrell Watkins, pastor of the Sunshine Cathedral in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is one of the most famous articles on the Bible and homosexuality of all time. “Reverend Watkins goes well beyond debunking “masculating” anti-gay passages, showing Christ's positive message about queer people in a plain and accessible way. (Kittredge Cherry)

Original text: The Bible and Gays: Is it a sin to be gay? Did Jesus condemn homosexuality?