For most of my adult life, I've had what I would call a love-hate relationship with religion, particularly mainstream Christian beliefs. On one hand, I believe in God and the teachings of Jesus. I believe that Jesus wanted all of us to love and care for each other no matter what, and that is a message that I can get behind wholeheartedly. On the other hand, my attempts to more fully embrace my Christian beliefs usually end with me being confronted with opinions and points of view that all but turn me off of organized religion. I believe in Jesus Christ, but I've found time and again that many of His so-called followers are horribly judgemental, elitist, prejudiced and even hateful people who believe that everyone who doesn't live as they do deserve to suffer in Hell for all of eternity. I know that's a very gross (and admittedly probably unfair) generalization of Christian conservatives, but when the most socially conservative right-wing Christians practically become the spokespeople of an entire religion in the eyes of many it becomes hard for a social liberal such as myself to identify with that religion. It's tough for me to just turn my back on my Christian faith, but it's also difficult for me to justify being a Christian sometimes. I don't like to hear about people who deserve to go to Hell just for not having the right religious beliefs, and I don't like being made to feel guilty or unsure of myself whenever I find that I agree with alleged sinners and non-Christians.
Over the years I've come to believe many things that the most conservative Christians might say are wrong. It's a long list mostly comprised of typically "liberal" beliefs, and I'm not going to go into great detail about it here. I've been able to justify most of my beliefs by saying that there is little to no Biblical evidence that says that they're sinful and wrong. It's church dogma that suggests that some of what I believe is wrong, and I've always been skeptical about organized religion anyway. However, the one major sticking point with me has been what the Bible allegedly says about homosexuality.
I'm not gay or bi myself, but I know a lot of people who are. These people are no different from me except for the fact that they find members of their own gender attractive, yet that one seemingly insignificant difference is supposedly enough to damn them to Hell for eternity. That has never sat well with me. If two men or two women fall in love and decide they want to be together, who are they hurting? How is anybody in society being affected by their decision? It doesn't make any sense to me that they would be branded as beyond redemption in the eyes of God, and it would be easy for me to write off this belief as a product of bigotry and homophobia.
And yet, there are passages in the Bible that do appear to condemn homosexuality as sinful. These passages are often referred to as the "clobber" passages since conservatives often use them to effectively end any debates about homosexuality, and probably because it really hurts to hear them quoted whenever the subject comes up. I don't see anything ethically or morally wrong with being gay or bi, but I do have a problem with people passing judgement on others for things that shouldn't be any of their business. And yet, if I were to listen to the religious right and accept most contemporary English translations of the Bible at face value I should view homosexuality and GLBT people as sinful abominations. That goes against everything that I've come to believe, and I cannot in good conscience look down on a person for being gay or bi. Yes, I know the Bible also says that we shouldn't judge others, but how can one believe that when many Biblical translations and even some contemporary teachings suggest that there are those who deserve it? I'm also not going to "love the sinner and hate the sin;" that just sounds condescending. The whole subject has been a bone of contention with me lately, and it has even made me question if I should even self-identify as a Christian.
Then again, I have never truly believed that the Bible was as infallible as many claim it to be. I believe that much of it was divinely inspired, but in the end it was written down by flawed human beings. Add that to the fact that it has been retranslated and reinterpreted countless times throughout history and it's easy to imagine that the meaning of some of the Scriptures have been lost in translation. That made me wonder if perhaps the so-called "clobber" passages were meant to be as damning as they appear to be.
There are about half a dozen major "clobber" passages that are usually said to be proof that homosexuality is sinful. I don't claim to be an expert on the Bible by any stretch of the imagination, but I decided to take a look at these passages myself. This blog entry is already getting pretty long, so obviously I'm not going to get to all of these passages in one post, but I'm hoping to address them all eventually.
Right now, I'd just like to focus on the first Bible story most often used to condemn homosexuality, that of the destruction of Sodom which can be found in Genesis 19. I'm sure just about everyone knows this story, but for those who don't Sodom was a city that was so corrupt and evil that God decided that it should be destroyed. He eventually decides that the city would be spared if ten righteous people were to be found there and sends two angels to find those ten people. They are quickly taken in by a kind man named Lot. Lot and his family prove to be very hospitable, something that cannot be said about the other men of Sodom. Before long, an angry mob shows up and demands that Lot send the two strangers out to them so that they may "know" them. Lot refuses to send his guests out to the mob and offers his two virgin daughters instead. The mob takes offense to this and tries to force their way into Lot's home. By this point, it is clear that there aren't enough righteous people in Sodom to spare it from God's wrath, so the angels help Lot and his family escape (except for Lot's wife, who disobeys their command not to look back at the city and gets turned into a pillar of salt) while God destroys the city with fire and brimstone and kills every other man, woman and child in it.
I've never really cared for this story, not because of what it's about but what it has come to represent for many people. To me, it's just a story of God punishing wicked people. The people of Sodom must have done some horrible things to deserve being wiped off the face of the earth. That much is clear, and I'm mostly fine with that. What I do have a problem with is the meaning that has been attached to this story.
The men of Sodom wanted to "know" the strangers in Lot's home. That can mean many things, but traditionally it is thought to mean that they wanted to have sex with them (the New International Version of the Bible even explicitly says that). Naturally, right-wing conservatives and homophobes have latched onto this interpretation and assumed that the unrepentantly homosexual men of Sodom were so overcome with lust after seeing two strange new men in town that they went into a sexual frenzy and decided that they needed to have sex with them, an act so disgusting and sinful that it justifies genocide. I have a huge problem with this interpretation for a few reasons. First of all, it's offensive. Regardless of what some people seem to believe, GLBT people are generally not perverts who are slaves to their sexual desires. They are no different from anybody else, and their sexuality is only a small part of who they are. Secondly, it implies that Sodom was destroyed because of an attempted homosexual orgy while completely ignoring the fact that God had already decided to destroy it before the events of the story even took place. Never is it mentioned explicitly that God is destroying Sodom for this reason. Finally, those that prescribe to this interpretation of the story rarely seem to take into account that the mob probably wanted to brutally rape and possibly kill the strangers. Rape is a violent act that is all about power, control and humiliation; it's a far cry from a consensual sexual encounter. Far too many people get hung up on the fact that what the mob wanted to do involved other men as opposed to the fact that rape is horrible no matter who it happens to or who commits the act.
Of course, those that see this story as a "clobber" passage never take into account the fact that to "know" someone can have a few different meanings. It is very possible that it was meant to have sexual connotations in this context, but it could also mean that the men of Sodom simply wanted to know who the strangers were. Sodom had recently been at war, so it would make sense if its inhabitants were wary of strangers. Perhaps they wanted to question them to see if they were enemy spies. Even if what they really wanted was to rape them, the rape would've been a way to humiliate and torture them if they were enemies. This was actually a very common practice with soldiers at the time. Such rapes were about power and humiliation, not sexual desire.
I'd really like to think that taking a closer look at the story of Sodom will allow people to see that it takes some pretty big assumptions and leaps in logic to assume that it was intended as proof that God hates homosexuality. Later verses in the Bible even state that the people of Sodom were destroyed because they were violent, inhospitable and uncaring. It's never once explicitly stated that their sin was being gay, and yet people have been supposedly reading between the lines and seeing that for hundreds of years.
Well, this first post turned out to be a lot longer than I had planned. I'm hoping I didn't offend or scare anybody off, but this is something that has been on my mind lately and I wanted to talk about it. Maybe if I'm up for it I might go through with my plans (yeah, right) to talk about the rest of the "clobber" passages and show that Christianity really shouldn't be as dismissive of the GLBT community as it seems to be at times.
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