In Bible times, no physician ever diagnosed a man’s hypothalamus-pituitary
endocrine system as not functioning -
therefore,
people who lived in Bible times assumed (wrongly) that
the “shame of barrenness” was a woman’s fault.
Back then, no one understood that epilepsy was a malfunction of the
brain’s electrical system -
rather,
people assumed (wrongly) that demon possession caused
the grinding of teeth and the thrashing about.
When the Bible’s story was being written, a bacterium called mycobacterium
leprae had not yet been discovered under the lens of a microscope -
for
centuries, people reasonably assumed (wrongly) that lepers deserved the stigma of “religiously unclean”.
In Bible times, the notion that every human being had a unique,
irrevocable sexual orientation would have been considered bizarre -
lacking the
insights of modern psychology, most assumed (wrongly)
that same gender attraction was unnatural and reprehensible.
Fact of the matter is, biblical authors could not have written accurately
about sexual orientation even if they wanted to -
no more than they would have written accurately about gravity,
vitamins, NETFLIX, or, for that matter, the hypothalamus-pituitary endocrine
system !
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Most of the people of the Bible
(as well as the writers who brought them to life)
sincerely believed human beings were normally,
naturally and exclusively
heterosexual .
When Bible people clumsily or hurtfully opined about same sex
attraction, they were not really being hard-hearted or even close-minded.
Rather, they were simple minded because they were mis-informed.
So, what then to do with all those “clobber verses” in the Bible,
warning about homosexuality?
First, it might be noted that since all people were thought to
be heterosexual as an orientation, no biblical injunctions about homosexuality as an orientation were
ever introduced into the Scriptures!
For starters, gay folk might want to start celebrating their own
collective exemption from exhortations in Scripture which were intended
exclusively for people with a heterosexual orientation!
OK, that may be a bit of a jump, but there is truth in it.
The reality of sexual
orientation was simply invisible when the Bible was written.
Obviously, one cannot talk about that which one cannot imagine.
The Bible cannot have offered moral guidance about a topic it
cannot have understood.
In short, the Bible offers nothing particularly useful about being
gay.
For sure, the Bible has nothing useful to say about the morality of homosexuality, anymore than
it has anything useful to say about the morality
of infertility, epilepsy, or leprosy!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
So,
if you still believe that being gay
is a sin, you might want to consider this short quote:
“Why do you judge
others for their sins,
just because they are
different than your own?”
I
have no idea whose quote it is, but it finds home in a refreshing way.
(It
has helped me to begin to address my own
judgmental self,
-
no small feat!)
Like
the Bible says, “All of us are to blame” or “None of us is to blame”, I ‘m not
quite sure.
One
thing for certain:
we
are all more alike each other
than
ever we will be different from each other.
