Gospel Prism

Interestingly, in spite of the nature of this debate (based on biblical evidence), homosexual theologians have taken the view that Scripture is ultimately not too critical in assuming the validity of homosexuality in the Christian Church. Stanton Jones, in debating the homosexual theological use of Scripture, writes, “There are only two ways one can neutralize the biblical witness against homosexual behavior: by gross misinterpretation or by moving away from a high view of Scripture.” (Stanton L. Jones, “The Loving Opposition: Speaking the Truth in a Climate of Hate,” Christianity Today, July 19, 1993, 24.) It is my contention that homosexual theologians have succeeded in doing both of these things. Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart identify the tools for good exegesis,

The believing scholar insists that the biblical texts first of all mean what they meant. That is, we believe that God’s Word for us today is first of all precisely what His Word was to them. Thus we have two tasks: First, to find out what the text originally meant; this task is called exegesis. Second, we must learn to hear the same meaning in the variety of new or different contexts of our own day; we call this second task hermeneutics.” (Gordon D. Fee & Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), 13.)

As these exegetes interpreted Scripture, clear biases and a lack of regard for context often led to faulty exegetical and hermeneutical outcomes and assumptions.

However, one could say that this was due to a very low-view of Scripture. Care was not taken because biblical purity was not a concern. There is no denying that many of the scholars began their research with the presupposition that at the very least the Bible is not inerrant. Some have even decided to reject any form of biblical authority regarding anything to do with homosexuality. Gary Comstock writes,

We have not been sufficiently skeptical of the patriarchal framework within which these passages occur. I would suggest that our approach to the Bible become less apologetic and more critical—that we approach it not as an authority from which we want approval, but as a document whose shortcomings must be cited. [Italics mine]” (Gary David Comstock, Gay Theology Without Apology (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1993), 39)

He continues to question Scripture’s authority by stating,

Not to recognize, critique, and condemn Paul’s equation of godlessness with homosexuality is dangerous. To remain within our respective Christian traditions and not challenge those passages that degrade and destroy us is to contribute to our own oppression …Those passages will be brought up and used against us again and again until Christians demand their removal from the biblical canon. [Italics mine]” (Comstock, 43)

Maury Johnston picks up where Comstock leaves off by declaring these predictable words,

The Bible is not the Word of God, but the words of men, in which and through which we believe the living, active, constantly contemporary Word of God comes to men…What most fundamentalists fail to take into consideration is that the Christian Church really has no need for an infallible Bible. (Johnston, 40-8)

Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong has made similar comments in regard to the authority of Scripture. He writes,

Other religious leaders at the highest levels in Catholic, evangelical, and even mainline traditions have weighed in with similar statements. They all seem to assume that there is a clear sexual ethic in holy scripture. The debate, however, rages on because, first, the sexual references in holy scripture are not consistent and, second, the authority of those texts which can be quoted literally has been seriously eroded. The Bible has been used in this way before, and it has not prevailed.”…So when religious leaders claim support of scriptures for their own homophobia, it becomes quite clear that something besides truth is operating in them. The Bible is an ambiguous document about specific sexual practices. Perhaps this is what those who think of themselves as ‘Bible believers’ have so much difficulty accepting…Even one of the biblical instances that is quoted to demonstrate the Bible’s clear denunciation of the ‘sin of homosexuality’ (Rom. 1) confronts us with the strange idea that if we fail to worship God properly, God will punish us with homosexuality! (John Shelby Spong, Why Christianity Must Change or Die, (San Francisco: Harper, 1998), 156-8.)

Spong’s obvious distaste for biblical inerrancy and his penchant for biblical distortion is fully explained by this statement,

The fact remains that these so-called laws of God, which God was supposed to have written on tablets of stone, or the excessive claims made for Holy Scripture in general, which involve the assertion that the Bible is somehow ‘the inerrant word of God,’ are today indefensible, regardless of who utters those claims or any variation on them.”…To build a new basis for ethics, we must learn to look in a different place. We look, I believe, not outside of life for some external and objective authenticating authority, but rather at the very center and core of our humanity. (Spong, 158-160)

Peter Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard College likens the Evangelical condemnation of the sin of homosexuality on the basis of Scripture to the German people’s acceptance of anti-Semitism and holocaust on their understanding of Scripture,

Although most contemporary Christians who have moral reservations about homosexuality, and who find affirmation for those reservations in the Bible, do not resort to physical violence and intimidation, they nevertheless contribute to the maintenance of a cultural environment in which less scrupulous opponents of homosexuality are given the sanction of the Bible to feed their prejudice and, in certain cases, cultural ‘permission’ to act with violence upon those prejudices. This is the devastating theme of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s 1996 book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, published to much dismay in Germany. Goldhagen argues that it was the cultural permission of Germany’s Christian anti-Semitism, based of course upon a reading of the Bible, that allowed the nasty work of the Holocaust to be done not only upon military specialists but by people whose attitudes were based upon centuries of Christian teaching…The combination of ignorance and prejudice under the guise of morality makes the religious community, and its abuse of scripture in this regard, itself morally culpable. (Peter J. Gomes, The Good Book, (New York: Avon Books, 1996), 146-7.)

Even though Gomes is not debating biblical inerrancy, his reference to Christian anti-Semitism in the Hitler era “based of course upon a reading of the Bible” and the connection he makes to today’s “moral reservations about homosexuality” being rooted in Scripture, is Gomes’ case for undermining the relevance of the Bible as a absolute moral authority. Thus it is tantamount to an ultimate rejection of the Bible as a valid voice against homosexuality.

Finally, Stanton Johnston puts the nail in the coffin of biblical authority,

Literalism is antithetical to the responsible life to which Jesus the Christ called his followers. It is also a denial of the continuing revelation of the Holy Spirit …Those who use certain …passages from Paul’s epistles as the proof that God condemns Gay people are selective literalists. Their irresponsible use of Paul’s writings gives evidence to their inability to cope with the reality of Gay love and Gay people and perhaps more often their inability to cope with sexuality and/or their own Gay feelings. Their homophobia, not their faith, is revealed. (Gomes, 52)

Mainline denominations and many biblical scholars and theologians have tumbled down the slippery slope of biblical errancy and neglect possibly faster than anyone could have predicted. Since Scripture is no longer the basis of any moral judgment whatsoever, acceptance of homosexuality no longer a question of sinfulness, but a question of “social justice.” And this justice is not founded on God’s absolute moral justice, but justice deemed just solely on the basis of the ever-capricious mores of this current world.
Ironically, in spite of their sentiments towards the inspiration of Scripture, these theologians continue to use Scripture to debate Evangelical theologians. But the upshot of this debate is the gross misinterpretation of the several passages that condemn homosexuality.

By rejecting the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, these theologians lack the ultimate power and authority that Scripture can bring. Carl Henry says it best when he writes:

Yet it is clear from the history of theology and philosophy that efforts to preserve the reality of the living Creator-Redeemer God apart from the authority of the scriptural word always falter. Even the neo-orthodox theology of “divine encounter,” emphasizing as it did the distinctive impersonal self-revelation of God, soon emptied into existentialist alternatives and finally into death-of-God speculation. The triune God is indeed the “ontological premise” on which the historic Christian faith is founded, but the case for biblical theism seems to require his definitive revelation in the inspired Word of Scripture. (Carl F.H. Henry, `The Authority of the Bible,” The Origin of the Bible (Wheaton: Tyndale House Pub., 1992) p. 25-26.)

Scripture is the ultimate standard of reference because God has made it his inspired and inerrant revelation to humanity as He writes in 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.