The Bible and Homosexual Practice: My conclusion

Here's my honest to goodness conclusion of the book.

The Bible and Homosexual Practice was a very thorough investigation of the perceptions of same-sex relationships by ancient near-east cultures before and during the time the bible was written, and every single possible mention of same-sex sexual activity in the bible. It exposed me to a lot of significant information and analysis I wasn't aware of before, and in this sense, it was very helpful and challenging.

Gagnon clearly does not believe scripture is what I think a typical conservative evangelical would consider "trustworthy" in some key ways. The story of creation is a myth. The Pentateuch was not written by Moses (as the bible says Jesus and Paul believed it was). And more significantly, there are many words in the gospels the authors claimed Jesus said, but the historical Jesus most likely did not say. And finally, some of the letters of the New Testament that claim to be written by Paul, are not.

I'm personally absolutely fine with all of the fascinating discussions behind these things. But for me, when you believe scripture is composed in this way, the foundation from which you claim to know how God feels about certain things, such as modern homosexual relationships, is on uncertain ground.

From what I understand, Gagnon's method is since we can only trust some parts of scripture to certain degrees, the goal becomes to try to guess what the biblical authors (and Jesus) would have thought of modern homosexual relationships, and this becomes our own rule of life.

As an example, consider the imaginary letter Gagnon included that the Corinthians may have written to Paul in response to the letter we call 1 Corinthians. To me, the exercise of imagining what the biblical authors may have answered this question two thousand years ago is, first, absurd, and second, irrelevant.

It's absurd because the exercise involves imposing a 21st century cultural mindset onto the biblical authors, and then imagining how they might answer a question. This bizarre experiment can be nothing more than a useless projection of our own preconceived notions. To be fair, I'd make the same case for my side as well. Yes, I'd like to imagine that if I could go back in time and sit down with Jesus, he would be cool with me and the LGBTQIA+ community I love, but I simply can't say for certain.

And it's irrelevant because as Christians, I don't believe we're asked to imagine such things. I believe our task is to thoughtfully interpret God's word in the form it comes to us, with all the beautiful inspiration and textual complexities. And I believe from there, according to the law of Christ as described by Paul, as mature believers we're to discern God's best for us after thoughtfully considering what is written in scripture, what is written by the Spirits on our hearts, and how it impacts our communities.

Furthermore, it seems that Gagnon's argument heavily relies on modern homosexual relationships being related with violence, disease, wanton promiscuity, and so on. To Gagnon, these are reasons that God forbids homosexual activity - to protect his children from harm. His idea that God's decision-making should generally be reasonable from a human point of view is illustrated by his support of the interpretation that Ham must have raped his father, Noah, because if it were a simple misunderstanding, God's cursing of the Canaanites would be too severe. (I don't necessarily disagree with this.)

Now, I'm of the point of view that God does what he will often to the bewilderment of humankind. We needn't seek to understand the reason behind everything God does or commands. But I do certainly support the idea that God loves his children and wants the best for them. So if one decides to make this relevant in the discussion of modern homosexual relationships (and I believe it should be, but it's a little bit on the indirect side of the discussion in comparison to the direct mentions of same-sex sexual activity in scripture) I've got this to say:

First, even giving Gagnon leeway having written this book several decades ago, his science is bad and it's clear he's only looking for research to support his side of the discussion. At times he even makes claims without bothering to back them up. An unbiased survey of the research is going to show that there are not significant differences in terms of disease, incidents of violence, etc. between heterosexual and homosexual relationships. I won't dive into this here, but I'd love to a post on this down the road sometime. (I'm sorry, I realize that's a little bit of a punt there - I'm making claims without bothering to back them up!)

Second, when it does come to God being reasonable and wanting the best for his children, I believe scripture directly addresses this in terms of sexual relationships in a way that is very relevant to the discussion of homosexuality.

But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. (1 Cor 7:9)

I believe Paul is being reasonable and pastoral here, saying, "If you can't remain single and fully orient your life around spiritual service because of your libido, then by all means get married!"

It's reasonable to ask, "Then how does this apply to people with homosexual sexual orientation? What are they to do when they burn with passion?" The answer I hear quite frequently is to "trust God" to meet all their needs and desires. That's one non-affirming answer which is in direct contradiction to Paul's instructions. The other is to marry a woman. This is a terrible suggestion counter to this scripture. For a man attracted to men, marrying a woman is going to do nothing to quench his passion. And who wants to be on the other end of a relationship like this? Of course the natural, affirming, answer is to seek a same-sex partner. And I believe this is the choice that is most faithful to scripture and God's love for his children.

The Bible and Homosexual Practice was a challenging and helpful read if only because of the thorough engagement of the topic inside and outside of scripture. But I not only remain firm that loving homosexual relationships should be welcome in the Christian community, after reading this book I'm even further convinced that allowing gay relationships in the church is the scriptural and loving choice.