In 1633, in order to avoid being burnt at the
stake, 70 year old Galileo was forced to recant his teaching of the
Copernican idea of the earth revolving around the sun. Galileo lived his
final years under house arrest, because his view "went against the
literal reading of the Bible." As Cardinal Bellarmine said in 1633, "But to affirm that... the Earth revolves very swiftly around the Sun is a dangerous thing... injuring our holy faith and making the sacred scriptures false." -- Robert Bellarmine, 1633, Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church & a leading Vatican theologian of the 17th century
Almost 400 years later in 1992, Pope John Paul
II publicly and graciously acknowledged that the Church had erred. John Paul said the theologians who condemned Galileo did not recognize
the formal distinction between the Bible and its interpretation.
There are many other examples where the
church used the "literal" interpretation of the Christian Bible in ways
we readily see as immoral and wrong today. Much of Christianity
opposed medical treatment in the 1600's and 1700's as "against the will
of God." Doctors were severely punished if they attempted to lessen a
woman's pain in childbirth, since according to a literal reading of
Genesis 3:16, such pain was a punishment upon Eve from God.
Mainstream Christianity supported slavery in
the 1800's, because numerous places in the Bible endorse and affirm
slavery. The Southern Baptist organization itself was formed over the
issue of slavery, with the Southern Baptists breaking away to loudly
proclaim that slavery was the will of God.
Much of Christianity opposed
the right of women to vote in the early 1900's, because both Old and
New Testaments are clear in saying that women should be subservient to
men. And in recent times, much of Evangelical Christianity including the
famed pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, W.A. Criswell,
opposed ending segregation in the 1950's because "it went against
scripture."
In the time of Jesus, no one talked of reading
scripture literally. Jesus and the rabbis of the first century were
intent on understanding the meaning of their scripture.
Literal readings of scripture -- as Jesus of Nazareth repeatedly tried
to show the piously religious of his day -- cannot be used for simple
and broad moral judgments. Moral judgments must stand up to scrutiny, to
judgment and reason. The guidance and wisdom in the Bible must be carefully
considered as a whole before doing something so brash as condemning an
entire segment of society, such as women, blacks, or homosexuals -- or
non-Christians, or anybody else.
Very few Christians of any group today would
believe or agree that medical treatment is wrong, that doctors should be
punished for giving anesthesia, that human beings should be owned as
property, that women should be second class citizens, or that blacks
should drink out of separate water fountains. Or, for that matter, that
the sun revolves around the earth. But this WAS the position of the a large part of the devoutly religious of their day. Today, we pretty much take collective offense at such obvious moral misjudgments. What I am telling you is, this "gay is a sin" issue is exactly the same thing. And in a generation, those leaders stamping their feet about it as a "moral issue" will be looked upon like the racial bigots of the 1950's. "The Word of the Lord Never Changes," the popular saying goes. But for anyone with thinking going on in their head, they can quickly understand that the INTERPRETATION of the Bible HAS changed in major ways over time. Our Evangelical friends who find slavery repugnant and who happily under support women voting are living proof.
Like millions of other progressive Christians,
I believe that the Evangelical churches are making a tremendous moral
mistake on today's red hot moral issue of homosexuality, which is of
course "against their interpretation of the Bible." The arguments they
employ -- that homosexuality is against the way of God, against nature,
and against the Bible -- are identical to the arguments used
in the 19th century in the defense of slavery. But what of the few
passages that appear to condemn homosexuality in the Bible?
Well, what of the
passages that endorse slavery? What about the passages that dictate that
women cannot speak in church? The New Testament is quite clear that
"women are to remain silent in the churches." (1 Cor. 14:33-36, among
other passages). There are hundreds of other Biblical passages that
"literally" tell women to not fix their hair, wear jewels; that allow
men to sell their daughters into slavery, that tell you to cut off your
hand, handle snakes, and a host of other things. Literal reading of scripture quickly takes
Christianity to a nonsensical place. The folks using the Bible so simply
are also highly selective. Piece parts are picked out to support
specific views while other parts are blatantly ignored. Some parts of
the Old Testament Law are claimed to be "God's Truth" while most of it
is overlooked. Select verses from the New Testament are often used to
support a particular view while many other pieces are ignored. The
great irony of folks who are most worried about taking the Bible
literally is that they really don't take it literally at all. This
is "cafeteria style" Biblical interpretation, where you pick and choose
what you want. And in looking for literal truths, you completely miss the point of the message: Jesus taught Love and acceptance. For the literal-minded that need such training wheels, it can be a tremendous stretch to see the forest for the trees.
On the moral issue of homosexuality, using the Bible, there is a
compelling case to be made there there is nothing sinful about homosexuality, no more so than eating shellfish and wearing cotton/poly blends (all listed as "abominations" in the Bible.) The teachers of Jesus are pretty clear. He was once asked what the greatest commandment was. He gave the same answer Rabbi Hillel had given. "Love your neighbor as yourself." What what Jesus do? He would affirm people loving each other, and we should affirm the rights of gays in our society to commit and love each other. But like the folks passionately defending the earth as the center of the solar system, punishing doctors who would help a woman's pain in childbirth, fervently arguing that slavery was endorsed by God, doing everything in their power to keep women from voting and blacks drinking from separate fountains and having their children go to separate schools, there are so many well-intentioned folks advancing bigotry toward homosexuals -- "because of the Bible" -- that it almost makes one think that we never learn from the past.
Like the issues of the earth revolving around the
sun, modern medicine, slavery, women's rights, and segregation, the
issue of the morality of homosexuality will ultimately be a lost cause
for the judgmental. In the meantime, Christians should look to history
to learn that "right and wrong" has changed across the generations, and
that their church's "wrong" of today may well be the historical bigotry
of tomorrow.
