Does the Bible Object More to Homophobia Than to Homosexuality?

LAURENE: I think in terms of the order of creation, the Genesis 1 story was not about marriage. If it were, let's look at scripture after it. Why did we have concubines birthing children for Jacob and Abraham, and why did we have polygamy? I find it very interesting that people lift up that Genesis 1 and say, one man, one woman, that's the way it is. If that were the case, how come the Israelite community had multiple wives, multiple concubines, extended family? That's one point in really wondering if that truly... I personally don't think that's about order of creation, per se, I believe that is about humankind, that there is male and female, "adam". Because the word is "adam", humanity. The writer goes on to say male and female. To define what "adam" meant in terms of humanity. That's my basic response in terms of the order of creation. If it is indeed one man, one woman, why do we have a scripture that is prolific of polygamy?

JOHN RANKIN: OK. I think the answer very simply is when I identified creation, sin, and redemption. In other words, God gave us the freedom to choose to accept what was right. But since his nature and power is to give and not to force us, he also gave us the freedom to choose what is wrong. And therefore, once sin comes into the world, all sorts of brokenness comes into it. In fact, it was my thesis at Harvard... I'm sure you've read Elisabeth Schuessler-Fiorenza and Phyllis Trible, among others. My thesis was on their work. These are the two leading feminist theologians, I would say, who articulate ...

LAURENE: Two of many.

JOHN: ... well at least, ten years ago ... who articulate a view that the Bible is intrinsically patriarchal and treating women as second class. I argued that all the second-class treatment of women begins subsequent to Genesis 3:16, subsequent to the introduction of sin. Therefore, my whole argument is going to say that that brokenness comes subsequently.

Real briefly, "adam" indeed is the Hebrew word for male and female. But it's assigned to the first male as well. So there's a representative nature there. Part of the Hebrew use of the word "adam" both in Genesis chapter 1 and 2, and chapter 5, is the moral equality but distinctness between man and woman.

So basically I'll come back and rephrase the question one more time. Actually, I'll leave it rhetorically.

LAURENE: Or I'll answer it.

JOHN: OK, you can answer it. Would you agree with me that in Genesis chapter 1 and 2 on its own terms, it has no provision for other than heterosexual, faithful marriage?

LAURENE: I wouldn't agree with you. I would agree that there wasn't a notion of gay-lesbian-bisexuality. There wasn't an understanding of ...

JOHN: God didn't have that notion, then, when he gave the order of creation?

LAURENE: No. I believe that people didn't have that understanding. I mean, what do we do with the story of Jonathan and David, Ruth and Naomi. I mean there's ...

JOHN: Well...

LAURENE: Let me finish.

JOHN: I'm sorry.

LAURENE: You gotta love this, don't ya. I'm a pastor first, and not a lawyer. So when we talk about debate and rebuttal, all that stuff goes over my head.

In terms of scripture, there wasn't a notion of gay-lesbian-bisexuality. That's a reality. There's people ... I would suggest Jonathan and David, looking at David as a bisexual, Ruth and Naomi. There was an understanding of male and female, and the whole idea was procreation. Because you had a society where the focus was on growing that nation, growing that distinct community of God. So that was the focus, I believe, at that time. There was no mention of gay-lesbian-bisexuality, per se. But what do we do with gay-lesbian-bisexual people who are here?

JOHN: OK, that's fair. But see, I'm looking at our interpretive foundation. In terms of Jonathan and David, there is nothing exegetically whatsoever. The love between two Hebrew men, as a real friendship that had no sexual involvement whatsoever is utterly clear. And it is incumbent upon you to show that these two men were engaged in homosexual behavior and that was affirmed. And it's not there. What I think that is, is taking experience and then weaving your presuppositions into it.

Back to the whole idea of the order of creation. I guess here is where my question is. You are saying, OK, the order of creation knows nothing about gay or lesbian or bisexual expression. Is therefore the order of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 representative of God's character, or is it not?

LAURENE: I believe that the scriptures represent the patriarchy, the patriarchal culture.

JOHN: Then you can't trust them.

LAURENE: Hang on. It's a part of God's character. But I think that there have been gay-lesbian-bisexual people throughout history. Jonathan and David I would argue ... I'm a pastor first, not a biblical scholar. If you give me a week, I'll become a biblical scholar on that passage.

JOHN: That's fair.

LAURENE: Gay-lesbian-bisexual people have been with us throughout the centuries.

The passage in Genesis, particularly Genesis 2 where it says a man shall leave his family and a woman should cleave to him, that was under a patriarchical notion that we as women were property. That we had no rights. That cleavage, in terms of property, was a contractual agreement. It was marriage but it was seen as power over, instead of shared. I think with gay-lesbian-bisexual people you have a shared power, not power over, not male over female. But you have a shared power, male-male, female-female.

JOHN: OK, I need to respond there, because this was also central in my thesis. In Genesis 1 and 2, the only power that God the Father exercised is his power to give, bless, and benefit. The only power he ordains for Adam is to treat Eve the same way, and Eve to treat Adam the same way. You see many sins in the Old Testament because people sinned. But the order of creation is that to which Jesus is seeking to restore us to all the way through. And so you don't have in the order of creation, in Genesis 1 and 2, any basis whatsoever for women to be treated as property. Many feminists that I have studied with tried to separate Genesis 1 and 2, because they tried to say, well, Genesis 1, which they know is the only origin text in all history that treats women as equal image bearers of God, whereas the other religious origin texts treats them as property, which is not so here in the order of creation in Genesis.

And so I think that essentially my question ultimately comes down to this. Do we trust the order of creation on its own terms in Genesis 1 and 2? And I hear you saying that there are many exception clauses which I believe you are reading back into the text, the violation that comes after the introduction of sin. I don't think you can read back into the text and then claim the text on itself... For example, you quoted Desmond Tutu in Galatians 3:28, neither male nor female, slave nor Greek, free nor unfree. And yet two verses before that it says all of us will be sons of God. How can there be no male and female if we're all going to be sons of God? And the reason being is that the Bible all the way through saw sonship not as something limiting to sex, but rather male and female necessary for the inheritance of God's kingdom. And so at that point it goes back to that equality in Genesis while acknowledging the difference.

So I think ultimately what you're doing, whatever your understanding is of interpretation of scripture, I believe you are not taking Genesis 1 and 2 as the interpretative basis. If you get rid of Genesis 1 and 2, the rest of scripture falls apart.

LAURENE: Actually, my interpretative figure for scripture is Jesus. In terms of looking back, that's all we can do as Christians. We can read the scripture, and all we can do is look back.

JOHN: Jesus appealed to the beginning, he appealed to the order of creation when asked about adultery.

LAURENE: Right. But Jesus did not, when he was talking about heterosexual acts, behaviors, he did not say one thing about gay-lesbian-bisexuality, which I think is very interesting. He talked about adultery and divorce and the sins in terms of heterosexual relationships. Why did not Jesus mention anything about gay-lesbian-bisexuality? When I get to the other side, the other side being heaven, that's one of the questions I have. I want to say, Jesus, why didn't you say something? It would've made it a lot easier.

JOHN: Well, I'd be delighted to spend more time on that. But he also said he came to fulfill the entire law. And he appeals all the way back to the order of creation, and fulfill the law which was an outward constraint, to make it inner. And so to me, the incumbency is this. When there are passages which very clearly say that homosexuality is not God's gift, and then you are trying to say no, it is, you are saying silence on your gift, silence in terms of why homosexuality is not mentioned as a gift, and putting aside that which says it is inconsistent with the order of creation. And then you're taking, I believe, your interpretation of Jesus back upon Genesis, when indeed, he interprets himself from Genesis on forward.

LAURENE: Well, I would suggest that if we're going to take scripture, if we're going to take the six passages that talk about gay-lesbian-bisexuals, actually, five passages, five out of the six talk about gay males, one includes lesbians, again which reflects the patriarchical nature. If we're going to take part of scripture, let's take it all. If we're going to be literalists about those six passages, let's take the whole thing, absolutely lock, stock, and barrel, every part of scripture, one hundred percent, and follow that. Otherwise we do what's called eisegesis, we pick up things and we use it to our own agenda.

MODERATOR: John, after your response, Laurene if you have a question for John you can address it.

JOHN: I think your Jonathan and David thing is a classic example of eisegesis. I am glad to take each one of those texts, as I have done in substance, OK? So when Mel White asked me a similar question, he said, if you take Leviticus seriously, that says homosexuals should be put to death, shouldn't you put them to death? I gave him the definition of the Israeli theocracy as a community of choice, and the distinction between that and when Jesus returns. And he said it was the most loving Christian answer he'd ever heard, while I still disagreed with homosexuality. Because the fact is the Old Testament law is fulfilled in Jesus so we can move beyond it. And there are elements that are culturally bound to separate the Israelites from being part of a child- sacrifice culture on the one hand, versus that which is moral, Noahic, and stays with us. So I think if you start with Genesis 1 through 3 and work it all the way through, why God selected Abraham, and why he was faithful with Israel to the point of Jesus, and why he then brought the gospel to the Gentiles, and take the story from the order of creation on forward, I think every question you have could be answered. And I'd be delighted to take the time, long written questions, give you my fullest answers, and then see if I'm being faithful to scripture on its own terms.

LAURENE: John, I have a question. You talk about in the creation story, Genesis 1, that it reflects with God and then humanity reflects the Trinity. I'm concerned about that because the text is Jewish in origin. How do you understand that from the Jewish perspective, and not reading back as a Christian into that perspective?

JOHN: Right. And this is a very good question because interpretively many Christians have said you argue from Christ back to the scriptures. And I argue passionately, as two weeks ago I was spending three hours with a Jewish Rabbi friend of mine. I'm arguing passionately for Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. And the very ethics I embrace are ultimately Jewish. But actually they are even pre-Jewish, back to the order of creation until Abraham and Israel becomes a nation subsequent to that.

But very simply I would say this. You have the famous passages of "let us make man in our image". You have the conundrum for many monotheistic Jews that God speaks of himself in plurality. He does this many times throughout the scriptures. So I would say that would be the first point.

Secondly, you see the spirit of God as equal to God and a full person of God, with God. Thirdly, you see the theophanies, the appearances of God, say with Abraham. Where God appears as a man completely in human form while presumably from a Jewish perspective, God is in the heavens. I believe that there are many indications right at the beginning from a Jewish perspective that show that God is not a monad, the way the Muslims would believe Allah to be, but involves something greater than singularity in time and space, and therefore a preview to the Trinity.

But I do agree with this, that the Trinity cannot be understood until Jesus takes on flesh. Because that's the purpose of the second person of the Trinity, is to be incarnate. And in the same sense the Holy Spirit is given occasionally as special gifts in the Old Testaments, but not as a covenant to all believers until Christ has risen and been glorified.

LAURENE: I don't have any further questions. Can we open it up to the audience?

MODERATOR: Sure. Our response time is over. Before John and Laurene give their closing arguments, are there any questions or comments that you would like to make, directed at either one of these participants?