Sexuality and Scripture: My View on Scripture as a Gay Man

To say that I’ve grown up around the Bible would be a mild understatement. As I mentioned in my “Table of Four” series, I grew up in church and was raised with traditional Christian values for my entire childhood and adolescence. I believe I’m a better person for it. Other people find their moral compass from different areas, but I draw mine from my faith, and I think I have a darn good one.
However, my compass has been re-calibrated in two different ways. It first started to change when I started seminary at Emory, a traditionally liberal institution. I’ve mentioned before that some of my conservative Christian friends were worried that that Emory would “take my God away”. However, when I started to be involved in serious theological study, I realized that I was only looking at a glimmer of potential for what God and the Bible held for me. To use an automotive metaphor, I was only in first gear with my understanding of the Bible. I was never taught how to go into higher gears and really dig into the text. Once I learned about important things like historical criticism, literal criticism, and church history, my understanding of the Bible and my faith grew leaps and bounds.
The second way I was able to re-calibrate my view of Scripture was when I started to come out to myself regarding my sexuality. I didn’t come out to myself until after seminary, but I had so many LGBTQ classmates at Emory. They showed me embracing their faith and their sexuality in ways that I couldn’t at the time. I knew they were as called to ministry as I was. If God called them as much as me, surely God knew that they were queer and still wanted them for ministry.
So how has Biblical scholarship as a learned homosexual changed me? First, I’ve learned not to use the Bible as a weapon. There are many LGBTQ people who have grown up hearing the “clobber verses”. These verses are meant to clobber you with condemnation and sin about the “lifestyle” we “chose”. The standards of Leviticus 18:22, the story of Sodom & Gomorrah in Genesis 19, and Romans 1:25–27 are all verses that queer people have heard to shame us into silence and self-hatred.
However, because of my scholarship, I can look at Leviticus 18:22, and tell you that it speaks nothing of people in committed, loving relationships, and is placed around things like bestiality and adultery. You can also talk about how as Christians, we are not under the old Levitical law because the law has been fulfilled through Christ’s death and resurrection. The true crime of Sodom and Gomorrah was being inhospitable to outsiders as detailed in Ezekiel 16:48–50:
As I live, says the Lord God, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it. (NRSV)
Finally, the words used in Romans 1:25–27 focus on prostitution and not people in loving committed relationships. I’ve learned not to use the Bible as a weapon, because it’s been used as one on me. Second, as I’ve learned and studied the Bible more, I now see it as a metaphor for Christ: fully divine, and fully human. According to 2 Timothy 3:16, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…” All Scripture has been divinely influenced. However, that doesn’t mean that the writers of the Bible were in a trance and God wrote it for them. It means that God entrusted frail, flawed human beings to write the words that tell us who God is.
Like every other piece of written material, the Bible is written with some of the author’s own perspective too. That makes the Bible fully human and fully divine. That process shows God loves us and wants a relationship with us. Does that also mean that the Bible can come across a bit problematic sometimes? Yes(I’m looking at you, Paul…). However, the story of Jesus and the life given to me through His death and resurrection is something that always brings me back to the Bible.
Finally, my Biblical scholarship has allowed me to fulfill one of Jesus’ commands. In Mark 12:29–31, Jesus answers a scribe about which commandment is the most important:
Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
When I commit to Biblical scholarship, I’m loving the Lord with my mind. I use reason, research, and logic to draw myself closer to God. The idea of using these things is a very Methodist principle too. The Wesleyan quadrilateral is a tool that is often cited about how to approach your relationship with God. The four aspects of the quadrilateral are Scripture, Experience, Tradition, and…Reason. Study of Scripture is supposed to illuminate the other three. Think of it like a three-legged stool. The base is Scripture and the three spokes coming off of the base/seat are Experience, Tradition, and Reason. It is important and a command from God through Jesus to use our brains when it comes to our relationship with God. Now as a learned homosexual, I’m able to see how Scripture can help the outcast or marginalized. It’s made me more aware of the power and liberation Scripture can have for someone.

Christians are often unfairly portrayed as simple or stupid because we believe in something we cannot see. LGBTQ people are often fascinated or horrified when I tell them that I am a committed and devout Christian. Most LGBTQ people understandably leave the church when they get “clobbered” for who they are. I’m a little more stubborn than that. I know of the amazing experiences the Holy Spirit has had in my life. I know what God has called me to do in the world.
I am too stubborn to get away from something that’s impacted my life so much. How else do you think I can be an Atlanta sports fan and still maintain my sanity?! So instead of running away or quitting, I dove deeper into the Bible. I will continue to, because I know of how liberating a relationship with God and a study of the Bible can be. My time in seminary and my true life as a gay man did take my God away…and gave me a better and truer one.

