What Does the Bible Say About Homosexuality?
By: Dr. Gregory S. Neal
In a sermon on July 4, 2021, I came out to my congregation as a gay man. Since then I've shared my story about what it was like growing up as a closeted youth, cowering in fear of being discovered for who and what I was; of how I begged God to change me, and pretended to be something that I was not; and, after having been discovered, about being forced through so-called “reparative therapy” in which attempts were made to “heal” me … to change my sexual orientation from gay to straight. Those were difficult years and life-scarring experiences. In the late 1980s those “counseling” session involved aversion techniques – including shock-treatments – which amounted to torture. Later sessions involved heavy-handed, moralistic preaching in which I was told that if I didn’t change my sexual orientation, God would not love me, Jesus would not save me, I would never be able to serve as a Pastor, and I would be destined for the fiery pits of hell. I’ve shared the story about how I escaped this injustice and oppression through the love and help of many wonderful, affirming Christians … people who shared God’s love with me and told me that I was beautiful just as I was. While I have shared these personal stories, I’ve never shared the approach to, and interpretation of, scripture that helped me to come out of that oppressive period of my life … of how I read and understand those scriptural passages that are often presumed to speak about homosexuality. I’m going to do that here.
I wanted to begin with the one Biblical passage that actually has at least a smidgen of application to the question: Romans 1:18-27. I want you to take a journey with me as we read through this passage and consider what it was that Paul was doing when he wrote it. We will explore his cultural setting, his background, the reasons he may have written what he wrote, and how - if at all - it might be understood and applied today.
Paul writes:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. (Romans 1:18-23)
What is Paul’s focus and objective in this chapter of his letter to the Romans? Paul is addressing the problem of idolatry: the worship of other deities. Paul says that God, the creator of this universe – Adonai Elohim – can be known and understood through what God has created. From the universe we can understand that there is a God who desires a relationship with us. Essentially, Paul is making a teleological argument for the existence of God: God can be known, understood, and comprehended through the things that God has made - through the majesty of the creation, the galaxies in vast expanse of the universe, the oceans and the life teaming within them, the Earth beneath our feet and the life that lives on and in it. However, rather than believing in God, many human beings have decided to worship the creation rather than the creator – the things that have been made rather than the one who made them. Humans made idols:
“…they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.”
Paul is addressing the problem of idolatry. That context is critical in comprehending what comes next, which is the Apostle’s opinion as to how God deals with this problem:
“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Romans 1:24-25)
In other words, the practices of idolatry come from humans' failure to recognize and worship God. Well, that seems about right. When we do not recognize that God is the creator of this universe, and of us, and instead make ourselves god, it becomes easy for us to end up worshipping ourselves and the creation, rather than the creator. That’s the situation Paul is writing about: idolatry and the sin that flows from it. He’s not done:
For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. (Romans 1:26-27)
This seems pretty bad, and I wouldn’t blame anybody for just tossing it aside and saying that it’s a pile of rubbish. But let’s look at it, anyway, and get our minds around what he's actually saying. Paul’s point is that idolatry – the worship of the creation rather than the creator – produces homosexuality. And, in his context, it makes sense that such would be his conclusion: in the Hebraic religious experience, same-sex practices were only known within the context of the cultic rituals of other religions and cultures. Hence, Paul views same sex attraction and practice as resulting from idolatry: if you worship Zeus or Artemis, God may make you a homosexual as punishment.
While an interesting argument, and possibly applicable in a different culture or era, does Paul’s argument and conclusion apply today? Does Paul’s understanding reflect what we know from science – from biology and psychology – regarding why people have the sexual orientations and gender identities that they do? No, it doesn't. We know from science that there is both a biological and a cultural element involved in sexual orientation and gender identity. Yes, God made people to be the way they are and who and what they are. Cultural context and acculturation, genetic and neonatal development, all play roles in forging people’s sexuality, not the worship of Zeus, Apollo, or Athena. In other words, men like me are gay because that’s how God made us ... that's how we grew and developed in our infancy and childhood; I’m not gay because of idolatry or because of any choice that I made at any point in my life. I was born this way. Indeed, I worship Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior; I follow the God who created all that we see – Yahweh Elohim, the creator of the universe. My faith is in Jesus Christ: in his life and ministry, in his teachings and preachings, in his healings, his feedings, his grace poured out to us in the Sacrament of Holy Communion, and in his death and resurrection. My faith is in Christ, not Zeus or Athena or Apollo. Christ, not the creatures of this world. Christ! Since I'm not an idolator, this argument from Paul in Romans chapter 1 doesn't apply to me. And, in fact, we know that it is simply not the case at all. This was Paul's understanding, but like so many other things, Paul’s understanding was culturally conditioned; it was rooted in a particular cultural expression and a particular understanding that is not necessarily applicable to today.
“Well, Greg, what about the other stuff? I mean, there’s got to be tons of other scripture for this, right?” Yes, there are few … a very few. “What about Sodom and Gomorrah?” The story about Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19 has nothing to do with homosexuality but everything to do with inhospitality to strangers manifested as the attempted ritualistic gang rape of foreign religious emissaries. Read the story for yourself; it has nothing to do with homosexuality in any way.
“Well, what about Leviticus? Specifically, Leviticus18:22 and Leviticus 20:13 where it says:
“You shall not lie with a male is with a woman. It is an abomination.”
The truth is that we ignore huge portions of Leviticus as a matter of routine these days. For example, we ignore the dietary regulations: when was the last time you had a ham and cheese sandwich, or bacon with your breakfast, or a BLT, or pulled pork BBQ, or baby back ribs, or catfish, or shrimp, or a medium rare steak? Eating any of these delicious foods would be a violation of the dietary regulations found in the Book of Leviticus; and yet, we conveniently ignore those rules because we like eating those foods. What about the rules regarding how we deal with matters of poverty, property ownership, and the charging interest on loans? There are numerous regulations which call for the fair and compassionate treatment of those who are strangers or foreigners in one’s country, and yet many would rather ignore those because they don’t conform to a particular political agenda. We similarly ignore people in distress: those who are hungry at intersections, and those who’s cars have become stuck in ditches, despite the fact that ignoring them is a violation multiple directives found in Leviticus and elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures. Questions of ritual cleanliness due to blood purity and physical deformity are similarly set aside by most as “no longer applying.”
What about the regulations regarding clothing: some people will decry women wearing men’s clothing and men marrying women’s clothing, but those are culturally conditioned standards that change from society to society and decade to decade. The Biblical clothing regulations deal with the kinds of materials from which one’s garments are made and how they are constructed: have you checked the clothing label on your shirts to make sure they’re not a poly-cotton blend? If your clothing isn’t made of one kind of material, you've broken the Hebrew scripture. I could keep going. How you cut your hair, or don’t cut your hair, or how you trim your beard, or don’t trim your beard … those are also matters that we ignore from Leviticus. How about tattoos, or piercings of any kind, or the wearing makeup, gold, and other fine jewelry? So much of this is culturally conditioned and particular to specific times and places, and yet rules for all of this can be found throughout Leviticus, interspersed (and sometimes in the same chapters) with the references to same-sex activity. To lift out of Leviticus as being important only a narrowly defined list of things that apply to other people, while ignoring the huge swath of regulations that apply to you, is hypocrisy and self-serving convenience. Most of us realize this; and, so, while these Levitical passages are still sometimes referenced, most people know that they really can't get away with applying them while ignoring all of the other stuff that applies to themselves.
“Okay, Greg, what about the reference in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10? In my Bible it even uses the word “homosexual!” How do you deal with that?”
Firstly, the word “homosexual” wasn't found in English translations of the Bible until the Revised Standard Version, which came out in 1946. Throughout history, there have been a vast variety of ways to translate the passage precisely because it’s a difficult passage to translate. Why? Because the two operative words – the two Greek words that are most important in this passage, and that give us so much trouble – are unclear. One of the words is used as an idiom, so its meaning is vague, and the other word was coined, or entirely made up, by Paul. The word that is used as an idiom is literally the Greek word for “soft,” as in soft robes: the alb I’m wearing right now is “malakoi,” soft. We know that it doesn’t carry its literal meaning here, for that would not make any sense within the context; it must be an idiom. But that leaves us with a head-scratcher because that idiomatic term in Greek could mean pleasant music, or weak morals, or uncertain feelings, but not the NRSV’s rendering of “male prostitutes” Indeed, the NRSV’s translation depends upon a traditional interpretation of the Latin rendering, where the idiom means effeminate. The other word in question is the one that Paul made up. It is found nowhere else in extant Greek literature; also, there were other words for "homosexual" in the Greek of that time, so if Paul had intended that meaning he would have used one of those others words, but he didn’t. Instead, he created the word “arsenikoitae,” which is so difficult to interpret that some translations haven’t even tried to render it. The Revised English Bible puts both of these words together to mean “sexual pervert,” while The Message translation renders the phrase, “those who use and abuse each other and use and abuse sex.” The updated New Revised Standard Version reads as follows:
Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, men who engage in illicit sex, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, swindlers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)
Well, that's interesting. It’s a somewhat better translation. I’m still not sure about that how they get from the Greek word “soft’ to male prostitutes, but “men who engage in illicit sex” does relate to the word that Paul made up. To put it simply, the 1 Corinthians passage is very difficult to translate. It’s hard to get our minds around and comprehend what it was that Paul was intending here. So, what should we do with it?
If we don't have the 1 Corinthians passage – and we don’t – and if we don’t have the Romans passage – and we don’t – and if we can’t go to the Leviticus passages for guidance – and we can’t – then what else do we have? What does the Bible really say about LGBTQ+ persons?
It says absolutely nothing.
The current opposition to homosexuality is based upon a cultural aversion to gay people, misunderstandings of biology and psychology, and simple squeamishness. That's not good enough to take away the civil rights of more than 8% of the US population while also excluding them from full participation at all levels of the church.
There are many who will claim that progressive pastors and theologians ignore, or don’t believe in, the Bible, but nothing could be further from the truth! We most certainly do! We take it very seriously! We read the Bible in its original languages; we study it to comprehend and apply it; we consider the context within which the Bible was written and was originally heard. And, we consider the Bible within our own context, today, utilizing the interpretive tools of tradition, experience, and reason to understand and apply, expand upon and amplify, the scriptures. That’s a good Wesleyan-Methodist approach to scripture! We don’t disregard the Bible; however, when we actually read it, it’s pretty clear that the scripture is silent on the subject of LGBTQ+ persons.
I pray for The United Methodist Church as we move forward. I pray for our sisters and brothers and siblings who are continually suffering injustice and oppression because of this issue. I pray for those who feel they must leave because of this issue. God’s grace calls us to love, acceptance, affirmation, and reconciliation. God’s grace calls us to live as the family of God and share the love of God with all God’s children, regardless of where they’re from or who they are, what their ethnicity or racial background may be, what their national background may be, what their sexual orientation or gender identity may be. God calls us to welcome and affirm all of God’s children in the family of faith. And I give thanks and praise to God that I pastor a congregation that recognizes and celebrates this, prays for me and for my fiancé and serves by our side, sharing God’s love with all.
What does the Bible say about homosexuality? Absolutely nothing.
© 2022, Dr. Gregory S. Neal
All Rights Reserved
As a popular teacher, preacher, and retreat leader, Dr. Neal is known for his ability to translate complex theological concepts into common, everyday terms. HIs preaching and teaching ministry is in demand around the world, and much of his work can be found on this website. He is the author of several books, including Grace Upon Grace: Sacramental Theology and the Christian Life, which is in its second edition, and Seeking the Shepherd's Arms: Reflections from the Pastoral Side of Life, a work of devotional literature. Both of these books are currently available from Amazon.com.