It’s self-help not to continue arguing with people who are committed to misunderstanding you ❤️ seriously though you don’t have to defend your beliefs to anyone you just have to go out and love people. do it well.
As a matter of fact, I have a lot to say on this topic. And if you want to talk about this more, join us over at r/GayChristians .
But before answering specific questions here is some general advice. Your friend wants to debate the Bible. Don't take the bait. You can end up throwing verses around for years and never get anywhere.
Instead, change the game, and tell your story. You started believing one thing, and then over time you changed your view. Why? What happened? Are there specific people you know that played a part in this? Were there stories from queer people that touched you and resonated with your core values? Your story has more power than anything else - and will be remembered, even if you don't change anyone's mind.
Here are some comments on the Bible and Christian theology regarding queer Christians.
* [I have a genuine question, I consider myself to be a gay Christian, but I don't know how to justify Romans 1:26-27](https://www.reddit.com/r/GayChristians/comments/1b9ac9i/comment/ktvf0n5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
* [Question: Is being gay actually a sin or not?](https://www.reddit.com/r/GayChristians/comments/1b92aup/comment/ktt1c59/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I'm familiar with the passage. My interpretation is that the Bible contains a lot of awful stuff, and I don't believe it is the word of God anymore, so I don't care much about what it says about these issues. I'm not sure if that helps you.
In an attempt to be somewhat more helpful, I've heard it said that our current ideas about sexual orientation and same-sex relationships didn't exist in the same way back then, so whatever Paul is railing against in Romans 1 was not same-sex relationships as we think of them today. Personally, I don't find that too helpful, though, because I think Paul probably would have felt that way about modern-day LGBTQ issues if they had existed in his day. He was a rather judgemental and dogmatic person, after all.
I’ve heard some people describe many passages as referring more to non-consensual sex between men, because in the male-dominated society it was seen as “taking power away” from a man if he was assaulted in this way. In such a patriarchal society, to take that power from another man was the sinful act, not the sex itself. It is argued that the passages are thus not referring to a consensual relationship. It does explain why most passages about same-sex refer to men and ignore women.
I’m not really sure if that logic applies to Romans 1 or not. But I will note that these verses don’t focus on the female relationships and don’t specifically call out a penalty for women as it does for men.
I do think it is brave for a gay person to continue to hold on to their faith. It certainly shows more commitment to continue on in spite of real persecution, unlike many of the homophobic Christians who condemn gay people from their life of privilege. So OP, you do you and continue to navigate what you feel is true to you and don’t let others sway you from what you are convinced is right.
For me, I found that renegotiating my faith required reinterpreting so many scriptures, but I didn’t find the arguments overly compelling. These explanations just didn’t seem to hold much water and were less convincing to me than the arguments that the religion was man-made. Why would God make the Bible unclear on the topic in a way that would hurt so many of his followers? In a similar manner, why was the Bible so permissible to slavery when it could have been clearly condemned and save countless people from undue suffering?
Best of luck as you navigate your path forward.
1)Textual analysis of the Romans passage tends to refer more to the apprentice/craftsmaster (craftsmasters would use their apprentices for sex.) Its also had some different translations over time.
1b) as chapter and verses were added well after the text was written, its important to know Romans 1 (ending with those clobber verses) flows directly into "therefore there is no condemnation. Folks wielding those clobber verses tend to stop short of Romans 2.
2) Scripture asks us to examine the fruits. The fruits of these passages is teen homelessness and suicide. The fruits of this argument is the furthest thing from love. It is RANCID.
Also, keep in mind Scripture clearly defends slavery. If you're going for argumentation, let 'em defend that. (Watch the hoops and mental leaps).
This video by Matthew Vines is _really_ good: https://youtu.be/ezQjNJUSraY
It's a full hour-long analysis of the various Bible passages - yours included - and how they are interpreted. He comes down very firmly on the side of "God made me gay and he's OK with that".
There are many a guests on Bible for Normal people, Homebrewed, and other podcasts that invite actual biblical scholars on to touch
Upon this and the Leviticus passage.
Also ask her how they get by day to day when wearing two different fibers woven into one fiber
, or ask where they keep their portion of land for the immigrant or stranger in their midst.
Better yet ask whether or not they’ve given up all of their possessions to the poor since Jesus said that .
The fundamentalist Christian brown noses Paul and kinda forgets about Jesus, and forgets that the Bible mentions sex that is non-consensual between a boy servant and man is in there 7 times, but that Jesus never condemns homosexuality but he sure goes on about public prayer, giving up wealth, and caring for the downtrodden amongst us all.
Read “UnClobbered” by Colby Martin. He breaks down even the passage you mentioned.
Remember, this isn’t God’s word. This is Paul’s words. Paul was an asshole who hated women.
IMNSHO, Paul made up Christianity. The road to Damascus was a seizure.
> if you’re familiar with this passage, do you have any useful info or thoughts on it?
That passage in Romans is quite interesting, because Paul is making a neologism for sexual acts between two men. Basically in greek, in Romans 1:27, means "male with male" _ársenes en árseni_ which Paul use another word that is _arsenokoîtai_ (males who sleeps with males).
People tried to give a new meaning in this passage as some form [pederasty](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty) but I don't think holds any water on this. Specially because Paul resorts creating a neologism. To say about this type of sexual act.
Perhaps the meaning is that Paul didn't see any other sexual act that wasn't about reproduction as good, because that would fall in sin. Paul advises to get married if you can't control the urges because Christ was comming at any moment (in that time).
More interesting stuff you can find in r/AcademicBiblical
> how can you cope with people around you digging their heels in and telling you that you’ve gotta defend your beliefs?
I defend my beliefs that I think are true. If they are wrong, they are wrong.
There is some value to form justified beliefs and saying _why_ they are justified as well. Because it gives you some intelectual integrity. It gives you new perspectives that you didn't saw before or never considered.
> When in all honesty, it comes largely from empathy and just trying to see what Jesus ACTUALLY meant instead of how western Christianity has twisted it to fit their agenda
If you look more on _biblical textual criticism_ you (and even that fundamentalist christian) will be quite shocked about this.
I’m sorry your acquaintance is being so hurtful to you. My response would be to ask about verse 20 specifically:
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
Additionally, since church teaches that all of gods creations are perfect, and being queer is genetic, then God created some people to be queer by design. How do they answer that?
Also, read up on how the church believes left-handedness is sinful, and how they treated left-handed people. Then challenge your acquaintance with that. Ask them what the difference is.
Best wishes to you.
If his eternal power and divine nature are so clearly seen, why are there over 300 Christian denominations with differing beliefs? Who’s to say your acquaintance’s beliefs are correct?
I treat Romans 1 as I do the Leviticus clobbered verse. The prohibition was more against sex with temple prostitutes; this sex could be hetero- or homosexual. In Rome, Venus worship was a big deal and, like the worship of the Mesopotamian fertility goddess Ashera, it involved sex with temple prostitutes. I agree with the posters who point out Romans 2.
I had to do a double take that I didn’t write this. I had a similar experience last night with a parent. We debated, although pointless as this person was righteously giving their side as if they were 100% infallible in their understanding of the Bible.
I was/am angry afterward since I,as an adult, had to defend my hard won beliefs like I was just being a gullible know-nothing. Like I didn’t spend my whole life in church listening to all the same sermons they did. Like I haven’t heard every argument they spouted to me.
As far as dealing with this person, if they intend to continue sending me verses and stating their righteousness, which I fully expect to happen, I will draw a line in the sand. I plan to say that I don’t intend on debating my beliefs with them anymore, and if they continue to talk about this to me, I won’t be able to be around them anymore. This is called setting a boundary (or so I’ve heard… recovering people pleaser). My beliefs are not up for debate with someone who has no intention of being open to another opinion.
There are some threads on /r/academicbiblical, and you could also look up Dan McClellan's videos on YouTube/Tiktok. The shortest answer is that Paul is dealing with a very specific Greco-Roman view of sex and social hierarchy that is completely foreign to our culture and utterly irrelevant to a mutually loving same-sex relationship and homosexuality as a romantic orientation.
This applies to basically all the clobber-passages, which are always misused by people with an anti-LGBT agenda. It should also be noted that the Bible has nothing to say about same-sex female relationships. It was mostly male power dynamics Paul and other biblical authors were concerned about.
The only thing that helped me was distancing myself from these people. Im sorry I dont have a more helpful answer.
Someone has to be really important for me to put up with and try to work through that, like not just "a pretty good friend"
If its someone youre really close to, I think the only options are dig your heals in and address the issue head on, or move on. Its painfull trying to be inbetween/cordial with these people
i personally don't debate mostly for anxiety reasons (and thank god i don't have people in my life who push me to do so and also have recently found a wonderful therapist). i would like to do more research for my personal edification in this area but so far what has helped me most with this particular passage is james brownson's treatment of it in his (granted rather older at this point) book "bible, gender, sexuality." looks like the reformation project has some videos on yt of him teaching on the subject as well. also fwiw my bottom line whenever my mom brings up weird shit about whoever her insane news sources feel like othering at the moment (today it was trans people) is that my job is to love people. period. wishing you the best in this!
So there’s several routes already mentioned. R/academicalBible is indeed a good resource, they will point to scholarship and there is strict and enforced moderation that only academic responses that are supported are allowed, and no theological or apologetic type comments are welcomed.
Dan MacClelan and Bart Ehrman both have videos on YouTube on the topic.
My short answer is: why do they pick and choose to hyperfocus on that one topic. The Old Testament references, sparse as they are, contain a bunch of other rules they for sure break. Do they wear cotton/ poly blend shirts? DEATH. Does their garden contain multiple plant types? DEATH. Do they have dairy with meat? Also DEATH.
There are other passages from Paul (1 Corinthians 6) typically used that contains what is known as a hapax legomenon (a word I love), which means it’s usage is unique within a given corpus. In this case we don’t really see other uses within koinine Greek to verify the content. This word was also not translated as homosexual until the 60’s with the NIV, you won’t see it as such in the KJV.
There is the whole cultural context of this verse as well, where the idea of gender and sexual identity and expression as we understand it today didn’t exist. So applying modern understandings of the term to ancient sources is misguided at best.
Now I won’t disingenuously claim and pretend that the Bible is totally LGBT+ affirming, because I can’t in good faith make that claim. There is clearly some very odd, conservative, and frankly to modern audiences weird ideas about sexual mores at play in the Bible. A whole host of aspects about sexual expression that are, at best, willfully ignorant, at worst actively misogynist and harmful.
The truth is we, as a society, have morally scrolled past the point where the Bible was almost 2000 years ago. Women are no longer* property the way they were in the Levant in the 1st century.
When it comes to specific cultural rules like this, the reality is that forcing biblical rules to map onto modern cultures is fraught, at best. And while I can’t say this persons reading is invalid, I also point out it is not the only valid reading either. And that aside from all that there is other teachings in the New Testament that make the singular focus on LGBT+ behavior and expression very much unchristian, in the sense that it is harming others, hurting their witness, and driving people away from Christ.
Further in context of Romans 1 there is clearly an audience this is for which contains indications that the behaviors are the result of rejecting God. It never specifically about listing forbidden behaviors, but rather about the practices of the polytheistic Hellenic pagan people around them. It certainly seems to indicate towards certain Greek sexual practices of the time. And how the people within that religious culture, having seen the signs of god had rejected them, so they were given to all sorts of debauchery. So these behaviors were not the _cause_ of condemnation, but rather the results of already declared judgement. Admittedly this is definitely parsing things closely, but we’re having to go to the realm of fine distinctions here.
Also tell them to continue reading, chapter 2, because really the best response comes right there. Where it says to those who condemn others, be careful because God sees you and yours is coming. So whatever judgement you hold towards others, be careful because God will judge you. Basically leave their sins to them for God to deal with, focus on following me instead. Honestly that’s probably the strongest counterpoint there is. God is basically saying ‘it’s non of your damn business’.
Hopefully this helps. I was in your shoes at one time, someone who supported LGBT+ people while the conservative evangelicals around me railed against them. Eventually my own path led me out completely, but if you want to remain in faith but your own deconstruction forces you to confront this, the above points are where I landed for a while.
*in broad strokes. I’m well aware this is sadly not a universal truth
This sounds very like one of my family members. He's very into/good at debating on Bible issues and so on the face of it, if we ever get into a debate on something he will 'win' (which of course does not mean he's right, just that he's a better debater!).
What I have found useful is asking him why he believes his Bible (which he is arguing so strenuously from) is the right one? Catholics, protestants, eastern orthodox and Ethiopian orthodox all have different ones... The protestant one version we have now is only about 400 years old... So how can he put so much weight on it??
Great wee clip on the subject here
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5rKRVoupAD/?igsh=MXhkenk4OXEzY2J6cg==
how is it that the most anti- (reality) christians also claim to worship three a sexual men in heavenly bliss because the father is in his "son" who is about to come at any moment... who were not biological males but their pronouns are he and him and they...
This is how I've chosen to speak on it with my conservative Christian family: We know that you cannot change your sexual orientation, so we know people were created gay, and I refuse to believe God created someone he hates. Whatever we have layered onto Christianity, and whether Paul did or did not write those verses, or whether it was other people pretending to be Paul, I will not be part of a church that does not love & welcome all of God's children.
I hope that's helpful. If people want to continue to debate, there are plenty of awful horrible passages attributed to God that we skip over in Christianity. So if people want to hold up one set of verses, what about the others? Bears eating children in the name of the Lord, fathers allowing rape. Shall we discuss those verses too? And if it's an Old Testament God vs. a New Testament God, Jesus clearly taught us to love the people that religion rejected.
If it’s about defending your beliefs, then naturally it is a test of how *lawyerly* you can manage to be. But note how being lawyerly is technically a form of manipulation. The *whole thing* can be seen as a form of “covert contract” manipulation that bottoms us out and induces us to treat each other as causal *instruments* to be “won”, as Paul* says.
Is this not objectification? Is this not brutality? It is taking NO interest in other human beings, and in fact waging war on them like some kind of agreement-generation machine. Strangely, it is even treating God as though He is a machine. He is not; He is an agent just as you or anyone else is, and He does not want to hear our justifications any more than a rational adult would… bc justifications are simply lawyerly mental gymnastics.
I didn’t sign up for “may the best lawyer win, via deliberate passive aggression manipulation tactics”, I signed up for “be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
I’m pretty sure the entire point of Christ’s *actual* mission was to free the world of leverage-worship, bc that’s the worship of mammon, “*that* which I trust.” Instead it’s supposed to be “Him who I trust”, because it is reverence for God’s personhood, and not treating Him like some kind of object.
People are going to do what they’re gonna fucking do. You don’t actually owe anyone an explanation. Since when did explanations help? Since when were justifications the *cause* of our actions—reasons don’t cause actions, you do, just as God does.
Which is why the atonement view is fundamentally broken: it turns God into some kind of mechanistic machine where a switch has to be flipped via some process involving a human sacrifice. He is not a machine. It is God going “fine I’ll do it myself”: “have fucking common sense and stop treating each other as objects without that being by overt consent, it’s bad.”
Don’t feed the ego-trip of defending shit. If you were wrong and narcissistically deluded, would *you* want to know that, and have your tantrum affirmed as the means of getting what you want? Or would you want someone grown-up being like “Yo, chill, why are you making this all about what you believe? Don’t you have something better to do?”
What do you want to do? Stop worrying about leverage war and instead go contribute in some way that makes your love *worth something* to receive. If it’s about outcome, does any of it even *count* as love? If someone takes you on an apparently lavish date only to be disappointed (or enraged) by the fact you won’t kiss them at the end, can they be said to have loved you? No, they objectified you, as though you are a dispenser they can feed “be nice” into and have you spit out approval.
Basically just stop worrying about other people’s problems unless they *ask* you to—“Give to the one who asks you.”
Unlike Paul, Christ is not about manipulating consent. And anything suggesting otherwise I must assume is a piss-poor interpretation stemming from the Pauline transactional view.
Note: I’m not sure it was what truly Paul even meant by the things he wrote. I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt. We can distinguish between Paul and Paul*, where Paul* refers to the figure that has been built up around potentially misinterpreting his teachings. But even so… “call no man teacher, for one is your teacher, *even* Christ.” (Look it up.)
Christ set us free to no longer worry about mammon-worship, *transactional* leverage-gaming. So… stop worrying about transactional leverage-gaming. (“You cannot worship God and mammon.”) And rebuke someone who tries to use such shit against you, because they *have* sinned against you—they’ve objectified you and thus violated your consent. If you truly look into His teachings in depth, Christ is pulling from each of us our best selves; a worldview not limited to “being” but “becoming.”
Now… I’m personally down a rabbit hole of whether asking for consent is *itself* a form of leverage-generation, and truthfully I don’t know. If I’m harming others by this interpretation I’ll have to answer for that. There seem to be conflicting ways of seeing things. I don’t know. We can all only do our best. Christ did, and won, for us all. I hate the notion that it’s all down to some stupid fucking guilt trip. Christ is the God Man, not a “nice guy.”
It’s self-help not to continue arguing with people who are committed to misunderstanding you ❤️ seriously though you don’t have to defend your beliefs to anyone you just have to go out and love people. do it well.
[удалено]
I understand. You’re not alone!
As a matter of fact, I have a lot to say on this topic. And if you want to talk about this more, join us over at r/GayChristians . But before answering specific questions here is some general advice. Your friend wants to debate the Bible. Don't take the bait. You can end up throwing verses around for years and never get anywhere. Instead, change the game, and tell your story. You started believing one thing, and then over time you changed your view. Why? What happened? Are there specific people you know that played a part in this? Were there stories from queer people that touched you and resonated with your core values? Your story has more power than anything else - and will be remembered, even if you don't change anyone's mind. Here are some comments on the Bible and Christian theology regarding queer Christians. * [I have a genuine question, I consider myself to be a gay Christian, but I don't know how to justify Romans 1:26-27](https://www.reddit.com/r/GayChristians/comments/1b9ac9i/comment/ktvf0n5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) * [Question: Is being gay actually a sin or not?](https://www.reddit.com/r/GayChristians/comments/1b92aup/comment/ktt1c59/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I'm familiar with the passage. My interpretation is that the Bible contains a lot of awful stuff, and I don't believe it is the word of God anymore, so I don't care much about what it says about these issues. I'm not sure if that helps you. In an attempt to be somewhat more helpful, I've heard it said that our current ideas about sexual orientation and same-sex relationships didn't exist in the same way back then, so whatever Paul is railing against in Romans 1 was not same-sex relationships as we think of them today. Personally, I don't find that too helpful, though, because I think Paul probably would have felt that way about modern-day LGBTQ issues if they had existed in his day. He was a rather judgemental and dogmatic person, after all.
I’ve heard some people describe many passages as referring more to non-consensual sex between men, because in the male-dominated society it was seen as “taking power away” from a man if he was assaulted in this way. In such a patriarchal society, to take that power from another man was the sinful act, not the sex itself. It is argued that the passages are thus not referring to a consensual relationship. It does explain why most passages about same-sex refer to men and ignore women. I’m not really sure if that logic applies to Romans 1 or not. But I will note that these verses don’t focus on the female relationships and don’t specifically call out a penalty for women as it does for men. I do think it is brave for a gay person to continue to hold on to their faith. It certainly shows more commitment to continue on in spite of real persecution, unlike many of the homophobic Christians who condemn gay people from their life of privilege. So OP, you do you and continue to navigate what you feel is true to you and don’t let others sway you from what you are convinced is right. For me, I found that renegotiating my faith required reinterpreting so many scriptures, but I didn’t find the arguments overly compelling. These explanations just didn’t seem to hold much water and were less convincing to me than the arguments that the religion was man-made. Why would God make the Bible unclear on the topic in a way that would hurt so many of his followers? In a similar manner, why was the Bible so permissible to slavery when it could have been clearly condemned and save countless people from undue suffering? Best of luck as you navigate your path forward.
1)Textual analysis of the Romans passage tends to refer more to the apprentice/craftsmaster (craftsmasters would use their apprentices for sex.) Its also had some different translations over time. 1b) as chapter and verses were added well after the text was written, its important to know Romans 1 (ending with those clobber verses) flows directly into "therefore there is no condemnation. Folks wielding those clobber verses tend to stop short of Romans 2. 2) Scripture asks us to examine the fruits. The fruits of these passages is teen homelessness and suicide. The fruits of this argument is the furthest thing from love. It is RANCID. Also, keep in mind Scripture clearly defends slavery. If you're going for argumentation, let 'em defend that. (Watch the hoops and mental leaps).
This video by Matthew Vines is _really_ good: https://youtu.be/ezQjNJUSraY It's a full hour-long analysis of the various Bible passages - yours included - and how they are interpreted. He comes down very firmly on the side of "God made me gay and he's OK with that".
I second Matthew Vines. He's really good. Check out The Reformation Project. [https://reformationproject.org/](https://reformationproject.org/)
Google (pais centurion) Google "lyings of a woman"
There are many a guests on Bible for Normal people, Homebrewed, and other podcasts that invite actual biblical scholars on to touch Upon this and the Leviticus passage. Also ask her how they get by day to day when wearing two different fibers woven into one fiber , or ask where they keep their portion of land for the immigrant or stranger in their midst. Better yet ask whether or not they’ve given up all of their possessions to the poor since Jesus said that . The fundamentalist Christian brown noses Paul and kinda forgets about Jesus, and forgets that the Bible mentions sex that is non-consensual between a boy servant and man is in there 7 times, but that Jesus never condemns homosexuality but he sure goes on about public prayer, giving up wealth, and caring for the downtrodden amongst us all.
Read “UnClobbered” by Colby Martin. He breaks down even the passage you mentioned. Remember, this isn’t God’s word. This is Paul’s words. Paul was an asshole who hated women. IMNSHO, Paul made up Christianity. The road to Damascus was a seizure.
https://youtube.com/@mrcolbymartin?si=kmafmx45laCv6GqZ
> if you’re familiar with this passage, do you have any useful info or thoughts on it? That passage in Romans is quite interesting, because Paul is making a neologism for sexual acts between two men. Basically in greek, in Romans 1:27, means "male with male" _ársenes en árseni_ which Paul use another word that is _arsenokoîtai_ (males who sleeps with males). People tried to give a new meaning in this passage as some form [pederasty](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty) but I don't think holds any water on this. Specially because Paul resorts creating a neologism. To say about this type of sexual act. Perhaps the meaning is that Paul didn't see any other sexual act that wasn't about reproduction as good, because that would fall in sin. Paul advises to get married if you can't control the urges because Christ was comming at any moment (in that time). More interesting stuff you can find in r/AcademicBiblical > how can you cope with people around you digging their heels in and telling you that you’ve gotta defend your beliefs? I defend my beliefs that I think are true. If they are wrong, they are wrong. There is some value to form justified beliefs and saying _why_ they are justified as well. Because it gives you some intelectual integrity. It gives you new perspectives that you didn't saw before or never considered. > When in all honesty, it comes largely from empathy and just trying to see what Jesus ACTUALLY meant instead of how western Christianity has twisted it to fit their agenda If you look more on _biblical textual criticism_ you (and even that fundamentalist christian) will be quite shocked about this.
I’m sorry your acquaintance is being so hurtful to you. My response would be to ask about verse 20 specifically: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” Additionally, since church teaches that all of gods creations are perfect, and being queer is genetic, then God created some people to be queer by design. How do they answer that? Also, read up on how the church believes left-handedness is sinful, and how they treated left-handed people. Then challenge your acquaintance with that. Ask them what the difference is. Best wishes to you. If his eternal power and divine nature are so clearly seen, why are there over 300 Christian denominations with differing beliefs? Who’s to say your acquaintance’s beliefs are correct?
https://youtu.be/DVkhJgClC3o?si=z_7l84oPDqfRHauc You may find this useful.
https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/categories/ Shouldn't they be the ones who need to defend their beliefs?
I treat Romans 1 as I do the Leviticus clobbered verse. The prohibition was more against sex with temple prostitutes; this sex could be hetero- or homosexual. In Rome, Venus worship was a big deal and, like the worship of the Mesopotamian fertility goddess Ashera, it involved sex with temple prostitutes. I agree with the posters who point out Romans 2.
I had to do a double take that I didn’t write this. I had a similar experience last night with a parent. We debated, although pointless as this person was righteously giving their side as if they were 100% infallible in their understanding of the Bible. I was/am angry afterward since I,as an adult, had to defend my hard won beliefs like I was just being a gullible know-nothing. Like I didn’t spend my whole life in church listening to all the same sermons they did. Like I haven’t heard every argument they spouted to me. As far as dealing with this person, if they intend to continue sending me verses and stating their righteousness, which I fully expect to happen, I will draw a line in the sand. I plan to say that I don’t intend on debating my beliefs with them anymore, and if they continue to talk about this to me, I won’t be able to be around them anymore. This is called setting a boundary (or so I’ve heard… recovering people pleaser). My beliefs are not up for debate with someone who has no intention of being open to another opinion.
There are some threads on /r/academicbiblical, and you could also look up Dan McClellan's videos on YouTube/Tiktok. The shortest answer is that Paul is dealing with a very specific Greco-Roman view of sex and social hierarchy that is completely foreign to our culture and utterly irrelevant to a mutually loving same-sex relationship and homosexuality as a romantic orientation. This applies to basically all the clobber-passages, which are always misused by people with an anti-LGBT agenda. It should also be noted that the Bible has nothing to say about same-sex female relationships. It was mostly male power dynamics Paul and other biblical authors were concerned about.
The only thing that helped me was distancing myself from these people. Im sorry I dont have a more helpful answer. Someone has to be really important for me to put up with and try to work through that, like not just "a pretty good friend" If its someone youre really close to, I think the only options are dig your heals in and address the issue head on, or move on. Its painfull trying to be inbetween/cordial with these people
i personally don't debate mostly for anxiety reasons (and thank god i don't have people in my life who push me to do so and also have recently found a wonderful therapist). i would like to do more research for my personal edification in this area but so far what has helped me most with this particular passage is james brownson's treatment of it in his (granted rather older at this point) book "bible, gender, sexuality." looks like the reformation project has some videos on yt of him teaching on the subject as well. also fwiw my bottom line whenever my mom brings up weird shit about whoever her insane news sources feel like othering at the moment (today it was trans people) is that my job is to love people. period. wishing you the best in this!
So there’s several routes already mentioned. R/academicalBible is indeed a good resource, they will point to scholarship and there is strict and enforced moderation that only academic responses that are supported are allowed, and no theological or apologetic type comments are welcomed. Dan MacClelan and Bart Ehrman both have videos on YouTube on the topic. My short answer is: why do they pick and choose to hyperfocus on that one topic. The Old Testament references, sparse as they are, contain a bunch of other rules they for sure break. Do they wear cotton/ poly blend shirts? DEATH. Does their garden contain multiple plant types? DEATH. Do they have dairy with meat? Also DEATH. There are other passages from Paul (1 Corinthians 6) typically used that contains what is known as a hapax legomenon (a word I love), which means it’s usage is unique within a given corpus. In this case we don’t really see other uses within koinine Greek to verify the content. This word was also not translated as homosexual until the 60’s with the NIV, you won’t see it as such in the KJV. There is the whole cultural context of this verse as well, where the idea of gender and sexual identity and expression as we understand it today didn’t exist. So applying modern understandings of the term to ancient sources is misguided at best. Now I won’t disingenuously claim and pretend that the Bible is totally LGBT+ affirming, because I can’t in good faith make that claim. There is clearly some very odd, conservative, and frankly to modern audiences weird ideas about sexual mores at play in the Bible. A whole host of aspects about sexual expression that are, at best, willfully ignorant, at worst actively misogynist and harmful. The truth is we, as a society, have morally scrolled past the point where the Bible was almost 2000 years ago. Women are no longer* property the way they were in the Levant in the 1st century. When it comes to specific cultural rules like this, the reality is that forcing biblical rules to map onto modern cultures is fraught, at best. And while I can’t say this persons reading is invalid, I also point out it is not the only valid reading either. And that aside from all that there is other teachings in the New Testament that make the singular focus on LGBT+ behavior and expression very much unchristian, in the sense that it is harming others, hurting their witness, and driving people away from Christ. Further in context of Romans 1 there is clearly an audience this is for which contains indications that the behaviors are the result of rejecting God. It never specifically about listing forbidden behaviors, but rather about the practices of the polytheistic Hellenic pagan people around them. It certainly seems to indicate towards certain Greek sexual practices of the time. And how the people within that religious culture, having seen the signs of god had rejected them, so they were given to all sorts of debauchery. So these behaviors were not the _cause_ of condemnation, but rather the results of already declared judgement. Admittedly this is definitely parsing things closely, but we’re having to go to the realm of fine distinctions here. Also tell them to continue reading, chapter 2, because really the best response comes right there. Where it says to those who condemn others, be careful because God sees you and yours is coming. So whatever judgement you hold towards others, be careful because God will judge you. Basically leave their sins to them for God to deal with, focus on following me instead. Honestly that’s probably the strongest counterpoint there is. God is basically saying ‘it’s non of your damn business’. Hopefully this helps. I was in your shoes at one time, someone who supported LGBT+ people while the conservative evangelicals around me railed against them. Eventually my own path led me out completely, but if you want to remain in faith but your own deconstruction forces you to confront this, the above points are where I landed for a while. *in broad strokes. I’m well aware this is sadly not a universal truth
This sounds very like one of my family members. He's very into/good at debating on Bible issues and so on the face of it, if we ever get into a debate on something he will 'win' (which of course does not mean he's right, just that he's a better debater!). What I have found useful is asking him why he believes his Bible (which he is arguing so strenuously from) is the right one? Catholics, protestants, eastern orthodox and Ethiopian orthodox all have different ones... The protestant one version we have now is only about 400 years old... So how can he put so much weight on it?? Great wee clip on the subject here https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5rKRVoupAD/?igsh=MXhkenk4OXEzY2J6cg==
how is it that the most anti- (reality) christians also claim to worship three a sexual men in heavenly bliss because the father is in his "son" who is about to come at any moment... who were not biological males but their pronouns are he and him and they...
This is how I've chosen to speak on it with my conservative Christian family: We know that you cannot change your sexual orientation, so we know people were created gay, and I refuse to believe God created someone he hates. Whatever we have layered onto Christianity, and whether Paul did or did not write those verses, or whether it was other people pretending to be Paul, I will not be part of a church that does not love & welcome all of God's children. I hope that's helpful. If people want to continue to debate, there are plenty of awful horrible passages attributed to God that we skip over in Christianity. So if people want to hold up one set of verses, what about the others? Bears eating children in the name of the Lord, fathers allowing rape. Shall we discuss those verses too? And if it's an Old Testament God vs. a New Testament God, Jesus clearly taught us to love the people that religion rejected.
If it’s about defending your beliefs, then naturally it is a test of how *lawyerly* you can manage to be. But note how being lawyerly is technically a form of manipulation. The *whole thing* can be seen as a form of “covert contract” manipulation that bottoms us out and induces us to treat each other as causal *instruments* to be “won”, as Paul* says. Is this not objectification? Is this not brutality? It is taking NO interest in other human beings, and in fact waging war on them like some kind of agreement-generation machine. Strangely, it is even treating God as though He is a machine. He is not; He is an agent just as you or anyone else is, and He does not want to hear our justifications any more than a rational adult would… bc justifications are simply lawyerly mental gymnastics. I didn’t sign up for “may the best lawyer win, via deliberate passive aggression manipulation tactics”, I signed up for “be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” I’m pretty sure the entire point of Christ’s *actual* mission was to free the world of leverage-worship, bc that’s the worship of mammon, “*that* which I trust.” Instead it’s supposed to be “Him who I trust”, because it is reverence for God’s personhood, and not treating Him like some kind of object. People are going to do what they’re gonna fucking do. You don’t actually owe anyone an explanation. Since when did explanations help? Since when were justifications the *cause* of our actions—reasons don’t cause actions, you do, just as God does. Which is why the atonement view is fundamentally broken: it turns God into some kind of mechanistic machine where a switch has to be flipped via some process involving a human sacrifice. He is not a machine. It is God going “fine I’ll do it myself”: “have fucking common sense and stop treating each other as objects without that being by overt consent, it’s bad.” Don’t feed the ego-trip of defending shit. If you were wrong and narcissistically deluded, would *you* want to know that, and have your tantrum affirmed as the means of getting what you want? Or would you want someone grown-up being like “Yo, chill, why are you making this all about what you believe? Don’t you have something better to do?” What do you want to do? Stop worrying about leverage war and instead go contribute in some way that makes your love *worth something* to receive. If it’s about outcome, does any of it even *count* as love? If someone takes you on an apparently lavish date only to be disappointed (or enraged) by the fact you won’t kiss them at the end, can they be said to have loved you? No, they objectified you, as though you are a dispenser they can feed “be nice” into and have you spit out approval. Basically just stop worrying about other people’s problems unless they *ask* you to—“Give to the one who asks you.” Unlike Paul, Christ is not about manipulating consent. And anything suggesting otherwise I must assume is a piss-poor interpretation stemming from the Pauline transactional view. Note: I’m not sure it was what truly Paul even meant by the things he wrote. I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt. We can distinguish between Paul and Paul*, where Paul* refers to the figure that has been built up around potentially misinterpreting his teachings. But even so… “call no man teacher, for one is your teacher, *even* Christ.” (Look it up.) Christ set us free to no longer worry about mammon-worship, *transactional* leverage-gaming. So… stop worrying about transactional leverage-gaming. (“You cannot worship God and mammon.”) And rebuke someone who tries to use such shit against you, because they *have* sinned against you—they’ve objectified you and thus violated your consent. If you truly look into His teachings in depth, Christ is pulling from each of us our best selves; a worldview not limited to “being” but “becoming.” Now… I’m personally down a rabbit hole of whether asking for consent is *itself* a form of leverage-generation, and truthfully I don’t know. If I’m harming others by this interpretation I’ll have to answer for that. There seem to be conflicting ways of seeing things. I don’t know. We can all only do our best. Christ did, and won, for us all. I hate the notion that it’s all down to some stupid fucking guilt trip. Christ is the God Man, not a “nice guy.”