God and the Gay Christian

Contents:

• GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN
• GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN: THE BIBLIL CASE SUPPORT OF SAME-SEX RELATNSHIPS
• WHY ‘GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN’ IS WRONG ABOUT THE BIBLE AND SAME-SEX RELATNSHIPS
• GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN: A REVIEW
• REVIEW OF GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN
• REVIEW: GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN
• REFORMATN OR REVOLUTN? A REVIEW OF GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN
• A REVIEW OF GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN
• GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN: A CRIL REVIEW
• A RPONSE TO ‘GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN: THE BIBLIL CASE SUPPORT OF SAME-SEX RELATNSHIPS’

GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN

In God and the Gay Christian: The Biblil Case Support of Same-Sex Relatnships he is open about his own experience of g to terms wh homosexual feelgs, and of how he found sharg this wh his nservative Christian fay. This nvictn then propels him to qutng the church’s sistence on “mandatory celibacy” for same-sex attracted Christians, a wi-rangg reasssment of what the Bible actually says about homosexualy, marriage, and humanns.

He mak two claims orr to make a third claim: 1) the Bible do not nmn homosexual orientatn, or the exprsn of sexual love mted, monogamo homosexual relatnships, and 2) homosexual relatnships n and do reflect the ial of Christian marriage as appears Scripture. 2 is about how new rmatn requir a reterpretatn of Scripture26: passag about the larger biblil visn (marriage metaphors)27: Gagnon referenced184n9: Piper/Gm referenced28: sexual orientatn not a choice (this is a new viewpot)41: the church's requirement that gay Christians be celibate is a new requirement, bee olr generatns thought that you uld change [Do "the church" say that if is te that orientatn nnot be changed, a Christian wh homosexual sir mt rema celibate? 118: malakoi and arsenokoai122 (and 127): 1587 Geneva Bible122: malakoi refers to those who lack self-ntrol123: [ntra V, y, unrstand do e om unr and stand]125: arsenokoas is exploatn129: the Bible don't addrs orientatn bee 's a morn ncept129-30: summary of the chapters so far131: transn om "the Bible don't nmn homosexualy" to "homosexualy fulfills the biblil unrstandg of marriage"Ch.

Jam Brownson173-76: V's proposed gameplan for Christian homosexuals gog forward: share your views publicly; talk wh your pastor and church lears; lead a Bible study about gay Christians; start a support groups for LGBT Christians; if you are lbian, gay, bisexual, or transgenr, e out; take some risksnon-fictn relign sexualyAuthor 3 books137 followersFebary 20, 2016Much has already been wrten about the V book.

GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN: THE BIBLIL CASE SUPPORT OF SAME-SEX RELATNSHIPS

I have a hard time imagg that anyone of the oppose opn is gog to be swayed by anythg that anyone says no matter how well thought out might summary, if you are a rock-hard believer that homosexualy is a s then don't bother. Fortunately, over the past few years, I have grown so much, bee so much more fortable my sk as a gay Christian man, and have bee nvced of God's unndnal love for me. 461 reviews10 followersMay 20, 2016I read this book bee I had never tly unrstood how some uld jtify livg an openly homosexual liftyle while matag a Christian liftyle.

WHY ‘GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN’ IS WRONG ABOUT THE BIBLE AND SAME-SEX RELATNSHIPS

Obvly this is a great book for their fai, too, but if there's anythg that gay kids those church need to hear, 's this: "Don't listen to the people who say otherwise.

He is so credibly patient the face of all the homophobia that he faced om his fay and church and tails the nversatns that he had wh people as he tri to expla how the Bible do not nmn the LGBTQ muny.

GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN: A REVIEW

) He wr this book to expla to a wir dience that beg a Christian and follower of the Bible do not mean that someone needs to nmn gay relatnships ( fact, they shouldn’t and they should be supportive of LGBTQ people! V this ncept to shed light on the troublg implitns uched several ias, cludg: - The fact that "ex-gay" mistri have very ltle succs, and a high (for lack of a better term) recidivism rate. The fact of the matter is this: my own experience, I've wnsed a special disda shown for gay people, pecially the church, as if to suggt that they are culpable mtg the worst s possible.

I am still somewhere on the spectm of "changg my md" about Scripture and homosexualy, although I am fely leang towards an terpretatn that affirms same-sex relatnships (and I pletely affirm the civil right to same sex marriage - sorry people, one particularly relig view of marriage don't necsarily get to tmp all other views our pluralistic society). As V illtrat his book ( needs more exampl), a large number of evangelils ground their notns of sexualy, and their prohibns agast homosexualy, genr plementarianism. 223 reviews34 followersJuly 2, 2015As ntroversy has swirled the wake of the Supreme Court's cisn upholdg gay marriage I wonred if anyone had managed to wre a rigoro, Biblilly-ground fense of gay marriage.

The answer is: y, this book is , and boy is a thor Matthew V, the issue is personal: he was raised a lovg, Christian, Bible-believg home, but realized when he was 19 that he was gay. After g out to his dad, the two of them began an -pth reexamatn of scripture that would ultimately change both their mds on the you've studied what the Bible has to say on the topic of homosexualy at all you probably know two thgs: one, 'homosexualy' is not a word eher ancient Hebrew or Greek and ed not somethg they had a cultural ncept for (relevant Biblil passag tend to relate to specific acts); and two, there are six 'clobber passag' strewn across the Old and New Ttament which have generally been ed to show that the Bible prehensively nmns gay sexualy.

REVIEW OF GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN

He div ep to the text, wrtlg wh words whose meangs are often que obscure (remember, the ancient Greeks and Hebrews didn't have a ncept of 'homosexualy' let alone words for , so if you see those crop up your translatn of the Bible, that is lazy translatn). Hontly, most of the 'clobber passag' are que easily dismissed (the s of Sodom and Gomorrah was not homosexualy but beg generally horrible people, somethg that is easily proved om other scripture and backed up by ntemporary sourc). However, after we have a amework md for how people of Pl's time would have viewed 'gay behavr', pecially the mon gentile sexual and cultural ctoms of the day, Romans 1 appears que a different light, one that is certaly not a blanket nmnatn of homosexualy.

If nothg else, I thk that readg this book will show that gay marriage is somethg that genue believers might fd Biblil support for, whether you thk they are right or you are a Christian wrtlg wh this topic, I strongly urge you to read this book.

I appreciated, and was enuraged by, the story of another young man who holds Scripture high thory, who earntly do not want to leave his fah, and who, cintally, is gay. There's a rare secularist who for some reason wants to do Gumby-exegis wh Scripture and fd endorsg sodomy, but apart om that lonely soul the only other people strivg for this posn liberal Christians who really, really want to be relig ( an anized way, you know) and homosexual. He do a really thorough job explorg the origal languag and cultur around all the passag the Bible that have been ed to clare all homosexual relatns a s, and show how logil and reasonable is to re-terpret them light of scriptural and cultural there li the problem, and this is why I thk V is doomed to fail his attempts to rencile the mass of evangelil Christiany (at least for the Boomer generatn and probably a good portn of the younger generatns).

REVIEW: GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN

" Of urse they (the Evangelils) are pletely bld to the fact that they are dog the exact same the end, probably nobody the nservative Evangelil muny is gog to be nvced to change their mds about gay relatnships based on reasong om the Bible. They are dog the ntext of learng for themselv that gay people are not the icky, nasty "others" which the Evangelil church has tght them to fear– that stead they are ordary, every day people, wh strengths and weakns and histori and dreams.

So V sought to arm himself wh biblil scholarship on the affirmatn of same-sex relatnships and strove to nvce his fay and church that they were wrong—that homosexualy is not a s. " V stat that universal nmnatn of same-sex relatnships has been damagg and stctive for those who intify as gay Christians, producg bad u (prsn and suici, for stance). Unlike others who advote rpectful dialogue on this divisive issue, V charg that those who do not affirm same-sex relatnships are sng by distortg the image of God and are sentially rponsible for the suicis of many gay Christians.

REFORMATN OR REVOLUTN? A REVIEW OF GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN

Michael Carn, a ge gay Catholic who dabbl astrology, has wrten on the "homo-erotics of atonement" and ntributed to the Queer Bible Commentary, which draws upon "femist, queer, nstctnist, utopian theori, the social scienc and historil-cril disurs. Published a few years later, God and the Gay Christian expands on the se V ially ma his 2012 talk, argug not only that same-sex relatnships are not nmned the Bible, but that same-sex marriag are acceptable to God and even that te Christian fahfulns requir affirmg their acceptabily. In each se, V argu that the text may not mean what we thk means, but even if do, is talkg about a different type of homosexualy than we are talkg about today.

Instead of alg wh the exegetil arguments, I want to foc on his re argument that the type of homosexualy spoken of the Bible is different than that of the ancient world. In each se, V argu that the text may not mean what we thk means, but even if do, is talkg about a different type of homosexualy than we are talkg about today. For stance, he says that homosexual Christians mt be allowed to marry other homosexuals, bee if they nnot and they burn wh passn (1 Cor 7:9), then they nnot pe their temptatn (1 Cor 10:13).

A REVIEW OF GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN

His new book, God and the Gay Christian, is the first step a larger effort to fundamentally rest long-held, universally acknowledged norms pertag to sexual ethics. Ined, if I were a mega-church pastor who stood to ga or lose on this issue and I was wantg to bypass the ntent bate on homosexualy and same-sex marriage, God and the Gay Christian is the book I’d look to and handout to members of my church.

His sexualy ma him unfortable wh the Bible’s prohibn on homosexualy and he began “losg nfince the belief that same-sex relatnships are sful: no longer ma sense” (12). If there is a substantial difference between the type of behavr Pl nmned and the timate, mted relatnships of gay Christians, then he has not relegated our gay iends and loved on to the proverbial dtb. Asi om offerg personal bgraphy peppered wh a highly unual ncept of celibacy, V spends the middle sectn of his book addrsg and rrectg what he se are wrong terpretatns of the Bible’s nmnatn of homosexualy.

Dismissively, at one pot V lls Gagnon’s work “speculative” on the issue of creatn and human nature, somethg that nnot be done agast the weight of evince The Bible and Homosexual Practice, what many nsir the five work on the topic.

GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN: A CRIL REVIEW

V’ argument is first a moral prupposn, followed by a belief that the Scriptur uld affirm homosexualy based on the valier exegis and theologil terpretatn he offers. First, jt bee the biblil thors may not have elucidated an unrstandg of sexual orientatn morn terms, do not mean that they didn’t have at least some regnn that dividuals of their time were exprsively and uniformly homosexual.

A RPONSE TO ‘GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN: THE BIBLIL CASE SUPPORT OF SAME-SEX RELATNSHIPS’

Workg backwards, seems sensible to nclu that if the branch (homosexual sex) is nsired fallg short of God’s tend sexual sign, so too is the root (homosexual attractn/sire/attractn). Loar stat that Pl’s dictment of homosexual relatns Romans 1:26-27 “clud, but [was] by no means limed to exploative perasty, ” “sexual abe of male slav, ” or “same-sex acts … performed wh idolatro rual ntexts” (325). Aga, “ is also hard to image that Pl would approach [issu of homosexual practice] whout awarens of the prohibn of same-sex relatns Levic 18:22 and 20:13, which had e to be applied to both men and women” (314).

” But this beli a key flt at play V’ work: There are credible and overwhelmg amounts of biblil scholarship nfirmg the tradnal biblil terpretatn ncerng homosexualy. If we acunt for the Bible’s tradnal teachg on homosexualy beg rrect (and we have exegetil and historic evince to suggt is), V has two optns: 1) To abandon the Bible’s thory, th negatg his evangelil credibily; or 2) Be at peace wh reprentg a mory opn wh biblil scholarship, an opn that go agast settled scholarship that both liberals and nservativ accept.

If there were an opportuny for same-sex marriage and homosexuals to be given s equal place, wouldn’t have been given s place already—pecially a far more homoerotic culture such as Greek and Roman culture?