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March 3rd, 2011
01:25 PM ET
My Take: The Bible really does condemn homosexualityBy Robert A. J. Gagnon, Special to CNN
In her recent CNN Belief Blog post “The Bible’s surprisingly mixed messages on sexuality,” Jennifer Wright Knust claims that Christians can’t appeal to the Bible to justify opposition to homosexual practice because the Bible provides no clear witness on the subject and is too flawed to serve as a moral guide. As a scholar who has written books and articles on the Bible and homosexual practice, I can say that the reality is the opposite of her claim. It’s shocking that in her editorial and even her book, "Unprotected Texts," Knust ignores a mountain of evidence against her positions. It raises a serious question: does the Left read significant works that disagree with pro-gay interpretations of Scripture and choose to simply ignore them? Owing to space limitations I will focus on her two key arguments: the ideal of gender-neutral humanity and slavery arguments. Knust's lead argument is that sexual differentiation in Genesis, Jesus and Paul is nothing more than an "afterthought" because "God's original intention for humanity was androgyny." It’s true that Genesis presents the first human (Hebrew adam, from adamah, ground: “earthling”) as originally sexually undifferentiated. But what Knust misses is that once something is “taken from” the human to form a woman, the human, now differentiated as a man, finds his sexual other half in that missing element, a woman. That’s why Genesis speaks of the woman as a “counterpart” or “complement,” using a Hebrew expression neged, which means both “corresponding to” and “opposite.” She is similar as regards humanity but different in terms of gender. If sexual relations are to be had, they are to be had with a sexual counterpart or complement. Knust cites the apostle Paul’s remark about “no ‘male and female’” in Galatians. Yet Paul applies this dictum to establishing the equal worth of men and women before God, not to eliminating a male-female prerequisite for sex. Applied to sexual relations, the phrase means “no sex,” not “acceptance of homosexual practice,” as is evident both from the consensus of the earliest interpreters of this phrase and from Jesus' own sayings about marriage in this age and the next. All the earliest interpreters agreed that "no 'male and female,'" applied to sexual relations, meant "no sex." That included Paul and the ascetic believers at Corinth in the mid-first century; and the church fathers and gnostics of the second to fourth centuries. Where they disagreed is over whether to postpone mandatory celibacy until the resurrection (the orthodox view) or to begin insisting on it now (the heretical view). Jesus’ view According to Jesus, “when (people) rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels” (Mark 12:25). Sexual relations and differentiation had only penultimate significance. The unmediated access to God that resurrection bodies bring would make sex look dull by comparison. At the same time Jesus regarded the male-female paradigm as essential if sexual relations were to be had in this present age. In rejecting a revolving door of divorce-and-remarriage and, implicitly, polygamy Jesus cited Genesis: “From the beginning of creation, ‘male and female he made them.’ ‘For this reason a man …will be joined to his woman and the two shall become one flesh’” (Mark 10:2-12; Matthew 19:3-12). Jesus’ point was that God’s limiting of persons in a sexual union to two is evident in his creation of two (and only two) primary sexes: male and female, man and woman. The union of male and female completes the sexual spectrum, rendering a third partner both unnecessary and undesirable. The sectarian Jewish group known as the Essenes similarly rejected polygamy on the grounds that God made us “male and female,” two sexual complements designed for a union consisting only of two. Knust insinuates that Jesus wouldn’t have opposed homosexual relationships. Yet Jesus’ interpretation of Genesis demonstrates that he regarded a male-female prerequisite for marriage as the foundation on which other sexual standards could be predicated, including monogamy. Obviously the foundation is more important than anything predicated on it. Jesus developed a principle of interpretation that Knust ignores: God’s “from the beginning” creation of “male and female” trumps some sexual behaviors permitted in the Old Testament. So there’s nothing unorthodox about recognizing change in Scripture’s sexual ethics. But note the direction of the change: toward less sexual license and greater conformity to the logic of the male-female requirement in Genesis. Knust is traveling in the opposite direction. Knust’s slavery analogy and avoidance of closer analogies Knust argues that an appeal to the Bible for opposing homosexual practice is as morally unjustifiable as pre-Civil War appeals to the Bible for supporting slavery. The analogy is a bad one. The best analogy will be the comparison that shares the most points of substantive correspondence with the item being compared. How much does the Bible’s treatment of slavery resemble its treatment of homosexual practice? Very little. Scripture shows no vested interest in preserving the institution of slavery but it does show a strong vested interest from Genesis to Revelation in preserving a male-female prerequisite. Unlike its treatment of the institution of slavery, Scripture treats a male-female prerequisite for sex as a pre-Fall structure. The Bible accommodates to social systems where sometimes the only alternative to starvation is enslavement. But it clearly shows a critical edge by specifying mandatory release dates and the right of kinship buyback; requiring that Israelites not be treated as slaves; and reminding Israelites that God had redeemed them from slavery in Egypt. Paul urged enslaved believers to use an opportunity for freedom to maximize service to God and encouraged a Christian master (Philemon) to free his slave (Onesimus). How can changing up on the Bible’s male-female prerequisite for sex be analogous to the church’s revision of the slavery issue if the Bible encourages critique of slavery but discourages critique of a male-female paradigm for sex? Much closer analogies to the Bible’s rejection of homosexual practice are the Bible’s rejection of incest and the New Testament’s rejection of polyamory (polygamy). Homosexual practice, incest, and polyamory are all (1) forms of sexual behavior (2) able to be conducted as adult-committed relationships but (3) strongly proscribed because (4) they violate creation structures or natural law. Like same-sex intercourse, incest is sex between persons too much structurally alike, here as regards kinship rather than gender. Polyamory is a violation of the foundational “twoness” of the sexes. The fact that Knust chooses a distant analogue (slavery) over more proximate analogues (incest, polyamory) shows that her analogical reasoning is driven more by ideological biases than by fair use of analogies. Knust’s other arguments are riddled with holes. In claiming that David and Jonathan had a homosexual relationship she confuses kinship affection with erotic love. Her claim that “from the perspective of the New Testament” the Sodom story was about “the near rape of angels, not sex between men” makes an "either-or" out of Jude 7’s "both-and." Her canard that only a few Bible texts reject homosexual practice overlooks other relevant texts and the fact that infrequent mention is often a sign of significance. It is disturbing to read what passes nowadays for expert “liberal” reflections on what the Bible says about homosexual practice. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Robert A. J. Gagnon. |
  About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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Editor’s Note: 
i read bible so the sun no get angry at me
here's a comment: who cares what the bible says? it is a work of fiction. There's a talking snake and the world was created in six days. It's garbage that doesn't deserve this much study.
Your opinion means nothing, there is no god.
But what is "The Bible" but a vast collection of writings by mere people over periods of time. And this collection has changed throughout the years with the Vatican routinely banning writings and including others. It is selected pieces of individuals writings and most certainly Not the word of God.
In fact, does any intelligent individual still believe in a God [definition: God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions (and other belief systems) who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism.]
Who cares what the bible says? The bible also condones the holding of slaves and the beating of women. It's a joke book perpetrated through two millenia. Why in this day and age do people continue to put importance on a book written by bronze age tribesmen and ancient farmers that has been repeatedly changed and heavily edited? Why does it matter what these uneducated people thought that God had to say about an issue they did not understand and already proscribed in their societies long before those books were written? It is exhausting to constantly have to see public opinion on civil/human rights being swayed by this silliness. One would have hoped that we would have evolved in our thinking since the time of the emancipation.
With this article, Ph.D Gagnon demonstrates that there really are a "chosen few" people who still get it! Amen!
All marriages are just civil unions under secular law. That's all marriage is...a civil union of two (or more) people. It's a legal bond for legal purposes. Religion has nothing to do with marriage.
That's why you have to get a marriage license. Because secular law doesn't recognize marriage/civil union unless it is properly docu-mented by our secular legal authorities.
If you got "married" without a license, it is null and void in a court of secular law no matter how fancy and religious and "filled with the spirit" or "holy" you think it is....without that license from our secular authorities, it's nothing but people diddling around and waving their arms.
If you want to "defend marriage", why don't you do it intelligently instead of acting like a bunch of wild-eyed cultists?
The problem is that no one is ATTACKING "marriage"! So all this "defending" is just make-believe play-acting by riled-up people who cannot think past their noses.
LGBT people get married all the time. They are reinforcing "marriage" by getting married over and over. What sort of clueless retard thinks that gay people will "infect" anyone with an "anti-marriage" virus?
Marriage is about caring for the other person and declaring that they want to be legally recognized as having such. Se-xual orientation has NOTHING to do with marriage.
There's THOUSANDS of christian conservatives who are LGBT, and, yes, many of them are the most vociferous opponents of LGBT rights because they want to stay hidden from view.
Until they get caught in a gay bar or restroom or "outed" by their lovers, that is. Does anyone have any idea just how often Republican politicians get dragged "out of the closet"? It happens several times a year in this country, yet no Republicans seem willing to admit that their ranks are FILLED with gays, lesbians, and bi people.
Total hypocrisy seems to be more of a long, deep-seated tradition for the political right than anything else they might proclaim.
And they still think it matters. What a bunch of retards.
What's the point of this dreck? The bible says a great many crazy things. It says that if a woman is not a virgin on her wedding night, she should be stoned to death at her father's front door. The problem isn't that people are not reading the bible closely enough – it is that they are heeding it at all.
All marriages are just civil unions under secular law. That's all marriage is...a civil union of two (or more) people. It's a legal bond for legal purposes. Religion has nothing to do with marriage.
That's why you have to get a marriage license. Because secular law doesn't recognize marriage/civil union unless it is properly docu-mented by our secular legal authorities.
If you got "married" without a license, it is null and void in a court of secular law no matter how fancy and religious and "filled with the spirit" or "holy" you think it is....without that license from our secular authorities, it's nothing but people diddling around and waving their arms.
If you want to "defend marriage", why don't you do it intelligently instead of acting like a bunch of wild-eyed cultists?
The problem is that no one is ATTACKING "marriage"! So all this "defending" is just make-believe play-acting by riled-up people who cannot think past their noses.
LGBT people get married all the time. They are reinforcing "marriage" by getting married over and over. What sort of clueless retard thinks that gay people will "infect" anyone with an "anti-marriage" virus?
Marriage is about caring for the other person and declaring that they want to be legally recognized as having such. Se-xual orientation has NOTHING to do with marriage.
There's THOUSANDS of christian conservatives who are LGBT, and, yes, many of them are the most vociferous opponents of LGBT rights because they want to stay hidden from view.
Until they get caught in a gay bar or restroom or "outed" by their lovers, that is. Does anyone have any idea just how often Republican politicians get dragged "out of the closet"? It happens several times a year in this country, yet no Republicans seem willing to admit that their ranks are FILLED with gays, lesbians, and bi people.
Total hypocrisy seems to be more of a long, deep-seated tradition for the political right than anything else they might proclaim.
And they still think it matters. What a bunch of retards.
right on! I was in Minneapolis and went to a gay bar... the same weekend Republican National Convention was going on and what do ya know... the bar was filled with closeted Republicans and what did all of them do? DRUGS!
Republicans creates FEAR to lure in naive people when they are really only about money! People need to realize that the RICH is getting loaded and the everyone else is getting the shaft!
Here's a radical opinion: how about CNN.com reports - oh, I don't know - THE NEWS!!!
@Jerry – None of that now, don't let's be reasonable
Well . . . the Lands End catalogue doesn't.
. . . so THERE!
. . . and the Lands End catalogue isn't a fairy tale.
The bible also says "20 “If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, 21 but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property." (Exodus 21) so who really cares???
"..the Bible"...the "Koran." in the 21st Century....lolz
1 billion Catholics. 1 billion Muslims.
Religion is one crazy mind virus.
Not that you would believe me because that is what atheists do right?
Ph.D., and associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, wow what a waste of a brain.
Just because one is book smart doesn't mean he has any common sense.
Abrahamic Monotheism is an abomination unto the Earth. In all its forms. Desert winds made insane the ramblings of cave hermits scratching endlessly the poetry of the slave. Arguing over whether or not a book of Mythology (the bible) that has been translated and re-translated hundreds of times condemns or celebrates anything at all is ridiculous at best, and damn well scary as hell at the worst. Marriage existed long before judeaism or christianity did and is most certainly not in the exclusive jurisdiction of either. By this logic any Hindus, Buddhists or Shintos marriages would be illegal.
Well put.
Who care what a book that was written by a 'bunch of people' thousands of years ago says? It has been re-written, re-translated, and things left out that were not accepted at the time. So I say who cares!!! I sure don't! And doesn't change anyone mind anyway.
Weak-minded individuals who need hand-holding to live their lives.
Since you're so knowledgeable, please point out what has been left out of the Bible when it has been re-translated. I'm very curious to know. Also, you might want to work on your grammar a bit.
I dare you to take a look at the bible for urself with a seeking heart..dare you
Bravo! Well put. The article to which this is directed, made me so angry that any post I could have made would have been deleted. This article is well put and correctly stated. Again I say Bravo!
All I hear is: Blah blah blah fairy tales.
I enjoy Stephen King novels, too. Doesn't mean I live my life by fiction.
It's pretty obvious most of you nay sayers have not actually read the bible. You're just simply repeating things you heard or thought you knew. Allow me to clarify a little...but I warn you...you have not been taught this in your church. No, no, your preachers would never want you to know the following.... Hell fire: not a biblical teaching. Immortality of the soul: not a biblical teaching. Jesus is God and God is Jesus: Not in the bible. A flying ark: Not in the bible. Limbo: Not in the bible. Once saved always saved: Not in the bible. All good people go to heaven: Not in the bible. That's right folks...what you thought you knew....you don't. I repeat...YOU DON'T. Most atheists are ignorant to the fact that the God of the bible is not the God that mainstream Christianity portrays. Atheists all have their favorite scriptures that move them to hate God and his inspired word...don't ignore the context, people. Grow up and do some real research. And please, try to be civil.
I have. I made a lot of money off the bible. I own a religion-oriented business, yet I'm an atheist. The people who believe in it are gullible.
Sam,
Jesus is God-in the Bible. Ark built by Noah- in the Bible. Limbo-hey you got that one right, not in the Bible.
If God was really responsible for the Bible you'd think it would be clear enough that you ignorant people could at least agree on what it says...
what the bible does or does not say is irrelevant. the fact is we should not be basing civil rights and laws on it, plain and simple.
I grew up as an Orthodox Jew. I devoted many hours each morning to studying the law of the bible. The bible says a LOT of things that we no longer follow. Why do we get to pick and choose the specific items that we feel are the ones that we should vilify?
Sam is dishonest in saying that some of those things aren't in the Bible, and dishonest to in pretending that some of the other beliefs he mentions are held by Christians.
An atheist cannot hate God, because they do not believe God exists. As an atheist myself, I harbour no ill-will towards the idea of a Christian god or any god, I simply don't believe in the existence of a god. If someone else chooses to have such a belief, I really don't care.
It is quite irritating to me to hear people say that "atheists hate God"...that idea is rubbish.
Read John 1:1...In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...can't figure out who the Word is...keep reading. Your post has some things right and others wrong...please get your facts straight before posting.
It's clear to me, as someone whom has read the Bible, that calling it the word of God is like calling McDonalds health food because they have salads too. Picking and choosing what you believe in the book (most ignore the old testament because god apparently was mistaken) doesn't make you a scholar, it makes you an idiot. Either it's all the word of god or none of it is. Due to the numerous contradictions and falsities it's clear that anyone who practices reason would have a hard time calling this relic from the bronze age as a guide to follow in 2011.
I was raised Christian...and then I read the Bible as an adult. Reading the Bible is what made me decide to become an atheist. It was clear through logical fallacy, misleading scientific information about the earth and universe, and the countless number of god sanctioned crimes against humanity, that the book was written by the people of the time. If God and his cronies were trying that craziness today...they would be prosecuted for war crimes.
Here's an idea: The Bible is about as true as Narnia. Who cares what it says? Baaaa, sheep, baaaaa.
God is imaginary. Any discussion of god is akin to a scholarly paper on just why Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer had a shiny nose.
@Sam – Very well spoken. Most people who think the Bible is a book of myth and fairy tales have never read it. Most people who think the Bible has been "re-written" "hundreds of times" have absolutely no evidence to back up such a claim. They're simply repeating what others have said. It's like a game of Telephone–the end result is so far from the truth it's laughable.
You are also correct that none of those teachings are in the Bible. Yet millions of religious people are filled with fear over hellfire. And millions of atheists base their condemnation of religion on those very lies. If only EVERYONE took the time to investigate and read it for themselves, they might see the truth: the Bible provides a HOPE for humanity, something no human government can ever do.
Oh, and for anyone who doubts the divine inspiration of the Bible: (1) How did Job know the Earth was a sphere, and suspended "upon nothing", when science didn't discover this until thousands of years later? (2) How did an ordinary man accurately prophesy that Alexander the Great would die prematurely, and 4 of his generals would divide his empire, although Alexander wouldn't be born for 140 more years? (3) How did the Gospel writers know that the Romans would march against Jerusalem, LEAVE (providing a window of escape for the people) and then return to decimate the city, decades before it happened? (4) Why do scientists and even evolutionists admit that the Genesis account is geologically accurate, although being penned 3500 years ago by a man who considered himself uneducated? If people take the time to really investigate the answers to those questions, instead of close-mindedly dismissing them, they'd be pleasantly surprised in the answers.