Luke Timothy Johnson on Homosexuality
Doing some good reading.
Of note is Luke Timothy Johnson's interpretation (Reading Romans) of Paul's comments on homosexuality in Romans 1:18ff. He points out in his book that Paul's exegesis is fairly clear: he stands in a long Jewish tradition that has uniformly pronounced homosexuality to be sin. That's fairly clear from the text. But Johnson points out that our struggles today are on a hermeneutical level, not an exegetical level. In other words, the question is not really, what did Paul mean? The question is, how do we apply to our current situation what Paul meant? For example, Paul was decrying homosexuality as the choice of naturally heterosexual people. That, it seems to me, is a different homosexuality that what we see prevalent today. Many studies indicate that for minority of people, homosexuality is not the result of mere choice, but of nature. Paul also assumes in his context that homosexuality is incompatible with a committed covenental relationship. Does this assumption hold for today?
In other words, homosexuality in antiquity was a different entity than it is today, at least in many cases.
Johnson mentioned in class that sex wasn't really about love or marriage in antiquity. Bisexuality was prevalent. It was not at all uncommon for a married man to have sex with his wife and his slaves, both male and female. So he speaks from w/in a very different world. The thing, the behavior, Paul was using as an illustration for blatant sin, is NOT the behavior we witness today. Homosexuality then is not homosexuality now, or at least the similarities are not within the realm of contemporary ecclesial discourse. Sure, there are heterosexuals who choose to have sex with members of the same sex, and, sure, there does exist a homosexual subculture in this country that is promiscuous and flagrant (just as such a culture of heterosexuality exists). I don't hear many in the church--gay or not--arguing that this kind of activity should be allowed in the church because it is creative, restorative, and redemptive to the human person. Nobody in their right mind would argue that.
What some folks argue is that homosexuality is NATURAL for some people. Why should we disapprove of monogamous relationship among these folks? This kind of homosexuality was not in Paul's view. It would have been utterly foreign to him.
So, in light of this, what should the church say? That's the question.
Of note is Luke Timothy Johnson's interpretation (Reading Romans) of Paul's comments on homosexuality in Romans 1:18ff. He points out in his book that Paul's exegesis is fairly clear: he stands in a long Jewish tradition that has uniformly pronounced homosexuality to be sin. That's fairly clear from the text. But Johnson points out that our struggles today are on a hermeneutical level, not an exegetical level. In other words, the question is not really, what did Paul mean? The question is, how do we apply to our current situation what Paul meant? For example, Paul was decrying homosexuality as the choice of naturally heterosexual people. That, it seems to me, is a different homosexuality that what we see prevalent today. Many studies indicate that for minority of people, homosexuality is not the result of mere choice, but of nature. Paul also assumes in his context that homosexuality is incompatible with a committed covenental relationship. Does this assumption hold for today?
In other words, homosexuality in antiquity was a different entity than it is today, at least in many cases.
Johnson mentioned in class that sex wasn't really about love or marriage in antiquity. Bisexuality was prevalent. It was not at all uncommon for a married man to have sex with his wife and his slaves, both male and female. So he speaks from w/in a very different world. The thing, the behavior, Paul was using as an illustration for blatant sin, is NOT the behavior we witness today. Homosexuality then is not homosexuality now, or at least the similarities are not within the realm of contemporary ecclesial discourse. Sure, there are heterosexuals who choose to have sex with members of the same sex, and, sure, there does exist a homosexual subculture in this country that is promiscuous and flagrant (just as such a culture of heterosexuality exists). I don't hear many in the church--gay or not--arguing that this kind of activity should be allowed in the church because it is creative, restorative, and redemptive to the human person. Nobody in their right mind would argue that.
What some folks argue is that homosexuality is NATURAL for some people. Why should we disapprove of monogamous relationship among these folks? This kind of homosexuality was not in Paul's view. It would have been utterly foreign to him.
So, in light of this, what should the church say? That's the question.
posted by ChadRAllen @ 2:48 PM
2 Comments:
At June 25, 2007 ,
Anonymous said...
Chad, I am interested in hearing more about this. Has your class discussed other issues that may be open to interpretation (women's roles in the church, etc.) based on cultural changes over time? Fascinating! Alice
At June 25, 2007 ,
ChadRAllen said...
It's a course on Romans, so issues of women in leadership are only indirectly addressed. But Paul sends Phoebe, a woman and deaconess from Cenchrae, with his letter, and presumably she would have read the letter aloud to the Roman assembly and provided some explication--a leadership role if ever there was. Prisca and Aquila are named at the end of the letter; Prisca, the wife, is significantly listed first.
But more to your question, in my opinion the main biblical passages that are used in support of keeping women out of leadership refer not to universal realities that apply for all time but rather for very particular communities in very particular contexts. Thus a biblical argument for the exclusion of women in leadership is really impossible. On the contrary, evidence in the NT suggests that women enjoyed far more freedom and status in the church than they did in their surrounding Greco-Roman culture.
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