What We Can Do When Biblical Teachings Collide
Sudarium explores several themes related to gender, including gender and God’s identity, how gender operates in us and other humans, and the interplay between gender identity and love.
For many who identify as biblical Christians, a few passages from Paul render homosexuality a sin. The resulting homophobia, expressed starkly and subtly, has failed to love the many who identify as gay or lesbian or non-binary or trans or …
And, of course, many in the LGBTQIA+ community also identify as Christians.
Can we agree on this assertion: Every person on earth is worthy of our love, and each one of us is accountable for loving others? This pretty much sounds like the voice of the Holy Spirit to me.
“Love the sinner, hate the sin”—come on, now. What other ‘sin’ is so thoroughly oppressed by those calling themselves Christian?
I would like to suggest this formula as a key commitment for us as people of the Book:
When the clear, vital and essential themes of the teachings of Jesus
—on loving each person, for example—
seem to conflict with another biblical passage
—writings of Paul, for instance, that define homosexuality as sin—
then we work together to observe the core messages
while we try to sort through the texts that seem to be in conflict.
I learned in seminary that bias can come from bibliolatry, which is prioritizing the written word in ways that violate the spirit of Jesus, the Living Word. Love is the ultimate reality God has infused into this world, into us, and into the Bible.
My experience? When you are loved and love people, you get to learn about the many ways that love is expressed. Certainly, if you claim ‘Christian’ as a key aspect of identity, then you should be known as someone who believes in and demonstrates the power of love, and affirms however it shows up between the people God created.
When it comes to the collision of biblical teachings around love and sexual orientation, I recommend three things:
Every Christian needs to build real relationships of trust and accountability with people from the LGBTQIA+ communities. Some of them will likely be family in the Lord. Love is love.
We need to examine our risk for homophobia emerging from our view of a few Bible passages. It is tragic when any understanding of Scripture fuels bias and hate.
And then we move forward with other people, by loving one another while we work on understanding sexual orientation together.
That’s what the Creator of love expects of us. We will answer for anything less.
