Note: This letter is addressed to the couple Mr. Herzog met while taking part in the Soulforce action in Lynchburg when 200 GLBT Christians met with Rev. Jerry Falwell. His friends asked him several questions, including:
1. Do you believe the bible is the inerrant WORD of God?
Thanksgiving, 1999
Dear Friends in Christ,
Being at Lynchburg with our gay brothers and sisters and straight friends in
Christ through our comforter, the Holy Spirit, brought to us not only the
Peace of the Lord, which passes all understanding, but also a glimpse, if not
the presence, of our souls in communion in the Kingdom of God through the
Grace of God's love made manifest. For these joys, thanks be to God!
That weekend also had its sorrows. I felt ambivalence about those who tried
to abuse us outside the refuge given by our straight brothers and sisters,
and profound sadness when half of Brother Falwell's congregation sat on their
hands while the rest applauded his message of reconciliation and
unconditional love of their gay children. I saw in that more death, more
suicides, more killings, more abuse and more marginalization. Lord have
mercy. Lord, God, we pray, give us understanding, strength and power to help
stop the killing, the alienation, the spiritual violence.
They call us faggots. They teach their children to shun us, they sit by
while we are despised. They sit by while others are despised in our name.
They wonder why the Columbine straight outsiders killed and killed and killed
those who called them "faggots". They wonder why. They wonder at the source
of hate as their offspring circle the flagpole and in Christ's name
disparage, judge and condemn their brothers and sisters. They wonder why.
Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord stop the hate, stop the
killing, stop the spiritual violence.
Christ's message is simple, yet they complicate it. God is love. Jesus is
the Christ. Jesus is the Word made flesh. "If any man sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the
propitiation for our sins." "Whosoever believeth in him..." "...on these
two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." " Judge not least you
be judged..." "The law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we
might be justified by faith. But now faith has come, we are no longer
subject to a disciplinarian." "The law indeed was given through Moses;
grace and truth come through Jesus Christ." They seem to read the Bible,
whichever version suits them, as if they were government agents interpreting
the Internal Revenue Code, its amendments and the regulations thereto
promulgated by them
It is hard -- very, very hard -- to say what the Bible is or is not. But it is
not hard to know the basic teachings of Christ. It may seem hard to some to
know who Christ left us - the Holy Spirit. He did not leave us hate. He did
not leave us judgments. Even Paul agrees there is no right to judge unless
the other person has repudiated God first. Like the Pharisees they ask
questions. "Is the Bible the inerrant word of God?" We ask, what is the
Bible? Which version? Which translation? Which books? Which do they
accept? Which do they reject? Are there sixty-seven versions? Two hundred?
Wasn't it in Greek and Hebrew? Common Greek or academic Greek? Do they
read the Greek or Hebrew? Do they know the culture of those who wrote? Who
wrote and who were told? Which version which was written are they using?
Why that one? Do they listen to those that do read and study besides their
own? Inerrant??? or violated??? I do believe our interpretation of it is a
mirror into our own souls.
The intellectuals among the neo-Pharisees know their hope to condemn gays is
in Romans. Yet doesn't Romans Chapter 2 condemn them and Chapter 1 free us? Do
they know the difference in Chapter 1 between violation of the moral law and
violation of the usual nature of one? Is God immoral in Romans 11:24 - "Para
physin" when "against nature" he grafted the Gentiles on to the Jewish tree?
Now the neo-Pharisees have an immoral God? Isn't that what the Pharisees
tried on Christ? No wonder others see it as idolatry. A violation of the
first of the ten commandments given by God to Moses and the first of the two
commandments given by Christ. Do they worship their version of the Bible as
God? Where does it say Christ told anyone to write books and to worship
them? Isn't Jesus the Word made flesh? The best information we seem to have
is that he said he was leaving the Holy Spirit as our guide and comforter.
And the disciples were to go out two by two in male pairs and teach of his
life, death and resurrection so that we may believe and have life in the
Lord.
Yes, I believe God inspired, does inspire, and will continue to inspire
people to write and teach. And I believe we have the obligation to know the
times, the values, languages, the idioms, the cultures and the personhoods of
people who wrote and taught and do write and teach about God; but most of all
we need to establish through prayer, study of all we can and then more
prayer, the Will of God through the Holy Spirit our comforter and guide. To
those of you who wonder, "How can this possibly be done?" "The task is too
hard!" Recall what Brother Falwell said: "Is it true? Is it loving? Is
it necessary?" Or as some of our young people would say, "What would Christ
do?" or as a former Presiding Bishop of our Church said "May I act to
reflect the love of Jesus Christ." It really is not hard to understand the
Bible if you study all about it and use tests of love instead of hate. Don't
you worry when someone uses his version of the Bible to reject, condemn,
marginalize and kill others? Doesn't that ring a bell? Don't you wonder if
perhaps he missed the point?
So what does Romans Chapter.1 verse (whatever) say? It is part of Paul's entire
argument in Romans (look at Chapter 2 and the rest of Romans if you want to
understand Chapter 1). In fact it might be better to read Romans backward. I
think, (since you are interested in what I think), he was concerned
about the division of the Gentiles and Jews in his new Jewish sect who
worshiped Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah. They had low regard for one
another and little understanding of the good news of their salvation through
Jesus, the Christ. To the Jews the Gentiles were still caught up in idol
worship (a lot of us still think that is true if you look at the Roman
Catholic and the Orthodox Catholic churches today). A lot of the Gentiles
thought the Jews were caught up in being judgmental and the old cleanliness
code of Leviticus. They even wanted the Gentiles to be circumcised, even the
adults! Paul tried to point out that both were in error. Worshiping idols
resulted not only in immorality which was a denial of God, but also in
uncleanliness, such as promiscuous sex without love by and with temple
prostitutes in group orgies. But Paul also understood that being judgmental
and preoccupied with the cleanliness code resulted in condemnation of
oneself. His point finally becomes clearer in Chapter 3: We are all sinners and
our only justification is first in our baptism and now in our salvation
through the blood of our Lord, Jesus the Christ (Chapter 6). Paul was clear.
Love God not idols, quit judging others and believe in our Lord and savior,
Jesus, the Christ. Quit the judging, start the loving and trusting.
What is fascinating about chapters one and two of Romans, is that they are
all about turning from the one true God - being like the judgmental early
Jews worshiping the cleanliness code of Leviticus or like the early Gentiles
worshiping idols. The Gentiles up and down the coast, the heterosexual
Gentiles not accepting Christ manifested their worship of the gods of the
idols in unnatural (unusual to them, para physin) sex - heterosexuals had sex
with those of their own gender and others in groups all without love but in
worship of their gods. How perverted - heterosexuals without love having sex
with their own gender. How bizarre. How could they? It is as bizarre for a
heterosexual to have sex with a person of the same gender as it must be for a
homosexual to have sex with a person of a gender different than his or hers -
how bizarre. My God, how unnatural (unusual to themselves, para physin)
heterosexuals having sex with persons of their own gender and homosexuals
having sex with persons of the opposite gender - all without love, without
affectional preference, all in a loveless orgy. That was as unnatural to
them (para physin) as it was unnatural (para physin) for God to graft the
Gentiles on the olive tree that is the Jews (Romans 11:24). I think that is
what Paul was speaking of.
I believe that in today's world the hypocrisy of acting against who you are
(against your nature, para physin) is at the very heart of why gay men and
women finally come out as who God made them. They can no longer stand the
hypocrisy of trying to love against their nature (against what is inherent in
them, para physin). It is at the core of their very being (there very
nature) that their affection is for a person who is of their same gender, but
more importantly of their same affectional preference. And they act this out
in living together in love and in the embrace of each other and, yes, in
expressing their love for one another, not only in their daily life together,
but as they know God intended - in sexual relations with each other just like
straights. My gay brothers and sisters are as repelled as you at the call
boy, male prostitute sex of your "ex-gay" pastor. I don't know if he is gay,
bisexual, or heterosexual. I know, as he said, he was a hustler. To compare
him to us, is to compare you and your spouse to that of a customer and
prostitute. Yes, that was spiritual violence.
I love the question about Revelation. With the joys given us through the
Holy Spirit who needs the bribes, threats and dreams of John in Revelations
as motivation? We can all fit on a pinhead like atoms if that is what God
wants or we all can be in John's dream city. Praise be to God. I serve God,
not out of fear or greed but out of joy given me by his love manifested
through the Holy Spirit. I know I am loved by God. I know I am loved by my
lover and my family, I know I am saved in the blood of the lamb - our Christ.
If you don't know that it is your problem, not mine.
From those who sat on their hands when others applauded Brother Falwell's
message of reconciliation and unconditional love of their gay children, I
believe I know how they see us - moral degenerates, sexual perverts, consumed
by deviant sex, ungodly, leaders of youth to deprivation and alienation from
God. And many of "us" see "them" as ignorant (having not a clue as to what
they don't know and no interest in knowing anything else than they think they
already know or are told), judgmental, self-righteous, hypocritical (i.e.
divorce, wealth, usury, the Jubilee,...), manipulative, opportunistic,
selective in Bible interpretation, worshiping literal words as idols, lazy in
studying the scriptures, Sodomites in denying hospitality, turning gay youth
from Christ, and most of all killers of their gay children and the gay
children of others who they drive to suicide and who they support the murder
and marginalization of through denigration, hatred and contempt - spiritual
violence.
They see me as how I may perform a sexual act as opposed to how they may
perform a sexual act. They don't see me as a person with an innate inborn
affectional preference from my earliest childhood different than theirs. For
me girls were always my best friends and women still are. I am shy and
afraid of most males. Most of the males that were friends in childhood have
as adults come out as gay. Boys are the ones on whom I had hidden "crushes".
Beginning with Guy in the second/third grades, Art in the
fourth/fifth/sixth, Bill in the seventh/eighth, Don in the ninth, Calvin in
the tenth...until a wild girl after law school made me believe the lie taught
in school and church - that my secret affectional preference for persons of
my gender was merely a stage through which I would and then did pass. After
we broke up, I married a dear friend and had with the help of the Holy Spirit
four children. Ours is a wonderful family. We love each other and my
"companion" their "friend" and "uncle". God makes wondrous households of
love - perhaps to witness to others God's capacity to love and provide for
all of his children.
They see me as they may. I know, yes, in certainty I know myself a child of
God's, a sinner as Paul, whose only salvation is in the blood of Jesus, the
Christ, my Savior. I know the Holy Spirit as my teacher, guide and
comforter. In the communion of my brothers and sisters in Christ I know the
Peace of the Lord that passes all understanding. I know this through prayer,
study of the Scriptures, use of the Book of Common Prayer, at the Communion
rail, and the intercession of the Holy Spirit in my life lived through His
power in the best way I can - acting to reflect the love of Jesus. And I say
praise God. Thanks be to God for the wondrous cross he has given me to bear,
for the chance to witness to his love and grace, for being just as he made me
and leads me to be.
As Christ left the problem of salvation to the rich young ruler who turned
from him and went away when Christ asked him to give all he had to the poor
and follow him, so I ask you to join hands with us and give all you have to
the poor and with us follow Him in love. Love God with all your heart and
soul and love your neighbor as yourself. Judge not one another, nor turn a
child from Christ for any reason, but sing praises to our Lord and God and
follow Him through prayer through our comforter given to us by Christ - the
Holy Spirit - which each of us in Christ must know in our lives.
Peace, Gordon
|
What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality Daniel A. Helminiak New Testament and Homosexuality Robin Scroggs
Websites:
"Violence Against the Bible or
Inspired By the Bible"
Hermeneutics (Interpretative framework)
and Romans 1
Clobbering Back with the Clobber Texts
Also In This Issue:
|