Photo credit: Wendy van Zyl A curious, enigmatic, debated, and often dismissed, verse is found in the nineteenth chapter of the New Testament’s Gospel of Matthew. Some scholars for the past forty years or so have argued that it includes a reference to men who
A tale of the relationship of two women, Ruth and Naomi, is tucked within those books in the Hebrew Bible (the Christian “Old Testament”) that are called historical because they portray a legendary history of a people from its beginnings as a tribe to its
For those of us who are old enough and were somewhat “woke” back then, the COVID-19 pandemic invokes hidden emotions that remind one of the painful early years of the AIDS crisis. There are differences, certainly, because this pandemic is directly affecting a broader demographic,
Queer Religiosities: An Introduction to Queer and Transgender Studies in Religion by award-winning scholar and teacher Melissa M. Wilcox, would make an excellent textbook in an “introductory” course in which I’d like to enroll. And it was especially written for use in such a course,
According to what we’re told in the Hebrew Bible (the Christian “Old Testament”), Jonathan, a king’s son, loved a man who would become a more famous king, David – and David in turn loved Jonathan. No matter what the actual history behind the story, what
It’s common for more progressive Christians to defend LGBTQI people by saying that Jesus said nothing about homosexuality. But is that true, if we’re referring to the versions of Jesus that have made it down to us in the collections of stories found in the
People bring their prejudices with them when they come to the Bible. It’s why the most popular of the choices of how to interpret those passages used to clobber LGBTQI people is the one that is historically less probable but supports a dominant cultural prejudice.
There are people who just get their jollies by arguing about “What the Scripture says.” It energizes them. They aren’t really interested in hearing the many sides of how people understand those old texts. They just find that being in the argument gives them a
The story that dominates this time of year almost as much as Clement Moore’s A Visit from St. Nicholas is found in two of the New Testament Gospels: Matthew and Luke. Bible scholars today debate how much, if any, of them is historically accurate since
“The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church,” wrote second century Christian theologian Tertullian. And during his June 30th mass this year, Pope Francis agreed: “The Church grows thanks to the blood of the martyrs. This is the beauty of martyrdom.” There’s a
