Why I Could Not Recommend the Mennonite
Book Reasoning Together: A Conversation on Homosexuality (Herald
Press, 2008)
Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.
Nov. 18, 2009
For printing use the pdf version
here.
Note: In May 2008 Levi
Miller of Herald Press and Mark Theissen Nation (professor of theology at
Eastern Mennonite Seminary) asked me if I could provide a blurb for the
Mennonite book Reasoning Together: A
Conversation on Homosexuality written by Mark
(whom I respect and count as a friend) and by a homosexualist professor of
“theology and peace studies” at Eastern Mennonite University, Ted
Grimsrud. I agreed to look at the manuscript in order to see if it merited
a positive endorsement. I finally got around to it in Sept.-Oct. 2008. I
concluded that I could not provide a blurb for the book unless certain
changes were made and gave my reasons in the letter that I sent to Levi
Miller, copied below. Mr. Miller responded:
As I noted, we forwarded your comments to the authors, and
they have made some changes on the manuscript. I doubt however that they
will meet your expectations, and at this stage, we are not expecting an
endorsement from you. I suppose we’ll have to live with a degree of
disagreement on this topic.
Accordingly, no blurb
was provided. I had hoped to provide a fuller critique of the book but
other more important commitments have consumed my time. After a year I
have decided to make public my letter, prompted by an email from a
Mennonite in California who tells me that the Mennonite church is
currently having churchwide conversations on the issue. My response here
will have to suffice, at least for the foreseeable future.
Readers not
particularly interested in this book or in a rebuttal of ad hominem
attacks that Grimsrud makes about my character can still benefit from
seeing my response to four claims made by Grimsrud with regard to my work:
(1) that I am projecting my own feelings onto Paul when I claim that
Paul viewed same-sex intercourse per se as a disgusting practice; (2)
that I have allegedly ignored the context for the reference to man-male
intercourse in 1 Cor 6:9, which (Grimsrud alleges) is not the
incestuous man in 1 Cor 5 (my point) but the law court dispute and social
justice in 1 Cor 6:1-8; (3) that I have allegedly erred in claiming that
Paul regarded homosexual practice as an instance of
porneia (sexual immorality); and (4) that I
have allegedly distorted the Sodom story by not limiting its
indictment to coercive forms of same-sex intercourse. Grimsrud attributes
all four of these alleged failings on my part to my “antipathy” and
“hostility” toward homosexual persons and claimed that I provide no
scholarly evidence for my conclusions. Here I show that the evidence from
historical and literary context for my claims is, in each instance,
overwhelming. Grimsrud simply ignores all the evidence.
Note that page
references to the Grimsrud/Nation work are to the manuscript I received,
not to the pagination of the published book.
Oct. 11, 2008
Levi Miller
Herald Press, Mennonite
Publishing Network
Scottdale,
PA
Dear Levi,
I am sorry that it has
taken me so long to respond.
I have read the whole
manuscript. In its present shape I cannot recommend it.
-
The first reason is that the
manuscript in its present shape contains remarks by Ted Grimsrud about
me and my work that are slanderous. Rather than address my arguments
fairly Grimsrud has chosen the strategy of character assassination
coupled with misrepresentation and neglect of my arguments. This is
something that you and Herald Press have a moral obligation to remove
before it goes to press. Mark Theissen Nation does not really refute
these remarks.
In his annotated reading list Grimsrud claims that my
first book—which, it is clear, he has barely looked at and certainly has
not digested its arguments—is “marred by obvious hostility toward gay and
lesbian Christians and their supporters. Displays an obsessive attention
to detail combined with an unwillingness to take points of view he
disagrees with seriously or present them fairly.”
a. Detail. The
remark about “displays an obsessive attention to detail” is just plain
silly. Grimsrud’s own work in this manuscript indicates that he would have
done well to pay more attention to the “detail,” inasmuch as he makes
numerous errors in argumentation, putting forward positions in apparent
ignorance of the many counterarguments that I have already raised to these
positions.
On the homosexualist side of things, Bernadette
Brooten and Louis Crompton have also both written 500-page books on the
subject that are very detailed (also John Boswell and David Greenberg;
Brooten’s in particular is equally detailed to my own, indeed more so on
the question of lesbianism in antiquity). Why wouldn’t Grimsrud
characterize their work pejoratively as being equally marked by “an
obsessive attention to detail”? I will come back to Brooten’s and
Crompton’s works when I comment on Grimsrud’s disuse and misuse of them,
below.
b. Alleged hostility
toward homosexual persons and their supporters. The other two
remarks made by Grimsrud about me and my work are more slanderous.
Grimsrud claims that my first book is “marred by obvious hostility toward
gay and lesbian Christians and their supporters.” The latter part “and
their supporters” is ironic in view of Grimsrud obviously hostile remarks
toward me. This is a slanderous remark that Grimsrud does not
substantiate. In his section on “Is Gagnon a Reliable Guide?” Grimsrud
states:
Gagnon’s hostility toward gay Christians and their supporters emerges
often throughout the book. He makes some likely unintentionally
self-revealing comments when he reads into Paul’s cryptic statements said
to be speaking to “same-sex intercourse” in Romans 1 “deep visceral
feelings…of disgust toward same-sex intercourse” as “the zenith of
detestable behavior” (page 269).
Are these feelings of “disgust toward same-sex intercourse” Paul’s or
Gagnon’s? We do not have much evidence of Paul’s “deep visceral feelings
of disgust” here, especially since it seems clear from the passage Romans
1–3 as a whole that Paul’s concern is not nearly so much the behavior to
which he refers in Romans 1 as it is the self-righteous attitudes of the
religious people he challenges in Romans 2.
Grimsrud states that my “hostility toward gay
Christians and their supporters emerges often throughout [my first] book.”
Yet the one comment that he cites is a statement about Paul’s view
of homosexual practice in Rom 1:24-27, as also that of other Jewish
writers of the period and the narrators of the stories about Ham, Sodom,
and the Levite at Gibeah. The full-quote, which Grimsrud garbles, is as
follows:
It has become commonplace among interpreters of
Rom 1:26-27 to state that Paul did not regard same-sex intercourse as more
egregious than any other immoral act. The treatment in 1:24-27 suggests
otherwise, as is apparent from the compounding of such expressions as “the
uncleanness of their bodies being dishonored” (1:24), “dishonorable
passions” (1:26), and “indecency” or “obscene behavior” (1:27). In
addition, the emphasis on the transparent self-degradation of the act (“in
themselves”) and the singling out of same-sex intercourse as a prime
example before developing the extended vice list in 1:29-31 point in this
direction. The depth of Paul’s visceral feelings toward same-sex
intercourse finds parallels not only in the level of disgust toward
same-sex intercourse exhibited by other Jewish writers of the period but
also in the responses to homosexual behavior in Paul’s scripture: the
narratives of homosexual rape (Ham, the men of Sodom, and the Benjamites
at Gibeah) as examples of the zenith of detestable behavior; the intense
revulsion against homosexual cult prostitutes manifested in Deuteronomic
and Deuteronomistic texts; the attachment of the label “abomination” to
all male homosexual intercourse in the Levitical prohibitions; and
possibly the unmentionable character of same-sex intercourse in Ezekiel,
who refers to such behavior only by the metonym “abomination.” (The
Bible and Homosexual Practice, 268-69)
In citing this as
an example of my alleged “hostility toward gay Christians and their
supporters” Grimsrud fails to deal adequately with the arguments that I
put forward to substantiate the conclusion that Paul finds homosexual
practice to be a particularly egregious instance, alongside idolatry, of
suppressing the truth about God and the way that God made us, accessible
to us through the material structures of creation. To claim, as Grimsrud
does in alleging that I have wrongly imputed my own “hostility” onto Paul,
that “we do not have much evidence of Paul’s ‘deep visceral feelings of
disgust’” (note the pastiche of several different quotations by Grimsrud
as though this were a single phrase in my work) is to ignore the rest of
the paragraph and, indeed, the whole of my book.
Grimsrud claims
that “it seems clear from the passage Romans 1–3 as a whole that Paul’s
concern is not nearly so much the behavior to which he refers in Romans 1
as it is the self-righteous attitudes of the religious people he
challenges in Romans 2.” But this is a false reading, as I show on pp.
277-84 of my first book, which Grimsrud conveniently ignores. Grimsrud’s
argument is the equivalent of saying that Paul was more concerned with
self-righteous attitudes than he was with Christians persisting in the
kind of idolatry that he cites in 1:19-23 just before mentioning
homosexual practice. The subsequent argument in Romans 2:1-3:20 doesn’t
chastise the Jewish interlocutor for judging the Gentile practices in
1:18-32 as deserving of God’s judgment (Paul confirms that such judgment
is indeed “in conformity with the truth” in 2:2); it rather chastises him
for thinking that he can get away with doing similar things and still
escape God’s judgment. When Paul goes on to deal with the question of
whether believers should continue in sin, in 6:1-8:17, he emphasizes that
if Christians persist in such “uncleanness” or “impurity” (cf. 6:19 with
the reference in 1:24 to same-sex intercourse as “uncleanness”) they will
likewise experience the same fate of cataclysmic judgment, for it is only
those who are “led by the Spirit” that can call themselves “God’s
children” and escape from the judgment that will befall those who conform
to the flesh (6:19-23; 8:12-14).
Grimsrud naturally
does not want to tell readers about the numerous remarks that I make in my
work to treat lovingly persons who experience same-sex attractions. For
example:
I deplore attempts to
demean the humanity of homosexuals. . . . The person beset with
homosexual temptation should evoke our concern, sympathy, help, and
understanding, not our scorn or enmity. Even more, such a person should
kindle a feeling of solidarity in the hearts of all Christians, since we
all struggle to properly manage our erotic passions. . . . Thus a
reasoned denunciation of homosexual behavior . . . is not, and
should not be construed as, a denunciation of those victimized by
homosexual urges, since the aim is to rescue the true self created in
God’s image for a full life.
[In the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:28-35] Jesus was not
telling the lawyer to affirm the Samaritan’s belief system. . . . Nor was
Jesus stating that whatever lifestyle the Samaritan adopted was to be
treated as acceptable. He was asserting that the lawyer should respond to
the Samaritan in love, not hate, acting with as much vigor in the
Samaritan’s best interest as he would be inclined to act in his own
self-interest. In the contemporary case of the homosexual that means doing
what is best for the homosexual, not necessarily what the homosexual lobby
thinks is best. In other words, Christians should treat the homosexual as
a friend to be converted over to the path of life, not as an enemy to be
consigned to the path of death. . . . The church can and should recapture
Jesus’ zeal for all the “lost” and “sick” of society, including those
engaged in homosexual practice. Concretely, this means visiting their
homes, eating with them, speaking and acting out of love rather than hate,
communicating the good news about God’s rule, throwing a party when they
repent and return home, and then reintegrating them fully into communities
of faith.
Far from being an unloving act, a sensitive refusal to condone homosexual
conduct is the responsible and loving thing to do. . . . To simply assert
that God loves us and forgives us as we are, without holding out the
necessity and hope of a life conformed to the will of God, is to deny
“God’s power to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. . . .”
The church must not shirk its duty to effect the costly work of
reconciliation that liberates persons from bondage to a sinful self. . . .
The church should reject the notion that the only alternatives are to
affirm homosexual behavior or to hate and harass homosexuals. Rather, the
church must affirm a third option: to love the homosexual by humbly
providing the needed support, comfort, and guidance to encourage the
homosexual not to surrender to homosexual passions.
With regard to church, practicing, self-affirming homosexuals should be
treated as any other persons engaged in persistent, unrepentant acts of
immoral sexual behavior. They should be loved and ministered to; the
church of God must struggle along with them and share in the groanings of
the Spirit. They should also be called to a higher standard of behavior. .
. . The final word on the subject of homosexuality is and should always
be: love God and love the homosexual “neighbor.” The homosexual and
lesbian are not the church’s enemy but people in need of the church’s
support for restoring to wholeness their broken sexuality through
compassion, prayer, humility, and groaning together for the redemption of
our bodies. . . . To denounce same-sex intercourse and then stop short of
actively and sacrificially reaching out in love and concern to homosexuals
is to have as truncated a gospel as those who mistake God’s love for
“accepting people as they are” and who avoid talk of the gospel’s
transformative power. It is to forget the costly and self-sacrifician work
of God in our own lives, past and ongoing.
The policy stances that the church must take toward same-sex
intercourse do not diminish the believer’s call to love the individual
homosexual. Indeed, a keener understanding of the theological, social, and
physical consequences of same-sex intercourse can potentially
perform the salutary task of helping our “love abound still more and more
in knowledge. . . (Phil 1:9-11). An ill-informed love can be just as
destructive as hatred. It is not enough to want to love. . . . At the same
time, it is not enough to know what is right. Knowledge can “puff up” or
“inflate” the ego. It can become a weapon for exalting oneself over others
in a smug attitude of moral superiority. It can turn into a tool for
“depersonalizing” others. Love must be wedded with knowledge, faith must
express itself in love. . . .
This book has been aimed at showing that affirming same-sex
intercourse is not an act of love, however well meaning the intent. That
road leads to death: physically, morally, and spiritually. Promoting the
homosexual “rights” agenda is an awful and harmful waste of the church’s
energies and resources. What does constitute an act of love is befriending
the homosexual while withholding approval of homosexual behavior, working
in the true interests of the homosexual despite one’s personal repugnance
for same-sex intercourse, pursuing in love the homosexual while bearing
the abuse that will inevitably come with opposing homosexual practice. It
is the harder road to travel. It is too hard for many people to live
within that holy tension. Yet it is the road that leads to life and true
reconciliation; it is the calling of the church in the world.
It should be clear
here, at least to you and Herald Press, that Grimsrud has created an
unfair caricature of me and unfairly slandered me. I expect this to be
rectified before the book goes to print.
c.
Alleged that I presented opposing views unfairly. Grimsrud’s
other slander is his allegation that “[Gagnon displays] an unwillingness
to take points of view he disagrees with seriously or present them
fairly.” He adds to this in his section “Is Gagnon a Reliable Guide” the
following:
Not
once, in the entire book, does he grant any validity to any pro-gay
arguments…. There is no sense of what problems there might be with
restrictive assumptions and methods—nor of what validity might be found
in inclusive assumptions and methods. Thus Gagnon “proves too much.” The
lack of even-handedness undermines the reader’s trust in Gagnon’s
objectivity.
Let Grimsrud cite examples where I do not “present
fairly” homosexualist arguments. I present them in greater detail than
anyone does, including Grimsrud. What Grimsrud doesn’t like, apparently,
is that I offer too many arguments as to why I don’t find any of the
arguments used to discount the biblical witness on homosexual practice
convincing. Ironically, unlike the way Grimsrud and other homosexualist
advocates treat my work—by the way, Grimsrud’s characterization of me and
others who share a similar view as “restrictive writers” is pejorative—I
give the fullest possible representation of views and arguments from those
with whom I disagree. To give such a full presentation of opposing views,
to hide nothing from the best of their arguments, is to take them
seriously.
Rather than hiding any of the arguments on the other
side, I state them all in detail and then in detail (which
Grimsrud ironically castigates as “obsessive”) show why I think that these
arguments don’t work. Grimsrud’s slander of me is a clear case of
projection, for I will give other examples (in addition to the ones cited
above) where Grimsrud misrepresents my work and treats it unfairly.
Let Grimsrud make his case about which homosexualist
arguments I should hail as valid. Taking opposing arguments seriously does
not require that one find any of them as convincing, strong arguments
because the attempts to make Scripture, understood in its historical
contexts, palatable to contemporary committed homosexual unions may in
fact be completely unconvincing. Certainly none of the arguments that
Grimsrud uses regarding Scripture’s alleged non-opposition to committed
homosexual unions are convincing (nor his use of alleged analogies); for
this see below. The fault may not be mine for failing to recognize one or
more of these arguments as convincing. The fault may lie with those making
these arguments for they can simply be arguments not properly
substantiated by the historical and literary evidence.
Even the most important homosexualist scholars
acknowledge that the exploitation and orientation arguments that Grimsrud
and others use to suggest that Paul would not have opposed committed
unions by homosexually oriented persons are not “valid.” Earlier I
referred to the detailed works by Bernadette Brooten and Louis Crompton.
These are two of the four most important books on the subject and Grimsrud
makes absolutely no use of their content (not even in his chapter 1
on the homosexuality debate). Perhaps this is not surprising since they
both reject the kind of exploitation argument used by Grimsrud (the Bible
is only opposed to exploitative forms of homosexual practice) on the
grounds that the ancient evidence (which Grimsrud appears to have little
or no knowledge of) does not substantiate it.
Grimsrud says of Crompton’s book in his annotated
bibliography at the end of the manuscript: “A helpful thorough historical
survey of the treatment of gay people in Western culture. The writer is
himself a gay man.” What Grimsrud deceptively neglects to mention is that
Crompton believes the following about the exploitation and orientation
arguments used by Grimsrud:
According to [one] interpretation,
Paul’s words were not directed at “bona fide” homosexuals in committed
relationships. But such a reading, however well-intentioned, seems
strained and unhistorical. Nowhere does Paul or any other Jewish writer
of this period imply the least acceptance of same-sex relations under
any circumstance. The idea that homosexuals might be redeemed by mutual
devotion would have been wholly foreign to Paul or any other Jew or
early Christian. (Homosexuality and Civilization, 114)
Grimsrud does not even include Brooten (a NT scholar
who identifies as a lesbian) in his annotated bibliography. He cites her
only in passing in a footnote as among those who “come to conclusions that
would make those who affirm the Church’s traditional stance
uncomfortable.” I would think that the following remarks by Brooten would
make Grimsrud uncomfortable, though he is careful not to let
readers know about them:
Boswell . . . argued that . . . “The early Christian church does not
appear to have opposed homosexual behavior per se.” The sources on female
homoeroticism that I present in this book run absolutely counter to [this
conclusion]. . . .
Paul could have believed that tribades [the active female partners
in a female homosexual bond], the ancient kinaidoi [the passive
male partners in a male homosexual bond], and other sexually unorthodox
persons were born that way and yet still condemn them as unnatural and
shameful. . . . I see Paul as condemning all forms of homoeroticism as the
unnatural acts of people who had turned away from God. (Love Between
Women, 11, 244; see also: 253 n. 106, 257, 361)
Grimsrud does include one major homosexualist
work in his first chapter—all the rest of his “inclusive” works are by
people who are not biblical scholars and who badly handle the treatment of
biblical texts and the ancient contextual evidence (Scanzoni/Mollenkott,
Helminiak, Myers/Scanzoni, Rogers)—the important book by Martti Nissinen
(an OT Finnish scholar). However, in his summary Grimsrud conveniently
doesn’t mention to readers the following candid admission by Nissinen:
Paul does not mention tribades or kinaidoi, that is, female
and male persons who were habitually involved in homoerotic relationships,
but if he knew about them (and there is every reason to believe that he
did), it is difficult to think that, because of their apparent
‘orientation,’ he would not have included them in Romans 1:24-27. .
. . For him, there is no individual inversion or inclination that would
make this conduct less culpable. . . . Presumably nothing would have
made Paul approve homoerotic behavior. (Homoeroticism in the
Biblical World, 109-12, emphasis added; for a critique of Nissinen's
inconsistency here see The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 381-82 n.
47)
Grimrud’s failure to notify readers of such positions
by Brooten, Crompton, and Nissinen—collectively the three most important
writers on the subject from an “inclusive” or homosexualist
perspective—amounts to either scholarly incompetence or duplicity.
Unfortunately, Mark does not point out these glaring problems in
Grimsrud’s use, non-use, and misuse of Brooten, Crompton, and (to a lesser
extent) Nissinen.
Grimsrud cites the works of (1) Myers/Scanzoni, (2)
Jack Rogers, and (3) David Fredrickson as powerful works defending the
homosexualist “inclusive” interpretation of Scripture. Yet I have given
lengthy critiques and rebuttals of each of these works, all of them also
available online, which arguments Grimsrud has completely ignored:
-
“Why the Disagreement over the Biblical
Witness on Homosexual Practice? A Response to Myers and Scanzoni,
What God Has Joined Together?” Reformed Review 59 (2005):
19-130 (online:
http://www.westernsem.edu/files/westernsem/gagnon_autm05_0.pdf).
-
“Does Jack Rogers’s New Book ‘Explode the
Myths’ about the Bible and Homosexuality and ‘Heal the Church?” (June
2006). Installment 1, 5 pgs.; online:
http://robgagnon.net/articles/RogersBookReviewed.pdf.
Installment 2, 8 pgs.; online:
http://robgagnon.net/articles/RogersBookReviewed2.pdf.
Installment 3, 15 pgs.; online:
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/RogersBookReviewed3.pdf.
Installment 4, 16 pgs.; online:
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/RogersBookReviewed4.pdf.
“How Jack Rogers Continues to Distort Scripture and My Work: A Response
to Jack Rogers’s ’11 Talking Points’” (June 2006; 5 pgs.; online:
http://robgagnon.net/articles/RogersBookRespToRogersReply1.pdf).
“Jack Rogers's Flawed Use of Analogical Reasoning in Jesus, the
Bible, and Homosexuality” (Nov. 2006; 12 pgs.; online:
http://robgagnon.net/articles/RogersUseAnalogies.pdf).
-
“A Comprehensive and Critical Review
Essay of Homosexuality, Science, and the ‘Plain Sense’ of Scripture,
Part 2.” Horizons in Biblical Theology 25 (2003): 179-275. Also
available online:
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homoBalchHBTReview2.pdf.
The critique of Fredrickson appears on pp. 206-39.
Mark even mentioned my critique of Fredrickson in the
main body of the manuscript and my critiques of Myers/Scanzoni and Rogers
in his annotated bibliography. Did these notations result in Grimsrud
doing the responsible scholarly job of reading my critiques before
uncritically rehashing the same arguments that I have already rebutted?
No, it did not. Grimsrud even chastises Mark for dismissing Myers/Scanzoni
while not engaging “their argument in favor of monogamous, covenanted
same-sex partnerships.” I do engage it, for 110 pages, and Grimsrud
ignores all of it. How can he criticize Mark for not addressing the
arguments in Myers/Scanzoni while he himself fails to answer a single one
of my extensive criticisms of the work? If Grimsrud is not going to do his
homework on the subject adequately he shouldn’t be given a forum to
publish his ill-informed views.
Grimsrud also completely ignores conclusions drawn by
classicist Thomas K. Hubbard in his definitive sourcebook of Greek and
Roman texts treating homosexual practice: Homosexuality in Greece and
Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2003). For example:
It is often
assumed that same-gender relationships followed a stereotypical pattern .
. .: in classical Greece this would take the form of pedagogical pederasty
. . ., while in Rome, a merely physical relationship between an adult
citizen and a young slave. The texts, however, reveal a much wider
diversity of relationships in terms of both age and status. (pp. 5, 7-8)
Literature
of the first century C.E. bears witness to an increasing polarization of
attitudes toward homosexual activity, ranging from frank acknowledgment
and public display of sexual indulgence on the part of leading Roman
citizens to severe moral condemnation of all homosexual acts. (383,
emphasis added)
Homosexuality in this era [viz., of the early imperial age of Rome] may
have ceased to be merely another practice of personal pleasure and began
to be viewed as an essential and central category of personal identity,
exclusive of and antithetical to heterosexual orientation. (386)
Basic to
the heterosexual position [against homosexual practice in the Greco-Roman
world of the first few centuries C.E.] is the characteristic Stoic appeal
to the providence of Nature, which has matched and fitted the sexes to
each other. (444)
Perhaps, however, my referencing a classicist who has
produced the definitive sourcebook for homosexuality in Greece and Rome is
another instance of my “obsessive attention to detail”?
-
The second reason why I cannot at
present give a blurb for the book is that in the present form of the
manuscript Grimsrud misrepresents consistently what I allegedly say or
don’t say about biblical texts. This at the same time amounts to a
grossly ill-informed presentation of the biblical witness.
Unfortunately, Mark in most cases does not adequately address this
problem.
I will address Grimsrud’s misrepresentation of me and
my work in his “Is Gagnon a Reliable Guide?” by taking his points in
reverse sequence.
a. 1 Cor 6:9.
Grimsrud alleges the following about my handling of 1 Cor 6:9:
Gagnon…. does not consider, crucially, the broader paragraph in
which this verse is found. By starting with 6:9, Gagnon gives the
impression that Paul’s point is about people not “inheriting God’s
kingdom” with the implication that he is warning Christians that they will
not find salvation if they engage in same-sex intimacy. However, this
focus ignores the actual context of 6:9 that is found in the eight
previous verses. Paul’s concern here is with Christians taking other
Christians to secular courts as a means of settling their differences, not
with “homosexual practice.”
Gagnon focuses on the individual words arsenokoitai and malakos
(page 306). He does not address the immediate reason why Paul would
give his list in 6:9–11, giving us the idea that Paul provides this list
to answer the question of what happens to any possible same-sexer rather
than answering the question of why those exercising authority in the
secular courts are not suited to judge between Christians in conflict.
Although I do not deal extensively in my first book
with the relationship of 6:1-8 to the vice list in 6:9-10, I do make clear
enough that I regard 6:1-8 as an excursus within Paul’s larger discussion
of sexual immorality in ch. 5 and 6:9-20, arising from the fact that “the
theme of judging those inside the community in 5:9-13 brought up in Paul’s
mind an occasion where not only did the Corinthians not judge those inside
their community but, worse, they brought their dirty laundry before pagan
courts of justice” (pp. 292-93). More importantly, I do deal at greater
length in two other places; first in an online note (n. 105) to my essay
in Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views (http://robgagnon.net/2Views/HomoViaRespNotesRev.pdf);
then, in a slightly more expanded form, in my critique of David
Fredrickson’s work (“A Comprehensive and Critical Review Essay of
Homosexuality, Science, and the ‘Plain Sense’ of Scripture, Part 2,”
Horizons in Biblical Theology 25 [2003]: 227-28; also online:
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homoBalchHBTReview2.pdf).
In the latter I state:
The first context problem is
that Fredrickson treats 1 Cor 6:1-8, lawsuits before pagan authorities, as
the main concern of the vice list in 6:9-11. It is far more likely that
6:9-11 links up with the case of the incestuous man in ch. 5, for three
reasons (Mark notes only in the first point).
· The
vice list in 6:9-10 repeats the same list of offenders mentioned in 5:10
and 5:11 and merely adds four more offenders, three of which have to do
with sex (moichoi
[adulterers],
malakoi, and
arsenokoitai).
· In
6:9-10 offenders known as
pornoi
head up the vice list, just as in 5:10 and
5:11. In 6:9 the word appears before “idolaters, adulterers,
malakoi, and
arsenokoitai.” Why isn’t the word grouped
with the three other types of sexually immoral persons? The answer has to
do with the fact that the incestuous man is called a
pornos
in 5:8 and his actions
porneia
in 5:1. Paul places
pornoi
at the head of the list, before idolaters and
other sex offenders, because it is still the main subject of the
discussion.
· The
material immediately following the vice list, namely 6:12-20, introduces a
hypothetical example of
porneia (sex with a prostitute) that
illustrates Paul’s point that sex is not like food. This confirms that the
case of
porneia
or sexual immorality dealt with in ch. 5 is
still the issue at hand, not the matter of believer hauling believer
before pagan law courts. Paul’s exasperated question in 5:12 (“Is it not
those inside the church that you are to judge?”) diverts him momentarily
to an instance where not only did the Corinthians shirk their
responsibility to be arbiters of internal affairs but they also handed
over such authority to the very pagans over whom they would one day stand
in judgment.
Simply put, Grimsrud has missed the point that 1 Cor
6:9-10 is much more closely tied to the issue of adult-consensual sexual
immorality, where Paul still has in view the issue of the incestuous man,
than it is to the excursus on lawsuits in 6:1-8 (and sexual immorality and
purity continues to be the primary issue in ch. 7). The link to 6:1-8 with
the term adikoi (and the verb adikeo) is there simply to
warn the Corinthians that they not become, through sexual immorality or
any other behavior (idolatry, stealing, drunkenness, or abusiveness) one
of the “unrighteous” of the world, the “unbelievers” who will be judged
and condemned (6:1-2; cf. 11:32: disciplined by the Lord “in order that
you might not be condemned with the world”). Paul is not telling the
Corinthian believers not to judge cases of severe sexual immorality like
adult-consensual incest (ch. 5), adultery (6:9), same-sex intercourse
(6:9), sex with a prostitute (6:15-17), or premarital sex (ch. 7). On the
contrary he insists on the church making such judgments of
offending believers (5:9-13; 6:12-20). First Corinthians 6:1-8 treats
going to pagan court over matters of relative indifference. 6:9-10 is
dealing with matters of significance, such as the case of sexual
immorality in ch. 5 (incest), which can lead to the offending believer’s
exclusion from the kingdom of God if repentance is not forthcoming and
thus requires the Christian community to take the last-ditch measure of
temporary exclusion from the community’s gatherings to prompt such
repentance.
Nor is the indictment of homosexual practice in 1 Cor
6:9 any more limited to pederasty, sex with slaves, or sex with
prostitutes—i.e., only particularly exploitative forms of homosexual
practice—than is the similar indictment of adult-consensual incest in ch.
5 (included also in the pornoi of 6:9). It is an absolute
indictment of all homosexual practice. The nearly identical vice lists in
1 Cor 5:10-11 and 1 Cor 6:9-10 demonstrate that the reason why the church
should refuse to associate with the incestuous man until he repents (1 Cor
5:4-13; cf. 2 Cor 2:5-11; 7:8-12) is precisely because such a one is at
high risk of not inheriting God’s kingdom (1 Cor 6:9-10).
So not only is it false for Grimsrud to claim that I
don’t address the relationship of 6:9 to the context but it is also the
case that Grimsrud has no substantive defense against my arguments. This
problem with Grimsrud’s reading of 1 Cor 6:9 is devastating for his
position since he rests his Scripture argument more on his peculiar
reading of 1 Cor 6:9 than on any other text.
Grimsrud also fails to adequately address the whole
range of other arguments that I put forward for the inclusive sense of the
combined usage of malakoi and arsenokoitai, including:
-
Philo’s use of the abstract noun
malakia (“softness”) for men who feminize themselves to attract male
sex partners, as well as the use of the parallel Latin word molles
by some Greco-Roman moralists in some contexts to designate the same
kinds of persons; Grimsrud attempts to argue that the reference to
malakoi need not be sexual but, in so doing, ignores the immediate
context in 1 Cor 6:9, which clearly indicates that sexual immorality is
at issue (specifically its position in the midst of other terms that
refer to participants in illicit sexual intercourse and immediately
before the complementary term arsenokoitai, which clearly refers
to the active partner in man-male intercourse)
-
The extant usage of arsenokoitēs
and related words subsequent to Paul (Grimsrud’s claim that there is no
evidence that it refers solely to homosexual sex ignores the review of
subsequent usage in my first book, pp. 315-23), including the comparable
Hebrew term mishkav zakur (“lying with a male”) used by the
rabbis, which does not support a limitation to homosexual practices that
involve exploitation of a child or slave (note too that this is a
distinctive Jewish and Christian term; it does not appear until very
late in pagan literature and was clearly formulated off of the absolute
prohibition of man-male intercourse in Lev 18:22 and 20:13 LXX: “a man
shall not lie with an arsen [male] the koiten [lying] of a
woman”)
-
Absolute Jewish opposition to homosexual
practice in the first century and in the centuries preceding and
following (e.g., Josephus, Against Apion 2.199: “the law [of
Moses] recognizes only sexual intercourse that is according to nature,
that which is with a woman…. But it abhors the intercourse of males with
males”)
-
The link to Gen 2:24 in 1 Cor 6:16 (cf.
11:8-12), as well as to Gen 1:26-27 in Rom 1:23-27, which shows that
Paul has at least partly in view the Genesis male-female paradigm when
he critiques homosexual practice
-
The fact that the reference to
arsenokoitai in 1 Tim 1:10, as also the other vices in the list, are
said to be derived from the law of Moses, thus alluding in the case of
arsenokoitai to the Levitical prohibitions of man-male
intercourse, which prohibitions are framed absolutely
-
The fact that Paul in Rom 1:26-27 clearly
indicts all homosexual practice, indicated not only by the clear
intertextual echo to Gen 1:26-27 but also by the wording of “males
having left behind the natural use of the female, … males with males”
and the indictment of lesbianism in Rom 1:26 (a point accepted,
incidentally, by the lesbian NT scholar, Bernadette Brooten; see my
arguments in The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 297-99), a
behavior not specially noted for its exploitative dimensions, and the
use of a nature argument (cf. the quote from Hubbard cited above: “Basic
to the heterosexual position [against homosexual practice in the
Greco-Roman world] is the characteristic Stoic appeal to the providence
of Nature, which has matched and fitted the sexes to each other”)
-
The fact that even in the Greco-Roman
world there existed some moralists who, though acknowledging the
presence of love in homosexual relationships, still indicted homosexual
practice absolutely (e.g., Plutarch’s Dialogue on Love); what
then is the likelihood that Paul, a Jew coming from a religious and
cultural environment more pervasively and strongly opposed to homosexual
practice than any other culture of the ANE or Greco-Roman Mediterranean
basis of which we are aware, would have made exceptions for committed
homosexual relationships? (answer: nil)
More could be said but this is more than enough to show
that Grimsrud’s argument about limiting the references in 1 Cor 6:9 to (at
most) exploitative forms of homosexual practice is completely
unconvincing. He simply hasn’t done his homework. And in the process he
has the gall to state that this is true of my work, that I haven’t taken
into consideration the contextual evidence because my mind has been
“clouded” by my “hostility toward gays and lesbians and their supporters.”
He hasn’t even read the bulk of my work and yet he makes such false
claims.
b. Porneia. According
to Grimsrud,
Gagnon begins his discussion of the New Testament with the assertion that
“no first century Jew could have spoken of porneiai [sexual
immorality, plural] without having in mind the list of forbidden sexual
offenses in Leviticus 18 and 20 (incest, adultery, same-sex intercourse,
bestiality)” (page 191). One missing piece of evidence supports the
likelihood that Gagnon’s hostility toward gay and lesbian Christians
clouds his scholarship here—the complete lack of the use of the term
porneiai in the New Testament in relation to “homosexuality.” That is,
Gagnon’s assumption is only an assumption, founded more on his own
antipathy and condemnatory attitude toward same-sexers than on direct
evidence of first-century Christians making the link.
When Gagnon turns to the Sodom and Gomorrah
story, we see his methodology illustrated. Rather than considering the
evidence for why Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, thereby acknowledging
that this is an issue over which people disagree, Gagnon starts
with the assertion that only something as heinous as attempted
“homosexual” rape could explain why God would wipe the cities out. His
logic seems to run, we all know that “homosexual practice” is
extraordinarily evil and thus when these cities are punished it must be
because of their homosexuality.
From the start, Gagnon seems to assume the worst about same-sex
intimate relationships, taking it for granted that “homosexuality” must
have been terrible and extraordinarily repulsive to the biblical
characters. Yet, we have next to no clear evidence of this repulsion in
the texts themselves (beyond the cryptic commands in Leviticus). We have
no stories comparable to David’s adultery with Bathsheba or Amnon’s rape
of Tamar to illustrate what is so problematic about such behavior. On the
other hand, the Old Testament is quite clear about the problematic nature
of mistreatment of vulnerable people.
1) The
ancient Near East generally regarded with great scorn a man who
willingly offered himself as the passive receptive partner in
male-male intercourse (The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 44-56).
2) Most
scholars agree that the narrator of the Sodom story also narrated the
description of the creation of man and woman in Gen 2 (i.e. the Yahwist),
a text that has proscriptive implications for same-sex intercourse (woman
emerges from a generic human, ‘adam, i.e. from one flesh; she is
man’s sexual “counterpart” or “complement”; marriage is defined as the
reunion into “one flesh” of the constituent parts, male and female,
that came from one flesh; a same-sex sexual union would, by definition,
not supply the missing element in one’s sexuality).
3) The
story of Ham has close ideological links with Lev 18 since both texts
explain that the Canaanites were expelled from the land or subjugated for
heinous sexual offenses. Clearly the editors of Lev 18 have not limited
their critique of incest or of man-male intercourse to coercive
forms (18:6-18, 22).
The arguments for reading the Ham episode as a sexual act rather than as
merely voyeurism include the following: (a) the expression “see the
nakedness of” (Gen 9:22) appears elsewhere as a metaphor for sexual
intercourse (Lev 20:17); (b) Noah “came to know what his youngest son had
done to him” (Gen 9:24; the Babylonian Talmud records a debate
about the meaning of this phrase in which one rabbi suggests homosexual
relations, the other castration; Sanhedrin 70a); (c) the severity
of the curse and its placement on Ham’s son rather than Ham himself better
suits an act of sexual assault on Ham’s part (note the subtext: the curse
falls on Ham’s ‘seed’/son because Ham offends with his ‘seed’/sperm); (d)
the same narrator subsequently tells a similar story of Lot’s daughters
having sex with their drunken father (Gen 19:30-38); (e) a similar story
of incestuous same-sex rape as a means to establishing familial dominance
exists in the Egyptian tale of Horus and Seth; and (f) the narrator
shortly after links the Canaanites, i.e. Ham’s descendants, to the Sodom
story (Gen 10:19), suggesting that the narrator understands both stories
in a similar light. Both Hermann Gunkel and Gerhard von Rad, the greatest
OT scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries
respectively, understood Ham’s offense as sexual assault of his father, as
has recently Martti Nissinen, a Finnish OT scholar who has written the
most significant book by a biblical scholar defending homosexual relations
(1998).
The discussion below will
introduce additional layers of context, including:
4) The
history of the interpretation of the Sodom story;
5) The
Deuteronomistic parallel of the Levite at Gibeah and the relevance of the
qedeshim texts;
6) The
Levitical prohibitions in their historical context alongside the universal
presumption in ancient Israel of a male-female prerequisite.
(a) Ezekiel
16:49-50. According to Ezek 16:49-50, Sodom “did not take hold
of the hand of the poor and needy. And they grew haughty and committed an
abomination (to’evah) before me and I removed them when I saw it.”
Is the reference to “committing an abomination” to be identified with “not
taking the hand of the poor and needy”? The evidence indicates that it is
to be identified rather with man-male intercourse.
1) The
vice list in Ezekiel 18:10-13, consisting of ten vices, indicates
otherwise since it clearly distinguishes between the offense “oppresses
the poor and needy” (fifth vice) from the offense “commits an abomination”
(ninth vice).
2) The
two other singular uses of to’evah in Ezekiel refer to sexual sin
(22:11; 33:26).
3) All
scholars of Ezekiel agree that Ezekiel knew, and shared extraordinary
affinity with, either the Holiness Code (Lev 17-24) or a precursor
document. Certainly the Levitical prohibitions of man-male intercourse are
absolute (see below).
4) The
phrase “committed an abomination” in Ezek 16:50 is identical to the phrase
in Lev 20:13 that refers to man-male intercourse.
5) The
conjunction in Ezek 18:12-13 of a singular use of to’evah, as a
reference to a single specific offense, with a plural use of to’evoth,
as a summary description of all preceding offenses, is exactly what we
find in Lev 18:22 (man-male intercourse) and 18:26-30.
The medieval Jewish
commentator Rashi also understood the text as a reference to homosexual
practice, as have some modern commentators (e.g., Greenberg, Loader). It
is apparent, then, that Ezekiel in 16:50 was interpreting the Sodom
episode partly through the lens of the absolute prohibition of man-male
intercourse in Lev 18:22 and 20:13, indicating that he understood the
same-sex dimension of the rape to be a compounding offense. This
strengthens the ideological nexus between the Yahwist’s interpretation of
the Sodom episode and the absolute sex prohibitions in Lev 18 and 20.
(b) Jude 7 and 2
Pet 2:6-7, 10. According to Jude 7 the men of Sodom “committed
sexual immorality (ekporneusasai) and went after other flesh.” Some
have argued that “committed sexual immorality” in Jude 7 refers to sex
with angels, not sex between men, because that is what the next phrase,
“went after other flesh,” clearly refers to. In effect, such an
interpretation understands the two verbs here (Greek participles, to be
precise) as an instance of ‘parataxis.’ In parataxis one of two clauses
conjoined by ‘and’ is conceptually subordinated to the other; thus, “they
committed sexual immorality by going after other flesh.” But a
paratactic construction in Greek can just as easily make the first clause
subordinate; in this case, “by (or: in the course of)
committing sexual immorality they went after other flesh.” In other
words, in the process of attempting the sexually immoral act of having
intercourse with other men, the men of Sodom got more than they bargained
for: committing an offense unknowingly against angels (note the echo in
Heb 13:2: “do not neglect hospitality to strangers for, because of this,
some have entertained angels without knowing it”). This is
apparently how the earliest ‘commentator’ of Jude 7 read it. For 2 Peter
2:6-7, 10 refers to the “defiling desire/lust” of the men of Sodom. Since
the men of Sodom did not know that the male visitors were angels—so not
only Gen 19:4-11 but also all subsequent ancient interpreters—the
reference cannot be to a lust for angels but rather must be to a lust for
men. So both Jude 7 and 2 Pet 2:6-7 provide further confirmation in the
history of interpretation that the Sodom narrative is correctly
interpreted when one does not limit the indictment of male homosexual
relations to coercive forms.
(c) Romans
1:24-27. Romans 1:24-27 echoes (in addition to the creation texts and
the Levitical prohibitions) the Sodom story. This has been convincingly
shown by Philip Esler (“The Sodom Tradition in Romans 1:18-32,” BTB
[2004] 34:4-16; in an article in 2003 I had already alluded to this
connection with the Sodom story in Romans 1). I’m not going to present the
case here, except to say that there are numerous verbal links between Rom
1:24-27 and early Jewish interpretations of the Sodom story subsequent to
Gen 19, too many to discount as coincidental. Given the fact that Sodom
was widely regarded in ancient Israel and early Judaism as a byword for
God’s terrifying wrath against human iniquity, it is not at all surprising
that Paul alludes to it in his description of divine wrath against human
unrighteousness in Rom 1:18-32. Indeed, Paul refers to Sodom as just such
a byword in his citation of Isa 1:9 in Rom 9:29. Paul in Rom 1:24-27 does
not limit his indictment of same-sex intercourse to rape, as shown by his
references to lesbianism in 1:26 and men being “inflamed with their
yearning for one another” in 1:27. Consequently, his series of
intertextual echoes to the Sodom tradition in 1:18-32 indicate that he
understood the Sodom story as an indictment of homosexual practice per se.
What of Jesus on
Sodom? If historical context means anything, Jesus’ remarks about
Sodom must be read in light of the texts cited above. When he declared
that it would be “more tolerable on the Day (of Judgment) for Sodom” than
for the towns that did not welcome his messengers (Luke 10:10-12 par. Matt
10:14-15), he was acknowledging Sodom’s role in Scripture and tradition as
the prime example of abuse of visitors. This abuse included the ghastly
attempt at treating males as though they were not males but sexual
counterparts to males (i.e. females). Jesus merely added a novel twist: As
bad as the actions of the men of Sodom were, failure to welcome him and
his emissaries was worse still because “something more than” angelic
visitation was here (Luke 11:29-32 par. Matt 12:39-41).
(d) The
Deuteronomistic references to the qedeshim and the Levite at
Gibeah. Legal material from Deuteronomy and narrative material from
Deuteronomistic History (Joshua through 2 Kings) disparage the homoerotic
associations of the qedeshim. The word literally means “consecrated
men” but refers in context to male cultic figures who sometimes served as
the passive receptive sexual partners for other men (i.e. homosexual cult
prostitutes: Deut 23:17-18; 1 Kgs 14:21-24; 15:12-14; 22:46; 2 Kgs 23:7;
cf. Job 36:14). Even Phyllis Bird, an OT scholar who writes on behalf of
homosexual unions and has done extensive work on the qedeshim,
concedes that the Deuteronomistic Historian was especially repulsed by the
consensual, receptive intercourse that these figures had with other men.
The reference to such figures as “dogs” (Deut 23:18) matches the slur made
against parallel figures in Mesopotamia (the assinnu, kurgarrû,
and kulu’u), called both “dog-woman” and “man-woman” because of
their consensual attempts at erasing masculinity and being
penetrated by other men (compare Rev 22:15, “dogs,” to Rev 21:8, “the
abominable”).
It will not do to
dismiss the references to the qedeshim as irrelevant because of the
cultic associations, the exchange of money, or the absence of orientation,
for several reasons. (1) The Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic description
of their behavior as an “abomination” (to’evah, an abhorrent or
detestable act) links these texts ideologically to Lev 18:22, where the
same tag is applied absolutely to all man-male intercourse and not limited
to intercourse in a cultic context for pay. (2) The disgust registered by
these narrators for the qedeshim parallels the disgust registered
in Mesopotamia for similar figures precisely on the grounds of their
attempt to define themselves sexually as women in relation to men rather
than as the men that they are. (3) Despite the revulsion with which such
figures were held in the ancient Near East, this was still one of the most
accepted forms of homosexual practice (not the least), because it was
believed that their androgynous demeanor was beyond their control (i.e.
due to a goddess figure with androgynous traits). This has links to
today’s claim that homosexual attraction is beyond a person’s control.
So although there is
no exact one-to-one correspondence between the qedeshim and
homosexual persons today, Deuteronomistic abhorrence of the qedeshim
was not confined to men who experienced no same-sex attraction or who
were affiliated with a foreign cult and received compensation. It was
primarily focused on men who feminized themselves to attract male sex
partners—which, incidentally, is also the focus of Paul’s term malakoi
(“soft men”) in 1 Cor 6:9. All of this is relevant to a proper
interpretation of the Sodom narrative.
Since the
Deuteronomistic Historian’s attitude toward the qedeshim makes it
clear that he would have been repulsed by a consensual act of
man-male intercourse, it is evident that in telling the story of the
Levite at Gibeah the Deuteronomistic Historian was indicting man-male
intercourse per se and not only coercive forms of man-male intercourse.
Since too the story of a Levite at Gibeah in Judg 19:22-25 is in many
respects a carbon copy of the Sodom narrative in Gen 19:4-11 (there are
even some verbatim agreements in the Hebrew), how the narrator of Judg
19:22-25 interpreted the attempt of the men of the city to have
intercourse with a male visitor provides our earliest commentary of how
the Yahwist would have interpreted the similar event at Sodom. In other
words, the Yahwist is likely to have viewed the man-male dimension of the
attempted act as a compounding factor in underscoring the depravity
of the inhabitants.
We now see an
interconnected ideological nexus in the OT as regards the issue of
man-male intercourse, linking Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History,
the Yahwistic material in the Pentateuch, the Levitical sex laws, and
Ezekiel. These links are picked up also by Jesus, Paul, and the authors of
Jude and 2 Peter.
I could go on to
talk about the Levitical prohibitions: how they are part of a broader OT
witness, where every text in Scripture treating sexual matters, whether
narrative, law, proverb, poetry, moral exhortation, or metaphor always
presupposes a male-female prerequisite for sexual activity; how they
prohibit man-male intercourse (and implicitly female-female intercourse)
absolutely and treat such intercourse as a first-tier sexual offense and a
“detestable act”; how they bear the marks of moral, rather than merely
ritual, purity; how they contain as an implicit motive for the
proscription sexual discomplementarity; how they are consciously
appropriated in the New Testament; and why cloth mixtures and menstrual
law are second-rate analogies to the analogy from incest law. I could
recount all the evidence here but, frankly, I think that I have already
made the case for the OT witness. It’s time now for Grimsrud to act like a
responsible scholar by reading my work carefully on the subject. I suggest
that he start with my Myers/Scanzoni critique in the online Reformed
Review, pp. 50-53 (online:
http://www.westernsem.edu/files/westernsem/gagnon_autm05_0.pdf);
then move on to: my article “Old Testament and Homosexuality: A Critical
Review of the Case Made by Phyllis Bird.” Zeitschrift für
alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (2005) 117: 367-94; The Bible and
Homosexual Practice, 111-46; and Homosexuality and the Bible,
62-68 (with online notes). In view of the above evidence, Grimsrud’s claim
that my arguments about Sodom in its OT and ANE context are nothing more
than the projection of my own alleged antipathy to homosexual persons is
clearly preposterous and slanderous.
So when in his
section, “Is Gagnon a Reliable Guide?,” Grimsrud summarily dismisses my
work as so skewed by my alleged hatred of homosexual persons as to make me
a completely unreliable guide for addressing the issue of Scripture and
homosexual practice, it is clear that he has borne false witness.
Unfortunately, Mark, rather than show from my work that Grimsrud’s claims
about me and about what Scripture says are misplaced, tends from that
point on to shy away from giving too much emphasis to my work.
Conclusion
In sum, I expect
such misrepresentations of my work to be corrected before the book goes to
print. It doesn’t matter how far along the process is. Herald Press as a
Christian press has a moral responsibility to see that such changes are
made. I have no problem with Grimsrud trying to mount an effective case
against my arguments. But that is not what has happened here. Instead,
Grimsrud has adopted an ad hominem attack of me as a person and, in
the process, has grossly misrepresented my work.
If such
corrections are made, I would consider a blurb (I would need only a day or
two after receiving evidence of corrections). At least Mark does some good
work, although he unfortunately does his own overall argument a
considerable disservice, in three ways: (1) by giving insufficient and
often reluctant attention to the numerous strong scriptural arguments
(thereby making it possible for Grimsrud to make the absurd claim that he,
in distinction to Mark, has a good case from Scripture); (2) by failing to
enunciate a clear, logical reason why homosexual practice is wrong (part
of the problem here is his capitulation on the incest analogy after a very
weak counter by Grimsrud); and (3) by being overly apologetic (in a bad
sense) about the position he holds, to a point where one almost wonders
why he continues to retain the position of opposition (I see nothing
apologetic about Grimsrud’s posture; love entails sympathy for those who
struggle with same-sex passions but Mark at times appears to regret that
he has to be in agreement with Scripture, as if there were not greater
benefits to obedience to God).
Sincerely,
Rob
Robert A. J. Gagnon,
Ph.D.
Associate Professor of
New Testament
Pittsburgh Theological
Seminary
For readers wishing to
read short general treatments of the subject of the Bible and homosexual
practice, see my online articles:
“More than ‘Mutual Joy’: Lisa
Miller of Newsweek against Scripture and Jesus” (Dec. 2008; 26
pgs.; online:
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homosexNewsweekMillerResp.pdf).
“What the Evidence Really
Says about Scripture and Homosexual Practice: Five Issues” (Mar. 14, 2009;
7 pgs.; online:
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homosexScripReallySays.doc.pdf).
“Why Homosexual Behavior Is More
like Consensual Incest and Polyamory than Race or Gender: A Reasoned and
Reasonable Case for Secular Society” (May 22, 2009; 7 pgs.; online:
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homosexIncestPolyAnalogy.pdf).