Sexual Morality and the Bible

Before attempting to develop a Christian attitude toward homosexuals and homosexual activity, it is necessary to say a few words about sexual morality in general. First, "sexual morality" is neither redundant nor an oxymoron (like "giant shrimp" or "military intelligence" for example). Though many seem to think of "immorality" and "sex" as synonyms, they are not. Ask many Christians for examples of immorality and they will say, "nudity, pornography, homosex-uality" and perhaps "adultery." All these have to do (in one way or another) with the sixth commandment. But what happened to the other nine?

Scripture, in contrast, has relatively little to say about sexual immorality. Even the Old Testament gives much more emphasis to greed, self-righteousness, vindictiveness, and other sins against relationship and the command to love. Amos, Isaiah, and the other prophets railed against mistreatment and exploitation of the poor — not against sexual excesses.

Of course the Old Testament also tells the stories of Onan, David and Bathsheba, and Sodom. But even in these instances, the fundamental sin was one of relationship, not sex per se.

When Onan withdrew from his sister-in-law and spilled his seed on the ground, his sin was not masturbation. It was failing to fulfill his duty to his dead brother by impregnating his childless wife (in accordance with the custom of the time). The nature of the sin would have been no different if he had had no sexual contact with her at all. That some of our churches have used this story to lay guilt trips on adolescents having wet dreams or exploring their own bodies is almost criminal. It is also ludicrous to extrapolate from this story into a ban on almost all forms of birth control. Yes, Onan’s sin involved birth control. But it was the circumstances of the act that made it sinful. The sin was his failure to fulfill the demands of love and of his relationship with his dead brother and his wife. His sin would have been no less had he used abstinence to accomplish his birth control. There are many circumstances today in which a husband can sin against love and his relationship with his wife if he fails to use birth control. Unfortunately, some churches have gotten bogged down with the legalisms of the act and have forgotten the importance of motivations; they have lost sight of the general principles of the morality of love.

David’s sin was about as blatantly a sexual sin as you can find. He lusted after Bathsheba, committed adultery with her, and, in order to have her, killed her husband, Uriah the Hittite. Yet when the Lord (through Nathan the prophet) rebukes David, it is not for the sexual act, but for his injustice to Uriah. The Lord tells David, "I gave you all Saul’s wives. If that wasn’t enough for you, I would have given you more. But you had to take the only wife this man had, and while he was serving you and being loyal to you at that." You see, even this sin of David was a violation of his relationship with Uriah, more than anything else. The analogy Nathan uses to get David to realize what he had done has no reference to sex in it at all. Moreover, David’s punishment involves the loss of three of his sons. But he is allowed many years of sexual happiness with Bathsheba, and one of his sons by her, Solomon, inherits the throne. Since the point of so many of these stories is that God’s punishment fits the crime, it is clear that what matters most to God was David’s injustice and violence toward Uriah, not his sexual pleasure with Bathsheba.

It is the story of Sodom, of course, which most closely touches the issue of homosexuality. It has become so closely related that the act of anal sex (whether between members of the same or opposite sex) is called sodomy. But the final straw which brought on Sodom’s destruction was the Sodomites’ attempt to break into Lot’s house and rape the two strangers staying there. Violent rape is more a violation of the commandment "Thou shall not kill" than of "Thou shall not commit adultery." The Sodomite men were also violating hospitality, which was so important to the nomadic peoples of the time. What’s more, many of the Sodomites had wives, so their sexual activities were not due to an exclusive homosexual orientation. Their acts were perversions of their own nature, not results of it . (Two of the men destroyed in Sodom were Lot’s sons-in-law.) The actions of the Sodomites violated the morality of love, not just some technical proscription against anal sex.

Leviticus calls lying with a person of the same sex an "abomination" — a term meaning something which causes great revulsion in others (and the mere thought of it generally has that effect on most heterosexuals). It should be noted that the word "abomination" does not always mean that something is wrong or immoral. That the penalty for such an act was death, however, strongly suggests that it was considered so.

Why were homosexual acts considered wrong? For one thing, God’s chosen people were engaged in a procreation race with the cultures around them, and homosexuality is lousy procreation strategy. Secondly, people then did not know that natural homosexuals existed. Most same-sex activity was engaged in by natural heterosexuals seeking an easy way to additional genital pleasure. This was rightly considered a perversion of one’s nature. Third, the surrounding cultures used young boys who were enslaved and trained to give pleasure to the rich and powerful. Such exploitation (of either sex) is clearly a gross violation of the morality of love. Finally, homosexual activity was engaged in by surrounding cultures as ritual worship to their pagan gods. For one of the chosen people to do likewise was akin to worshipping a golden calf — it was a violation of their covenant relationship with God.

None of these Old Testament scriptures deals with sexual acts between two consenting adults in a monogamous, caring relationship. Therefore none of them gives us much help in taking a moral position on such a case. It appears, however, that Jewish law considered homosexual acts immoral under all circumstances.

The New Testament goes further in the direction of emphasizing a religion of relationship rather than rule-keeping. Even more than the Old Testament, it accentuates the importance of the virtues of peace, justice, concern for the poor, and care of the outcast — and the relative unimportance of sexual practice.

In the whole New Testament, homosexual practices are referred to only three times (all by Paul). In Romans 1: 18-27, Paul says that homosexual practices are God’s punishment for idolatry. (This passage is the first indication that homosexual

tendencies are not a matter of choice.) In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul lists practicing homosexuals among those who will not inherit the kingdom of God. But then he goes on to say, "And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." This tells us that homosexuals were not excluded from the church, and that they can be saved. It infers, however, that they were required to become celibate to do so. Finally, in 1 Timothy 1:8, Paul lists "perverts" among a long list of those "not in accordance with good doctrine." Paul obviously considered homosexual acts immoral.

In the Gospels, Jesus himself never mentions homosexuality. And he seldom even discusses sexual sin. In contrast, the Gospels are full of Jesus’ teachings against self-righteousness, greed, pride, bigotry, sexism, racism, and hypocrisy. Like Amos and Isaiah before him, Jesus roundly condemns the rich and powerful who exploit, cheat, or ignore the poor. For Jesus, immorality had much more to do with economic injustice than with sex. He taught a morality of love.

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