The Bible Does Not Condemn Queer People

There are six main biblical passages that Christians typically use to condemn homosexuality, and I’d like to address each of the passages briefly. There are bookshelves full of books that address each of these passages in depth, and if you are dealing with the need to understand these passages in their cultural and historical contexts, from a queer-affirming perspective, please check out some of the books listed in the bibliography. The passages are the creation story of Genesis 1:26-28, Genesis 19:4-5, Leviticus 18:22, Romans 1:25-27, I Corinthians 6:9-10, and I Timothy 1:9-10.

For many Christians who take the Bible seriously, and believe it serves as a guide for faith and practice and is useful for instruction in righteousness, there is a belief that it is necessary to take these verses seriously, to understand what they mean, and to change one’s behavior if they encounter biblical teaching that is contrary to the way they are currently living. As an atheist, this is not my own view. I do not believe the Bible is inspired in any supernatural sense, nor that it provides a firm foundation for ethical behavior, but I provide this exegesis for Christians who find themselves in need of it. The Apostle Paul instructs his readers not to accept any teaching without first trying and testing it. If you are a queer Christian, I hope you find the information below helpful.

It is the responsibility of serious Christians to delve into these passages, to study the contexts in which they were written, and to discover what the actual Hebrew and Greek words mean. It is not always the case that the English translation is an accurate one with respect to context and the original language.

When I was a Christian, I spent hundreds of hours poring over these passages, in prayer and a process of discernment, willing to change if the Spirit of God brought to light a meaning opposed to my orientation. However, the more I studied and prayed, the more I was assured that the Bible nowhere condemns homosexuality across the board.

I will take each passage as introduced above.

First Clobber Passage - Genesis 1:26-28

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

This is the passage I will take the least time addressing, because, try as one might, the passage cannot be made to condemn homosexuality. What we see in verse 27 is that God created men and women in the image of Himself, blessed them, and gave them charge over the earth. From this passage, we can see that God blesses heterosexual relationships, but not that He condemns homosexual relationships.

I think one of the things that has contributed to this passage being used to condemn homosexuals is intellectual laziness. Many people are not taught how to properly reason anymore. One of the basic rules of logic is that an argument based on silence is not really an argument at all. If a passage does not teach something, we cannot derive an article of faith or practice from it. This basic rule of logical engagement holds true here.

Genesis 1 (and the creation story at large) simply blesses heterosexuality. The passage is silent on the issue of homosexuality, and really, why should it not be? The creation story was not written as a theological treatise or an early form of “Faith and Practice.” It is a story that tells us that we are God’s creation, that we are blessed, that He created us good. To deduce from this original blessing that God condemns homosexuality is not only mistaken, it is a dishonest use of scripture.

Some have said that the charge from God to “be fruitful and multiply” implicitly condemns homosexuality since homosexuals are unable to have children. The answer to that line of reasoning is a bit laughable in its simplicity. If those who say this are right, does that then mean that heterosexual couples who are unable to have children are also condemned? How about people who feel God has called them to a life of singleness or couples who simply choose not to have children? Jesus himself even commends those who choose to be eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven (see Matthew 19:10-12). The instructions of God to produce offspring are instructions given to Adam and Eve, and could possibly be taken as a generalization for life thereafter. But it is not a necessary universal principle. Again, to make it one is to ignore the context and to be dishonest with scripture.

Second Clobber Passage - Genesis 19:4-5

4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”

The story of Sodom is probably one of the most misunderstood, misinterpreted, and abused stories in the entire Bible. There are many issues I want to raise concerning this passage. I will do so numerically and in the form of questions, and then I will elaborate on each point.

1. Was every man in Sodom a homosexual?
2. Why would Lot offer homosexual men his daughters?
3. Are there any cultural peculiarities of the ancient Middle East that would help us understand this passage?
4. Do other passages in the Bible expound on the sin of Sodom? If so, what do they have to say about it?

The passage says that every man, young and old, from every quarter of the city, demanded that Lot give up the two male visitors to be raped. It is amazing to me that someone can read this passage and come away with the idea that committed homosexual relationships are being condemned. I think the only way that such an interpretation can happen is the continual ingraining of perpetual sermons opposed to homosexuality in which this passage is used as the text.

It is simply not possible that the men of any city, then or now, would be completely homosexual. There must have been some heterosexual men. This fact alone should tell us that there is more to the story than meets the eye. There must be some contextual ingredient we are missing, because otherwise, the plot just makes no sense. If the passage read “some of the men of the city” demanded to rape the visitors, an anti-homosexual reading may make more sense. But the fact that the passage states all the men of the city wanted to rape the visitors puts up a warning flag: why would every single man of a city want to have sex with two male visitors? {see cultural context below for an answer}

Another factor directly from the story showing that the passage is not about homosexual men is this: Lot offered his daughters to appease the men. If Lot knew the men of the city were homosexual, what could he have possibly been thinking by doing this? There is no way to understand this part of the story if we do not first look at the cultural background of the ancient Middle East.

It was common for cities in the ancient Middle East to be wary and outright unwelcoming towards strangers. There was a city, and even more, a way of life to protect. Any unknown person (or group of people) coming into a city was often not welcome. It was also common within the culture to shame a man by forcing him into anal intercourse. Opposed to this culture of unwelcome was the Jewish teaching of hospitality. As you will see shortly, it was this lack of hospitality that was seen as the sin of Sodom, not any kind of sexual act. To the Jewish people, not welcoming the stranger (aka “the alien”) was an abomination. It was expressly forbidden by Yahweh.

It is this sin that the men of Sodom were trying to commit. They were attempting to intimidate and shame the angelic visitors by raping them. The story is not at all one about homosexual relationships, but one primarily about hospitality and a welcoming into the community. Ironically, rather than condemning homosexuality, the true meaning of the Sodom story condemns an unwelcoming stance towards those who are different.

Biblical Expositions of the Sin of Sodom

Isaiah 1:9-17

Unless the LORD Almighty had left us some survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah. 10 Hear the word of the LORD, YOU rulers of Sodom; listen to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah!11 “The multitude of your sacrifices, what are they to me?” says the LORD. “I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.12 When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? 13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations — I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.14 Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. 15 When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood!16 Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong. 17 Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.

Ezekiel 16:49

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.

It is evident from the Genesis 19 story of Sodom itself, and from the expositions of Isaiah and Ezekiel, that the sin of Sodom was not homosexuality, but rather oppression, lack of care for the outcast, and inhospitality. It takes nothing more than reading at face value and a bit of contextual evaluation to discover the true meaning of the story.

Third Clobber Passage - Leviticus 18:22

Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.

It is absolutely necessary to understand the historical and religious contexts of the Levitical laws before understanding the meaning of the laws. The laws are given in Leviticus for a very specific purpose – to separate the early Hebrews from the pagans surrounding them. Leviticus 18:22 is a ritual, religious code, specifically for the high priests of the Jewish religion. The prohibition found in verse 22 is within the context of commands for Jewish priests not to participate in idolatrous sexuality of any kind (see vss. 21, 24) including the worship of Molech. It was for the express purpose of calling them out as a different people from the tribes around them (vs. 24).

More to the point, the word translated “abomination” is the Hebrew word toevah, meaning “ritually unclean.” The aspect of ritual is necessary for understanding the meaning of the word. It is only related to religious purification, in the sense of being unpolluted by surrounding religious ideologies. It does not imply something that is intrinsically evil. That is why the same word is used for eating pork, shellfish, lobster, meat more than three days old, trimming beards, etc. The main idea is ethnic contamination, not intrinsically immoral activity.

If the authors of Leviticus wanted to condemn homosexuality as an inherently immoral evil, there was a perfectly good Hebrew word they could have used: zimah. This is the Hebrew word which means “wrong in itself.” Once we understand the religious context of the Levitical laws and the meaning of the Hebrew word toevah, we see that Leviticus 18:22 is not about homosexuality per se, but about male temple prostitution as practiced by the surrounding pagan religions. See I Kings 14:24 as a cross reference.

Fourth Clobber Passage - Romans 1:25-27

25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

It is helpful to read the entire first chapter of Romans before coming to any kind of judgment on the homosexual behaviors mentioned in Romans 1: 26, 27. For sure, the chapter does speak to certain kinds of homosexual sex. When read in the context of the entire first chapter, and with Leviticus 18:22 and I Kings 14:24 as cross references, it becomes evident what Paul is actually writing about.

The chapter is set within the framework of idolatry, specifically making reference to sexual prostitution in sacred pagan temples. What is really interesting to note is that in verses 24 and 25 of Romans chapter 1, Paul seems to be describing immoral heterosexual acts, the degrading of bodies and the sexual impurity of heterosexual temple prostitution. Why then, would verses 26 and 27 not also be about temple prostitution?

There is an order that Paul takes when going from verse 18 to verse 32. Paul is talking about people who have seen the hand of God in the created order, but have chosen to worship that creation rather than the One Who created it. It is this act of making idols of the created order in which this sexual immorality takes place. How is this possibly related to committed homosexual relationships, specifically Christian ones? Paul’s focus when writing Romans 1:18-32 is squarely on pagan idolatry. If he wanted to condemn homosexual relationships outright, why do so within an explicit context of pagan idolatry?

Fifth/Sixth Clobber Passages - I Corinthians 6:9-10 and I Timothy 1:9-10

9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.9 We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers,10 for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine…

I will deal with the Corinthians and Timothy passages simultaneously, since they utilize the same Greek words, arsenokoitai and malakos. These terms are ambiguous in their meaning (see how various translations differ in their renderings), and the word arsenokoitai seems to have been coined by Paul himself. It was not used before he used it in I Corinthians and was very rarely used after him by other non-biblical authors. It is probable that Paul coined the word by combining two words from the Greek Septuagint in reference to Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 – arsen “male” and koite “bed.

It has been translated most often as “sodomites” (though the sin of Sodom had nothing to do with homosexuality), “homosexuals” (a blatant mistranslation), “homosexual offenders,” and “abusers of themselves with mankind” (KJV). Luther actually translated it as “child abusers,” which, if taken to mean pederasts, may be closest to the original meaning. None of these translations are completely accurate, however.

Whatever the case, arsenokoitai expresses certain homosexual actions, not identity. Had Paul wanted to express homosexuality within a mutual relationship, there were other commonly used Greek words available to him. He coined arsenokoitai for a specific reason. Just as in Romans 1, Paul takes his idea of homosexual behavior from Leviticus. As we’ve already discussed concerning Leviticus 18:22 and Romans 1:26-28, Paul condemned homosexual behavior only as it related to temple prostitution or idolatry.

The other Greek word used in these passages is malakoi. It is typically translated as “effeminate” or “homosexual prostitute.” The literal meaning of the word is “soft.” What is strange about the translation of malakoi as “effeminate” is that in Paul’s day, most men who participated in homosexuality did not have their manhood called into question. In fact, the word malakos was sometimes used to refer to certain heterosexuals in Greek literature of the same period. The most reasonable translation is “those of moral weakness” or “soft in morality.”

The whole anti-homosexual Christian culture is based on six passages of scripture, three in the Old Testament and three in the New Testament. As I have shown, none of the passages present a blanket condemnation of homosexuality. In two of the New Testament passages, biblical scholars do not even know for certain what Paul was talking about.

It is not blasphemous to question theological and doctrinal positions that have been handed down to us. In fact, it is blasphemous not to question the teaching we receive. The Church had it wrong for so long on the humanity of black people and the humanity of slaves. Might it be possible that it has also been wrong on the question of homosexuality? Let the evidence speak for itself.