Romans 1 and 2/Homosexuality

Comment:

Like my friend and colleague John Shelby Spong, I affirm for a day when the whole question of homosexuality and the Bible is as dated and archaic as questions of the Bible and slavery, or the Bible and the subjugation of women. Jesus calls us to expand our ability to grow in spiritual love and empowerment—not to remain fixated on attitudes from 2,000 years ago.

Romans is basically a letter of introduction from Paul to the existing church in Rome—apparently founded by someone else—which he hopes to visit as his ministerial travels continue. In hopes of a warm welcome, he sets out his basic beliefs—the message and meaning of Jesus Christ as he understands them. The first chapter begins with a traditional greeting and an extensive thanksgiving for the work that is his to do. It then sets out the need, as Paul sees it, for the message he carries. He describes people who, although made aware of the spiritual truth of their relationship to God, choose nonetheless to continue in ways of ignorance and evil. This is the passage for which the chapter—perhaps unfortunately—is best known:

"Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error" (Romans 1: 24-27).

Metaphysically, this passage vividly describes a life in which the demands and distractions of the flesh become the only priority, and any spiritual purpose or awareness is resisted and denied. The consequences of this misplaced priority are severe. "They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice" (Romans 1:29). One of those manners of wickedness, in Paul's evaluation, was homosexual behavior, which he saw as always licentious and thus a denial of God. Heterosexuals who live lives absorbed in lust and carnal pleasures would be equally condemned. The Oxford study notes for this passage make it clear that "the language of unnatural intercourse was more often used in Paul's day to denote not the orientation of sexual desire, but its immoderate indulgence, which was believed to weaken the body (the ‘due penalty')."

Obviously, Paul would (perhaps grudgingly) acknowledge that heterosexuals could live committed, loving, sexually active lives and still be expressive of God consciousness. (He really preferred that everyone stay celibate.) He did not believe that homosexuals could live committed, loving, sexually active lives and still be expressive of God consciousness. Many people today would agree, because their impression of homosexual behavior is one of selfishness and licentiousness, totally focused on sexual gratification and totally absent of any true sense of love or commitment. Are there homosexuals whose behavior would fit that description? Certainly. Are there heterosexuals whose behavior would fit that description? Certainly. They are choosing to disregard or deny the Presence, not just of God, but of a divine purpose to life. In essence, such people make sex a 'false idol,' more important than their relationship to God. That choice will have consequences; their lives will be unhappy and unfulfilled—not because God is punishing them, but because they are refusing to allow the Love that God is to express in and through them and their relationships.

Not all heterosexuals are like that, of course; and not all homosexuals are like that, either. What separates us from God is not whom we choose to love, but a refusal to love at all—a refusal to be the Love of God in expression. Those who would use Paul's views as a blanket condemnation—of anyone!—need to let their eyes drop down the page an inch or two to the beginning of Romans 2: "Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things."

So metaphysically, the message of this passage—and the message of the entire Bible, really—is this: Put God First! If you do, everything else will fall into its proper place, and your life will be a creative expression of divine love. If you don't—if you allow distractions of any sort to take on a higher priority than God in your life—the consequence of that negative choice will be a negative, fearful life experience.

Blessings!

Rev. Ed