Does Jack Rogers's New Book "Explode the
Myths" about the Bible and Homosexuality and "Heal the Church"?
(Installment 1: June 8, 2006)
Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of New Testament, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, PA 15206
gagnon@pts.edu
For
a pdf version click here
Westminster John Knox Press has recently
published a book by Jack Rogers, a former moderator of the PCUSA and
professor of theology at San Francisco Theological Seminary, entitled
Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church
(2006). The key question is: Does the book accomplish either
goal?
By “explode the myths” Rogers means
that “neither the Bible nor the confessions, properly understood, is
opposed to homosexuality as such. . . . [W]e see clearly that Jesus
and the Bible, properly understood, do not condemn people who are
homosexual” (p. 126). Rogers is quite emphatic that he knows what the
biblical text says about homosexual practice: “Most Christians have been
told at one time or another that the Bible condemns all homosexual
relationships. That view is simply incorrect” (p. 70). Rogers does not say
that he thinks that this view is incorrect or that it is likely to be
incorrect; for a fact it is incorrect, Rogers say.
Now there is a bit of a problem here.
Rogers acknowledges in his preface that “he has not specialized as a
biblical scholar” (p. ix). This acknowledgement is demonstrated throughout
his discussion of biblical texts. For example:
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Rogers’s work with Scripture is entirely derivative.
At least so far as his views of Scripture are concerned, it is
difficult to find any original analysis. What few ventures Rogers makes
would probably better have been left undone since they are based on poor
knowledge of literary and historical context matters or on poor logic.
He relies heavily on a very limited selection of biblical scholars for
his views, chiefly Victor Furnish, Martti Nissinen, Phyllis Bird, and
Dale Martin.
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Many of the most important scholars who have written
on the biblical witness regarding homosexual behavior and are fully
supportive of homosexual unions are completely ignored by Rogers.
These include Bernadette Brooten (a lesbian New Testament scholar who
taught at Harvard Divinity School and currently teaches at Brandeis),
William Schoedel (professor emeritus of classics from the University of
Illinois), and Robin Scroggs (who was professor of New Testament at
Union Seminary in New York). In some instances, this may be attributed
to the fact that Rogers simply has not done his homework. However, in
other instances one wonders whether it is because some of them arrive
at conclusions inconvenient to Rogers’s views. For example:
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Bernadette Brooten has written the most
important book on lesbianism in antiquity and its relation to early
Christianity (especially Rom 1:26), at least from a pro-homosex
perspective. She admits that neither committed homosexual unions nor
knowledge of homosexual orientation would have made any difference to
Paul’s indictment of homosexual practice (Love Between Women: Early
Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism [University of Chicago
Press, 1996]). She criticized both John Boswell and Robin Scroggs for
their exploitation argument:
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]. (p. 11)
If . . . the dehumanizing aspects of
pederasty motivated Paul to condemn sexual relations between males, then
why did he condemn relations between females in the same sentence? . . .
Rom 1:27, like Lev 18:22 and 20:13, condemns all males in male-male
relationships regardless of age, making it unlikely that lack of mutuality
or concern for the passive boy were Paul’s central concerns. . . . The
ancient sources, which rarely speak of sexual relations between women and
girls, undermine Robin Scroggs’s theory that Paul opposed homosexuality as
pederasty. (pp. 253 n. 106, 257, 361)
She also
criticized the use of an orientation argument:
Paul could have believed that tribades,
the ancient kinaidoi, and other sexually unorthodox persons were
born that way and yet still condemn them as unnatural and shameful. . . .
I believe that Paul used the word “exchanged” to indicate that people knew
the natural sexual order of the universe and left it behind. . . . I see
Paul as condemning all forms of homoeroticism as the unnatural acts of
people who had turned away from God.(p. 244)
And she mounts
a very strong argument against those who claim that Rom 1:26 does not
refer to lesbian intercourse (pp. 248-52; see also my discussion in The
Bible and Homosexual Practice, 297-99). This is important for two
reasons: (1) Rogers raises a question of whether Rom 1:26 even refers to
such (p. 78, relying on Nissinen); and (2) since lesbianism was not
known in the ancient world for being conducted in a particularly
exploitative way (i.e., with boys, slaves, or prostitutes), an indictment
by Paul of female-female intercourse would be strong evidence that Paul’s
indictment of homosexual practice was absolute, no exceptions for
non-exploitative conduct. Rogers fails to mention even a single argument
for the identification of Rom 1:26 with lesbian intercourse, let alone
respond to such arguments or recognize their import for his overall
thesis.
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William Schoedel has made similar points in his
significant article “Same-Sex Eros: Paul and the Greco-Roman
Tradition” (in D. Balch, Homosexuality, Science, and the “Plain
Sense” of Scripture). Although writing an article overall
supportive of committed homosexual unions, Schoedel (like Brooten)
admits that neither the exploitation argument nor the orientation
argument is without serious problems. On the matter of pederasty,
Schoedel intimates that in the Greco-Roman world homosexual
intercourse between an adult male and a male youth was regarded as a
less exploitative form of same-sex eros than intercourse
between two adult males. The key problem with homosexual
intercourse—behaving toward the passive male partner as if the latter
were female—was exacerbated when the intercourse was aimed at adult
males who had outgrown the “softness” of immature adolescence.
Schoedel’s comment on Philo of Alexandria is apt:
Philo adds something new in this connection
when he rejects the love of males with males even though they “only”
differ in age ([Cont. Life,] 59). The “only” is important here. For
the difference in age made all the difference in the Greco-Roman view.
Philo is subtly suggesting that the normal abhorrence for the love of
adult males can with equal propriety be extended to pederasty. (p. 50)
Schoedel also
acknowledges that a “conception of a psychological disorder socially
engendered or reinforced and genetically transmitted may be
presupposed” for Philo (p. 56 [emphasis added]; see also my short review
and critique of Schoedel in The Bible and Homosexual Practice,
392-94).
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Other scholars supportive of homosexual unions could
be cited against Rogers’s overall conclusions. For instance, Louis
Compton in the massive Homosexuality and Civilization
(Harvard University Press, 2003) has written:
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. (p. 114)
Even Walter
Wink, in his generally mean-spirited review of my book The Bible
and Homosexual Practice, had to admit:
Gagnon exegetes every biblical text even
remotely relevant to the theme [of homosexual practice]. This section is
filled with exegetical insights. I have long insisted that the issue is
one of hermeneutics, and that efforts to twist the text to mean what it
clearly does not say are deplorable. Simply put, the Bible is negative
toward same-sex behavior, and there is no getting around it. . . . Gagnon
imagines a request from the Corinthians to Paul for advice, based on 1
Corinthians 5:1-5 [on how to respond to a man in a loving and committed
union with another man]. “. . . . When you mentioned that arsenokoitai
would be excluded from the coming kingdom of God, you were not including
somebody like this man, were you?” . . . No, Paul wouldn’t accept that
relationship for a minute. (“To Hell
with Gays?” Christian Century 119:13 [June 5-12, 2002]: 32-33; see
my response to Wink’s review: “Gays and the Bible,” Christian Century
119.7 [Aug. 14-27, 2002]: 40-43, with fuller version on my website
www.robgagnon.net)
Dan O. Via
(professor emeritus of New Testament at Duke University Divinity School)
also acknowledges in his response to my essay in Homosexuality and the
Bible: Two Views that the Bible’s rule against homosexual practice is
“an absolute prohibition” that condemns homosexual practice
“unconditionally” and “absolute[ly]” (pp. 93-95). This is an interesting
admission in view of the fact that he had charged me in his own essay in
Two Views with “absolutizing . . the biblical prohibition of all
same-sex intercourse” (p. 27). What does it mean to “absolutize” an
already absolute biblical prohibition? At any rate, he acknowledges in his
more lucid moments the absoluteness of biblical opposition to homosexual
practice. In his essay in Two Views he rightly notes:
The Pauline texts . . . do not support this
limitation of male homosexuality to pederasty. Moreover, some Greek
sources suggest that—at least in principle—a relationship should not be
begun until the boy is almost grown and should be lifelong. . . . I
believe that Hays is correct in holding that arsenokoites [in 1 Cor
6:9] refers to a man who engages in same-sex intercourse. . . . True the
meaning of a compound word does not necessarily add up to the sum of its
parts (Martin 119). But in this case I believe the evidence suggests that
it does. . . . First Cor[inthians] 6:9-10 simply classifies homosexuality
as a moral sin that finally keeps one out of the kingdom of God. (pp. 11,
13)
To be continued in Installment 2 (html
or
pdf)