I got this letter in the mail today.
Dear miss Amy
In response to your letter printed in S.J. Mer. I don’t know which Bible you teach from but my Bible teaches that marriage is between a man & a woman I Cor. 7-1-5 also that sexual immorality is a sin I Cor. 6-12-15 Homosexuality is a sin I Cor. 6-9 I tim 1-10. Also beware of false teachers Mat. 7-15 I believe that the Bible is God’s word and should be followed not added to or taken away from the Holy Word! May God have mercy on your soul!
No signature, but written on such a sweet card (see photo) that it almost qualifies for Passive Aggressive Notes.
Since she didn’t include her return address or even her name, this woman is clearly not interested in hearing what I (false teacher that I am) think the Bible says about marriage, nor my views on its being God’s holy and complete word. Anyone who wishes to, post in the comments and I’ll be happy to oblige.
Sermons in Stones 
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December 14, 2012 at 2:43 pm
Kim Hampton
Amy,
I notice that your anonymous letter writer only used the New Testament. And yet they never have an answer to the fact that throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, most of the people who are venerated were polygamists.
Even more, they never talk about the fact that lesbianism is never mentioned in any scripture.
Thanks for posting this.
Thanks, Kim. Polygamy is really a major problem for Biblical literalists. I don’t know how anyone can read the Bible and conclude that its view of marriage is “one man, one woman.” It’s totally bizarre.
To be fair, Romans 1:26 does seem to refer to lesbians, especially when one reads on to Romans 1:27, which makes it clear that the “vile affections” are sexual. It doesn’t prohibit sex between women; it just says, basically, “ick.” But it’s clear elsewhere that women of any sort make Paul say “ick,” so . . . (I suspect that for the men who compiled the Bible as for many others, lesbian sex just isn’t sex. If no male organs are involved, the view seems to be, it’s not worth worrying about. –AZM
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December 14, 2012 at 4:03 pm
Mark Williams
False teacher or no, I’m interested in your theological take on it. I would really love something short and sweet with references like she has but with a bit more intellectual rigor and joy. Will do! Check back later this weekend.–AZM
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December 14, 2012 at 4:42 pm
Laurel McClure
Anyone who quotes the bible in this way is picking and choosing their texts. Of course, there are subcultures within many religions which try to follow instructions in their scriptures word for word, and this has led in some places, even today, to people being stoned to death for premarital sex or adultery, women and girls being treated as property, etc. The great majority of us do not want to live under such cruel, inhumane precepts. If we must select our texts from a contradictory collection of documents, I believe most of us would go with “do unto your neighbor as you would have him (or her!) do unto you.”. Most if not all of the world’s religions have some variant on the golden rule, which still seems a pretty good rule of thumb.
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December 15, 2012 at 9:53 am
Roger
In case anyone reads these comments who believes homosexuality is sinful based on the Bible, here is a passage from my book, Do Think Twice: Provocative Reflections on Age-Old Questions. It refers to Leviticus 20:13: “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them.”
“These words provide the primary Biblical basis for the contemporary church teaching that homosexuality is sinful. But numerous ‘red flags’ suggest that this verse reflects human ignorance and prejudice.
1. First of all, there are very few other statements about this subject in the Bible. In the New Testament Jesus never mentions it. This is important because many Christians emphasize the New Testament more than the Old Testament. Paul’s few comments about this topic are mainly based on the Old Testament rather than on the message of Jesus.
2. Leviticus is notorious for containing a great many peculiar and culturally antiquated regulations, some of which were mentioned earlier. Nevertheless, some Christians who reject Biblical literalism, and who ignore many Old Testament regulations, treat Leviticus 20:13 as if they knew God said it.
3. What about the question of consent? What if Leviticus 20:13 was applied to a case of homosexual rape? [Both people would be stoned to death.]This omission once again reflects the archaic understanding of blame and responsibility of ancient cultures.
4. Finally, there are excellent reasons for believing that the very idea of homosexuality has changed dramatically since Hebrew times – or more accurately, that the Hebrews had no such concept. They assumed everyone was straight, and that homosexuals were merely ‘heterosexuals behaving badly.”’ The fact that some people have a same-gender affectional orientation is a modern discovery. As the Rev. Gene Robinson, an un-closeted gay Episcopal bishop, comments, ‘You can’t take a twentieth-century word, insert it back into an ancient text, and proclaim that it means something totally unknown to the authors of that text.’”
Rev. Chris Schriner
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December 17, 2012 at 4:31 pm
Amy Zucker Morgenstern
Thanks for the thoughtful responses. My theological take on homosexuality requires a step back to ask whether the Bible is the Word of God. Because the answer to my correspondent’s question of what Bible I teach from is that I teach from the same one she reads, but I don’t teach that it is the inerrant word of our Creator. My reasons are several:
(1) It doesn’t claim to be. Sure, various Biblical passages say “God said.” But not all, by a long shot. And lots of books don’t claim to be by God at all. They are histories, love poems, collections of advice, etc. The Psalms, for example, are self-evidently not the word of God; they are prayers to God by an unnamed person (tradition says David, but we don’t really know; most are unsigned). The prophets are accounts of what each prophet said God said to him.
(2) There are other texts besides the Bible that claim to be holy writ. Like my correspondent, who I’m quite sure does not think the Quran was dictated by God’s angel Gabriel to an illiterate Arab, I don’t accept something as God’s word just because someone claims that it was. Even millions upon millions of someones. I realize this comes as a shock to Christians, but Jews think the Bible from Matthew on is not the Bible at all.
(3) A lot of texts that claim divine inspiration clearly are not, and they resemble some Biblical books closely. I don’t know a polite way to say this, so I’ll be blunt: I’ve met a lot of people who claim to have talked to God, and some of them (not all!) are quite clearly crazy. They write down what they heard, and what they write sounds an awful lot like Revelation: wild images, apparent sense veering into another wild tale, nightmares mixed with political theories. Seriously. I would not be surprised to be handed that text, written in pencil on notebook paper in an odd mix of capital and lower-case letters, by a patient in a mental institution. In other words, not everything that begins “God says . . . ” is wisdom or truth.
(4) I find much to admire and learn from in the Bible, but it’s mixed in with a lot I find frankly despicable. Chris has given an excellent example: the Bible’s laws about rape. The rape of an unmarried, unbetrothed woman is treated not as a crime against her, but a destruction of her father’s property; hence the “penalty” is that the rapist must marry her, since she is now unmarriageable (Deut 22:28-29). If a woman is raped within city walls, she is assumed to be at fault because she didn’t call for help. (She gets the benefit of the doubt in the countryside; there, only the rapist is punished.) Oh, and Moses, apparently speaking for God, commands that all virgin girls of enemy peoples be raped; non-virgin women are to be killed (Numbers 31:15-18). OK, women were regarded differently then. I understand that; times change (thank God! *grin*). But it does mean that I don’t take the Bible as the ethical be-all and end-all.
(5) The Bible is particularly out of whack when it comes to marriage. We’ve had one example of Biblical marriage already, the forced marriage to one’s rapist. Here are some more: If a couple can’t have children together, the man should rape as many of his wife’s servants as necessary to provide heirs, even lots of heirs (Genesis 16:1-6, Genesis 30:4-5). Some of the most admired men in the Bible have many such sex slaves, and many wives as well (read Kings I and II for the lives of David and Solomon). Women should submit to their husbands the way slaves submit to their masters (Ephesians 5:22-33). It’s okay for a man to marry his half-sister (Genesis 20:12), except when it’s not (Deuteronomy 27:22).
As a result, I don’t look to the Bible as a guide on questions of marriage or homosexuality. If it were proved to be, word for word, the word of a God, it would not be a God I would consider worthy of my worship.
So what is my theological take on sexuality and marriage? As long as it’s consensual, respectful and attentive to all parties’ pleasure, sex is beautiful and a blessing, as well as a whole lot of fun. At its best, it is lovemaking, and whom you may make love to is restricted only to those who genuinely–without coercion and with the full ability to make such decisions for themselves–want to make love with you. Marriage at its best is the mutual care and commitment of people who love each other. In the packet I give to marrying couples, I say something like, “Marriage is about questing, commitment, learning, love, and respect, all of which are holy.” It’s always been obvious to me that the genders of those involved have nothing to do with their ability to sustain a good marriage. I don’t consult the Bible for that information. I just look around at the people I know.
BTW, I don’t think any of this should have any bearing on whether the civil authorities allow two people to enter into a marriage contract. That is a matter of civil law, and for that, they don’t have to abide by my theology or anyone else’s. They just have to be consenting adults.
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December 31, 2012 at 11:44 am
Mark W.
Thanks Amy. I had forgotten about the Numbers passages. I’m not sure we went into them very deeply in Vacation Bible School as a child. Well written response. Hm, wonder why not… –AZM
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January 6, 2013 at 6:47 pm
Desert Tortoise
For me, it comes down to the picking and choosing. The bible contains a lot of rules. Many of those are not followed anymore, because everyone at some point quietly understood they do not fit in our society any more. Women who are not virgins at marriage are not stoned to death. Men shave their beards. Where it gets interesting is when one asks the question who decides which rules can be dropped without fear of sin, and which still must be obeyed lest one be a sinner. Nicely put. –AZM
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