Author Archives: Andrew McFarland Campbell
Did David and Jonathan Have Sex?
My talk, Jonathan Loved David, has been discussed over on Stafford Carson’s blog. Some of the commenters are concerned about whether or not David and Jonathan actually had sex, or perhaps I should say that some of the commenters are concerned about whether or not I think they had sex. The simple fact of the matter is that it doesn’t matter, and it’s none of our business anyway.
Sex is almost always an immensely private part of a relationship, but for most people it isn’t a defining part of a relationship. Two people can form a couple – a romantic couple, a married couple, etc. – with or without a sexual component to their relationship. If you want proof that David and Jonathan had sex before you acknowledge them as a couple then you should ask yourself if you want proof that David and Michal had sex before you acknowledge them as a couple as well. If not, why not?
All too often, people (both Christian and non-Christian) speak about opposite-sex relationships in terms of love, affection, and commitment, but they speak about same-sex relationships in terms of sex. In another blog post, Stafford talks about the importance of conversation and discussion between gay people and orthodox Christians. I agree that is important, and for that dialog to happen orthodox Christians have got to start acknowledging that, aside from the genders of the people involved, same-sex relationships are the same as opposite-sex relationships. The basic emotions that Stafford feels when he looks at his wife Patricia are the same basic emotions that I feel when I look at my husband Michael.
On Being Offensive
A few people have suggested to me that I gave my Faith and Pride talk, Jonathan Loved David, to be offensive. Nothing could be further from the truth. I gave that talk because it was what I sincerely believe, and I thought other people would be interested in what I had to say. Faith and Pride isn’t about being argumentative or offensive, it is about putting forward an alternative point of view. It is about saying that you can be gay and Christian.
There are some Christians who find that offensive. Equally well, there are some Christians who find it offensive to say that you can’t be gay and Christian. However, just because one group has beliefs that are offensive to another group, it doesn’t mean that the first group should be afraid to say what it believes.
This isn’t just confined to issues surrounding gay people and Christianity. Roman Catholics believe that the Pope is the head of the Catholic Church. The Westminster Confession of Faith has this to say about the Pope.
There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ: nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ, and all that is called God. Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter XXV, section VI
There can be no doubt that that statement is offensive to Catholics. Does that mean that churches that adhere to the Westminster Confession of Faith, such as the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, shouldn’t be allowed to express their beliefs? Or maybe Catholics shouldn’t be allowed to express their beliefs because they are offensive to Free Presbyterians?
This even goes beyond issues that only concern Christians. The majority of Jews and Muslims do not believe that Jesus was the son of God, which is a position that is offensive to the majority of Christians. Does that mean that Jews and Muslims should not be able to express their beliefs, lest a Christian is offended? Or maybe it is Christians who should remain silent, for fear of offending people from other faiths. Taking it a step further, many atheists find any expression of a belief in god offensive, and many people of faith find an expression of atheism offensive. Should one group be silenced to avoid offending another?
In Northern Ireland, we understand what it is like to live in a society without religious tolerance. We know how damaging that can be. In Northern Ireland we are learning what it is like to live in a society with religious tolerance, and we are seeing how wonderful that is. Religious tolerance means you can freely believe whatever you want, but that means you must also allow other people to believe what they want. Putting it another way, you have the right to stand up and say what you believe, but you do not have the right to stop someone else standing up and saying what they believe, no matter how much it offends you.
Leviticus, the Law, Christ, and Divorce
Christians are not under the Law of Moses. This is a really fundamental Christian doctrine, and it is clearly stated in the New Testament.
Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was put in charge of us until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. (Galatians 3:23-25, TNIV)
Most famously, Christians are not bound by the dietary restrictions of the Law, and nor are we bound by the rituals regarding worship. Some Christians believe that we are still bound by the “moral” parts of the Law. Is this the case, despite what Galatians says?
No. James says that you are either bound by the whole Law, or none of it.
For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. (James 2:10, TNIV)
As Christians, we can confidently say that we don’t have to follow the rules and regulations of the Law of Moses.
But sometimes people object, saying that the moral principles of the law still apply, even if the letter of the legislation no longer does. After all, “not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen” (Matthew 5:18, TNIV) will disappear from the Law. Does that idea stand up to scrutiny?
Let’s consider divorce. What does the Law of Moses say about divorce.
If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the LORD. Do not bring sin upon the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance. (Deuteronomy 24:1-4, TNIV)
Under the Law of Moses, a man could divorce his wife for pretty much any reason, and she was free to remarry. What did Christ say about divorce and remarriage?
Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 19:8-9, TNIV)
Christ does not permit divorce for any reason – he only allows it in cases of sexual immorality – and remarriage is certainly not allowed. It is clear from Christ’s words that he was changing the rules, not merely clarifying them.
Divorce and remarriage is adultery, so this is clearly a moral issue, yet Jesus and Moses disagree. It simply cannot be that the moral principles of the Law remain.
What does this have to do with being a gay Christian? Sex between men is mentioned in Leviticus (18:22, and 20:13). The precise meaning and context of these verses doesn’t concern us here. Even if they really were a blanket prohibition on all sex between men, as they are part of the Law of Moses they are not binding on Christians today.
Diversity and Judgement
Just like straight people, gay people are a diverse bunch. On one hand there are the drug-fuelled, sexually promiscuous party-goers, and on the other hand there are the couples in decades-long stable, faithful relationships. Because of that diversity you can’t look at one part of the spectrum and judge the whole continuum based on one small sample.
Similarly Christians are a diverse bunch. In Northern Ireland we have a number of big denominations – the Catholic Church, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, the Church of Ireland, and the Methodist Church in Ireland. As well as those four, we have many smaller denominations, such as the Free Presbyterian Church, the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland, the Baptists, and the Christadelphians. There is even, on the Cliftonville Road, the Antiochian Orthodox Church of Saint Ignatius.
You can’t look at part of the Christian church and judge all of Christianity on one small sample. Even when the names of the denominations are similar, you will find huge differences: my husband and I are welcomed as members of a Non-Subscribing Presbyterian church, while one of the key protest groups at the annual Belfast Pride parade is organised by a minister from a Free Presbyterian church.
Today in Belfast, a group called CORE, a Christian group which supports “men and women with homosexual issues who voluntarily seek change in sexual preference”, is holding a one-day seminar at Belvoir Parish Church. A lot of LGBT people and their friends and families are very upset about this and are planning to protest outside.
Whether they mean to or not, CORE supports the idea that being gay is somehow a lesser option than being straight. They support the idea that being gay is a problem, something that can be fixed. In turn that idea harms gay people, sometimes very seriously.1 As a gay Christian, I do not support CORE. I don’t believe that the Bible says you can (or should) change your sexual orientation; as a matter of fact I believe that the Bible celebrates the love between Jonathan and David (which will be the core of my talk during Pride Week 2011). So, to gay people who are disgusted at Christianity because of CORE, I say this: don’t look at just that part of the Christian spectrum. Come to the Faith and Pride talk and see another part of Christianity. It is a part of Christianity that accepts and supports you for who you are, rather than pressuring you – even unintentionally – into changing your sexual orientation.
And to any Christians who are disgusted at gay people because of the protest at Belvoir today I say this: don’t just look at that part of the LGBT spectrum. Come to the Faith and Pride talk and see another part of the LGBT community. It is a part of the LGBT community that accepts God, Jesus Christ and the Bible just as readily as you do.
The Faith and Pride talk takes place on Sunday the 24 July at 7 p.m. in All Souls’ Church on Elmwood Avenue, Belfast.
1 Wayne Besen‘s book Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-gay Myth and the website Truth Wins Out describe the harm that therapy to change sexual orientation can cause.
My Own Journey
I grew up in a Christadelphian family, and in due course I was baptized and became a Christadelphian myself. I was about 17 at the time. A few years later, when I was in my early 20s, I realized I was gay. At the time I held “traditional” views about what the Bible said about same-sex relationships: I thought them to be totally wrong. Like a good Christadelphian I “searched the scriptures daily”, with the ill-formed idea that I might be able to convince other gay Christians that God wanted — required — them to be celibate.
One day, and I think I must have been in my mid 20s at this point, I realized that things were more nuanced that I had originally believed. I came to believe that the Bible wasn’t as condemnatory as I had first thought, and I eventually reached the opinion I now have: the Bible does not condemn same-sex relationships, and you can be Christian and gay.
In 2005 I left the Christadelphians, for reasons not directly connected to my sexual orientation. Eventually, about a year ago, I joined All Souls’ Church in Belfast, a church that welcomes everyone “irrespective of race, colour, creed, gender or sexual orientation”. I worship there every Sunday, with my husband Michael at my side.
Throughout this journey, there are two very important things that haven’t changed.
- My faith has remained strong. I haven’t had to reject God or Jesus, even though my beliefs about what they want have changed.
- I still treat the Bible with the same reverence now as I did when I was 17, even though my understanding of the Bible has matured and become deeper.
You can be Christian and gay without turning your back on God, or ignoring parts of the Bible.
A Simple Kiss
On Facebook, as with the rest of my life, I am openly gay and I am openly Christian. For example, updates to this blog are published automatically into my Facebook news feed.
For a while now, I’ve been in a relationship with another man, Michael, and on the 6th and 7th May we got married. Lots of friends and family were there, and lots of photographs were taken. On Sunday morning I changed my Facebook profile picture to one of the two of us kissing outside the church – you can see the picture yourself at the top right of this post.
During the day on Sunday, I got the following message from a Facebook friend we will call Q.
I am happy for you if what you have done is what you want. I have nothing against you or any other person, but I do believe the thing you have done to be an abomination in God’s eyes, so feel obliged to remove you from my friends list. I do this with great sadness, but still rejoice in your happiness and pray that God can find the way take you to the kingdom by His love. This may mean that my view is still too narrow, but I see the scriptures on the issue as pretty clear. Your latest profile pic was the last straw I am afraid.
This does not mean I no longer love you and care about you, just that I feel obliged to make a stand against what you did today.
What is the “thing that [I] have done” that Q finds so offensive? What does he have to make a stand against? He clearly has no problem with me being gay and Christian: he was happy to have me as a Facebook friend when I was gay and single, he was happy to have me on his friend list when I was engaged, and he was happy to have me on his friend list when I was publishing blog posts that are supportive of gay Christians.
What is the thing that I have done? What I did was I got married. Q has taken an extremely curious position for a Christian to take. I know there are Christians who object to people being openly gay, and there are Christians who object to gay people calling themselves Christian, and all sorts of variants thereof. These Christians base their objections on their belief that the Bible forbids gay sex.
But if you can tolerate an openly gay Christian man as a Facebook friend, what scriptural reason is there for unfriending him because he has entered into a permanent, faithful, stable lifelong relationship? Where in the Bible does it say that marrying another man is “an abomination in God’s eyes”? Q wasn’t objecting to me being in a sexual relationship with another man, because his message was about a specific event — “the thing [I had] done” — not some (assumed) aspect of my relationship with my husband.
This actually exposes ‘Christian’ opposition to same-sex relationships for what it is: homophobia, thinly veneered with Christianity in an attempt to make it respectable.
Salon.com: “I preached against homosexuality, but I was wrong”
A recent poll shows a huge shift in American attitudes toward gay marriage, from a 32 percent approval in 2004 to 53 percent today.
I am one of those people who changed their minds.
Nature in Romans
Verses 26 and 27 of Romans 1 are often quoted by people who think that the Bible teaches that same-sex relationships are wrong.
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. (Romans 1:26-27, KJV)
This passage begins “For this cause”: it depends on what went before, so you can’t read it out of context. Even so, some people believe that because this passage uses phrases like “against nature” it means that that same-sex relationships are paticularly bad, perhaps even being a transgression of natural law. But does the New Testament use what is “natural” as moral guidance anywhere else?
Leaving aside Romans for the moment, there are seven verses in the King James translation Bible where something is described as “natural” (φυσικός, phusikos, Strong’s 5446), “naturally” (φυσικῶς, phusikós, Strong’s 5447), or otherwise according to nature (φύσις, phusis, Strong’s 5449).
Just one of those verses – 1 Corinthians 11:14 – uses “nature” as a good thing that we should emulate (and even then that is debatable). Two of them – Galatians 2:15 and Galatians 4:8 – are neutral regarding nature as a moral authority. In three of them, “nature” is actually a bad thing.
Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. (Ephesians 2:3, KJV)
But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption; (2 Peter 2:12, KJV)
But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. (Jude 10, KJV)
Unlike Romans 1:26-27, the seventh verse, 2 Peter 1:4 is about divine nature, which is obviously a good thing.
As well as the above verses, “nature” is used in the King James Version in eight other places, six of which are translations of different Greek words (1 Corinthians 2:14, 1 Corinthians 15:44, 1 Corinthians 15:46, Philippians 2:20, James 1:23, and James 3:6) and two of which are interpolations by the translators to add clarity (2 Timothy 3:3, and Hebrews 2:16). None of those verses suggest that “natural” behaviour is something that Christians should aim for.
Returning to Romans, in Romans 11:21-24 Paul describes God himself acting in a way that is contrary to nature:
For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again. For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? (Romans 11:21-24, KJV)
“Nature” just isn’t used as a moral force in the New Testament. We can’t simply look at something being “natural” and conclude that it is good, and look at something being “against nature” and conclude that it is bad. Yes, in Romans 1, Paul uses negative language about same-sex relationships, but he also uses negative language about opposite-sex relationships. There is simply no justification for the assumption that the negative language used about one is worse than the negative language used about the other.
Develop a Gay Christian iPhone App
Are there any iPhone developers out there who would like to work with me to develop a pro gay Christian iPhone app in response to the Exodus International ex gay one? I could write the content if you could do the software.
Two Men in One Bed?
There was recently a case in the UK when two Christians who owned a hotel wouldn’t allow a gay couple to have a double room. Obviously, as a gay Christian, I disagree with their decision because I don’t think it is wrong for anyone (Christian or not) to be in a same-sex relationship.
But what does the Bible say about two men in one bed? The Bible says it is OK.
I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. (Luke 17:34, KJV)
If it was wrong for the two men to be sharing a bed, then you would expect that either both would be taken or both would be left, but because one was taken and one was left, we can see that two men sharing a bed is not a question that affects their standing before God.
By the way, if you look at a more modern translation it might say something like “two people in one bed”, but by contrasting it with the next verse where there are “two women” in the field, I think it is clear that this verse is about two men.
Faith and Pride 