Leaving Church--Part DONE

Howling at the Fruit

As the plane slowed on the tarmac, I clicked my phone on. A million missed calls and voicemails awaited me. My boss at the non-profit Christian publisher where I worked said to call her back immediately. 

I was in trouble. 

In what I had thought was an innocuous phrase for an e-newsletter promoting a resource on Homosexuality and the Bible, I wrote, “Though the Bible isn’t entirely clear on all issues surrounding homosexuality….” and then some other things. It didn’t matter what else I said. 

I had said IT.

The Bible was not entirely clear on all issues surrounding homosexuality. 

In 2009, at thirty seven-years-old, after a lifetime of church and faith, prayer, and reading my Bible, after graduating from both a Christian high school and Christian university, after nearly a decade in Christian publishing, I knew full well what the “clobber passages” had to say and that my view on my view on queerness and Christianity were left-of-center. However, I had no idea that my statement on the Bible’s lack of complete clarity was controversial.

If it were clear, why would there be disagreement? 

But of course, it was clear to the organization I worked for. And a board member read my newsletter and erupted. We needed to apologize.

I cannot remember if I wrote the follow-up or if someone else did. To be honest, I’m afraid to Google it. But I do remember that after the conversation with my then-boss (who is great, by the way), I prayed: Jesus, if I’m wrong about the gay thing, show me. If the Bible is clear, convict me.  

For the umpteenth time in my life, I tried to pray away the ally. 

And Jesus answered that prayer. 

Because later that day—at the conference I was attending—I learned just what happened in 1946.

It’s a common claim that those of us who are for full inclusion of our queer brothers and sisters have little regard for the Bible. That we twist it. That we poo-poo it. That we don’t see it as the Word of God. The Christian Reformed Church’s Human Sexuality Report-ers calls us “revisionists.” 

Which could be true if it weren’t for one thing, the thing I learned at that conference: That the word homosexual didn’t appear in an American Bible until 1946. (The word homosexual didn’t exist until the late 1800s. Homosexuals, of course, existed. Until very recently, same-sex behavior was not understood as we now understand it.) 

Allegedly, previous to the 1946 translation of the Revised Standard Version, the barely used but trouble-making biblical words malakoi and arsenokoitai were translated more in line with their literal meanings, that is, “soft” or “passive” (think: sexually) for malakoi or “male intercourse” or “male prostitute” for arsenokoitai. 

And, as I learned at that conference—and have since read a million other places — before 1946, the translations allegedly focused more on pederasty (Martin Luther’s phrase “boy molester” was apparently used in German Bibles until 1983), sex trafficking, and being a “passive” male sex partner—even with women—which the Greeks found disgusting and unnatural. (For more on all this, check out All One Body’s Resource page and 1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture.)

In light of this information, CRC pastor Rev. Duane Kelderman recently and rightly asked, “Who are the revisionists?” 

Indeed. Though, truth be told, we all are—unless we’ve found and can read the original ancient scrolls.

I understand that “good scholars on both sides” disagree about translations, about intention, about context. Certainly, I may be aligning my belief with the wrong scholars (because I am 0% a scholar on any of this, again, I pray: Jesus, if I’m wrong about the gay thing, show me. If the Bible is clear, convict me.)

Until that happens, however, I have to lean as the Spirit leads—and the Spirit leads me toward inclusion, something both the Bible and my Reformed perspective support. Here are three reasons why:

1.) The Creation Account:

The Human Sexuality Report and CRC Synod claim that disagreement should go back to the Creation Account—and the good order of God who created us “male” and “female.”

But at Calvin “The CRC’s University” College, I learned that the Creation Account is not a science textbook. The Creation Account is allegory. It’s poetry. It tells us about our amazing, creator God—not exactly how the world or its inhabitants were made. As such, we have to hold that if the Creation Account is not a geology or astronomy textbook, nor is it a gender science textbook. The ancients had very different ideas on and understandings of sexuality and gender than we do today. If we can question or expand the meaning of “day,” can’t we do the same for male and female? Can’t we apply what we know about gender and sexuality to that beautiful Creation Account just as we do with the origins of the world?

2.) Hermeneutics:

Two of the most consistent (if not the most consistent) themes in Scripture are God’s love and liberation. So, I read the Bible with a “hermeneutic” of a God who loves God’s people beyond reason and seeks to liberate all of us—from all forms of sin and oppression. A hermeneutic is simply the theory or view or framework through which we read Scripture. None of us have a “pure” one. We all read Scripture in a way that reflects our upbringing, our culture, our experience, our temperament, our education, our faith-tradition—and *gasp* even our political views. However, because we can make the Bible say just about anything we want it to say (see: slavery, spanking, salvation, polygamy, imperialism…), a biblically comprehensive, Spirit-filled hermeneutic helps us understand tricky passages by putting them into a robust Christ-centric context. 

So when I encounter passages that are conflicting or confusing or debated, I consider the God who loves us all beyond reason and who seeks to liberate us. With that understanding of God, when it comes to the sexual ethics of the Scriptures, I see a God who loves us so much that God wants us to love ourselves and others in the same, sacrificial way. We’re not to use and abuse ourselves—or others. And I see a God who seeks to free us any sort of oppression—including sexual oppression. Thus, those original definitions of “boy molester” or “unnatural sex” sins ring quite true. Those passages are not speaking of loving, consensual, equal, and committed sex—even same-sex. They speak of abuse and control, of manipulation and shame, and not love or mutuality. Albeit, in the context of a culture that frowned on any kind of male passivity.

3.) Consider the Fruit:

Jesus says this thing about wolves—and fruit—in Matthew 7:15-20: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.”

Good Christians use this as a measure for everything from ministries to life-decisions. So, let’s consider the fruit of the Church’s Anti-Queer Crusade.

What is the fruit of this entire movement, of the Church’s laser-focused condemnation of and increasing culture war on (in various forms, of course) the LGBTQIA+ community? What sweetness, what holiness has come from it?

Yes, for some queer brothers and sisters these positions have confirmed a person-specific (that is, some cishet people experience the same calls) call toward celibacy or toward making peace with their bodies. 

But after nearly forty years bearing witness to this movement from various perspectives in the Church, here’s what I’ve witnessed:

The fruit of abuse, bullying, torment, shame, and suicide. 

The fruit of people banned from or fleeing the Church, convinced God’s love doesn’t extend to them, that the cross wasn’t for them. 

The fruit of fractured families, of overreaching and over-acting government, of fear-based doctrines and legislation.

The fruit of pain, of loss, of loneliness, of heartbreak, of neglect, of separation.

The fruit of judgmentalism and superiority toward an entire community because it’s oh so easy to judge that which does not tempt or trouble us—and so delicious to allow it to overshadow our own damn sin. 

That’s the fruit of this movement, of this tree. 

All based on a non-scientific Creation account. 

All based on six short passages with two weird, rare, hotly contested words. 

Six passages and two words that have convinced people that to be Christian is to be “anti-gay” (“And they’ll know we are Christians by our bigotry…”).

Six passages and two words we have allowed to overwhelm and overshadow the Good News of a Good God, of a Holy Spirit, of a Jesus who laid down his life and overcame the tomb (EASTER IS COMING, PEOPLE!) so that all things, all people, all creation could be drawn to be him, could be redeemed, restored, and renewed.

Shame on us. Time to cut down that tree. The fruit is rotten. Awoooooo.

P.S. Thanks to all of you who have reached out. I’m encouraged (and surprised!) by how many (many, many, many…) folks at my former church are as troubled by the CRC’s doubled-down position as I am. The Lord called me and my family out, but I’m glad folks are around who can speak up and out.