Scriptural Debates and the Work of Love: Giles, Gagnon, and Same-Sex Intimacy

As I have a tendency to do, I got a bit worked up last night reading an exchange between my Facebook friend, author and former pastor Keith Giles, and conservative biblical scholar Robert Gagnon. I had to set the whole exchange aside and read a bit from a fantasy novel (Brandon Sanderson's Oathbringer) so that I could fall asleep.

The exchange was about what Paul, in his Letter to the Romans, says and does not say about same-sex relationships. Giles offers a progressive reading according to which Paul's purpose is to focus on idolatry and its fruits. His central claim is that "What Paul is condemning here is the use of sexual intercourse as part of the worship of created things, or idols." The implication of his essay is that we can't use his remarks here as a basis for condemning loving, monogamous same-sex relationships in which idolatry plays no part (and which may in fact occur between deeply devoted Christians whose relationships are informed by devotion to the God of love).

Gagnon retorts that Paul clearly intended to condemn same-sex sex as such, regardless of its relation to idolatry--and he gestures towards several arguments for this view by way of a series of rhetorical questions that begin with "Did it ever occur to Giles that...". The aggressive and demeaning tone, more than anything, is what got me worked up. Although I have not met Gagnon's target of condescension personally, my interactions with Giles on social media have given me a sense of someone with a compassionate spirit. And so I reacted as you do when someone you like is being maligned. In any event, the key implication of Gagnon's remarks is that Paul's condemnation extends to every form of same-sex intimacy, even in the context of a monogamous, loving, faithful life partnership that, in all respects but gender-makeup, looks like a model of Christian marriage.

So, aside from the defensiveness triggered by the the way that Gagnon went after Giles, what do I think of this exchange?

I devote a chapter of The Triumph of Love to scriptural issues, but I do not pretend (there or anywhere else) to offer a definitive interpretation of what Paul or any other scriptural author thinks about same-sex relationships.

There are three reasons for this. First, my expertise is in philosophy, not biblical interpretation. Second, based on my extensive reading of countless rival interpretations offered by those who are experts in biblical interpretation, I don't think such a definitive interpretation is available. Finally, even if we can find a definitive interpretation of what Paul or any other biblical author thought on this question, that wouldn't settle matters for Christians or anyone else.

If there is one single conclusion from my recent book, it's that the ultimate question for Christians, when it comes to matters that materially impact the lives of our neighbors, has to be about what love requires--the kind of love that the Good Samaritan showed to the robbery victim on that Jericho road, the kind of love that extends to each neighbor including the enemy-neighbor, the kind of love modeled by Jesus in his life, ministry, and crucifixion. What does that kind of love for our LGBT+ neighbors call us to do? The first thing it demands is that we actually pay compassionate, empathetic attention to their lives. And this means we need to get our noses out of our books--including my book, including Gagnon's and Giles' books, and including the Bible.

That doesn't mean books lack value. It certainly doesn't mean the Bible lacks value. What it means is that love for neighbors calls us to focus on our neighbors and be responsive to them and their needs. It means that if God is love, and love is personal and relational, we will experience God most fully in the business of loving one another in the relevant sense.

The Bible loses all its value if quoting Scripture at our neighbors, or beating them upside the head with Scripture, or arrogantly denouncing those who disagree with our interpretation, replaces the work of love.

Ultimately, then, that's what the exchange between Giles and Gagnon made me think about. As to who is right and who is wrong in their interpretation of Paul, I could point out some unsound logical moves in the reasoning of one or the other. My defensive anger made it easy for me to notice each such logical failing in Gagnon's response to Giles (I certainly have expert training in that, even if biblical interpretation is not my field). At first I thought that's what I'd be writing when I sat down to reflect on this exchange. But then I'd just be allowing myself to be sucked into the antagonistic spirit of Gagnon's attack on Giles.

So instead, I want to close with this: I suspect that both Giles and Gagnon have insights into the question of what Paul was saying, insights that are worth reflecting on even if nobody can claim definitive knowledge of exactly what a long-dead writer meant and didn't mean. And it is so much easier to actually pay attention to the substance of these insights if we approach our disagreements in a spirit of love--which means, among other things, focusing on the issues rather than on each other.

But most of all, it is so important that when we talk about matters that materially impact the lives of our neighbors--whether it be our LGBT+ neighbors or anyone else--we pay attention to them and their lives and experiences. What Paul said is one question. What we should do if we are inspired by the spirit of love is another, and a far more important one.

Shaken: On the Anniversary of the OKC Bombing

When it happened at 9:02 AM on April 19, 1995, I was living far away, in Tacoma, Washington. I had never been to Oklahoma. Nevertheless it shook me.

I had no idea that one day I would live just a few dozen miles north of the site of the attack, that when people asked me where my home was, I'd answer "Oklahoma." Nevertheless it shook me.

I didn't know that I would marry a woman who heard the explosion and felt the Earth shake under her feet, who would remember the hours and days that followed as a haze of stunned horror and moments of involuntary weeping. Nevertheless it shook me.

I did not imagine standing on the memorial site, looking at the the rows of graceful chairs representing the dead and then noticing all the little ones, the ones that stood for the children gone. Nevertheless it shook me.

I did not know that one day I would recognize the distinctive shape of the Survivor Tree, and that it would become for me a symbol of hope in the midst of devastation. But like the world I sat transfixed by the aftermath, unable to wrap my mind around what has happened.

It shook me because it struck in the heart of America--not some big city on the coast that you might imagine the target of terrorist violence, but a city in the heartland that stood for every American town. It was a place that said, "This can happen anywhere."

It shook me because the perpetrator was an American, a disaffected young man so filled with ideological rage and righteousness, so lost and clawing for purpose that he could embrace the delusion that meaning would spring from a war against his own country, his own people, that the deaths of innocents and the shattering of innocence would be some kind of vindication of his life. He was a terrorist who said, "I could come from anywhere."

For years I'd been a student of violence, an advocate of nonviolent methods of resolving conflicts. I'd spoken out against the way that Federal law enforcement agencies were handling the Branch Davidian standoff even before it reached its tragic culmination. But I never saw it coming. I never saw how that bungled siege might help turn an American veteran into a terrorist against his own people even as he imagined himself still a soldier in some righteous war. I never truly understood the power of ideology, wedded to the right psychology, to turn a human being into an agent of horror.

It shook me. And when I see the images and hear the stories, when I stand at the memorial site looking at what difference a single moment can make in the world, I am shaken still.

Oklahoma Teacher's Walkout: A Perspective

Today my wife and thousands of other Oklahoma public school teachers descend on the state capitol in an effort to remind the Oklahoma legislators who they work for: the people of Oklahoma.

Executives of the fossil fuel industry do not work for the people of Oklahoma. They work for their stockholders. Their job is to maximize profits for those stockholders, and one way to do that is to convince state legislators to pass laws that help the stockholders get rich. And for many years now, corporate lobbyists have succeeded in doing just that. It's not their fault. They're just going their job to make as much money for the stockholders as they can.

Of course, the state legislators don't work for those stockholders but for all the people of Oklahoma. And they are called to think long-term, to care about Oklahoma's future and not just the stockholders of this or that company. Nothing is more central to the welfare of Oklahoma going into the future than a vibrant public education system, sufficiently funded to help each student achieve their highest potential.

But Oklahoma legislators, it seems to me, have lost sight of this truth, starving public education for years in order to give corporate tax breaks, primarily to fossil fuel companies. Those tax breaks don't serve the people of Oklahoma. The fossil fuel companies aren't going to leave the state for a lower tax rate elsewhere, because the fossil fuels are HERE. They want access to them--to the natural resources that belong collectively to the people of this state.

Paying their fair share to support the collective future of the state, ensuring that an educated workforce is available for them and every other business, should be part of the price of admission. Of course, it's the job of big business executives to get as much for free as they can, including not paying the price of admission, not doing their fair share to support Oklahoma's long-term survival.

It's the job of Oklahoma legislators to tell them no. But state legislators have instead been acting like employees of these big businesses, starving education in the process.

And so our teachers are saying no. Our teachers are saying enough. Education is the future of this state, and the future is being starved by a legislature that has forgotten who they work for. And so the teachers, who have not forgotten, are rising up and demanding that our legislature remember.

Our legislators have so far responded by saying, "How about we feed you a little better than we have been while continuing to let your students starve? Isn't that wonderful? Hooray for us! You should thank us for such a wonderful proposal and if you don't, you're just being greedy!"

Or teachers have answered, "Our children are still being starved."

Today, I hope, the legislators of Oklahoma will open their eyes, remember who they are and who they are supposed to represent--all the people of Oklahoma, including our children--and do the right thing.

Corporate executives have their lobbyists. The children of Oklahoma have our teachers. Pray that out teachers have the eloquence and resolve to make a difference. Pray that our elected Representatives will be moved to implement real change shaped by the real needs of the people they represent, rather than being constrained by some artificial concept of political expediency shaped by corporate interests.

Let all of us stand with our teachers and say, "Feed our children."