A Pastoral Letter on Upcoming Council Action on Same-Gender Marriage: Part 4

This is the fourth of a four part series. Please also read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. Council will vote on its proposed resolution on Thursday, November 21, 2013 at 6:30 p.m. All council meetings are open to the public. If you wish to communicate with council prior to the vote, please e-mail council@sotv.org.

Part 4: Two ways of reading the Bible and how they make same-gender marriage such a polarizing issue.

Pastor Chris Smith
Senior Pastor

The Bible is central to our life as a community of faith. We preach from it in worship each week. We offer multiple Bible studies each year. Our vision for ministry is based on core teachings of Jesus in the Bible. For us, as the ELCA constitution says, the Bible is the “inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm” for our life and faith. For this reason the Bible has been central in the discussion about same-gender marriage. This letter seeks to address two interconnected questions about the Bible: What does the Bible have to say about same-gender marriage? How can people on both sides of the controversy each use the same Bible to support their points of view?

Let me begin with two images – a chain and a target of concentric circles.* These images represent two different ways to read the Bible.

The chain on the left represents a more literal way to read the Bible. Readers who have this perspective value each verse of the Bible equally and are generally unwilling to regard some verses of the Bible as less or more important than others. If anyone considers a verse or book of the Bible to be less important or even irrelevant, then he or she is in effect breaking a link in the chain and the whole chain falls apart. In this representation, devaluing one verse devalues the entire Bible.

The consequences of this perspective are significant for the question of same-gender marriage. The Bible explicitly prohibits same-sex behavior in two places, Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13.** While some may regard Leviticus as less important for our life of faith, those who ascribe to the “chain” view of scripture do not. As a result, readers who abide by the chain view of biblical interpretation may be opposed to same-gender marriage because they value all of scripture equally.

The target on the right represents a contrasting way to read the Bible, one that is based on the idea that there are parts of the Bible that are more important than others. These readers place parts of the Bible that are more important to them at the center of the target. For example, they may place the Gospels very near the center of their target, with John 3:16 right on the bullseye, and they may place Leviticus farther away from the center. The Gospels are more important to them than Leviticus.

The consequences of this perspective are also significant. Readers who use the target model of biblical interpretation will take away from the Gospels core values of Jesus like inclusiveness, the golden rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”) and loving your neighbor as you love yourself. They reason that if a church does not permit same-gender marriage, same-gender couples will not be fully included and will not be treated equally. For this reason, these readers may support same-gender marriage, even though Leviticus specifically prohibits same-sex behavior.

These two basic ways of reading the Bible tend to collide with one another. Let me use the less current issue of slavery to illustrate how these scriptural collisions work.

Slavery was enormously controversial in the church for centuries. In support of slavery the church cited many biblical passages. For example, the law code of Deuteronomy in chapter 20 approves of slavery and the holiness code in Leviticus in chapter 25 allows participation in the slave trade. Likewise in the New Testament book of Titus (2:3) the author writes: “Teach slaves to be subject to their masters and in everything to try to please them, not to talk back to them.” Proponents of slavery used passages from the Bible like these to support their positions. Those in the church who opposed slavery also used the Bible to support their position, most notably the Great Commandment of Jesus found in Matthew 22:

One of them, a lawyer, asked Jesus a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ Jesus said to him, ‘“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

You can see how these two scriptural viewpoints would collide. Verses in the Old and New Testaments specifically about slavery were used to legitimize and support slavery. By contrast, a more sweeping mandate not specifically about slavery (the Great Commandment) was used to oppose the practice of slavery. The reasoning of opponents went this way: If Jesus commands us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and we would not submit to slavery, how can we tolerate the enslavement of our neighbors?

What happened with regard to slavery is a typical scriptural collision: Specific verses were used on one side of the controversy, while more sweeping biblical mandates were cited on the other. I could review other examples, but you get the idea.

It should be noted that if you corner readers in both groups, they are forced to admit that neither group reads the Bible in an entirely consistent way and that both sides tend to select verses that are more important to them than others, even the chain readers.

Let’s return to the question of same-gender marriage which results from a similar scriptural collision. Some argue that passages in the Bible that prohibit same-sex behavior collide with core values of the Gospels and of Jesus that actually underpin marriage - values like sacrificial love of one’s neighbor, commitment, fidelity, and inclusiveness. Because same-gender marriage could not possibly have been even on the radar of our biblical forebears, they would not have even considered the possibility that people of the same gender could share marital commitment and fidelity like men and women did in their time. Nor would it occur to them that the radical inclusiveness of Jesus and his Great Commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves might mean that we afford our gay and lesbian neighbors the same prerogative to marry as their heterosexual neighbors do. This is one way to describe the viewpoint of many “target” readers regarding same-gender marriage.

On the other hand, others argue that the biblical witness in Leviticus is crystal clear about same-sex behavior. The core values noted above, while very important for our life of faith, do not provide specific and clear guidance about same-sex behavior or same-gender marriage. Instead they help us to be clear on the boundaries and limits by which God calls us to live our lives. To ignore Leviticus would also be to specifically disregard a portion of God’s Word, something we do not have the prerogative to do. This is one way to describe the viewpoint of many “chain” readers regarding same-gender marriage.

The controversy about same-gender marriage is made more complicated because the Bible does not talk specifically about same-gender marriage (that answers my first question). It talks about same-sex behavior. The reason why is simple. The concept of same-gender marriage would never have occurred to the patriarchal culture of Bible. Still, because sexual behavior and marriage are so closely related in the controversy, readers of the Bible easily transfer scriptural prohibitions of same-sex behavior into prohibitions of same-gender marriage.

I hope this letter has helped you understand why readers of the Bible can come to two entirely different views on a controversial topic like same-gender marriage. They are simply using two different models for how to interpret the Bible. The answer to the question how we interpret the Bible really is, “It depends.” It depends on the model you use to read it. Sometimes I wish the answer were not “it depends.” I wish it were so clear that no one had any doubt about what the Bible has to say about same-gender marriage or any of the other controversial topics that can occupy our attention. Topics similar to same-gender marriage have been the subject of arguments based on the Bible, many for centuries (the role of women in the church is an example). The witness of history is that people on both sides have been able with equal force to make powerful and compelling arguments based on the Bible.

So where does that leave us? As a community of faith, we all have different views on a variety of issues. Truth be told, we each can and do read the Bible in different and more complex ways than what I describe here. But remember this: our unity is not based on how we each read the Bible. Our unity is founded in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is not just a figure we read about in the Bible. He is risen and He is here, with us, binding us together as one people who are empowered to worship God and be ambassadors to the world with His love. We do not worship the Bible, we worship Jesus, and in Him we find our unity.

See You in Church,

Pastor Chris Smith

Please note: All comments made below will be received and reviewed upon submission. Vulgar or offensive commentary will not be posted for public view. You may also send questions or comments to council@sotv.org.  

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*These images come from David Lose’s book, Making Sense of Scripture.

**There are other references in the Bible that some interpret as being about same-sex behavior, but they are more ambiguous and unclear. For further reading, I recommend Russell Pregeant, Reading the Bible for All the Wrong Reasons, and Dan O. Via and Robert A. J. Gagnon, Homosexuality and the Bible, Two Views.