I recently shared the full text of a letter that Dr. Graham Walker sent to Patrick Henry College Alumni about QueerPHC and the recent media attention. For the sake of brevity, I won’t quote the full text below. All text in italics is from Walker’s letter. Note: I use the term “homosexuality” because PHC rhetoric about LGBTQ issues is usually limited to the LG portion of the spectrum.
It seems that many of [the journalists reporting on QueerPHC] can scarcely believe that a community could exist in our day that still believes what Christians have believed for two thousand years about the good, the true, and the beautiful as they apply to sexuality. But PHC has always been clear about where we stand as an institution. Even apart from our PHC Standards and Honor Code, our commitment to the inerrant Bible would be enough, by itself, to make our position evident.
Yes, thanks to the PHC Handbook, we’re well aware of where PHC stands as an institution. However, apart from such documentation (and the many, many verbal statements that PHC leaders have made about sexuality), the college’s position on homosexuality would be far less clear.
Walker and other PHC leaders would like to reduce the conflict about homosexuality to a fight between Christians and non-Christians, in which the non-Christians support “deviant lifestyles” and the harried Christians attempt to defend traditional marriage against the onslaught of abuse, divorce, adultery, marital rape — oh, I’m sorry, against the onslaught of the homosexual agenda.
The homosexual agenda.
Unfortunately, liberal Christians and queer Christians complicate matters.
Failing that, Walker attempts to explain this conflict as a struggle between those who take the Bible seriously, and those who don’t. In this mindset, taking the Bible seriously means believing in the inerrancy of the Bible, and believing in the inerrancy of the Bible leads to an immediate and obvious condemnation of homosexuality, also translated as “all that weird butt sex stuff.”
For argument’s sake, let’s assume that taking the Bible seriously means believing in its inerrancy. Plenty of Christians wouldn’t equate the two, but we’ll leave them out of this round. However, even after we’ve excised this portion of the Body of Christ, we still have a deeply divided group.
Pro-LGBTQ Christians who still believe in an inerrant Bible believe that culture and context are important to understanding the Bible’s “clobber” verses about homosexuality, and usually believe that those verses actually refer to temple prostitution or pederasty or (in the case of Sodom) gang rape. PHC leaders commonly use the rhetorical tactic of claiming that the anti-LGBTQ side is the only side that takes the Bible seriously, and that the Bible’s position against homosexuality is self-evident. As a queer Christian, I don’t believe the Bible is the sole property of anti-LGBTQ fundamentalists. I take it seriously, too! I just interpret those verses differently.
As you may know, Patrick Henry is not alone in dealing with controversy along these lines. Lots of Christian colleges are dealing with the same thing right now. There are a number of new campus-aimed blog sites, all arising at about the same time, all targeting conservative or Christian campuses, and all deploying more or less the same rhetorical strategy. All these sites display a peculiar synchrony of message and method and timing.
When I first read this paragraph, I burst out laughing. “A peculiar synchrony”? What are we, the League of Extraordinary Queer Pajama Bloggers? (We’re printing the T-shirts now!) QueerPHC was not part of some vast queer conspiracy. We started the blog on our own, hoping only to encourage the LGBTQ students and alumni of PHC. Now we’re in contact with leaders of LGBTQ groups at other Christian colleges and universities. The support and encouragement we receive is phenomenal.
If there is any synchrony, it’s because many LGBTQ and allied students and alumni of Christian colleges and universities realize that the time to speak out is now. We’re not conspiring; we’re organizing!
I anticipate that the media coverage will blow over soon, since there really isn’t a story here.
The threat of a lawsuit, the denial of our existence, the accusation that LGBTQ students or alumni are liars because they signed an honor code — none of this is newsworthy in Walker’s eyes. This is erasure. Walker doesn’t think the school’s treatment of LGBTQ students and alumni matters.
But regardless of whether it does or doesn’t, please be assured that PHC will calmly maintain its principles. I aim to extend love and good will even to those who may think of themselves as our enemies. I think of them as potential friends.
I’m just gonna leave this here.
As a non-Christian, I interpret the Bible’s verses on homosexuality as merely the values of a more primitive time in human history in the old testament, and as part of a more general rebellion against Roman sexual values in the new. That said, they seem to be universally saying that homosexuality is wrong. I’m curious: as Christians, how do you interpret these verses in a way that makes them fit with your sexual orientation?
Tim,
I don’t personally think we need to read every verse in the Bible as literal or prescriptive. However, even if that is one’s approach to the text, there are only six “clobber” verses or passages in the entire Bible — that is, six passages that mention homosexuality in a negative context. Gen. 19:1-11 mentions the threat of male-on-male gang rape. From this, we get the term sodomy. I don’t think homosexuality is being targeted here, rather the extreme inhospitality displayed in the gang rape threat. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 prohibit sex between two men. As there is no similar prohibition here against lesbian sex, we can assume this is a prohibition against anal sex, which, without proper protection, is unsafe and a great way to spread disease. Leviticus is full of commands equating healthiness or cleanliness with holiness. It was also important for the Israelites to boost their population through frequent reproduction. I also think it’s a bit silly for Christians to cling to Levitical passages about homosexuality when they’re only too happy to throw out other Levitical passages on clothing, food, etc. Romans 1:26-28 mentions both male and female homosexual relationships. Some have interpreted this passage to refer to temple prostitution or pederasty. Others focus on the use of the word natural / nature. They point out that homosexuality occurs naturally in many animal species, and that it would be equally problematic for a naturally gay or lesbian person to have heterosexual sex, as it would be problematic for a naturally straight person to have gay sex. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10 both use a Greek word that has been translated as homosexual, but might be better translated as male prostitute or child molester. None of these passages address modern homosexuality — that is, the orientation, not the sex act. And none of these passages address the idea of consenting, longterm homosexual relationships.
Ultimately, I still think it’s silly for Christians to look at the Bible as if it’s the PHC Handbook. If you are a Christian, and you believe in the words of Jesus, he says that the entire Law is summed up in loving God and loving your neighbor. Loving your neighbor when it comes to issues of sexuality looks like keeping your promises, affirming consenting relationships, and attempting to be considerate by not knowingly spreading infections. And when you’re not having sex with this particular neighbor, it means supporting their basic human rights and respecting their privacy.
Hope that addresses your question!
Tim: It’s impossible for passages written during the Bronze Age to offer any opinion of “homosexuality,” because the concept of sexual orientation, or the idea of a gay, straight or bisexual individual belonging to a category of person, didn’t exist until the end of the nineteenth century. What those “clobber passages” are generally opposing are 1) foreign worship practices and 2) the imperial Roman social relations that used powerless people (slaves, females, boys) as objects. The tiny cult of Jesus followers was revolutionary in exploring the idea that everyone – no exceptions – is a child of God, not an outsider and not a thing to be used.
The same question (“how do you interpret these verses in a way that…”) was asked of and by the abolitionist movement, and the suffrage movement, and throughout history. It’s nothing new. In my view, God gave us brains so we can use them for discovery and discernment: What don’t we understand yet about how we’re excluding people from the command to love our neighbors and welcome the stranger? We continue to learn. We came (many centuries later) to understand that slavery is wrong, so how can we ever be so arrogant as to think that we won’t continue discovering and understanding new things? The Bible becomes worse than useless when it’s treated as a dead book of rules for enforcing a primitive understanding of the world. Which is exactly how it’s used when someone argues that it condemns “homosexuality.”
Walker’s words, “the good, the true, and the beautiful as they apply to sexuality,” are striking as evidence that he doesn’t get it. What is good and true and beautiful about human sexuality – we are not lower-order creatures limited to instinctive reproductive biology – is its capacity to connect us to each other in loyal and intimate relationship, as a transcendent expression of love. The ability to freely and with authenticity express love for an intimate partner is part of being fully human for most of us. Some of us are oriented primarily to seek that degree of intimacy with someone of the same gender. That’s a fact of life that is no longer in dispute, apparently not even at PHC.
A genuine Christian world view, in which we are each uniquely created and fully equal, would celebrate each of us becoming our complete, authentic selves in communion with each other. Reducing our sexuality to reproductive biology, on the other hand, is vulgar and kind of hilarious. Actively denying its gifts (as seen in the demand to be celibate) to a group of people because of the way their brains happen to be wired is indifferent, cruel, not at all loving, and in direct opposition to what the Bible is really about.
I join you from a link on fark.com. These are somewhat simplistic, but here are some thoughts:
I. From my experience with human nature, bible inerrancy is a code word for using a biblical passage as a way of furthering a specific agenda and as such, reason and argument are fruitless because a point is being made and understanding is not sought.
In other words, you’re wasting your breath, ink, and or pixels with that line of argument. The question in my mind is why *else* are such institutions drawing the line over gay issues. Issues which even the anti-LGBTQ rights supporters know is against them.
II. I’m old enough to have been aware of the fight against miscegenation, and I saw a similar level of intensity by the anti-miscegenation supporters as I see today by the anti-LGBTQ rights people. The main difference, as one might expect, is that it was a more regional issue and interestingly, it was not even an issue with most denominations.
In both cases the bible was quoted, inerrancy was proclaimed, and the rest is history. As it turned out, the real agenda was simple racism and the fear of white men being emasculated because of the fear that white women would assent to a relationship with a black man.
I could also make the same point with regard to women’s rights, the inerracy of who the “head” of the household is, and the fear of being emasculated or otherwise not shown to be a good provider, care taker, or otherwise not the best at any given endeavor when competing against a woman.
III. Miscegenation was dealt through education and perhaps shame. People realized we are all the same under the color of our skin, our capabilities are the same, and we all had behavioral outliers. Unfortunately, racism is still alive but it is no longer so overtly in the open (even the KKK will deny being racists if asked outright) and it is no longer a religious issue.
Women’s rights was dealt with, for many folk, by simple economics. Excepting special circumstances most households are dual income households. Once that breakthrough was made gender equality stopped being an issue until you got to situations involving the loss of or sharing of some level of economic/political power, whether it is in a boardroom, related to divorce proceedings, or in crafting gender exceptional laws. Unfortunately, gender inequality is also still alive, maybe a bit more out in the open than it should be, but it is also no longer a religious issue.
What’s interesting is as of late, the purveyors of the two “antis” above are trying to make a comeback based on religious principles riding on the coattails of the anti-LGBTQ agenda.
IV. I know the fight against recognizing gay marriage is seen as the line in the sand that once crossed will cause acceptance of all aspects of LGBTQ by the majority and then LGBTQ will cease to be an issue of concern. In fact, everyone can already see the line has been crossed and most can sense that in a few years the issue won’t exist.
So why are the anti-LGBTQ people still fighting so hard over a foregone conclusion? There is absolutely nothing they can do to put this back in the box, yet they risk losing current church membership and more importantly losing the following generation(s). Why have the other antis come back so resolutely with their (already lost) pet agendas.
Fear is at the heart of it, it always is. Fear of what though? My hope that once we understand what the real fear is we can make real progress.
I may be naive, but if I were to pick a fear I would go with the fear of secularism. I’m thinking this line in the sand at this time in history is about the general loss of faith and religion.
People are becoming more disinterested in faith but I think that in many of the antis minds, giving up on “teh gay” is tantamount to giving up on faith so they’ve conflated the two ideas. They feel under attack, but much of the negative press comes from religious outliers abusing the public’s trust.
The education process has to focus not on WWJD or what the bible says to do, but with how LGBTQ people have the same passion in and for faith, Jesus, and god. It has to be taught that LGBTQ are not a threat but are an asset. After all, supporting gay marriage is about supporting *real world* family values.
Perhaps the appeal must be made to the membership and not the leadership. If I were a cynic, I would argue that this could be an issue kept on simmer to keep the base riled up and voting. If there’s a specific agenda, the only way to fight it is by clipping away the roots.
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Once silence has been broken, others are often emboldened to speak. Have LGBT Christian college students and alumni followed similar paths to name their own experiences? Yes. Alumni groups have been inspired by what they have seen other alumni groups accomplish. Only a Christian college that prides itself in its “head in the sand” isolation from the surrounding world could be surprised by people finding out about what happens at other schools across the country. Is it surprising that students in similar situations at different Christian colleges learn from what has worked for others in their situation? Is it appalling that we draw strength and wisdom from each other, as we face administrators who believe their bylaws can write us into non-existence?
I am a gay Evangelical minister and an alum of a different Christian college (Westmont) and an Evangelical seminary (Fuller Theological Seminary). I read this blog, because I sympathize with the pain that comes from standing on the blood stained ground where church and family fight over our faith and lives. I am not an inerrantist, because I believe God is allowed to use metaphors (I do not believe that Rev. 21:23 means that there will be a giant glowing lamb lamp at the center of the New Jerusalem). I do believe in God’s infallible Word, however, and I believe that a strong argument can be made that God’s Word does not condemn genital intimacy between members of the same sex.
PS: If one chooses to *consistently* read the bible as the inerrant word of God, one must admit that scripture literally never mentions women having sex with women (Go ahead, re-read Romans 1:26).
Thank you Kate. This is one of the best posts ever. It’s a work of art. I love the Devil chainsaw animation, and the Dos Equis “potential friends” poster. But my favorite, is a the quote that I’ve committed to memory:
That statement is brilliant, simple and true. The truth doesn’t require much verbiage.
In retrospect, I was surprised that Graham Walker’s note was so short, and so fundamentally cruel. Walker may have consulted with Haman. “We’ll except you as friend to the Ambassador of the kingdom if you bow down to ME.”
Regarding Scripture and God’s recognition of same-gender covenant love, there is the story of David and Jonathan in 1 Samuel 20.
Oops! My ever vigilant husband/editor offers the correction below.
“We’ll accept you as friend to the Ambassador of the kingdom if you bow down to ME.”