Believe Differently

OK, it is time to get into the big daddy of the texts cited by those who would use the bible to support their homophobia: Romans 1; this is going to be one of two, possibly three, posts.
 
In this post I want to get to the bottom of what the apostle is actually teaching. But rather than subject you to my own dubious exegetical skills, I am going to summarize Robert A.J. Gagnon’s work. My primary reason for choosing Gagnon is that his work is the most scholarly and at the same time homophobic material I have been able to find on the text - it has not been easy to find someone whose homophobic approach is underpinned with such academic rigour; and let me state at the outset: I pretty much agree with Gagnon’s exegesis.

Gagnon writes:

The material that follows Rom 1:18-32 is significant in determining Paul’s ultimate reason for citing homosexual practice and other sins. Paul’s point is… to begin with a clear example of unethical conduct and then continue widening the net until it captures all of humanity. For Paul, even the pinnacle of goodness, the Jew, is subject to judgment. All deserve condemnation and hence all are beholden to the grace of God in Christ.1

Gagnon suggests that the conclusion of the teaching, that Paul begins to develop in Romans 1, is not reached until chapter 11, where he writes:

For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.2

Taking us through the main tenets of Paul’s teaching then, Gagnon writes:

Accordingly, [the apostle] begins broadening the indictment with the vice list in 1:29-31. The list is aimed mainly at gentiles but many of the vices (for example, arrogance, bragging, strife, envy, greediness) blur the boundary between gentile and Jew. This culminates in the statement at the start of 2:1-2 that the moral person (primarily the Jew) who condemns the people described in 1:18-32 likewise is “without excuse” because he or she commits the same sort of acts despite “knowing that God’s judgment against those who practice such things is true.” If gentiles who are ignorant of scripture are culpable because they know from creation / nature what they are doing is wrong, how much more guilty are those who have access to the direct revelation of scripture?

The rest of 2:1-3:20 sets out to demonstrate that not even the moral person, the Jew, is exempted from God’s judgment. Jews may have undergone circumcision and possess God’s law, but they do not thereby escape condemnation. In a sweeping “sting operation,” the Jew who nods his or her head at the judgment of God against gentile sinners described in 1:18-32 [ - that is God’s judgment on homosexuals and lesbians - ] is compelled by the end of the argument to acknowledge the just judgment of God against him or her. If gentiles deserve punishment (and they do), then so do the Jews. Apart from God’s mercy shown in Christ there is no hope for redemption from sin’s penalty and power.3

I pretty much agree with Gagnon’s interpretation of Paul’s teaching. The key to understanding this section of Romans is to understand to whom the apostle is writing. Gagnon writes:

Rom 1:18-32… employs a typical Hellenistic-Jewish critique of gentile sin in order to set up an imaginary dialogue partner. In this instance, the partner is a Jew who rejects gentile inclusion apart from observance of the Torah and who excuses himself from God’s judgment on the basis of knowing the Law and being circumcised.4

Gagnon’s analogy of the fishing net works well. If you attempt to put yourself inside the mind of Paul’s “dialog partner” it is not too hard to experience the dynamics of the apostle’s argument. In the beginning you find yourself drawn in as you share a mutual condemnation of all things sinful and gentile, but then become increasingly uncomfortable as the net tightens and you realize that in condemning the gentile “sinner”, you are condemning yourself.

The material found in Rom 1 is designed to bring his dialog partner onside. Paul’s argument depends absolutely on his audience’s shared understanding of the sins listed - especially that of homosexuality. His rhetoric first draws the reader in, in a shared judgment, and then turns the tables on her such that she finds herself the object of her own condemnation.

 The extended homophobic discourse connects homosexuality with the even bigger sin of idolatry and is the lynch pin of the argument. It works by selecting, and linking, two sins, which Paul knows both he and his readers mutually, and absolutely, condemn, and juxtaposing them with a vice list including sins which blur the “them/us” distinction.5 The Jew/gentile binary is undone and reversed in two steps: in the first, the Jew – the apostle’s assumed dialog partner – finds she inhabits a continuum with the gentile, in that she is aware she also commits many of the same sins; and in the second, it turns out, that actually, the gentile (Christian) observes the requirements of the law, even though she only has natural revelation at her disposal, whilst the Jew, though she has the special revelation of the law as an advantage, ignores its requirements. The ultimate conclusion is that there is no difference between Jew or gentile but that “God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all”.6

If Gagnon is correct, and I believe he is, the goal of the apostle’s instruction is to convict concerning our universal need of God’s grace; although it contains homophobic content, it is not a teaching concerning the subject of homosexuality. This passage is not instructing the reader to be a homophobe but, rather, assuming her homophobia.  This is a very important point and it is where I intend to pick up in my next post. Clearly post modern culture does not share the apostle’s assumptions, and I would suggest, at least with respect to this particular issue, that we, as Christians seeking to live out our faith in a post modern context, should not feel compelled to adopt his prejudice.

1. Robert A. J. Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice. Text and Hermeneutics (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001) 277. [↩]
2. Rom 11:32[NIV] [↩]
3. Robert A. J. Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice. Text and Hermeneutics (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001) 277-78. [↩]
4. Robert A. J. Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice. Text and Hermeneutics (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001) 246. [↩]
5. note correspondence with other post [↩]
6. Rom 11:32 [↩]