Faith Column: Debunking bigoted views on ‘gays’

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  1. Jesse Hove says:

    I am with you on Romans 1. We do not read Corinthians and assume that women being commanded to wear head coverings should mean the same thing for us today. In the same way we should not assume that Romans 1’s condemnation of homosexuality in the first century corelates one to one for our context today. There was little to no sense that homosexual relationships meant a monogous commitment, and the cultural sybolism behind evening using the word homosexuality often meant child abuse or orgies. What we have to ask ourselves is what the spirit of the text is telling us. What is Paul trying to do in Romans 1? And how does that truth apply to us today? Many Scholars would argue that one major thing that Paul is trying to do is to contrast Christainity with the authorities and societal norms of the Roman Empire. Some would then suggest that we need to look at that spirit of and be faithful to the text and see how that might be understood in our context. This is what Orthodox Hebrew contementaries have been doing for thousands of years before Jesus, during, and after. They are called Targums. Here are two biblical scholars takes on how to read Romans 1 for our context today:

    http://empireremixed.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/romans-targum-teachers.pdf

    http://empireremixed.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/rom-1-16-32-targum-take-two.pdf

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