25 June 2004
Outing the Bible: the New Queer Theolgians
About 25 to 35 years ago there was a paper called The Berkeley Barb, a hip paper for der Lumpenbürgerstand (the scum bourgeoisie) which specialized in free sex, drugs, rocknroll, and pseudo-radical politics. While The Barb eventually folded, its been replaced by similarly hip papers catering to the same clientele, but now vastly expanded due to the permanent cultural revolution dating from the Sixties. Politely called "bourgeois bohemians," theyve got lots of money to throw around. The replacement papers are thick with ads the advertising revenues are so abundant that the papers are free. Just about every restaurant and shop carries them, and youll find them on the newsstands along with the San Francisco Chronicle and The New York Times.
One such paper hereabouts is the East Bay Express. We rarely peruse it. But the front cover of the February 11-17 issue had a huge picture of Jesus with the accompanying headline "Outing the Bible: The New Queer Theologians Dont Need Your Approval" by Malcolm Gay. We suspected it would be about the glories of homosexuality at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and it was! But before getting to that, you should know about the ads in this issue. They range from Cingular Wireless, Pet Food Express, and Altoid Mints (title of ad: "The Root of All Evil") to gobs of sex ads such as Nicoles Dirty Talk, Strictly Sex! (Gay? Bi?), and The Kit Kat Guest Ranch in Carson City, Nevada ("Safe Sex/Legal Sex") and, oh, lets not forget the Santa Clara University School of Law.
The article by Malcolm Gay begins: "One thing is clear: 2003 was without a doubt the Year of the Queer . The years crowning moment came on November 2, when the Episcopal Church ordained Gene Robinson as its first openly gay bishop . But this didnt appear out of thin air. Its intellectual and physical roots have been growing just beneath the surface for years. In seminaries across the country, at both the parish level and within whole dioceses, homosexuals have been preaching, studying, and remaining sexually active . Whats the difference between a Jesuit rec room and a gay bar? asked former Jesuit Robert Goss, who said his sexual experiences at bathhouses mirrored his early days at Harvard Divinity School. Only the location. Christianity is changing. And nowhere is this change more apparent than at Berkeleys Graduate Theological Union [GTU]."
The lengthy article is mostly about the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at the GTU, whose "mission," according to the article, "is to advance the acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in communities of faith." The Programming and Development Director of the Center is Episcopal priest Jay Johnson, who is quoted as saying: "Straight people are right to worry about what queer people are going to do to the church." Fr. Johnson also says: "Tolerance is a horribly weak word. We tolerate a cold sore." The author of the article comments: "Todays queer theologians are no longer extending the olive branch to their conservative rivals. They are no longer asking to be tolerated. They are moving on, and sowing division in their wake." (How often have we heard that orthodox Catholics are "divisive"! But if youre homosexual, its just fine to be divisive.)
The article reports: "For years now, gay Christians have been attending Bible self-defense classes where they learn to parry the passages that speak explicitly about homosexuality. The Sodom and Gomorrah story? Its not about anal sex; its about gross inhospitality, xenophobia, and humiliation." And so on.
The article also discusses the book Transgendered: Theology, Ministry, and Communities of Faith by Justin Tanis, a minister in the Metropolitan Community Church, a rather Evangelical denomination "created in 1968 by and for queers." Of Tanis, the article says: "Until 1997, he was a woman. Seven years later, he has almost fully transitioned to male." (In case youre wondering, a transsexual has a "sex change" operation while a transgender does various things, including "drug therapy," to ape the opposite gender, but does not have a "sex change" operation.)
Taniss book asserts: "God actually didnt originally create Adam and Eve. God created one being that became two beings, so you could argue that Gods original plan was for one gender, and we messed it up." You see here the contortions homosexuals go through to make the Bible say what they want it to say. Tanis, a transgender, also claims that the biblical eunuchs are the forerunners of transgenderists.
Oddly queerly, actually the transgenderists are creating problems for the standard-brand "gay" liberationists. Says the article: "The idea of transgenderists in the church meets resistance even within the small community of queer theologians. With gay rights activists stressing the emerging evidence that suggests a fixed biological basis for sexual orientation, the idea of people sliding up and down the gender scale seems to contradict the very idea [of an innate sexual orientation]."
Then the article introduces us to Gabriel Hermelin, who is studying at the Starr King Unitarian-Universalist Seminary, a part of the GTU. Hermelin is anatomically a female, who is transgendered, and, going by the picture of her, looks dead on like a man.
But what she says is right on the money: "It doesnt matter to me whether theres proof that the eunuch of yesterday is the transsexual or transgender of today. I think that well find whatever we want to find [in the Bible] . You have to start from scratch." Hermelin also says of homosexuals and transgenders: "Theyre just so damaged. Emotionally. Psychologically. Physically. Gosh, theyre just so damaged." Why, thats heresy in homosexual circles. Damaged! Thats what the Catholic Church teaches, except that the Church politely says disordered. May God bless Hermelin for telling the truth. And Hermelin doesnt give us any nonsense about homosexuality being a "gift from God."
Which is why we like Unitarians. They dont mess around. They dont try to gunk up the Bible. They simply reject what they dont like.
But the liberal Protestants and liberal Catholics, they play silly games, trying to bend Scripture and tradition to their desires, sometimes political but mostly sexual. Their "theology" is man-made, though they wont admit it. But the Unitarians, they play it straight. The Unitarians do indeed start from scratch. Its a man-made religion, and they make no bones about it. Thats honest, and honesty deserves respect.
Someday, somehow, somebody's going to definitively demonstrate that the "horizontal liturgy" is a direct result of the homosexual influence on theology and praxis.
No pun intended, although it's certainly there....
I understand know your enemy but.... but.... just ick. {shiver}
1 Cor 5:1 It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.
Doesn't seem so different to me.....
Of course the "change agents" have never been this stupid. Unfortunately, our side seems to have been. or at least the mush middle has been taken in. Anyway, the tactic worked perfectly.
The next phase is beginning.
"Whats the difference between a Jesuit rec room and a gay bar? asked former Jesuit Robert Goss, who said his sexual experiences at bathhouses mirrored his early days at Harvard Divinity School."
It's probably safer in a gay bar than with the Jesuits.
Sodom was about anal sex and rape....the daughters of Lot were offered in exchange for the rape of the men. Very clear.
God made an original man, and woman was made from that man. She was separately made. He was not divided. There was no indication that man "messed up" requiring the creation of the woman. The text says that God determined that it was "not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper for him." In the initial passages about creation it says that on the 6th creation day "male and female he created them."
Eunuchs of yesteryear were forcibly castrated. This would not have been a decision by that person to change his/her sex. It would have been the act of a master to prevent that person from procreating.