To my fellow travelers on their Pride journey

This Pride Month, I want to share my own spiritual journey on this topic. I was teaching my class on discrimination at an Evangelical seminary, and one evening we watched a video featuring white Evangelical Christians who identified as gay. They sounded like any Evangelical Christians I had known. They spoke of their personal faith, how they had accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior — and that they were gay. My understanding at the time was such a combination wasn’t possible. I had been taught you had to be one or the other. And yet, here they were. It may not have aligned with my previous beliefs, but I felt I couldn’t judge someone else’s faith. I had to take them at their word, even though I didn’t understand it.

A few years later, while teaching the same class at the same Christian seminary, I noticed a significant shift. There was a level of openness in the conversation that I had never witnessed. One student shared that her mother had married her female partner. As a Christian, she didn’t personally agree with it, but she went to the wedding because she loved her mother. Another student said a childhood friend who she grew up with in the church had come out as a lesbian — and that didn’t change their 20-year friendship. A third student recalled how his pastor of a 200-member church proudly claimed he didn’t know a single gay person. The student shot back, “What does that say about you?”

These conversations would have been unthinkable in my earlier classes. Something was clearly changing. I used to wonder why Christians so often seemed to be on the wrong side of every major social issue — and why, by the time they came around, the world had already moved on. At first, I thought this pattern was a flaw in the system. Then I came to see it wasn’t a bug — it was a feature.

The more I studied hermeneutics, the theory of interpretation, the clearer the source of the problem became. We were taught that the belief that every word of the Bible, in its original language, is divinely inspired and without error. The inerrancy of scripture — the Bible is free from error and contradiction — and the canonization of scripture — the process by which certain writings are recognized as The Word(s) of God and authoritative and included in the canon of scripture — was a distraction. We should have been debating how to interpret and rightly apply scriptures.

Given our fallen human nature, we should expect that people will use every opportunity and every means to oppress others, including using the Bible. I became more suspicious of people who were increasingly dogmatic when they said the Bible says this or that and pointed to or recited a Bible passage. Given the history of wrong interpretations, I would expect more humility.

Early Christian objections favored a flat-earth reading of passages like Isaiah 40:22. Copernican cosmology was opposed using texts that appeared to affirm an immobile Earth (Psalm 104:5; Joshua 10:13). Anesthesia in childbirth was opposed for defying God’s curse on Eve to bear children “in pain” (Genesis 3:16). The Bible seemed to have a lot to say about what you could wear, especially if you were a woman — such as no pants (Deuteronomy 22:5), no tattoos (Leviticus 19:28), no jewelry (1 Timothy 2:9), or no makeup (Jeremiah 4:30). Sometimes these positions can have major implications for society, such as prohibitions against alcohol or abortion.

There are Biblical passages that were used to support the Inquisition, the Crusades, the divine right of kings, the Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny and American exceptionalism. Passages in the Bible have been used to support antisemitism and discrimination against Native Americans and Chinese, and to justify Japanese internment, slavery, segregation, and apartheid. Many Christians in Germany supported the German Christian Movement, which aligned itself with the Nazi Party.

Therefore, when someone says the Bible or God opposes all things LGBTQ+, I am skeptical — especially given that conservative Christians have previously claimed biblical support for the Confederacy, the Vietnam War, and the nuclear arms race, and have opposed many things that we accept today. I don’t believe Jesus will be at the gates of Heaven, echoing George Wallace’s statement of “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” only letting straight men and women into heaven.

When I review 2,000 years of Christian interpretation, the clear pattern I see is that when the Bible is used against groups such as Jews, Blacks, Asians, Native Americans, women and, I suspect, LGBTQ+ individuals, it is eventually understood to be the wrong interpretation. This Pride Month, I encourage readers to reflect, engage, advocate if possible, and stand in solidarity with LGBTQ+ communities. Ask yourself: How do my position and actions regarding LGBTQ+ issues reflect the Great Commandment — to love God with all my heart, soul, and mind, and to love my neighbor as myself?