Love vs. Bible Smackdown

Moral dilemmas are our gadflies, the weak spots of any philosophy, and by extension, of any religion. When one esteemed virtue battles with another, reflective people the world over turn to their philosophy or faith to make peace between the two. But how would your favorite life-enhancing ethic deal with the following:

• Does your duty to “crown & country” outweigh your duty to “hearth & home”?
• Is it better to teach your child that “patriotism” or “human rights” represent the higher standard?
• How do you determine the value of a human life?

Under the weight of these and similar dilemmas, any philosophy or faith can eventually buckle, and thereby (a) yield up deplorably inadequate advice, (b) cloud the issue with so much ambiguity that it could justify any action (or non-action) whatsoever, or (c) for most, simply leave us to follow our ephemeral emotional reaction unencumbered by genuine adult thinking.

Over the past 2 weeks, I have played both witness and provocateur for such a moral dilemma. If you like, you can follow my online conversation with my counterpart, a Midwest Evangelical minister named Scott. (My user name there is “NH Baritone”.) He has appeared on the “A Christian and an Atheist” podcast. Scott is not a biblical literalist, although I think it is fair to say that he still strongly reveres the Bible. He has said that the Bible contains the message that “God wants us to know.” So I was a bit surprised when, taking a moment to discuss his attitudes toward homosexuality on the most recent podcast, he hinted at a personal moral dilemma. See if you notice it:

There are all kinds of behaviors that are listed in the Bible as sinful, and you know what? I engage in a lot of them. But the core of the teaching of Jesus is that I have no right to stand in judgment over somebody, even if they are practicing a sin. … I could point at a homosexual and say, “You’re practicing homosexuality, [which] the Bible calls a sin, but you know what? I practice 10 other things that the Bible calls a sin. How can we talk about this?” I think there is room at the table for people who are struggling with all kinds of different behaviors.

Here’s his dilemma: Scott wants to build and maintain a relationship. At the same time, Scott has to deal with homosexuals whose behavior is condemned in the Bible, and Scott reveres the Bible. He is really stuck, because as he later said, he thinks the only Christian response to gay people is to love them, but at the same time, the Bible insists that he hold their relationships in second class status, at best.

Now to be honest, Scott wavered between positions. Sometimes his training in conservative Christianity would shine through his posts, such as his response when I asked what was different about sex between a monogamous gay couple and his own relationships with his wife:

In terms of human sexuality, the same argument could be used to justify just about ANY kind of sexual activity…

- How can you say homosexuality is wrong? The only difference is the gender of the people involved.
- How can you say pedophilia is wrong? The only difference is the age of the people involved.
- How can you say necrophilia is wrong? The only difference is the biological status of the people involved.
- How can you say bestiality is wrong? The only difference is the species involved.

Now, I do NOT mean to equate a monogamous homosexual relationship with pedophilia, and I hope I didn’t come across as that insensitive, but I did want to make the point that (for me at least) the morality of homosexuality is not based on how similar or different homosexuality is from heterosexuality. It is based on how closely the practice of homosexuality aligns with the teaching of the Bible.

Then at other times he almost sounded like he was ready to sign on for gay marriage:

This leaves us a handful (and by “handful” I mean “two”—one in 1 Corinthians 6 the other in Romans 1) of passages in the NT. Both of these passages are similar in that they were written by Paul, do not explicitly state a moral imperative (“Thou shalt not…”), and use homosexuality as examples for a larger argument (in other words, the point of the passage is NOT to prohibit homosexuality but to give a broader moral or theological teaching).

The difficulty with Paul is that he often interjects his own opinion into the teaching, and sometimes blatantly distinguishes his own opinion from the moral teaching (1 Corinthians 7). He also has a penchant for overly harsh and hyperbolic language, like when he says that he wishes a certain group of people would castrate themselves (Galatians 5). These observations cause me to ask the questions, “Was Paul teaching homosexuality was prohibited, and thus making a statement which is morally binding for Christians today? Or, was he citing his own feelings about homosexuality in order to make a point about something else, and thus making a statement which is NOT morally binding for Christians today.” To be honest, I fluctuate back and forth on this point.

But the dilemma is never resolved; he inevitably returned to the need to maintain a relationship with (to love) the gay person, but still embrace his bible by denying the Christian gay person equality within his church.

As I have said in other places, I refuse to pick up the anxiety that belong to other people, particularly around issues like that (even though in our culture it is almost a social expectation that people will say, “Oh, that’s alright. At least you’ve come this far”). So I violated some fairly standard social rules by holding up a mirror to Scott’s moral dilemma. I’m not certain I won any friends in doing so.

Nonetheless, I was reminded today of the movie, Sophie’s Choice, and it brought to mind Scott’s responses to my questions and the subsequent dialogue. I began to wonder to myself if Scott is in the midst of a “Sophie’s choice”-style moral dilemma.

Just a summary of the movie: A Nazi concentration camp guard told Sophie Zawistowski that she would have to choose which of her two children would be sent to the gas chamber. If she didn’t choose, they would both die. It was a horrible position to be put in, and it turned her love of both of them into torture for her. The choosing altered her perception of herself and of her life for its duration.

Perhaps Scott feels a similar tug here. Sophie loved both of her children. Scott cherishes the messages within the Bible and yet strongly values interpersonal love and building relationships. And in a way that strongly suggests doubts, I keep asking him, how does he imagine a way that he can have both his beloved relationships and his beloved bible? How is it possible for him to genuinely love gay couples when he cannot accept them as equally Christian alongside him?

Perhaps if this metaphor has any validity, in Scott’s mind I may have acted like the concentration camp guard, forcing him to choose between two cherished elements of his faith. But I don’t think so. All I have done is ask the question. Since other Christians who cherish their Bible just as much as he does have reached different conclusions, I think it is his church, its traditions, and his Bible interpretation that has placed him in this difficult position. It is up to Scott to decide if he can still cling to his Bible interpretations while simultaneously loving those who practice the “love that dare not speak its name.” And whatever choice he makes, I dare say it might change the way he sees himself and his life … perhaps for its duration.

How Christians-Turned-Atheists Change Their Morals

On Yahoo! Answers Religion & Spirituality forum, I recently asked the following question:

ATHEISTS (FORMER CHRISTIANS): How have your morals changed since your “de-conversion”?

Here is a sampling of the answers I received:

• Honestly I feel more moral. I used to be against gays and felt weird around atheists and other religious people. But now the chains of intolerance have been broken!
  I support gays, dont mind other religion, and love my fellow infidels!
• No. they are the same. I just feel less guilt now.
• We’ll, I “de-converted” around the age of 10, so I’m not sure if I even knew what my moral convictions were then. What I do know is that I see a lot more Christians with “looser” moral behavior that my own. In fact, I seem to be something of a moral compass amongst my circle of friends – most of whom are theists.
• My morals have improved greatly since I am no longer a Christian. I find I am far less judgemental and a great deal more loving than I used to be.
  I have a developed spiritual philosophy that has positively impacted my mental, physical and spiritual well-being.
• I’ve become a better person I think once I stopped worrying what the church thought of things. I now work with kids doing community service and am working on a career in nursing.
• I’m a former Christian who is now non-religious (I believe in a spiritual realm, but not in hell or heaven or any of that bs). You could say my morals “changed”, in that I no longer fault people for having different lives, and embrace differences. I’m much more at peace with the world, not troubled by who’s going to hell and what God thinks of what I’m doing. I can be myself, and know that all that matters to me is being happy and being kind to others. My personal philosophy makes much more sense without the added bigotry of religion.
• I think my “morals” have remained much the same… but my sense of integrity has become more acute…
• I have more compassion for my fellow human beings. I have begun to actively support (verbally and financially) the cause for equal rights for gay people. I have a greater appreciation for life.
• I’ve noticed that I became more honest after I deconverted (both with myself and others). Ironic, no?
• I stopped hating homosexuals and I realized that the only reason I ever thought them to be less than me was because the Bible warped my mind.
  And I’m less judgmental, more honest, and more open-minded.
• Actually I think I hold myself to a higher set of morals….. I find it harder to forgive myself than god does.
• Morality doesn’t change upon religions or lack of belief in any deity. Morality is what we learn. It’s not like we can change morality like changing a red shirt to a black shirt.
  Only difference is realization when a religion warps your mind to what is truely moral and what isn’t and realize how wrong these religious hatred and judgments are. I never hated anybody, nor did i ever judged anybody. Because there is no need to be judgmental or hateful.
• Losing my faith makes me feel more moral.
  The holy book is not a good source of morals, IMHO.
• I don’t get emotional hangups about being a “good enough” person for a god. I realize that I’m normal and not superhuman, and it’s fine to think about anything, including sex. I don’t have a fear that the devil is going to come out of the dark and send me to hell, as I did when I was a Catholic child.
  So I would call myself more stable and reasonable about human behavior. I’m not hyper focused on getting married or going to church, like my old religion encouraged. I am happy the way I am.
  I savor the increased free time most of all – I always felt that church services sucked and that I could do better things with my mornings – like sleeping.

Gaytheistic beginnings

Gaytheistic: The peculiar state of being cast as a double minority, to wit:

• Gay in a world strongly biased in favor of all things heterosexual;
• Atheistic in a nation where pandemic-yet-discordant theism (God-belief) meddles in every aspect of life.

Being “gaytheistic” requires building up callouses. On an almost daily basis, you encounter presumptions that remind you how poorly you fit in:

• “Where do you go to church?” (Nowhere. I’m afraid that rolling my eyes too often would give me a headache.)
• “Why don’t you bring your wife with you?” (I never found a wife necessary. I have a real beard.)
• “How many children do you have?” (None. Zero. On that front, I don’t even have a past to worry about.)
• “What are you going to do for Easter?” (Eating the ears off of rabbits and other rites of fecundity.)
• “Which one of you guys will get the large bedroom?” (We’re going to wrestle for it … for the duration of the lease.)
• “You know what the Good Book says …” (Do you mean the part that says, “Happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us—he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks”[Psalm 137:8-9]? Or the part that suggests dashing the rocks against the homosexuals? )
• “I heard that your uncle passed away? Well, he’s gone to a better place.” (Hmm … I always considered existence far superior to nonexistence.)

Because I fail at flamboyance and excel at biblical studies, I can pass easily as a straight, middle-aged Christian. (Well, the part about being middle-aged is hardly passing. If I could pass for a straight, 30-something Christian, my complaints would fall in conjunction with a corresponding rise in my social life.) Therefore, until I relieve them of the delusion that I’m just like them, the straight Christian majority includes me in their pranks, prayers, and prejudices.

When Eddie Murphy was on Saturday Night – Live!, he produced a skit in which he became white, and so was included in the white privileges, all of which he exaggerated to great comic effect. But because I don’t stand out as a queer infidel, Murphy’s skit comes close to depicting my life. I get to look and listen in on how the straight theists live & believe. In so many ways, their shoes do not fit me, but I can still walk in them.

But all this leaves me with one question: Why do practically none of the the straight theists volunteer to walk, even briefly, in the shoes that fit me? Why would they not for a single day wear a T-shirt that left their sexual orientation ambiguous? Why won’t they pretend to take a stand against theism in a religion argument, just to for an instant feel the scorn? Do they imagine they could not tolerate the vindictiveness that I’ve grown accustomed to? Then again, perhaps my callouses are not so thick as I like to pretend.

Well, in fact, I wouldn’t wish such ridicule on even those perpetrating the prejudice. But frankly my life would be more pleasant if they replaced their prayers with more smiles of understanding.

– {♂♂} – {♂♀} – {♀♀} -