Protecting the Poor from Religion

The social situation in rural Africa is the closest we get today to the situation that existed in first century Palestine, when Jesus was teaching. And Jesus’ message – among other things – was that the religious leaders were exploiting the poor, and needed to stop. In fact, Jesus’ harshest words were reserved for the religious leaders of his day. He called them “white washed tombs” and “blind guides”. I wonder what he might say to many African church leaders who seem to be mimicking the message and methods of those first century religious leaders.

There’s a reason Jesus was so opposed to them. Religion – as Karl Marx most famously pointed out – can be a drug for the poor (“opium for the people”), sedating them and distracting them from their desperate lives. At one level, that could be a good thing. The problem is that this too quickly turns to exploitation. Fundamentalist religion does this by offering eternal security and certainty of a better life (either now or in the future); and then demanding sacrifice today in response. Its best form produces solid citizens who will work hard and contribute to society self-sacrificially. The worst form, though, produces crusaders and unloving – and unlovely – cultish disciples.

A more sinister religion, though, emerges out of a “wealth and health” based religion. It promises cures for diseases and riches on earth. This is the religion peddled in rich countries through the 24-hour Christian broadcasting networks that ask viewers to contribute financially in exchange for holy water, prayer mats, blessed items and other tat. Mostly harmless, but most certainly idolatry. It is almost always for the benefit of the leader.

It’s when this religion meets the poor that things get nasty. This past weekend in Ghana, a stampede for special anointing water blessed by Africa’s most high profile fundamentalist Christian leader, Prophet TB Joshua from (I am sure you guessed) Nigeria, resulted in at least four deaths and thirty serious injuries. TB Joshua has courted controversy many times, including recent incidents in Ghana where his security guards illegally detained journalists covering his “crusades” in Accra. His Facebook page continues to spout testimonies of the power of the anointing water (from an Indian student who passed his school exams to people finding employment and cures for all sorts of diseases) – but no mention of the disaster in Ghana, except that this coming weekend’s crusades have been cancelled.

There is a form of religion that really would be good for the poor. Sadly, much of what is happening in Africa right now is not that form. And the poor need to be protected from it. When people die, hopefully there is an opportunity for truth to shine through.

The logical and theological gymnastics of those who oppose women leaders in church

As the culture wars in conservative evangelical Christianity continue to rumble along, the pronouncements of some its key leaders are getting more and more disconcerting. I am seriously concerned about the rising “alpha male” type approach to church, embodied mainly by Mark Driscoll and his acolytes. In my home town, Johannesburg, a few churches led by young men have gone this route: denying women any role in leadership or public teaching in their churches. The theological leaders of this movement include John Piper, James Dobson and Wayne Grudem (see more at their ‘Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood‘), and to a lesser extent Don Carlson and Tim Keller (see their ‘Gospel Coalition’).

Rachel Held Evans is running a great series on her blog, calling out the strange, illogical and unbiblical pronouncement coming from this corner of evangelicalism. They’re really getting themselves into a tangle over this issue (something that often happens when Scripture is misinterpreted, misrepresented or misunderstood).

I wrote about this a while ago, when I expressed my concerns about a video put out by the Gospel Coalition. They are using views on the role of women as a test for Biblical orthodoxy, and also claiming that it is not correct to attempt to understand the cultural and historical context in which a Biblical book was written (this completely contradicts the approach Carson has taken in his many excellent commentaries of Biblical books – but it seems that the issue of women leaders trumps his previous work as a Biblical scholar. One wonders why?).

But Rachel has found a few ‘exhibits’ of key statements made by those who oppose women leaders in church – not isolated, out-of-context statements, but key pronouncements and position statements – that just make no sense at all. Take some time to read the links below. You’ll be amazed, and stunned. And you’ll realise fairly quickly that the approach of those who want to keep women ‘barefoot, pregnant and in the home’ (my words, but typically the intention of those who take the so-called ‘complementarian’ view) is more a harking back to some idyllic (but completely inaccurate) picture of 1950s suburban America, rather than anything you can find in the Bible.

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God versus the weather

The Bible makes it abundantly clear that God is in control of the weather. God causes rain and drought (see Deut. 11:14-17; 1 Kings 8:35-36; Job 5:10; 37:6; Jer. 14:22; Amos 4:7 and Zech. 14:17 – there are many more examples). God controls the “storehouses” of rain, snow and even the lightning (see Deut. 28:12, 24; Ps. 42:7, 135:7; and Jer. 10:13). It is God who sends storms (see Jonah 1:4), sometimes to punish people (Job 37:13). And, of course, Jesus stopped a storm dead in its tracks (see Mark 4:37-41; also see Ps. 107:29).

So, why are conservative Christians comfortable watching the weather channel, which so clearly uses science to show weather systems and patterns and make predictions based on a Godless scientific view? And why are they comfortable with their children learning about the water cycle in school? This scientific vision of the world’s weather patterns presents a picture of a world in which there is no need for God or God’s agency – the weather just works because it is a complete, integrated system on its own.

Now, obviously, I am being deliberately facetious in asking these questions in this way. Most thinking Christians can quite easily accept that the weather works all on its own, without any miraculous intervention from the Creator (To be fair in my reporting, I must say that some don’t and claim that God does indeed control every weather event – see here for Donald de Young’s book, “Weather and the Bible”). And while they certainly believe that God is capable of intervening in any part of this world, thinking Christians don’t see God’s hand in every storm or lightning bolt or hurricane (or quiet sunset or peaceful afternoon breeze, for that matter). The weather just gets on with it, all on its own.

And we therefore understand the verses I quoted above as being clearly figurative, rather than literal (except, possibly, Jesus’ miracle).

So, why then, are some conservative Christians so uptight about evolution? And why can’t they apply the same logic and hermeneutical approach to the Biblical accounts of Creation as they do to God and the weather?

Yes, this blog post is really about evolution and not about the weather. But it struck me today to be a good analogy. Why aren’t more Creationist Christians uptight about the weather, how it’s presented on TV or taught to their children at school? I’m just interested, that’s all…

The failure of the evangelical: mind, heart and spirit (probably in that order)

This blog entry could be a book on its own. I fear I cannot do this thought justice, but I would like to nevertheless put it out there for discussion and your reflection. It might feel overly harsh on “my own” (the evangelicals), but I do sometimes despair at the shallowness of thought and engagement that often accompanies discussions I have with fellow evangelicals. Hopefully my brief thoughts will spur deeper ones from you.

Back in 1995, Mark Noll wrote, “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind” – it’s a great read, with a central message: the failure of the evangelical mind is that evangelicals tend not to use theirs. Noll was particularly concerned that evangelicals have not produced great scholars who contribute to Christian interaction in science, the arts, politics, or culture in general. Too often evangelicals simply retreat to a “it’s in the Bible, God said it, I believe it, end of discussion” position.

He’s right.

Last year, Rachel Held Evans wrote on her blog about the scandal of the evangelical heart. In a well written piece, she wonders how so many evangelicals (especially Calvinists) do not feel more about the eternal fate of those they believe are destined for hell. She wonders how we can read some of the Old Testament stories about the Israelites wiping out other nations – including women and children – and not feel grief and anguish. Evangelicals are OK with this because “it’s in the Bible, God did it, it must be fine. End of discussion”.

She’s right.

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New heights – or depths – in the debate about women leaders

I grew up in churches that demanded that women submit to men, were not able to lead and could not teach men. As a young adult, I felt so strongly about this that I even left a church that changed their view on the issue, allowing men and women to minister as equals. My view has long since changed (that’s another story for another day, but was based on a detailed study of Scripture and personal experience with some of the most gifted and obviously called people I ever met – who happened to be women).

I don’t see this issue is a core theology, and, although I comment on it every now and again on this blog, it is not one that exercises me much. There are many superb thinkers, writers and teachers who are leading the cause of egalitarianism (the view that men and women are equals; as opposed to complementarianism, which argues that men should be in charge, and women should be their “help meets”) around the world, and I am happy to leave it to them. The very few verses in the Bible that deal with different roles of men and women are easily understood and explained in the light of the cultural context of the day, and the literary contexts in which they are found in the Bible itself.

But yesterday, I picked up a video from the Gospel Coalition, with a conversation between three of their top people, Tim Keller, John Piper and Don Carlson. It horrified me. All three are amazing men, great writers and teachers, but in recent days have made some strange statements about the issue of women. Piper in particular. Last year, he stated that the problem with culture and Christianity is that we have lost our understanding that Christianity is at essence a masculine religion.

In this video, the most disturbing thing is that all three men raise the issue of complementarianism to the level of a litmus test for orthodoxy, for ones willingness to take the Bible seriously, and for having a “loose approach to Scripture”. Sadly, this is the age-old conservative, evangelical approach that uses the Bible as a blood-stained baseball bat to beat opponents with, while blindly ignoring accepted hermeneutical principles, and also raising themselves to the level of infallible arbiters of truth.

Scarily, for example in the video, Carson specifically states that doing the work to understand the first century cultural context behind the books of the New Testament is an incorrect way of reading the Bible. I could not believe I had just heard that from such an influential Bible teacher, so I had to rewind and watch it again. But, indeed that’s what he said.

And worse, although they start by saying that in the Gospel Coalition they do not see complementarianism as a core doctrine, the closing comments were: “Let them compromise, we cannot!” They make the headship of men in the leadership of the church a matter of Dogma and not a doctrine or opinion that can have different positions held.

Piper has lost all credibility in my books over the past year, and in this video continued to do so. His views of masculinity are so distorted I really can’t believe what I am hearing. He provides the theological fuel to all the Wild at Heart men trying to find princesses to rescue, and the Mark Driscoll marriages turning women into Stepford wives from the 1950s, that are so dangerous to Christianity at the moment.

But you decide for yourself: watch the video and read the excellent response from Krish Kandiah here.

This scared me.

Do Evangelicals Really Love Jesus?

Phil Zuckerman is Professor of Sociology at Pitzer College in Claremont, CA, USA. He recently wrote a very insightful critique of American Evangelicals, and I think he hits the nail entirely on the head. His conclusion is powerful: Evangelicals love what Jesus can do for them, but don’t really love what Jesus asked them to do in response. In this sense, they don’t actually love Jesus. His article puts it even more strongly. Read the original Huffington Post article, or an extended extract below:

Why Evangelicals Hate Jesus

Huffington Post, Religion Blog, 6 September 2012
by Phil Zuckerman and Dan Cady

The results from a recent poll published by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reveal what social scientists have known for a long time: White Evangelical Christians are the group least likely to support politicians or policies that reflect the actual teachings of Jesus. It is perhaps one of the strangest, most dumb-founding ironies in contemporary American culture. Evangelical Christians, who most fiercely proclaim to have a personal relationship with Christ, who most confidently declare their belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, who go to church on a regular basis, pray daily, listen to Christian music, and place God and His Only Begotten Son at the center of their lives, are simultaneously the very people most likely to reject his teachings and despise his radical message.

Jesus unambiguously preached mercy and forgiveness. These are supposed to be cardinal virtues of the Christian faith. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of the death penalty, draconian sentencing, punitive punishment over rehabilitation, and the governmental use of torture. Jesus exhorted humans to be loving, peaceful, and non-violent. And yet Evangelicals are the group of Americans most supportive of easy-access weaponry, little-to-no regulation of handgun and semi-automatic gun ownership, not to mention the violent military invasion of various countries around the world. Jesus was very clear that the pursuit of wealth was inimical to the Kingdom of God, that the rich are to be condemned, and that to be a follower of Him means to give one’s money to the poor. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of corporate greed and capitalistic excess, and they are the most opposed to institutional help for the nation’s poor — especially poor children. They hate anything that smacks of “socialism,” even though that is essentially what their Savior preached. They despise food stamp programs, subsidies for schools, hospitals, job training — anything that might dare to help out those in need. Even though helping out those in need was exactly what Jesus urged humans to do. In short, Evangelicals are that segment of America which is the most pro-militaristic, pro-gun, and pro-corporate, while simultaneously claiming to be most ardent lovers of the Prince of Peace.

What’s the deal?

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Bible Teaching or Biblical Teaching?

Today, the preacher at our church used Matthew 13 as a base text to talk about the importance of Bible teaching. This is the chapter of the Bible that tells one of the versions of the Parable of the Sower.

His main point was that Bible teaching is still an effective technique for the church. I don’t disagree with that, but I do wonder if it might be helpful to distinguish between Bible teaching and Biblical teaching.

Bible teaching is the type of teaching that sticks entirely to the words of the Bible, often insisting on taking them literally and believing that nothing needs to be added to these words for modern listeners. As an evangelical, at first glance, there doesn’t seem to be a problem with this.

But I think there is.

Biblical teaching, on the other hand, attempts to discern the intent of a Bible text and follows the patterns and approaches laid out and practiced in the Bible while modernising and applying them to current contexts.

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For God so loved the world… that He let it evolve?

I am doing some work on a sermon I will be preaching in a few weeks time, and at the same time reading Peter Ennis’ excellent book, “The Evolution of Adam“. A half-thought has jumped into my mind, and I want to capture it, give it air, and hear your views on it.

One of the reasons that God created human beings was to have beings that would love him. To ensure that this was genuine love, God had to give us freedom of choice – or freedom to choose to not love him. Anything less than this would have meant that our feelings were prescribed and scripted, and not true love. It is this free choice that allows us to choose our spiritual path. So far so good.

But what if this is a pattern for the whole of creation? What if God needed the entire natural world to develop “on its own”, freely choosing its own path of development and growth?

Just as God provides a framework in which, given all the variables of our lives, we will have opportunity to choose to follow Him, so too God set in motion a natural framework, complete with energy potential and physical laws that had every opportunity of giving rise to sentient life. Maybe there are many such places that God has “experimented” in this way. This allows creation to be truly “free” to choose to either love or reject God, just as it is truly “free” to even develop life capable of such love in the first place.

Just as God creating human beings with free will makes Him a bigger God, not a smaller one, so a God who exists as the ultimate cause of an evolved universe makes Him bigger and not smaller.

Your thoughts?

How to understand the book of Acts

My friend, Brian McLaren is a wonderful teacher of the Bible, and his vision of how some well known books should be understand within the broader framework of what God is doing in history has been personally very helpful to me.

He recently put an outline of the book of Acts on his blog – read it here, or a copy of it below:

… From childhood, I was taught to read Acts as a manual for ecclesiology … to prove that our denomination was the only true and biblical one, of course (a common theme in Protestant Bible reading). But now I read Acts as a missional account of how Jesus continued his work – his Spirit alive in the bodies of growing numbers of his followers who constitute – quite literally – his body on earth.

And the message is the same – the message of the kingdom (or reign, or commonwealth, or sacred ecosystem, or new love economy, or regeneration network, or creative community, or …) of God. You could think of it like this …

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When the ‘plain reading’ is not the ‘best reading’ of the Bible

It might seem like the best way to think about reading Scripture, but it’s not. There is an argument that the “plain reading” of Scripture is the best reading thereof. Of course, this entirely depends on what “plain” means. In most cases, the people arguing for this are looking for a literal and simple reading. And in most cases, this does not take into the intricacies of language, culture, history and context.

Let me give you a few simple examples.

Let’s say that I told you that someone I know had kicked the bucket, what would you respond? If you’re an English first language speaker, you will probably say, “I am sorry to hear that” or “Shame”. It is a figure of speech that means that someone has died. Figures of speech are one key reason that we cannot read the “clearest reading” of Scripture – you have to be sure that you understand (and even spot) the figures of speech. Here’s a particularly racy Biblical example: it really does appear that “uncovering his feet” is a euphemism for oral sex in ancient Middle East culture. This certainly changes the story of Ruth and Boaz (but does explain why Boaz was so enthusiastic about Ruth). Seriously, I’m not making this up. The Bible is full of sex, without embarrassment.

And this leads to a second example. Our cultural lenses shape how we read things. So, for example, you probably have a picture of Jesus being born in a stable with lots of straw and animals all around. This is not true. In Bethlehem, like other Middle Eastern towns at the time, private homes had two levels – the lower level was the general living area, with an open hearth for a fire. At night, the family would sleep on the upper level, and bring their animals into their home to sleep on the lower level. Even a tiny knowledge of Middle Eastern culture will tell you that no woman in that area would EVER be sent to a barn or stable to give birth all on her own. Mary would have been taken into someone’s home, and given birth in the general living area, and Jesus placed in a manger that would have been handy.

This is not about cultural interpretation, but simply about understanding what the actual words are saying and the image they’re supposed to be conjuring in our minds. Can we be sure then, that references to the length of hair, what we should wear and greeting each other with a holy kiss are best understood by simply reading the “plain meaning”.

And I haven’t started to think about translation issues. Anyone who speaks more than one language will know there are words in one language that cannot be translated well into another language without a whole lot of explanation. In some cases, especially in English, we just adopt those words and don’t bother with translation.

And then there is theological presumption that has to be added as well. Your theological position will influence how you read a controversial passage in the Bible.

The Bible is a complex book, inspired by a God who is above and beyond us. It is supposed to be difficult to understand – it talks about eternal and complex issues. So, we need to give up the notion that the “plain reading” of the Bible is always the best.

Scot McKnight quoted a great example of this today on his Jesus Creed blog:

Hugging the Rock
From Mimi Hadad, President of Christians for Biblical Equality:

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When science and the Bible disagree…

“When science and the Bible disagree, just wait around a few decades and science will eventually catch up”. It was a funny line, and it got the expected laugh from the youth group. I was a teenager then, and part of that group – and the line stuck. But then I studied science through high school, earning a distinction for it and being infused with a passion for it by one of the best science teachers of all time, Graeme Crawford. He eventually went on to found an entire group of schools that now bear his name in South Africa – but he was just my science teacher, and he was brilliant.

I am no scientist, but I know enough science to know that if science and the Bible disagree, it’s now very unlikely that this is science’s fault.

The issue is not that the Bible is wrong either. It’s our understanding of the Bible that needs correcting. And quite a lot of that correcting seems to be focusing now on how to interpret Genesis 1-11, and how literally we take these chapters. This is being challenged by issues as diverse as the age of the earth, our understanding of the Higgs Boson, the definition of marriage and our understanding of what forms of homosexuality are acceptable to God. All of these issues – and more besides – ultimately come back to Adam and Eve and what was going on in the Garden.

I’ll be posting on this over the next few weeks, but as a starter, you might enjoy this infographic from the clever people at Biologos forum on how we know that the world is billions of years old:
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ReKnew – a new blog for those on the kingdom journey

I have known about Greg Boyd for some time, and am thrilled to have found his latest project. It’s a ministry and blog called ReKnew. Greg is a great thinker and advocate for a new kind of missional Christianity.

The welcome note on the blog is inspiring:

When most people think of “Christianity,” they think of the religion of “Christendom” that began in the fourth century when an Emperor named Constantine allegedly converted to the faith and then granted Christians a lot of political power. This religion has been the dominant face of Christianity for the last fifteen hundred years. The foundation of this religion is a picture of a Caesar-looking god who rules the world by brute power, and a corresponding concept of his kingdom as “the Church triumphant” – a conquering army that aspires to rule the world by acquiring political power.

This once mighty religion is in the process of dying. In fact, it’s been decomposing in Europe — where it once reigned supreme — for almost a hundred years. And while the “Christendom” mindset continues to have loud and passionate advocates in its last holdout, America, it has turned the corner in this land as well. All the clamoring of those who are today fighting to “take America back for God” (“back” to when?), and who continue to espouse a Caesar-looking, all-controlling God, represent that last roar of a dying lion.

While many grieve the demise of the Christendom religion, we at ReKnew celebrate it! For it’s our conviction that this religion has often had little to do with the true movement that Jesus came to unleash into the world—the movement he referred to as “the kingdom (or reign) of God.” In fact, we believe this civil religion has often been one of the greatest obstacles to the advance of the true kingdom. Because of how dominant Christendom has been throughout history, many have been unable to see through the dark cloud of this religion’s controlling God and conquering kingdom and behold the loving God and servant kingdom Jesus revealed.

The Good News is that this dark cloud is fading and we are beginning to see the light of a new day! And as the darkness fades, we are seeing people around the globe catching this vision of a God who looks like Jesus, and of a kingdom that looks like Jesus—humbly serving the poor and the lost, and sacrificing himself out of love for the forgiveness of his enemies.

Out of the rubble of this crumbling religion we are seeing a new kind of disciple rising up, fearlessly calling into question previous certainties; boldly rethinking what it means to believe in God and the Bible; bravely reimagining what it means to “do church” and advance the kingdom. More and more, we are seeing people abandon the security of their civil religion to become part of a beautiful revolution.

This has been my own personal journey, and I’m sure it has been for many of you as well. And this is why we’re here.

ReKnew is here to stand at the forefront of this exciting new thing that God is doing in the world. Will you join us? We want to do all we can do to help mobilize and spread this rising movement of kingdom people who are rethinking what it means to be a “Christian,” what it means to have “faith,” and what it means to be a follower of Jesus. We want to join others in imaginatively exploring the shape that post-Christendom discipleship and the post-Christendom Church might take. And we want to join others in boldly rethinking everything Christians have always assumed they already knew.

To recover the self-sacrificial revelation of God in Christ, and to advance the servant kingdom he inaugurated, it is time for us all to take a fresh look at everything.

It’s time to ReKnew our hearts and minds before God.

Indeed.

19 July update: The ReKnew Manifesto has just been uploaded. It’s a great read.

A picture of women: from the Bible? or from 1950s American suburbs?

Earlier this year, Rachel Held Evans hosted a series of posts on her blog that looked at a variety of issues related to the role of women in the church. You can see links to the full series here. So there’s no confusion about my position, I believe that women and men are equal before God, and that all the gifts are available to everyone to use for God. Everyone is under some authority, and ultimately under God’s but gender is no issue in this.

The post I enjoyed the most in this series was one that looked at whether a conservative position on women is Biblical or cultural, and whether the roles of women laid out by those who do not allow women to lead or teach in church are from the Bible or from 1950s Western culture.

You can read the full post here, or an extract below.

…

There is one more myth regarding “biblical womanhood” that we really need to address as part of our series—and that is the myth that a true woman of God is defined by her roles as a wife, mother, and homemaker. I spend quite a bit of time exploring this in my book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, but it’s so important to the conversation surrounding gender equality in the Church, it’s worth discussing in an abbreviated format here. 

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Christian bookstores and their chokehold on the industry

I have never liked Christian bookstores much. Back when I was a theological student, I could never find any books by the authors that my conservative textbooks were warning me about. Sure, some of the warnings were valid, but I still don’t appreciate having my reading list vetted and censored for me. And then, South African Christian bookstores refused to stock some of the best selling Christian authors of the last two decades, including Brian McLaren, Rob Bell and Tony Campolo amongst others. That’s when I stopped buying anything from them (luckily, Kalahari, Loot and Amazon provided me with other options).

Then, last week, Rachel Held Evans wrote a very insightful blog entry on this topic. It sounds as if America is even worse than I remember South African being. How do we let bookstore owners and publisher editors shape and mould our theology. And aren’t these the same people who fuelled the “Left behind” rapture theology with badly written fiction books? Scary.

You can read Rachel’s blog here, or an extended extract below:

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Child-like interpretations of the Bible

Over the past few days, I’ve been engaged in some interesting conversations that all began with a simple picture I posted on my Facebook status. It’s largely about same sex marriage, but the 60+ comments in the thread get very quickly to issues of how we interpret the Bible. If either topic interests you, I think you’ll enjoy the interactions on my Facebook timeline.

Then, this morning, the preacher at the church I attended made some excellent comments about how we understand the Bible. The basic message of the Gospel is so simple that a child can understand it. In fact, in order to understand it you need to approach it with child-like (not childish!) faith and trust. But there are parts of the Bible that are very complicated and complex, because they are talking about God. If they were easy to understand it would make a mockery of who God actually is: above and beyond us.

Our preacher was much more eloquent than this. And it’s a wonderful point to make. The simple parts of the Bible are simple enough for a child to understand and accept. And we need help with some of the other parts that are difficult to understand.

But it struck me that there is a corollary to this thought – and that is about what children might believe about God before we impose our doctrines on them.

In the Facebook conversation during the week, one of the common themes of those people arguing that homosexuality is wrong is that this is “the plain reading of the texts” on this topic. This sounds like a strong argument, but it is not – for many reasons. But here’s one more reason.

If you asked a 7 year old child if they thought that God hated two men just because they loved each other and wanted to be together, almost every innocent child in the world would say, “No”. Surely God doesn’t hate them just because they love each other? (By the way, this test applies to many self-evident truths: does God like it when people lie or steal? Is God happy when Daddies and Mommies divorce? I think children would provide the right answer to almost all “self evident” sins).

So, if children would not understand why homosexuality would be considered wrong by God, then it must be the case that this issue is one of the “difficult to interpret” parts of the Bible.

It’s a simple point, really, but an important one. The seven verses/passages that talk against homosexuality are definitely in the category of “difficult” and need careful interpretation. They cannot just be taken at “face value”. And they do NOT say what they seem to say at first reading.

The same, by the way, is true of Genesis 1-11 and the age of the earth, the sections on slavery, the instructions about nobody with disabilities being allowed to serve in church leadership, tattoos, levirate marriage, polygamy, war, sacrifices, and many other issues. It’s an interesting test, this child-like understanding of God. I like it.