PFLAG Jackson Religious Articles
NEW OXFORD BIBLE REVISION CHALLENGES BIBLICAL HOMOSEXUAL MYTHS
Source: Sean Kosofsky, Triangle Foundation.
The following is an excerpt of a message by Rev. Troy D Perry, Founder and Moderator of the Metropolitan Community Churches.
But when God called me to begin Metropolitan Community Churches in 1968, I had several spiritual experiences:
* 1) God gave me an inner conviction that God's gay and lesbian children were loved and welcomed by God. God's Word in Romans 8:16 became real to "The Spirit of God bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God."
* 2) I knew the Church had held biblical interpretations -- sometimes for centuries -- that it later came to see as misinterpretations. Sadly, this happened with the biblical justification of slavery, the oppression of women, and acceptance of racism. In each of these cases, the Church came to admit that centuries of biblical interpretation were in error.
*3) I knew how easy it was for people to read their prejudices and biases into God's Word -- rather than letting God's Word speak its own truth.
I'm holding in my hands a copy of the New Oxford Annotated Bible, Third Edition. This ecumenical study Bible contains the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. This new edition was supervised by Oxford University with study and research notes edited by the world's outstanding biblical scholars.
For many centuries, Christian churches and denominations used the six "clobber passages" of the Bible to condemn gay and lesbian Christians.
This is the world's premier study Bible -- and in a major breakthrough for GLBT people of faith everywhere -- its footnotes and study materials incorporate many of MCC's biblical interpretations and views.
In the new study Bible, the views and interpretations of the "clobber passages" use the theology and interpretations that have been developed within MCC.
These interpretations appear in The New Oxford Annotated Bible.
-- In Jude 7, this version offers the alternate reading that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah "went after other flesh" -- leading to the interpretation that their sin was against angelic visitors, not other humans, and thus could not be a reference to homosexuality.
-- In Romans 1, the footnotes in the new version indicate that this passage is used "to denote not the orientation of sexual desire, but its immoderate indulgence." That is. It is not a prohibition of God's gift, but a prohibition against its misuse.
-- 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 adopts interpretaion that these verses prohibit temple prostitution -- not homosexuality.
-- The Leviticus passage is the least clear -- though it is set in the larger context of differntiating the children of Israel from the hostile nations that surrounded them.
All-in-all, the world renowned biblical scholars who prepared The New Oxford Annotated Bible have adopted a great deal of MCC's own scholarship and theology: There is no biblical condemnation of homosexuality -- only prohibitions against its misuse, just as there is no biblical blanket condemnation of heterosexuality, only prohibitions against misuse of that gift.
I am pleased to commend this new study version of the Holy Scriptures, and will be used by God to further open the doors of all faith communities to love, embrace and affirm God's GLBT children:
Notes: The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Third Edition, Oxford University Press Copyright 2001 ISBN 0-19-528478-x
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