Loveless Maine = Godless Maine

Dear Jack,

It is bewildering to me; confounding me; degrading to me; disheartening and shameful to me for any fellow believer to do an action of hate in the name of faith.  We face so many who would proof-text their way into finding bigotry and hate in scriptures so as to justify and perpetuate their bigotry.

I am a Christian, and I do not hide this fact.  I stand firm with a multitude of others in the Christian faith who are aghast at what people are doing with Scripture to condemn and disenfranchise and justify a second level of humanity to people for any reason, but most especially because of sexual orientation in our current day.

There continues to be strong scholarship explaining the meanings of alleged anti-gay scriptural passages.  In general modern renderings of these ancient text reflect an editor's opinions rather than what the original Greek or Hebrew; many of these renderings ignore or modify cultural context and culturual relativity of these same passages; many of these interpretations ignore earlier interpretations that the Church or Judaism held on these same passages; and most egregiously most of this bigotry ignores the Greater Truth of God and the multitude of other Scripture condemning their judgment, hatred, and lack of respect for a persons dignity.

Not only do they ignore the passages that blatently speak against bigotry, they ignore passages that could be interpreted against their own sins and vices; thus also ignoring the parable Jesus spoke, "how can you regard the spec in someone else's eye when you have a log in your own?" or "Judge not, lest you be judged".

In reality, Scripture does talk about marriage.  It speaks about polygamy in the early scripture as being fine, and the contracts of Jesse with his father in law to "purchase" his wives through labor.  He even gets tricked by his father-in-law and given the wrong wife?!  Yet it is from this "marriage arrangement" that those of faith believe Judaism and Christianity flow.  Jesus spoke very strongly about marriage--not of it excluding gay people but of the problem of divorce and lust.

One passage that comes to mind is in Matthew, where Jesus even says there are people who are not intended for marriage.  He lists 3 types of Eunuchs.  Some are Eunuchs by choice, some are Eunuchs by function (snip snip), and then others are "Eunuchs from Birth".  To this day it is unclear what this meant.  Some say it meant interesexed people, or people who were born with damaged sexual glands, while others believe it may have been a 1st century interpretation of gay people.

A very interesting exploration of that theory is available here: Born Eunuchs.

Regardless, in not arguing semantics, let us consider one of my favorite passages of the New Testament--one that seems very sadly forgotten by most.

I John 4:7-13, 18-21:

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

I submit also the well-quoted passage from the Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, Chapter 13.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.