Reframing the Christian Response to LGBTQIA+ Issues
The Christian response to the LGBTQIA+ community is…complicated. I say “complicated” because what we often hear preached from the pulpit doesn’t always match what we see in scripture, and it certainly doesn’t match what is in the hearts of many who identify as Christian.
So, to dive into this discussion is to dive into choppy, emotionally-charged waters. Sounds like fun, right? Let’s go!
As a cishet Catholic man who’s spent his life studying religion, I know how easy it is to believe the “Christian way” is exclusively heterosexual (you know, because we so often hear that directly preached).
But I also know that understanding lets centuries of doctrine shaped by cultural prejudices and normative narratives undermine Jesus and his ministry.
The love of Jesus is a love extended to everyone—no exceptions—and Jesus’ table was one without boundaries, borders, hierarchies, or divisions. At the time, sin was thought to be contagious in Judaism and you caught it by being around the impure.[1] As Historical Jesus scholar, John Dominic Crossan, explains:
“We might see Jesus’ message and program as quaintly eccentric or charmingly iconoclastic (at least from a safe distance), but for those who take their very identity from the eyes of their peers, the idea of eating together and living together without any distinctions, differences, discriminations, or hierarchies is close to the irrational and the absurd. And the one who advocates or does it is close to the deviant and the perverted. He has no honor. He has no shame.[2]”
As Jesus upended societal norms at his table, he wasn’t worried about his reputation. He wasn’t worried about anything other than the people he ate with and the world their meal was creating. Crossan terms this practice of Jesus’ open commensality.
“Commensality”—deriving from the Latin word for table, mensa—reflects how the rules of socialization are played out at table.[3] Essentially, table fellowship reflects how the world works.
Where you sit (and if you are included) reflects the lines of economics, politics, and social status. Jesus’ table had no boundaries, hence Crossan’s “open commensality.” He writes, “Open commensality is the symbol and embodiment of radical egalitarianism, of an absolute equality of people that denies the validity of any discrimination between them and negates the necessity of any hierarchy among them.”[4]
In the Kingdom of God—Jesus’ name for the world he was trying to create, a world radically transformed in God’s Image—there are no boundaries, borders, divisions, or hierarchies. That was God’s will so that was what Jesus created at his table.
This is what his followers are called to do as well. If we aren’t tearing down divisions in the name of justice and God’s love, then we aren’t living for the Kingdom.
Naturally, this sort of loving solidarity has important implications for all who identify as Christian, just as it is particularly important with regard to how Christianity embraces the LGBTQIA+ community.
As Julia Shaw, honorary research associate at the University College London notes, “According to one of the authors of an extensive 2017 report on international sexual-orientation laws and homophobia, Aengus Carroll, there is ‘no country in the world where LGBT people are safe from discrimination, stigmatisation or violence.’ Why? He argues that ‘legislative change is slow enough in coming, but societal attitudes, particularly those that may evoke taboo, are painstakingly slow.’”[5]
This makes positive LGBTQIA+ characters, stories, messages, and conversations in our culture all the more important. Sadly, these are rarely the sort of messages we’re getting from Christian churches.
Growing up in the Catholic Church I was always frustrated by its response to the LGBTQIA+ community. What I heard again and again and again from youth ministers, religious ed. instructors, and priests was that “the orientation was okay but acting on it was sinful.” Even as a kid, that sounded like bullshit.
Then I was told, again and again, that this teaching wasn’t anything against the LGBTQIA+ population specifically but rather it was for anyone straight and single, too. Sex, I was taught, was for married couples alone and it always had to be open to procreation.
The thing is though, if the church says only heterosexual couples can get married then that does affect the LGBTQIA+ population in a specific way.
While this is a fairly consistent teaching within Christian denominations’ doctrine, its scriptural foundation is shaky and its biological foundation is nonexistent.
Michael Coogan, one of the leading biblical scholars in the United States, explains, “Homosexuality is a modern notion – the word is first used in the late nineteenth century. Likewise, sexual orientation, in contemporary understanding, is a recent construct: if we were to ask ancient persons about their sexual orientation, they would give us puzzled looks. We should more properly speak of ‘homoeroticism,’ in the sense of same-sex sexual relationships, rather than impose our contemporary understanding on ancient texts.”[6]
After exploring the cultural context of David’s relationship with Jonathan, the story of Sodom, the passages about sexual conduct in Leviticus, Paul’s writings on sexuality, and its absence in Jesus’ ministry and message, Coogan concludes:
“Biblical writers were aware of same-sex relationships, and a few explicitly opposed them, or at least some of them. But the writers’ understanding of such relationships, like their understanding of gender and slavery, was that of their own times. Contemporary moralists who argue that the Bible is opposed to homosexuality (or, better, homoeroticism) are correct, but when they appeal to the Bible’s authority as a timeless and absolute moral code, they ignore the cultural contexts in which the Bible was written. Moreover, such moralists are selective in their use of biblical authority.[7]”
What any of us understand as LGBTQIA+ identities or relationships are not reflected in any biblical text. So, to say the Bible “forbids” what we understand as LGBTQIA+ identities and relationships is simply not true, as that knowledge and context didn’t exist then.
It is natural to try and draw connections to our modern age from biblical times, of course. For example, Jesus never preached about nuclear weapons. They didn’t exist then. But his consistent teachings on nonviolence make it clear he would call for complete and total disarmament at every level—from our nuclear arsenals to the right to bear arms.
However, that sort of throughline we see—a sword can take lives, a gun can take more lives with greater ease, a nuclear weapon can take even more lives with even greater ease, so it’s logical that Jesus would condemn them all when he forbid his followers to carry or use a sword—is absent when we look at sexuality and gender identity.
Even if we want to go by “the letter of the law” in regard to biblical teachings, as scripture scholar Jack Rogers writes, “There are around 3,000 verses in the Bible that express God’s concern for the poor and oppressed. In contrast, there is a tiny handful of verses [he cites eight specifically] that some people claim condemn homosexuality. None of them, properly interpreted, refers to contemporary Christian people who are homosexual.”[8]
Continuing along this line of proper interpretation, the Christian response to LGBTQIA+ relationships is often anchored in the belief that heterosexuality is “natural” while all other sexual orientations are “deviant”—which is demonstrably false.
Eva Paulus, a marine biologist, explains this in wonderful (and accessible!) detail in her piece, “A Short Review of Sexuality in the Natural World.” I encourage you to read it in full (it’s linked in the footnotes) but I’ll quote it in part here:
“First and foremost, no sexual orientation is unnatural. There is such an amazing diversity of animal behavior and modes of reproduction, humans and their sexuality could come off as quite boring in comparison.
For starters, there are purely female species that reproduce asexually, for instance a species of lizard (Leiolepis ngovantrii) found in the US and Mexico that simply clone themselves. Komodo dragons are also capable of this, with the two lizard species making up what is thought to be only about 70 or so other vertebrates that can reproduce asexually.
Not all species are capable of such a feat, but many have found ways to minimise male involvement. There are ‘lesbian’ seagulls (famously the western seagulls studied off the coast of California) that have a one-night-stand with a male and raise the chick together. Of course, there are also intersex animals which possess both male and female reproductive organs. Especially in remote places like the deep sea, where you may not meet another member of your species for months, it’s very useful to have both male and female reproductive organs in case you bump into a potential partner.
Speaking of the deep sea, often among fish we find an analogue of transexuality – sequential hermaphroditism – whereby a male or female will transition to one sex if there is a scarcity of that sex. A female sheepshead wrasse will transition to male if she feels there is space for one, and clownfishes can transform from male to female within weeks if the female of a school disappears (really changes the plot of Finding Nemo).
Other animals are not assigned a sex through their genes and develop it throughout their lifetime, determined by environmental factors.[9]”
If Christians are to hold to and honor the belief that God created everything and everything God created is good (which is literally page one of the Bible), then we must accept that all sexual and gender identities are part of God’s natural order and thus part of God’s plan. Anything else is bad science and poor scripture scholarship.
This is not something many other Christian denominations are yet comfortable admitting. Is it any wonder people of all sexual orientations are leaving the church? They are being asked to deny science in favor of discriminatory teachings. At its root, this is un-Christian, too, if we define Christian as being like Christ.
Jesus tore down boundaries, borders, divisions, and hierarchies at his table; he didn’t erect them. Jesus’ table was open to all, especially those pushed to the margins of society.
So, when we look at our heteronormative society today, we know those identifying as LGBTQIA+ would be passionately welcomed by Jesus, their inclusion a key feature of the Kingdom of God.
As a cishet man, my job is to listen to and learn from LGBTQIA+ people, scholars, activists, and artists in order to be the best ally I can. As a Catholic Christian, my job is to do everything in my power to live Jesus’ radically egalitarian table of revolutionary love and inclusion into being each and every day.
It is also my job to push back against those boundaries and divisions erected in our culture, even and especially those endorsed by the church itself. It will be uncomfortable at times but hey, neither Jesus nor his disciples were popular with the religious elite either.
I often reflect on how sexuality and gender are the modern day "Galileo" for Christianity. Just as the Catholic Church didn’t formally apologize for condemning Galileo and denying heliocentrism until 1992, most Christian denominations refuse to change theology that willfully rejects the truth of science in regard to gender and sexual identity.
Though I wager history will judge the church far more harshly (and deservedly so) for their inequality with regard to full LGBTQIA+ inclusion than holding to the sun revolving around the Earth.
That was about the way heavenly bodies move through space, this is about honoring everyone’s full humanity. But love is strong and change can come, so I'm here for that revolution within the church!
📚Want to dive deeper? Here are the studies and books that informed this article📚
[1] Marcus Borg, Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary, (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), 215.
[2] John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994), 70.
[3] Crossan, 68.
[4] Crossan, 71.
[5] Julia Shaw, Evil: The Science Behind Humanity’s Dark Side (New York: Abrams Press, 2019), 153.
[6] Michael Coogan, God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says (New York: Twelve, 2010), 117.
[7] Coogan, 140.
[8] Jack Rogers, Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 89.
[9] Eva Paulus, “A Short Review of Sexuality in the Natural World,” Ecology for the Masses. Published February 16, 2021. https://ecologyforthemasses.com/2021/02/16/a-short-review-of-sexuality-in-the-natural-world/
