Justin R. Cannon, a student at Earlham College in Richmond, Ind., is one of the youngest combatants in the Christian culture wars. But he's a happy warrior because his contribution to the debate -- an illuminating online analysis that argues the Bible doesn't condemn faithful gay relationships -- has piqued the interest of clergy and laypeople across the country.
"I have received all sorts of positive letters and e-mail from pastors, bishops, Bible study teachers, seminary professors, gays and lesbians, as well as a few straight allies," the seminary-bound Cannon told me, referring to his study, "The Bible, Christianity and Homosexuality" (www.truthsetsfree.net). (Some responses, he conceded, "weren't so friendly [but] I have tried to ... be loving and gracious in my replies.")
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday July 29, 2005 Home Edition California Part B Page 13 Editorial Pages Desk 1 inches; 20 words Type of Material: Correction
The Bible and gays: A July 18 column by Michael McGough wrongly attributed the Epistle of James to St. Paul.
Cannon's website makes use of etymology and history to cast doubt on the prevailing antigay interpretations of several Bible verses. It is only one front in a robust theological counterattack against Christian conservatives who insist -- as a 1998 statement from Anglican bishops puts it -- that same-sex relationships of any kind are incompatible with Scripture.
Revisionists such as Cannon are ingenious and often persuasive in arguing that strictures in both the Old and New Testaments that have been read to broadly condemn homosexuality were actually directed at particular offenses -- male prostitution, a breach of hospitality (the real "sin of Sodom") or the insult to patriarchy represented by a male lying "with a man as one lies with a woman" (Leviticus 18:22).
In seeking to have antigay Christians reexamine their prejudices, the revisionists are doing the Lord's work -- literally, because Jesus said a great deal about love and nothing at all about homosexuality. But arguing about whether particular passages in the Bible condemn homosexuality -- "proof-texting," in the jargon of biblical scholars -- may not be the best way to counter conservatives.
For example, the gay British theologian Jeffrey John says that in St. Paul's time, "prostitution and pederasty (in the sense of the Greek practice of a temporary pupil-tutor relationship between a teenager and an older man) were the standard forms of homosexual practice, and those are the forms which were likely to be uppermost" in his references to homosexuality.
But suppose they weren't? Suppose Paul also would have condemned permanent, faithful, stable same-sex relationships? After all, Paul, a religious genius but a man of his time, professed more than a few beliefs that are anathema to many contemporary Christians.
