Affirmative: Why You Can Say Yes to the Bible and Yes to People Who Are LGBTQI+

AFFIRMATIVE

WHY YOU CAN SAY YES TO THE BIBLE AND YES TO PEOPLE WHO ARE LGBTQI+

JONATHAN TALLON

ISBN (paperback): 978-1-7392616-0-3

ISBN (ebook): 978-1-7392616-1-0

Copyright © 2023 by Jonathan Tallon

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. What does the Bible say about homosexuality?

3. How should we apply the Bible when our culture is different?

4. Adam and Steve (and Eve and Niamh)

5. Leviticus, commandments and a new commandment

6. The sin of Sodom

7. The silence of the gospels

8. Reading Romans the right way

9. The context of Corinth

10. Jude the obscure

11. What does the Bible say about transgender people?

12. An inclusive Bible

13. Learning from history

14. Conclusion

Postscript

Appendix

A note on language

Acknowledgments

Copyright - Scriptural passages

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

If you are an evangelical Christian who is confused or conflicted by the debates over sexuality and gender, then this book is for you.

Let me sketch a situation, and see if it sounds familiar to you.

You are sitting in your church on a Sunday. You have brought along a non-Christian friend you got to know through sport. The worship band has finished playing, and the preacher gets up to start the sermon. They say that they are going to address the topic of same-sex marriage, and how sinful it is.

How do you feel?

Some of us may feel confident and relieved. At last, the preacher is meeting the world’s agenda head on. The church is called to be countercultural. Your friend will realise that this church means business for God.

But not all of us will feel that way. Some of us may feel nervous. Questions may start running through our heads. What will the preacher say? Will my friend think that the church is bigoted, or prejudiced? Will they want to come back? What if my friend is gay?

Alongside that nervousness may be embarrassment. You want your friend to experience a place that cares about love and justice, and fear that they will not see past the preacher’s position on sexuality.

After the service, after your friend has returned to their home, perhaps you will also be feeling conflicted. You work in places where equality is seen as normal, where people can be openly gay and no one questions it. Maybe some of your colleagues are in marriages or long-term partnerships with the same sex. Or maybe a colleague or family member has transitioned from one gender to another.

And yet, all of this becomes problematic as soon as you enter the church doors. Some churches denounce your colleagues’ relationships as symbols of all that is wrong with the world, while others maintain an embarrassed silence over the whole matter.

You find yourself conflicted.

And that conflict arises because you care deeply about two separate issues.

You know the importance of scripture; that it is God-breathed. You have been inspired, taught and challenged by God through the Bible throughout your Christian journey.

But you also care deeply for your friends, family, colleagues and others who are lesbian, or gay, or bisexual, or trans, or queer, or intersex, or otherwise identifying in a way that is not heterosexual or cisgender.

Additionally, you yourself may identify as one of these, and the conflict is internal to your very identity.

Some people express this feeling as being a conflict between your head and your heart. Your head says that the Bible condemns homosexuality, so it must be wrong, while your heart longs for good news for people who are LGBTQI+.

In reality, of course, both your love for scripture and your love for people who are LGBTQI+ involve both head and heart. The conflict is real at every level.

I would like to point out something positive here about that tension. That sense of conflict is healthy. It shows you care. If you did not, the tension would not arise. You want the church to be a beacon of light to a world in need, and you want to love, care for and respect those around you.

The conflict arises because many of us have been told that the Bible condemns homosexuality and transitioning or not conforming to gender norms. You seem to be left with only two stark choices: accept scripture, and condemn homosexuality and being transgender; or reject scripture and accept those that are homosexual and transgender.

But those are not the only two choices.

In this book, you will see how and why you can say ‘yes’: ‘yes’ to the Bible and ‘yes’ to affirming those who are gay, lesbian, bi or trans.

In many conversations, I have found a number of barriers that block being able to say that double ‘yes’. For you, the main stumbling block may be certain verses in the Old and New Testaments that seem to condemn homosexuality. Even if you could be persuaded of a broad theme of acceptance in the Bible, these verses remain an issue.

These verses are sometimes known as the ‘clobber’ verses by those who are affirming. It is not too difficult to guess why they ended up with this nickname.

Sometimes, those on the affirming side will point out that these verses are only a handful out of over thirty thousand verses in the Bible. You can find plenty more verses about money and injustice.

That is true. Perhaps we need to recalibrate our priorities to match closer those of the Bible.

Even so, it is not enough simply to ignore these verses. They are part of scripture, and deserve serious treatment and attention.

In this book, therefore, you will find chapters on the following verses or passages:

Genesis 1 and 2

Genesis 19 (the story of Sodom and Gomorrah)

Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13

Matthew 19:4–6

Romans 1:26–27

1 Corinthians 6:9 & 1 Timothy 1:10

Jude 7

Before we examine these passages in detail, though, we first need background on some of the differences between the times and cultures in which the Biblical books were written, and the dominant approach that we have now in western culture. If we are unaware of these differences, it can mislead us as we seek to understand what the issues were.

We also need to consider how we interpret the Bible. Generally, it is perfectly fine to draw lessons from scripture for guidance for our own lives without considering too carefully how we are doing this. But when it comes to important, sensitive and potentially divisive issues like sexuality and gender, we need to be a little more self-aware. I have therefore included a chapter on how we apply the Bible.

The ‘clobber’ verses only cover the issue of sexuality. However, this book is also advocating for the affirmation of people who are transgender. So, you will find a chapter on the Bible and people who are transgender.

Often, at this point in my work, I am asked whether the Bible has anything positive to say, whether the Bible can affirm (rather than merely being silent). This can be another barrier for some people. I believe that the Bible has a strong message of inclusion, and I explain why in its own chapter.

We also need to be aware of our history. Whilst debates around sexuality and gender may be new, the church has faced divisive issues many times over the last two thousand years. In the hope that we can learn from history, I consider one such issue—slavery—that the church has faced in the past, to see what lessons we might apply to today.

As you read through, you may notice that there are no footnotes or endnotes. I rarely quote directly from academic journals or books.

This is deliberate, to make the book accessible and easier to read. However, all the material is based on extensive academic scholarship. You can find a brief guide to some of the most relevant articles and books for each chapter in the appendix. I also cover one or two issues in greater depth there. For those who wish to follow up on the scholarship themselves, I also maintain an annotated bibliography at my website, which you can find at the link below:

www.bibleandhomosexuality.org/bibliography/

I do use one common abbreviation: LGBTQI+. This stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex, and the plus covers the various other sexualities and genders (for example, pansexual, asexual). While each group faces separate and distinct issues (and each group in turn is diverse), all face discrimination based on sexuality or gender.

You may also want to know something about me. Am I only writing this to justify my own identity? What qualifications do I have to say anything on the topic?

All of us come to this area with a background of experiences and life which has shaped us and which in turn affects how we shape what we say and think. So, to enable you to place this book in some type of context, here is a little about my background.

I made a commitment to Christ when I was fourteen, having had a background where my family went to church weekly. At university, I was an active member of the Christian Union. Once I started work, I joined an inner-city evangelical church in Manchester, where I was involved with youth work. Feeling called by God to ministry in the Church of England, I studied at St. John’s College in Nottingham, which was in the open evangelical tradition.

Once ordained, I was a curate in Bury before becoming a vicar in an urban parish to the west of Manchester.

For over a decade, I have been a biblical studies tutor at an ecumenical theological college in Manchester, where many of our mature students are training for ordained ministry in the non-conformist tradition. I have taught a range of modules at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and have also been the research programme leader.

I am married with three children. I currently attend a large evangelical church close to my home in Manchester.

Why did I write this book? I began teaching about the Bible and sexuality to people training for Baptist ministry in 2010. At the same time, I was teaching postgraduate modules on Paul’s letter to the Romans. It became clear that there were few straightforward guides to help people consider whether you could be faithful to the Bible and affirm LGBTQI+ people. This was before Matthew Vines had published God and the Gay Christian, or Colby Martin Unclobber (both are good books, by the way).

There seemed to be two sides in the debate: Christians with a high regard for scripture who were non-affirming; and Christians with a lower regard for scripture who were affirming. But I was