ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, August 31, 1996 TAG: 9609030012
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN RUTHERFORD
IN HIS Aug. 20 letter to the editor (``Taking a stand, not God's throne''), C. Glen Stinnette Jr. wonders why Baptists are called ``bigots'' when they ``stand on the authority of God's word.'' Perhaps it's because many Baptists (and other Christians) stand on their perception of what the Bible means.
He argues that the Bible pulls no punches in labeling homosexuality a sin. Quite so. But does he err in suggesting that ``God said it''? Perhaps.
Let's concede that God inspired early Jews and Christians to write the Scriptures. Let's acknowledge that what they wrote reflected their time, faith and understanding of what flowed from God through them to us. Let's concede, too, that in all its richness the Bible remains an immensely relevant moral guide, even (perhaps especially) in our own time.
But when we humans write, translate, read and interpret anything, even the Bible, we do so encumbered by human failings and prejudices - be they cultural, personal or religious. Whatever we touch is potentially corrupt. I believe this notion is called ``original sin.'' And so far as I know, only Christ escaped its onus.
Stinnette should consider the difficulty of understanding the works of Chaucer or Shakespeare, whose meanings, expressed in earlier forms of our native tongue, still can elude us. In the same spirit, he should consider the theological and scholarly difficulty of translating texts (virtually none of them original) from ancient Hebrew or Greek. I wonder if he knows that neither language, as used in writing the Bible, had a word similar to our word ``homosexual.'' It was coined only in the last century.
I wonder, especially when he speaks of love and forgiveness, if it doesn't strike him as strange that a meager handful of verses dispenses, almost cavalierly, with something so bewildering as homosexuality.
I wonder if he questions how his denomination justifies singling out gays for special acts of condemnation, as Baptists did in a resolution passed recently at their national convention. (It called for a boycott of the Walt Disney Co.; four of the five examples it cited as objectionable conduct focused on the company's handling of gay issues.)
I wonder if Stinnette has ever had face-to-face conversations with gay men and lesbians, virtually all of whom would tell him that they were ``born this way.'' Gay Christians might add that a loving God would not create what he does not love, that he has graced them with a sexuality as wondrous and natural to them as Stinnette's is to him, and that to deny that sexuality is to deny God.
Has it ever occurred to Stinnette that so widespread and deeply rooted a phenomenon as homosexuality might be an intentional, divine act by God who, presumably, does not make mistakes on so grand a scale as the millions of homosexuals worldwide would suggest?
Most of all, I wonder why he ignores the one gift God gave us that distinguishes us from every other species - the ability to reason. I want him to know that it is possible to grow intellectually and spiritually without sacrificing his obviously deep commitment or compromising what seems to be his generous nature.
But he will have to rethink his conviction that the Bible is untainted by human touch. And he must relinquish his oddly narrow view that the Bible answers life's questions in black and white. So rich a text could never be so limited or so simplistic.
He must especially question how his denomination's leaders can be so breathtakingly rude and cruel to their fellow human beings who happen to be homosexual. Christ himself never said a word about homosexuality. It's time Stinnette and other Christians follow his circumspect example.
I want him to know that I have been called queer, faggot, pervert, pansy, sicko and other names too appalling to print in a respectable newspaper. How can he wonder that I might suspect him of bigotry when, insisting he is acting in God's name, he adds ``abomination'' to so uncharitable and hurtful a list?
John Rutherford of Gotha, Fla., is retired from the tourism industry and a frequent visitor to Roanoke.
LENGTH: Medium: 74 linesby CNB