Outing the Bible: the New Queer Theologians

Cruxnews.com ^ | 24 June 2004 | New Oxford Notes

[Alfred Hitchcock]

The article by Malcolm Gay begins: "One thing is clear: 2003 was without a doubt the Year of the Queer…. The year’s crowning moment came on November 2, when the Episcopal Church ordained Gene Robinson as its first openly gay bishop…. But this…didn’t appear out of thin air. Its intellectual and physical roots have been growing just beneath the surface for years. In seminaries across the country, at both the parish level and within whole dioceses, homosexuals have been preaching, studying, and remaining sexually active…. ‘What’s the difference between a Jesuit rec room and a gay bar?’ asked former Jesuit Robert Goss, who said his sexual experiences at bathhouses mirrored his early days at Harvard Divinity School. ‘Only the location.’… Christianity is changing. And nowhere is this change more apparent than at Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union [GTU]."

[Alfred Hitchcock]

Whoa dude! This is crazy, but we all go a little crazy sometimes, don't we?

[NYer]

No need to excerpt CruxNews stories.

25 June 2004
Outing the Bible: the New Queer Theolgians

About 25 to 35 years ago there was a paper called The Berkeley Barb, a hip paper for der Lumpenbürgerstand (the scum bourgeoisie) which specialized in free sex, drugs, rock’n’roll, and pseudo-radical politics. While The Barb eventually folded, it’s been replaced by similarly hip papers catering to the same clientele, but now vastly expanded due to the permanent cultural revolution dating from the Sixties. Politely called "bourgeois bohemians," they’ve got lots of money to throw around. The replacement papers are thick with ads — the advertising revenues are so abundant that the papers are free. Just about every restaurant and shop carries them, and you’ll find them on the newsstands along with the San Francisco Chronicle and The New York Times.

One such paper hereabouts is the East Bay Express. We rarely peruse it. But the front cover of the February 11-17 issue had a huge picture of Jesus with the accompanying headline "Outing the Bible: The New Queer Theologians Don’t Need Your Approval" by Malcolm Gay. We suspected it would be about the glories of homosexuality at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley — and it was! But before getting to that, you should know about the ads in this issue. They range from Cingular Wireless, Pet Food Express, and Altoid Mints (title of ad: "The Root of All Evil") to gobs of sex ads such as Nicole’s Dirty Talk, Strictly Sex! (Gay? Bi?), and The Kit Kat Guest Ranch in Carson City, Nevada ("Safe Sex/Legal Sex") — and, oh, let’s not forget the Santa Clara University School of Law.

The article by Malcolm Gay begins: "One thing is clear: 2003 was without a doubt the Year of the Queer…. The year’s crowning moment came on November 2, when the Episcopal Church ordained Gene Robinson as its first openly gay bishop…. But this…didn’t appear out of thin air. Its intellectual and physical roots have been growing just beneath the surface for years. In seminaries across the country, at both the parish level and within whole dioceses, homosexuals have been preaching, studying, and remaining sexually active…. ‘What’s the difference between a Jesuit rec room and a gay bar?’ asked former Jesuit Robert Goss, who said his sexual experiences at bathhouses mirrored his early days at Harvard Divinity School. ‘Only the location.’… Christianity is changing. And nowhere is this change more apparent than at Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union [GTU]."

The lengthy article is mostly about the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at the GTU, whose "mission," according to the article, "is to advance the acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in communities of faith." The Programming and Development Director of the Center is Episcopal priest Jay Johnson, who is quoted as saying: "Straight people are right to worry about what queer people are going to do to the church." Fr. Johnson also says: "‘Tolerance’ is a horribly weak word. We tolerate a cold sore." The author of the article comments: "Today’s queer theologians are no longer extending the olive branch to their conservative rivals. They are no longer asking to be tolerated. They are moving on, and sowing division in their wake." (How often have we heard that orthodox Catholics are "divisive"! But if you’re homosexual, it’s just fine to be divisive.)

The article reports: "For years now, gay Christians have been attending Bible self-defense classes where they learn to parry the…passages that speak explicitly about homosexuality. The Sodom and Gomorrah story? It’s not about anal sex; it’s about gross inhospitality, xenophobia, and humiliation." And so on.

The article also discusses the book Transgendered: Theology, Ministry, and Communities of Faith by Justin Tanis, a minister in the Metropolitan Community Church, a rather Evangelical denomination "created in 1968 by and for queers." Of Tanis, the article says: "Until 1997, he was a woman. Seven years later, he has almost fully transitioned to male." (In case you’re wondering, a transsexual has a "sex change" operation while a transgender does various things, including "drug therapy," to ape the opposite gender, but does not have a "sex change" operation.)

Tanis’s book asserts: "God actually didn’t originally create Adam and Eve. God created one being that became two beings, so you could argue that God’s original plan was for one gender, and we messed it up." You see here the contortions homosexuals go through to make the Bible say what they want it to say. Tanis, a transgender, also claims that the biblical eunuchs are the forerunners of transgenderists.

Oddly — queerly, actually — the transgenderists are creating problems for the standard-brand "gay" liberationists. Says the article: "The idea of transgenderists in the church meets resistance even within the small community of queer theologians. With gay rights activists stressing the emerging evidence that suggests a fixed biological basis for sexual orientation, the idea of people sliding up and down the gender scale seems to contradict the very idea [of an innate sexual orientation]."

Then the article introduces us to Gabriel Hermelin, who is studying at the Starr King Unitarian-Universalist Seminary, a part of the GTU. Hermelin is anatomically a female, who is transgendered, and, going by the picture of her, looks dead on like a man.

But what she says is right on the money: "It doesn’t matter to me whether…there’s proof that the eunuch of yesterday is the transsexual or transgender of today. I think that we’ll find whatever we want to find [in the Bible]…. You have to start from scratch." Hermelin also says of homosexuals and transgenders: "They’re just so damaged. Emotionally. Psychologically. Physically. Gosh, they’re just so damaged." Why, that’s heresy in homosexual circles. Damaged! That’s what the Catholic Church teaches, except that the Church politely says disordered. May God bless Hermelin for telling the truth. And Hermelin doesn’t give us any nonsense about homosexuality being a "gift from God."

Which is why we like Unitarians. They don’t mess around. They don’t try to gunk up the Bible. They simply reject what they don’t like.

But the liberal Protestants and liberal Catholics, they play silly games, trying to bend Scripture and tradition to their desires, sometimes political but mostly sexual. Their "theology" is man-made, though they won’t admit it. But the Unitarians, they play it straight. The Unitarians do indeed start from scratch. It’s a man-made religion, and they make no bones about it. That’s honest, and honesty deserves respect.

[ninenot]

Someday, somehow, somebody's going to definitively demonstrate that the "horizontal liturgy" is a direct result of the homosexual influence on theology and praxis.

No pun intended, although it's certainly there....

[Jaded]

I understand know your enemy but.... but.... just ick. {shiver}

[NYer]

Which is why we like Unitarians. They don’t mess around. They don’t try to gunk up the Bible. They simply reject what they don’t like.

I've posted this to other threads ... BUT ... just in case you missed it ;-D

Rev. Anita Cadonau-Huseby (left), owner and creator of christianlesbians.com, and her wife Dana. (Yes, you read that correctly - "her" wife).

Christian Lesbians

[Onelifetogive]

Christianity is changing...

1 Cor 5:1 It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.

Doesn't seem so different to me.....

[Aquinasfan]

"Today’s queer theologians are no longer extending the olive branch to their conservative rivals. They are no longer asking to be tolerated. They are moving on, and sowing division in their wake." (How often have we heard that orthodox Catholics are "divisive"! But if you’re homosexual, it’s just fine to be divisive.)

Of course the "change agents" have never been this stupid. Unfortunately, our side seems to have been. or at least the mush middle has been taken in. Anyway, the tactic worked perfectly.

The next phase is beginning.

[AskStPhilomena]

"‘What’s the difference between a Jesuit rec room and a gay bar?’ asked former Jesuit Robert Goss, who said his sexual experiences at bathhouses mirrored his early days at Harvard Divinity School."

It's probably safer in a gay bar than with the Jesuits.

[xJones]

For only 2% or so of the population, gays wield an inordinate amount of influence. I guess if their entire lives are defined solely by their craving for deviant sex and the acceptance of it, then they can and will devote 24/7/365 to the "caws".

[xzins]

Sodom was about anal sex and rape....the daughters of Lot were offered in exchange for the rape of the men. Very clear.

God made an original man, and woman was made from that man. She was separately made. He was not divided. There was no indication that man "messed up" requiring the creation of the woman. The text says that God determined that it was "not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper for him." In the initial passages about creation it says that on the 6th creation day "male and female he created them."

Eunuchs of yesteryear were forcibly castrated. This would not have been a decision by that person to change his/her sex. It would have been the act of a master to prevent that person from procreating.

[lumberjoe]

The rampant increase in national acceptance of homosexuality is partly due to the acceptance of divorce and remarriage and broken homes as being the norm.

Beginning about 1950, the national views began to slowly change. Even though God condemns fornication and adultery, and in Romans 7 we see that a marriage is for life; by the year 2000, it would be strange to hear someone speak against the divorced man or woman in a Biblical way.

Once that multiple marriages became acceptable by the Christian church, this opened up the way for homosexuality to be accepted in a like manner.

First, one, then a few, and later on many homosexuals will be considered normal numbers in the assemblies of the saints and those that speak out against them will be ostracized.

I fear for the future of the USA because I believe that we have lasted to this time due to the providence of God.

Now, with our approval of millions of aborted babies, of homoesexuality in the churches, and the legal removal of any mention of God in public society, etc, etc, etc; what will there be left that Almighty God will desire to protect any longer?

[xzins]

LJ-- I agree with you. God does place a providential hand on nations and He determines their "time."

Let us pray for our people to return to the "Author of Liberty."

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[johnb2004]

Like I asked before, how come they all look that way?