What does the Bible say about homosexuality? That Jesus was not a homophobe

Article by Claudia Lorenzo Rubiera published on the website of The Conversation Europe on February 28, 2023, freely translated by Diandra Hocevar

Pope Francis was recently asked what his point of view was on homosexuality and he responded like this: “I think [laws around the world that criminalize LGBTI people] are unfair. People with homosexual tendencies are children of God. God loves them. God accompanies them… Condemning such people is a sin. Criminalizing people with homosexual tendencies is an injustice.”

It is not the first time that Pope Francis shows himself to be a progressive leader when it comes to, among other things, homosexual Catholics. It is a position that has attracted the ire of certain high-ranking bishops and ordinary Catholics, both on the African continent and in other parts of the world. Some of these Catholics claim that Pope Francis' approach to LGBTI issues is a misinterpretation of the Holy Scriptures (or the Bible). But is it really like that?

Holy Scripture is especially important for Christians. When church leaders refer to the “Bible” or the “Holy Scriptures,” they typically mean “the Bible as we interpret it through our theological doctrines.” Our churches have always interpreted the Bible through their own specific theological views.

As a biblical scholar, I would argue that church leaders who use their cultures and theology to exclude homosexuals are not reading the Holy Scriptures carefully. Instead of doing this, they let their patriarchal fears distort the Bible, trying to find texts within it that support their exclusionary attitudes. There are several examples in the Bible that highlight my point.

Love for God and for others 

The Gospel according to Mark, which is part of the New Testament, records that Jesus entered the temple in Jerusalem on three occasions. Initially, he paid a short visit and “looked around” (11:11).

On the second visit, he acted by driving out “those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of the pigeon sellers” (11:15). Jesus specifically targeted those who took advantage of the poorest temple-goers.

During his third visit, Jesus spent considerable time in the temple (11:27-13:2). He met with all the leaders of the temple, including the chief priests, scribes and elders. Each of these sectors of leadership used its own interpretation of Scripture to exclude rather than include.

The “ordinary people” (11:32 and 12:12) recognized that Jesus proclaimed a gospel of inclusion. They enthusiastically hugged him as he walked through the temple.

In Mark 12:24, Jesus addresses the Sadducees, who were the traditional high priests of ancient Israel and played an important role in the temple. Of all those who clashed with Jesus, they represent the group that tended toward a conservative theological position and used their own interpretation of Scripture to exclude. Jesus told them:

“Isn't that why you are wrong, because you don't understand the Scriptures or the power of God?”

Jesus recognized that they had chosen to interpret the Scriptures in a way that prevented them from being understood in a non-traditional way. In this way, they limited God's ability to be different from traditional conceptions of the latter. Jesus said that God refused to be the exclusive property of the Sadducees. Ordinary people who followed Jesus understood that he represented a different understanding of God.

This message of inclusion becomes even clearer when Jesus later confronts a scribe (12:28). In response to the scribe's question about the most important laws, Jesus summarizes the theological ethic of his gospel: love of God and love of neighbor (12:29-31).

Inclusion, not exclusion

Those who want to exclude homosexuals from the kingdom of God choose to ignore Jesus and focus instead on the Old Testament – ​​more specifically on Genesis 19, the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Their interpretation of this story is that it is about homosexuality. It's not like that. It is about hospitality.

The story begins in Genesis 18 when three visitors (God and two angels, appearing as “men”) appear before Abraham, a Jewish patriarch. What did Abraham and his wife Sarah do? They offered them hospitality.

Later, the two angels abandoned Abraham and the Lord and went to Sodom, where they met Lot, Abraham's nephew. What did Lot do? He offered them hospitality. The two cases of hospitality are described in exactly the same language.

The “men of Sodom,” as the Bible describes them, did not extend the same hospitality to these angels in disguise. Instead, they tried to humiliate them and Lot (19:9) by threatening to rape them. We know that men were heterosexual because Lot, trying to protect if himself and his guests, he offered them his virgin daughters (19:8).

Heterosexual rape of men by men is a common act of humiliation. This is an extreme form of inhospitality. The story contrasts the extreme hospitality of Abraham and Lot with the extreme inhospitality of the men of Sodom. It is a story of inclusion, and not exclusion. Abraham and Lot included foreigners; the men of Sodom excluded them.

Put on Christ

Once faced with the inclusive gospel of Jesus and a careful reading of the story of Sodom as a story of hospitality, those who dismiss Pope Francis' approach will likely turn to other Scriptures. Why? Because they follow a patriarchal ideology and are looking for any Scripture that can support their position.

But the other Scriptures they use equally need careful reading. The texts of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, for example, do not deal with "homosexuality" as we understand it today, that is, the sexual, loving and affectionate relationship between people of the same sex. These texts deal with relationships that transcend the boundaries of purity (between the pure and the impure) and ethnicity (Israelites and Canaanites).

In Galatians 3:28 of the New Testament, the apostle Paul longs for a Christian community in which:

“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or freeman, there is no longer woman or man, for you are all one in Jesus Christ.”

Paul built his theological argument on the Judeo-Greek distinction, but then extended it to the slave-freeman distinction and the man-woman distinction. Christians – whatever church they belong to – should follow Paul and extend it to the heterosexual-homosexual distinction.

We are all “put on Christ” (3:27): God sees only Christ, not our different sexualities.

* Gerald West Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa)

Original text: What does the Bible say about homosexuality? Jésus n'était pas un homophobe