[I apologize in advance for the length of this post. But I'm claiming that Romans 1 isn't about homosexuality as such, and I assume that that claim will make most people angry at me, so I felt like I needed to explain myself at some length.]
In analyzing the Biblical texts that are commonly used in discussions of homosexuality, it is prudent to begin in Romans 1, since that is considered to be the clearest condemnation of homosexuality. In the next two blogs, I will attempt to demonstrate that while Romans 1:18-32 is certainly condemning something, it is not at all a condemnation of homosexuality. Rather, only a certain kind of homosexuality is condemned here. We can focus our question in this way: what group of people is being referred to in this passage? By my count, there are 24 uses of the relevant pronoun in verses 18-32: in the subject case (they) it is used 12 times, in the object case (them) it is used 6 times, and as a possessive pronoun (their) it is used 6 times. Since these are all pronouns, of course we must wonder what noun they are being used as a substitute for, but the answer is difficult to nail down. In the first verse, Paul uses the relative pronoun “who” to describe the group he is referring to, but the description is only “those who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth”, which doesn’t resolve the ambiguity. That is, we still don't know what noun Paul had in mind. This ambiguity gives rise to two interpretations of the passage, one arguing that the referent of “they, them, and their” is “all homosexuals”, the other arguing that the referent is a much smaller group: not all homosexuals, but a certain group of homosexuals. Since Paul never specifies his referent, we will have to decide which interpretation is more appropriate by closely examining the text.
First I will briefly explain the second interpretation. In Corinth, worship of the hermaphrodite god Aphrodite was culturally important. Worship services to him/her/it consisted of the worshippers “flipping” genders in order to experience “the other side”, or in some sense to be closer to the bi-sexual nature of Aphrodite. The claim is that Paul is speaking of this group in this passage, which is obviously quite different from the interpretation which says that the “they, them and their” are “all homosexuals.” So which interpretation is more likely?
The passage itself can be divided into three parts: the crime (vv.18-23), the punishment for the crime (vv.24-27), and the result of the punishment (vv.28-32). This division should be uncontroversial, since Paul divides the three sections logically by use of “therefore” or “since”. The crime that “they” committed was clearly idolatry. And this is not metaphorical idolatry either, like when idolatry is described as thinking that sports are more important than God. No, Paul says quite clearly that they were bowing down before actual representations of human beings and reptiles and birds and fish, to the exclusion of the worship of the one true God. In vv.24-27 we have a description of the punishment: both homosexual desires and homosexual acts. Why does Paul talk about homosexuality here? The answer is clear – because it is a punishment for the crime of idolatry. The transition is in the word “therefore” in v.24, or “for this reason” in v.26. As a result of the idol worship, God gave them over to these passions. Now we are ready for the third section: what was "their" destiny? Paul actually gives 22 different adjectives to describe this lowly group of folks, including “faithless”, “murders”, “haters of God”, “disobedient to parents”, etc. So some group is clearly condemned by Paul here, but we still do not know who.
Let’s take the conservative interpretation and assume that the “they” is “all homosexuals”. Is this a good description of all homosexuals? Well, first of all, if you hold to this interpretation you must believe that there is one and only one cause of homosexuality, and that is excessive idol worship. Remember, we aren’t talking about the metaphorical stuff here, but literal idolatry. This contradicts what most conservatives say. I commonly hear from people like Dobson or from workers at Christian group homes who are trying to reform homosexuals that homosexuality is a result of suffering child abuse at an early age, overexposure to girl’s activities and/or clothes at a sensitive age, not having a strong father presence, or even overexposure to pornography. But let’s think about this: if all homosexuality really is a punishment (God gave them up) for excessive idol worship, then people like Dobson flatly contradict their own interpretation of Romans 1. Whatever it is that is described in vv.26-27 is a clearly a punishment for too much idol worship. To diagnose someone as being homosexual because they were messed up by sexual abuse as a child and then to say that Romans 1 is about them is quite perverted.
Furthermore, there is the issue of those 22 nasty adjectives in vv.28-32. To claim that all or most of those 22 character qualities are true of all homosexuals is just plain wrong. If you honestly think that the 12-year-old kid who grew up singing worship songs to God in youth group and now cuts his wrists because he doesn’t want to be gay is accurately described by Romans 1, then I have an assignment for you. Find three gay people, ask them if they would have coffee with you, then over coffee let them describe their first realizations of being gay, their thought processes, and for some, their struggle to live as a Christian in a world that hates gays. I’m not at all joking – if you ask around, you will be able to find three. And although it’s pretty weird, I’ll bet that if you are honest with them about your intentions, they will respect the fact that you are trying to understand them. After all, most of them have lived life as hated outsiders, so I’m sure they’ll welcome the company. And this gives you the advantage of being like Jesus. He spent his time with societies’ outcasts and other “yucky” people. Anyway, after you finish hanging out with them, first pray, then write an essay about your experience, read it out loud to yourself or close friends, and then stand in front of the mirror and have a long moment of silence. Trust me, after all that you will not still think that Romans 1 is describing all homosexuals.
Tony Campolo frequently tells a heart-wrenching story from his childhood of a gay kid named Roger. Roger was easily identified as gay because of some physical characteristics, and so he was relentlessly teased for his obvious “transgression” of “nature’s law.” One day, 5 boys ganged up on Roger and shoved him down in the shower room, and took turns holding him down and urinating on him. Roger went home that night, waited until his parents went to bed, and then hanged himself in his basement. Try reading through that list of adjectives again in vv.28-32, and then ask yourself who the unrighteous, evil, covetous, malicious, envious, murderous, strife-filled, deceitful, gossiping, slandering, God-hating, insolent, haughty, boastful, evil-inventing, parent-disobeying, foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless ones are in that story. Do you think it was Roger, or the boys who urinated on him?
On the other hand, if you assume that the “they” referent is the orgy-having, idolatry-loving Corinthians, this passage goes from making no sense to making perfect sense. Those people without a doubt deserved a condemnation, and although I don’t know much about these perverted worship services, I am sure that Paul accurately describes their crime, the punishment for their crime, and the result of the punishment. The condemnation delievered by this passage, then, is no more a condemnation of all homosexuality than condemning heterosexual orgies is the same thing as condemning all heterosexuality.
One worry is still remaining. Perhaps you will ask me, “Alright, I give in to logic and reason, and now I understand that Paul was primarily addressing those worshippers of Aphrodite. But still, can’t we read vv.26-27 as applying to all homosexuals? I mean, even though Paul’s rant wasn’t primarily about all homosexuals, he still calls all homosexual acts and passions “contrary to nature”? Perhaps it was incidental, but don’t we still get a 'by-the-way' condemnation of homosexuality in this text?” And that’s a good enough question to be the subject of the next blog.
