"If a man lies with a male as one lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them."
This Biblical line, from Leviticus 20:13, is often cited as the scriptural basis for the classification of homosexual intercourse as a sin. The role the Bible plays in the religious dispute over homosexuality came under scrutiny at Boston College's GLBTQ Leadership Council's (GLC) screening and panel discussion of the film For the Bible Tells Me So.
The film was directed and written by Daniel G. Karslake and was released at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007, where it was met with great critical acclaim. For the Bible Tells Me So follows five Christian American families who come from a variety of faiths, circumstances, and locations as they struggle to balance their love for their families and their commitment to their faith.
"The movie is, in essence, about these parent-children relationships and about how the Bible, religion, and sexuality come into play in these relationships," said Celso Perez, GLC president and A&S '09.
The film served as a starting point for discussion by a panel comprised of scholars specializing in the Bible and religious studies who had worked with homosexuality within their faiths.
David Vanderhooft and John Darr, two biblical scholars in the theology department, specialize in the Old and New Testament, respectively. They analyzed in greater detail the precedents on homosexuality within the Bible verses. The movie noted those that are largely unknown and even more widely misunderstood.
"There are only two Bible verses in the Hebrew Scriptures that specifically address sexual activity between males," Vanderhooft said. "They aren't oriented towards what we would today call defined sexual orientation, but rather more to occasional acts of sexual intercourse between men."
Vanderhooft also noted that little attention is paid to the context in which the passages are taken. For example, the passage above from Leviticus comes from a section of the Bible known as the Holiness Code, which also forbids the eating of shrimp, the wearing of clothing made of two kinds of fabric, or the planting of two different kinds of seeds in one field. Many of the panelists noted that the condemnations of sexual intercourse in the Bible are largely cultural, and appear in passages that forbid other activities, such as the eating of shrimp, which are not considered punishable sins by Christians.
In considering the New Testament, Darr said that the only passage that specifically references same-sex intercourse is Romans 1:26, where the behavior is called "vile affections."
"Religions are inherently human attempts to order the world so that it has form and structure," Darr said. "Part of religious ordering always involves a separation of things into categories of clean and unclean. An entire worldview thus emerges."
As such, Darr said, like Vanderhooft, that what were termed "vile affections" in the context of the New Testament world reflected many culture-specific beliefs.
"As our understandings of nature and the human beings change, then our religious worldview comes into conflict with that," Darr said.
But the Bible is not the only thing that people take into consideration when they look at homosexuality. Panelist Mary Luti, senior minister at First Church in Cambridge and BC '88, suggested that experience also plays a part in how religion and understandings of homosexuality mix.
"Most good Christian folk change their minds about this subject not only because of learning new ways of reading Scripture, they're also having new kinds of experiences," Luti said. "Gay people who live good holy lives are themselves a text we need to read."
Bob Bowers, consultant for outreach and reconciliation at the Paulist Center in Cambridge and BC '82, had a similar experience. Part of Bowers' job is to foster conversation between alienated and disenfranchised Catholics and the archdiocese. Bowers remembered one instance in which a member of the archdiocese had a new experience when he sat down to have a conversation with a group of gay and lesbian men and women.
"He had said to members of my community, 'Wow, I never thought about that before because I had never talked to anybody who was gay before,'" Bowers said.
While the panelists came from a variety of backgrounds, they all agreed that the opinions of those who argue against homosexuality were unfairly represented in the film. Vanderhooft, after citing his lack of expertise as a film critic, noted that whenever those who argued for greater acceptance of homosexuality within the church were portrayed, religious choral music was played in the background, while those who were against more inclusion of homosexuality generally spoke against a background of country music.
"There are scholars working with Scripture for whom the straight literalist, fundamentalist view is not the place they're arguing from," Luti said. "They're more sophisticated in the way they're dealing with the same texts. They come out in the same place; they still believe that homosexuality is not the will of God, but they aren't just waving the Bible in your face and quoting two or three passages."
The panel discussion offered a new outlook for the many students and members of the community who attended.
"I'd actually already seen the movie. The real reason I came was for the discussion," said Leah Soumerai, A&S '11. "When I saw the movie the first time, I wanted so badly to discuss with somebody who knew about the Bible. I want to understand the other perspective better because I feel that is the only way I can come to my own opinion about it."
Others thought the event was particularly pertinent for a campus like BC's.
"Religion was a central factor in [the film], and it's very relevant because it tries to reconcile gay rights with religion, and that's certainly something we try to do here on campus," said Matt Hollis-Lima, A&S '09.
On top of the many undergraduates in attendance, there was also a large group of community members and a number of faculty members, making the crowd more diverse than those typical at many other BC events.
"I think, over time, we're building a consistent attendance at these events over time and we're getting these conversations going which are so important," Perez said.
Be the first to comment on this article!