Man Jesus Loved. Theodore W. Jr. Jennings
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and ethical debate.
This struggle is by no means over. The work of Cain Hope Felder in developing an Afrocentric reading of the Bible is of considerable importance, as is the work of Itumeleng Mosala, and others in South Africa, for recapturing the Bible from white supremacist ideology.
A second illustration of the way in which a particular issue opens the way to a broader hermeneutical discussion has to do with a feminist reading of the Bible. Interestingly rereading the Bible from a feminist perspective began in the same context as the abolitionist and antiracist rereading of the Bible. The production of the “Woman’s Bible” was the first rereading of the Bible from a liberationist (and revisionist) perspective.
The feminist rereading of the Bible continues today, and has growing relevance to a reappropriation of biblical texts, particularly in the work of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. Here we have moved beyond the question of accepting women in leadership positions in society and the church to an interrogation of the biblical worldview and to the meaning of the gospel as a whole. To be sure, many people (like Mary Daly) conclude that the biblical materials are hopelessly sexist and so should be abandoned. Others (like Rosemary Ruether), without discounting the patriarchal bias of the biblical authors, nevertheless find support in important aspects of this tradition for a rigorous critique of sexism and patriarchy in the world and in society.
One of the most urgent rereadings of the Bible in the twentieth century was in response to the horrors of the Holocaust prompted by the belated realization among Christian exegetes that traditional readings of the Bible have fostered anti-Semitism and actually contributed to and prepared the ground for the genocidal policies of Hitler. Here it has been a matter of reconsidering the apparently self-evident ways the New Testament was read and the way in which cherished doctrinal formulations were developed and interpreted. Even the name given by Christians to the sacred writings of Israel—the Old Testament—betrays a bias that is conducive to the emergence of anti-Judaism. The reconsideration of Jesus as a Jew (and of Paul as well) together with critical reflection on the ways texts seem to make the Jewish people generally responsible for the execution of Jesus (actually carried out, of course, by the Roman empire and thus by the Gentiles) has been immensely fruitful for producing fresh insight into the emergence of the Jesus movement as well as into the dangers of a traditional and ideologically distorted (mis)reading of the New Testament.
A further rereading of the Bible that has become widely influential is that undertaken from the standpoint of the struggle of the poor and oppressed to attain liberation and life. This hermeneutical strategy is most often associated with Latin American liberation theology, although it in fact embraces black liberation in the United States and Africa and has influenced the quite different context of Asian theology.
Now this liberationist rereading has shown itself to be of enduring importance, for it has not simply argued that we should be nice to poor people but that the welfare of the poor and marginalized is the test of our relationship to the God of both Testaments.
Indeed, in all the cases we have referred to, the proposed rereading of the Bible claims to provide decisive clarification of the meaning of the witness to the action, will, and goal of the divine in the world.
In all of these cases, a reading of the Bible is at stake that contests traditional readings. These traditional readings have so succeeded in substituting themselves for the text that they purport to “interpret” that new readings have often been regarded as “unbiblical.” But in all cases, the rereading has resulted in greater clarity about the meaning of faithfulness to the God who is attested by Scripture.
I maintain that similar gains can be hoped for from a “gay-affirmative” or counterhomophobic rereading of the Bible. The gains I have in mind are not simply an acceptance of previously proscribed behavior but a greater clarity about the meaning of biblical texts and hence a greater clarity about the meaningfulness of biblical traditions for contemporary attitudes toward same-sex desire and practice.
Now I must add a caveat. I do not suppose that the hermeneutical enterprise that I am suggesting should displace the other hermeneutical strategies I have just listed. Rather I regard this approach as a collaborative enterprise. As Latin American theologians say, the search is for “integral liberation.” A liberation of some at the expense of others cannot be liberation within the horizon of the new creation promised and already begun in Jesus.
At the “end of the rainbow” of the hermeneutical work that we begin here is an appropriation of the Bible that is not afraid of the body or of the erotic. Thus, the aim of a gay-positive reading of the Bible is as well to offer a liberating word to all persons, including “straights,” concerning the place of the erotic in our lives. The consideration of the question of homosexuality in the churches a quarter century ago began in the context of the sexual revolution that asked whether traditional antierotic views associated with Christianity were to be regarded as binding upon us in the present. That question has been sidetracked by the focus on the question of homosexuality. A reexamination of homoeroticism in biblical narratives may also make possible a reconsideration of the place of the erotic in the life and thought of those who understand themselves as in some way indebted to these traditions and even answerable to them.
Strategies of “Gay Reading”
In the work that lies ahead, we must distinguish distinct strategies of reading that together make up a gay-affirmative rereading of biblical texts.
The first level of a gay-affirmative reading is one that has been pursued with considerable force over the last half century: contesting the presumed basis in Scripture for cultural and social denigration of and even legislation against persons who engage in same-gender sexual activity. The current result of this strategy is that several of the texts formerly read as referring to this behavior may no longer be so employed; they are the result of mistranslation. Another result is that any counterhomosexual texts can be applied, if at all, to behavior rather than to orientation.
These results may be regarded as important but insufficient. Therefore alternative strategies must be employed.
In the first place, a strategy may be employed that exposes homophobic readings as engaged in an obfuscation of the text—that is, as entailing a fundamental distortion of the biblical message. Here one must assert that a reading of these texts (for example, the narrative concerning Sodom) which uses them to license opposition to persons who engage in same-sex sexual relations actually blatantly distorts the texts. The distortion entailed is a measure of homophobia—that is, of a fear of homosexuality that brings the institutionally approved reading into irrationality.
While it is a positive animus against homosexuality, homophobia is also complemented by what may be called a heterosexist reading. This reading is so preoccupied with the model of heterosexual marriage and family values that it reads into the text its own presuppositions. This strategy does not necessarily entail a hatred or fear of homosexuality but rather a bias toward finding confirmation of the marriage and family values of heterosexual culture in the biblical texts. A reading that counters heterosexism then moves to a wider arena: not just delegitimating homophobic readings but contesting the reading that suggests the privileging of heterosexual institutions. Contesting heterosexism entails contesting the view that heterosexual institutions in fact are supported in the biblical texts. Note that while homophobic readings also appeal to heterosexist readings the reverse is not necessarily the case.2
A third level of reading is one that is “pro-gay.” This kind of reading is anticipated by those who read the story of Jonathan and David or of Ruth and Naomi as gay-positive. This approach is analogous to, for example, feminist readings that demonstrate the presence of strong female characters or of feminine attributes of the divine, or of readings like those of Cain Hope Felder that demonstrate the hidden presence of African people in the biblical texts. We are concerned then with the hidden presence of relationships that may be construed as gay in some sense.
To these strategies of reading we may add a fourth: reading the texts from the perspective of a contemporary gay or queer sensibility. Here the aim is to discover how