Saturday, July 13, 2002
By KELLY ADAMS, Columbian staff writer
Many Clark County churches reject homosexuality, citing Biblical passages. The Scripture most commonly quoted is from Leviticus that admonishes the faithful against same-sex relations.
John Greholver of the Christian-based Open House Ministries explained what those passages mean to him.
"Since separation from God has eternal consequences, demanding silence toward a gay lifestyle creates a serious dilemma for the Christian who believes in God and in what He has declared, and who genuinely loves those who will someday face those consequences," he said.
The Rev. Mike Goode of the Ridgefield Church of the Nazarene said while gays are welcome at church, the Bible teaches that "practicing the homosexual lifestyle is a sin; I don't find anything that condones it, but I find Scripture that condemns it."
Ed Evans is the minister at First Congregational United Church of Christ in Hazel Dell. His church recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of becoming an "open and affirming" congregation. That means the church welcomes gays and lesbians.
"The Bible knows only a love ethic," Evans said. "The primary commandment from Jesus is that we should love one another. The Christian church is not a church of exclusion but inclusion."
The Rev. Tom Tucker of East Vancouver United Methodist Church argues that the Bible is "the product of a prescientific understanding of the world." Focusing on language that appears to issue a warning against homosexuality ignores the context in which the Bible was written, he said.
"The Bible is filled with all kinds of admonitions," Tucker said. Killing any child who curses his parents is scripturally supported, Tucker said, as are slavery, polygamy, the ritual sacrifice of livestock and the classification of women as property.
"If we all lived by the Levitical codes, we'd all have to live by those things as well," he said. "I don't know of any churches that do animal sacrifices anymore."
The gospels also paint a picture of an accepting Jesus, Evans said.
"Scripture is full of stories about how Jesus included the outcast and marginalized of society into his community, how he invited them to his table," Tucker said.
Scriptural arguments
Frequently quoted Scripture, all taken from the King James version of the Bible:
"Do not lie with a man as ones lies with a woman; that is detestable."
Leviticus 18:22
"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."
Romans 1:27
"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
Matthew 7:1-2