200 years ago in America, there was a vigorous debate about slavery. Because nearly all of the participants were Christian, the debate turned on interpretations of the Bible. This episode in American Christianity offers instructive lessons for today’s conversation about homosexuality.

In the discussions about slavery, the pro-slavery side had it easy: The Bible does not expressly condemn slavery and numerous biblical passages legitimize it either directly or indirectly. Important Old Testament characters such as Abraham owned slaves. Paul’s letters acknowledge Christian ownership of slaves without condemning it. Jesus never addressed it directly. It seemed obvious to advocates of slavery that the Bible supported their position–they enjoyed the clear support of specific biblical texts.

The anti-slavery side, faced with these texts and the literal interpretation employed by their opponents, faced an uphill battle. One strategy was to go looking for specific biblical passages that actually did condemn slavery. 1 Corinthians 7:21 (“Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather” in the King James version) was pressed into service, some arguing that here Paul spoke clearly against slavery. (Modern interpreters are not sure what the verse means–the Greek text is quite unclear.) Others put forth 1 Timothy 1:10, which condemns “menstealers” (KJV, “slave traders” in the NRSV). Advocates of slavery, however, were quick to point out that while this passage may condemn the process behind slavery, it does not condemn the owning of slaves.

Another strategy was to infer the anti-slavery position from a passage such as Colossians 4:1 (“Masters, treat your slaves justly….” NRSV) that discussed slavery. Justice, the argument went, is incompatible with slavery. This sort of argument did little to sway opinions–slave owners could claim that Paul himself had pointed out how to deal justly with slaves without freeing them.

A more enduring strategy was to look for more general teachings in the Bible that, while not expressly addressing slavery, contradicted it. Writers appealed to Jesus’ command to love the neighbor, for instance, or to the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12) as precepts that, once their implications were realized, would rule out ownership of slaves. Galatians 3:28 (“there is no longer any slave or free”) was brought into the discussion, with the argument that it implies freedom, not only in spiritual matters, but also in social relations. This strategy, then, tried to get beyond specific texts expressly mentioning slavery and to consider “the whole of divine revelation,” to use Samuel Hopkins’ phrase.

Finally, opponents of slavery employed a contextualizing strategy: As some argued, God’s toleration of slavery in the Old Testament had been replaced by the command to love the neighbor in the New Testament. The Old Testament thus provided no sanction for slavery, being only a prelude to the full revelation of God’s will in the New Testament. Others argued that Paul’s apparent toleration of slavery was based, not on theological convictions, but on practical considerations–Christians suddenly freeing their slaves would confirm to Roman authorities that Christianity was socially subversive and would bring persecution. These sorts of contextualized interpretations are, by today’s standards, pretty naïve, but they reveal an honest struggle to come to terms with the Bible’s acceptance of something that, by 1800, was recognized by many people as morally abhorrent and utterly at odds with God’s will.

Today, the discussion of LGBTQIA+ issues in the church repeats some of the dynamics of the slavery debate, especially as it is largely a debate about how to use the Bible:

1. Particular passages vs. general precepts. Like the pro-slavery stance, the traditional view of homosexuality relies on a literal reading of select biblical passages. By “literal” I mean that the meaning passages is taken to be unproblematic–considerations of literary or historical context are deemed largely irrelevant to what seems like the plain, obvious meaning. On the other side, those who reject the traditional view of homosexuality recognize, as did opponents of slavery, the need to rely on inferences from some of the Bible’s more generalized precepts such a love.
2. The plain sense of scripture vs. contextualized interpretations. On one side stands a simplified version of the traditional Protestant approach: The Bible is, for the most part, fairly easy to understand–the meaning lies on the surface of the words in an uncomplicated way (“Leviticus tells us that God condemns homosexual acts–there’s nothing more to be said”). On the other side are those for whom context, especially the Bible’s cultural contexts, are important considerations: Yes, Paul condemns same-sex sex, but he was condemning it in the highly exploitative forms in which it existed in his day–would he condemn homosexuality in the form of loving, long-term relationships that we find today? Yes, the story of Sodom seems to be about same-sex sex, but is it really? Or is it about rape?

As a Protestant, I have a lot of sympathy for the Reformer’s affection for scripture’s “plain sense” (in contrast to the medieval fascination with allegorical meanings). However, I don’t see how it’s possible to deny the importance of contextualizing interpretation. The truth is, today even conservative theologians and biblical scholars routinely make use of the Bible’s social contexts to shed light on its meaning. Curiously, however, when conversing with traditionalists about LGBTQIA+ issues in ecclesiastical settings, the only relevant consideration is those biblical texts that seem to expressly mention same-sex sex, texts interpreted according to their “plain sense.” This helps explain why, for traditionalists, when it comes to LGBTQIA+ matters, there just isn’t anything to talk about–the “plain sense” of the Bible is, well, plain and they don’t see the relevance of contextualization.

Traditionalists’ one-sided focus on the “plain sense” of a handful of biblical passages is one of the things that makes it difficult for an honest and serious conversation about LGBTQIA+ issues to happen in a church like mine. As a result, traditionalists end up talking to and agreeing with one another, while those in the affirming camp end up doing the same. Instead of a conversation with have echo chambers.

If you are interested in the use of the Bible in the debate about slavery, here are some good books and articles:

• Davis, David Brion. Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770‑1823. Oxford University Press, 1999.
• Shriver, Donald W., Jr. “Bible and Southern Ethics.” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 31, no. 2 (1976): 91‑101.
• Wood, Ralph C. “Eugene Genovese and the Biblical Tragedy of the South.” Perspectives In Religious Studies 28, no. 1 (2001 2001): 99‑113.
• Dean, Taylor. “Theology in Conflict: Antebellum and Post‑war South.” American Theological Inquiry (Online) 7, no. 1 (January 15, 2014).
• Harrill, J. Albert. “The Use of the New Testament in the American Slave Controversy: A Case History in the Hermeneutical Tension between Biblical Criticism and Christian Moral Debate.” Religion And American Culture 10, no. 2 (2000): 149‑186.

Image attribution: Boston Public Library, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons