As some of you may know, Tom Oord, Director of the Center for Open and Relational Theology, faces a trial this week. The charges against him, brought by two ordained ministers in the Church of the Nazarene, are 1) conduct unbecoming of a minister and 2) promoting doctrines out of harmony with the doctrinal statements … More Call for Dialog
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 … More Bible Wars: Using the Bible in LGBTQIA Discourse (Part 5)
One of the foundational arguments of Christians who affirm that traditional view of homosexuality is that same-sex sex is contrary to nature. This argument rests on a couple of assumptions: 1) that the world today is a corrupted version of the world’s original condition a few thousand years ago and 2) that Genesis 1-2 gives … More Using the Bible in LGBTQIA Discourse (Part 5)
Of Hair and Homosexuality Few people are aware of Paul’s interest in hair styles. That’s because most haven’t read 1 Cor 11:14: “Does not nature itself teach you that, if a man wears long hair, it is dishonoring to him?” Jesus, apparently, didn’t get the memo. Few people also know of the connection the New … More Using the Bible in LGBTQIA+ Discourse (Part 4)
Everyone who uses the Bible does so selectively. The Bible is too big to let us to do justice to every verse, too complex to allow equal weight to every passage. Selective reading and use is unavoidable. But serious readers know that selective reading often results from the quest to find support for our views. … More Using the Bible in LGBTQIA+ Discourse (Part 3)
What do L+ discourse and the Bible have to do with an old-fashioned card catalog from a library? Actually, quite a bit. These catalogs were ways of categorizing. Information was sorted, boxed, and labeled. Close study of the Old Testament reveals a passion for categorizing and labeling things. It starts with Genesis 1 when God … More Using the Bible in LGBTQIA+ Discourse (Part 2)
I’m on a quest to explore the use of the Bible in Christian discourse on LGBTQIA+ issues. These explorations are exercises in testing the traditional view of marriage and gender. As a theologian with a genuine appreciation for the Christians theological tradition, I think it’s important to take a teaching or two off the shelf … More Using the Bible in LGBTQIA+ Discourse (Part 1)
This post is a plea for dialogue about the Bible in church. I’m writing it because my church has become a classroom, where talking is discouraged so that authority figures can instruct us in the truth. As I am writing these words, my denomination has just defrocked one of its ministers because he called for … More Why Bother with the Bible? Part 3
I recently read an excellent book, Fintan O’Toole’s, We Don’t Know Ourselves. It is a personal narrative of growing up in Ireland from the late ’50s to the present. It’s a wide-ranging book, covering politics, culture, social issues, economics, and religion, written with an engaging and compelling style. One of the recurring themes of the … More Truth, Fear, and the Church
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