"God loves all his children is somehow forgotten, but we paraphrase a book written 3500 years ago."
So rings one of the most poignant lines in Mackelmore's hit song "Same Love" off of his collaborative album with Ryan Lewis. The song, if you haven't heard it, is on the whole a much-needed and very welcome hip-hop endorsement of legal rights and social acceptance of those persons who fall within the LGBTQ spectrum, and it's profundity is perhaps only matched by the amount of musical talent and insight poured into it. Being a piece by Mackelmore, it's primary narrative impetus comes through rapped verses, although a hauntingly beautiful chorus which echoes the essential cry of the persons with whom the song is concerned is provided by Mary Lambert. What's more, the song as a musical piece is given a kind of musical grandiosity and a decidedly religious bend by both several lines, one of which is quoted above, which make direct reference to God and/or religion in general, and in case the religious point of the song was not driven home thoroughly enough by Mackelmore and Ms. Lambert, the song fades away to the attributes of love as listed in 1st Corinthians chapter 13.
This is a good song, a well-needed catchy and universal cry for LGBTQ rights, and it deserves almost every bit of praise that can be given up to it.
Nonetheless, there are two specific problems I find with the song's stance on religion. Both of these problems, while well exemplified here, are far from rare and deserve, because of their befuddling and pervasive presence in 21st century life, special consideration
The first of these is the line quoted at the start of this article, a statement which seems agreeable and tempting at first, the faults of which are evident upon even the lightest inspection.
There is, of course, the somewhat obvious (though nonetheless significant) issue that the Bible, the obvious target of the remark, is not a single book, and while most of the Bible is likely drawn from a strict oral tradition reaching back maybe 3500 or so years ago (although that does set things back quite a ways), even the book of Leviticus, the earliest explicit condemnation of homosexuality in the Biblical text, was likely actually written down closer to the 6th or 7th century B.C. It is, of course, easy to dismiss the difference between 2500 years ago and 3500 years ago, but let us be clear that we're talking a difference of 40%, but one thousand years. If we assume a very generous average lifespan of 40 years, this comes out to twenty-five generations of people, and although the world didn't change terribly much by modern standards in that thousand years, it did significantly change and, more fundamentally, 3500 years and 2500 years are quite simply not the same thing, so the comment is first and foremost careless in its misuse of dating. This is not likely done for intentional reasons to cloud the judgement of persons listening to the song, but it is incredibly ignorant, an extreme exaggeration, or some amalgamation of the two.
Still, this dodges the real implied meaning of the line.
The obvious point in saying that "we paraphrase a book written 3500 years ago" is that we, in this context "we" being those who do not endorse LGBTQ rights, have not only made a general human error, but have done so by misinterpretation of an old text with which we have allowed ourselves to become out of touch.
I want to be clear here, I really do love Mackelmore's music, I love this song, and I consider myself a firm supporter of LGBTQ rights, but this notion as presented in an otherwise admirable song is a farce.
On the one hand, there is the principle issue several (though limited) verses in the Bible openly and unambiguously condemn homosexual sexual acts. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:10, along with the first chapter in the book of Romans, unambiguously condemn homosexual sexual acts as sin. And let us be clear here, these are not verses taken out of context. The sections of Leviticus from which these verses are lifted are quite literally lists of rules, more or less designed for lifting individual rules out of textual context and applying them unambiguously to a clear situation - this is why the Levitical law is so seemingly hell-bent on the infinite minutia of different situations - law is, in a sense, meant to be taken out of context and applied, and Leviticus is a book of law.
Furthermore, in Romans 1 it is similarly almost perfectly clear that Paul's condemnation of homosexual sexual acts is explicitly what it seems to be, a condemnation of homosexual sexual acts. There are arguments on this particular matter that Paul is only talking about unnatural homosexuality, but this presents still more problems. Several verses throughout the New Testament that do not explicitly mention homosexuality nonetheless prohibit what is variously translated "fornication" or "sexual immorality", and there is no honest examination of what these terms mean in their 1st century context that does not include homosexual sexual acts.
Nonetheless, even with these scriptural points being set aside, the core problem with Mackelmore's assertion (which is shared by a good deal of the vaguely "spiritual" culture in which we live) is that it asserts that those who do not completely accept, embrace and endorse the unmitigated practice of all the actions that fall within the LGBTQ spectrum for Christian religious reasons are in some sense out of touch with a vaguely conceived "original" religion or "original" Christianity that they have contorted through modern and/or recent misconceptions.
This is once more a tempting out, but an examination of history quite simply reveals it to be false.
The simple fact is that, the last 60 or so years being excluded, there has never before been a movement or a current in widespread Christian thought that homosexual sexual acts were acceptable. Quite to the notable contrary, there is a long tradition reaching back through the ages within the Abrahamic traditions of rather specifically condemning homosexual sexual acts as one particular sin among a great multitude of other sinful acts.
The point here is that if we read the Bible, however long ago it was written, and paraphrase it to say that homosexual sexual acts are sinful - we are not arrogantly disposing of some original conception of God loving all of his children and using our religion to manufacture hate - we are interpreting passages of an admittedly old text in the exact same way they have been interpreted since they were written. We are, in a word, practicing an unfamiliar pattern of orthodoxy.
G.K. Chesterton in his venerable, but quick book Orthodoxy says that Orthodoxy as an idea is "the democracy of the dead," in other words, that it is the meaningful consideration of what we might call the cloud of witnesses who have lived and died before our time, an appropriate rendering of respect to those who do not have the good fortune to be alive at one particular moment. It is the idea that people who did something long before us, who passed it on to the people who passed it on to the people who passed it on to us, may have had some idea of what they were doing.
In this particular instance, however unfortunate or unpopular or uncouth it is to say, and whatever other subtleties absolutely must be added to a consideration of LGBTQ rights and practices in modern society and in modern religion, the unpopular idea is the orthodox idea, and whether Mackelmore likes it or not, the conviction that homosexual sexual acts are a sin is the conviction which is most closely tied to the great rope of historical interpretations of the Biblical text.
In summary, my great frustration on this point is that the culture as a whole seems to have adopted this somewhat warped notion as fact.
YES, we must always show the love of Christ to all people and NO, as Pope Francis has pointed out it is not our place to judge other persons and YES, if you ask me, all persons of all sexualities, genders, sexual expressions and gender expressions should all have equal rights and freedoms under every law, everywhere, all the time.
But NO, saying that homosexual sexual acts are not sinful IS NOT more faithful to the 2,000 year long history of Christian doctrine, and no amount of insistence that it is can change the fact that we have 2,000 years of Christian history in which homosexual sexual acts were consistently considered sinful, and as is the nature with Orthodoxy we have a chain reaching back 2,000 years of people in our tradition who have held that position who show us that, unsurprisingly, that was their position
It is unpopular and it is very uncomfortable to assert these matters as a Christian in the 21st century. It is awkward, it can feel antiquated and it often feels irrelevant. But it is NOT unorthodox.
The aforementioned second issue, often called the elephant problem, will be addressed in my next article.
So rings one of the most poignant lines in Mackelmore's hit song "Same Love" off of his collaborative album with Ryan Lewis. The song, if you haven't heard it, is on the whole a much-needed and very welcome hip-hop endorsement of legal rights and social acceptance of those persons who fall within the LGBTQ spectrum, and it's profundity is perhaps only matched by the amount of musical talent and insight poured into it. Being a piece by Mackelmore, it's primary narrative impetus comes through rapped verses, although a hauntingly beautiful chorus which echoes the essential cry of the persons with whom the song is concerned is provided by Mary Lambert. What's more, the song as a musical piece is given a kind of musical grandiosity and a decidedly religious bend by both several lines, one of which is quoted above, which make direct reference to God and/or religion in general, and in case the religious point of the song was not driven home thoroughly enough by Mackelmore and Ms. Lambert, the song fades away to the attributes of love as listed in 1st Corinthians chapter 13.
This is a good song, a well-needed catchy and universal cry for LGBTQ rights, and it deserves almost every bit of praise that can be given up to it.
Nonetheless, there are two specific problems I find with the song's stance on religion. Both of these problems, while well exemplified here, are far from rare and deserve, because of their befuddling and pervasive presence in 21st century life, special consideration
The first of these is the line quoted at the start of this article, a statement which seems agreeable and tempting at first, the faults of which are evident upon even the lightest inspection.
There is, of course, the somewhat obvious (though nonetheless significant) issue that the Bible, the obvious target of the remark, is not a single book, and while most of the Bible is likely drawn from a strict oral tradition reaching back maybe 3500 or so years ago (although that does set things back quite a ways), even the book of Leviticus, the earliest explicit condemnation of homosexuality in the Biblical text, was likely actually written down closer to the 6th or 7th century B.C. It is, of course, easy to dismiss the difference between 2500 years ago and 3500 years ago, but let us be clear that we're talking a difference of 40%, but one thousand years. If we assume a very generous average lifespan of 40 years, this comes out to twenty-five generations of people, and although the world didn't change terribly much by modern standards in that thousand years, it did significantly change and, more fundamentally, 3500 years and 2500 years are quite simply not the same thing, so the comment is first and foremost careless in its misuse of dating. This is not likely done for intentional reasons to cloud the judgement of persons listening to the song, but it is incredibly ignorant, an extreme exaggeration, or some amalgamation of the two.
Still, this dodges the real implied meaning of the line.
The obvious point in saying that "we paraphrase a book written 3500 years ago" is that we, in this context "we" being those who do not endorse LGBTQ rights, have not only made a general human error, but have done so by misinterpretation of an old text with which we have allowed ourselves to become out of touch.
I want to be clear here, I really do love Mackelmore's music, I love this song, and I consider myself a firm supporter of LGBTQ rights, but this notion as presented in an otherwise admirable song is a farce.
On the one hand, there is the principle issue several (though limited) verses in the Bible openly and unambiguously condemn homosexual sexual acts. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:10, along with the first chapter in the book of Romans, unambiguously condemn homosexual sexual acts as sin. And let us be clear here, these are not verses taken out of context. The sections of Leviticus from which these verses are lifted are quite literally lists of rules, more or less designed for lifting individual rules out of textual context and applying them unambiguously to a clear situation - this is why the Levitical law is so seemingly hell-bent on the infinite minutia of different situations - law is, in a sense, meant to be taken out of context and applied, and Leviticus is a book of law.
Furthermore, in Romans 1 it is similarly almost perfectly clear that Paul's condemnation of homosexual sexual acts is explicitly what it seems to be, a condemnation of homosexual sexual acts. There are arguments on this particular matter that Paul is only talking about unnatural homosexuality, but this presents still more problems. Several verses throughout the New Testament that do not explicitly mention homosexuality nonetheless prohibit what is variously translated "fornication" or "sexual immorality", and there is no honest examination of what these terms mean in their 1st century context that does not include homosexual sexual acts.
Nonetheless, even with these scriptural points being set aside, the core problem with Mackelmore's assertion (which is shared by a good deal of the vaguely "spiritual" culture in which we live) is that it asserts that those who do not completely accept, embrace and endorse the unmitigated practice of all the actions that fall within the LGBTQ spectrum for Christian religious reasons are in some sense out of touch with a vaguely conceived "original" religion or "original" Christianity that they have contorted through modern and/or recent misconceptions.
This is once more a tempting out, but an examination of history quite simply reveals it to be false.
The simple fact is that, the last 60 or so years being excluded, there has never before been a movement or a current in widespread Christian thought that homosexual sexual acts were acceptable. Quite to the notable contrary, there is a long tradition reaching back through the ages within the Abrahamic traditions of rather specifically condemning homosexual sexual acts as one particular sin among a great multitude of other sinful acts.
The point here is that if we read the Bible, however long ago it was written, and paraphrase it to say that homosexual sexual acts are sinful - we are not arrogantly disposing of some original conception of God loving all of his children and using our religion to manufacture hate - we are interpreting passages of an admittedly old text in the exact same way they have been interpreted since they were written. We are, in a word, practicing an unfamiliar pattern of orthodoxy.
G.K. Chesterton in his venerable, but quick book Orthodoxy says that Orthodoxy as an idea is "the democracy of the dead," in other words, that it is the meaningful consideration of what we might call the cloud of witnesses who have lived and died before our time, an appropriate rendering of respect to those who do not have the good fortune to be alive at one particular moment. It is the idea that people who did something long before us, who passed it on to the people who passed it on to the people who passed it on to us, may have had some idea of what they were doing.
In this particular instance, however unfortunate or unpopular or uncouth it is to say, and whatever other subtleties absolutely must be added to a consideration of LGBTQ rights and practices in modern society and in modern religion, the unpopular idea is the orthodox idea, and whether Mackelmore likes it or not, the conviction that homosexual sexual acts are a sin is the conviction which is most closely tied to the great rope of historical interpretations of the Biblical text.
In summary, my great frustration on this point is that the culture as a whole seems to have adopted this somewhat warped notion as fact.
YES, we must always show the love of Christ to all people and NO, as Pope Francis has pointed out it is not our place to judge other persons and YES, if you ask me, all persons of all sexualities, genders, sexual expressions and gender expressions should all have equal rights and freedoms under every law, everywhere, all the time.
But NO, saying that homosexual sexual acts are not sinful IS NOT more faithful to the 2,000 year long history of Christian doctrine, and no amount of insistence that it is can change the fact that we have 2,000 years of Christian history in which homosexual sexual acts were consistently considered sinful, and as is the nature with Orthodoxy we have a chain reaching back 2,000 years of people in our tradition who have held that position who show us that, unsurprisingly, that was their position
It is unpopular and it is very uncomfortable to assert these matters as a Christian in the 21st century. It is awkward, it can feel antiquated and it often feels irrelevant. But it is NOT unorthodox.
The aforementioned second issue, often called the elephant problem, will be addressed in my next article.
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