One of the largest religious divisions in American history has occurred in recent years. About a quarter of the 30,000-member congregation of the United Methodist Church (UMC), the second largest Protestant denomination in the United States, has left to form the Global Methodist Church (GMC). They left because they refused to join a denomination that celebrates same-sex marriage and allows LGBTQ people to be ordained.
Members of new anti-LGBTQ sects tend to respond in similar tones when asked about their departure. “They were just doing what the Bible told them to do.” According to one GMC elder, the UMC’s recognition of same-sex marriage follows the recent repeal of anti-homosexual statements in the Book of Discipline after 52 years, and “removes the denomination from its ancient, orthodox, ecumenical, Biblical religion. This is the Christian faith. ” As a result, those who join the GMC simply “choose to follow the Biblical Methodist tradition,” in the words of one member. Officially, the GMC’s Doctrine and Discipline Transition Paper claims the new denomination adheres to a “biblical view of sexuality and gender”. Such rhetoric is widespread among Christians called “evangelicals” as well as the GMC contingent. In the GMC and elsewhere, evangelicals simply point to the Bible to explain their views on sexuality and gender.
Moreover, such rhetoric, or simple points, is reproduced in scholarly explanations of those views. The same sentiment continues to resonate, from scholars who identify themselves as “evangelicals” to those who consider themselves “secular.” Evangelicals are anti-gay because they believe the Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin.
As for why evangelicals came to believe this, many scholars, journalists, and other commentators treat evangelical interpretation of the Bible as a natural product of their ostensibly stable approach to the Bible. Masu. That approach is usually described with terms like “literalism,” “inerrancy,” and “an elevated view of Biblical authority.” These terms, often repeated without any questioning, are designed to serve as a direct explanation of why evangelicals do the things they do. So scholars say that, just as evangelicals themselves tell us, evangelicals are anti-gay or He says he is anti-feminist. Similarly, scholars tell us that evangelicals are anti-gay or anti-feminist because they are Biblical literalists, just as evangelicals themselves tell us. Also, some Biblical texts, read literally, teach that homosexuality is a sin and that women should be subordinate to men.
I call this “hermeneutic determinism.” That is, attributing the actions of religious actors to the interpretive principles and approaches that those actors seek to apply when reading scripture.
In a case study of evangelical positions on sexuality and gender, hermeneutic determinism obscures hermeneutic diversity and hermeneutic change within the evangelical community. As my forthcoming book on the history of evangelical gay activism shows, drawing from the archives of many evangelical publications and institutions, a minority of evangelicals in the United States believe that the church is Advocates for recognition and ordination of gay and lesbian people. Since the 1970s. They often do so by using the same evangelical discourse about the Bible that anti-gay homosexuals have used: literal interpretation, inerrancy, and a high view of the Bible’s authority. I went to The same was true of the evangelical feminist movement that came together in the 1970s, and many of the movement’s leaders preferred to call it “biblical feminism.”
Moreover, even within anti-gay and anti-feminist evangelical circles, discourses about literalism, inerrancy, and biblical authority have led to shifts and contradictions in exegetical conclusions. Consider, for example, the history of evangelical interpretations of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. In the late 1960s, when the leading evangelical magazine Christianity Today first began purposefully covering “what the Bible says about homosexuality,” Genesis 19 was authoritative. Cited as clear evidence that homosexuality is sinful. But over the next decade, the magazine’s authors struggled to come up with alternative interpretations of the crime of Sodom (wasn’t this about gang rape? Were the perpetrators really homosexual? Real homosexuals? Did such a thing exist?)
By the late 1970s, various readings of Genesis 19 began to raise more questions than the obvious passage should have raised, and magazine authors began to believe that the passage was an evangelical anti-homosexual I began to recognize that this did not apply to my position. Meanwhile, other evangelical publications took a literalist approach in claiming that the sinners of Sodom were actually homosexual. When we pay attention to these exegetical shifts and conflicts, and when we pay attention to the broader diversity of evangelical hermeneutics, it becomes clear that evangelicals’ anti-gay and anti-feminist positions reflect their theology and the Bible. It turns out that this is not an automatic consequence of hermeneutics.
Hermeneutic determinism is problematic, apart from its tendency to undervalue history and flatten diversity within religions. Scholars who rely on hermeneutic determinism when analyzing evangelical positions tend to parrot evangelical discourse under the guise of analysis, while fundamentally misunderstanding the discourse they are parroting. be. Terms such as “biblical authority,” “inerrancy,” and “literalism” do not simply refer to stable beliefs about the biblical text or consistent readings. These refer to versatile rhetorical tools that evangelicals have used in a variety of ways.
Scholars would do well to abandon the widespread view that scripture is a source of authority in order to ascertain the extent of its versatility. This is because scripture itself has no authority to exercise. Rather, we should treat scripture as “a site for complex debates about religious authority.” When they gather at the site of scripture, religious actors construct different interpretations of the scriptures, creating a “stakes competition of unstable claims” in which religious actors struggle to assert their authority through those texts. produce. Thinking of scripture as a source of authority is also problematic insofar as we imagine a single entity that can be isolated from other perceived sources of authority, such as “science” or “experience.” there is. One cannot engage with a biblical text or claim “biblical authority” (though one can, of course, pretend) without bringing one’s own brain and background to that text. Evangelicals have a lot of pretense here. That is, they accuse their opponents of relying on extra-biblical authorities while declaring that they are relying instead on “biblical authority.” Academics should not pretend to be like them.
In an effort to maintain their interpretive authority, religious actors often project coherence and confidence in the presence of conflict and contingency. For example, the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) projected a united front of evangelicalism on the topic of divorce in its 1986 Chicago Statement on the Application of the Bible, stating: Be prudent and sometimes divorce is unavoidable. ” A few minutes of browsing the ICBI archives reveals a behind-the-scenes battle rather than a united front. Some evangelical leaders, fearful of the rapid rise in divorce rates since the 1960s, have argued that divorce is never justified, quoting Jesus’ words to that effect in Mark 10. Other evangelical leaders, mindful of the rising divorce rate even among evangelicals, argued: Divorce is sometimes justified, and Jesus was quoted to that effect in Matthew 19. Although the latter group won the battle, both groups insist that despite competing Bible citations, “we deny that there are any contradictions in the Bible on the subject of divorce.” I agreed. divorce and remarriage. ”
For American evangelicals, the behind-the-scenes work of projecting hermeneutic coherence and confidence has increased since the mid-20th century, as translations of scripture that they consider authoritative, inerrant, and unambiguous have proliferated. It’s getting more and more complicated. In some cases, that diffusion can work in their favor. For example, evangelist Billy Graham includes a lengthy discussion of “sexual sin” in his 1965 book The World on Fire, in which he consistently quotes the King James Version (KJV). That is, until we discuss Romans 1:27. According to this passage in the Colloquial Bible, men who left their “natural use of women” and “burned their lusts with one another” were “recompensed for their wrongs.” However, Graham was not satisfied with the implication of “error” and instead of quoting the Colloquial Bible, he switched to the New English Bible (NEB). The KJV used “error,” while the NEB used “perversion” (a coded reference to homosexuality at the time of Graham’s writing). Whether or not any of Graham’s readers have thought this switch through or even noticed it, Graham himself knew what he was doing and what it represented. Ta. The more translations of the Bible are in circulation, the less clearly the Bible appears and therefore the less persuasive it is. This is a “literal” reading.
However, the concept of literal hermeneutics needs further consideration. An analysis of anti-gay evangelical exegesis from the 1950s to the 1980s shows that just as there was a rise in pro-gay exegesis, Biblical literalism in evangelical discourse on homosexuality increased, and anti-gay evangelicalism increased. It turns out that there is pressure on the faction to put together an increasingly elaborate defense. their own exegesis. Anti-gay evangelical leaders are making statements about the Bible’s “plain meaning” regarding homosexuality just as it becomes clear in their discourse that the issue of homosexuality is becoming less obvious. strengthened. The evangelical community did not become fervently anti-gay because its members read certain biblical texts literally. Members of those communities were taught to talk about literally reading Biblical texts as a means of advancing the community’s anti-gay position.
So when GMC members and other evangelicals say they defend the authority of the Bible, believe in its inerrancy, or read the Bible literally, these phrases do not necessarily indicate an underlying motive. That’s not true. Rather, they indicate a rhetorical strategy. Whatever evangelicals think they are doing when they say they are defending the authority of the Bible, they are rhetorically denying their and their community’s authority to determine the interpretation of particular biblical texts. I am defending it. Regardless of what evangelicals think they are doing when they say they believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, they utilize a term that gives them authority to declare their interpretation inerrant. That’s what I’m doing. Whatever evangelicals think they are doing when they say they are reading the biblical text literally or conveying the simple meaning of the text, they are It deploys yet another rhetorical tactic to support it.
This does not mean that scholars should not take seriously what evangelicals and other religious subjects say. That is, if your audience doesn’t seem to understand what it means to read your text, you shouldn’t go along with it. Nor does this mean that all biblical interpretation should be treated as an epiphenomenon. This means that the approach of “because it is written so in the Bible” does not provide a sufficient historical explanation.
My own research involves critically engaging with what my subjects say about how they read sacred texts and what actions they are inspired to take by reading them. , has benefited greatly. In my eyes, such efforts are especially needed when considering religious views on sexuality and gender. Some scholars seem to have a tendency to stop investigating when apparently honest people start mentioning scripture. Our job is not to point to what lies next to them, but to look at the texts, and of course not to see what the texts “really say” about certain things, but rather to read more broadly. is to observe the history and countless phenomena. That’s what shaped them.
