http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060417/OPINION03/604170326/1272
Monday, April 17, 2006
Deb Price
Minister finds Bible backs gay clergy and marriage
I n 1993, Jack Rogers grudgingly agreed to serve on a task force
studying whether his local Presbyterian church in Southern California
should ordain gays.
Quite frankly, he wasn't interested in giving the topic serious thought.
"I opposed homosexuality reflexively -- that was just what I thought
Christians were supposed to do," he recalls.
But once he did embark on a scholarly journey, the Presbyterian minister
found that his views changed 180 degrees: He's become a vocal advocate
of ordaining gays and marrying gay couples in the church.
"I am so convinced that Jesus and the Bible, rightly understood, support
the equality of all persons, including gays and lesbians, and that the
church cannot continue going against its central values," says Rogers,
72, a former Presbyterian Church U.S.A. "moderator," the denomination's
top leader.
"We can't keep making a group of people pariahs. Jesus would never have
stood for it," he stresses.
How an evangelical Christian's views changed so dramatically on an issue
that has divided his church since 1976 is mapped out in fascinating
detail in "Jesus, the Bible and Homosexuality: Explode the myths, heal
the church."
His thoughtful new book, which recounts "how the church changed its mind
on other moral issues," couldn't be more timely: Presbyterians will
again weigh the place of gays in the church at their June 15-22 General
Assembly.
Rogers' turnabout came in part from his scholarly reading of the Bible
verses mentioning homosexuality. He concluded that cherry-picking verses
to try to justify prejudices ignores the ancient Near East's cultural
norms, fails to address other verses suggesting different
interpretations and disregards the Scriptures' central, loving message
about the life of Jesus.
Asking fellow Christians to temporarily take off 21st-century
spectacles, Rogers shows how the Presbyterian leaders deriding blacks
and women in the 19th century sounded eerily like the ministers of today
who brand those of us who are gay as sinful.
Back then, Rogers notes, most Americans believed women and blacks were
especially sinful and that the Bible told them so: Both were viewed as
morally inferior to white male Christians, sexually threatening and
deserving of punishment.
Leading ministers confidently grounded their defense of slavery and the
subordination of women in biblical verses, endorsing as simply part of
God's divine plan practices now recognized as abhorrent. (See Genesis
9:22-25, Ham's sin of seeing his father naked; and Genesis 3:16, Eve's
sin of eating forbidden fruit and sharing it with Adam.)
Presbyterian theologian Robert Dabney, laying out the slippery slope
argument of his day, warned soon after the Civil War that allowing black
men to be ministers would lead to race mixing. He later called the push
for women's rights "a new attack on God's Word."
Society -- and the church -- of course changed, not the Bible.
"We changed our minds because we changed the way we read the Bible --
from proof-texting to looking at the Bible as a whole and especially
through the lens of Jesus' life and ministry," Rogers says. "Most people
don't pay attention to history. They say, 'Oh, that was different.' No,
it is the same."
Jack Rogers' Bible study led him to see the light about gay people. He
has faith his beloved church will soon have a similar revelation.
Reach Deb Price at (202) 662-8736 or dprice@detnews.com.
© 2006 The Detroit News
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Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
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