Same-sex love in the Bible

Ruth and Naomi, Jonathan and David, have often been held up as examples of same-gender love. They may or may not have been having some sort of sexual interaction - but it really doesn't matter. The important thing about their relationships is that they loved each other; and this can be inspiring, both for close same-gender friendships and same-gender sexual relationships.

It would be incorrect to assume that just because two people of the same sex love each other then that automatically means they must be lesbian or gay. It would be just as bad as automatically assuming that they can't have been lovers because they were in the Bible, and that everyone in the Bible was heterosexual.

The current identity of LGBTs is a relatively recent phenomenon. People classified sexualities differently in the past, e.g. the ancient Greeks classified people as either penetrators (strong, active) or penetrated (weak, passive) - so it was OK to be the penetrator but not the penetrated (women, eromenoi). So it makes no sense to back-project contemporary LGBT identities on to same-sex relationships of the past and/or other cultures. That's why many writers on this subject are careful to refer to "women-loving women" and "men-loving men" when talking about the past or other cultures - becuase then it doesn't assume that the same set of practices and cultural assumptions was happening. Conversely, there's nothing wrong with LGBT people viewing same-gender relationships from the past as inspirational, in fact it's a good thing.

To say that Ruth and Naomi might have been having a sexual relationship is not to "reduce" their relationship to "only" being about sex. Lesbian relationships are not solely about sex - they are also about love, caring, mutual support, friendship, shared values, shared interests, going for walks together, and so on.

It is important not to airbrush out sexuality from texts like the Bible, and ancient mythologies in general. Sexuality is sacred and part of human experience, and it can be deeply spiritual.

It is very important to LGBT Christians to see Ruth and Naomi, David and Jonathan as exemplars of samae-sex love. And I think it quite likely that there was at least an erotic aspect to their relationships. Rev Fred Hammond, a UU minister, points out:

The Hebrew word for love in the text is Ahava. Ahava is used some 250 times in the Hebrew Scriptures. It is used to refer to the sexual as in the very poetic Song of Songs. It is used to refer to the love of a husband for a wife. It is used to refer to passion in illicit relationships. It is used to refer to the love of Jonathan and David, and Ruth and Naomi, and it is used in the great commandment to love one’s neighbor as one self[2]. And while we translate ahava as love, it literally means “I will give.”

The word Ahava is just as ambiguous (in the sense of whether it includes a sexual aspect) as our word, love. And this ambiguity leaves it open for a wide variety of ways to express love - and that can only be a good thing.

New Year's Resolutions

I wasn't going to make any New Year's Resolutions, but then I read Alain de Botton's piece about them. I wasn't going to make any because I always break them, but then that's not the point, according to the article.

And yet we need resolutions - even if we don’t actually manage to carry them through or rather, precisely because we rarely manage to do so. Trying to lead a moral and a good life must mean regularly daring ourselves to be good.

So I thought, Oh go on then...

Here goes.

1. I will take care of my spiritual needs.
2. I will do something creative.
3. I will do something to help others. (I already have two things in mind here, but the details are a bit hazy at the moment.)
4. I will lose weight.

Belief audit

I like to do the Belief-O-Matic quiz every so often to see what religion it thinks I am.

I note that I am now 100% Pagan and 97% UU. (I tend to fluctuate between 100% UU / 97% Pagan, and 100% Pagan and 97% UU). Last time I did it, I was 100% Secular Humanist - I must have been feeling very rational that day!

1. Neo-Pagan (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (97%)
3. New Age (94%)
4. Secular Humanism (85%)
5. Liberal Quakers (80%)
6. Theravada Buddhism (77%)
7. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (75%)
8. Mahayana Buddhism (73%)
9. Reform Judaism (66%)
10. Taoism (61%)
11. New Thought (59%)
12. Nontheist (57%)
13. Scientology (56%)
14. Sikhism (52%)
15. Orthodox Quaker (51%)
16. Jainism (45%)
17. Baha'i Faith (42%)
18. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (38%)
19. Orthodox Judaism (36%)
20. Hinduism (30%)
21. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (27%)
22. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (27%)
23. Islam (25%)
24. Seventh Day Adventist (18%)
25. Eastern Orthodox (16%)
26. Roman Catholic (16%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (5%)

wait a minute...

Come on, atheists, you can't have it both ways...

According to this article about Blasphemy Rights Day on RichardDawkins.net,

Not only are the militant stereotypes on the spectrum, I am glad they are there. One of the stupidest things about the liberal movement is that every couple of years they disavow and jettison 5% of their most extreme members. Kick the Communists out, then the Socialists look extreme. Kick the Socialists out, then the New Dealers look extreme. Soon, Nixon is viewed as moderate. These days, if you look at Reagan's policies, HE'S the new "center." When Hillary Clinton and John Kerry are considered the extreme left, and Joe Liebermann is the "moderate" you know some definitional changers are going on. And yet, the left keeps throwing out their 5% most-left, and wondering why our national discourse keeps shifting to the right. Asserting the government's right to torture suspects and wiretap non-suspects, suspending Congressional elections, limiting the right of the poor to vote - all of these ideas were considered too extreme for even serious consideration when I was a kid, but now, although they are far right, they not too out-there for debate. Because the left bi-annually disavows its "extreme" 5%. That wasn't a digression; that was a vision of the way Atheists will be treated if they disavow, discourage, silence, their angry extremists. Go back to that spectrum I described.

Now, I think that's a really good point - but aren't atheists (especially Richard Dawkins, on whose site this article is hosted) always complaining about how in religions, the extremists "hide behind" the moderates? I've always said that not's even true, because the extremists usually get far more media coverage than the moderates. But maybe it's true that if religions kicked out their extremists, the whole religious scene would move further to the right.

Certainly it has been argued by religious liberals before that if they left the big powerful churches, the evangelicals and fundamentalists would then occupy the seats of power. That's why Harry Emerson Fosdick never left the church he originally belonged to.

Another thing in the article is a list of types of atheists:

You've walked along the atheist spectrum, right? It ends at the "Angry-in-your-face" Atheist stereotype , goes through the "Don't be a dick" activist , past the "My religion (or lack thereof) is my own business" maverick, through the "I'm still in the closet" person, and starts at the "I'm faking it every Sunday for my family and friends" misery.

He missed out a category there - but then it's not really part of that spectrum: spiritual atheists who enjoy attending churches (because they like stories and inspirational poetry and meditation) where they are welcomed as atheists and are not expected to turn into theists.

Quaker Week

I think Quaker Week is a great idea - because whilst Quakers are more visible than other liberal denominations, the main reason most people have heard of them is probably because you have a breakfast cereal named after you, and that image is a little outdated. As a Unitarian and a Wiccan, I am very much in sympathy with Quaker views and values, and think it is a good idea to promote peace, social and environmental justice, equality and inclusion. Religion in general is getting a bit of a bashing from certain quarters at the moment, so any increase in the visibility of liberal religion is a good thing.

A hopeful sign

I was delighted to see that, in Scotland, the Unitarians, Quakers, Metropolitan Community Church, the Pagan Federation and Liberal Judaism are backing members of the the Scottish Youth Parliament in the campaign for same-sex marriage.

In England, the campaign for religious civil partnerships brought together the Unitarians, Quakers, Metropolitan Community Church, and Liberal Judaism - but sadly did not include the Pagan Federation. The issues surrounding marriage for Pagans in England (whether same-sex or opposite-sex) are slightly more complicated, in that Pagan celebrants are not licensed to perform opposite-sex marriages. Whereas in Scotland, where the marriage laws are different, Pagan celebrants have been licensed to perform weddings. But still, I hope that the Pagan Federation will also get included in the English campaign.

Anyway, it's great that liberal faith groups are getting together to campaign on this issue (which, as any regular reader of this blog will know, is one I consider to be important), and I hope it signals a move towards campaigning together on other areas of common ground. A liberal interfaith alliance for peace and social and environmental justice - just think what that could achieve. And I hope it will soon include other religious liberals too.

What is the source of morality?

Recently, when the US state of Georgia decided to execute Troy Davis, and the state of Texas decided to execute Lawrence Brewer, many bloggers wrote some heartfelt and moving articles arguing against the death penalty. I wrote one myself outlining what I think are the reasons for abolishing the death penalty.

Many of the Christian blog posts on the subject focussed on the commandments of God and/or Jesus as a basis for the ethical argument for abolishing the death penalty. The trouble is, there will be many Christians who think the opposite, and will probably find some Biblical text or other to justify their position.

I think you probably can make quite a good case that Jesus was against the death penalty, as in the story where he saves the woman taken in adultery from being stoned to death by saying "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone". On the other hand, he is also recorded as saying "I come not to bring peace, but a sword" and "if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off"; so in order to work out what Jesus' ethical stance was on anything in particular, we have to select the texts that support our argument. So wouldn't it be easier to work out whether something is right or wrong without reference to Jesus' views, or indeed God's commandments, which are similarly ambivalent ("Thou shalt not kill" as part of the Ten Commandments, but lots of injunctions to stone people to death for various infringements of the Law).

The death penalty is not wrong because Jesus was against it, or because it's against God's commands as handed down in the Bible. It's wrong for far more basic reasons than that; because you can never know to what extent the person was responsible for what they were doing when they committed murder, or to what extent they might change. They may well be innocent, as evidence is not 100% reliable. Killing is wrong because it cuts short someone's life and does them extreme harm.

The Golden Rule (attested to by every religion) says that we should do unto others as we would have them to do unto us - and being killed is pretty high on the list of things we would not like to have done to us. (The fact that a version of this rule has been worked out by every major religion suggests that it transcends cultural context and is based on universal human experience). God's commands (and Jesus' ethical stance) can be interpreted one way by one group of people, and another by a different group of people; so the Bible is not a reliable guide to ethics. It's got some rattling good stories in it, which when pondered can produce some interesting insights, but I would not use it as a guide to ethics.

So what is the source of morality? According to Richard Holloway, author of the excellent book Godless morality, morality is based on weighing two conflicting good things. So, in deciding whether abortion is ethical, one weighs the good of the life of the foetus against the good of the mother who may or may not bring it to term. In the case of the death penalty, it cannot benefit the victim of the crime to have the perpetrator killed. Society should be protected from the possibility that the perpetrator might repeat their crime, but the life of the perpetrator outweighs the cost of maintaining them in prison as opposed to killing them. There is also the very valid point that carrying out the sentence places a burden of distress on the people who carry it out.

The source of moraliy is not some absolute command handed down from on high (the very absolutism of which can often cause more distress than it alleviates) but the pragmatic considerations of the context in which the ethical decisions must be made: who benefits? who suffers? and to what extent?

Let's not lose the momentum

The death penalty is wrong no matter whether the victim of judicial murder is innocent or guilty.

Here's some reasons why it's wrong:

• The person being executed might be innocent. (Even if they're guilty, it's still wrong.)
• They may not have been entirely compos mentis when the crime was committed.
• People on Death Row frequently have learning difficulties or mental illness. If they weren't mentally ill to start with, the conditions on Death Row frequently send them over the edge.
• Executing them means they will never have a chance to make good.
• Killing is wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right.
• The judicial murder weighs on the consciences of those who carry it out.
• The process of killing the person is inhumane.
• The endless waiting on death row (20 years in the case of Troy Davis) is extremely stressful for the person waiting to be executed, and for their family.
• We don't have the right to decide to kill others.
• Quite often it is the poor and disadvantaged who get executed, while those who can afford a good lawyer get acquitted, or get their sentence commuted.
• How can any country that has the death penalty preach about human rights and democracy to the rest of the world?
• As Lindsay Beyerstein points out: "the same logic that drives the death penalty is also behind a large percentage of murders. The idea is that some transgressions are so bad that they can only be settled by blood. Encouraging people to think that their pain isn't honored and avenged unless the perpetrator is killed probably makes our society more violent on the whole, not less."

What you can do about it:

• Write to a prisoner on death row
• Support Amnesty and Reprieve - if you cannot give your money, give your time to raise funds and raise awareness.

UPDATE: Special Amnesty page with campaign resources about the death penalty, including a schools pack.

Putting the riots in context

The first thing that occurred to me when I heard about the riots was that this has happened before. There were riots in the 1830s over the Corn Laws and the need for parliamentary reform. The flames of Bristol burning after the 1831 riot could be seen from Cardiff. Rioters tore down the jail, freed the prisoners and burnt a large number of houses.

Research by The Guardian has shown that there is a strong statistical link between government austerity measures and outbreaks of unrest (riots, revolutions, and so on). We must see these riots in the context of the widening gap between rich and poor (notwithstanding a few high-profile cases of rich people joining in with the looting), the scandalous facts that the bankers have got away with wrecking the economy and the parliamentary expenses scandal has resulted in very few MPs being imprisoned for fraudulently claiming for their extravagant lifestyles. Clearly the looters are simply emulating the bankers and MPs.

It is of course very sad that people were killed in the riots, and the murderers must be brought to justice. But the disproportionate punishments meted out to some people involved in the riots seem ill-considered and likely to fan the flames of unrest. Right-wing social commentators have sought to blame poor parenting, single mothers, and the usual list of tired clichés.

There clearly has been some sort of breakdown in values, but it is not confined to the rioters and looters. The moral bankruptcy of the MPs and the banks is merely a middle-class version of the more blatant tactics of the looters. One looter, when asked what she thought she was doing, said that she was getting her taxes back. This implies that there has been a breakdown in the social contract - the consensus that we pay taxes and the government represents us and delivers services.

Many people remarked on the role of social media in spreading the unrest - but people managed to riot just as much without social media in previous centuries. The Luddites who smashed machinery in the 18th century did not have social media. In fact, it was heartening to see how social media (especially Twitter and blogs) was used to comment on and discuss the riots, and to gather people together to clean up after the riots.

What can we do as religious liberals in response to the riots? We must keep trying to build community and counteract the effects of social exclusion. The efforts of Bolton Street Angels (an initiative of which Bolton Unitarians are part), of Oldham Unitarians in helping asylum seekers, and of many other Unitarians up and down the country, are the sort of thing we need more of. The lack of cool places for youth to hang out in (since most youth clubs were closed) must be a contributory factor in the disaffection of youth. The prospect of unemployment and homelessness looms large for increasing numbers of the population as the gap between rich and poor grows wider. The increase in the activities of far-right groups such as the English Defence League is also disturbing, and we must join with other liberal groups to present an alternative view. We must also put pressure on the government to recognise that compassion and equality should be the central values of our society and its response to these riots and the the worsening economic situation, not retribution and increasing inequality.

Airbrushing the Bible

In a post entitled Reinterpreting Deuteronomy with Sophisticated Theology, Russell Blackford critiques some theologians' attempts to airbrush out the rather clear instruction to go and massacre the Hittites.

I think the problem here is actually the attempt (whether by Christians or atheists) to interpret the Bible as a unified text.

Actually the Bible is a collection of different books compiled over several centuries from books written by authors with very different political and social agendas. Some books have been shown to have been rewritten versions of earlier texts, as the accounts in them are clearly conflicting.

Karen Armstrong has pointed out in her book about the writing of the Bible that the author known as the Deuteronomist was very interested in smiting and genocide, whereas other authors (such as Amos) are much more liberal. In addition, some Tanakh authors anthropomorphise God, and some make him/her/it much more abstract.

Add to that the many layers of Jewish editing and rewriting, and the attempts by Christian theologians to create some sort of unified theology out of all this, and to retrospectively try to make Tanakh texts predict the coming of Christ, and you have a huge mess.

I think it's a complete waste of time trying to rehabilitate texts like this. It's a much better idea to disentangle the bits of the Bible from each other and view them as separate pieces of writing produced by people with very different ideas of God. Biblical criticism has been doing this very successfully using increasingly sophisticated methods of textual analysis since the late nineteenth century.

It's also a complete waste of time trying to deduce anything about God (who doesn't exist anyway) from these texts. Though you can deduce a lot about the author of Deuteronomy.

I do think that the allegorical method of interpretation favoured by many theologians has some uses though - not in the way that Russell Blackford is critiquing, but in order to prevent people from thinking that it's alright to massacre people you don't like.

However, the historical deconstruction of the text is probably more useful. Perhaps the two approaches can be used alongside each other.

I like the comments of MH on Russell Blackford's post; MH also advocates historical exegesis of the texts.

God Collar

I am currently reading God Collar by Marcus Brigstocke. It's brilliant, hilarious, witty and heartfelt. I laughed out loud at several bits, especially the one about the turgidity of school assemblies, and the bit about the desire to fart in church and mix up the shoes in the foyer of mosques. I also agreed wholeheartedly with his views on The God Delusion.

The main premise of God Collar is that the author experiences a "God-shaped hole" but can't manage to actually believe in God (especially not the smitey "Old Testament" God), which is quite understandable - I can't manage to believe in a supernatural creator deity, especially not the smitey variety. I can manage a sort of mystical energy (but not a person) or maybe it's just an experience, like love - in which case, should we even call it God?

I was quite surprised at the degree to which the book focusses on the vengeful deity depicted in the early books of the "Old Testament", especially as the author acknowledges Karen Armstrong in the introduction, and Karen Armstrong has done much to bring biblical criticism to the non-specialist, and to point out how you get a different picture of God from different authors of the Bible.

The author wishes that there was a religion where his atheism would be respected, and that the religion was just about being nice to people. He quite likes Jesus but cannot see why Jesus' death is supposed to save anyone. He would like to have a religion that is compatible with reason and science, where the wonder of the universe as discovered by science is appreciated. He would also like a religion that does not consider all the other religions to be doing it wrong. And he would like a religion that doesn't persecute women and gays.

Well several such religions exist. There's Unitarianism (welcoming towards atheists and humanists since at least the 1920s, ordaining women since 1904, respecting other religions since it began in the 16th century, and welcoming LGBT people since 1970).

Alternatively, if you don't like Christian symbolism served with your religious smörgåsbord, try Paganism (LGBT-friendly, has priestesses and goddesses; respects other religions; though Pagans are less inclusive towards atheism).

And if you don't like singing, try the Quakers.

Or if you like meditation, try Buddhism (most Buddhists are non-theist).

None of these religions mind if you're an atheist, and they won't try to change your mind about it. They also acknowledge the validity of other religions, are welcoming towards women and gay people, politically left-leaning and environmentally friendly.

Creation

I have just been watching the film Creation on BBC iPlayer, and found the portrayal of Emma Darwin a bit too orthodox, considering that she was a Unitarian (though of course Unitarianism was different then to what it's like now), so I decided to Google for background information. Although the family attended the local Anglican church, Emma made them turn around when the Nicene Creed was recited, because it is Trinitarian. She also enjoyed discussing evolution with her husband, although she believed in creation.

It seems really bizarre now that millions of ordinary people actually literally believed in God creating the Earth in 7 days and all that.

The film also seems to me to have made Darwin's inner struggles a bit too anguished and laudanum-fuelled. It's true that he feared the impact that publication of the theory of evolution would have on the world, but it did not abolish trust, hope, love and altruism, as he is portrayed in the film as fearing.

And why wasn't the film called Evolution? (I suppose because less Americans would have gone to see it...)