Wednesday, 2/26/97
Christianity adapting to society, culture
Injunctions against homosexuality as obsolete as those promoting
racism and sexism as time changes interpretation of Bible
By Jeff Lee
Bravo to Silvia Morelos for her reflections on religious
revisionism in "Loving My Religion" (Feb. 11)! I admire her candor
on a subject which to many Christians smacks of heresy.
As a gay Catholic, I have long struggled with the dilemma of
reconciling my sexual lifestyle with my religious views, a dilemma
which, Morelos suggests, takes root in the idea of God’s
"conditional love" – in short, if you follow his rules, you will go
to heaven, otherwise, you are damned.
While this idea may not reflect Protestant church doctrine, it
does summarize the Roman Catholic conception of salvation. Silvia
and I grew up to Roman Catholic teachings, and as we matured,
"opening (our eyes) a little more" to examine the surrounding
world, the hypocrisy in these teachings became so unnerving that we
were forced to redefine our religious identity, fashioning it to
democratize our faith according to a modern sociological
perspective.
In defense of Morelos’ re(en)visionist commandments, it is
necessary to highlight the centrality of sociological forces
shaping religious thought. Contrary to fundamentalist theology,
religion does need to reform its ideology according to the sway of
social forces; if it clings forever to the past, it is sure to
stagnate. In truth, modern Christianity bears relatively little
semblance to the Christianity practiced in the last century. Since
the onset of the feminist-suffragette movement throughout the 20th
century, Biblical teachings once hailed as incontestable truth were
suddenly dismissed, conveniently relegated to silence and
disappearance. Of course, the church needed to blind-spot its past
theological blunders. After all, would any sane woman today accept
Catholic teachings if they maintained, as they did up until the
early 20th century, that women are hierarchically inferior to
men?
Moreover, if indeed the Bible’s word is unalloyed truth, how is
a woman to validate a Biblical injunction that a man may not touch
a menstruating woman because she is dirty and unworthy? This idea
is completely absurd because it came from a time of scientific
ignorance and culturally enforced misogyny.
My theory is that if Christian thought has given in to social
pressure and that if Biblical passages no longer provide the
rationale for justifying misogyny and racism (the black mark of
Cain was popularly cited as proof that Africans were divinely
intended as slaves), the Biblical injunction against homosexuality
should also someday collapse when Christians realize that all forms
of categorical discrimination go against their creed. If the Bible
has proven unreliable and false in the past, why are so many
Christians still so reluctant to admit that perhaps their
institutionally mandated homophobia is also wrong? Have they ever
considered that despite the advances Christianity has made to catch
up with the times, it still may be in the proverbial dark?
Morelos expresses her disgust with those crusty Christian poster
boys who occasionally terrorize Bruin Walk by brandishing signs at
passersby, screaming "HOMO." Exactly why is it that we laugh when
we see them nobly spreading God’s word? Are we amused by their
exasperating ignorance, or do we chortle in the realization that in
failing to see the gross irony of preaching religion to invoke
hatred, these men, like all Christian homophobes, become disgusting
parodies of both God and themselves?
A question for you Christian homophobes:
Do my words radiate God’s light? They do, and you would see that
light if you were truly Christian. That light illuminates new
possibilities, it clears away the muddiness of traditional
Christian thinking to reveal new horizons of thought. That light is
passing over you. Are you beginning to see that God does love
faggots like me?Jeff Lee is a first-year English student.
The Biblical injunction against homosexuality should also
someday collapse.