Romans 1 may be the most important New Testament passage in the conversation about Christianity and same-sex relationships.
So I don’t want to avoid it.
Paul writes about people exchanging what he calls “natural relations” for those “contrary to nature,” and about men being consumed with passion for one another.
Traditional Christians understandably read this as a prohibition of same-sex sexual relationships.
Affirming Christians ask additional questions.
What is happening in the larger passage? Why is Paul talking about idolatry? What did same-sex sexual behavior look like in the first-century Roman world? Is Paul describing sexual orientation and faithful, covenantal same-sex relationships as we understand them today — or is he describing lust, excess, idolatry, and practices occurring within a very different cultural world?
And then Paul does something important.
He doesn’t stop at the end of Romans 1.
Romans 2 begins by turning toward the person doing the judging:
“Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others…”
That doesn’t automatically settle the debate either.
But it should change the way Christians have it.
I’m not doing this series because I want to pretend difficult passages aren’t in the Bible. I’m doing it because these passages helped convince me for much of my life that something fundamentally wrong existed inside me.
So now I’m going back.
I’m reading them.
I’m wrestling with them.
And I’m asking what they meant then — and what they mean for us now.
You may ultimately interpret Romans 1 differently than I do. That’s okay.
But I believe “the Bible is clear” should be the beginning of the conversation, not the end of it.
Affirming Theology — Part 3: Romans 1
Darkness may be part of the journey, but it doesn’t have to be the destination.
Light Heals.
lighthealswithcarl.com
#LightHeals #AffirmingTheology #Romans1 #GayChristian #LGBTQFaith #Christianity #Bible #BiblicalContext #Faith
