I have been asked to compile a recap of my 8 mini episodes on Affirming Theology. Please read this, copy it, use it, and my prayer is that if you are non affirming you would learn about affirming theology and what it is. I'm here to teach, even though I'm not a teacher or theolgian, but have certainly done my homework and certainly more than ANYTHING, have lived this.
For generations, a small collection of biblical passages has been used to tell LGBTQ people that their sexuality, their relationships, and sometimes even their very identity place them outside God’s design.
They are sometimes called the Bible’s “clobber passages” because of the way they have been repeatedly used against LGBTQ people.
Affirming Christian theology does not require throwing these passages away.
It requires reading them carefully.
It asks what the biblical authors were actually addressing, what the original language says, what was happening historically and culturally, and whether those ancient texts are actually describing what we now mean by sexual orientation and a loving, faithful, covenantal same-sex relationship.
The affirming Christian position is not that Scripture doesn’t matter.
It is that context matters precisely because Scripture matters.
Here is the case.
Genesis 1–2 — “Male and Female”
Genesis tells the foundational story of humanity through Adam and Eve. It celebrates creation, human companionship, relationship, and the continuation of human life.
But Genesis never says that every human being must enter a heterosexual marriage or that the existence of Adam and Eve constitutes a prohibition against every other possible covenantal relationship.
“Male and female” describes the couple in the creation story.
It does not say:
“Only a male and a female may ever form a loving covenant before God.”
That conclusion has been added to the text.
The affirming Christian position:
Description is not automatically prohibition.
Adam and Eve demonstrate that heterosexual relationship is good.
Their existence does not establish that every other loving relationship is therefore evil.
Genesis 19 — Sodom and Gomorrah
This is one of the most misused stories in this entire discussion.
The men of Sodom surround Lot’s house and demand access to his visitors so that they can sexually violate them.
This is attempted gang rape.
It is violence.
It is domination.
It is humiliation.
It is the abuse of vulnerable strangers.
And Scripture itself later describes Sodom’s wickedness in terms that include pride, excess, neglect of the poor and needy, and “abominations” or detestable conduct (Ezekiel 16:49–50).
Nothing in Genesis 19 resembles two gay adults entering a loving, consensual, faithful marriage.
The affirming Christian position:
Attempted gang rape is not a biblical model for understanding homosexuality.
Using Sodom to condemn a faithful same-sex marriage compares sexual violence with covenantal love.
Those are not morally equivalent.
Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13
These passages prohibit a man from lying sexually with another male within the holiness legislation given to ancient Israel.
Affirming Christians do not need to pretend those words aren’t there.
They are.
But that is only the beginning of interpretation.
Leviticus contains an extensive system of holiness, purity, dietary, sexual, ritual, social, and civil requirements governing ancient Israel.
Christians have never simply transferred the entire Levitical code directly into Christian life.
The New Testament itself wrestles with how Israel’s law relates to Gentile followers of Jesus.
Christians therefore already interpret Leviticus through covenant, context, the New Testament, and Jesus Christ.
The affirming Christian position:
An ancient Israelite prohibition of a male sexual act does not establish that homosexual orientation itself is sinful or that every loving same-sex relationship in every culture for all time is condemned by God.
The text prohibits an act within Israel’s holiness code.
It does not discuss sexual orientation.
It does not discuss gay identity.
It does not discuss two Christians of the same sex entering a lifelong marriage.
Romans 1:24–27
Romans 1 is often treated as though Paul stopped writing after verse 27.
He didn’t.
Paul’s argument begins with humanity turning from the Creator toward idols.
He describes people consumed by passions and people who “exchanged” what was natural for them.
The passage is filled with the language of idolatry, lust, excess, and exchange.
Paul then continues directly into Romans 2 and confronts the person who stands in judgment over others:
“Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others.”
The larger argument eventually brings everyone under humanity’s need for God’s grace.
The affirming Christian position:
Romans 1 is not describing two gay Christians whose enduring orientation is toward the same sex entering a faithful, loving, exclusive covenant.
Paul does not discuss sexual orientation.
He does not discuss gay identity.
He does not discuss same-sex marriage.
He does not describe two people whose natural orientation is toward one another building a life characterized by fidelity and mutual care.
The passage addresses idolatry, lust, passion, and exchange.
A faithful same-sex Christian marriage is not what Paul describes.
1 Corinthians 6:9 — Malakoi and Arsenokoitai
This passage requires particular care because English translation has profoundly shaped the way modern Christians hear it.
Paul uses two Greek words:
malakoi
and
arsenokoitai
Malakoi literally means “soft.” It had a range of meanings in the ancient world and was not a technical Greek word meaning “gay person.”
Arsenokoitai is a rare compound Greek term. There are strong linguistic reasons to connect it with the Greek wording of Leviticus.
But neither term means:
“A person with a homosexual orientation.”
Neither word means:
“Two men in a loving same-sex marriage.”
Neither represents the modern psychological category we now call sexual orientation.
The affirming Christian position:
Ancient Greek words describing condemned sexual behavior cannot simply be transformed into a blanket condemnation of an entire modern category of human beings and every relationship they may form.
Understanding what Paul condemned requires understanding Paul’s language and world—not simply reading a modern English translation backward into the first century.
1 Timothy 1:9–10
First Timothy again uses the term arsenokoitai, this time within a vice list.
Its appearance confirms that the writer regarded whatever conduct the term represented as morally wrong.
But repeating the word does not change its meaning into the modern identity category “homosexual.”
First Timothy does not discuss homosexual orientation.
It does not discuss gay Christians.
It does not discuss two people of the same sex marrying.
The affirming Christian position:
A condemnation of particular sexual conduct represented by an ancient Greek term cannot simply be expanded into God’s condemnation of every gay person’s capacity for intimacy, love, covenant, and marriage.
The question remains what conduct the ancient term describes.
Modern identity cannot simply be inserted into the ancient text.
The 1946 Translation — Why It Matters
This part of the history deserves attention because many Christians assume the word “homosexual” has simply been sitting in the Bible for thousands of years.
It hasn’t.
The 1946 Revised Standard Version New Testament rendered the two Greek terms in 1 Corinthians 6:9 together as “homosexuals.”
The RSV itself included a footnote explaining that two Greek words were being rendered by that one expression.
By the 1971 RSV revision, the translators had replaced “homosexuals” with the very different phrase “sexual perverts.” Historical translation comparisons document that change. Andrew McFarland Campbell
This needs to be stated accurately.
Christian objections to same-sex sexual behavior certainly existed long before 1946. The RSV did not invent traditional Christian sexual ethics.
But something important happened when ancient Greek terms describing behaviors were rendered with a modern word increasingly understood as describing a category of people.
The reader no longer merely heard:
This behavior is condemned.
The reader could easily hear:
These people are condemned.
The affirming Christian position:
Paul did not write the English word “homosexual.”
A twentieth-century translation choice must not be mistaken for Paul’s own terminology or for a biblical understanding of modern sexual orientation.
Translation is interpretation.
And when translation turns ancient behavioral terminology into a modern human identity, that interpretive decision matters enormously.
Jude 7 — “Strange Flesh”
Jude is another passage sometimes placed on lists of biblical condemnations of homosexuality.
But look carefully at the language and context.
Jude 7 describes Sodom and Gomorrah pursuing “strange,” “different,” or “other” flesh.
Immediately before this, Jude 6 discusses angels who abandoned their proper sphere.
This places Jude’s discussion within an ancient tradition concerned with forbidden sexual boundary crossing involving humans and angelic beings, alongside the Sodom tradition of sexual violence.
Whatever conclusions are drawn from Jude, the passage does not describe a loving same-sex marriage.
The affirming Christian position:
“Strange flesh” is not synonymous with “gay people.”
Jude does not discuss sexual orientation.
It does not discuss covenantal same-sex relationships.
It does not describe two LGBTQ Christians building a life together.
Using Jude as a simple declaration that “God condemns homosexuality” asks the passage to say considerably more than it actually says.
Jesus Never Condemns Homosexuality
This fact deserves to be stated plainly.
In the four canonical Gospels, Jesus never gives a recorded teaching condemning homosexuality, homosexual orientation, gay people, or same-sex relationships.
Not once.
Jesus speaks extensively about morality.
He addresses adultery.
He addresses lust.
He addresses divorce.
He addresses greed.
He addresses hypocrisy.
He addresses religious pride.
He addresses injustice.
He addresses judgment.
He addresses mercy.
He addresses how human beings treat one another.
Yet there is no recorded teaching in which Jesus singles out gay people for condemnation.
The affirming Christian position:
Christians should be extraordinarily cautious about turning something Jesus never directly addressed into a defining test of another person’s Christian faithfulness.
Jesus and Eunuchs — Matthew 19
Matthew 19 contains another passage that deserves far more attention.
Immediately after Jesus’ discussion of marriage and divorce, Jesus acknowledges eunuchs.
He describes some as eunuchs from birth, some as having been made eunuchs by others, and some as choosing that life for the kingdom.
This passage should not be misused in the opposite direction.
Eunuchs were not simply the ancient equivalent of gay people.
That claim would be historically careless.
But the passage still matters.
Jesus explicitly recognizes people whose bodies, sexuality, reproductive capacity, and lives did not fit neatly into the conventional marriage-and-procreation expectations of the surrounding culture.
And Jesus does not describe them as defective human beings outside God’s kingdom.
The affirming Christian position:
Jesus’ understanding of human life leaves room for people whose lives do not follow the conventional reproductive pattern.
Human worth before God is not determined by conformity to heterosexual reproduction.
Matthew 19 and Mark 10 — “Male and Female”
Jesus does quote Genesis:
“Male and female.”
And:
“The two shall become one flesh.”
But context matters.
What question is Jesus answering?
The Pharisees ask whether a man may divorce his wife.
Jesus reaches back to Genesis while addressing the seriousness of marital covenant and then concludes:
“What therefore God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Jesus is answering a question about divorce.
He is not being asked about homosexuality.
He is not being asked about sexual orientation.
He is not being asked whether two men or two women may enter a covenant.
The affirming Christian position:
Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 19 and Mark 10 defends the seriousness of marital covenant. It does not contain an explicit prohibition of same-sex marriage.
Turning an answer about divorce into a condemnation of a subject Jesus was not discussing adds a conclusion to the passage that Jesus himself does not state.
“God Made Adam and Eve”
Yes.
Genesis begins humanity’s story with a man and woman.
Human reproduction necessarily requires male and female.
But a description of humanity’s origin does not automatically become a prohibition against every relationship that differs from the first couple.
The affirming Christian position:
Adam and Eve demonstrate the goodness of heterosexual relationship. They do not establish the evil of homosexual relationship.
Affirming heterosexual marriage does not require condemning same-sex marriage.
“Be Fruitful and Multiply”
Procreation is repeatedly celebrated as a blessing in Scripture.
But Scripture does not make reproductive capacity the test of whether a marriage is legitimate before God.
Infertile heterosexual couples are married.
Couples who marry after childbearing years are married.
Couples who cannot have children are married.
And Christianity’s central figure—Jesus Christ—never married or reproduced.
Paul did not marry either and even praised celibacy as a Christian vocation.
The affirming Christian position:
Procreation can be a beautiful purpose and gift of marriage. It is not the definition of marriage and it is not the measure of human holiness.
Christian covenant is larger than biology.
“Same-Sex Relationships Are Unnatural”
The language of “nature” in Romans 1 occurs within Paul’s description of people exchanging their customary relations amid idolatry and uncontrolled passion.
That raises an important question when applying the passage to people whose enduring orientation is homosexual.
For a gay person, heterosexual attraction is not the orientation they naturally experience.
The affirming Christian position:
A faithful gay person entering a relationship consistent with his or her enduring orientation is not meaningfully described as someone abandoning heterosexual desire in pursuit of uncontrolled novelty.
A lifelong covenant characterized by fidelity, exclusivity, mutual care, responsibility, and love is fundamentally different from the excessive passions Paul describes.
“The Bible Defines Marriage as One Man and One Woman”
The Bible contains a variety of household and marital arrangements across its history.
There is monogamy.
There is polygyny.
There are concubines.
There is levirate marriage.
There are arranged marriages.
There are patriarchal structures modern Christians would not reproduce.
The fact that Scripture records something does not automatically make it God’s timeless ideal.
Christians already evaluate marriage through larger biblical principles.
The affirming Christian position:
Christian marriage should be evaluated by covenant, fidelity, mutuality, justice, responsibility, sacrifice, care, and love.
Same-sex Christian marriages can be held to those same standards.
“Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin”
This phrase is frequently presented as though Jesus said it.
He did not.
More importantly, calling a gay person’s capacity for intimate partnership inherently sinful is not a minor distinction between loving a person and disapproving of one isolated behavior.
It requires the gay person to accept that every possible romantic relationship available to them is forbidden unless they deny their orientation or remain celibate for life.
The affirming Christian position:
A faithful gay marriage does not belong in the same moral category as adultery, exploitation, promiscuity, coercion, abuse, or sexual violence.
Christian sexual ethics should condemn what harms and exploits human beings and uphold relationships characterized by covenant, fidelity, consent, responsibility, and love.
“Jesus Said to Deny Yourself”
He did.
Christianity absolutely involves self-denial.
But denying oneself is not the same thing as denying that one has a self.
Every Christian is called to surrender selfishness, greed, dishonesty, exploitation, cruelty, infidelity, pride, and whatever prevents love of God and neighbor.
The affirming Christian position:
Christian self-denial does not require LGBTQ people alone to surrender the possibility of lifelong companionship and romantic love.
Discipleship asks gay and straight Christians alike to bring their relationships under the demands of fidelity, honesty, responsibility, sacrifice, and love.
“Being Gay Is a Choice”
Modern Christian ethics should not be constructed around the assumption that LGBTQ people simply decided whom they would be attracted to.
People generally experience sexual orientation rather than selecting it as one selects a lifestyle.
The affirming Christian position:
The moral question is not whether someone experiences same-sex attraction.
The Christian ethical question is how human beings live out their capacity for relationship:
With honesty or deception?
With fidelity or betrayal?
With consent or coercion?
With responsibility or exploitation?
With love or selfishness?
Gay Christians should be judged by the same moral standards as heterosexual Christians.
Christian Marriage Is More Than Anatomy
Christian marriage has never been merely a biological arrangement.
Marriage involves spiritual, emotional, relational, moral, practical, and communal commitments.
Spouses care for one another.
They sacrifice for one another.
They forgive.
They remain faithful.
They build homes.
They care for families.
They accompany one another through illness, aging, grief, hardship, and death.
The affirming Christian position:
Two people of the same sex are capable of practicing the covenantal virtues Christianity asks of married people.
Fidelity does not become meaningless because both spouses are men or both spouses are women.
Sacrifice does not become meaningless.
Forgiveness does not become meaningless.
Commitment does not become meaningless.
Love does not become meaningless.
Jesus Said to Look at the Fruit
Jesus taught that a tree is known by its fruit.
Paul describes the fruit of the Spirit as:
Love.
Joy.
Peace.
Patience.
Kindness.
Goodness.
Faithfulness.
Gentleness.
Self-control.
Those are profoundly important standards.
The affirming Christian position:
LGBTQ Christians and same-sex marriages are capable of producing precisely those fruits.
A theology that decides beforehand that those fruits cannot count because the people producing them are gay has reversed Jesus’ test.
It has decided the verdict before examining the fruit.
Biblical Interpretation Is Not Rejecting the Bible
Every Christian interprets Scripture.
Christians interpret Scripture when discussing slavery.
Women in ministry.
Head coverings.
Divorce and remarriage.
Sabbath observance.
Dietary laws.
Interest on loans.
Political authority.
War.
Wealth.
Church leadership.
And sexual ethics.
We ask about language.
History.
Culture.
Literary genre.
Covenant.
Context.
Jesus.
And the larger witness of Scripture.
The affirming Christian position:
Historical context, original languages, literary context, and the teachings of Jesus are not loopholes used to escape Scripture.
They are tools Christians use to understand Scripture responsibly.
Affirming Christianity Is Not a Tiny Fringe Movement
Affirming Christianity exists across a significant part of the Christian world.
GayChurch.org currently lists 11,314 LGBTQ-affirming Christian congregations worldwide, and the directory says each listed congregation has either directly confirmed its affirming status or been identified as affirming through reliable public information. The organization also notes that its directory is a resource rather than a claim to include every affirming congregation. GayChurch.org
Affirming Christians can be found within Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Mennonite, Brethren, Baptist, Community of Christ, and other Christian communities.
Recent PRRI research found that 38% of LGBTQ Americans identify as Christian. That does not mean every LGBTQ Christian holds identical affirming theology, but it decisively demonstrates that LGBTQ identity and Christian identity are not mutually exclusive. PRRI
Community of Christ, for example, describes itself as an international Christian movement with 250,000 members in more than 60 nations, committed to proclaiming Jesus Christ and fostering communities of joy, hope, love, and peace. Community of Christ
Numbers do not determine theological truth.
But they do demonstrate something important:
Affirming Christianity is not Christianity without Christians, churches, scholarship, Scripture, or Jesus.
It is a substantial Christian movement taking Scripture and discipleship seriously while reaching an affirming conclusion.
The Bottom Line
The biblical passages most frequently used against LGBTQ people do not describe what Christians today mean by a gay person living openly in a faithful, exclusive, covenantal same-sex marriage.
Sodom describes violence and attempted rape.
Leviticus contains prohibitions within ancient Israel’s holiness legislation.
Romans 1 describes idolatry, passion, exchange, and excess.
1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy contain ancient Greek sexual terminology that cannot simply be equated with the modern identity category “homosexual.”
The 1946 RSV demonstrates how dramatically translation choices can affect what modern readers think an ancient text says.
Jude speaks of “strange” or “other” flesh within the Sodom tradition and an immediate literary context involving angelic boundary crossing.
Jesus never gives a recorded teaching condemning homosexuality or same-sex marriage.
And the Christian virtues Scripture actually asks us to cultivate—love, fidelity, honesty, covenant, sacrifice, mercy, justice, forgiveness, and the fruit of the Spirit—are entirely possible within the lives and marriages of LGBTQ Christians.
So the affirming Christian conclusion is clear:
Being LGBTQ is not itself a sin.
A loving, consensual, faithful same-sex relationship is not morally equivalent to lust, adultery, exploitation, rape, promiscuity, or abuse.
LGBTQ people can follow Jesus Christ.
They can receive the Spirit.
They can serve the church.
They can enter covenant.
They can marry.
They can worship.
They can love God and their neighbors.
And they can live fully Christian lives without first becoming heterosexual or accepting compulsory lifelong celibacy.
Affirming theology does not ask LGBTQ people to choose between being honest about who they are and belonging to Jesus.
There is room at the table.
And there always was.