A few years ago I made some theological points regarding the film Brokeback Mountain.
Unfortunately the copyright lawyers didn’t believe this constituted as “fair use”,
so that lesson has been blocked in a few countries.
UNTIL NOW, well sort of...
Today we’re going to take a closer look at one aspect from that lesson: the clobber
passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans chapter 1 verses 26-27.
The verse reads:
“For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions.
Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the
men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another.
Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty
for their error” (1:26-27).
The Letter to the Romans was written by Paul of Tarsus around C.E. 60 under the reign of
Emperor Nero.
To understand this passage, we must begin by looking at the use of the word nature.
The Greek word for nature, phooskos, translates to “inborn”, “produced by nature”,
agreeable to nature”.
Brendan Byrne explains that “The language reflects the conventional stoic sense of ‘nature’
as the established order of things.”
For those who followed Stoicism, to act naturally meant maintaining individual self-control,
being compliant with social-sexual norms, and reserving sexual acts for the purpose
of procreation.
The behavior depicted in Romans 1:26-27 is counter to the natural harmony of moral stoicism.
In the ancient world, men dominated while women submitted in all areas of society -- marital,
family, culture, intellect, government, and, in certainly the context of Romans 1, sex.
In the bedroom, men were the active participants in sex, the penetrators while Women were the
passive, the penetrated.
When a man either voluntarily took, or was placed in, the sexual role of a woman as the
penetrated partner, his entire social and personal status was degraded to that of a
woman.
Men, it was believed, were able to control themselves, yet women were unrestrained in
their passions.[2] Even if a man maintained the active role of penetrator, in losing self-control,
such as what is described in this passage due to lust, he had become like a woman.[3]
Kathy Baldock, Walking the Bridgeless Canyon
And note that the text doesn’t say anything about women sleeping with other women.
Unconventional female sex in the Greco-Roman world could have been any one of the following
behaviors: sex with a man where the woman takes the dominant position, non-procreative
sex with a man or another woman, or even solo masturbation.
We do know that whatever the acts were, they were motivated by lust, not love, and do not
illustrate the affection between two women in a committed relationship.
With that said, what was the situation that Paul is referring to that led these men and
women to behave this way?
According to Joseph R. Dodson (Ouachita Baptist University), the scene described in Paul’s
letter is reminiscent of the ancient Greco-Roman convivium, “Rome’s ‘after-dark’ entertainment’
of which idolatry and feasting led to a steady march toward inebriation and wild promiscuity.”
Religious Temples provided dining facilities for both sacrificial meals and private parties,
which were almost always connected with a sacrifice to the gods.
Hymns were sung, cups lifted up, prayers spoken forth, and libations poured out in the celebration
and worship of the deities considered to be present at the table.
The atmosphere of these banquets, needless to say were sexually charged with people partaking
in threesomes, group sex, prostitution, rape scenarios (with a score card), bestaliaty,
pedophilia, and god knows what else?
The idea of sex and worship was not a new or unique trend exclusive to Greco-Roman society.
Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, the Israelites frequently combated Ba’al worship -- which
was often associated with local fertility gods.
The best way to show devotion to a fertility god would’ve been acts of fertility -- aka
sex! (which gives new meaning to bedtime prayer, right?!)
We’ve already discussed disapproval of these actions in Leviticus, Ezekiel, and other Pauline
epistles, so it is therefore likely that Romans 1:26-27 is also condemning this behavior.
And Paul had cause for concern because only a generation later the Letters of Jude 2 and
2 Peter 2:13-14 report that this very type of promiscuity was occuring at Christian worship
services!
Consequently, this passage is not a commentary on same-sex behavior, but a condemnation on
losing control of oneself due to the worship of a false god.
The due penalty as understood by the Roman Gentiles was a life devoid of self-control
and filled with excesses leading to personal and social dishonor and shame.
Sin causes us to behave in ways that are unbecoming of our true selves and As a gay man myself,
I’ve been guilty of committing the primary sin described in this passage.
For almost thirty years of my life, I worshipped a false god of conformity, forgetting myself
in order to adhere to societal norms, church and family expectations, and a desire to escape
perpetual loneliness.
Because of this I acted shamefully -- I tried to be straight.
I dated women and even proposed to marry one of them.
That was unnatural.
That was shameful.
And that was the sin.
With that said, I’m sorry to all of those women who I hurt, Particularly to you Rebecca.