My Take: Stop weaponizing Bible verses to justify your own beliefs
Please stop the hypocrisy, judgment and divisiveness as it relates to people who are LGBTQ+ and the Christian Church.
Ray Buursma recently wrote a column titled "My Declaration concerning homosexual marriage," in which he concluded: “Most importantly for me, I desire homosexuals to know I and many others believe they, too, are God’s beloved children.”
Bill Sutton responded to Mr. Buursma’s column on July 30. Mr. Sutton supports his perspective that a person who lives authentically as LGBTQ is incompatible with being an "authentic Christian" with some dubious data. I am not a Christian, nor am I a biblical scholar, so I cannot cite the bible passages that Mr. Sutton references that indicate that living one’s authentic gay life is sinful.
However, Albert Bell recently wrote in his letter to The Sentinel about the "cherry picking" that is done by Christians who want to support one point of view, while ignoring other verses of the bible. He uses the examples of Deuteronomy 2:25, which suggests a woman wearing man’s clothes is considered "an abomination," or Old Testament verses that prohibit eating shellfish.
Does Mr. Sutton suggest that women who wear what would be considered men’s attire or those who eat shellfish do not deserve the full rights of a Christian? After all, Mr. Sutton states: “Christians can’t pick and choose what commands of God to follow (1 John 2:4)” Mr. Sutton apparently believes that Christians should take ALL of the words of the Bible literally and live by these standards, whether they are related to who one loves, what clothes one wears, or what food one chooses to eat, among many other dogmatic references in the Bible.
Mr. Sutton indicates that "research" suggests that “homosexuals are at a higher risk of anxiety disorders, depression, substance abuse and suicide.” I wonder if Mr. Sutton has ever considered that people who are gay may have higher rates of mental health issues because of the constant hate and discrimination that is directed their way each and every day. Perhaps the same was true in biblical times, leading to the verses that some would suggest declaring homosexuality as sinful.
Mr. Sutton cites the "Sexuality and Gender Special Report" from two Johns Hopkins researchers that suggests that “some of the most widely held views about sexual orientation ... are not supported by science.” However, Mr. Sutton fails to point out that this report was published in The New Atlantis, which is a journal funded and published by the conservative advocacy group The Ethics and Public Policy Center. It is not a scientific journal, and this "report" was not peer-reviewed.
In fact, after the publication of this "report" in 2016, eight other Johns Hopkins faculty members wrote an op-ed to the Baltimore Sun expressing their concerns that the authors of the Sexuality and Gender Special Report had mischaracterized the current science on gender and sexuality, and more than 600 alumni, faculty members and students at the medical school signed a petition calling on the university and the hospital to disavow the report.
Mr. Sutton also disregards dozens, if not hundreds, of peer-reviewed papers on the subject of sexuality and gender, including studies that supply peer-reviewed evidence of homosexual behavior in hundreds of animal species (all of whom, with the exception of human beings, never read the Bible). Mr. Sutton is cherry-picking as it relates to journal articles.
Mr. Sutton agrees that fundamentalist Christian messages are driving people who are gay out of the church, and he appears to be perfectly fine with this. He fails to also acknowledge that these rigid, dogmatic teachings are driving all kinds of people out of the church. In a 2017 Lifeway Research survey, a majority (66%) of Americans ages 23-30 said they stopped attending church on a regular basis for at least a year after turning 18. Among their top reasons was that church members seemed divisive, judgmental or hypocritical.
Lifeway research is an organization that provides research and data for Christian churches. Divisive? Think Mr. Sutton’s "authentic Christians" versus all of the other Christians. Judgmental? People who are gay and live their authentic lives are sinners and not worthy of the full benefits of the church, according to Mr. Sutton. Hypocritical? See above regarding cherry-picking Bible verses and journal articles. Mr. Sutton and the dwindling members of his "authentically Christian" church can believe whatever they want to believe. But it is important to call out the hypocrisy, judgment and divisiveness in the dogma they preach.
— Marsha Manning is a resident of West Olive.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: My Take: Stop weaponizing Bible verses to justify your own beliefs
