Did St Paul regard homosexuality a a sin?  The straight-forward answer is yes.   In Romans chapter 1 he describes homosexual liaisons, both men and women, as an natural outworking of a society based on idol worship. But there is more to be said.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.   Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.

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.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious towards parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practise such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practise them.                                                                           (Romans 1.22-32)

This is the only passage in which Paul talks about homosexuality,and it seems pretty clear.  But note that Paul talks about false worship more than sex, and the sins of anger and greed more than either.  Perhaps it’s us who are fixated on sex, not Paul.

However, it is worth asking, what was the situation which Paul would have had in mind?

What was the situation Paul had in mind?

Some years ago I read Plato’s Symposium, the dialogue with Socrates on the subject of love, written about 380 BCE.  I was unprepared to be as shocked as I was at the advocacy of homosexual love/desire; (the Greek word eros means both).  Along with this went the devaluing of women.  Who of course were not even second class citizens.  They were not citizens at all.  Take this quotation from the speech of Pausanias which starts off the dialogue.

“Common Love is genuinely common and undiscriminating in its effects; this is the kind of love inferior people feel.  (They) are attracted to women as much as boys, and to bodies rather than minds…

“The other love derives from the Heavenly goddess, who has nothing of the female in her but only maleness, so this love is directed at boys,… feeling affection for what is naturally more vigorous and intelligent.  These are attracted to boys only when they start to have developed intelligence… around the time that they begin to grow a beard…  They do not plan to trick the boy, catching him while he is still young and then leaving with a laugh, running off to someone else.: (Symposium 181b-d)

How this could be linked with pagan worship is seen in the speech by Aristophanes:

“Zeus had an idea: “I think I have a plan by which human beings could still exist but be too weak to carry on their wild behaviour.  I shall now cut each of them in two; they will be weaker and also more useful to us because there will be more of them.”  Since their original nature had been cut in two, each one longed for its own other half and stayed with it.  They threw their arms round each other… wanting to form a single living thing.  So they died from hunger and from general inactivity…

Zeus took pity on them… and moved their genitals round to the front.  The aim of this was that, if a man met a woman and entwined himself with her, they would reproduce and the human race would be continued…  Those who are cut from the male gender go for males… These are the best of their generation, because they are naturally the bravest… They are bold, brave and masculine…  They have no natural interest in getting married and having children, although they are forced to do this by convention…  In short, such people become lovers of boys… (Symposium 190c – 192b)

It is not difficult to see how Jews (and Romans) were shocked by the Greek attitude to sexuality.  it can be shock today.  I recently had a conversation  with a young woman who saw nothing wrong with homosexuality.  I asked her if she would be OK with her partner having a boy lover on the side.  “No, actually,” she replied.

I think that Paul was reacting to what he saw as the downgrading of marriage.  His target was metrosexual immorality, not faithful partnerships, though that scarcely came into his world-view.  His attack was on the sort of behaviour portrayed in a scene in the Ben Kingsley film”Sexy Beast”.  The crime boss Teddy Bass (Ian McShane) is in a very dark sex club.  At one points he leans back and asks his aristocratic neighbour Harry (James Fox):  “Men or women?”  Harry drawls back, “Oh, definitely.”

Homophobia

Whatever one’s personal belief, Paul gives no excuse for homophobia.  Condemning someone else leads all too easily to malice, strife, gossip, being haughty, boastful, heartless and ruthless.  According to Paul those who do these things “deserve to die.”

Next week:  Paul on Sex