Episode 518: LGBTQ+ Christian, Jewish, and Scientific Views

Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host, Rick Lee James, and I'm so glad that you're here with me again this week. This week, uh, has been, as usual, a very busy week, uh, because it's always busy in, uh, the CPE program. That I am in, and I was planning on having a guest this week, and the guest was scheduled. We were ready to do the program, and then something came up on his end, so we had to move that back a week. So I thought what I would do this week is maybe kind of a response to last week's podcast. Um, you know, last week, um, we had a guest on, and, uh, it was, it was a good conversation, I thought, with, uh, with, uh, with Dr. Miller. But I could, I could tell, I guess I wasn't happy with, uh, the way the conversation went fully. Uh, nothing against him, I just, we had a short amount of time and it would have been great to have discussed a little bit more. He on his podcast was talking with several guests, uh, just asking the same questions to each of them and allowing them to respond without rebuttal and, and just hearing them. And I thought that was a very good practice, although he himself is, is on the, I would say, extreme conservative side of issues like LGBTQ+, and that really was the crux of a lot of his conversation around his guests from the Church of the Nazarene. Well, this week— and by the way, I'm, I'm actually, uh, recording this at the hospital tonight. If I get a page, I will have to leave in the middle of this, so you'll know that because, uh, you'll hear a beep. But anyway, um, this week, uh, one reason I'm not at what is called the Church of the Nazarenes General Assembly in Indianapolis is because of my obligation as a resident chaplain, which will be up in August, and then I'll be back in school again full-time finishing my master's. Um, one thing that I know will be coming up in some form is once again the Church of the Nazarene will be probably addressing human sexuality in some way or another. Uh, it seems like every 4 years, um, it was more than 4 last year because of the pandemic, I think. So I think maybe it was 5 years ago when General Assembly happened. Kind of hard to believe. But there are always these conversations, and they're not easy conversations to have. People feel different ways. So what I thought I would do, because I don't think I've ever done this on the podcast— I don't have a guest this week— but I thought I would look at some of the not only science of human sexuality, uh, on this issue of, uh, LGBTQ+ issues but also the different views of Christian groups, Christian viewpoints, I would say, on LGBTQ+ issues. So the first thing I wanted to do was share these 4 different theories. Now, as I understand it, if you are not a Christian who is part of the LGBTQ+ community, then you probably won't know what these categories are because these are categories that Christians are using to make it easier to have these conversations. Um, not saying anything right or wrong about any of these viewpoints, just that they are what exists. The Church of the Nazarene, uh, where my ordination is in, and, uh, who is having their General Assembly at the time of my recording this, they are pretty firmly into Side B, which I'll get into that, uh, and, and just explain what that is. Um, but there's Side A, there's Side B, There's Side X and there's Side Y. So here are the 4 different perspectives within the Christian community regarding LGBTQ+ identity and relationships. So Side A says this: LGBTQ+ individuals can fully embrace their sexual orientation or gender identity. Same-sex relationships can be celebrated and blessed by the church. Under Side A, LGBTQ+ Christians can participate in all aspects of church leadership. Including ordination and marriage in Side A. And biblical passages traditionally interpreted as condemning homosexuality— excuse me— are seen as culturally conditioned and not relevant to modern understanding. So that is what we call Side A. That would be an affirming view. Uh, Side B is a little different. Quite a bit different actually. Side B, where I told you the Church of the Nazarene, uh, is pretty firmly entrenched, I believe, it says that LGBTQ+ individuals are called to celibacy and should abstain from same-sex relationships. While same-sex attractions are not sinful, acting upon them is seen as incompatible with traditional Christian teaching. The focus is on supporting LGBTQ+ individuals to live a life of celibacy while seeking emotional and spiritual fulfillment in their relationship with God. And then finally, Side B says that LGBTQ+ Christians are encouraged to seek support from their faith community to live a chaste life. So that's Side B. Then there's Side X, which we could probably call that, um, conversion therapy, um, and it stands for ex-gay. Um, but Side X says advocates, uh, they believe that being LGBTQ+ is a result of sin or brokenness and can be changed through therapy or religious interventions. This also says that same-sex attractions and gender identity are seen as contrary to God's design and need to be fixed. Also, Side X says that conversion therapy practices aimed at changing sexual orientation or gender identity are promoted as a means of helping LGBTQ+ individuals align with traditional Christian beliefs. And finally, this Side X viewpoint, uh, just so you know, it is controversial and is widely discredited by medical and mental health professionals. So most mental health professionals and medical health professionals would say that this is a dangerous and inaccurate view of human sexuality when it comes to LGBTQ+ issues. And we'll get into more of that in a minute. I'm learning a lot, especially working in healthcare. And then there's Side Y, which is another non-affirming stance. Side Y says LGBTQ+ identity and relationships are incompatible with the Christian faith. Therefore, Christians attracted to their own sex should renounce LGBTQ+ identification and use non-identity ways for explaining their experience. And side Y also says that all Christians are called to remain single or enter an opposite-sex marriage. Um, efforts to change a person's sexual attractions are generally not supported, according to side Y. But they are also not always denounced. So those are the nuances, and, and they swing— excuse me— the gamut from side A on one end of things and side X on the other side. And then we have side B and side Y, I guess I would say, somewhere in the middle of those. So, so how do we talk about these? How do we decide which one is right, which one is wrong? How do we have these gray conversations, especially when I personally know so many faithful, believing LGBTQ+ people? Matter of fact, I'm in a scripture study right now with a group of them, and I'm learning a lot, and I'm learning a lot about what they go through, and none of them have the same story, and it's It's fascinating to hear their journey and their walk of faith. So I thought it might be helpful to look at— not, you know, we all know that was the Christian side of things. Those were 4 different Christian views on LGBTQ+ issues. But I thought it might be helpful— well, what if we looked at what a Jewish perspective is on this, and then a scientific perspective as it stands? Because Really, we don't even have a scientific study of sexuality until around 200 years ago. There just was no scientific evidence one way or the other about how humans worked and how human sexuality worked at all. So the whole science is pretty new. And so I thought it might be interesting. Now I have a book and I don't have it with me, but I'm just gonna recite it as well as I can remember. Remember it. It's a book that is used and has been used since, gosh, probably the 1950s. They'll use it in Jewish schools to teach children about faith, about the world, about scripture and its place. And they have a very interesting perspective on scripture that I think would be very healthy for a lot of Christians to adapt. When they are teaching children in, in Jewish school, they will teach them that the Bible is a sacred book, that it is a book that is inspired by God, but that the Bible is also not a science book. And it says very specifically in this book that if we learn something new from science and it says something different than what the Bible says, then there's no need to panic. There's no need to, first of all, discredit the Bible, but there's also no need to discredit what the science says because we can learn new things. We have what's called progressive revelation. There are things that we know now that we didn't know then. And so as we learn more— so if there is a science about, say, not only just creation, and, you know, no, they said even very specifically in this book, because Jewish people don't believe in a literal 6-day creation, that's a, that's a Christian thing that a lot of Christians have come along who are literalists us. So the Jewish people, where we get scripture from, they say, you know, that's, that's a narrative. That's a way that we were helped, helping to make sense of the world. We didn't understand how it worked, didn't have science thousands and thousands of years ago. There was no way for us to have a literal account, so they were trying to make sense of how the world works. So most Jewish people would be very, as I understand anyway, I'm not speaking for all Jewish people, but they would find something like the Creation Museum imaginative and beautiful, but they wouldn't by any means say that they think that's how the world actually was started. Just that there are all these different creation stories, and the creation story we have in the Bible, while it is similar to other creation stories of, of secular and pagan stories of the time, that the Bible is a story of a God who comes down into creation and loves and redeems the world, not a God who is harsh and wants to play tricks on the world. And it's, it's a, it's a different kind of story. So anyway, that's not exactly what we're saying, but it spells it all out very specifically in that textbook for Jewish children and teenagers who are learning about the faith. And I love that the idea that they are so connected to their book. They understand that there is not a single author of scripture. There are several inspired authors, but they, again, they were people of their time. And so while they inspired these sacred writings, they point out in the book— again, the book is called A Little Lower Than Angels, or A Little Lower Than the Angels, I can't remember which— they point out in the book that if, if science proves something different then take the Bible for what it is and accept that the science is what the science is. So that was just an example from creation. So the— another illustration would be our understanding of human sexuality, what it is, what it is not. And so I'm not drawing any conclusions for anyone. I am simply, uh, kind of presenting the facts as is, what we know, what we don't know. So So it's important to note that the categories that I just mentioned, they are, again, they're general viewpoints and individual beliefs within different sects of Christianity. Well, the scientific study of sexuality, it has a complex and evolving history. And while humans have been interested in and explored questions about sexuality for centuries, The systematic and scientific study of human sexuality as a field of inquiry, as a field of study, it's a relatively recent development. The modern scientific study of sexuality began to emerge in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The work of pioneering sexologists such as Richard von Krafft-Ebing I hope I said that right. And Havelock Ellis and Magnus Hirschfeld laid the foundation for the scientific examination of various aspects of human sexuality, and they sought to understand human sexual behavior, desires, and identities through empirical research and observation. So really, the 19th and 20th centuries, late in the 19th century and early in the 20th. So regarding— excuse me— homosexuality, early scientific understandings were influenced by prevailing social and cultural attitudes, which often considered homosexuality to be deviant or pathological. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, homosexuality was typically viewed as a mental disorder or a form of psycho— psychopathology, as they will say. However, scientific understanding began to shift in the mid-20th century. One key milestone in changing attitudes towards homosexuality was the publication of Alfred Kinsey's studies on human sexuality in the 1940s and '50s. Now, Kinsey's research, it challenged prevailing assumptions by demonstrating a significant prevalence of same-sex attractions and behaviors in the general population. So Kinsey's studies helped to debunk the notion that homosexuality was inherently abnormal or deviant. And so that was in the 1940s and '50s. Subsequent research, such as the work of Evelyn Hooker in the 1950s and 1960s, further contributed related to changing perceptions. Hooker's studies compared the psychological well-being of homosexual and heterosexual men and found that there were no significant differences, challenging the belief that homosexual— homosexuality was inherently associated with mental illness. So those studies by Evelyn Hooker, just again to reiterate, they found that there was no significant differences in the psychological well-being, whether you were gay or straight, so to speak. So it was the beginning of disproving that it wasn't mental illness. So since then, scientific research and understanding of LGBTQ+ people have continued to advance. And in the 1970s, there was an American— the American Psych— I'm sorry, I'm not talking well tonight. The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the list of mental disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, otherwise known as the DSM. Uh, the decision was based on accumulating evidence and growing understanding that homosexuality is a normal and natural variation of human homosexuality. And it's important to note— excuse me— that societal attitudes towards homosexuality have also played a significant role in shaping scientific views. We never do this in a vacuum. You can't— you can't— when you're studying science, because science is constantly changing, you can't just say, well, science says this, because next week science might say something something different. But societal attitudes do somehow and in some ways shape the science too. So as societal acceptance of homosexuality, or LGBTQ+ issues to be more correct in the way we say it— a lot of people who are LGBT would, would be very offended actually by the use of the word homosexual, as I understand it. As societal acceptance has increased over time, scientific research has been able to explore and understand it more openly and accurately. So they just weren't able to, I guess, study it as well before it was more openly talked about. So today, like it, don't like it, believe it, don't believe it, but the scientific consensus is today that homosexuality is a normal and natural variation of human sexuality, and it is widely recognized as such in the scientific and medical communities. So don't anybody get mad at me, I'm just stating a fact. That's, that's just what it is. It's mostly accepted today in, in the realms of science and in medical fields. So Taking all that into account, I didn't want to do anything today other than just simply kind of lay out, uh, the things as I understand them, um, what these four different views of Christianity are as related to LGBTQ+ issues, um, what the science says and sort of the history of the science, and what Judaism says about it. So some varying, vastly different views on things. And I know that people get passionate about these things, and I just wanted to— I don't know if that helps further the conversation or not. Maybe some people hear it and they cheer, and maybe some people hear this and they get mad. But I think if we could remove emotion from our conversation and maybe maybe even have an approach to it like, um, like the early church, where, um, I should say even early Judaism, uh, and the way that the Jewish people still teach, that if we can look at it dispassionately from a viewpoint of science, there's no reason to try to change what scripture says. Um, but we can take the science and actually align it side by side see what we know, see what we don't know, see what they knew, see what they didn't know, and, and see what it means from there. I'm not telling anybody what to think or what to believe. It's just something I wanted to lay out there. Didn't have time last week in the conversation that I had with Dr. Miller, but hopefully you enjoyed that conversation. And I still want to encourage you to go listen to those episodes we were talking about of his show And you can listen to last week's podcast if you want to know more. Sorry about if I seem scattered tonight. It's almost 11:30 at night. It has been a whopper of an evening here at the hospital. So I appreciate your prayers. I'll continue praying for you. Please pray for me. A lot of nights go like this, and in the next few moments, who knows what could happen. I may be with a family who is in need. Need. And I pray that you'll help continue to lift me up in prayer as I walk these halls. And I'm grateful for all of you who listen each week to Voices in My Head. I'm grateful that you are here and that you are a part of this conversation. If you're a part of the Church of the Nazarene, or even if you're not, please be praying for all the people at the Church of the Nazarene General Assembly this week. We pray that God inspires and uses them and that there will be some wonderful Holy Spirit-led conversations that take place, all for the kingdom of God, and that some wonderful times of worship will happen, and that the church around the world internationally will grow and become stronger for their time together. So thank you all for listening to Voices Voices in My Head. I'm grateful for you, and I'm looking forward to bringing the guests next week that I had planned to bring this week. Thank you again for listening to Voices in My Head. And by the way, uh, check out my website at rickleejames.com if I haven't said that in a while. Lots of music and things going on there. I would love to have you, uh, be a part. Maybe even buy some music. That would be great. That would help me as I try to get through school All right, God bless you all. You take care.