The Gospel According to Gene: Jesus was gay, just like me.

Commentary by Robin G. Jordan

The recent comments of the Bishop of New Hampshire Gene Robinson come as no surprise. They are a talking point in an ongoing campaign of disinformation by those promoting the acceptance and affirmation of homosexuality inside the Episcopal Church (USA) and outside it. The 20th century German dictator and mass murderer Adolph Hitler recognized the power of the “big lie.” If a propagandist makes a lie large enough and repeats the lie often enough, he wrote in Mein Kampf, the people will come to believe it. Robinson’s comments are just another “big lie” that the proponents of the gay agenda have been spreading.

In Old Testament times the penalty for slandering God’s Anointed was death. Death was also the penalty for homosexual activity and for blasphemy. The severity of the punishment was an indicator of the magnitude of the offense. Gene Robinson would appear to be guilty of all three offenses. To these offenses he has added teaching falsehood and leading others into sin. Better to have a great weight tied around our necks and to be cast into the depths of the sea, Jesus warned his disciples, than to suffer the consequences of causing another to sin. Death by drowning is preferable to eternal separation from God. The first century Jews were not sailors and they had a great dread of the Mediterranean Sea. Drowning was viewed as a particularly wretched way to die. But even such a wretched death is preferable to the indescribable torment of hell for all eternity.

Does Robinson himself believe what he is saying? As someone who has seminary training, he should know better. His recent statements completely ignore the witness of the Bible and what we know about the Jewish culture and social customs of first century Palestine. In first century Palestine men and women did not mix freely as they do in twenty-first century America. The country was rigidly segregated along lines of gender as many countries of the Near East and Central Asia are to this day. A man spent a good part of his life in the company of other men. The women that he did associate with were chiefly relatives, his own or his wife’s. Men and women did not stop to talk to each other in the street. Men and women did not sit together in the synagogue. There is nothing unusual about Jesus spending a lot of his time in the company of men. Indeed Jewish rabbis spent a good deal of time in the company of those who had attached themselves to him as students – as disciples. What is unusual about Jesus is that he defied convention: he stopped to talk to a Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob and asked her for a drink of water. He allowed Mary to sit at his feet and learn from him. This was very unusual behavior for a first century Jewish rabbi. First century Jewish rabbis did not accept women students. Indeed it was a widely held teaching among the Jews of the time that women should not be taught the Torah. However, not only did Jesus talk to women in public and teach women, he healed women and he raised a 12-year-old girl from the dead. Wherever he went, an entourage of women went with him, at least one of whom he had delivered from demons. This entourage of women supported his ministry from whatever means that they had. Jesus’ relationship with women was radical indeed for a Jewish rabbi! One group of Pharisees covered their heads when they went anywhere in public in case they met a woman, fearing such an encounter would lead to sin. They were always bumping into walls! Jesus also dined at the homes of tax collectors, social outcasts in Palestinian society. This would have brought him into contact with women like the one who washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair, women who loved much because they had been forgiven much. One has to wonder how Jesus one moment can be the radical who seeks out social outcasts and embraces them as they are – the Jesus of liberal theology - and the next moment the homosexual who exclusively spends his time with members of his own gender – the Jesus of gay theology. Does Gene Robinson see the inconsistency between these two points of view?

If we accept Robinson’s logic, then Palestine in the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry was the gay capital of the Mediterranean world because almost all of its male population spent a lot of time together. The exclusively male rabbinical schools and religious fellowships of the period were gay sex clubs. First century Palestine, however, was not ancient Greece.

Robinson is not the first to voice the opinion that Jesus might have been gay because John referred to himself as “the beloved disciple” and leant on Jesus’ chest at the Last Supper. This view has been making the rounds in gay circles. If one reads the Gospel of John and his three epistles, one finds in them many references to love. However, none of these references are to sexual attraction, much less sexual activity. To claim that this particular phrase is a veiled reference to a homosexual relationship between John and Jesus is to take it entirely out of context and to read into it something other than what John is saying. By the first century the Jews in Palestine had adopted the Roman custom of reclining on couches around the table when eating together. The diner rested on one arm and ate with the free arm. The way the couches were arranged around the table meant that each diner was leaning close to the person next to him. It was not unusual for John to be leaning on Jesus’ chest. We also must recognize that in the ancient Mid-East as in the Mid-East today men had more physical contact with each other. They kissed each other as a form of greeting and even may have held hands. The early Christians greeted each other with a “holy kiss.” However, such actions were not regarded as sexual as they might be in our culture.

Jesus in his teaching affirms marriage between a man and a woman. He not only condemns adultery but also lustful thoughts about another’s wife. He equates the thought with the deed. The word used for adultery in the Greek text is pornia which refers to all forms of sexual immorality or unchasteness, including homosexuality and lesbianism. Jesus goes on to teach that pornia is one of a number of evils that come from within us and defile us. His audience would have understood this as a reference not just to adultery, which he names, but also to fornication, sodomy, and bestiality, major forms of sexual immorality condemned with adultery in the Hebrew Bible. Rather than being the teaching of the post-apostolic Church as some on the radical fringe of contemporary Bible scholarship are want to argue, mainstream Bible scholars say that this teaching is authentically that of the historical Jesus.

What makes homosexuality one of the most insidious forms of sin is the great lengths to which its practitioners go to rationalize and justify their sinful conduct. They are unwilling to relinquish their sin and turn from it. Instead they are constantly seeking to persuade others to see them as they see themselves, to draw others into their denial. “Jesus was a homosexual” is just another way like “the gay gene” and “God made me this way,” that those who engage in homosexual activity have persuaded themselves that what they are doing is not wrong and by which they hope to persuade others to adopt the same view.

Now Robinson is denying that he inferred that Jesus was gay. Are we to believe him? Unless the Episcopal Church changes its present course, removes Gene Robinson from the office of Bishop of New Hampshire, and bans the blessing of homosexual couples and the ordaining and licensing of clergy involved in homosexual relationships – unlikely developments, we must endure wicked ministers and false teachers like Robinson. However, we do not have to endure their false teaching. We should challenge it at every opportunity. What is at stake is the eternal destiny of those whom they lead astray.