On a serious note …
You might be forgiven for suspecting I read only fiction. Not so. Alongside the reading I do to hone my skills as a novelist, I also study topics that relate to my ethical interests. And lately that’s been around discrimination on the basis of different-ness. I rarely talk about these books on my blog as they’re unlikely to appeal to most of my readers.
Ethics and religion are often intertwined and I’ve been trying to tease out why devout believers are often very judgemental and apparently blinkered. I’m thinking not so much of the extreme level of torturing and killing young women who refuse to conform to a strict dress code – the kind of ferocity that hits the headlines – or the fierce opposition to clinics helping women grappling with the consequences of an unwanted or unsafe pregnancy, we’ve seen in the USA this year. Rather I’m exploring the rationale behind closing the doors of the church against people who are coming to a different conclusion on topics like LGBTQ+ or gender equality. And I’m not looking in one specific direction; we see it across religions and denominations, amongst the rank and file members, as well as the hierarchy paid to lead their flocks.
I’m particularly perplexed where the Christian religion is concerned. Not just because ours is a nominally Christian country, and it’s the faith community I’ve been a member of all my life, but more because, after all, it’s a religion purporting to be founded on love – for God and one’s fellow-man/woman. Surely the God whom Jesus Christ came to reveal is bigger than the petty details his followers get bogged down in? Surely he can accommodate different-ness? Surely he doesn’t want his people to be uniform clones made in an image designed by a founder of any given specific denomination? The whole of nature is full of infinite variety – just watch a couple of episodes of The Frozen Planet II!
So am I coming from a prejudiced standpoint here? I’m trying not to. And to that end I’m looking at both sides of the argument, as far as it’s humanly and humbly possible, with an open mind. Right now I’m embedded in the issue of same-sex relationships. Talking with people who espouse differing views, engaging in correspondence with those who challenge my own understanding, and reading, reading, reading. Three books give a flavour of where I’ve been – each valuable in their own way.
Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why, by 
neuroscientist Simon LeVay, deals with the science of homosexuality from an academic standpoint; a kind of meta-analysis of the huge number of studies that have looked into a range of biological and psychological and social factors that might predispose someone to be gender-nonconformist. It’s fascinating but probably not for the faint-hearted. Suffice to say, it’s a ringing endorsement of the biological and inbuilt nature of same sex attraction on more counts than you would imagine.
By contrast, Unclobber is a much easier read. It looks at the six so-called ‘clobber passages’ in the Christian Bible that are commonly believed to say that homosexuality is a sin which God hates. Pastor Colby Martin argues that not only have these sections been misunderstood and misused, but that there is a compelling case for the church to welcome everyone regardless of their sexual orientation.
Preston Sprinkle
, an academic professor, pastor and ‘ordinary dude’, challenges Christians to look at the LGBTG+ community afresh. His book, People To Be Loved: Why homosexuality is not just an issue, is a model for how to move away from the sometimes hostile confrontational kind of exchange too often seen in the past, and towards a useful balanced discussion on the subject; to see past the distant theoretical arguments and look into the faces of real people with heartbreaking stories of rejection to tell. Like Unclobber, this slim volume seeks to put common assumptions on one side and discover what the Bible actually says about homosexuality, and then to evaluate how we should treat those who make up that divergent group. Though it’s a deeper and more methodical study of the subject, it’s very accessible, and it’s challenging. The author comes to a different conclusion from Colby Martin where the Scriptural passages are concerned (he thinks the Bible tells us that same-sex sex is against God’s will), but nevertheless he advocates the same kind of unconditional grace.
If I had to sum up where these authors take me I might say being homosexual is definitely not a lifestyle choice, it’s inherent. It’s not so much an issue to be solved, it’s more about vulnerable people who need to love and be loved – loved without footnotes, without a background check, without fine print (as Sprinkle puts it). What that looks like might differ according to which side of the fence we come down on. And that’s the crunch point – how to reach out in love.