The August 2006 Challenge: Romans 1

Romans 1:26-27 is often quoted as a "one verse proof" that same-sex relationships are sinful. My understanding is that Romans 1 is about idolatry and sinful sexual relationships, both gay and straight. Where are the mistakes in my understanding?

Received 21st September 2006

I find your Romans 1 argument very weak. The fact that those described were "given over to shameful lusts" goes on to describe such SHAMEFUL lusts as unnatural relations, and then define them.

The passage is not saying that people who go through steps 1, 2, 3 and 4 are given over to 5 because these 4 steps make the following step depraved. They are given over to step 5, exactly because step 5 is specifically "shameful" by itself - "unnatural lust". You do not answer this, which in itself is sobering.

The lust of opposite-sex partners is not described as unnatural, because in the beginning, God made them male and female. In some contexts it can be sinful also, but it is never unnatural.

What is the defining feature of being gay? It is attraction to the same sex. An attraction to someone in a loving way does not make it right before God. There are those who have an attraction to children, and they can equally justify their attraction in loving terms, but such an attraction is wrong.

Does the Bible condemn those who have such attractions to children? Such an absence of condemnation should not lead us to the conviction that it is acceptable.

(Minor edits for clarity)

My Reply, Published 14th October 2006

The terms "unnatural", "against nature", and so forth, do not have a particular moral negativity as you imply. In Romans 1, "unnatural" and "sinful" clearly mean "wrong", but one is not a more heinous version of the other. In Paul's writings, nature is not a moral force (see Ephesians 2:3 and Romans 2:14).1 In Romans 11:24, we even have an example of God acting "against nature" by grafting the gentiles into Israel:

After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!(NIV)

There is no reason to suppose that Romans 1:24 describes all opposite-sex relationships, and likewise there is no reason to suppose that verses 26 and 27 describe all opposite-sex relationships. Just because some opposite-sex relationships are described in clearly negative terms does not mean that all opposite-sex relationships are wrong. Just because some same-sex relationships are described in negative terms does not mean that all same-sex relationships are wrong.

Step 5 is something that people only go through because of the previous steps. This is exactly what verse 26 says: "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts." (NIV, my emphasis).

With regard to adult-child sexual relationships, I do not believe that these relationships can be justified "in loving terms" because children, by definition, cannot return sexual love, and therefore adult-child sexual relationships cannot be based on mutual love and informed consent as moral adult-adult sexual relationships must be. I am shocked at the implication that there is no condemnation of adult-child sexual relationships in the Bible. All adult-child sexual relationships are abusive, and are therefore prohibited by the many passages where violence is forbidden.