Homosexuality & Romans 1:18 - 32

The Churches continue to persist in willful ignorance & injustice regarding LGBTQ people.  


In order to counter this, let’s interrogate the text of Romans 1:18 - 32 as if we are doing catechesis.  


What is the purpose of the created order according to Romans 1:20?   

  • To testify to the existence, INVISIBLE attributes of God, & to God’s authority. 

Why is God’s wrath revealed from heaven?  

  • Because people have (since the Fall) been deliberately suppressing the truth about God’s existence, INVISIBLE attributes, & authority by way of substituting the VISIBLE attributes of the created order, especially those of people & animals. 

How did people in the ancient world wind up with idols that looked like people & animals?   

  • They looked to the created order & used its VISIBLE attributes as the basis of their theology, philosophy, & ethics.  

What sort of theology, philosophy, & ethics?  

  • According to the text of Romans 1, worship & worship ethics, sexual ethics, & justice in general. 

How so?  

  • Rather than look to God (who has no sex, no gender, & no sexuality) they deliberately & willfully looked to the created order — of which the prelapsarian state of Adam & Eve are a part & of which human anatomy, physiology, & psychology are a part — & reasoned accordingly.  

How then can it be that “natural” means “heterosexual/heteronormative” & “unnatural” means “homosexual,” in Romans 1:26 - 27.

  • According to the grammar & syntax of Romans 1:18 - 32, it can’t.   

How so? 

  • The only way to do that is to suppress the truth about God’s INVISIBLE attributes (which do not include sex, gender, & sexuality) & substitute the VISIBLE attributes of the created order in order to do ethical reasoning in general & sexual ethics in particular. 

If Romans 1:18 - 32 doesn’t describe & condemn homosexual behavior in general, what does it describe?  

  • The text describes sexual activity done in the service of one or more pagan pseudodeities & any sort of theology, philosophy, &/or ethics that suppress(es) about the INVISIBLE attributes of God & instead substitutes the VISIBLE attributes of the created order —like the prelapsarian state of Adam & Eve, &tc — as its basis.

How so? 

  • The text binds worship/worship ethics & sex/sexual ethics — & justice related ethics in general — together. 

Why is knowing this important?  

  • The traditional view looks to the state of the created order as a sufficient epistemic warrant for sexual ethics.   In so doing, it argues for basing human sexual ethics on the allegedly heteronormative state of the created order in general &/or the prelapsarian state of Adam & Eve in particular — a thought process which involves reverse engineering our sexual ethics from the created order. 

Yet Jews, Muslims, Christians (& other I AM worshippers &/or students) believe that God is infinite, eternal, & unchangeable in being, wisdom, power, justice, goodness, holiness, & truth.  In contrast, the created order is finite, ephemeral, & mutable (changeable).   


If we can reverse engineer our sexual ethics from the human image, then it stands to reason we can do worship ethics from the human image — which, taken to its logical conclusion, would mean God is finite, ephemeral, & mutable too.  


The argument against homosexuality by way of the VISIBLE attributes of any image drawn from the created order severs worship ethics from sexual ethics, whereas the Bible binds them together.  This has serious implications for the basis & execution of justice as well.  


What else does Romans 1:18 - 32 teach us? 


The text is telling us something about how prejudice & bigotry operate.  


When you use the visible attributes of the created order to do ethical reasoning, justice itself is deeply affected.  


This has multiple applications. 


Natural = Male Dominance/Hegemony 

Unnatural = Egalitarianism 

= Misogyny 


Natural = White/Caucasian

Unnatural = Anything else 

= Racism


Natural = Heteronormative

Unnatural = Homosexual 

= Homophobia 


Natural = Conservative 

Unnatural = Liberal 

= Political Idolatry 


Natural = Liberal

Unnatural = Conservative 

= Political Idolatry 


Natural = Non-Jewish

Unnatural = Jewish 

= Anti-Semitism


As you can see —  by looking to the created order’s attributes instead of God Himself & His attributes, the end result is a perversion of justice in relation to both God & everyone & everything else.   That’s what the tail end of Romans 1 addresses.  Unless God intervenes, history teaches us civilization will inevitably collapse repeatedly.  


In addition, since 1 Cor. 6 is related to Lev. 18 & Rom. 1 is an inerrant & infallible commentary on Lev. 18, it too, as well as I Tim. 1:10 - refers to *cultic* homosexuality not *all* homosexuality.   By understanding Romans 1:18 - 32 correctly, we can understand the other “clobber passages” correctly.   


In other words, any interpretation of “natural” & “unnatural” Romans 1:18 - 32 as a functional callback to any image drawn from the created order, the human image, included is forbidden by the text.   


The Bible is right about homosexuality. Ecclesiastical Tradition & Liturgical Philosophy that underwrites the traditional view are wrong.   


O LORD, Hear our prayer(s)! 

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