Throwing the First Stone

In Leviticus 18, the problem of determining what means what has become a very contemporary and contentious issue. Ask people on the street about the book of Leviticus and if they know anything, they likely know chapter 18. Or at least verse 22: “You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination.” For those unfamiliar with the noun, an abomination is not a good thing. Verse 22 gets grouped with other acts similarly tagged as detestable: Incest. Child sacrifice. Bestiality. Most people still agree that these acts are repugnant enough. There’s also adultery. But adultery has become so commonplace that most people wouldn’t call it abominable. Unfortunate maybe. Approaching a woman during her monthly period? Hard to see how that’s an abomination. Undesirable, but not abominable. What about homosexuality? Along with incest, child sacrifice, bestiality and adultery, homosexuality warrants a second mention in Leviticus 20, there as deserving of death. One of our Levites, wrote, “Many of my gay friends probably shudder at the word Leviticus whenever they see it mentioned. Why is that, do you suppose? Could it be those two damning verses?” Her question elicited this comment from a gay man in Washington DC: “I can attest that I often question my faith because of the trauma I received at the hands of Christians. Many of my gay brothers have no faith as a result, with dire consequences [such as] rampant addiction, emotional dysfunction and selfishness. If you call yourselves Christian, why are you so focused on aspects of Judaism to which Christ supposedly freed us from being obliged and from which even many Jews do not observe?” Ergo the rub: Are these sexual “thou shalt nots” in Leviticus 18 and 20 culturally bound or universally applicable?

Given the heat that talking about homosexuality and the church generates, it is no surprise that we spent a great deal of time as a group hashing through it. As compassionate, liberal-minded Bostonians, we wanted to refrain from all the judgmentalism we know Christians are guilty of. And yet, there was the prohibition writ large. What were we supposed to do? What was obedience supposed to look like? By this point in the experiment, we’d become convinced that God had his reasons for commanding what he did. Sexuality is one of those places we all wrestle. Maybe Leviticus, rather than telling us to condemn others, was really trying to get us to confront the dark stuff about ourselves.