Sexuality: What Does the Bible Say About Sexuality?

today's courageous conversation is sure to be a hot topic sexuality what does the Bible say about sexuality and we have for Old Testament scholars to help us to navigate this question the first is dr. Rodney Sadler he is the professor of Bible at Union Presbyterian seminary in Charlotte North Carolina the second one is doctor will Gaffney she is a professor of Hebrew Bible at the bright Divinity School in Texas the third one is dr. Cleo Robertson who is the professor of Old Testament at the Nayak College in New York and the fourth is Qin Equis a day who is instructor for Old Testament at gordon-conwell Theological Seminary in Boston we'll enjoy the show you you [Music] raphaël Warnock offers his thesis that the black church has a divided mind and there probably may not be a more divided or divisive subject than the one about sexuality so the first question I want to ask each of you is first of all how do you define sexuality and what informs that definition we'll start here in this climate just a definition of of sexuality is a messy is a messy issue how I define it based on my own training is I I go back to a biblical text that's that's my guy for me that's my training you know I could bring another definition to the text but then that would not be a Christocentric or a text century definition so it for me I start at Genesis 1 and 2 which I think informs all of the Old Testament and I think it also informs a New Testament as well so for me when I'm when I'm grappling with issues of sexuality for me that's where I go back I go back and see how the text informs my thinking about sexuality also acknowledging as an african-american male urban raised in a black Baptist Church I'm going to bring my my presuppositions to that and all of us when we're looking at the text bring our presuppositions to the text but my my Genesis of trying to define sexuality has to be Genesis 1 and 2 but then I also have to acknowledge that because of Genesis 3 we live in a fallen world that tries to redefine that I think I would look at sexuality I definitely would start at Genesis 1 and 2 but I also would go straight to the heart of the matter I look as our impulses our desires how it frames how we think about ourselves as sexual beings how it frames how we talk about ourselves how we sort of interact with others and how that is expressed with other people whether you identify what a particular gender or not but how that is being expressed I think I sort of look at all of that a sort of guiding sexuality boy thank you for the easy question I think in terms of sex sexuality I would begin again perhaps in Genesis to the latter part of that where the man leaves his father mother Cleaves to his wife the two become one flesh as an introduction to a notion of sexuality as a return to wholeness attempt to get back to the full Adam that was created at the beginning this bifurcated being coming back together again that would be my interpretation of the origins there but if I were to think about sexuality I'd say it's related to sex sex is a wonderful opportunity for us to experience the fullness of life life at its fullness the orgasmic experience is the fullness of life if anybody's ever had sex but in addition to that experience though I'd say that sex also is the way that life reproduces itself so sex is tied to life it's a necessary component in that but also in terms of sexuality I'd say that you can't talk about sexuality without talking about power because how we define sexuality often determines who is and who is not empowered in society and if I can and let me just say this I always say this you can't have power defined in ways that give advantage to some without taking away power from others so as we think about the creation of sexuality we have to think about the way that we align power in larger society so when dr. Rhodes asked about how we define sexuality I want to note that the original question did not put the biblical text on the table some of our colleagues start there so I want to remind us of the question I heard because my first response when you asked it before I heard my colleagues is that I understand sexuality to be the processes by which a human person lives fully in their body that it is physical it is emotional it is spiritual and the ways in which they relate intimately with another person and because I'm a biologist I think of the physicality of that and for that reason do not turn first to the biblical text we've had a lot of Fiala G here for me God is larger than the Bible and what I understand God to know is more than the persons who recorded the Bible the persons who recorded the Bible did not know for example that there was such a thing as an OVA they believed in a homunculus that is they believe that every human person was contained in sperm so when I'm looking for biological to talk about sexuality biologically Genesis is not going to be a source text for me though it may be talking about it emotionally and spiritually thank you and let's flag the ballade biological piece for a later part of this conversation but for dr. Gaffney dr. day both of you are Hebrew Bible Old Testament scholars and so since all four of you well go I'm sorry New Testament faculty the real father to the earth and then work our way around you did bring up Genesis 1 in 2 also three complicating what happens in the creation narrative talk to us about whether or not there's a unitary biblical doctrine of sexuality or is it much more complicated based on your understanding both of the original language and how the text has been received without through other centuries seems like there's an elephant in the room that nobody wants to touch no I can't I just focus on I would I would I would argue this I would argue based on the paradigm of Genesis 1 & 2 we're looking at a monogamous heterosexual relationship and when I'm as a pastor dealing with the stuff that I have to deal with most of us come to the to the text and to the gospel I say post Genesis chapter 3 and so then I bring my isms my stuff that life has put on me the abuses the difficulty and then I try to grapple with that in view of looking at Genesis 1 and 2 that at least from an exegetical point of view that we're looking at something that's monogamous we are looking at something that's heterosexual we are looking at something that's wholesome if we're exiting if we're exiting the text but realizing as well in a pluralistic society people are going to define that differently I'm a big boy I understand that but if we're going to be honest to the text and grapple with that I think that that's what the text says so I think I think that we we we go to heterosexuality too fast that's my opinion as someone that's in a church and as an ordained minister I see so many different things I think that we have we're uncomfortable talking about sexuality independent of being in a relationship with someone so if I'm a single woman I feel very very confident and very sexual very you know just sexy in myself just that that bothers that's a bothersome conversation and so I think that we moved I think a little too fast to heterosexuality not that I'm confused on where I stand with that at all but I think there needs to be more dialogue about how we were so experiencing our own bodies because you can't really talk about heterosexuality homosexuality any of those things if we just can't have dialogue first about I know Sarah when she finds that she's gonna have a child again well she's gonna have a child first right so she she is enthused by this idea of having a desire no we don't talk about the desire heat i wole she doesn't have a baby but she's she's thinking about the joy of sex that's like a big thing she's thinking about the wetness that's the word they said okay you see but we don't we don't talk we don't talk about that we talk about the promised seed and I think we sort of skip some of these pieces and these are these are important discussion points if we want to help our churches move forward we need to be comfortable I get to a place where a comfortable talking about now Sarah is looking forward to being intimate with her husband but so the I understand that as a our facilitator you put biology later but I am going to put it back on simply because we cannot discuss sexuality apart from the human body which is a biological organism and sexuality is related to gender gender is complex both the physiological features and what I'm going to call socio-psychological features right the biblical text as brother Cleo Thea is my friends I'm calling him by his name because I know his first name more than I know his last name you know Cleo Thea is speaking on this this very first unit of Genesis and absolutely that's how its presented but for me that's a question of genre what function is that serving in the literature it's an ideological story it's telling the story of the people the ancestors the larger family story that story necessarily reflects the dominant culture which was a heterosexist heteronormative culture that story doesn't account for all people it doesn't account for intersex people right so the story is shaped in a particular way when we talk about how genesis frames sexuality you're absolutely right once you get beyond two and maybe three things start to look different because then you get polygamy on the stage so what happens with polygamy is human beings configure marriage in a social construct but what is interesting to me about that is while there'll be discourse about that in the New Testament that God never says what I created was this Eve Adam pairing and that's supposed to be normative for you all in fact God participates in polygamy according to some text by rewarding patriarchs with wives and women so at one level that suggests that human beings can configure marriage but on the other hand when God says here is how I want you to live before me and God gives statutes from the Ten Commandments to the entirety of the Torah God never rebukes or reforms that practice and I think that's something we have to contend with and in fact those of you who do New Testament church history know that polygamy wasn't overruled really until the Romans said enough is enough because the Church Fathers were split the rabbi's were split right I would argue that it is it is critiqued because we we look at we look at the dysfunction of all of the patriarchal families and so as a part of our freewill the Lord with many of the choices we've made doesn't come down and say don't go to the Sugar Shack club I don't don't don't don't grab let me finish I didn't say it wasn't critique because I did not say it was not critiqued I said it was not I'm arguing that that what we see in the patriarchal narratives particularly when you look at when you go from 12 onto 50 we see families dysfunctional we see children trying to kill one another and it out of that dysfunction God still brings his purpose and so I would argue that it is critique because we see we see the negative decisions that they make and we see it play out on their lives and we see a God who allows it but then by his Providence you meant it for evil but God meant it for good that he does being a but then she'll spin to it so that I would argue that it's allowed but I don't I would not say then that that's a checkpoint that God gives those kinds of relations I was that level to say this before we go further I think that we have to recognize the multivalent note nature of the Bible itself the Hebrew Bible in particular it's not speaking with one voice and that's the thing I'd want to push back against it's not speaking with one voice it's not setting up one ideal and in as much as it does it presents set sexuality and marriage in different lights and in part I think that that's empowering because in our own contemporary context it can enable us to imagine that God can use different things I mean you've got stories that talk about women utilizing their sexual power in order to perpetuate the lineage that our valorized stories like Tamar they're stories like Ruth where sexuality is used quite overtly in the midst of the text in a way that would seem to run against our their I say contemporary Christian Protestant paradigms so I think the Bible is much more complex if I can make this one term part of this conversation today I think we need to complexify our reading of the narrative instead of moving it to moving to imagine that it sort of says one thing or speaks with one voice now Rodney and I are friends so and we push back on this at conferences I would argue I would argue that I think that there is a unified kind of construct of what marriage is that I would I would argue that one two and three or held up as a prism through which we look at marriage both in the old and new Testament that that kind of sex outside of that sense of monogamy it's held up negatively even even the Covenant is a metaphor for God's relationship with Israel we see it in the book of Hosea we see it mentioned in the book of Malachi where there is a sense of monogamy and a sense of if you will exclusivity whereby that's that's the paradigm in Israel over and over again in the prophetic books are challenged because they violate that sense of that sense of monogamous fidelity to Yahweh so I would argue that we have it there and that it's even put on a larger collective sense in God's relationship to Israel and we see it all throughout the prophets let me interject quickly about really love to respond so you you are absolutely correct about marriage as a metaphor framing the relationship of God in Israel and the rage that ensues in fact God often functions as a battering husband in image in response to Israel's infidelities bringing on the enemies to beat and sometimes sexualized language is used as dr. Williams has spelled out for us so clearly in battered love God does not tolerate others I think we could all agree that that's the posture of the marital fidelity but in the Israelite system a married man could could and did have sex with slaves could and did have sex with prostitutes could and did have sex with women who were neither under the control of a father who would be offended or married to someone else so what sexuality look like what marriage look like you wouldn't talk about God's participation you have God and Moses telling the Israelites when you go to battle and you see a woman among the enemy who you find attractive you may take her for yourself shave her head and cut her nails before you go into her so you have the narrative saying that God is calling for abduction rape marriages you have Moses saying in in the Exodus journey on the way to freedom so we can imagine the people have left Egypt they haven't gotten to the promised land when a father sells his daughter into slavery she shall not go free as a male shell so sexuality is being constructed in the Bible in particular ways that simply that are not being critiqued in the in the text these are being presented as normative slave rape and impregnation is is nation-building so while those early chapters of Genesis represent some ideals in the world it's not in that place there's not the sense in my reading that these things are not normative and so the biblical text is sustaining those practices and sometimes attributing them to God can I just interject you know that is a realized tension within a text understandably but I think we also need to if we look at that we also need to take account of the moments when God shows up in a text out of unexpectantly and sort of gives a law concerning the concubine in Exodus 21 it says okay if she's not getting her conjugal rights and and she's not being cared for then she is free to go and that is an amazing moment that she can leave this man and he has no claim to her that is that is just radical right and then you look at Tamar situation and you look at Bathsheba's situation those situations God was very upset you had the moment it says you know God is God was angry or God has got us bothered so yes we do see these moments in the text where you're like well what is going on here in Israel but then you see these these also these bursts of moments where women are serving at the 10 of the meeting and all sort of moments where where God is sort of standing up with a with a great voice that this is happening but this does not please me exactly Rodney's multivalent all of all of that so how then for political purposes how do we work through if if they're these different conflicting or texts that seem to conflict but a harmonious at the end if I am to dr. Edmondson statement on earlier panel in Sunday school in my devotional time just reading all these texts how do I bring them all together to me sense of what God wants for me in my life as a response to reading what has been declared in the word I mean I kind of hear two different hermeneutical approaches one is ultimately Genesis 1 and 2 will frame the ultimate arc of the scripture over here I'm hearing well it's too messy and complicated and so there's not really one size fits all I'm in the pew I'm confused what what do I need to do with this text that both agree both sides agree it's difficult to read at first first glance I think one of the things we have to do is teach people whether you believe that there are multiple authors or whether you believe it's an authorial intent historical grammatical method as to hear what the text is saying so you look at the characters recognizing what the what voices are you hearing from those characters and I think especially in the judges 19 passage we see here a lot by what is not spoken by the concubine so I think that the way that we sort of teacher instruct people is - at least for me I'm you know I believe in you know the scriptural authority I also it would encourage people to look a little wider and not be constrained and be open to hearing dialogue that's not necessarily being preached but to really look at the Texas you what else is going on if I were looking at Texas one of the things I'd say is that hopefully Sunday school classes will not just be us teaching at people but hopefully Sunday schools the classes will be us empowering the hands of the people to appropriate the text themselves hopefully we'll begin to work not just to tell people what the text says but to give them the tools to be able to wrestle with the difficult things themselves and one of the things that might be difficult to do is to say you've got to begin to make choices as you read as to what voice you're gonna lift up from this text which which paradigm seems to stand out why do you think God wrestles with marriage in this way and comes down on this side in this text so one of the things I hope that we'll be able to do is move beyond the traditional notion of Sunday school as us as conveyors of knowledge the class as those receiving it and become those who helped to empower people to read and make determinations for them selves and then we can work together as community to try to find a voice that resonates with what we hear God speaking so yes I hear that a diva is a great point on the other side of that you've got say some of the things you're saying you're saying that across the pulpit or in this onion soup class and big Mama's been in Bible study sunday-school class for 30 years what she's hearing something very radical very new that she may think is your attempt to shake her faith you brought up the wetness part earlier about Sarah I mean that's also a translation language issue because most of us don't have translations with you know Sarah was excited to be when again there is I don't know those texts so even that they may not be so much an issue of top-down learning but without the benefit of the nuances of the languages we don't even we're missing the sexuality in certain texts because the language doesn't afford it the translation doesn't doesn't afford it so how do we do that if we're not Hebrew or Greek scholars how do we get access to that if we've not been to seminary well there are all kinds of tools out there and for some of us our work is making that accessible that's what my most recent book oneness Midrash does is it works through issues of translation in an accessible language and helps people negotiate some of these wow that's so how can someone if they want to get involved with you three and support this amazing event that you have and just everything that dude three does how can they get involved well one of the major ways they can get involved is to donate I'm the Jew three project not only reaches impact churches but we also have an HBCU tour where we engage students on campuses around the topic of Christianity being the white man's religion and we come back there yeah and one of the things we do is we're a support to help fund the HBCU tour so that the schools won't have to to pay for that so one of the ways that people can support in reaching students is to give at Jude 3 project calm or they can mill in their gift and there's the address at g3 project calm to mill in your gift if you want to do it that way as well awesome awesome so I think the first thing that we have to do is begin to say this is something that's part of what we need to do and begin to open up the space where we can have these conversations so it's not just two different opinions it's the ability to even say that this is something that Jesus might want us to talk about that Jesus would be alright if we talked about that Jesus says we need to talk about don't jump in here you know just to that point I think that especially with the tension with the homosexual brother-sister who feels rejected or isolated I think their their concern is that they want the church to engage with this conversation and I would I would always my thought is that the church is having its own problem talking about sexuality and so I wonder if it's even the question I think sometimes that the society is moving a little faster than the church and we can't even talk about sexuality let alone homosexuality so so first of all that's if we can just do that peace and be honest we can talk about okay that a lot of people have a lot of desires that are crossing a lot of boundaries we watch all these TV shows that have all these homosexual images and we talk about how much we love those shows from the pulpit but then we denounce those very people who come to our church and so I think that we need to really be honest with ourselves and say that okay we're not I'm speaking from a very conservative viewpoint that we're not where we need to be to sometimes engage with very difficult conversations and I think that when we get to language there's something there's some other pieces that can be talked about as well yeah I can Karthi the broader subject of sexuality is something that we need to deal with more honestly in the church right not just about homosexuality and all kinds of sexual desire I think going back to their piece about Raphael Warren not the divided mind of the black church for instance around the issues of marriage for instance they are very clear camps and unfortunately those camps are doing we're doing in this conversation having dialogue disagreement but without dehumanizing the other group for their stance whether it's pro traditional marriage or the belief that there are multiple forms of marriage etc so I'm thinking for instance back in my hometown of Jackson Mississippi when these conversations come up hey you're right sometimes when you finally get the divergent groups in the room together there are the crickets but you can't even get them in the room because we've automatically tweeted enough about each other about how evil that other group is now I can't really see you in person I sub tweeted about you so bad about how you are the spawn of Satan or you know you're you know Donald Trump number two or whatever the issues are from other sides and in the messiness of all of that is hard for the church to say let's come and reason together especially when after we've reasoned together we've got the same languages the same texts but we'll still end up at different conclusions on a host of things regarding sexuality and it seems very difficult to find consensus or at least the sense you know we're going to disagree about this but we can walk together over the disagree about this and believe that your way is not only wrong it is dehumanizing to a population or it is something that will lead you to damnation I mean that's that seems to be ultimately important and when we're talking about biblical interpretation and translation for that matter it matters who does it so when we have a conversation someone owns owns the table right someone set up this talk today and invited us to participate sometimes when those conversations are had the very framing of the conversation marginalizes and excludes so I am going to disagree with my sister here to say that we going to let's talk about sexuality I agree with you that it's absolutely under discussed in the church but if we say let's just talk about sexuality now because we're not talking about it but not talk about homosexuality then what we have done is excised a pop portion of God's children from the conversation and so then what sexuality becomes in that discussion by virtue of being framed that way is heterosexuality which is not named we've just said we're just going to do sexuality you know plain sexuality regular sexuality normal sexuality our sexuality we will deal with them later and so a lot of what we do is marginalizing and so if we have everybody in every kind of body at the table then the questions are not just how do we read this text how do we understand this text but what are the sources of our theology and we need to have some people at the table in the room saying I am a gay man and I am created in the image of God right my body and my sexuality matter they're valid they're precious in the sight of God but if a group of people who are heterosexual or are performing heterosexuality for various and sundry reasons don't have those voices at the table then we're not doing the work that needs to be done we're Rhian scribing a power hierarchy and removing people from the table so I just absolutely agree with that I guess I'm still stuck at what is ultimately an impasse you can let's say let's hypothetically say you have a wide circle with multiple persons represented engaging all the various valence --is that come with that and we still leave for instance we made after this great conversation we've had that I think Lisa's on a great job putting together people will still leave with the same mind about the subject that they came in with mm-hmm and that's okay it is okay but I guess there's also the issue it's not a kind of oh it's okay that we disagree at the end of the day there's there's a fissure in God's family where it is not only disagreement but but at hominem on to both sides there's I can't stand you or all that soft stuff is there and I think we can't run away from the that element of how the dialogue breaks down you know can I make a couple points on that one hey perhaps after this conversation what we will say is that oh I love these brothers and sisters that have a different opinion I may not agree with them but I understand them a bit better so maybe there's some new space that's created in that regard maybe this kind of conversation opens up the doors for potential change later on and I don't want in some of these conversations I don't want us to move towards the middle I think a middle might be a bad place but maybe there's more space for us to continue this dialogue so first thing I want to say on that the second thing I want to say is really just more statement as we talk about things like homosexuality I think we need to begin to wonder why it is that we talk about concerns like homosexuality the way that we do is the church or we refuse to do it so for example if I look at the Bible there are few tat passages that we talk about in relationship to homosexuality Genesis 19 is one that's usually the dominant one it defines the quote-unquote sin sodomy etc etc look at the kind of the passage carefully I will make an argument a it really isn't talking about homosexuality and it's not really even talking about hospitality is talking about the way that you treat the poor the disadvantaged in a very significant way in a way that if we looked at it critically might say there's something wrong with American society where we have incredibly wealthy people who refuse to do anything for those who are impoverished it might critique us so we find a way to interpret that text that looks at somebody else and caused them out for their quote unquote sin we look at passages like Leviticus 18 Leviticus 20 that wrestle with the notion of line with a man as with a woman is problematic and we don't tend to realize that this is in the Book of Leviticus the Book of Leviticus is a book that's written by a group of priests that we're trying to define what who was in and who was out the faith who was clean and who was unclean and we forget the fact that we are the unclean but we lift up this passage to talk about who else is this bag determined to be unclean in it and we make this the principle text that we use to talk about their uncleanness without recognizing that this text would have excluded us as well at the beginning as we go through these texts we realize that there's probably a whole lot less about homosexual in the Bible then we spend time talking about so then we need to ask ourselves why do we spend so much time worrying about homosexuality huh one thing I might say is that homosexuality and abortion which tend to be the quote unquote sins of the right are two things that cisgendered heterosexual white men can't do therefore they're the worst things that God hates in the world mm-hmm and if this is true then maybe we need to problematize what's going on as we look at these things maybe we need to think about whose power is being represented by particular interpretations and maybe we can begin to recognize that perhaps we read certain text the way we do because serving someone else's interests not our own I would just don't like to sort of interject there I think one of one of the issues that comes up with why we spend so much well first it doesn't sure we don't have a lot of passages on homosexuality but I don't think that's cause to dismiss it as would it what scripture says I would think on why we spend so much time on it in church I think that we are we have misinterpreted the spirit of the text it's not just you know if I'm speaking I have a lot of homosexual friends people are in church and people I know someone were struggling with this some who have decided that this is their path I think the issue is a lot has a church when people come into church and they see them whether they are transgender or whether they're cross-dressing whatever they make it the focus and I remember just a short short story remember my dad passed my dad's Muslim I remember he told me before he passed and not bury him as a Muslim but to bury me not bury him as a Christian but barium was a Muslim so we did but he allowed us to have a Christian servus and i preached that and it was a Muslim that came to me said she was excited about this the word because of the first time she could be in church and she heard the word and we didn't make it about her I think what happens in a church we make it about the homosexual rather than the redeeming work of Christ and so I think in some ways we have missed the whole point of Christ which is to preach Christ crucified to all people and not to send everybody to hell because you know their path speaking about about redemption in Christ one of the other sort of I think elements in the room with regard to sexuality is the predatory nature of sexuality in our churches sometimes and that we took that that we don't talk a lot about sexuality in general we also talk about assault and incest and all numbers of things and so before we prepare to wrap up I wanted to talk about about that and also how we deal with the issue of modesty and well you know who gotta go who's at fault in these moments you know we talk to talk about the scantily clad woman and not the check on why the man is lusting and not resisting urges or whatnot so I want to talk about that and how that relates to the broader conversation about biblical hermeneutics theology and what should the church be doing to address the issues of sexual abuse broadly defined so for me this is an example of why it matters that you have not just women but womanist and feminist women in pulpits and in teaching spaces you framed your introduction as we don't but we do some of us preach about rape and incest when I tell the Sarah and Abraham story I named their union as incestuous right talk about David's rape of Bathsheba she did not commit adultery she was sinned against when God started handing out punishments God had no punishment for her because she had not transgressed right so some of us name those things and we need to continue to do those things and I am NOT from the portion of the black church that was heavily invested in modesty culture so for me I actually take this parable of Jesus when he says or this teaching of Jesus if your eye offends you pluck it out to be placing the onus on the person who is doing the looking I'm not saying y'all should snatch your eyes out what I am saying is that doesn't mean go put a modesty cloth on her I think our Muslim brothers have this custody of the eyes if you can't handle what you're seeing lower your eyes but that's the same principle it is that's where they wear the onus is but your greater point that people who are in pews are not hearing sermons about rape and incest and are not let alone in the structures of this church creating systems of accountability to deal with predatory members that that is absolutely correct in many cases you know what else you can give me my claps it's alright I think one of the things I've tried to do as a pastor is to make sure that I have some of my female pastor friends or my students come to preach because they would bring a different slant on a text and I would I would as a man for a long time at the church I was single and so it could be a rough thing to be in a and I'm in a church of color as a single man and so I would challenge my members I say look they're single guys here they're single women here I can't institute a dress code however there has to be some sense of modesty when we have dressed down in the summer I don't expect the men to come in and with good body shirts on and then I sigh and then it everybody felt laughing AHA and then I said I don't expect my sisters to have spandex on because I could tell you a lot of times I'm up there as pastor and and sister's visiting would have shirts on dresses on their thigh and so I'm trying to preach like this or preach with my eyes closed but the challenge is that we are sexual and that it there is that that that is a reality but then as well to challenge seasoned Saints with some sense of modesty and respect for the place I grew up in a traditional black Baptist Church Cornerstone Baptist Church in bed-stuy and with the hats and the dresses and there was a certain kind of dress now in this millennial generation there just isn't that but if somebody comes in the church I can't make that an issue but as well there has to be some kind of sense of respect and decorum for the place and so it's a it's a kind of slippery slope that you have to shred with that as a if you're in the church in a practical way I would just add concerning what's going on with so much sexual abuse and all those sorts of matters I think we should really preach the text right the this the hymn commits incest you know that's my interpretation when he seeing his father's nakedness you know so I think that we need to we really need to sort of talk about the very difficult things to talk about and I think if we talk about those things then we have a safe place to deal with them and we can show people how they need to be how they need to interrelate with one another to act like these things are not happening is is just a farce we it should not be that you come to church and that you're molested or raped by a leader or minister or some or your Sunday school teacher that it should be the safest place that you're at and so I think we need to have more - more preaching on those things but we simply are you know we don't do too much preaching but also preaching but also making sure that you maybe partner with some of that kind of health care professionals who can deal with that stuff because many of us as who has passed we don't have the kind of clinical training to deal with some of the hard issues that come across our desk when I first got to the church I was there late one Wednesday night and so a couple walks in and it was a couple that was going through a divorce the woman walks in and I could immediately on her wrist see that there's scar tissue so she walks in and I said oh Lord she's tried to commit suicide so here I am a new pastor there and I'm dealing with a couple that are dealing with divorce and suicide the man was having a menopausal issue and wanted to get some young gal and put away his wife of 20 years and so they come and they want me to fix it in in 15 minutes and I said let me be totally honest with you this is beyond my paygrade and there's no way I can quote Romans 10:9 and John 3:16 to deal with this I'm gonna meet with you a couple of times and then I'm going to refer you and so I I work with a lot of social workers psychologists psychiatrists and I'm always in the business of referring because I just can't sit down I don't have to I don't have the patience to listen to somebody's problems with two and three hours I I want to throw a Bible at somebody and so I'm in the process of referring that knowing there when somebody walks in it's beyond me but knowing if that's a need I got to get them some kind of help and they'll come to me because they trust me but then it's been my challenge and to walk them to the kind of person that they will trust and I've done that a bevy of times so let me this sort of this on the same basic theme I think the text even when it is most most sexually whatever often has a sense of modesty so song of song most of us would probably agree is perhaps the most sexual book in the Bible amen climate people's grape clusters and squeeze and different type of fruit so but one of the things that's sort of interesting about it I was just looking at chapter 2 verse 7 and that this is the inner speech and voters of Jerusalem by the gazelles or the wild doze do not stir up or wake in love until it's ready there's a sense of discipline that seems to be found in a lot of these texts and I think that we can lift up themes like that to say that even though we may not agree what sexuality is or should be we might find that they're consistent notions about whatever it is because of love because of other reasons we should try to find ways to discipline the way that we engage sorry to say this because I think I'm put on the quote-unquote progressive side of this conversation but I'm actually pretty sexually conservative and in actually because I'm sexually conservative that's the reason why I know everybody's gonna hate me now when I say this that's the reason why I've been able to be one who does not oppose gay marriage in essence if the rule about monogamy it makes sense for a man and a woman then shouldn't it also makes sense for gay men or gay women shouldn't people have the opportunity to engage in that kind of discipline relationship as well if it's if we are lifting up a Christian paradigm then maybe that Christian paradigm might have a different way of working as well so now I've alienated everybody in the room forgive me for that he's good and and I'm rowdy and I have been friends over a decade and so as dr. Qi and I think hopefully what we at least can model in this is the fact that we could disagree vehemently and still go have a cup of coffee afterwards and so I'm hoping that because I think this issue has ripped open other communities and for communities of color they're just too many issues that we have to address that as opposed to then mirror those communities and make this kind of a litmus test of whether we should work them we can work together we can work together and disagree on that we can work on housing and Druce agree on this we can work on reparations and disagree on on this issue and then we can have colloquiums like this and come back and and have the conversation and talk about it again - at least model the the spirit of Christ that has drawn us both to the text so I want to go back to what we can do in our churches in black churches it is very common that as we meet and welcome new members and get to know them we you know do you have children would you like to work in the sunday-school what we do not do is fingerprint and background check and predatory people know that about the black church right they know that their background checks in the Boy Scouts and in Big Brothers Big Sisters right they know that child workers everybody in the Episcopal Church has to go through this training regularly like they they migrate and when I was in the AME Zion Church that was raised by our bishops in some spaces that there were people go moving preferentially into black church and the kind of sometimes other nationality evangelical churches that had sort of open door into the Sunday School policy so that's something we really need to think about structurally and systemically I would say at our church Church of God denomination we do background check and and with because we want to provide a safe space of course sometimes a background check takes forever let's take our panelists for their time before they're engaged with these Wow an amazing topic and an amazing talk on that so how can someone if they want to get involved with you three and support this amazing event that you have and just everything that g3 does how can they get involved well one of the major ways they can get involved is a donate i'm the jewelry project not only reaches impact churches but we also have an HBCU tour where we engage students on campuses around the topic of christianity being the white man's religion and we come back there's a narrative yeah and one of the things we do is we're a support to help fund the HBCU tour so that the schools won't have to to pay for that so one of the ways that people can support us in reaching students to give at Jude 3 project calm or they can mill in their gift and there's the address at g3 project comm to mill in your gift if you want to do it that way as well awesome awesome so until next time I'm staying junior and I'm here with Lisa fields we'll see you next time you [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Jude 3 Project

Views: 19,566

Rating: 4.4683542 out of 5

Keywords: Quonekuia Day, sexuality, lgbtq, lgbt, sexuality and the church, black church, christianity, apologetics, Wil Gafney, Old Testament

Id: MVee58-eKog

Length: 50min 38sec (3038 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 18 2018