This is a commendable #Pride thread, and I'd like to offer a parallel one as an LGBTQ-affirming Christian pastor on Romans 1:26-27 and 1 Corinthians 6:9 (the NT equivalent in use of Lev 18:22 + 20:13) and how to read those books from places of love and affirmation. #PrideMonth /1 https://twitter.com/RutiRegan/status/1003311177965953024

The common denominator in both of those verses is that the terminology they use is nigh-untranslatable, something that @RutiRegan points out with the term "abomination" in Leviticus.

So, let's start with Romans 1:26-27, and its use of "physiken." /2

"Physiken" is used in only one other NT verse--2 Peter 2:12, in which it appears as "physika" and is often translated as "instinct." This is in the context of 2 Peter describing false teachers as "irrational animals, mere creatures of instinct." (CEB)

That context matters. /3

Sex is biological in function. It is, in more Biblical terms, animalistic or instinctive. Which means sexual attraction + orientation is likewise biological, because we act (or not act) on the basis of our attraction (or absence of, for people who are asexual) and orientation. /4

If sexual attraction or orientation is biological, and if biology, as a function of life, is divine in origin (something that is repeatedly pointed toward with the creation stories, among other Bible passages), then being LGBTQ is a state that is divine in origin. Full stop. /5

Set aside for a moment that "physiken" is used derogatorily. Given the influence of Stoicism on the writers of the Epistles, this is not surprising. And we're not Stoics today.

Paul's stoic self-denial was behind so much of 1 Corinthians, though, so lets talk about that next. /6

Like in Romans, Paul uses a word that barely appears elsewhere in the NT--in this case, arsenokoitai. It appears just once elsewhere, in 1 Timothy, which most modern scholars (and myself) believe was not written by Paul. The theology and verbiage is simply too disparate. /7

So, like "physiken," "arsenokoitai" has very few other Biblical examples that might make it easier to translate.

More broadly, though, arsenokoitai's context matters even more than physiken's in explaining what Paul was really getting at--a state of mutuality and consent. /8

1 Cor 6-7 uses sexual morality in conjunction with slavery to discuss the importance of autonomy and consent--a lesson for #churchtoo as well, which is partly why dismantling patriarchy in the church must go hand-in-hand with dismantling homo/transphobia in the church. /9

But Paul was radically egalitarian for his time--in 1 Cor 6-7, he tells husbands that *their bodies belong to their wives.* That was genuinely radical.

He similarly exhorts 1 Cor 7 to not become slaves of human masters. Paul was not an abolitionist as we would think of it... /10

in that his argument against slavery wasn't on moral grounds (ie, "slavery is wrong"), but on existential grounds ("slavery is flawed"). Slavery was an institution of the world and thus was fundamentally flawed to Paul. So he didn't want people to be enslaved by other people. /11

Self-denial of the world--that stoicism--then, pops up again. And given the institutionalization of same-sex relations in Greco-Roman culture for centuries, stoicism acted as a response. Paul simply did not want people enslaved to their passions, same-sex or opposite-sex. /12

Again, this is illustrated in 1 Cor 7, where Paul says people should never get married, and to only ever do so because marriage kills your passions (lol).

That's a far cry from "marriage is the building block of civilization!" touted by Bible-quoting homo/transphobes today. /13

So, at bottom, if you yourself do not personally ascribe to Stoicism, don't ascribe to it. Read and recognize the Bible for the compendium of books of a God of love that it is. Honor your identity and orientation as a part of how God made you. And live for that God of love! /end