Have you ever wondered how churches and pastors who believe in the authority of the Bible land the way they do on the same-sex issue? How can we read the same Bible and interpret it so differently?

I just finished reading Christopher R. Seitz’s heavy book, The Character of Christian Scripture: The Significance of a Two-Testament Bible. One unexpected benefit of reading the book was Seitz’s choice of the same-sex crisis in the American Episcopal Church (TEC) as his concrete example of what happens when people move away from the rule of faith (or fails to recognize that the OT functions theologically for the Church).

Seitz reports that both sides of the same-sex issue acknowledge that this boils down to “disagreement…over the interpretation of Scripture and the question of whether the Bible has something like a plain sense, in the case of same-sex behavior and in other areas” (p. 176). Seitz has followed the discussion over the exegesis of Scripture and homosexuality for over two decades and lists three phases that have occurred in that timeframe:

Phase One. It was believed that the Bible could be reevaluated and understood to be saying something that no one had thought it said up to that point. “Sodom was about inhospitality, not homosexuality; chapter 1 of Romans was about specific, exotic kinds of homosexual misconduct [as opposed to two people of the same gender entering into a loving commitment to each other]” (p. 176).

Phase Two. It was admitted that the Bible really did say what it was always understood to say [that homosexual activity was a sin]. But what the Bible was giving us “was a kind of rough guide on how to make decisions. Biblical people had to exercise judgment, and they went about this with certain flexible systems that allowed them to negotiate religious principles with changing times” (pp. 176-177). An example would be Acts 15 the decisions of the Jerusalem Council. Therefore, we have the opportunity with changing times to change our minds about what is biblical or the kind of morality God expects of His citizens.

Phase Three. The Bible does not speak to the issue of our modern-day same-sex attitudes and actions because our version of this was unknown in the times when the Bible was written. If we don’t have a word from God on the issue, then we’re left with listening to how the Spirit of God would have us respond today.

Ultimately, then, “there is sufficient confusion about what any text means, [therefore]…the only thing we can be sure of is what people report to be true in their present experience….The Bible looks like us. That is our interpretive conclusion” (p. 178).

So, I step back, take a look at that three-phase development, and ask: What keeps me from that position? I am reminded of what Barth described as “the strange new world of the Bible.” Without becoming too simplistic, go back to the very first part of the first phase. The reevaluation of the Bible was due to a clash between Scripture and cultural experience. I should expect the two views to clash. And I should preach God’s view with confidence and invite His people to inhabit His strange new world. I should not allow the presence of confusion about the meaning of God’s Word to move me to rely on present human experience to determine reality.