Few expect to find religious substance on cable-news channels and websites.
But on New Year’s Eve, MSNBC posted a liberal overview of the same-sex dispute that is splitting the large United Methodist Church (UMC) and affects U.S. Protestantism over-all. The writer was Robert Allan Hill, dean of the chapel and New Testament professor at Boston University.
The Guy assumes that MSNBC has neither sought nor posted any theological article on this by a doctrinal traditionalist, any more than we’d expect Fox News to post a liberal’s religious commentary on this topic. Such are the “silos” that shape today’s cable “news” offerings and audiences.
As of December 31, the dispute over the Bible and sexual morality caused 7,660 congregations, roughly a quarter of the UMC, to depart, the largest U.S. schism since the Civil War. But Hill is upbeat because there’s now “a way forward” for “creative repositioning” in the UMC.
Sexual traditionalists have won every UMC showdown the past 52 years, but their voting power is seriously weakened by the big U.S. walkout, raising the odds that liberals can finally change official belief at the General Conference in Charlotte April 23 to May 3, or else at a special 2026 conference called by the bishops.
The media still have some difficulty explaining why this conflict has been so persistent and disruptive, so The Guy will sketch some pointers from the immense literature on this from scholars. Whatever the case with Catholic and Orthodox churches, for Protestants it’s all about the Bible, what it says and how that’s to be interpreted and applied.
Hill charged that current supporters of the Christian teaching across the centuries “have apparently not read all of the Bible, or at least have not read some parts of it carefully, faithfully and fully” so that the issue “is biblically misunderstood.”
For starters, he says there’s a “paucity of any biblical material” on homosexuality, with only six passages. Traditionalists cite a larger number but, leaving that question aside, they argue that both the Old and New Testaments clearly teach a moral aversion to same-sex activity and no verse tolerates it.
Three of those passages have been crucial for Christians. Jesus defines the marital relationship as between one man and one woman in Mark 10:6-8 and Matthew 19:4-6. And the apostle Paul cites same-sex behavior as “unnatural,” “dishonorable,” and “shameless” in Romans 1:26-27.
Hill does not deal with those texts and instead focuses on a beloved statement from Paul in Galatians 3:27-28: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (quotes from New RSV updated).
In Hill’s interpretation, “Paul very clearly sets aside … sexual distinctions” as part of the “fully liberating arc of biblical theology.” He cited the standard 1997 Galatians commentary by the late J. Louis Martyn, his mentor at Union Theological Seminary. Martyn wrote that Galatians teaches a new identity in Christ “beyond ethnic, social, and sexual distinctions” but did not explicitly apply this concept to the churches’ raging same-sex debate.
Hill’s outlook was supported in “A Time to Embrace” (2006) by William Stacy Johnson of Princeton Theological Seminary. He admitted no early Christians “could have imagined blessing same-gender relationships” but that’s also the case with abolition of slavery or modern women’s equality.
Johnson contended that Paul in Galatians made irrelevant “the foundational reality of gender itself, the pairing of male and female” so that “gender roles and expectations need no longer determine the ultimate identity of the baptized.” And this is “good news” especially “for those whose sexual orientation has been scorned” by either church or society.”
To traditionalists, however, Galatians proclaims Christianity’s opposition to the oppression of women, which violates their spiritual equality with men. Take feminist theologian Elsa Tamez, the first woman president of Latin America Biblical University, based in Costa Rica with satellite campuses in 14 nations. She wrote that Galatians means “in the dimension of faith no one is either superior or inferior to anyone else,” which was a “radical” rebuke of the “highly stratified” Greek and Roman society” in Paul’s day and favors all “marginalized and unjustly treated” people.
There’s a broader basis for revisionism with Methodist theologians like the influential Victor Paul Furnish of Southern Methodist University. In a 2000 liberal anthology he stated that “every one of the specific moral rules and teachings of Scripture is time bound and culturally conditioned,” especially those concerning “the complexities of sexual identity and sexual orientation.”
There’s no way evangelicals can agree with that approach.
Thus, Furnish believes Paul in Romans “is not specifying what Christians should or should not do.” As for the Old Testament condemnation in Leviticus 18:22 (also 20:13), Furnish says it involves “ritual purity” rather than “moral purity” in an ancient “holiness code” not binding on Christians. Traditionalists respond that Christianity still upholds this passage’s other condemnations, against adultery, incest, sex with animals, and child sacrifice.
These glimpses of the ongoing debate tell journalists that they are covering movements with conscientious and irreconcilable beliefs about the Bible. The media should be closely examining the vigorous arguments on both sides. After all, this conflict has been causing battles in United Methodist seminaries for decades, and not just on issues linked to sexual morality.
Contacts for Robert Allan Hill: 617–358-3394 or rahill@bu.edu.
For further information: There's a useful summation of the arguments in "Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views" (Fortress) by liberal Dan O. Via and conservative Robert A.J. Gagnon.
Gagnon wrote the conservative magnum opus, "The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics" (Abingdon). A thorough liberal classic is "Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective" (also from Fortress" by Martti Nissinen.