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About the words "vile affections:" The Greek phrase translated as "vile affections" in the King James Version of the Bible has also been translated into English as:
In the original Greek, the phrase probably does not mean "passions" or
"lust" as people experienced in normal, day-to-day living -- the type of
emotion that one encounters in a marriage or sexually active relationship. It
seems to refer to the "frenzied state of mind that many
ancient mystery cults induced in worshipers by means of wine, drugs and
music." 2 It seems to describe the results of
ritual sexual orgies as performed in many Pagan settings at the time. Paul seems
to be referring here to Pagan "fertility cult worship prevalent in Rome" at the
time. 4 Vestiges
of this type of sex magic are still seen today in some Neopagan religious
traditions. The Wiccan "Great Rite" is one example. However, in modern
times, such rituals are restricted to committed couples in private. | ||||||||||||||||
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About the words "exchanged," "leaving," "change," and
"abandoned:" These words are important, because they precisely
describe the people about whom Paul is talking. From the text, he is
obviously writing about women with a heterosexual orientation, who had
previously engaged in only heterosexual sex, who had subsequently "exchanged"
their normal/inborn behaviors for same-sex activities. That is, they
deviated from their heterosexual orientation and engaged in sexual
behavior with other women. Similarly, he describes men with a heterosexual
orientation who had "abandoned" their normal/inborn behaviors and
engaged in same-sex activities. In both cases, he is describing
individuals with a heterosexual orientation, who were engaging in same-sex
behavior -- in violation of their natural desires. In normal life, these
are very unusual activities, because heterosexuals typically have a strong
aversion to engaging in same-sex behavior. However, with the peer
pressure, expectations, drugs, alcohol and other stimulants present in
Pagan sex rituals at the time, they appear to have abandoned their normal
feelings of abhorrence and engaged in same-sex behavior. | ||||||||||||||||
| About the word "natural:" "The operative term in
Paul’s original Greek is "phooskos", meaning "inborn", "produced by
nature" , "agreeable to nature". 1 This term, and
the corresponding phrase "para physin" described below, are open to
interpretation:
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| About the word "against nature," "unnatural," etc:
The Greek phrase "para physin" is commonly translated into the
English as:
These do not seem to be an accurate translations. They may demonstrate prejudice on the part of the translators. "Unnatural" implies that the act is something that is to be morally condemned. M. Nissinen defines "para physin" as:
The word "unconventional" would have been a more precise word for translators to use. The phrase "Para physin" appears elsewhere in the Bible:
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About the phrase "just reward:" Romans 1:27 refers to the idolaters receiving a recompense or penalty for "their error which was due." (NKJ, ASV, etc). This appears to be a reference to the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) which was epidemic among such Pagan fertility cults at the time. The general availability of condoms would only occurr millennia in the future from Paul's era. |
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The context in which Verses 26 & 27 appear:
It is important to analyze the preamble to the verses quoted above:
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Romans 1:7 says that Paul is writing his epistle "To all that be in
Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints...": That is, his letter is
written to all of the Christians in Rome. Recipients of his letters would be
submerged in the Roman culture, where homosexual behavior was both
widespread and acceptable by society. |
| Romans 1 is concerned with "Paul's vigorous denunciation of idolatrous religious worship and rituals." 2 This is not often mentioned today. Rather, verses 26 and 27 are broken out of the longer passage and cited by themselves to condemn same-sex behavior. |
Verses 21 to 28 include the following topics:
| Verses 21-23: The people had once been Christians. But they had fallen away from the faith,
and returned to Paganism. They made images of Pagan gods in the form of
men, birds, animals and reptiles for their religious rituals. The latter were probably held in
Pagan temples. |
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Verse 24: Next, they engaged in heterosexual orgies with each other as part of
these pagan fertility rituals.
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| Verse 25: Next, they worshipped the images that they had made, instead of God,
the creator. Paul is specifically condemning idol worship here.
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| Verse 26: Because of these forbidden practices, God
intervened in these fertility sex-rituals and changed the people's
behavior so that women started to engage in sexual activities with other
women.
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| Verse 27: describes how God had the men also engage in
same-sex ritual activities. They (presumably both the men and women)
were then punished in some way for their error.
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| Verse 28: Again, because they did not acknowledge God, then He "gave them up" to many different unethical activities and attitudes: evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, etc. |
Conclusions:
As in virtually all other "hot" religious topics, religious conservatives and liberals take opposite views on this and the other "clobber" passages in the Bible that are often regarded as referring to homosexuality:
| Conservative view: The assertion of Bennett Sims, the former Episcopal bishop of Atlanta,
is a good example of a viewpoint that is held by many conservative
Christians. He believes that these
verses have done more to form Christians' negative opinion of homosexuality than
any other single passage in the Bible. He writes:"For most of us who seriously honor Scripture these verses still stand as the capital New Testament text that unequivocally prohibits homosexual behavior. More prohibitively, this text has been taken to mean that even a same-sex inclination is reprehensible, so that a type of humanity known as 'homosexual' has steadily become the object of contempt and discrimination." 1 | ||||
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Views by others: Many religious
liberals, secularists, homosexuals, and others view this passage as an
attack on heterosexual persons who were formerly Christians, who
reverted to Paganism, and who engaged in ritual sexual behavior as a
part of their newly adopted Pagan services. During these rituals, the
Pagans were whipped into such a state of sexual frenzy that they went
against their basic heterosexual nature and started engaging in sexual
behavior with members of the same sex. Paul condemns such behavior. He
concludes that Pagan worship will inevitably leads to other negative
behavior:
The beliefs that persons of other religions are all morally corrupt and
that followers of one's own religion behave on a much higher moral plane
was common in Paul's time. The same assertions have been made throughout
history. Yet, modern-day studies indicate that followers of no one
religion have a monopoly on good behavior. We are unaware of any religion, all of whose members
exhibit consistently immoral behavior.
Having lived in a pre-scientific era, Paul would not have had access to the research in human sexuality which started in the late 19th century and which only became widespread in the latter half of the 20th century. He would have been unaware of the concept of sexual orientation. |
References:
The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.- "How to be true to the Bible and say 'Yes' to same-sex unions," at: http://drswiney.org/john/bennett.html
- R.S. Truluck, "The six Bible passages used to condemn homosexuals," at: http://www.truluck.com/html/ This article is often cited on the Internet, but apparently is not longer available online. However a 42 minute You Tube interpretation of the article can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com
- Quoted in: Bruce Hane, "'Natural' and 'unnatural' " at: http://www.newvisionsproject.org/ This website appears to be offline.
- "Free to be gay: A brief look at the Bible and homosexuality," Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, at: http://www.ualberta.ca/~cbidwell/UFMCC/ This is also offline, and a search for a copy was unsuccessful.
Copyright © 1996 to 2012 by Ontario
Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2012-MAR-04
Author: B.A. Robinson
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