Remember All Your Friends.

The New Testament and

By Serrasco

RELIGION

Homosexuality

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The most recent issue of Review, the quarterly publication of "Evangelicals Concerned," a Christian gay-rights organization, has announced an important advance in New Testament scholarship dealing with gay issues. Dr. Ralph Blair, President of Evangelicals Concerned gave a positive review to the newly published book: "The New Testament and Homosexuality" by Robin Scroggs. Scroggs is a well-known new testament scholar who found existing works on homosexuality "have done a great disservice to us, since they have let us remain in ignorance about what the New Testament is against. Scroggs asserts, based on an intense study, that the form of homosexuality known to the writers of the New Testament was completely different from the form of homosexuality known today. According to Scroggs a system of slave prostitution and an "effeminate call-boy system" were the only forms of homosexual conduct that writers like the Apostle Paul could have been familiar with. Scroggs says "Paul's basic attitude toward pederasty" (which involves older men "taking advantage" of young boys by having

anal intercourse with them) "could have been seriously influenced by passing a few coiffured and perfumed call-boys in the market place". Scroggs goes on to explain that "The male homosexuality that Paul knew about and opposed had to have been one or more forms of pederasty (because it) was the only model" of homosexual relationship that existed at that time. It is noteable that many of the pagan religions of Paul's day used male prostitution as a form of worship, a practice that Paul's Jewish religious culture would find perverted and grotesque. Scroggs also explains that the only passages about homosexuality that were written in the New Testament were written to churches "located in the GrecoRoman world where pederasty was the norm for homosexual relationships". Scroggs concludes that Paul was condemning call-boys and their customers and that "what the New Testament was against was the image of homosexuality as pederasty and primarily here its more sordid and dehumanizing dimensions. . . Biblical judgments against homosexuality are not relevant in today's debate... not because the Bible is not

authoritative, but simply because it does not address the issues involved." Today it is recognized that a homosexual relationship may exist between two equal adults and may not involve any commercial aspects since the sex is not "paid for". Where both partners are voluntarily involved in an equal, non-commercial love relationship, the New Testament is silent. The New Testament condemns commercial sex and, probably, religious temple prostitution, but does not speak against a relationship that is motivated by love. The form of homosexuality known to the writers of the New Testament was completely different from the form of homosexuality known today.

Dr. Blair concludes that Scrogg's book, along with John Boswell's. "Christianity, Social Tolerance and. Homosexuality" are the best resource books available "on the question of just what the New Testament does or does not say about homosexuality."

ISSUE 112