Warning her audience at a recent meeting of the Baltimore-Washington Area Reconciling Ministries (BWARM) group, Professor Youtha Hardman-Cromwell predicted that for those who do not take scripture literally, “They are going to think of you as non- Christian” and “atheist.” But, she added, “Intelligence and curiosity are gifts of God and He expects us to use them.”
Her comments were a part of a talk entitled: “Burnishing Your Shield: Holy Scripture and Homosexuality,” where Hardman-Cromwell contended that, contrary to historic Christian belief, the Bible does not forbid homosexual practice. Metropolitan Memorial UMC of Washington, DC, hosted the October 4 event that included workshops and worship for progressives who want to change the church’s disapproval of homosexual behavior. Hardman-Cromwell is the Professor of Practice in Ministry and Mission at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. She is an ordained member of the Virginia Conference.
Hardman-Cromwell defined the Bible as “a collection of books impacted radically by an editorial process over the centuries” that “was always interpreted, and therefore it was always transformed and has the potential to be transforming.” Citing what she views as pitfalls of biblical interpretation, she said that many Christians are prone to Bible-worship, where “we ascribe to the Bible the glory that belongs to God.” Another problem, she listed, occurs when “we worship the text; we give to the letter superiority over the spirit.” Finally, she noted that some Christians engage in a “worship of culture” where “we force the Bible to conform to the norms of the prevailing culture.”
She questioned, “Does the Bible mean what we mean when we say homosexuality?” and argued that “It probably doesn’t” because the exact term, “homosexual… was not coined until 1892.” As for those who cite the Genesis 19 emphasis on two sexes, Hardman-Cromwell called this the “homophobic” argument of God creating “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” The passage, according to her, is “not about relationships between people; [whether] friendships or marriage… [it] never talks about marriage or Adam and Eve getting married.” Rather, it is “about the establishment of human society,” and consequently she felt it had no implications for God’s design for the family.
Hardman- Cromwell contested that many passages of scripture that some believe condemn homosexuality are actually about another issue entirely. She asserted that “Sodom was destroyed because it was a place lacking hospitality,” and that the “instance of attempted homosexual rape” in that Old Testament account “does not invalidate all homosexual activity.” In most instances where the word “sodomite” appears in the King James translation, she argued that the reference was to male shrine temple that accompanied pagan worship.
The professor dismissed Leviticus’ injunctions against homosexual behavior because that set of laws was a part of the old Jewish holiness code, which she said was there to help Israel “become different and separate” from surrounding people. The precepts of the Old Testament holiness code, argued Dr. Hardman-Cromwell, “are ignored by most Christians when [the church] deems [those] precepts irrelevant to the New Testament [notion of] purity of heart,” because, she explained, the old law’s “purpose was nation-building.”
And while St. Paul seems to understand the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah as “unnatural” sexual “relations” (Romans 1:26), Dr. Hardman-Cromwell said that for a person born homosexual, the only natural way of sexual expression is homosexual behavior. “This raises an interesting question in me talking about natural and nature about our controversy about what is the origin or cause of people who are attracted to the same gender as they are,” she remarked. Just as “Gentiles don’t need to become Jews [circumcised] to become Christians,” homosexuals don’t have to change what she asserted were “natural” sexual behaviors when they become Christians.”
“Continue as you are seems to be the stance for Paul,” said Hardman-Cromwell. She added, “Being born homosexual, how can lesbians and gays give up their natural for unnatural [heterosexual] sex?” Hardman-Cromwell declared that Paul never dealt with “non-exploitative, committed, and monogamous same-sex relationships” and that “There is no indication that he can even conceive of that much less write about it.”
Finally, Hardman-Cromwell extrapolated that Jesus’ concern for the Canaanite woman exemplified the inclusivity that he modeled throughout his ministry, particularly to “the marginalized, outcast, those deemed impure, [and] those who were condemned.” She encouraged the audience to consider “who are the marginalized in our time?”
One audience member questioned, “How do you pastor blatantly homophobic people?” Dr. Hardman-Cromwell suggested, “Carefully and lovingly… We’re all on a journey and I want us all to be on a journey and not stuck someplace with our hands over our ears,” but noted that she was “not in the same place as I was in the past.” She concluded: “I’m willing to give other people that same freedom [to evolve in their beliefs].”
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