United Methodist Bible Study Takes a “Queer” Turn

At the Sing a New Song conference (SANS), a rally for sexually liberal United Methodists, Althea Spencer-Miller led LGBTQ-themed Bible studies filled with little in solid Scriptural content and much in multicultural platitudes. The self-professed “gay Jamaican pastor” now teaches as assistant professor of New Testament at United Methodism’s Drew Theological School and works as the Provisional Elder of the New York conference of the United Methodist Church. Her career boasts a strong commitment to post colonialism and feminism, about which she’s authored several books and articles. At the August conference outside Huron, Ohio, she helped audience members dismember the Holy Scriptures to overturn traditional sexual mores.

After introducing herself at one SANS session, Spencer-Miller went through her lesson outline, noting that she was “not going to carefully exegete these texts.” She was true to her promise as the studies unfolded. “You can’t read the Bible the same way you always have,” she announced, “The Bible only says what we say it says. We have to know who we are.” Seemingly both post-colonial and post-modern, Spencer-Miller treasured individual opinion and cultural over both text and church tradition. She urged: “You must not submit yourselves to another [outside] tradition.” Indeed, she made a call to translate the Bible according to one’s ideology.

Continuing with SANS’ commitment to novelty, Spencer-Miller critiqued reliance on the Bible by both liberals and conservatives debating homosexuality. When both parties require the other to interpret the Bible to support a claim, they both become “foundationalists.” She complained: “We all read the Bible the same way” as an “ossified document of stated words.” Both camps fall into an erroneous “hierarchical relationship” with the Scriptures. For Spencer-Miller, the Scriptures should not be understood to provide a normative standard for doctrine and practice.

Spencer-Miller questioned, “Can [the Bible] be our book in a way that it is not the conservative’s?” She declared, “You cannot live to serve tradition…We’ve got to stop using [the conservatives’] texts.” She praised a “dialogical relationship with the Scriptures” that excludes proclaiming: “We are sinners who read the Bible and try to be obedient to it.” She recommended, “Progressivism should be the vehicle and vessel of conservatism.” In other words, Spencer-Miller seemingly favored a kind of historicism, where particular cultures are completely sealed from one another; people must uphold particular constructs even when contradicting the Bible or church tradition.

The study leader provided several supposed examples of Biblical “gender-bending.” Spencer-Miller explained: “We can celebratorily [sic] find ourselves in Biblical texts…if we do not see it, it springs from the deficient ancient imagination.” She started off with Revelation 14:1-5, which describes 144,000 virgin men set apart to God’s service for the end times. She concluded they were gays or transsexuals since only women are virgins and the text describes them as “fruits for God.” Such laughable anachronisms were joined with women’s liberation. The Drew professor saw Abigail in 1 Samuel 25:2-43 as the ideal strong-willed woman until she was regretfully “domesticated” by David. Readers should not be tempted to say “‘the text is right’ but to see how the society contains the character.” Spencer-Miller also included Ovid’s Metamorphoses as an ancient example of gender-bending in the ancient world. Oddities and transformation are the major theme of the classical work (this is what helped establish the author as a poetic genius); furthermore, the ancient world was no stranger to homosexuality. Nevertheless, Ovid has never been one for providing helpful Christian sexual norms. Simply consult his Ars Amatoria to witness his Machiavellian approach to romance and seduction. Regardless, the theologian wished to point out that sexual irregularities were open to discussion in the ancient world. With these examples in hand, Spencer-Miller presented her overall characterization: “It’s not all as straight as it looks.”

Rejoicing to cite supposed disagreements in Scripture, Spencer-Miller declared: “The Bible has no problems with contradictions.” For example, she set Exodus 20 (the Ten Commandments) against John 3:16, where God gives Christ as a gift to sinners everywhere. She went on to contrast Genesis 1 and 2. The first chapter was written by “P,” a group of priestly autocrats who portray a cosmos in which “God speaks and it happens.” The second chapter is authored by “J,” who prefers a “dirty” lowly God, who carefully crafts men and gets grime under his fingernails.  She relied on old-fashioned higher criticism arising from 19^th century German universities. For a seminarian touting her “Caribbean identity,” Spencer-Miller seemed particularly fond of old Prussian categories.

In a moment of candor, Spencer-Miller matched biblical texts on sexuality to corresponding liberal explanations and admitted: “The weight of the Bible is against us.” Her strategy is to simply ignore scriptural injunctions. In its place, she proclaims a wishy-washy niceness and self-affirmation, exulting: “Our reconciling love is like God’s love…In that strength we go beyond Paul’s virtue [the fruits of the spirit]…We can now say there is everything right about us.”