Putting the Bible Aside for a While

In my last year of seminary, I took a class where one of our assignments one evening was to debate the issue of slavery. Both sides used the Bible to justify their arguments. When the exercise was done, the professor told the side that was against slavery (the side I was on) that it was a losing battle to use the Bible in your argument since the other side could back up their argument with Scripture that indicated that slavery was "okay."

With that in mind, I thought this post by Adam Walker Cleaveland was instructive. He argues that maybe those who back up their opposition to homosexuality with the Holy Book put their Bibles aside for a while and actually meet a real live gay person. I'm familiar with Adam and have met him. What makes this argument so interesting is that Adam is himself a recent graduate of seminary, works at a church as a youth minister and is readying to become a minister. Here's a snippet of his post:

...presenting a coherent biblical argument for why homosexuality is not a sin and why our gay brothers and sisters should be fully welcomed into all areas of the church and ministry is not my point here. I think many people have done just that (Jack Rogers and Stacy Johnson come to mind), but they are easily dismissed by many because they apparently don’t have a “high enough view of scripture.”

Well - if that’s the problem - then I say, “Enough with the Bible already!”

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