Introduction

This is a slightly different, kind of “special edition” part of a series discussing Membership Bible Training in The Network. In this one, I will be sharing more of my own views, while also sharing the full views shared in the training. For this reason, I hope this post will be far more relevant than normal to outsiders, including Christians outside The Network who hold anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs. Don’t worry, there will still be the usual analysis of the teaching itself, but it’s hard to do without sharing my thoughts.

Previous sessions:

This post covers Part 3 of Session 2 of Membership Bible Training (MBT), as taught by former staff pastor Landon Nagata at Vista Church (San Luis Obispo, California). It was taught on February 3rd, 2020. This article has four sections.

Intro: Description of the audio
- Length, topics, date, and speaker, fully recycled from my articles on MBT Session 2 - Part 1 & 2.
- Disclaimers are fully recycled from my article on MBT Session 2 - Parts 1 & 2, but please read them if you haven’t before.
- The audio and transcript
- A Table of Contents
Content Analysis: A chronological, but not fully exhaustive, analysis of the points taught
- This post covers the fourth major point: “Homosexuality and Same-Sex Marriage” (with an earlier point about gender identity brought into this article)

About the recording

Nothing new from MBT Session 2 - Parts 1 and 2. If you’ve already read those, then skip this, but read if you have not.

The audio is an hour and thirty-five minutes of teaching, over 15,000 words. It’s the second of seven sessions. This session covers the following major topics:
- What is Creation?
- What are angels and demons? (This is in this article)
- Cultural Issue: Homosexuality and Same-sex Marriage
Nagata had previously taught this same session in 2019, though I do not have the audio for that. Vista Church taught MBT first in 2019, and then again in 2020. It was not held in 2021 and I do not know if it’s been taught in 2022, and Nagata would not have taught it in 2022 even if there was.
The audio is easily dated to 2020 instead of 2019 by two marks:
- Nagata references a “fridge in the back”, which indicates he was in the Vista Office, not the Vets Hall where 2019’s training was held.
- Nagata references the worship leader (Ken) coming to lead worship after he finishes small group. In 2019, all small groups were canceled so that people could attend MBT.
Landon Nagata was a member of the church plant team. He was brought on staff as a pastor, if memory serves, sometime in 2017. He was, as with most pastors, young and lacking in many traits a church might normally hire for. Lead Pastor Luke Williams made Nagata a small group leader no more than a few months before making him a pastor. His character was uneven and his biblical knowledge was weak, which I believe you will see as we go through this, more than two years later.
Nagata was removed as a staff pastor, moved into an “administrative role”, in a move that was announced in late 2020 at a Team Vista (and no other announcement). He left the administrative role within a few months after that and started working outside the church. This was never announced to the church. The church did not share a reason for Landon’s removal as a staff pastor, but he told me it was for two incidents of alcohol consumption to the point of “buzzed”, and failure to tell Williams about it. You can read more about that in my previous article, which has been live for nearly four months and I have not heard any refutation or correction of it.
Nagata is still a Small Group Leader at Vista Church.
Nagata is teaching this under the leadership of Lead Pastor Luke Williams. Williams is one of the six members of the Network Leadership Team, according to Leaving the Network. He is believed to oversee the churches on the west coast including Blue Sky Church (Bellevue, WA), Hills Church (Pullman, WA), Summit Creek Church (Eugene, OR), and Valley Springs Church (Corvalis, OR).

Disclaimers

Identical to MBT Session 2 - Parts 1 and 2, if you already read that, but please read if you haven’t previously read it.

Transcription errors (or other feedback!) can be reported to not.overcome@outlook.com.
I’ve used a transcription service to create the original transcription, and then I’ve hand-edited it to improve accuracy Transcribed teachings always lose something from the delivered version — speaking is a different art than writing — and this is no exception. The transcription is provided as an aid, not as the authoritative record, and undoubtedly contains errors. That said, I hope it’s helpful. A couple things you will see as you go:
- A lot of doubled words or phrases – this is actually a pretty normal thing for people to do, and I don’t judge Williams for it. I suspect a public speaking coach would want to work on it, but it’s pretty natural. Most verbal pauses are automatically removed by the transcription service, so you won’t see too many of those in the writing (um, uh).
- A few times you will see me use square brackets [like this]. You can effectively read right over those – they are places where either I couldn’t understand, Williams misspeaks a whole phrase and starts over, or something similar.
- I do not guarantee the accuracy of this transcription, and encourage people to listen to the audio of any section they find interesting, particularly if you intend on taking any kinds of actions based on what you find here.
- Timestamps are provided throughout the transcription, in general at least once every two minutes, and I’ve tried to use them to delineate new sections as well.
- Punctuation is difficult in transcription precisely because it’s not actually spoken. I’ve done my best, and added quote marks, but somewhat inconsistently. You can probably infer most of it, and I’ll get better at it as I do more transcriptions
In this article, I’ve extracted a number of specific clips so that you can play them inline as you read my comments. In most cases, they are uncut clips. If I splice more than one clip together, I insert a sound effect (whoosh) to mark switching from one clip to the next, and noted it in the transcription of that clip.
In the full audio and clips, the only editing I have done is to clean up the sound quality:
- equalizer for voice clarity (this is a matter of preference, but I’ve attempted to use settings that made it easiest to understand, while still sounding very much like Nagata’s natural speaking voice).
- background noise reduction
- volume leveling applied consistently start-to-finish – I have not attempted to normalize Nagata’s volume segment-to-segment or do anything that would otherwise affect his content or tone.
Why Full Audio: In my reporting on The Network, it is my view that recordings like these are in the public interest, for those who are in or out of The Network, and am sharing them for that reason. I would only share the clips, like a book review, except I believe it’s important for people to be able to hear the entire thing, to know that I’ve shared all relevant context. Not to mention, others will undoubtedly notice important things that I have missed.
I’m not a Biblical scholar or Theologian. Any and all Biblical insight below comes with a caveat that I recommend doing your own research. My main point is to show that there are other viewpoints, where Nagata might claim to be stating the only valid one. Some critiques below are style, others are substance, and some are both. Please pay attention to which is which.
I’m not a perfect writer - corrections and feedback are welcome on either the reddit or by emailing me at not.overcome@outlook.com.

Listen and Read

This audio starts at 1:07:00 in the full teaching.

Read the Transcript

And now that I’ve shared all of it, here it is in one full recording:

Topic #4: "Homosexuality and Same-Sex Marriage"

The cultural topic for this session was “Homosexuality and same-sex marriage”.

I was going to break this into two sections:

What Nagata says, and clear problems with it
What I believe

However, it’s simply too hard to disentangle them. I’ve tried to be clear about when things are my views, but you’ll need to use discernment as you read, and weigh my words carefully both in critique of Nagata and in my argument for my views. I will also close with a statement that is wholly independent from the teaching. Because they can’t be disentangled, I’ve actually started with a statement on my own views.

Additionally, Nagata’s argument is (my opinion) poorly made. It’s circular and he leans too much on weaker texts. I will deal with those, but I also don’t want you to feel like my arguments for the position I will take are weak just because Nagata’s arguments are weak. Therefore, I will try to draw out the “best version” of various arguments, filling in gaps where Nagata falls short, and while I will (attempt to) show why his arguments are weak, I will wrestle with what I believe to be the most convincing arguments made by others, or at least the arguments I would have made before.

Since beginning this series, others have sent me additional copies of MBT Session 2 in which this topic is addressed. I have also now listened to three alternate versions of this teaching (by Justin Major, Tony Ranvestal, and one more pastor). I will share the audio for the first two later (I do not have permission to share the last one or reveal who taught it), but suffice it to say that they make broadly the same arguments as Nagata, and I had already written this before receiving those, so didn’t want to re-write it just to switch to their verbiage. Nagata makes a few errors the others don’t (see description of ESV Translation). The audio from these four pastors is similar in structure, use of the Bible, extra-biblical quotations (Wayne Grudem), and more. This demonstrates that they are quite likely all working from the same outline, though likely not simply reading the teaching from a script. Major and Ranvestal are both members of the 6-person Network Leadership Team, and Nagata served under Luke Williams, another member of that team. This means that even across the NLT, they are likely sharing the same outlines, though the origin of that outline is not known.

My Views

I am now affirming of LGBTQ+ persons and lifestyles. It’s with great anxiety that I share this part, but I must, and for integrity’s sake I need to lead with that. This will offend some of you. Some of you might even just stop reading right here. I have absolutely no doubt that people will use this to discredit literally everything I’ve written. People did this recently with recent report on sexual abuse and coverup within the Southern Baptist Convention - preferring to discredit its authors for being LGBTQ+ affirming than to deal with the reality of hundreds of sexual assault survivors.

Perhaps Network leadership will try to use it to discredit everything being said about them by anyone because “those people threw out the Bible!” I’m know someone in The Network who questioned the faith of their own sibling because their sibling simply started going an LGBTQ+ affirming church. As you will see, Nagata himself indicates that a failure to understand “truth from the Bible” about LGBTQ+ issues was enough for David Bieraugel (Lead Pastor, Hosea Church in Raleigh, North Carolina) to conclude that Nagata was not a Christian. Those saying this about me would be telling a lie, and would be slanderers, which I can for sure show is problematic in the Bible. I hope to demonstrate that, even if you disagree with me, you cannot say that I have disregarded the Bible.

My Process

I have been leaning this way since last fall, and even delayed this post a few days so that I could complete my research. This is the first time I’m publicly affirming LGBTQ+ people, and I’m proud to do so.

I have never, in my life, come to a decision like this without careful thought. I hope that has come through in my writing. I could address these issues by continually saying “Now I’m not saying…” but that’s no longer true, as I completed enough study recently to make my decision. Maybe I’m wrong. It won’t offend me if you don’t agree with me. But hopefully you are able to view the rest of my writing objectively and not throw it all out because you don’t agree with me on one specific thing. I really hope that some of you will ask, “Why? What changed your mind?” I’ll explain below, and I’m happy to talk it over with anyone interested. I truly believe that myself and many other Christians have been wrong, and harmfully so, about this for a very long time. David Gushee, who changed his mind around 2014 on this, compares it to past anti-semitic or pro-slavery views held by many Christians, and I am inclined to agree (including the fact that those claiming the name of Christ have literally killed practicing LGBTQ+ people in the not too distant past). Those things used to be “clear in the Bible” until people were forced to really look, and determine that there was nothing ever in the Bible that supported those views. Though, video surfaced this week of popular pastor John MacArthur questioning our “aversion to slavery,” so I suppose even that view isn’t completely dead:

Unbelievable clip by @johnmacarthur from 2012, highlighted in recent article by @baptist_news.

"It is a little strange that we have such an aversion to slavery because historically there have been abuses..." 1/5

Follow link to read story: https://t.co/qEtgend9PI pic.twitter.com/7LlYxUJGW8
— Julie Roys (@reachjulieroys) June 21, 2022

Not "Throwing Out the Bible"

Contrary to what The Network told me, I did not arrive at this conclusion by “throwing out the Bible”, but rather by looking at it very carefully and listening to people rather than just shutting down the conversation. I know all the arguments from the Bible against it. Now, without having to agree with them for the sake of peace with The Network, I find that the Bible has no problem with any of these attractions, orientations, or identities, and instead insists on loving one another. More and more Christians are looking again at the evidence and coming to this view. I continue to affirm the inerrancy, sufficiency, clarity, authority, and necessity of scripture. It’s precisely because of those affirmations that I am now LGBTQ+ affirming. Similar to my changed views on complementarianism, I arrive at these views by holding to the Bible as it is.

If this offends you, I beg you to keep reading and not just take the easy way out by saying “oh, he threw out the Bible.” I promise you, I did not, and do not. I have arrived at this position through careful study.

*As Ted Lasso says, I’m asking you to, at least for the next few minutes, “Be curious, not judgmental.”*

I would ask you, for those of you who might already be feeling defensive, or like you’re ready for a fight, why? Yes, this is me trying to get you to calm down, take a deep breath, and be more willing to listen (and seriously - you might actually take a deep breath if you’re feeling defensive). But that’s a good thing, right? It’s good when we listen - we don’t have to agree - I can’t make you agree. But I’d love it if you listened. But first, answer for yourself, why are you so worried about potentially no longer needing to judge a whole set of people?

At the end of the Bourne Ultimatum, assassin Jason Bourne doesn’t kill the assassin who was sent to kill him. When the assassin asks why, Bourne answers “Because look what they make you give. Do you even know why you’re supposed to kill me?” The implied answer is “no” - the assassin is just doing what his bosses told him is “right” and “necessary.” For those of you who are in The Network (or any other church), and know that becoming “affirming” on this would cost you your church, do you know why you’re supposed to judge LGTBQ+ persons? Can you actually make the Biblical argument? Can you defend why those lifestyles fail to “love God and love your neighbor”, which Jesus says sums up the entire law? Can you do it in a way that doesn’t give you that weird feeling in your brain that tells you something’s not quite adding up with what you’re saying?

Why is it important to you to stop men from sleeping with men, or women from sleeping with women, or men from becoming women, or women from becoming men (as you would say it - this is not how trans people would say it)? What do you gain? Does it help you love better? Have you ever won someone to Christ through your anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs? For as long as I have been anti-LGBTQ+, I have hated that I had to be. I felt like the Bible and Network told me I had to be, even though everything in me wanted to just love people and let them live as they so choose. It’s been such a relief to find that I was wrong, though I regret the damage greatly (more on that at the end). But for now - please entertain the possibility that if I’m right, that’d be a good thing. If nothing else, recognize that this opinion comes out of many hours of study and years of consideration. It’s not flippant, and it’s not “throwing out the Bible.”

The Actual Teaching

Male and Female - On Gender Identity

(from earlier in the teaching, you can listen to the context in Part 1.)

(@ 13:42) “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God, He created him, male and female, He created them.” So I love this emphasis the image of God like God, but not God. Huge distinction there, right? We are created beings to bring glory to the living God. "Man," it's commonly also talked about as referred to "Adam" refers to mankind, male and female, they will use Adam's name to talk about just humans in general from time to time. And it's very intentionally created. God it very intentionally created our genders for a specific reason.
And that's hard for our culture to believe nowadays, right? We live in an age where that's a huge hot topic issue of, "your gender is whatever you want it to be," is what the culture would say. But what the Bible would say is that there is a distinct gender that God distinguished for us today.

Nagata goes on for another few sentences driving the point that your specific gender is created by God. This is another example of eisegesis, regardless of what you think of transgender people. Nagata is reading the following points into “male and female He created them”

Only Male and Female exist
Each specific person is made male or female
Each person’s male/female nature is easily identified at birth by a persons anatomy, specifically their genitalia.

Genesis 1 says that God created both males and females. It’s quite a different thing to say that each individual person is made as male or female and that their gender is always consistent with the apparent sex their body has at birth. This isn’t about whether or not gender transition is acceptable according to the Bible. This is about showing that this passage cannot be used to declare that each person is male or female and that this is identifiable at birth. That usage is completely defeated by the mere fact that intersex people exist. This is an undeniable scientific fact, and Jesus himself acknowledges it in Matthew 19:11-12 (talking about different kinds of eunuchs, including “For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth”). It’s rare, but the view that Genesis 1:27 asserts a true binary requires that the binary exists 100% of the time, and it simply does not, and Jesus, God in flesh, says so.

So what does Genesis 1:27 mean? Going back to our “Mary had a little lamb” exercise from MBT Session #1, we need to be careful that we don’t read the wrong question into the statement “Male and female He created them”. Which question is it answering? I find the first three options (or a combination of them) far more plausible than the fourth, especially given context and the parallels to the other things God created.

Who created men and women? “Male and female he created them”
- Emphasis is on who did the creating.
Were only men created by God? “Male and female he created them”
- Emphasis is on preventing a patriarchal culture from believing that only men were created by God.
Where did men and women come from? “Male and female he created them”
- Emphasis on the fact that men and women were created by God, not just some accident.
What kinds of humans were created by God? “Male and female he created them”
- Emphasis is on a gender binary. This is the only interpretation that would say anything against transgender or intersex people.
- This is the interpretation Nagata (and many other conservative Bible teachers use)

If the goal is to teach sound doctrine that will stand up to questioning and give the person a firm foundation, then this is a poor way to accomplish that goal. It leaves the argument open to rebuttals like this by Mick Atencio, which frankly, I find far more persuasive (click the tweet or see Atencio’s blog post to see the whole thing):

i'm nonbinary. how does this reconcile with the verse, "male and female he created them," you may ask?

the variety in God's creation emphasizes God's creativity as an artist. Genesis gives us several examples of this.

thread.
— Michaela Atencio (@michaelaatencio) June 1, 2021

Atencio’s argument (which I have summarized in the following table) is effectively that few of the other things God created are “binaries either”, and many things that clearly exist are not referenced. Examples:

Day and Night? What about dawn/dusk (or a total solar eclipse!)
Sun, Moon, and Stars? What about planets, comets, black holes, asteroids?
Beasts, livestock, plants, sea creatures, and birds? We’re missing (at least) fungi, bacteria, and viruses, and might be missing insects, crustaceans, coral, and other things that aren’t easily categorized

*Things that God is said to have created in Genesis 1, with examples of things that exist but are not named.*

Genesis 1 is poetic. It’s not a science book. It contains profound truth. The idea that male and female are both made in God’s image is scandal to many cultures in world history and modern times. But when we ask it to speak on things that it does not, we get ourselves in trouble.

If every now and then, the moon can rule the day by blocking out the sun in a Total Solar Eclipse, then why do we insist that Male and Female represents a perfect binary as well?

Priming: "Extremely Clear"

The topic “Homosexuality and Same-Sex Marriage” begins at the 1:07:17 mark in the teaching, and Landon leads it by saying he has 10 minutes to talk about it before closing with worship, and then ends up spending 27 minutes talking about it.

(@ 1:07:49) What about homosexuality and same-sex marriage? Once again, all I want to do is talk about what the Bible says about this. And equip you guys how to speak in truth and love. We're meant to take this extremely seriously guys. When I - before I started to coming to church, this was the hot topic, it still is a hot topic for a lot of people. Where it creates media fights, it recreates arguing in the church, it creates this terrible, toxic kind of culture that we will not tolerate here at Vista Church. We are not going to create, make this a divide here. You are to respectfully talk about it with your small group leader or with other people in a safe context that isn't combative. So let's let's talk about this cordially here today, guys. The Bible is extremely clear about this. We're supposed to speak with truth and love about this, because the Bible is clear in all issues of faith and practice. Once again, we're not meant to - I think between a lot of churches, even here in SLO, this can be a great divide of our day. For some churches, they will abandon the Bible on this topic. But here, we're going to hold to it with immense truth. And we're not going to bend the truth at all in the midst of this.
So very frankly, guys, homosexuality is considered a sin all throughout the Bible.

I count at least eight statements that emphasize “truth” or “the bible” or “clear”, in less than 80 seconds leading up to the first time he says “homosexuality is considered a sin.”

“what the Bible says about this”
“how to speak truth”
“the bible is extremely clear”
“supposed to speak with truth”
“the Bible is clear”
“they will abandon the Bible”
“hold to it with immense truth”
“not going to bend the truth at all”

Again, rhetorically, this is highly manipulative, even if you agree with Nagata’s position. By the way, this type of priming is typically used when the speaker knows their argument is weak. Much better would be something like this:

Now, this may come as a surprise, but we believe that homosexuality is a sin. I’ll walk you through where we see that in the Bible, but I want to start by saying I know that may be hard for some of you, and that’s ok. It’s a hard topic, because real people are affected by it. There are faithful Christians who are practicing LGBTQ+ lifestyles and believe it is ok with God. We do not believe this is a salvation issue. We will not tolerate homophobic slurs or hateful language in this church that implies that LGBTQ+ persons are beyond God’s grace. But we do want to follow God’s ways and we’ve studied this topic a lot. We’re confident that the Bible does not approve of those lifestyles, and our members commit to abstaining from them, even if they have those kinds of desires. Now, let me do my best to explain where we see that, and I encourage you to talk to me, Luke Williams, or your small group leader if you have questions.

That conveys empathy and acknowledgement that real live Christians can be LGBTQ+ as well (if this is a new idea to you, I’ll come back to it when I get into “my opinion”). It says that such a view comes from study, but avoids manipulative language and invites questions. It assures people that it is not a salvation issue.

So let's let's talk about this cordially here today, guys.

I also just want to note that this is nonsensical. There’s no conversation, and Nagata is telling a group that’s just supposed to listen that they need to “talk about this cordially.” In fact, his whole thing about not being divisive is completely misleading given that he’s about to say that LGBTQ+ people will not be affirmed, and will only be accepted if they give up those parts of themselves. You can argue that that’s correct, but you can’t argue that it’s not divisive.

Side note, the fact that this teaching does not address whether or not to call people by their preferred pronouns is a key miss. It’s a hot topic in Christianity at large, and the most recent copy of MBT I have still doesn’t have it (early 2021).

Not Worse than Any Other Sin

(@ 1:09:19) And it's not meant to be elevated as "Whoa, homosexuality." This like pedestal of sins. It's on the same kind of level, you can say it's not worse than any other sin. We're not a church here that says, "oh, that sin's way better, or worse than that sin." It's just as bad as any other sexual contact outside of marriage. It's not worse than having sex with your boyfriend or girlfriend that you're not married to. Once again, sin is sin. There's no elevation of it.

Let’s test this for a moment. If a man walked into Vista Church with his boyfriend, and inquired “could we be members here,” I believe that Nagata (and Williams, and any other leader) would have said that this would only be possible if they ended their relationship.

So let’s look at some other sins:

Greed: If a man drove up in a high-end sports car that he had gone into debt to buy, would they say he had to sell it to be a member? (1 Timothy 6:8-10; 17-19) What about someone who consistently talked about how they hoped to be wealthy someday?
Vanity: If a woman walked in wearing high-end clothing, a $1,000 handbag, with perfect hair and makeup, would they say she had to stop that before becoming a member? (1 Tim 2:9, 1 Peter 3:3-6, on which I have literally never heard a sermon or teaching in the Network)
Partiality: If a pastor was commonly paying special attention to those who looked like they “had it all together” and not those who don’t, or ignoring those who were poor and wishing they wouldn’t be around, would that pastor be able to become a member? (James 2:1-12)
Remarriage: If a man has married a woman who was previously divorced but not for adultery, will he be allowed to be a member? (Matthew 5:31-32)
Unloving toward one’s wife: What if a husband is harsh and domineering toward his wife, believing this is the proper way to “lead.” Will he be denied membership? (Ephesians 5:23, 1 Peter 3:7) I can assure you that he will not, because I have heard stories of Luke Williams being domineering and harsh toward his own wife. I also witnessed concerning things about how Nagata treated his own wife (I do not allege any physical abuse, only an unhealthy neglect at times as well as being controlling).
Gluttony: What about high BMI persons? I was one for some of my time in The Network, and am now, and Steve Morgan has struggled with it by his own admission. Do people need to show that their high BMI is the result of a medically diagnosable condition before becoming a member?
Disobeying the Governing Authorities (Romans 13:1-2): Sándor Paull openly shared a story in 2018 (starting at about the 50-minute mark) about how he had fled from the cops by going over 180mph on his motorcycle. This is a felony in the state of Illinois. He does not indicate that he turned himself in, meaning this wasn’t just the one sin, but instead he continued in this sin for three years (until the Illinois statute of limitations expired - and even then I’d argue that Sándor still owes the local police an apology).
Pre-marital sex: Let’s use the example Nagata uses. Will an unmarried couple have their membership terminated (which biblically requires that the leaders “tell it to the church”, Matthew 18:15-17) if they are having sex regularly and have no intention to stop? Has anyone seen this happen in a Network church? I think this is possible, but certainly not a guaranteed thing. More likely they would tell the couple to get married and quickly. We know that men, pastors struggle with lust long term and are not removed.

On all of these, would a current member have their membership terminated if they began committing any of these sins?

If not for all of these, then Nagata is indeed elevating it above many other sins.

What's Wrong Here?

And yet, if we’re honest, there is a difference between sins. Christians (particularly protestants) can think there is not, because we believe that any sin is enough to deny us heaven without the grace of Jesus through his death on the cross. But within that, there are in fact sins that have much worse impact than others. In fact, those who know better will be judged more strictly than those who do not (Luke 12:47-48; echoed in James 3:1 and Romans 2:12ff)

And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.

So the issue here isn’t so much that Nagata isn’t doing what he’s teaching. It’s that he’s claiming that “sin is sin” when in fact it’s not.

Michael J. Kruger, president of Reformed Theological Seminary — Charlotte, writes a helpful article about spiritual abuse in which he talks about this “flattening” of sin and the danger of this type of view:

However, that is not the only way the phrase has been used. Others use this phrase as way to “flatten out” all sins so that they are not distinguishable from each other. Or, to put it another way, this phrase is used to portray all human beings as precisely the same.
But, this understanding is deeply problematic on a number of grounds. For one, to say all sins are the same is to confuse the effect of sin with the heinousness of sin. While all sins are equal in their effect (they separate us from God), they are not all equally heinous. In fact, the Bible clearly differentiates between sins. Some sins are severe in terms of impact (1 Cor 6:18), in terms of culpability (Rom 1:21-32), in terms of judgment warranted (2 Pet 2:17; Mark 9:42; James 3:1), and in terms of whether one is qualified for ministry (1 Tim 3:1-7).
Even more importantly, however, this misunderstanding of grace has been used to defend abusive leaders. If we are all equal sinners, it is argued, then we should give these abusive pastors a break. They are sinners too, just like the rest of us. To say otherwise is to put ourselves in a place of judgment over them; it is to make out ourselves to be more righteous than other people. In other words, we need to “show them grace.”
It is difficult to overstate how destructive and debilitating this sort of theological error can be. It makes the victims feel almost like they are to blame; as if its [sic] their own “unforgiving” heart that is in the way of “reconciliation.” Moreover, it utterly ignores the heinousness of the abusive [sic] itself. It forgets that some sins are worse than others. And some sinners are worse than others. And a shepherd abusing the sheep is one of the very worst. On top of this, such a misuse of grace ignores all the passages in Scripture about upholding justice, righteousness, and defending the innocent.

Moral, Sacrificial, and Cleanliness Laws

(@1:10:21) Let me just briefly explain it before we read it. Here we're gonna see outlined for us the moral laws regarding sexuality. Jesus rightfully fulfilled both the ritual cleanliness laws and the sacrificial laws. But the moral laws of the Old Testament still stand here today. And it's pretty plain as day clear cut, what is right and wrong.

Before quoting from Leviticus, Nagata introduces a concept that I long found compelling, which is that somehow there are different kinds of laws in the Old Testament. And that we can clearly conclude that some of these are “moral” laws, while others are not. This would be a helpful argument if it was true. But it’s not: Christian ethicist and author David Gushee writes, in his book Changing Our Mind (Chapter 12):

It is also not as simple as saying that Christians accept the moral laws offered in the Old Testament, just not the ceremonial, cultic, dietary, or civil laws - because, as Old Testament scholar Martin Noth wrote, “Here in the Old Testament … there is no question of different categories of commandment, but only of the Will of God binding on Israel, revealed in a great variety of concrete requirements.” Any differentiation of authority in terms of categories of Old Testament legal materials is foreign to the materials themselves. And no clear delineation along these lines is offered in the New Testament.

Gushee, quoting Noth, is saying what I found obvious as soon as I heard him say it, but I had never realized until then: this division of types of Old Testament law is entirely made up. There’s nothing in the text that says anything like that, or even in the New Testament that looks back on the Old Testament like that. I know it’d be easier if there was, but there just isn’t.

Go ahead - try to find it. Look at your Old Testament and see if you can point to sections labeled “moral law” or sections labeled “ritual cleanliness law”. There’s a few sections that are clearer, but others are much more difficult.

Instead, for example, we see passages like this in Deuteronomy 22:5-12

“A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.
“If you come across a bird’s nest in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young. You shall let the mother go, but the young you may take for yourself, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long.
“When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring the guilt of blood upon your house, if anyone should fall from it.
“You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest the whole yield be forfeited, the crop that you have sown and the yield of the vineyard. You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. You shall not wear cloth of wool and linen mixed together.
“You shall make yourself tassels on the four corners of the garment with which you cover yourself.

Try it - which of these laws still stands? Are we building parapets on our houses? Or are we at least accepting the blood guilt on our house if someone stands on our parapet-less houses and falls from it? and I’m pretty sure the thing about birds might be saying that you need to leave mother birds alone - are you sure the last time you ate chicken or turkey that it was not a mature female? Do you have tassels on the corners of your garments? Check the tag on the clothes you’re wearing right now. What are they made of? Did you mix wool and linen? Did you know that when you bought them or did you get lucky? Some of these might be labeled “cleanliness” laws like tassels and mixing wool and linen. But parapets and mother birds seem very difficult to make that argument for.

Ok, now let’s deal with the verse 5 - which seems to forbid cross-dressing, and is pretty much the only verse I know of in the Bible that could be used against people living as a gender other than the one assigned at birth (which is, in my opinion, actually much harder to forbid from the Bible than homosexuality - there’s just so little there).

@dudewithsign and @dudettewithsign (Instagram)

Women: are you wearing pants? Wives, or girlfriends, have you stolen borrowed your husbands coat or hoodie or something at some point? I know I saw at least one girlfriend walking around in her boyfriend’s hoodie at a church retreat (It was Landon Nagata’s then-girlfriend, now wife). And let’s not even talk about worship leaders wearing skinny jeans or singing in a higher, more traditionally feminine range (lookin’ at you, Shane and Shane).

Or is it possible that something interesting culturally was happening at the time? This article explains (I think quite well) some much more plausible interpretations of this verse. Josiah Hawthorne summarizes the arguments in this tweet thread. Tori Barron, a trans woman, adds more helpful thoughts here.

Lastly, pay attention to that word “abomination” - because it’ll come up again in a minute, but feel free to pick your own passage of law and play the same game. Is it obvious to you which laws are “moral” and which ones are something else? How? Are you using any principle other than “this law makes sense” and “this one doesn’t”? If not, then truly, you’re just “picking and choosing.”

Original Manuscripts

(@ 1:12:06) Just a quick heads up, you're about to hear the word nakedness more times than you ever needed to, as we talk through Leviticus 18. But the ESV is a word for word translation of the original manuscripts.

Ok, jumping away from talking about LGBTQ+ issues for a moment. That second sentence is incredibly, almost laughably wrong, but Nagata says it confidently and purposefully. It’s not an aside, it matters. He’s trying to increase the weight the audience should give to this passage (as well as explain why you’re going to hear “uncovered nakedness” instead of something less euphemistic).

The original manuscripts do not exist. Especially for Leviticus. As near as I can tell, the oldest fragment (not whole, just a piece) of a manuscript of Leviticus is from sometime in the 1st or 2nd century BC. But Leviticus is supposed to have been given during the time of Moses, which would need to date a minimum of 1,000 years before that.

We do not have the original manuscripts of any portion of the Bible, at all. And as I discussed previously, a word-for-word translation is not actually possible, though the ESV is more on that end of the spectrum than many other translations. However, according to Logos, it’s not as word-for-word as the NASB or even the RSV from which the ESV was derived.

This is why it’s important to have humility in our use of the doctrine of inerrancy, and another reason why it’s a good idea to look for confirmation of a given doctrine in the New Testament before assuming that a single verse or two in ancient Hebrew are binding for today. Fortunately, much of the OT is confirmed in the NT. But where it’s not, we should not have overconfidence in it or our translations or interpretations of it.

And once again - Nagata is showing that though he’d been a pastor for 2+ years at this point, he is making basic mistakes in what the Bible even is. Again, it’s worth saying: Luke Williams and Steve Morgan have set him up for failure.

Abomination

(@ 1:16:01) Right in verse 22, "you shall not lie with a male as a woman - should not lie with a male as with a woman it is an abomination."
There's a lot of things that he's mentioning here in Leviticus that's important for us to understand. And once again, Jesus upheld the moral laws. Jesus didn't say, "well, except that one more or except that one thing in the moral law, let's let's let's take that out. That wasn't good." He's talking about the entire moral law, he agreed with it.

So Nagata makes this first argument based on Leviticus (he’ll get to Romans 1 in a moment, which is stronger). But he’s basing it entirely on this argument that there is such a thing as the “moral law” that Jesus fully upheld. This argument has been easily defeated for a very long time - so much so that (when I was anti-LGBTQ+) it always bothered me when my favorite show The West Wing used it as a punching bag (mild language in the clip). In it the woman is playing a “Dr. Laura” type character, and the man questioning her is the fictional President Bartlet. (If the embed isn’t working, you can watch the clip on YouTube)

You might think that some of Bartlet’s examples are silly (touching the skin of a dead pig meaning you can’t play football), and I can’t vouch for all of his examples, but Exodus 35:2 is pretty clear about what’s supposed to happen if you work on the Sabbath:

These are the things that the LORD has commanded you to do. Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.

Have you worked on the Sabbath? The Network actually requires it of members: it’s called “serving.”

But perhaps that’s not what “work” means - ok, but now you’re picking and choosing and applying your own interpretation. I personally worked at Vista Church on Sundays. I’d hitch up the trailer, tow it around, unload it, help setup the giant pallets and projection screen. And then I’d do the opposite after service. Sweat was not uncommon. And have you ever had a job where you worked on the Sabbath? Have you done extra work on Sunday before work on Monday? Jesus upholds the Sabbath, though refines it somewhat. Do you? Do you plan to? Do you repent of it when you don’t? If not, you’ve embraced a Sabbath-less lifestyle. Why is this totally fine for you, when Jesus himself talks so much about the Sabbath? Jesus’ argument for performing miracles on the Sabbath is not one of “the Sabbath doesn’t matter”, but one of the definition of work, and what is in the spirit of the Sabbath versus what is not. The Pharisees had added significantly to the rules and were using them legalistically.

And if that’s not enough, David Gushee gives us a list of other things called abominations, which include (commentary is mine):

Leviticus 18:19 “You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness.” - This isn’t just sex during a woman’s period. Her time of uncleanness lasted at least seven days after her period started (for the guys reading this: most women have shorter periods than that), meaning even if her period ends on day four, sex is off limits until seven days have passed. Rachel Held Evans in “A Year of Biblical Womanhood” says that she spoke with a rabbi who said that women are actually unclean for 7-days after her period has ended. Ever violated that? Was it just “falling into temptation” or do you believe it’s fine? Either way you’ve committed an abomination (see Lev. 18:26, which says that all the things listed were abominations, not just verse 22). And then in verse 29: “For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. So keep my charge never to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you, and never to make yourselves unclean by them: I am the LORD your God.” Here, God himself is saying that the reason not to do these things is to avoid “[making] yourselves unclean by them.” Why do we insist that the verse about homosexuality stands, while we can discard the verse about sex with a woman on her period or the seven days following it starting (or shunning those who do)? This is arbitrary.
Deuteronomy 14:3-21 lists a bunch of food laws, starting with “You shall not eat any abomination.” We’ve got prohibitions on eating shellfish and pork, but my favorite is this one: “You shall not eat anything that has died naturally. You may give it to the sojourner who is within your towns, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner.” The OT was very clear about treating the sojourner and foreigner well (the story of Sodom is a gross violation of this). So why can the sojourner do what the Israelites could not? “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God.” It was for setting the Israelites apart, not a rule to be followed forever by all people.
Ezekiel 18:10-13 tells us that those who commit abomination “shall surely die.” “If he fathers a son who is violent, a shedder of blood, who does any of these things (though he himself did none of these things), who even eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor’s wife, oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination, lends at interest, and takes profit; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself.” Have you received interest on your savings account? Then you’re in this list.
- Edit: an earlier version of this misapplied the “he” at the end to mean the father shall be put to death, but it’s referring to the son. That’s not right, and is made clear by Ezekiel 18:20. I regret the error and thank Twitter user Theophiletos for reaching out with the correction!

Are some of these examples silly? Yes, but that’s the point - there’s no obvious reason why homosexuality should be definitely still applicable based on Leviticus. For a much stronger argument, we need the New Testament.

On Leviticus

Adding this section on December 10, 2022.

Jewish Rabbi Michael Harvey wrote a thread on twitter that addresses this verse. It’s outstanding, and gets into the actual Hebrew behind this verse. In summary, he observes that the two words for “man” used here are different, even though they grammatically could have been the same. He argues that what is in view here was the common practice of power rape, in which a master might sodomize his male slaves in order to prove his power over them, or simply humiliate them by having them take the “woman’s” role in sex. It should take little convincing that God who one chapter later would talk about the requirement to love our neighbors would make strong prohibitions against such assaults. Please click the tweet and that will enable you to read the entire thread.

Well since Sodom is trending AGAIN and a ridiculous Christian nationalist CRIED on the floor of congress about allowing Gay marriage be a thing, let's talk seriously about LGBTQIA in the Bible. #Thread #threadstorytime #Threads
— Rabbi Mike (@RabbiHarvey) December 8, 2022

Defining "Sexual Immorality"

(@ 1:17:57) Once again, Jesus talked a lot about sexual immorality. And to give us a better understanding of this definition, sexual immorality is “any contact with the sexual organs outside of the context of marriage." Jesus, himself talked about this in Mark chapter seven, verse 21, through 23, "For from within, out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these things come from within." Talks about the heart of the person, right. This is why Jesus had to come and deal with this, to deal with our sinful hearts. Jesus once again, upheld the moral law of the Old Testament.

Nagata’s definition of “sexual immorality” there has no citation and is not found in the Bible. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not - but he doesn’t give any evidence for it. In fact, if you look at Leviticus 18, which is what he just read and seems to be basing this on, you’ll notice several things missing that you’d expect to be there (you may be able to build an argument against these from the rest of Scripture - that’s out of scope for what I’m trying to show here):

Sex between two unmarried persons
Sex between a married person and an unrelated married person
Sexual contact that is not traditional intercourse
Homosexual conduct between two women

In fact, one of the things I’ve seen a lot of pastors do is to take the word “sexual immorality” and define it in the most strict way possible (while, as already shown, ignoring things like prohibitions on sex during a woman’s menstrual period or the seven days after it starts), rather than actually trying to wrestle with what might have been meant. Let me be clear: it means something - there do exist sexual ethics in the Bible. But we can’t take this phrase and just throw anything we want into it. We need to look at the rest of scripture and see what it says.

Romans 1

The parody play “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)”, presents his works in highly condensed form. At one point they’ve covered everything and try to wrap things up, while someone incessantly interrupts, reminding them that they forgot something: Hamlet. After an intermission, Hamlet takes the entire second act.

That’s where you are in this post. Romans 1 is the Hamlet of biblical verses on homosexuality.

Take a deep breath (or a few) if you need it. Take a break if you find yourself getting worked up.

I want to read for us, I think one of the last big excerpts Romans chapter one, verse 24, through 25, if you could turn with me there it'd be great. Romans chapter one, verse 24, through 28. Yeah. "Therefore, God gave them up in lusts of their heart to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever, amen. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonor, dishonorable passions. For their women exchange natural relations for that that are contrary to nature. And men likewise gave up natural relations with women, and were consumed with passion for one another. Men committing themselves committing shameless acts with men and receiving in set themselves the due penalty for their error." So it's describing homosexuality as sin for both men and for women. It's wrong, it's sin. This part in Romans is kind of the only place in the Bible that talks about specifically women to commit that sin of homosexuality.
An objection you might hear is that some might say natural relations means something different. One of the objections you might hear some people might say "That phrase is - that phrase 'contrary to nature?' Well, Paul was he's talking about people who are naturally or innately feel desires toward another person of the opposite sex, but then practice homosexuality." One of the counters, I would say to that, that the Grudem also outlines as well, is that term, "contrary to nature," is not implying "contrary to their nature." It's saying "contrary to nature in general." Like some people would say, "Oh, well, it's part of my nature, I'm just naturally attracted to this person. That's what Paul is trying to say here." That's not true. He's talking about what God designed man and woman to be in the context of marriage, enjoying that amazing gift of sex.

I know that’s a long quote, but it’s important, because Romans 1 is the single most important text regarding homosexuality in the New Testament, so I’m going to talk about it at length.

A decade ago, when Washington State was deciding whether to legalize gay marriage, I studied this topic and found solid reason to doubt everything except Romans 1. On Romans 1, I could find no such argument, laid out clearly (though it was there - I just didn’t look hard enough for it). A decade later, and #FaithfullyLGBT is a thing on twitter, a number of denominations are affirming, and so we have more Christians doing more scholarship on this issue rather than just saying “the bible says homosexuality is wrong” over and over. This is similar to Young Earth/Old Earth, covered previously - we simply know more now than we did then, and it’d be a mistake to dig in our heels and act like we do not. As “Old Earth” became more clear scientifically, Christians went and did the work to re-examine the Bible, to understand that it truly does not say “young earth.” I believe that the reality of the rise of faithful LGBTQ+ Christians has caused a similar rethink, because, as you will see, it completely undermines the use of Romans 1.

LGBTQ+ Christians Exist

This is an important fact to state up front, because it changes dramatically how your read Romans 1.

If you doubt the existence of LGBTQ+ Christians, I’d invite you to read my recent blog post about communion at the Q Christian Fellowship Conference, as well as other posts on my blog Celestial Navigation.

I follow many more LGBTQ+ Christians on Twitter and, to a person, they are faithful and kind, and many have fought for their faith despite profound wounds by anti-LGBTQ+ churches.

LGBTQ+ Affirming Christians are Not "Throwing Out the Bible"

I did a (completely unscientific, but still interesting) twitter poll, and found that, of those who selected an option, most respondents who are now affirming got there precisely because they believe the Bible has no problem with it, not because they threw out the Bible.

Christians: If you used to be anti-LGBTQ+, but are now affirming (or identifying) now, what drove the change? (Pick the dominant factor). Stories/explanations welcome below!
— Jeff Irwin (@JeffNotOvercome) June 8, 2022

First, I argue that the doctrines of clarity and sufficiency of scripture tell us: if something is not obviously in Scripture, we must not fill in gaps with guesses. God is not a bad writer - if he had meant for something to be in Scripture, it would be there. I’d argue that Romans 1 is not terribly clear (and 1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim 1:10 are even less clear - I’ll cover those in a minute, for those of you wondering “but isn’t ‘homosexuality’ actually listed as a sin somewhere?”).

And here’s Zach Lambert, pastor at Restore Austin (a church), teaching on why his church is “All-Inclusive.” This talk is loving, compassionate, understanding, and is Bible-based (particularly in the second half — he spends the first half mostly just talking about definitions for clarity, which I appreciate). I strongly recommend watching the whole thing (he’s an actual trained Bible teacher - I am not). (watch on YouTube if the embed isn’t working)

Nagata only quotes from verse 24 onward, but let me start by quoting the whole passage:

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

First, the part I’m sure about: Nagata’s argument is circular and unhelpful. To summarize, his argument is:

It says “contrary to nature.”
Some might say that means “contrary to their nature” (heterosexual people acting in homosexual ways)
Nagata responds with his own counter to that: “One of the counters, I would say to that, that the Grudem also outlines as well, is that term, ‘contrary to nature,’ is not implying ‘contrary to their nature.’ It's saying ‘contrary to nature in general.’ Like some people would say, ‘Oh, well, it's part of my nature, I'm just naturally attracted to this person. That's what Paul is trying to say here.’ That's not true.“

Nagata’s “counter” to the argument in point two is effectively “nope.” There’s nothing new here, he just asserts that it’s false.

Fixing Nagata's Argument

Let me try to lay out, as best I can, the actual argument here that anti-LGBTQ+ Christians would make based on Romans 1 (which I explained to at least one person in my Small Group over the years).

Paul names homosexuality - both women with women and men with men.
He says that it was something God gave them over to since they wouldn’t follow him.
And then he lists a huge list of other Really Bad Things™️. These things are bad. All of them. It’s not even close. I suppose “foolish” is the one that people might be like “is being foolish really a sin?” And I guess Paul would say that it is (I’m guessing “foolish” here means something like “recklessly acting with no attempt at wisdom” as opposed to just someone who looks silly when they dance at weddings aka me)
Therefore, homosexuality is a Really Bad Thing™️

It’s strong. It’s strong enough that I believed it for nearly 20 years (prior to that, I was anti-LGBTQ+ simply because I had absolutely no exposure to the idea that anyone “respectable” wasn’t - affirming was something those “liberals” did, and I was not a “liberal”). Someone in college (2005) tried to make the argument that “nature” meant “one’s own nature” and my friends and I laughed it off, thinking it was ridiculous in all of my early 20’s wisdom and scholarship.

Now I’ll go through this version of this argument.

Appeal to Nature

Let me first deal with the appeal to nature or rather, I’ll let author Rachel Held Evans deal with it. She makes the argument below in her incredible book, “Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again.” The book is beautiful - please, please read it - the audio book is particularly excellent as she reads it in her own voice. Read it even if you don’t agree with everything in it.

I want to quote Evans at length for this argument, from Chapter 8:

In a sense, the Epistles are a lot like wisdom literature, for they remind us that wisdom isn’t just about knowing what is true; it’s about knowing when it’s true. Untangling culturally conditioned assumptions from universal truths in order to figure out how the wisdom of the Epistles might apply to us today is the task of modern-day hermeneutics, and it’s not an easy one. [Jeff Note: “Hermeneutics” means “principles by which we interpret the Bible.” For example, you may use a hermeneutical principle of “Women cannot hold office in a church”, in which if you were translating the bible, you would call Phoebe “servant” instead of Deacon (Romans 16:1), Junia “well known to the apostles” instead of “outstanding among the apostles” (Romans 16:7), and you’ll infer a lot of male pronouns into 1 Timothy 3. But if you have a hermeneutical principal in which “Women can serve in any office men can”, you’ll make all the opposite choices. Hermeneutics is, as Evans rights, not an easy task, and it’s hugely important.]
Consider, for example, the confusion around how ancient people understood the terms natural and unnatural. You’d never know it from current debate, but the Bible says very little about same-sex behavior and arguably nothing at all about committed same-sex relationships, whose prevalence in the ancient world is a subject of historical debate. One of the few, indirect references to same-sex activity in Scripture appears in Romans 1, where the apostle Paul, arguing that both Jews and Gentiles need salvation, alludes to Gentiles who were so “inflamed with lust” that the “women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones” and men “committed shameful acts with other men” (Romans 1:26-27)
It’s important to understand that in the first century, same-sex relationships were not thought to be expressions of sexual orientations but rather products of excessive sexual desire wherein people engaging in same-sex behavior did so out of an excess of lust that could not be satisfied. The most common forms of same-sex behavior in the Greco-Roman world were pederasty and sex between masters and their slaves, and the majority of men who indulged in those practices also engaged in heterosexual behavior with their wives. (In other words, they weren’t, as we understand it today, gay.) In Paul’s world, if a man took the active role in a sexual encounter, his behavior was deemed “natural,” but if he took the passive role, his behavior was considered “unnatural,” for he had taken the presumed position of a woman, deemed in that culture to be his inferior. The opposite was true for women: sexual passivity was deemed “natural,” while dominance was “unnatural.” These ideas were rooted in the honor-shame cultures of the Mediterranean and heavily influenced by patriarchal assumptions.
Now, lest you think this only applies to same-sex relationships, consider this: Paul uses the very same language in a letter to the Corinthian church to argue that women should wear head coverings and men shouldn’t have long hair. “Judge for yourselves,” he wrote, “Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory?” (1 Corinthians 11:13-15, emphasis [Evans]). He goes on to decry short-haired women and men with covered heads as similarly “Unnatural,” appealing to everything from the created order to male authority to the opinions of angels. “If anyone wants to be contentions about this,” he concluded, “we have no other practice — nor do the churches of God” (11:16).
And yet many of the same Christians who condemn all same-sex behavior as “unnatural” according to the Bible, don’t apply the same standards to head coverings or hair lengths among the men and women in their own congregations. Most understand Paul’s language to the Corinthians to describe cultural customs, based on ancient views of gender roles, not universal truths.
So once again we are left with some questions: Must we adopt first-century, Mediterranean cultural assumptions about gender and sexuality in order to embrace the gospel Paul was preaching there? Must we condemn all short-haired women, long-haired men, and gay and lesbian couples as “unnatural”? Do we apply the same rightful condemnation of pederasty and rape in ancient Rome to loving committed same-sex relationships today?
My experience loving and engaging with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender friends has convinced me that the Bible has been unfairly used against them, often with tragic results, but Christians can disagree on that. And they often do, fiercely.

Head of Christ, Warren Sallman, 1940 (from Wikipedia)

I will add that we know that whatever 1 Corinthians 11 means, it simply cannot mean that universally, for all time, men cannot wear long hair. Not only do we not enforce that in today’s churches, but Samson was given strength by God that he specifically lost when his long hair was cut off. Even what might be the most famous rendering of Jesus (problematically and inaccurately white) shows him with longer hair, clearly covering his head. This indicates that in the 1940’s (and ever since), while many Christians had a problem with homosexuality, they appeared to have no problem with a long-haired Jesus.

So Paul is using the “nature” argument here, same as in Romans 1, but simply cannot mean it as a universal truth. What does he mean? That’s up for a lot of debate, but the only important thing here is that this cannot be a universal prohibition - Samson’s hair defeats that view entirely.

This is the only other use of the “nature” argument in the writings of Paul, so I find it reasonable to be skeptical of applying Romans 1 universally either.

What's the "Therefore" There for?

Ok, it’s a cliché, but a good question nonetheless. It’s a central question of any good Bible study work. Nagata starts in Romans 1:24, with “Therefore” - so what came before it?

I’m going to borrow heavily from Matt Nightingale’s fantastic blog post on this topic, and I encourage you to read it. I discovered it when I posted on twitter asking for resources, from which I also got the book by David Gushee.

Nightingale is a gay Christian, and, if I may, I’ll summarize his argument as follows:

Romans 1:18-31 can be summarized as follows:
1. Some set of people did not worship God.
2. They worshiped images in the form of man or animals.
3. Because of this, God said “fine, have it your way” - giving them over to their desires.
4. Those desires included some form of unnatural sexual relationships, as well as a whole other host of vices.
That describes a causal relationship
1. Cause: They would not worship God, and worshipped idols instead.
2. Effect: God gave them over to sin.
But that does not match the lived experience of LGBTQ+ Christians.
1. Matt has been a Christian since childhood, and still is. Never worshipped idols.
2. And he knew he was gay when he was 10.
So whoever Romans 1 is describing, it’s not LGBTQ+ Christians, it’s someone else.

Put simply, the pronoun “them” in Romans 1:24-28 is not a universal statement about LGBTQ+ people, it’s a callback to the people who would not worship God, and would worship literal images of man and animals (not just metaphorical idols like “career” or a favorite sports team - real carved images).

I find this argument compelling. Paul appears to be trying to describe “Why has the sin amongst the Gentiles gotten so bad,” and he answers “because they would not follow God.” Once again - when reading the Bible for answers, we must ask what question the author was trying to answer.

Anti-LGBTQ+ Christians today instead interpret it as “because they are LGBTQ+, they must not be Christian.” So again, I call back to this: Matt Nightingale and a host of others are real, legit, LGBTQ+ Christians, and they demonstrate just as much fruit of the spirit (or more) and love for their Christian brothers and sisters (or more) as any cis-gender heterosexual Christian I know.

I believe this is precisely why so many are so quick to deny the existence of LGBTQ+ Christians. Because if they exist, then Romans 1 cannot be a universal condemnation of homosexuality. But if they do not, and we instead define all LGBTQ+ people as unsaved, then it stands and it works.

But that argument is circular: “LGBTQ+ behavior is wrong because if it’s not wrong then I can’t prove that it’s wrong.”

Lesbians and the Sufficiency of Scripture

The doctrine of the Sufficiency of Scripture is highly problematic for holding anti-LGBTQ+ views.

Assume for a moment that Romans 1 is condemning lesbianism (which Gushee demonstrates is less clear than I thought). If true, it is the first and only place in the Bible, as Nagata says, that does so. Which would mean that the entire history of Israel, by the law, would have accepted this practice, and indeed Christians would have accepted it up until Paul wrote this letter somewhere around 25 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. This, in itself, would demonstrate that this prohibition is not for all people at all times and is therefore cultural. And my old immediate, well-practiced response is, “it was just so obvious they didn’t need to write it down” or “no one had ever thought of doing that.” But the authors of the law were not short on:

Ink: They prohibit things like murder and theft, which are pretty much universally prohibited across all human cultures. And yet, God goes ahead and spends two of the ten commandments on it.
Imagination: The law prohibits men sleeping with their mothers or daughters, failure to have parapets, and here’s a great one from Deuteronomy 25:11-12, which was helpfully highlighted recently by Lauren Chastain: “When men fight with one another and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, then you shall cut off her hand. Your eye shall have no pity.” This is unbelievably specific, and the punishment severe. and I find it difficult to believe that Israel had a rampant problem with women trying to save their husbands from fights by grabbing their opponents by the “private parts”, but did not have any experience at all with women being attracted to each other.
- Side Note: Yes, “private parts” means what you think it means, though if you want a (perhaps juvenile) chuckle, read the King James which uses the phrase “taketh him by the secrets.” (again, Hat Tip to Lauren Chastain for the find)

The Purpose of Romans 1

One last note on Romans 1. It’s worth noting the “why” for Paul’s writing. This is not a passage that is about homosexual behavior being wrong. There’s nothing about this passage to make us think that Paul was thinking, “I better tell them about homosexuality.” He’s establishing the sinfulness of Jews and Gentiles as he begins his absolutely incredible passage all the way through chapter 11 that pretty much explains what we know about how salvation works, before talking about how we should live in light of that. So he lists a set of things that he believes that the recipients (Roman Jews and Gentiles) will all simply agree are sin already.

It’s a strange place to establish a new sexual ethic (prohibition on lesbian relationships) for Christians. It’s talking about the evident sinfulness of the Gentiles (non-Jews). Imagine for a moment that you were a Roman Christian, who had never heard a prohibition against lesbianism. You’ve got Christian friends in committed, monogamous, lesbian relationships. Then one day you get a letter from Paul, and he says, “yeah, the reason your friends are committing this grievous sin is because they worshipped images of man and animals. God gave up on them and that’s why they’re doing that thing.” That’d be incredibly jarring, right? This would be the first time it’d ever occurred to you that they were in sin at all, let alone being the poster-child for it. You’d likely be upset that Paul didn’t at least pause and explain why this was now prohibited. And on top of that you’d be quite puzzled as to why Paul seems to think that they were worshipping idols when you know they are committed Christians.

And yes, I know, the counter to this is “but Paul says they know it by nature itself.” Again - that’s why I led with talking about the appeal to nature. It means something but it’s difficult to use it for everyone at all times.

Summary on Romans 1

Is it possible that Romans 1 speaks universally against homosexuality? Maybe, but it’s not easy to get there. But it’s more likely that the following is what’s true:

Paul was talking about pedastry and master/slave rape, as well as potential temple sex rituals (which is where the women would be involved, potentially as temple prostitutes).
Paul was explaining how those who did not worship God had fallen into deep sin, which is not applicable to the LGBTQ+ Christian, because they do worship God.
The word “natural” is the same as in 1 Cor 11, and we know that it’s not a universal observation there, so it doesn’t make sense to interpret it as a universal observation in Romans 1.

This preserves Romans 1 as saying something. Lustful indulgence of temple sex rituals, or exploitation of others (children, slaves) is called out as wrong (which is well backed by the story of Sodom and common decency). So we’re not throwing out the Bible, we’re just saying let’s read it for what Paul was likely actually talking about instead of adding some things that are much harder to support from the text.

1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10

And first Corinthians chapter six, verse nine, it says, "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality." It's pretty hard hitting truth right there. Right? We read that in Romans. We read that in First Corinthians. When people say, "Oh, that, well, the Bible doesn't talk much about homosexuality." That's not true. The Bible is very clear about homosexuality, both in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament. Let me clarify, if you hear someone who, once again has done and committed like, has had homosexual intercourse in that kind of way, or has sexual contact with other people, it doesn't mean that sin cannot be forgiven. We're not like once again, idolizing this sin. Jesus has the power to forgive all sins. [aside: Come on in, Ken, we're just almost wrapping up man.] Does that make sense? If people have committed these acts before, and are now once again, repentant of it, like turning away from it, want to be - Once again following what Jesus commands us to do in the Bible, doesn't mean they cannot be forgiven, they can be forgiven. First Timothy, chapter one, verse 10, calls homosexuality contrary to sound doctrine. Once again, the Bible is very clear, both in the Old Testament and New Testament about this issue.

I’m going to deal with this very quickly, because these are simply the least compelling verses, and they only look compelling because of suspect translation. Nagata doesn’t wrestle with any of the complexity of this, dropping the words “very clear” in, which these verses are simply not. David Gushee writes about this in Chapter 13 (“Two odd little words”) of his book Changing Our Mind. The summary is this:

The words translated “homosexuality” in 1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim 1:10 are very difficult to translate. They are very rare in the entire set of ancient Greek writings, potentially even invented by Paul.
The first time they ever got translated as “homosexuality” was in 1946 in the Revised Standard Version. Here are some of my own notes on the history of translating this passage:
1. Here’s the phrase in greek: “oute moichos, oute malakos, oute arsenokoitēs”
  1. All translations below translate “oute moichos” as “nor adulterers.” The tricky part is “malakos” and “arsenokoitēs”.
2. King James Bible (1611 KJV): “nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,”
3. American Standard Version (1901 ASV, a derivative of the King James): “nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men,”
4. Revised Standard Version (1946 RSV, updating the ASV): “nor adulterers, nor homosexuals,”
5. RSV (1971 RSV, which updated the 1946 version): “nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts,”
6. New Revised Standard Version (1989 NRSV, updating the 1971 RSV): “male prostitutes and sodomites” - It’s unclear what “sodomite” means here. The sin in Sodom was gang rape, not homosexuality. But the word “sodomy” in English can mean sex between men.
7. NRSV-UE (2021 Updated Edition of the 1989 NRSV): “adulterers, male prostitutes,[a] men who engage in illicit sex,[b]” with both footnotes saying, “meaning of Greek uncertain.”
8. By contrast the English Standard Version (ESV), which is also an update of the 1971 RSV, and was originally published in 2001, has “nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality.”
  1. Note that the word structure is not the same as the Greek. The Greek is “nor [word], nor [word], nor [word],“ but the ESV is “nor [word], nor [4 words].” Once again - the ESV does not translate each word into a single English word. Such a thing is unreasonable to expect given the differences between Greek and English. However, here there’s a phrase missing, and some combination of “malakos” and “arsenokoitēs” is translated as “men who practice homosexuality.”
No mention of lesbianism is present.
Building a denial of this lifestyle on the difficult and inconsistent translation of two words seems foolish.

I go back to both the Sufficiency and Clarity of Scripture. If God had wanted to write “sex is to be between one man and one woman within the context of a monogamous, covenanted marriage” as many would like to say, my question is this: Why didn’t God say that? It’s an easy sentence to write. It’s an argument from absence, but again, Paul’s letter to the Galatians tells us that where God is silent, we must be silent.

Ableism

The word ableism refers to a view that those who do not have disabilities are somehow “better” or “more valuable” than those with disabilities.

@ 1:23:20) There are all kinds of effects you could say, of fallen nature. Whether that's physical deformities, whether that's generational sin that's passed from your grandparents to you, to your parents to us. There's, you know, once again, demons that tempt us and put ideas and thoughts into our mind. Those are all effects, you can say, of fallen nature of this sinful world. But that shouldn't like for example, let's just take physical birth defects as one of those things, we don't say to a physical birth defect, like - Super random example that came to my mind, like Finding Nemo, little fin, right? Any of you guys watching and I can't believe I'm saying this right now. Like that. The dad's like, proud of the little fin. I get what Disney is trying to say. They're like, not being ashamed of what we have. But we don't idolize it and say, "Oh, that's perfect. It's fine. It's good." God designed creation to be to be in the image of God. And because of fallen nature, because of the effects of sin. physical defect is not something to be like idolizing that way. We say, "Man, it's unfortunate it's that way." We're not going to shame anyone, of course, but we're not going to pat them on the back and say, "Oh man, that's totally fine. It's all good.” Right?

In his worst appeal (one I see very few anti-LGTBQ+ try to make - and Nagata should have left it out - I was honestly outraged when I heard the audio, knowing who attends Vista Church who might hear this), Nagata adds a self-defeating ableist argument. He compares homosexuality to a physical defect. And then he says we shouldn’t idolize those physical defects. But no one does - LGBTQ+ people aren’t “idolizing” their sexual orientation or gender identity any more than heterosexual people idolize sex with their spouse.

“We’re not going to shame anyone” - this is simply a lie. Denying someone membership over their LGBTQ+ status is absolutely a shaming thing. Nagata might say that it’s righteous shaming, in the same way that we might deny membership to someone known to be in some deep sin of some kind, but it is still a judgement against them.

And to those with physical defects, we do say “That’s totally fine, it’s all good.” We allow them to live authentically with whatever body they have, or at least we should. We make accommodations. We put in ramps or other forms of assistance. And we would never tell them that their physical defect is some form of sin.

So Nagata is wrong on both sides - if he believes LGBTQ+ expressions are in fact just “physical defects”, then he’s left with two options:

Consider other physical defects to be sin (this would be so wrong)
Accept that they will live their life in accordance with that.

So Nagata never should have brought this up - it honestly just makes him look mean toward those with disabilities.

A Thought Exercise

Before I get to the next clip, let’s imagine that LGBTQ+ behaviors are sin. Can someone in a gay relationship still be a Christian? Can a person who transitions gender? I believe (and have for a long time) the answer is “yes, absolutely” even if you think that homosexuality or gender transition are sins.

Why?

If you made a list of literally everything you do on a regular basis, and wrote “sin” or “not sin” on it, how confident are you that there is nothing in your life that you regularly do that is sinful? If “very”, why? Nearly every church or denomination has variances in what it describes as sinful. Almost every generation of Christian has eventually been seen as having had a major blindspot by their successors. Are we the ones who finally got it right, just to call back to the comic in Part 1? Or are there things that we are doing every day that we just don’t know are sin, and won’t until we get to heaven.

Now, let me push it further: are you comfortable with the idea that if you are wrong about any of it, you will go to hell? Or do you put your hope fully in the grace of Christ (1 Peter 1:13) that even the sins you don’t know about are forgiven. For me, the idea that if I get any one rule wrong, I’ll go to hell, sounds like two things:

A new legalism
Terrifying

The LGBTQ+ Christian is convicted that their behavior is not sinful. Even if they are wrong, why do you deny their faith by holding them to a standard you cannot possibly be willing to accept for yourself.

If you say that gay Christians will not be saved, even if they believe that it’s not sin, then you’ve just thrown Jonathan Edwards (owned slaves and defended the practice) and Martin Luther (anti-semitism) out of heaven.

Similarly, if you are right now saying “I guess Jeff’s not a Christian anymore,” why? Because I truly believe that people are faithfully following Christ, putting their faith in his grace while trying to love God and love their neighbor? I’m confident in my salvation, even if I’m wrong here. My view of God’s grace is that it is big enough to cover me if I’m wrong.

Now to put a very fine point on it: if you do think that being right about this is necessary for salvation, then consider the opposite. If you are anti-LGBTQ+ and you are wrong, then you’ve been placing unbiblical laws on people and I’d encourage you to read Paul’s letter to the Galatians to see what he says about that. Spoiler: he is not happy and actually does question their salvation. It’s relatively easy for me to build an argument that placing undue burdens on people endangers your salvation. It is much harder for me to build the argument that salvation is endangered by failing to enforce a rule.

"I Don't Think You're a Christian"

(@ 1:26:44) If I can tell you this very frankly, for me personally, when I - the first conversation I ever had with a pastor, I was that like guy that said, "Well, why do Christians believe boom, boom, boom." I gave my whole list of things. And he would point to the Bible one time after the next saying, the same verses Romans, Corinthians and trying to say, "well, here's what the Bible says, Landon, here's what the Bible says." And I'd be like, "Well, what about this other issue?" And he you know, he smirks at me. He closed his Bible. And he tells me, Landon. And let me just preface this, this is kind of like my own personal story I'm sharing with you guys right now. I have to preface this isn't like a unique thing that all the pastors of Vista do or all the pastors on our network do. I believe God had a very sovereign act of what he did in the midst of, of David, who was a pastor at the time telling me this truth. He told me, Landon, like after sharing about my life after hearing about my relationship with Jesus, which there was none, he told me, "I don't think you're a Christian." And boom, audible gasp happened right there. Right? Like, how could you tell me that you don't even know me? I think if we talked to David today, he probably doesn't remember even saying that to me. If I believe knowing David, I know he loved me. And I know he cared about me. I know, he didn't want to let me be disillusioned to my life. I think if he would have had that conversation with me again, he would have said it very kindly, "Landon, I still think there's a lot more about Christianity that you have yet to learn. I don't think you know enough about Christianity just yet." Not that there's just this. Like, you have to know this much about Christianity to be saved. That's not what I'm saying. But I would have told him in the midst of that. "Oh, yeah, I went to a Christian elementary school. And I went to this on campus Christian group. So I'm a Christian. But zero life in God. Zero repentance. Zero faith. Zero understanding of who God was. So he shares me that truth of "Landon. I think there's still so much more that you need to know about Christian. Its relationship with Jesus." I did not understand that at all. I thought by association, because I attended something, that by makes you a Christian. You attending Vista Church on Sunday does not make you a Christian. That's basically what he was sharing with me. And I needed to hear that because relationship with God was so much greater.

That’s long, and a little murky. But it’s worth noting that Nagata shares this story on this issue, and no other. Basically, David Bieraugel (Lead Pastor, Hosea Church) accuses Nagata of not being a Christian, because he has questions. That’s so manipulative. It’s basically saying “You won’t understand until you agree with me, and until you agree with me, you’re not Christian.” Which is strange because non-Christians easily identify murder, theft, and all manner of other sins as wrong. But this makes faith itself contingent on agreeing that homosexuality is wrong. Again, I can’t imagine being held to this standard on all issues. It also allows Bieraugel a super easy pass for not knowing how to explain this.

Interestingly, at Vista, Luke Williams told me once that someone in the church also did not understand homosexuality being a sin, even after Williams tried to explain it. Williams’ explanation? The person may have a demon that is confusing him.

Bieraugel and Williams take the easy paths here, rather than admit either of the following:

They’re not good at teaching the Bible.
They’re wrong.

Nagata goes on to tell a story where he tries to tell a gay friend about Jesus, much like Luke Williams talked about in Session 1 (it’s near the end, I didn’t highlight it). In both these stories, they claim that they were compassionate, but it’s worth noting that in neither story does the person end up following Jesus or renouncing their sexual orientation.

In Summary

And that’s it. Nagata adds no more logical arguments, and there aren’t any major ones that he misses. There’s some argument to be made for the “created order”, but I find that Jesus’ teaching on eunuchs makes that one difficult to hold up, same as the chart I shared above which shows the fantastic diversity in God’s creation.

If nothing else, Nagata does a poor job of laying out an anti-LGBTQ+ position. He should have avoided using Leviticus with such certainty (though he does a good job avoiding the stories of Sodom and then a similar story in Judges - both of which are about rape, not homosexuality). He fails to be careful with 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy, instead describing them as “very clear.” And on Romans 1, he doesn’t wrestle with “therefore” at all. This is a mistake, though I haven’t heard any anti-LGBTQ+ voices actually address it. By the way, for those of you who have heard recent stories of “detransition” among those who previously considered themselves transgender, I’d strongly urge you to read this article. It’s a bit off topic for this article, but still, this has been making headlines so I wanted to provide this resource.

I hope I’ve at least shown that humility is needed in this argument, and we as Christians should likely be less focused on it, singling it out to the point where Christians want to control LGBTQ+ people, fire them from jobs, or deny them healthcare. I hope I’ve laid out an argument that is helpful, and that you truly give it some thought. LGBTQ+ people are real people. LGBTQ+ Christians are real Christians. They are your brothers, sisters, and (non-binary) siblings. At some point they may be your children, siblings, parents, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, neighbors, or your best friend from high school or college. They might already be. How much shame does your language unnecessarily heap on those around you?

My Apology to All LGBTQ+ People

I apologize to the LGBTQ+ community. I was wrong. I hurt you. I harmed you. I voted against you. I spoke against you. I failed to speak for you. I made jokes about you. I failed to defend you when I saw people discriminating against you. I tokenized you. I excluded you. I judged you. I prayed against your identity. I taught others that you were “wrong,” convincingly so. I didn’t listen to you. I didn’t get to know you.

I lived in fear of you. Of how someday your pride flags would ruin my life when I failed to wave one. I let others in my presence snicker at your life, in a way they’d never do at anyone else.

Much of the world is against you, and a piece of that is my fault. The fact that I always argued that Christians should “be nice” to LGBTQ+ people does not change the fact that I did those things, and that I didn’t always live up to that behind closed doors.

These stances contributed to you losing jobs, losing health care, being denied the right to marry, or denied the rights and means to transition. They contributed to your fear around myself and so many others. I’m sure this added trauma that you may never fully recover from. You never deserved that. You still don’t.

I deeply apologize for the years I have not been on your side, and look forward to the years ahead that I have to do it better. I ask for your forgiveness.

I hope this post is a tiny ray of light in your world that brings the smallest bit of healing.

Today, I affirm you. I see you. I admire your courage, your fight, though it never should have been needed. Your drive to live your life and not let others tell you that you cannot. For those of you who are Christians, or for those Christian LGBTQ+ Allies, bravo. You got there much earlier than I did, and I’m thankful for your help in getting there.

I see that it has cost you dearly just to be you.

I want to learn to stand with you and for you.

This post is only a first step - I understand that.

But it was important to me to at least get it out in June, so that I could offer this post to you as a gift and simply say this:

Happy Pride

More info on the Progress Flag

I Was Wrong (About LGBTQ+ People and the Bible)

Introduction

About the recording

Length and Topics

Date

About the Speaker: Landon Nagata

Disclaimers

About Transcription

About Audio Clips

About Audio Editing

Why Share Full Audio?

About Me

Listen and Read

Table of Contents

Topic #4: "Homosexuality and Same-Sex Marriage"

My Views

My Process

Not "Throwing Out the Bible"

The Actual Teaching

Male and Female - On Gender Identity

Transcript

Priming: "Extremely Clear"

Transcript

Not Worse than Any Other Sin

Transcript

What's Wrong Here?

Moral, Sacrificial, and Cleanliness Laws

Transcript

Original Manuscripts

Transcript

Abomination

Transcript

On Leviticus

Defining "Sexual Immorality"

Transcript

Romans 1

Transcript

LGBTQ+ Christians Exist

LGBTQ+ Affirming Christians are Not "Throwing Out the Bible"

Fixing Nagata's Argument

Appeal to Nature

What's the "Therefore" There for?

Lesbians and the Sufficiency of Scripture

The Purpose of Romans 1

Summary on Romans 1

1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10

Transcript

Ableism

Transcript

A Thought Exercise

"I Don't Think You're a Christian"

Transcript

In Summary

My Apology to All LGBTQ+ People

Children’s Safety: What’s Being Done?

Letter to Network Kids Directors