The Bogus Biblicism
Of the Religious Right

Recent events have given additional evidence of a fact most of us wish we did not have to acknowledge: Religious fundamentalism is one of the most destructive forces on the planet. The dangers increase when fundamentalism is rooted in blind obedience to, and misuse of, a holy book.

The religious right demonstrates that the danger is no less real in Christianity than in any other faith. Violence, for these people who claim to be followers of Jesus, lies near the surface, as evidenced by a spokesperson who recently counseled the government to “take out” the elected head of a South American nation.

My concern here is for another of fundamentalism’s destructive tendencies. For more than a generation, this reactionary group has pushed an agenda that, if enacted, would limit the rights and freedoms of significant portions of the population. Their announced rationale is that their positions are rooted in the Bible.

Their claim does not square with reality. The truth is that the Bible does not support their stands on abortion, homosexuality, or “family values.”

Leaders of the religious right have seized the Judeo-Christian scripture—“stolen” is not too strong a word—to immeasurably strengthen the arguments for their radical concerns. This has been a shrewd move.Even in our increasingly secular society the Bible carries considerable weight. Shifting that weight from one side of the social debate to the other gives reactionary arguments an inappropriate, and, as shall be shown, a quite unsupportable, advantage.

The so-called “biblical conservatives” do not attempt to adjust themselves to biblical themes; that would be disastrous for their cause. Instead, they attempt to align the scripture with their ideas. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have been particularly ingenious in this task.

Robertson and Falwell make their biblical claims by taking snippets of scripture and rearranging them to suit their goals. Or, they simply claim a biblical foundation for their ideas without any biblical citations at all.A good example of this is Falwell’s response to criticism by an organization of homosexuals:
"We were targeted solely because we advocate biblical ideals, namely traditional marriage and sexual purity before marriage - moral principles that counter those of the homosexual-rights movement."

The Christian Coalition, formerly led by Pat Robertson, has been equally eager to attach itself to the aura of scripture. “God’s Plan for Salvation,” which this group offers on its website, offers numerous short quotes taken from various parts of the Bible, but gives the reader no opportunity to explore the Bible in depth. This shallow and scattered approach has been the modus operandi throughout the life of his Christian Coalition.

Few people seem to have noted how vulnerable the religious right has become through this process. Since their spokespersons have designated the Bible – “God’s Word” as they like to call it – as the primary support for their social positions, recognizing the false nature of that support could cause the collapse of their primary arguments.

It is time to challenge the religious right at this point of vulnerability. Toward that end, it is helpful to expose the distance between what the religious right claims and what the Bible actually says about concrete items on their social agenda. Exposing the bogus use that the religious right makes of scripture can also reclaim the Bible for its more traditional, liberating role.

Abortion
On the subject of abortion, the religious right takes a strongly pro-life, anti-choice, position. Unfortunately for them, biblical warrant for their stance is non-existent. Absolutely. The morality of abortion is not a biblical topic.

No other subject illustrates so clearly the dishonest way in which the religious right exploits the Bible. Here is a quote from one of Pat Robertson’s writings: “Nature is clear. Abortions kill babies. And the revealed laws of God about such killings in both the Old and New Testaments are easily understood.” The reader may note that “the revealed laws of God about such killings” are not cited. They are not cited because they do not exist.

The absence of biblical comment on abortion is a surprise. The sexual ethic of the early biblical writers was designed to create as many babies as possible.Israel was a small nation surrounded by potential enemies. To maximize births, polygamy was allowed. The spilling of semen in any way other than production of babies (via masturbation, male homosexuality, and even intercourse with one’s wife during her period of infertility) was declared an abomination. Incredibly, in view of the need for population growth, the deliberate termination of a pregnancy never made it to this “thou shalt not” list.

In only one instance does a biblical writer describe anything like abortion. This case makes clear that the protection of a pure paternal line was of greater value than continuation of a particular pregnancy. The passage in question (the later verses of the fifth chapter of Numbers, a text so hostile to women that I have never heard it read in public) describes one method of aborting an unwanted pregnancy. If, according to this obscure passage, a husband was suspicious that the fetus his wife was carrying may not be related to him, he and the priest could conspire to feed the wife enough impurities to make her violently ill. If she aborted, this was taken as a sign that another man had fathered the fetus. The woman, having just lost her expected child, would then be banished from the community. If woman and fetus survived, it was assumed the husband’s suspicions were wrong.

This obscure passage shows that abortion was practiced in ancient Jewish culture. Abortion is not mentioned again in scripture, nor can any rules be found to regulate the practice.

Several biblical passages relate indirectly to abortion. The twenty-first chapter of Exodus describes punishments to be meted out in cases of personal injury or death. Striking a person a mortal blow was punishable by death. But if, in a brawl, a man bumped against a pregnant woman and caused a miscarriage, he was to pay her spouse an amount determined by that husband.This verse directly precedes the famous “eye for an eye” concept: “When harm is done, you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.” (Exodus 21:22-24). Obviously, the fetus from the previous verse was not considered to be fully human, or the person who had caused its demise would have had to forfeit his own life.

In the twenty-seventh chapter of Leviticus monetary value was assigned to men, women, and children—a determination necessary to settle civil suits. Females were valued at sixty per¬cent the worth of males. Children were assigned even lower worth, a value that decreased with younger age. No value was mentioned for anyone less than a month old, and no additional worth was assigned to a pregnant woman.

In most debates over abortion, the command, “You shall not kill,” will be voiced. Actually, a correct translation of this commandment is, “You shall not murder.” The Jewish nation, along with other societies of the time, was busy killing. They killed in war. They killed by enforcing a long list of capital crimes. Abortion did not fall under this prohibition, since no biblical writer labeled a developing fetus a human being. Without that label, the fetus would not be subject to murder.

One Biblical writer even gave mothers and fathers permission to kill their own children when those children were disobedient. (Exodus 21:15 and 17) Since children were considered the property of parents, the children could be either cared for or disposed of as the owner determined. The religious right is thus in the position of arguing from scripture that parents had the authority to stone a child to death for insubordination, but were forbidden to interrupt the pregnancy that produced that child.

One thing is clear to any reader of scripture. Biblical writers were capable of putting together powerful, declaratory sentences. Clear prohibitions abound. Yet not a single writer felt motivated to state: “You shall not interrupt a pregnancy.” Neither this sentence nor anything remotely like it appears in scripture. The morality of abortion is not an issue in the pages of the Bible.

Homosexuality
Those of the religious right can find more scriptural support for their stand on the issue of homosexuality than for any other of their social concerns. Even here, however, the support is limited and ultimately unsustainable in a modern context.

Anywhere from five to eleven biblical references have been cited by those who argue that “God’s Word” condemns gay or lesbian sexual activity. (These negative references are scattered through a volume that, in most editions, consumes about fourteen hundred pages.)

In the Hebrew Scripture (what Christians usually call the Old Testa¬ment) the majority of the passages relating to homosexuality concern sexual activity that took place at altars dedicated to foreign gods. These texts are unclear. Is the condemnation directed toward the idolatry, the sexual activity, or a combination of the two?

A clear statement against a man lying with another man (lesbian activity is not mentioned) appears in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus. Two chapters later this proscription is repeated, this time adding that men who have sex with other men should be put to death. (Conservative Christians, who usually insist that all scripture is equally inspired by the divine, have ignored, at least publicly, this call for the extermination of five to ten percent of the male members of the human race.) These biblical rules appear among a group of laws known as the “Code of Holiness” (Leviticus 17-26), much of which relates to a variety of forbidden sexual activity. One rule from the Code of Holiness insists that everyone guilty of adultery should be punished by death (Leviticus 20:10). Among the non-sexual prohibitions in The Code of Holiness is a demand that one’s clothing should never include cloth from two different kinds of fiber. Trimming a man’s beard is an abomination. Persons with a physical disability, including temporary conditions such as a broken hand, are forbidden to lead public worship.

The fact that the compiler of the Code of Holiness was opposed to male homosexual activity is beyond question. But this editor had his unique take on a large number of other concerns. The issue then becomes: why, out of this list of archaic and almost universally ignored rules, the religious right has pulled a single prohibition and placed it at the center of a major national debate? Why do they not put more emphasis on the death penalty for adultery, or pursue, Taliban-like, the men who have the effrontery to shave?

Another passage commonly assumed to be a blanket condemnation of same-sex activity is the strange account of the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:1-30). The association of this story with homosexuality is so close that the word "sodomy” has come to describe a form of sexual activity associated with gay men. A close reading of that text, however, shows that no sexual contact of any sort took place, although homosexual rape was threatened.
The story is complex. Sodom and Gomorrah were probably mythical: archaeologists have found no location fitting their description. The narrator of the middle chapters of Genesis used these fictitious cities as symbols of evil. According to the story in question, Lot, a nephew of Abraham (father of the Jewish nation), had taken up residence in Sodom. God caught wind of the evil ways of Sodom, and sent two messengers (angels disguised as men) to investigate. They went to the home of Lot. Lot, faithful to his obligation to provide hospitality to strangers, invited them to spend the night with him. When news spread that the outsider, Lot, had guests, the men of the city surrounded the home and demanded the angel/men for their sexual pleasure. Lot then offered his two daughters to the lustful men (an act which many people see as the most serious sin of this drama). This offer was refused. Lot, along with his family and his guests, managed to escape just before both Sodom and Gomorrah were annihilated. Both cities were destroyed, although the threats to Lot’s guests had taken place only in Sodom.

A story in Judges 19 is so similar to the Sodom account that many scholars feel it is the same event told with changes in details. In this alternate narrative, rape did take place. The rape was heterosexual and led to the death of the abused women, the dismembering of their bodies, and finally to the destruction of the male members of an entire tribe of Israel. If the story as told in Genesis is a condemnation of homosexual activity, then surely the story as told in Judges is a condemnation of heterosexual activity. Since logic breaks down at this point, another explanation must be found. God’s anger surely had to do with forced sex—rape. Neither telling of the story indicates that divine anger was aimed at the form of sexuality involved.

In the uniquely Christian (New Testament) scripture, the only negative references to homosexual activity appear in writings of Paul. Paul lived in a Greek culture in which homosexual pursuits usually meant adult men taking boy lovers. Again, the issue is vague. Paul definitely intended to forbid pedophilia.Sex between consenting, committed adults received no separate mention.
When an ethical issue is otherwise unclear, those who call themselves Christians are expected to seek guidance in the teachings of Jesus. Since condemnation of homosexuality is a central theme of a large group of modern Christians, one would expect to find in Jesus’ teachings clear and frequent ref¬erences to the subject. The truth is that same-sex relationships are not mentioned at all in the four biblical biographies of Jesus. The Unitarian-Universalist Church has published a brochure entitled, “What Jesus Said about Homosexuality.” One opens the brochure to find two blank pages.

On the issue of homosexual activity, then, the Bible as a whole says little. Jesus said nothing. Without question, the few biblical writers who wrote of male homosexual activity, as they knew it viewed it negatively. It is important to note, however, that they were speaking of sexual activity. They did not speak of an orientation toward homosexualityˇXa concept that was not discovered and described until the eighteenth century.

No biblical writer addressed the style of homosexual relationship that has caused such division in churches and society today: mature, committed couples of the same sex who wish to establish monogamous relationships and to have those relationships blessed by both state and the religious authorities. On that issue, the Bible is as silent as it is on the subject of abortion.

Family Values
What, then, of “traditional family values,” that murky phrase that has appeared so often in the cultural wars of the past decade? The religious right wants us to believe this issue has deep biblical roots.

“Traditional family values,” in the vocabulary of the religious right, seems to refer to a nuclear family of a husband and wife, both committed to procreation. In this model the father is both authority and breadwinner, while the wife obediently focuses her attention on rearing children.

The religious right has described correctly the sexual power dynamics of biblical times. The scriptures were written in a patriarchal era. Men were assumed to be in charge.

Nonetheless, the subjugation of women in the Bible is not universal. The recent declaration by The Southern Baptist Church that all wives should be “graciously submissive” to their husbands does not square well with a broad reading of scripture.A number of individual women in scripture managed to find ways to surmount the glass ceilings. The Bible describes a porous patriarchy that allowed one woman to slip through and become a military leader (Deborah), another a community savior (Esther), and one even a queen (Athaliah). In the New Testament, a woman named Lydia is described as a cloth merchant, a traveling salesperson who included her family on her extended business trips. Paul and other early Christians looked to Lydia for financial support.

Even in the context of an established patriarchy, some biblical writers could celebrate the strength of powerful females. Where do these independent women fit in the “family values” scheme?

Apart from the the matter of male dominance, the religious right can find little biblical support for their concept of a proper nuclear family. “Family” in scripture is a fluid structure, constantly adapting to the needs of a changing community. The twelve tribes of Israel are descended from the twelve sons of Jacob. Jacob fathered these sons by four women with whom he cohabited simultaneously, only two of whom he wed. King David and King Solomon both had harems so vast that no one bothered to count. The biblical writers produced not a single word of censure for these arrangements.

The pattern of one man for one woman does occur in the Hebraic Scripture, notably in Adam and Eve and in Hosea and his errant wife. Mary and Joseph can be cited in the New Testament. Other biblical writers, however, describe widespread polygamy. Concubines produced offspring when wives were infertile.

The teachings of Jesus offer even less comfort to the family values people. A surface reading of the Gospel accounts could cause one to believe that Jesus had a low opinion of family relationships. “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26)“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.”(Matthew 10:37)

We can never know whether Jesus was actively opposed to the family or whether—a more likely option—he feared that filial commitment might become a rival to a person’s faith commitment. Ultimately, Jesus defined family by action rather than kinship. One created one’s own family from among those with shared values. “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:50, and Mark 3:35)

The Bible is a book about community. The importance of kinship is evident on almost every page. Nonetheless, when the religious right claims scriptural support for a single style of family living, they are engaged in tunnel vision. The way families are put together varies throughout the Bible, and filial commitment is always secondary to one’s commitment to the kingdom of God.

Defense of the Patriarchy
The three issues, abortion, homosexuality, and family values, are not random selections by the religious right. They have a common concern: preservation of the patriarchy. Jerry Falwell describes the connection with surprising frankness. The words seem to be aimed against homosexuality. They reveal, however, a larger agenda.

"In the Christian home, the father is to exercise spiritual control and to be the head over his wife and children; “for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.” (Ephesians 5:23) Women are to be feminine and manifest the “ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God a great price.” (1 Peter 3:4) Women are to be subordinate. “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:22) Homosexuality is Satan’s diabolical attack upon the family, God’s order in Creation."

In other words, homosexual relationships upset what the religious right sees as God’s inviolable plan for all intimate relationships: dominant men wed to submissive women. Taken together with the religious right’s anti-abortion stance, which denies women control over their reproductive organs, the quote lays bare an over-arching theme. What is being protected is not the “unborn child,” nor any particular sexual orientation, nor the nuclear family. What is being protected is the patriarchy.

Freedom and Justice
Falwell’s words in defense of the patriarchy show the degree to which the religious right has distorted the Bible. The pivotal event of scripture is the Exodus—the freeing of slaves, the lifting of the oppressed. Jesus defined his goals as an extension of this central theme: “[God] has sent me to proclaim release to the captives…to let the oppressed go free.” (Luke 4:18)

The Bible, a testament of freedom and justice has been turned, by the religious right, into a tool of oppression: men dominating women and straights dominating gays.

By laying claim to the Bible and the respect in which it is held, the religious right has had a significant impact on American society. They have achieved their power by cleverly twisting scriptural ideas into the shape of their social goals. This effort will eventually run aground on reality. The Bible does not support their repressive agenda. As this truth is recognized, the Bible will be released from its right wing bondage and restored to its traditional, liberating role.