After processing the topics that we have addressed so far – law, love, and symbolism – it might be tempting to rush to the conclusion that homosexuality is not at all condemned by Christianity. If we know that we are under no law but the call to love, and if we treat our symbols with the same reverential practicality as Jesus did, then it quickly becomes hard, if not impossible, to articulate a reason to condemn same-sex relationships.

And yet, Paul still condemns them, three times. If you remember, in the second chapter we discussed the purpose of Paul’s various instructions. He wrote not to provide a law, which he was fundamentally against, but to teach us how to reason through moral questions with wisdom and love. When we read a moral instruction from Paul, we are not to read it as a legalistic command, but as a line of reasoning which teaches us how to apply the love principle to our lives.

But the reasoning surrounding Paul’s three condemnations of homosexuality is either non-existent (1 Cor. 6:9–10, and 1 Tim. 1:9–10) or incredibly opaque (Romans 1:26–27). This is in part because Paul never actually gives an “instruction” on homosexuality. In all three cases, he just mentions it as an example of immoral behavior. He assumes his audience already agrees that it is sinful, which is not surprising – his original audience consisted of his contemporaries in the budding church, who were likely much more unified on the issue than Christians are today.

Unfortunately, this lack of clarification presents a significant challenge to the modern Christian who wants to learn about homosexuality from Paul’s writings. Because although what Paul believed about homosexuality is abundantly clear, we are left entirely on our own to determine why he believed it. This is why many on the traditional side of the aisle have seized upon the flawed symbolism argument we discussed in Chapter 3; it provides an easy rationale for us to join in Paul’s condemnation. This is also why many on the affirming side have developed the argument that Paul was really only against unloving homosexual relationships; it allows us to include same-sex relationships in our understanding of the love principle without disagreeing with Paul.

This situation has never sat fully well with me, and from the many conversations I have had with other Christians on the topic, I know that I am not alone. It often seems as if Christian thinkers, writers, and theologians are so desperate for our own beliefs about homosexuality to be right that we engage in motivated reasoning. In absence of any real explanation from Paul, we build theories and frameworks around our own preconceived notions about homosexuality. Then we subtly ascribe our ideas to Paul, despite little or no actual evidence that Paul shared our reasoning. And finally, in an apparent lack of self-awareness, we accuse everyone who disagrees with us of doing exactly the same thing.

For years, I struggled acutely against this motivated reasoning, and as a result, felt paralyzed in uncertainty on the issue of homosexuality. I wanted desperately to bridge the gap between what I read from Paul about homosexuality and what I understood from the rest of his writings, but, try as I might, I could find no answer that drew a clear line from the love principle to Paul’s writings on this topic.

That is, until a year or two ago, when I re-encountered Paul’s writings on head coverings in 1 Corinthians 11. Strangely enough, this often-overlooked and deeply confusing passage, which we’ll read in a moment, actually provides a surprising amount of clarity on Paul’s reasoning about homosexuality. What I’ve come to learn, and what I hope to convince you of in this chapter, is that we can understand Paul’s reasoning on homosexuality – we’ve just been looking for his explanation in the wrong places. And once we understand Paul’s reasoning, we can think honestly about how to apply that reasoning to our modern context.

So we’ll get to homosexuality soon, I promise. But first, let’s do a close reading of Paul’s views on head coverings.

Paul’s Three Appeals

We’ll start by reading the whole passage – 1 Corinthians 11:2-16  in which Paul urges the Corinthian church to get its act together regarding whose head should be covered and whose should be uncovered while praying or prophesying:

Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ. Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head. But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved. For if a woman does not cover her head, let her also have her hair cut off; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake. Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her? For her hair is given to her for a covering. But if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God. (1 Cor. 11:2-16, NASB)

Phew. If you struggled to get through this passage or follow its logic, you’re not alone. We’ll spend a lot of time considering it over the next few pages. But the most important takeaway from the passage is the elephant in the room: Paul argues quite decisively that women should wear head coverings while praying or prophesying in church, and yet, few churches today follow that practice. Why not?

The most common rationale given is that wearing head coverings was a cultural practice, and our culture has changed. In the Greco-Roman world, some historians point out, women wore head coverings as a symbol of their marriage, and those who did not were seen as promiscuous. Head coverings carry no such meaning today, they argue, so there is no need to wear them. Others argue that covering one’s head was once considered an important act of modesty, but our culture has now changed enough that head-to-toe covering is no longer necessary.

These arguments are perfectly reasonable, but they demonstrate how easy it is to fall into the trap I mentioned above: developing theories that support our own preconceived notions about an idea, and then hastily ascribing our own reasoning to Paul. Because despite how reasonable these historical-cultural arguments sound, they aren’t why Paul told the women of the Corinthian church to wear head coverings. In fact, there’s no need for us to devise our own explanations for Paul’s beliefs about head coverings – he explains those beliefs quite comprehensively himself.

So let’s examine the reasoning Paul actually uses in the passage. Though his argument is complex and can be frustrating to try to understand, there is a logic to it. I find it helpful to think about the passage in terms of the three appeals Paul makes: to symbolism, to custom, and to nature.

Verses 2-7 and 10 make up Paul’s appeal to symbolism:

Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ. Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head. But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved. For if a woman does not cover her head, let her also have her hair cut off; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. (vv. 2-7)

Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. (v. 10)

This argument might strike some familiar chords; it has a lot in common with the husband/wife passage in Ephesians that we examined in Chapter 3. There, Paul argued that the husband’s headship of his wife is symbolic of Christ’s headship of the church, and that the way a husband treats his wife (and the way a wife treats her husband) should therefore aim to reflect Christ and the church. Here in 1 Corinthians, Paul argues a similar point, but applies symbolic value to a different practice: what we wear on our heads.

The symbolism here is a bit more complex than in Ephesians, and there is certainly room for minor disagreement on the particulars of the picture that Paul is painting, but here is the explanation that seems most sensible to me:

As in Ephesians, Paul is claiming that men and women play the symbolic roles of Christ and humanity, respectively. This is what he means when he says that man is “the image and glory of God,” while woman is “the glory of man.” He does not mean to imply that women are not made in God’s image; he is simply explaining that men have the symbolic position of representing and glorifying God, while women have the symbolic position of glorifying humanity. Since God’s glory is unsurpassed – there is nothing “over” God – the men who symbolize him should keep their heads uncovered. But women, who symbolize humanity, should cover their heads with “a symbol of authority,” since the glory of humanity is “covered” by God’s glory.

By all accounts, this is a beautiful use of symbolism. But as we discussed at length in Chapter 3, symbolism is important as long as it is useful, and as followers of Christ, we should never allow it to get in the way of practical needs or our ability to love. Today, mandating that women wear head coverings in church has too much in common with the repressive and male-centric clothing norms our modern societies are fighting so hard to escape. In this context, many women and men rightfully feel that it would be shameful and dishonoring to women to make them wear yet another unnecessary accessory. This is reason enough to let go of this particular symbol. Paul is not wrong to make an appeal to symbolism – symbols have great value and we should endeavor to preserve them when they are useful. But we must always be careful not to make them our idols.

You may have also noticed that Paul’s second appeal, to custom, is also found primarily in this section of the passage. According to Paul, it is disgraceful for a man to have his head covered while praying or prophesying, for a woman to have her head uncovered while doing the same, or for a woman to shave her head. Paul uses two Greek words for disgrace in these verses: kataischuno when he is writing about head coverings, and aischros when he is writing about shaving. Both are from the same root, aischos, which means shame, or disgrace.

Shame, in the disgrace sense, is a well-researched phenomenon in cultural anthropology, where it is best understood as an analogue to guilt. Whereas guilt is a personal sense of wrongdoing (i.e. “I can’t do that because it’s wrong!”), shame is a cultural sense of wrongdoing (i.e. “I can’t do that because people will look down on me!”). At its most innocuous, shame makes us avoid eye contact and makes our cheeks turn red; at its most pernicious, shame is a scarlet letter, engendering total social ostracization. In all cases, shame is a tool that communities use to organically enforce customs, which are the daily beliefs and practices of a particular culture. Unlike traditions, which are built on symbolism and are all about historical continuity, customs are about the present, are different across cultures, and naturally morph over time.

Shame-based appeals, then, which Paul makes here and occasionally elsewhere, are always appeals to custom. When Paul says that it is disgraceful for a man to cover his head while praying, or for a woman to shave her head, he is not so much saying that it is wrong as he is saying that it is not socially acceptable. But for Paul, social acceptance is of great importance. This is the man who famously argued in 1 Corinthians 9 – just two chapters before the head covering passage we’re discussing – that he gladly takes on the practices of every culture he encounters, becoming “all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” (1 Cor 9:22). There is one important exception to this rule: Paul was adamant that we should break any rule or custom that requires us to act unlovingly towards others, which is why he rebuked Peter in Galatians 2:11-14 for avoiding the Gentiles to please the Jews. But, in general, following  the customs of a culture is a sign of love, and is therefore a credit to one’s Christian witness.

So unlike the appeal to symbolism, which is about preserving remembrance, Paul’s appeal to custom is about maintaining unity within the Church, and peace with the surrounding culture. Paul’s final plea in verse 16 (“But if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God.”) is the one other example of this appeal in the passage. In addition to appreciating the symbolic value of head coverings, Paul is asking the Corinthian church to recognize and submit to the customs of two overlapping communities: the Christian community, where improperly covered heads are disgraceful, and the broader Grecian culture, where it is shameful for a woman to have her head shaved.

This appeal to custom is very much related to the historical-cultural arguments I mentioned above. And those arguments are right to encourage us to reconsider the relevance of this appeal today. Our customs have changed significantly since Paul’s time; twenty-first century American society could hardly be more different from first-century Grecian society. As an easy example, just try using Paul’s closing argument now: “If one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God.” Well, actually, in today’s church, we do have another practice. In fact, it’s hard to find a church in America that does require women to wear head coverings. Today, Paul’s argument cuts the opposite way – those who require women to wear head coverings are the counter-cultural ones, and if they were to insist that others should follow the practice, they would be the ones being contentious.

It is certainly not wrong for Paul to make an appeal to custom, but as readers, we have to recognize that customs change. And just like the appeal to symbolism, it makes perfect sense that we have decided that this particular argument no longer applies to us.

Paul’s final appeal, to nature, is a bit more complicated. Let’s read it again, from verses 8-9 and 11-15:

For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake. . . . However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her? For her hair is given to her for a covering.

This argument may seem similar to the appeal to symbolism, but it’s actually quite different. The appeal to symbolism is about representations; what we wear on our heads is only meaningful because of what it reminds us of. But here Paul is arguing that some rules regarding what covers our heads are not only symbolic; they are mandated by nature itself. According to Paul, nature teaches us that long hair on a man is “a dishonor to him,” while a woman’s long hair is her glory.

This is not a statement to be glossed over; it’s a serious claim of real consequence. Unlike symbols and customs, nature is about the inherent order of things; it doesn’t waver or change as generations go by. Paul is essentially saying that there is something inherently wrong with long hair on men, which strikes me as a surprising escalation. It’s one thing to accept that men and women must assume different prayer headwear, but are we now also supposed to believe that Bob Marley’s wavy locks and Thor’s majestic golden mane are dishonorable ‘do’s – and that this is a truth mandated by nature itself?

The short answer is no, but the long answer is complex and historical. And also crucial – as interesting as this head covering discussion is, our goal here is to understand Paul’s views on homosexuality. And if we want to understand Paul’s views on homosexuality, we have to understand his appeal to nature. So let’s take some time to examine the appeal to nature more closely.

A Precursor to Modern Science

The appeal to nature is not a Pauline invention. To the contrary, it is one of the most common rhetorical appeals in the history of humanity. If you are acquainted with the traditions or customs of nearly any culture at nearly any point in history before the mid-18th century, chances are you’re familiar with the appeal to nature.

This is because, before the Scientific Revolution of the Early Modern period, the appeal to nature served as the backbone of much of Western normative reasoning. In other words, for much of human history, we looked to nature not only for answers to our how questions, but also for answers to our why questions. It was only quite recently that we learned that the natural world, though excellent at answering our hows, is not so great at answering the whys. This is why modern biologists can tell us everything about the workings of the heart, but nothing of the workings of love, and why neuroscientists seek to map neural pathways, but leave the mapping of spiritual beliefs and sound ethics to religious teachers and moral philosophers.

Premodern societies knew no such distinction. Though science – the study of nature – has always existed in some form, for most of history it was deeply intertwined with philosophy. In fact, the term “scientist” didn’t even exist until the 19th century; those who observed and made conclusions about the natural world were generally referred to as natural philosophers. The field of “science” was about seeing nature as a holistic teacher: every how answer could potentially inform a whole host of whys, ifs, and shoulds.

This is why the appeal to nature was so prominent. Through observation of the world around us, our forebears believed, we could learn all sorts of things about how we ought to act. Wrapped up within the single dichotomy of natural and unnatural were a multiplicity of other dichotomies: good and bad, right and wrong, healthy and sick, true and false. Before modern science taught us to separate our moral reasoning from our scientific reasoning and to test our assumptions with care and rigor, humanity looked indiscriminately to nature for answers to many of life’s hardest questions.

For modern folks, this can be a difficult concept to wrap our minds around. So, as an example, let’s discuss one of the most influential examples of the appeal to nature in history: the medical concept of humorism.

From at least classical antiquity up until the 18th century, the entire field of Western medicine was built up around a central idea. Hippocrates, a Greek physician of the 5th century BC and the namesake of the still-relevant Hippocratic Oath, describes it in this way:

The Human body contains blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. These are the things that make up its constitution and cause its pains and health. Health is primarily that state in which these constituent substances are in the correct proportion to each other, both in strength and quantity, and are well mixed. Pain occurs when one of the substances presents either a deficiency or an excess, or is separated in the body and not mixed with others.¹

These four liquids (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile) were known as the humors, and their imbalance was widely believed to be the cause of all disease. It is not clear where this idea first developed, but it is thought to have been first systematized by Greek physicians like Hippocrates, and it carried on as the primary system of Western medicine for over two thousand years, up until the physicians and great thinkers of the Early Modern period began to challenge it with modern science.

Because humor imbalance was thought to be the basis of all disease, the practice of medicine was primarily about bringing the four humors back into balance. This is why the recommended cure for most diseases was a treatment called bloodletting, which generally involved attaching leeches to specific parts of the body for set periods of time to remove excess humors.

Did you have the flu? Leeches would do the trick. Were you depressed? Leeches. Were you a woman gone hysterical? Leeches. Were you royalty going in for your spring-time check-up? Bring out the leeches and a warm bath. Here’s a morbid fact: it’s still unclear whether George Washington died of a throat infection or of blood loss from the bloodletting his physicians performed in an attempt to heal him². And here’s another: despite the fact that bloodletting is a completely ineffective treatment for most diseases, and indeed, dangerous in many cases, it was the most commonly-performed medical practice for most of recorded human history³.

Why on earth did we base our medical practice on such a strange and faulty belief system for thousands of years? Well, the answer is interesting. The practice of bloodletting actually predates the concept of humorism; bloodletting was an ancient Egyptian practice thousands of years before Hippocrates and others systematized it in Western medicine. But in Egypt, bloodletting wasn’t particularly noteworthy; it was just one among many fascinating medical practices. It only became so singular and widespread in Western medicine when the Greek physicians picked it up and began to argue that it was ordained by nature. Humorism, then, was a theory of nature that came about in support of an existing practice. And over time, the practice and the theory fed each other’s growth. Soon, other physicians took the theory even further, claiming that the four humors were the human counterpart to other universal fours found in nature, like the four seasons and the four elements. Their similarity to nature’s other fours, it was argued, proved that the humors produced health, wellness, and human thriving when they were in balance, and caused illness and harm when their natural balance was lost.

In other words, the concept of humors became universally accepted not because it was good science – good science hardly existed at the time. No, the concept of humors was trusted because it was good natural philosophy – it was a clear and convincing appeal to nature. If a patient asked their doctor why they were sick, humorism provided a confident answer and endorsed a solution: You feel sick because your body has deviated from its natural balance. An unnatural body experiences all kinds of ailments. But bloodletting will return your body to its natural order, and soon, your pain will go away.

To pre-modern physicians and patients, this just made sense, on a gut level. Being sick felt wrong, on a gut level, and science was not yet sophisticated enough to explain that feeling ill was different from being misaligned in some deep, metaphysical way. In fact, science wasn’t sophisticated enough to say much of anything at all about why someone might be sneezing, vomiting, or running a fever. It isn’t as if ancient Greek physicians had to decide whether to give their patients a Tylenol or leeches, and chose the leeches. The alternative to humorism wasn’t better science; it was random guessing. Even though humorism couldn’t magically make bloodletting an effective treatment, at least the leeches gave everyone peace of mind. The appeal to nature (humorism) gave credibility to an existing practice (bloodletting), so that people could have confidence about how to act.

In this way, for most humans throughout history, the appeal to nature played the role that the appeal to science now plays for us. Much like we appeal to science today to claim that practices like hand-washing are universally good, the appeal to nature allowed pre-modern thinkers and practitioners to take a cultural practice like bloodletting and confidently claim that it was universally good. To be clear, natural philosophy was not modern science – it didn’t give us true clarity about the things it purported to explain. But natural philosophy provided a certainty that was deeply attractive to anyone who sought reliable answers in a world devoid of the reliability that the scientific method would later introduce.

Today, when we are skeptical of a claim, we ask if there are any scientific studies to back it up. But before we were performing double-blind studies and calculating p-values, we were rarely able to support our scientific claims with real evidence. Instead, most of our decisions – whether medical, cultural, agricultural, or sometimes even ethical – were based on hearsay or tradition, or were simply shots in the dark. People were looking for something – anything – that could give them a sense of confidence in their practices. The appeal to nature gave them that confidence.

Just look around, an ancient Roman herbalist might say, Which of nature’s animals eats hemlock? If you want to avoid what poisons you, eat only what nature has designated for consumption.

You say your wife has been sleeping at odd hours, a medieval priest might muse, That is indeed quite unnatural. She must be keeping some secret sin that has disturbed her natural rhythm; she may even be partaking in witchcraft!

You have seen the infirmities and deformities of those born to parents who marry their kin, an early modern moralist might note, This is a lesson from nature; such inbreeding is wholly unnatural!

A man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God, an ancient Jewish theologian might declare, Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him?

In all of these examples, nature is cited as the reason that a particular behavior is right or wrong. But the appeal to nature ultimately amounts to nothing more than a useful rhetorical tool; it provides certainty about an existing practice in lieu of scientific evidence. Why is hemlock dangerous? Why is incest wrong? Why is a woman’s insomnia a sign of sinfulness? Because nature has made it so!

If this seems woefully unreliable and pre-scientific to you, that’s because it is. But again, it isn’t as if there were any better alternatives. This was simply the closest thing to scientific reasoning humanity could muster before modern science existed.

But over the last couple of centuries, as we’ve collectively and methodically wheeled our scientific lens into all areas of our lives, we’ve been rapidly overturning appeals to nature and quietly replacing them with appeals to science.

In some cases, this process causes little practical change; we still don’t eat hemlock, for example. But instead of appealing to nature to answer why, we use science to explain that it contains a toxin called coniine, which causes neuromuscular failure. Similarly, we now know to avoid incest, not because it’s unnatural, but because it results in homozygosity, which is when a set of identical genes are provided to an offspring, causing recessive traits (including many hereditary diseases) to be overrepresented.

In other cases, replacing appeals to nature with sound scientific reasoning has meant letting go of old practices and replacing them with better ones. Women sleeping at odd hours is no longer seen as a sign of witchcraft; it’s treated as a sign of insomnia. Bloodletting is no longer a common practice, except in the very few cases where it actually does work. In today’s world, we have based our medical practices on careful observation and scientific reasoning rather than appeals to nature, to the significant benefit of patients everywhere.

This shift from natural philosophy to science is not only important for our societal progress; it’s also crucially important for our Christianity. When I think about the difference between humorism and modern science, I’m reminded of Jesus’s example of healing on the Sabbath, which we discussed in Chapter 1. “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm,” he asked, “to save life or to kill?” One of the worst mistakes a Christian can make is to get so caught up in rule-following that we forget to love our neighbors. This is true whether our rules come from religion or from outdated worldviews like natural philosophy. As Christians, our highest calling is the love principle – to love God, others, and ourselves; in other words, to do good and to save life. When we reject evidence-based advances in favor of appeals to nature simply because the appeals to nature support our pre-existing beliefs, we are not only practicing ignorance; we are often hampering our ability to heal the sick and to love our neighbors.

Does Not Nature Itself Teach You?

With all of this helpful context in mind, let’s examine Paul’s appeal to nature again:

For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake. . . . However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her? For her hair is given to her for a covering. But if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God. (1. Cor 11:8-9, 11-16, NASB)

What Paul is doing here is a textbook example of natural philosophy at work. Not only is the headship model of man, woman, and God symbolically evident today, he explains; it has been visible in nature from the very moment we were created. Just as Greek physicians gave humorism credibility by showing that the four humors were reflections of the other fours in nature, Paul is arguing throughout this passage that what goes on our heads is a reflection of the natural created order of humanity – men should have their heads uncovered, reflecting the uncovered glory of God, because they were created for God, while women should have their heads covered, reflecting the covered glory of humanity, because they were created for man. In the end, he explicitly invokes nature, claiming that long hair on men (a form of head covering) is simply unnatural.

But from here, rather than topping off his argument by commanding his readers to do what he believes is right, Paul does something incredibly interesting. He leaves room for disagreement. In verse 16, he allows that some people may not be fully convinced by his nature argument: “If one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God.” This is not only an appeal to custom; it’s also a concession. If you disagree, just don’t be contentious, he is essentially saying, I urge you to follow along simply for the sake of unity.

This sort of concession is very unusual for Paul, and it hints that he understands the limitations of his argument. Of course, I’m not saying that he doesn’t find his argument convincing himself; if he didn’t, he would not have articulated it. But Paul ultimately leaves it up to his readers to decide whether or not they accept his appeal to nature, and provides a path forward for them if they do not. This is not just graciousness; it’s the mark of a highly-sophisticated pre-scientific thinker. Because even though his appeal to nature was well-formed, and even though the appeal to nature was one of the most common and trusted rhetorical tools in ancient Grecian culture, Paul was still wise enough to understand that it wasn’t foolproof.

And that’s the brilliance of Paul’s writing in this head coverings passage. Paul wanted to provide an instruction to his readers about an important church tradition, but he knew that instructions without clear reasoning are akin to laws, which he would never provide. He also knew, however, that the practice was contestable, and no one argument in favor of it was foolproof: not the appeal to symbolism, the appeal to custom, nor the appeal to nature. So, he decided to weave together all three appeals, giving his readers the full breadth of reasoning that led to his conclusion. The symbolism argument works when there is no competing practical priority, the cultural argument works when the surrounding communities support the practice, and the nature argument works until a new and better scientific argument comes along. While any one of the three arguments stands, the head covering practice is justified. This is enough for Paul to feel confident encouraging the Corinthian church to follow the practice.

And it is no wonder that, for nearly all of the history of Christianity, women universally wore head coverings in church. Nor should it be surprising that it was only sometime over the last century or so that the practice died off in Western culture, with very little fanfare⁴. For nearly two thousand years, the practice held strong; then, over a period of a few decades, women just stopped wearing them. Why? Because only now have all three of Paul’s arguments been made obsolete. It happened in this way:

1. Ever since the Scientific Revolution, we have been slowly overturning appeals to nature and replacing them with evidence-based scientific claims. This process is still ongoing, but we have made significant progress over the last couple of centuries. At some point in this period, we developed a strong enough scientific understanding about human hair that people began to be able to confidently claim that long hair on men has no adverse effects at all. So Paul’s appeal to nature no longer applied.
2. Meanwhile, the Scientific Revolution and other social movements began to change women’s standing in society. For millennia, men had used natural philosophy to perpetuate various gender inequalities, arguing that nature had made women less intelligent and less capable than men. But as that faulty reasoning was superseded by science, women began to demand (and, here and there, receive) equal standing in various spheres of life, including church. This led to the cultural change I mentioned earlier: Christians began to feel that requiring women to wear an accessory in order to fully participate in the Church was restrictive and unloving. So Paul’s appeal to symbolism no longer applied.
3. Finally, as the tide of churches dropping the practice grew, the argument that “we have no other practice” became increasingly untenable, as did the argument that women with uncovered heads were culturally “disgraceful.” So Paul’s appeal to custom no longer applied.

This pattern (nature > symbolism > custom) is important because it explains the timing of this shift. In all areas of life, including religion, when an appeal to nature is overturned, a process begins. We start to reconsider the consequences of the now-obsolete understanding, and re-imagine what our newfound knowledge might mean for us. That process might take a few years, or it might take generations: it took hundreds of years of medical controversy to fully overturn bloodletting. But it is ultimately unstoppable, because it is a process of truth conquering falsehood. And when truth wins, it wins completely. We are now only a few generations past the days of head coverings, and yet we are so far removed from Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians that most of us see it as nothing more than a quaint and confusing curiosity.

Perhaps, when you first read this passage, it was worrisome to you that the unnaturalness of long-haired men wasn’t as obvious to you as it was to Paul. Perhaps you even tried to rationalize it, thinking to yourself, Hmm. Well, I guess long-haired men are a little . . . unusual. If so, take a moment now to recognize and accept that it’s okay that we don’t think quite like Paul does on this issue. In fact, now that we understand that the appeal to nature is simply an outdated way of reasoning about the world, you should be proud of yourself, and humanity, for our advanced scientific reasoning. The appeal to nature was good for Paul’s time, and for most of human history, but over the last couple of centuries, we’ve learned to replace it with a much more robust and sensible framework: modern science. And as we gain true clarity about what nature does and does not tell us, we are able to do a much better job of living out our Christian faith.

As we discussed at length in Chapter 2, Paul was thoroughly against any sort of legalism, equating it with slavery, among other things (Gal. 5:1). Instead, he taught that Christianity is about using wisdom and the guidance of the Holy Spirit to carefully reason about how to follow the love principle. He was consistent on this even to the point of urging Christians not to do things they were explicitly free to do, if exercising those freedoms would get in the way of their ability to love others (1 Cor. 8:9-13).

This approach is why Paul always explained his reasoning when he gave instructions. He didn’t want his readers to obey his words blindly, as a law, but to instead trace his lines – to take his reasoning and apply it to their own lives, learning from his example how best to follow the love principle. He offered wisdom (how to love), rather than knowledge (rules to follow), because the world is complex and ever-changing, and no rigid law is suitable to handle every situation.

So in our modern context, where his arguments for head coverings are no longer applicable, would Paul have wanted his readers to ignore their reasoning and contexts, and follow his instructions legalistically anyway? From my understanding of Paul, that is exactly the sort of thinking he was most adamantly against.

Paul and Homosexuality

So, finally, we arrive at our discussion of homosexuality.

Though of course, in a way, we’ve been talking about homosexuality for this entire chapter. The parallels between head coverings and homosexuality are just too great to ignore. We’ve actually already done most of the work in answering why Paul was against homosexuality; all that is left to do is to put together the pieces.

When we began this chapter, I bemoaned the fact that Paul never gives an instruction on homosexuality. As we just discussed, whenever Paul gives instructions, he justifies them with careful reasoning. Perhaps, if there had been a homosexuality-related scandal in the budding Church, he would have seen fit to explain his views on homosexuality in more detail. But alas, there doesn’t appear to have been one, so in the three passages where he does speak of homosexuality, he just includes it as one of many examples of immoral behavior undertaken by sinners.

In two of those passages, he literally just includes homosexuality in a long list of lawless acts:

Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted. (1 Tim. 1:9-11)

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, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor. 6:9-11)

In these two passages, we get no explanation at all about why Paul believes homosexuality is wrong. It is only clear that he categorizes it with a host of other actions that are characteristic of sinners. And although some affirming theologians have argued that the specific word Paul uses for homosexuality here (arsenokoites, literally translated as “men who lie with men”) may have referred only to a specific type of abusive homosexual behavior, I find those arguments generally unconvincing, as I write about in the “Why This Book?” section at the end of this book. As far as I am concerned, it is enough to say that Paul clearly condemns homosexuality in these two passages, but also says nothing at all about why he feels the way he does.

This is why Romans 1:27-28, the last passage where Paul references homosexuality, is much more interesting than the others. Here it is in its full context:

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. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 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.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 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.

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. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 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. (Rom. 1:21-32)

Here, in the beginning of his letter to the Romans, Paul is giving a fervent and theatrical indictment of the behavior of who can only be some of the most ungodly people on the planet. By the end of it, it seems as though he’s just listing every vice he can think of: not only are they gossips, slanderers, full of envy, inventors of evil, ruthless, insolent, and filled with all manner of malice – they’re even disobedient to their parents!

Though it might sound like fire and brimstone, this is actually the opening to a letter that is fundamentally about God’s grace. The argument Paul is making here and throughout most of the letter is that his fellow Jews, who used legalism to set themselves apart, were actually no better than these sinners, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). And all, Jew and Gentile alike, including the very worst of sinners, are equal recipients of God’s love and grace, “for God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all” (Rom. 11:32, emphasis mine).

But regardless of the ultimately uplifting message, Paul’s words on homosexuality occur in the thick of his condemnation. Let’s read them again:

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 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. (Rom 1:26-27)

These are, in today’s Christianity, perhaps the most polarizing and emotionally-triggering verses in the entire Bible. Some read these verses and find clear evidence that homosexuality is sinful; others read them and find clear evidence that Paul was a bigot. Most of us just make an unspoken effort not to read them at all (certainly never aloud), preferring to spend our time with more cheerful, less divisive sections of Scripture.

But let’s step back momentarily from whatever highly-charged feelings we may have about these verses, and instead consider them with a mindset of honest thinking and genuine curiosity. Let’s try to understand what Paul is actually saying. Because, even though the main takeaway from this short diatribe is definitely that Paul thinks homosexuality is bad, that’s really quite imprecise. Instead of just saying that it’s wrong, Paul actually makes three specific negative claims about homosexuality, which are as follows:

1. “Dishonorable passions”
2. “Contrary to nature”
3. “Men committing shameless acts with men”

When we isolate these three statements, a very interesting idea emerges: although there are two verses here instead of fifteen, and although this is a brief condemnation rather than a comprehensive instruction, this argument is really beginning to resemble Paul’s argument about head coverings.

The Theology of Hair and Homosexuality

Let’s start from the top and work our way down. The Greek word for “dishonorable” in the Romans passage (atimia) is actually the same Greek word used in 1 Cor. 11:14 to condemn long hair. If you remember, Paul’s rationale for why long hair on men was dishonorable was simply an argument from nature. 1 Cor. 11:14 reads: “Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him?”

Here, Paul uses the exact same reasoning about homosexuality. “For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women,” he explains. In other words, heterosexual relations are natural, and homosexual relations are unnatural. Therefore, homosexual passions are dishonorable, just like long hair on men. Or, put a different way: Why are homosexual passions dishonorable? Because nature has made it so!

The stark similarity of these two appeals to nature is incredibly important – perhaps the most important observation we will make in this book. As we just discussed, Paul’s claim that long hair was unnatural on men was part of a robust and ubiquitous pre-scientific tradition called natural philosophy. In other words, he was not engaging in some sort of deeply spiritual “Theology of Hair” when he made an appeal to nature. Nor was he simply looking around at his culture’s customs and endorsing them. Instead, by appealing to nature, Paul was engaging in what could be called the “science” of his time. This is why we are right to no longer claim that long hair is unnatural on men – because we now know that unnatural is an antiquated, pre-scientific concept.

When Paul uses the exact same language to make an appeal to nature about homosexuality, the appeal to nature does not suddenly transform from a dated precursor to science into an advanced, dynamic, and deeply theological concept. There is simply no reason to believe that Paul’s use of nature as a normative argument in Romans means something different from what it meant in 1 Corinthians, or indeed, what it meant for hundreds of millions of people over thousands of years.

This is important because, in the existing conversation around homosexuality, both traditional and affirming thinkers seem to miss this point. At the beginning of this chapter, I lamented the fact that, in the absence of a clear understanding of Paul’s views on homosexuality, theologians on both sides often seem to attribute their own theories about homosexuality to Paul. Here’s what that often looks like.

On the traditional side, many thinkers argue that, in the simple statement that homosexuality is “contrary to nature,” Paul is laying out a broad theological vision of God’s plan for human sexuality. Then, because Paul does not actually go so far as to provide such a vision, they proceed to describe their own visions, drawing primarily from the symbolism we addressed in Chapter 3 to argue that heterosexual marriage is one of the holiest institutions in all creation, and that homosexuality tars its perfect standard. (Curiously, in developing this theological vision, they often omit Paul’s argument against marriage in 1 Corinthians 7:8-9 and 25-40, and Jesus’s claims that marriage isn’t for everyone and that there will be no marriage in heaven in Matthew 19:10-12 and Luke 20:34-36, respectively.)

When we understand the appeal to nature, it becomes very difficult to follow this enormous extrapolation. This is because the appeal to nature has a very well-established history, and it is not a theological one. In fact, natural philosophy was developed in the very Greco-Roman culture that Paul inhabited. It is quite reasonable to assume that Paul would have interacted with the methods of reasoning that were most common in his time and culture, just as modern theologians regularly interact with modern science. Additionally, nowhere else in the Bible is an appeal to nature used to make normative claims. That is, nowhere except for one other place: in the head coverings passage in 1 Corinthians, where Paul uses the exact same language, in the exact same way. If we can agree that Paul was not engaging in an entirely new, “natural” branch of theology when he condemned long hair in 1 Corinthians, why do we think he is doing so when he condemns homosexuality in Romans? Or, in other words, why are we so hesitant to believe that Paul was engaging in a “Theology of Hair” in 1 Corithians, and yet so eager to claim that Paul is establishing a “Theology of Human Sexuality” in Romans?

Perhaps the main reason we continue to believe in this poorly-supported theological idea is because affirming thinkers have not provided a particularly compelling alternative. As far as I have found, outside of this book, there are three affirming explanations for Paul’s words in Romans 1, and none can muster quite the same verve, flair, or conviction as the traditional argument.

First, many affirming thinkers claim that Paul’s appeal to nature in both places is simply an appeal to custom, and that we can leave it behind because our customs have changed. This is similar to the way that historians often reduce the complexities of Paul’s argument in the head coverings passage to a cultural argument, and then dismiss it purely because our culture has changed. While they come to the correct conclusion – that Paul’s argument no longer applies today – they get there almost by accident; misunderstanding the bulk of his argument.

A second group of affirming thinkers claim that Paul only meant to condemn homosexuality that is a divergence from one’s individual nature. They argue that it is only unnatural for straight people to have homosexual sex. For people who are gay and lesbian by nature, homosexual sex is not a divergence from nature, and therefore not immoral. Interestingly, this concept of individual nature was actually present in natural philosophy; even in the humoral system, each person was believed to have their own individual natural humoral balance. But this argument is unconvincing not just because Paul makes no mention of such an exception for gay and lesbian people, nor simply because it assumes that sexuality is binary, but also because it, too, relies on one’s belief in the outdated system of natural philosophy.

A final set of affirming thinkers lean even further into natural philosophy than the second group. These thinkers freely concede that homosexuality is unnatural, and therefore a sign of human brokenness, but they argue that God has chosen to redeem what is unnatural. Usually, it is hard to determine from their arguments why this particular expression of human brokenness is redeemed, while other actions that we consider sinful are not. Unfortunately, it often seems as if they believe homosexuality has been redeemed simply because they so urgently want it to be so.

Many theologically-minded Christians see the inadequacies of these arguments and give up on the idea of affirming theology altogether. I once felt this way, until I came to the conclusions laid out above and realized that there is no need for affirming theology to be tied to these unsatisfying arguments. A more robust understanding of the appeal to nature allows us to consider the truth of any argument through a lens that acknowledges modern science, rather than one reliant on pre-scientific assumptions.

The traditional argument fails in this case because it attempts to use Paul’s appeal to nature in order to justify a set of shaky theological claims that are ultimately unrelated to Paul’s actual argument about homosexuality. Affirming arguments fail when they attempt to do the same thing, regardless of the differences in their ultimate conclusion. It is only when we take Paul at his word, rather than ascribing our own beliefs to him, that we begin to truly understand him.

A Return to Natural Philosophy

Not everyone who attempts to understand Paul’s appeal to nature in these two verses is so strictly theological. Some of the most common traditional arguments I’ve encountered instead use some creative liberty, building upon Paul’s argument by doing some natural philosophy of their own. Here are the three appeals to nature I most commonly hear expressed:

Some make a biological appeal: A man’s body is designed to enter a woman, not to enter a man. And I don’t even know how two women can call anything they do “sex.” What nature intended is clear as day, and any deviation from that is unnatural.

Others argue from purpose: Only heretosexual sex produces offspring, which must mean that any other form of sexual intimacy is unnatural.

And finally, some make a health appeal: If nothing else, remember the AIDS epidemic. The transmission of a deadly disease is proof that homosexual behavior is truly unnatural!

I understand the appeal of these arguments. In fact, I once believed them, before I understood the history of the appeal to nature. I’ll address them each specifically in a moment, but the basic reason they are attractive to us is the same reason humorism was attractive to ancient Greek physicians; it’s why the appeal to nature held sway in nearly every field of study for thousands of years. Appeals to nature are always attractive in their time because they provide us with certainty that our existing practices are the correct ones. Humorism may seem absurd to us now, but in ancient Greece, it was developed as an affirmation of existing medical practice. Similarly, these appeals to nature allow us to reassure ourselves that our handling of homosexuality has been right all along. Or, put another way, they mean that we won’t ever have to deal with the possible consequences of having been wrong.

And what are the possible consequences of having been wrong? Let’s imagine briefly, just for the sake of discussion, that homosexuality is not a sin. If that were the case, then we would have to acknowledge that we have perpetrated unnecessary harm on many of our sisters and brothers in Christ. That we have denied them fellowship, called them sinful, even pushed some Christians to leave the faith and led many unbelievers to stay away from Christianity at all costs, all because of a misunderstanding on our part. That, when they have accused us of straying from love and into legalism, they were largely correct. That, when we believed ourselves to be the persecuted ones, we were, in large part, the persecutors. We would have to admit that that we were wrong. We would have to apologize.

Regardless of whether or not this is true, nobody wants to believe it about themselves. That’s a powerful motivator. But the good news is this: Christ forgives. As John reminds us, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love” (1 John 4:18-19). If we truly want to live out our faith in clarity and honesty, we have to commit ourselves to strive to seek truth and love, rather than let fear of the world cloud our judgment. “Take heart;” Christ says, “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

To be clear, I am not saying that you have to agree with me; I haven’t even finished laying out my argument. I am just asking you to think through this issue deeply and with humility, as I am striving to do, first acknowledging and then rejecting the fear that may come with the thought of changing your opinion.

That said, let’s examine these appeals to nature with the clarity that science provides.

First, if we look to nature with a rational, scientific eye, rather than performing anachronistic natural philosophy, we will find that homosexuality is utterly normal, despite what the shapes of our bodies might be taken to mean. Certainly, one thing our bodies are designed to do is to move sperm from the male testes to the female uterus, but that doesn’t mean all other uses of our bodies are wrong. It also doesn’t mean that someone who never engages in heterosexual sex is in some way unnatural; otherwise celibacy would be a sin.

To the contrary, homosexual behavior is actually incredibly common in nature. You may have heard about scientific studies of same-sex relations in bonobos and rams, but the scientific research is much more robust than that. In 1999, the biologist Bruce Bagemihl compiled information from numerous studies on animal homosexuality and concluded that “homosexual behavior occurs in more than 450 different kinds of animals worldwide, and is found in every major geographic region and every major animal group.”⁵ Most of these animals have sexual organs that are analagous to ours, and yet they find homosexual sex perfectly acceptable. Observed scientifically, nature provides clear evidence that homosexuality is perfectly normal.

Second, although it is true that only heterosexual sex produces children, that doesn’t mean that all other sex is worthless. As we explored in Chapter 3, sex has multiple benefits, and the fact that a couple cannot experience one of its benefits does not mean they should forego them all. Consider this: If we truly believe that sex is unnatural when it doesn’t produce children, then every form of sex would be unnatural for those who are biologically infertile. But we don’t tell the infertile that they are barred from enjoying sex; that would be cruel and unnecessary. Similarly, the fact that no child will be born from homosexual sex is not a reason to bar gay and lesbian people from having sex.

Third, the argument from HIV/AIDS could not possibly have been Paul’s intention, because HIV/AIDS didn’t exist until the late 1950’s. If homosexuality had truly been frowned upon by nature since the birth of humanity, then HIV/AIDS would have accompanied it long ago. Additionally, although it’s true that homosexual sex, done without proper safety measures, can spread disease, that’s also entirely true about heterosexual sex. Unsafe sex is possible for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation. If we want to call homosexual sex unnatural because it might transmit a disease, then we would have to say the same about all forms of sex. We might even have to say it about all forms of human contact, because contagious diseases spread in a variety of ways. Claiming that this specific disease is a sign of nature’s dissatisfaction with a specific behavior amounts to a cherry-picking of facts.

These appeals to nature are all easy to disprove because they’re based on a flawed method of reasoning, natural philosophy. But I wouldn’t be surprised if something about the last few paragraphs felt dissatisfying to you, even if you can’t articulate a reason why. Because, even after we acknowledge that these arguments aren’t rational, per se, homosexuality still just feels wrong to many of us. Even if we can’t identify a strong reason why it’s unnatural, we have a strong reaction of disgust to it. So, we reason, there has to be something wrong with it, even if we’re not sure exactly what that something is.

I sympathize with this argument. Our disgust response is a powerful, physical motivator, capable of shaping some of our beliefs all on its own⁶. But the fact that we are disgusted by something doesn’t actually make it bad. Consider this: if disgust were truly an accurate measure of virtue, broccoli and medicine would have killed off all of our children ages ago. In reality, some things we are disgusted by are bad, some are good, and others are neutral. But the right way to distinguish between them is by using science, not natural philosophy.

I can’t convince you to not be disgusted by homosexuality; that’s just not the way disgust works. Letting go of a disgust response just takes time. But what I can say is that a disgust response is never enough to make something wrong on its own. That sort of thinking is exactly why it’s so hard to get a sick child to open wide for a medicine-filled spoon. When it comes to decisions as consequential as our beliefs on homosexuality, we should be basing our conclusions on biblical wisdom, scientific evidence, love, and reasoning, not our gut reactions.

Again, Paul was not wrong to make an appeal to nature – he didn’t have modern science. He was using the tools available to him (including natural philosophy) to determine how best to love, and as we explored in Chapter 2, one of his primary goals was to teach other Christians to do the same. Now it’s our responsibility to learn from Paul’s wisdom and apply his reasoning to our modern context. That means using the truth-finding tools available to us (including modern science), not simply following Paul’s words as if he were giving us a whole new law. Just as we have combined the wisdom we’ve learned from Paul and the science of our time to stop calling men with long hair unnatural, we can and should use our wisdom and science to stop calling homosexuality unnatural.

Shameless Acts

That explains Paul’s first two claims about homosexuality in Romans 1. The third, “men committing shameless acts with men,” also has a parallel in the head coverings passage: the appeal to custom. Shame, if you remember, is about cultural customs. In using the word “shameless,” Paul is arguing that these men should feel shame about their actions, and that it is wrong that they don’t feel that shame. As with bald women in ancient Grecian culture, the problem Paul is identifying in this particular claim is not that homosexuality is wrong, but that it is culturally unacceptable. (To be clear, I am not saying that Paul didn’t think that homosexuality was wrong; just that he is identifying a different concern in this particular statement.)  But just as we recognized that women no longer need to feel shame about uncovered or shaven heads in 21st century America, we also know that being gay in America is no longer shameful. Over the past two decades, our culture has made a nearly-180-degree turn in our attitudes towards gay people. Gay marriage has been legalized, LGBTQ pride parades joyfully take over most American cities in June, which is widely known as National Pride Month, and an openly gay man ran for president in the 2020 election cycle, to much fanfare. Being shameless about one’s homosexuality is no longer against our culture’s customs. In fact, just like with head coverings, there has been a total reversal: being against homosexuality is now against our culture’s customs, which is why many Christians with traditional views on homosexuality are afraid to voice those views publicly.

So here’s some food for thought: if shamelessness is about openly flouting cultural customs, then publicly voicing traditional views on homosexuality now could be called a “shameless act,” exactly what Paul is warning against. But there’s no need to go that far. At the very least, we certainly can no longer call homosexuality a “shameless act” in our present context, so Paul’s appeal to custom no longer applies.

Finally, although there is no direct appeal to symbolism in these two verses, it is reasonable to assume that Paul may have made one if he spoke at greater length about homosexuality. It is clear from his writings in Ephesians 5 that he attributed great symbolic value to the union of a husband and wife. As we saw in Chapter 3, gay couples would be largely incompatible with that symbolism, because it relies on the separate genders of the married couple. I devoted the entirety of Chapter 3 to this particular appeal to symbolism in Paul’s writings because it is a prominent argument among Christians with the traditional view on homosexuality. Although symbolism is important, we know from Jesus’s example that we should never allow symbolism to impede our ability to love each other as best we know how.

Why Now?

So, why did Paul think homosexuality was wrong? For the same reasons he thought women’s heads should be covered and men’s heads should not. Nature, custom, and symbolism. And just like so many 20th century women and their head coverings, it’s finally time for us to safely remove these two outdated beliefs from our heads and toss them behind us.

If you remember, we began our conversation in this book’s introduction with an observation about the speed and suddenness of the cultural shift on homosexuality, even within Christianity: Two thousand years of consensus, swiftly muddled. Why now?

The decline of the appeal to nature is why now. Remember the order in which the appeals lose their applicability? First nature, then symbolism, then custom. In the case of women’s head coverings, that process started over a hundred years ago, and ended sometime in the 20th century. But only in the past few decades have we finally wheeled our collective scientific lens towards homosexuality, so the process of transition could only have begun now. It is still occurring as I write these pages, and perhaps it is still occurring as you read them. In some cases, this process of growth takes centuries, and in other cases it happens swiftly. Sometimes the transition is smooth; more frequently, it is wildly contentious. But this story of societal learning has played out many times now, and thankfully, the truth always wins.

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Paul aimed to teach us that, as Christians, we are called to follow only one command: the love principle. But in the vast complexities of our world, there will always be differences in what that looks like in practice. Paul constantly reminds us that the mature Christian forfeits the use of a law to determine how to live, and instead chooses to grow in love by following the guidance of the Holy Spirit and our own God-given wisdom.

Our understanding of the world has changed significantly since Paul’s time, so we will necessarily be missing the mark in some ways if we try to legalistically follow the practices that were dependent on the science, customs, and symbols of his culture. It is our responsibility to detangle our understanding of Christianity from these transient things, so that we can update our practices to match what is loving within our own contexts. Otherwise, it is impossible to hold both to what is true – the biblical account of God’s love for humanity, and to what is loving – using the best of our knowledge and abilities to seek freedom, love, and equality for all.

Perhaps I have not convinced you. That’s okay. Or perhaps you find yourself straddling the fence on this issue, and you would prefer to err on the side of caution, rather than allow yourself or others to fall into potential sin. I understand this position too – I once shared it. But what I hope I have convinced you of is that neither love nor wisdom teaches us to bind ourselves and others to laws we can neither explain nor defend. That is a path taught only by fear and immaturity. For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery (Galatians 5:1). The power of Christianity is wrapped up in this – that it demands and allows us to be free, for the sake of that freedom itself.

Above all, let us never forget the consequences of our decisions. What we choose to believe is not only a matter of personal preference; it is a matter of love of our neighbors. Love means choosing honestly: seeking truth even if the consequences are fearsome. My greatest hope is not that I have convinced you to agree with me, but that I have convinced you to choose honestly, and to deeply consider what it means to be on the side of truth and love.

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¹ W.N. Mann (1983). G.E.R. Lloyd (ed.). Hippocratic writings. Translated by J Chadwick. Harmondsworth: Penguin. p. 262. ISBN 978-0140444513.

² Kort, A. (2019, July 12). George Washington’s Final Years-And Sudden, Agonizing Death. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/news/george-washington-final-years-death-mount-vernon

³ Shigehisa Kuriyama, “Interpreting the History of Bloodletting,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 50, no. 1 (1995): 11-46.

⁴ Kraybill, Donald B. (5 October 2010). Concise Encyclopedia of Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites. JHU Press. p. 103. ISBN 9780801896576

⁵ Bagemihl B (1999). Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity (Stone Wall Inn ed.). New York City: St. Martin’s Press.

⁶ McAuliffe, K. (2019, February 5). The Yuck Factor. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/the-yuck-factor/580465/