Slaves, Women and Homosexuals

Yesterday I started rereading William Webb's contronversial book Slaves, Women and Homosexuals. I was inspired to read it after hearing somebody denounce the book in front in a crowd because of it's supposedly false premise; that it says homosexuality is Biblically permitted. What disappointed me about this is that this simply is not true! Webb says outright that he believes homosexuality is a sin. I guess that's just further proof that having one person up front as the teacher of all things is not the best teaching method, because sometimes they are wrong. But now that I'm back in the book, some other thoughts and questions have been coming up for me.

First of all, how are so many pastors and Christians in general getting away with horribly inconsistent readings of scripture? When somebody quotes one or two verses from scripture and says the application to our lives is one-to-one, I feel a bit queasy. When I'm told that women should take a lower role in the church, I begin to wonder why we aren't stopping them from teaching in the children's ministries, or forcing them to wear hats for that matter! Or somebody quotes the Ten Commandments and says that these are how we should live, but they ignore the rest of the Law of Moses because, well, it's odd. It seems like we hold to the Bible literally in certain areas that are easier to hold onto, especially if they involve power. But the areas that are strang, inconvenient, or potentially challenging to existing power structures, we let slide. It is inconsistent, and, to be blunt, wrong.

Secondly, if slavery were still an institution in the United States, how many evangelical churches (and/or churches in general) would stand up against it? I had this funny thought yesterday that every church I've ever been a part of would not. Yes that is presumptuous. And yet, I do not doubt it at all. "What's that got to do with saving souls?" For some reason I doubt that the church of the preemptive strike and blessed wealth would do much more for the oppressed than it already does, especially if that means denouncing the activities of its own nation, to which it has chosen to wed itself. Too bad for the original bridegroom.

Those are just my rantings for the week. I've gotten way too fired up this week and am currently reading and praying in a way that I haven't for a very long time.

Peace,
Matt