Colby Martin. Unclobber: Rethinking Our Misuse of the Bible on Homosexuality. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016. See here to purchase the book.
Colby Martin was a pastor at a megachurch. He was dismissed from his
position when he posted a status on Facebook applauding the repeal of
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT). In UnClobber, Martin tells
this story. Martin also offers an alternative interpretation of
biblical passages that many Christians regard as opposed to same-sex
intercourse. For Martin, the Bible, when properly understood, does not
issue a blanket condemnation of homosexual relationships.
Here are some thoughts:
A. Martin’s story about how he came to an accepting position
regarding homosexuality is different from many such stories. In many
such stories, a conservative Christian naively thought that
homosexuality was a sin until he met someone who was gay, and that
transformed his perspective. Martin was a conservative Christian, but
his background story is more complex than that. Martin discusses what
may be roots of his later accepting position. When he was a child, he
had a gay neighbor, and his mother accepted her as a neighbor, while
still believing that homosexuality was a sin. But Martin somewhat
minimizes this as a factor when he says that this gay neighbor was a
distant memory to him. Martin says that a factor behind his accepting
position was that he did not like the idea of rejecting people. Martin
may be struggling to identify and to articulate what exactly led him to
his current position. His story on this is neither smooth nor dramatic
from a narrative standpoint, and so it does have a rather detached
quality. Still, the story is honest: Martin does not try to make his
story something that it is not.
B. While his attempts to describe the roots of his current position
were somewhat muddled, his narration about his experiences with the
megachurch and his attempts to find employment and God’s calling after
that was vivid and compelling. Martin had stories about service and
friendship, even with those with whom he disagreed. His stories had ups
and downs: you think you have a “happily ever after,” then reality sets
in! And Martin makes a reflective point about how the current Colby
Martin differs from the Colby Martin who defended his position before
the megachurch elders.
C. Are the parts of the book that concern biblical interpretation
superfluous, in light of all of the books out there that offer a pro-gay
(or at least not anti-homosexuality) interpretation of Scripture? I
have not read the books that Justin Lee and Matthew Vines wrote about
homosexuality. But I have read the late John Boswell’s works, and I
heard a lecture in college a while back by a gay evangelical, who
presented interpretations of Scripture that were not opposed to
homosexual relationships. Even with that in my background, I still
learned things that I did not know before in reading Martin’s book.
Some examples: Martin refers to the work of Calvin Porter in arguing
that Romans 1:26-27 does not reflect Paul’s actual perspective but is
included for rhetorical purposes (to criticize the Jews who condemn
Gentiles): Porter argued that God abandons people to their sins in
Romans 1:26-27 but that Paul believed that God is faithful. Martin
refers to a passage in which Augustine regards non-procreative sex as
unnatural, and Martin believes that may be helpful in interpreting
Romans 1:26-27. In discussing I Corinthians 6:9-10, Martin makes the
usual points about malakos and arsenokoitai, but he looks at the other
sins in that passage and concludes that the passage is condemning
exploitative homosexual activity, not same-sex activity in general, and
that exploitation is contrary to what God is doing in establishing the
Kingdom of God.
D. Martin’s statements about the ancient context of biblical
writings are sometimes impressive, and sometimes not. Martin notes that
homosexual rape in the days of the Hebrew Bible was often a way of
shaming people, and that this was what was going on in Genesis 19.
Martin states that pederasty was becoming more stigmatized in the
Greco-Roman world by the time of the apostle Paul. Martin includes a
thoughtful discussion of eunuchs and how they included not only men
whose genitals were cut off, but also men who naturally were not
attracted to women, and they were accepted in early Christianity. These
were areas in which Martin was impressive. Where was he unimpressive?
Martin said that Paul would have been unaware of committed same-sex
relationships, so Paul was not condemning them. But Martin should have
interacted with scholars who argue the contrary: that committed, loving
homosexual relationships existed in the ancient world. Robert Gagnon
argues this on the conservative side, and Louis Crompton, who was a
prominent figure in gay studies, also argued this. Overall, although
Martin made relevant observations and consulted scholarly sources, he
should have written more about how homosexuality or homosexual activity
was viewed in the ancient world.
E. Martin’s interpretation of Leviticus 18:22 raised good questions,
yet it was unsatisfactory. Martin asks why Leviticus 18:22 does not
condemn sex between women, if its intention is to issue a blanket
condemnation of same-sex intercourse. That is a good question. Martin
also did well to do a word study of toevah (abomination), and he
astutely noted that the term in the Bible sometimes applies to things
that conservative Christians today deem acceptable (i.e., eating certain
animals). Where was Martin’s interpretation unsatisfactory? Martin
was trying to argue, on the basis of Hebrew language, that Leviticus
18:22 applies to a very specific case and is not a blanket condemnation
of homosexuality. Martin’s arguments here were not very convincing (at
least not to me) for a variety of reasons, but what was especially
disappointing was that Martin did not specify what that very specific
case in Leviticus 18:22 was, and he seemed to imply that the meaning is
lost to us, since we did not live in that time. He should have at least
speculated! (He may have been implying that Leviticus 18:22 condemns a
man sleeping with a man rather than his own wife, or sleeping with a
man in the bed in which he sleeps with his wife; Martin was unclear.)
In addition, Martin argued that Leviticus 18:22 concerns the separation
of Israel from the Gentiles. Martin ignored that Leviticus 18:30
criticizes the Canaanites for doing the acts condemned in Leviticus 18,
which implies that God did not want Gentiles to do those acts, either.
F. Martin seems to acknowledge in one place that a gay person would
have been stigmatized in ancient Israel. Martin’s response to this is
that women were second-class in ancient Israel, too, but that does not
mean women should be second-class now. Martin does deserve credit for
honestly engaging this, even though his point here does seem to be in
tension with the overall case that he is trying to make. Ancient Israel
was a society that assumed and privileged heterosexuality as the norm,
and the Hebrew Bible does not seem to contradict this. Similarly, while
the apostle Paul sees celibacy as an option, he assumes that marriage
is an institution between a man and a woman. Martin’s approach to the
Scriptures is rather conservative, at least overall; Martin does flirt,
somewhat, with progressive revelation in the book, but he appears,
overall, to regard the Bible as inspired by God. That would explain his
interest in what the Bible teaches, and his detailed look at biblical
passages. But, if God inspired Scripture, as Martin assumes, and God
wanted homosexuality to be accepted, why didn’t God explicitly say so?
G. Related to (F.), Martin addresses the question of whether
relationships should influence one’s theological stances. He states
that this occurred with Cornelius and Peter in the Book of Acts: Peter
had a religious stance against Gentiles, God led him to Cornelius, and
that led Peter to change his mind. Martin’s argument here can be
critiqued, but Martin does well to highlight the importance of
experience in the Bible, especially when some conservative Christians
seem to set the Bible against experience and to say that the Bible
should trump experience. Martin’s book perhaps could have been stronger
had Martin also noted times in the Bible when biblical law seemed to be
overridden in certain cases (or so one can argue): Deuteronomy 23, for
example, bans people with crushed genitals and certain foreigners from
the congregation of the LORD, but the Book of Ruth and Isaiah 56
arguably have a different view, one that is more inclusive. Martin
occasionally points out that the Bible is not overly rigid, but the book
would have been better had he made this more of a theme.
H. Martin should have addressed the criticism of same-sex
intercourse within the history of biblical interpretation. If Martin’s
interpretations are correct, why did so many Jewish and Christian
interpreters throughout history miss that, or criticize same-sex
intercourse?
While Martin was not always convincing, his book was an edifying,
thought-provoking read. He could have been less dogmatic, in places,
and instead tried to come across as one presenting different options,
which was what he was essentially doing in his arguments. At the same
time, his dogmatism may be a part of his strength and his vision.
I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.