A New Word on Homosexuality? Isaiah 56:1-8 as Case Study

Frederick J. Gaiser

Article Type: Article

Publication Date: 7/1/1994

Issue: Sexual Orientation (Vol. 14, No 3, Summer, 1994)

This process of mutual interpretation—the attempt to interpret scripture even as it “interprets” us—is almost never without pain. Nor is it today when the church is confronted with the need to say something again about homosexuality and homosexual behavior. A churchly conversation about this issue will be shaped by the call to love the neighbor and protect the common good; it will employ practical reason to describe what such love and protection will require in the late twentieth century to shape not only a Christian response to individual homosexual people but also a Christian voice in the formation of a just and stable society. But even more, that conversation will have to deal with the virtually unbroken tradition of the church’s prohibition of homosexual behavior, based to a large extent on its understanding of biblical texts—those relating both to homosexual behavior in particular and to creation and sex in general.

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