Episcopal Press and News
New Book Fuels Controversy over Scriptural Authority, Suggestion that St. Paul was Gay
Episcopal News Service. February 14, 1991 [91035]
A theory suggesting that St. Paul was a "self-loathing" and "repressed" homosexual in a new book by Episcopal Bishop John Spong of Newark has sparked sharp discussion and controversy around the country.
In his book, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Spong wrote, "Nothing else, in my opinion, could account for Paul's self-judging rhetoric, his negative feeling toward his own body and his sense of being controlled by something he had no power to change." He cited several biblical passages to bolster his argument.
According to Spong, the greatest legacy of Paul was his experience of God's unconditional love. "The message is not that Paul is sexually active, for I have no reason to believe that he was. The message is that God can love all that is our humanity," Spong told a reporter.
In an interview on the NBC Today Show, Spong said, "There's no question that Paul has what I would call a dark shadow, or what Dr. Carl Jung would call a dark side.... And as you read Paul, over and over again he will say things like, 'There's a war going on in my members. With my mind I will one thing, with my body I will another.' He's very negative toward his body.... Paul seems to have a heavier than normal level of personal and emotional guilt.
"I have been pastor to a number of gay men who have gone through exactly that kind of experience," Spong said in a later interview. "And what I've done is simply propose this as a possible idea to help us understand Paul."
Although Spong's theory about Paul's sexual orientation has dominated reactions to his book, his main thesis is that the Bible has become irrelevant to many modern churchgoers because of assumptions that are no longer socially or scientifically valid.
Spong asserted that many pre-scientific assumptions and patriarchal values operative in the time when the Bible was written have found their way into the text. "So the Bible asserts that the earth is flat, that the sun rotates around the earth, that epilepsy is caused by demon possession, that deafmuteness is caused by the devil tying-people's tongues, that slavery is an acceptable institution, and that women are to be treated as sort of second-class citizens," Spong said during a television interview.
"And my point is, that unless we can lift the truth of the Bible out of those cultural attitudes, fewer and fewer people in our generation will ever find much life or religion -- or even Go -- in that text," Spong continued.
"One of the reasons that I found it important to write this book was that in the public arena the only voices that seem to be heard from organized religion are voices of the literalists, the television evangelists, who claim excessive things for the Scriptures," Spong said. "One of the things I do in this book is to criticize the mainline churches for offering almost nothing as an alternative."
"Some people have invested what I would call absolute certainty in the ancient words of the biblical texts," Spong added. Whenever you disturb those words, or disturb that certainty, there is some inevitable reaction."
Most of the immediate reaction to Spong's book seemed to concentrate on his controversial theory that St. Paul was a homosexual.
Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times prior to his departure for the World Council of Churches Assembly in Australia that he had not read Spong's book, and therefore could not comment on its content. Yet, Browning predicted three types of reaction to Spong's thesis about Paul: "For some people that kind of courage offers them a hope. [Some] ... will find it offensive. For those opposed [to endorsing homosexual behavior], it will be more fodder for their guns."
Bishop Richard Grein of New York, in an interview with Reuters, said, "This doesn't help. It creates a furor for nothing.... When you say things like this, who is going to believe you when you say something that is true?"
"I think Spong is self-destructing," said the Rev. Todd Wetzel, the executive director of Episcopalians United, in an interview with the New York Times. "Much of his thinking will soon be dismissed. It no longer represents constructive theological thinking nor responsible thinking."
"All I've done is to suggest that this is a possible theory.... I've put it forth as a theory that for me illumines Paul," Spong said. "The whole purpose of writing that chapter was not to be titillating or salacious. Sometimes the newspapers will play it that way -- but my whole purpose was to say that the essence of the experience of the Christian faith is that the infinite love of God can embrace even the dark sides of human life and human personality."