Gagnon to Griswold

Robert Gagnon, who has written what has been described as the book on the Bible and homosexuality (still unread by me), offers these illuminating comments on the ancient views of homosexuality in an open letter to ECUSA Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold:

First, there were many theories in the Greco-Roman world that posited something akin to modern sexual orientation theory. Philosophers, doctors, and moralists often attributed one or more forms of homosexual behavior, at least in part, to congenital factors. And some of the same persons could still refer to such forms as “contrary to nature” — that is, given by nature but not in conformity with embodied existence or nature’s well-working processes. Lifelong, exclusive participants in homosexual behavior were also widely known in the ancient world. Indeed, Paul’s reference to the malakoi (“soft men,” men who play the sexual role of females) in 1 Corinthians 6:9 is one such instance.