The Beginning of My Deconstruction

In my last post, I shared this video of a young Muslim man who became a terrorist and found his way back to reason when a wise religious leader taught him how to read the Quran in context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbrYnhqIhSI. That religious leader is introduced around minute seven of this video. As you will see in the video, he asks the young man if people start reading a story from verse five or verse one. When they began reading at verse one, the young man quickly learned that verses one through four showed how the violence in verse five was only for one tribe who broke a treaty.

I had similar experiences while learning to read the Bible in context. In this post, I want to share my first experience, and I will share other experiences in future posts.

I was young and attending university classes. An English professor assigned a paper that asked us to give our argument on the controversial subject of whether Walt Whitman’s poetry revealed him to be homosexual. When I read the poems, I believed he was gay; however, that violated my religion. Since I liked Whitman’s poetry, I subjected myself to mental gymnastics to write a paper that proved he wasn’t gay. I got an A on the paper, but I knew why I’d subjected myself to those mental gymnastics, and that wasn’t a pleasant feeling. Students who earned an A were asked to read our papers to the class. As I listened to the pro-gay arguments, that unpleasant feeling increased. In reality, it didn’t matter if Whitman was gay or not. What mattered was the internal struggle I was facing as I tried to deny the possibility for religious reasons.

On the day I read my paper, a classmate asked me to go to dinner with her after class. I attended evening college, so I hadn’t had dinner yet. In addition, I was still very much the submissive woman my church had taught me to be. Even though I was tired after a day of work and an evening class combined with concerns about finances, I agreed to go.

Following is a scene of what our dinner conversation looked like. “Do you like seafood?,” she asked as she read the menu. “Yes, I do.” From behind the open menu that hid her face, she said, “I recommend the shrimp scampi. It’s the best thing they have here.” Having been taught to be submissive, I ordered the shrimp scampi even though it would tighten my budget for that week significantly. While we waited for our order, she said, “I really like your blouse. Is it 100% cotton or linen?”

I looked at the sleeve of my blouse, wondering if it was the bright red flowers on the white fabric that she liked, before I answered, “No, it’s a polycotton blend. That’s easier to take care of. It doesn’t wrinkle or shrink as much as cotton and linen do.” “Your skirt looks like it’s linen. Isn’t that hard to take care of?"

I was beginning to feel confused and uncomfortable as I looked down at the A-line skirt I had worn to the office, but listening to those feelings had long been trained out of me, so I answered, “No, I don’t think so. I think it’s some type of polyester blend, too.” “I guess ease of care is important when you’re a busy student,” she said. “I liked your paper. You did a good job.” After I thanked her, we talked about our papers, Walt Whitman, and the class until our meals arrived. After I ate a few pieces of shrimp, she said, “Your paper seemed to be very anti-gay. Does it bother you that I’m gay?” I dropped my fork onto my plate and stammered, “Is this a date?” “What if it is?” “It’s a sin, an abomination. We’ll both go to hell.” “Why do you say that?” she asked as she lay her fork on her plate, rested her folded forearms on the table, and looked into my eyes. I looked at my plate to avoid her gaze and said, “It says so in Leviticus.” “It also says you shouldn’t eat shellfish in Leviticus.” I looked at her and said, “My Pastor said that was negated by Daniel’s dream.” She leaned over her folded arms and said, “Even if that’s true, Leviticus also says it’s an abomination to wear mixed fibers, yet the clothes you’re wearing are polyester blends.” I swallowed hard and asked, “Are you sure?” “If you don’t believe me, read Leviticus and pay special attention to the reasons for the laws. Some are only for ceremonial purity, some are only for the Priests, some are for health reasons, and only some of them are to keep the people they were written for holy. Actually, my father, who attended seminary and became a Pastor after we left a misguided church, tells me that the 613 laws in Leviticus were only for the Israelites.” I couldn’t bring myself to pick up my fork again. I watched it laying on my plate. I thought I felt her eyes burrowing into the top of my head as I said, “But Jesus said he came to perfect the law, not abolish it.” “What did he mean by perfect the law? There are many examples of Jesus standing up to the Pharisees as they tried to enforce the law. As one example, the men who picked grain on the Sabbath. Jesus defended their actions above the law. In Luke 11:37-54, Jesus rips the Pharisees a new one for sticking so close to the law that they hurt people with it. I think that’s why he said to live by the spirit of the law instead of the letter of the law.” I couldn’t look away from my plate, because I felt tears welling in my eyes. Maybe she saw a tear drop onto my lap, because she said, “I apologize for ambushing you. I didn’t mean to be unfair. I thought if I showed you how we all break Leviticus commandments that it might allow us to have a conversation instead of an argument. I guess I also thought you’d be less likely to attack me in a public place. I can’t count how many times people have responded with cruelty when I tried to share with them what I’ve learned. Can you forgive me?” I continued to look at my plate as I nodded.

I thought she wasn’t going to say anything else, because she waited so long before she said, “I grew up in a church that only preached the scriptures that supported modern agendas while ignoring the other ones. A lot of people got hurt by that, and not just gay people. I saw women battered to death because they were taught to submit to abusive husbands. I saw minorities be treated as if they had to work harder for God’s love. I speak up, because I’m trying to stop the hurt. It’s so hard to watch people be mistreated when I know that hurt can be stopped by learning to read the Bible in context.” Her voice had softened so much after her apology that I found the courage to look at her again when I asked, “What do you mean in context?” “The Bible isn’t a series of random scriptures. We hurt people when we grab onto the ones that support what we already believe and ignore the rest. There’s a history behind each book and behind the Bible as a whole. The Old Testament evolved from a nomadic civilization to cities and temples. What were the needs that influenced the messages given to those differing cultures? What were their mythologies? The only thing spoken by Jesus in the New Testament was the Gospels. Most of the other books are letters written by Paul to specific churches to address their specific needs, and all of those letters were written so long after Jesus death that Paul couldn’t have met him. You have to understand the context in which each book was written. You also have to consider what might have been in the books that the Council of Nicea chose not to put in the Bible . . .” “What is this Council of Nicea?” It was a council of Christian Bishops who decided what the church would look like for all Christians, which included which books would be in the Bible. Some books that told Jesus story were not included.” “I didn’t know that.” “Most people don’t.” I don’t know how long I sat in silence, but it must have been a long time considering how many thoughts ran through my head as I tried to grasp how little I actually knew about my own religion – even worse, how little the leaders who were teaching me knew about our religion. My thoughts were interrupted by my classmate saying, “If you feel comfortable eating with a gay person, can we drop this conversation and just enjoy our dinner if I say I won’t bother you again but you’re welcome to ask me questions if you continue to learn about Biblical context.” We finished our meal sharing only casual conversation. She was the first gay person I’d met, or at least the first person I knew was gay that I’d met. By the end of the meal, I found myself realizing that she was just another human being with all of the needs, wants, dreams, goals, etc. that all of us have. She wasn’t evil like I’d always been told gay people were. I went home and read Leviticus. It was subtle, but my deconstruction had begun. Although there are many stories to tell between the beginning of my deconstruction and meeting a wonderful friend and mentor named Linde Grace several years later, Linde Grace recommended I read the book “The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible” by A. J. Jacobs when I told her this story. That book reinforced what my classmate had told me about the 613 commandments in Leviticus. Although there was still much I needed to learn about homosexuality in the various places it appeared in the Bible, the lesson this classmate taught me fueled a desire to learn more about understanding the Bible in context. Thus, my journey began.