| What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality |  | Author: Daniel A. Helminiak
Publisher: Alamo Square Distributors
Category: Book
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Rating:  64 reviews
Sales Rank: 22,519
Media: Paperback
Pages: 152
Number Of Items: 1
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Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.4
ISBN: 188636009X
Dewey Decimal Number: 241
EAN: 9781886360099
ASIN: 188636009X
Publication Date: April 2000
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 64
 A fantastic help April 19, 2010
moon_dragon00 (Oregon)
I have always tried to find the right way to open the doors with fundementalist Christians... those who are open to learning and dialoging about LGBT people and the Bible. This book is invaluable and I learn new things each time I re read stuff. It provides cultural and historical context and it also gets down the the Hebrew words. It really guts everything down to the meat of the interpretations.
God loves HIS LGBT children just as HE made them!!
What the Bible REALLY Says... March 18, 2010
A. Martin (MI, USA)
I love this book! It's very informative and interesting to read. The infromation was very clear and precise and many great examples were given to further help understanding.
 One more attempt to whitewash Judeo-Christian bigotry February 16, 2010
John Lauritsen (Dorchester, MA United States)
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
One more attempt -- following in the footsteps of John Boswell and Derrick Sherwin Bailey -- to deny or at least downplay the historic crimes that the Abrahamic religions have committed against gay men. Let me make my own position clear: I am a gay man, a gay liberationist and a secular humanist. I believe in free enquiry, the use of reason and evidence. I am opposed to blind faith, intolerance, and superstition.
When John Boswell's magnum opus -- Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality -- was published in 1980, it was immediately hailed by gay Christians, who hoped it would rescue them not only from hateful religionists, but from non-religionists (atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, rationalists, etc.) as well. If one believed Boswell's central thesis -- that religious belief, Christian or other, was in no way responsible for intolerance directed against gay men -- then a gay men could still be a good Christian. Alas! The facts of history speak powerfully against the notion of a gay-friendly Christianity.
I and two of my colleagues in the New York Gay Academic Union publicly discussed Boswell's book, and published our talks in a monograph, which is now on-line. (Do a search for Warren Johansson, Wayne R. Dynes, and John Lauritsen -- "Homosexuality, Intolerance, and Christianity: A critical examination of John Boswell's work".) I concur with the conclusion of Johansson's essay, which applies in force to Daniel's new book:
"Boswell and his admirers may if they wish choose to celebrate the achievements of "gay people" in history, and none should refuse them that right; but if they deny the responsibility of the Church for the soul murder that it has committed upon homosexuals, individually and collectively, through aeons of intimidation and oppression, then they are acting as the accomplices of a criminal psychopath, and when the magnitude of the crime that institutional Christianity has perpetrated is revealed to the world, they -- and the Church -- will suffer unparalleled dishonor."
My later book, A Freethinker's Primer of Male Love (1998) carries forward the argument against the Boswellian revisionists. It celebrates and defends male love from the perspective of secular humanism. The central thesis: "Male love is good, the opprobrium suffered by gay men is a product of Judeo-Christian superstition."
True scholars are committed to the truth, whether or not they find it palatable. The hateful words in Holy Scripture really do mean what they say. Over the centuries, as a consequence of Abrahamic taboo, gay men really were tortured, castrated, stoned to death, hanged, burned at the stake. As the early (late 19th and early 20th century) pioneers for homosexual rights realized, our liberation is allied with knowledge, not with superstition.
*Postscript*: Having just re-read Helminiak's book, my opinion is somewhat move favorable. To his credit, Helminiak does acknowledge that the Biblical passages in Leviticus, Romans and Corinthians do condemn sex between males. His argument, using a "historical-critical reading", is basically that the meaning of these passages, to the people who wrote them, is no longer relevant. For example, he writes:
"The Holiness Code of Leviticus prohibits male same-sex acts because of religious considerations, not because of sexual ones. the concern is to keep Israel from taking part in Gentile practices. Homogenital sex is forbidden because it is associated with pagan activities, with idolatry, with Gentile identity."
That's a fair interpretation, but Helminiak utterly fails to describe the persecution of gay men which resulted from this Levitical taboo. Helminiak writes: "Bible religion plays a major role in allowing those [homophobic] horrors to happen." (p. 12) Well, not quite. Religion didn't just *allow* those horrors to happen, it *caused* them to happen.
Helminiak writes: "To me this seems to be fact: the Bible supplies no real basis for the condemnation of homosexuality." While it is true that the Bible supplies no rational basis for the condemnation of sex between males, the main point is that the Biblical taboo caused the condemnation in the first place.
Helminiak seems to be sincere, and his book may provide solace for gay religionists. Now I give it two stars instead of just one.
 Helpful but less than brilliant February 11, 2010
David Paul (Seattle, WA, USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book points in the right direction by arguing that what the Bible says about homosexuality is not what a great many Christians, especially Biblical literalists, think it says. Father Helminiak examines every passage in both Hebrew and Christian testaments that many today use to condemn homosexuality. He points out that some were rules aimed at keeping the ancient Hebrew tribe pure (as in Leviticus) while others (as in the letters of the apostle Paul) have been subjected to either mistranslation or misunderstanding of the contemporary social standards. The author does not make an air-tight case, and some of his arguments are more persuasive than others. He might have done better to emphasize simply that the overwhelming message of the Christian Gospels is one of love and acceptance of all, but his careful study of chapter and verse at least points out the ambiguity of the scriptures on this subject. His strongest point is to make it clear that it is misleading to take some Biblical passages out of their immediate historical & social context and apply them to our contemporary culture. The book of Leviticus, for example, applies the same language to homosexual acts as it uses to forbid the eating of pork or shrimp. Helminiak urges a historical-critical approach to reading the Bible as the way to truly understand its meaning.
One of the greatest wake up calls EVER!!!! December 29, 2009
R. Burford (Philadelphia, PA USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Why isn't this book being sent to every Republican or theologian who tries to say that gays are evil and deserve death? This book made me feel so much better about my life and I am no longer on anti-depressants. DO YOU HEAR THAT FRED PHELPS?!?!?! You need this book as your personal enema. I wish I could meet the author and thank him for giving me my life back.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 64
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