In a previous post, I discussed how I approach reading the Bible and how I don’t feel that we should use it as a tactical operating manual for life, but instead view it as a way of understanding our relationship with God.
The primary issue that the United Methodist Church (and Riverchase UMC) is contending with at the moment – the full inclusion of God’s LGBTQ+ children – is being centered around six (out of about 3,000-ish) passages in the Bible.
Known informally as the “clobber passages”, they are the passages that most of our LGBTQ+ friends get hit with to justify calling homosexuality or bisexuality a “sin”. Those passages are often used as “literal” texts — without being given greater historical or societal context.
The “clobber passages” that I hear most often are from the book of Leviticus and are part of the 613 Mosaic Laws that are spread out among Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
- Leviticus 18:22 – “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”
- Leviticus 20:13 – “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their bloodguilt is upon them.”
Sadly, I’d be willing to bet that most Christian LGBTQ+ persons have had at least one of these brought up to them to point out that “the Bible expressly forbids homosexuality”.
So let’s all read literally for a moment and see where that takes us Biblically as we look at some other rules in the Bible that could very much be broken by most folks in some way almost daily.
You really shouldn’t eat milk, cheese, or butter
Leviticus 3:17:
It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.
This is pretty clear. And the point is being hammered home with the “perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings” part.
No fat or blood (we’ll get to the ‘blood’ one next). And dairy products have animal fat in them. Note, milk can come from animals that are considered kosher and there some other rules, but we’re going off of literal words, here.
So go ahead and pass by the types of milk that aren’t ‘fat-free’, but even that might be risky because we’re trying to get to Heaven, here.
No cheeses for you either, because they’re going to have milk fat in them. Throw cottage cheese in as well.
Yeah, no butter, especially that good Irish butter stuff which is really tasty but apparently full of sin.
And you definitely can’t do that yogurt-butter stuff either because that’s like a double whammy of both yogurt AND butter.
You definitely would need to avoid bacon and probably anything that’s not a well-trimmed filet mignon because that’s just animal fat in the purest form.
You aren’t following Scripture if you like your steak and burgers cooked to any temperature other than “well done”
Leviticus 19:26:
Do not eat any meat with the blood still in it.
At the surface level, God must really have something against animal blood because here it is again being mentioned in a second version of the previous item in this post.
If you want to avoid sin, you will need to get your burgers and steaks cooked to the level of shoe leather.
No eating bacon, sausage, or Jell-O and you can’t take heparin, or walk on Linoleum floors
Deuteronomy 14:8:
And the pig, because it divides the hoof but does not chew the cud, is unclean for you. You shall not eat their meat, and you shall not touch their carcasses.
Saturday morning breakfasts are getting really depressing-looking and we’re only through three rules (I hate to bring it up, but you’re supposed to inspect your eggs for traces of blood for them to be okay to eat).
Since the pig was seen as “unclean”, Mosaic Law states that we can’t eat anything… scratch that….. we can’t eat OR touch anything made from a pig body.
So bacon and sausage are out of the question. Those are easy.
But guess what? There are a bunch of other things made from pigs that you might not realize (no, footballs aren’t made of pig anything anymore, so you can still enjoy a backyard game).
Anything with gelatin in it could have a pig in it because gelatin can come from the marrow of pig bones. So be careful with the Jell-O.
Going beyond food, heparin – the drug used to thin the blood and keep blood clots from forming – is created from pig intestine mucous and the FDA has only licensed it to be made from that and no other animal as of now. You’ll have to ask for a different blood thinner if you want to be honoring the Bible’s rules.
Even things like fertilizer and Linoleum floors can contain oils derived from pigs.
Make-up can contain pig components too and some make-up companies have even been founded to allow women of various faiths to wear make-up without violating this law.
No crab legs, shrimp, lobsters, oysters, scallops or catfish
Leviticus 11:10
But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales—whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water—you are to regard as unclean. And since you are to regard them as unclean, you must not eat their meat; you must regard their carcasses as unclean. Anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales is to be regarded as unclean by you.
If it came from the water and you’re eating it, it better have had a fin and scales.
Hey, is there much of anything we can actually eat and enjoy at this point? Can we revise the Mosaic Laws and put a prohibition on kale in there somehow and at least take out the foods that are ‘ho-hum’?
Oh and falling under a technicality here, things like sharks and catfish don’t have scales so you can’t have those. Nor do swordfish, so that blackened or grilled delicacy that you may enjoy is off-limits.
Men, you can’t shave or get a haircut in a certain shape
Leviticus 19:27
You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard.
Both of these have historical context related to the people of the time that the Hebrews were trying to differentiate themselves from, but we’re not interpreting. We’re going off of the words only.
No beard trimming. No cutting your hair in a certain shape.
You can’t wear clothes with a bunch of types of materials in them
Leviticus 19:19
You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your animals breed with a different kind; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; nor shall you put on a garment made of two different materials.
Only cotton or only silk or only linen and so on and you’re good. But look at that washing instruction tag to see if you have more than one in there.
That’s going to knock a lot of mass-produced dress clothes made of polyester out of the mix. Definitely no spandex or rayon or nylon.
You’re supposed to have a wall on the edge of your roof so no one falls off of it.
Deuteronomy 22:8
When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof; otherwise you might have bloodguilt on your house if anyone should fall from it.
I didn’t expect to see residential building code items in the Mosaic Laws, yet here we are.
Most homes in those days had flat roofs and were more likely to have people on top of them. Thus, this was a “safety law” for the good of your fellow man.
But it doesn’t state anything about angled roof exceptions and wouldn’t seem to apply to modern-day home designs. But since it’s in there, we might need to see about getting a bulk order going for stone or bricks.
You might want to join some of those buy/sell/trade Facebook groups because…you have to sell all of your things.
Matthew 19:21
Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”
This was Jesus’ statement to a young man with many possessions who was asking Jesus what more was he supposed to be doing besides following the “Ten Commandments”.
Note: He didn’t say “some” possessions.
Ladies, no talking in the sanctuary. Or the narthex. Or your small groups in the church.
1 Corinthians 14:34-35
Women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is something they want to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.
Paul really knows how to appeal to the women of the church, doesn’t he?
Can you imagine how much lesser the church would be without the involvement of women over the years?
Nevertheless, Paul is also the source of some of the “clobber passages”. If we give those statements of his authority and weight, then what about this one?
No women CEOs/managers/supervisors, or trying to teach men things in general
1 Timothy 2:12
I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man;she is to keep silent.
Paul (or who some think wasn’t Paul at all but another author of “the Timothys”) continues to be a favorite among women with this one, I’m sure.
Other Situations that Might Come Up
You can’t have tattoos
Leviticus 19:28
You shall not make any gashes in your flesh for the dead or tattoo any marks upon you: I am the Lord.
No, not even if it’s a cross.
Again, there is context here related to the marking of slaves in Egypt, but the literal reading clearly states no tattoos.
Be sure not to kill anyone that breaks into your house during the day (but killing them at night is apparently okay)
Exodus 22:2
If the thief is found breaking in and is struck dead, no bloodguilt is incurred; but if it happens after sunrise, bloodguilt is incurred.
Please ask all of the intruders to your home to come back at night so that your family doesn’t have blood on its hands for killing them.
If a poor person steals from you, you have to sell them as property to get restitution.
Exodus 22:3
Anyone who steals must certainly make restitution, but if they have nothing, they must be sold to pay for their theft.
Yeah, this one really translates into the modern world well, doesn’t it?
If you were born out of wedlock, you and your descendants may never enter the assembly of the Lord.
Deuteronomy 23:2
No one born of a forbidden marriage nor any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the tenth generation.
If you divorce someone and marry someone else, you’re violating one of the Ten Commandments
Luke 16:18
Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and whoever marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.
This is the one that Jesus actually said himself.
The Takeaway
I’m not advocating for starting or stopping any of these things, and yes, I know how it was presented sounds pretty ridiculous. That’s the point. Nor is this in any way a complete, exhaustive list of all of what we might see as “questionable” laws/rules that are found in the Word of God. There are still a host of others that most of us aren’t doing.
Whether it’s comfortable to admit or not, we’ve found a way as Christians and United Methodists to apply context to some of those rules and not others over the millennia. John Wesley would be proud of all of that “reason” taking place.
But if two Mosaic Law passages are going to get hurled at people like righteous javelins to defend statements about homosexuality being a sin, does that mean that the 600+ other rules — including some listed here — are being followed to the letter by those doing the hurling?
If you’re not following them all, you’re interpreting Scripture and putting it in a modern context.
It’s also important to know that Paul’s letters had both supportive and dismissive views of “the Law” and whether the new covenant with Christ superseded the Mosaic Laws. There are entire papers written about this so I won’t go into them here.
One could argue that the coming of Christ did away with those laws. Okay, fine — if Christ’s coming did away with “the Law”, then let’s stop using these passages of Mosaic Law to discriminate against others if they’re not in effect.
Why does this rule-following conundrum matter to me?
Because I didn’t get an email newsletter that notified the congregation that we might split our church up because some people felt like it was okay to eat bacon or have hamburgers cooked to “medium” while others didn’t.
I didn’t get a notice about the informational meeting being held because our congregation was concerned that the UMC was tolerating people wearing mixed-material clothing or women speaking in the church.
We didn’t vote to discern over any of those rules.
People are getting “clobbered” about who they love and who they want to be Christians with for the rest of their lives using texts from a Bible that is full of love, grace, and mercy.
They’re getting “clobbered” and demoralized because Christians are picking and choosing rules that should be followed when they’re important to a position and yet casting the others aside.
So before we keep “clobbering” God’s children with Scripture using selective rule-following, consider that maybe there are a few other passages to which we could apply our Wesleyan Quadrilateral way of thinking.
That’s a type of discernment that actually has the power to unite people.
