“From my perspective, it seems to me that you want trust of the text without having to wrestle with it, which is to say, without having to bring yourself to it. All you want to know is: Can I trust this written text? Texts are vulnerable to interpretation. There is no certainty in that easy sense. All we can do is bet our lives and trust ourselves to the judgment and mercy of God.
It also means you take the text more seriously than you take the life and humanity of a gay brother or lesbian sister. Let me tread carefully here. I know you’ll disagree. From the standpoint of the Living Word, I bring the reality of my beloved brothers and sisters to the study table. They are part of how I read. I can’t sit next to them in worship, know their faith and integrity, witness the loving fidelity of their relationships (despite the lack of institutional support), feel the pain of rejection or theological bludgeoning, recognize their gifts and graces of ministry (as well as their human failings and frailty) and not hear that ‘in Christ there is neither gay nor straight.'”
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