Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 150:599 (Jul 1993)
Article: The Condemnation of Homosexuality in Romans 1:26-27
Author: David E. Malick

BSac 150:599 (Jul 93) p. 327

The Condemnation of Homosexuality in Romans 1:26-27

David E. Malick

[David E. Malick is Assistant Professor of Field Education, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.]

In the past several decades waves of moral and ethical issues have broken on the shores of Western civilization, often leaving those expected to answer the sound of the surf dazed by the multitude of approaches and solutions to the problems. Homosexuality, and especially the question of its validity as a practice for Christians, is one such breaker.

The pervasiveness of this issue is especially evident in the United States and Great Britain. In 1948 the Kinsey Institute Report changed general attitudes toward homosexuality and heterosexuality. Instead of viewing those practices as polar opposites people were led to view everyone on a continuum between exclusive heterosexuality and exclusive homosexuality. The report also affirmed that between 5 and 10 percent of the population is exclusively or primarily homosexual in orientation.1 Stott reported that “in Britain the Sexual Offenses Act of 1967 declared that a homosexual act performed between consenting adults over 21 in private should no longer be a criminal offense.”2 Likewise Logan notes that in 1973 the American Bar Association called for the repeal of all laws categorizing homosexual activity between consenting adults in private as a crime.3 Also Socarides reports,

BSac 150:599 (Jul 93) p. 328

On December 14, 1973, the Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association, meeting in Washington, D.C., eliminated homosexuality from its official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. In essence and by direct implication this action officially declared homosexuality a normal form of sexual life. Henceforth, the only “disturbed homosexual” would be one who was disturbed because he was homosexual. He would be considered neurotic only if “unhappy.”4

Clearly the social cry of the West has been one of reevaluation with respect to the legality, if not the morality, of homosexuality.5 This wave of questioning has since been sympathetically set in motion in the discipline of theology.

Pittenger supports homosexuality from a “theological basis” in four ways. (1) He says love is the dominant quality by which one measures all human activity.6 (2) He asserts that since between 10 and 15 percent of the human race is homosexual, there must be theological releva...