RECENT letters to the editors of Caribbean newspapers by a Mr Kokoski highlight the struggle he and others, including many Guyanese, have in reconciling with homosexuality. Mr Kokoski’s entire premise was based on Biblical text. His attempt to repurpose science has been debunked by a Dr Moreton. In the service of a balanced view, I request this letter to be published to void others’ misuse of the Bible. This is even more relevant now that Pope Francis has begun to moderate Catholicism’s stance on the topic. Mr Kokoski serves as an example of someone who acts on prejudice with little commitment to the idea of Christianity itself. It is true, that homophobia can be traced to the Bible as pointed out by human sexuality researchers Michael Sullivan and John Wodarski. Particularly, to Leviticus chapter 18, verse 22 and Genesis chapter 19, verse 5. Both passages being part of the Old Testament. (Translation challenges make it doubtful that the New Testament has a position on homosexuality). However, having grown up as a Catholic I believe that Mr Kokoski’s use of the Bible is more an artifact of a past social attitude than of the Bible itself. In fact, homophobia as it exists today manifested in the late 19th and early 20th centuries despite the Bible’s ancient existence. Whether the Bible condemns homosexuality or not, is key to finding out if indeed Christians like Mr Kokoski can still base their prejudice in its text. Even if it does overtly condemn homosexuality, why then do we choose to use it that way?

Leviticus refers to the Levites. The tribe of Moses descended from Levi and appointed to a priesthood position among ancient Israelites. Scholars studying its text have determined that the Levitical texts passed through many hands during antiquity, coming to their final form around 538 BC. Lester Grabbe at the University of Hull points out that ancient Judaism was a blood cult which practised large-scale animal sacrifice. All domestic animal slaughter and worship were restricted to the Temple (Leviticus 10:1-20). These restrictions and other evidence helped him approximate the Jewish population of Jerusalem at that time to 1500 people for Levitical restrictions to have been feasible.

He explains that these restrictions were formulated to keep Jewish people separate and pure. Ancient Jews believed in being a chosen people whose God would return to lead them in destroying their enemies and establish a kingdom on Earth. This belief made them intolerant of other peoples, and Levitical law codified this separation. John Barton and John Muddiman in The Oxford Bible Commentary: The Pentateuch corroborates this, pointing out that many Levitical laws made Jewish life incompatible with neighbouring people – they were not allowed to castrate animals or eat them (Leviticus 22:24) which was commonly practised by their neighbours. They were also not allowed to inter-marry with other cultures (Nehemiah 10:30). Ezekiel Kaufmann and Julius Wellhausen see the Levitical codes as martial, as opposed to peacetime law, to facilitate expected conquests, “all that are able to go forth to war in Israel” (Numbers 1:45). These pieces of evidence point to three things: (1) Levitical laws were meant only for Jews to maintain ethnic purity, (2) to prepare them to win wars, and (3) to facilitate a very small population proliferating endogamously to accomplish this.

The founding of Christianity was based on release from Levitical law. Paul Johnson’s A History of Christianity reveals that during the time of Jesus, the Essene Jewish sect had denounced the culture of the main Temple as corrupt, and had separated themselves from its blood sacrifice practice. They replaced it with symbolic sacrifices of ritual washings and shared meals. The idea of God also moved away from Levitical law, as God was no longer housed in the Tabernacle of the Temple, but found among a congregation. When Rome quashed the Jewish insurgency around 70 AD, the Essene Temple was destroyed along with the main Temple. John the Baptist, a former Essene had replaced ritual washings with one lasting bath. Jesus is thought to have been influenced by Essene ideology, eschewing Temple culture but also made his sect open to the marginalised, poor and non-Jews. This is illustrated in John 4:1-30 in which Jesus interacts with a Samaritan woman despite his disciples’ apprehension at his involvement with a hated people.

After Jesus’s death, Paul fought for Christianity’s separation from Judaism. He was one of the few contemporaries of Jesus who left first-person written records of Christianity’s beginnings. In his letter to Galatian Churches, he described the heated debates at the Council of Jerusalem in which he received exemption from some Levitical laws, notably circumcision.

The Book of Hebrews 8:6 and 7:1-28 is most explicit in stating that the Levitical system of ritual sacrifice and restriction have been superseded by Jesus’s crucifixion. Chapter 8, verse 6 follows, “However, Jesus has now obtained a more superior ministry, since the covenant he mediates is founded on better promises.” These pieces of evidence cogently express that Christians are not bound by Levitical law.

Just as frequently cited as Leviticus is Genesis 19:5 which recounts the men of Sodom demanding to know male visitors of Lot’s home in Sodom. The verb to know has traditionally been translated to mean sex. It does mean sex in other contexts. However, in this particular verse there are two factors that make its reference to homosexuality as a sin problematic. The first is that in the context of this verse to know can also mean to interrogate. This fits into the theme of the Sins of Sodom. Another is that the emphasis in the verse isn’t on the alluded- to sex act, but on the context of it.

Careful reading of the sins of Sodom reveals a theme of condemnations. The City of Sodom is sinful because its people are wealthy, but are intolerant of the poor and visitors, and are cruel to them. James Loader explains in A Tale of Two Cities: Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament, Early Jewish and Christian Traditions that its treatment of the poor and the foreign was brutal – giving beggars inscribed gold items, refusing to sell them food and reclaiming the items after the beggar dies from starvation. In other parts of the Bible, homosexuality is not even mentioned as a sin of Sodom: Jeremiah 23:14 – adultery, lying, strengthening the hands of evildoers, Amos 4:1-11 – oppressing the poor and crushing their needs, Ezekiel 16:49-50 – pride, fullness of bread, abundance of idleness, not strengthening the hand of the poor and needy. Taken together, scholars argue that in terms of a sexual act the sins of Sodom in the story of Lot is cruelty to strangers – the intent to rape the men – and not homosexuality.

The Old Testament’s abhorrence at inhospitality refers to an ancient code of ethics that was common to many peoples. Pashtunwali is an example, and the gravity given to such codes of ethics can be appreciated by doing a web search for it. In other words, inhospitality in ancient times was an abhorrent act.

As shown, the Old Testament contains one explicit denunciation of homosexuality and another that is questionable. The explicit denunciation is found among laws that the New Testament rejects as antiquated and replaced by Jesus’s teachings. Yet, some Christians still adhere to notions of homosexuality being a sin.

It is clear that homophobia isn’t a Christian value. To use the Bible to discriminate is based on another society’s old cultural habit. We can take ownership of this truth and in doing so accept everyone so that we collectively empower our society. As a society, we have the advantage of being small and mutli-ethnic. We have the chance to embrace every Guyanese and rebuke people like Mr Kokoski who seek to fan flames of discord and prejudice amongst us. There is no greater emulation of a Christian value than to embrace the marginalised and work toward a truly accepting, diverse society. Pope Francis took his name to reflect a conciliatory and charitable direction of the Church. Christians can now differentiate between old cultural habits and the true spirit of the Bible.