I'll play! "Men who have sex with men" is a (bad) translation of οὔτε μαλακοὶ οὔτε ἀρσενοκοῖται. What ἀρσενοκοίτης means is debated, but μαλακός means soft or effeminate and can refer to a man who lets self be penetrated or a man who excessively penetrates too many women 1/

https://twitter.com/megbasham/status/1658134841395642369

This is basic in the study of μαλακός in ancient Greek texts discussing moral stuff. As is common in ancient writings, it's a misogynist gendering of ethics that presumes being effeminate is bad, which is why Paul commands masculinization later in the letter (1 Cor 16:13). 2/

🧵Folks often say 'It was central to Jesus to call God abba, which means daddy & reflects tender intimacy.' Ummm..

A) Mark 14:36 only time 'abba attributed to Jesus
B) GMark likely got it from Paul's letters
C) 'abba doesn't mean daddy
D) It's patriarchal & imperial ideology! 1/ Nerdy historical point first: To most folks it feels intuitive that the New Testament Gospels are a basic foundation for everything else about Jesus and early Christianity. After all, they appear first when you open a New Testament. They also have narratives about Jesus

BUT.. 2/

It's ordinary in public spaces to hear folks who promote homophobia talk about 'What the Bible clearly says'

Though Bible should be irrelevant for deciding if homophobia is terrible (It is!), it's instructive to dissect such problematic chatter and what it hides.
Let's go! 🧵1/ Let's start with this everyday dudebro. He regurgitates 'Bible plainly says' chatter and makes accusations about 'changing' and 'twisting' Bible to make "the same talk" about "unnatural" gay sex in Jude 7 and Romans 1 vanish.

So what does "the Bible say" in these passages? 2/

🧵I am once again asking folks to stop pretending Paul's voice in 1 Corinthians 11:1-16 is liberative and egalitarian for women. This requires erasing its participation in violently misogynist ideals about men and women. Patriarchy reproduces itself by erasing its violence 1/4 Paul's logics are premised on making subordination & even inferiority of women seem "natural." Like many other contemporary texts, to extent he envisions legit women's leadership, it's only insofar as it aligns with patriarchal norms. This is really basic for study of gender. 2/4

🧵 If your normative approach is, "Assume I've misunderstood and keep looking until there's an interpretation that keeps the Bible inerrant," then accurate reading is subordinated to maintaining the Bible's reputation.

This makes you a cheerleader, not a 'truthful' reader. 1/5

https://twitter.com/PhilipBPayne/status/1581656518793265152

It's worth noting that scholars have argued 1 Cor 14:33b-35 may be a later interpolation for reasons not related to inerrancy. The fact that Phil needed an inerrancy anxiety to think in different ways about the text tells us more about his issues, not academic reading methods 2/5

My turn...

People: "tHe bIBlE Is clEaR!"
The Bible: "No, I'm really not."
Jesus: "Hold my beer!"

More seriously: a 🧵🧵 about "The Clarity of Scripture" in Christian rhetoric. Let's go! 1/ While not the earliest articulation of clarity of Bible, the 17th century Westminster Confession of Faith 1.7 is incredibly influential in genealogies of Euro-US conserv Christianity. Note, as @jrdkirk has long joked, it commences emphatically with NON-clarity of Scripture 2/

Folks: Inerrantist "scholarship" in a nutshell here

-Arguments that seem 'academic' to evangelical insiders who lack academic expertise to assess? ✅
-Failure to engage the most basic reasons us critical scholars think the Pastoral Epistles are forgeries? ✅

Time for a 🧵🧵
1/

https://twitter.com/PhilipBPayne/status/1579234810618597376

For example, if you're wondering, compare what Paul writes about marriage in 1 Cor 7 (the only extended discussion of marriage in his seven letters) with how the writer of 1 Timothy and Titus sketches his normative world.

My first-year undergrad students see this stuff... 2/

🧵I did not come up with the idea that White Evangelicals have always been Moral Relativists behind their public blather of "We stand for unchanging truth, not the relativistic winds of secular humanism." Black theologians have long made this critique 1/

https://twitter.com/SLYProfessor/status/1578729689232703493

When White Christian leaders enslaved, sexually brutalized their slaves, profited from enslaving, & tore Black families apart, Black leaders told their stories and denounced white Christian justifications for family-destroying evil. See @diannemstewart 2/ amazon.com/Black-Women-Lo…

🧵on the usual conservative Christian propaganda about abortion. IN SHORT: it erases the real harms that come to real human women / children in favor of obsessing over fake harms to imaginary, non-existing people ("the unborn")

Howerton here is an example. Let's interrogate 1/9

https://twitter.com/howertonjosh/status/1541263728867524609

Howerton misdirects from key point: conservative Christians have been at forefront of empowering politicians who (a) dismantle government support for mothers, kids, and families and (b) pass laws that let the rich and corporations exploit and harm them. Pro-Family my ass! 2/9

🧵🧵🧵
I am once again asking everyone to stop pretending the Bible is a radical, counter-cultural, anti-oppression, gender egalitarian set of texts

Like any kind of Exceptionalism, it requires erasing or downplaying violence that disrupts the fantasy. And that's a bad thing 1/ Exceptionalist approaches to biblical literature need to be canceled (!). But the scholars, theologians, and pastors committed to "the radically subversive Bible" have trouble thinking critically about how biblical texts participate in hegemonic ideologies. 2/

🧵On Bible, Christian History, and "Homosexuality"

Denny Burk's "entire 2000-year" homophobic history of "the church" erases biblical and Christian history he doesn't like, is ironically elitist, and confirms @kkdumez @AntheaButler's points about White Evangelicals. 1/

https://twitter.com/DennyBurk/status/1464680438488866820

Start with the obvious: Burk implicitly defines "the church" as that tiny handful of elites who wrote the texts he treats as Christian history.

So...what about all the Christians who weren't elite writers and liked non-heteronormative sex? There have been a lot of them! 2/

🧵Seminary Thread🧵
Once upon a time I attended a conservative White Evangelical seminary, @WestminsterTS.

I have asked to be removed from mailings. No luck.

Their most recent offering is a toxically amusing opportunity to reflect on White conservative culture. Let's go! 1/12 The general theme of this thread about @WestminsterTS and White conservative patriarchy is "Tell me about yourself without telling me."

They start off quite strong with a conspicuously all-male TOC for a magazine about "Looking Ahead to Westminster's Future." Dang straight! 2/12

It’s nerdy Religious Studies and biblical scholar thread time about white Evangelicals🧵

Have you ever encountered something like, “Without God or Christianity, you don’t have a basis for morality or logic,” as though it’s a home run mic drop? 1/22

https://twitter.com/clbolt/status/1365721747329318913

Here are some suggestions and resources for thinking about the history and politics of "Without Christianity you don't have a foundation for morality."

Basic point: don't treat this like a serious philosophical system. It's a strategy for self-authorization and insulation. 2/22

When white Evangelical leaders discredit Christian support for #BLM with "Jesus came to save individuals from sin, not political change," this is #TheologyOfPrivilege. It's a dominant theology and long est. strategy for marginalizing critiques of the status quo's injustice 1/ What is #TheologyOfPrivilege? If the status quo is comfortable for you; if you benefit from the current relations of exploitation in society, you have the #Privilege of feeling non-political. You can label calls for change as political and treat your theology as pure. 2/