Society of Biblical Literature member charges religious publisher with anti-gay hate speech

Blatant hate speech against homosexuals in Zondervan's Africa Bible Commentary cited at Society of Biblical Literature 2009 Annual Meeting

Panel respondant reports churches in South Africa "are hungry" to know what the Bible realy says about homosexuality
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISANNA - November 23, 2009

by Rev. Steve Parelli, Other Sheep Executive Director

The African Biblical Hermeneutics Section of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) featured a paper today at the SBL annual meeting centered around the "Lot and Abraham Story" from the Africa Bible Commentary (Zondervan, 2006). The respondent to the paper, Gerald O. West of Kwa-Zulu Natal University, in his remarks, made a brief reference to the Africa Bible Commentary's featured article entitled "Homosexuality," found in the Romans section of the single volume commentary, to illustrate how the "Lot and Abraham Story" of the Africa Bible Commentary is predisposed to the evangelical anti-homosexual position.

During the open discussion that followed the papers, Rev. Steve Parelli, Executive Director of Other Sheep, said the publisher, Zondervan, was guilty of "hate speech" against homosexuals. Parelli said the Zondervan Africa Bible Commentary article quotes uncritically a so-called common-enough view held in Africa that "homosexuals are worse than beasts." The Africa Bible Commentary article further states, said Parelli, that "the Anglican Church in Africa has rejected Bishop Tutu's call for tolerance and acceptance of homosexuals." Parelli said, because the Africa Bible Commentary article links, uncritically, the two statements that "homosexuals are worse than beasts" and that "the Anglican Church rejected Tutu's call for tolerance" that the article is hate speech against homosexuals, that the evangelical Nigerian author of the article, because he is uncritical of the quotes he uses, owns the quotes as his own viewpoint.

Parelli said Rick Warren of the United States, John Stott of England, and Douglas Carew of Nairobi, Kenya, have all endorsed the Africa Bible Commentary.

Parelli, citing Uganda as an evangelical country, tied the evangelical view of homosexuality to the current criminal Anti-Homosexuality Bill of Uganda that calls for the death sentence and life imprisonment of homosexuals who meet certain conditions.

Another attendant of the SBL session, sitting at the rear of the room, who did not identify himself when he spoke and who left early, thanked the audience for their comments on the Africa Bible Commentary and said that the "insensitivities" of the Africa Bible Commentary as noted in this meeting would be taken into consideration. Apparently, from his remarks, the gentleman is somehow associated with Zondervan, but that notion was not confirmed.

West, in his final reply to the audience as the respondent, thanked Parelli for his comments on the Africa Bible Commentary and related his own disappointments with the volumn. In addition, West gave an account of how religious groups within South Africa are forming meetings around the study of the issue of homosexuality and the church in Africa in order to discuss seriously the Biblical texts traditionally associated with homosexuality. West said South Africans "are hungry" to really know, and not assume, what the Bible does and does not say about homosexuality especially in light of the very really present situation that their

South African constitution provides for the right of same-sex marriage.

Robert Wafula, Drew University, and Robert Wafawanaka, Virginia Union University, each gave a paper and West responded to each paper separately. Elelwani Farisani, University of South Africa, presided. In 2008, Parelli and his same-sex spouse, Jose Ortiz, conducted Other Sheep seminars on the Bible and homosexuality in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda.

Correspondance with a Nairobi evangelical Bible teacher on issues that spring from the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009

A letter in which it is shown that evangelicals in America and Africa, denying basic human rights, are courting the state in order to make laws and amend constitutions in order to limit same-sex relationships according to their evangelical take on the Bible.

Dear Steve of Other Sheep:

I am a vocal anti-homosexual activist. I am a Bible teacher from Nairobi, Kenya. I am able to show you from scripture why I believe you are wrong, and everyone like you. I can show you, from the Bible, what is the natural divine intention that God purposed in human sexuality. I do not support the execution of homosexuals anywhere in the world (a reference to the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality bill of 2009). But I do believe this problem has a spiritual solution.

It was great knowing you, but I am sorry that our friendship cannot continue. I have removed you as a friend on Facebook. I will pray for your salvation. Our relationship must be an impersonal relationship. Please unsubscribe me from the Other Sheep eNews.

Pastor and Bible Teacher [name withheld], Nairobi, Kenya
Email dated Tuesday, October 27, 2009


Dear Pastor of Nairobi:

I believe we must build a society where my understanding of the Bible and your understanding of the Bible does not mean that I infringe upon your civil liberties, and that you infringe upon mine. Regarding the question of policing same-sex relationships (as in the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009 and as in the amending of state constitutions in America), it is my opinion that evangelicals have become the new inquisition, the new archbishop that all must follow, the new state regime where the laws of the evangelical Bible are to be written into state constitutions. This is obviously true in America where the civil liberties of sexual minorities have been limited by amending state constitutions, won, in large part, by the efforts of evangelicals. The same can be demonstrated now in Uganda where evangelicals play a significant role in society and where the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009 has been recently introduced.

The basic human right to believe according to the dictates of one's conscience without harassment from any religious or secular body, state or church, is being challenged today in America and Africa by the intersecting of the Bible, homosexuality, and society. In civil society, the citizen chooses freely to submit, or not submit, to the evangelical understanding of the Bible, or whatever the sectarian view. In a free society, the state does not impose upon its citizens an evangelical understanding of “the natural divine intention” of God.

Marriage is a civil institution. Not a religious institution. My civil right to a same-sex marriage does not infringe upon anyone’s civil right to an opposite-sex marriage. Why do evangelicals need to limit my civil rights in order for them to freely enjoy their civil rights? Why do evangelicals ask the state to restrict my options in marriage to that which is unnatural (that is, it is unnatural for me to marry the opposite-sex), while heterosexual evangelicals enjoy the state’s protection in marriage to what is natural for them? Should I not, naturally, be given the same right to marry according to my nature, too?

No homosexual, in order to enjoy the rights and privileges of marriage, should have to marry the opposite sex. That would be contrary to his or her nature and would serve only to disrupt the order of society where unnatural unions (homosexuals with heterosexuals) result in broken lives due to unfilled emotional and physical needs. How unnatural, therefore, for a homosexual to be joined in marriage with a heterosexual. How unnatural for intellectual society to reject a homosexual who would naturally refuse to marry a heterosexual.

The Reformation taught us this: The state must forever be the state. And the church must forever be the church. The one should not rule the other, directly or indirectly. What evangelicals may call unnatural in context of its own code of morality, the state may rightly call natural in terms of its moral responsibility to uphold the civil liberties of all, i.e., marriage between two consenting adults for all, not for some. The state and the church must be free to function without bowing to the other. Same-sex marriage is a civil question. Consenting same-sex adults, therefore, are not “worse than beasts” as Nigerian evangelical Yusufu Turaki gives credence to in his article on “Homosexuality” (page 1355, Africa Bible Commentary). Same-sex couples do naturally what opposite-sex couples do naturally: they make a life together. Both should be granted marriage and protection from the state.

At the very core of my being I am same-sex oriented, just like most evangelicals are opposite-sex oriented. I believe God smiles upon the joining together of two individuals who complete and complement one another. For a heterosexual evangelical to marry the opposite sex completes and complements him or her. For me to be married to my same-sex husband (August 25, 2008) completes and complements me. Ironically, in terms of sexual orientation, it is not opposites that attract, but sameness: heterosexuals attract heterosexuals and homosexuals attract homosexuals.

Evangelicals need to stop and back off and be the church again, allowing the state to be the state, both in Africa and in America. The evangelical church will actually win laurels from society, and rightly so, when they realize that same-sex marriage is a civil question and not a religious question and that LGBT people are a valid minority that need the same rights and protection under the law like any two heterosexual adults who consent to marriage.

Sincerely,

Rev. Steve Parelli
Other Sheep Executive Director
Metropolitan Community Church clergy
October 27, 2009. Bronx, NY