Ultimately unconvincing

John Boswell's "Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality" was published already in 1980. The author argues that Christian intolerance against gays (his term) isn't based on the Bible, but rather on little understood social and economic changes during the 13th and 14th centuries in Western Europe.

I consider this thesis unconvincing. Of course, all religious scriptures are the subject of interpretation and re-interpretation. History is ultimately driven by other factors than what some scribbler put in the Bible, which is contradictory anyway. In *this* sense, intolerance against homosexuality doesn't "come from the Bible", but strictly speaking, neither does anything else. However, Boswell goes one step further, arguing that the Bible really isn't hostile to homosexual behaviour at all. This is covert "gay theology", not scholarly research. Besides, Boswell admits that the epistle of Barnabas is homophobic and was something of a favourite proof text for homophobic churchmen. Today, the epistle is considered apocryphal, but for a long time it was a legitimate part of the New Testament (i.e. the Bible). Boswell then writes that churchmen often considered to be anti-gay were just as opposed to heterosexual relations. While this is true, it's difficult not to see it as a potential source for homophobia (or indeed misogyny).

The author is probably on safer ground when he points out that the Late Roman Empire was teeming with gays, that homosexuality wasn't always considered to be the gravest sin, and that some Christians were pro-gay during the 9th and 10th centuries. This is a necessary corrective to the view that fighting homosexual relations always had top priority within the Church. The first church council which explicitly condemned homosexuality was Lateran III, meeting in 1179. (In Lutheran Sweden, courts could be surprisingly lenient to gays even during the otherwise strongly conformist 17th and 18th centuries.)

However, I don't think Boswell will convince "Bible-believing" Christians today into changing their opinions. The text of the Bible, after all, condemns homosexual relations. Take it or leave it, but it´s there!