John Hilgeman  0:02  
Good morning. This is John Hilgeman for Lambda Reports, a program by and for the lesbian and gay community in the St. Louis area. And our guest this morning is Brad Wishon, who is a pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of Greater St. Louis. And Brad, we're happy to have you here today. And let's see, you've you have a lot of insights. You teach a lot of scriptural courses, right? Yes, and it's one of the major things that you do, yes. And you have a lot of insights into homosexuality and the Christian communities.

Brad Wishon  0:40  
I try to dig as deeply as I can.

John Hilgeman  0:43  
What are some of the things that you found?

Brad Wishon  0:47  
Well, there are a lot of Scripture passages that are purportedly used to clobber gay and lesbian people. I found that not only are those usually interpreted falsely or misleadingly or just wrong if you want to be nicer. But also, there are passages that are positive toward gay and lesbian people, both in the Hebrew Scriptures or the Old Testament and the New Testament, that there are passages in the Bible that do speak to gay and lesbian people, that do speak of their existence, that do say, Hey, this is not something that was ignored by God or by the scriptural writers, nor was it something condemned. So there's a lot of there are a lot there's a lot more to the Bible than we sometimes get from traditional Christianity.

John Hilgeman  1:41  
Okay, this may be new for some of our listeners, because this is going to be airing on a Sunday morning. And what, what are some of the some of the passages, or some of the messages of Scripture that are positive,

Brad Wishon  1:53  
Some of the messages that are positive? One is to realize that gay and lesbian people existed in the Bible. I think anyone who's read and researched the stories of Ruth and Naomi will find that it is a lesbian love story. I think anyone who would research the story of David and Jonathan would find that it is a gay male love story, that it's two men who met, fell in love at first sight, and had a love relationship that lasted to Jonathan's death, when David cried over him and said, I am distressed for you, my brother, Jonathan, your loved me was more wonderful than the love of women. That was straight out of David's mouth. I think you find when you consider such the prophets and some of the writers or people, that the names of the Bible are named after such as Nehemiah. Nehemiah was part of the Babylonian captivity of the Jews, and Nehemiah was a cup bearer to the king. Well, in in Middle Eastern, Eastern oriental cultures, many times those who were the servants or the Chamberlains or the state officers were what was called eunuchs. Eunuch does not necessarily mean a castrated male. It can mean a court official, and in that sense, when it means a court official, it generally tends to mean that they were gay. So there's a lot of weight to the idea that Nehemiah, who led the people of, the Jews back to Jerusalem to rebuild Jerusalem, and the temple was a gay male, also Daniel the prophet and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the three Hebrew children who were thrown into the fiery furnace when King Nebuchadnezzar sends out his company to find people who can serve in His government, and he sends them out among the Jewish people. He says, look for young boys who are good looking or pretty, and who are intelligent and who are gifted and skilled in wisdom, because they were made the shamans. And, like many other cultures, the Babylonians, their shamans are holy people. They're astrologers and soothsayers and and all the different people who were involved in their their holy worship generally tended to be gay males. And so exactly the reason why Daniel the prophet, Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, were picked was probably because they were gay males. That's why they were singled out, and that can startle you when you begin to look at that, because the number of the prophets who fit that description is greater than the number who do not.

John Hilgeman  4:31  
Well, how come we don't hear about this? I mean, like the so many churches are so condemnatory of gay relationships, and how can they have lost this kind of history? Or how do people find out that this is the way things really were?

Speaker 1  4:46  
You have to dig. Unfortunately, it's not all in one volume. John Boswell went a long way of putting many things in one volume, but for like the Hebrew prophets that I was going through, you just have to dig through history and find about the Babylonian. Culture. And when you find a historian who's not biased or prejudiced against gay and lesbian people, he's going to report he or she is going to write for you what their culture was like, Okay? And going to say that the shamans generally tended to be gay males. Well, if that's the case, then you can start researching the Hebrew prophets, etc, etc, and realize, wait a minute, these people fit the description that these were looking for, and that's exactly why they were picked. Other than that, you have to find information about the other languages to find words like eunuch. Eunuch is used by Jesus in Matthew the 19th Chapter. In Matthew the 19th chapter, he was talking about divorce and, and the disciples piped up after he got done talking about it. Said, well, then it's better for a man not to marry, not to even bother. And Jesus said, only some people who are gifted this way can receive this. Not everybody can receive that saying. And he went on to say that there are some eunuchs and, I am going to read it to you rather than just quote it in Matthew the 19th chapter, in verse 12, for there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by people, and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who was able to accept this, let them accept it. The thing about that is that there's four different Greek words that are used right in the confines of that one little verse, and they're all translated eunuch. And when you begin to research into the Greek what they mean, they do not all mean castrated males. In fact, one of them means state officials, which meant in the Middle Eastern culture, or the Oriental culture, meant a gay male, which is exactly the way Jesus understood it. Jesus grew up in a time period when homosexuality was acceptable under Roman law, marriages were protected. Homosexual marriages were protected under the same law as heterosexual marriages, and had been for hundreds of years before Christ was ever born. Christ was born in an area that was populated by many cultures, Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Hebrew. So he saw all of that, regardless of whether others might want you to believe, he saw all of that and commented on it right there when we talked about that. Also, again, in Matthew the eighth chapter, a very common miracle is when the Roman centurion, the Roman sort of like a sergeant in the Roman army, came to Jesus and said, My servant is at home and is sick and he's going to die, and I want you to heal him. And Jesus says, I'll come. I'll come right now and I'll heal him. And he says, No, you don't have to do that, if you'll just say the word, I know that he'll be okay. And Jesus says, I've not seen such great faith in all of Israel. Be it done, as you have said, as you have believed, that's the way it should be. And the man's servant was made well from that very hour. What's so interesting about that story is, is the Greek term that's translated servant usually isn't translated servant, at least not in that sense. It's pais and it comes from it, from its root. It means to be stung, sort of like by a scorpion, only. It means some it means to be smitten by a boy as by a girl. So the Roman centurions servant was not his servant, it was his gay male lover, and he used the word that Jesus would knew would would mean that. And not only that, Jesus was willing to go to his house, to enter into his house, to gay men to enter into the house and perform a miracle. And did perform a miracle, and evidently had no problems with with reviving this person, letting them live out this relationship with this other man.

John Hilgeman  8:43  
Yeah, some people talk about how the the great devotion of the Centurion, and seem not to you realize that this would be extraordinary for a Centurion to be this concerned about a servant. And of course, if it's a lover, then it makes a great deal of sense. 

Brad Wishon  9:01  
Makes sense why he'd be worried. I mean, you know, you can always replace a servant. Lovers are harder to come by, yeah. And so he didn't want to have to lose this one, I'm sure. 

John Hilgeman  9:10  
And then Jesus comment, didn't he say, I haven't seen faith is great, you know, yes,

Brad Wishon  9:15  
He's not seen anyone else who'd had that kind of faith. And he was talking to gay men, again, the term eunuch is used, well before I do that, pais, just because when this man called this other man his pais, he was saying this man has smitten me, and I don't want to lose him. That's exactly the term that is quoted as God using over King David, pais, someone who has smitten me that's very close to me. And when God, when it's quoted that God said David was a man after God's own heart, that that, that's the term that was used, pais, and I thought that that was, I think that's very interesting to see that that God is involved in that type of love relationship, and it's a compassion and a concern and a care, and that's exactly what the Centurion was showing for this other man with the same kind of care that God showed for David.

John Hilgeman  10:11  
It's interesting people talk about, you know, the relationship of like Jesus and the Church, the relationship of a husband and a wife, and they talk about, you know, God is a father and a mother, and it makes sense. And when, if you talk about God is not only a father and a mother and God as you know, husband and a wife to be talking about God as as two lovers, you know, because, because this is what gay relationships come from the creative Hand of God, as well as straight relationships. So it makes sense that

Brad Wishon  10:50  
tradition and that line that you're using there comes from the hand of God is is very much the traditional stand of the church for hundreds of years. In fact, for over 1000 years, the church blessed lesbian and gay marriages and considered them sacramental, and never even started sacramentally performing marriages for straight couples until 1215 AD after the fourth Lateran Council, when marriage was sacramentalized, when heterosexual marriage was sacramentalized, gay and lesbian love was seen as something special and unique, in that there was not a financial gain from it. There was not continuing your line. Did not come from it. And so it was seen as God's type of love that was totally giving of self, which was the traditional understanding of the church around that. Another passage of Scripture, which I find to be wonderfully thrilling for those, especially out there who who are not only part of a sexual minority, but also part of a racial minority. Many times we're also misled as far as what races are covered in the Bible, such as most people are not aware that Moses' wife was a black woman, that that King David was half Semite half black, that that is just, you know, the way it is, whether people like that or not. You won't see that in a stained glass window in a church, though.

John Hilgeman  12:12  
 Okay, what do you how do you see that in the Bible? 

Brad Wishon  12:15  
You begin to research what the different names mean for the different cultures and Moses' wife was an Ethiopian, and at that time, in in the history of things, Ethiopia was a black nation. 

John Hilgeman  12:24  
It still is. 

Brad Wishon  12:25  
It still is yes, but, but just Yeah. And we're going to deal with another Ethiopian in the New Testament, in the book of Acts in the eighth chapter, one of the first deacons, Philip, was headed down toward Gaza, which was an area of basically a wilderness. But he was headed down through the Gaza road down toward Egypt, and he encountered a caravan, and writing as the head of the caravan was a man who was reading from the prophecies of Isaiah. He was a Jew, but he was an Ethiopian. One of the unknown things is that the only race that Jews could intermarry with was the Ethiopians or Hebrews could intermarry with was Ethiopians because of Moses' wife, and that was allowed, and so many Ethiopians were Jewish or Hebrew, however you want to turn that by their people or by their religion. But this man was returning from the temple in Jerusalem where he had worshiped, and he was headed back for Ethiopia, and as he was reading the scriptures, Philip said, do you understand what you're reading? And he said, No, I need someone to guide me. And so from that, he presented a picture of Christ, of Jesus from Isaiah prophecy, and said this, this prophecy was fulfilled in this person. And the man said, I believe. And and so Philip baptized him there, and the man went on his way, and Philip went on his way. Interesting thing about it, though, I use that scripture for a sermon that I titled gay, that I entitled get it girlfriend, because, as Philip took off the the Ethiopian eunuch, that's exactly the response he would have had if he were from the 20th century, because he was a black, gay male. He went back to Ethiopia. He was the founding figure of the Coptic Church of Ethiopia, which is the first organized religious body, Christian body was the Coptic Church of Ethiopia, and the oldest. He still survives in folklore of it. He was, he was, he figured prominently in the entire conversion of Ethiopia to become the first Christian nation ever beat the Roman Empire. Just so people know that too. They're unaware of that most of the time. And and he was, he was instrumental in converting his queen and his people. And he never stopped being a black, gay male. In fact, the reason why he was treasurer was because he was a gay male and his color didn't change. God didn't have a problem with that before he was converted, nor after, and his sexuality didn't change. God didn't have a problem with that before he was converted, nor after. And I like to see the look on people's face when they think. My God, there are people out there like that. There are people in the Bible like that. It's not that the Bible ignored it. It's that if you don't have the ability to go back in history and understand the languages and get the data, then anybody can tell you whatever they want to tell you, and you're at their mercy to believe it. And we're finding that out with history a lot in a lot of other areas too.

Now, the passage in in Isaiah was about the eunuchs. 

No, it was about the suffering service. However, there is a passage in Isaiah that deals with eunuchs, yes, that when translated into the Septuagint, they use the same which was the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible. They used the same word as Jesus did, meaning a gay male, as they did in Acts chapter eight about how the eunuchs would rejoice and how, even though that they didn't have children, they would have many. And it has nothing to do with castration hate, to be blunt, but that's the way it is. It has to do with their sexuality and their choices for life partners.

John Hilgeman  16:03  
Well, what happened? I mean, this is something that was in the Old Testament, something, you know, that, or the Hebrew Scriptures, something that occurred in, you know, the early Christian scriptures. What happened? How come the reaction against gay people?

Brad Wishon  16:19  
Actually in the scheme of history, the reaction against gay and lesbian people is relatively new. It's less than 1000 years old. There have been times when in that period there were real problems, but for the most part, the majority of history, we've been pretty okay with most people, even with the Christian church. The first time homosexuality was ever considered a sin or are called a sin by a church council was in 1179 AD at the third letter and council prior to that, no church council had ever condemned homosexuality as a sin. Prior to 1123 AD, priests or the clergy were married heterosexually or homosexually. It didn't matter. I love to tell the story. Those from a Catholic or orthodox background will be familiar with saints Perpetua and felicitous. Saints perpetual and felicitous were two of five people who were martyred on March, 7, 203 AD in Carthage. Only those two names survive because they were remembered. The reason they were remembered was because of the compassion that they showed each other, caring for each other in jail, loving each other. You see, they were lesbian lovers, and they died for their faith in Christ. As lesbian lovers, they died while kissing each other. That's why they were remembered. You don't get that anymore, because the bias has turned around. But that's why they were remembered for 1800 years, these two women, whom all we know about is that they were thrown in jail because they believed in something and murdered for that. Why else did we remember them? The reason why we remembered them, we don't even know, but that's because of the love that they showed each other as spouses.

John Hilgeman  18:07  
This is John Hilgeman with Brad Wishon from the Metropolitan Community Church of Greater St. Louis. And we're talking about Scripture and gay relationships and gay people in Scripture and lesbian people in Scripture. And let's see what are some of the other things that we find in in the Christian scriptures?

Brad Wishon  18:26  
About in the Christian scriptures, or in the Christian history? 

John Hilgeman  18:29  
Well, like about Jesus and Paul and whatever. 

Brad Wishon  18:33  
Okay, Paul, Paul didn't have a whole lot to say about anybody. Contrary to what might be the popular opinion, I think Paul gets a bad rap many times because he's misinterpreted by so many people. Paul was a true activist and visionary in the sense, and in that sense, he had an amazing dedication to what he thought was the way things should go. The problem with that so many times is that when you begin to think that everybody else has to be that way too, it could create real problems such as Paul. Paul stated that he chose celibacy. Well, that's fine for Paul. That is rarely gifted to individuals and and Paul may have been gifted in that, but most of us are not, so to pick that up as the ideal for all of us to try to follow begins to be almost foolish. I love the joke about a young man who sat down in front of his pastor and said, I want to marry your daughter. And the pastor said, well, haven't you ever read where St. Paul said that it's better not to marry and and the boy sat there for a minute, and he thought about it, and he said, Yes, but I've also read where Solomon said that it's, it's wonderful to have a wife. And the pastor said, Well, why should Solomon be listened to over Paul? He said, Well, Paul didn't have any wife, and Solomon had over 700, I think he knows what he's talking about. I. Um, you know, it's a little joke, but, but the point being that that was what was right for Paul. Does Paul necessarily advocate that for all people, or even for gay and lesbian people, as he's been misquoted to do? No, I don't think so. I think he says that there are people who are gifted one way and people who are gifted another way. I think he probably took into account the full spectrum of human relationships when he said that there are people gifted differently, and you have to follow what your gift is, and that that's what's important, and then that's how you stay true to God, is to follow what your gift is. And so in that, I see a very affirming stance for me as a as a gay male, as a Christian, as a person, a human being, that that each of us are gifted by our Creator to to be different, and that that's real important, that we realize that and honor that among ourselves. And so I think the New Testament does address those issues. I think that because we don't have the advantage of being there on the spot, we don't always understand that's what it's what's happening.

John Hilgeman  21:04  
I think of the a couple scripture passages that are used around the time of Pentecost. One is the Tower of Babel, where you have people working together, and then they they because they're trying to build this thing to reach the heavens or whatever. They end up in all these multiplicity of tongues. And the New Testament parallel to that, you might say it's not quite a parallel, but kind of a conclusion to it is where you have the at Pentecost, the people who are in the upper room begin speaking in all these tongues. And as a result of speaking in all these tongues, all these people come to the one, to understand the one person. And we kind of have, Paul says, there are, you know, many gifts, but one, one Lord, many, you know, many, all these different things, but one principle. So it's kind of like all these gifts are representatives of the one … 

Brad Wishon  21:59  
one God. When in talking about that, I believe all humans are gifted with with various abilities that when you get all of them together into one room and you sit down, you have a clear picture of what God is like, because God is represented through all those diversity of gifts, and that to cut yourself off from any one of them is to lose an aspect of who God is. And that's very sad that that Christianity, in so many instances, has chosen to do that because they've lost some beautiful, beautiful aspects of who God is.

John Hilgeman  22:39  
Okay, see, Jesus said some we've got a couple minutes more. Jesus said something about, if you call your brother raqqa, you're liable to the judgment. Isn't the term raqqa sometimes interpreted as faggot?

Brad Wishon  22:55  
Yeah, it could be. It could be interpreted as, as, as that, as faggot. What it means, in its basis sense, is somebody who's worthless. To to say that any other human individual, any other creature that God has created, is worthless, brings upon you one of the most severest penalties, and that is that you have to stand before God and explain how you could determine another human individual is worthless. What? What was your sources for coming to this determination? And I think that that painted with that picture, that that is an awesome thing, and to realize that, that none of us can do that, that no one is worthless. There's no such thing as a worthless human being. That's a life, and any life is is well beyond worthless, moving over into priceless. And that's that's something that that needs to be seen through those those passages, I agree. When you're talking about gay and lesbian people and and the Bible, there is an automatic fear response to even bothering to read it, because so many times we are told there's no place for us. And so this is this. We're hit over the head with this, whether it's whether it's a televangelist, or whether it's our own parish priest, or whether it's our own pastor, or whether it's an evangelist somewhere out in the field, or whatever, we are so many times told that we're no good, and they say that That's what the Bible says, And that that's where they get the authority to say that. I believe in reclaiming what belongs to us. I believe that the Bible belongs to us, and that the Bible is the friend of all people, not a clobber to hit any group over the head that. It's not why it was written. If so, then Christianity is founded on a lie, because that's not the way God is. God doesn't create people to be cruel to them. There's something sadistic in that. 

John Hilgeman  25:12  
But there is something sadistic. It's like saying that you have to deny who you are, you have to change your nature, you have to do all this stuff. And it's a very sadistic God that would create people a certain way and then expect them to be different, accept them, expect them to act contrary to their nature. So it's a very strange kind of thing.

Brad Wishon  25:30  
I find it interesting. What I usually respond to someone in those instances is that is that rather than it being God who created humans in God's image. Too often it is that humans have created God in their image, and that makes a very, very poor image of God. Sometimes, when you have the people who are filled with bigotry and prejudice and hatred, and so people get a real and accurate picture of who God might be.

John Hilgeman  26:01  
Okay, we're going to have to end for today. Hopefully, we can pick up this conversation with well, we'll do another recording here in the studio for the following Sunday. And this is John Hilgeman with Brad Wishon from the Metropolitan Community Church of Greater St. Louis, and I thank you for being with us for today. And I wouldn't want to make an announcement that we got from Twist, which is on 1224 Washington, that A and M recording artist CeCe Peniston is going to perform live at Twist on Friday, February the 28th and people of all ages are welcome. The doors open at 9pm and for ticket information, you can call 421-0003, that's 421-0003, and the show is going to include performances of CeCe Peniston's popular debut single, Finally, and her follow up single, We've Got a Love Thing and many more things, and this is the first time that she's performed in St Louis. So thank you for coming to, for tuning us in this morning, and we'll see you again next week. 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai