Exactly a week ago, on the very page that you're looking at right now, there was an incendiary column about religion that seemed to set the whole campus on fire.
While I personally wasn't offended, it did make me think about my own experiences as an agnostic on this campus where the Christian presence is strongly felt. The very first thing that came to my mind was an incident that one of my close friends went through last year. She had decided to attend a speech on dating hosted by one of the major Christian groups on campus. One of the key pieces of advice that the speaker gave to the audience was that they should not date people who aren't Christians. When my friend, who wasn't a Christian but was there simply out of curiosity, raised her hand and asked how he could be telling the audience that they shouldn't date people like her the man politely apologized but firmly maintained that this was simply what it said in the Bible. This incident aside, there are many things that people defend by the simple fact that it says so in the Bible. Opponents of gay rights almost always quote the Bible as their reason as do Christians who condemn premarital or cross-religious sex, just to name a few. And after all, is there anything wrong with this? Christians believe that the Bible contains the word of God, and consequently it makes sense that they would obey His word religiously.
There is only one minor obstacle--this simply isn't true. The Bible is full of things that Christians not only don't obey but completely ignore.
The list of these things is a rather long one and I am only familiar with a handful of examples but they are convincing nonetheless. For example, the Bible clearly states that one may own slaves as long as they are obtained from neighboring nations (Lev. 25:44). I was under the impression that the abolitionist movement in the United States history stemmed from the fact that people found slavery to be morally wrong. The Bible clearly doesn't see it this way since the problem isn't that slavery is immoral or wrong but rather that we obtained the slaves from Africa, which isn't a neighboring nation. It goes to reason then that if we had enslaved Mexicans or Canadians we would have been in the clear as far as the word of God goes and we could have avoided that disruptive little Civil War.
An even more poignant example is found in Exodus 35:2, where it is clearly stated that one should work for six days and then rest on the seventh (i.e. Sabbath). Anyone who works on the seventh day, whether it is Saturday according to Jewish tradition or Sunday according to Christian, is to be put to death according to the Bible. I don't know about you, but I know plenty of students at Duke who study seven days a week and even have part-time jobs on the weekends. I guess we will have to kill them--I mean, if we are not going to allow gays to marry because it is forbidden by the Bible and if we shouldn't date non-Christians because it's also forbidden by the Bible then we have to be fair and kill all those kids who spend their Sundays studying in the library. Doing otherwise would simply be hypocritical.
Furthermore, homosexuality and premarital sex may be abominations but so is eating anything from the sea that doesn't have fins or scales (Lev. 11:10). Therefore, if you're one of the many Christians on this campus who are in favor of an amendment forbidding gay marriage because God condemns it in the Bible then shouldn't you also be in favor of one forbidding consumption of lobster and shellfish since this is forbidden just as strongly? Granted, places like Red Lobster would go out of business, but don't we have an obligation to be fair and just in how we follow God's word?
I am clearly being sarcastic, but despite my sardonic suggestions, I have nothing against the Bible or Christianity in general. Nonetheless, the Bible is two thousands years old, and it is essential that readers interpret it in an intelligent and modern way using their own faculties to truly think about everything that it says. The problem arises from the fact that so many people interpret the Bible in a hypocritical, self-serving way. Furthermore, many use it as a shield behind which they can hide their own prejudices.
If you don't support alternative lifestyles have the courage to own up to this as your own belief and your own interpretation of the Bible. Saying that you're against gay marriage because that is what the word of God dictates is an incomplete argument and a cowardly one since there are clearly so many other things that God says in the Bible which you obviously don't follow. The same goes if you don't believe in cross-religious dating or premarital sex solely because that is what is written in the Bible.
As a Christian, and a human being, you have a responsibility to ask yourself why you are choosing to honor certain parts of the Bible while ignoring others since this will tell you so much about who you are as a person. I would hope that this is what religion is all about--gaining an understanding of yourself and your relationship with God rather than following blindly things that are convenient and in agreement with what you already think or want to believe.
Emin Hadziosmanovic is a Trinity sophomore. His column appears every other Wednesday.
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