As Mark Twain said, it's not the parts of the Bible that I don't understand that bother me; it's the parts that I do understand. I find the Bible to be what it says of itself: a hammer that breaks down my defenses, a mirror in which I see myself, and a sure guide. (Jeremiah 23:29, James 1:23-25, Psalm 31:3)

I know how bad Biblical literalism can be. One denomination, the Straightway Baptists, baptized each member in waters deeper than the person is tall so the member could be baptized always remaining vertical, as Jesus was, because the King James version says, "And straightway Jesus was baptized." That kind of Biblical literalism is a straw man in this discussion.

Victor Paul Furnish in defending the pro-gay view of Romans 1 calls Richard B. Hays's defense of its conservative reading "well-informed and carefully reasoned." (Furnish 34) I hope that you will find the same here.

21 August 1996. Copyright information is available.