Why a Gay Atheist Reads the Bible: A Lesson in Learning to Duke's Class of 2019
Michael Lambert
Posted: 08/27/2015 4:28 pm EDT
No matter how far a Southern man goes, he can't outrun Scripture. After a decade as an open atheist and nearly half as long as an openly gay man, the Word still imperceptibly slips from my lips at the odd moment or two. Usually I laughingly say, "Ask and it shall be given you" -- Matthew 7
-- as an ironic twist on "you're welcome" to many friends who are in the know about my personal beliefs.
Few friends know that that verse is part of the hymn to which I was baptized, at 13 years old, and entered the body of Christ. I excised myself from that body soon after and became a humanist, but the words are still in my heart -- their wisdom, and the wisdom in all the Gospels, still linger over my life, guiding me at some points, warning me at others.
In the end, the Bible is just a book -- much like Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, which some Duke freshmen have threatened to boycott reading. The young men and women believe the nudity and same-sex relationship depicted in the graphic novel violates their religious beliefs by exposing them to material they find morally objectionable. They are right in their beliefs, but misguided in their objection -- and could likely do well to actually begin their college careers and learn something before they start dismissing their professors and peers.
But I certainly do not want to cast the first stone, nor do I want to focus on the violence, genocide, sexual assault, racism, torture and various other morally objectionable themes found in the Bible and other holy texts that likely form the foundation of these students' beliefs. I have neither the stomach nor the training for apologia. What I have is a lifetime, short as it has been so far, of reading these same texts -- well after I, too, realized that they were the tools of men and women who sought to unmake the parts of my identity I found the most precious.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-lambert/why-a-gay-atheist-reads-t_b_8040844.html
