HumanistLife

No, the European Court of Justice has not banned headscarves in the workplace

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Contrary to what many newspapers reported, the ECJ did not permit or issue a ‘Muslim headscarf ban’

Headline after headline after headline yesterday, from across the political spectrum, erroneously reported that the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the top court of the European Union, has ruled that bans on Muslim headscarves in the workplace can be legal. But this is not accurate and such headlines risk causing a huge amount of acrimony if, for example, employers try to bring in such bans when in fact they don’t have the law on their side.

To be fair to the journalists who wrote all the headlines, the ECJ press release on the matter is very confused. It starts off by simply saying ‘An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination’. But it doesn’t define anywhere what direct discrimination means, and doesn’t talk about its sibling, indirect discrimination, until well into page two – and when it does, it’s fairly muddled in the language it uses. We at the British Humanist Association had to read it through about three or four times before we got our heads round it.

So, let’s try and clear things up a bit. Essentially in equality and human rights law there are two types of discrimination. Direct discrimination, as it relates to religion or non-religious beliefs, is where you have a policy that targets someone because of their religion or belief.

Indirect discrimination is where you have a policy that does not target someone because of their religion or belief per se, but it nonetheless puts individuals of particular religions or beliefs at a disadvantage, when compared to those of other religions or beliefs.

Yesterday’s ruling actually focussed on two different cases – one from Belgium and one from France. In both cases, the employer had a policy of not allowing employees to wear religious dress or symbols. This led to two Muslim employees wearing the headscarf to be fired. They then took the cases through the domestic courts and finally up to the European court.

Neither employer’s policy was deemed to target Muslims specifically, so it was not found to be direct discrimination. That seems to me to be correct.

However, indirect discrimination is not always unlawful. It can in fact be lawful where the discriminatory requirement can be said to be a ‘genuine and determining occupational requirement, provided that the objective is legitimate and the requirement is proportionate.’

A clear example of this is a case heard at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in 2013, involving a nurse called Shirley Chaplin. She was wearing a cross around her neck, and her NHS Trust deemed that this posed a risk to her and patients’ safety in case ‘a disturbed patient might seize and pull the chain, thereby injuring herself or the applicant, or that the cross might swing forward and could, for example, come into contact with an open wound.’ Her Trust asked her to wear the cross on a pin instead. She refused and took a human rights case. She lost the case because it was found that her employer’s request that she wear the cross on a pin instead of a chain was a proportionate means of pursuing the legitimate objective of patient safety.

On the other hand, a case where an employer was found to have got it wrong was the case of Nadia Eweida, which was also determined at the ECtHR in 2013. She also wanted to wear a cross round her neck, and her employer, British Airways, said that this went against their uniform policy. This was deemed not to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim and so her claim of indirect discrimination was successful.

In yesterday’s two cases the ECJ made no ruling as to indirect discrimination. It set out the tests by which the indirect discrimination could possibly be lawful. This included the problematic concept that it might be okay to require no religious symbols in customer-facing staff, which seems to me to go further than the ECtHR ruling with Eweida did (and, Darren Newman has argued, is less likely to be seen by European courts as okay in a UK than in a French/Belgian laïcité framework). But it did not rule on the matter. Instead it remitted the question of legality back to the Belgian and French courts to decide, and merely speculated about possibilities of moving staff to different roles.

These two cases were decided under the European Employment Directive, hence they went to the European Court of Justice, whereas the two cases from 2013 were decided under the European Convention on Human Rights and hence they went to the European Court of Human Rights. But the indirect discrimination law is essentially the same in both sets of courts. So I find it hard to see how, given the 2013 decisions, the Belgian and French courts will be able to do anything but uphold the indirect discrimination claim (or if they do, how, if it then goes back to the ECJ, it will be able to do anything but likewise).

And even if the eventual ruling is against a claim of indirect discrimination, the ECJ remains just one of two legal avenues open to these two employees – they can also take an ECtHR claim. And I can’t see how the ECtHR can rule in a different way here to how it did in the Eweida case.

Headlines saying the ECJ has allowed employers to ban headscarves are premature at best and completely wrong at worst.

The ‘good news’

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‘All I had done was to nurse from my heart. How could it be harmful to tell someone about Jesus?’

These are the words of Sarah Kuteh, an experienced nurse, who is suing Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford for unfair dismissal with the backing of the Christian Legal Centre.

Kuteh was dismissed in August following complaints from patients that she had held ‘unwanted discussions’ about her Christian faith with them. She was issued with a written warning in April this year, and claims to have modified her behaviour since; yet the hospital reportedly received three further complaints from patients, after which Kuteh was suspended pending an investigation and ultimately sacked.

There has been predictable outcry from the converted. As one commentator says on the Christian Concern Facebook page, ‘What a wonderful nurse. That is exactly the sort of person I would want nearby for myself or a family member when facing their own mortality in a time of serious illness. This action is totally unjustified and a further example of our PC society gone mad. God bless you!’

But let us imagine for a moment an alternative scenario, in which an experienced nurse is a committed and vocal atheist. When interviewing a frail old lady who volunteers for the Patient Information Form that she is a member of the Church of England, our nurse informs her enthusiastically and with love in her heart that there is no God, and that grasping this truth has made her happy. Supporting a grieving relative, who whispers through his tears the sincerely-held belief that he will see his dead wife again, she butts in to inform him that this is not the case, and assures him that he will find strength and happiness in embracing the truth.

Unthinkable, is it not? Yet it is this kind of cruel and insulting imposition which some Christians defend and practise. My own experience of it has been regular and appalling. Perhaps the worst example was when an evangelical colleague told me that a dead friend was ‘in a better place’; the friend was in his thirties and had died very suddenly, leaving his partner – a much closer friend – with her world and her future smashed to pieces.

The repeated inability of many believers to grasp just how heinous this kind of behaviour is truly baffles me – and yet is Christianity itself not founded upon the principle of sharing the Good News? In Kuteh’s own words ‘how could telling anyone about Jesus Christ really be harmful to any patient?’

To a believer, this is presumably irrefutable: when your mindset is transfixed by the alternative reality that salvation awaits the converted, the desire to proselytise to those who are touching fingertips with their own mortality must be difficult to resist. But it must be resisted, for the sake of empathy and compassion – which is exactly why the hospital issued guidelines to its staff advising them explicitly to observe restraint when it comes to their personal beliefs. This is not about ‘political correctness’ – it is about professionalism and humanity.

Listening to the interview given to camera by Kuteh, one cannot doubt her sincerity. In her view, she was giving patients strength: “I have had to reassure [patients] based on the joy and peace that I really have found in the Lord.” In the absence of full evidence, I make no comment on the fairness or unfairness of her dismissal, and trust that those involved in the legal processes will make a judgement based upon the detailed evidence brought before them – there may well be a case to answer if the investigation was not handled in the appropriate manner, as Kuteh has claimed.

Yet this story is another reminder that empathy is one of the most crucial characteristics for those who work in health care – the ability to listen to others and to support them without judgement or imposition, whatever their belief-set. Without this capacity at the centre of our approach – and even with the best and sincerest of intentions – we risk insult, harm and distress to those who are at their most vulnerable.

Uncertainty, democracy, and the role of reason

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This editorial originally appeared in the British Humanist Association’s ebulletin, a weekly briefing to BHA members and supporters covering the latest news, views, videos, events relating to Humanism in the UK. Sign up for the ebulletin to receive the BHA’s briefing each week.

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It didn’t start in America and it didn’t start with the election of Donald Trump. For months pundits have discussed the phenomenon of ‘post-truth politics’: politics deliberately based on simplification, appealing to the raw emotions of the electorate. Evidence, historical precedent, well-reasoned analyses: all count for nothing. In fact they are repudiated as being the preserve of elites.

This populism replacing reasoned politics is now global and a major threat to universal human rights, to secularism, to reason, and to humanist values.

In India, Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government disparages the open secular framework that has long held the most diverse nation in the world in some sort of social harmony. In Poland, the Government is preparing once again for an aggressive assault on the rights of women, justified entirely through appeals to Catholic dogma. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte indulges in sermon-like attacks on atheists, interwoven with rabble-rousing cries to bring back the death penalty. And in Russia, Putin, re-elected President in 2012, has used aggressive foreign policy to settle domestic political issues while imprisoning those who offend the church or criticise his regime. In Turkey, we see one of the greatest tragedies of our age: a country full of cosmopolitan potential transformed into a police state under Erdoğan, without democracy and without a free press or judiciary. In Hungary, the rule of law is rapidly becoming history. Elections in the next few months threaten the rise of far-right authoritarian parties in Austria, France, and the Netherlands.

When the world is so very far from what we want it to be, there is a temptation to retreat, to tend to one’s own garden and look to the private and the domestic. These are, after all, areas of our lives where we at least have some sort of control, and where we can have some positive effect.

This isn’t entirely the wrong instinct. Just as peace between nations starts with love between people and happiness in societies, our little choices can affect the bigger picture. So much of the BHA’s work is directed to the lives of individuals: our school volunteers encourage young people to open their minds and their sympathies, our pastoral carers give like-minded support to those in personal crises, and our celebrants guide families and couples through some of the highest and lowest points in their lives.

But public crises call for our public involvement, not just private actions.

As humanists, we champion secularism because we believe everyone is treated better when governments and churches are kept apart. We champion human rights not simply because we believe in the equal dignity of every living person, but because we know that this is something all-too easily forgotten by humankind. And we steadfastly champion democracy and the rule of law, along with those civil values that ensure their smooth functioning.

In all that we do, these social values are our guides, along with reason, empathy, and kindness. The future is uncertain and ever-harder to predict. But we must enter it optimistically, rationally, and with a cool head on our shoulders. Our humanist way of thinking has given the world so much over the centuries and its resources are far from depleted. We are entering a dark chapter in the human story, but the light has burned brightly in darker times than this. Today we all have a responsibility to tend the flame.

Getting the word out about non-religious pastoral care

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Middle Aged Man Having Counselling Session

Non-religious pastoral carers, trained by the Non-Religious Pastoral Support Network, are addressing an unmet need for the 50% of people in Britain who have no religion

For two years now the British Humanist Association has been training and accrediting non-religious people to provide pastoral care in a range of institutional settings throughout the UK. Our network has been rapidly expanding and now stands at over 120 accredited carers operating nationally. All our carers share a common goal in supporting the pastoral needs of patients, students, prisoners, service users, their families, and institution staff at some of the most challenging of times in their lives.

Until now, many non-religious people have not been able to access a like-minded service and instead have settled for religious chaplaincy or not engaged with what’s on offer because of its religious content. Whether that be someone facing the end of their life and wanting to discuss existential questions around meaning and purpose; someone locked in a prison cell twenty-three hours a day dealing with the reality of their loss or freedom, or someone unable to cope with the pressures of adolescence combined with leaving home for the first time – our service is there to provide a listening ear and empower people to make sense of their problems. That is not to say that religious chaplains can’t provide excellent support to non-religious people but just as sometimes a Christian may wish to discuss their issues with someone who shares their worldview, a Muslim a Muslim, a Buddhist a Buddhist… it follows that a non-religious person would also like that same choice and opportunity.

The Non-Religious Pastoral Support Network (NRPSN.org.uk) was developed to address two key areas of inequality: 1) to ensure that all non-religious people have access to a like-minded care service, and 2) to ensure that non-religious people have an equal opportunity to provide pastoral care. To ensure we are able to address these two issues we have had to train and accredit a highly professional volunteer base, whilst at the same time work at a strategic level to put agreements in place a promote our network and its objectives. In both these areas we have had major successes of late and now in hospitals, prisons, care homes, hospices, homeless charities, and universities, literally thousands of people have received support from one of our volunteers.

So what can you expect if you speak to one of the Non-Religious Pastoral Support Network? All of our carers’ work is centred around the needs of the individual that they are supporting. They will listen, they will empathise, and they will allow space for individuals to explore their current circumstances without judgement. Being listened to by someone in this way is an incredibly powerful experience and can have huge therapeutic benefits for the receiver. However, in this relatively early stage in our development, it is absolutely crucial to get the message out there and let non-religious people know that this service is available to them. Thousands of people are entering institutions everyday who would benefit from the support we offer but they don’t know it is there. But just because people don’t ask for it doesn’t mean that it is not wanted or needed. Thirty years ago there were only a relatively small number of humanist wedding and funeral ceremonies in Britain each year, but today there are thousands of funerals and weddings taking place across the UK, as more and more people cite their desire to mark significant occasions in a way that represents their beliefs.

The next time you find yourself in a setting that you would expect to find a chaplain or where pastoral support is being offered, and if you find yourself in need of emotional support, ask to see the non-religious carer. The more people that ask for a non-religious option, the easier it will become for us to make our case for greater numbers of our carers volunteering and working in hospitals. That will lead to much greater availability of non-religious pastoral care and more people getting the support that they need when they need it most.

Why non-belief is gaining ground… even against Islam

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As scepticism and materialism replace blind faith, more people than ever worldwide are opting for atheism, argues Conservative Humanists patron Matt Ridley.

Fifty years ago, after the cracking of the genetic code, Francis Crick was so confident religion would fade that he offered a prize for the best future use for Cambridge’s college chapels. Swimming pools, said the winning entry. Today, when terrorists cry ‘God is great’ in both Paris and Bamako as they murder, the joke seems sour. But here’s a thought: that jihadism may be a last spasm — albeit a painful one — of a snake that is being scotched. The humanists are winning, even against Islam.

Quietly, non-belief is on the march. Those who use an extreme form of religion to poison the minds of disaffected young men are furious about the spread of materialist and secularist ideas, which they feel powerless to prevent. In 50 years’ time, we may look back on this period and wonder how we failed to notice that Islam was about to lose market share, not to other religions, but to Humanism.

The fastest growing belief system in the world is non-belief. No religion grew nearly as fast over the past century. Whereas virtually nobody identified as a non-believer in 1900, today roughly 15 per cent do, and that number does not include soft Anglicans in Britain, mild Taoists in China, lukewarm Hindus in India or token Buddhists in Japan. Even so, the non-religious category has overtaken paganism, will soon pass Hinduism, may one day equal Islam and is gaining on Christianity. (Of every ten people in the world, roughly three are Christian, two Muslim, two Hindu, 1.5 non-religious and 1.5 something else.)

This is all the more remarkable when you think that, with a few notable exceptions, atheists or humanists don’t preach, let alone pour money into evangelism. Their growth has come almost entirely from voluntary conversion, whereas Islam’s slower growth in market share has largely come from demography: the high birth rates in Muslim countries compared with Christian ones.

And this is about to change. The birth rate in Muslim countries is plummeting at unprecedented speed. A study by the demographer Nicholas Eberstadt three years ago found that: ‘Six of the ten largest absolute declines in fertility for a two-decade period recorded in the postwar era have occurred in Muslim-majority countries.’ Iran, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Libya, Albania, Qatar and Kuwait have all seen birth-rate declines of more than 60 per cent in 30 years.

Meanwhile, secularism is on the rise within Muslim majority countries. It is not easy being a humanist in an Islamic society, even outside the Isis hell-holes, so it is hard to know how many there are. But a poll in 2012 found that 5 per cent of Saudis describe themselves as fully atheist and 19 per cent as non-believers — more than in Italy. In Lebanon the proportion is 37 per cent. Remember in many countries they are breaking the law by even thinking like this.

That Arab governments criminalise non-belief shows evidence not of confidence, but of alarm. Last week a court in Saudi Arabia sentenced a Palestinian poet, Ashraf Fayadh, to death for apostasy. In 2014 the Saudi government brought in a law defining atheism as a terrorist offence. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government in Egypt, though tough on Islamists, has also ordered two ministries to produce a national plan to ‘confront and eliminate’ atheism. They have shut down a café frequented by atheists and dismissed a college librarian who talked about Humanism in a TV programme.

Earlier this month there was yet another murder by Islamists — the fifth such incident — of a Bangladeshi publisher of secularist writing. I recently met one of the astonishingly brave humanist bloggers of Bangladesh, Arif Rahman, who has seen four colleagues hacked to death with machetes in daylight. He told me about Bangladesh’s 2013 blasphemy law, and the increasing indifference or even hostility of the Bangladeshi government towards the plight of non-religious bloggers. For many Muslim-dominated governments, the enemy is not ‘crusader’ Christianity, it is home-grown non-belief.

The jihadists of Isis are probably motivated less by a desire to convert Europe’s disaffected youth to fundamentalist Islam than by a wish to prevent the Muslim diaspora sliding into western secularism. In the Arab world, according to Brian Whitaker, author of Arabs Without God, what tempts people to leave the faith is not disgust at the antics of Islamist terrorists, but the same things that have drained church attendance here: materialism, rationalism and scepticism.

As the academics Gregory Paul and Phil Zuckerman wrote in an essay eight years ago: ‘Not a single advanced democracy that enjoys benign, progressive socio-economic conditions retains a high level of popular religiosity. They all go material.’ America is no longer much of an exception. Non-believers there outnumber Mormons, Muslims and Jews combined, and are growing faster than southern Baptists.

Whitaker found that Arab atheists mostly lost their faith gradually, as the unfairness of divine justice, the irrationality of the teaching, or the prejudice against women, gay people or those of other faiths began to bother them. Whatever your origin and however well you have been brainwashed, there is just something about living in a society with restaurants and mobile phones, universities and social media, that makes it hard to go on thinking that morality derives exclusively from superstition.

Not that western humanists are immune from superstitions, of course: from Gaia to Gwyneth Paltrow diets to astrology, there’s plenty of room for cults in the western world, though they are mostly harmless. As is Christianity, these days, on the whole.

I do not mean to sound complacent about the Enlightenment. The adoption of Sharia or its nearest equivalent in no-go areas of European cities will need to be resisted, and vigorously. The jihadists will kill many more people before they are done, and will provoke reactions by governments that will erode civil liberties along the way. I am dismayed by the sheer lack of interest in defending free speech that many young westerners display these days, as more and more political groups play the blasphemy card in imitation of Islam, demanding ‘safety’ from ‘triggering’ instances of offence.

None the less, don’t lose sight of the big picture. If we hold our resolve, stop the killers, root out the hate preachers, encourage the reformers and stem the tide of militant Islamism, then secularism and milder forms of religion will win in the long run.

Matt Ridley is a journalist and Conservative Party peer who is a member of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group. This piece originally appeared in The Times newspaper.

Our obfuscation on Islamism misses the mark and stigmatises all Muslims

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In the wake of the tragic events in Paris last week, Jacob Kishere appeals for an honest and plain-speaking language when describing the dangers posed by religious fundamentalists.

Jean Jullien's Eiffel tower peace symbol, which went viral on the Internet as a show of solidarity to the victims of the atrocity in Paris.

Jean Jullien’s Eiffel tower peace symbol, which went viral on the Internet as a show of solidarity to the victims of the atrocity in Paris.

Before the bloodshed had even ended in Paris on Friday night fingers were already pointed; it is the perpetual blame game and all too familiar to the one seen 10 months prior in the wake of Charlie Hebdo. Since the spirit of unity was channelled worldwide in the hashtag #jesuischarlie, there has been an inadequacy in our political discourse on both sides which continually fails to address the threats we face.

Given the context of rising anti-Muslim bigotry, many on the left – who anticipate further backlashes – have called for calm, repeating the mantra that the jihadist epidemic has ‘nothing to do with Islam’. Meanwhile, increasingly enraged by the left’s perceived obfuscation on matters relating to Islam, figures on the right have adopted the position that Muslim populations are complicit in these atrocities, and proclaims these terror attacks the bloody result of failed multiculturalism. The consequences of both mutually inflammatory positions have been an increasingly toxic atmosphere in civil society toward Muslims and abject failure to stem the rising tide of radicalisation.

But if we are to do any justice to the victims of these countless ideologically driven attacks, the very least we can do is recognise that there is an ideology at play. That ideology is Islamism. Both left and right must recognise this in order to move forward. Well-intentioned leftists must end their blind defence of all things Islam and recognise that the ideology of Islamism has something to do with Islam. While it may be instinctive to the traditions of academic left to attribute jihadist action to western foreign policy and prevailing conditions of social desperation, neither the data nor our experiences support such reasoning.

As early as the 9/11 attacks we saw the propensity for wealthy, educated individuals to commit atrocities in the name of ideology, with many of the conspirators holding graduate level degrees. Bin Laden himself was the heir to one of the wealthiest families in Saudi Arabia. Far more revealing in his case is that he was tutored by Muhammad Qutb, brother of Sayed Qutb the ‘grandfather of Islamism’. For decades, funded by Saudi oil money and facilitated by Western governments favouring the most reactionary voices within communities as ‘leaders’, Islamist ideology has been directly imported into European communities. At present, Western Europe is reaping the seeds it has allowed to be sown by Islamists for 20 years in its communities through universities and other institutions. If anyone doubted the degree of the crises they need only consider the militants fighting in Syria from France numbering 1,200, from Belgium numbering 440, from Germany numbering between 500–600, and from the UK numbering around 600 (See International centre for the study of radicalisation and political violence, KCL) with many considering these estimates to be conservative.

At the same time, pundits on the political right must recognise that it is not Islam – the faith of billions – which drives jihadism in the west so much Islamism: the fundamentalist desire to impose any form of Islam over society.

It is often stated, and yet not enough, that the first victims of this ideology in any act of jihad are Muslims themselves. This is self-evident throughout the Arab World, and was again demonstrated brutally in the bloody Islamic State attacks in Lebanon which claimed the lives of around 43, just hours before violence erupted in Paris. Reactionaries must recognise that what they are witnessing is not a battle between a vaguely defined ‘West’ and the religion of Islam but a battle within Islam between that religion’s progressive reformers and its militant hardliners. It is only through empowering and working with the progressive reformist voices within communities that they will effectively counter Islamism. In the coming weeks, the straw man of refugees as a causal factor will inevitably be thrown up; but this too is a fiction. Those arriving on the shores of Europe are fleeing the very threat we now face at home.

Growing up in a post-9/11 Britain, I heard many times the repugnant sentiments that ‘not every Muslim is a terrorist, but every terrorist is a Muslim’. But as much as the left reviles such casual bigotry, it is very much the unintended consequence of the left’s language of obfuscation. Whole generation of Britons lack the vocabulary – the conceptual tools required — to properly articulate the nature of this threat they so fear. And if we as a society are to come together and address this common threat, we would be far better served in remembering this: not every Islamist is a jihadist, but every jihadist is an Islamist.

 

Jacob Kishere is a humanist and a student of history. He blogs on Medium at @JacobKishere.

Non-Prophet Week, and why humanist charity matters

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All this week, young humanists are raising money for good causes. The BHA’s student section, the AHS, is hosting its annual Non-Prophet Week, and the International Humanist and Ethical Youth Organisation has launched its Better Tomorrow humanist charity drive.

In this article, AHS Secretary Caitlin Greenwood writes about the importance of humanist giving.

Schools in Uganda greatly benefited from last year's Non-Prophet Week

Schools in Uganda greatly benefited from last year’s Non-Prophet Week, as organised by non-religious students at universities across the UK and Ireland

Charity is often considered to be a uniquely Christian virtue, which is a tradition dating back at least to Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas stated that charity was the love between god and man, and between man and his neighbour. The 1822 New Catholic Catechism reaffirmed this, saying ‘Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbour as ourselves for the love of God.’ While some other Christian traditions have defined charity in a more restricted way, better reflecting the modern definition, they are in a somewhat of a minority worldwide.

The origin, then, of ‘Christian charity’ seems to be a conflation of a specific theological term, with a more generally used definition. But what of all those Victorian philanthropists, wasn’t their charity directed by Christian morals? Andrew Carnegie, perhaps the most famous philanthropist, was a member of a Presbyterian church, and surely he stands for so many others, too numerous to name? (Leaving aside, of course, the fact that Carnegie avoided theism for the first half of his life, and joined the church well after beginning his philanthropic efforts.)

Unfortunately, it is not quite so simple as all that. Simply wanting to do good does not mean one automatically does good. Victorian interpretations of Christian teachings often extended to the moral value of the working classes. They were not people simply fallen on hard times, but were worse than their clear moral superiors, the upper and middle classes, whose philanthropic duty was to reform them. In 1868, the Radical MP John Roebuck claimed his lifelong aim was ‘to make the working man as [. . .] civilized a creature as I could make him’. This set the tone for much of the philanthropy that was to follow over the next several decades.

Moreover, this moral superiority was not intended, entirely, to be levelled by charity. The New York Times in 1937 stated: ‘So the education in giving goes on from generation to generation. It is not merely the gift that counts or the help that is given the neediest; it is the acquainting of the families year after year, as children grow into youth and youth into manhood and womanhood, with the conditions about them and the cultivation of the habit of giving.’ Charity was conceived of as a permanent virtue, a sticking plaster to be applied to the topic of inequality. While campaigners throughout the 19th and 20th centuries did fight for – and achieve – a genuine reduction in inequality, it was rarely achieved through any kind of charitable giving.

The situation whereby charities, and charitable giving, actually perpetuate a problem rather than solving it, continues to this day. Consider, for instance the way unqualified people flocked to Haiti in 2010 or Nepal in 2015. These people all wanted to help, and were clearly willing to sacrifice their time and money. Unfortunately, their presence mostly served to slow down the aid efforts, rather than help them. The same could be said for the donated goods, many of which ultimately went to waste. A New York Times article from 2013 calls this ‘Philanthropic Colonialism’, the product of uninformed philanthropists thinking they know best, and actually making things worse. And in these cases, people really did think they were trying to help.

 

“…it can be easy to say that charity work is our moral responsibility. However, we also emphasise reason and evidence in our thinking to be an effective force for good.”

 

But what does all this have to do with Humanism? Well, for me, a part of the humanist worldview is an understanding that we have a moral responsibility to our fellow beings and to alleviate suffering and difficulty wherever we find it. As a consequence, it can be easy to say that charity work is our moral responsibility. However, we also emphasise reason and evidence in our thinking. If we want to be an effective force for good in the world it makes sense to start by working out which channels provide the most efficient ways to reduce human suffering. We at the AHS agree with the principles underlying the growing social movement known as effective altruism. Effective altruism is about trying to maximise your positive impact on the world not just through choosing charities that have the highest return in good achieved for resources invested, but through other aspect of your life such as your choice of career.

The AHS (The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular student societies) is the national umbrella organisation for student societies in the UK and Republic of Ireland. Each year, we hold ‘Non-Prophet Week’, in which we encourage our members to raise money for a particular cause. During last year’s Non-Prophet week we raised money for the Ugandan Humanist Schools Trust, an organisation which provides a secular education in a country riven with religious tensions. Our total was £2784.60, and by far the most ‘charitable’ act came from Jess Barnes from Nottingham, who took sponsorship from other students to shave her head, raising £620 and then donated the hair to a charity which provides wigs for cancer patients!

This year, we have chosen to support Give Directly, a charity which simply transfers cash to extremely poor people in Kenya and Uganda. A breakdown of their processes can be viewed on their website. Give Directly exemplify transparency in the process of charitable giving. But the really great thing about Give Directly is their evidence base. The approach of offering cash transfers, as opposed to microloans or other forms of aid, seems to be one of the most effective ways of reducing suffering, both in the short and long terms. Cash transfers have been shown to increase children’s nutrition and health in the countries of Malawi, South Africa and Uganda, and more broadly to increase access to education. In the long term, one study found that men’s annual income five years after receiving transfers had increased by 64%–96% of the grant amount. There is also no evidence that cash transfers significantly increase consumption of alcohol or tobacco- which is perhaps what those Victorian philanthropists would have expected. Instead, the money might be invested in the upkeep of a house, in some new equipment, or in sending some members of the household to school. There is also good evidence that many people save at least part of the money as security against future financial difficulty or for later investment.

Give directly are also continuing to collect data to be studied by social scientists, which may, in turn, help further identify ways of reducing inequality permanently, and having a direct impact on people’s lives. You can find out more on their website and at Give Well.

If you fancy supporting Give Directly, and us through Non Prophet Week, you might enjoy hearing about how our President, Richard Acton, will be wearing a colander on his head all week, or how Treasurer Luke Dabin will have his legs waxed in public. If acquisition is more your thing, I’ll be making humanist pants, and I can guarantee you’ll get yours in time for Christmas.

Why parents shouldn’t support ‘Operation Christmas Child’

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What could be the harm in sending a Christmas gift to a child in need? At this time of year, schools all across the country are taking part in the Christmas Box appeal, and the task is superficially noble: ask your child to fill a decorated box with toys and essential items and the charity will deliver them to a child who is living in poverty. It’s a tangible, personal way of giving, and it’s immensely popular.

But Operation Christmas Child is run by Samaritan’s Purse, a huge and zealous organisation led by Franklin Graham, son of the famous evangelist Billy Graham. Not only is the organisation openly homophobic, it seeks to proselytise in a manner that most people, including liberal Christians, find unacceptable. As a humanist, I am naturally disquieted by the idea of people performing evangelical work with the intended purpose of conversion; but I am positively offended when this work is performed at the expense of vulnerable children in desperate situations across the globe.

Several other charitable organisations and reputable businesses, including the Cooperative, have withdrawn their support for Operation Christmas Child.[i]  The charity Save The Children has questioned its effectiveness and expressed concerns about the use of evangelism in the context of people in need. Some leading teachers’ Unions, including the NASUWT,  have pointed out the difficult position that schools are placing themselves in when they support such charities without giving careful thought to their stated mission. But despite all of this, hundreds of schools will still take part in Operation Christmas Child this year, unwittingly supporting the work of a right-wing evangelical organisation, with little or no idea of what it stands for.[ii]

Homophobia

It is clear from the Samaritan’s Purse website and Franklin Graham’s social media pages that the organisation has a homophobic agenda. Recently Graham has been raising funds to support Aaron and Melissa Klein, who not only refused to provide services for a lesbian couple in their bakery in Oregon but even quoted Leviticus at a member of the couple’s family. It gets worse. Following consumer complaints posted online by the couple and leading to intervention by the Oregon Department of Justice, Aaron Klein sought support from others by publishing the discrimination complaint on his Facebook account, including the names and shared address of the complainants. This led to the couple receiving homophobic verbal attacks and death threats; they were even concerned that they might lose their foster children (whom they have since adopted). The couple pushed ahead with legal action and the Kleins were ultimately ordered to pay $135,000 in damages for the emotional suffering that they caused. Franklin Graham’s version of events is that the Kleins are conscientious objectors who have ‘done nothing wrong’. He uses their story to fuel resentment against equality laws and curry favour for the ridiculous notion that US Christians experience ‘persecution’, something which seems to have become something of an obsession for him.

This is just one example of the organisation’s homophobia as it seeks to uphold ‘the Biblical definition’ of marriage.  Samaritan’s Purse has also given considerable financial support to the campaign against marriage equality in the USA and Graham has made his own homophobia abundantly clear both in his words and in his deeds. He’s also got some startlingly ignorant opinions about gender.

Proselytising

Many UK representatives hotly defend Operation Christmas Child and claim to have seen no evidence of evangelism or of the accusation that the boxes are distributed with ‘strings attached’. These people are either disingenuous or incredibly naïve. A cursory glance at the charity’s own website provides a wealth of evidence that the explicit, stated purpose of Operation Christmas Child is to convert the child who receives the gift and to encourage them to convert their families. The mission statement says that ‘every gift-filled shoe box is a powerful tool for evangelism and discipleship – transforming the lives of children around the world through the Good News of Jesus Christ’. As one of the representatives in India puts it in this promotional film, ‘children become the harvesters’ for Jesus.  Religious literature is distributed, often in the children’s own language, and this is the charity’s own description of how it is used:

Some of the evangelical literature sent with shoeboxes to impoverished children

Some of the evangelical literature sent with shoeboxes to impoverished children

‘Through The Greatest Journey discipleship programme, boys and girls can become faithful followers of Jesus Christ. Samaritan’s Purse developed The Greatest Journey as a dynamic, interactive Bible study for use in countries around the world where Operation Christmas Child distributes gift-filled shoeboxes. Wherever possible, children receiving shoeboxes are invited to enrol on The Greatest Journey; 2.8 million children have enrolled on this programme since the curriculum was first developed in 2008.’

Many schools either downplay or indeed appear completely ignorant of this aspect of the charity’s work, and UK representatives of Operation Christmas Child will claim that the spreading of the word extends no further than a small booklet of bible stories that may be handed out with the boxes. This is simply not true, or at least it is not true in all cases. Much of the literature used by Samaritan’s Purse demonstrates a clear and direct attempt to convert the young, and the charity aims to enrol children in their brainwashing programme wherever possible.

Numerous critics have observed that Samaritan’s Purse volunteers overseas are often more interested in conversion than provision. According to the President of Operation USA, an international relief organisation, Samaritan’s Purse organised a religious festival after the hurricane in Nicaragua in 1999 and pressurised local churches into taking thousands of children to a baseball stadium in Managua to hear Graham preach; at a time when resources were scarce and people were in desperate need, the money could have been so much better spent on basic supplies and rebuilding work rather than on proselytising. In 2003 the organisation was criticised in the New York Times for holding prayer meetings before it provided help to the people of El Salvador to build the temporary homes that had been provided by US Government funding; interviews with some of the locals reveal that volunteers had distributed religious literature and asked them to accept Jesus Christ as their saviour. Samaritan’s Purse also funded the distribution of Arabic Bibles in Iraq after the war and sent hundreds of volunteers into the country  with the mission of bringing Muslims to Christ. In 2008 they compromised both government-funded aid and diplomacy by attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity following the tsunami in Banda Aceh. After the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, the organisation was criticised in the liberal press for pouring money into evangelising rather than into aid; Graham claimed that the people of Haiti’s spiritual needs were the most urgent concern for his organisation, and he was supported in his endeavours by the ever-delightful Sarah Palin.

One of the reasons why so many people in the UK are completely oblivious to the extreme agenda of Samaritan’s Purse is that it is deliberately not promoted here, to the extent that many earnest and well-meaning volunteers remain blissfully unaware of its sinister nature. This is an excerpt from one of the organisation’s own statements about their UK-based operation, and it implies that there may well be practices that even those who work for the charity in the UK are completely unaware of:

‘Please be assured that the commitment of Samaritan’s Purse to evangelism is as strong as ever. … However, there is a difference in the way the boxes are processed in the UK for overseas shipment. The UK program removes all religious items … and forwards any Christian literature to our National Leadership Teams working in countries where shoebox gifts are distributed, so the Christian literature can be used with children. … The Gospel is also presented locally as part of the distribution of the gifts, and wherever possible, children are offered a Gospel storybook written in their own language called The Greatest Gift of All. Many children are also invited to enrol in a 10-lesson follow-up Bible study program, and upon completion receive a New Testament as a graduation gift.’

In the USA, where evangelism is broadly accepted and commonplace in many parts of the country, the evangelical message is better understood both by donors and by volunteers. In this country, most volunteers and participants in the scheme cling to the notion that if they haven’t seen it then it doesn’t go on. Do not be fooled – it does.

Suggested alternatives

If your local school is irretrievably wedded to the idea of a Christian shoebox scheme, the BHA advise that Link to Hope don’t distribute any literature with their boxes. The Rotary Club also runs a similar scheme and they at least have a proven track record when it comes to providing worthwhile aid within the developing world.  But most charities with a genuine desire to bring change to the developing world and to lift children out of poverty now reject the Christmas box model; donors may well have the best of intentions, but sending a shoe box full of gifts is ultimately a grossly inefficient and environmentally questionable way to give. If your school would like to back a more effective scheme with tangible outcomes you could suggest that they look at those run by Plan UK, Oxfam, Save the Children, Aquabox or Good Gifts.

[i] The delivery service DHL have withdrawn their support, as have the South Wales Fire service. Oxfam have also made it clear that they do not support this organisation. Even some Christian organisations  and individual Christian volunteers are detaching themselves from Samaritan’s Purse due to concerns about the extreme nature of the message.

[ii] Many websites state that concerns have been raised by the Standing Advisory Councils for Religious Education (SACRE). While they offer no national policy on Operation Christmas Child, it has certainly been discussed at local SACREs across the country and some SACREs, for example in Cambridgeshire, have written to their local schools about the concerns. Minutes from the Isle of Wight group describe Operation Christmas Child as “a long-standing issue” yet one that they don’t consider to be their concern, which seems pretty extraordinary. In Surrey, our SACREs have spoken to local representatives of Operation Christmas Child and seem to accept wholesale their reassurances, which they give here. They have not investigated further.

Seven Biblical arguments against homosexuality (and why they’re rubbish)

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About a year ago, I found myself in a horribly frustrating debate with an evangelical Christian about equal marriage. Realising that he was never going to be convinced by the liberal view unless I could debate with him on the terms of his choice, I found myself frustrated by my hazy grasp of the scriptures that he held so dear. I was convinced that he could be challenged based upon the Bible, but I was not confident enough in my knowledge and understanding of it to do so. I vowed to remedy the situation, and to arm myself for the future.

Why bother? Well, I care more about supporting the human rights of LGBT people than I do about convincing others of my own emphatically non-religious worldview. The chances of me persuading an evangelical Christian to ‘dump’ God and move on are pretty slim – indeed, I do not consider it my place to attempt a one-to-one de-conversion; but I do consider it my place, my duty even, to defend the human rights of others. My acquaintance was an intelligent and sensitive man, with huge doses of what I would call humanity (but what he would call the love of God), and I have hope that he might have listened to an alternative reading of the scriptures.

People can’t choose the community that they’re born into, and too many LGBT people have been rejected by their own; too many have suffered appalling internal conflict, revolting prejudice and unacceptable treatment.[i] Too many members of these communities have endured or been forced to endure ‘conversion therapy’, including an extraordinary number of the pastors who peddle this kind of hatred. It’s an appalling approach that is campaigning hard to win the argument in some parts of America. It has to stop, and we have to engage.

In this article I examine the key passages from the Bible cited by conservative Christians as the standard ‘killer blows’ for liberals when it comes to equality. Rather appropriately for a collection of Bible passages, there are seven of them. Unless otherwise stated, translations are from the New English Bible, as it’s the one I grew up with and the one on my shelf. This, however, brings me to the most crucial thing to bear in mind when squaring up to a conservative Bible-believer – few of them give any thought to the fact that they are quoting from a translation. This renders their interpretations easily dismissible from the outset, for as we shall see, the translation (and biased mistranslation) of some words in the Bible is absolutely crucial to this discussion.[ii]

Adam and Steve

'Wait, so your name isn't Steve?' (Painting by Hendrick Goltzius)

‘Wait, so your name isn’t Steve?’ (Painting by Hendrick Goltzius)

As gay Christian Matthew Vines points in his emotionally-charged lecture on this topic, God says in Genesis 2.18, ‘it is not good for the man to be alone; I will provide a partner for him.’ But in Genesis 1-2, God creates Adam and Eve – not Adam and Steve, as conservative evangelicals seem to find it so pleasing to point out. If your potential adversary is a Bible literalist, then he or she will believe that Adam and Eve actually existed and were created by God in exactly the manner that the Bible describes. However, he or she will still have to accept that this twosome cannot constitute an exemplary paradigm for how modern couples should live – and I’m not just talking about naturism. For example, the only way that Adam and Eve could populate the world is by producing children who would procreate with each other (and/or with them), a necessary side effect of their unique situation. This is just one example of how Bible literalists have no choice but to admit that the prototype couple of Adam and Eve must be taken as symbolic, at least on some levels, and not applied wholesale to modern adult relationships. As soon as they are forced to admit this, almost everything is open to question.

Most Christians see Adam and Eve as a part of a creation myth; they accept that their existence was metaphorical and that they represent the origins of mankind as a species. Prior to the halcyon days of modern science, it is indeed a fact that the world would not have been peopled without the predominance of heterosexual relations. In communities fighting for survival, ‘wasted seed’ no doubt becomes an issue, hence perhaps God’s punishment of Onan in Genesis 38.8-10. Well, really. So what? With the population of the earth now at an estimated 7 billion and predicted to rise to around 11 billion by the end of the century, nobody can possibly argue that peopling the planet is a pressing concern for us now.

The Sin of Sodom

In Genesis 19 we find the widely misunderstood story of Sodom. Two of God’s angels visit the town of Sodom in disguise and are welcomed warmly by an allegedly righteous man named Lot (although I shall say more about his purported moral fibre later on). That night, all the other men from the town surround the house and demand that the visitors be brought out ‘so that we can have intercourse with them.’ When Lot tries to bargain with them, the crowd becomes violent and starts beating the door down. Whoa … hang on. Alarming, isn’t it? The fact that God later punishes Sodom and nearby Gomorrah with fire and brimstone is cited by conservative Christians as concrete evidence that Jehovah disapproves of homosexuality… so let’s explore this bizarre story in more detail.

First and foremost, the term ‘Sodomite’ simply means ‘inhabitant of Sodom,’ though it is the modern, homophobic use of this word that dominates people’s thinking today; any Bible translation (or excitable preacher) using the word ‘Sodomite’ to mean anything other than ‘inhabitant of Sodom’ is biased and frankly ignorant. Many reputable scholars (both Christian and non-Christian) argue that the story of Sodom was actually a traditional lesson in the importance of welcoming strangers,[iii] a motif that can be found throughout the ancient world. The ancient concept of what the Greeks called xenia, the friendship extended between host and guest, was sacred and central to ancient morality, and numerous stories that reflect its importance can be found in Classical mythology.[iv] In the Hebrew tradition, the harsh nomadic existence of the early Jewish people meant that the custom of welcoming travel-weary strangers was essential to their survival, and Genesis 19 is just one of numerous Biblical references to its import.[v]

No one's favourite Bible story: Lot and his daughters (Goltzius)

No one’s favourite Bible story: Lot and his daughters (Goltzius)

The fact that the townsmen of Sodom threaten to gang-rape their male visitors is interpreted by conservative Christians as an example of unbridled homosexual lust; but the threat of violent rape is not about sex and it’s certainly not about sexuality. Indeed, to suggest as much is both offensive and ill-informed. Sexual violence is a weapon of power and control, and male rape is sometimes used in violent homophobic attacks. Research indicates that male rape has actually been used more frequently in some conflicts  than the rape of women; it is used to humiliate and degrade the enemy. The violent threat to Lot’s guests in the story represents a declaration of hostility towards strangers – an interpretation supported by the fact that as the crowd’s threats become more aggressive they turn upon Lot himself, saying ‘this man has come and settled here as an alien, and does he now take it upon himself to judge us?’ The Hebrew here can also be rendered as ‘foreigner’, ‘stranger’ or ‘immigrant,’ and the behaviour of the crowd demonstrates a negative hostility to outsiders. So, exactly as the scholars argue, the primary ‘sin of Sodom’ should be understood to mean threatening and rejecting a visitor as your enemy, rather than welcoming him as your guest.[vi]

Finally, a word about Lot’s behaviour in this undeniably horrid little story. Despite the endless debates between conservative and liberal Christians over this section of the Bible, few of them seem particularly interested in talking about the mention of Lot’s daughters. So let’s complete the delightful tale: while the townsmen were surrounding Lot’s house and threatening his guests with rape, ‘Lot went out … and said, ‘Look: I have two daughters, both virgins; let me bring them out to you and you can do what you like with them; but do not touch these men, because they have come under the shelter of my roof’’. (Genesis 19.6-8). So the ‘righteous’ Lot offers up his daughters to be gang-raped in place of his two guests, and yet conservative Christians cite this passage as a lesson in sexual morality for the modern world.

An abomination?

Next we come to Leviticus, the third book of the Hebrew Bible, and the two passages perhaps most often quoted on this topic. Leviticus 18.22 states that ‘you shall not lie with a man as with a woman: that is an abomination.’ In Leviticus 20.13 it also says, ‘if a man has intercourse with a man as with a woman, they both commit an abomination. They shall be put to death; their blood shall be on their own heads.’

At first glance, this might seem unequivocal. However, the book of Leviticus is a list of traditional, ritual mores for the time, and the overwhelming majority of its instructions and exhortations are comfortably ignored by modern Christians. While it is true that Leviticus proscribes sex between men, it also forbids the eating of rabbit (11.6), pork (11.7) and shellfish (11.9-12), the wearing of mixed fibres (19.19) and cutting the sides of your hair (19.27). Got a tattoo? Then you’re in big trouble according to Leviticus 19.28, which is bad news for all those hick town dudes who’ve had Leviticus 18.22 tattooed on their butts.

Let us now examine the word ‘abomination’, which conservatives quote with such horrifying relish and which causes such understandable upset.[vii] ‘Abomination’ is a commonly used but rather loaded and potentially misleading translation of the Hebrew word tow’ebah, which had a culturally-specific meaning. It was used of anything that went against the long list of ritually acceptable practices and behaviours described, and was applied to many of the prohibitions mentioned above. According to Leviticus, it is just as much of an ‘abomination’ to eat a bacon sandwich or a shrimp salad as it is to ‘lie with a man as with a woman’, so unless conservative Christians want to start eating kosher, they’d better re-think their stance on this one. This inconvenient fact is ignored by right-wing preachers, who cite this passage over and over, emphasising the English word ‘abomination’. The reality is that the same Hebrew word is used throughout the Old Testament to condemn numerous practices that the majority of Christians, including their preachers, will carry out on a regular basis.

Some conservative readers of the Bible, such as Robert A. Gagnon, acknowledge the wider list of prohibitions but they maintain that sex between men is still presented as a worse kind of ‘abomination’ than some of the others listed above. They use two key arguments for this. Firstly, they point out that sex between men is listed alongside other sex acts that are plainly immoral, such as incest and bestiality. Secondly, they point out that Leviticus 20.13 threatens death as the appropriate punishment for sex between men – presumably suggesting that God felt pretty strongly about it. Well, most of us would probably agree that incest and bestiality are morally wrong. This is a conclusion that one can draw not from reading it in the Bible, but through sound, enlightened, and informed reasoning. For sexual intercourse to be morally acceptable it should be consensual (which bestiality cannot be) and it should not cause harm (which bestiality might and incest does, both in terms of its psychological impact and its potential biological consequences). On the other hand, having sex with your wife at certain times of the month, also prohibited in this section of Leviticus, is not considered to be immoral by most modern Christians; so why therefore should consensual sex between adult partners of the same gender be? Finally, the fact that death is listed as the punishment for intercourse between two men can be easily dismissed; the same punishment is threatened for blaspheming (Leviticus 24.16) and for working on the Sabbath (Exodus 31.14), so by my reckoning most of us are in serious trouble, including most Christians.

The New Testament: it’s all Greek to them

As liberal Christians often point out, you will not find any direct prohibitions against homosexuality in the Gospels, so conservative Christians rely on the Letters of Paul for their New Testament ammunition.

In 1 Corinthians 6.9-11 and 1 Timothy 1.10, Paul gives an inventory of ‘unrighteous’ people, who will not ‘inherit the kingdom of God.’ A colourful collection of wrongdoings are catalogued as possible barriers to the promised land, and the New Testament translation here excels itself by listing one of the sins as ‘homosexual perversion.’ Wow! To someone who reads the translation in ignorance of the original text, this kind of language is pretty unambiguous. They might, however, be surprised were they to look at the King James version, an English translation produced some 400 years earlier, which mentions the ‘effeminate’ and ‘abusers of themselves with mankind.’ On the other hand, the New International Version of the Bible, commonly used in America, says ‘men who have sex with men.’ So what on earth is going on? Let’s see.[viii]

The Greek word that the King James version translates as ‘effeminate’ at 1 Corinthians 6.9 is malakos, a term that is used in a wide range of surviving Greek texts. Its original sense was ‘soft’ or ‘pliable’ but when applied to people it was often used to mean something like ‘weak-willed’ or ‘lazy’, not schooled in the ways of righteous or philosophical thinking.[ix] The word was also used in a derogatory fashion to describe men who had been too much exposed to the finer, more decadent things in life, and in this sense it could imply a man who behaved in a less than ‘manly’ fashion according to the ancient ideal. Finally, it was also applied to younger males who cultivated feminine wiles and/or who allowed themselves to be penetrated during sexual activity.  This accusation could be applied in a heterosexual as well as in a homosexual context, and had far more do with the ancient suspicion of all things female than it did with a negative view of attraction between men.[x]

The next word that we need to tackle is the Greek word arsenokoites. Paul uses this word in both passages, and these are its only two appearances in the Bible; unfortunately they are also the first appearances of this word that we have preserved Greek literature, which means that its meaning is somewhat obscure to us. The very fact that Paul uses an unusual and possibly new term here is potentially interesting, as there were numerous Greek words that he could have used to refer to homosexual activity, had he so chosen. However, this may not be significant at all; the problem with ancient texts is that the meaning of any particular word may well have been clear to the author and to his immediate audience, and only seems obscure to us due to our lack of sources. The best thing that we can do therefore is to look more closely at the text itself.[xi]

Arsenokoites is a compound word, a combination of a Greek word for ‘man’ or ‘male’ (arsen) and ‘marital bed’ (koite). Just as in English, this word for ‘bed’ could be used euphemistically in Greek to mean ‘have sex with’ – so does it not simply mean ‘men who have sex with men’, exactly as the New International Version of the Bible translates? Well, quite possibly not. Cannon points out that in Paul’s list of sins in 1 Timothy 1.10, arsenokoites appears in between the words pornos and andrapodistes. The word pornos most commonly meant a male who prostitutes his body. Its female equivalent (porne) meant ‘harlot’ or ‘prostitute’ and the equivalent verb ‘to be or to become a prostitute’. Andrapodistes meant ‘slave-dealer’, ‘kidnapper’ or ‘man-stealer’ – it was used of one who kidnaps others and sells them into slavery, or of one who steals another man’s slaves. Cannon explores in detail the fact that Paul lists his ‘sins’ in groups of closely-related meaning, and he draws the conclusion that by ‘pornos, arsenokoites and andrapodistes’ he meant something like ‘male prostitutes, the males who lie [with them], and the slave dealers [who procure them].’

There are certainly many scholars who argue that Paul’s use of the word arsenokoites refers to people who exploit others in a sexual context.[xii] The exploitative use of younger males (often slaves) for sexual gratification was widespread in the ancient world, and it was quite likely to have been the only kind of sex between males that Paul had even heard of. I would argue that to extrapolate from Paul a prohibition on modern, adult, consensual relationships is to misunderstand the world in which he lived and to misinterpret his experience and probable mindset at the time.

 

A good old-fashioned orgy

In Romans 1.26-27 Paul discusses the Gentiles’ descent into idolatry and their rejection of God. He says here that, as a result of their behaviour, God abandoned them and let them live without Him. ‘In consequence, I say, God has given them up to shameful passions. Their women have exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and their men in turn, giving up natural relations with women, burn with lust for one another.’

This is perhaps the most problematic passage of them all. It is also the only time that sexual activity between women is mentioned in the Bible, and it doesn’t sound too positive, does it? Some scholars argue that Paul is talking very simply about what he saw as the heterosexual norm versus a clear disapproval of all homosexual relations. Others, including Matthew Vines, cling to the notion that the problem presented here is of heterosexual people performing homosexual acts, therefore somehow rejecting their ‘true’ nature; Paul does indeed use a Greek term which means something like ‘innate’ or ‘inborn’ to refer to their heterosexual leanings, and Vines argues from this that he is talking not about people who are gay but about people who ‘turn against their own nature’. Cannon even goes so far as to point out that according to this understanding (i.e. the belief that Paul is criticising people who turn against their innate sexual orientation), ‘it would be a sin for a homosexual to engage in heterosexual sex.’ But I’m afraid I don’t buy it. This interpretation is asking us to believe that when Paul talked about people turning ‘against nature’[xiii] he meant no malice towards those who experience same-sex attraction from birth. This is pretty tenuous, and I struggle to accept that this would have been his mindset at the time. Another danger with this approach is that we simply exchange one set of prejudices for another – is someone who has felt predominantly drawn to people of the opposite sex for most of their life then prohibited from experiencing and acting upon any form of same-sex attraction in later life? As liberals, this would put us on very dangerous ground.

So how should Christians reconcile what Paul says here with a modern, liberal stance? Well, a more convincing and less problematic argument is that, as so often where sexual morality is discussed in the Bible, Romans 1.26-27 is actually talking about lust or debauchery. The passage is believed by many to be a reference to orgiastic behaviour, and while the pagan practice of ‘sacred sexual orgies’ perhaps didn’t go on quite as much as some of the early Christian writers would have us believe, there is little doubt that this was certainly the view of pagan ritual as seen from the outside. It is therefore entirely plausible that Paul was writing in a disapproving tone about the general practices that he believed took place among ‘idolaters,’ which would include all forms of uninhibited sexual activity outside of a committed (and yes, in his experience, heterosexual) relationship. It is therefore reasonable for liberal Christians to argue that committed homosexual relationships are acceptable, since they do not actually go against the spirit of the prohibitions issued here by Paul.

Conclusions: love wins?

The passages in the Old Testament are easy to dismiss. The paradigm of Adam and Eve is symbolic, the story of Sodom represents an example of hostility to strangers in the form of threatened sexual assault, and the prohibition in Leviticus is just one of a series of culturally-based proscriptions that modern Christians are happy to ignore. In the New Testament, the only possible mentions of homosexual activity are made in reference to licentious and lustful behaviour and quite possibly to sexual exploitation. They therefore have nothing more to do with homosexual relationships than they do with heterosexual ones.

It is all too easy for those of us who are not emotionally attached to these ancient texts to dismiss them as irrelevant – to us, frankly, they are. But if we are to persuade more Christians to accept and welcome gay members of their community – a situation that is craved and deserved by so many – then we have to engage with the debate on their terms and to support the liberal Christians who are attempting to lead change.

Few Christians will have given this matter anything like as much thought as I have over the last few days of research, and I hope to be able to stand my ground when I next find myself in a corner with someone who uses the Bible to excuse and defend their own prejudices. I hope very much that you will too.

 

 

[i] Witness the case of Vicky Beeching, Christian rock star and darling of the conservative Bible belt – until she spoke out about equal marriage and came out in August 2014.

[ii] Here are just some examples of spectacularly ignorant homophobic preaching, based entirely on a so-called ‘analysis’ of the Bible’s words in an English translation: ‘what does the Bible say about homosexuality‘ ‘Homosexuality and the Bible‘ ‘a Christian view of sodomites.’ Please don’t watch them if you think they might upset you – some of the things said are truly horrible.

[iii] For example Peter J. Sorensen, ‘The Lost Commandments: the sacred rites of hospitality.’ This analysis by Suzanne Scholz of how Genesis 19 is dealt with on the internet is a  cautionary reminder of just how much nonsense there is on the web. She doesn’t draw any conclusions about the meaning of the passage, simply explores how many conflicting accounts there are about it on the internet from a scholarly perspective.

[iv] For example the story of Baucis and Philemon told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and as a running theme throughout Homer’s Odyssey.

[v] For example Genesis 18.1-8; Genesis 47.7-12; Leviticus 19.10; Leviticus 19.33-34.

[vi] The very fact that the ‘sins of Sodom’ do not equate to homosexuality but do equate to poor hospitality and lack of charity is confirmed within the Bible itself, both in the Old Testament (Ezekiel 16.49-50) and the New Testament (Luke 10.8-12).

[vii] See here Ian McKellen expressing his emotional outrage at this word. Sir Ian makes it his business to remove the offending passages of Leviticus from every Bible he finds!

[viii] Here are links to the two relevant passages in Greek: 1 Corinthians 6.9-11  and 1 Timothy 1.10.

[ix] For some outstandingly detailed references on this see footnotes 23-25 in this scholarly article by Dale B. Martin, Woolsey Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University.

[x] See the article by Dale B Martin for an examination of this in depth.

[xi] Here Cannon’s article is hugely helpful because he gives the Greek words in their original form and then explores the various ways in which they have been translated in modern times. Even more detailed and enlightening is the article by Dale B Martin.

[xii] Dale B Martin explores a 2nd century Christian treatise by Theophilus of Antioch which seems to support this reading: here a list of sexual sins is followed by a list of economic misdemeanours (thieves, plunderers, robbers) and it is among the latter that arsenokoites appears, suggesting that by the second century at least the word had a very definite link to monetary exploitation rather than to a specific sex act.

[xiii] We need to be careful about terminology here again. Paul uses the Greek phrase para phusin, and the exact meaning of this phrase in late antiquity was one of the central questions of my spectacularly obscure PhD. One easy way to translate it in the context of what Paul is saying here is indeed ‘unnatural’ or ‘against nature’ but it also meant ‘uncustomary’ – as it no doubt does when he uses it to refer to the notion of men wearing their hair long in 1 Corinthians 11.14 (translated extremely poorly as ‘a disgrace’ in the New English Bible). Matthew Vines therefore argues that para phusin is a culturally specific term that relates to custom, not to innate biology. I’m afraid that I can’t agree with him on that, but he’s right that translating the phrase is not straightforward. It can also mean ‘paranormal’ or ‘supernatural’ and is used in a positive sense to describe how God has enabled Jews and Gentiles to cleave together in Romans 11.24.

Did Dolezal do wrong? Lies and social identities

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Leila Gracie reflects on the high-profile case of Rachel Dolezal, an American civil rights advocate who lied about her life story in order to live as a black woman.

What makes an acceptable lie?

Rachel Dolezal in a recent TV appearance. Photo: Boston Herald.

Rachel Dolezal in a recent TV appearance. Photo: Boston Herald.

In the light of genuine racial discrimination and injustice, it’s obvious why some have felt offended by Rachael Dolezal. As a rule, we don’t choose our race and have to simply deal with its consequences. Yet we should examine the nature of her lie. For instance, compare it with someone who has an affair, or someone who commits crime; such people would lie because they seek self-gratification at the expense of other. This is, surely, immorality in its most basic form. Was Dolezal truly “getting off” on living life as a mixed-race person? Was she having fun at the expense of others; was there some selfish reward? The argument that she deliberately and strategically built a career on the lie also seems tenuous, especially as she ‘lived’ the black identity in many other aspects of her life.

Furthermore, the lie was just plain odd. Though immoral, other lies, such as infidelity or stealing, still have a place within the spectrum of ‘normality’. Imitating another race does not. It is distinctly abnormal. She had to deal with the fact that no one would ever truly understand the truth. It was surely a source of shame for Dolezal and something that had to remain strictly private.

It appears that Dolezal wished so deeply that she could be someone else that she sought to make it real. Perhaps she hated her white self. Perhaps the thought of being a black person seemed like the only way to truly find happiness. There may have been moments when she was confronted with the ‘whiteness’ of her body and felt frustrated by its inadequacy. So she constructed a story for herself; the unique circumstances that made her, essentially, a black person in a white person’s body.

It would be interesting to discover exactly what Dolezal thinks being white, or being black means. What is it that she wants to escape and what is it she wants to become? She may carry guilt as a member of a racial group that has perpetrated racism. Indeed, we should all appreciate what we have; we should look to help those less well-off; we should be on the lookout for all forms of injustice and immorality and we should heed history’s lessons. But this can all be achieved without also feeling guilty. The cause could also be something more generic; simply the sense of disparity that arises whenever differing cultures meet.

Biologically derived social identifiers

There are certain aspects of our biology, such as race/gender/age, which carry social currency; they inform our social identity. Of course, they tell us something tangible as well. They tell us about our bloodline and its history, and about our place in the process of human procreation. However, the human race seems to universally attach meaning to these biological features.

While I would not agree that these meanings are pure social construction, there is certainly malleability and historical context in the meanings attributed. As individuals, we get no choice about what social identity we are ‘handed’ and must navigate our way through; make the best of our little lot. This means managing external interpretations of social identifiers as well as arriving at our own understandings of them.

Can we change/choose our social identifiers?

Ostensibly, it is possible to change a (biologically derived) social identifier. An obvious example of this is that one can undergo hormonal and surgical procedures to change one’s sex to match one’s gender identity. Of course, those who have changed their biological sex in order to reflect their gender identity should be accepted into society and be free to live with dignity and respect from others. However, empirically and semantically speaking, society does not seem able to cut ties completely with what it originally thought of as a biological certainty. A person who has transitioned to a different gender nevertheless retains the identity of a ‘transgender‘ person even after their sex and gender have been harmonised.

This word does a special job, not just for the trans individual (who may or may not celebrate a distinctively trans identity) but for wider society. It tells a story; it accounts for a history of gender. The fact that this is even necessary could tell us something about society’s views. Do people stumble when it comes to ‘accepting’ that transgender individuals have truly changed gender? If so, why might this be? One might venture that some members of society find this very concept threatening. After all, most people experience their gender identity and biological sex as one and the same. Unpicking this concept, or challenging its certainty, is often not just uncomfortable, but unfathomable.

On this basis, if, one day, it is acceptable to change one’s race, I would suggest that language will adapt, in its usual but imperfect way, so as to articulate that the new identity is real but also tell that another preceded it. The only way round this is secrecy and hoping to ‘pass’ as Dolezal seemingly did.

Who we are to ourselves: the spirit of common humanity

For better or worse, our social identity will always impact our social intercourse but it is down to us how we incorporate it into our personal sense of identity. In fact, I would suggest that to ourselves we can never truly be any of our social identifiers. Without society, to ourselves (i.e. when we have our own space and our own thoughts), it is difficult to ever fully attain the feeling of being a particular race/gender/age. Perhaps it’s terrifying to admit, but surely, ultimately, to ourselves, we are just a complex mix of ‘me’ and trying to make a success of things is the primary focus. The effects of dementia or brain damage reveal the fragility of the processes through which we know who we are.

I am not suggesting we face some kind of existential oblivion. We need something to anchor us in society and need to feel that such things are, to some degree, real. However, I would suggest that we remember our spirit of common humanity and let that be the predominant guide to understanding ourselves. Had we entered this world in different circumstances, we would be managing an entirely different set of connotations of our identity.

Dolezal’s desire to change race reveals our common tendency to try to live and be our social identifiers – to ourselves. It is immaterial that Dolezal interpreted ‘whiteness’ negatively and ‘blackness’ positively. What matters is that she felt utterly defined by her race. I would suggest that if we can, we should concede to the person that we know exists beneath this skin.

Leila Gracie works in the field of behaviour change in London. She also enjoys writing as a means to ponder life’s mysteries, exploring themes such as gender relations, body image or mental health.