James Finn
2 min readOct 1, 2023

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Oh my goodness, aren't you clever? Well, I'm sure you think you are. No, I'm sure Galileo Church uses some sort of standard English-language Bible translation, though I think they use one in Spanish too. Whatever translation they use, it won't leave out the parts about God handing down all sorts of rules punishable by death -- like not honoring the sabbath, like a woman having sex before marriage, disobeying one's parents, lying, being a witch, disrespecting one's parents, enticing somebody to worship a different god, worshipping a different god, blaspheming (saying negative things about God), disobeying the order of a court, etc ...

Then there are the Biblical passages that call for extreme penalties that fall short of the death penalty -- like the rules prohibiting menstruating women from living in their own homes while menstruating, making or wearing clothing containing both linen and wool, eating certain foods like shellfish and pork, refusing to have sex with your sister-in-law after her husband dies, sitting where a menstruating woman has sat if the seat has not been ritually purified, killing a burglar during the day (you're supposed to kill him at night), planting more than one kind of seed in a field, cooking a baby goat in its mother's milk, eating an animal's fat, speaking the name of other gods.

I could go on, but my point is that modern Christians do not obey most of the rules in the Bible. There's actually a funny book about a modern Christian trying to do that, called "The Year of Living Biblically." You should read it.

My point is that Christians don't omit all those crazy rules from the Bible. They just ignore most of them, recognizing that they aren't relevant to modern life, adapting the Bible to modern times. All Christians do that, liberal and conservative, without exception. The only question is, which Biblical rules will Christians ignore?

Conservative Christians ignore most of the rules in the Bible (like all Christians ignore most of the rules in the Bible), but they focus hard on the ones they believe condemn homosexuality - while sleeping in the same bed with their menstruating wives, which is HUGE no-no in the Bible, as is just sharing a living space with her.

So yeah, Galileo Church uses the full text of some translation(s) of the Bible. They use it like all Christians use it, with "interpretive discernment." If you don't know what that means, ask a theologian, even a conservative one. They'll fill you in on why the implication in your comment makes little sense.

Oh, I'm not saying a conservative theologian will accept that homosexuality isn't sinful, but they will certainly admit that the question requires interpretation and discernment - not the mere quotation of passages included in lists of prohibited acts that almost every Christian on the globe ignores.

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James Finn
James Finn

Written by James Finn

James Finn is an LGBTQ columnist, a former Air Force intelligence analyst, an alumnus of Act Up NY, and an agented but unpublished novelist.

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