The current revisionist approach seeks to simplify an apparently complex textual issue by making a single, uncomplicated point: The kind of same-sex behavior condemned in the Bible is not what modern-day LGBT Christians practice.

This is the “cultural distance argument,” the claim that ancient same-sex behavior was exploitive, abusive, and oppressive—completely unlike the caring, committed, covenantal unions promoted by gay Christians today. Scriptural prohibitions of homosexuality, then, apply only to the harsh and unjust practices, not to loyal, loving, same-sex intimacy.

Author Kevin DeYoung sums up the revisionist approach nicely in his recent critique:

“The issue was not gender (whether the lovers were male or female), but gender roles (whether a man was overly feminized and acting like a woman). The issue was not men having sex with men, but men having sex with boys. The issue was not consensual same-sex sexual intimacy, but gang rape, power imbalances, and systemic oppression. The revisionist case can take many forms, but central to most of them is the ‘not that kind of homosexuality!’ argument. We can safely set aside the scriptural prohibitions against homosexual behavior because we are comparing apples and oranges: we are talking in our day about committed, consensual, lifelong partnerships, something the biblical authors in their day knew nothing about.”

Thus, on this view the Bible does not prohibit homosexuality per se, only abusive forms of homosexuality like pederasty, master-slave exploitation, promiscuity, rape, victimization, etc.

We have two general responses to this claim before we address the biblical case directly.

First, this conclusion is based on a selective use of the historical evidence from ancient Near East culture. Examples of exploitive sexuality abound in the literature, to be sure. However, a variety of non-abusive homosexual practices show up in the record, too—including all of the “loving” variations we witness today (except, notably, “gay Christians”). There are even references to nascent notions of what we would now call “sexual orientation.”

As it turns out then, in the ancient Near East “committed, consensual, lifelong partnerships” did exist, in addition to the exploitive forms. Why, then, presume the biblical texts merely forbid the second, but not the first? By what logic can biblical passages be said to inveigh only against the “abusive” practices and not homosexual conduct itself?

Second, Scripture nowhere makes this not-that-kind-of-homosexuality distinction. There’s not the slightest hint in any biblical passage that condemnation of homosexuality is based on—and therefore limited to—coercive or oppressive, same-sex activity. Instead, the Scripture consistently makes a different point, one emphasized with every passage in question. To see that point clearly, though, we need to go back to the beginning.