What Was Manny Thinking?

What Was Manny Thinking

Nike cut ties with Manny Pacquiao over comments directed against the LGBT community (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual).   I didn’t see his actual comment on Facebook because it was taken down, but he apparently said people in same sex marriage were worse than animals.  So what was Manny thinking?  How could anyone say something like that?  This is a case in which social media is ill equipped to have a deeper understanding of a thought process or of an issue.  I realize many who were exposed to Manny’s comments might say “Who cares.  This is not worth exploring more deeply.”  But given this is a polarizing issue, I think it is worth exploring.  Manny apologized later stating that he was sorry for hurting people, but he stands by his opposition to same sex marriage based on the Bible and that he loves the LGBT community with Christian love.  For the sake of argument, let us assume Pacquiao does not emotionally hate LGBT’s.  What was Manny actually thinking?

Let us pretend the apostle Paul lives in our society today, and that he did not live 2,000 years ago.  For those unfamiliar with Christianity, the apostle Paul was the most influential Christian thinker in the Western part of the Roman Empire, and did more to shape early Christianity than just about anyone else.  In fact, a strong argument can be made Paul was more influential than Jesus himself, but of course, Jesus was the founder of Christianity so I won’t go into the influence debate here.

So then, suppose Paul lived today and suppose Paul posted the following on Facebook.  All Bible quotations which follow are taken from the New Revised Standard Version.

 For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural,  and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. (Romans 1:26-28 ).

The outrage on social media would be massive, assuming Paul was a well known figure.  Paul would be accused of homophobia and discrimination.  Not only does Paul call out homosexuality, he links this with a debased mind.  How can a so-called religion of love like Christianity engage in such hateful thinking?  Before passing final judgment on Paul, and calling for his Facebook account to be revoked, and calling on all endorsement deals with Paul to be terminated, let’s look at Paul’s overall argument.  Whether one agrees with Paul’s argument or not, at least this might help people understand where Christians like Pacquiao are coming from.

In this part of Romans, Paul tries to explain how mankind came to be in the state it is in now.  Paul comes from a paradigm in which mankind started off with a close connection to God, but over time, because of sin, that connection diminished and, in some people, was severed.  I will begin with Romans 1:20.

Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; (Romans 1:20 ).

Here Paul states that God’s eternal power and divine nature are invisible, but that these things can be understood by what we do see.  This means people are without excuse for being ignorant of Gods eternal power and divine nature.  The interesting phrase here is divine nature.  Paul had three Greek words to choose from, a masculine, a feminine, and a neuter word.  Paul chooses the feminine here.  While there are linguistic underpinnings to this, Paul’s choice must be taken into account because it explains his later words about homosexuality.

In other words, the world is full of dualism:  light and dark, cold and hot, and male and female.  These things which we see all around us, provide insight into God’s divine nature.  Thus, the male and female duality which is all pervasive in the world, provides us insight into God’s nature.  Although Paul does not quote Genesis directly here, his choice of the female variant of “divine nature” shows that Paul had this text in Genesis in mind.

So God created humankind^e in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27).

It is abundantly clear that Paul understands the male and female nature of the world – and remember both Hebrew and Greek attach gender to nouns making the male and female nature of the world even more pronounced than in our English speaking society – as revealing God’s own nature.  Indeed, Genesis states point blank that humankind, to employ a politically correct translation, is created in the very image of God and that the male and female nature of humanity is a part of that image.

Now that we have establish Paul’s basis, we can understand what follows in Romans.  Remember Paul’s intent here is to explain how humanity changed as a result of ignoring the fact that the visible things in this world reveal God’s divine nature.

 for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools;  and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. (Romans 1:21-23).

The first descent Paul discusses is the descent into idol worship.  This is difficult for people today to understand because most people today do not worship images.  People like Roman Catholics have images in their churches, but the vast majority of Catholics do not worship them.  That is, they do not attach any supernatural powers to those images.    But this was not so in ancient times.  In ancient times, many people did worship images and did attach powers to those images.  We still have vestiges of this today whenever a statue of the Virgin Mary weeps.  But it must be said that even in ancient times, images were thought of as representations of a god or goddess.  Anyone who learned even the basics of Greek mythology in school knows that very human passions and behaviors were associated with the gods.  Zeus had a wandering eye and had affairs with a number of mortal women.  His wife Hera was jealous and sometimes reacted violently against Zeus’s illegitimate offspring.  The story of Hercules is perhaps the most famous example.  Of course, the more cynical men of the time believed Hera drove Zeus to it, but that is a discussion for another time.

The point Paul is making here, is that God’s divine nature has aspects which we can understand by the visible world, but that it is still a divine nature, an eternal and immortal nature.  Gradually, humanity made God more and more human and this eventually led to the veneration of animal representations of God.

 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves,  because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Romans 1:24-25).

The natural descent continues.  First, humanity degraded God and transformed God into representations by human and animal images.  This naturally led to the degradation of humanity.  Humans began to degrade or disrespect their own body, which was created in God’s image by exchanging the truth about God for a lie.

And what truth did falling humanity exchange for a lie?  One of those was the understanding that the divine nature of God is understood by the male and female nature of the creation.  And this brings us to the passage I started with which describes homosexuality.  In Paul’s mind, homosexuality is a sin because it is a perversion of God’s divine nature, which is a blend of male and female.  As I said, Paul’s use of the feminine word for divine nature – in Greek this is one word – is telling and should go a long way to explaining why Paul includes homosexuality as part of his explanation of humanity’s descent into debauchery. 

Remember Paul begins this by saying that people are without excuse.  (Romans 1:20).  This is because, again according to Romans 1:20, the invisible things of God can be understood by the visible world.  So in this respect, and from Paul’s point of view, the people engaging in such practices are worse than animals because animals do not know better.  Humans are supposed to know better. 

Hence, the “worse than animals” perspective advocated by Pacquiao probably means that LGBT’s should know better but they do not, whereas animals do not know better.  Of course, I do not know Pacquiao personally so I could be completely wrong.

Nike had this to say about Pacquiao’s comments.

We find Manny Pacquiao's comments abhorrent,  Nike strongly opposes discrimination of any kind and has a long history of supporting and standing up for the rights of the LGBT community.

I would expect Nike to say something like this.  They are a dollar driven company and have to look out for their profits.  Nike is not evil because of this.  If this causes sales of products to drop, they have to protect their bottom line.  What I take issue with, however, is the choice of words Nike employs.  Is Pacquiao guilty of discrimination?

Remember that Pacquiao is a deeply committed Christian and he is stating a belief based on one of, if not the most influential thinkers of his religion.  Is it wrong for a religious person to state his religious beliefs?  Of course, some religious beliefs are discriminatory.  For example, the Bible says that a blind person cannot be a high priest.  So that rules me out even if we pretend I am of the tribe of Levi.  That is discrimination, but it is also something supposedly stated directly from God himself.  What are we to do?  Our society calls for the freedom of religion, but it also calls for antidiscrimination.  These are both very good qualities of our society but sometimes the two ideals collide and that is when we become uncomfortable.

It should be noted that the early Christian church was not nearly as patriarchal as the church later became.  Women held positions of authority in the early church, for practical reasons as well as for spiritual ones.  Some of Paul’s words supposedly denigrating women are misunderstood as they are actually Paul refuting subservient beliefs about women.  Of course all this must be understood against the backdrop of the society of that time.  Paul was not a 21^st century sensitive new age guy just as we are not first century Roman citizens.

Paul’s treatise does not sit well with many today.  Today, most people look at the world from an evolutionary paradigm in which, to grossly summarize the theory of evolution, we crawled out of the jungle.  Paul has an opposite paradigm.  In his paradigm, the world started off as perfect, and went to the dogs thereafter because of Adam’s transgression.  Paul also believes in God and the sanctity of what we call the Old Testament today.  Many in our world believe in neither of those things.  So it is difficult for many people today to give Paul the time of day because to them, the very assumptions he starts with are wrong.

But I think what people need to understand about Christians is that most Christians do not hate LGBT’s.  At least, they don’t hate them in theory.  I do think many Christians of today need to realize that theory and practice are not always aligned.  For example, I have no doubt that in many churches of today, if a cross-dressing transsexual showed up to church puffing away on a cigarette after being on the town the night before, most members of that church would be extremely uncomfortable.  I also think that the backlash of the gay community against Christianity has caused many Christians to dislike gay people emotionally even though in theory they “love them.”  In other words, Christians are not immune to being influenced by antichristian sentiments and actions. 

But whether you agree or not, it is a belief of the vast majority of Christians, that homosexuality is a sin.  It is also the duty of every Christian to recognize sin and call for repentance, both for themselves, and for others.  If a Christian does not try to turn a person away from sin, they are guilty of a sin themselves.  Of course, this creates a backlash of its own.  Christians are accused of a “holier than thou” attitude when, in fact, they are merely doing their duty.

On the other hand, because homosexuality is a sin for most Christians, this has led many Christians to make assumptions about these “sinners” which are stereotypical and unfounded.  The whole “born this way” debate is one such example. 

Christianity must confront some issues, and these issues go well beyond a debate about whether homosexuality is right or not.  What if evidence contradicts the Bible?  The creation versus evolution debate is one in which this question is at the forefront of awareness.  What if LGBT’s are really “born this way?”  How then can they be “without excuse?”  And so on.  Christianity needs to examine and come to grips with what neuropsychology is telling us.  Neuropsychology does not have all the answers, and opinions on many aspects of this discipline are divided, but the practice of simply ignoring science because of an understanding of the Bible must stop for Christians, and Muslims for that matter.  That Medieval way of thinking is Medieval, and not reflective in any way of what 21^st  century thinking should be.  ISIS is an extreme example of where Medieval thinking leads but history has shown us that any ideology, when held to extremes and the exclusion of any other possibility, leads to such extreme behavior.

At the same time, the LGBT and the politically correct communities of today need to understand that Christianity is not an example of blind, unreasoning hatred of all things gay.  Christian beliefs on this subject stem from a paradigm which differs from the mainstream.  It also stems from the veneration of holy writings and a desire to follow a higher power.

Pacquiao’s comments were ill advised because social media is not equipped to handle a sustained and reasoned dialog on any issue.  Saying people in same sex marriages are worse than animals is bound to be misunderstood and engender strong hostile feelings.  And the backlash against Pacquiao himself may well be terribly unfair because his comments are not understood in context.

Many societies are deeply divided over the same sex issue.  Many same sex couples feel discriminated against.  On the other side, many religions feel threatened because they are not allowed to express their beliefs.  Social media has done two things.  On the plus side it has helped raise awareness of these issues.  On the minus side, it is not a medium designed for reasoned, constructive dialog which has at least a chance to lead to some sort of rapprochement.  I think if we all stepped back and thought about this, we would realize that LGBT’s are not the lust-crazed mindlessly debauched examples of fallen humanity that some Christians believe they are on an emotional level, though Paul’s words are certainly divisive on this issue.  On the other hand, Christians are not mindless homophobes devoid of any sympathy or understanding toward LGBT’s.  I use the word sympathy here not in the sense of feeling sorry for – though many Christians do feel this way toward LGBT’s – but in the sense of understanding where LGBT’s are coming from.

Perhaps the issue is much simpler than all the theology and rhetoric.  Perhaps we should start out by simply trying to be friends with one another.  Once you are friends with someone, it is difficult to see them as stereotypical caricatures.  It is much easier to do this when we keep our distance from one another.  So let’s start there.  Let’s try to befriend one another and get to know one another better and see where that takes us.

I would like to acknowledge www.biblia.com as the source of all biblical quotations.