They Were Just Following Orders

The Akedah & Its Relevance To Christian Treatment Of Queer Folk

Abrahams Opfer, Adi Holzer. Source: Wikimedia Commons

This is Sitting Queerly, a newsletter focused on the late blooming queer experience, the lofty goal of opening up conversations and celebrating those who embrace their full selves.

"…if a person is sent to perform an evil act, he cannot defend his behavior by saying he was only acting as another's messenger. ... [T]he person who carries out the evil act bears responsibility for the evil he or she does."

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin

We were strolling through San Francisco’s Pride festival, me unknowingly letting my chest be burned by the sun with my newly-acquired harness serving as a template.

The booths were hawking everything from hot yoga sessions and pashminas to stickers and stress balls, in varying palls of rainbow. There were those representing particular organizations such as the naturists and local Rocky Horror Picture Show troupe. The one for the churches stood out because the folks running out were showing the least skin.

These were allies, here to affirm that queer folk are just as loved by God as anyone else. They had a variety of pamphlets and my wife and I were glad to see the denomination of the church we are members of—the United Church of Christ (UCC)—among those represented on the booth’s materials. A spiral bound booklet caught my eye, A Transparent Translation of The Ancient Bible Concerning Homosexuality. I flipped through it quickly; it was a bit amateurish in presentation (Times New Roman, ugh) but I was still intrigued. One of the gentlemen behind the table said it was free for me to take. I thanked him and slipped it into the complimentary drawstring bag I had, placing it alongside packets of lube, cheap promotional sunglasses and flyers for parties I’d received and we went on our way.

It would be weeks before I actually tried to read the thing while still smarting from the aforementioned sunburn. It was interesting and thorough, at least for a pamphlet. It provided word-for-word translation and analysis of biblical passages in Hebrew and Greek often used to denounce queer folk. Much of it concerned arguments I was already familiar with—that the parable of Sodom and Gomorrah had nothing to do with sodomy, that perceived admonishments against homosexual activity were more admonishments of specific pagan religious practices, that the word “sodomite” does not actually exist in Greek. But I’d only heard those things in one-off fragments via online message boards and on protest signs. It was nice to have it all put together in a single place with the imprimatur of someone with a divinity degree.

Debate around bible verses cited as condemning homosexuality have gone on for a long time. John Boswell, a Harvard professor, gay man and devout Roman Catholic, echoed the same arguments and analysis in the pamphlet I was given in his award-winning yet controversial Christianity, Social Tolerance & Homosexuality published in 1980. He cites early Christians, particularly clergy, writing homoerotic letters and poems to each other, among many other examples of the disinterest if not acceptance of queer relationships by the early Church. Yes, there was some admonishment of same-sex activities, but more often out of a concern for the disruption they could create in all-male ascetic communities or were considered no worse than drunkenness or overeating.

Not that any of that matters. Despite researching what led the Church to become deliberately hostile to queer folk (and many others) by the high Middle Ages, Boswell wasn’t able to find a satisfactorily clear answer. And today, mainline Christianity remains largely homophobic, despite individuals of various faith traditions becoming accepting of their queer family and friends, despite denominations such as the UCC becoming welcoming and affirming and despite denominations created by queer folk spreading an inclusive message. To be honest, maybe this is because the Bible is homophobic, or at least ambivalent as to the fate of queer folk. My friend

Stephen Bradford Long

, a post-Christian and post-Satanist, wrote about this recently on his Substack,

Sacred Tension

:

Certainly, compelling and nuanced arguments for affirming gay relationships can be made, the very best of which are found in James Brownson’s Bible, Gender, Sexuality. I support Christians who put forward affirming arguments because I think it is objectively better for the world for them to do so. But, in my opinion, these arguments make the weaker case. Sometimes the plainest reading wins, and the position that the Bible condemns homosexuality is the most obvious of the two.

So, let’s not continue to beat this flamboyant dead horse. Instead, let’s talk about Abraham and his son, Isaac.

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The Gospels directly quote and reference the Old Testament numerous times to demonstrate Jesus’ coming was preordained by past events. That same practice is continued in the epistles written by St. Paul and others. And it’s in the Epistle to the Hebrews where the Binding of Isaac is referenced.

"By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, 'In Isaac your seed shall be called', concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense." (Hebrews 11:17–19, NKJV)

Despite it only being specifically mentioned once in the New Testament, and only briefly alluded to by John the Baptist in one Gospel, I remember Chapter 22 of the Book of Genesis having an outsized role in demonstrating what faith was all about during my upbringing and young adulthood. Here was a man whose wife bore a child when they were both incredibly elderly after God had promised that he would be the ancestor of nations, and yet, he was prepared to ritually sacrifice that son when God told him to, despite that earlier promise. “God will provide.” And God did! Aside from the actual story of Christ told in the Gospels, very few other passages connected with me in such a visceral way how one just had to have faith, that everything would work out because God loved me, loved humanity, and would never¹ let it be destroyed. Just as God had spared Isaac, and spared Christ², he would spare me.

This virtue of unshakeable faith isn’t all this biblical prophecy engendered. It also demonstrated the validity of patriarchy and the justifiability of sacrificing things that are important to us to prove that we have unshakeable faith.

Via the Roman Catholic Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception:

At first glance, the story of Abraham and Isaac seems disturbing. Why would a loving God ask Abraham to sacrifice his only son in a manner similar to his pagan neighbors? Was He bringing unnecessary torment to a man who had already waited so long for a child?

Upon closer inspection, it’s clear that God’s request to sacrifice Isaac was not unloving or capricious. Instead, it is a beautiful picture of Abraham’s faithfulness and God’s provision. In the past, Abraham had doubted God. He had tried to have children in his own way instead of waiting on God. By asking him to sacrifice Isaac, God was testing Abraham to see if he trusted Him…

…The story of Isaac is both a picture of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son and a foreshadowing of God’s willingness to sacrifice His only Son for us. Abraham says, “God will provide the sacrifice.” Not only did God provide a ram as a sacrifice for Abraham, but He provided a lasting sacrifice through His Son — for Abraham, and for all of us.

Though Jesus did not deserve to die, God made Him the sacrifice to wash away our sin. We can trust God with everything He has given us, because He did not withhold anything from us…

What is Isaac’s near death and Christ’s excruciating one in comparison to sacrificing your personal freedom and then that of your spouse to raise a house full of children? Your love of a personal passion for a demanding but family-supporting career? Your money to pay for yet another enhancement at your church? Your relationships with members of your own community or even family to remain faithful to God?

You are only being asked to sacrifice these things because God loves you, after all.

Late-blooming individuals I’ve gotten to know over the past few years, particularly those raised in evangelical or Mormon churches, have shared with me how the story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of his promised son figured into how they were raised and parented. Whatever was asked or expected of them, even if it didn’t make sense, even if it felt unfair, they were pressured to submit to what God—and by extension, their parents and church leaders—demanded of them. To do so was in their best interest, was a demonstration of their faith and commitment, was their parents demonstrating love for their child.

Per a conversation between two friends…

Friend 1: They teach us from a very young age that sacrifice is the goal. My whole mission experience was horrible, but I saw it as noble because it was so hard.

Friend 2: Agreed. And don’t disappoint Jesus or Heavenly Father!

Friend 1: Or you will be separated from your family at heaven’s border…

But all this results from a Christian interpretation of a story that predates Christianity by thousands of years. What do Jews—the actual target audience for the story of Abraham and Isaac on Mt. Moriah—think about the story’s message?

Detail from Caravaggio’s Sacrifice of Isaac. Source: Wikimedia Commons

The version of the Binding of Isaac, known as the Akedah in the Tanakh, is different from that used in the Christian Bible. The Christian Bible was the result of centuries of translation and retranslation and mistranslation. There are also indications that the original version of the story ends with Isaac being killed before being resurrected by God.

There are peshat, straightforward and surface level interpretations of the Tanakh, that say the passage is very much about faith and following God’s command, even when it may seem contradictory.

But there are midrash—deeper interpretations of scripture by rabbinical scholars—that take a very different message away from the story.

Rabbi Naftali Brawer, writing in the Jewish Chronicle in response to an anonymous query about what to take from the Akedah, provided several potential interpretations, including one from Rashi, a prominent French rabbi who lived in the 11th and 12th centuries and wrote extensive commentaries on the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible.

Rashi points out that God never asked Abraham to sacrifice his son. The term the Bible ascribes to God is veha’aleihu, which means to “offer him up”; the Bible deliberately does not use the term shechateihu,“slaughter him”.

All God ever asked of Abraham is to bind Isaac on the altar and then to release him. Abraham in his eagerness to fulfill the word of God misunderstood the command, believing that, after binding Isaac, he was to sacrifice him. The powerful lesson in this is that God’s messages are not always as clear as we might think.

If someone claims to hear the voice of God, he had better be absolutely certain that he understands what God is asking of him. If our great patriarch Abraham misunderstood God’s message, lesser mortals have little chance of getting it right.

An even older midrashim, the Genesis Rabbah written around 500 C.E., also notes the important difference in the use of the language God used and how Abraham misinterpreted it in his overeagerness to obey.

God [the Holy Blessed One] said to him: “I will not profane my covenant and the utterance of my lips will not change” (Ps 89:35). When I said to you, “take,” the utterance of my lips will not change. I did not say “slaughter him” but rather “bring him up.” You brought him up, now bring him down.

After the Akedah, Abraham and Isaac are never written about speaking to each other elsewhere in the Tanakh. Isaac doesn’t even come down the mountain with his father.

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I’ve made mistakes as a father, there’s no denying that. Those mistakes weren’t out of malice or hatred, but they sometimes were out of anger and rage, which, at their root, were about control. About being right. About “knowing what’s best.” And, conveniently, also did not require change on my part.

I haven’t apologized to my children for each of those mistakes, but I’ve apologized for some. Told them I was wrong, that I shouldn’t have gotten so angry, shouldn’t have yelled, shouldn’t have scared them. It’s hard enough to acknowledge error with other adults; it’s truly humbling to tell a child that you have wronged them. That you are still learning, too.

So many of the men I’ve gotten to know in the last two years have a strained relationship with their parents, if a relationship at all.

Those men have shared the trauma of their upbringings, how they felt alone in Sunday school while being told that Scripture says who they are on the inside is bad.

They’ve shared the struggle of their marriages to women, exhausting themselves to live up to a model of being a husband and father that felt like a lie but that they were told God, via the Bible, demanded of them.

They’ve shared the heartbreak of sometimes losing a lifetime of relationships with family and friends because they weren’t willing to continue sacrificing themselves, to continue suffering.

All of the above because their loved ones just couldn’t fathom the possibility that something they were taught and passed on to the next generation may not be right.

I wonder if Abraham ever apologized to Isaac. I mean, he was convinced God told him to offer him as a sacrifice. Why should anyone apologize for what their God tells them to do? And yeah, Abraham may have misunderstood what God meant, but still, it came from a good place, a faithful place, right? And if God only wanted Abraham to go through with it until the blade was against Isaac’s throat, he still stopped it from happening. Isaac still lived, still went on to be the ancestor of nations. No harm, no foul, right? And as for the church, all the countless people it has persecuted—from the Albigensians and all non-Christians to every hue of the queer rainbow—over the centuries was to protect the faith, ensure its survival, at least, that’s what the clerics and the kings and the zealous laypeople said was what Scripture, the Word of God, compelled them to do.

Now, there’s handwringing about people cutting off contact with parents, the increasingly empty pews in congregations across the country. There are admonishments of how could anyone not want to have their parents in their life and the resultant catastrophes when said parents seek to force their way back in. There are the pastors doubling down on the fire and brimstone but also ones begrudgingly acknowledging that perhaps there is room for queer folk in the church.³

But, just like Isaac, I don’t think any of us would be comfortable walking down a mountain with an individual that nearly murdered us, much less if that individual was a parent, even if we saw an angel appear to stay their hand. And so it should come as no surprise when folks refuse to maintain relationships with people and institutions that tried so hard to murder part of who they are, at any price.

After all, Abraham never acknowledged his grievous treatment of his son, his murderous intentions that required God to intervene. And God has done nothing to stop the slaughter of countless folk at the hands of his followers in the preceding millenia. But then, maybe he thought we should have learned that lesson already. Or we shouldn’t expect someone who wouldn’t save his own son to save anyone.

I accept my past mistakes may eventually haunt my relationship with my children. That they will process those memories for themselves and, in their best interest, distance themselves from me, share less of their lives with me. That will be my penance, my karma.

But I’ll be damned if they take those steps because I was too cowardly to admit I was wrong or too afraid to change.

1. Except for the casting out of Eden, and the Flood, and…

2. I mean, not physically, but spiritually, sure.

3. Some restrictions will still apply.