For The Bible Tells Me So

Daniel Karslake's documentary For The Bible Tells Me So is a fantastic film that deserves much more than just indie-film accolades. This film analyzes and historically deconstructs the scripture passages which many fundamental Christians use to back up their homophobic intolerance. It does not attack conservative Christians, but it does point out the dangers of taking ancient passages directed at a specific ancient people and applying them in literal terms in this day and age. It also sheds light on the fact that most fundamentalists do not do their own research within the bible to understand context and actual meaning.

According to SoulForce.org, this film was the Winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Seattle International Film Festival, Dan Karslake's provocative, entertaining documentary brilliantly reconciles homosexuality and Biblical scripture, and in the process reveals that Church-sanctioned anti-gay bias is based almost solely upon a significant (and often malicious) misinterpretation of the Bible. See the trailer here:

It is with tact that this film explains the misconceptions of the bible and how it is used as a tool of hate and bigotry of gays and lesbians…not the intended purpose of the word of God. Most fundamentalist Christians do not question their preachers about the validity and application of these bible passages, and they fail to realize their preachers are not expert historians.

Reverend Peter Gomes, African-American professor at Harvard University says, “You have to think when you read the bible. Perhaps the Roman Catholics were right saying ordinary people shouldn't be reading the bible because usually they get it wrong.” Gomes adds: “They are failing to read the Bible within the context of its author and its original culture."

Biblical literalism is a relatively new concept that has damaged and hurt so many, especially with the idea that homosexuality is an “abomination”.

Reverend Dr. Laurence C. Keene, Disciples of Christ points out many simple and poignant truths in this film, one of which he says: "When the term abomination is used in the Hebrew Bible it’s always used to address a ritual wrong, it never is used to refer to something innately immoral. Eating pork was not innately immoral for a Jew, but it was an abomination because it was a violation of a ritual requirement." The film points out here, too, that it is also an abomination to eat shrimp, rabbit and plant two different seeds in the same hole.

Context and history is key: Leviticus condemns men lying with men but also the eating of shrimp and the simultaneous wearing of linen and wool. Modern evangelicals use the Genesis tale of Sodom and Gomorrah as a ban against same-sex carousing, ignoring 500 years of scholarship that interprets it as a cautionary tale of inhospitable hosts. Says Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the film, "The richness of the Bible is that we don't take it as literally so."

For The Bible Tells Me So also presents the heartbreaking results of the spiritual violence that fundamentalist Christian institutions (such as Focus on the Family) wage on -- not only gays and lesbians, but on the parents of gays and lesbians – encouraging them to shun and disown their children should they ever come ‘out of the closet.’

We also meet in this film those parents who initially were indoctrinated into the disease of ignorant homophobic views, whose children come out to them, and they choose to love their children over hating them in the name of Jesus Christ.

The film is diverse; it covers five stories from all ages and races of people. It outlines some scientific explanations of how being gay is a genetic instance that occurs in nature in many different species of animals and that birth order may linked to sexual orientation. The film also touches upon the fact that when God creates a person a certain way, to expect or shame them to go against the very nature God gave them is, in itself, quite anti-Christian.

I encourage everyone to see For The Bible Tells Me So for themselves. This film will allow you to see just how the Fundamentalist sect errs in disobeying Christ by hating gays / lesbians. It will also show you that the love of Christ IS ALIVE and well in those parents who choose to love their children regardless of their sexual orientation. I welled up several times in awe of the love that these parents expressed because I know that God's love is even greater yet...

"All loving relationships are honored by God," says the Rev. Laurence C. Keene in an interview, and that, Karslake insists, is the one true faith.

Article: What the Bible Says - And Doesn't Say - About Homosexuality.

What the Bible Says About Homosexuality. (PDF FILE).