(Why do I suspect this has more to do with declining membership and revenues than it does an honest interpretation of scripture?)

A forthcoming book from a respected biblical scholar suggests he got the issue of homosexuality all wrong

Richard Hays is considered one of the most famous New Testament scholars in the world. In 2000, Christianity Today named his Moral Vision of the New Testament one of their “Books of the Century.” That book, published in 1996, covered how Christians ought to think about various hot-button issues, including homosexuality.

And Hays was most certainly not an ally.

He wrote that it was okay to let gay people be members of a church only because all sinners, like racists and alcoholics, were welcome there but “we hope and pray that the church will become a community of moral formation that will enable him or her to change.”

Same-sex activity, he said, was unacceptable for gay people: “Sexual gratification is not a sacred right, and celibacy is not a fate worse than death.”

He said churches should not bless same-sex unions.

He believed that gay people could be “transformed” and become straight.

He wrote that homosexuality was “one among many tragic signs that we are a broken people.”

These are beliefs that have become commonplace in white evangelical circles in the past couple of decades, and they only ramped up after the marriage equality became legal nationwide.

Now, Richard Hays has written another book alongside his son Christopher. Scheduled to be published in September, The Widening of God’s Mercy is all about how Christians should think about homosexuality. It would seem like a safe assumption that the Hays are just elaborating on what Richard wrote nearly three decades ago.

But that would be wrong.

According to the book’s description, which has been zipping around Christian circles, Richard has had a “change of heart and mind”:

The authors—a father and son—point out ongoing conversations within the Bible in which traditional rules, customs, and theologies are rethought. They argue that God has already gone on ahead of our debates and expanded his grace to people of different sexualities. If the Bible shows us a God who changes his mind, they say, perhaps today’s Christians should do the same. The book begins with the authors’ personal experiences of controversies over sexuality and closes with Richard Hays’s epilogue reflecting on his own change of heart and mind. 

Could it be possible that the 75-year-old Hays has rethought his beliefs even as tens of millions of conservative Christians cling to their anti-LGBTQ bigotry? What changed his mind? What positions has he changed his mind about? How the hell can God change His mind? If God’s mercy widens to include gay people (including ones in same-sex relationships who are not celibate), why not other so-called “sinners”? Does any of this expanded grace apply to transgender people?

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We haven’t seen the text of the book yet. But the fact that Hays is shifting his mind about gay people somehow is still a pretty big deal. It suggests that other Christians in the same boat could possibly do the same. If one of the most revered biblical scholars changed his mind on homosexuality, there’s hope that non-denominational megachurch pastors could follow his lead.

Or they could just proclaim that Richard Hays is a heretic and shouldn’t be taken seriously anymore.

Even so, there are two questions worth considering before the book is published:

First, if Hays did indeed change his mind in significant ways, will he take responsibility for all the harm he’s caused by perpetuating bigotry in the name of Jesus? When longtime Purity Culture advocate Joshua Harris renounced his older books, even he admitted it was too little and too late, but he acknowledged that his ideas were both wrong and consequential. Without offering repentance on how his apparent misunderstanding of the Bible ruined so many lives, what’s the point of saying God’s totally fine with gay people now?

Second, how will he explain away why he got this subject so wrong until now? He was citing the Bible, after all. In theory and by the nature of his profession, very few people know the Bible better than he does. If someone like him screwed up on something so important in our culture, what does that say about pastors and preachers who confidently declare their black-and-white thinking on damn near every culture war issue we face today? What does that say about his own conclusions on other topics?

It’s hard to know how big of a change this book offers from what Hays wrote in 1996. But one person blurbing the book (and who presumably read the whole thing) says Hays “renounces” what he wrote back then and “clearly and boldly embraces LGBT+ inclusion.” (T!)

Of course, none of this will really matter unless conservative Christian churches and voters accept Hays’ arguments. It seems like a safe prediction that this defense of LGBTQ people will just be dismissed and Christian bigots will continue down a path of arrogant exclusion. One scholar might be able to change his mind, but MAGA preachers have a habit of doubling down on their worst beliefs.