I understand why we should treat the Bible with exceptional reverence, taking it as the single most essential book we have among the millions that have been written. The Bible is the best account of Jesus’s life and ministry, the best account of the teachings, travels and travails of His disciples as they began to preach the Gospel. It opens with the best account of God’s efforts to draw the Israelites into faithful covenant life, an account that provides the necessary context for Jesus’s…

So it comes down to five Bible verses.

The argument that homosexuality is wrong, that homosexuality is sinful, has no other leg to stand upon – if it has any at all – than these five verses: two from Leviticus, one from Romans, one from First Corinthians, and one from First Timothy.

Some want to argue that…

The question of how Quakers should view homosexuality is a religious and spiritual question, not a matter of law or public policy. Nevertheless, our consideration unfolds in the midst of continuing turmoil in law and policy. And that turmoil creates an undertow that can drag our spiritual seeking to places far from God’s will.



Until the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was approved in…

One hundred years ago next week was born Bayard Rustin, the man who was the principal logistical organizer of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. That march took place on August 28, 1963 and was attended by upwards of a quarter of a million people. Bayard Rustin was a Quaker and a gay man.

A. Philip Randolph, the president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, was the civil rights leader who initiated and built the leadership coalition for the March. Other leaders…