The Old Testament condemns grafting plants, mixing certain fabrics, and homosexuality; however, today, only homosexuality is controversial. Why was homosexuality uniquely enforced?

by Crazed_waffle_party
Staind075

I cannot speak to any level of controversy remaining within the Global Jewish Community in regards to these issues, but as a former ELCA Sunday School Teacher and Historian, I may be able to speak to some potential reasoning amongst various Christian Communities about why grafting plants, fabrics, and other condemnations from the Old Testament (namely in Leviticus and Exodus) are no-longer seen as sins in comparison to homosexuality (and, chiefly, homosexual acts.)

First and foremost, this response will contain an American focus, as most of the research conducted is centered around the American Church, as well as being an American myself. In addition, I will not include my own personal views in regards to these manners and am only presenting a professional articulation of the matter at hand based on various sources, including from the Bible itself.

It is true that homosexuality remains a highly contentious issues amongst various denominations and sects of Christianity. These views on homosexuality vary from complete acceptance to utter disgust and rejection, and encompassing everything in-between. The Rocky Mountain Synod of the ELCA adopted a welcoming statement in which “We as the Rocky Mountain Synod, ELCA invite all into the fullness of God’s love. This invitation is inclusive of people of every race, national origin, immigration status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, physical or mental ability, sex, or station in life. We pledge to use our differences as gifts for our work together;” While the ELCA maintains a more accepting view of LGBTQ issues, a 2014 Pew Research Center study found within the Southern Baptist Convention that 30% of respondents believed that homosexuality amongst its members should be accepted, while 63% believed that homosexuality amongst its member should be discouraged. There is some continuing controversy in regards to the acceptance of homosexuality and LGBTQ individuals and issue amongst various American Christian Denominations, although it is not the only controversial issue in regards to sin that is currently facing the faith.

However, in a very semantical manner, your question asks "Why was homosexuality uniquely enforced?" A simple response to this is that it was not uniquely enforced as a sin and other Old Testament rules were simply ignored. Murder, Theft, and Adultery are three sins listed within Exodus (chiefly as three of the Ten Commandments) that were not ignored by either the Church or State at various times in the Christian World, even up until the present day. However, the rest of my reply will focus on why specifically homosexuality is/was treated as a sin and why these other condemnations, including the ones you mentioned, were largely ignored in the Christian World.

It is very uncommon to hear discussion amongst mainstream Christianity about the condemnation of various sins referred to within the Old Testament, including grafting seeds, mixing fabrics, the cleanliness of certain foods, and proper handwashing techniques (there are exceptions, most notably the Catholic abstention of eating meat on Fridays during Lent, but I have digressed). There are few potential reasons as to why homosexuality has remained a controversial sins and the others have not. However, there is one primary explanation: the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is a teaching from the Gospel of Jesus that is the primary reason for the distinction between homosexuality and other condemnations from the Old Testament. In particular, it is Jesus' Gospel during his interaction with the Pharisees in the Book of Mark. In Mark 7, the Pharisees (a Jewish sect and social movement) had gathered around Jesus and noticed that some of his disciples were eating, even though they had not ceremonially washed their hands since returning from a market (if hands were considered "dirty", it was not enough to simply wash them and they had to be cleaned in a ceremonial manner). It states in Mark 7:5, 'So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?” To which Jesus responds with "You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!"' (Mark 7:8-9.) Furthermore, Jesus adds to those amongst the crowd and his disciples 'Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. "Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person' (Mark 7:14-23).

So what exactly is Jesus telling us in Mark 7? Jesus' gospel, in essence, nullified- or superseded, if you will- the Old Testament's stance on certain actions being sins. These actions that would no longer be considered sins included the eating of unclean meat, eating with unclean hands, the use of mixed fabrics, and other actions that did not result from a persons internal machinations. Hence why the majority of Christians see no problem in the eating of shellfish and pork or the ability to wear clothing made from cotton mixed with polyester. However, Jesus also mentions various sins that "come from the heart" and thus defile a person; amongst these included are sexual immorality and lewdness. Homosexuality, whether in terms of acts or orientation, is often categorized as either one of those "evil thoughts [that come from a person's heart]" -namely sexual immorality- and thus is the primary reason why it is still viewed as a sin. Now, whether other actions or thoughts coming from within being viewed or treated as sin, as well as the severity of earthly or Heavenly condemnation, is a discussion for another time.

Sources

Baker, Zac. “Rocky Mountain Synod Votes to Strengthen LGBTQ Welcome.” ReconcilingWorks, May 5, 2016. https://www.reconcilingworks.org/rms-strengthens-lgbtq-welcome/.

Mark 7 NIV - - bible gateway. Accessed May 2, 2022. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2B7&version=NIV.

“Religious Landscape Study.” Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. Pew Research Center, March 31, 2022. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/religious-denomination/southern-baptist-convention/views-about-homosexuality/.

The_Manchurian

I'm not going to talk too much about why some Christians today believe homosexuality is okay or not okay, as that's partially a matter of today's culture (so partly outside the scope of a history subreddit) and partially a matter of theology and Biblical interpretation (for which you'd be better off asking r/christianity or r/askbiblescholars or r/academicbiblical).

I'm going to discuss a)the very early Church and its relationship with Judaism, b)Jewish views of Roman and Greek sexual mores (this will include some NSFW details), c)the early development of the Church and its views on sexuality up to the middle ages.

Part 1: the early Church and Jewish taboos

By the time of Jesus's birth, Jews had been practicing a wide variety of taboos for hundreds of years based on the Torah, their holy scriptures. Do not murder, keep Saturday holy, do not eat pork or shellfish, do not mix certain fabrics, do not sleep with your father's ex-wife, do not sleep with other men, etc.

During the late Second Temple Period, Judaism had somewhat split into several groups with different interpretations. The two largest and most influential were the Sadducees (pro-Roman, somewhat Hellenised, basing their beliefs on the Torah and with no belief in an afterlife.) and the Pharisees (anti-Roman, anti-Hellenic culture, basing their beliefs on the Torah and oral traditions of interpretation, believing in an afterlife.) Other smaller groups include the violently anti-Roman Zealots and the isolationist Essenes. Into this period was born a man named Yeshua (in English, Jesus), the son of a carpenter from the small Jewish town of Nazareth.

Our first source on the early Church come from the years 40-50AD, the writings of a Christian missionary. Saul was a tent-maker from a solidly pro-Pharisee Jewish family who lived in what is now southern Turkey, and was sent as a youth to Jerusalem to learn Jewish law. He claims to have grown up a fervent Pharisee, and became involved in the persecution of a group called The Way, who believed that a crucified Jewish preacher called Yeshua had been the Messiah (a prophecied figure in Judaism) and actually returned to life after his death. But then he (claims to have) had a vision of Yeshua which converted him, and he joined The Way, later known as Christians.

However, Saul (now calling himself Paul, a latin word name meaning "Small") frequently clashed with other Christian leaders, specifically about the enforcement of Jewish taboos. He believed that these taboos, so important to his former friends the Pharisees, were something that would only distract Christians from true salvation which came from following Yeshua. He wrote a wide variety of condemnations of Jewish taboos, but primarily circumcision. This was a Jewish custom that was viewed with extreme discomfort by Greeks. Paul claims to have been strongly opposed by Jesus's brother, James, leader of the Christians in Jerusalem, and also claims the most prominent leader of the Christians, Peter, tended to go back and forth on the issue depending on who he'd last spoken to.

Paul describes a small religious movement fully dedicated to the belief that Yeshua (in English, Jesus) had come, died, and rose again, and that he was the messiah, but whose primary controversy was whether or not they should follow Jewish taboos. Eventually, Paul explains that he convinced the other Christian leaders that Christians should abandon all Jewish taboos except for helping the poor.

A few decades later, a writer known to history as Luke (that may not have been his real name, but it's not really important) wrote a biography of Yeshua, and a sequel talking about the early Church, "Acts of the Apostoles." He gives a slightly different description of events, but not very different. He describes how Jewish Christians and Greek converts, while united in belief in God and Jesus's resurrection, frequently clashed over taboos, especially circumcision and food (ie pork, shellfish, etc). Both sides often complained to their 12 leaders (who did not include Paul or James, brother of Jesus) about the other side. According to Luke, while visiting the Greek Christians and invited to eat pork, Peter had a dream where an angel visited him and told him that as God made all animals, all animals can be eaten.

The leaders of the Christians then had a large meeting to discuss the issue, where the pro-taboo group demanded that Greek Christians be circumcised and follow the law of Moses. Peter (according to Luke) stood up and said that God had not discriminated against the Greek Christians, and that they should not be made "to shoulder a yoke that was too hard for our own ancestors." James (according to our earlier sources from Paul, James was the leader of the pro-taboo group), brother of Jesus, then agreed, saying that God had first appeared to the Jews but was now spreading to the Gentiles. He said they should write to the Greek Christians and tell them they did not need to follow any of the Jewish laws, except:

"to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality."

One of these accounts is from the point of view of a missionary from a Greek city who clearly had strong views, the other is written several decades after these events. But both depict a religious community whose main controversy was how "Jewish" their movement should be. Should Greek Christians be assimilated into Judaism, with circumcision, food taboos, etc? The final conclusion by the leaders of the Christians was... no. And this decision to modify Christianity to fit with the mores of Greek culture seems to have been very successful judging from the growth of Christianity in the following century.

Of course, they were not giving up all their teachings to ensure converts had an easy time. We see from later sources that they still preached the Ten Commandments, although the Sabbath was changed from Saturday to Sunday. In this early stage, they still had a blood taboo (though this was later to fade away). And there's the rather vague taboo about "sexual immorality", which is relevant to the OP.

In this answer I've said nothing specifically about mixing cloth, and that's because there's nothing specifically to say about it. From the second century onwards, Christians don't seem to have worried about this taboo. It seems most likely that it simply vanished along with circumcision, the taboo on pork, etc.

Sources:Acts of the Apostles (a book from the late 1st century, written by someone who wrote it as a sequel to his biography of Jesus)The Letters of Paul (1 Thessalonians, Phillipians, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Philemon, Colossians)These are both Christian sources, but there are no non-Christian sources that discuss this issue in the early Church.