A friend and I were having the “Bible: Gay or not gay?” discussion.

“I don’t think this is a very important or fruitful discussion to have,” said I. “Quotes can be pulled to support any interpretation you’d care to have.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” said the friend. “Because the Bible contradicts itself.”

Something about that struck me funny. As little as I regard the Bible (or insert your own favourite scripture here), I still wouldn’t say it contradicts itself. For that to happen, there would have to be two unambiguous (and opposed) statements. I don’t see that this is the case. Everything in there is ambiguous! Think of the possibilities: Does this passage refer to a past event or a prophetic future event? This reference to ‘life’: does it refer to ‘life of the body’ or ‘spiritual life’, or both? Are these beasts real or do they represent something? Does this instruction apply to me, or just to who was being addressed at the time? Not only is interpretation on multiple levels possible; it’s actually necessary in some cases (think John’s Revelation).

“Let’s just say,” said I, “that a complex text like the Bible is sufficiently rich to support a variety of diverging interpretations.

“What I find interesting is not what a text means or doesn’t mean, but the semantic gymnastics that true believers engage in to support their privileged reading of the text.”

Now that’s interesting.

Case in point: here’s a lone voice in the wilderness wondering why Latter-day Saints aren’t vegetarians despite LDS scriptures suggesting this should be so. (There’s also an amusing bit of shoehorning about the number 666 and current events, but wash your hands afterwards.)

Both the veg reading and the meat reading are valid interpretations from the text. Yet the meat interpretation is currently the privileged reading. Why might that be so? And why do Mormons defend their meat habit so vociferously?

My observation: when religious belief comes head to head with prevailing cultural practice, the cultural norm wins. And for the Western U.S., that means meat. Let the gymnastics begin!

But I’m not a gymnast of any description. I’m a much better spectator. So feel free to perform for me sometime. You can defend your reading of whatever text you like, and I’ll listen politely. But you won’t be telling me about the issue. You’ll be telling me about yourself.