Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the 14th Century [Paperback]

This much, I think, is proven.

On the negative side he appears to state that scripture had nothing to do with anti-gay sentiment. I think it is important to open up the interpretation of the key verses as he does but I tend to think that there is a constellation of values (celibacy, chastity and virginity for example) as well as a number of homonegative verses (even if a more thorough analysis does not lead logically to the exclusion of gays) did in fact contribute to the severe curtailment of homosexuality and bisexualiy which had been more broadly tolerated in the Greco-Roman world (ie as pederasty).

The one proviso here is that these early reference seem to have in their view age structured homosexuality (references include giving up boys for sodomy, do not corrupt young boys etc and Paul's division of homosexuality into malakos and arsenekoites also implies a dividion of labour not seen in egalitarian - ie modern - homosexuality.

The extensive analysis of scripture does show that it has not consistently been understood as being homonegative in church history, though in my view it probably did play this role in the early christian communities, especially as hey were living under an apocalyptic expectation of the end of the world. Its just that thereafter Church history displays a wide variety of differing attitudes.

It shows that acceptance of gay people within the church is not a new phenomenon and that this has been a constant and often positive theme throughout the history of the church.

Boswell's book 'Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality' is an early scholastic contribution to the history of how homosexuality has been treated by the Christian church establishment from the beginning of the Christian era to about the fourteenth century. It won the American Book Award for History in 1981. Boswell (now deceased) was a professor at Yale; I have a friend on faculty at the IU Music School who went to high school with him.

Perhaps Boswell's argument can be summed up fairly easily in that, through examples in contemporary literature and records (legal, theological, literary, etc.), homosexuality was not recognised in the same way that it is today, and therefore that it also was not condemned in the way that it is today by much of the church. Friendships and close relationships often developed into sexual ones; these were not considered unusual. There was a variation from culture to culture, but the widespread condemnation of homosexuality didn't begin until thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when tolerance (not only of this, but of religious opinions in general) ceased to be the rule, as the church (a dominant military, political, and social force as well) attempted to consolidate power.

Boswell's research is extensive and impressive, but his interpretations have remained hotly debated for the 20 years since this book was first published. One scholar-friend of mine who knew Boswell said that his psychological motivation for writing the book (this is a theme that was not designed to win favour in academia at that point in time) was to confront the Catholic church, in which he as a gay man did not feel welcome. And, there is probably some truth to that. Knowing that framework, it is interesting to re-read passages to see where objective scholarship slips into subtle reframing.

Nonetheless, this book provides an excellent historical framework, and cannot be ignored in the current debate. I encountered this book first many years ago when my church was undergoing a discernment process, and it was useful in many ways. Boswell claimed to know of isolated communities and continuing strands where such tolerance continued to the present. He promised on a few occasions (at least semi-publicly) that he would reveal these in the next volume, Same Sex Unions, produced many years later, and an even more controversial text.