Russell Crowe, Noah, reincarnation, and the Christian view of gays

My wife and I made our way to the new gigantic movie theatre in town last weekend and saw Noah, starring that estimable New Zealander, Russell Crowe. I enjoyed Mr. Crowe very much in A Beautiful Mind and The Insider, and feel that he did a credible job in Les Misérables. I don't think that he will be up for the best actor Oscar for the biblical epic, but it was fun to watch him nevertheless.

At the very broadest level, the movie follows the biblical narrative, although it does add an interesting twist to Noah's understanding of the precise nature of his calling by the Creator (I won't give it away in case you haven't seen the movie and plan to do so).

I was arrested, I'll admit, by the portrayal of the middle son, Ham. He is definitely cast as an outsider in the movie, as he proved to be in the Genesis story as well. But the thing that struck me most was this: he was remarkably pale skinned to be the supposed father of the sub-Sahara African race, the position he was accorded in history for more than 2000 years.

While there is not a scintilla of biblical evidence to support it, as recently as when I was a  high school student in Ontario in the early 1960s, it was still believed in many Christian circles that Noah's oldest son, Shem, was father of the Semitic races; the youngest, Japheth of us Caucasians, among others; and that Ham was the father of the Africans. As noted in Wikipedia:  

Ham was one of the sons of Noah and the father of Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan, who are interpreted as having populated Africa and adjoining parts of Asia. The Bible refers to Egypt as "the land of Ham" in Psalms 78:51; 105:23, 27; 106:22; 1 Chron. 4:40. Since the 17th century a number of suggestions have been made that relate the name Ham to a Hebrew word for burnt, black or hot, to an Egyptian word for servant or the Egyptian word Kmt for Egypt.

Those of you who are familiar with the biblical story know that Ham in some way took advantage of, or showed disrespect to, his father while he was inebriated and unclothed, and was cursed by Noah (through Ham's son, Canaan) for his trouble.


Genesis 9:24-27: And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.  And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

A very interesting article written by a scholar at the Yale Law School regarding religion and discrimination makes this point with regard to the history of American racism and its relationship to the Noah story:

During the colonial period, (i.e., the colonization of the U.S.) the three great English religions--

Anglican, Puritan-Calvinist, and Roman Catholic--accepted slavery with few qualms; only the Quakers consistently raised moral objections to slavery. Accompanied by much egalitarian rhetoric, the American revolution stirred religious-based opposition to slavery among Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians. But after 1818 these same religions moved decisively toward a stance either tolerating or supporting slavery....The primary biblical argument was Noah's curse....When Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, southern Protestant ministers called for their region to...secede. (Source: Wm. S. Eskridge Jr., Noah's Curse: How Religion Often Conflates, Status, Belief, and Conduct to Resist Antidiscrimination Norms, Yale Law School Faculty Scholarship Series, 01-01-2011, pp. 666-669)

The article goes on to note that as recently as 1964 and the tabling of the U. S. Civil Rights Act, Democratic Senator Robert Byrd criticized the proposed legislation for imperiling the liberties and freedoms of many honest, hardworking and religious Americans. He attempted to buttress his arguments with reference to Noah's curse of Ham, Isaac's blessing, and Levitical laws against interbreeding cattle and sowing with mingled seed (p. 675).

[Byrd, a Southern Baptist, loved gays as much as he appreciated other races. He strongly opposed President Clinton's 1993 efforts to allow gays to serve in the military and supported efforts to limit gay marriage. In 1996, before the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act, he said, "The drive for same-sex marriage is, in effect, an effort to make a sneak attack on society by encoding this aberrant behavior in legal form before society itself has decided it should be legal....Let us defend the oldest institution, the institution of marriage between male and female as set forth in the Holy Bible."(Source: Wikipedia)]

I am writing this because I want to illustrate how a misinterpretation of scripture can have horrific consequences for subsequent government policy, cultural turmoil, and gross injustice. What I have noted above concerning racism in the U.S. is paralleled in justifications for apartheid in South Africa.

No one today pays any credence to the proposition that Noah's curse justified racial segregation and slavery. Yet that view persisted for centuries and did untold harm to individuals and groups.

What is true of Noah's curse is equally true of the biblical teaching on the status of women vis-a-vis men in society and the home; i.e., that misinterpretations, particularly of St. Paul's writings, provided biblical justification for denying women personhood, the vote, most occupations, and any number of other indignities, obstacles, and wrongs. 

I have often wondered if misinterpretations of the Bible shaped public opinion and government policy or vice versa. Given the penchant of many professing Christians (and other religions as well) to

go to Holy Writ for "proof" of already established opinions (we call this practice "proof-texting"), it could be that the belief or bigotry came first, and the scriptures were then sufficiently twisted to give the dubious view a holy sheen. I noted just yesterday that a survey of religious beliefs in British Columbia found that 35% of Chinese Christians believe in reincarnation (Doug Todd, Western and Eastern spirituality thrive, and mix, in B.C, Vancouver Sun, April 18, 2014, p. A3). While this conviction is well-entrenched in Chinese culture it has never been held by the Christian church, and I would be hard-pressed to think of a biblical text to support it . I would be interested to know if these Chinese sisters and brothers have worked out a biblical defense for their cultural belief.

But whichever direction it does--bigotry first or Bible first--I believe that what we are seeing with prejudice against gays is parallel to what we witnessed with racism and sexism. Biblical teaching is being distorted to justify the pigeon-holing of certain people into a place where they can be denied acceptance, communion, marriage, church office, and full equality with other Christians. I'm trying to show that there is no scriptural support for this. It took Christians a long time to overcome their bigotries with respect to non-white races and to women, and it won't happen overnight with gays either.

But one must press on.