From today’s TFN News Clips:
“Religious fundamentalism is dangerous because it cannot accept ambiguity and diversity and is therefore inherently intolerant. Such intolerance, in the name of virtue, is ruthless and uses political power to destroy what it cannot convert.”
— Rev. Peter J. Gomes, a Harvard minister, theologian and author, in an essay published in the New York Times in 1992. He announced he was gay a generation ago and became one of America’s most prominent spiritual voices against intolerance. Rev. Gomes died Monday at 68.
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Gomes’ volume, The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart (HarperOne, 2002) is excellent for refutations of anti-homosexual material taken from the Bible. The National Black Justice Coalition maintains a website with statements on the topic by noted African-Americans and a bibliography with other good books. I haven’t looked at it for awhile, but have recommended it to African-American friends whose churches had never mentioned the inconsistencies in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and similar passages to them.
He was a pretty amazing man and The Good Book was great. I refer to it a lot. The world is a little darker with his loss.