Many of you are no doubt aware of the recent controversy involving Dan Savage, the anti-bullying activist who spoke at a national high school journalism conference. In his comments to the high school students he used crude and vulgar language, attacked the Bible, and insulted and ridiculed the Christian students who had the courage to walk out of his presentation. What was supposed to be a presentation against bullying became a defense of homosexuality and an attack on Christians in general and Christian high school students in particular. The irony of the anti-bully becoming the bully seemed lost on Mr. Savage and his defenders.

Because so much of what he said was misleading and flat out untrue, I felt compelled to answer it and have done so below. I’ve included as much of the transcript of his remarks as I could locate online, and inserted my own comments in bold. As you read this, remember that the speaker is addressing high school students:

Mr. Savage: “The Bible, we’ll just talk about the Bible for a second ah. People often point out that they can’t help it – they can’t help with the anti-gay bullying, because it says right there in Leviticus, it says right there in Timothy, it says right there in Romans, that being gay is wrong. We can learn to ignore the bulls**t in the Bible about gay people. [applause] The same way, the same way we have learned to ignore the bulls**t in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about ************. [applause] We ignore bulls**t in the Bible about all sorts of things. The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document…

My comments: This is false – because the same word is used for “servant” and “slave” and because there is no word in the Bible for “employee” many people confuse the three. Often when the Bible is speaking of a “servant” it is referring to an “employee,” not a slave. Also, the “slavery” practiced in the Bible was almost always indentured servanthood, where a person could work off a debt. In Biblical times there was no such thing as bankruptcy; an indebted individual either paid the debt, had it forgiven, worked it off, or went to prison.

Mr. Savage: Slave owners waved Bibles over their heads during the Civil War and justified it.

My comments: Maybe, but people have wrongly used the Bible to justify a lot of things.

Mr. Savage:  The shortest book in the New Testament is a letter from Paul to a Christian slave owner about owning his Christian slave.

My comments: The book to which Mr. Savage refers is Paul’s letter to Philemon, which he writes on behalf of Onesimus, a servant (probably indentured) who owed Philemon a debt and is now with Paul. How he ended up with Paul, we do not know. First, there is no mention of when he belonged to Philemon, so Philemon may have owned Onesimus before he (Philemon) became a Christian. Second, we do not know for certain the nature of their relationship (for example, was Onesimus an indentured servant working off a debt, or a true slave?), but it appears from verse 18 that he was not a true slave but an indentured servant because he appeared to owe Philemon money. Third, Paul refers to Onesimus as “one of you” in Colossians 4:9, emphasizing his conviction that Onesimus was an equal. Fourth, Paul opens the letter to Philemon by calling himself a prisoner to drive home the point that he is no better than the servant about whom he is writing. Five times in 25 verses he mentions his own bondage to emphasize the fact that he, too, is a prisoner. Fifth, Paul apparently has convinced Onesimus that returning to Philemon is the Christian thing to do (which, if a debt was owed, would be his legal and moral obligation under the law at the time). Sixth, and most important, a fact that Mr. Savage ignores is that Paul tells Philemon to receive Onesimus, not as a servant, but as a brother (v. 16). This verse alone completely invalidates Mr. Savage’s point about Philemon.

Mr. Savage: And Paul doesn’t say “Christians don’t own people.”

My comments: Actually, he does, in Galatians 3:26-28:

Gal 3:26-28 26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.  27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

Mr. Savage: Paul talks about how Christians own people.

My comments: Again, Mr. Savage demonstrates his ignorance of the Bible by making a statement that is simply untrue, all while talking to high school students who, unfortunately, are even more ignorant than he is.

Mr. Savage: We ignore what the Bible says about slavery, because the Bible got slavery wrong [no, it didn’t]. Tim — ah, Sam Harris, in A Letter To A Christian Nation, points out that the Bible got the easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced wrong. Slavery! What’re the odds that the Bible got something as complicated as human sexuality wrong? 100% percent.
The Bible says that if your daughter’s not a virgin on her wedding night – if a woman isn’t a virgin on her wedding night, she shall be dragged to her father’s doorstep and stoned to death.

My comments: Wrong again – he is referring to Deuteronomy 22:13-21, which I will address in Part II of this  commentary.

Mr. Savage:  Callista Gingrich lives. [applause] And there is no effort to amend state constitutions to make it legal to stone women to death on their wedding night if they’re not virgins. At least not yet. We don’t know where the GOP is going these days. [audience laughs] People are dying because people can’t clear this one last hurdle. They can’t get past this one last thing in the Bible about homosexuality, um. One other thing I wanna talk about is — [chuckles] — so, you can tell the Bible guys in the hall that they can come back now, because I’m done beating up the Bible. [applause] It’s funny, as someone who’s on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible, how pansy-a**ed some people react when you push back. [applause]

My comments: As you can see, Mr. Savage’s remarks vis a vis Paul’s letter to Philemon are grossly inaccurate and misleading. In Part II I will address his points concerning the passage in Deuteronomy.