Paul, the Goddess Religions, and Queer Sects: Romans 1:23—28

Abstract

Romans 1:23-28 is one of the primary texts from the NT used to justify the contemporary condemnation of both male and female homosexuals by some reli gious groups. This article contextualizes this passage as a unified attack on idola try by reidentifying the subjects of the gay and lesbian behavior1 in w. 26-27 as participants in the widespread goddess cults that posed a direct threat to Paul's ministry. These individuals violated patriarchal norms of masculinity, femininity, and sexuality in very public ways, and also most twenty-first-century readers' pre dominant experiences of heteronormativity—I refer to the subjects of the Pauline passage with the postmodern term queer.2