Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:26 – these and a handful of other biblical passages are lobbed around in contemporary debates over the church’s teaching and practice surrounding human sexuality.

From the rhetoric of the reactionary religious right, one gets the sense that the Bible is a promotional brochure for the so-called “traditional” American family.

A passing glance at any of the actual text of the Holy Scriptures, however, will give the reader a much more complex, diverse and nuanced view.

Liberal Christians affirm that the gospel of Jesus Christ commands us to work for reconciliation of all people to God and all people to one another; this means no one is left out, no one is a second-class citizen, and no one needs to conform to a cultural standard to be a member of the Body of Christ, the Church.

To borrow Walter Wink’s idea, we do not believe that the Bible has a “sex ethic.” We only believe it has a “love ethic.”

Non-Christian critics of liberal Christianity often argue that the term is an oxymoron: How can you call yourself liberal when you claim such ugly, hateful and ignorant texts to be the word of God?

While the Bible and the Western Christian tradition have, no doubt, contributed to our culture’s fear of the other, our suspicion of pleasure, and our general sex-negativity, the Bible also proclaims the good news of liberation and has been a great source of joy and comfort for many.

When we hear people using certain scriptures to criticize, dehumanize and marginalize others, we ought not conclude that the Bible is harmful and that it promotes hate, but that hateful people hide behind its words and use them to excuse themselves from their own feelings.

The Bible and our many great church traditions certainly shape our culture today. The moral system that we label “Judeo-Christian” has been passed down to us from Hebrew prophets, Greek philosophers, Roman soldiers, English monks, German humanists and our ancestors in every place from every generation.

Throughout all this history, the Bible has been central to our moral thinking. It has been a foundational, authoritative document for all generations of the people of Abraham. While it is fair to say that it informs all our discussions of ethics and morality, we must remember that no text or tradition can cause any of us to think a certain way. Each of us is responsible for our own ethics and our own feelings toward other human beings. The Bible’s divinity is evident in its lasting influence on our culture; our humanity is evident in the fact that every generation has interpreted the Bible differently and everyone who reads it does so selectively.

We always interpret what we read, and when reading an ancient text like the Bible, we also bring to it interpretations that we have inherited from generations past.

God may be eternal, but humans always operate in context – we always interpret, and we always read selectively. Those who cite specific passages such as Leviticus 18:22 to suggest that God doesn’t particularly like homosexuals are a case in point: they often choose not to make an issue out of other biblical injunctions such as dietary restrictions and economic codes, yet, like most Americans, they find prostitution, slavery, and polygamy – three practices that are condoned in the Bible – to be morally reprehensible. No one should be faulted for this kind of hypocrisy; I bring it up only to show that it is an arrogant delusion to believe that any of us are rationally consistent beings.

If we accept that reading the Holy Scriptures is always an interpretive act and that we, as limited creatures, hear only part of God’s message, then the question of whether or how certain passages from the Bible have shaped our culture’s understanding of sexuality makes little sense and seems to be the wrong question to ask.

We all bring our own fear, prejudice and ignorance with us when we approach the Bible. A collection of books that was put together over the course of a thousand or more years is bound to speak to each of us and confirm what we already know.

Painful debates surrounding sex have become battles over the Christian understanding of the authority of Scripture. One side claims the inerrancy of selected passages, while others view the ancient texts as functionally irrelevant for modern Christians.

One thing should be accepted: We are all hopelessly misguided and uninformed. We cannot possibly expect in one lifetime to understand the wisdom of God – in fact, the deeper we search, the more complex it seems to become.

While we cannot hope to unlock the secrets of divinity, we can strive for a deeper knowledge of humanity – and we can start with ourselves.

It is important not to shy away from conflict; we have real division of thought in our churches and we need to address them.

We must, however, be willing to own and acknowledge our own thoughts and feelings. We must not unload our responsibility onto anyone else, especially God. When debating sexual issues in our churches, we must learn to give voice to our own concerns and feelings and refrain from the practice of proof-texting and using Scripture as a weapon.

The next time you catch yourself starting a sentence with the words “the Bible says …,” back up and try it again with the words “I feel ….”

Max Coolidge-Gillmore lives in Orland. He may be reached through bdnreligion@bangordailynews.net. Voices is a weekly commentary by Maine columnists who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.