Since I have been reading up on the progressives and conservatives, I decided to talk to Daniel Helminiak about his recent challenge to Biblical Fundamentalists.  Earlier this spring, Daniel, author of What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality and a professor of Psychology at University of West Georgia (UWG), “threw down the gauntlet” after a chaotic incident during a lecture he gave at UWG.  This was not the first time he has been accosted or attacked by conservative Christians, but this incident pushed him to respond more critically and forcefully than before.

“It just gets to the point when one thinks, ‘we’ve made progress but the same foolishness rises again,’” Daniel told me.

Daniel, raised in the Catholic Church and formerly an ordained priest, has always approached the Bible and Christianity with a scholar’s mind. Daniel is a psychotherapist, social scientist and theologian with two doctorate degrees in theology and psychology. His specialty is the integration of religion and psychology and the meaning of living in a pluralistic and secularized world – in essence, spirituality.

Though Biblical scholarship is not his primary focus these days, What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality, Daniel’s study and debunking of Biblical texts used as weapons against the LGBTQ community, is an international best seller and continues to draw fire from conservative Christians. That was the case with the latest incident causing Daniel to “throw down the gauntlet” on who he calls “bible-believers” or Bible Fundamentalists.

The “gauntlet,” in this case, is a challenge to counter his and others’ scholarly research into the Bible as a historical document that was written over many centuries, by many authors, in several languages before being translated repeatedly and collected into the volume we know today. Daniel wants someone from the Fundamentalist (conservative) side of the pew to seriously consider and debate the Bible academically, not just pronounce its inerrancy.

“They continue to refuse to look at the evidence… They spout the same stuff over and over again.  Their conclusions are predetermined,” Daniel said. 

The divide between conservative Christians and other Christians (For the sake of argument, I will think of them as progressive, after all, wasn’t Jesus the most radical reformer of his era and in much of history? He certainly rebelled against the status quo and upset more than a few apple carts in his day.) has become more pronounced over the past several years and is in more sects of Christianity. Homosexuality and LGBTQ rights are often at the crux of it.

“One thing that baffles me is that the Episcopalians are split over this issue and they were never fundamentalist. They were evangelical but not in today’s sense of that word.  And in my own Catholic Church, it’s embarrassing,” said Daniel.

Daniel has been in this fight for a long time and is losing patience for it. “Part of it may be that I’m getting on in age and hoped that things would’ve changed and maybe they are and that’s why they [Fundamentalist Christians] are reacting so strongly, holding the line… They are either ignorant or dishonest. They are obviously not willing to address the facts.”

Daniel holds the position that bible-believing is “its own religion and has nothing to do with Christianity… but they’ve taken over the term… They’ve made up their own religion… like in science fiction.” He also thinks Bible-believers, or what some now call “Taliban Christians,” are dangerous because “they are trying to impose their views on the rest of the world.”

“I never aimed at changing people’s minds. If they could just understand that not everyone has the same ideas, that would be progress,” Daniel said.

I asked Daniel for his perspective on the effect religious conservatives and their rhetoric have on LGBTQ people.

“I think it’s deadly,” he stated, “at least from what I’ve seen living in Atlanta, which is undoubtedly controlled by Bible religion. When [LGBTQ people] hear this rhetoric on the radio or see it on a billboard, they go back into their guilt or shame. From… psychology, I know that is deadly… but I think a lot of gay men and lesbians are caught up in it… It is deadly… not to reconcile what they are doing with what they are told. It’s devastating to our community.”

In his latest book, Spirituality for Our Global Community, and in his ongoing research, Daniel is finding new ways of understanding and experiencing spirituality that is neither secular nor religious.

“The emphasis on global community, I think that’s the biggest issue facing us. We’re in a new historic period and diversity is a major part of it… My understanding of spirituality is pretty unique… it’s about our inner being and how we reach out… I would base spirituality on what it is to be a human being… that’s what we have in common. If we could tap into that, it would give a basis for a global community… It would be a middle path between the secular and the religious… why do we have to oppose each other… Some kind of unity within diversity is what we need.”