Unclobber

In his sincere memoir, Martin tells his story of moving out of the restrictive closet before exploring linguistics, traditions, and sex in the Bible. After coming to accept same-gender love and marriage, evangelical pastor Martin tried to move his denomination in the same direction. The church responded by firing him. Martin never imagined this could happen, but he rose above it with the help of his wife, Kate. "The words %E2%80%98homosexuals' and %E2%80%98homosexuality' have zero business being in the Bible," he concludes after considerable research into biblical language. He refutes Bible verses ignorantly wielded to clobber LGBTQ people: Genesis 19, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9, and 1 Timothy 1:10. He then looks at same-sex love in ancient and modern cultures as well as mistranslations and misreadings of the Bible. The exegetical half of the book is harder to read than the autobiographical half, which covers his life as an evangelical minister, but both will be welcome to churchgoers looking for direction as they navigate the changing tide of LGBTQ acceptance within Christian communities. (Sept.)