More Light Than Heat: June 2026

Wednesday, June 3, 2026

Forging a Sacred Weapon: The 1946 Bible Translation Behind Anti-Gay Theology

This book has been a very long time coming. A decade ago, Kathy Baldock never dreamed she would become involved in the battle over Gay Theology. It sort of fell into her lap. Some will, I am sure, claim it was placed there by Satan. I am convinced that God, rather than the Devil, is behind the details.

Whatever you may think of Baldock and her conclusions, it is obvious that details are important to her. Her new book is not some slipshod, hastily put together treatise. She has done her homework, and honest scholars will wrestle with what she has revealed for years to come.

The book revolves around the original Revised Standard Version's translation of 1 Corimthians 6:9-10, first published in 1946. This was the first translation in any language to use the word "homosexual"--a term coined in 1869 by Karl Maria Kertbeny. In 1971, the RSV corrected the wording to "sexual perverts," reflecting the original Greek better. However, Baldock contends that the damage was already done, as the word "homosexual" or "homosexuality" was incorporated into various versions following, including the very popular paraphrase, The Living Epistles, which continued the use in The Living Bible.

Ironically, the concept of homosexuality even made its way into the German Bible (Hoffnung für Alle) financed by the publishers of the NIV. This ignored the tradition of following the translation by Martin Luther, which used the word Knabenschänder, which means "a male adult who sexually assaults boys." This is far from the mutual consent we see in loving same sex relationships today.

Baldock also traces the history of sex, and how roles were viewed since Old Testament times until the present. This history is vitally helpful in helping us understand the horrific sexual scenes which are often depicted in the Bible, as well as archaic ideas which evolved through the years. Thoroughly researched, with an extensive Bibliography and Indices, this book is invaluable for anyone wanting to do a serious study of the relationship of homosexulity and the Church.

Forging a Sacred Weapon is now available for purchase on Amazon, or directly from the author through CanyonWalkerConnections.

...do not let us be fooled.

The idea that the whole human race is, in a sense, one thing - one huge organism, like a tree - must not be confused with the idea that individual differences do not matter or that real people, Tom and Nobby and Kate, are somehow less important than collective things like classes, races, and so forth. Indeed the two ideas are opposites. Things which are parts of a single organism may be very different from one another: things which are not, may be very alike. Six pennies are quite separate and very alike; my nose and my lungs are very different but they are only alive at all because they are parts of my body and share its common life.

Christianity thinks of human individuals not as mere members of a group or items in a list, but as organs in a body different from one another and each contributing what no other could. When you find yourself wanting to turn your children, or pupils, or even your neighbours, into people exactly like yourself, remember that God probably never meant them to be that. You and they are different organs, intended to do different things. On the other hand when you are tempted not to bother about someone else’s troubles because they are ‘no business of yours,’ remember that though he is different from you he is part of the same organism as you. If you forget that he belongs to the same organism as yourself you will become an individualist. If you forget that he is a different organ from you, if you want to suppress differences and make people all alike, you will become a Totalitarian. But a Christian must not be either a Totalitarian or an Individualist.

I feel a strong desire to tell you - and I expect you feel a strong desire to tell me-which of these two errors is the worse. That is the devil getting at us. He always sends errors into the world in pairs-pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors. We have no other concern than that with either of them.—C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, note 2 to chapter 28

"The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know. Thus, writing requires a real act of trust. We have to say to ourselves: 'I do not yet know what I carry in my heart, but I trust it will emerge as I write.' Writing is like giving away the few loaves and fishes one has, trusting that they will multiply in the giving." —Henri Nouwen