For those wrestling with the question of what a Christian position on the issue of homosexuality should look like, Dale Martin’s new book Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation could be a valuable resource.
Unlike most who have written books on this subject, Martin (Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University) focuses much of his attention on how we interpret the Bible. As he likes to point out, the Bible, being an inanimate object, doesn’t say anything; it’s the reader that brings meaning to the text based on his or her experiences, preconceptions and cultural baggage. The historical-critical method of interpretation favored by most modern theologians, though useful when regarded as one tool among many, falls far short of being able to pinpoint the one “right” interpretation of any given text that so many turn to it for, and can in fact produce contradictory results even when used correctly.
Martin does spend two chapters addressing the New Testament “clobber passages,” exposing the bias that colors the “traditional” interpretations of those verses, and another chapter examining Paul’s view of human sexuality and how vastly it (and the majority of historical Christian opinion) differs from the modern Christian perspective. He also provides compelling evidence that suggests that neither Jesus nor Paul would have been cheerleaders for the “traditional” family so highly revered by the religious right, and demonstrates how Jesus’ prohibition against divorce was far more radical than anything any modern Christian would be willing to accept. Martin closes by proposing a more holistic method for reading and interpreting the Bible.
Some of the essays included in Sex and the Single Savior have appeared elsewhere, but the whole book provides a lot to consider and reflect on for Christians of all stripes. He puts forward his most direct challenge at the end of his chapter on the meanings of malakoi and arsenokoitai:
…I take my stand with a quotation from an impeccably traditional witness, Augustine, who wrote, “Whoever, therefore, thinks that he understands the divine Scriptures or any part of them so that it does not build the double love of God and of our neighbor does not understand it at all” (Christian Doctrine 1.35.40).
By this light, any interpretation of Scripture that hurts people, oppresses people, or destroys people cannot be the right interpretation, no matter how traditional, historical, or exegetically respectable. There can be no debate about the fact that the church’s stand on homosexuality has caused oppression, loneliness, self-hatred, violence, sickness, and suicide for millions of people. If the church wishes to continue with its traditional interpretation it must demonstrate, not just claim, that it is more loving to condemn homosexuality than to affirm homosexuals. Can the church show that same-sex loving relationships damage those involved in them? Can the church give compelling reasons to believe that it really would be better for all lesbian and gay Christians to live alone, without the joy of intimate touch, without hearing a lover’s voice when they go to sleep or awake? Is it really better for lesbian and gay teenagers to despise themselves and endlessly pray that their very personalities be reconstructed so that they may experience romance like their straight friends? Is it really more loving for the church to continue its worship of “heterosexual fulfillment” (a “non-biblical” concept, by the way) while consigning thousands of its members to a life of either celibacy or endless psychological manipulations that masquerade as “healing”?
The burden of proof in the last twenty years has shifted. There are too many of us who are not sick, or inverted, or perverted, or even “effeminate,” but who just have a knack for falling in love with people of our own sex. When we have been damaged, it has not been due to our homosexuality but to others’ and our own denial of it. The burden of proof now is not on us, to show that we are not sick, but rather on those who insist that we would be better off going back into the closet. What will “build the double love of God and of our neighbor”? (pgs. 49-50)
What a great resource! Thank you for raising the visibility of this book.
This approach to Scripture troubles me because it establishes the edification of sinful man as the metric of interpretation, rather than cementing the unchanging nature of God as the guardrail.
Would you say that an interpretation of a passage that hurts, oppresses, or destroys sinful people cannot glorify God, or alternately that it is not equally essential for an interpretation to honor the Sovereign Lord for it to be “the right interpretation?”
In response to James:
I think that God wouldn’t be out to hurt, oppress, or destroy sinful people with the bible, he’d be out to help them.
Generally, something that destroys people on earth, is not attributed to God…I think people usually say that destructive things are evil.
or else accidental
If you want to make yourself an opinion about Martin’s style of writing, I can reccomend his paper Arsenokoités and Malakos: Meanings and Consequences. In my opinion that article is one of the best when it comes to making a good argument about the tranlation about the two words in 1 Co 6:9.
James said:
Perhaps I can clarify your question with my own. Would you say that it is the desire of God to hurt, oppress, or destroy people, sinful or otherwise? Or alternately, would you say that every line of scripture honors the Sovereign Lord?
Yes.
“Would you say that an interpretation of a passage that hurts, oppresses, or destroys sinful people cannot glorify God…”
I think I would say exactly that.
Maybe in the future, I will be able to buy or borrow a copy of Dale Martin’s new book, “Sex and the Single Savior. One of the books which I considered most helpful in supporting my own take on the “4 Clobber Passages in the New Testament was Robert Williams’ book, JUST AS I AM: A Practical Guide to Being Out, Proud and Christian. William, who died of complications due to an AIDS related disease, had been Southern Baptist; but, he was the first openly gay man ordained as an Episcopal Priest and Bishop John Spong was the one who presided over that taking place.
The words malakoi and arsenokoitai must be used in the context in which they were written. Paul is the only known person to have used the word arsenokoitai during or before the 1st Century AD, according to all of the academic style research that I have done on the word.
I sort of majored in English Bible when I was in the graduate degree program of the MA in Theological and Historical Studies at ORU in Tulsa, so my Greek knowledge there was limited; but, I have done a lot of study on my own since then and I do know the meaning of lots of Hebrew and Greek words and even sight read those I know the meaning of. I did take the “Textual Criticism of the Greek New Testament” course where we studied the writings of the text in Greek without actually discussing what was written. On the copies of the manuscripts available, we observed that there were no punctuation, no spaces between words or sentences and often no spaces between paragraphs either. Some letters were joined together to look like another letter also. And due to the type of ink used in those days, some of the dried ink flaked off. (see next comment for more discussion)
The holiness of God should be our fundamental, inviolable standard for interpreting Scripture; in essence, we should consider what our interpretation says about God, not man, when determining whether it is a faithful understanding of what has been written.
For example: all orthodox Christians will agree that apart from Christ, man is sinful and rightly deserves the judgement of God. In the Old Testament, we witness countless examples of God punishing the people of Isreal for their faithlessness and, consequently, their unrighteousness. This judgement is in full accord with God’s attribute of justice. Yet, in the person of Christ we witness attributes of compassion and mercy, as the Lord willingly sent his son for the redemption of those who believe.
Thus, on one hand, we have God’s righteous judgement, which clearly hurts, oppresses, and destroys sinful people. On the other, we have God’s unmerited grace, poured out upon Calvary for the salvation of men and women from every tribe and tongue. Both of these understandings (which are undisputed within orthodox Christianity) glorify God and are consistent with His nature, yet once of them fails the standard of interpretation established in this post.
In conclusion, it is essential that we establish the unchanging nature of God as our standard, lest we fashion Him in the image of sinful man.
One person with whom I used to have a lot of online communication and had taken Koine Greek when he studied theology told me that since arsenokoitai ended with “ai,” that would mean the gender of the word is feminine and the word is plural, too. That would mean the ones involved in that activity would not be men at all. I told him about that “Textual” class that I took and, considering what I knew about the transmission of the original texts to copies and copies of the text, the ars part of the word could mean “lift” or “take” away. And the enokoit looks similar to the Greek word meaning “house” or as an alternate spelling of the Greek verb meaning to “dwell (in a house).” When I told him that, he said that would appear to him that the word figuratively meant, “women who were homewreckers.”
“Home-wreckers” would certainly be a contrast to makakoi which literally means “soft (ones)” or “softs.” Jesus used the singular form of the word, malakos for soft in Mt 11:8 But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. In understanding the way that Paul probably meant the meaning of malakoi to be, it is possible that he was talking about those guys who lived an “effeminate” lifestyle with someone else supporting them. At the time when the KJV Bible appeared, “effeminate” did not mean having feminine mannerisms or dressing like a woman when referring to a guy; it meant being kept like a woman in the sense that he had someone else supporting him. And in England now, that applies to the folks who travel with royalty and yet don’t have regular vocations since royalty pays all of their expenses.
In the linked online article, Dale Martin admits that he does not actually know the meaning of arsenokoites; and apparently no one else does either. Everybody is just guessing.
I won’t discuss the “Clobber Passage” of Romans 1:26-27, other than say that has no connection with in private consensual sexual activity of folks who are exclusively homosexual in their sexual orientation. It has to do with pagan rituals in temples dedicated to fertility gods in Rome.
But, the proof-texted “Clobber Passage” of verse 7 in the short Epistle of Jude is quite interesting when translated from Greek into English and using the world view of Jude who was a Jew and knew Hebrew. It is possible that Jude’s 1st language at home was either Hebrew or the related Semitic language, Aramaic. Jude was one of Jesus’ human brothers and was the son of Mary and Joseph. (That proves that Mary was not a virgin for very long after the birth of the baby Jesus.)
I like to use the KJV for Jude 7 in discussing that (why write Jude 1:7, when there is not even a Jude 2:1?).
Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
The phrase “giving over to fornication” is ekporneusaia in the Greek text which the KJV translators used and the verb is ekporneuo. Porneuo is from the word porneia which is from the verb pernemi, to “sell.” The noun porneia actually refers to the “sexual activity of female prostitutes with male customers.
Strange flesh is quite interesting when you look at the Greek word used as “strange” and how the word “flesh” is used in Hebrew as a euphemism for “genitals” and sometimes referred to “gender.”
“Strange” is the translation of heteras, an alternate form of hetero. We know that is the opposite of homo. And “flesh” is the translation of the Greek word sarkos, a form of the word sarx. I think that many of the writers of the New Testament books translated their Hebrew thoughts into Greek when they wrote their books and Epistles. The only author of any NT book who was not a Jew was Luke, a Greek from Macedonia. Luke wrote Luke and Acts.
So, using the principles of Biblical hermenutics here, I say that the sexual activity in Jude 7 was of the heterosexual type related to prostitution. That verse is the only place where the sexual activity of Sodom is literally mentioned.
In response to James:
Isn’t the orthodox God more like: Infinite, personal, omnipotent, omniscient, omni benevolent, creator, and etc. too? Does it help to just single out God’s holiness and unchanging nature and forget about the other orthodox-accepted properties of God?
If a person rejects an interpretation of the bible because it negates an orthodox-accepted view of God’s omnibenevolence, then they are considering what that interpretation says about God, not man.
Or, are you implying that God’s holiness matters more all other properties of God? I don’t remember a biblical passage that hierarchically rates the various aspects of God…
*than*
Lesley, you said,
Yes, He is. I completely agree with you. When I refer to the “holiness” of God, I’m referring to the complete set of God’s attributes, and when I refer to the “unchanging nature” of God, I’m referring to the notion that these attributes do not change and, as an implication, do not contradict or compete with each other in their expression. I do not intend to elevate certain attributes or diminish the value of others.
Essentially, our disagreement lies in this statement:
You’re the first to connect the condemnation of homosexual acts (as referenced in the post) with a violation of God’s omnibenevolence. Apparently, you and I have different views on the meaning of that term. Rather than extending this already-verbose comment, could you define the “orthodox-accepted view of God’s omnibenevolence” by which you’ve made the above-quoted statement?
I am unfamiliar with that definition of Holiness. Further, using the idea of “sets” and therefore “set theory” is at best questionable in relation to hard to define and possibly infinite things. In addition to this, I’m not aware of a biblical definition of Holiness that involves the idea of the set of all of God’s attributes.
Benevolence: the disposition to do good
Omni: all or universally
Omnibenevolence: to always be disposed to do good
Where I take the disagreement to be is that part of what you see as good (destroying, hurting, oppressing the set of people who sin [or perhaps you mean people who somehow do not denounce their sin as an aspect of their identity]) I see as evil.
This sounds interesting, but it also seems outdated. The theory sounds very much like reader response, a postmodern criticism that has been out of favor since the 80s. But then the author criticizes the manner of the reader’s response–weird, not generally done. Interesting analysis/review.
At this point I suppose you probably will say that good is not about the opinions of people. Its about what God thinks is good. I will agree that good is what God thinks is good.
However the problem that will confront us both in figuring out what God thinks is good is that beliefs about what God thinks is good are predicated on beliefs about what sort of interpretation of the bible is the acceptable one.
So we will be left in a vortex of circular reasoning
It would help the flow and perhaps even avoid additional tangents if we could address earlier inquiries first. I answered yours with my own (restated above), your replies to which I think might help answer your own.
In addition, before we make the effort to discuss your objection to Eugene’s conclusion, let’s determine your thoughts of the statement on which it was based. Do you agree with Augustine’s statement:
Also, welcome to XGW, James 🙂
Full disclosure: I have not yet read the book being reviewed so my responses are limited to the material posted here.
“I will agree that good is what God thinks is good.”
So, if God thanks mass murder is good, than it is good? Basically, this is a “might makes right” argument. Good is arbitrary–whatever God thinks it is. After all, he is more powerful than you are.
Fortunately, I have abandoned beliefs in ghosts that impregnate underage teenaged girls, are their own father, and get themselves killed and fly into heaven after rising from the dead.
But apparently you hung on to a disrespect of those who believe differently than you.
Mark, I suspect you know this kind of post is out of line, but let me give you this one warning (because frankly, I’m tired of dealing with people who can’t behave themselves). You are free to your own faith or lack thereof, and to express it here in an appropriate and civil manor. XGW is not, however, the place to slander others for their beliefs, or to smear entire religions.
Please keep this in mind should you decide to post in the future.
Lesley,
Per the advice of David, I’m going to place our tangential conversation on hold. The attributes of God make for a rich study, and I would strongly recommend A. W. Tozer’s Knowledge of the Holy as a concise treatment of nineteen of the revealed attributes of God. Much of my vocabulary on the subject is derived from concepts expressed in the book.
David,
Thank you for the friendly welcome. I’ve read XGW for several months, but this is the first time that the world-view of an author and myself have overlapped sufficiently to enable a fruitful discussion.
From your earlier comment:
This question raises a historical issue concerning the two apparent wills of God in Scripture. (Many well-respected theologians have addressed this topic; I would direct you to an article by John Piper for a thorough introduction to the issue.) With that being said, my concise response would be that God desires our obedience; since we have chosen to disobey, God — in His justice — demands retribution for our transgressions.
We need look no further than Genesis 6 for an example of God’s destructive wrath poured out upon the earth in the flood. Indeed, God even said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth” (v. 13, emphasis mine). Naturally, God acts according to His desires, and He has clearly desired the judgement of those who have disobeyed Him.
Additionally, as reprehensible as it may sound to our created minds, God is glorified in His judgement, for it demonstrates righteousness and justice. Therefore, I would posit that the entirety of Scripture honors the Lord. Of course, taken line-by-line we could isolate accounts of men sinning against God and such sin does not honor Him, so I’ll assume that you’re speaking in a holistic sense when you say “every line.”
Considering Augustine’s statement:
I fully agree. Clearly, this statement is based on the two greatest commandments affirmed by Christ in Matthew 22:36-40. Note, however, that Christ repeatedly defines the love of God to be obedience to His teachings in John 14.
Let’s recall Eugene’s statement from the entry:
Given that the greatest commandment is to love God and that the love of God is obedience to Christ’s teachings, I find it irresponsible to establish the above as a hermeneutic since (in Eugene’s application) it appeals to the second greatest commandment at the expense of the first.
I extend my gratitude to those of you taking time to read my comments and engage in conversation.
James, I can’t speak for Eugene, but please review the following version of his statement which might more accurately reflect my understanding of what he is saying:
Do you agree with this statement?
I do not consider myself a Bible expert, but I find it hard not to notice the differences in God’s actions and the emotions attributed to God in the Old Testament on through the New Testament. In many ways, two very different Beings are presented. Over time, God goes from angry, vengeful and impulsive to more measured, understanding and patient, despite no real change in the enormous provocations of God on the part of humans.
Are we supposed to believe that via experience God learned to be more patient and understanding? Some could consider that to be a heresy. Since God is omniscient, it is illogical to say that He has learned from His mistakes.
I prefer to think that the record-taker(s), the writer(s) is (are) the one(s) undergoing a process of cultural maturation as he describes God’s interaction with us through history.
Much of writing tells you more about who is doing the writing than it does about the observed object.
God is unchangeable, however, the culture He interacts with is transforming itself. This is reflected perhaps in the inspired narrative.
James,
I found several of the points in your last post quite curious.
To start with, your answer
serves only to summarily negate the question of determining a test for the accuracy of interpretation.
Without such a test, with the very question taken off the table, we are all left at the mercy of any interpretation that claims to reflect God’s desire for obediance. Slavery can be justified again, and the use of torture to effect conversion.
Given the real injury inflicted on GLBTQ people, more care and analysis is required, particularly in light of greatest commandments.
From there, you opined:
The problem here is that you’ve created a self-cancelling loop for yourself. As you say, the evidence of love of God lies in obediance to Christ’s teachings, which includes the implicit declaration against injustice ‘love your neighbor as yourself’. Though you appear to be attempting to place the first command in priority over the second, practicing the second is proof of obedience to the first.
Thus, this cannot be used to excuse away the persecution of homosexuals on the grounds that obeying the interpretation ‘homosexuality is sin’ as an example of “love God with your entire self” supercedes the requirement to refrain from persecuting others in obedience to Christ’s teaching “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Problematic as well is the principle, generally embraced by Christians, that acts of harm, like murder, theft, persecution, are not only sins against the person harmed, violating Christ’s second command, but also sins against God, through the implicit contempt for God’s creation.
The accusation “Eugene’s application – – – appeals to the second greatest commandment at the expense of the first” is glib at best, relying entirely on the preconceived conclusion that the interpretation ‘homosexuality is sin’ is accurate. This is a situation of grave injustice that requires more than cavalier disregard and pat answers. We are looking for a test for accuracy, not an excuse to justify what is popular and easy.
The two clauses are so intertwined because of God’s explicit relationship to our ‘neighbor’ that an act of violence against said neighbor, even if apparently legitimatized by Scripture, intrinsically violates the first command to Love God with your entire self.
Is it an act of love for God, to torture other people?
The other curious premise in your post was in your usage of the flood account as an example of God acting
for, while quoting Genesis 6 tells part of the story, the conclusion in Genesis 8:21 gives a very different nuance to the entire account:
21 The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though [a] every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
This looks remarkably like repentance, a recognition of a wrong committed and the intent not to repeat the wrong. The flood account then is one of God inflicting horrific destruction on His creation, and consequently, swearing to never repeat such destruction. We have an event from which God recognizes injustice for what it is.
It hardly serves then to bolster a case to defend certain injustices.
I think we over-simplify when we interpret omniscience as some static state that negates growth and change.
For example, I am reminded of Paul’s remark in Romans 1:20 , that the universe itself communicates fundamental truths about the nature of God:
Growth and change are constants in the universe we witness, and even more so in the more limited experience of the universe Paul had.
I think it would serve us well to consider just what lessons ‘what has been made’ teach us about the nature of God.
Update: I’ve fixed the block quote to reflect that the last two paragraphs are a continuation of the quote from Martin’s book and not my own writing. Sorry for the delay in getting back online to catch that.
That said, I’m coming back to the discussion a bit late, but David accurately captured the essence of what Martin is saying in that quote – namely, if a doctrine leads Christians to abuse or otherwise devalue a group of people, something is wrong. Although there are individuals on the conservative side of this debate that stand up against the verbal and emotional (and even physical) abuse of GLBTQ individuals, they tend to be the exceptions that prove the rule; the conservative church in general, regardless of denomination, has yet to demonstrate that its stance on the issue of homosexuality can produce an attitude that any outside observer would identify as loving.
Has anyone noticed? There’s a book about how to respond to “Pro-Gay Theology” on Exodus’ website. Any thoughts? Has anyone read this book?
Link
A former ex-gay by the name of Rev. Jerry Stephenson gives his take on Joe Dallas’s book on answering pro-gay theology. He attended a Love Won Out conference in Omaha where Joe was appearing.
https://www.truthwinsout.org/uncategorized/152/#more-152
Personally, I wouldn’t trust anything said or printed coming out of these ex-gay programs.
I have read retired Exodus CEO’s Bob Davies’ book Coming Out of Homosexuality. It is supposedly “co-authored by Lori Rentzel; but, it is Davies’ thinly disguised autobiography actually.
When he talks about himself in early puberty, he saw some pics of men with no clothes on, which sexually aroused him. That’s what made him a homosexual.
In a chapter written about when Davies was in his latter 20s, he tells a group of men that he has an addiction to pornography. He wrote that when he was in early puberty, he saw some pics of naked women which sexually aroused him. And . . . , that’s when he became addicted to pornography.
In the book, Davies never mentions experiencing a physiological sexual attraction to another live male, boy or adult, who was in his presence. I don’t remember when it was written in the book that he got married; but, apparently the only person toward whom he experienced a sexual attraction was the woman whom he married and he was still married to her when he retired. Davies retired from Exodus before it moved from Seattle to Florida.
How can anyone truthfully claim to be an ex-gay when one was never sexually attracted to a person of the same gender?
The book was in my local library and that was when I read it. Our Tulsa City-County Library System’s Central Branch has Davies’ book in the religion section on sexuality and homosexuality. There are more books with a positive spiritual approach to homosexuality in that section than the kind of book’s like Davies’. It was at that Branch’s section mentioned here where I first saw William’s book which now have as a part of my personal home library.
A person can describe themselves as gay without ever having a gay attraction or a relationship. They just know they are atrracted to their own gender.
Ken, thanks for posting that link. It warms my heart to know that there are educated people who see right through those things.
Mary,
How would someone know that they are attracted to the same gender “without ever having a gay attraction.” I suppose they could infer it, if they aren’t attracted in any way to the opposite gender, but in that case, they could just be asexual.
That statement appears to be self-contradicting. Having a gay attraction = attracted to their own gender.
How does someone know they are straight without having an attraction to someone of the opposite gender???
Isn’t it just a feeling you have?
Well, how about
if ‘gay attraction’ is a reference to being attracted to a specific person – like a crush or falling in love?
Then, one can recognize that one’s own gender is appealing, without yet having been attracted to a specific person of the same gender.
In other words, there was a time when I felt a powerful physiological spiritual response to other men, and then, later, my first same-sex crushs, and later still, my first experience of falling in love with another man and having that reciprocated.
Is that what you were getting at Mary?
I guess?
I mean, you hear about it all the time where some says – “I just knew”.
So yes, a person is attracted to their own gender but has not found a special person, yet. And they have not had any sexual experiences either.
Sorry Mary,
I wasn’t questioning the concept – since it is what I’d experienced.
Just trying not to speak for you when I offered how I understood your post.
When I was young, I had crushes on guys; but, that was more like I idolized them and the feeling was in my chest and not down inside the lower pelvis at all where, for most normal males (it seems), physiological sexual attractions (PSAs) take place. I was infatuated with them instead.
Being sexually aroused by pictures, and not by live people in close proximity, has no connection with sexual attraction related to sexual orientation.
If a person never has a PSA in his entire life, it is because he was never around the right person or his sexual orientation is “asexual.” Another live body has to be present for one to experience a PSA, which apparently is connected with pheromones.
I have experienced many PSAs towards guys whom I was not interested in having sex, or wasn’t even thinking about sex at all at the time. But, in the case of the latter, there was a small amount of visible proof, when the PSA experienced was really strong. In those situations, I had a damp spot in my underwear.
I don’t mean to talk about myself here such; but, I will relate a good experience anyway. In June 2001, when I was a member of ORU-OUT, Inc. (the unofficial Oral Roberts University GLBT Alumni Association), I was involved in the planning committee for the float which would be in Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Diversity Pride Celebration Parade. We met for breakfast at the IHOP near ORU. I was not even thinking about sex during that meal and discussions. When it was time to go to the vehicles to head out to get what we needed to decorate the float, I went to the men’s room before going out the parking lot. The front of my undershorts were very damp and it was definitely not urine nor an ejaculation. But, I knew what it was.
When I got into Jeff’s truck to go with him, I told him about what I discovered. Jeff said, “That was your body telling you that you were in your comfort zone.” Jeff was the president of ORU-OUT, Inc. (but, that group has since disbanded and some of us local Tulsa folks still don’t know why).
But, I did get to know one of the group very well. Because he started calling me “Joe Allen” (after I explained why I had those given names), the rest of the guys did, too. If I had picked just one of those 11 guys to be with, he would have been the one. We did correspond for a while, he’s in NJ but I lost contact with him.
That was meant as a joke, right?