It all makes for a persuasive argument.īut much as Roggio might hope to change her own father’s mind, she is savvy enough to understand that she is unlikely to alter the beliefs of the conservative religious right. Interviews with scholars and historians further untangle the mystery, taking in everything from the intricacies of language and shifting cultural perceptions to the toxic patriarchal status quo and the damning relationship between politics and religion. At Yale University, they find a key piece of evidence which seems to prove beyond doubt that the word homosexual was, indeed, a mistranslation. Roggio follows Kathy and Ed as they doggedly follow leads about the possible 1946 error, each subsequent revelation shedding yet more light on this etymological conundrum. Sometimes it’s really hard to keep the faith. Both have spent years fighting to make their religion more accepting and inclusive the path to enlightenment is a hard slog, particularly with far right preachers - seen on video, spouting homophobic vitriol from the pulpit - determined to wield the anti-gay word of Leviticus like a weapon. Her personal discovery of the potential biblical mistranslation of ’homosexual’ brings Roggio into the orbit of campaigners Kathy Baldock, a straight Christian woman from Nevada, and Ed Oxford, a gay man from San Francisco driven to depression by his attempts to balance his Christianity with his sexual preferences. While the two maintain a relationship of sorts, Sal (who has a central role here as a a key dissenting voice) makes no secret of his desire to “save” his daughter from a lifestyle he believes is some kind of perverse choice, rather than a natural orientation. As a lesbian Christian, Roggio has endured a lifetime of judgement from her preacher father Sal, and difficult flashbacks are brought to life in sombre black and white line-drawn animations. Roggio has a deeply personal connection to the material, and framing it through her own experiences gives the film an emotional, as well as theological, heft. It has particular potential as a potent education tool for schools, spiritual groups and activist organisations. The directorial debut of Sharon ’Rocky’ Roggio, it draws on archive material and expert analysis to present its case, and should be fascinating enough to reach beyond its core demographic of religious and LGBTQ+ communities the film received solid crowdfunding support. That’s the intriguing question posed by this thought-provoking documentary, which premiered at Doc NYC - where it won the audience award – and now plays at Palm Springs. But what if those translators got it wrong?īy shining a light on this contentious issue, the film may help many LGBTQ+ Christians finally find a sense of peace The resulting passages explicitly condemning male homosexuality as a sin in the eyes of God are regularly used as so-called “clobber verses” by the religious right to persecute the LGBTQ+ community. In 1946 the word ’homosexual’ first appeared in the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the American Bible, the result of a committee of white, male academics deciding to merge two oblique ancient Greek nouns in translation. ‘1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture’ĭir: Sharon ‘Rocky’ Roggio. Sign up now.Ĭontains scenes of religious and parental trauma, discussions of suicidal ideation.Source: Palm Springs International Film Festival For Christians and non-Christians alike, this is a powerful indictment of religion-inspired prejudice and an impassioned portrait of activists working to change hearts and minds in the church and beyond.Īre you aged 16 to 25? Book £5 tickets to see this film with your free BFI 25 & Under account. The implications of this, along with the research that led to it, are vividly and passionately explored in this warm and moving documentary, which occasionally resembles a detective thriller. This moving and important documentary explores the personal stories of LGBTQIA+ people and their allies who have used sophisticated Bible scholarship and translation to uncover the revelation that the first time the word homosexual was included in the Bible was 1946. Christianity’s negative attitude towards the gay community is often justified by the prohibitions in a small number of familiar Biblical texts.
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