Hell hath no fury like TikTokkers scorned.
A filmmaker says she’s been subjected to a vicious smear campaign on social media ahead of the discharge of her latest documentary, which alleges that the word “homosexual” was by chance inserted into the Bible back in 1946.
Sharon “Rocky” Roggio is the director of “1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted A Culture,” which doesn’t hit cinemas until this weekend but is already causing controversy amongst hardcore Christians.
“The opposition is sort of vocal about our film, attempting to debunk it because they’re afraid,” Roggio told The Day by day Beast on Monday. “We’re literally unmooring them and pulling the anchors out from underneath.”
The director — who’s gay — has began a TikTok account to advertise her movie and says she’s been hit with hatred from those that profess to practice the Bible’s teachings.
“People … especially on social media … turn their fear into anger after which hatred. They’re vicious. A variety of what I see on social media and TikTok is the epitome of the phrase, ‘There’s no love like Christian hate,’” Roggio declared. “They’re just so disgusting.”
The doc argues that the team of translators who worked on the Revised Standard Version of the Bible within the early Nineteen Forties used the word “homosexual” while translating 1 Corinthians 6:9 — a verse that discusses those that shall not inherit the dominion of God.
Based on Roggio, the word was utilized in lieu of the Greek words “malakoi” and “arsenokoitai,” which actually translate to “effeminate” and “sexual pervert” — not “homosexual.”
“We’re talking a few word [homosexual] that may be a medical term that has a connotation of a gaggle of those that have an orientation, versus what the unique Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic texts are referring to, which is an aggressor, any individual who was an abuser — any individual who has abused another person, and there’s a victim on the opposite side. It’s a really different connotation,” the director declared.
The translators didn’t intentionally use the unsuitable word, Roggio claims, but she insists that the inclusion of the term has been exploited by some fundamentalists to advertise a pernicious anti-gay agenda over the past 70-plus years.
“The word ‘homosexual’ went viral in print within the ’70s,” she told The Day by day Beast. “That impacted the ’80s and the moral majority, and the way we see the merger of politics and religion, specifically in America. What we now see today is the risks of Christian nationalism, and it’s only grown.”
Based on the documentary, there are currently 45,000 evangelical churches within the US that imagine homosexuality is a sin — but Roggio insists that the film is just not anti-Christian and that many adherents don’t hold homophobic views.
“1946 [the movie] is just not an attack on Christianity or the Bible. It’s a quest to find biblical truth and honor God’s Word,” she declares.
For Roggio herself, the problem is personal — and complex. The gay director grew up in a strict Christian household — and her pastor father appears within the documentary to refute her claims.
Nevertheless, the dad and daughter still profess to like one another despite their differences, highlighting the complicated relationships that may exist amongst believers.
Nevertheless, there are others who refuse to observe the film with an open mind.
One Christian organization is already delegitimizing the film, calling its claim “irrelevant,” while others have taken to social media to lambast the doc.
“Love how those liberal scholars keep reaching,” one Twitter user remarked beneath a news article concerning the movie. “The bulls– is off the charts with this…” one other chimed in.
Meanwhile, a 3rd defiantly declared: “Jesus was clear that ALL sex outside of marriage is a sin, and that marriage was 1 man, 1 woman, 1 lifetime.”