The Bible and the Gay Debate

I accept been following and involved in the word about same-sex activity relations since Buzz magazine published an commodity on it when I was xvi. (I will leave you to guess how many years agone that was; anyone else remember Buzz? It somewhen morphed into Christianity). It had a wonderfully euphemistic picture on the front end cover of a magnet, with the explanation 'Do like poles attract?'

Since then information technology has been fascinating to see how the public fence has swung from one pole of argument to another. 1 axis of that has been the question of choice versus givenness. At times the argument in favour of accepting aforementioned-sex relations has been on the ground of personal choice; at others it has been on the ground that this is just the fashion some people are made. In Great britain we are legally in the position of the latter; bigotry legislation categorises sexual orientation with race and sex as being of the essence of human being identity, even though in that location is no scientific consensus on this, and some articulate evidence that 'orientation' is non stock-still.

At that place accept also been significant movements amongst Christians on the role of the Bible in the discussion. I remember a few years ago reading the biblical resource section on the LGCM website exploring Paul'due south theology. It ended with something like 'Paul clearly condemned all same-sex relations—but equally clearly Paul was wrong.' The current resources accept a very different approach, arguing that Pauline and other biblical texts are non referring to what nosotros would now call faithful same-sexual practice relations.

Amongst evangelicals perchance the all-time-known early attempt to contend that the Bible, when interpreted rightly, did let space for the acceptance of same-sex relationships was the late Michael Vasey'south Strangers and Friends. It was not generally seen every bit offer a persuasive position, suggesting equally it did that we needed to read the Old Testament in item 'symbolically.' But it did signal a change of management in the discussion, and allow a number who desire to go on to call themselves 'evangelical' (that is, putting a high value on Scripture in shaping their agreement and ethical conclusion-making) to advocate acceptance of same-sex relations as something blessed by God and then to exist blest by the churches.

Just at the same fourth dimension it appears that other commentators have moved in the contrary direction. In reading William Loader'south Sexuality in the New Testament I was struck by how clear he was that the New Testament in general, and Paul in detail, stand against the acceptance of any kind of same-sex sexual action. In his longer, more than technical textThe New Testament on Sexuality, he comments:

Information technology is very possible that Paul knew of views which claimed some people had what we would telephone call a homosexual orientation, though we cannot know for sure and certainly should not read our mod theories back into his world.  If he did, it is more than likely that, like other Jews, he would have rejected them out of paw….He would have stood more strongly nether the influence of Jewish creation tradition which declares homo beings male and female, to which may well even be alluding in one.26-27, and then seen same-sexual activity sexual acts by people (all of whom he deemed heterosexual in our terms) as flouting divine order. (p 323-iv)

Loader is non alone in this assessment. In his short book debating the question with Robert Gagnon, Dan O Via comments:

Professor Gagnon and I are in substantial agreement that the biblical texts that deal specifically with homosexual do condemn it unconditionally.  However, on the question of what the church might or should make of this we diverge sharply. (p 93)

A notable exception to this strategy is James Brownson's volume Bible, Gender and Sexuality, but he is pond against the tide of commentators on both sides of the debate.

A number of these commentators, including Loader, link condemnation of same-sex activity relations with what they understand to be Paul's gender hierarchy, and so desire to decline both.

I have argued that Paul's condemnation of homoeroticism, particularly female homoeroticism, reflects and helps to maintain a gender asymmetry based on female person subordination.  I hope that churches today, existence apprised of the history that I take presented, will no longer teach Rom ane.26f as authoritative. (Bernadette J. Brooten, 'Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism', p 302)

I don't think this is convincing, non to the lowest degree because there is a notable and consistent distance between Paul's comment on same-sex relations and his comment on gender relations, and he never links the ii. And I accept argued extensively that Paul does non believe in gender bureaucracy. But there is a strange betoken of connection betwixt 'revisionists' and ultra-conservatives in linking the two problems.

This shift in the debate has implications for all parties in the discussion. For 'revisionists' the question now is what strategy to employ in arguing their instance.

i. A popular line has been to say that the Leviticus texts are about cultic activeness, and Paul condemns abusive same-sexual activity relations, but had no noesis of loving, stable same-sex relations or an agreement of 'orientation.' A number of commentators accept disproved the 'cultic' argument, and there is now quite a potent consensus that the issue in Paul is not about the form of same-sex relations, merely the fact that they become against the creation gild in Genesis i and 2 of male and female in the image of God. Our noesis of the beginning century attitudes has developed considerably (see the work of Robert Gagnon and others) and it appears there was a wide diversity of views, including some quite close to contemporary arguments in favour of same-sexual practice relations. In whatsoever example, as commentators highlight, Paul was non concerned with context or motivation, but with the acts themselves.

two. A 2nd strategy has been to put the specific ethical event in the wider context of the command to love another. Loader cites Andre du Toit's position:

Basically we should accept that, while upholding this dialectical tension, if a selection must be made between the biblical position on homosexuality and the honey commandment – and such a selection is often inevitable – the latter must receive precedence.

Note hither that du Toit is like-minded (equally Loader does) that the 'biblical position on homosexuality' involves a prohibition on aforementioned-sex sexual relations—but that, in our context, this is incompatible with the command to beloved. Via offers a variation of that in relation to John 10:

'Abundant life', because of its non-specificity, is extensive. It can exclude no aspect of human being life. And since God wills arable life for all of God'due south creation, God'due south ain, on what grounds could nosotros deny that God wills abundant bodily (sexual) life for gays and lesbians as well as for heterosexuals?

This makes the wide-ranging assumption that 'affluence of life' means full sexual expression, which of course is denied past both Jesus' and Paul's singleness. But more striking is the fact that neither Jesus nor Paul seemed to think that loving another meant changing their sexual ethic to include sexual expression exterior male person-female person wedlock.

The only remaining option and then is to join with those who think the Bible is incorrect on this effect.

Where the Bible mentions homosexual behavior at all, it conspicuously condemns it. I freely grant that. The effect is precisely whether that Biblical judgment is correct. (Walter Wink, "Homosexuality and the Bible")

This is an issue of biblical authority.  Despite much well-intentioned theological fancy footwork to the contrary, it is difficult to see the Bible every bit expressing annihilation else but disapproval of homosexual activeness. (Diarmaid MacCulloch, "Reformation: Europe's House Divided, 1490-1700", p 705)

For the Church building of England to revise its position, information technology would and then need to hold that the Bible'due south theological anthropology—what it ways to exist human in the light of who God is and what he does—is substantially mistaken in this area. This was not something it was prepared to do in relation to women's ordination; consideration of biblical theology was an integral part of the controlling process on that question, and it is hard to come across that this would not be the case here.

Simply this situation also gives a trouble for those (like me) believe that the Bible's education that sex belongs in male person-female matrimony should shape church life. An increasing number in Great britain announced to think this is unreasonable, including a large proportion of young people. Although the Church of England publicly engages in all sorts of other issues, there continues to exist the strong impression that the Church is obsessed with sex, and that its electric current policy is nothing more than than cruel and discriminatory.

It is worth putting this problem in a wider historical and global perspective. Is this the simply or first result on which Christians have been in danger of beingness out of pace with their culture? Indeed, shouldn't nosotros be more worried if nosotros areinstep with culture? Only unless the Church building can find a form of dissent from culture combined with a persuasive pastoral atoning, this continues to be a significant mission issue. Practice nosotros really want to make this the issue which inhibits people coming to organized religion?

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