This past week Governor Chris Gregoire in Washington State signed a gay marriage measure into law. Opponents have already begun collecting signatures to put the measure on the ballot. Washington is one of six states that allow same- sex marriage whereas thirty states restrict marriage to heterosexuals. I suspect the fact that our sexuality is a major force in our psyche, one that remains complicated throughout our lives, fuels this gut-level debate. Most anti-gay arguments use the Bible and Christian tradition to deny marriage rights and the right to church leadership.
For those of you who interested in a well-reasoned exploration of how the Bible and Christian tradition can support gay-marriage and allow gays to have church leadership positions, I recommend a book: *Homosexuality and Christian Faith – Questions of Conscience for the Churches. Edited by Walter Wink, it includes writers from a variety of church and seminary affiliations1 some of whom I summarize in this weeks blog.
The Rev. James A. Forbes Jr.2 in the introduction prepares us for the messages in the rest of the essays when he suggests that
the church should support the idea that the benefits of marriage, whatever they are, are not to be denied persons of different orientations…There should be equality in the way the church sets forth principles about how people should live and love and experience the sexual dimensions of life. (3)
I am attracted to Forbes’ vision that the church should be helping people experience life and love in relation to their sexuality.
Morton Kelsey, an Episcopal Priest and Notre Dame Professor and his wife, Barbara Kelsey partner in marriage and family counseling. Their article, “Homosexualities” (63-66) speak of five sexual adaptations among human beings – heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, celibate, and asexual and refer to Kinsey’s findings that most people’s complex psychological and physiological orientation places them on a scale ranging from exclusively heterosexual to bisexual to exclusively homosexual. Cross-cultural studies show that whether societies accept or prohibit homosexuality, it remains “openly or clandestinely present” (65) at similar rates.
The spiritual point they promote no matter the orientation is this:
The goal is to cease seeking wholeness in and through another person… To come to potential wholeness we must …bring the various different and sometimes warring parts of ourselves before God. Then the Divine Lover may fashion a unity within us and enable us to go back intro relationships with human beings more interested in giving ….Such wholeness doesn’t come easily; it is the result of a lifetime of work and struggle (66).
Marriage is the institution that promotes lifelong commitment needed for the wholeness of which the Kelseys speak.
In the article, “Homosexuality and the Bible” (33) Walter Wink3 clarifies the common misconception that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (from which comes the word “sodomy”) is about homosexuality. It is not. It is about heterosexual violence. The attempted gang rape in Sodom was committed by heterosexual men against strangers meant to shame and demasculate them, a deplorable but known practice.
Wink admits nevertheless that there are unequivocal condemnations in the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. He cites Romans 1:26-27 where Paul speaks of women and men exchanging “natural intercourse for unnatural.” Wink observes that Paul could not have known our modern “psychosexual understanding” of homosexuals whose orientation is fixed early in life or perhaps even genetically…” (36). Wink suggests that Paul’s holiness emphasized being true and authentic which would include homosexuals living out of their natural orientation.
Wink admits that the Bible takes a clear anti-gay stance “in those few instances where it is mentioned at all” (37), but he challenges us in our inconsistent use of the Bible concerning our sexual mores. He notes that there are plenty of examples of “attitudes, practices, and restrictions that are normative in Scripture but that we no longer accept …” (37). We comfortably agree and disagree with the Bible on many instances. For example, most readers would agree with the Bible in rejecting: -incest, rape, adultery, and intercourse with animals, but we disagree with the Bible on most other sexual mores.
We do not have a problem with intercourse during menstruation, celibacy, marriage with non-Israelites, naming sexual organs, nudity (under certain conditions), masturbation (under certain conditions), and birth control but the Bible is clearly against these practices. On the other hand, the Bible permits behaviors that we today condemn such as prostitution, polygamy, levirate marriage (marriage to next of kin of the deceased), sex with slaves, concubinage, treatment of women as property, and very early marriage.
Given the many and clear instances where we Christians are comfortable disagreeing with the Bible concerning sexual mores, Wink asks “What is our principle of selection here?” This was an emphasis of my Bible Professor, Nancy Bowen, at Earlham School of Religion. She repeatedly challenged us to know and articulate what defines our Canon. In other words, we need to know what principles of selection we use if are going to treat the Bible with any integrity. Wink concludes that the Bible does not give us a sexual ethic, but it does give us Jesus’ love ethic.
Wink does not promote an anything-goes liberalism. Rather with a love ethic he notes, “being moral means rejecting sexual mores that violate [our] own integrity and that of others, and attempting to discover what it would mean to live the love ethic of Jesus” (45). I value Wink’s research as note-worthy, his reasoning solid, and his tone conciliatory – all fresh air in this polemical debate.
Ken Sehested writes the second article inspecting the grand total of seven scriptures in the entire Bible that mention homosexuality. In “Biblical Fidelity and Sexual Orientation: Why the First Matters, Why the Second Doesn’t” he too begins with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah told in Genesis 19. In this account, angels on a mission to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah visit Lot to warn him to take his family and skedaddle before the destruction begins. A group of men from the city come out to Lot’s place and demand that Lot open his door to allow them to gang rape the strangers. How foolish for them to consider attacking strangers who happen to be angels!
Sehested points out that the angels already intended to destroy Sodom before this attempted violence hence their actions are not the cause of destruction. Sodom and Gomorrah were charged with lack of holiness which the later prophets in the Bible refer to as injustice demonstrated by greed and lack of concern for the poor. Here’s what Ezekiel says about Sodom and Gomorrah in 16:49-50: “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did abominable things before me.” I love how this supports the contention that justice is a huge theme in the Old Testament and yet it gets so little air time. Jesus refers to Sodom and Gomorrah too. He says that towns that do not welcome people speaking of good news and healing will meet the same fate (Matt. 10:14-15). The prophets including Jesus never understood the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as relating to homosexuality.
Sehested introduces the idea of the “The Jerusalem Protocol” which I love. He explores an episode in the founding of Christianity described in Acts chapter 10-15. Peter receives a vision in which he sees a sheet full of animals lowered from heaven, and he is instructed to eat them. Peter objects saying that he is a good Jew, these foods are unclean, and to eat them would be an abomination. The voice says, “What God has made clean, you must not call common or profane.” Upon waking, he is asked to visit an unclean Gentile who wants to know about Jesus. This vision has prepared him for this request.
This event and other episodes of contact between believing Jews and unclean Gentiles spark a great debate. The traditionalists argue, “ you believe all of the Bible or none of it. Either it’s authoritative or it’s not” (59). On the other side of the argument, the missionaries speak of the many accounts of the Holy Spirit descending on Gentile groups with or without their presence or approval. Peter thus argues that despite what the Bible says, the Holy Spirit seems not to be restricted by their versions of who is Holy and who is not.
Sehested hears Peter saying that the law and regulations “are in service to the Spirit, not the other way around” (59). This is what he calls the “Jerusalem Protocol.” Sehested goes on to say that questions of heterosexuality and homosexuality are irrelevant to Biblical fidelity.
Fidelity to scripture is allowing Jesus’ greatest commandment to love God and our neighbor to guide our selection of scriptures in our Canon. Let us hope that Washingtonians can support the Biblical inclusion of gays in marriage.
*Homosexuality and Christian Faith – Questions of Conscience for the Churches, edited by Walter Wink, published by Fortress Press. 1999 Minneapolis, MN.
Footnotes:
1- Some of the well known writers, leaders, and activists whose articles are included are Franciscan Priest, Richard Rohr, Evangelical leader, Peggy Compolo, Bishop Paul Wennes Egertson, Lewis Smedes, William Sloane Coffin and more. Multiple seminary and denominational affiliations are represented including Yale, Notre Dame, Princeton, Vanderbilt, Pacific School of Religion, Union Theological Seminary, Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal, Catholic, Evangelical, and non-denominational churches.
2- James Forbes Jr. was voted greatest and most effective preacher by Newsweek and Ebony magazine in the 80’s and 90’s. He was the first African American to serve as senior minister at Riverside Church in New York City, one of the largest multicultural congregations in the nation.
3- Walter Wink appeals as a multidimensional person : he is a seminary professor of Bible at AuburnTheological Seminary, a United Methodist minister who works for a Presbyterian seminary, and attends Quaker meeting.
4- Ken Sehested is the executive director of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North American and is noted for his high regard for scripture.
Well done! Nice Nancy Bowen reference. I continue to be challenged by some of the "clobber" passages condemning homosexuality. Your post was thoughtful and helpful for my continuing reflection. Keep writing Sue!
ReplyDelete