15th February 2007
Homosexuality – Trying to understand – O Lord help my unbelief
Rowan Williams has the unenviable task of attempting some kind of shuttle diplomacy between the fractured groupings of Bishops who have gathered in Tanzania. With his colleagues, he will discern what the consequences will be for a Province who has chosen to consecrate an openly practising homosexual priest as one of their Bishops. Some say this meeting will be seen in the future as significant in similar ways to the Council of Nicea in 325. A moment where one view triumphs and another becomes firmly unorthodox and wholly unacceptable to the Church. This would be a retrogressive step if ever there was one in my view – but then I believe in compromise.
For much of secular society homosexuality is seen as a non-issue – a matter of personal preference and little more. Many must wonder what all the fuss is about.
The Church, particularly the Anglican Church, has always taken a different view.
There have been a vast array of opinions throughout the many Provinces. But a common mind has never been achieved. Much has evolved gently and with little spoken and nothing being drawn attention to. Homosexuals have been ordained and have been amongst our most gifted and insightful colleagues but they have often been forced to lead discrete lives or into embracing celibacy – a vocational gift – not a realistic emotionally fulfilling choice for a person who cannot generously embrace it.
In recent years, whatever one’s views about Bishop Robinson’s election, it has taken the discussion firmly from the speculative into the ground-breaking.
I guess most reflective Anglicans will have a strong sense of what should happen next. I am no exception. Like many I have reflected on this from a number of perspectives.
Stephen Sykes in a doctrinal classic The Integrity of Anglicanism reminds us that the Anglican methodological approach is to relate scripture, tradition and reason. This allows for a degree of ambiguity and diversity; an acceptance that all three of these ‘components’ are open to interpretation and are held in dynamic relationship with each other.
Homosexuality is rarely explored in The Bible. When it is raised, it is never, with the exception of Leviticus 18 & 20 the dominant theme of the passage. Today’s Church is looking at these texts teleographically; we are hampered by our own socialisation, cultural conditioning and expectations as we attempt to reinterpret texts in ways which hold meaning within a contemporary context.
The essence of many of the disagreements around whether homosexuality is a God-given expression of humanness in a diverse creation – or an abomination which draws people away from God’s ways – is down to how willing we are to read texts as culturally and contextually specific or whether we believe they are always, and without exception universalisable.
Biblical references are, without exception, hostile towards homosexuality, although emotionally fulfilling same sex friendships are celebrated and honoured (cf Jonathan and David). Genesis 18,the story of Sodom and Gomorrah sets the tone. Is this passage indicating that homosexual behaviour is sinful and in some way at the heart of the horrific disruption of natural order outlined in the story? Or is it a passage teaching about the abuses of customs and the role of an hospitable host? If this latter ‘reading’ is plausible, then the references to homosexuality in the text become incidental. John Boswell in Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality offers this interpretation:
There was no word in classical Hebrew or Greek for ‘homosexual’ and there is no evidence to suggest that either ‘kadeshin’ or the ‘harsenokoitai’ of the New Testament were gay people … these words merely designated types of prostitutes.
There is some biblical evidence to support Boswell’s view. If we compare Judges 19 with Genesis 19, it appears the main concern is the flouting of the normal rules of hospitality (David Brown, Choices: Ethics and the Christian).
Leviticus 18 & 20 present a summary of the Hebrew Law concerning homosexuality. Taken at face value homosexuality is a prohibited practice. We, as 21st c., Christians have to consider two things in relation to this dictum:
To what extent is this prohibition contextually bound? Does the New Testament Gospel present any kind of mitigation, reinterpretation or further illumination of the Hebrew Law?
The Gospel writers per se offer little direct insight to the Church on this subject. Some argue that this is, in itself significant – could it be that the writers of the time did not think homosexuality was in any way significant to the practice of Christianity? Clearly they had much to say about heterosexual relationships, disability, gender, social order and even racial concerns, Could it be that homosexuality posed no threat to the emerging religious teaching/order?
Paul is often cited as anti-homosexual. He does provide a list of people who are, he believes, excluded from the Kingdom of God. 1 Corinthians 6.9-11 lists the immoral and sexual perverts as excluded. Putting this list in context – it is part of a much longer railing against the Corinthian Church as a whole. He has heard that the Corinthians have interpreted Christian freedom as meaning that because they are redeemed they are free to behave however they want. Paul suggests that they have to re-think this for the sake of the Church and live a life which suggests that they are living in Christ. Liberty is not sexual promiscuity and sexual deviation does not automatically mean homosexual.
In 1 Timothy 1.8-11 homosexuals are seen as in complete breach of the Law. Homosexual acts are identified as contrary to the teaching of the early Church. This is a clear, but isolated example when practising homosexuals are challenged as presenting behaviour other than as God through Christ would have us be. Can this one text be used as a foundation for a sustainable pastoral, spiritual and ecclesiological position today – knowing what we know regarding genetic, psychological and social development?
One of the more illuminating passages which is often cited as referring to homosexuality is Romans 1.18-32. Is Paul making a point here about the relationship between Gentiles and God – that the unrighteoused are subject to the wrath of God or is this subtly loaded with a sexual behaviour message? In the text Paul argues that instead of honouring God through all that is revealed in creation, gentiles have chosen idolatory thus corrupting the message of God and the worship of God. God has shown his anger by creating a disordered existence – and this includes unnatural sexual behaviour.
Is context important here? The argument Paul presents if offered within a wider theological argument. From our point of view a lot depends on how we choose to interpret physis – nature. Sherin Bailey in Homosexuality and the Western Tradition and John Boswell in Christianity, Tolerance and Homosexuality suggest that nature could refer to heterosexuals who have chosen to act against their true orientation and engaged in homosexual practices. The more common reading of this passage is to suggest that Paul sees homosexuality as a departure from the natural order of creation. Paul appeals to a reading of the created order which sees human beings as created - male and female - with sexual activity as primarily a means of procreation rather than as an expression of love and emotional maturity.
Both of these views are rehearsed today. If Paul’s comments are intended to be an unambiguous condemnation of homosexuality then we can begin to appreciate just what a tough task is before the Primates of the Church in Tanzania. Is this interpretation acceptable to us and credible to us today? Is Paul’s statement a once and for all condemnation? Does it carry the same weight as it would if it were uttered by Jesus? Why have we disregarded many other probibitions in The Bible –the eating of shellfish; wearing hats in Church and so on – but this one is irrevocable. How have we managed to re-claimed the centrality of women in the Gospel story and yet we are prepared to stigmatise another group in society?
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