Tag Archive - homosexuality

Gay Debate and Slavery?

July 23, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 25 Comments

On Religious News Service there was an article drawing out some parallels between the “Gay debate” taking place in the North American church today and the slavery debate that took place 150 years ago.

  • One side argues for the plain reading of the Bible while the other argues from a grand narrative of freedom and inclusive love.
  • The argument reflects the split visible in the larger culture.
  • Denominations split.
  • There’s almost no neutrality.

Although such generalities can pack a rhetorical punch, they lack substance.

The particular place where they fall short is that homosexual activity is consistently labeled sinful, or listed with vices to be repented of, throughout the Bible. Thus, the correspondence is not direct, even if a similar hermeneutic might take a person to condemning slavery while endorsing homosexuality. In my estimation, accounting for the fact that homosexual activity is always condemned as sinful when discussed in scripture is a hurdle that must be met directly, and not through appeal to “parallels” such as slavery or women’s ordination.

Also, while the regulating of slavery reflects a perhaps tacit biblical endorsement of the cultural norm, biblical condemnations of homosexual practice are exactly the opposite: a condemnation within the community of something that was generally an acceptable cultural practice (within certain socially approved frameworks). This gives me some pause with the arguments from analogy.

The church appears to have always seen itself as standing against the sexual mores of the surrounding culture, testifying to a particular sort of divinely-appointed alternative. I do often wonder if the pro-homosexuality position carries such weight because the church has forsaken its sexual ethics more generally–and too many of us are baptizing our pasts as divinely approved rather than seeking forgiveness for our missteps?

These two concerns come hand in hand. The arguments I hear in favor of homosexuality, by parallel with issue of freedom and justice, or parallels with those included within Jesus’ ministry, too often lack the category of sin, too often neglect that we are people fully in need of transformation and restoration.

Are homosexuals modern-day lepers? Perhaps–but Jesus included the leper by touching, healing, and removing the leprosy, not simply by embracing him as he was.

Would Jesus tell us to only cast stones if we are without sin? Likely–but then he would also turn to the sinner and bid her go and sin no more.

You Heard It Here Last: Ken Starr as Baylor’s New President

February 15, 2010 in Academia with 16 Comments

The internets are swirling with the rumor: Kenneth Starr (yes, that Ken Starr) is going from Pepperdine Law to be Baylor’s next president.

Thoughts?

I find this an “interesting” choice from the perspective of a NT academic who recognizes that Baylor’s PhD program is on the rise. Sometimes guilt by association can be a tough thing to overcome. Starr is also involved with defending California’s enactment of Prop-8, the ban on gay marriage.

The sort of folks who would value the direction that the PhD program is moving (with bringing on Bruce Longenecker, etc.) and what it has to offer are also, likely, not to be all that thrilled about an institution with Clinton’s prosecutor, and a participant in the Prop-8 goings on, at the helm.

The value of the degree will depend, to some degree, on the religion department being able to separate its good work from the perception (whether true or not) of the university’s being headed by a conservative ideologue. None of this is to say that I think Starr should or should not have done x, y, or z, just that Baylor’s desire to be a certain kind of academic institution with a certain kind of reputation will be, in some ways, hindered by the perception of who Starr is and what he is committed to.

Authenticity Part 3c: Sexuality

January 26, 2010 in Uncategorized with 9 Comments

Ok, you knew this was coming, right?

One of the things that drove me to start reflecting a bit more critically on the issue of sexuality was watching a short video from some homosexual Christians who were reflecting on their experiences growing up in the church. Homosexuals growing up in the church frequently testify to not only the guilt that comes from the preaching against their sexual drives but also to the imprisoning feeling of not being able to authentically express who they are as they strive to live their lives before God. Not acknowledging and living into their homosexual orientation creates an inauthentic experience of not only faith but also life itself.

I think about the issue of homosexuality a good deal (I live in San Francisco, for crying out loud), and I think that some Christian arguments in its favor are stronger than others. The authenticity argument I find to be one of the least compelling.

The reason for this is that in sexuality as much as any other, and more than most other, areas of our lives, the Christian call to live into the righteous life that God desires is a call to set aside what we would otherwise feel like doing.

I recognize that the church as a whole has given up its moral authority to speak on sexual issues. Unlike the church of the prior 1925 years, the church at the middle of the twentieth century became more of a baptizer of the culture’s sexual and marital mores than a missional outpost calling for a counter-cultural way of life. Once we no longer even call people to higher fidelity to their marriage covenant (stay married!) or to confining all sexual expression to marriage, then we’ve lost the moral standing to speak in God’s name about the sorts of sexual relationships God may or may not approve. I can hear one of my readers asking, “Who’s we?” and to this I say: the North American church in general, and the mainline churches in particular.

But having said that, I would say that every call to abstinence or self-control in the area of sexuality, every call to be faithful within a marriage covenant, is at some level a recognition that godly sexuality will at times be an “inauthentic” sexuality. Fully authentic self-expression will often entail sex with a person with whom one is developing an intimate relationship–where there is love. But a married person might develop a strong relationship with someone other than her spouse. Unmarried people will genuinely love the people they are dating.

Authenticity is an insufficient criterion to determine an appropriate expression of sexuality.

If someone is unconvinced that waiting for marriage, or confining sexual expression to marriage (or something like it) is biblical and godly, I suppose I could always bring out more extreme examples such as pedophilia. Is authenticity a sufficient judge to determine godly sexual expression in that case? I don’t want to build my whole case here, because I don’t want my dear readers to think that I can’t tell the difference between consenting, committed adults and the abuse of power, etc. that are entailed in pedophilia. But when we make authenticity our canon, there are ramifications that almost all of us will want to deny.

As I indicated in the first post in this series, I think authenticity is important, even indispensable in Christian communities. But it is not a sufficient rule of practice to tell us either how to act (because we’re being authentic) or how we shouldn’t (because doing a particular action wouldn’t be authentic).

Our rule of life is not who we are, but who we are being made to be in Christ, and the road he has led us on by which to get there: the way of the cross, which is the way of death, which is the formative narrative that determines what our life in community looks like.

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