Peter Kirk has written a controversial post on Christianity and homosexuality: Reflecting Culture, not Changing Attitude. I’m looking forward to hearing how others react to this post. Bob MacDonald has already written an initial response: Romans and Rhetoric again.
Earlier this year I wrote a pair of posts on this topic:
Gay Christians: This post was a plea to Christians opposed to homosexuality to reconsider their attitude toward people who are practicing Christians and practicing homosexuals.
What did you love the most?: In this post I was asking the rhetorical question, “If Christ asked you to give up what you most treasured would you do it?” That question was directed primarily at gay Christians who I believe are called to renounce homosexual practice out of devotion to Christ. But the question is just as valid for Christians who seem to condone outright hatred for homosexuals.
If Jesus was able to feast with tax-collectors and sinners and immoral women, can’t we embrace people who desire to follow him but practice behavior condemned by Scripture? And for those who openly oppose Jesus and his Kingdom our call is even clearer. Many who are promoting homosexuality openly despise and ridicule Christianity. Jesus calls us to love them and pray for them.
I have a lot to learn on this topic and look forward to hearing how others react to Peter’s post. Please don’t read my posts as a definitive apologetic on the topic. Rather see them as reflections by someone who is trying to refine his own thinking.
[...] is the very nature of Anglicanism” (from Gentle Wisdom) and Romans and Rhetoric Again. (Hat tip: Lingamish on the second post.)The key arguments are about the Bible statements regarding homosexuality. This [...]
If Christ asked you to give up what you most treasured would you do it?
Of course! Christ asks us to give to him our most treasured possession – to conform our person wholly with his death, to use his agony, to consider ourselves dead with him. What a gift! And what surprise – regeneration, foretaste of glory, earnest of the Spirit, presence of God who is love. Is this maturity? Is maturity only self-interest? Do we still err? (of course), but who is our teacher who says: “well done good and faithful servant – you have overcome — through my blood”, or when in error, and the lion has torn us, “we don’t do things that way”. Note well the “we”.
What we have is more than a doctrine of words. We can always say – it is only psychology at work – or cultural conformity of various kinds. There is an evolutionary use of cooperation, and a political use – for the convenience of others. (That even happens in families.) But these cultural things are transient. The transience of God is for ever. When he crosses our path, when he blows where he wishes, our lives are known in a way that no cultural order ever imagined.
But who are you to determine what gay Christians should give up? I would say the laws against hatred are more obvious than the laws against tenderness. Also God’s tenderness revitalizes as it grows and it does not conform to the expectations of the world or the church as a worldly institution. Give up to Christ for yourself – and teach that such giving up is reality – but don’t determine what ‘others’ must give up. God will teach them well enough without your judgment.
Thanks, Bob for commenting on this.
You wrote: “But who are you to determine what gay Christians should give up?”
Ultimately it is for the Savior to say, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” But if I understand our respective positions on this, you consider homosexual practice as a possibility for Christians while I do not. So, from your perspective it isn’t even a case of “go and sin no more” since homosexuals aren’t sinning. I’m not trying to oversimplify a complex topic but rather identify what I see as a fundamental difference in our perspectives.
[...] best entry point for the discussion is this post by David Ker on his Lingamish [...]
I hope none of us are reading anything on this subject (outside the Bible) as “a definitive apologetic on the topic”. Least of all my posts, for I also am “someone who is trying to refine his own thinking”.
Lingamish, I see you beat me to it in replying to Bob from the story of the woman caught in adultery. But I had not read your comment first, we thought of this, or the Holy Spirit led us to it, independently.
The question of giving up homosexuality presupposes that it is something that can be given up. So let’s turn that question around. If Christ asked you to give up heterosexuality, would you, could you do it? That means you’re giving up your fundamental attractions, not just becoming celibate. Is it possible to give up sexuality? I’ll agree that God calls some people to celibacy, but I have never heard of anyone being called to asexuality.
David – thanks for you gracious reply – I felt after I had pressed enter that my words were stronger than I intended given the accusatory nature of the pronoun you. Paul of course uses this very phrase in Romans – who are you that judge your brother – to his own master he stands or falls and God is able to make him stand.
You are right that there is a fundamental difference in our perspectives. I have noted some work by Sandi Dubowsky on my blog – his films on homosexuality in Judaism and Islam. They are not likely to play in a theatre near you at the moment but they are exercises in honest reporting that fear does not allow an easy hearing. There is of course plenty of potential for sin in sexual relations from exploitation to the force of power relations. I do not underestimate this. As I have noted before, sin for me is a violation of relationship.
Thanks all for comments and civility.
Keltic, my understanding is that sexuality in animals is for the purpose of reproduction. It serves peripheral purposes (some of them quite wonderful) but at its core sex is about babies. There are heterosexuals who are asked to give up sexual behavior for various reasons principally because they aren’t married. Jesus said, “For this cause…” with regard to the idea of a man and woman being joined together to form a family.
Peter, the woman caught in adultery story has really got me thinking. Within Jesus’ immediate culture the norm was heterosexual monogamy and the violation was adultery. However, among the cultures in which the Gospels and the epistles circulated, there was a much wider range of permissible sexual behavior.
Bob, our love as blog brothers is making this work. Bless you.
I see now that there is quite a good comment thread over at Peter’s post and I recommend readers go there for a good discussion.
Yes, but giving up a behavior is not the same as giving up an orientation. So you still haven’t quite answered the question.
In addition, are you saying that sexuality serves only the purposes of reproduction? Is the animal world to serve as the example for the human world? If so, are you saying that human sexuality, thus our relationships are to be for the purpose of reproduction? would relationships that do not produce offspring be considered void? or even, unnatural? would they be un-holy?
Thanks again, Keltic, for thinking through this with me.
I think I see your point. My personal opinion on this is that I don’t have an answer about the orientation question. I alluded to that in my Gay Christians post. And I’m willing to concede that people might have a homosexual orientation through genetics, upbringing, environment, etc. But I don’t think that is the same as behavior. I think the Gay Christians post states my position pretty clearly on this point so I won’t repeat it here.
You’re right that sexuality is not merely for reproduction. But it is primarily for reproduction. And it is also true that relationships can be loving and holy without being sexual. I have loving and affectionate relationships with family members and friends of both sexes, but a sexual relationship is meant to be a monogamous relationship between a man and a woman.
Keltic, it seems to me that Lingamish is puzzled because he never suggested that anyone should give up their sexual orientation or their “fundamental attractions”. He wrote that gay Christians “are called to renounce homosexual practice out of devotion to Christ”, my emphasis, just as some “straight” Christians are called to renounce sexual practice, i.e. celibacy. Now I don’t accept that homosexual orientation is actually an unchangeable genetic matter, rather many people have shown that it is something they can change if they want to, with the proper help. I don’t say that all Christians with homosexual orientation should seek to change this orientation, nor even that they should seek “asexuality”, rather that they should not indulge in homosexual practice – just as I believe that “straight” people should not indulge in sexual practice outside lifelong opposite-sex marriage. This was the clear position of Jesus and the apostles, and it should be of the church today.