I'm putting my longer albeit partial response to the article on homosexuality and Christian ethics which Sarah drew my attention to (see http://xanga.com/songsparrowsound/) here rather than on her blog, for space reasons.
Just in case anyone cares…
My thoughts on Justin’s article:
Argument #1: "Our bodies were designed for heterosexuality."
“God designed our bodies to interact in a certain way, so we shouldn't use them in any other way. It's certainly true that God designed our bodies with heterosexuality in mind; that's how new human beings come into the world. I don't think anyone can deny that heterosexual sex is the way our bodies were built to function. But does that mean that using our bodies in any other way is sinful?”
Justin makes a good point here in response to Argument #1: namely that sometimes we do not or cannot do things the way God designed us to do them, and that such deviations from the norm are not immoral. Christ accepts the broken into his kingdom—the blind, deaf, and lame. And it is very good for our churches to include people with physical and mental disabilities, and further for us to learn to see them as our full-fledged brothers and sisters, with their own full-fledged gifts for us. There is no slave or free, male or female, Jew or Greek, wheelchair-bound or Olympic gold-medalist in Christ. We are all one in Christ Jesus, and all gifts are of equal value. Everyone has these gifts.
On the other hand, with these examples: the blind, deaf, and lame (and slaves) – these are effects of the sinful, broken state of the world, and they are things we hope will be restored in Christ’s Kingdom. Christ healed the blind, deaf, and lame, and liberated the captives. Even if he did not and has not healed and liberated all people yet, we believe that he will—because they are symptoms of brokenness, and there is no brokenness in the Shalom of God’s Kingdom when it is fulfilled.
While it is not a moral failing of the man born blind (or his parents) that he is blind, it is something broken to be healed. Is this how we should see homosexuality? A condition of brokenness, less perfect than heterosexuality, but permissible (for now) in our communities? Something that God will wipe away at the end. (Jesus does say that in the Kingdom of God men and women do not marry—maybe sexual orientation is totally irrelevant in the fully realized Kingdom.)
Maybe. But I somehow doubt this is what most faith-based GLBT equality advocates want to say. I think they want to affirm homosex and heterosex as equally good and beautiful and pure and God-pleasing. And so I’m not sure Justin’s response here works as well as GLBT allies would like it to.
That said, here are two qualifications: First, I think there is room for further understanding here—paradoxically, God’s kingdom is fulfilled with the broken, and God chooses the weak to shame the strong. Maybe I’m wrong (in some cases, at least) to see certain states of being (e.g., deafness, paralysis) as “afflictions” or “disabilities”. Maybe I’m seeing with the world’s eyes.
Second, Being Jew or Greek (or any ethnicity), or being male or female, of course, isn’t something to be liberated from. (Although males and females need liberation from sexism and patriarchy). And maybe divisions between homosexual and heterosexual are removed as are those between Jew and Greek and male and female. In fact, I do believe this—all have equal access to God and to salvation, regardless of their orientation. That doesn’t by itself satisfy the issue of the morality of homosexual behavior or relationships, unfortunately.
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Argument #2: "Sex is for procreation."
“Some people will argue that procreation is a necessary aspect of sex, so that experiencing sexual pleasure in any way that isn't open to the possibility of procreation is a sin. This once widespread belief is now primarily taught only by the Roman Catholic Church and is rejected by most Protestants.”
Um…yeah. Well, let’s leave this one off the table for now. I know and respect Protestants and Catholics who take the traditional Catholic view on this issue (as well as many more that do not). And I side with the latter. For me and for many, this argument is practically irrelevant.
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Argument #3: "There are no examples of same-sex marriage in the Bible."
“This is a much better argument than the first two. Essentially, it says this: If extramarital sex is wrong, then gay sex would only be permissible in a gay marriage. But, the argument says, there is no such thing as a gay marriage in God's eyes; every marriage in the Bible is heterosexual.”
Justin makes some good points in his response to this argument.
Let me add this one observation to them: there are plenty of examples in the Bible of heterosexual marriages in which spouses (usually the women—I can’t really say “partners” here) are mistreated.
Marriage as loving, freely-chosen, equal partnership between one man and one woman is hardly the biblical standard (at least descriptively).
Culturally, we probably value “being in love”—and what that means for us--a lot more than, say, the Apostle Paul did, or Moses. (Or even Jesus?)
What are the implications here for Christian sexual ethics??
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Argument #4: "Because God says so." (aka "There's a rule against it.")
“If God really does say so - if there really is a divine rule against same-sex relationships - then we need to follow it. But is there one?”
Prooftext #1: The Sodom Story (Gen. 19)
“Generally, serious Traditionalist scholars don't use the Sodom story to make their arguments, anyway. They do, however, use the following passages.”
Thanks, Justin. :) (Although it’s probably not fair to call someone non-serious just because they’re more fundamentalist than the bible scholars I have aligned myself with in the past)
Prooftext #2: Idols and Consequences (Romans 1:18-32)
“Now let there be no mistake; Paul has nothing positive to say about homosexuality in this passage. Clearly he views it as a bad thing, or at the very least, a "shameful" and "unnatural" thing. We must recognize that. At the same time, we must also recognize that homosexuality is not the point of this passage, even though some Christians today try to use it that way. It's mentioned for a specific reason in connection with specific acts that were familiar to his audience.”
Yes, I can buy that, and I think it’s a good point, even if I might disagree on some details with Justin here. (And I’m not sure about that.) I’m also not 100% sure about the implications of this point, hermeneutically, but I can nod and go on following Justin’s argument.
Prooftext #3: The Sinful "Arsenokoitai" (1 Cor. 6:9, 1 Tim. 1:10)
Yup. It’s definitely important that we understand what the referents of "malakoi" and "arsenokoitai” are—and that is the crux of interpretation of this passage for the purposes of this in-house debate in evangelical Christianity.
I certainly have no reason to reject Justin’s suggestions here. But maybe others have more reason? Again, I’m comfortable letting his point stand at least for the sake of continuing to follow his argument.
Prooftext #4: The Abomination (Leviticus 18-20)
While I’m not comfortable dismissing a passage just because it’s in Leviticus, I recognize that something’s being in Leviticus means it takes more work to decide if it’s relevant to Christian ethics (and how it might be so relevant), than it does if it appears in say the Gospels or Paul’s Letters.
Another point I’d add here: perhaps “lying with a man as with a woman” refers to a very specific homosexual act: namely anal penetration. I’m no expert—but I can easily imagine that this one act might be harmful or morally bad in a way that other homosexual acts might not be. And at the very least I can see how this particular act might fall in the same category of uncleanness as sex during a woman’s period or tattoos. Maybe anal sex is wrong, period. Maybe anal sex was more dangerous a few millennia ago than now, and so was wrong for the Israelites then for that reason. In either case, this could be a further reason to not take this passage as a blanket condemnation of homosexual relationships.
I haven’t closely read the rest of the article (yet).
But thanks, Sarah, reading it has been valuable so far.
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"Make me a channel of Your Peace."
-St. Francis
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