The Church and Same-Sex Relationships: My response to Sam (part ...

Original post at http://jmsmith.org/blog/same-sex-3/

Hi Dojo readers,

Here is part 2 of my response to my friend Sam regarding whether or not the Church should endorse same-sex sexual relationships as a valid expression of Godly sexuality among followers of Jesus.

If you?re just joining us, Sam?s initial guest post can be read HERE.

My initial response to Sam can be read HERE.

Below I will address Sam?s second major point (his third major point will be looked at in my next post, so stay tuned). Again, for the sake of reading, Sam?s points are in bold and my responses follow.

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?For Christians, judgments about the rightness or wrongness of sexual acts should and do always involve both Scriptural and extra-Scriptural data.

This argument is predicated on the principle that the Bible is not self-interpreting. As with all the mysteries entrusted by God to the church, we must in a certain sense live with Scripture in order to read Scripture. You?ve enacted this principle well when you discussed the ?yes, but? dynamic present in reading Jesus on divorce; yes, Jesus is pretty harsh on divorce, but there are other places in the Bible where the Spirit has led authors to nuance the view, such that we don?t just read what Jesus says and nod our heads unquestioningly. And on top of all this, we know and love and live with divorced people in our daily lives. Though their decisions to obtain divorces are often tragic in some way, divorced people are people beloved by God and the community, and those who remarry in the UMC are rightly, and in the general sense, not considered sinful despite some Biblical evidence (some eight places in Scripture?a very small amount of textual discussion that we rightly regard as insufficient for a comprehensive moral position on divorce).?

I see what you are saying, Sam. But I should point out that the reason I don?t believe divorce is always necessarily sinful is not because it?s only discussed in a few places in Scripture?but rather, because it is portrayed as acceptable (though not ideal) in some places in Scripture. In other words, there is an explicit counter-witness within Scripture itself which forces us to recognize a nuanced view. The same could be said for many other issues that some revisionists often seek to compare same-sex sexuality to such as slavery, women?s roles in ministry, etc.

However, there is no such counter-witness when it comes to same-sex sex. It is, wherever it is discussed in the pages of Scripture, always spoken of as a moral wrong. There are no exceptions to this witness within Scripture itself. Thus there is a categorical difference between this and issues like divorce.

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It?s convenient for my argument that Jesus Christ?the paradigmatic, once-for-all self-revelation of God among us?has nothing to say about queerness per se in the Bible.

This is often-stated, but I don?t believe it?s actually true. I would argue that since same-sex sex was universally considered to be a form of sexual immorality (porneia) by 1^st century Jews, and Jesus specifically declared porneia to be sin (Matthew 15:19, Mark 7:21), then it necessarily follows that Jesus declared same-sex sex to be sin.

However, I recognize that this is not your primary argument, so I just wanted to note it in passing.

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But the more crucial point for me is that we don?t only look at what Jesus, or St. Paul, or Moses, or any Biblical author, or all the Bible authors put together, say(s) about a question like this. We look at what God has given us to look at. God saw fit to inspire the composition and compilation of the Scripture for our edification, just as God saw fit to provide the Holy Spirit to guide our lives, to provide us with minds and an appropriate way of using them, to provide us with relationships with people who reflect the Image of God to us afresh, and so on.

Indeed He has.

BUT?

The ?more crucial? question, I believe, is this: What do we do when what we observe in surrounding culture, or even what we feel inwardly, conflicts with the Spirit-Inspired Scriptures which Jesus and His Apostles regarded as authoritative in terms of expressing God?s will to His people?

Which do we give more weight to?

Which do we follow when push comes to shove and they are in direct conflict?

I believe we must accept and obey what has been spoken by God through Scripture in such cases?no matter how painful, inexplicable, or hard it may seem to us at the time.

After all, in Eve?s judgment, using her pre-fall-untainted-by-sin-reasoning-capacities, the fruit was ?good? and ?pleasing??there was no reason she and Adam should NOT have eaten it. Except God had said not to and warned of dire consequences if they did (Even if one takes the story of Adam and Eve as paradigmatic rather than literal, the point still stands?there was a seemingly arbitrary command given by God which humanity rejected in favor of their own determination of right and wrong).

?You compared people in ?same-sex sexual relationships? (quoted to capture your terminology, not to scare) to alcoholics, arguing that women?s desire for sex with women and men?s for men is like an addiction to a harmful substance that has the potential to physically destroy bodies and which is dangerous to one?s self and relationships. Of course the comparison is somewhat hyperbolic, but really, it?s something that those who maintain the sinfulness of queer people have to make at some point. You have to appeal to an outside normative source in order to make the case that woman-woman and man-man sexual experiences are sinful. Why? Because, as a responsible Christian, you know that Scripture is not arbitrary. God doesn?t inspire the first communities of faith to avoid idolatry or adultery or murder or usury or temple un-cleanliness for no reason, but because they harm others (God included). In ethical matters like those I?ve mentioned God inspires the community to communicate the truth that is already present in God?s good creation and economy of grace, not to reveal the truth for the very first time. People?s ethical needs and God?s ethical commands have a non-arbitrary causal relationship. Though I make this argument on the historic and universal activity of the church, and of my own experience as a disciple of Christ, the Scriptural principle to which I might appeal is that Jeremiah 29:11 is the normative framework within which Isaiah 55:8 is in any way good news for us.

If that?s true, then we can?t throw our hands up in the air when talking about queerness and say something like, ?Well, it?s just the way God made it. I don?t know why it?s sinful, but my hands are tied: Scripture doesn?t allow otherwise.? It may be the case that God forbids women from sex with women and men with men, but if God does, it?s pretty cheap for us to just refer to God?s inscrutable will. And it?s unfair to those whose sacred worth we affirm to bar their sexuality from them (in any case, but especially) if we don?t have an explanation for it.?

They do have a causal relationship?but as I noted above, the relationship between the ultimate and innate harm caused by sin and the measurable harm we humans are able to perceive are not always clear. To expect them to be is an assumption that I do not share because it is one that is not characteristic of God as Father. There are times when a father must tell a child ?because I said so??and that is all the reason the child need be given.

Obedience to God is never predicated upon understanding and accepting the God?s reasoning. Of course it helps if we understand why something must be obeyed?but it is not any less authoritative simply because we don?t.

There is, I would argue, a subtle arrogance in your assumption that we must know why something is harmful (and be able to clearly state it in a convincing manner to those who disagree) in order to be obligated to obey God?s will about it.

However, I DO believe there is discernible spiritual harm in same-sex sex (as in all other forms of sexual immorality) and it is similar to other things which God prohibits in terms of its harmful impact. In fact, you mentioned the perfect example, idolatry.

There is no measurable human harm that science or psychology ?prove? to be caused by praying or worshipping other gods through the use of idols. In fact, hundreds of millions of people around the world do so regularly and many would be considered very ?healthy? and ?happy? (I can attest to this firsthand having spent a few weeks teaching in India earlier this year). But as you also noted above, there IS harm in it?harm to one?s relationship with God.

That is EXACTLY the same harm that Scripture declares inherent in same-sex sexual acts. In fact, the New Testament goes out of its way to link the capitulation to same-sex sexual impulses with the sin of idolatry, and nowhere is this more explicitly clear than in the first chapter of Romans (which I?ll come back to in a few minutes).

So while same-sex sex may not always cause the physical harm that alcoholism does, the spiritual harm is equally real. In fact, I would argue that the spiritual harm, being eternal, is an infinitely greater danger than any physical harm sin might bring. After all, didn?t Jesus Himself say make this very claim in Matthew 10:28?

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?So those who hold your view have to make an additional ethical claim not explicitly made in the Scriptural data that they claim applies to queerness?they have to find what harm lesbian and gay sex does, or they have to say God is ethically arbitrary/unknowable. As you may have found, finding such harm is pretty tough, because it?s not there. Being lesbian or gay isn?t really anything like being addicted to alcohol: with respect to necessity, it doesn?t hurt your body; it doesn?t destroy relationships; it doesn?t impede the use of your gifts for the promotion of holiness in society (unless holiness is somehow linked to an absence of queerness, which, again, would be logically circular).?

I must disagree with this almost completely, Sam.

The claim IS explicitly made in Scripture?in both Testaments, no less?that same-sex sex is spiritually destructive and utterly prohibited by God.

And Holiness IS linked to an absence of sin (something I actually wrote a book on! )

So if same-sex sexual relationships are a form of sin, then such behavior absolutely DOES ?impede the use of [one?s] gifts for the promotion of holiness in society??or more specifically, in the Church (because it is acceptance of such behavior within the Church that is the issue here; not within society in general).

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Women married to women and men to men aren?t in any necessary way less faithful or supportive or committed to Christ.

Again, this is diametrically opposed to the witness of the Holy Spirit in Scripture?particularly to the foundational declaration found in Paul?s letter to the Romans, where same-sex sexual relationships are depicted as a form of idolatry and listed alongside such sins envy, murder, strife, malice and gossip?all of which alienate humanity from the saving power of the Gospel.

If same-sex sexual acts are prohibited by God (which they are in both testaments and with no counter-witness which would lead us to see some instances in which they are not), then to unrepentantly and unapologetically engage in same-sex sexual acts ABSOLUTELY renders one ?less faithful or supportive or committed to Christ.?? (I say ?unrepentantly and unapologetically? because I want to distinguish between those who embrace and endorse same-sex sexual relationships and those who struggle with, but recognize the sinfulness of, same-sex attraction. I will take up this topic more in my next response, but for an example of the latter, see this post in which Richard Hayes gives an incredibly moving account of such a person and their struggle.)

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So I guess my question to you, JM, is: How would you argue that same-sex/gender sexual relationships do non-arbitrary (as a conversation partner, my use of ?arbitrary? here and elsewhere does entail that potential participants in this conversation are the subjects which determine the correlation between terms, not God) harm to others, including God? As noted before, I think you may have something interesting to say about the Imago Dei on this point.

Yes, I?ve noted it throughout the discussion and I want to allow the full weight of the claim from Scripture to be felt:

¹⁸ For the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven upon all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who are suppressing truth by their unrighteousness,? ¹⁹ because what is known about God is visible by them, because God has made it visible to them.? ²⁰ For since the creation of the world his unseen works?his eternal power and divinity?have been understood and are being perceived. So that they are without excuse.

²¹ Because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give him thanks. Rather, they were given over to worthlessness in their reasoning and their foolish hearts were darkened.? ²² Claiming to be wise, they became foolish?²³ and exchanged the glory of the imperishable God for a likeness-image of perishable humans or birds or quadrupeds or reptiles.? ²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to rottenness, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.? ²⁵ Whoever exchanged the truth of God for a lie and venerated and served the creation instead of the Creator, (who is praised to the ages! Amen!)

²⁶ For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their females exchanged the natural functions for those contrary to nature, ²⁷ and likewise the males also, abandoning the natural functions of females, were inflamed by their cravings for one another. Males committing shameless acts with males and received among themselves the penalty necessary for their error.

²⁸ And just as they did not see fit to have knowledge of God, God gave them over to a failing mind, to do improper things. ?²⁹ They have been filled with every kind of unrighteousness?
wickedness?
covetousness?
evil?
full of envy?
murder?
strife?
deceit?
spitefulness?
gossipers?
³⁰ slanderers?
God-haters?
insolent?
arrogant?
braggarts?
inventors of evil?
disobedient to parents?
³¹ without understanding?
untrustworthy?
unloving?
unmerciful?

³² Although they are knowing God?s righteous decree that those who practice such things, whoever they are, are worthy of death, they are not only doing them but are also approving of those who practice them.

(Romans 1:18-32, my translation)

It?s important to note that this passage is not talking about ?gay people? and how evil they are in particular (despite how some traditionalists have shamefully used it for such).

Rather, it?s talking about humanity?s collective wickedness in turning away from God and worshipping other things in Creation rather than the Creator. Thus ALL humanity (Jew and Gentile alike, as Paul will go on to explain in the next chapter) stands before God fallen, broken and guilty of sin.

So while those who engage in same-sex sexual relationships aren?t ?more sinful? than others who engage in the actions listed along with it above, they ARE committing sinful actions which demonstrate well the nature of sin as the twisting of what was originally good into something that is spiritually destructive.

And the fact that the above passage is riddled with terms from Genesis 1 (see the LXX) is an often-overlooked, but absolutely crucial, detail.

Just as Jesus did before him, Paul here takes discussion of human sin (particularly as it pertains to sexual sin, which the Roman Christians were quite familiar with) back to the foundational teaching in all of Scripture on the subject: the Creation account of Genesis 1-2.

What we see at the beginning of the entire Bible is that human sexuality finds its truest intended fulfillment in the male-female union. In fact it is this relationship of male and female together which is said to constitute the ?image of God? in Genesis 1?s famous tripartite poem:

So God created human in His image,
in the image of God He created them
male and female He created them.

(Genesis?1:27, my translation)

The structure of the Hebrew text makes it clear that whatever else it may mean, the Imago Dei consists of ?male and female?. And in Genesis 2 we see that the sex act (?becoming one flesh?) is to be between a man and a woman. Of course, with Sin?s introduction into human relationships this immediately gets distorted (beginning with Lamech?s wanton polygamy and culminating in the destructive evils of the cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah). But the foundational concept of human sexuality in its intended form by God is found in Genesis 1-2 (which is why both Jesus and Paul appeal to it as authoritative in their discussions).

Same-sex sexual relationships are an inversion of this dynamic in that they take the union which is the most full and intimate expression of the Imago Dei and apply it in a manner which does not exemplify it. This is the core of all idolatry, and thus it is explicitly and universally prohibited by God in both the Old Testament and the New.

[Note: While I don?t have the space to elaborate fully on this section of Romans and what Paul is arguing in terms of same-sex sexual relationships, there is a full half-hour treatment of it HERE in a video in the drop-down menu entitled ?Marriage and the Bible? by Robert Gagnon. I can?t recommend it strongly enough for those who are unsure of what Paul is doing in this section and have heard that he?s only condemning certain forms of same-sex sexual relationships such as temple prostitution or pederasty, both of which are popular claims among revisionist authors. It deals with a number of concepts which I believe MUST be addressed by those seeking to revise the Church's teaching on the subject.]

So while the sinfulness of same-sex sex doesn?t hinge upon our being able to demonstrate persuasively how it is harmful to humanity in a physical or psychological sense (though one could plausibly make that argument given the amount of physical/psychological harm which can be observed by a significant number of those involved in same-sex sexual relationships), it is consistently cast in the same light as other forms of idolatry by the Holy Spirit through the Scripture He has inspired.

And for that reason alone, faithful followers of Jesus cannot embrace and celebrate something that God Himself has prohibited clearly.

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I will respond to your final point in the next post, as it pertains to the practical ministry aspects of this discussion. We?ve focused on Biblical, theological, and theoretical aspects of the debate thus far (which I believe are necessarily foundational and which keep many on both sides talking past each other in endless volleys of rhetoric). But same-sex sexual relationships take place between REAL people with REAL needs and REAL desires which must be addressed and responded to with REAL love by followers of Jesus. That is what I hope to exhibit in my subsequent post.

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Blessings from the Dojo,

JM

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