Category: Theology

(Second post on same-sex and the Bible.)

Thankfully the Christian tradition (now) is that slavery and the slave trade are incompatible with the Gospel message. Although there is still, in some quarters, a divide between male and female roles that is defended and as a result certain leadership roles are barred from women, there has been a great move toward a view advocating egalitarianism. With both examples of slavery and women there are ‘difficult Scriptures’ that anyone moving in an egalitarian direction faces. In the former situation (slavery) those Scriptures are effectively ignored;^;1 and with the male / female situation there is such a strong internal critique and dialogue (disagreement?) that for writers, such as myself, there is an overwhelming movement toward an egalitarian position. Yes there are challenging Scriptures, ones that can be explained by the historical context and culture, but in reality those Scriptures are simply not relevant to us today. They were for ‘then’ and ‘there’ not ‘now’ and ‘here’. I am very happy to accept that the Bible is patriarchally biased, and that we do not need to submit to that bias, indeed we have to reject that bias… and do so to be faithful to the ‘story’ that is being told.^.2

Slavery → narratives that do not condemn slavery, laws that regulate but do not condemn etc… But: slave-traders critiqued; Onesimus to be viewed as a brother; and the overall message from Creation through Redemption was of the equal status of all human beings; ownership of another was not sustainable.

Women → many Scriptures place their position in society / home as being at a subservient level; Paul’s ‘household codes’ seemed to give ‘leadership’ priority to the husband. But: there was an underlying egalitarian basis to the Gospel (Gal. 3:28 being central to this); all the household codes can be seen as apologetic in nature rather than representing an eternal order; all of Paul / Pauline texts that seem to restrict women can be understood in a way that brings them into line with egalitarianism – by looking at the cultural background; and finally whatever might be claimed to be representing a subservience of women from creation becomes irrelevant as eschatological humanity in Christ (not humanity in Adam) has to be the basis for any understanding.

But same-sex relationships? The above two examples seek to track with a trajectory in Scripture and also seek to pick up on the intra-canonical debate / dialogue where there might be conflicting messages. Is that present in this third example? It seems not.

With respect to same-sex activity we do not have that same internal dialogue and that was a factor for me when I wrote that former paper. Without that internal dialogue / disagreement we accept the witness of Scripture as giving the final word, but… any final word also has to include a trajectory that would take us beyond the pages of Scripture. Any such trajectory would not be in disagreement to the story line, but could be seen to disagree with specific texts.³

1. With an effective response of ‘that was then in that culture, but we now know that there is something wrong at the core of slavery, of owning people’. Effectively those Scriptures are given no weight.

2. By accepting that the Scriptures have a patriarchal bias is not to take away its authority, but to push us beyond the various texts. The authority of Scripture is in the story being told, and in its unique witness to the revelation of God that was Personal in and through Jesus.

3. Beyond Scripture does not mean we can assume an authority to continue to add books to our canon, but that there is a very real sense in which the story being told is unfinished. There is a gap between the end of the New Testament and the parousia. We are not authorised to write what fits in this gap but it is important that the gap is filled through followers of Jesus who live out faithfully in line with what has gone before. Perhaps those Christian traditions that emphasise the tradition of the church have grasped something that those such as myself have not, but I note that too often the tradition does not simply inform but restrict any new path being discovered.

I wrote a paper in 1997 that tried to look honestly at outlining what a biblical perspective on homosexuality was. The conclusion I reached in that paper was what might be termed a ‘traditional’ perspective: namely that marriage was between one man and a woman, same-sex orientation and attraction was in no different category than hetero-sexual orientation and attraction; but that a same-sex sexually-active relationship was outside of a biblical boundary for sexual expression.

I wrote it affirming the reality of, and the acceptance of, same-sex attraction, with the only option for someone of same-sex attraction being that of celibacy. I hope I wrote the paper without being too critical and at the close of it I suggested that a review of the biblical material (as far as same-sex practice) would be necessitated when there was evidence that the Spirit was present within such a setting. Story does not, by itself, have an authority to change theology, but our reading of the Bible has to be challenged by story, and hence our theology also has to be reviewed and if necessary changed. That admission of ‘review’ was in glad response to the methodology that we see in Acts 15. Those present were immersed in the biblical material, they had also been shaped by their traditions, but they first submitted themselves to the stories of what the Spirit was doing and then, and only then, they referred to their holy writings. The stories challenged their traditions and their former reading of their authoritative writings.

An important interlude. As probably can be picked up from the first-two paragraphs this paper will move beyond that effort of 24 years ago, and not simply beyond but in a different direction. I was asked some months back if I was having a ‘Peter conversion moment’ (as per Peter’s vision on the roof-top). I replied ‘yes, and if I go where I think I am headed then I cannot do so in private but have to be public, with any accompanying apology that is appropriate’. If anyone who reads this paper and read the former one and through that paper I caused offence, I present my apology here. I appreciate that writing those previous few words is hardly sufficient, but I have to start somewhere.

Story is important, and over the years since writing that paper I have encountered stories that have caused me to re-think. Initially I had dialogue with people who were same-sex orientation and wished to dialogue with me regarding what I had written. As I listened I could hear their stories, and within a short period of time I no longer made the paper available, as I could hear the pain that a number of them had experienced through their marginalisation. Then came reading of books, listening to those who were both affirming of (monogamous) same-sex relationships and the grace that was on them left me convinced that the Spirit was indeed present with and for them.

Within the Judaeo-Christian tradition what one does with the body is important. The biblical teaching about the body is theological, ethical and also eschatological. The Incarnation is a major ‘vote’ given to the importance of bodily existence, likewise the resurrection of the body (both in terms of Jesus and the original Easter and also the future hope for the believer) marks out how important the body is. This ‘use’ of the body must include sexual activity… and yet, we can make too much of sexual activity, for from an eschatological perspective, there will be ‘no more marriage’. Humans are in the image of God, but there are two aspects that we humans experience that God does not. In God there is no death and there is no sex! We should not fall into the trap of listing ‘sex’ as the major criterion for holiness; there are many other vices that vie for the top spot, vices that are often whitewashed as not being too serious. And once we total up the possible texts that could be critiquing same-sex expression statistically we come to something like .0001% of the entire Bible. Statistics, of course, do not necessarily prove anything but that figure should at least make us a little cautionary in drawing our conclusions.

In putting my thoughts into print I acknowledge there are those who are better equipped, having greater understanding and wider relationships than I have. What is in this paper is simply a contribution.

For some time I have considered that the future will indeed be more ‘messy’ than the past with respectful disagreement among those who sincerely seek to interpret the Scriptures and observe (in order to learn from) society. Honest people will come to different conclusions and so dialogue will be necessary between them, the space between occupied relationally rather than being an empty space across which polemic voices can sound.

I will post here over the next days in sections what I propose I will put eventually together into one paper. I acknowledge that the material is not straightforward, and what I write will represent my understanding.