Robert Gagnon's Answers to Emails on the
Bible and Homosexuality I
__________________________________________________________
Index
Here is
a list of the email subjects with dates. For text, scroll down below.
They are in order of date, most recent first.
4/1/09: To someone
who uses my work to explain why we shouldn't listen to Scripture
2/24/09: On Stacy
Johnson and John Stott
2/4/09: Responding
to Spong's arguments
1/25/09: Did Jesus
violate Gen 1:27 and 2:24?
1/23/09: Question
about conducting remarriages
1/23/09:
Correspondence with an evangelical scholar at an
evangelical seminary about Obama's homosexualist political
agenda
1/20/09: Lost on my website?
1/13/09:
Response to an evangelical leader supportive of "gay rights" on
the Crystal Dixon case
1/08/09: On Sin, salvation, and human merit
1/2/09: Response to
a critic about the focus of my work
12/13/08: Material
on women's ordination and homosexuality
12/9/08: Should the
government support homosexual unions?
5/9/08:
Response to a skeptical
evangelical leader who wants to know whom I have "'delivered'
from homosexual orientations"
4/18/08:
What about no reproduction
in heaven and the existence of "complementary" homosexual
unions?
4/16/08: A question
from a seminary student about the exploitation argument
9/5/07: A testimony
from a pastor who has dealt with bisexual urges
9/5/07: Is
heterosexual cohabitation grounds for denying church membership?
6/15/07: Did Jesus Change the Law's Stance on Capital
Sentencing?
5/8/07: Hate Mail from an Angry Left-of-Center Pastor with
a "Wonderful" Pastoral Manner
4/26/07: A question about eternal security and sexual
immorality
4/25/07: Do you think I would still go to heaven when I
die if I am in a lesbian relationship?
4/8/07: Jack Rogers and Analogies
3/31/07: A person with
homosexual desire asks: How does one decide which commands of
God in Scripture to follow?
3/10/07: Where have I
spoken about why women's ordination is a bad analogy for
accepting homosexual practice?
3/10/07: Email from a
father whose teenage son has "come out," on my "Two Views" book
2/2/07: Why Meeting
Nice "Gay" and Lesbian Persons Should Not Lead to Approval of
Homosexual Practice
1/18/07: Jesus,
eunuchs, and the allegation of a 'gay Jesus'
10/17/03 (revisited
12/26/06): A heartfelt email from a woman with same-sex
attractions
12/20/06: Where do I
stand on registered homosexual partnerships?
12/04/06: Do I operate
with a notion of mind/body dualism or "physicalism"?
12/04/06: How did I
get so involved in the topic of homosexuality?
12/04/06: What's a
Layperson to Do?
11/17-25/06:
Correspondence with a student at Eastern University promoting a
"noncontextual perspective and "trusting my own judgment"
11/22/06: Response to
a person who thinks that my non-biblical arguments are not
strong
11/14/06: Question
about books or resources for counseling persons with same-sex
attractions
11/14/06: Differences
of opinion about the relevance of menstrual law and whether the
Law is abrogated in Christ
11/2/06: Questions
about Jack Rogers's claim that 1 Cor 6:9 does not speak against
committed homosexual unions
10/27/06: Can one make
a reasoned case against homosexual practice without citing
Scripture?
10/16/06: Requests for
clarifications on my positions regarding Gen 2, the meaning of
unnatural, and the relevance of Dutch gay marriage
10/16/06: Questions about genetic
influence and moral relevance
__________________________________________________________
Text
To
someone who uses my work to explain why we shouldn't listen to
Scripture
From:
Elizabeth R
Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 10:47 AM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: scriptural authority
Hello Dr. Gagnon,
After hearing you speak last year I’ve come to read your work and I
think your exegesis is solid and I draw the same conclusions. I am a
seminarian and Christian educator in a PC(USA) congregation and I have
become so frustrated with professors and authors trying to make Paul
conform to their presuppositions. However, I and many others utilize
your work for an entirely different project: while you and I agree
about what the bible says, we disagree about why it matters. The fact
remains that, and I imagine you acknowledge this at least to some
extent, your work is alienating and functions in a manner completely
counter productive to evangelism. I want homosexuals and straight
supporters to be a part of the church. So in an effort to keep the
church I care so deeply for alive I try to teach lay people that it is
okay to disagree with the bible’s claims, and to engage the idea that
Paul could be just wrong. Your work aids me in an effort to work
towards teaching a anti-foundationalist perspective in the church,
because I think this whole project of trying to make scripture agree
with us just doesn't hold water and I think your exegesis proves that.
Promoting a post-foundationalist church has been helpful in growing
healthy congregations which attract people who are comfortable to rely
on the uncertainty of faith rather than the absolute authority of
scripture. So, I am very curious to know how you would respond to the
fact that your work aids in this project.
Peace be with you,
Liz
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 2:09 PM
To: 'Elizabeth R'
Subject: RE: scriptural authority
Dear
Liz,
This
ranks as one of the most bizarre emails that I have ever received.
It is
nice to hear that you agree that Scripture cannot be made serviceable
to homosexualist views. That is at least something, I suppose.
But you
want to grow “healthy” congregations that ignore core values in
Scripture’s sexual ethics. Bizarre indeed. It is not just Paul that
you have to deal with; it’s Jesus too, who clearly regarded a
male-female requirement in marriage as foundational for all sexual
ethics (see, for starters, my recent article at
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homosexScripReallySays.doc.pdf).
So you
think that you are going to grow a healthy church, under the authority
of our Lord Jesus Christ, by endorsing what Christ himself would have
regarded (and does regard) as a foundational violation of sexual
ethics? Why don’t you just dispense with the name of Jesus or just
come right out and say that you would like to grow a church of Jesus
Christ in which “Jesus Christ” is nothing more than a cipher for
whatever it is that you want to believe and do, irrespective of what
the real Jesus wants you to say and do? Better yet, just dispense with
the name of Jesus Christ entirely since it is evident that it is not
his assembly that you are creating but rather the assembly made in
Liz’s image. Why don’t you just call it, “The Church of Liz”?
Given
your reasoning, you would stand with the Corinthians who tolerated a
case of adult-consensual incest since you wouldn’t want to alienate
someone who has fallen in love with a blood-related or affine close
kin, would you? Apparently you would be willing to dispense with a
monogamy requirement if a person who claimed to have a polysexual
orientation wanted to join the church but wouldn’t join unless you
said that you will willing to embrace him as a “sexual minority” who
had a valid desire for multiple, concurrent sexual partners in a
committed relationship. Or on these issues, adult-committed incest and
polyamory, have you decided that to “rely on the uncertainty of faith
rather than the absolute authority of Scripture” is not such a good
policy after all? And are you unaware that Scripture’s opposition to
each of these is predicated on, or analogically connected to, a
two-sexes prerequisite for valid sexual activity? So how can
“uncertainty of faith” be good for the foundation but not for the
behaviors predicated on the foundation? Just where does your
“uncertainty of faith” end and your “certainty of faith” kick in? At
the lordship of Jesus Christ? And how do you know who this Lord is
apart from the revealed word in Scripture?
The fact
that you admit that Scripture is clearly and strongly affirming of a
male-female requirement for sexual relations only makes you doubly
accountable before God for knowingly violating the witness not only of
nature but also of the revealed word of God. “Promoting a
post-foundational church” is an absurdity for anyone who confesses
Christ as Savior and Lord since it is in the pages of Scripture that
you are going to find out what Jesus wants and doesn’t want, an image
that often conflicts with your desires and preconceived notions (mine
too).
If you
know my work at all, you know that I make the case not on the basis of
some inerrancy stance (I am not an inerrantist) but rather on the
basis of core values in Scripture, values that are pervasively held,
absolutely held, strongly held, and counterculturally held. Your
support of homosexual unions is a violation of one such core value
within sexual ethics, as bad or worse than affirming consensual and
committed sexual relationships between a man and his mother or a woman
and her brother. Or, again, do you lack “uncertainty of faith” in
these areas?
The issue
isn’t how I feel about this bizarre use of my work but rather how you
are going to explain to your Creator and Redeemer why you thought it
advisable to dishonor him. You are like an ice skating instructor
telling your young pupils that it is okay to go out and skate on thin
ice because nothing bad will happen and, anyway, it is better to live
with “the uncertainty of faith” than the certainty of absolute rules.
I don’t think the parents of these children would appreciate such
instruction; and I don’t think God will have any greater appreciation
for your utter disregard of a value that is foundational to the
revealed text of Scripture. But then I can only advise you as to a
proper course of conduct. You think you know better than Jesus; that
is your choice. I advise you to pull back from such nonsense.
Blessings,
Dr.
Robert Gagnon
[P.S.
Were you writing this an April Fool's joke? Within the tragedy is a
bit of comedy.]
[Note to readers: the email from Liz
is genuine; I think that she is sincere but the date does give pause.]
On
Stacy Johnson and John Stott
From:
Charles ______________
Sent: Tuesday, February
24, 2009 1:05 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: John Stott
Dear Dr.
Gagnon:
Thank you
very much for your scholarly work on the subject of biblical
Christianity and homosexual practice. A retired minister I know has
changed his opposition to homosexual union based on Stacy Johnson’s
treatment of the pertinent biblical texts. His error has been bolstered
the claim that John Stott has changed his opposition to modern
homosexual practice. I have been unsuccessful in finding an article or
news story that mentions Stott’s defection. Are you aware of this
change? Even if Stott has changed his position, I am unmoved because of
what Scripture plainly teaches. Thank you in advance for your reply.
Yours with Christ,
Charles
Rev. Charles _____________
Senior Pastor
From:
Robert Gagnon [mailto:rgagnon@pts.edu]
Sent: Tuesday,
February 24, 2009 2:23 PM
To: Charles
____________
Subject: RE: John
Stott
Dear Charles,
The retired minister in
question is badly informed on several counts.
Johnson does cite
‘even John R. W.
Stott, the conservative British evangelical preacher’ as acknowledging
that ‘the biblical prohibitions by themselves say nothing about such
partnerships’ (p. 50, 264 n. 17).
Stott is simply wrong on
this point. However, even Stott goes on to argue that the creation
texts do imply an absolute opposition to homosexual practice. So
unless Stott has changed his position since he wrote his little book
on the subject he does believe that Scripture opposes homosexual
practice absolutely.
Second, Johnson has
little awareness of the ancient evidence on committed homosexual
relationships. We do in fact know that committed homosexual
relationships could be conceptualized in the Greco-Roman world and
were known to exist. In fact, some Greco-Roman moralists concede the
point while still condemning the behavior as unnatural. So it is
absurd to argue that Paul, coming from a cultural milieu that is more
strongly and consistently opposed to homosexual practice, would not
have maintained a similar view.
Third, Johnson, while
zealous to quote an evangelical preacher on the subject of committed
relationships allegedly being unknown, is assiduous in avoiding the
numerous acknowledgements by scholars (not just preachers) in the
field who, though supportive of homosexual unions, admit that
Scripture’s prohibitions take in all forms of homosexual
relationships, both exploitative and “committed.”
If this retired minister
is interested in really investigating the matter carefully, he should
read my rebuttals of Johnson’s work starting with:
“A Book Not to Be Embraced: A Critical Review Essay on Stacy Johnson’s
A Time to Embrace” [Part 1: the
Scottish Journal of Theology article] (Mar. 2008; 16 pgs.;
online:
http://robgagnon.net/articles/homosexStacyJohnsonSJT2.pdf).
html:
http://robgagnon.net/Critical%20Review%20of%20Stacy%20Johnson's%20Time%20to%20Embrace.htm
This review shows just
how poorly done Johnson’s book is.
Blessings,
Rob
From:
Charles _______________
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 3:35 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: RE: John Stott
Dear Rob:
Bless you for your prompt and very helpful response. I
believe the gentleman I mentioned is open to instruction. I hope that
with God’s help and clear thinking from scholars like you, he can be
won back to historic orthodox Christianity on this matter. Thank you
very much for your response.
Yours
with Christ,
Charles
Responding to Spong's arguments
From:
Jeff
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 7:09 AM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: The Church and Homosexuality
Dr. Gagnon – I was at the Presbytery meeting
in ____________ and heard your talk and the Q/A after dinner. Your
words challenged me and for that I am thankful. Although we clearly do
not share the same views on homosexuality, I am interested in
understanding those whose positions vary from mine particularly on this
subject because it seems to be one that is once again driving the
church apart – as did slavery, ordination of women, divinity of Christ,
et. al. I believe that God wants us to be one and that as we are – in
constant debate while seeming to ignore Jesus’ command to love God, love
one another and follow Him – is not part of the plan for furthering the
Kingdom. But, there again, maybe it is and this is part of the pain of
growth and ongoing deepening toward that oneness that God seeks for us.
I just do not know.
The article below from - Bishop Spong -
speaks to me in ways that you did not. Because he is starting with a
different hierarchy - experience not scripture seems to be #1 with him
– the two of you will probably not have much if any common ground. I
would, however, be pleased if you could comment on it so I could
continue my quest to understand those of you who share different
opinions and experiences from myself. Thank you and blessings to you –
Jeff
Spong:
"It is
not fair to expect secular journalists to be biblical scholars, nor
should it be anticipated that they would spend the necessary time to
research the issue. It is for that reason that they tend to accept
uncritically the oft-repeated Evangelical Protestant and Conservative
Roman Catholic definitions that the Bible is anti-gay. If these people
were honest, they would have to admit that the Bible is also pro-slavery
and anti-women.
"There is also a widely
accepted mentality that if the Bible is opposed, the idea must be wrong.
That is little more than nonsensical fundamentalism. The rise of
democracy was contrary to the "clear teaching of the Bible," as the
debate over the forced signing of the Magna Carta by King John of
England in 1215 revealed. The Bible was quoted to prove that Galileo was
wrong; that Darwin was wrong; that Freud was wrong; that allowing women
to be educated, to vote, to enter the professions and to be ordained was
wrong. So the fact that the Bible is quoted to prove that homosexuality
is evil and to be condemned is hardly a strong argument, given the
history of how many times the Bible has been wrong. I believe that most
bishops know this but the Episcopal Church has some fundamentalist
bishops and a few who are "fellow travelers" with fundamentalists.
"The Bible was written
between the years 1000 B.C.E. and 135 C.E. Our knowledge of almost
everything has increased exponentially since that time. It is the height
of ignorance to continue using the Bible as an encyclopedia of knowledge
to keep dying prejudices intact. The media seems to cooperate in
perpetuating that long ago abandoned biblical attitude.
"That is not surprising
since the religious people keep quoting it to justify their continued
state of unenlightenment. That attitude is hardly worthy of the time it
takes to engage it. I do not debate with members of the flat earth
society either. Prejudices all die. The first sign that death is
imminent comes when the prejudice is debated publicly. The tragedy is
that church leaders back the wrong side of the conflict, which is
happening today from the Pope to the Archbishop of Canterbury to the
current crop of Evangelical leaders. That too will pass and the debate
on homosexuality will be just one more embarrassment in Christian
history."
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 6:04 PM
To: Jeff
Subject: RE: The Church and Homosexuality
Dear Jeff,
Sorry for
the delay in responding. Things have been busy.
On the
unity of the church I would recommend that you view it more as a
christological phenomenon than a sociological one. True unity cannot be
established on the basis of condoning sexual behavior that Jesus and the
entire apostolic witness regarded as abhorrent, for that would result in
the church severing itself from the Christ in whom alone unity may be
found (see Ephesians 4-5 for this; note my comments at
http://www.robgagnon.net/TaskForcePrelimReport.htm). Love of God and
neighbor requires that the church clearly reject such behavior, inasmuch
as the position that endorses homosexual practice deceives persons who
are engaged in the practice into thinking that nothing bad will happen
as a result of their behavior (when Scripture indicates otherwise). You
wouldn’t think that parents encouraging their children to touch a hot
stove are loving them, would you? Why, then, would you think that
promoting a form of sexual behavior that, according to Scripture, puts
people at risk of not inheriting God’s kingdom is loving?
The proper
analogues are not the issues of slavery and women in ministry, as you
mention, by adult-committed incest and adult-committed multiple-partner
unions, as I noted in my talk. Presumably you wouldn’t think that the
church shouldn’t hold the line on non-incestuous and monogamous bonds.
This issue is even more foundational since the degree of too much
non-complementary structural sameness is more keenly felt in same-sex
partnerships than it is in close kin relationships and since too Jesus
predicated his view on marital twoness on the foundational twoness of
the sexual pair, male and female.
I find the
remarks by Spong below not well thought through. I already made the case
before your presbytery as to why the Bible’s stance on homosexual
practice is different from its stance on slavery and women’s roles
(remember how I noted the Bible’s critical edge toward slavery and its
affirming texts toward women and how the countercultural dynamic leaned
in the direction of liberation of slaves and women but decidedly in
favor of a male-female prerequisite for sexual relations?). There are
certainly democratic elements in Paul’s understanding of the church in 1
Cor 12 and elsewhere (per Spong’s democracy remarks), that is, a
democratizing effect in pouring out of the Spirit on all who believe.
We have
advanced in some knowledge but I have already addressed at your
presbytery that, as regards claims to new knowledge about homosexuality
that would radically alter the position of the writers of Scripture on
the subject, neither the concept of committed homosexual unions nor a
recognition of congenital factors in some homosexual development
constitutes radical new knowledge in relation to some ancient
worldviews. I noted in my discussion how the scriptural indictment
(certainly in Paul) is clearly not limited to exploitative homoerotic
relationships or applicable only to those without an orientation. So
what is this new revelatory knowledge that would justify a 180 degree
about-face on this issue in relation to the view of Jesus and apostolic
witness to him?
Does not
the fact that Jesus predicated marital twoness on the fact that God
“made us male and female,” a complementary sexual pair, not concern you?
Have we come to the point in the PCUSA where, no matter how strongly
Jesus and the united witness of Scripture’s authors hold to a moral
view, we think that we are entitled to do otherwise? And why stint
yourself and not go further and accept adult-committed, non-exploitative
versions of polyamory and incest, since your view on homosexual practice
is predicated entirely on whether the participants are adults who love
each other and cares little for their formal or embodied compatibility?
I recommend
to you to read a fuller presentation of my views at
http://www.westernsem.edu/files/westernsem/gagnon_autm05_0.pdf
(which includes discussion not only of Scripture but also philosophy and
science) and
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homosexStacyJohnsonSJT2.pdf (with
parts 2 and 3 as well). If you are really interested in exploring a
different perspective this is the way to go. Then contact me again with
your further questions after you have read these.
Blessings
to you,
Rob
From:
Jeff
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 7:21 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: RE: The Church and Homosexuality
Rob – thanks for your very complete and
challenging response. I will read the suggested articles – thanks again
- Jeff
__________________________________________________________
Did
Jesus violate Genesis 1:27 and 2:24?
From:
Harry _______
Sent: Sat 1/24/2009 6:22 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: Homophobia
Dr Gagnon:
I found your presentation last Wednesday night in ______ far from
convincing.
You built your work on a false and faltering foundation. The same party
in Babyon wrote "man and woman he created them" who also had sponsored
"if a man lay with another man, they should both be killed," namely the
priests who survived the destruction of Jerusalem. They were hardly
neutral observers of the sexual situation.
Besides, the climax of the of the creation story was not the marriage of
man and woman. It was the sabbath rest that was henceforth enjoined on
the Jewish people. If you were a Jew in Babylon, you did four things:
circumcised your children, kept the sabbath, performed sacrifices even
though the temple had been destroyed, and obeyed the food laws. Who
practiced those was a Jew. These four rituals defined Judaism in the
exile and well into time of Jesus.
Your lavish illustrations only supported the idea that widespread
ancient cultures as well as our current one were and are basically
homophobic.
Even your illustration of Jesus on heterosexuality as the norm for
sexual relations is spurious. Jesus goes on to say, "A man shall leave
his father and mother and be joined to his wife." This proscription goes
back to those days in Israel when this actually happened, But Jesus' own
family did not obey that command: Mary left her own family and went with
Joseph to enroll in his. Not even Jesus kept this commandment: to the
best of our knowledge, he was never "joined to (a)
wife."
The only real foundation for biblical interpetation is the love of God
in creation, later incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ.
In his love, committed heterosexual love is anchored. No committed
heterosexual couple perfectly fulfills it but all try to model it.
In his love, committed homosexual love is anchored.
No committed homosexual couple perfectly fulfills it but all try to
model it.
The Rev Dr Harry ______________
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 11:20 PM
To: Harry _______
Subject: RE: Homophobia
Rev.
__________,
Thank you for your comments. Here is my response.
You reject the authority of Gen 1:27 even though Jesus
lifted up this statement as central for defining acceptable sexual
ethics and yet you call Jesus Lord? Jesus regards it as foundational,
and thus its violation as abhorrent, but you know better, dismissing it
as the product of some "homophobic" Jewish priests in exile in Babylon.
Stunning.
Jesus qualified over-reads of the Sabbath and Paul did
not regard observance of a particular holy day as essential. They did,
however, both regard sexual purity, including a male-female requirement
for sexual relations, as absolutely vital. In fact, few Jews in the
Second Temple period believed that Gentile failure to observe the
Sabbath was as immoral an act as engaging in homosexual practice (or
incest, for that matter).
Your argument that Jesus himself did not keep Gen 1:27
and 2:24, the very texts that Jesus lifted up as normative (with
proscriptive implications) for sexual ethics, is misguided. Why would
Jesus lift them up and draw a rigorous sexual ethic from them if he
didn't regard them as vaild? First, the statement about "leaving one's
father and mother and being joined to one's woman/wife" is not a
statement about literal leaving; it's a statement about transferring
primary allegiances from one's parent to one's own household and making
one's wife more of a kin than even one's own parents. It matters little
whether the husband goes to the wife's house/family or the wife to the
husband's house/family (as examples in Yahwistic narrative make clear).
Second, Jesus' rightly recognized that Gen 1:27 and 2:24
were not commands that compelled every last Jewish man to marry; there
is absolutely no indication that he viewed himself as in violation of
these commands (contra your erroneous presumption). When he spoke about
some making themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven, that is,
abstaining from marriage and thus from any sexual relations so as to
give undivided attention to the proclamation of the kingdom in dangerous
situations, he did so with the understanding that Gen 1:27 and 2:24 were
not absolute commands to get married but general commands. However, he
did understand these texts as giving absolute prerequisites for
acceptable sexual relations (i.e. marriage) if sexual relations were to
be had. And he clearly predicated the twoness of a sexual bond on the
two primary sexes that God created for sexual pairing, a fact that I
noted was demonstrated by a parallel use of Gen 1:27 in the Qumran
community. Jesus understood (and Paul followed him in this) that there
is a big difference between not entering into a sexual union, which is
no sin, and entering into an inherently unnatural (i.e. structurally
incongruous) sexual union, which is a sin.
Your argument that only commitment is needed to justify a
sexual union, as if there were no embodied formal prerequisites, is not
a scriptural notion and is logically untenable. Why stint yourself and
limit yourself to homosexual unions? Since the prohibition of faithful
polyamorous unions is, according to Jesus, predicated on the twoness of
the sexes, and you don't give any significance to the duality of the
sexes for sexual relations, why not go on and accept a committed
polyamorous union of 3 or more sexual partners? And since homosexual
practice and incest of adult-committed sorts are both rejected on the
grounds of not enough complementary otherness and too much formal
sameness on the part of the participants (one most keenly felt at the
level of sex or gender, the other derivatively felt at the level of
kinship), and you don't think too much structural likeness matters in
the case of same-sex pairing, why not go on and accept an
adult-committed incestuous union?
The reality is that sex is not just "more intimacy" and
that generic love, though necessary, is not a sufficient criterion for
having sex. If it were, then since we are called to love everyone with
whom we come into contact it ought to be acceptable to have sex with
everyone. And, by your reasoning, since parents love and are committed
to their children, they ought to be able to have sex with them, or with
their parents or siblings, since apparently you believe love and
commitment are sufficient for justifying a sexual union. What your
argument doesn't acknowledge is that there are a host of additional
considerations beyond love and commitment that have to be taken into
account when the issue is sexual relations, including the number of
partners, degree of blood relatedness, gender or sex, and age.
You appeal to the love of God in Christ but patently
ignore the fact that Jesus himself, the man of love, viewed a
male-female prerequisite for valid sexual unions as absolutely
essential. Now we have here two alternatives. We could go with the moral
view of our Lord, whom I can safely say is infinitely wiser spiritually
and more loving than you or I, or we could go with your anti-Jesus view
and conclude that you are wiser and more loving than Jesus in this area
that Jesus regarded as foundational. Your charge of "homophobia" has to
be laid at the feet of Jesus our Lord, given his views on a male-female
requirement, and makes about as much sense as "polyphobia" or
"incest-phobia" when adult-committed relationships are in view.
Please pardon me for not finding your response to my
presentation convincing. I have laid out a few reasons why I am not
persuaded by you. I have spent the time to respond to you in the hope
that you will lower your ideological grid a bit and give serious
consideration to these things.
Blessings,
Dr. Gagnon
From:
Harry _______
Sent: Thursday, January
29, 2009 2:06 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: Homophobia
Two
questions:
Show me
any place in the gospels that Jesus turned away a person who was gay or
lesbian?
Did
Jesus on the cross say, I am dying for everyone but the gays and
lesbians? Another: How can you convert a question that deals with
divorce into one that deals with gays and lesbians? Let's stay on the
subject, here.
By the
way. When Jesus quoted Leviticus, he did not quote 18:22. He quoted
19:18. I stand with him.
Dr.
__________
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Gagnon
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 6:26 PM
To: 'Harry ________
Subject: RE: Homophobia
Harry,
"Show
me any place in the gospels that Jesus turned away a person who was gay
or lesbian?"
We
don't have a text where Jesus meets a Jew who is engaged in homosexual
practice because no Jew in the first century would have participated in
such activity (or, if engaging in it, would have let anyone know it
since such acknowledgment would have meant instant death). What we do
have is stories of Jesus who reaches out to sexual sinners but not to
affirm their sin; rather to reclaim them for the kingdom of God by
turning them from their sin. "Go and no longer be sinning" carries with
it the implicit motive clause (explicit in John 5) "lest something worse
happen to you." I wasn't advocating "turning away" persons with same-sex
attractions but calling them to a life where they do not, by their
behavior, put themselves at risk of not inheriting the very kingdom that
Jesus proclaimed. You might as well say: Show me any place in the
Gospels where Jesus turned away adulterers or participants in incest or
bestiality. You are not suggesting we should promote these behaviors
too, are you?
"Did
Jesus on the cross say, I am dying for everyone but the gays and
lesbians?"
No, he
died for all people, including mass murderers, rapists, pedophiles,
racists, etc. but I trust that you do not deduce from this that he
condoned their behaviors or proclaimed that they would all inherit God's
kingdom irrespective of whether they continued in such behaviors. (If
you do deduce this, then your theology has very serious problems
indeed.) Why do you think Jesus warned people to cut off their hand,
eye, or foot if it should threaten their spiritual downfall because it
is better to go into heaven maimed than to go into hell full-bodied?
Moreover, Paul, from whom we get most of our theology of grace, made
clear that there is no sin transfer to Christ apart from a self transfer
to Christ; no Christ living in us apart from our dying to self. Paul
believed that the person who continued to live under the primary sway of
sin would perish irrespective of any claim to know Jesus. And you might
check out the triplicate of warnings that Jesus issued at the end of the
Sermon on the Mount in Matt 7.
" How
can you convert a question that deals with divorce into one that deals
with gays and lesbians? Let's stay on the subject, here."
I am
staying on the subject but you appear not to have grasped my point.
Jesus predicated his view of marital twoness (rejecting both concurrent
and serial polygamy) on the fact that God made us "male and female," two
primary complementary sexes whose sexual unions permits no third party.
In other words, Jesus arrived at his view on divorce and remarriage
(and, implicitly, polygamy which is the easier case) through the view
that the foundation of marriage is that God made two and only two
complementary sexes. That is very much staying on the subject. I showed
how the Qumran community made a similar use of Gen 1:27 to prohibit
polygamy.
" By
the way. When Jesus quoted Leviticus, he did not quote 18:22. He quoted
19:18. I stand with him."
So what
if Jesus didn't cite Lev 18:22 directly? He didn't cite directly the
prohibitions of incest and bestiality in Lev 18 either; do you think
that this means that he was okay with such behavior? Jesus didn't have
to cite Lev 18:22; he cited the flipside, the male-female prerequisite
in Gen 1:27 and 2:24, as foundational for all sexual ethics. Certainly
Lev 19:18 is not in contradiction to the sex laws in Lev 18 and 20
(recorded by the same legislators) and certainly too Jesus and early
Christians did not treat the commandments regarding incest, adultery,
man-male intercourse, and bestiality as expendable, merely symbolic
commands. Anyone who knows anything about first-century Judaism and
Christianity knows this, don't you think?
If you
are really serious about wanting to learn, read a fuller presentation of
my views at
http://www.westernsem.edu/files/westernsem/gagnon_autm05_0.pdf
(which includes discussion not only of Scripture but also philosophy and
science) and
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homosexStacyJohnsonSJT2.pdf (with
parts 2 and 3 as well). I can't continue to dish out piecemeal to you
material that I have already written elsewhere. If you are not
interested in reading this material, you are not really interested in
learning or having your preconceived views challenged. I hope, however,
that you will demonstrate the opposite.
Blessings,
Dr.
Gagnon
Question about conducting remarriages
From:
H.
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 11:11 AM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: Thursday talk
Dr. Gagnon --
I wanted to drop a note to let you know how much I enjoyed your
presentation. I found your presentation very persuasive. I had noticed
that most of the arguments being made by proponents of gay ordination
were based more on American civil values than on the scriptures, and I
came away from Jack Rogers' presentation thinking I must have missed
something.
By the way, I heard a talk by Barbara Wheeler a couple of years ago
when she and Jack Haberer conducted a dialogue at the national
gathering of presbytery moderators, and she admitted that her own view
in favor of gay ordination were formed by non-biblical influences.
I'll try to make a point to read one of your books on the topic in the
next few weeks.
I was also hoping to ask a questions about a topic you touched on
briefly, which is divorce. How do you think pastors should deal with
the question of divorce and remarriage? Obviously, most of us are
called on sometimes to perform weddings for people who have been
divorced. My general practice has been to approach the subject in
pre-wedding consultations in terms of divorce being the result of
human sinfulness, and to stress the importance of repenting of the
lack of commitment which has resulted in the previous marriage(s).
What's your view?
And how about remarried clergy? Our presbytery, like most, has a
number of pastors who have been remarried. What's your advice on this
issue?
Again, thanks for your guidance.
In Jesus' service,
H.
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 8:27 PM
To: H.
Subject: RE: Thursday talk
Hi
Henry,
It was
nice meeting you.
The
divorce-remarriage thing is difficult. While a serious issue it is not
as serious as (even adult-committed) incest or homosexual practice.
There are special problems such as: Was the person who is remarrying
an initiator or victim of the previous divorce? If initiator, on what
grounds? (The only acceptable grounds for divorce would be adultery
and, presumably, desertion and serious physical endangerment.) As a
pastor I would have to know these things before any consideration of
participating in the service. I’m not even sure that Jesus would have
allowed remarriage under any circumstances so long as the first spouse
is still alive. His remarks in Matt 5 suggest that even a wife who has
been divorced on invalid grounds, becomes an adulteress if she
remarries.
See my
article at
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homoWinkHBTResp.pdf pp. 110-22.
Blessings,
Dr.
Gagnon
Correspondence with an evangelical
scholar at an evangelical seminary about Obama's homosexualist political
agenda
From:
B
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 1:36 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Thanks for [alerting me to Obama's
political program for gay rights at the
official White House webpage. What I find there is the following---
Support
for the LGBT Community
"While we
have come a long way since the Stonewall riots in 1969, we still have a
lot of work to do. Too often, the issue of LGBT rights is exploited by
those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we
are as Americans. It's about whether this nation is going to live up to
its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with
dignity and respect."
-- Barack Obama, June 1,
2007
-
Expand Hate Crimes Statutes:
In 2004, crimes against LGBT Americans
constituted the third-highest category of hate crime reported and made
up more than 15 percent of such crimes. President Obama cosponsored
legislation that would expand federal jurisdiction to include violent
hate crimes perpetrated because of race, color, religion, national
origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical disability.
As a state senator, President Obama passed tough legislation that made
hate crimes and conspiracy to commit them against the law.
-
Fight Workplace Discrimination:
President Obama supports the Employment
Non-Discrimination Act, and believes that our anti-discrimination
employment laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation and
gender identity. While an increasing number of employers have extended
benefits to their employees' domestic partners, discrimination based
on sexual orientation in the workplace occurs with no federal legal
remedy. The President also sponsored legislation in the Illinois State
Senate that would ban employment discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation.
-
Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT
Couples:
President Obama supports full civil unions that
give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of
married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of
Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+
federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of
marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and
other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the
right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal
health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights.
-
Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage:
President Obama voted against the Federal
Marriage Amendment in 2006 which would have defined marriage as
between a man and a woman and prevented judicial extension of
marriage-like rights to same-sex or other unmarried couples.
-
Repeal Don't Ask-Don't Tell:
President Obama agrees with former Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili and other military
experts that we need to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The
key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty,
and a willingness to serve. Discrimination should be prohibited. The
U.S. government has spent millions of dollars replacing troops kicked
out of the military because of their sexual orientation. Additionally,
more than 300 language experts have been fired under this policy,
including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. The President will
work with military leaders to repeal the current policy and ensure it
helps accomplish our national defense goals.
-
Expand Adoption Rights:
President Obama believes that we must ensure
adoption rights for all couples and individuals, regardless of their
sexual orientation. He thinks that a child will benefit from a healthy
and loving home, whether the parents are gay or not.
-
Promote AIDS Prevention:
In the first year of his presidency, President Obama will develop and
begin to implement a comprehensive national HIV/AIDS strategy that
includes all federal agencies. The strategy will be designed to reduce
HIV infections, increase access to care and reduce HIV-related health
disparities. The President will support common sense approaches
including age-appropriate sex education that includes information
about contraception, combating infection within our prison population
through education and contraception, and distributing contraceptives
through our public health system. The President also supports lifting
the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce
rates of infection among drug users. President Obama has also been
willing to confront the stigma -- too often tied to homophobia -- that
continues to surround HIV/AIDS.
-
Empower Women to Prevent HIV/AIDS:
In the United States, the percentage of women diagnosed with AIDS has
quadrupled over the last 20 years. Today, women account for more than
one quarter of all new HIV/AIDS diagnoses. President Obama introduced
the Microbicide Development Act, which will accelerate the development
of products that empower women in the battle against AIDS.
Microbicides are a class of products currently under development that
women apply topically to prevent transmission of HIV and other
infections.
Some of this I would clearly disagree with,
however I don't oppose civil unions or civil rights for gays, nor do I
think 'don't ask, don't tell' works, nor am I in favor of hate crimes
against gays.
I do however think some of those hate crimes laws however go much too
far, in calling any sort of criticism of gay lifestyle as hate speech.
I do also oppose redefining the term marriage. What Pres. Obama has
said is that he thinks that the issue of the definition of marriage
should be left in the hands of the states. In other words, he doesn't
favor the Constitutional Amendment ban idea. He does agree, and
personally does define, marriage as an act between an man and woman as
the Bible says, as do the vast majority of African-Americans.
The sum and substance of this is that it looks like you are right to be
concerned about some of this, but not by any means all of it. America
is a secular society and equality under the law is a primary goal of
course. I have never seen much promise in trying to
impose
strictly Christian values on a pluralistic
society like we have, without the consent of the governed. My point is
this--- Obama has repealed various of Bush's executive orders. I don't
have a problem with that. I think that if we cannot persuade society to
agree with us and our Christian views, then it is not fair play to bring
them in through the back door with executive orders of whatever sort.
Good to hear from you as always,
Dr. B
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 4:40 PM
To: B.
B.,
Thanks for
your comments.
One doesn’t
have to be in favor of “hate crimes” against homosexuals to be opposed
to a “hate crime” bill. Laws are already in place protecting everyone
against violence and threats. “Sexual orientation” laws inevitably treat
any who oppose homosexual practice as bigots to be excluded from
white-collar jobs and polite society; lead to enforced indoctrination of
school children; and mandate compliance in goods and services despite
conscience objections (see, for example, the New Mexico female
photographer fined thousands of dollars for declining to photograph a
lesbian wedding). These are inevitable developments. “Sexual
orientation” “employment discrimination” laws lead to GLBT organizations
in the workplace, coming out workstation celebrations, affirmative
action programs for “sexual minorities,” etc. Any recognition of “sexual
orientation” as a specially protected class alongside of race and gender
leads to a civil insistence that “sexual orientation” diversity is as
prized as race or gender diversity and opponents of such as comparable
to racists and misogynists. You are concerned about “hate crime” laws
going too far but do not appear to realize that the implementation of
any “sexual orientation” law leads inevitably to these abuses, as
numerous examples from Canada, Europe, and even the US make clear.
I’m
surprised that you are for homosexual “civil unions.” Are you for “civil
unions” for 3 or more concurrent adult-committed sexual partners or for
adult-committed incestuous bonds as well? Don’t you know that the
granting of “civil unions” compels employers and taxpayers to subsidize
the immorality of homosexual relationships, promotes state
characterization of opponents of homosexual practice as bigots, and
leads inevitably to “gay marriage” (when every right and benefit of
marriage is granted but only the name “marriage” is withheld, it is a
very short and inevitable step to marriage, as you should know from the
reasoning of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which noted the hypocrisy
of granting all but name and then mandated gay marriage)? If you are
supportive of civil unions, where the state expresses as much of an
interest in furthering homosexual unions as it does heterosexual
families, then you have no reasonable case for being opposed to
withholding the mere word “marriage,” for in all other respects you
support what appears to be a homosexual marriage. If it walks like a
duck and talks like a duck and has the body of a duck, it’s a duck.
If you
believe that Obama thinks in his heart that homosexuals should not have
the right of marriage then you are extremely gullible about Obama’s
views. It has now been revealed that already in 1996 he publicly
expressed his commitment to support the institution of gay marriage.
This past year, before the homosexual organization known as the “Human
Rights Campaign,” he compared the withholding of marriage to homosexuals
to miscegenation laws in the South. See further my online article here:
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/ObamaWarOnChristiansRespToBritScholar.pdf.
Obama hasn’t just rejected any federal marriage amendment; he has also
consistently rejected any state attempt to restrict the word “marriage”
to a male-female union, including California’s Prop 8. Moreover he is
determined to get rid of the Defense of Marriage Act whose only purpose
is to prevent gay marriage in one state from being foisted on other
states.
Opposition
to homosexual practice is no more restricted to Christian revelation
than is opposition to sanctioning adult-committed incest and polyamory.
Indeed a prohibition of both derives from the foundation of, or in
analogy to, the reasons for adopting a male-female prerequisite.
Blessings,
Rob
Lost on my website?
From: Cesar
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2009 10:57 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: Please, do me a favour.
Dear
Gagnon,
My name is Cesar ______, I'm Brazilian and Christian
I have known your web site and I have sought biblical serious texts
about homosexuality.
Well, I noticed that in your site there are too many texts about the
matter and unfortunately this has been a problem for me begin some read.
In fact, I was looking serious commentaries with base on Hebrew and
Greek interpretation about the classical verses that mention
homosexuality in the books of Leviticus, Romans, Corinthians and
Timothy.
Well, I would like your help to lead me to these texts or books because
I'm lost in your web site.
God bless you,
Cesar
From: Robert Gagnon
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 2:22 PM
To: Cesar
Subject: RE: Please, do me a favour.
Dear
Cesar,
There is a
lot of material on my website but here are four places to start:
“More than Mutual
Joy: Lisa Miller of Newsweek against Scripture and Jesus” (http://robgagnon.net/NewsweekMillerHomosexResp.htm)
A half hour video
on “What the Bible Says about Homosexuality” at
http://www.vimeo.com/2126309
“How Bad Is Homosexual Practice According to
Scripture and Does Scripture’s Indictment Apply to Committed Homosexual
Unions?” (http://robgagnon.net/HowBadIsHomosexualPractice.htm)
“Why the
Disagreement over the Biblical Witness on Homosexual Practice?”
(http://www.westernsem.edu/files/westernsem/gagnon_autm05_0.pdf)
Blessings,
Rob
Response to an
evangelical leader supportive of "gay rights" on the Crystal Dixon case
For information on the Crystal Dixon
case go
here
From:
T.
Sent: Tue 1/13/2009 9:54 AM
To: Robert Gagnon
Dear Rob,
I just thought you would like to have this letter that
was sent to me by the president of the University of Toledo in response
to my concerns about the dismissal of Ms. Crystal Dixon for making
statements that he felt were contrary to the values of the institution.
It is interesting the way this game can be played in
academia, because at the University of Colorado a very outspoken
professor made some horrendous statements about people who died on 9/11
being deserving of their deaths. His message was filled with all kinds
of anti-Semitic comments, yet the university said that beliefs about
free speech would not allow the university to dismiss that professor.
It seems to me that Ms. Crystal Dixon, expressing her personal
convictions on gays and lesbians, was far less offensive than anything
that was uttered by that professor in Colorado.
You know that there is much that we disagree on when it
comes to gays and lesbians. I am on the side that champions their
rights, but having said that I am also for the rights of those who want
to express themselves in ways that are contrary to my beliefs and
convictions. A free society, and certainly an open university, demands
this. I think that Dr. Roy A. Jacobs made a mistake and I am surprised
that there wasn’t more of an outcry against him. I especially feel this
way after reading Ms. Dixon’s comments, which I felt were very
even-tempered.
I suppose that, in spite of our severe differences, there
are places where we can agree.
Sincerely,
T.
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 11:41 AM
To: T.
Subject: T.
Dear T.,
Thank you for sharing
this letter with me. The obvious flaw in Jacobs' rationale is that he
had no actual evidence that Ms. Dixon had not carried out her duties and
yet still removed her from the position; therefore, despite his denial,
he has abridged her free speech.
I am grateful that we
agree that Jacobs did the wrong thing. I further agree that we are in
very different places on other matters involving homosexual practice.
Of course, I would not
characterize our differences as you would; namely, that you are "on the
side that champions their rights" while I am not. That description
severely prejudices the matter, does it not? I don't believe that I am
denying any "rights." For example, it is no more a "right" for two
persons in a homosexual relationship to have their sexual union
subsidized by their employer through domestic partnership benefits than
it is a "right" for three or more persons, or close blood relations, to
have their adult-committed sexual union so subsidized. Homosexual
persons, like all persons, have a right not to be subject to violent
acts; yet this right is already protected through anti-violence laws
that protect all persons; a special "hate-crime" law enshrining "sexual
orientation" as a special protection category could not add to this
right but rather only deter free-speech rights of other by establishing
"sexual orientation" as comparable to race or ethnicity. Persons engaged
in adult-committed homosexual practice should have as many employment
rights, but no more, than persons engaged in adult-committed incestuous
or polyamorous unions (the latter two I do not think should be subject
to criminal prosecution or arrest).
You "champion" "sexual
orientation" employment "nondiscrimination" laws and yet you are
surprised by the outcome at the University of Toledo. You should not be
surprised. When Obama (whom you strongly supported in spite of his
radical pro-abortion positions and perhaps because of his radical
homosexualist stance; see now his invitation to Gene Robinson to speak
at his inauguration) pushes through national "sexual orientation" laws
you will see much more of this discrimination against Christians. For
some reason you think it is possible to pass "sexual orientation"
legislation and not abridge the rights of Christians to speak against
homosexual practice and to opt out of acts that coerce them to promote
homosexual activity in society. This, I would suggest to you, is not a
rational position given things that have already transpired in Europe,
Canada, and even parts of the United States.
Blessings,
Rob
On
Sex, Salvation, and Human Merit
From:
Redvan6
Sent: Thu 1/8/2009 2:51 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: Sex and Salvation
Dr.
Gagnon: We aren't saved or unsaved by avoiding this or that type of
sexual experience. Practicing Christian homosexuals aren't saved by
keeping "morally clean"-whatever that might mean or holding on for dear
life for fear that they might catch a fornicating glimpse of another
man's you-know-what. All of which could set the stage for a descent
into the very fires of Hell itself if not checked and throttled at all
costs. Begs the questions: How
Are We Saved??? How Are We Kept??? Is Sexual "Morality" Required For
Salvation??? I would have thought that the doctrinally
mature Christian would have clarified these issues in Bible 101. Settle
once and for all by thorough Biblical study what it means to be
saved...God's awesome grace to us in Christ
apart from the works of the Law-apart from good behavior-apart from self
effort/good works. Christ justifies the UNGODLY. Christ justifies the
UNRIGHTEOUS. HOW? Simply by calling on His name in
faith believing in and receiving His cleansing blood to wash away all
sin. Gay or straight it makes no difference. We are saved/sealed by
genuine faith in Jesus not by avoiding sexual temptation or any other
sin for that matter. Christ came to save sinners not people who try to
blunt their own personal sinful expression through self effort, self
denial, and other legalistic attempts to "appear not need the sacrifice
of Calvary" quite so much. Having been purchased by His blood, we will
exhibit the new nature through good works that glorify Jesus Christ.
The indwelling Spirit will manifest Himself in the gay or straight
believer's heart by Christ honoring behavior.
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 5:25 PM
To: Redvan6
Subject: RE: Sex and Salvation
You do
not understand Pauline (or Christian) soteriology. Nothing an individual
does can merit salvation; but one does appropriate it by faith, trust in
Christ's saving work on the cross; and the person who lives by faith is
the person who, in the main, lets Christ live in him (or her); and
Christ is not producing sin. Not that Paul (or Jesus) expected
perfection but he did expect a transformation, a life lived in the main
in conformity to the indwelling Spirit rather than in conformity to sin
operating in the human body. The person who lives in the latter way does
not believe or have faith in Christ in anything like a life
reorientation toward the gospel. Such a person, Paul repeatedly
declared, will not inherit the kingdom of God, not because he (or she)
has failed to merit God's salvation but because he (or she) has not
truly trusted in Christ. So Paul's approach to the case of the
incestuous man in 1 Cor 5-6, his discussion of "why not sin?" in Rom
6:1-8:17, and many other places. The person who engages in a serial
unrepentant manner in homosexual practice is, like the incestuous man,
at high risk to not inherit eternal life, irrespectively of whatever
confession he (or she) makes. You would benefit greatly from a more
careful reading of Scripture. You don't understand grace.
Robert
Gagnon
Response to a critic about the focus of my work
From: John G. Ayres
Sent: Fri 1/2/2009 9:41 AM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: The Focus of your "ministry"
Dr. Gagnon:
I read with some
interest your response(s) when asked about your ministry’s
effectiveness in “curing” homosexuality. I particularly found it
interesting that you claim that your ministry isn’t about “healing” or
“reorienting” homosexual persons, as this would take significant time
and resources away from your “ministry.”
Considering that I
find precious little on your website regarding anything other than
homosexuality, I am compelled to ask you:
1) Why your obsession
with LGBT persons, if you do not consider your ministry to be
“focused” on this one particular “sin”? Can’t you find something else
in this sinful world to write and talk about? It leads one to wonder
if your obsession isn’t rooted in internalized homophobia and perhaps
a disownership of homosexual feelings you find inside yourself?
2) If homosexuality
and its resulting inability to be redeemed is so worthy of the
majority of your attention, how could gay “reparative” ministry be so
not a part of your ministry? Is it your position that
all that is required of you with regard to homosexuality and
Christianity is to beat people over the head with the Bible? Faith
without works is dead. I might find you to be more credible if you
spent your time actually ministering to others instead of using the
platform of your professorship as a sort of pedestal to wag your
finger and thump a lot of “thou shalt nots.”
Like most Christians
I’ve ever met, it seems to be so much more convenient for you to
glorify the Messenger than it is to actually live his message. People
like you and Bishop Duncan make Pittsburgh the hillbilly backwater
that it has always been and will always be.
Hey, I’m just
saying...
John Ayres
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Gagnon [mailto:rgagnon@pts.edu]
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 1:45 PM
To: John G. Ayres
Subject: RE: The Focus of your "ministry"
John,
A prominent area of my
research is on what Scripture has to say about homosexual practice.
Such attention needs little justification beyond the obvious:
first, this issue has dominated church discussions and controversies
for the past 30 years; second, a male-female prerequisite is treated
in Scripture as a foundational element of human sexual relations, and
this foundation has turned into the moral and religious equivalent in
our day of an endangered species which, if not defended now, will be
lost forever; third, few have had the courage to defend this
foundational element in the face of vicious attacks from power-sectors
of society supporting homosexual practice, making the need for such a
defense great indeed.
The "internalized
homophobia" argument is absurd. So, if the culture began pressing for
acceptance of polyamorous, incestuous, or pedophilic unions and I
devoted considerable attention in my writings to showing why such
cultural acceptance would be morally wrong, would you say that my
primary motivation would be internalized polyphobia, incest-phobia, or
pedophobia respectively? For the record, I have no memory of ever
experiencing same-sex attractions. But those who do have such
attractions while affirming God's limitation of sexual unions to male
and female are courageous, not hypocritical, since it requires a view
of discipleship toward Christ consistent with Jesus' own call to take
up one's cross, deny oneself, and lose one's life.
I minister to persons,
including persons with same-sex attractions, as God leads me to do so.
But my primary job is not as a therapist but as a scholar of
Scripture, which is a noble occupation in its own right and more than
a full-time job. Your premise that a person with homosexual
attractions is not helped unless these attractions can be removed is
completely misguided, inasmuch as most persons never rid themselves
entirely of desires to do what God expressly forbids, whatever the
desire. No commandment of God is predicated on people first losing all
desires to violate the command in question.
Your argument is also
premised on the position that affirming same-sex attractions is
inherenly loving so that writing against homosexual practice is
inherently hateful and abusive. I reject that premise completely (as
did Jesus and every author of Scripture). If, as Scripture indicates,
homosexual practice is an inherently self-dishonoring act that treats
one's maleness (if male) as only half intact or femaleness (if female)
as only half intact--two half males uniting to form a whole male, two
half-females uniting to form a whole female--then clearing away the
misunderstandings that Scripture is somehow supportive of homosexual
practice is not an act of hate but an act of love. When Jesus declared
in the midst of talking about sexual ethics that one should cut off a
body part that threatens one's spiritual downfall because it is better
to go into heaven maimed then to go into hell full-bodied, he was not
being hateful but loving.
Given the intellectual
thinness of the "logic" in your email to me, I wouldn't go around
abusively referring to others as "hillbillies" if I were you. Your
first priority ought to be to educate yourself more on this issue
since it is apparent that you have not thought through a number of
matters clearly. Please don't write me again until you make a
reasonable effort to do so by reading my material comprehensively and
carefully.
Dr. Gagnon
From: John G. Ayres
Sent: Fri 1/2/2009 1:58 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: RE: The Focus of your "ministry"
You prolific and
verbose response still doesn't answer the question: why
homosexuality, specifically? Methinx the lady doth protest too much.
The tremendous
increase in divorces, extramarital relations, children growing up in
single-parent heterosexual households, 1 in 4 teenage girls under 14
testing positive for HPV, etc ad nauseum don't qualify as weakening
the foundations of moral sexual and family behavior? Heterosexuals in
no small number have denigrated and eroded the institution of
marriage. Homosexuals, meanwhile, have yet to even be given the
opportunity to do nearly as badly.
I am tempted to laugh
at your characterization of gay men and women as being "half" of their
gender. Such knee-jerk reactionary homophobia can be called nothing
else than the neurosis that it is. By your own assertion, those who
choose celibacy are less than "half" their gender, as they choose not
to express their sexuality whatsoever. What does that make them, in
your system of accounting....1/4 male or female?
Your obsession with
all things queer says much more about you than it does anyone else.
Those of us with a mind, who actually use it, aren't fooled a bit.
You'll do well in Pittsburgh; that is, if you can get the uneducated
masses to stay awake long enough to listen to (let alone understand)
your diatribes.
John Ayres
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 3:12 PM
To: John G. Ayres
Subject: RE: The Focus of your "ministry"
John,
On your 1st paragr.
below. Didn't answer the question? Reread my first paragraph where I
answer it with three points.
On your 2nd paragr.
below: Of course there are heterosexual sins. I just don't see a
lobbyist group in the church for such things. I do see it for
homosexual practice. As regards promiscuity, homosexuals, particularly
male, do far worse on average than heterosexuals; this is also true as
regards sexually transmitted disease, relational longevity, and mental
health. That you do not know these things underscores again your
uninformed view of things. And homosexual practice, like incest, has
the added dimension of sexual intercourse with another who is already
too much of a formal (structural, embodied) same; here males aroused
by the very maleness that they possess (anatomical, physiological, and
psychological) and females by the very femaleness that they possess. A
man having sex with his own grown sister is the closest analogue. Your
observation is analogous to, and makes as little sense as, the claim
that fighting against cultural support for polyamory or incest, even
of adult-committed sorts, would be wrong because it would ignore the
ills of monogamist or non-incestuous persons.
On your 3rd paragr.: "By
your own assertion, those who choose celibacy are less than "half"
their gender, as they choose not to express their sexuality
whatsoever."
Your statement does not logically follow. A man who
chooses not to have sex remains a full male sexually. It would be the
attempt to merge sexually with what he already is as a sexual being
that would compromise the integrity of his maleness since male and
female are obviously the only complementary sexual beings; one merges
with their sexual other-half. This is a fairly obvious point.
The uninformed character of your
remarks, as well as their arrogance ("Those of
us with a mind, who actually use it, aren't fooled a bit"),
underscores the waste of my time to engage further someone such as
yourself until you do something more to educate yourself. I asked you
not to write back until and if you do educate yourself further on the
matter. I do not have the time to reiterate points that I have dealt
with extensively elsewhere to a person who has no desire to read the
best material that disagrees with the homosexualist view.
Dr.
Gagnon
Material on women's ordination and homosexuality
From: pastord
Sent: Sat 12/13/2008 10:46 AM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: women's ordination and homosexuality
Dr. Gagnon,
Can you tell me
where in your book The Bible and Homosexual Practice you explain why
the argument for women's ordination is not comparable to the arguments
for homosexuality? Or any other articles where the distinction is
made?
Thanks. I
appreciate your tireless participation in the debate to show how
sloppy our logic and reasoning is sometimes. So many seem to be
working with tunnel vision and self-love, or fear of rejection by
others. We hate conflict, sometimes, and we hate judging others,
sometimes.
Rev. D.
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2008 11:29 PM
To: pastord
Subject: RE: women's ordination and homosexuality
D.,
Thanks for your note. I deal with the issue at
http://robgagnon.net/RogersUseAnalogies.htm and
http://www.westernsem.edu/files/westernsem/gagnon_autm05_0.pdf (pp.
93-94). See also: William J. Webb, Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals
(Intervarsity Press). My colleague Edith Humphrey has an article on
the issue in
God, Gays and the Church:
Human Sexuality and Experience in Christian Thinking
(eds. Lisa Nolland, Chris Sugden
& Sarah Finch;London: Latimer Trust, 2008).
Blessings,
Rob
Should the government support homosexual unions?
From: C.
Sent: Tuesday,
December 09, 2008 12:43 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: marriage amendment
Hello Mr. Gagnon.
I am teaching Sunday
school at church in which we are discussing this same sex marriage
debate. We are agreed concerning the bible's prohibition of
homosexuality as well as same sex marriage. the issue we struggle
with the most is whether or not our government ought to be involved in
an issue we see as a religious issue and not a civil one. I was
reading your articles and wanted to ask if you had any insights
concerning this dilemma?
C.
From: Robert Gagnon
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 1:02 PM
To: C.
Subject: RE: marriage amendment
Dear C.,
It is as much a civil
issue as society's prohibition of incest (even of an adult, consensual
sort) and polygamy (again, even of an adult, consensual sort). In
fact, as Jesus noted, it is the twoness of the sexes that is the
foundation for the limitation of the number of partners in a sexual
union to two (bringing together the two primary sexes makes a third
party both unnecessary and undesirable). And incest is prohibited by
analogy to the principle that too much structural (embodied, formal)
sameness among the participants, a principle established by the
prohibition of sexual relations between persons too much alike in
gender or sex. Both Jews and Christians in antiquity viewed the
prohibitions of same-sex intercourse, incest, adultery, and bestiality
as applicable beyond the sphere of God's people.
Blessings,
Dr. Gagnon
Response to a skeptical evangelical leader who wants to know whom I have
"'delivered' from homosexual orientations"
[The
following is from an evangelical leader whom I have reason to believe
supports some degree of acceptance of homosexual unions and is seeking
ways to support the homosexualist agenda without alienating the audience
for the leader's message. I understood the request based on this broader
context (which I cannot disclose here); that is, as a way of undermining
my scriptural arguments through questioning whether my teaching converts
homosexual persons into heterosexual persons.]
From: T
Sent: Fri 5/9/2008 4:35 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Dear
Robert,
It
would be most helpful to me if you could give me the names and
addresses of people who have been “delivered” from homosexual
orientations as an outgrowth of your ministry. Could you give me
the names and addresses of people whom you have led to Christ
because of your particular approach and teachings on this subject?
Being a ___________, I am very interested in case studies and I
approach the whole subject from that perspective, even as you
approach the subject by an analysis of the biblical text. If you
can help me, it would be most appreciated.
Sincerely,
T
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Saturday, May 10, 2008 6:03 PM
To: T.
Dear T,
My ministry is not one of "delivering people from
homosexual orientations." I have received many thanks in my speaking
engagements, and occasionally through emails, from people who say that
my teaching has helped them to recognize what God's will is for their
lives and to be encouraged that God is able to empower them to obedience
in their behavior whether or not they are "delivered from same-sex
attractions." I do not keep track of these. Working with people to
manage and sometimes diminish same-sex attractions would require an
"Alcoholics Anonymous" approach, i.e. long-term therapeutic help and
group networking. This in itself would be a full-time ministry and it is
not what I do, given the demands made on me in teaching and publishing.
A bit troubling (though I acknowledge that I could be
reading too much into your request) is the apparent presumption that
"deliverance" must take the form of losing a homosexual orientation.
When did God ever predicate a single one of his commands on people first
losing all desire to violate the command in question? Isn't the reason
why God gives commands and prohibitions because there are people with
innate urges to violate them? Is the monogamy principle applicable only
to people with no polysexual orientation? Is the principle of no
intercourse with prepubescent children (and for our culture the whole of
adolescence) applicable only to persons not so "oriented" with a
pedosexual orientation? (Incidentally, do you keep track of persons who
have been delivered from polysexual and pedosexual orientations or
alcoholic predispositions? And, if not, why not?)
Isn't the whole of the Christian life a struggle against
the warring passions of the flesh, which God requires us not to succumb
to and, when we do succumb, to repent, however many times for the rest
of our life this takes (Gal 5:16-18)? Is it the case that when Paul says
in 1 Cor 6:11, "and these things some of you were," he means that the
offenders in the offender list in 6:9-10 no longer experience innate
urges to commit offenses when they become washed, sanctified, and
justified by believing in Christ and receiving the Spirit of God? And if
it doesn't mean that (and it doesn't) what then does Paul mean by "and
these things some of you were"? Does he not mean that they have
"reoriented" themselves to be crucified with Christ, to die to selves,
and to live for God by having Christ live in them through their
gratitude for Christ's redemption (Gal 2:19-20)?
And what is the shape of God's grace here? According to 2
Cor 12:7-10 grace is most profoundly experienced when, in answer to our
fervent entreaties to be delivered from some distressing circumstance,
God says "no" and explains "My grace is sufficient for you; my power
will be brought to completion in and through your weakness." Is the "no"
a cause for depression and defeatism or the realization that this is a
formative moment for being shaped more vigorously into the image of
Christ?
Do you, as a ___________, keep track of these stories?
Perhaps you should. These are the real success stories. Anybody can obey
God when no particular stressful circumstances arise from the obedience.
But to obey God in a manner that requires one to take up one's cross,
deny oneself, and lose one's life, is to know what it means when Paul
says "for me to live is Christ" (Phil 1:21) and "may it not happen that
I boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the
world has been crucified to me and I to the world" (Gal 6:14). Do we,
with Paul, bear the marks or scars of Jesus on our body that comes with
being crucified in relation to the world and our own fleshly passions
and desires (Gal 6:17; 5:24)? The message of the cross is the message of
life. The message of "gratify your urges that violate God's will but do
so with the fewest negative side-effects" is the message of death (cf. 2
Cor 2:14-17). If I were to preach the latter message, I would have
easily removed a great deal of stress in my life that has come for
defending the male-female character of sexual relations over the past
decade (cf. Gal 5:11).
As you might note from my open letter to the President of
Toledo (here)
I focused on socio-environmental influences on homosexual development
combined with congenital influences and the role of incremental, often
blind and indirect, choice. I didn't say that, once acquired and deeply
imbedded, same-sex attractions are easy to diminish in intensity, much
less get rid of. But a culture that provides a full-court press for
affirming homosexual practice to children from (in some areas of the
country) first grade on up will have a significant impact, I believe, in
increasing the incidence of homosexuality (and I don't mean just an
increase in the number of people who, already having same-sex
attractions, come "out of the closet"). In that sense, as well as in its
attraction for behavior incompatible with embodied existence, a
homosexual orientation is most definitely not like race and biological
sex.
I hope this response is helpful to you.
Blessings,
Rob
__________________________________________________________
What
about no reproduction in heaven and the existence of "complementary"
homosexual unions?
From:
Judy
Sent: Fri 4/18/2008 9:36 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: Your views on homosexuality
Dear Dr. Gagnon,
I've read with interest your well-documented views on homosexuality...
However, is it not true that people are not to be defined solely by
their physical appearance? Is not the physical, the earthly body, a
temporary body, given its outline and desires produced by hormones for
the general purposes of reproduction of the race? Will our spiritual
bodies, given to us someday in the realm of eternal life, be defined
likewise as "male and female"?. We don't really know, but I think not,
as there is no need for reproduction in Heaven.
Here in San Francisco, I have as friends a couple who are most certainly
heterosexual, yet she is very "dominant, butch, assertive" while he is
more "feminine, diminuitive, responsive". You've probably experienced
the same things in some couples that you are acquainted with. In other
words, emotionally they are not the so-called "norm", but certainly they
are emotionally "complimentary" and compatible.
Likewise, I've met many homosexual couples here in San Francisco who are
likewise complimentary in the realm of emotional/spiritual: one may be
somewhat "dominant, assertive, initiating" while the other is "gentle,
passive, receiving" in their entire self. In other words, they DO "fit"
together", as companions and soul-mates and (perhaps) partners, despite
their physical sameness. In my 17 years of living in SF, I have really
not seen many long term same-sex relationships which are based on
"sameness" - in fact, those seem to be very, very few-- and frankly yes,
narcissistic. Most couples I've met are very different -like salt and
pepper -and refreshing to experience as a "couple". This, despite
their same sex.
As you are already aware, the earthly body is temporary, but our
relationships will continue on into eternal life. Could it be that you
are deceiving yourself about the true complexity of the situation, just
because physical parts (man/woman) "fit" for reproductive purposes?
This is perhaps a mystery, and perhaps too big for us to comprehend
with our human minds. The angels, are, apparently, sexless. What will
it be like for us then, to relate with one another in heaven, without
bodies that address the gender issue? Hmmm.
Sincerely,
Judy
San Francisco, CA
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 11:48 PM
To: Judy
Subject: RE: Your views on homosexuality
Dear
Judy,
Thank you for your
thoughts on the matter. In response, I offer two observations.
First, you are right
that "there is no 'male and female" (Gal 3:28), along with other texts
in Scripture (e.g., Jesus' saying about no marriage in heaven), suggest
a limitation on the ongoing validity of male/female differentiation. But
to argue for the validity of homosexual unions misses the point that the
end of the significance of sexual differentiation for mate selection
spells the end of all sexual relations. So long as sexual relations are
permitted, a male-female prerequisite is in place. We won't be having
sex in heaven--Jesus' statement about no marriage in heaven is clear
about this. What we will have is unmediated access to God which will
make sexual relations look dull by comparison.
Second, the fact that
some persons in homosexual relationships show some complementarity
features (you note dominance and passivity) does not make them
complementary in the truest or deepest sense. Those who are in such
relationships confirm this when they claim exclusive attraction to
members of the same sex, do they not? If maleness or femaleness did not
have significant reality, in a holistic sense, beyond certain typical
social constructions, there would be no such thing as exclusive
homosexuality. If all a dominant male sought was a passive partner, then
either a passive male or a passive female would do. If a passive male
sought a dominant partner, either a dominant male or a dominant female
would do (etc.). Yet the persistence in claiming that only a person of
the same sex will do is tacit acknowledgement of a multi-level reality
to maleness and to femaleness.
Same-sex attraction is
attraction for, well, the same sex. A homosexual man who had a gender
nonconforming childhood may seek another man as a means of compensating
for his (the former male's) perceived deficiencies in maleness. Yet the
lie and self-deception is that he was and remains a male. A homoerotic
union regularizes the self-deception.
I hope that this makes
sense to you.
Blessings,
Rob
From:
Judy
Sent: Thu 4/24/2008 8:37 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: Re: Your views on homosexuality
Dear Dr. Gagnon,
Well, not exactly. People are at all different places on the Kinsey
Scale. Some profess only attraction to one sex or another, but others
are in the middle of the scale, and can have loving (and sexual)
relationships with either sex (as long as it is with someone who they
are attracted to and are compatible with). The problems arise not on
the individual level, but at the societal level, where those who are
uncomfortable with those of a different sexual persuasion than their own
have to be "running the show", so to speak. But it's not "our show" it
is the Lord's. We are all a part of the play...
Sex is not just for pro-creation. It is also for bonding purposes as
well. You apparently have some very black and white views on
sexuality. Unfortunately, the world has a lot of grey areas which we
aren't necessarily capable of understanding the reason for existing.
It's not always important that the "female" and "male" ends of the pipe
fit perfectly. Instead, its about relationships - loving, caring and
growth-oriented.
I would like to invite you to "come and see" for yourself. Come
experience the San Francisco that I know, with same sex couples who are
faithful, monogamous, Christian, raising children successfully, loving
and caring people, not narcissistic in any sense. Challenge yourself to
see what is out there, and then ask yourself if this isn't from God.
So when can you come and visit?
Sincerely,
Judy
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 12:12 AM
To: Judy
Subject: RE: Your views on homosexuality
Dear
Judy,
Thank you for your
second email. With all respect, I think it demonstrates that you need to
read my remarks more carefully; even more, that you need to begin
reading my main works.
Of course there are
people at different ends of the Kinsey scale. This is not news to me.
You missed my point that the existence of some exclusive or
near-exclusive homosexuality (a Kinsey 5 or 6), which incidentally is
the dominant manifestation of male homosexuality, shows that there is a
fundamental recognition of something identifiably male or female that
transcends particular cultural affects of maleness or femaleness. Even
bisexuals recognize the difference. So do the roughly 98% of the
population that is exclusively or predominantly attracted to one sex.
Again you miss my point
that complementarity extends well beyond procreation and even beyond the
anatomical fittedness. Arguing that opposition to homosexual practice is
exclusively predicated on its nonprocreative character is like arguing
that opposition to adult incest is exclusively predicated on potential
procreation problems (i.e. birth defects), a problem that, incidentally,
would not apply to homosexual incest. There is a holistic dimension to
maleness and femaleness that extends to anatomy, physiology, and
psychology. By definition persons erotically aroused by their own sex
are erotically aroused by what they already are, male for maleness,
female for femaleness, at every level. The attempt to merge with one's
own sex is buying into the self-deception that one's own sexuality as a
male or female is not intact but needs structural supplementation and
not just structural affirmation.
No, the problems in
homosexual relationships don't arise simply or solely from societal
"homophobia." They arise first and foremost from the fact that putting
two (or more) people of the same sex in a sexual union doesn't moderate
the extremes of a given sex or fill in the gaps; hence, male
homosexuality experiences disproportionately high rates of problems that
are different from the types of disproportionately high rates of
problems in female homosexuality, differences that are typical of their
respective genders.
Now these problems are
merely the symptoms of the root problem: the attempt to merge with
someone who is not a true sexual complement. Of course there are some
committed homosexual relationships. No consensual sexual relationship of
any sort--not adult incestuous bonds or adult-committed polyamorous
relationships, not even pedophilic practices--produce
intrinsic, scientifically measurable
harm.
The fact that you can refer to committed
homosexual relationships as something that you think I don't know about
shows that you have not read, or understood, my work. Commitment in a
homosexual relationship no more validates the union than would
commitment validate an adult-consensual incestuous or polyamorous union.
As Paul knew at Corinth, commitment in an incestuous bond does not
morally improve the quality of the relationship because, having failed
to meet the structural prerequisites, the relationship should have ended
yesterday. You say that I am "black and white." And yet you are no less
"black and white" in affirming homosexual unions and thinking that those
who disagree with you are wrong. And are you "black and white" in
rejecting adult-committed incest and polyamory? Or is this too a grey
area for you? After all, as you say, as long as the relationships are
about bonding and are loving, who could be opposed to them?
Go to
www.Oprah.com, specifically http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/200710/tows_past_20071026.jhtml?promocode=ssend20071026TD
and see also the videos of the show at
www.video.aol.com
under “Oprah
Winfrey & Lisa Ling interview Mormon Polygamists.” You'll see that there
are some loving, caring polygamous relationships that appear to be
raising children successfully. By your definition of what constitutes an
acceptable sexual union, which apparently includes no formal
prerequisites for structural, embodied correspondences, it satisfies all
the requirements. You will have to agree with Oprah: "The
best part of doing this job
… [is that] I come in
with one idea and then I leave a little more open about the whole idea.
And what I realize … is that in every situation there are people who
give things a bad name. There are
difficulties and then
there are people who handle those difficulties differently."
Of course, Jesus closed the door on the
permission that Moses gave to men to marry more than one woman and did
so by appealing to the twoness of the sexes in creation, "male and
female God created them." Completing the sexual spectrum by joining the
two and only two primary sexes makes all third parties unnecessary,
whether serial or concurrent. But since the binary or sexually dimorphic
character of man-woman unions is not essential for you, you have no
logical, scriptural, or creation-based ethic for limiting the number of
partners in a sexual union to two, so long as the sexual union is
loving. You "say" that it has to be monogamous but you don't explain why
it must be and indeed have no legitimate basis for asserting that it
must be. People are, after all, capable of loving more than one person
concurrently (witness a parent's love for all his or her children, for
example). A problem for your argument is that you do not recognize the
special requirements placed on sexual unions that are not placed on
non-sexual loving relationships.
At this point rather than continue
to repeat responses that I have already given elsewhere, I am going to
ask you to read my response to the Myers/Scanzoni book at
http://www.westernsem.edu/files/westernsem/gagnon_autm05_0.pdf,
at least pages 30-45, 98-101, 125-28, before responding, so that I don't
have to reinvent the wheel here. Thanks for your attention to these
matters.
Blessings,
Rob
__________________________________________________________
A
question from a seminary student about the exploitation argument
From:
C
Sent: Wed 4/16/2008 6:11 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: Romans 1:26 - a question from a [PCUSA] seminary student
Dr. Gagnon:
I am now a (second career) M.Div student at [a PCUSA seminary]. In
conversation with one of the professors on campus here the statement was
made about Romans 1:26-27 that "Paul had no idea about the kind of
homosexual relationships we know today...what he was talking about was
man to boy sex, with a wife at home ... the NT world knew nothing about
long-term committed homosexual relationships as we know them today."
My question to you is how to refute that statement. I have heard (but
cannot recall where) that there were a group of Greeks (phonetically it
seems like they were described as "kenides" who did engage in what
today's culture would describe as long-term, committed homosexual
relationships). Is my recollection correct? If so, are you able to fill
the memory gaps for me? If not, is there any semblance of argument
against that statement? I have your book if you can point me to a
reference there.
Many thanks for the work you do, as well as being available for
questions such as mine!
C.
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 7:50 PM
To: C.
Subject: RE: Romans 1:26-27 - a question from a [PCUSA] seminary
student
Hi C.,
The professor making this argument simply
doesn't know the material well.
That Paul had in view
all homosexual relationships is evident from the fact that: (1) Paul had
the creation texts in the background of his indictment, which had the
male-female prerequisite in view; (2) Paul used a nature argument that
was not limited to man-boy sex; (3) Paul indicted lesbianism in 1:26,
which was not typically conducted on adult-adolescent model; (4) Paul
spoke in 1:27 of the mutuality of the desire "for one another"; (5) Paul
referred to "soft men" in 1 Cor 6:9 which in context could be used
of adult males who feminized themselves to attract male sex partners
(the kinaidoi/cinaedi); (6) caring adult homosexual relationships in
antiquity were known; (7) some Greco-Roman moralists indicted homosexual
relationships absolutely, including adult relationships; (8)
relationships between adult males were thought to be worse than
relationships between a man and a boy because adult men had, or should
have, outgrown the "softness" of adolescence and so were wholly
inappropriate as the receptive partners in male-male intercourse; (9)
early Jewish prohibitions were absolute (one rabbinic text even
specifies that the Levitical prohibitions refer to an active partner
that is adult and a passive partner that is either adult or adolescent.
See further my article at
http://www.westernsem.edu/files/westernsem/gagnon_autm05_0.pdf ,
pp. 65-77.
For point 6 above see my first talk
at Princeton Seminary rebutting Stacy Johnson's use of the exploitation
argument; go to
http://robgagnon.net/ArticlesOnline.htm
Finally, the best thing
to do would be to find a group on campus that could bring me over to
your institution to do a few lectures on the subject. But if that is not
possible the resources above should suffice.
Blessings,
Dr. Gagnon
__________________________________________________________
A
testimony from a pastor who has dealt with bisexual urges
[This
testimony from a pastor speaks for itself. I thank the writer for his
courage.]
From:
R.
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2007 10:09 AM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: Your letter to the Evangelical Leader
Rob,
I appreciate your response to the Evangelical leader (here).
I think it is spot on.
What you say leads me to share a bit about why I know you
are right, and why I too take this stuff so seriously. I ask your
indulgence as I share something personal. You can use it if you find it
worthy of such, although I ask that you withhold using my full name.
The reason I know you are right, and why I take this so
seriously myself is that I did struggle with homosexual/bisexual
impulses when I was a teenager (starting around 16).
I came from an immediate family where no father was
present. My brother and I were not close. The only male close in
proximity was the man my mother chose to sleep with (and he was an
alcoholic, both abusive emotionally and physically, even asking my
mother in a drunken rage to have sex with me). Clearly, male bonding in
a filial or paternal sense was not something I felt was available to me.
Further, there was a general acceptance of sexual immoral
behavior in the family. My mother, her father, her sister and brother
were all acting out in ways that were contrary to the Scriptures, and
this was not hidden from the children's eyes.
It is within this context that I began to have an
attraction for men and women. When it occured to me that I might be
homosexual or bisexual, I was horrified. I was not horrified because the
family would be upset, or society would be upset. No. I lived in a very
"liberated" (although really enslaved) home; and I grew up in South
Florida which is almost as laid back about things sexual as San
Francisco.
I was horrified, because I knew this is not the will of
God for me or anyone. I cannot tell you the number of arguments I got
into with my mother and other family members because I brought out the
Bible and showed them what I read about obedience, and sexual purity,
and the like.
Given this, I remember being in my room and praying. I
said (and this is a paraphrase), "I know that what I feel isn't right.
You have said that I must either have marriage with a woman or celibacy
(Matthew 19). If I am not to be married, given my impulses; then grant
me the grace of celibacy. I for my part WILL NOT ACT upon the impulses
that I feel. Help me to be faithful to you."
I did not act on the impulses. I was given the grace of
the Lord to remain faithful. I was also blessed with a faithful pastor
who reminded me that it was no sin to be tempted by thoughts I did not
choose, but it was a sin to keep bringing them up or to act upon them. I
asked the Lord to help me understand what was going on in me, for truly
something wasn't ordered right in my life.
That breakthrough happened one day when I went to visit
my father. I shared with him some of what was going on with me, and he
realized (before I did) that he needed to spend more time with me
(listening and talking time). When this happened, I realized by God's
grace that I was simply disordered in distinguishing what I truly wanted
with men. I did not desire sexual bonding. I desired philial bonding. I
wanted brothers...the right kind of love that God desires between men.
With women, the desire was more of a sexual nature. That too had some
disorder, and it took me more time to deal with that (and sometimes I
still need to deal with that whenever I see a steamy beer commercial
during a football game).
The point here I want to make is that I was encouraged by
the Lord himself, by the Scriptures, by the church to remain faithful to
the sexual ethic found in the Scripture. If I had acted on my impulses;
if I had been encouraged to act out on my disordered thinking; I would
be in a damnable situation...it would be far more difficult to extricate
ones self from that.
I have spoken with young men who have had similar
impulses and come out of a similar background. I have shared with them
how I handled those temptations to sin. I tell them to do nothing with
the impulses. Do not act upon them. Ask the Lord for the grace to be
patient and live faithfully. Seek out faithful pastors who will help you
stay the course. I tell them they are not abnormal, but at their stage
in life when the hormones go crazy, the devil uses that moment to
help disorder their thinking and their living. Be patient. Be faithful.
To encourage civil laws or church wide mandates that
would invite people to act against the law of God invites disaster...as
indeed inviting people to engage in any sin brings disaster. It just
isn't loving. It isn't what Jesus calls us too. I wish people would
understand that. I grieve for others who have been led down the path of
"sexual tolerance" because now their position is worse than before, and
many don't even know it. It gets harder to bring them out, for now they
hear that the "church" says its okay.
I have a passion about this, because I know what the Lord
can do. I know this disorder. I know in myself that it can be beaten,
but not acting upon it is a key part of the battle!
I can honestly say that I haven't had the impulse for
sexual relations with men for 21 years. I am married to my wife and have
two children (of which one is with the Lord praying on my behalf I
hope...if not I'm going to have to have a talk with that boy). I do not
say that I don't deal with sexual temptation and sin in my life, but I
can say that the sexual temptation that I truly struggle with is not
homosexual or bisexual. Further, I can say that the reason I struggle so
much with the temptation I do have (pornography) is that I opened that
window to my soul by engaging in a habit. I have repudiated the habit,
but the temptation feels like a greater burden, because I opened myself
up to it as a young man by acting on the temptation to look at it.
Again, not acting on the temptation would have been
better. I didn't give myself over to obedience as I should, and did with
the other impulses. I reaped the consequences. This is why also I am not
only against homosexual sexual behavior, but I know the damning nature
of sexual immorality in all its forms. It is terribly important that we
encourage folks to cease and desist and not act on sexual temptations
that go outside the norm established by our Lord in Genesis 2 and
Matthew 19.
Well, this is long. I apologize for the length and I
apologize if I have spoken in ways that give you more info than you
really want about me. However, you are right on. Keep up the fight. The
souls of many are at stake.
Peace in the Lord Jesus Christ!
R.
__________________________________________________________
Is
heterosexual cohabitation grounds for denying church membership?
From:
Bill
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 10:44 AM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: e-mail question @co-habiting couples/membership
Dr.
Gagnon- In over 25 years of pastoring in the PCUSA, I have consis-tently
raised questions about the legitimacy of granting membership to those
living in unrepentant hetrosexual sin, by reference to the arguments
against unrepentant homosexual sin. (For I am assuming that in both the
issue is that of discipleship and a Christian sexual ethic, and the call
for God's people to live in joyful holiness.) Though I have had to
respond to requests for membership of gay couples, the issue of co-habitating
couples comes to the foreground with greater frequency, and I have
discovered that people are much more reluctant to raise questions about
co-habiting than they are of same-sex relationships. I've read through
most of your articles, and though you repeatedly refer to what you
describe as extreme sins, would sexually active, co-habiting couples
fall into the same category, since in my mind, they are delaying
repentance (ie, either celibacy apart or moving into marriage
immediately)?
Thanks--
Bill
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 12:45 PM
To: 'Bill'
Subject: RE: e-mail question @co-habiting couples/membership
Dear Bill,
Thank you
for your inquiry. My answer is: No, it is not as serious as homosexual
practice but, yes, it is serious enough to connect to membership
issues.
The offense
of unmarried heterosexual cohabitation is not as extreme an offense as
adult incest or homosexual practice, which are unnatural acts that
attempt to merge persons too much structurally alike. (Indeed, I know of
no one who would argue seriously that heterosexual cohabitation is as
serious an offense as, say, having sex with one’s parent.) Heterosexual
cohabitation is not a grossly unnatural act. But the persons involved
should recognize that by virtue of the sexual union they are “one flesh”
and for all intents and purposes are held to the standard of married
couples (compare 1 Cor 6:16 which treats even sex with a prostitute as
creating a “one flesh” union, albeit in this instance an unholy one).
Since marriage requires a commitment to a lifelong bond they should have
no difficulty in expressing that commitment in a formal marriage
ceremony. Reluctance to do so is likely evidence that they have not made
such a commitment and, therefore, must either make such a commitment
(presumably through the normal channels today for making such a public
declaration, i.e. marriage) or dissolve the sexual bond. In short,
refusal to marry is evidence that they are just “trying out” a sexual
relationship and therefore committing sin. Since Jesus intensified God’s
demand that his followers not engage in sexual activity with more than
one other person of the other sex lifetime (see Matt 19), cohabitation
without marriage should be treated as an offense that warrants
withholding membership; or, if membership is already in place, removal
from the fellowship of the church until repentance.
From a
pastoral standpoint, I recommend having a personal meeting with the
offenders, going through Jesus’ teaching on marriage in Matt 19,
highlighting the importance of obeying Jesus as his disciples, and
explaining that membership can only be granted (or actively retained) if
they marry or dissolve the sexual bond. I also recommend, if you haven’t
already done so, that you regularly preach on the importance of sexual
purity and marriage. I doubt that they would want to become members of a
church that clearly declared their behavior to be sin, if they insisted
on staying in a sexual relationship outside of marriage.
Hope this
helps,
Rob
From:
Bill
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 1:54 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: RE: e-mail question @co-habiting couples/membership
Rob- thanks for the quick
and thoughtful reply. Struggling with the reality of this in both the
context of performing ceremonies as well as in membership has been one
of the more difficult areas of pastoral ministry for me. I originally
began to wrestle with this in earnest back in 1993 when a p/sa
homosexual desired to become a member of my former congregation. (He
didn't because he wouldn't break off his relationship.) Through the
firestorm that decision engendered in that entire community, I realized
I also needed to think more clearly about the implications of
heterosexual sin for membership. Though it seemed to me that the
arguments I used against homosex behavior were appropriate for hetersex
behavior as well, I did recognize that heterosexual behavior is
potentially redeemable, through marriage and repentance, whereas
homosexual behavior is not, so the arguments can't be sustained
completely.
Anyway- thanks for the the
direction and encouragement! I will keep you in prayer as you stand in
the midst of the fray.
Bill
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 2:10 PM
To: 'Bill'
Subject: RE: e-mail question @co-habiting couples/membership
Bill,
You're
welcome. Good line about heterosexual cohabitation being potentially
redeemable but homosexual relations not.
Rob
__________________________________________________________
Did
Jesus Change the Law's Stance on Capital Sentencing?
From:
T.K.
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 1:13 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: "The Witness of Jesus" Question
I
appreciated the time you put into your chapter "The Witness of Jesus" in
your book, "The Bible and Homosexual Practice". I have always wondered
how we can put together how Christ did not abolish the law yet we find
Christ prioritizing the law differently. Your summary has shed much
light on the issue. Yet, I do have one question that still strikes me
as a theological problem. You see Christ associating with "sinners",
such as prostitutes. Christ freely associated with these people, while
he spoke out against the practices he did not push for the punishment
that the Old Testament called for. My question(s)- Why does Christ no
longer approve the punishment required in Old Testament law for such
offenses as adultery? Is the Old Testament more like Christ than we
realize? For instance could repentance save one from stoning in the Old
Testament? Or is Christ changing everything? Most people would
recognize this change for the better, does this mean the New Testament
is closer to God's character than the Old Testament? I have found
little to help me with these questions. If you can't answer these maybe
you could forward them to someone who could help. Thanks, T.K.
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 1:31 PM
To: T.K.
Subject: RE: "The Witness of Jesus" Question
T.,
Good
questions. Capital sentences in the OT are implemented whether or not
the person repents. I see Jesus as recommending against implementation
of the capital sentence, at least from non-lethal offenses such as
sexual immorality, in the hopes of recovering the person through
repentance. I see this as a change. It’s not that the offense is lesser
in Jesus’ eyes but rather that dead people don’t repent. Something worse
than a capital sentence is coming down the pike: the Day of the Lord.
Jesus is giving offenders every opportunity to repent before that Day to
avert personal cataclysmic disaster.
Dr. Gagnon
__________________________________________________________
Hate
Mail from an Angry Left-of-Center Pastor with a 'Wonderful' Pastoral
Manner
From:
Robert Martin III [mailto:rmartin@fprespa.org]
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 4:38 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject:
Dear Robert,
What a sad, sick man you are! I take great pity on you
as a pastor!
Sincerely,
The Rev. W. Robert Martin, III
[Senior Pastor, First Presbyterian
Church, Palo Alto, CA]
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 4:49 PM
To: 'Robert Martin III'
Subject: RE:
Dear Rob,
Thanks for
your piece of hate mail. Since my views are in obedience to Jesus and
the entire apostolic witness I don’t feel “sad” or “sick” and therefore
don’t need your “pity.” By the way you need to work a bit on your
pastoral manner.
I noticed
on your church’s website that you are a so-called “More Light” church
(really “Less Light” if the teaching of Jesus and the apostolic witness
are our guiding lights). No great surprise there. Thanks for sharing
with me your “light” and love. It’s been illuminating.
Robert A.
J. Gagnon, Ph.D.
__________________________________________________________
Hi B.,
Thanks for your thoughtful
question. You're right that it is asking how close to the line one can
get. I only know that Scripture indicates same-sex intercourse is a
more foundational violation of God's sexual standards than even adult
consensual incest; that engaging in such a behavior in a repetitive,
unrepentant way puts one at serious risk of being excluded from the
kingdom of God and the eternal life it offers. Jesus indicated, in a
context that had to do with sexual issues, that what you do sexually
can get you thrown into 'Gehenna' (hell); that if your hand, eye, or
foot should threaten your downfall, cut it off, because it is better
to go to heaven maimed than to go to hell full-bodied (Matt 5). That's
a fairly serious warning. Now I'm not saying that I know when an
individual crosses the line and it's too late to return, if ever. Only
God knows that. But neither can anyone assure you that you will escape
God's judgment; for one as much plays God when one acquits as when one
condemns. But Scripture tells us that there is high risk in provoking
God, so why risk it? If a person of great wealth offered you 50
million dollars if you were able to stay away from a lesbian
relationship for 5 years, would you risk losing it all by secretly
entering in such a relationship and possibly getting caught? Probably
not. Well, God is asking us to be faithful for a relatively short
duration of time--the life of a human on earth, which is a drop in the
bucket compared to the eternity ahead of us. And then there is the
thought that God and Jesus love us so much that Jesus' life was given
for our sakes. Would we really want to dishonor him if we could see
him standing by our side, hands outstretched with the imprint of nails
still there? I doubt it, And yet he lives within us.
It may be that God will
not change your "orientation," although women are much more likely to
experience significant shifts on the "Kinsey spectrum" in the course
of life than are men, so there is a good chance that you will
experience marked reduction in at least the intensity of the
homosexual drive and possibly develop some limited heterosexual
functioning. But then again, maybe not. I'm not God there either. I do
know that, like Paul's "thorn in the flesh," sometimes God says "no"
to a request to remove this or that circumstance that brings perceived
deprivation to our lives. Not just "no" but "no" because "my grace is
sufficient for you" within the experience of deprivation, that God's
power will be "brought to completion" in the midst of one's weakness
rather than taking one out of it. Often Christ is most formed in us
when we don't get we ask for, when we have to rely on the one who
raises from the dead, when we have no strength left on our own. No
commandment of God is predicated on people first losing all desire to
violate the command in question; on the contrary, commands are issued
by God precisely because humans want to do otherwise. Your true test
as a believer is not whether you will changed over to a total
heterosexual but whether in your particular circumstances you will
come to the conviction that knowing Jesus (Phil 3) is better than
getting what you want, when you want it, and with whom you want it
with. When we can look a temptation 'in the face' and say "I'd rather
have Jesus," then we have made progress. In the deepest sense, in
doing God's will we are not being deprived. We are getting something
better, something that made Paul and other believers willing to count
everything else as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing
Christ.
None of us get a pass from
Jesus' demand that we take up our cross, deny ourselves, lose our
lives, and follow him. But when we do this we also find that, in
comparison to what the world asks of us, his yoke is easy and burden
light. Our "flesh" will say no, but our spirit will say yes. I'd
rather have Jesus.
Blessings,
Rob
Dr. Robert Gagnon
From:
B.
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 9:22 AM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: RE: sexuality and heaven
Dr. Gagnon,
Thank you for
your thorough and gentle reply. I appreciate your time.
-B.
Jack
Rogers and Analogies
4/5/07
Dear Dr.
Gagnon
I was just reading your piece on analogies in response to Jack Rogers’
book and your response to his response to you. I suspect that he and
others choose slavery and women's ordination as analogies to the
interpretation of Scripture in relation to the question of homosex
behavior because they deal with justice issues. In other words the
analogies are chosen not because they are close analogies or distant
analogies but rather because they fit in the category in which the
author sees the current issue.
Now, as
to Rogers’ assertion that the justification of slavery is tied to
Scottish Common Sense Realism as an interpretive technique, I suspect he
is correct. Mark Noll, in his, The Civil War as a Theological
Crisis, argues that it was precisely the naive method of
interpreting the Bible used by American Christians prior to the Civil
War that allowed many to believe that slavery was allowed according to
the Bible. The method used a propositional reading of the text. I
would suggest, but I am not quite as sure, that the arguments against
the ordination of women followed a similar method, particularly when
those opposed to the ordination of women argued that Paul's teaching, or
maybe I should say their interpretation of Paul's teaching trumped
narratives about women in leadership as direct teaching was to be held
higher than narrative.
I am not quite as sure how Roger's argument about divorce fits in this
same schema.
My concern is that I do not use the methods of the Old Princeton Divines
in my interpretation of Scripture. I find not only specific passages
that say that homosex behavior is sinful but also a broad theme within
the Bible that supports a God created binary relationship between men
and women. I find this broad theme from Genesis to Revelation, in
creation texts, in analogies between marriage and the relationship
between God and Israel and Christ and the Church, as well as in
particular passages about marriage and sexual behavior. The whole of
Song of Solomon is a case in point. None of the songs portray
male/male or female/female sexual attraction!
My point in all of this is to suggest that when one begins with
analogies that are related to justice, as Rogers does in his book, and
then declares that those who disagree with those analogies must
therefore use a particular method of interpreting Scripture, one has
said 1 + x = 2, but cannot prove that x=1. One can use other methods
than Old Princeton methods of interpreting the Bible and still come to
the conclusion that homosex behavior is sinful.
Maybe the real problem is not only in the particular analogies chosen
but also in the reason for the choice of analogies. If one chooses a
justice framework for one's analogies, as Rogers has, then one suggests
that the question at hand is one of justice. Rogers’ begins his book,
not with his arguments about the proper methods one must use to
interpret Scripture and not with his interpretation of relevant passages
of Scripture but with his analogies. One has to wonder then if
analogies produce exegesis of vice versa.
One last comment on an issue that is not
directly related to your argument. You say, in response to Roger’s use
of ethnicity and gender as analogues to homosexual orientation and
behavior:
Second,
Rogers is also once again mixing apples and oranges. Ethnicity and
gender cannot be compared with specific impulses to do what Scripture
pervasively, strongly, absolutely, and counterculturally forbids.
Rogers does not seem to understand the distinction. Quite simply,
ethnicity and gender are:
· 100% heritable
· absolutely
immutable
· primarily
non-behavioral
· inherently benign
Homosexual “orientation,” like many impulses, especially sexual
impulses, is:
· not 100% heritable
· not absolutely
impervious to outside influences
· primarily
behavioral
· thus not
necessarily benign
Unfortunately the history of racism in
the United States makes the question of ethnicity a political and social
question as well as a question of heredity. If one has a white father
and an African American mother, or vice versa, one is still considered
to be African American by the dominant culture, with all the social,
political and criminal assumptions that go along with that designation.
That is part of, (and I believe falsely used), Rogers’ analogy. The
dominant culture makes unconscious assumptions about the behaviors of
people who are African American. The dominant culture also makes a
variety of assumptions about people who are gay or lesbian which are not
necessarily accurate, such as the assumption that a gay male uses
feminine gestures and/or behavior and that some lesbians exhibit male
gestures and behavior. But these assumptions about gays and lesbians
are not only false but also beside the point. The problem is with
homsex behavior, not with one’s gestures. Thus Rogers’ analogy, based
on the prejudices of the dominant culture, is false. The problem is not
prejudice, it is Biblical interpretation. And the problem is not that
all who disagree with Rogers’ on the issue of the sinfulness of homosex
behavior “[get] it wrong is that they were relying on Scottish Common
Sense Philosophy (including appeals to “natural law,” selective
literalism, and proof-texting) and the scholastic theology of Francis
Turretin instead of the teachings of Jesus Christ,” to quote Rogers. We
don’t. I don’t and from what I read of your methods, you don’t either.
Rogers fails because he depends on outdated information on the
heritability of homosexual inclinations, failed interpretations of
particular passages of Scripture, and fails to note the broad theme in
Scripture that supports lifelong, monogamous heterosexual marriage.
Bob
A PC(USA) Pastor
One final note: I believe I have used
the term, “homosex” in the same way that you have in your writings. It
is my intention to use the term to refer specifically to sexual
relations between people of the same sex.
6/28/07
Dear Bob,
Thank you
for your stimulating comments.
It is true that Rogers chooses slavery and
women's ordination because they correspond to justice categories. But
that does not make Rogers' choice of distant analogies over close
analogues irrelevant. The proper purpose of engaging in analogical
reasoning is to assess what categories best fit the issue in question
through comparison-cases that share the greatest number of
correspondences. To eschew the closest analogues in favor of distant
analogues is to predetermine one's own results--here endorsing
homosexual practice is a social justice issue--and thus to make
analogical reasoning superfluous. The 'game' of analogical reasoning
becomes fixed from the start. You make this point yourself midway
through your comments.
As to your point about Scottish Common Sense
Realism, you are quite right that the Bible's opposition to homosexual
practice is not limited to specific texts and that a two-sexes
prerequisite underlies every discussion of sexual relationships in the
pages of Scripture. This is confirmed, as I showed in my other critiques
of Rogers, by an examination of relevant scriptural texts in their
literary and historical context--a context that Rogers repeatedly
misunderstands and shows poor knowledge of. But I wouldn't go as far as
you in discounting the relevance of appeal to specific texts. The degree
to which specific texts in Scripture take a strong position about a
matter is a vital part of an overall assessment of Scripture's stance on
homosexual practice. In debating the merits and demerits of adult
consensual incest between a man and his mother (or stepmother), one
would be foolish to give little attention to the Levitical and
Deuteronomic prohibitions as well as Paul's words about the incestuous
man in 1 Corinthians 5. Appeal to specific texts is not only possible
but desirable, so long as they are read correctly in their historical
and literary context. The fact that Paul likens homosexual practice to
idolatry as particularly severe instances of suppression of the truth
about God transparent in material creation, sees it as a violation of
male-female sexual complementarity (a point confirmed by the historical
context), and makes an absolute indictment that includes every and any
type of homosexual union unacceptable (another point confirmed by the
historical context) is very important for an overall evaluation of
homosexual practice in Scripture. But perhaps (or even probably) you
would agree with this point.
On your last point I agree that society at
different points may add false prejudicial characteristics to ethnicity
and femaleness that would increase resemblances to homosexual practice
(this is Rogers' point). But my point is that Scripture itself does not
consistently share these prejudices (nor does reason) and to the extent
that Scripture does not (and reason does not) is the extent to which the
analogies with homosexual practice break down. For example, the New
Testament rejects the notion that being a Gentile is in the first
instance an intrinsic desire to do what God expressly forbids but it
does not reject the same notion for homosexual desires. Nor (obviously)
should it inasmuch as there are lots of innate sexual desires that
violate embodied or formal realities and Scripture's strong
prohibitions. I could say more on this but I think my article already
does that. Again, I think we are not far apart from each other on this
point, if we are apart at all.
I appreciate your thoughts,
Rob
__________________________________________________________
A
Person with Homosexual Desire Asks: How Does One Decide Which Commands
of God in Scripture to Follow?
From:
Paul
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 1:17 AM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: Basic Question on Christian Ethics
Dear Dr. Gagnon...
FINALLY, I have met (or in this case
read) of a scholar on this current rift of homosexuality in the
church. I am so grateful that you are well-studied (my nephew is a
recent graduate of Dartmouth, and I received a M.Div from [name of
seminary withheld]).
As for my background, . . . . I felt
strangely called to the altar to serve my Lord. Living in [the South]
in a conservative Diocese, my rector advised me to "leave the
Episcopal Church" as the current row at that time (this was 1988) was
not "really" about women, but about letting gays be ministers "because
if we let women be ministers, then we have to let gays as well." I let
my call drop, as I was indeed sexually attracted to men, and was
afraid (and ashamed) that I would "be found out" in the Episcopal
discernment process.
At this stage in my life, I was
attending very conservative Bible studies, getting involved in things
like "Jesus Go-Fests", attending charismatic worship services....and
FERVENTLY praying that Jesus bring me the right woman. Because I was
ashamed of my attraction to men, I cannot tell you how many times I
prayed to the Almighty to take this burden from me. I dated something
like 10 women - all wonderful, great looking Christian women - but
nothing- no urge to kiss...nothing. I continued praying fervently, and
dating...hoping, and praying that I would meet "the one." One day, one
of the women that I was dating told me that she had been praying about
Jesus' Great Commandment and had focused on the last part of the
command - "as you love yourself..." Needless to say, this started the
ball rolling on how I was treating (and loving) myself, and indeed,
how God had created me.
Why do I write this to you? Obviously,
my theology has changed since my conservative-evangelical days as a
Christian (for your information, I define Christian as one who
believes that Jesus is the expected messiah as prophesied in the Old
Testament.) Yes, it was the Great Commandment that brought me out of
the closet (and a sermon from one of the priests, when he talked about
who the Good Samaritan was...in the parable of 'the neighbor.') As an
Episcopalian, in Midland Texas, every Sunday I heard the words "this
is the basis of ALL the laws..." in connection to the Great
Commandment. Hence, that Commandment has become the basis of my
Christian ethics... IF I do something that causes any harm in
my relationship with God, which causes me to love God less, and/or if
I do something wrong which causes my neighbor not to Love God...it is
wrong.
My question to you: I don't understand,
in all my reading of your scholarship, on how being homosexual causes
me to love God any less. For me, this is the basis of Jesus
teaching...it is as simple as that.
In my discussions of this great
theological debate with my good conservative brothers and sisters in
Christ, I have asked the question, which I do not get an answer: "How
do you decide what Biblical precepts to follow, and how do you judge
what not to follow?" Other than the Great Commandment, I have not
found "a magic formula" or central ethic...other than "well, if it
says it in the Bible, then that is what I do..." Of course, you know
that the Bible says many things that we no longer follow (for example,
there is NO mass killing of children who curse their parents (Lev
20.9)... And, my Priest from Fort Worth was right: from the New
Testament verse as we DO allow women to speak in church (1 Corinthians
14.34), we do allow women to teach men (see Tim 2.12, 3.8)... these
are contrary to New Testament teachings.
So, very sincerely, how do you order
your life and figure out your basic ethic on living? I have been
trying to understand how evangelicals order there lives, what basis of
ethics do they use, since obviously they pick and chose what to
believe in the bible... I have found NO ANSWERS.
Paul Philpy
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 3:41 PM
To: Paul
Subject: RE: Basic Question on Christian Ethics
Dear Paul,
As you know from my work I am not an inerrantist with
regard to the interpretation of Scripture. I recognize tension and
sometime even disagreement within the canon of Scripture. Jesus
himself overrode the Mosaic exemption given to men as regards polygyny
and divorce by appealing to the inherent “twoness” of the sexes as a
basis for limiting the number of persons in a sexual union (whether
serially or concurrently) to two—a point, incidentally, that has
enormous ramifications for your position on homosexual practice. There
are indeed some gray areas in interpreting what commandments to follow
and not to follow. There is no doubt, too, that philosophic reason,
scientific reason, and experience assist us in the decision-making
process.
At the same time, the degree to which a given view of
Scripture can be regarded as a “core value” determines the weight of
the burden of proof on those who would argue for a deviation from the
biblical witness. The more pervasive, absolute, strongly held, and
counterculturally held a given view is in Scripture the more evident
it is that this view belongs to a core value. Scripture’s witness for
a two-sexes prerequisite for marriage and against homosexual practice
is, in my view, a core value in Scripture’s sexual ethics—precisely
because it is a value held pervasively, absolutely, strongly, and
counterculturally. So claims such as yours, namely that loving
homosexual bonds are within God’s will, have a huge mountain to claim
to demonstrate that such a view is compatible with Scripture’s “big
picture.”
It becomes even more difficult to make the case when
one realizes that alleged “new knowledge” arguments (exploitation,
orientation, or misogyny arguments) are really not radically “new”
pieces of information for the Greco-Roman milieu and thus, are not
likely to have changed the views espoused by Scripture’s authors.
Throw into this mix the basic problems of attempted merger with, and
erotic desire for, sexual sames (a nature argument) and the scientific
evidence for disproportionately high rates of measurable harm in
homosexual unions (owing, significantly, to the absence of a true
sexual complement in same-sex pairings) and the case for overriding
the overwhelming evidence of Scripture fragments.
If you really want to give careful
consideration to the issues that you have raised to me then I
recommend that you read two things that I have written. First, read my
recent article “How Bad Is Homosexual Practice according to Scripture
and Does Scripture’s View Apply to Committed Homosexual Unions?” at
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homosexWinterResponse.pdf
(especially the two appendices that address the two questions of the
title directly, pp. 12-22). Then read my “Why the Disagreement over
the Biblical Witness on Homosexual Practice” at
http://www.westernsem.edu/wtseminary/assets/Gagnon2%20Aut05.pdf.
You can get the table of contents for this article at
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homoReformedReviewTableCont.pdf.
You will see material
on a nature argument, alleged analogies for disregarding the biblical
witness, and the so-called “new knowledge” arguments.
You say: "I
don't understand, in all my reading of your scholarship, on how being
homosexual causes me to love God any less." This is like saying: I
don't understand how being polysexual or pedosexual (or any other
orientation to do what God forbids) causes me to love God any less.
One loves God less by violating his clear commandments. If you love
God you will keep his commandments. Paul in Romans 1 presents
homosexual practice as a dishonoring and degrading of the integrity of
one's sexual self--in effect, a sacrilege. In dishonoring the person
God made you to be you dishonor God.
One last point. You make two problematic moves in your
theological justification for engaging in homosexual practice: (1) You
assume that if you can’t get rid of homosexual passions and/or
generate heterosexual passions God must accept your acting on such
passions; and (2) you can’t love yourself or, for that matter, love
God unless you can live out of such desires. Neither premise stands up
to theological scrutiny. Jesus calls us all to take up our crosses,
deny ourselves, and lose our lives as we follow him on the road to
discipleship. Paul speaks at length of what it means to die with
Christ to self and to live radically for God. The identity of a
believer is not constructed out of homosexual desires or any other
desires to do things that God expressly and strongly forbids but
rather out of the person that God has created, and now recreated, us
to be.
Jesus does not call us to “love ourselves” in his
interpretation of Lev 19:18, the second great commandment. He rather
calls us to redirect that innate self-oriented love that we all have
to an equally intense love of others. All of us struggle with deeply
ingrained desires to do things that God forbids. You have sinful
desires of one sort, others have sinful desires of another sort. No
one gets a pass from doing the will of God (note the opening petitions
of the Lord’s Prayer). What counts, Paul tells us, “is keeping the
commandments of God.” We all must face the reality that the “knowledge
of Christ” far surpasses the gratification of fleshly aims
(Philippians 3). Until we come to grips with the fact that knowing
Christ, and thus “taking every thought captive for obedience of Jesus”
(2 Cor 10), is better than gratifying sinful desire, no progress in
spiritual development or maturity is possible. We have to want Jesus
more than the gratification of any given sinful desire, which we will
only come by a greater realization of how great Jesus is.
By the reasoning you give, men who struggle with
polyamorous urges should accept such urges, as should persons sexually
drawn to close blood relations or, even worse, children, for to do
otherwise would be to hate oneself and violate the second great
commandment. Therefore, your reasoning cannot be accurate and must be
subjected to the renewal of the mind that comes with ongoing
reflection on the gospel of God's great love for us in Christ.
Thank you for your questions and the civility with
which you express them. I wish I could wave away, as if with a magic
wand, all your difficult circumstances. But that, apparently is not
God’s way in most cases. As Paul found out with regard to his “thorn
in the flesh,” God’s grace is sufficient for us—meaning that it is
often in and through our experience of deprivation not in our
immediate deliverance from such, much less the avoidance of hard
times, that God’s power in our lives is brought to completion.
Although it will often seem otherwise, your intractable, intense urges
to have sex with other men are an opportunity for tremendous growth in
God, not by gratifying such desires but rather but taking up your
cross and denying them. God’s grace is sufficient for you, for me, and
for everyone who stands at the foot of the cross.
Blessings,
Rob
__________________________________________________________
Where have I spoken about why women's ordination is a bad analogy for
the acceptance of homosexual practice?
From: F.
Sent: Sunday, March 04,
2007 10:40 AM
Dr. Gagnon,
My name is
F_________________, Sr. Pastor of ______ Church of ____________. We
are a former PCA church, recently re-aligned with the RCA because our
views of women in ministry were incompatible with staying in the PCA.
I have enjoyed all of your on-line resources regarding homosexuality
and the Bible, and thank you for your hard work.
I have a quick question:
It seems like I read an article of yours but can't seem to find it on
the question of how accepting women's ordination does not
automatically lead to acceptance of homosexuality. I have my own
arguments against this slippery-slope idea, but would love to find
where you have addressed the differences between the two issues. Do
you have a link to something you have written specifically to this
issue? I think the article I remember was one in which someone was
accusing you of inconsistency since you are pro women's ordination.
Thanks for any and all
help.
Warmly,
F.
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2007 2:20 PM
Dear
F.,
Thank
you for your kind note and sorry for the delay in responding.
Perhaps you are thinking of:
"Jack
Rogers's Flawed Use of Analogical Reasoning in Jesus, the Bible, and
Homosexuality" (Nov. 2, 2006) at
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/RogersUseAnalogies.pdf (pdf) and
http://www.robgagnon.net/RogersUseAnalogies.htm (html).
My
long rebuttal of Myers/Scanzoni (http://www.westernsem.edu/wtseminary/assets/Gagnon2%20Aut05.pdf)
has this on pp. 93-94 as a short summary:
An
analogy to women in ministry is flawed for three reasons. First, it
confuses categories. Being a woman is much more of a fixed,
immutable condition than the experience of homosexual desire. Unlike
impulses generally, the sex of an individual is 100% congenitally
determined (i.e., by chromosomes). It cannot be elevated or lowered
in ‘intensity’ in accordance with early childhood socialization,
macrocultural influences, or individual life experiences. Moreover,
being a woman is not a self-definition directly linked to sinful
behavior. Homosexual passion, on the other hand, is a direct desire
for scripturally prohibited, structurally incongruous behavior.
Second, as noted in the refutation of the misogyny argument above,
there are many places in Scripture that take a positive view of
women in ministry, which in turn provides some degree of precedent
for expanding such roles. Unlike the misguided refrain, “in Christ
there is neither heterosexual orientation or homosexual
orientation,” one doesn’t have to dream up an antinomy for Gal 3:28,
“there is no ‘male and female.’” Third, the direction of Scripture’s
countercultural witness has to be considered. Relative to the
broader milieu, the New Testament witness regarding women looks
fairly liberating; but, again, the only countercultural dynamic
operating in Scripture as regards homosexual practice is in the
direction of greater opposition.
Hope
this helps,
Rob
__________________________________________________________
Email from a father whose teenage son has "come out," on my Two
Views book
From: Mark
Sent: Friday, March 02,
2007 7:30 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: Two Views
Dear Robert,
I have just finished
reading "Two Views" and can say that your treatment of the subject
came across as very logical, understandable (for a lay person) and
treated the biblical narrative well. I found it a different story with
Via and noted that his presupposition that same sex attraction is a
given state rather than a chosen state influenced his treatment of the
subject considerably and made it clear that he was subject to the very
accusation made against your essay. I have recently read a book
"Battle for Normality" by Gerard Van den Aardweg and and wondered if
you had read this short work and had any opinions. I found it to be an
eye opening look at the nature of the homosexual condition which he
links to peer exclusion in the early years of child development (7-8
yrs) and later developing into erotic desire for the those in the
excluding group in adolescence. Having recently suffered the
devastation of a teenage son who has just made a claim to being
homosexual this book was like looking into a mirror of my sons
behaviour. This book has helped me to understand my sons choice,
realize that he is not a "homosexual" in the sense of being born this
way and that he has a chosen this path. It is interesting to note that
my son initially claimed to have been gay from about the age of 13 but
now after several months he has reduced this to 7 or 8. He will soon
be in a position to claim that he was born this way when in fact, I as
the always observant father can assert, this is in fact a self
deception designed to legitimize his behaviour and choice.
It is a evident that Via
supports this type of self deception, due to his own blindness in this
matter.
Thank you for your stand
in these issues. I recognize that as the days move forward this issue
will be the one that tests the church more than any other. I am sure
you have suffered and will suffer for this "stand" that you take. You
have clearly taken up your cross, I thank God that Jesus abides with
you in this.
Every Blessing Mark
________, UK
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2007 12:22 PM
To: M.
Subject: RE: Two Views
Dear
Mark,
Thank
you very much for your kind note and sorry for the delay in
responding.
I
haven't yet read the book you mention but will need to, as your email
indicates. Your love for your son will be very important in years to
come, although ultimately the decision to obey God rests with your
son. Choice is a factor in some homosexual development but often it is
incremental, blind, mixed with unsolicited congenital and social
influences that increase risk for homosexual development. In other
words, one may choose action A in ignorance of the fact that action A
will increase risk for homosexual development when combined with
congenital and social factors. The important issue is not the degree
of choice but the issue of obedience, since sin infects us all as an
innate impulse passed on by ancestors.
I
have included below some email correspondence on my website (www.robgagnon.net)
that I hope will help.
Blessings,
Rob
__________________________________________________________
Why meeting nice "gay" and lesbian persons should not lead to approval
of homosexual practice
From:
Brien
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 9:52 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: RE: The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and
Hermeneutics
I was raised a gay hating PCA member.
Recently something changed the way I think towards homosexuals.
About a year ago my girlfriend invited
me attended [an Episcopalian church in Connecticut]. Many of the
members there happened to be homosexual. I'd never been around
Christian's who were openly gay. Initially I thought it was
blasphemous, but I was curious so I started attended services there
regularly. I've always been theologically inclined and open minded,
so I rationalized this as an opportunity to observe what "Christian
homosexuals" are really like.
I assumed the sermons would be filled
with homosexual comments, they weren't. Actually the sermons were
excellent but I sexuality rarely came up. Instead of disliking the
place I grew to really appreciate it. Something was different about
that church. More then anything else I felt the presence of
non-judgmental unconditional love. Now I'm ashamed to have questioned
their faith in the first place.
For example, they had a mentally
handicap person participating in their service every Sunday. He
rarely did things correctly, the Episcopalian order of worship is very
ornate. But every Sunday his imperfect participation struck me as a
perfect image of our relationship with God. I found it beautiful and
very appropriate. He was one of my favorite parts of the church.
I ran into your page during a random
Google. I left your page five minutes ago but I felt compelled to
share this...I can't say why and there's no need to reply. I'm not in
the habit of random emails, I simply couldn't shake the conviction to
write this.
Thanks and God bless,
-Brien
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Friday, February 02, 2007 12:32 PM
To: 'Brien
Subject: RE: The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and
Hermeneutics
Brien,
Thank you for your email, which is thoughtful and not
abrasive. It may be that God had you send the email to change my
views—but possibly instead to have your views changed (or both).
-
If you grew up “gay-hating” then you
were in the wrong place to start. You shouldn’t have been hating
anybody, least of all those engaged in serial unrepentant sin who
need your help. The point is to reclaim people for the kingdom of
God, not consign them coldly to hell.
-
That you would change your position
over the issue of homosexual practice simply by finding out that
persons with homosexual impulses are nice people underscores that
(a) your views were not properly grounded in Scripture to begin with
and (b) you were apparently operating with the faulty notion that
persons with same-sex attractions bray at the moon, i.e. are
complete moral degenerates. Then, when you found out that the latter
was not the case, you switched views. But the reality is that you
only switched from one erroneous position to another. People are
great at bifurcating their lives, being very good in some areas and
very bad in others. The fact that a person violates the commands of
God in one area of life but otherwise appears to be a good person
does not validate the violation. Some very nice men have
extraordinary difficulty in controlling sexual urges for more than
one person. Does that mean that they must not be nice people or that
having sex with more than one person concurrently must be a good
thing? No and no. Even pedophiles are not complete moral werewolves
or subhuman beings.
-
If you have acquitted in your own
mind persons who engage in homosexual behavior then, contrary to
what you say, you practice “judgmental conditional love.” For you
have made a determination that God himself has not made. You can be
just as judgmental acquitting someone of behavior that God rejects
as condemning someone for behavior that God has not condemned. By
your own statements the only way that you felt that you could love
people was if you learned to accept what they did. But that’s not
love. God’s love, manifested in sending Christ to die for us, was
not the kind of “nonjudgmental unconditional love” that you talk
about. Yes, God loves us unconditionally, but, no, God does not
refuse to pronounce judgment on those who live their lives in serial
unrepentant opposition to his will. See Romans 1-2, and 6:1-8:17:
God’s wrath is manifested in allowing people to engage in
self-dishonoring impulses that mar the image of God stamped on their
being; God’s grace is manifested when God destroys the lordship of
sin in our lives and works toward changing us into the image of
Christ. God loves us enough to want to change us into the image of
Christ. Moreover, the New Testament, including Jesus, is quite clear
that continuance in unrepentant sin of an egregious sort puts one at
risk of not inheriting the kingdom of God. For example, in the
Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, in between the two antitheses
about sex, comes this statement: If your hand, eye, or foot
threatens your downfall, cut it off; it’s better to go into heaven
maimed then to be sent to hell full-bodied. So when Jesus reached
out to sinners, whether economic exploiters (tax collectors) or
sexual sinners, he urged them to “sin no longer” lest something
worse happen to them than a capital sentencing in this life. If you
think or act otherwise, it is not because you have now learned to
love more than Jesus or his apostle to the Gentiles, Paul, did
(compare, for example, the case of the incestuous man in 1
Corinthians 5: your views resemble more those of the Corinthians
than of Paul). It is because you have learned to love less. See the
quote of Augustine that I make at
http://www.robgagnon.net/Achtemeier-LaymanControReply.htm
-
Please do not compare being mentally
handicapped with acting out on homosexual urges. The analogy is
badly flawed. People are not responsible for feeling any urges but
they are responsible for what they do with what they feel—unless, of
course, they are insane, under severe physical coercion, or are so
mentally handicapped that they don’t know what they are doing. Most
men, owing to significantly higher rates of the main sex hormone,
testosterone, are far more prone to a polysexual orientation than
are women. Does that mean that we should now embrace in the church
what the Gay Men’s Issues in Religion of the American Academy of
Religion referred to as “polyfidelity”? Obviously not. And yet many
men are intensely wired to be so. Let me be clear about this: No
command of God is predicated on people first losing all intense
urges to violate the command in question. And since all behavior is
at some level biologically attributable to brain structures, it is
absurd to argue that behavior can be exempted from moral valuation
if the impulse to engage in it is partly congenital. Of course, too,
Paul defined sin as an innate impulse, running through the members
of the human body, passed on by an ancestor, and never entirely
within human control.
-
Of course we are all imperfect. But
as Paul said in Galatians 2:19-20: “I through the law died in
relation to the law for the express purpose that I might live for
God. I have been crucified with Christ. I no longer live but Christ
lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in
the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” Or as Jesus
said: If you want to become my disciple you must deny yourself, take
up your cross, lose your life, and come follow me. It really doesn’t
matter what pre-existing urges anyone has. No one gets an exemption
from dying to self-orientation and keeping the commands of God.
-
I urge you to read my work more
fully. You may want to start with the following:
http://www.westernsem.edu/wtseminary/assets/Gagnon2%20Aut05.pdf
Blessings to you,
Robert Gagnon
__________________________________________________________
Jesus, eunuchs, and the allegation of a 'gay Jesus'
From: J.
Sent: Mon 1/15/2007 1:02 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: Princeton University Scholar Maliks Faris
Scholarship on Eunuchs and Homosexuals
Malik Faris, a graduate of the
University of California at Berkeley and Princeton University,
has contributed extensive research, supporting the fact that
homosexuals were once known as 'eunuchs.' Perhaps if you have
time, I highly recommend that you visit his website at
http://www.well.com/user/aquarius/.
In the past, you had asserted that no 'serious' Bible scholar
would make the claim that Jesus was gay. Former professor at
Columbia University, Dr. Morton Smith, and Emory University
graduate and Professor of theology, Dr. Theodore Jennings, are
and were not serious Bible scholars to you? I could name more
individuals, but you understand my point. Again, I hope you
find time to visit Malik Faris's website.
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 9:28 AM
To: J.
Subject: RE: Princeton University Scholar Maliks Faris
Scholarship on Eunuchs and Homosexuals
J.,
Probably "born
eunuchs" in the ancient world did include people homosexually
inclined, which incidentally puts to the lie the oft-repeated
claim that the ancient world could not even conceive of persons
that were congenitally influenced toward exclusive same-sex
attractions. I have always argued that homosexual orientation is
not a radically "new" concept. This undermines the "new knowledge"
orientation argument put forward by pro-homosex activists.
Jennings is not a
serious biblical scholar, he's a prof. of theology (there's a
difference). An example of how far wrong Jennings can be is his
thesis that Jesus' response to the centurion's request that his
"boy" be healed indicates Jesus' commendation of homosexual
practice (see, incidentally, the rebuttal of his article in
Journal of Biblical Literature made by D. B. Saddington in
JBL 125:1 [Spring 2006]: 140-42). For a rebuttal of a
pro-homosex reading of the centurion story see n. 59 in my online
notes to my published essay in Homosexuality and the Bible: Two
Views at
http://www.robgagnon.net/2VOnlineNotes.htm (html),
http://www.robgagnon.net/2Views/HomoViaRespNotesRev.pdf (pdf).
Needless to say, his views that Jesus had a homoerotic
relationship with the beloved disciple and that there were
homoerotic contours to his footwashing of the disciples are
nonsense. ).
Morton Smith was a
serious biblical scholar but he has not made a serious or
reputable case for identifying Jesus as homosexual.
See now the recent correction of his views by Scott G. Brown, "The
Question of Motive in the Case against Morton Smith," Journal
of Biblical Literature 125:2 (Summer 2006): 351-83 (esp. pp.
354-73). Brown shows that from the beginning Smith's statement
that the nighttime encounter between Jesus and a "youth wearing a
linen cloth over his naked body" briefly mentioned in the disputed
document "Secret Mark" was nothing more than an un-argued hunch
and that, with time, Smith "acknowledged that this matter [was]
impossible to decide and actively corrected claims that he thought
that longer (i.e. Secret) Mark proved that Jesus was gay" (p.
365). Brown then goes on to show (pp. 365-73) that the homoerotic
reading of this text is highly unlikely.
Have you read my
work on Jesus and homosexual practice? If not, please do so. Start
with my online critique of David Myers and Letha Scanzoni, at
http://www.westernsem.edu/wtseminary/assets/Gagnon2%20Aut05.pdf
Jesus' comparison
of men who make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven with
"born eunuchs" shows that Jesus categorized "born eunuchs" as
persons not having any sex (Matt 19), for certainly Jesus was not
giving the disciples permission to have sex outside of marriage
and thereby avoid his newly enunciated standard for marriage. So,
from that standpoint, any argument that is made about "born
eunuchs" including homosexual persons (with which I would agree)
leads to the view that Jesus did not give homosexually oriented
persons the option of sex outside of marriage between a man and a
woman.
Blessings,
Rob Gagnon
__________________________________________________________
A
heartfelt email from a woman with same-sex attractions
[Note: Below is a correspondence from a few years ago that I happened
to come across again just the other day and checked on.]
You have
written by far the best material I have ever read regarding
homosexuality and what is wrong with it. Certainly you have
provided the most comprehensive biblical assessment I know to
exist. Thank you.
There is not a single thing you've written with which I
intellectually disagree. It
might interest you to know that I am a lesbian, and as such, I have
a serious question for you. It is this: Although I understand the
biblical logic and prohibitions, how do I get my heart to let go?
For
whatever reasons, for as long as I can remember I've had an intense
emotional craving to "connect" with females. Contrary to what many
people apparently think, it only culminates in sex, it does not
begin there. Nevertheless, the closeness of those moments seems
somehow to heal me and complete me, which is what makes something
inside of me resentful of the prohibitions. It hurts to have to go
backwards to aloneness and emptiness.
And its
hurt is of suicidal proportions.
As I
said, Dr. Gagnon, your material is superior. I just don't know what
to do with my heart.
Thank you for your kind and clearly
heartfelt correspondence. I applaud your desire to conform your
life in accordance with Scripture's standards for sexual ethics,
albeit with some personal tension.
The most important thing for you to do
is to get counseling from persons working in reparative therapy to
help you connect with your feminine self. You need to work on
recognizing that you are complete and whole in your own
femaleness. Therapy can help you identify circumstances in life,
in relationships with parents, siblings, or peers, where the
development of a secure sexual identity as a female was disrupted.
Healing these areas of life will help you to see that another
woman cannot, in fact, complete you sexually. If a sexual
relationship is to be had, it should be had with a man, a
complementary sexual other, because only in such relationships can
one interact with a true sexual counterpart that supplies the
missing (in this case, masculine) sexual element. But the first
goal is to become secure in the integrity of your own true sexual
identity as a woman.
Do you know of Exodus International or
of any other transformation ministry in your area?
P.S. Also, a good text in Scripture for
you to begin reading is 2 Corinthians. It will help you to see the
value of endurance in difficult times in shaping Christ in you.
Don't give up; let God do his work in your life.
[Just
recently I came across her original correspondence to me and wasn't
sure that I had responded (I was checking office email at home where
searching for earlier correspondence is not convenient). So i sent C.
a note.]
12/25/06
Did I ever respond to this [i.e.,
your 2003 email]?
Rob
12/26/06
Yes, you
did. Your answer was immensely helpful and encouraging.
How
thoughtful of you to have wanted to make certain. Thank you, Dr.
Gagnon.
__________________________________________________________
Where
do I stand on registered homosexual partnerships?
From:
D
Sent: Wed 12/20/2006 6:34 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: Request for assistance
Dear Dr Gagnon,
I wonder whether
you would be interested in offering a comment on a debate some of
us are having over the issue of civil unions v relationship
register. The Australian context is that in 2004 the federal
marriage amendment act was passed defining marriage as “the union
of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily
entered into for life”. This has not pleased the homosexual lobby
who have tried (are trying) to get around the legislation through
State legislatures. Civil unions are marriages by another name,
whilst relationship registers can be that, but they can also be
little more than ways of securing transfer of property,
superannuation, etc. There is a basic quarrel on the evangelical
side between those who basically say we must oppose any and
everything that gives credence to a homosexual relationship and
those who say we must protect marriage as defined above by
opposing any legislation that looks like marriage, but concede the
lesser ground of securing property rights, etc, indeed, some will
go further and argue this is a matter of natural justice, tat we
wouldn’t want denied to ourselves.
If you had the
time and interest I would be interested in your take on this issue
(however I understand this may not be possible). The wider context
of course is that there is general apathy in the Australian public
if not support for the homosexual lobby on this issue, so that we
do have our backs to the wall. The Christian Church has just
fought hard and long over the human cloning issue here and
achieved through their efforts a remarkable close vote in our
senate, but we still lost.
I’m writing to
you since I greatly appreciated reading “The Bible and Homosexual
Practice” several years ago.
I enclose a paper
I wrote several months ago on the subject, which sets out the
views of the main protagonists.
(Rev.) D.
From:
Robert Gagnon
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 11:03 PM
To: d
Subject: RE: Request for assistance
Dear
D.,
Thank you for your
email.
I have not read all of
your paper but scanned it owing to time constraints. Thank you for
your kind comments about my work.
My brief observation
is that any and all attempts to provide legal recognition of
homosexual unions should be rejected. The reason is simple: any
such step in the law, even a relationship register, can only be a
transitional step leading ultimately to gay marriage and the
consequent curtailment of all liberties to speak out against
homosexual activity in the public sector. Developments in parts of
the United States, in Canada, and in some Scandinavian and lowland
European countries have proven this point time and again.
Moreover, it is unfair
and illogical for the law to restrict such relationship registers
or civil unions to only two parties (as these Australian laws do)
since the limitation of sexual unions to two persons is itself
predicated on the 'twoness' of the sexes, male and female: the
bringing together of the two, and only two, sexes into an
indivisible whole means that a third party is neither necessary
nor desirable. This is exactly when Jesus understood to be the
case when he based his argument on marital monogamy and
indissolubility on Gen 1:27 "male and female he made them" and Gen
2:24 "for this reason a man shall . . . be joined to his woman and
the two shall become one flesh." Once it is argued, as has been
the case for homosexual unions, that the quality of the affective
bond (love and commitment of consenting adults) is what counts, it
is inconsistent to limit the parties in the sexual bond to two.
Many on the homosexual side have recognized this point already in
discussion about polyamory (see my article at
http://www.westernsem.edu/wtseminary/assets/Gagnon2%20Aut05.pdf,
pp. 36-43).
The only basis on
which a bond between persons of two sexes could be validated for
property transfers, etc. is on the basis of friendship, not the
sexual character of the bond. And friendships cannot be limited
only to relationships involving two persons since three or more
persons could constitute a legitimate friendship.
A person can will his
property to anyone; the issue is only the degree of tax
sheltering. Hospitals now have much more liberal policies as
regards unrelated "friends." There is absolutely no reason to
provide special benefits to a homosexual bond that would not be
given to any number of friends specially committed to each other.
We wouldn't think of providing relationship registers for adult,
committed incestuous unions, polyamorous unions, or pedophilic
unions, would we? Why? Because doing so would clearly convey civil
acceptance of (indeed, incentives for) such unions. Why would we
want to send the signal, then, that homosexual bonds are to be
accepted and encouraged?
These are my thoughts
on the matter.
__________________________________________________________
Do I
operate with a notion of mind/body dualism or "physicalism"?
12/4/06
Professor
Gagnon,
I find your
work helpful. I have a quick question. Do you think that persons are
non-physical (a mind/body dualism) or physical (either an emergent form
of physicalism or something)? I understand if you are too busy to reply.
This will help me understand your writing on gender complementary and
help in explanation to others.
I understand
if you are too busy to reply. This will help me understand your writing
on gender.
Thanks much,
B.
undergraduate religion major
_________
College
12/4/06
Hi
B_____,
Thanks
for your question.
The
body, this body that we now are and inhabit, includes both a capacity to
receive influences from the God beyond us and impulses to do what God
expressly forbids. There is an identity that is possible both beyond
this particular mortal body and yet never apart from some kind of bodily
existence. Dualism would be too strong since it suggests an anti-body
mentality or the possibility of living life apart from any bodily
existence. Nor is the sum total of our existence merely the body we now
are and have.
At
least this is how Paul viewed things. The result is both "what we do in
the body matters, especially as regards our sexual life" and "one's
identity can exist apart from specific biological urges to do what God
forbids."
Hope
this helps,
Dr.
Gagnon
12/4/06
Professor,
Thanks for
the reply. Yes, I agree that mind/body debates tend to be too focused on
the mind and not the body's relation and importance to the mind. But,
just to make sure i am understanding you correctly, the person (the
experiencing, conscious person) is non-physical and has real choice in
how he or she interacts with the body they "now are and inhabit?"
Take Care,
B.
12/4/06
B_____,
I think that I will sidestep
the physical/non-physical debate because the chief division in the human
is not here but in the capacity to obey God (or receive God's power to
do right) vs. biological urges to do what God forbids. Paul sees humans
as capable of understanding the right but ultimately incapable of true
lasting reform apart from the Spirit of God (Romans 7:7-23, which, in my
view, is primarily about pre-Christian life, not life as a believer,
though believers may succumb to a Spirit-less life).
At any given moment in an
individual's life there is limited choice to say "Yes" to God's working
(which includes God's capacity to enable a "yes") or "No" (which is, in
effect, a "Yes" to my own self-striving and working).
For example, a pedophile who
experiences deeply engrained sexual desires for children, did not ask to
experience such desires; but such a one is responsible for what he does
with those desires. This is true for how we deal with all innate urges.
I recommend further to you
my article:
"Scriptural Perspectives on
Homosexuality and Sexual Identity" in Journal of Psychology and
Christianity 24:4 (Winter 2005): 293-303.
Your college library should
be able to get you a copy through interlibrary loan. Actually the whole
issue is a good one. You can order a copy of the particular journal
issue for $10 (includes shipping and handling) by going to
http://www.caps.net/jpc.html. The journal is published by
the Christian Association for Psychological Studies. Among the other
articles in the issue are:
Stanton L. Jones (Prof. of
Psychology, Wheaton College) and Alex W. Kwee, "Scientific Research,
Homosexuality, and the Church's Moral Debate: An Update," 304-16.
Heather Looy (Assoc. Prof.
of Psychology, The King's University College in Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada), "Gender and Sexual Identity: A Critical Exploration of Gender
Inversion Theories of Sexual Orientation," 317-31.
...and five other articles.
Blessings,
Dr. Gagnon
__________________________________________________________
What's a Layperson to Do?
12/3/06
[Dr. Gagnon,]
Today at our bible study
of 2nd Timothy, I brought up the issue of my concerns about apostasy
within our denomination. The homosex issue being just one of many.
The leader suggested that Paul brings it all down to Jesus Christ
resurrected and descended from David. The inference being that all
else is secondary.
Which Jesus Christ are we talking about then?
"Patience" was another prescription offered.
My patience for this confederation of confusion is just about at an
end. The head office needs to be cleaned out last year, the
seminaries need to be swept clean with a very large broom and perhaps
as many as 70% of the pastors need to be booted out and thanked for
their trouble (caused).
I just don't see it occurring.
If you have any concrete thoughts about how I a little layman can make
a difference, please let me know.
R.
12/4/06
R_______,
I don’t have any suggestions except
that we all do our part, in love, to get others in the church to
realize that a transformed life and obedience to God’s commands is a
necessary outcome of the life lived in faith through God’s grace. Paul
understood that the death and resurrection of Christ have no impact on
persons who continue to live as if they had not died to self and
Christ did not live in them. For Paul to lift up the cross is to lift
up the cruciform life. To lift up Christ’s resurrection is to lift up
a life lived for God. As Paul so aptly put it in Gal 2:19-20:
“I through the law died in relation
to law, in order that I might live for God. I have been crucified with
Christ. I no longer live but Christ lives in me. And the life that I
now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself over for me.”
This, of course, has great relevance
for one’s sexual life, as Paul made clear in 1 Cor 6:12-20. We should
glorify God in our bodies, specifically as regards sexual behavior
(not engaging in incest, same-sex intercourse, adultery, sex with
prostitutes, fornication) because we have been “bought with a price”
and “are not our own.”
In the words of Frederick Douglass,
when asked what should be done now that slavery had been abolished:
“Agitate, agitate, agitate”—in Christian love, of course.
Rob
__________________________________________________________
How
did I get so involved in the topic of homosexuality?
12/2/06
Dr. Gagnon,
How did you get so deeply into the topic of homosexuality?
Y.
12/4/06
Dear
Y_____,
The
quick reply is see pp. 31-37 of my first book, The Bible and
Homosexual Practice ("Motivation for 'Coming Out of the Closet'").
The male-female prerequisite for sexual bonds in Scripture has high
importance and the cultural implications for providing ecclesiastical
and cultural incentives for homosexual unions is great. See further
read pp. 125-30 of my online article “Why the
Disagreement over the Biblical Witness on Homosexual Practice?” (http://www.westernsem.edu/wtseminary/assets/Gagnon2%20Aut05.pdf).
And, as you may have noticed, there is currently a full-court press by
proponents of homosexual practice in both church and society to impose
it, with little let-up with very few biblical scholars or theologians
offering a response.
Blessings,
Dr. Gagnon
__________________________________________________________
Correspondence with a student at Eastern
University promoting a "noncontextual perspective and "trusting my own
judgment"
[Note: On Nov. 16-17 I had a delightful time
giving two presentations to students and faculty at Eastern University
in St. Davids, PA (near Philadelphia). On the whole I found the students
there (to say nothing of the faculty) to be among the most thoughtful
audiences I have had the pleasure to address. All but one of the persons
from Eastern emailing me after the event was very grateful for my
presence. Here's the one.]
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2006 1:40 PM
Subject: a few questions for you
Dear Dr. Gagnon:
I did go hear you
speak today and I found what you have to say, to be honest, simply
conservative, too contextual, and unrealistic. However, I respect the
fact that you have done as much research, both internally and
externally, to make your case. I can't say you haven't defended yourself
well, if anything.
But...I wanted to ask
you some questions that have nothing to do with the research you've
done, and nothing to do with your case against homosexuality. These are
more personal questions and feel free to abstain from answering them if
you must.
Do you know any gay
people personally? If so, what in them do you see differently and more
difficulty in their spiritual walk versus a straight person?
Have you ever
considered that many of your friends are gay and you may not know it?
What would you do if
one of your children grew up and decided he or she was gay?
You mentioned in your
lecture that gay men have a much higher rate of STD's than
married/straight men. You also mentioned that their is a much higher
rate of mental illness in lesbian women than in straight women. Do you
not believe that there is something condemning Christians or other
groups are doing to cause lesbian women confusion or unrest that would
contribute to mental illness? Do you not believe that your torn-ness
over the issue is contributing to their torn-ness? (This is obviously a
question directly related to the lecture)
Forgive me if you
find me offensive. I feel the same way.
Sincerely,
M.
11/18/06
Dear M.,
Thanks for your questions.
I don't understand what "too
contextual" might mean (as a negative) since Scripture must always be
examined in its literary and historical context.
See additional responses spliced in
below.
For the questions that you raise
about STDs and mental health matters, start with my online treatment at
"Why the Disagreement Over the Biblical Witness on Homosexual Practice?"
http://www.westernsem.edu/wtseminary/assets/Gagnon2%20Aut05.pdf
, specifically pp. 35-45, 126-27.
You can get a table of contents for
this at:
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homoReformedReviewTableCont.pdf
See also an article that I have on
science issues at:
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homoHeterosexismRespPart2.pdf
, especially pp. 4-14.
After you read these sections, write
me again.
Blessings,
Dr. Gagnon
M.: Do you know any
gay people personally?
RG: Yes
M.: If so, what in
them do you see differently and more difficulty in their spiritual walk
versus a straight person?
RG: The fact that they have sex with
members of the same sex. You might as well ask: What do I see
differently in an incestuous man or a polyamorous man: chiefly, the fact
of the incest and polyamory. Your assumption that homosexual practice
must be good if persons engaging in it are not complete moral werewolves
represents the problem with your question.
M.: Have you ever
considered that many of your friends are gay and you may not know it?
RG: Yes.
M.: What would you do
if one of your children grew up and decided he or she was gay?
RG: Love them, as always. Included in
that love would be gently talking to them about what Scripture says
about homosexual acts, as well as information from science and
philosophic reason. What would you do if children that you had some day
decided to enter in a sexual union with more than one other person at
the same time or have sex with a close blood relation? I hope that you
would love them too, without condoning the act in question. Read 1
Corinthians 5, the case of the incestuous man, and tell me who was more
loving: Paul or the Corinthian believers. I have trouble with your
premise that love doesn't include correction or a concern for recovering
someone for God's kingdom.
M.: You mentioned in
your lecture that gay men have a much higher rate of STD's than
married/straight men. You also mentioned that their is a much higher
rate of mental illness in lesbian women than in straight women. Do you
not believe that there is something condemning Christians or other
groups are doing to cause lesbian women confusion or unrest that would
contribute to mental illness? Do you not believe that your torn-ness
over the issue is contributing to their torn-ness? (This is obviously a
question directly related to the lecture)
RG: I have no idea what my alleged
"torn-ness" refers to. If societal "homophobia" were the primary cause
for homosexual males having an inordinately high number of sex partners
lifetime and anal contact (both of which contribute to sexually
transmitted disease) then we would expect similar high numbers for
lesbians. In fact, we do not. Male differences are primarily due to
maleness in all-male relationships where men don't have to negotiate
their sexuality in relation to women.
Mental health complications
associated with relational issues is generally higher for women
(heterosexual or homosexual) than for men so it is not surprising that
lesbians experience significantly higher mental health problems--even
relative to homosexual males and even in cultures strongly affirming of
homosexual unions, like the Netherlands.
If you are really interested in
investigating the matter, and not simply in attempting to score some
points with me or to reinforce preexisting prejudices--and I have no
reason to believe otherwise (except that you claim to find me
offensive)--then I trust you will read my material where you can get
these and other questions more fully answered.
11/18/06
Dear Dr. Gagnon,
I have read both
articles (or was the first one a book?) and see nothing in them that
answers my questions to you. It seems as though you just keep repeating
the same opinions that you hold in different contexts, but varying the
sources that support you.
Okay, fine. I
understand the research and the defense. But I want to know what YOU
PERSONALLY think.
What WOULD you do if
your daughter was gay? DO you have gay friends?
As for the too
contextual statement I made, I do truly believe their is such a thing as
a "too contextual read".
Not just with the
Bible, but with many other informative sources as well. For example, as
I'm sure you've heard before, in the context of the Biblical world, it
is wrong to eat shellfish. Do you avoid shellfish, Dr. Gagnon, because
it is Biblically unsound?
I encourage you to
read things from a non-contextual perspective. Not wholly, just
partially. By combining your contextual sources as well as your
non-contextual sources and theories, I believe you will get a much more
complete read. One could read Beowulf, for example, as an epic poem
about what the Anglo-Saxons felt about heroism, and that would be
contextual and fairly sound. However, if one ignored the fact that it
was also, non-contextually, a poetic segue into different verse forms,
then he or she would NOT be able to understand how the form relates to
TODAY'S verse forms. In other words, one would not be able to create the
bridge from yesterday to today. That's not complete hermeneutics.
Consider my questions
from your own personal viewpoint. I do believe that answering a question
without a cited defense can also be correct. Besides, who says your
opinion without a backup is completely wrong? If you could trust
yourself enough to make a good judgment without having to research it,
people might take you more seriously.
M.
11/22/06
Dear
M.,
Thanks
for your email, which, however, is confusing to me. I do take your
concerns seriously and for that reason will not, in condescending
fashion, ignore what you have said but rather will attempt to address as
well as I can each of your points. If I were dismissing you, I would not
spend my valuable time, as I have, addressing your concerns.
I hope
you will reach a day when you are able to critique the statement that
you conclude your email with: "If you could trust yourself enough to
make a good judgment without having to research it, people might take
you more seriously." Good judgments are made precisely in the context of
testing one's own hunches, intuitions, and prejudices in relation to the
data and arguments that come from other sources. If any persons--I hope
that this doesn't include you--choose not to take my work seriously and
do so in the absence of any attempt to deal with the evidence and
arguments that I put forward, then it is likely that they have chosen
such an approach because their own position is indefensible.
You
appear to be espousing the following philosophy: "Trust me even if I
don't provide a reasoned defense or data to support my conclusions."
Well, why should I trust you and not, say, Jesus, the apostle Paul and
the scriptural witness generally, the stance of countless saints of the
church throughout history, the vast preponderance of believers in the
world today, current philosophic and scientific reason (as I see it), to
say nothing of my own reasoning and experiences?
If (1)
you assert, as you have, that high rates of sex partners and sexually
transmitted disease especially on the part of homosexual males and high
rates of mental health problems and short-term relationships especially
on the part of homosexual females are due primarily to societal
homophobia and not basic differences between men and women and (2) you
cannot counter the strong evidence that invalidates your "personal
judgment," then why should I go with your view? You say: "I have read
both articles . . . and see nothing in them that answers my questions to
you." Yet one of your questions raised in your first email to me is
dealt with specifically in the pages of two works of mine that I pointed
you to; namely,
"You mentioned in your lecture that gay men have a much higher
rate of STD's than married/straight men.... [and] that their [sic]
is a much higher rate of mental illness in lesbian women than in
straight women. Do you not believe that there is something
condemning Christians or other groups are doing to cause lesbian
women confusion or unrest that would contribute to mental
illness?"
If you
"see nothing in them that answers my questions to you" then you could
not have read, or read well, or comprehended, what I wrote. I might
start by asking you what is the evidence that I cite in these two
articles that leads me to conclude that basic male-female differences,
absent from homosexual unions, is the main culprit?
You
seem to think that, by reading something contextually, one cuts oneself
off from the hermeneutical move from "then" to "now." You say: If one
does not read "from a non-contextual perspective," "one would not be
able to create the bridge from yesterday to today." Quite the contrary.
Only when one reads from a contextual perspective can one recognize the
distance and differences/similarities between "then" and "now" and not
confuse one's own prejudices with what one is comparing one's own ideas
to. By the way, you refer to a "non-contextual perspective" as if the
cultural milieu that you inhabit today is not in itself a context.
Everything is context.
Paradoxically, the example that you give to prove your point--shellfish
prohibitions in the Bible--actually demonstrates the point that I am
making. You say: "For example, as I'm sure you've heard before, in the
context of the Biblical world, it is wrong to eat shellfish. Do you
avoid shellfish, Dr. Gagnon, because it is Biblically unsound?" The
wording of your question appears to make the presumptions that (1) I
have an inerrantist view of the biblical text or a view even that there
is no change in dispensations when moving from old covenant to new; and
(2) the case of shellfish is a good analogue to the case of homosexual
practice. Your first presumption is incorrect--my argument is always
made on the basis of scriptural core values, not inerrancy, and of
course there is a change of dispensations when moving across covenants.
Your second presumption can only be maintained if you ignore the
literary and historical context for the prohibitions against shellfish
and homosexual practice respectively. The fact that you could attempt an
analogy between the two sets of prohibitions shows precisely the need
for careful contextual work that I mentioned. I think that if you
attempt an analogy between the shellfish prohibition in Leviticus and
the Levitical prohibition of incestuous unions (whether or not adult and
committed) you will begin to see the flaws in any alleged analogy
between shellfish and homosexual practice.
You
reiterate two questions from your previous email: "What WOULD you do if
your daughter was gay? DO you have gay friends?" I have already answered
both questions.
To the
first question I answered clearly:
Love them,
as always. Included in that love would be gently talking to them
about what Scripture says about homosexual acts, as well as
information from science and philosophic reason. What would you do
if children that you had some day decided to enter in a sexual
union with more than one other person at the same time or have sex
with a close blood relation? I hope that you would love them too,
without condoning the act in question. Read 1 Corinthians 5, the
case of the incestuous man, and tell me who was more loving: Paul
or the Corinthian believers. I have trouble with your premise that
love doesn't include correction or a concern for recovering
someone for God's kingdom.
Parenthetically, when you become a parent the point that I made from my
St. Augustine quotation about the meaning of love (i.e., disciplining
the wayward is part of what love entails in the statement "Love, and do
what you want") will be continually reinforced for you. Love does not
mean acceptance of all, or even most, innate urges. This is why Jesus
could call us, in love, to take up our cross, deny ourselves, and lose
our lives.
To the
second question I answered a clear "Yes" and, in response to your
question about what I see differently in the spiritual walk of
homosexual persons, I answered:
The fact
that they have sex with members of the same sex. You might as well
ask: What do I see differently in an incestuous man or a polyamorous
man: chiefly, the fact of the incest and polyamory. Your assumption
that homosexual practice must be good if persons engaging in it are
not complete moral werewolves represents the problem with your
question.
Help me
to understand why you do not consider these to be answers to your
questions.
You
"trust yourself to make a good judgment." But people who "trust
themselves to make good judgments" come up with radically different
judgments. On the homosexuality issue, some who trust themselves make
the judgment that homosexual practice of any kind should not be
approved. Others, such as yourself, who trust themselves make the
opposite judgment that there is nothing wrong with committed homosexual
unions. The two groups have both "trusted themselves" but have come up
with antithetical judgments. So, apparently, at least one of the groups
is deceiving itself.
As
Abraham Lincoln said in 1862 with regard to slavery, one group of
Americans trusted its own judgment that race-based slavery was always
wrong while another group of Americans trusted its own judgment that
race-based slavery was an acceptable institution. He noted that it was
possible that one of these groups was wrong, or both; but it was not
possible that both could be right. "In great contests each party claims
to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be,
wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time."
The
same point holds here. Apart from the consideration of any contextual
evidence, there is at least a 50% chance that your trust in your
judgment is misplaced. That doesn't seem to me to be a strong basis for
"trust." You have no alternative, if you are honest with yourself, but
to do an honest investigation into what evidence can be culled from
Scripture (first and foremost), philosophic reason, science, and
(lastly) experience (which includes the experience of persons who
disagree with your own trusted judgment). Do not fall into the mistake
of believing that your own experiences are self-interpreting and
self-validating.
Have a
joyous Thanksgiving celebrating God's goodness.
Sincerely,
Dr.
Gagnon
11/25/06
Dr. Gagnon,
Thank you for your
most recent email. I have to say, I feel you were much more open and
honest in this email than the last one and in your lecture. You repeated
most of the same thing you've said before, but this time I feel they
were said with love and with God's leading.
Remember your reply
in your future lectures.
Often many people who
give a repeated lecture forget, or just do not realize that they do not
see, that God should be present in each lecture. While I can't say
clearly that God was not present in your lecture, I feel as though
you've listened to God more in your last reply than I have seen up to
now. Again, that's not something I can pinpoint; that's just what I
feel.
SO....I honor your
research and the responses you have sent to me. Thank you for your time
and your ability to aim to answer my questions. Though I may not agree
with you, I can respect what you do and praise your work. . . .
Thanks a lot, good
luck in your future work,
M.
[Follow-up note by Dr. Gagnon: I am glad that M. found my last response
to be "open and honest," "said with love and with God's leading," and
demonstrating a "listening to God." However, since I did not do anything
fundamentally different in my last response from my first response, much
less my public presentation (which, incidentally, was heard by many as
compassionate), I can only conclude that M. did not have "ears to hear"
in our two previous encounters. What M. presents as a difference in my
presentation is really a difference in her capacity to absorb new ideas
after hearing something similar, with slightly different spins, on three
different occasions.]
__________________________________________________________
Response to a person who thinks that my
non-biblical arguments are not strong
Sent:
Sunday, November 19, 2006 8:53 PM
To: Robert Gagnon
Subject: Just a thought
Mr Gagnon:
I was surfing the Internet and found your site; I read your essay
explaining why you think gay marriage is wrong. With all due respect,
your essay illustrates an opinion, and every person is entitled to an
opinion. Here's mine. I do not believe that any reason justified from
the bible builds a sound argument. While the bible is well respected in
many religions and cultures, it is not practiced by everyone and every
religion. It would be unfair to hold someone of a different religion to
standards set by the bible; the first amendment provides this freedom.
Our country is far too diverse to hold a place for religious beliefs in
governmental policy. Since we do not live in a theocratic nation, it is
fine for some to follow the bible and believe that gay marriage is
wrong, but law should be founded under different pretenses.
You have made the point that homosexual couples are more likely to
divorce. This is unfortunate, but African Americans are also 25% more
likely to get divorced than white couples. (www.healthymarriageinfo.org)
Does this mean that we should consider regulating the marriage of
African Americans because they are more likely to get divorced? Sadly,
divorce may be a "sin," but it is not a crime.
Also, it may be true that only a small percentage of the homosexual
community has chosen to get married where it is legal. What is your
point? Marriage is a freedom that any couple may choose to engage in.
The fact that a fewer percentage of homosexual couples have opted for
marriage than that of straight couples is not a reason to restrict all
homosexual couples from marrying. You mentioned that the institution
of marriage is made to suffer through this allowance. I do not see
how. Your marriage with your wife (I am assuming) is no less stable
because two men have chosen to marry than it was when Britney Spears was
married and annulled for amusement within 55 hours. And somehow that
was legal. It is estimated that 60% of men and 40% of woman will have
an affair at some point throughout their marriage. How does infidelity
play a role in the "sanctity of marriage"? It seems to me that marriage
is already suffering quite well among heterosexuals.
You also claim that sanctioning gay marriage will end structural
prerequisites for a legitimate sexual relationship and ultimately allow
multiple partner, incestuous, and adult/child relationships. A leap in
logic may be an understatement; gay marriage has nothing to do with
these unrealistic situations. First of all, relationships among family
members are illegal, not because of its unconventionality, but because
there is scientific evidence of birth defects in the offspring. A
relationship between an adult and a child is simply out of the realm of
reality, and you must have very little faith in our lawmakers. As for a
multiple partner relationship, how many people do you know that are
actively seeking a marriage of this nature? Even so, who are we to say
that they shouldn't?
I do not know how the misconception started that homosexuals are
determined to turn the country to be homosexual. It is illogical to
suggest that someone will choose to be gay because he/she has learned it
from society. You will, however, see in an increase in homosexuals that
decide to act on their sexuality as the comfort level of society
increases. Gone will be the days when a family is ruined because
someone decides to accept his/her sexuality midlife or, much worse,
never at all.
Your last argument is clearly your weakest. You say that accepting
homosexuals will focus intolerance on those who oppose homosexuals. The
utter hypocrisy in that statement does your essay the justice it
deserves. When you say that a parent's right to instill morals of
disapproval of gays to their children will be undermined by school
systems, you really mean that bigotry has a place in family values and
should be passed from generation to generation. I regret to inform you
that our country went through this once, in the 1960s. Your statements
are more clearly ignorant when applied to race. "Allowing blacks to be
equal will burden those who disapprove of blacks." And "If I want to
teach my children to hate black people, I should be able to expect that
the school system will honor my wishes and allow my child to freely
practice bigotry."
I hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Tim Tirrell
11/22/06
Dear Tim,
Thank you for your thought, which is really many
thoughts. Sorry, it doesn’t help me personally but rather shows a
need on your part to read more of my work and to read more
carefully. I hope I may be of help to you, however.
-
My biblical arguments are aimed at
persons who take Scripture seriously. As for those who do not,
arguments based on philosophic reason (nature arguments) and
science (the disproportionately high rate of problems associated
with homosexual practice) suffice. The same holds true for the
case against loving incest, polyamory, and pedosexuality.
-
Being an African American, like
ethnicity generally, cannot be equated with sexual impulses
generally. Ethnicity is 100% heritable, absolutely immutable,
primarily nonbehavioral, and therefore intrinsically benign; the
same cannot be said for sexual impulses. Moreover, the
disproportionate rates of harm in sexual behavior are much higher
for homosexual males than for African American males. And, of
course, unlike homosexual unions (which involve arousal for and
merger with what one already is as a sexual being) there is
nothing structurally incongruous about a heterosexual union
entered into by African American persons.
-
The point about only a small
percentage of homosexual persons, particularly homosexual males,
opting for marriage is a point that underscores that the agenda
for “gay marriage” on the part of most homosexual advocacy groups
is more about legitimizing behavior and punishing those who oppose
it than it is about subjecting themselves to the chaste
constraints on sexual behavior imposed by marriage. Recognizing
this takes some of the steam out of the gay-marriage train.
-
Heterosexual unions do have their
own problems but what still remains the exception for them
(according to representative sex surveys) is very much the rule
for homosexual couples—even for those that set out to establish
lifelong monogamous bonds.
-
I do believe that there is an
obvious link between rejecting the most basic structural
prerequisite for sexual bonds, the male-female prerequisite, and
eroding other structural prerequisites having to do with a certain
degree of blood-otherness, a limitation to two persons, and age.
Moreover, if a person wouldn’t endorse civil incentives for adult
incestuous or polyamorous unions, then such a one has even less
reason to vote for incentives to homosexual unions. For societal
refusal to sanction incest and polyamory are either tied
analogically to or predicated on a similar refusal to sanction
homosexual unions.
-
You say incest is wrong because it
often (though not invariably) leads to birth defects.
(Incidentally, your argument here is about disproportionately high
rates of scientifically measurable harm—the same type of argument
that you eschew when it comes to homosexual practice. There is an
inconsistency here.) Does that mean you would want society to
sanction man-mother or woman-brother sexual bonds so long as the
couple in question was infertile or took appropriate birth-control
precautions? You haven’t indicated what the problem is, if any,
with two close blood relations being married when offspring are
unlikely to arise (hint: the problem here, as with homosexual
unions, is with too much structural sameness). Moreover, my point
about formal or structural prerequisites isn’t merely that society
will some day endorse incestuous unions—though the likelihood of
such happening will increase with the acceptance of homosexual
bonds, which entails a structural merger of two people who are too
much alike on a sexual level. My larger point is that if one finds
incestuous unions wrong one has even more reason to arrive at the
same verdict on homosexual unions.
-
As for multiple-partner sexual unions you
first say that these are not likely to be sanctioned civilly--a
remark indicating that you haven’t read pp. 35-45 of my online
article “Why the Disagreement over the Biblical Witness on
Homosexual Practice?” (http://www.westernsem.edu/wtseminary/assets/Gagnon2%20Aut05.pdf).
Then you seem to admit that this could happen when you say “who
are we to say that they shouldn’t?” Okay, then you would be an
example of someone who wouldn’t have a problem with society
granting full marriage benefits to multiple-partner sexual unions.
I think you have demonstrated my point. As regards pedophilia, of
course there will not be immediate changes in the law as
regards sex with prepubescent children. But already mainstream
presses are publishing works on “the sexual child” and in the
short-term there will at least be efforts to lower substantially
the age of consent.
-
You reject the notion that societal
support for homosexual unions can affect the incidence of
homosexuality in the population. Apparently you adopt a model of
complete congenital determinism for homosexual development, which
no scientific study has demonstrated. Indeed, many have
demonstrated that complete congenital determinism is improbable—an
inevitable one-to-one correspondence between a specific feature of
intrauterine development and subsequent homosexual development. I
do think that a number of studies are suggestive that society can
impact the incidence of homosexuality itself, not just who “comes
out.” See pp. 30-34, 120-25 of my article cited above.
-
You say: “Gone will be the days
when a family is ruined because someone decides to accept his/her
sexuality midlife or, much worse, never at all.” I say: Hello to
the days when entrance into a homosexual union will likely lead to
a much higher break-up rate. Furthermore, your statement is naïve
that “gay marriage” will end such midlife changes since (1) many
people who experience homosexual urges (especially women) shift
one or more times on the 0-6 scale of the Kinsey spectrum in the
course of life and this will continue to happen; and (2) many
people, in spite of cultural affirmation of homosexual unions,
will continue to intuit rightly that there is something
developmentally problematic about being aroused by the essential
features of one’s own sex and thus attempt to resist such
impulses.
-
Your last point simply confirms my
own point: You join other proponents of homosexual unions in
equating loving affirmation of a male-female prerequisite to
marriage with virulent, hateful racism against African Americans.
Furthermore, you welcome civil penalties against the former.
Therefore, those of us who uphold a male-female prerequisite can
expect persecution if we don’t resist your agenda for gay
marriage. It is good for us to know this now while we can still
vote our consciences and publicly warn people. Of course, it is
the equation that you make between hateful racism and loving
opposition to homosexual activity that I and others flatly reject
and for which you have not made a substantive case.
I truly hope that what I have written will help you
too.
Blessings,
Dr. Robert Gagnon
__________________________________________________________
Question about books or resources for
counseling persons with same-sex attractions
10/12/06
Dr. Gagnon-
Hope you are well. I am
emailing you to inquire of some resources regarding homosexuality.
Specifically, I am looking for material that gives wisdom on how to
minister and disciple those who struggle with homosexuality. Our
session has asked to be more informed and 'trained' on how to
minister/discipline/encourage etc. those who are openly gay,
repentant, and wanting to change. The majority of our congregation
is unfamiliar with the homosexual lifestyle, culture, and
worldview. However, we have a few individuals who frequent our
church that are homosexual. Some are repentant, some
are not, and some I can't say. Any books or resources you could
direct me to would be great!
Grace and Peace,
D______________
11/14/06
Hi D_______,
Sorry for being so late in
responding. Even now I’m swamped. There are many such books, including
those by Mario Bergner, Richard Cohen, Joe Dallas, Anne Paulk, Alan
Medinger, Andrew Comiskey, and Bob Davies. See
http://www.regenbooks.org/regenbooks_general.asp
See also my article:
"Scriptural
Perspectives on Homosexuality and Sexual Identity" in
Journal of Psychology and
Christianity 24:4 (Winter 2005): 293-303.
Indeed, the whole journal issue is
interesting.
__________________________________________________________
Differences of opinion about the relevance of menstrual law and
whether the Law is abrogated in Christ
11/13/06
Rob,
I was reviewing parts
of your major volume and found a few points of minor disagreement
(no surprise, of course).
1) Consistent
exegetical logic causes me to see sexual intercourse with one’s wife
during her period to be something that remains displeasing to the
Lord, since Lev 18 lists it as one of the universal abominations for
which God judged the foreign nations. (The penalty for this act in
the Torah is consistent with this; its mention in Ezek 18 also seems
to reinforce this, although in a specifically Judean, non-universal
context there.) To state that this act is somehow acceptable now
whereas homosex remains unacceptable seems to me to weaken the force
of your argument, and I find no scriptural support for the position.
I’d love to hear more from you on this.
2) You
make reference to Paul’s abrogation of the Law, a subject that I’m
sure you have thought about in depth, given your interaction with
Mark Nanos’s work, etc. Obviously, that represents a common
Protestant position, but as a Jewish believer in Jesus, such a
statement is problematic, since it seems to undermine passages such
as Matt 5:17-20. Now, this is not the time to ask you for a lengthy
defense of your position but rather to mention that once again, the
position seems to undermine our use of Torah as a moral guide. (I’m
oversimplifying the point here, but I trust you get the gist of it.)
Again, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this, and I can
elaborate in further detail if needed.
Again, my great
appreciation to you for all your labors.
M.
11/14/06
Dear
M.,
I wish all the disagreements with
my book were of this sort (!).
1) See
my comments on pp. 100-103 in my article: "Are There Universally
Valid Sex Precepts? A Critique of Walter Wink's Views on the Bible
and Homosexuality," published in
Horizons in
Biblical Theology
24 (June 2002): 174-243 found online at
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homoWinkHBTResp.pdf
At the very least I don’t see the
united witness of Scripture (or even early Judaism) putting quite
the same level of emphasis on this matter in Scripture as on a
two-sex prerequisite for a sexual bond.
2) I
think that there is tension in Scripture, certainly between Paul’s
formulations and Jesus’ formulations as portrayed in Matthew, just
as there is tension on the question of whether (in Matthew’s view at
least) Jesus abrogated the binding character of dietary and calendar
observances. I don’t think, however, that it is exegetically
sustainable to argue that Paul did not think the Mosaic law to be
terminated as a binding body of law. Paul saw the law as having
jurisdiction over all those descended from Adam, Adamic flesh, which
Christians transcend with the gift of the Spirit and consequent
citizenship in heaven. It’s like moving from the U.S. to Canada,
becoming a Canadian citizen and giving up American citizenship. If
one murders or commits bigamy one will be prosecuted just as if one
lived in the U.S. because there is considerable continuity between
Canadian law and U.S. law, but the violation will nonetheless be of
Canadian law. American law will have no jurisdiction. Similarly,
Christians are under the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”
(Rom 8:1-3) and there is considerable continuity between the two
dispensations or covenants because the same God is the giver of
both. But there is no getting around some discontinuity.
Hope this helps and I understand
that our agreements far outweigh any disagreements, brother.
Rob
__________________________________________________________
Questions about Jack Rogers's claim that 1 Cor 6:9 does not speak
against committed homosexual unions
11/2/06
[From a new
acquaintance at a church in Texas that I had spoken to shortly before
Jack Rogers's arrival at the same church; the writer comments on
Rogers's subsequent visit and on my new (11-page) online article on
Rogers's faulty analogical reasoning]
Rob,
Thanks, this [article on
Rogers's use of analogies] was great. Jack Rogers spoke last night
and there were really not too many surprises. He does refuse to
engage in dialogue on any of his points. Although he took questions
after his presentation, they had to be in written form so there was no
opportunity for follow up. He said most of the things you already
told us he would say so those of us that were at your presentation
were well prepared, but again, no ability for dialogue.
He did talk about the
Greek words in 1 Cor 6:9. He said the “best” scholarship defined
“arsenokoites” as “male prostitute.” While I had heard that as a
possible definition, what little research I have done seems to show
that the “best” scholarship shows that this word is used to describe
the “active” person in male/male sex. He then said “malakos”
literally means “soft to the touch.” I knew that, but he went on to
say that the word was used as an insult to women and because of that
had NO relationship to male homosexual relations. Now that is one I
NEVER heard. I have read that “malakos” was generally accepted as the
passive partner in male/male sex or as an alternative a male
prostitute but one that is not doing it for monetary gain. Do you
have any insight on the “best” scholarship on these words in Greek and
any good sources for me?
He, of course, stressed
the analogy of African Americans and women, but because he would
permit no dialogue there was really no way for us to counter his
arguments in this forum. It’s kind of hard to writer the whole
counter argument on a 3X5 card (some people even take 11 pages to do
it)!!!!!
At any rate, your
presentation as well as the material you sent and your website are
very helpful and I may spend some time in the adult Sunday school
class I teach discussing some of this.
Thanks for all you are
doing.
____________
11/2/06
Dear ___________,
Thanks for filling me in on what
happened. How I would have loved to have been there to provide a
response to Rogers. It doesn’t surprise me that he insisted on people
writing their questions; he doesn’t want to be challenged because he
really doesn’t know the issues.
On 1 Cor 6:9 see point 4 (pp. 9-13 in
my pdf version) of Installment 3 of my critique of Rogers. For the
html version go to
http://robgagnon.net/JackRogersBookReviewed3.htm
and for pdf go to
http://robgagnon.net/articles/RogersBookReviewed3.pdf
[Rogers has read this installment (or
so he claims on his website) but has not rebutted a single one of the
mahy arguments that I have put forward (not even in his book does he
devote so much as a single sentence to any one of my arguments). For
Rogers to continue to peddle publicly the views that the "best"
scholarship holds that (1) arsenokoites is limited to male
prostitutes and (2) malakoi has nothing to do with male
homosexual relations, all the while refusing to address any of my
arguments, is a clear instance of academic dishonesty and deception. I
have written more and done more detailed work on the subject of 1 Cor
6:9 than any other scholar in the world. Even two New Testament
scholars who are strongly supportive of homosexual unions, Walter Wink
and Dan O. Via, have had to admit in response to my work that the two
terms collectively reject all male homosexual behavior. The two
strongest pro-homosex readings of 1 Cor 6:9, those done by Dale Martin
and David Fredrickson (cited below), I have already rebutted--Martin
in my book The Bible and Homosexual Practice and Fredrickson in
an article of mine in Horizons in Biblical Theology 25.2 (Dec.
2003): 226-39 (for online copy go to
http://robgagnon.net/articles/homoBalchHBTReview2.pdf). Neither
have responded to my lengthy critiques, even though they are clearly
aware of them.]
There is no reputable biblical
scholar, on either side of the issue, who believes that
malakoi has no
relationship to homosexual behavior—none. Instead, people like David
Fredrickson and Dale Martin will argue that the term, though including
homosexual practice, is a broader concept that takes in any effeminate
behavior of men (like a limp wrist or a heterosexual man giving too
much attention to his personal appearance) and is motivated largely by
misogyny. The term in the ancient world can be used in both senses: as
a more or less direct reference to passive partners in homosexual
unions and the broader reference to all effeminate males. Literary
context is decisive. I argue that the context of 1 Cor 6:9 decisively
points in the direction of the restrictive sense.
Rob
__________________________________________________________
Can one make a reasoned case against
homosexual practice without citing Scripture?
10/27/06
Dear Dr.
Gagnon,
I am a
student at _______________ [PCUSA] Seminary. I have attended two of
your lectures and your address at New Wineskins this summer, and I have
read your book The Bible and
Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics.
I have been
assigned Religion in Politics: Constitutional and Moral Perspectives
by Michael J. Perry (Oxford 1997) for a Christian ethics class.
The overarching premise of the text is that while there is room in the
public square for religious argument, no coercive political choice about
morality of human conduct (such as legislation against same-sex
marriage) should be made on the basis of a religious argument alone, but
rather solely on the basis of a correspondingly plausible secular
argument.
Half of this
104-page book dissects flaws in John Finnis' secular argument about the
morality of homosexual conduct and digresses to ad hominem attacks.
Since none of my fellow students are likely to tackle your excellent
500+ pages in a course that only lasts a few more weeks, can you direct
me to a concise article I could refer to for an opposing secular
argument?
I understand
if your own teaching duties take priority over a response, but I thought
I'd ask.
God bless
your work this week.
_________________
Thanks for your inquiry.
I am happy that my work has been of help to you.
There are good secular
arguments. Essentially the same arguments for society to oppose
committed incestuous unions (even when precautions are taken against
procreation or where one of the two is infertile) or committed
polysexual unions ('traditional' polygamy or 'avant-garde'
threesomes).
See my entry
"Homosexuality" in the new Dictionary of Christian Apologetics
(description on my website at
http://www.robgagnon.net/ArticlesOnline.htm, scroll down to the
6th entry). See also my online critique of Myers/Scanzoni (11th
entry) where I discuss the nature argument on pp. 30-46 and why "gay
marriage" is not good for society on pp. 125-30.
These should provide you
with plenty of arguments.
__________________________________________________________
Requests for clarifications on my positions regarding Gen 2, the
meaning of unnatural, and the relevance of Dutch gay marriage
10/12/06
Dear Dr Gagnon,
I have found your website resources
very helpful. I do have some brief points on which I would
appreciate clarification:
1) Did Adam have a penis prior to
God making Eve from his side? (This is not a joke question -- it
seems to me there are theological implications whichever way one
answers this!).
2) I am unclear on the connection
between Dutch approval of gay marriages and increasing rates
of child-birth out of wedlock. (If I am missing the obvious here,
please forgive me).
3) What are the implications of the
Pauline 'un-natural' argument for changes brought about by humans in
the natural order, for example, with transplant surgery? I have a
friend who was born without thumbs, so doctors transplanted his big
toes to his hands, giving him thumbs from his big toes: Intuitively
I think Christians would have no problem with this, but would Paul
have objected to this as un-natural? If not, why not? More broadly,
where do we draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable
man-made changes in the natural world or physical order -- what
human interventions in the physical world count as natural or
unnatural?
Thank you very much for any
reflections you may have on these questions.
The Rev. B_________________, Ph.D.
[a Canadian Anglican
minister]
10/16/06
Dear Rev. B____________,
Briefly:
1) I
have no idea, honestly. It is possible that in the ancient world this
was taken literally. However, the imagery in Gen 1-3 does not have to
be taken literally; transcendent truths are being conveyed by mundane
images. The image of God forming woman from the human’s side, with
which the human (now distinctly masculine) may now reunite—the one
flesh becoming two differentiated sexes which then remerge to become
one flesh—clearly illustrates that men and women are each other’s
sexual counterparts or complements, “other halves” if you will. This
is immediately obvious anatomically but is no less real in the
physiological and psychological dimensions.
2) The
connection is this: Approval of gay marriage is the ultimate
‘decoupling’ of marriage and procreation because two persons of the
same sex are structurally incapable—even if they desired otherwise and
even if all the ‘equipment’ functioned properly—of producing offspring
through their sexual bond. The conclusion is: Marriage has no integral
or even presumed connection to procreation. And if that is so, then
why should procreation necessarily presuppose marriage? More broadly
still, when the most basic structural prerequisite for marriage is
ignored (the male-female dynamic) and this is justified solely by a
claim to loving affect, then marriage has been cheapened to a point of
meaninglessness.
3) No
implications for transplant surgery. Transplant surgery is like
grafting; it doesn’t fundamentally change the structure of the subject
of the operation. People normally have the organs in question; it is
simply a matter of replacing what should work but doesn’t. Merging
sexually two people of the same sex attempts to bring together two
things that are fundamentally and structurally discordant—like merging
a man and his mother or, worse, a man and his horse. Same-sex
intercourse lies somewhere between these two analogies in degree of
severity, closer to the former than the latter (incest too is an
attempted merger between persons formally too much alike, whether on a
familial or sexual level).
Hope this helps,
Rob
___________________________________________________________
Questions about genetic influence and moral relevance
10/16/06
Dear Doctor Gagnon,
I am a 24 year old
male and my name is S_________. I have recently read your book "the
Bible And Homosexual Practice". It is very well written, yet I have a
few questions that I would like to discuss with you.
Therefore I searched
for your email from the web and write this email.
In the Chapter V,
section IV, you reached the conclusion that homosexual practice is not
caused by any single specific gene. My question is, although the
scientists have not yet been able to directly link human behavior to
their genetic disposition, can one use this fact as an argument to deny
that genetically related people very often have some similarities in
their behavior? Of course, I would not be able to give concrete example
because human behavior is extremely complex and one can never say for
sure how much does any single factor (such as genes or parental
influence) contribute to the formation of any specific kind of behavior.
However, isn't it uncommon to see members of the same family working in
the same or similar profession? Isn't it uncommon for University
admission committee members to believe that offspring of alumni is
somehow more prone to success in their academic life?
As the formation of
the neuronal system and central nervous system is governed by genes
afterall, and any kind of behavior is generated by the nervous system
(brain as the major player), how could one deny that genes are not
playing any role in the formation of behavior? One example is that males
who have an extra y chromosomes (so called supermale) are more likely to
be involved in serious crime. Although this is not a reason to excuse
his action, but at least it somewhat shows that behavior is linked to
genetic predisposition.
In short, even though
there is no direct evidence that any behavior is caused by genes, there
are still some good hints that suggest there might be some correlation
between the two. At this point, I would like to ask a wild question,
what if after some time, scientists were able to link human behavior to
specific genes or biological reasons, and were able to identify some
genes that might cause a higher tendency of homosexuality in an
individual, would you think the homosexuals are somewhat "innocent"
because they are more prone to such "abnormality" (regarded by some)?
Last question is, if
a Christian who have been trying hard to follow GOD's word, who have
been trying to love HIM, suddenly realize that he is homosexual and
uncontrollably falls in love with someone of same sex (with or with
sexual intercourse) , what could he do to change his sexual orientation?
What could he do to help save himself? Does he essentially have to be
heart-broken (because he has to cut all his emotion bonds with the same
sex) in order to follow GOD's word?
Thank you so very
much for your attention and sincerely hope to hear your reply. Sorry
about my poor English (English is my second language)
Yours faithfully,
S.
10/16/06
Dear S_______,
Thank you for your letter.
I do not deny that congenital
factors, including genes, may play a limited role in homosexual
development. They create a risk factor for homosexual development but
they are not deterministic; that is, they do not predestine an
irrevocable outcome.
All behavior is at some level
biologically caused. So no clear moral implications arrive from a
supposition of biological causation. Sin itself is presented by Paul as
an innate impulse, running through the members of the body, passed on by
an ancestor, and never entirely within human control.
Most men are polysexual; that is,
they do not experience great psychic discomfort from sexual attraction
to multiple numbers of gorgeous woman. Should, then, we support
polyamory or 'polyfidelity'? There may be biological factors in the
development of pedophilia or 'pedosexuality,' according to Fred Berlin,
head of the Sexual Disorders Clinic at Johns Hopkins. Does that mean
that we should affirm some adult-child sex?
Jesus calls to take up our crosses,
deny ourselves, lose our lives, and follow him. Paul speaks repeatedly
of dying with Christ to the sinful passions of the flesh and living for
God with Christ. An argument of morality based on congenital causation
for any human desires carries no moral freight in the church.
A person is not morally culpable
merely for experiencing a sinful impulse. We are morally culpable for
consciously entertaining such desires and engaging in immoral behavior
consistent with such desires.
Men are welcome to have intimate
relations with other men; but sex, eroticizing the relationship, is out
of the question because there are formal or structural prerequisites to
sexual bonds that transcend any claim to mutual love. These
prerequisites include sexual complementarity (male-female), familial
otherness (no incest), age (no adult-child sex), number (according to
Jesus, monogamy), and species compatibility (no bestiality).
Hope this helps. See further:
http://www.westernsem.edu/wtseminary/assets/Gagnon2%20Aut05.pdf
especially pp. 30-46, 114-30.
Blessings,
Robert Gagnon, Ph.D.
Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D., is a
professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and author of The Bible
and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics. He can be reached at
gagnon@pts.edu.