A New Testament Professor at Fuller
Seminary Promotes Views Surprisingly Open toward Homosexual Unions
by Robert
A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.
Pittsburgh
Theological Seminary, gagnon@pts.edu
NT Prof. J. R. Daniel Kirk
June 3, 2014
For
a pdf version with proper pagination go
here
J. R. Daniel Kirk,
professor of New Testament at evangelical Fuller Seminary has a chapter
on “Homosexuality under the Reign of Christ” in his book Jesus Have I
Loved, but Paul? (Baker Academic Press, 2011), 175-92. It is a work
that causes me some concern and to which I invite his response. In it
Dr. Kirk presents himself as someone who (1) does not yet believe
that homosexual practice is right but (2) could still be
persuaded that committed homosexual unions are right. In the meantime,
he already endorses state-sanctioned marriage or “something like
marriage” for homosexual unions and thinks the church should keep
listening to the very “stories” of “gay Christians” that erode the
church’s resistance to such unions. My own experience in the past with
self-professed evangelicals who say things like this is that it is only
a matter of time before they switch views to an outright acceptance of
homosexual unions or make public a switch previously made in private.
Let us hope that it is otherwise here.
Holding Open the
Possibility That a Case for Homosexual Practice Can Be Made
In a good part of the
chapter (176-84) Dr. Kirk makes the case that Paul and Jesus do indeed
appear to be opposed to homosexual practice per se. His argument
could be made significantly stronger than it is and at a few points his
reasoning is not what it could be, but at least he makes a case
with some good arguments. According to Dr. Kirk, both Romans
1:26-27 and 1 Corinthians 6:9 show that for Paul “from first creation to
new creation, the primal story of male-female marriage is an inseparable
part of the framework of God’s provision for human sexual expression….
Paul makes the claim that homosexual practice is not a faithful way to
enact the story between inauguration of new creation and its
consummation” (180). At the same time Dr. Kirk argues that the context
for Rom 1:26-27 shows that no one has grounds for “moral superiority”
(179-80), which appears to tie into a problematic view that he expresses
elsewhere, namely, that homosexual practice is not “the great sexual sin
of our day” (see below). He rightly notes that Jesus’ “silence” on
homosexual practice has to be set against the backdrop of Jewish law and
the views of Jewish contemporaries. Jesus “gave his tacit consent [to]
the idea that homosexual practice [was] a violation of the divine
intention for sexual expression” (181). It would have been even more
helpful if Dr. Kirk had recognized that Jesus’ limitation of two persons
to a sexual union (whether concurrently or serially) was derived from
the duality of the sexes given in creation according to Gen 1:27 and
2:24. In a section entitled “Inclusive Social Justice?” (182-84), Dr.
Kirk correctly argues that analogies between homosexual unions on the
one hand and Jesus’ outreach to social outcasts or our changing views on
slavery and women’s roles on the other miss the mark. All this is to the
good.
However, Dr. Kirk then
unfortunately follows this up with a section entitled “Arguing for
Homosexual Practice” (184-86) in which he contends that “for all that
the biblical evidence weighs against [homosexual unions], I do
believe that a case can be made” for committed homosexual unions
(184; my emphasis). This he outlines in two steps.
First, those supporting
homosexual unions in the church must affirm “the biblical standard of
lifetime loyalty to one partner who is also in Christ” (184). This is
what most promoters of homosexual unions in the church already do, so
there is little here that would prevent anyone from recognizing the
validity of homosexual unions immediately. Second, Dr. Kirk states that
appeal could be made to Gal 3:28 (“there is no ‘male and female’” in
Christ) and to the early church precedent in Acts 10-11, 15 of accepting
uncircumcised Gentiles who exhibited the power of the Holy Spirit. Since
proponents of homosexual unions already make these appeals, one wonders
why Dr. Kirk is still waiting to “come out” with full support for
committed homosexual unions.
I have shown in my work
why both appeals are erroneous. Dr. Kirk shows no awareness of the
arguments, perhaps because he shows no awareness of my work (at least not
in the footnotes; he does, however, cite Richard Hays and William Webb,
along with supporters of homosexual unions such as Dale Martin, Luke
Timothy Johnson, and Douglas Campbell). If he knew the overwhelming
arguments against his claims (see the Appendix to this article), he
still didn’t bother responding to them.
Dr. Kirk claims that we
have a “genuinely new thing” today: “Christians who are both striving to
faithfully follow God and simultaneously living within committed
homosexual relationships,” a phenomenon that “must be carefully weighed
when we consider whether homosexuality is [sic: Christian homosexual
unions are] … a new work of the Spirit” (186). A key point that Dr. Kirk
overlooks is this: The reason why we don’t have Christian
examples of this in the first century is because Gentiles who were still
engaging in homosexual practice were not baptized into the faith; the
leadership of the church recognized that such behavior was automatically
incompatible with a saving profession of faith. In addition, as I have
shown in my own work, there are plenty of examples for both the
conception and the existence of “committed homosexual relationships” in
the Greco-Roman world. It is not by a long stretch significant “new
knowledge.”
Charging with
Violation of the Golden Rule Christians Who Don’t Advocate for State
Supports for Homosexual Unions
In the next section,
“Love Your Neighbor as Yourself” (186-90), Dr. Kirk then undertakes a
misguided and, in my view, dangerous promotion of a homosexualist agenda
for the state. He contends that the Good Samaritan parable (Luke
10:25-37) and the Golden Rule (Luke 6:31; Matt 7:12) suggest that
Christians should give serious thought to supporting at least “something
like marriage” for same-sex “consenting adults,” along with full medical
insurance and inheritance benefits for one’s “stay-at-home [same-sex]
partner” (p. 189). He states that “the issue of state-sanctioned
marriage versus state-approved civil partnerships is complex.” Dr. Kirk
does not come down on one side or the other, but what is interesting
here is that he seems to present these as the only two valid options:
either homosexual civil unions or “gay marriage.” In his book he
presents “something like marriage” and the other benefits as “issues I
wrestle with,” though the context suggests little doubt since he
concludes: “It is incumbent on us to show the homosexuals in our
communities that we will work tirelessly for them to have what we
would never stand to be deprived of ourselves” (190; my emphasis).
Certainly we who are married would not want to be deprived of our
marriage. A remark that Dr. Kirk makes in a BakerAcademic blog post
dated Feb. 7, 2013, entitled “Homosexuality
under the Reign of Christ: Responses and Further Reflections,” also
shows little reservation: “The chapter [on homosexuality in my book]
argues that we advocate for civil equality and protection to secure
the same freedoms and benefits for my neighbor who disagrees with me as
I would want for myself” (my emphasis), embracing in effect the
whole panoply of “sexual orientation” laws now in place in California.
I think this is a
terribly misguided interpretation both of the Good Samaritan parable and
the Golden Rule. Let me begin with what should be an obvious
observation: Jesus himself would have categorically rejected such a
deduction from his own parable and rule—and this not only for the issue
of homosexual unions. If Dr. Kirk’s application of the Good Samaritan
and Golden Rule were correct, then by the same reasoning Jesus would
have had to withdraw his challenge to polygamy implicit in his
divorce-remarriage statements (Mark 10:2-12; Matt 19:3-9), since here he
predicates a creation-based twoness of the sexual bond on the twoness of
the sexes. He would also have had to embrace adult-consensual incestuous
unions. To cite Dr. Kirk’s own logic: “If the people I loved and
trusted counseled me against marrying a certain person, would I want
them to have the power to stop that marriage against my will and against
the will of my would-be partner?” (emphasis his).
The argument that Dr.
Kirk poses, “If you don’t want someone to do this to you, then you
shouldn’t do it to them,” simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny since it
throws out of the equation the question of whether the unions in
question are injurious to their relationship to God, self, and the
other. (Imagine teenagers throwing back such a principle to their
parents!) If in fact homosexual practice is abhorrent and a gross
indecency in the eyes of God, as Scripture declares it to be, then, no,
it wouldn’t be loving for culture to provide supports and incentives for
me to enter into such unions. Moreover, such state actions lead
inevitably to the state taking sides against Christians who do not
support such unions, declaring such Christians to be bigots on the level
of racists, attenuating their civil liberties accordingly, and
indoctrinating their children in public schools to follow such a
program. Either Dr. Kirk is naďve on this score (but how could any
evangelical Christian living in California be that naďve?) or Dr. Kirk
doesn’t care about these consequences (which is perhaps more alarming).
The Good Samaritan
parable doesn’t indicate that there should be state support for building
a temple in Samaria or for eliminating from the Judean canon of
Scripture those texts that regard the Davidic dynasty as God’s
choice—all Samaritan views. The Good Samaritan parable is simply a story
about not excluding a Samaritan and other heretics from the meaning of
“neighbor” in the Levitical command to “love one’s neighbor as oneself.”
The lawyer asks “Who is my neighbor?” in order to develop a narrow
interpretation of neighbor that will allow him not to love others. Jesus
resituates the lawyer from the vantage point of safety to a vantage
point of insecurity, identifying him with the man lying half-dead by the
side of the road who now wants anyone who might help him in his
moment of need to become a neighbor to him. In short, Jesus in effect
says, we can be remarkably inclusive about the meaning of neighbor in
Lev 19:18 when we’re facing a great crisis and need help.
Yet reproof is not
excluded from such love of neighbor. The context for the second greatest
command in fact mandates rebuke, paraphrasing: “You shall not hate, take
revenge against, or hold a grudge against your neighbor. And if your
neighbor does wrong, you shall reprove your neighbor lest you incur
guilt for failing to warn him” (Lev 19:17-18). Jesus most likely echoes
this text in his injunction in Luke 17:3-4: “If your brother sins,
rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, even if seven times in the
course of the day he sins against you and seven times turns to you
saying, ‘I repent.’” We should want true friends to rebuke us when we do
wrong rather than to advocate that church and state sanction cultural
supports for immoral sexual behavior. Not only is love not antithetical
to such rebuke, it positively demands it.
Dr. Kirk’s Concluding
Thoughts Rejecting the Bible as Rule Book and Questioning the Bible as
Last Word
In his “Concluding
Thoughts” (190-92) Dr. Kirk begins by chastising any proponents of
homosexual practice who argue that God is not concerned about what we do
in the bedroom or that the mere existence of a biological urge is
self-validating. I concur with his points. Yet then he appears to level
his strongest critique against those who regard homosexual practice as
sinful. He attacks on two fronts.
First, Dr. Kirk asserts
that “the Bible is not a rule book but a story of God’s plan of
redemption” (p. 191). Unfortunately, his point is not quite accurate.
The Bible comprises a series of writings ranging over a millennium, most
of which contain large sections involving rules. There are also
narratives of God’s work in the world and, in addition, theological
ruminations drawn from such narratives. It is not all one thing or all
the other but a composite of genres. His formulation, “not this but
that,” is a false dichotomy. The whole of the Bible may not be a rule
book but it does contain rules that God expects to be obeyed. One can
counter that we don’t obey all the rules. But then the counter can be
countered by noting that the biblical prohibition of homosexual practice
is obviously a core value insofar as it is a value proclaimed
pervasively (throughout all parts of Scripture, explicitly or
implicitly, where a male-female prerequisite is everywhere assumed),
absolutely (no exceptions anywhere within Scripture unlike even
incest and polyamory), strongly (it is regarded in Scripture as a
particularly severe sexual offense; see below), and
counter-culturally (no society or movement in the ancient Near East
or in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean basin was more strongly opposed to
homosexual practice than ancient Israel, early Judaism, and early
Christianity).
Even more unfortunate
is Dr. Kirk’s reiteration of his earlier point: “While the position
against homosexuality clearly has the better of the biblical argument,
that might not mean that the church has thereby received the last
word that God has to say on the subject” (191; my emphasis). May I
suggest that this is a stunningly weak posture against homosexual
practice by a professor teaching seminary students at a purportedly
evangelical seminary? To be sure, Dr. Kirk wrote his book a few years
ago (published 2011, presumably written in the year or two preceding).
But his 2013 blog makes the same point:
There have been times in the history of
the church when God decided that what was unequivocally required earlier
was no longer needful. Indeed, Paul depicts as enemies of the gospel
those who would require gentiles to comply with the eternal, covenantal
sign of circumcision…. I suggested that we should be aware of the
possibility that the Spirit might make such a demonstration today. We
are dealing with a genuinely new moment in the history of the church:
homosexual couples openly in committed relationships and striving to
faithfully follow Jesus…. Those of us from backgrounds that are not
affirming need to listen to the stories of gay friends, especially
Christian gay friends.
On the last point it is
precisely this constant bombardment of the church (for decades!) with
“the stories of gay friends, especially Christian gay friends” that has
worn down the church’s resistance to this immorality. These “stories”
have as their intent the erosion of a male-female requirement for sexual
relations insisted upon by Jesus himself. They have a desensitizing
effect and we see the predictable results in the mainline denominations
where the “stories” have been told for longer periods of time than in
evangelical circles. If the church were to be bombarded with stories of
positive, adult-consensual polyamorous or incestuous
relationships (and perhaps that it is the next stage), the church would
also find its stance on monogamy and exogamy, respectively, eroded over
time.
Dr. Kirk’s insistence
that we “need to listen” more and more to such homosex-affirming
“stories” is antithetical to the message of Ephesians that “sexual
immorality and impurity of any kind . . . must not even be named among
you, as is proper among saints” (5:3), by which is probably meant not
only any report of incidence but also attempts at advocacy. Apparently,
Dr. Kirk supports the existence of the so-called “One Table” group on
the Fuller Seminary campus as a “safe place” where “gay Christians” can
tell their “stories” that advocate for church’s embrace of “committed
homosexual relationships” and thereby undermine Fuller Seminary’s own
stance against homosexual practice.
On his 2013 blog post
Dr. Kirk also adds:
We will become increasingly aware, in
the years to come, that the sexual mores of the ancient world were part
of a system of assessing value, and of viewing the world more generally,
that we no longer hold to. If we believe in the fundamental equality of
men and women as made in the image of God, and if we believe in the
equality of people across all social ranks, then we disbelieve major
pillars on which ancient aversion to homosexual activity leans. There
are other reasons for opposing it, such as those I outline in my book,
but a growing awareness of the cultural context of the Greco-Roman world
will likely create additional challenges for folks wrestling over the
inclusion of homosexuals with same-sex partners.
It is true, as I have
noted in my own work, that misogyny is part of some Greco-Roman
indictments of homosexual practice and that this seeps into some Jewish
critique as well (Philo of Alexandria is a case in point). However, as I
have also shown, this aspect is not central to the Greco-Roman
indictment as a whole (much less the Jewish-Christian critique), which
rather depends on an argument based on anatomical and physiological
complementarity. There are debates in antiquity between proponents of
male-male love and proponents of male-female love. In those debates the
proponents of male-female love are far more affirming of women than the
advocates of male-male love.
Dr. Kirk’s Concluding
(But Misapplied) Thoughts on the “More Important” Tragedy of Christian
Failure to Love
Dr. Kirk’s second
attack on “traditional” Christians is (to his mind) “perhaps more
important” than the question as to whether homosexual unions are right
or wrong: “Many of us need as much rescuing from our failure to
relentlessly pursue the good of our neighbor as our neighbors need
rescuing from their failure to submit their sexual desires to the reign
of Christ” (192). What does Dr. Kirk mean by “our failure to
relentlessly pursue the good of our [homosexual] neighbor”? Dr. Kirk is
only specific at two points earlier: Negatively, we shouldn’t carry “God
Hates Fags” signs (agreed!) but, positively, we should support
state-sanctioned marriage or “something like marriage” for homosexual
unions and the full range of “sexual orientation” laws (as noted above,
a point with which I strongly disagree).
Beyond that, Dr. Kirk
talks vaguely elsewhere of “rancorous, destructive, and otherwise
unloving behavior” (186). What counts for Dr. Kirk as “rancorous”? Does
Dr. Kirk count my own work under this rubric (including now this very
article)? In his blog post, Dr. Kirk adds this: “We who are
heterosexuals in predominately non-affirming social locations need to
stop treating homosexuality as though it were the great sexual sin of
our day.” He seems to imply that to treat it as such is “rancorous,
destructive, and … unloving.”
If Dr. Kirk thinks that
holding such a view is an indication of a lack of love toward persons
engaged in homosexual practice, he is (I believe) in error. Homosexual
practice is indeed “the great sexual sin of our day” in this
specific sense: It is the worst form of consensual sexual immorality
currently being promoted in our society. Our culture doesn’t yet promote
bestiality, which is worse. Nor does it promote to the same degree
adult-consensual incest, polyamory, or adultery, three severe offenses
that are nevertheless not as severe as homosexual practice. It does, to
some extent, promote the offenses of premarital sex and
divorce/remarriage but there is no evidence in ancient Israel, early
Judaism, or early Christianity that these offenses were viewed as
equally outrageous as homosexual practice.
There are many
scripturally based arguments for the view that homosexual practice was
regarded in ancient Israel, early Judaism, and early Christianity as a
particularly severe form of sexual immorality. For one thing, it was
viewed as a direct assault on the foundation of human sexual
relationships given in creation: “male and female [God] made them” (Gen
1:27) and “For this reason a man may … become joined to his woman/wife
and they [or: the two] shall become one flesh” (Gen 2:24). For another:
The prohibitions both of incest and (in the NT) of polygamous unions
appear to be predicated on the prior concept of a male-female
prerequisite (for the latter see especially Jesus’ remarks in Mark
10:2-12, noted above). For another: There is the very negative
description of male homosexual practice in Lev 18:22 and 20:13, where it
is specially tagged, among the other sexual offenses listed, as a
to’evah (“an abominable or abhorrent practice”; compare also the
very negative description by Paul in Rom 1:24-27, noted below). For
another: The Old Testament contains a series of stories in which
homosexual practice factors prominently in God’s severe indictment:
Sodom, the Levite at Gibeah, and the so-called “sacred ones” (qedeshim;
feminized male cult figures who served as passive partners in male
homosexual acts). For another: Extra-biblical texts in early Judaism
confirm the great outrage felt by Jews toward homosexual intercourse.
Why does Dr. Kirk feel
the need to reduce the severity of homosexual practice? Perhaps he is
laboring under the misapprehension that in order to love an offender one
must first reduce the severity of the offense. This is certainly not how
Jesus operated in his outreach to “(sexual) sinners and tax collectors.”
Rather, Jesus taught that the greater the offense, the greater the sense
of gratitude on the part of the offender who repents and is forgiven
(Luke 7:40-47).
Dr. Kirk is right to
read Rom 1:18-32 as setting a trap for the Jewish interlocutor but wrong
to conclude from this that Paul wanted his readers to think that
homosexual practice was no worse a sin than any other sin, sexual or
otherwise. All sin may be equal in one respect: Any sin can get one
excluded from God’s kingdom if personal merit is the basis for entering
God’s kingdom. That does not mean, however, that for Paul all sin was
equally severe in all respects (a completely untenable position so far
as the total witness of Scripture is concerned). Paul singled out
homosexual practice in Rom 1:24-27 from among other sexual offenses as a
horizontal complement to his vertical attack on idolatry. Both idolatry
and same-sex intercourse were particularly profound examples of
suppression of the truth about God and the way God made us,
transparently obvious in the material structures of creation. For Paul,
as for Jews generally, homosexual practice was that form of consensual
human sexual relations most clearly “contrary to nature.” Indeed, as the
intertextual echo in Rom 1:23-27 to Gen 1:26-27 indicates, Paul viewed
homosexual practice as an extreme self-“dishonoring” or self-degrading,
“indecent” or “shameful” act, one that threatened to mar the creation
stamp of God’s image on “male and female.”
I am fully in agreement
with Dr. Kirk that Christians must love those who engage in homosexual
practice. Yet I get the impression from reading Dr. Kirk’s chapter that
love for him would preclude the kind of response that Paul gave
regarding the incestuous man in 1 Cor 5: As a remedial (not punitive)
measure, remove temporarily from the life of the community the
unrepentant offender, who is in danger of being excluded from the
kingdom of God (6:9-10). For which one of us, applying the Golden Rule
in the truncated way that Dr. Kirk does, would want to be put on church
discipline, even though it would be for our own good? One can hardly
argue that Paul misunderstood the meaning of love here. Not long after
his intense indictment of Corinthian toleration of the incestuous man,
Paul gave his encomium on love (ch. 13). Surely he does not so blatantly
contradict himself in such short compass? As Paul insists at the end of
ch. 5 in a rhetorical question, “Is it not those inside the church that
we are to judge?”
Conclusion
Dr. Kirk’s views on
homosexuality should raise concerns for an evangelical seminary that is
supposed to be committed to the authority of Scripture in its designated
core values.
On the positive side,
Dr. Kirk recognizes that “the position against homosexuality clearly has
the better of the biblical argument.” Moreover, he appears at present to
regard homosexual unions as sinful. On the negative side:
1) Dr.
Kirk presents himself as someone who believes that a good “case can
be made” for accepting homosexual unions as a work of the Holy
Spirit and that Scripture “might not” be “the last word.”
2) He
believes that such a case could be made by holding homosexual unions
to the same standards for longevity and monogamy to which
heterosexual unions are held (or, better, elevating the standard for
both groups) and by appealing both to the “no ‘male and female’”
comment in Gal 3:28 and to the precedent of including uncircumcised
Gentiles in Acts 15—erroneous arguments that have already been
employed by proponents of homosexual unions in mainline
denominations (for a rebuttal see the Appendix below).
3) He
thinks, accordingly, that patient display of otherwise good
Christian lives by persons engaged in homosexual practice could
demonstrate “a new work of the Spirit”—actions that have already
happened (obviously, engaging in homosexual practice doesn’t turn a
person into a complete moral werewolf!).
4) Dr.
Kirk further believes that the church should spend more time hearing
“gay”-affirming “stories” so that the church can spend more energy
calling into question the validity of its stance on a male-female
requirement for sexual activity. This suggests that he is a strong
supporter of the homosexualist group “One Table” at Fuller Seminary,
which basically functions as “fifth column” against the seminary’s
stance on homosexual practice.
5) He
also thinks that it is likely a violation of the Golden Rule for
Christians not to support state-sanctioned marriages or “something
like marriage” for same-sex couples and not to support the full
array of “sexual orientation” laws.
6) He
appears to be more worried about the church taking too strong a
stance against homosexual practice than he
does about the effects of homosexualist advocacy on church and
society.
All of this makes one
wonder how much of Dr. Kirk’s current reluctance for expressing outright
support for homosexual practice is based on his reading of Scripture and
how much is based on the fact that he teaches at an institution that
would not allow such outright support. It is, at least, a reasonable
question (to which I do not presuppose to know the answer). Yet,
whatever the answer to that question, Dr. Kirk’s views strike me as
already in tension, indeed in actual conflict, with Fuller Seminary’s
own stated mission. On Fuller Seminary’s own website, there are several
documents that speak to the issues raised in this paper.
-
In a statement
called “Mission
Beyond the Mission,”
adopted by the trustees and faculty in 1983, under “Imperative
Three: Work for the moral health of the society,” sub-heading G, it
states that faculty, administrators, and trustees will work
against (inter alia) “abortions, … pornography …, the
promotion of homosexuality as an acceptable alternative lifestyle.”
It seems to me that inviting readers to consider the possibility
that committed homosexual unions may be a new work of the Spirit and
encouraging readers to support state recognition of such unions as a
marriage or at least “something like marriage” satisfies neither the
spirit nor the letter of this statement.
-
Fuller Seminary’s “Statement
of Faith”
is doctrinally oriented and contains nothing on beliefs about sexual
ethics. However, it does contain a statement about the authority of
Scripture: “All
the books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine
inspiration, are the written word of God, the only
infallible rule of faith and practice.” It is not clear to me
how a faculty member can sign on to this statement and then write,
“For all that the biblical evidence weighs against [homosexual
unions], I do believe that a case can be made” for committed
homosexual unions; or “While the position against homosexuality
clearly has the better of the biblical argument, that might not mean
that the church has thereby received the last word that God has to
say on the subject.” If the Bible is “the only infallible
rule of ... practice,” how can Dr. Kirk at one and the same
time acknowledge the weight of the Bible against homosexual unions
while adding that this is not necessarily the last word on the
subject and that a case can still be made for such unions? Dr. Kirk
himself acknowledges that the analogy to women’s ordination and
slavery doesn’t work for various reasons (being a woman is never
defined as sinful, the biblical view of homosexual practice is
countercultural, there are significant texts challenging slavery and
the subservience of women but none that question the rejection of
homosexual practice). His tentative appeals to Gal 3:28 and Acts
10-11, 15 are completely untenable (see Appendix).
Fuller
Theological Seminary believes that sexual union must be reserved for
marriage, which is the covenant union between one man and one woman,
and that sexual abstinence is required for the unmarried. The
seminary believes premarital, extramarital, and homosexual forms
of explicit sexual conduct to be inconsistent with the teaching of
Scripture. Consequently, the seminary expects all members of its
community—students, faculty, administrators/managers, staff, and
trustees—to abstain from what it holds to be unbiblical sexual
practices.
To be
sure, the focus is on abstaining from immoral sexual behavior,
including homosexual practice, rather than on personal beliefs.
Nevertheless, belief is not excluded, for the statement begins:
“Fuller Theological Seminary believes that sexual union must
be reserved for marriage … between one man and one woman” and “the
seminary believes … homosexual forms of explicit sexual
conduct to be inconsistent with the teaching of Scripture.”
Certainly, “Fuller Theological Seminary” includes faculty, if it
includes anybody. A reasonable interpretation here is that the
espousal of the position that homosexual sexual conduct might
be acceptable is outside the bounds of what is permissible for
faculty. More to the point, any other interpretation of this
statement strikes me as rather unreasonable.
I hope these things will matter to Fuller Seminary’s President, Dr. Mark
Labberton. My concern, though, is that Dr. Labberton gave the book a
glowing endorsement at the time that he was an associate professor of
preaching at Fuller (I did not realize this till I was nearing
completion of the first draft of this article). Included in that
endorsement was the following: “What makes this book exceptional is that
Kirk.... addresses a complex and commonly felt set of controversies
about Jesus, Paul, women, sexuality and homosexuality and does so in
particularly careful, unflinching ways.... demonstrating an interpretive
manner that both honors Scripture and wrestles with it.” Whatever the
merit of the other chapters, I don’t see Dr. Kirk’s openness to
rejecting the biblical view of a male-female requirement as “honoring
Scripture” or even “wrestling with it” adequately; nor do I see it as
reflecting “particularly careful” scholarship. I can only hope that
somehow Dr. Labberton had not looked over carefully the second half of
the chapter on homosexuality when he provided the endorsement. At any
rate, it seems to me that the matters raised in this essay are worthy of
discussion both within and outside the walls of Fuller.
I close by saying that
I welcome Dr. Kirk’s response. If I have misunderstood Dr. Kirk at some
point, either because I have not read Dr. Kirk’s remarks correctly or
because Dr. Kirk has expressed himself badly, I am willing to make
corrections. If, in response to this piece, Dr. Kirk wishes to pull back
to a degree on what he has written or qualify it further, I am willing
to note that too. I believe that further discussion, civilly engaged in,
can only be for the ultimate good of Fuller Theological Seminary in
particular and of American Evangelicalism generally.
Appendix: Why Gal 3:28
and Acts 15 Provide No Justification for Homosexual Unions
Gal 3:28. According
to Dr. Kirk, the fact “that in this new world order there is no longer …
‘male and female’ (Gal 3:28), may provide an avenue for reconsidering
the finality of the biblical depiction of heterosexual marriage as the
only Christian option” (185). In my view, Gal 3:28, interpreted in its
historical context, certainly does not provide the possibility for
embracing homosexual unions. While it is true that Gal 3:28 alludes to
Gen 1:27 (“male and female he [= God] created them”), this does not
mean that Paul believed that sexual differentiation no longer had
relevance for sexual relations by Christians. On the contrary, applying
this statement to sexual relations would spell the end of such relations
altogether, not provide justification for homosexual behavior. How do we
know this? All Christian interpreters who applied Gal 3:28 to sexual
activity understood it as a reference to celibacy. For example, the
Corinthians apparently understood this Pauline formulation to mean not
only greater openness to women’s roles but also a celibacy requirement
(1 Cor 7; cp. 12:13 where Paul mentions the Jew/Gentile and slave/free
antinomies but leaves out “male and female” because the Corinthians were
prematurely applying this to sexual activity). Proto-gnostic circles
similarly interpreted an alleged saying of Jesus about making two sexes
one so that there is no longer any male and female (Gospel of Thomas
22:1-4; Gospel of the Egyptians 5b; 2 Clement 12:2-3). Gregory of
Nyssa, a Cappadocian Church Father, understood the application of Gal
3:28 to sexual activity as an ascetic life of abstinence.
Paul agreed that, applied to
sexual relations, “no ‘male and female’” would mean no sexual
intercourse (hence his own celibacy). Where he disagreed was over the
mandatory application of the saying to sexual relations this side of
the End, prior to receiving sexually undifferentiated resurrection
bodies. For Paul allowance of marriage and of sexual relations within
marriage represented an abeyance or temporary suspension of “no ‘male
and female’” in the sphere of sexual relations. Even NT scholar William
Loader, who supports homosexual unions, acknowledges that Gal 3:28 “is
not a negation of either gender or sexuality [in the present age], but a
statement of equal worth before God in Christ.” “When marriage and
sexual relations … pass away …, maleness and femaleness … will also
cease to play a role” (Sexuality and the Jesus Tradition [Eerdmans,
2005], 201, 196-97). In short, Gal 3:28 provides absolutely no support
for the view that sexual differentiation in marriage does not matter.
Rather, sexual differentiation ceases to have relevance only when
sexual intercourse ceases in the Kingdom of God, subsumed by the much
greater intimacy of full communion with God.
Acts 10-11, 15.
According to Dr. Kirk, “there is precedent for the church’s overturning
of the biblical requirements for full inclusion and affirmation within
God’s people: the idea that gentiles did not have to be circumcised to
become part of the people of God flies in the face of a huge swath of
Old Testament teaching. But the Spirit of God gave divine testimony to
God’s approval of these gentiles without their becoming circumcised Jews
… (see Acts 10-11, 15, and all of Galatians)” (185). Dr. Kirk’s use of
the oft-cited, alleged analogy is just as far-fetched as the one from
Gal 3:28, if not more so. There are at least seven reasons why
the alleged analogy is unworkable.
(1) Ignores creation grounding.
Jesus grounded the two-sexes prerequisite for marriage in the will of
God established at creation—a fact that gave it preeminent
significance for him. Circumcision was not grounded in creation
structures. Paul correctly understood this, alluding to Gen 1-2 as
background for his remarks against homosexual practice in Rom 1:24-27
and 1 Cor 6:9 while contending that circumcision was nonessential (Rom
2:25-29; ch. 4; 6:19; 1 Cor 6:9; 7:18-19).
(2) Confuses a Jewish ritual
prescription having minimal effect on the body with a universal sexual
proscription having maximal bodily effect. The alleged analogy
treats as comparable distinctively Jewish ritual requirements that
affect the body superficially and universal moral standards for sexual
ethics that affect the body holistically. The comparison is especially
problematic in view of the fact that both Jesus and Paul rejected it.
While Jesus gave diminished significance to diet and Sabbath
regulations, he intensified God’s demands in sexual ethics (adultery of
the heart, divorce/remarriage) and specifically rejected an equation
between food entering the body and desires for prohibited sexual conduct
proceeding from the body (Mark 7:14-23). Paul likewise contended that
immoral sexual behavior—unlike food, days, and circumcision—could not
come unreservedly under the slogan “all things are permitted me,” for
the former alone affected the body holistically and could lead to not
inheriting God’s kingdom (1 Cor 6:9-20; 7:18-19; cp. Rom 13:13-14:23).
(3) Confuses welcoming persons
with accepting behaviors. The Apostolic Decree forbade continued
participation in sexual immorality (15:20, 29; 21:25) and did so with
the sex laws in Lev 18 in view. Paul similarly welcomed Gentiles
into the household of faith while commanding them not to live like
Gentiles, especially as regards engaging in sexual behavior that
Scripture categorically forbids (1 Thess 4:3-8; Rom 6:19; cf. Eph
4:17-24; 5:3-5). Although Gentile life was viewed as typically,
but still only incidentally, sinful, same-sex intercourse (like
incest) was treated as intrinsically sinful.
(4) Confuses very different
degrees of scriptural support. Embrace of uncircumcised Gentiles has
some significant OT precedents and uniform NT support, whereas embrace
of homosexual practice constitutes a radical departure from Scripture in
both Testaments. Given how far affirmation of homosexual practice would
have to override Scripture, claims to the Spirit’s authenticating role
must be considered highly dubious from the start.
(5) Overlooks limitations of a
Spirit-possession /fruit-bearing test. The premise of the
alleged analogy is that evidence of the Spirit’s outworking in one area
of a person’s life necessarily validates other areas, even if the latter
entails a severe violation of Scripture’s core standards in sexual
ethics. But the premise is naďve. Obviously, a person can both give
generously to the poor and engage in immoral sexual behavior, without
impugning the former or validating the latter in God’s sight. People are
very good at separating off or compartmentalizing various aspects of
their lives, bearing moral fruit in some areas while having moral
difficulties in others. It is possible to have the Holy Spirit and even
to live in the Spirit’s power at points while doing things that do not
honor the Spirit. The incestuous man at Corinth appears to be a case in
point, whether or not the incestuous bond was committed and loving (1
Cor 5). The fruit-bearing test, which appears often in the New
Testament, worked for overriding circumcision only because, even for
many first-century Jews, uncircumcision did not automatically disqualify
a Gentile from being considered “righteous.” However, engaging in
same-sex intercourse or any other sexually immoral act would have had
precisely that effect.
(6) Sidesteps the reason for the
proscription. The alleged analogy sidesteps completely the reason
why Scripture regards same-sex intercourse as wrong: a dishonoring of
the integrity of the sexual self through attempted completion with what
one already is as a sexual being. It implicitly treats the very notion
of a formal or structural prerequisite for sexual activity as obsolete.
(7) Confuses ethnicity and
“sexual orientation.” It is a mistake to equate a sexual impulse
with ethnicity. On the one hand, ethnicity is a feature of human
existence that is (a) entirely heritable, (b) absolutely immutable, (c)
primarily non-behavioral, and (d) inherently benign. On the other hand,
same-sex attraction as an impulse may be (a) only partly and indirectly
heritable (as, for instance, pedosexual attraction or alcoholism); (b)
susceptible to some change (at least reduction in intensity, if not
redirection) given cultural variables, incremental choices, and
therapeutic intervention; (c) primarily behaviorally directed (an
impulse to do something), requiring an assessment of the
behavior; and (d) not inherently benign (many impulses of a deeply
ingrained sort are sinful).
The Gentile inclusion analogy would
only be a strong analogy if one ignored the seven problems with the
analogy cited above. But one cannot ignore these problems. Homosexual
unions are not the circumcision issue of today. They are more like the
polyamory and adult incest issue of today.