How Bad Is Homosexual Practice According to Scripture and
Does Scripture’s View Apply to Committed Homosexual Unions?
A response to R. Milton Winter’s Perspectives
article:
“Presbyterians and Separatist Evangelicals”
by Prof. Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.
January 2007
© 2007 Robert A. J. Gagnon
For a pdf version with proper pagination on
a clean white page go here.
[Author’s note 2/10/07: On Jan. 29, 2007 this article was
submitted to the editor of Perspectives, Sharon Youngs. I
received a response from Ms. Youngs on Feb. 1 rejecting my article.
Ms. Youngs’s excuse was: “The next two issues of Perspectives
will include a two-part response to the Winter article. Beyond that,
we will want to shift the focus to other issues facing the PC(USA) and
its witness in society.”
The response is not surprising. Having published Winter’s lengthy
(32-page!) attack piece against evangelicals, the Stated Clerk Clifton
Kirkpatrick and the Office of General Assembly (which puts out
Perspectives) were not about to allow a point-by-point refutation
of all or any part of Winter’s article.
This is clear enough in the
Stated Clerk’s correspondence with the author of the two-part
response, Rev. Winfield Casey Jones, pastor of First
Presbyterian Church in Pearland, Texas. (Note that although “two-part”
sounds like a lot, in fact the division of the response into two parts
was based not on length but on the fact that Rev. Jones had to leave
for a 12-day trip to Wales and had only three days to write a response
for the February issue.) Rev. Jones’s short, part-one response has
now appeared in the February issue (http://www.pcusa.org/oga/perspectives/feb07/response-and-invitation.htm).
According to Rev. Jones, the Stated Clerk asked him to write “‘a
positive article obviously in response to Mr. Winter’s article’ but ‘not
as a point-by-point rebuttal.’ He requests that it address the
‘contributions of the evangelical movement to the peace, unity, and
purity of the church’” (emphasis added).
In other words, Rev. Dr. Winter is allowed to write a lengthy,
detailed attack piece on evangelicals while evangelicals are told to
keep things “positive” and not defend themselves “point-by-point.”
Moreover, they can only speak to their “contributions . . . to the
peace, unity, and purity of the church”; that is, an evangelical
response must not stray into questioning whether recent actions of the
General Assembly and Stated Clerk might be to blame for evangelicals
and others wanting to leave the PCUSA and indeed provide some
reasonable justification for departure. Is this evidence of fair play
by the Office of the General Assembly or, rather, evidence of
self-serving bias? Let the reader decide.Would the Stated Clerk and
editor Youngs ever be willing to commission an article for
Perspectives, similar to Dr. Winter’s article (though
better on facts), on how the PUP Task Force and its supporters
(liberals and those who like the power that comes from being liked by
liberals) have created an ecclesiastical crisis through their
deceptive distortion of the clear meaning of texts in the Book of
Order and in Scripture? And if not, why not—apart, that is, from
self-serving interests?
In a letter to Presbyweb posted on Jan. 25, 2007 (http://www.presbyweb.com/2007/Letters/012501.htm),
just four days before I submitted my article to Ms. Youngs, Ms. Youngs
reminded us all of the purpose statement of Perspectives: “Perspectives
offers an exploration of issues facing the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.) and its witness in society through reflective and
provocative analysis of our life together as a denomination, and
the lenses of Scripture, Reformed theology, cultures, and a
constitutional and confessional framework” (emphasis added). She added
that they are “always seeking balance.” Apparently, articles can only
be “provocative” from one perspective. Evangelicals can respond but
that response should not extend to critiquing at length those who
critique them at length, much less to questioning whether the PCUSA
has so strayed from core values in sexual ethics as to warrant a
serious discussion about dissolution. The “balance” appears to be a
bit truncated.]
Perspectives,
the online magazine published by the Office of the General Assembly of
the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), has published in its Jan. 2007 issue a
32-page article by Rev. Dr. R. Milton Winter entitled “Presbyterians and
Separatist Evangelicals: A Continuing Dilemma” (http://www.pcusa.org/oga/perspectives/jan07/presbyterians-evangelicals.pdf).
Rev. Dr. Winter, who holds a Ph.D. in church history from Union
Theological Seminary (Virginia), pastors the 77-member First
Presbyterian Church in Holly Springs, Miss. His article, which generated
a storm of protest on
www.presbyweb.com (from Jan. 19, 2007 on), so misrepresents
evangelicals that it has an almost McCarthyesque quality (replace
communist-baiting with evangelical-baiting).
Just about everything
that Winter accuses so-called “separatist evangelicals” of doing, Dr.
Winter does himself. This includes his contention that evangelicals are
characterized by “strident interpretations,” “black and white theology,”
“disregard for history,” “a quest for dominance,” and, most ironically,
the following feature: “Evangelicals adopt an ‘ends justify the means’
type of action, which compels evangelical leaders to play ‘fast and
loose’ with facts” (p. 16). Winter distinguishes himself from such
charges only in this sense: He cloaks his observations under the guise
of being “mainstream” and “middle”—false rubrics for both the content
and style of his arguments
(note
the subtitle: “Mainstream Reflections”). This is not serious
scholarship. It is propaganda driven by ideology rather than by the
facts.
Having neither the
space nor time (nor, frankly, interest) to respond to the plethora of
inaccuracies in his article, I shall focus my analysis on his section on
“Gay ordination” where I am referenced (pp. 21-23). However, in doing
so, I believe that I can get at the heart of one of Dr. Winter’s major
criticisms of “separatist evangelicals,” namely, that they are in
egregious error for contemplating leaving a denomination that has now
made it possible for presbyteries to ordain unrepentant, homosexually
active candidates.
Creating
inaccurate direct quotations
In the original version
of Dr. Winter’s article posted by Perspectives, Dr. Winter wrote:
Addressing the New Wineskins Convocation in Tulsa, Oklahoma, July 21,
2006, Robert J. Gagnon, a professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
declared, “Homosexual practice is the ultimate moral failing—a more
serious violation of Scripture’s sexual norms than even incest,
adultery, plural marriage, and divorce.” He stated, “It is a
soul-destroying rejection of the Creator God.”
This Confessing Movement’s declaration makes no room for the question
raised by biblical scholars whether the type of homosexuality
condemned in Scripture is the same as that practiced by those
committed, same-sex couples who plead for the church’s tolerance.
In a footnote Winter
attributed his “quotation” to a report of my talk available on the
Presbyterian Layman website by Parker T. Williamson (“Gagnon: ‘Our
souls are in torment,’“ July 21, 2006). Half of what Dr. Winter
originally attributed to me as a direct citation was not in fact a
direct citation. Indeed, the opening line “Homosexual practice is the
ultimate moral failing” was Winter’s own editorializing
masquerading as a direct quote from me. He apparently took his own
characterization of my position and accidentally put words into my
mouth. And the final “direct quote,” “It is a soul-destroying rejection
of the Creator God,” is not put in quotation marks in the Layman
article but rather was a characterization of what I said.
In an e-mail to Dr.
Winter I notified him of these errors and told him, “The problems of
your argumentation I will deal with later.” He acknowledged the errors,
apologized for them, and asked Sharon Youngs, editor of Perspectives,
to input his corrections in a revised version of the article. Since then
I have supplied him with a transcript of my relevant remarks at the New
Wineskins gathering (below) and he has made corrections once more. All
this is good since to do otherwise would have been embarrassing to Dr.
Winter when I publicly pointed them out. However, that such elementary
errors could appear in his original article at all raises serious
questions and seems to epitomize the loose application of facts in the
article as a whole. We will see below two other instances of this in
just his “Gay ordination” section alone: one involving a false inference
about my own work and another involving a misreporting of a recent court
case in the Methodist church.
What I actually said at
the New Wineskins gathering on the subject matter that Dr. Winter
originally “quoted” was as follows:
How important is the two-sex prerequisite for marriage? Scripture
treats it as a foundational matter that takes precedence even over
fidelity, monogamy, and non-incestuous bonds. In other words,
homosexual practice is regarded by Scripture as an even more serious
violation of sexual norms than incest, adultery, plural marriage, and
divorce. Would you stay in a denomination that approved any of those
forms of behavior? . . . .
[Paul] says in 1 Corinthians 5 that the Corinthians, rather than
tolerating the behavior of the incestuous man and accommodating
it, should have mourned because this person is at risk of being
excluded from the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9-11). So take the following
action that his life might be spared on the Day of the Lord; namely,
temporary exclusion from the life of the community in order to bring
the offender to his senses. That’s true love. It’s not the Corinthians
who love the incestuous man. It’s Paul who loves the incestuous man.
So don’t tell me that affirming homosexual practice is all about love.
Homosexual practice is an even greater violation than incest because
the reason why incest is wrong is predicated on the assumption that
“you shall not have sex with the flesh of your own flesh” (Lev 18:6),
that is, with someone who is already a same on a familial
level. That’s sex with yourself, not with a complementary “other.”
The need for complementary otherness is felt even more deeply in the
matter of sexual otherness, which is more clearly ensconced in
the creation texts than incest. Genesis 2:21-24 posits an original,
sexually undifferentiated human split down the “side” (not “rib”).
The fact that one flesh becomes two sexes grounds the principle that
these two sexes may become one flesh. When Paul talks about
homosexual practice in Romans 1:24-27 and 1 Corinthians 6:9 he echoes
Gen 1:27 and 2:24. He’s a good “learner” or disciple of Jesus because
when Jesus talked about sexuality in Mark 10 the two texts that he
pinpoints as normative and prescriptive for all matters involving
human sexual ethics are these very two texts, Genesis 1:27, “male and
female He made them,” and Genesis 2:24, “for this reason a man may
become joined to a woman and the two become one flesh.”
The whole basis for predicating marital monogamy—the twoness of the
sexual union at any one time or serially—is Genesis 1:27, “God made us
male and female,” the twoness of the sexes. If we eliminate that
sexual standard then there will be no other Scripture-based,
logic-based, or nature-based reason by which you might proscribe
committed sexual unions involving three or more persons—according
to Jesus. That doesn’t mean that polyamory (i.e., multiple
partners in a consensual, committed sexual bond) is worse than
homosexual practice. It is less worse because the basis for
proscribing polyamory is the two-sex prerequisite given in marriage.
An audio of the entire
talk is available at
http://www.robgagnon.net/RGagnon.wma.
A full transcript will be posted shortly on my website.
Ignoring
arguments for Scripture’s absolute stance against homosexual practice
The only thing that Dr.
Winter correctly quoted in the original version of his article was my
remark that “homosexual practice is regarded by Scripture as an even
more serious violation of sexual norms than incest, adultery, plural
marriage, and divorce.” I stand by this statement completely. Winter
responded to it by saying that this
declaration makes no room for the question raised by biblical
scholars whether the type of homosexuality condemned in Scripture is
the same as that practiced by those committed, same-sex couples who
plead for the church’s tolerance.
I leave aside the
characterization “who plead for the church’s tolerance,” which is more
benign-sounding but less accurate than the following: “who demand the
church’s full approval and blessing of their unions as marriages and who
equate those who disagree with racists and bigots.” Dr. Winter’s main
point, namely that I “make no room” for the possibility that
Scripture might not have been condemning committed homosexual unions,
makes it sound like I have not even considered the possibility. In fact,
I have not only considered this but also heavily and repeatedly
critiqued it in numerous publications dating from 2000 to 2006. I
have shown point-by-point why such a hypothesis cannot stand up to
historical-critical scrutiny. Neither Winter nor anyone else has
rebutted these points; indeed, these arguments have been largely ignored
and treated as if they never existed.
My first and second
books make these points throughout: The Bible and Homosexual
Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Abingdon, 2001; 500 pages); and,
with Dan O. Via, Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views
(Fortress, 2001). So do a number of mostly more-recent published
articles:
-
“The Old Testament and Homosexuality: A
Critical Review of the Case Made by Phyllis Bird,” Zeitschrift für
die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 117 (2005): 367-94.
-
“Sexuality,” in Dictionary for
Theological Interpretation of the Bible (eds. K. J. Vanhoozer, et
al.; Baker Academic, 2005), 739-48 (esp. 744-48).
-
“A Comprehensive and Critical Review
Essay of Homosexuality, Science, and the ‘Plain Sense’ of Scripture,
Part 2,” Horizons in Biblical Theology 25 (2003): 179-275 (esp.
186-265) (also online:
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homoBalchHBTReview2.pdf)
-
“Does the Bible Regard Same-Sex
Intercourse as Intrinsically Sinful?” Christian Sexuality:
Normative and Pastoral Principles (ed. R. E. Saltzman;
Minneapolis: Kirk House, 2003), 106-55.
-
“Are There Universally Valid Sex
Precepts? A Critique of Walter Wink’s Views on the Bible and
Homosexuality,” Horizons in Biblical Theology 24:1 (June 2002):
72-125 (also online:
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homoWinkHBTResp.pdf)
Most recently still,
Dr. Winter can see two extensive online discussions:
Neither Myers/Scanzoni
nor Rogers has even attempted a rebuttal of my critique of their use of
an exploitation argument, let alone mounted an effective rebuttal.
Indeed, in his book Rogers shamelessly tells readers that I “simply
assert, with no supporting evidence,” that Paul and Scripture
generally reject homosexual relationships absolutely (pp. 83-84;
emphasis added). Rogers then proceeds to ignore the arguments, with
their supporting evidence, that I do make, apparently in the hope that
he will have so successfully slandered my work as to leave readers
disinclined to examine my work for themselves.
I have attached below a
summary of some of these arguments (Appendix 2), so that Winter and
others can begin to read my work or at least cease the pretense to
others that a strong, indeed overwhelming, case for Scripture’s
opposition to all homosexual practice has not already been made. A more
honest statement by Winter than saying that I have not “made room” for
the possibility that the Bible was opposing only exploitative homosexual
relationships would have been to say: “Gagnon in his numerous writings
on the subject has developed a comprehensive series of arguments to
buttress the assertion that the Bible’s opposition to homosexual
practice was intended as absolute, that is, inclusive of loving
homosexual relationships. As of yet, no one has effectively rebutted
these arguments.” I have also attached below a brief summary of why I
contend that “homosexual practice is regarded by Scripture as an even
more serious violation of sexual norms than incest,
adultery, plural marriage, and divorce” (Appendix 1).
Hopefully, Dr. Winter
and others will begin to examine such arguments before they assume that
no significant case has been made that the Bible was not indicting
committed homosexual unions.
Why not executing
homosexual offenders doesn’t logically lead to ordaining them
Winter’s next argument
is that since we don’t execute any more persons who engage in homosexual
practice the way may now be clear, in “grace,” to ordain such persons to
the high offices of the church.
Moreover, in neither the Hebrew nor Christian Testaments is there
evidence that homosexuals were ever as stringently punished as the
texts themselves require: “they are to be cut off from the people of
God,” says Leviticus, while St. Paul affirms in Romans that “they
shall not see the kingdom of God.” . . . Having allowed for grace,
therefore, the question of “how much grace” becomes a legitimate
subject for debate. (p. 22)
This is a very weak
argument. We will leave aside the obvious problem with Winter’s
contention that this is no evidence in the New Testament that
“homosexuals” were ever given the punishment prescribed by Paul “in
Romans that ‘they shall not see the kingdom of God.’”
Obviously the phenomenon of failing to inherit the kingdom of God is not
something any of us have yet been given the opportunity to see, much
less implement. A minor detail but another example of carelessness in
citation is that, contrary to Winter, Paul never used the phrase “see
the kingdom”—rather, “inherit the kingdom”—and the latter appears in
connection with homosexual practice in 1 Corinthians, not Romans.
Leviticus 20 groups
sexual sins by severity and places in the category of capital offenses
adultery, the worst forms of incest (sex with one’s mother or child),
male-male intercourse, and bestiality. Now what persons engaged in any
of these acts in an active, unrepentant manner do we now ordain—other
than, perhaps, those engaged in serial, unrepentant homosexual practice?
In the story of Jesus
and the woman caught in adultery Jesus prevents the crowd from imposing
a capital sentence (i.e. stoning). However, he does not act as he does
because the woman’s adulterous acts are of minor consequence. On the
contrary, he tells the woman to stop committing adultery lest something
worse happen to her; namely, exclusion from God’s eternal kingdom (John
8:3-11; compare 8:11 with 5:14). Jesus overrides capital sentencing to
give the woman an opportunity to repent. Obviously Jesus didn’t struggle
with Winter’s self-inflicted conundrum of “how much grace.”
Neither did Paul in the
case of the Christian man who was in a sexual relationship with his
stepmother (1 Corinthians 5). Indeed, Paul demanded “in the name of the
Lord Jesus” that the man be temporarily put of the community until he
came to his senses and repented. He also advocated speedy full
forgiveness and loving restoration of repentant offenders “in order that
we might not be taken advantage of by Satan” (2 Cor 2:5-11). He did not
advocate the capital sentencing mandated in Lev 20. But he was certainly
not in a quandary over whether the man should be installed in a
leadership position while he was still in an active incestuous bond—even
if the bond were a “caring and committed” one.
Winter’s remark about
“how much grace” in connection with overlooking serial unrepentant sin
shows a serious misunderstanding of the scriptural concept of grace.
Paul, no slouch as regards the meaning and application of grace,
understood grace to include freedom through the Spirit from the primary
control of sin operating in the human members (Rom 6:14-7:6; 8:1-14).
Paul construed continuance in the self-dishonoring practice of same-sex
intercourse as a continuance under God’s wrath (Rom 1:18, 24-27;
3:19-20; 6:21, 23a; 7:5; 8:6, 13), not a continuance under grace. On the
contrary: “Sin shall not exercise lordship over you precisely because
you are not under law but under grace” (6:14). By advocating that the
church be an accomplice in the homosexual behavior of its leaders and
members, Winter is consigning them to wrath (albeit unwittingly), not
grace.
God’s answer to Paul’s
thorn-in-the-flesh prayer, “My grace is sufficient for you; my power
will be brought to completion in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9), underscores
this concept of grace as a power that enables us to be obedient in the
difficult circumstances of life.
Why the
distinction between inclination and behavior is not a problem for
ordination
Winter then gets
muddled about “an artificial distinction between inclination and
practice” (p. 22). Although he formally presents the discussion as
points that others debate, the entire drift of his remarks indicates
where his own sympathies lie. In effect, he alleges that, since a
distinction between inclination and behavior is too difficult to make
and would result in “the specter of public interrogation of potential
nominees and candidates for ordained office,” the church should do away
with any standard of restricting the sexual activity of ordained
officers to the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman. He
refers to Jesus’ statement about adultery of the heart as scriptural
confirmation (Matt 5:27-28).
One wonders why Winter
doesn’t follow through this “logic” in order to contend for the
ordination of persons actively engaged in unrepentant adultery, incest,
or consensual polyamorous behavior. Why is it that the PCUSA, to date at
any rate, has no problems distinguishing between inclination and
behavior in such matters? And why is it that the PCUSA has not construed
Jesus’ adultery-of-the-heart saying as allowing the ordination and
retention of officers actively and unrepentantly engaged in adulterous
acts? Why does Winter and the PCUSA not argue that, since the vast
majority of men at some point in their Christian lives have entertained
adulterous thoughts, ordaining bodies should do away with obstacles to
ordaining candidates engaged in actual adulterous affairs? I suspect the
reason is that most sensible people rightly perceive that turning Jesus’
adultery-of-the-heart saying into a license for ordained officers to
engage in unrepentant immoral sexual activity is nothing short of
perverse. It was obviously not Jesus’ intention with this saying to
excuse sexually immoral behavior but rather to stress that God’s demand
also reaches into the interior life.
The relationship
between inclination and behavior is really not difficult to resolve on a
theological level. The mere experience of an impulse to do what God
expressly forbids does not make one an accomplice to the sinful impulse.
Actively entertaining such impulses in one’s conscious thought-life and
behavior does make one morally culpable. While willful thought is not
beyond the jurisdiction of God, willful behavior adds another level of
severity to the offense. There is absolutely no barrier in the PCUSA to
ordaining a person with a homosexual, polysexual, or pedosexual
orientation. The issue is, and has always been, not whatever innate and
intense urges an individual experiences but instead what the individual
does with such urges. Winter’s attempt at throwing up the false scenario
of a candidate being questioned about his “sexual orientation” isolated
from issues of intent and behavior is nothing more than a diversionary
tactic.
In the end, Winter
complains that the church is being asked to do a rigorous ordination
examination. This is an odd complaint. The very PUP Task Force Report
that he supports had been arguing that we don’t make the ordination
examination rigorous enough. Of course, this was always double-speak
since what the PUP Task Force really set out to do was not to make the
examination more rigorous but rather less so by allowing presbyteries to
disregard the implementation of the sexuality standard in G-6.0106b.
Still, it is interesting to see the contradiction surface in Winter’s
article, as elsewhere.
In another instance of
misinformation in Winter’s article, he states in a footnote that:
It should be noted that the parallel Confessing Movement in United
Methodism—allied with Asbury Seminary in Kentucky—has successfully
pursued judicial decisions in that communion, which allow pastors to
exclude homosexual persons from membership in congregations on the
basis of orientation not practice. (p. 22 n. 53; emphasis
added)
Contrary to Winter’s
attempt to scare others through misinformation, the Methodist Church’s
Judicial Council did not address sexuality and church membership.
It ruled only that pastors have discretion about who is ready for church
membership. Moreover, the particular pastor in question was troubled by
a prospective church member’s homosexual practice, not by his
professed orientation.
Faulty use of
analogical reasoning over allegedly single-issue concerns
Winter’s final attempt
at demoting the two-sex prerequisite for sexual bonds (i.e. that God
made us “male and female”) to a nonessential is a flawed attempt at
analogical reasoning. He argues:
Evangelicals might ask, for
example, what of such pressing concerns as abortion, euthanasia,
stem-cell research, cloning, civil rights, prayer in the schools,
gambling and substance abuse, domestic violence, divorce on
non-biblical grounds, and any number of other controverted ethical
issues in the church to-day? Why is an issue that involves a small
segment of the population and probably a much smaller proportion of
Presbyterians, being elevated to such importance and being made the
test of ecclesiastical fellowship in our day? It seems that abortion,
which is a life and death matter to evangelicals, would be of greater
concern than homosexuality. . . . (p. 23)
His reasoning is faulty,
for the following three reasons.
First, he lumps
together offenses that some are promoting in the church and offenses
that no one is promoting in the church. Is
there a lobby in the PCUSA for promoting racial segregation, gambling
and substance abuse, or domestic violence? I haven’t seen it.
But there is a vigorous
lobby for accepting as a “civil rights” issue the validation of
homosexual unions. Indeed, there are several organizations like the
so-called “More Light” Presbyterians and “Covenant” Network whose
primary purpose is to foist on the church acceptance of what Scripture
clearly and unequivocally regards as immorality. So there obviously has
to be a vigorous response. Otherwise, such views will be (and in some
sectors already have been) coercively imposed on the church for the
foreseeable future. It’s like an endangered species. Governments target
some species for special protection because they are in danger of
extinction, not necessarily because they are intrinsically more valuable
(though pandas are cute). Scripture’s strong and unequivocal insistence
on a man-woman prerequisite is just such an “endangered species” in
denominational polity. Accordingly, it deserves the attention it gets.
Second, none of the
other issues he puts forward possesses, from a scriptural standpoint, a
comparable degree of clarity or severity as the matter of homosexual
practice. Prayer in the schools? Where is that
mentioned in Scripture? At any rate dropping an official time for prayer
from the public schools, however wrong the action may or may not be,
doesn’t lead in a straight line to anyone committing an immoral act.
Cloning and stem-cell research obviously are not addressed with the kind
of clarity that Scripture addresses homosexual practice. Similarly,
Scripture’s clarity on the issue of euthanasia does not approach its
clarity on adultery, incest, and same-sex intercourse. (I think of Saul
asking his armor-bearer to thrust his sword into him “so that these
uncircumcised may not come and thrust me through, and make sport of me”
[1 Sam 31:4 NRSV].). Moreover, there is a question of incidence ratio. I
don’t think Dr. Kevorkian should be ordained into ministry while he
continues to practice euthanasia but how many candidates for ordination
in the PCUSA regularly practice euthanasia on patients? It’s basically a
non-issue from that standpoint.
That leaves divorce on
non-biblical grounds and abortion on Winter’s list. Divorce is not a
more serious concern than homosexual practice; it is less so. Jesus
predicated the twoness of the sexual bond on the twoness of the sexes:
“male and female he made them” (citing Gen 1:27). A rule cannot be more
important than the foundation on which it is based. So it is absurd to
argue that any license as regards ordaining divorced persons gives
complete license to ordaining persons in “committed” homosexual unions.
Who would argue that, because the church has loosened somewhat standards
on ordaining divorced persons, we should embrace all candidates no
matter what sexual offenses they commit in an ongoing, self-affirming
way? I hazard to say: almost no one, certainly not Dr. Winter. That is
because we recognize that some sexual offenses are more severe than
divorce. The dissolution of a natural union does not rise to the level
of severity of the active entrance into an inherently unnatural union of
an extreme sort (e.g., incest). Moreover, divorce does not tend toward
high rates of repetitiveness. And when it does, it likely excludes an
individual from ordination. I doubt that a candidate has a hope of being
ordained who comes before an ordaining body in the PCUSA saying: “I’ve
been divorced and remarried seven times and I plan to continue the cycle
with the fewest negative side-effects.” Yet Dr. Winter tells us that a
person should be able to say “I’ve engaged in acts of same-sex
intercourse dozens of times and plan to continue to do so—in a committed
relationship of course—with the fewest negative side-effects” and still
be ordained in the PCUSA. So Winter’s divorce analogy doesn’t work.
Abortion is a similar
matter. What ordained person in the PCUSA has had even half a dozen
abortions and expresses a desire to continue having them at a high rate?
I doubt that there is a single such person in the church. It doesn’t
tend to be a serial offense, certainly not at a high rate. Any past sin
can be forgiven. What is at issue here is the active and repetitive
continuance in sin by ordained officers of the church.
Particularly alarming is
that the subtext for Dr. Winter’s form of analogical reasoning appears
to be: There is something virtuous about being more consistently
disobedient to the will of God, and in more severe and repetitive ways.
I don’t agree that this is a virtue.
Third, Winter’s
argument ignores the fact that he and the PCUSA generally already
single out some ethical issues as more important, or at least deserving
more attention, than others. The PCUSA won’t
even ordain candidates for ministry who do not concur with women’s
ordination. What is that but the singling out of a particular issue? If
this can be singled out, why can’t the issue of homosexual practice? I
haven’t noticed Dr. Winter applying his analogy to this issue. But even
if he did, one could easily point to other behavioral issues over which
he would certainly draw a line in the sand of ordination: virulent
racism, adultery, incest, etc. In fact, there are so many such “single
issues” for all of us that there ceases to be a “single-issue”
phenomenon, whether among evangelicals or anyone else.
If powerful forces in the
denomination were pushing hard for the ordination of persons committing
loving incest or polyamory, adultery, embezzlement, racism, or any other
form of blatant and unrepentant sinful acts, the Confessing or New
Wineskins movements would be justified in highlighting opposition to
these acts and affirmation of the converse in their theological
identity. I would hope that Dr. Winter would do the same. It is a shame
that any group today has to identify itself by its refusal to endorse a
denominationally sanctioned, foundational violation of God’s sexual
standards for leaders of the church. But such is the sad state of
affairs that we now live in.
Conclusion
Dr. Winter argues that
the issue of homosexual practice doesn’t rise to a level of significance
that would justify separation from a denomination that affirms such
behavior. But he has not made any kind of reasonable case to support
this supposition. Indeed, he has ignored all the main arguments for such
a conclusion and produced only poor counterarguments.
Here’s what the whole
issue boils down to: Does Scripture generally or the New
Testament in particular indicate that the offense of same-intercourse
rises at least to the same level of severity as, if not more so
than, adultery, consensual incest of the worst sort, and polyamory?
If it does, then Winter and all other persons who argue for
“tolerance” of homosexual relations must decide whether members of a
denomination should be bound indefinitely to stay if their denomination
decided to promote the ordination of persons actively and unrepentantly
engaged in adultery, incest, and/or polyamory. I don’t know about Dr.
Winter, but I personally do not know anyone who would seriously make an
argument that such a person would be bound to that denomination
indefinitely.
So in order for Winter to
conclude accurately that ecclesiastically sanctioned ordination of
persons who engage in active and unrepentant homosexual behavior does
not justify separation from this or any denomination, he must
demonstrate one or more of the following:
1. Ecclesiastical
“tolerance” of active and unrepentant adultery, man-mother incest, and
faithful polyamorous unions does not justify severing official ties from
said denomination.
2. Scripture
generally or the New Testament specifically does not regard same-sex
intercourse as an offense at least as severe as adultery, the
worst forms of consensual incest, and faithful polyamory.
3. Scripture’s
indictment of homosexual practice was entirely limited to an indictment
of particularly exploitative forms of same-sex intercourse (pederasty,
sex with slaves, sex with prostitutes).
When Dr. Winter develops
the arguments to substantiate one or more of the points above,
responding clearly and convincingly to each of the arguments that I have
raised (see below), then he will have made a credible case. Until he
does, he at best has contributed little of significance to this
discussion and at worst has only added to the unfortunate confusion and
disinformation.
Appendix 1
How
Bad Is Homosexual Practice According to Scripture?
by Prof. Robert A. J.
Gagnon, Ph.D.
It is my contention
that homosexual practice is a more serious violation of
Scripture’s sexual norms than even incest, adultery, plural marriage,
and divorce. (The reader will note that I did not mention
bestiality because the evidence from ancient Israel and early Judaism
suggests that bestiality is a worse offense than same-sex intercourse.)
I. Different
Degrees of Severity as regards Sin
At the outset there
will be some readers who contend that it is both unscriptural and
un-Reformed to argue that any sins are more severe than any other sins.
However, no one really believes such a claim. In fact, most people in
the mainline churches today who want to see some sort of accommodation
made to committed homosexual unions do so because, they rationalize,
even if it is not God’s ideal it is nevertheless “not that bad of a sin”
or at least a lesser evil than, say, promiscuous homosexual behavior.
Proponents of homosexual unions often recoil in horror at the thought of
any comparison with consensual incest or with adultery (to say nothing
of bestiality) precisely because they operate with a notion that some
sexual sins are truly more severe than others.
Whatever concessions
have been made to fornication and divorce in the church, I still see the
mainline churches in the West holding reasonably consistent positions
against sexual unions involving more than two partners and certainly
incestuous unions of a first-order severity (e.g., incest with one’s
parent, full sibling, or child), to say nothing of bestiality, sex with
prostitutes, and sex with prepubescent children. Are we being
unreasonable in giving precedence to some sins over others? Should we
concede these other matters as well and be more consistently disobedient
to the will of Christ? I don’t think so. Failing in some areas does not
justify failing in more foundational matters. The church’s current
practices tacitly acknowledge a different weight given to different
sins.
It is true that any
sin, including sexual sin, can get one excluded from the kingdom of
heaven if merit is the means of entrance. In that specific sense, all
sins are equal. And there are certainly other sins, including sexual
sins, that the apostle Paul indicates create a risk factor for the
exclusion of Christians from the kingdom of God if they persist in such
behavior in a serial, unrepentant way. Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians
5-6 incest, adultery, and sex with prostitutes alongside same-sex
intercourse.
Yet none of this means
that the church should regard all sexual sins, let alone all sins of any
type, as basically of equal import or even that God views all sins as
equally abhorrent. I am confident that few Christians, at least when
hooked up to a lie detector or given truth serum, would assert that God
views the taking home of a company pen as endangering the eternal
destiny of the Christian perpetrator in the same way that, say, raping
and eating children (thinking here of the serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer).
The image is offensive, I grant. In fact, if you, the reader, feel any
offense, this merely confirms my point: you don’t really believe that
all sins are equally heinous, either to God or to us.
In short,
it is not true that all offenses to God are in all senses
equally offensive to God.
For those from the
Reformed tradition it should be noted that such a view is “reformed.”
For example, the Larger Catechism of the Westminster
Confession of Faith (1647) states the obvious: “All transgressions
of the law of God are not equally heinous; but some sins in themselves,
and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of
God than others” (7.260; elaboration in 7.261; cf. the Shorter
Catechism 7.083).
The claim that
Scripture does not support the notion of different weights of sins is
also inaccurate, in my view. To take a few examples:
-
In the Old Testament there is a clear
ranking of sins. For instance, when one goes to Leviticus 20, which
reorders the sexual offenses in Leviticus 18 according to penalty, the
most severe offenses are grouped first, including same-sex
intercourse. Of course, variegated penalties for different sins can be
found throughout the legal material in the Old Testament.
-
Jesus also prioritized offenses,
referring to “weightier matters of the law.” For instance, healing a
sick person on the Sabbath takes precedence over resting.
-
Paul’s attitude toward the case of
incest in 1 Corinthians 5 also makes clear that he differentiated
between various sexual offenses, with some being more extreme than
others. This is clear both from the horror in his tone at the case of
incest but, even more, from the fact that he has to arbitrate between
competing values when he condemns the incest. If there were no ranking
of priorities, how could Paul reject out of hand a case of incest that
was monogamous and committed? If the values of monogamy and commitment
to longevity were of equal weight with a requirement of a certain
degree of familial otherness, Paul could not have decided what to do.
Would commitment to a monogamous, lifelong union cancel out the
prohibition of incest? Obviously, this was not a difficult matter for
Paul to decide. He knew that the incest prohibition was more
foundational.
II. Why Homosexual Practice Is
One of the Most Severe Sexual Sins
Having established the
principle that some offenses are more heavily weighted than others, both
by Scripture and by the church, the question arises: How big a violation
does Scripture view same-sex intercourse? I believe that Scripture
indicates that the only sexual offense more severe is bestiality. Here
are three main reasons why:
-
It is the violation that most
clearly and radically offends against God’s intentional creation of
humans as “male and female” (Gen 1:27) and definition of marriage as a
union between a man and a woman (Gen 2:24).
According to the story in Genesis 2, the
differentiation into man and woman is the sole differentiation
produced by the removal of a “side” (not “rib”) from the original
human. It is precisely because out of one flesh came two sexes that
the two sexes, and only the two sexes, can re-merge into one flesh
(2:24). Since Jesus gave priority to these two texts from the creation
stories in Genesis when he defined normative and prescriptive sexual
ethics for his disciples, they have to be given special attention by
us. Paul also clearly has the creation texts in the background of his
indictment of homosexual practice in Rom 1:24-27 and 1 Cor 6:9.
-
Every text that treats the issue
of homosexual practice in Scripture treats it as an offense of great
abhorrence to God. This is so from (a)
the triad of stories about extreme depravity, Ham, Sodom, and Gibeah (which
incidentally are no more limited in their implications to coercive
acts of same-sex acts than is an indicting story about coercive sex
with one’s parent limited in its implications only to coercive acts of
adult incest), to (b) the Deuteronomic
and Deuteronomistic legal and narrative materials that rail against
the homoerotic associations of the qedeshim as an “abomination”
or “abhorrent practice” (men who in a cultic context served as the
passive receptive sexual partners for other men), to (c) the Levitical
prohibitions (where the term “abomination” or “abhorrent practice” is
specifically attached to man-male intercourse), to (d) texts in
Ezekiel that refer to man-male intercourse by the metonym
“abomination” or “abhorrent act,” to (e)
Paul’s
singling out of homosexual practice in Romans 1:24-27 as a specially
reprehensible instance (along with idolatry) of humans suppressing the
truth accessible in the material creation set in motion by the
Creator, labeling it sexual “uncleanness,” “dishonorable” or
“degrading,” “contrary to nature,” and an “indecent” or “shameful”
act. These views are also amply confirmed
in texts from both early Judaism and early Christianity after the New
Testament period, where only bestiality appears to rank as a greater
sexual offense, at least among “consensual” acts. There is, to be
sure, some disagreement in early Judaism over whether sex with one’s
parent is worse, comparable, or less severe, though most texts suggest
a slightly lesser degree of severity. While Scripture makes some
exceptions, particularly in ancient Israel, for some forms of incest
(though never for man-mother, man-child, man-sibling) and for sexual
unions involving more than two partners (though a monogamy standard
was always imposed on women), it makes absolutely no exceptions for
same-sex intercourse. Indeed, every single text in Scripture that
discusses sex, whether narrative, law, proverb, poetry, moral
exhortation, or metaphor, presupposes a male-female prerequisite.
There are no exceptions anyway in Scripture.
-
The male-female prerequisite is
the foundational prerequisite for defining most other sexual norms.
Jesus himself clearly predicated his view of marital monogamy and
indissolubility on the foundation of Gen 1:27 and 2:24, texts that
have only one thing in common: the fact that an acceptable sexual bond
before God entails as its first prerequisite (after the assumption of
an intra-human bond) a man and a woman (Mark 10:6-9; Matt 19:4-6).
Jesus argued that the “twoness” of the sexes ordained by God at
creation was the foundation for limiting the number of persons in a
sexual bond to two, whether concurrently (as in polygamy) or serially
(as in repetitive divorce and remarriage). The foundation can hardly
be less significant than the regulation predicated on it; indeed, it
must be the reverse. Moreover, the dissolution of an otherwise natural
union is not more severe than the active entrance into an inherently
unnatural union (active entrance into an incestuous bond would be a
parallel case in point). The principle by which same-sex intercourse
is rejected is also the principle by which incest, even of an adult
and consensual sort, is rejected. Incest is wrong because, as Lev 18:6
states, it involves sexual intercourse with “the flesh of one’s own
flesh.” In other words, it involves the attempted merger with someone
who is already too much of a formal or structural same on a familial
level. The degree of formal or structural sameness is felt even more
keenly in the case of homosexual practice, only now on the level of
sex or gender, because sex or gender is a more integral component of
sexual relations, and more foundationally defines it, than is and does
the degree of blood relatedness. So the prohibition of incest can be,
and probably was, analogically derived from the more foundational
prohibition of same-sex intercourse. Certainly, as noted above, there
was more accommodation to some forms of incest in the Old Testament
than ever there was to homosexual practice. Adultery becomes an
applicable offense only when the sexual bond that the offender is
cheating on is a valid sexual bond. Needless to say, it would be
absurd to charge a man in an incestuous union or in a pedophilic union
with adultery for having sexual relations with a person outside that
pair-bond. One can’t cheat against a union that was immoral from the
beginning.
My purpose in
evaluating, from Scripture’s perspective, the severity of engaging in
same-sex intercourse is not to exhort believers to hate those who engage
in homosexual behavior but rather to inform love with knowledge of the
truth. Many Christians have attempted to respond in love towards persons
who act on homosexual urges, including ordained officers, by either
“tolerating” the behavior or, worse, affirming it. If, however, same-sex
intercourse is a high offense in the sexual realm toward God, then there
can be no question of ordaining persons participating in such acts in a
serial, unrepentant manner. To do such would only confirm the sin, leave
the individual exposed to the wrath of God, and risk that one’s
exclusion from an eternal relationship with God—not to mention produce
deleterious effects on the community of believers (see 1 Cor 5:6-7: a
little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough).
It is also important to
determine the relative severity of an offense because of polity
decisions. Churches do not treat all sexual offenses as equal when it
comes to decisions of ordination (and sometimes even membership) but
rather make distinctions on the basis of the severity of the offense,
its repetitive character, and whether the offender has expressed
repentance. Churches will ordain persons who have and occasionally
entertain lustful thoughts, though I’m not sure one will find many
churches ordaining persons who affirm and promote such thoughts. They
will ordain persons who have been divorced and remarried, though I know
of none who will ordain persons who have had five or more divorces and
remarriages and plan to continue the cycle. Some churches may even
ordain heterosexual persons in a committed sexual bond outside of
marriage. However, few if any churches will ordain—at least not as of
today—persons who are in committed sexual bonds involving close blood
relations, more than two persons concurrently, or an adult and an
adolescent or child. Few if any will ordain persons who are actively
engaged in adulterous behavior. So knowing the severity of the sexual
offense is an important factor in deciding what ordination decisions
should be taken when violations are committed—and not only committed but
committed repeatedly and, worse of all, unrepentantly.
In fact, the more
severe the sexual offense, the more acute becomes the question of
whether churches and individuals should stay in a denomination that
tolerates or perhaps even promotes such offenses among its ordained
officers. For I know of few, if any, reasonable persons who would stay
in a church that tolerated or promoted repetitive and unrepentant
incest, adultery, or polyamory among its ordained officers. If same-sex
intercourse is treated by Scripture as equally severe or worse than
these sexual offenses, then serious issues about denominational unity
are posed by a denomination’s toleration or affirmation of homosexual
practice among its ordained officers.
Appendix 2
Does Scripture’s Indictment of Homosexual Practice Apply to Committed
Homosexual Unions?
by Prof. Robert A. J.
Gagnon, Ph.D.
Many claim that the
Bible is opposed only to particularly exploitative forms of homosexual
practice; specifically, those involving an adult and adolescent
(pederasty), coercive sex with a slave, or solicitation of prostitutes.
However, this claim is generally made in ignorance of the arguments that
suggest Scripture’s absolute (i.e. exception-less) opposition to
homosexual practice. Because the arguments for this latter position are
so numerous and involve many texts, I here restrict my remarks to the
witness of Paul. This witness is not unique among the authors of
Scripture; indeed, it is representative of the whole, including the
figure of Jesus. Yet Paul makes a good test case because he says the
most about the issue and provides us, among New Testament-era figures,
with the broadest array of contextual information for assessing his
views.
The discussion below
has two parts: six synthesized arguments for why Paul’s rejection of
homosexual practice was total, followed by a citation of some scholars
who, though supportive of homosexual unions, acknowledge that Paul’s
indictment is not limited to particularly exploitative instances of
same-sex intercourse.
I. Why Paul’s
Indictment of Same-Sex Intercourse Included “Committed” Unions
Below I offer six
arguments for concluding that Paul’s opposition to same-sex intercourse
was absolute and not limited only to particularly exploitative forms of
homosexual practice. Readers can consult my two books as well as online
material for further documentation. Naturally, if I had opened the scope
of the investigation below to the whole range of scriptures that address
the issue of homosexual practice, the length of my presentation would
have increased significantly.
(1)
Paul clearly had in view the creation
texts in Gen 1:27 and 2:24 behind his
two main indictments of homosexual practice, Romans 1:24-27 and 1
Corinthians 6:9 (cf. 1 Timothy 1:10). There are eight points of
correspondence, in a similar relative order, between Romans 1:23, 26-27
and Genesis 1:26-27: human, image, likeness; birds, cattle,
reptiles; male, female. This intertextual echo back to
Genesis 1:26-27 occurs within a context in Romans that emphasizes God’s
role as Creator and the knowledge about God and about ourselves that can
be culled from observation of the material structures of
creation/nature. Similarly, 1 Corinthians 6:9, in a context in chs. 5-7
that deals with sexual vices, is in close proximity to Paul’s citation
of Gen 2:24. These allusions to Gen 1:27 and 2:24 indicate that Paul’s
first problem with homosexual practice was that it was a violation of
God’s will for male-female pairing established in creation, not that it
was typically exploitative. Incidentally, Paul uses the same two texts
that Jesus himself defined as normative and prescriptive (with
proscriptive implications) for all matters of human sexual ethics (cf.
Mark 10:6-9; Matt 19:4-6). So the two most important texts in Scripture
for defining sexual ethics, at least in the view of Jesus—Genesis 1:27
and 2:24—were at the heart of Paul’s rejection of all forms of
male-male and female-female intercourse.
(2)
Paul’s nature argument against
homosexual practice in Romans 1:24-27
does not lend itself to distinctions between exploitative and
non-exploitative manifestations of homosexual behavior but rather to an
absolute rejection of all homosexual bonds. By “against nature” Paul
meant that the evidence from the material structures of creation—here
the complementary embodied character of maleness and femaleness—gives
clear evidence of God’s will for human sexual pairing. Some have argued
that this could not have been what Paul intended by his nature argument,
despite Paul’s clear statement in Rom 1:19-20 that such matters are
“transparent” and have been so “ever since the creation of the world . .
. being mentally apprehended by means of the things made.” Yet the
historical context also confirms this way of reading Paul, whose views
on the matter were no different from Jesus’. “Basic to the heterosexual
position [against homosexual practice in the ancient world] is the
characteristic Stoic appeal to the providence of Nature, which has
matched and fitted the sexes to each other” (Thomas K. Hubbard,
Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents
[University of California Press, 2003], 444). “Some kind of argument
from ‘design’ seems to lurk in the background of Cicero’s, Seneca’s, and
Musonius’ claims [against homosexual practice]” (Craig A. Williams,
Roman Homosexuality [Oxford University Press, 1999], 242). Ancient
writers “who appeal to nature against same-sex eros find it
convenient to concentrate on the more or less obvious uses of the
orifices of the body to suggest the proper channel for the more diffused
sexual impulses of the body” (William R. Schoedel, “Same-Sex Eros,”
Homosexuality, Science, and the “Plain Sense” of Scripture [ed. D.
Balch; Eerdmans, 2000], 46). Part of Charicles’ attack on all homosexual
practice in pseudo-Lucianic text Affairs of the Heart, a work
which contains a debate about the respective merits of heterosexual love
and male homosexual love, is the assertion that male-male love is an
erotic attraction for what one already is as a sexual being:
She (viz., Aphrodite) cleverly devised a twofold nature in each
(species). . . . having written down a divinely sanctioned rule of
necessity, that each of the two (genders) remain in their own nature.
. . . Then wantonness, daring all, transgressed the laws of nature. .
. . And who then first looked with the eyes at the male as at a female
. . . ? One nature came together in one bed. But seeing themselves
in one another they were ashamed neither of what they were doing
nor of what they were having done to them. (19-20; my emphasis)
(3)
In Rom 1:24-27 Paul emphasizes the
mutuality of the homoerotic desires
(“inflamed with their yearning for one another,”
“their bodies being dishonored among themselves”) so he is clearly not
restricting his remarks to coercive, exploitative acts. Moreover,
the wording of “exchanging” and “leaving behind” the other sex for the
same sex is absolute and clearly inclusive of all same-sex
sexual relations.
(4)
The indictment of lesbian intercourse
in Rom 1:26 does not support the view
that Scripture’s indictment is limited to exploitative homosexual acts,
since lesbianism in antiquity was not generally characterized by
pederasty, prostitution, or abuse of slaves. Indeed, Greco-Roman
moralists in antiquity who argued against homosexual practice sometimes
cited intercourse between women as a trump card against arguments for
men-male sexual bonds
(see, for example, pseudo-Lucian, Affairs of the Heart,
28). For consistency’s sake, advocacy of
male homosexual bonds necessarily entails acceptance of female
homosexual bonds, something few if any men in antiquity were willing to
accept. It is a way of making an absolute argument against all
homosexual bonds, not merely against particularly exploitative ones.
(5)
The terms
malakoi (lit., “soft men,” but taken in the
sense of men who feminize themselves to attract male sex partners)
and arsenokoitai (literally, “men who lie with
[koite] a male [arsen]”) in 1 Cor 6:9 are clearly inclusive of all
homosexual bonds, as is evident from the following. With
regard to malakoi note: (a) its place in a vice list amidst
other participants in illicit sexual intercourse, (b) its pairing with
the immediately following arsenokoitai, (c) Philo of Alexandria’s
(a first-century Jew’s) use of cognate words to refer to the effeminate
male partner in a homosexual bond, and (d) occasional Greco-Roman usage
of malakoi (and the comparable Latin molles) to denote
effeminate adult males who are biologically and/or psychologically
disposed to desire penetration by men. With regard to arsenokoitai
note: (a) clear connections of this word to the absolute
Levitical prohibitions of man-male intercourse (18:22; 20:13), evident
from the fact that the word, exclusively used in Jewish and Christian
contexts until late in antiquity, was formulated directly from the
Levitical prohibitions, that ancient rabbis used a parallel Hebrew term,
mishkav zakur (“lying with a male”),
to apply to all men-male sexual bonds, and that 1 Tim
1:10 explicitly connects opposition to this vice (among other vices) to
the law of Moses; (b) early Judaism’s univocal interpretation of the
Levitical prohibitions against men-male intercourse as allowing only
sexual relations between a man and a woman (e.g., Josephus, Philo,
the rabbis); (c) the singular use of arsenokoites and related
words subsequent to Paul in connection with male-male intercourse per
se, without limitation to pederasts or clients of cult prostitutes; (d)
the implications of the context of 1 Corinthians 5-7, given the parallel
case of adult, consensual incest in ch. 5, the assumption of consent in
the vice list in 6:9-10, the citation of Gen 2:24 in 1 Cor 6:16 (see
also 11:7-9, 12), and the presumption everywhere in ch. 7 that sex is
confined to male-female marriage; and (e) the fact that the Greco-Roman
milieu considered it worse for a man to have sex with another
adult male than with a boy because the former had left behind his
“softness.”
(6)
A conception of caring homoerotic
unions already existed in Paul’s cultural environment and yet even these
unions were rejected by some Greco-Roman moralists.
For example, in a
late
first-century / early second-century (A.D.)
debate over heterosexual and homosexual bonds,
Plutarch’s friend Daphnaeus admits that homosexual relationships are not
necessarily exploitative, for “union contrary to nature does not destroy
or curtail a lover’s tenderness.” Yet, he declares, even when a “union
with males” is conducted “willingly” it remains “shameful” since males
“with softness (malakia) and effeminacy (thelutes) [are]
surrendering themselves, as Plato says, ‘to be mounted in the custom of
four-footed animals’
and to be sowed with seed contrary to nature” (Dialogue on Love
751). Even in the non-Jewish milieu of the Mediterranean basin,
“literature of the first century C.E. bears witness to an increasing
polarization of attitudes toward homosexual activity, ranging from frank
acknowledgment and public display of sexual indulgence on the part of
leading Roman citizens to severe moral condemnation of all
homosexual acts” (Hubbard, Homosexuality in Greece and Rome, 383,
emphasis added). If even some sectors of the “pagan” world were
beginning to develop absolute opposition to all forms of homosexual
practice, what is the likelihood that Paul would have made exceptions
for committed homosexual unions, given that he operated out of Jewish
Scriptures and a Jewish milieu that were unequivocally opposed to
homosexual practice, and given too that he was a disciple of a figure
(Jesus) who predicated his views about human sexuality on the exclusive
male-female model in the creation texts?
Historically
speaking, then, the evidence is overwhelming that Paul, like all other
Jews and Christians of the period, opposed homosexual practice
categorically and absolutely.
II. Scholars
Supporting Homosexual Unions Admit Paul’s Absolute Rejection
The best of the
scholarly proponents of homosexual practice recognize the point made
above. Note that I do not cite such
support for my own sake. I have researched the matter of Scripture and
homosexual practice in its historical and hermeneutical context as much
or more than the scholars below have. Rather I cite these scholars for
the sake of those who can’t hear truth from the writings of someone who
does not endorse homosexual practice but may hear it from those who do
endorse such behavior.
For example, Louis
Crompton in the massive Homosexuality and Civilization
(Harvard University Press, 2003) has written:
According to [one] interpretation, Paul’s words were not directed at
“bona fide” homosexuals in committed relationships. But such a
reading, however well-intentioned, seems strained and unhistorical.
Nowhere does Paul or any other Jewish writer of this period imply the
least acceptance of same-sex relations under any circumstance. The
idea that homosexuals might be redeemed by mutual devotion would have
been wholly foreign to Paul or any other Jew or early Christian. (p.
114)
Similarly,
Bernadette Brooten, who has written the most important book on
lesbianism in antiquity and its relation to early Christianity
(especially Rom 1:26), at least from a pro-homosex perspective,
criticized both John Boswell and Robin Scroggs for their use of an
exploitation argument:
Boswell . . . argued that . . . “The early Christian church does not
appear to have opposed homosexual behavior per se.” The sources on
female homoeroticism that I present in this book run absolutely
counter to [this conclusion]. (p. 11)
If . . . the dehumanizing aspects of pederasty motivated Paul to
condemn sexual relations between males, then why did he condemn
relations between females in the same sentence? . . . Rom 1:27, like
Lev 18:22 and 20:13, condemns all males in male-male relationships
regardless of age, making it unlikely that lack of mutuality or
concern for the passive boy were Paul’s central concerns. . . . The
ancient sources, which rarely speak of sexual relations between women
and girls, undermine Robin Scroggs’s theory that Paul opposed
homosexuality as pederasty. (Love
between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism
[Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996], 253 n. 106, 257,
361)
She also criticized the
use of an orientation argument:
Paul could have believed that tribades [the active female
partners in a female homosexual bond], the ancient kinaidoi
[the passive male partners in a male homosexual bond], and other
sexually unorthodox persons were born that way and yet still condemn
them as unnatural and shameful. . . . I believe that Paul used the
word “exchanged” to indicate that people knew the natural sexual order
of the universe and left it behind. . . . I see Paul as condemning all
forms of homoeroticism as the unnatural acts of people who had turned
away from God.(p. 244)
On the issue of
homosexual orientation, incidentally, which many today still falsely
claim to be radically new knowledge, note the following quotation from
Thomas K. Hubbard:
Homosexuality in this era [viz., of the early imperial age of Rome]
may have ceased to be merely another practice of personal pleasure and
began to be viewed as an essential and central category of personal
identity, exclusive of and antithetical to heterosexual orientation. (Homosexuality
in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook, 386)
William Schoedel
in a significant article on “Same-Sex Eros: Paul and the Greco-Roman
Tradition” states that “some support” exists in Philo, Abraham
135 for thinking that Paul might be speaking in Rom 1:26-27 “only of
same-sex acts performed by those who are by nature heterosexual.” But he
then dismisses the suggestion:
Schoedel also
acknowledges that a “conception of a psychological disorder socially
engendered or reinforced and genetically transmitted may be
presupposed” for Philo (p. 56 [emphasis added]; see also my short review
and critique of Schoedel in The Bible and Homosexual Practice,
392-94).
Martti Nissinen,
who has written the best book on the Bible and homosexuality from a
pro-homosex perspective and whose work I heavily critique in The
Bible and Homosexual Practice (precisely because it is the best on
the other side), acknowledges in one of his more candid moments:
Paul does not mention tribades or kinaidoi, that is,
female and male persons who were habitually involved in homoerotic
relationships, but if he knew about them (and there is every reason to
believe that he did), it is difficult to think that, because of their
apparent ‘orientation,’ he would not have included them in
Romans 1:24-27. . . . For him, there is no individual inversion or
inclination that would make this conduct less culpable. . . .
Presumably nothing would have made Paul approve homoerotic behavior. (Homoeroticism
in the Biblical World [Fortress, 1998], 109-12)
Dan O. Via
also acknowledges in his response to my essay in
Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views (Fortress, 2003) that the
Bible’s rule against homosexual practice is “an absolute prohibition”
that condemns homosexual practice “unconditionally” and “absolute[ly]”
(pp. 93-95). In his essay in Two Views he rightly notes:
The Pauline texts . . . do not support this limitation of male
homosexuality to pederasty. Moreover, some Greek sources suggest
that—at least in principle—a relationship should not be begun until
the boy is almost grown and should be lifelong. . . . I believe that
Hays is correct in holding that arsenokoites [in 1 Cor 6:9]
refers to a man who engages in same-sex intercourse. . . . True the
meaning of a compound word does not necessarily add up to the sum of
its parts (Martin 119). But in this case I believe the evidence
suggests that it does. . . . First Cor[inthians] 6:9-10 simply
classifies homosexuality as a moral sin that finally keeps one out of
the kingdom of God. (pp. 11, 13)
Even Walter Wink, in his generally mean-spirited
review of my book The Bible and Homosexual Practice, had to
admit:
Gagnon exegetes every biblical text even remotely relevant to the
theme [of homosexual practice]. This section is filled with exegetical
insights. I have long insisted that the issue is one of hermeneutics,
and that efforts to twist the text to mean what it clearly does not
say are deplorable. Simply put, the Bible is negative toward same-sex
behavior, and there is no getting around it. . . . Gagnon imagines a
request from the Corinthians to Paul for advice, based on 1
Corinthians 5:1-5 [on how to respond to a man in a loving and
committed union with another man]. “. . . . When you mentioned that
arsenokoitai would be excluded from the coming kingdom of God, you
were not including somebody like this man, were you?” . . . No, Paul
wouldn’t accept that relationship for a minute. (“To Hell with Gays?”
Christian Century 119:13 [June 5-12, 2002]: 32-33;
at
http://www.robgagnon.net/Reviews/homoWinkExchanges.pdf, fuller
responses at
http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/gagnon3.pdf and at
http://www.robgagnon.net/Reviews/homoWinkRejoinder.pdf)
In short, the
notion that Paul—or, for that matter, any
other author of Scripture or Jesus himself—would
have been favorably disposed to same-sex intercourse in the context of a
committed union shows a great misunderstanding of the texts of Scripture
in their historical context.
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.