Robert Gagnon
to Stacy Johnson: Two Positions on Homosexual Practice, Not Six
(With
Postscript)
by Robert A. J. Gagnon
Posted in
The Presbyterian Layman Online,
Aug. 6, 2004,
with postscript on Aug. 10.
For
a version with sidebar comments (in pdf) go
here.
Sidebar comments in the pdf
version are put in boldface in this html version.
John Adams of The Layman
Online (Aug. 4),
Leslie Scanlon of The
Presbyterian Outlook (Aug. 5), and
Jerry L. Van Marter of the
Presbyterian News Service (Aug. 6) have all written long accounts of Prof. Stacy
Johnson’s presentation of six views on homosexuality to the Theological
Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity (Aug. 4). Johnson, professor of theology at
Princeton Theological Seminary, posits six basic positions in the PCUSA on
homosexuality: (1) the “prohibitionist” or “categorical prohibition”
position; (2) the “Definitive Guidance” or “welcoming but not affirming”
position; (3) the “justice issue” position; (4) the “pastoral issue”
position; (5) the “celebrationist” or “welcome, affirm, and celebrate”
position; and (6) the “consecrationalist” or “welcome, affirm, and
consecrate” position.
All three write-ups are in basic
agreement of the substance of Johnson’s remarks. Assuming, then, the basic
accuracy of the combined reports, Johnson’s presentation cannot be
judged a fair representation of the issue. Both the categories and the
descriptions, certainly of the first two categories, are skewed. Moreover,
though Johnson was allegedly engaged in a purely descriptive task, his
biases and personal assessments come through clearly at a number of
points.
The scriptural
position as middle ground
The first and most problematic
dimension of Johnson’s analysis is to delineate six distinct point of
views, in which only two, operating on a far end of the Johnson’s
spectrum, represent anything resembling the scriptural position.
The impression left by such an
analysis is that the scriptural position is an extreme view,
corresponding to the “celebrationist” view on the other end. Another false
impression is that four positions favoring ordination of
“self-affirming, practicing homosexual persons”—the language of the 1978
Definitive Guidance—constitute some sort of numerical superiority within
the PCUSA. Indeed, Johnson tells us that the so-called “prohibitionists,”
whose relationship to the “Definitive Guidance” view Johnson confuses,
encompasses only 5 (or 5-10) percent of the church. How Johnson knows this
is a mystery. In reality, survey after survey of the Presbyterian Panel,
and vote after vote of the presbyteries, has repeatedly shown that
two-thirds of the PCUSA membership supports the chastity amendment against
homosexual practice.
The truth is that there are only
two positions of any consequence on the issue of homosexual practice: (1)
the scriptural position and (2) anti-scriptural positions
that deviate from Scripture in varying degrees of severity by favoring
the ordination of self-affirming, practicing homosexual persons.
Everything else is sociological muddle.
Johnson claims that the biblical
passages that speak to homosexual practice “by themselves are
inconclusive.” He might as well argue that the biblical passages that
speak to promiscuity, infidelity, incest, adultery, and bestiality “by
themselves are inconclusive.” The biblical witness against homosexual
practice is as conclusive as conclusive can be. Of course, one must still
evaluate counterarguments that attempt to discount the overwhelming
witness of Scripture, as I have done at length in my own work. But to
pretend that the witness of Scripture on homosexual practice is something
other than overwhelming, or even limited to a few isolated texts, is
ridiculous.
Since people tend to gravitate toward
what is presented as a “middle” position, Johnson’s sixfold division
implicitly invites hearers to locate themselves in one of two “middle”
(read: moderate) positions: Johnson’s so-called “justice issue” or
“pastoral-care issue” positions (or, possibly, his “consecrationist”
position, which alone of the six positions was presented outside of a
sequence from greatest opposition to greatest approval). From what I know
of Johnson’s own position, Johnson conveniently locates himself in one of
these “moderate” positions.
In delineating six different groups
Johnson has to consider as unique to one group characteristics that
actually straddle two or more groups. There is not a dime’s worth of
difference between his “celebrationists” and “consecrationalists,” since
few “celebrationists” in the PCUSA argue for the “anything goes”
philosophy that Johnson attributes to them. Nor is there any material
difference in the pragmatic response to homosexual practice by Johnson’s
“justice issue” and “pastoral issue” positions. Indeed, all four of these
positions arrive at the same basic view that the church should bless
committed homosexual unions and be willing to ordain persons in committed
homosexual unions.
“Categorical
prohibition” is “welcoming but not affirming”
Moreover, two of the key features
that Johnson claims to be dividing elements between the
“categorical-prohibition” position and the “welcoming-but-not-affirming”
position actually straddle both positions: the complementarity argument
and a recognition of “sexual orientation.”
The complementarity argument.
Johnson states that a complementarity argument defines the former but not
the latter, which he identifies with the
1978 Definitive Guidance on Homosexuality
(more precisely, as
Jim Berkley notes in his Aug.
6 blog, the Authoritative Interpretation). But the 1978 Definitive
Guidance, while not using the explicit language of complementarity,
clearly embraces the concept, stating: “God created us male and female
to display in clear diversity and balance the range of qualities in God’s
own nature. . . . Nature confirms revelation in the functional
compatibility of male and female genitalia and the natural process of
procreation and family continuity.”
It is fairly obvious that the
creation stories in Gen 1:26-27 and 2:21-24 illustrate the point that men
and women are complementary halves of a single sexual whole. Only a
determined effort to reject the biblical witness can ignore this. That is
why the intertextual echoes and citations in Paul’s critiques of
homosexual practice in Romans 1:24-27 and 1 Corinthians 6:9 point to the
creation texts. Jesus, too, clearly embraced the biblical witness that
only a sexual union of a man and woman, male and female, could reestablish
in this life the integrated, “one-flesh” sexual whole that existed prior
to the splitting.
There is also on Johnson’s part a
distortion of the so-called “body parts” argument. Johnson argues
confusedly that a “focus on body parts for the sake of body parts” would
not rule out rape, incest, or promiscuity. But who is focusing only on
body parts? I have stated over and over again, in numerous writings, that
the obvious compatibility of male and female genitals is both part of
and emblematic of the broad complementarity of essential maleness and
essential femaleness that is so well illustrated by both the copulative
act and the story of the splitting off of woman from a sexually
binary, primal human in Gen 2:21-24. And who is arguing that sexual
complementarity is the only prerequisite for acceptable sexual behavior?
Obviously Scripture views other-sex sexuality as a necessary but
insufficient condition for an acceptable sexual union. But “insufficient”
does not make the “necessary” any less necessary.
Another criticism that Johnson levels
against the complementarity position is that the purposes of marriage as
outlined in the Bible, in Johnson’s view, are limited to procreation, the
prevention of promiscuity, and mutual companionship. And procreation
doesn’t count for Johnson because we do not condemn childless unions. The
problem with Johnson’s view of the biblical purposes of marriage is that
it leaves out the most important purpose of all: to reunite the
complementary halves or sexual “counterparts,” male and female, into an
integrated sexual whole.
I treat at the end of this article
Johnson’s contention that the Bible does not define the image of God in
terms of sexual complementarity.
Sexual orientation. Johnson
also states that the Definitive Guidance, in “embracing the category of
sexual orientation,” has in effect “made a decision to exit the worldview
of the biblical writers who focused on sex acts.” This is false.
The Definitive Guidance subordinates
“sexual orientation” to the biblical prohibition of homosexual acts. It
expresses full agreement with the New Testament witness that “all
homosexual practice is incompatible with Christian faith and life.” It
calls every act of homosexual intercourse “sin” and a “failing to be
obedient,” irrespective of a person’s claim to homosexual orientation. So
when Johnson claims that the Definitive Guidance condemns homosexual acts
as a “tragedy” rather than a “perversion,” he puts forward a false
dichotomy. The Definitive Guidance characterizes homosexual acts as both a
tragedy and a perversion, or deviation, from the biblical norm.
When Johnson talks about “exiting the
worldview of the biblical writers,” Johnson also shows no awareness of
Greco-Roman theories that both posited something akin to sexual
orientation behind at least some forms of homosexual practice and still
classified such practice as “against nature.” Paul’s reference to the
“soft men” in 1 Corinthians 6:9 indicates his knowledge of men with a
lifelong attraction toward other males. Johnson also ignores, or does
not understand, the implications of Paul’s view of sin, which assumes
innate and congenital dimensions.
“Orientation” to a certain form of
sinful behavior does not validate the behavior in question. If it did,
multiple-partner sexuality would have to be validated, to say nothing of
some forms of pedophilia. Not a single biblical moral imperative is
predicated on the assumption that believers first lose all innate desires
to violate the imperative in question before they are required to adhere
to the imperative. The Holy Spirit empowers obedience even when sinful
impulses of the flesh urge contrary behavior.
Johnson’s comments on “sexual
orientation” exhibit the same love affair with the term that proponents of
homosexual practice generally exhibit. A sexual “orientation” is simply
the directedness of sexual desire at any extended period of an
individual’s life. Some orientations are negative, some positive, and some
neutral. The identity of the object of desire, not the orientation itself,
plays a pivotal role in determining the morality of that orientation.
Johnson claims that, in contrast to
the “prohibitionist” position that allegedly requires homosexual persons
to repent “both of the deed and of the homosexual desire,” the Definitive
Guidance tells homosexual persons “not to be ashamed of their desires, but
not to act on them,” “welcoming homosexual identity, but non-affirming of
what that identity really means.” This is inaccurate. The Definitive
Guidance states: “Even where the homosexual orientation has not been
consciously sought or chosen, it is neither a gift from God nor a state
nor a condition like race; it is a result of our living in a fallen
world.” The desire to have sex with a person of the same sex is sinful
desire, just as desire to have sex with one’s immediate blood relations or
with multiple persons or with another person’s spouse or with children is
sinful. But obviously a person is not held culpable for, and does not
have to repent of, merely the experience of sinful desire.
Culpability occurs when one actively entertains and nurtures sinful
desires, not only in deed but also in thought. To restrict culpable sin
only to an actual act, excluding completely the domain of one’s
thought life, is to engage in the kind of legalism that Jesus expressly
rejected in his adultery-of-the-heart saying (Matthew 5:27-28).
According to
the articles by Van Marter (see chart at the end), Scanlon, and now
Adams’s Aug. 6 posting (“Task
force members comment on views about homosexuality”),
Johnson summarized “reconciliation” for the “prohibitionist” position as
“Repent of being gay” and “reconciliation” for the “Definitive Guidance”
position as “Repent of gay behavior.” If this accurately represents
Johnson’s views, it is an absurd characterization of the so-called
“prohibitionist” view. Nobody in the PCUSA is advocating that
persons repent merely for experiencing unwanted sexual desires.
A number of Task Force members have
shown themselves in the past to be tone deaf to nuanced arguments about
sexual orientation. When reviewing the position that I put forth in an
article for
Theology Matters (available
also at
my website),
Prof. Mark Achtemeier of
Dubuque Seminary claimed that I made “homosexual orientation . . .
essentially a voluntary sort of condition.” He said this in spite of the
fact that I was quite clear in my article that “I do not contend that
self-identified homosexuals can be easily rid of homoerotic desires” but
that change can at least include “a reduction or elimination of homosexual
behavior” and usually “a reduction in the intensity and frequency of
homosexual impulses” even when it does not include development of
heterosexual functioning or eradication of all homoerotic impulses.
Moreover, societal sanctions and family and peer influences can affect the
rate of incidence for homosexuality in a population. Nowhere do I state
that in all or even most circumstances one can simply “choose” to
eradicate every vestige of homosexual desire, with or without the Spirit’s
help. But neither is homosexuality genetic and immutable in the way that
one would define race or sex as genetic and immutable. Obviously it is
closer to alcoholism and pedophilia in terms of its origination and
malleability than it is to race and sex. But this nuanced view translates
for some members of the Task Force as: “Gagnon thinks homosexuality is a
voluntary condition.”
In short, both the
“categorical-prohibition” position and “welcoming-but-not-affirming”
position prohibit homosexual conduct categorically and elevate the act
over the orientation.
Peripheral
concerns about the 1978 Definitive Guidance
The 1978 Definitive Guidance is not
perfect but it is a lot closer to the truth of Scripture than the “four”
positions seeking its repeal.
“Homophobia.” One can
debate whether in railing against the sin of “homophobia” the Definitive
Guidance has sufficiently distinguished between, on the one hand, being
repulsed by homosexual practice and fearing the consequences of its
approval (which Scripture clearly affirms) and, on the other hand, acting
hatefully toward persons who engage in self- and other-degrading behavior
(which Scripture rejects). Persons should be repulsed by the
thought of being erotically attracted to what they already are as sexual
beings, just as it is healthy and right to be repulsed by the thought of
having sex with one’s parents or siblings (another instance of sex with a
same). But I do not know anyone in the PCUSA who advocates as a
theological position that the church should hate homosexual
persons—certainly not the “categorical prohibition” position delineated by
Johnson. The “love the sinner, hate the sin” approach is quite scriptural
and held by both “categorical prohibition” and “welcoming but not
affirming.”
The Definitive Guidance would have
done better to leave out entirely the term “homophobia” and instead
concentrate on exhorting persons not to hate the sinner. The term
“homophobia” is as confusing, misleading, and unworkable as
“incest-phobia” or “polyphobia” (fear of multiple-partner sexuality).
Nevertheless, in the end, the Definitive Guidance rightly restricts the
term to “contempt, hatred, and fear” of “homosexual persons,” while
implying the repulsive quality of homosexual acts.
“Civil Rights.” In
hindsight the 1978 Definitive Guidance was incredibly naïve in thinking
that it could support “civil rights” legislation that would enshrine
“sexual orientation” as a protected category like race or sex but
preclude such legislation from ever affecting “the church’s employment
policies,” or revising society’s definition of marriage, or promoting
homosexuality in the secular workplace while discriminating against
persons averse to such promotion. Eventually such legislation will put
extraordinary pressure on the church to promote homosexual practice by,
among other things, threatening seminaries with loss of federal loans or
academic accreditation if they do not actively recruit homosexual persons
in influential administrative and teaching positions; denying tax-exempt
status to churches that do not perform homosexual weddings; and ultimately
holding even preachers liable to prosecution for “hate speech” if they
preach from Romans 1 or other biblical texts against homosexual practice.
These alarming consequences may not have been clear back in 1978 but,
given the developments in Scandinavia and Canada over the past decade or
so, they should now be self-evident.
Don’t ask, don’t tell?
Johnson calls the Definitive Guidance position a “don’t ask, don’t tell”
policy. It is true that the Definitive Guidance instructs candidates
committees, etc., not “to make a specific inquiry into the sexual
orientation or practice of candidates for ordained office or ordained
officers where the person involved has not taken the initiative in
declaring his or her sexual orientation,” because to do so would
ostensibly be “a hindrance to God’s grace.” This is a dumb policy that
contradicts the Definitive Guidance’s own acknowledgement that “no phrase
within the Book of Order can be construed as an explicit mandate to
disregard sexual practice when evaluating candidates for ordination.” Take
any other area of sexual immorality as an example. If a candidates
committee had good reason to believe that the candidate was currently
involved in an adulterous affair, that committee cannot ask any questions
unless the candidate first volunteers the information regarding the
affair? That is absurd and does no favor to the candidate or to the
church.
Even so, as
Jim Berkley has pointed out in
his Aug. 6 blog, the Definitive Guidance does not commend to
candidates that they keep secret any homosexual behavior that they are
engaged in, any more than it commends secrecy regarding any other form of
sexual immorality. It expects, albeit naively, that candidates will be
honest about volunteering relevant information. The Definitive Guidance is
certainly not commending duplicity and deception.
Membership. Finally,
the 1978 Definitive Guidance (and the PCUSA generally) may have erred in
giving a blank membership check to homosexual persons or any persons
actively engaged in self-affirming, grossly immoral behavior. The
Definitive Guidance was correct in asserting that “The church is not a
citadel of the morally perfect” and that “It may be only in the context of
loving community . . . that homosexual persons can come to a clear
understanding of God’s pattern for their sexual expression.” At the same
time the Definitive Guidance should have applied its own logic when it
said that “As persons repent and believe, they become members of
Christ’s body” and that PCUSA membership entails “honest affirmation
to the vows. . . . ‘Jesus Christ is my lord . . . “ and ‘I intend
to be his disciple, to obey his word. . . .’”
Granted, the church should not expect
moral perfection or anything close to it as a condition of membership.
Nevertheless, some behaviors deviate so grossly from the Christian faith
as to render suspect claims to even the minimum repentance
associated with conversion.
How far does the PCUSA want to take
off the table any consideration of behavioral repentance as a sign of
genuine conversion? Would the PCUSA enroll as members persons who, in a
“self-affirming, practicing” manner, remained involved in a sexual
relationship with their mother or sibling, two persons at once, persons
other than their spouse, prostitutes, or children? Would the PCUSA enter
into membership persons who, in a “self-affirming, practicing” manner,
remained involved in schemes to bilk the elderly, or who were leaders of
“skinhead” Nazi groups, or who regularly beat their spouse without
remorse? Perhaps, but I doubt it.
It would be interesting to see how a
“More Light” church session would handle the membership of Fred Phelps if
Phelps continued to maintain his callous “God hates fags” approach to
homosexual behavior.
The confession “Jesus is my lord”
must be reflected in some basic behavioral compliance to Christian norms.
The Apostolic Decree in Acts 15 admitted Gentiles into the household of
faith on the condition that they not continue in the kind of sexually
immoral behavior delineated in Leviticus 18—chiefly, incest, adultery,
same-sex intercourse, and bestiality. That was a condition of
membership. Paul’s opening moral exhortation in 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
tells us that the first order of business for Paul with converts or
potential converts was to insist that they immediately discontinue
practices of “sexual uncleanness” (the term used in Rom 1:24 for same-sex
intercourse) or else face God’s avenging wrath. Paul’s handling of the
case of the incestuous man in 1 Corinthians 5 tells us exactly how Paul
would have handled a case of serial, unrepentant same-sex intercourse in
the church’s midst that was initiated unexpectedly by the offender some
time after conversion (compare the vice lists in 5:10-11 and 6:9-10).
Yet, despite the problematic
dimension of its membership argument, even the 1978 Definitive Guidance
does not preclude the administration of church discipline on members who
persist in committing self-affirming violations of minimal standards for
purity and holiness in the church. The church would cease to be operating
on scriptural principles if it simply declared outright that no immoral
conduct of any sort would ever trigger discipline of a member.
Furthermore, most people who hold
what Johnson calls a position of “categorical prohibition” do not believe
that members who engage in homosexual practice in a self-affirming way
should be immediately put on church discipline. Nor do they preclude all
attendance at church meetings by persons engaged in homosexual behavior or
any other immoral practice. There has to be some opportunity for adequate
exposure to the gospel if people are to be influenced by that message. Nor
do they advocate that homosexual persons not engaged in active,
self-affirming homosexual practice be denied membership. Nor do they
equate occasional “backsliding,” followed by repentance, with willful,
unrepentant, and serial participation in homoerotic acts.
So, in the end, the divide that
Johnson posits between “categorical prohibition” and “welcoming but not
affirming” is not significant enough to warrant a separation into two
distinct positions.
On sexual
differentiation and the image of God—and other issues
Erroneous value judgments are also
sprinkled throughout Johnson’s sixfold division (some of his statements
appear to go beyond the merely descriptive). One deserves special mention.
Johnson declares that sexual complementarity cannot be tied to the image
of God because, if that were so, single persons, including Jesus, could
not express the image of God. Johnson has misunderstood the point.
Genesis 1:27 clearly brings into
close connection creation “in God’s image” and creation as “male and
female.” It is not that a person has to engage in sex to be made in
God’s image. It is rather that, if a person chooses to engage in sexual
intercourse, there are ways of doing so that would enhance God’s image and
ways of doing so that would efface that image. Humans are angled or
faceted expressions of the image of God, “male and female.” When they
engage in sexual activity, they engage another in their sexual
particularity, as only one incomplete part of a two-faceted sexual whole.
Ignoring this particularity effaces that part of the divine image stamped
on human sexuality.
Johnson’s statement that defining
heterosexuality as normative makes persons who experience homoerotic
proclivities “subhuman” is simply rhetorical demagoguery. Do we say that
because monogamy is normative persons who live out sexual impulses for
multiple sex partners are “subhuman”? His line of reasoning here is
offensive and pejorative.
Five other erroneous observations by
Johnson can be briefly noted:
-
Prevalence. Johnson claims that “4 to 10
percent of the population [is] considered exclusively homosexual.” This
statement suggests that Johnson does not know the socio-scientific
evidence on homosexuality. Stanton Jones and Mark Yarhouse devote an
entire chapter of their book, Homosexuality: The Use of Scientific
Research in the Church’s Moral Debate (Intervarsity, 2000), to
discussing “How Prevalent is Homosexuality?” (pp. 31-46). After citing
numerous studies they conclude: “Homosexuality almost certainly
characterizes less than 3% (and perhaps less than 2%) of the
population.” J. Michael Bailey, a prohomosex researcher and chair of the
department of psychology at Northwestern, similarly states: “Before [the
1990s], gay activists frequently asserted that ten percent of the
population was gay. [Surveys in the 1990s] suggest that the true figure
is more like one to three percent” (The Man Who Would Be Queen
[Joseph Henry Press, 2003], 111). The 1992 National Health and Social
Life Survey, still the most accurate survey of American sexuality, noted
that only 2.8 percent of the men and 1.4 percent of the women identified
as homosexual or bisexual. The 2004 Canadian Community Health
Survey indicated that only 1 percent of the nation’s population
self-identified as homosexual and only .7 percent as bisexual.
-
Nature. Johnson repeatedly intimates that any
reference to an argument from nature is unbiblical or non-Reformed. It
is not. As my critique of Jack Rogers shows, Scripture and the Reformed
tradition (including Calvin) work with limited nature arguments (Romans
1:18-27 is just one among many cases in point). It is “Gnostic” to
argue for a complete bifurcation of Creator and Redeemer. Johnson
himself, in his continual positive refrain for “sexual orientation,”
adopts a nature argument, however unbiblical and non-Reformed such an
appeal is. Of course, the revelation of Scripture is primary, but
ironically Johnson appears not to give this the priority it deserves.
-
Monogamy. Johnson repeatedly assumes that
the value of monogamy can be upheld in the absence of upholding the
Bible’s two-sexes requirement. It can’t. The limitation of two
persons in a sexual union at any one time is itself predicated on the
idea that two sexes are necessary and sufficient for establishing a
sexual whole. Once church and society reject a two-sexes prerequisite,
there will be no logical ground for maintaining the sacredness of the
number two in sexual relations.
-
Redemption. Johnson repeatedly assumes that
there can be no redemption for the sexuality of homosexual persons
unless they are allowed some latitude to engage in homosexual practice.
This is untrue. Redemption does not come from permission to engage in
what Paul describes as self-dishonoring and self-degrading behavior.
Redemption comes, as with all sinful impulses, in taking up one’s cross
and denying oneself (Mark 8:34-37), allowing Jesus to be formed in one’s
special weaknesses in this life (2 Corinthians 12:9-10; 4:7-12;
Galatians 2:20; Romans 6:1-14). What is Johnson’s redemptive word to
persons who are not “wired” to find sexual satisfaction in monogamy or
in adult sex? Does he simply conclude that there is no redemptive word
for such persons?
Conclusion
Johnson’s scheme for discussing
differences on the homosexuality issue does not advance the discussion. It
retards the discussion. He misrepresents and caricatures the position of
those opposed to homosexual practice. Most importantly, he obscures the
crucial divide between accepting Scripture’s strong, pervasive, and
absolute stance against homosexual practice and rejecting that unequivocal
witness. That is, after all, the only divide that counts.
Postscript (Aug. 9, 2004):
On Aug. 5, the day after his presentation, Stacy Johnson led a
90-minute feedback session in which he asked the members of the Task
Force to identify what proponents of each of the six views might see as
strengths of their position. Some of the comments of Task Force
members have been reported by John Adams (“Task
force members comment on views about homosexuality,”
Aug. 6, The Layman Online), Jim Berkley (Aug. 6 blog,
“Task Force members talk!”),
and Leslie Scanlon (“Members
React to Views of Homosexuality Found in the PC (USA),”
Aug. 7, The Presbyterian Outlook)—with Adams and Berkley giving
more coverage than Scanlon.
Johnson’s approach was a clever way to try to get members of the Task
Force to say something nice about positions that are deeply opposed to
Scripture. It gave
respectability to positions that should not have respectability in the
church and desensitized some to the harm caused by promoting such
positions. While it is important to understand a contrary position
correctly—something that I think that Stacy Johnson failed to do in
delineating a “prohibitionist” position—there is a tendency in this kind
of exercise to speak more favorably of an anti-scriptural position than
the position warrants.
Of course, Johnson knows how to play the game in such a way that he can
still work in his own criticisms, as he is reported doing twice when
commenting on the “strengths” of the “Definitive Guidance” position. (By
contrast his reported comments on the positions supportive of committed
homosexual unions are generally positive.)
For example, the “pastoral” position is, not surprisingly, characterized
as “more pastoral” by one Task Force member (someone who is suppose to
lean toward a “traditional,” i.e., scriptural, view). But the assertion
“more pastoral” is predicated entirely on the faulty premise that engaging
in same-sex intercourse does not endanger a person’s inheritance in the
kingdom of God. If this premise is false, and Scripture declares
categorically that it is, then it is obviously more “pastoral” to counsel
a believer lovingly against engaging in homosexual practice than to
counsel the believer to try to make the best of a homosexual union by
making it long-term and monogamous.
Can anyone imagine Paul enumerating the “strengths” of the Corinthians’
tolerant position toward the incestuous man in 1 Corinthians 5 as being
more “pastoral” or “justice” oriented, even from their perspective? Or
Paul saying to the incestuous man that he should at least keep the
relationship with his stepmother long-term and monogamous? Or Paul
commending the incestuous man for attempting to “order his life as a part
of God’s covenant community” (Johnson’s “consecrationist” position)?
With good reason Ephesians 5:3-12 adopts a different approach than the one
taken by Stacy Johnson and many members of the Task Force:
Sexual immorality
(porneia)
and sexual impurity
(akatharsia)
of any kind . . . must not even be named among you, as is proper among
saints. . . . Know this indeed, that every sexually
immoral person
(pornos)
or sexually impure person
(akathartos)
. . . has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one
deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God
is coming on the children of disobedience. . . . And do not be partnering
with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather even be exposing/refuting
them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that are done in
secret by them.
This view of things
understands the harm done when believers speak positively of behaviors
that risk the participant’s exclusion from God’s eternal kingdom. It
advises that believers not speak approvingly of such behavior, referring
to such talk as “shameful” and ultimately deceitful, since it misleads
members of the household of faith into a false sense of security regarding
God’s wrath.
Johnson was reported as
saying at a Task Force presentation for the General Assembly at the end of
June 2004: “Is the present climate of hostility something you enjoy? Or
are you willing to see if there is a still more excellent way?”
(go
here and
here).
Try, again, to imagine
Paul saying the following to the Corinthian believers over the case of
incest in 1 Corinthians 5: “Some of you at Corinth have one policy on
man-(step)mother incest, others have another policy. Let’s not have this
hostility but see, instead, if we can find a ‘still more excellent way’
toward unity and purity that ends our bickering.” Remember: This is the
same Paul who makes a connection between incest and same-sex intercourse
later in 6:9.
The “still more excellent
way” of which Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 12:31, referring to love, does
not cancel out his earlier remarks in chs. 5-6. For love “does not rejoice
in unrighteousness but rejoices in connection with the truth” (13:6).
The “still more excellent way” is not the approach espoused by Johnson but
rather the approach espoused by Ephesians 5:3-12, cited above.
How can we end the
hostilities in the PCUSA? Many will advocate something like a “local
option” solution, which is simply a euphemism for “incremental coercion”
of those who support the biblical position.
But those who understand
the issues rightly will recognize that “the still more excellent way”
always comes by “speaking the truth in love” so that the church is not
“tossed to and fro . . . by every wind of teaching” (Ephesians 4:14-16).
It can never come by blessing a form of behavior that brings ruin on its
participants and guts one of the most essential prerequisites to
God-ordained sexual behavior, all in the name of peace and unity.
© 2004 Robert A. J. Gagnon