Homosexuality and the Episcopal Church

by the Rev. Pierre W. Whalon

 

 

Questions of human sexuality have often been thorns in the Church’s side. In the Episcopal Church one of the thorniest issues lately has been how this church should treat its homosexual members. Many claim that this issue will tear the Episcopal Church into two churches, the outlines of which already exist in the way people are arguing about homosexuality.

The main point I wish to make is that we still need to keep open minds about this issue. The Church needs to think more deeply about sexuality, and this will not come about either by trying to return to another era or by making some narrowly–conceived reforms. Those who believe the issue to be settled will dismiss my arguments and perhaps question my motives. Yet I believe that new wine needs new wineskins, and the Church should see the discussion of this issue as a creative opportunity to transcend the narrow confines of the argument as it is presently framed, and so develop new insights to live more faithfully and more abundantly.

This essay sums up the major arguments, and suggests another way of discussing the matter. Our most important consideration is not issues, but people, straight and gay, affected by the Church's teaching on sexuality. All Christians, not just Episcopalians, are wrestling with the question: how does our baptismal promise to follow and obey Jesus as Lord affect the way we behave sexually? In arguing the question, we must always “respect the dignity of every human being” (BCP p. 305).

 

“Don’t ask don’t tell”

Many people have long asserted that the Church should not change its tradition to accommodate the relatively small numbers of gays who wish to get married. They see the need for a pastoral tolerance of active gays, including among the ordained, so long as they are discreet. This has been the practice for a long time in many dioceses.

 

Arguments against change

Those arguing against change find a negative view of homosexuality in the Bible. The relevant passages are Genesis 19: 1-11; Leviticus 18: 22, 20: 13; Deut. 23: 17–18; Romans 1: 18-32; I Cor. 6: 9; and I Tim. 1: 10. They see the Genesis passage as the desire of the men of Sodom to have intercourse with Lot's visitors, and its link with the consequent destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Leviticus condemns sex between two men as an “abomination,” but does not mention women. The Deuteronomy passage forbids male prostitution, or using money earned from “an abomination” in fulfillment of religious vows. In Romans, Paul uses gentiles who have homosexual relations as examples of what happens to idolaters. I Cor. 6: 9 and I Tim. 1: 10 mention those who have homosexual sex in lists of people excluded from the kingdom, or flouting the law of God, respectively.

Many find this persuasive on its own merits: the Bible forbids homosexual behavior in both Testaments, so must we.

Others also argue that marriage is for a man and a woman. Same–sex relationships do not produce children unaided, nor can they become “one flesh” (Gen. 2: 24; Mark 10: 7–9; see also I Cor. 6:16) because the partners' sexes are not “complementary”—that is, they are not different. The Church has always taught that the only moral sexual relationship is within heterosexual marriage. We have no authority to change the clear witness of the Tradition.

The third point made by some is that there is a difference between experiencing sexual attraction to people of the same sex (“orientation”), and acting upon that attraction. Some groups claim to help people leave the gay life and be able to live in faithful straight marriages.

The Church in this view should offer loving acceptance to gay people, but teach them to seek God's grace to live celibate lives.

 

Arguments for change

These arguments note that our society has become aware that same–sex couples can live out lives of committed love as well as married couples. They point to changes in psychiatric theory, which no longer considers homosexuality an illness, but an attribute no more “unnatural” (or reversible) than being left–handed. Some studies suggest a genetic origin, which implies that homosexuality is not abnormal, but part of God's creation.

The biblical evidence does not in this view address the situation of modern gay couples, but rather speaks to issues related to the idol worship of Israel's enemies. While Jesus had quite a lot to say about heterosexuals, he never mentions homosexuals. Therefore, goes the argument, the Bible does not specifically speak to our situation. So as we have discovered it to be wrong on women’s roles and on the question of slavery, so it is wrong here as well.

A third argument is that having children is not the main reason for getting married. Couples who are infertile for whatever reason are allowed to marry. Therefore, complementarity is not an obstacle. Love is at the center of the marriage bond, and gay couples can be just as committed and loving as straight. Furthermore, the Church's bad historical record of dealing with sexuality inspires little confidence that its decisions will be more competent today.

Finally, the Church's unwillingness to let gays marry contributes to the sense of hopelessness that many experience. Many gay people believe this reveals an irrational loathing of them that denies the Church's claim to be a community formed by the love of God. Promiscuity among gays could be reduced by the Church allowing people to marry. The violence directed at gay people is one of the poisonous fruits of the Church's rejection of gay people. Many people therefore argue for change on the basis of justice.

As for ordination, the above means that gay people can be "wholesome examples" of Christian living. In any event, the Church has always ordained gay priests (since, it is argued, there have always been gays in the Church).

 

Questions that need to be asked

Overall, the problem with the above arguments (admittedly, they are very simplified) is that none is adequate to the Church's work. Here are a few observations:

1.) “Don’t ask don’t tell” in the context of the Church violates the promise to “respect the dignity of every human being.” This position ultimately advises the Church to bury its head in the sand.

2.) The rejecting position seems content to work out its reasons why gay people are merely a category of sinner, undeserving of any special treatment. It does not address the very real crisis of the Church’s teaching concerning sexual behavior overall. Few people today observe the prohibition against pre–marital sex, including many members of conservative churches. Clergy hardly mention it at all. Divorce and re–marriage have become commonplace, despite the well–attested words of Jesus prohibiting re–marriage. While the Church continues to affirm the traditional teaching, we have also quietly accepted our society’s values about sex that run counter to this teaching. Healthy people in our society are supposed to have sex lives. Celibates are “un–cool,” in this view, even psychologically troubled. The Church needs to help people be healthy, pop culture says, especially since the Church’s strait–laced attitudes have encouraged people to behave in “sick” ways.

We seldom discuss the deep changes that our medical and technological advances have brought upon us. People live on the average more than twice as long as our ancestors, and change homes much more often. We no longer bury one out of every two children. Birth control and the population explosion have eliminated the pressure to procreate. Women have achieved a measure of independence unheard of in recorded history.

The institution of marriage has changed accordingly. It has always served fundamental social, political and economic needs of the human community. Today we have enlisted it in our culture’s search for self–fulfillment, for a life ever more abundant. The Church’s teaching has less and less effect on society’s practice of marriage, and the Church feels greater pressure to conform to societal expectations. Thus a well–known actress received an Episcopal bishop’s permission to marry again for the seventh time. The rejecting position does not account for any of this.

3.) The arguments for changing the Church’s teaching have their own failings. The gay community is itself divided into many camps. Many gays have rejected the need for marriage altogether, arguing that they can do better than what they see as a threadbare institution. Many argue that gay relationships are different from straight—some go so far as to say superior. The fact is that many advocates within the Church of gay marriage are considered conservatives in the gay community. Proponents of church marriage for gay men in order to reduce the transmission of AIDS do not realize how patronizing they can sound (not to mention leaving lesbians out).

 

Other considerations

 Science should inform Christian thinking, but not form it: modern science is no substitute for prayerful reflection together upon the Scriptures and the Church’s tradition. Furthermore, how people become gay, straight, or bi–sexual remains at this time of writing quite mysterious. Science is by no means unanimously behind a genetic origin. There is a counter–argument being made in academic circles that homosexual orientation and behavior are deeply linked to culture, not genes. (This gives credence unwittingly to the “ex–gay” groups.) Sexuality is a mystery, and may well remain so.

If the culture of biblical Israel was firmly against homosexuality, how can the biblical witness be disregarded in this area, while still being authoritative in others? The other issue is how those decisions of interpretation are made, and who has the power to make them. One very relevant aspect of the traditional teaching which should not be jettisoned is that one’s sexuality is not to become an idol. The importance given to sex in popular culture is arguably a strong temptation to idolatry.

Finally, the discussion within the Church has been too often part of a larger “culture war.” Whether it is the gay liberationists railing against cultural oppression or the conservatives sallying forth to save Western civilization, the demand is that the Church take a side. Because of the profoundly dehumanizing effect of the culture war—reducing the value of people to their politics—the Church should be a loud conscientious objector to it, and a safe place from it, as part of “respecting the dignity of every human being.”

 

Seeking a new vantage point

The Church does not exist to help order society by making rules for sexual behavior. The task of moral living, of doing good and avoiding evil, is the obligation of every human being, Christian or not. The most important reason for having this argument is not primarily because of confusion about sexual mores, or even justice, but because it raises ancient problems that have plagued the Church in fulfilling its mission.

The Church, and before it the culture that produced the Bible, has always been careful not to challenge too severely certain deep–seated social, political and economic assumptions of the prevailing culture. Thus the Church, and ancient Israel before it, tolerated slavery and the oppression of women, while disapproving of both. Jesus’ clear teaching against the divorce practice of his time (in which only men had access to divorce) states why these accommodations are made: “for your hardness of heart.” Is the same process of accommodation to society’s demands at work again in the way we approach sexuality?

The basic issue is that our understanding of sexuality is too ambiguous at present for the kind of neat resolution that the captains of the culture war struggle to impose. Neither side has a lock on the truth.

I suggest that another way is to focus on the Church’s real work: to reconcile all people with God and each other through Jesus Christ (see BCP p. 855). We do it by sharing in word and example the Good News of God in Christ, and “in joyful obedience to our Lord”(BCP p. 306), bringing people to the baptismal font so they can join with us in Christ’s eternal priesthood. By his life, death and resurrection, Jesus Christ has enabled the work of reconciling people to God and each other, so that God’s will for humanity may be realized: eternal life and joy in God’s company.

The work of the Church includes therefore doing what is necessary to help gay people meet Jesus as Savior and Lord, and then grow as equal members of the community of faith into the new life of the Spirit. This raises issues of morality and justice, certainly, but it is more: it is a matter of that love which shows us to be followers of Christ.

 

Confronting several challenges

The first challenge is the need to claim the Church’s true role in society: as ambassadors of Christ and ministers of God’s reconciling act of love. This means not allowing the Church to be co–opted by any pressure group. There will certainly be a political price to pay for this.

The second challenge is to ask together how faithful Christians are to live as the sexual beings we were created to be. A deeper appreciation of marriage is necessary. Christians have too often seen sexuality and married life as obstacles to discipleship. In re–discovering the goodness of sexuality, the American church has played into the hedonism of our society, in which sex is like everything else a commodity supposed to make us feel self-fulfilled. Re–discovering holy matrimony as God’s call to a specific way of sacrificial living is critical.

The third challenge is to make a place for our gay brothers and sisters at the table. What changes are necessary to make this place is the essential question to ask together. The issue of sexual morality should neither exclusively dominate the discussion. nor be dismissed prematurely. In any event, there is much to learn from the experience of gay couples as profound expressions of friendship. Since friendship with God is the substance of eternal life, gay couples image some important qualities of this that others may have overlooked to their detriment. From these insights could come a way to recognize publicly these full–fledged members of the Body of Christ not just as individuals, but couples. Not to mention the possibility of enriching human relationships in general.

New wineskins for new wine! It is hard to keep minds open on a topic that is so emotional, but to shrink from this task would be yet another denial of Christ by those who claim to be his followers. We can start by re–committing together to the Church’s mission, being willing to take Good News to all people. This in itself will require significant repentance on all sides. The Episcopal Church must not squander this opportunity to be faithful to the call of Jesus, who sends us into the world to make disciples among all nations.