Archive: Taking the Task Force to Task

By Thomas C. Oden Critiques the Homosexuality Study

Every General Conference of the United Methodist Church since 1972 has been tested by advocates of the gradual legitimization of same-sex intercourse. During the period between 1988 and the upcoming conference of 1992, a study has been funded to seek a definitive inquiry into the “biblical, theological and scientific questions related to homo-sexuality.” This Committee to Study Homosexuality has now reported its recommendations and solicits dialogue.

The Report appropriately pleads once again, as have Protestants repeatedly pled, for a stop to violence against those who practice same-sex intercourse. The civil rights of those with “alternative sexual orientations” must be vigilantly protected without conceding the moral viability of their claims to social or moral legitimation. “Christian gay-bashing” is no more excusable than the “gay homophobe-bashing” that has recently swept through liberal Protestant seminaries with their politically-correct thought police.

The Skewed Method of the Report

The method of data gathering in this Report was far from fair or evenhanded, as is evident from the reporting of vignettes presented as “typical experiences” of the “human reality of homosexuality.” Only three of sixteen examples are in any way representative of those who follow the Discipline in not condoning same-sex intercourse, and in those three cases dissent is unfairly stereotyped. The other thirteen examples reflect a prevailing attitude of concerned sympathy with standard homosexual arguments, especially the frustrations experienced by the continued delegitimization of same-sex anal and oral intercourse by church members. From their supposed “listening” process in a series of regional panels, one would imagine that it never occurred to any of those testifying before the panels to ask about scriptural mandates. Apparently the regional panels managed to spread the word of their coming to special ideological networks, and not openly to all.

Should the people of God wait for a firm “scientific consensus” that oral and anal same-sex intercourse has adverse effects before teaching it as sin? Most lay persons are not that naive about the possibility of attaining scientific consensus, especially when it is required to have “conclusive replicable results” of those scientists somebody judges to be best informed.

Though the Report feigns standing “in harmony with the doctrinal statements in our Book of Discipline,” it ignores the plain rejection of homosexuality in Wesley’s Notes Upon the New Testament, which the Discipline commends as a reliable “doctrinal standard.”

The theological method of the UM Discipline (often called the quadrilateral method) which affirms the primacy of Scripture along with the collateral authority of tradition, reason, and experience, is blatantly falsified and misrepresented in the Report’s appeal to experience and reason as contemporary arbiters of the hidden meaning of Scripture. The Christian understanding of sexual accountability is not based strictly upon “the present state of knowledge of relevant fields.” Rather, it must be formed from scriptural truth interpreted by consensual ecumenical tradition, as that is made consistent with reason and experience. The Discipline does not ask the laity to sit around waiting for an elusive consensus of hard scientific evidence before confirming or rejecting unambiguous biblical teachings.

That homosexual practice is not a weighty moral matter is arrogantly asserted by the committee as reliable “consensus among Christian ethicists,” yet without any evidence to support this curious assertion. All the great historic Christian moral teachers who have not condoned same-sex intercourse (John Chrysostom, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin) apparently are weighed less heavily than selected modern proponents of moral relativism. The prevailing liberal assumption is that certain selected ethicists have the moral right to issue an absolute decree of final judgment contrary to the whole weight of the two millennia of tradition of Christian teaching. Here the modern chauvinist premise (that newer is better, older worse) of the Report shows through badly. That “few ethicists regard homosexuality as a gravely serious problem,” nothing like the importance, say, of family violence, reveals more about selected hypermodern moralists than the actual, substantive moral reflection of the Christian tradition.

The Report probes the bizarre question of how high or low on the scale of sins most current ethicists rank homosexuality, as if sin were a matter of popular vote. In seeking to measure as slight the relative sinfulness of homosexuality in relation to what the Report calls the core of the faith, what the core of faith turns out to be is a familiar version of cheap grace.

Four Evasions of Biblical Mandates

When the biblical evidence against same-sex intercourse is presented, it is accompanied by four desperate evasions.

The first evasion is that the scriptures in rejecting homosexuality were not referring to same-sex sexual orientation at all, but rather only to sexual practice (supposedly an idea that only modern persons have grasped).

The second precarious evasion is that the normative moral force of all biblical texts on same-sex intercourse may be explained away by their cultural context. This leads to the conclusion that any statement in the Bible can be reduced to ambiguity on the premise of cultural relativism. This is a blatant evasion of the normative character of the biblical message.

The third evasion is a fantastic interpretation of Paul’s text in Romans: “For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error” (Romans 1:26,27 NRSV). On the premise of cultural relativism, the Report argues that this description has “no … lasting ethical significance.” Yet Wesley in commenting on this text spoke of “due penalty for their error” for their burning “with lust toward each other; men with men working filthiness.” According to Wesley, their error is precisely “their idolatry; being punished with that unnatural lust, which was as horrible a dishonor to the body as their idolatry was to God” (Notes Upon the New Testament, p. 522).

The fourth exegetical evasion argues that when Genesis 1:27 declares that God created persons male and female, it has no normative significance for how sexual behavior is to be understood, since it is merely a description with no further moral meaning. Yet the next sentence of Scripture is a divine command that cannot possibly be followed by same-sex partners. Wesley commented: “God having made them capable of transmitting the nature they had received, said to them, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth'” (Genesis 1:28; Wesley, Notes upon the Old Testament, I:8). It is not man and his same-sex partner who “become one flesh,” but “man and his wife” who “were both naked, and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:24,25). “Man and wife” can hardly be stretched to include a same-sex partner. “The sabbath and marriage were two ordinances instituted in innocency,” Wesley writes, “the former for the preservation of the church, the latter for the preservation of mankind” (Wesley, Notes Upon the Old Testament, I:13).

All four evasions show that the biblical scholars who advised the study committee were not only out of touch with the contemporary moral sensibilities of the United Methodist Church, but also with the moral sensibilities of the historic ecumenical interpreters of those passages from Origen (Ag. Celsus VI.5O) to Calvin (Commentary on Romans, XIX, p.79). Such idiosyncrasy in exposition is hardly adequate to fulfill in a fair manner the commission’s mandate to “study homosexuality as a subject for theological and ethical analysis,” specifically including its biblical mandates. Once again we have been let down by theologians, ethicists, and biblical scholars gathered to produce a serious study that has a chance of being accepted by the church.

The Report craftily avoids actually quoting key scriptures it seeks to treat evasively, reducing their number of references to only seven. There are many more than the seven chosen, but if they had allowed the reader to hear them quoted directly, the evasions would have seemed less plausible. The Levitical law, for example, is hardly ambiguous: “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable. … The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you” (Leviticus 18:22,26-27).

Fairness in the Use of Language

That words have meanings worth serious dialogue has long been acknowledged by all parties in this discussion. Five words are used insensitively in this Report: monogamy, “gay,” life style, homosexuality, and “safe sex. ”

Lay persons are not ready to concede that monogamy (from monos, single, gamos, marriage) is the moral equivalent of a “stable homosexual union.” Gamos in Scripture is usually rendered marriage, which assumes a heterosexual union. It would be a highly idiosyncratic understanding of gamos to translate it as a “stable homosexual union.” Gamos (marriage, wedding) and gameo (to marry) occur 16 and 29 times respectively in the New Testament, and in no case do they refer to same-sex oral or anal intercourse.

The Christian laity is not ready to concede that “gay” is an adequate adjective to describe the homosexual life, nor can it be concluded that compulsive same-sex practices are to be considered merely as a life “style,” as if style were synonymous with trend, vogue, or fashion, as opposed to alternative views assumed to be dated.

In a hazardous era of rampant sexually-transmitted diseases, the ecclesial blessing of same-sex intercourse is hardly a constructive contribution to a safer form of sex. “Safe” in the Report refers merely to the avoidance of pregnancy, not to the moral strength or spiritual serenity that follows from obedience to the divine command. No sex becomes truly safer if it draws young people into illusory dreams. Distributing condoms to adolescents is like putting a loaded gun in a child’s hand.

Christian marriage is by definition an enduring covenant between one male and one female, since it is grounded in the potential gift of offspring. Anal and oral intercourse between persons of the same sex cannot lead to procreation or natural birth, but only to fleeting narcissistic pleasure that may haunt memory and sear conscience. Classic Christian teaching views it as an oxymoron that persons of same sex could be in God’s presence considered “married,” though they may indeed have enduring friendships and may, like all of us sinners, receive the forgiving grace of baptism and Eucharist.

Does the Report Offer a Viable Legislative Option to the General Conference?

The Study argues that “permanent covenantal unions” between same-sex “persons who are exclusively pledged to one another” can be blessed as “a human manifestation of that grace by which we are made whole.” The Report thus repeatedly appeals to grace, which demeans the doctrine of grace that elicits responsible love. Grace does not mean anything goes. A cheap grace that elevates tolerance as the only cardinal virtue is not the grace of God in Jesus Christ, the very One who drove out the money changers from the temple and admonished the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no more.

The formula that shows that many believe one way while other believe another way is simply a rehearsal of diverse opinions, and not properly a legislative recommendation. Covertly, however, this formula serves as a ruse for the legitimation of moral relativism.

Is it in accord with classic Christian teaching to grant same-sex partners the same guardianship rights as natural parents have under law? That will be extremely hard to sell to thoughtful delegates who think critically about an ethic of consequences.

The Tradition of Wisdom in the General Conference

Many delegates to General Conference will wonder whether this is an appropriate time for four more years of study on the subject of homosexuality. Many delegates will wonder if ordinary United Methodists are ready to pay for supposed “educational resources” that reflect a viewpoint of absolute moral relativism.

Beginning in 1972, all subsequent General Conferences have been right to seek the protection of the civil rights of persons practicing homosexuality, viewing them as “persons of sacred worth, who need the ministry and guidance of the church in their struggles for human fulfillment,” and to hold that the practice of homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

Beginning in 1976, all subsequent General Conferences have been right to withhold funds from “any ‘gay’ organization or use any such funds to promote the acceptance of homosexuality.” The 1984 and 1988 General Conferences were correct in adopting as a standard for ordained clergy the commitment to “fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness,” and in stating clearly that “self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be accepted as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in the United Methodist Church.” And the 1988 General Conference was right to “affirm that God’s grace is available to all.”

The 1992 General Conference surely will also be wise enough to sustain this stable tradition of interpretation. Delegates must reject the Report’s morally relativistic, presumptuous, and inflammatory phrase that “The present state of knowledge in the relevant fields of knowledge does not provide a satisfactory basis upon which the church can responsibly maintain a specific condemnation of homosexuality.”

By doing so, they will have served the United Methodist Church well.

Thomas C. Oden is the Henry Anson Buttz professor of theology and ethics at the Theological School, Drew University. He is an ordained United Methodist minister and author of numerous books, including The Living God: Systematic Theology, Volume One, The Word of Life: Systematic Theology, Volume Two, and After Modernity … What? Agenda For Theology.