Homosexuality and the Church.
A position paper delivered by The Rev‟d Cathy Thomson, General Synod of the Anglican Church in Australia, Tuesday, 24th, July, 2001.
I have been invited to second the motion before you. This motion proposes that General Synod commend for further study within the Anglican Church of Australia the publication entitled Faithfulness in Fellowship, which has been produced by the Doctrine Panel. Clearly the issue of homosexuality and of how the Church should respond to it are vexed questions for our communion, and indeed for the Christian Church as a whole. We within the Anglican Communion are not of a mind with respect to this question, and clearly we need some time for intentional and responsible reflection on the issues and to resolve out differences over this issue. This publication, Faithfulness in Fellowship, to which I have had the privilege of contributing, presents a series of papers examining Church attitudes to homosexuality from biblical to contemporary times. It therefore explores significant trends of opinion about homosexuality within our tradition. It also points up some subtle shifts in the meaning and import of homosexuality as different eras have presented different social contexts for this question. The papers also provide a broad sweep of the criteria used either consciously or unconsciously by Christian individuals, churches and societies in ascertaining the acceptability of homosexuality as one expression of human sexuality. It is my opinion that this book, Faithfulness in Fellowship will be an invaluable aid as we seek to clarify the issues surrounding homosexuality, as we seek to struggle with the hopes and fears that are at stake for us in this process, and as we attempt to find a way forward as a Church which values both its unity and integrity as the body of Christ. I commend the book to you. My second task is to take a stance on this question that is different from the stance that Glenn has taken. As Glenn has said, the meetings of the Doctrine Panel which have taken place over the last three years, have been ones where people with a wide range of different views have been able to share and explore these with respect. Today, I present my side of the equation, and will do so by examining three issues which refer directly to questions on your question papers. The first concerns how the Bible can be used to determine the level of acceptance of homosexuality within the Christian Church (Questions, 1,2 and 3); the second is how to define the limits of change possible in the Church‟s view of these matters (questions 4 and 5) and the third concerns the question of Church discipline. (6,7,8 and 9.)
However, before I examine these questions, I must ground this presentation in the soil of its own reality. This question is not merely theoretical. We cannot talk of homosexuality as though it were simply a scientific phenomenon. Whatever we say here, we say it about people, real human beings created by God, and for whom Christ came into the world. And today these gay and lesbian people, as individuals and as couples, are present in increasing numbers in our congregations. And they are not only people like us, they are people connected to us. Brothers, sisters, cousins, sons, daughters, friends, acquaintances. Probably to suggest one in twenty people is homosexual is a conservative estimate. But even with this only very conservative estimation it can be asserted that a high proportion of people in this room will know someone from their own family who is gay or lesbian, and almost everyone in this room will be acquainted with such a person. Homosexual people live and work and are Church with and amongst us. These are the people with whom we stand side by side to live and to minister as the Body of Christ. Let us now turn our attention to the question of how the Bible may be used to determine the moral acceptability of homosexuality. There is a school of thought that says that because the Old Testament Levitical prohibitions against homosexuality are validated by Paul in the New Testament, that there is one clear Scriptural message by which homosexual practice of any description and in any circumstances is opposed by God. This argument continues that because Scripture is authoritative for our moral decision-making and behaviour, that anyone engaged in homosexual practice is clearly sinning. Whilst respecting that some people here may agree with this bare-bones proposition, it is nevertheless necessary for me to point up some of the difficulties with such a neat set of assertions. Firstly, it is by no means clear what particular expression of homosexuality is being opposed by the Levitical or Pauline texts. Some have argued
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that it is unlikely that either the writer of Leviticus, or Paul himself, would have had any conception of homosexuality as an orientation. It is interesting historically, that the word “homosexuality” was probably first used as late as 1896. Nor would these aforementioned biblical writers have found in their social circles same-sex couples claiming the right to form adult mutual sexual partnerships. So what form of homosexuality is being described here? Firstly, it could be the sort of homosexual practices linked with temple prostitution, secondly, it could be the exploitative homosexual practices common in Greek culture where an unequal sexual relationship between men of status and their young students or servants was common, and often applauded as beneficial to the relationship. These of course are situations which today we would identify with paedophilia. It is also likely that these relationships were not understood by the biblical writers as originating in a homosexual orientation as such. Indeed, it is likely that all people were viewed as being susceptible to homosexual temptation, in the same way that they might be susceptible to the temptation to commit adultery. It is probably true to say that until the nineteenth century homosexuality was viewed as a sexual vice, and not an orientation. The question then has to be asked: do these prohibitions actually in any real sense apply to homosexuality as we understand it today? The second problem with using the Bible to oppose all homosexual activity is that it is not possible to speak of the Bible‟s authority without unpacking what this means for Biblical interpretation. Some claim that within the traditional Anglican approach which is to base moral decision-making on Scripture, Tradition and Reason that Scripture must have precedence. Yet any contemporary study of how texts can be interpreted suggests that it is impossible to give precedence to the text itself, as indeed the text finds expression only in its apprehension by the human intellect; and the text can only realise meaning through its mediation within the context of a community, here -- a faith tradition. Biblical interpretation is always attenuated by our human reason and experience, and by the community or faith context within which it is read. We may claim our reading is authoritative, but ultimately it is our reading employing our intellectual response and systems of interpretation which find a fertile soil within our tradition. We cannot really assert absolute authority for the Biblical text itself, or for a particular interpretation of it, beyond that which is formed in our own imagining. Now this is not to say that the Bible does not have authority as sacred scripture. But this is an authority that can only be agreed within the community of faith precisely after all these other dimensions (tradition, reason, and some would add „experience‟) have been taken account of. Why do I emphasise this? I do so because with respect to the homosexuality question it has been claimed that one particular understanding of scripture can be used to absolutely denounce homosexual practice in any situation, notwithstanding the possibility uncovered by science that homosexuality may be an aspect of nature. It has been suggested that homosexuality is something genetically determined, or that it is biologically determined due to hormone levels during gestation. Now I acknowledge that where there has been research making convincing claims about the genetic or hormonal origins of homosexuality, and the two are not mutually exclusive, that none of this is absolutely conclusive scientifically. The answer seems to be that there are good grounds for believing science has uncovered a possible genetic or biological cause of homosexuality, but that we just don‟t know absolutely.
However, if homosexuality is caused by either of these two factors, and this is a strong possibility, it could be considered a natural expression within a created order whose integrity we as Christians attempt to uphold. Can we with integrity denounce a brother or sister formed differently by nature itself? Can we discredit their search for intimacy which is both a human search, and one which in being capable of finding its expression in faithful, loving, mutual relating, is reminiscent of the trinitarian nature of the very godhead? Another question about the claim that the Bible is authoritative, is that we need to ask what this means in its outworking. Is it authoritative as an account of the sacred history of God with humanity, or are we claiming that every pronouncement that Paul made with respect to the early Church is definitive of Christian moral teaching nowadays? You see, to make such a claim for Paul is problematic, because there are some interpretative approaches to Scripture that would claim authority of a different sort. For example, we might ask the question, does not the simple scriptural principle of love override a literal interpretation of the text? Could we argue that Paul's pragmatism around Christian marriage in the first century, namely that it is better to marry than to burn, provides a warrant for monogamous gay and lesbian relationships as an antidote to promiscuity? Are there not situations outlined within Scripture itself when the Spirit of God moved the church towards acceptance of a previously marginalised group. (I refer to the baptism of the whole household of Cornelius, a despised gentile, only after God had convinced Peter that those whom he had previously considered unclean were in fact totally acceptable to God? And isn‟t there more than an element of social transgression in the life of Christ himself?
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This Christ who broke down barriers and taboos to show a radical acceptance of those whom society had reviled. It is through Scripture that we learn about this socially transgressive tendency in Christ himself. You see, ultimately, there is no absolutely clear interpretation of the Bible. But this does not undermine the love of the church for the Word of God, as that takes shape within our shared struggle with Holy Scripture, and our shared bringing to bear on Scripture of reason, experience and tradition. The second topic for our discussion today is what are the limits of change in the Church‟s view on homosexuality? This topic as I understand it is about the interface between Christian moral teaching and contemporary social attitudes. Firstly, it is necessary to say that there has always been some accommodation of social trends, and dare I say prejudices, within Christian mores of social trends. For example from biblical times through the medieval era and into the modern age we have always suspected homosexuality as being in some sense unnatural. When this attitude is examined, we can see clearly that the traditional ill-ease with homosexuality was not simply or even predominantly due to exegesis of biblical passages, but indeed evolved from the fact that homosexual activity is not open to procreation. Another traditional prejudice is the one that is exemplified particularly in the fifth century work of John Chrystostum that people felt it was unseemly that in the homosexual act one man took the passive role and literally, “played the woman.” This was upsetting of prevailing views of the integrity of manhood or maleness. Clearly social attitudes about male and female sexuality have shifted remarkably within the last hundred years , so that the active/passive duality has all but disappeared from the western psyche. But more interesting than that social change is the Church‟s change of view concerning the necessity for procreation to be seen as the sole reason for sexual activity. In 1958 the Lambeth Conference produced a statement that sexual expression in marriage was for the comfort and help of the couple, and not only for procreative purposes. This statement paved the way for an acceptance of contraception within the Church. It also, logically, must help us to shake off any notion that homosexual sex is not natural because it cannot lead to procreation. Additionally, in terms of moral stances with respect to sexual behaviour, the Church has changed. We have for example changed our views of divorce and remarriage. It says clearly in Matthew 5 and in Mark 10 that men and women who are divorcees commit adultery when they marry again. The Church has considered that despite this being in some senses clear biblical, indeed dominical teaching that the remaking of the covenant of marriage can be a redemptive and a healing step for people who for one reason or another have sustained the pain of divorce. There is no direct biblical warrant for what we as a Church have said about this or have done. We have brought to bear on our desire to be faithful to the text, compassion for a group of people who would have been further marginalised by any biblical absolutism. Now I am not suggesting that we do the same in the homosexuality debate as a whim, or as a kind of “playing” with analogies. I hope that we would be more responsible than that. But if we can argue that compassion towards hurting and marginalised human beings is a more compelling moral imperative than insisting on biblical prohibitions against homosexuality, then the fact that we have taken this step previously with respect to remarriage, will give us the courage to once more place love of and compassion for people before absolutism with respect to our moral stances. I come now to our third topic which is church order and discipline. You may well ask, what exactly does the Church need to do to be more welcoming to homosexual people? What compromises do we have to make, and exactly what is being suggested here? It seems to me that there are three levels of acceptance of gays and lesbians that we must consider. The first is the acceptance of all people who come to share with us in worship and discipleship of Christ. In 1995 a General Synod working Party recommended that gay and lesbian families be welcomed into the Church, and this is consistent with a Church of England‟ House of Bishops‟ report of the same year that called on congregations to welcome gay people as members. The question that needs to be asked is on whose terms do we welcome gays and lesbians into fellowship with us? Clearly people living a promiscuous lifestyle whether heterosexual or homosexual would not find nurture for that style of living in the Church, and would most likely not seek it there. But what of a same-sex couple living in a faithful and monogamous relationship? Do we accept them no questions asked? In doing so do we move the emphasis of our moral enquiry right away from a concern with homosexual acts towards an imperative to celebrate the relationship within which sexual activity within which sexual activity finds its meaning? Indeed, do we celebrate the friendship that homosexual couples have with one another as good and redemptive? Or do we try in some way to define the limits of their physical relating? (The limits of touch as it is referred to in the book). It would seem to me anomalous to attempt to produce such constraints and prescriptions, as we do not do this for heterosexual people in our congregations, but leave their own style of physical relating to be resolved between themselves and God. This does not mean that we as Church have no say about how people relate. It
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would seem that we could develop new and contemporary Christian imperatives to love with mutuality and faithfulness, and to bring help and comfort to one another. The second level of acceptance would be symbolised in the formation of rituals in which same-sex unions are blessed as friendships close to the heart of God. We need today to examine and share with one another our response to such a possibility. The third level of acceptance would allow that godly people who feel called to ordained ministry be considered on their merits irrespective of their sexual orientation, allowing that their relationships are conducted in a transparently godly fashion. You see the challenge for the Church is not simply (and in some quarters grudgingly) to accept homosexual people into our midst. The challenge is to embrace them as people who have their own narratives of homosexual holiness from which the rest of us can learn, and who have the potential to bear Christ in their person and being and relating just as heterosexual people have potential to do this. My own view of the matter is that we as Church need to find ways to celebrate with one another the loving relationships within which we are each engaged, and to be open to learn holiness from one another. In doing so we honour a loving witness which is given to our community by God, and is enfleshed by and mediated through Christian people both gay or straight. I hope that you will give these very important matters your serious consideration, and commend the book Faithfulness in Fellowship as an aid to this. Thank You.
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