Are Homosexual Relationships Wrong?
Guest post by Joben David
I do not believe that homosexual relationships are wrong. Essentially two factors — law and story — build up life, the way we live it and the way we share it with those around us. As Christians we, most often, begin at the law and write our stories in accordance with it. At least we try. We teach our children: obey your mom and dad, do not lie, do not steal and do not cheat.
We read our bibles, interpret, decide what the law is and influence culture with what we think “appropriate” is. The law informs culture and this is good. But there are those times when this formula gets turned on its head.
Often times, those outside the Church get things right before the Church does. Society understood the abomination of Jim Crow laws while churches (not all) embraced it, the trans-Atlantic slave trade endured for decades after Wilberforce abolished it in England and we shut our doors to the LGBTQ community even as societies’ laws begin to embrace them. It is unfair, you might say, to rank Jim Crow and slavery on the same line but then you would be missing the point. I am not equalizing the “crime” but rather our response to it. Here is a good example:
Peter was wrestling with the direction of the early church. Gentiles had been welcomed into the church but were required to be circumcised. Peter, through a series of events, begins arguing for the acceptance of uncircumcised gentiles in contradiction to the laws of Leviticus (the same book that contains instruction against homosexuality). Peter saw the big picture of God’s plan, a plan of inclusivity, a plan for all of creation.
Is homosexuality a sin? That, in the end is what the question comes down to. Not being circumcised, eating unclean animals and working on the Sabbath were all sins once. We cannot kid ourselves that the law, even our measure of sin, changes with time and circumstance.
I believe that homosexuality is not a sin but a reality that our culture needs to come to terms with. I–this is my opinion–do not think the scriptures or the love of God provide for the exclusion of members of the LGBTQ community. Cultural Christianity is separate from the purity of the gospel. I hope the gospel, unadulterated, pure and inclusive will speak into the culture we hold above it.
It must be acknowledged that, much like most questions that we humans try to find concrete answers to, there are a lot of unknowns. While I empathize greatly with my LGBTQ friends and will stand with them in their quest for justice, I am not myself gay or queer and do not have personal experiences with the dynamics, the biological nuances of nature or choice.
Some see homosexuality as deviant sexual behavior and others see it as not a choice but a natural biological reality. I, myself, acknowledge the ambiguity and want to lean into it. Jesus leaned into the ambiguous. He did not throw stones at the adulteress, and he defended the prostitute despite the law. In that place of finding my footing, I want to place my feet beside the people, the people who are looking for their own place within the kingdom of God despite the jumble of opposing voices.
The complications do not stop there. Our choices on what we believe about homosexuality do not affect us directly if you are not in fact gay yourself. They create laws and systems that affect others. That is a troubling reality and places us church leaders in a powerful, even dictatorial, position.
We might be asking gay men and women to “fix” themselves, asking parents to send their “sinning” children to conversion centers. We are asking people to leave our churches and parents to disown their children. We might, if so purposed, cause a whole group of people to be outside our doors, segregated and without representation.
In a world looking for bridges should we be building moats?
Our response to homosexuality is a human one. It is human in its ugliness and human in its love. Homosexuality is not some far away idea or theory but real people with real lives, real names. Jesus is the good shepherd, he calls his sheep by name and the sheep know his voice. We are simply one of the sheep, no more.
Can we to close the gate on sheep that respond to the shepherds’ call? I do not believe I can.
Joben David is intrigued by words and their power to influence change. David writes primarily because he loves a good story. His own story has taken him through a myriad of experiences from his childhood in rural India to travelling and working around the world. David has a bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Baylor University and a Master in Christian Ministry from George W. Truett Seminary. He lives in Washington, DC and is always on the lookout for his next adventure.
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“Gentiles had been welcomed into the church but were required to be circumcised.”
I don’t believe that is the case. From the story of Cornelius (the first recorded uncircumcised Gentile to enter the Church) in Acts 10 till the decisive Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, there is not a hint of any church assembly, nor anyone in church leadership, making any such requirement. The Judaizers (see Acts 15:1 and the book of Galatians) taught this requirement, but there is no evidence that any church ever put it into effect.
“Not being circumcised, eating unclean animals and working on the Sabbath were all sins once. We cannot kid ourselves that the law, even our measure of sin, changes with time and circumstance.”
At Sinai we get eternal rules, and we also get rules designed to distinguish God’s people from other people for the duration of their organization according to the covenant at Sinai.
The Ten Commandments are among the eternal rules (and thus working on the Sabbath is still a sin).
Among the other kind of rules are the dietary regulations.
It would take some work to produce a complete list of the rules in each category. But we can safely say that any rule re-given in the letters of Paul is one of the eternal ones.
I still want to know what the method is for determining the difference between mere Hebraic cultural preference, and the obvious and eternal law of God.
I will accept links, and even books.
Wrong question! God’s rules at Sinai are God’s rules. They are the Word of God, no “mere Hebraic cultural preference.”
And who says God’s eternal laws are obvious?
The right question is this: What is the method for determining the difference between God’s eternal rules and the rules designed to distinguish God’s people from other peoples for the duration of the Mosaic covenant?
You’re asking about a criterion: the criterion for saying a rule given at Sinai fits into one of those two categories (or perhaps two criteria, one for each category).
Look, have we talked about Chisholm yet? Roderick Chisholm in “The Problem of the Criterion” asks a question about a criterion. Which criterion doesn’t matter here, but his approach to the nature of criterion questions is S-P-L-E-N-D-I-D.
When you’re trying to figure out what fits into a certain category, you can be what Chisholm calls a methodist or what he calls a particularist. A methodist thinks he has a criterion for knowing what fits into the relevant category, and he applies it to particular cases. He uses the criterion to categorize. A particularist thinks he knows some things that go into the category, and he looks at them in hopes of deriving from them, by process of induction, a criterion.
Of course, one can be both a particularist and a methodist. All you need to be a methodist is a pretty good idea what the criterion is. All you need to be a particularlist is a pretty good idea what are some things that fit into the relevant category.
Now, to directly address the right question: I don’t know the criterion!
But if I were going to figure it out I might be a methodist, and use this criterion: A rule from Sinai fits into one of those categories in virtue of being explicitly kept or rejected in the New Testament. Maybe I’d be a particularist, and make a list from the New Testament of the rules by category, and then look over those lists and try to understand what the categories have in common.
I’d probably do both.
Excellent answer! No we have never discussed Roderick Chisholm, but I am not wholly ignorant of contemporary philosophy so I do in fact know who you are discussing. (Apologies for the double negative, I just like the poetry sometimes)
I accept that you yourself do not truly know the proper criteria to determine which of the laws given in the Old Testament is an “eternal law of God” or a temporary law of God. As an interesting counterpoint I don’t suppose you know of God making any other temporary laws besides the ones given in the Old Testament? I suppose the idea is that the Mosaic covenant has its own special laws and then there are the eternal laws which apply universally to everyone. I just wonder if there are “other” covenants with other laws that are designed to make similar distinctions.
But back to the main question, I assume that there must be some orthodox position on this but for the life of me I do not believe that I have ever encountered it.
I am curious as to who are the major theological resources for which of the Old Testament laws are to be kept and which are to be abandoned since we fall outside the “Mosaic Covenant?”
Now I suppose this might be different from Protestant, to Catholic, to Eastern Orthodox and beyond but I am still curious as to what scholars you might point me to in this respect.
Well, in Reformation theology this book is probably the best place to start, though it may not spend a lot of time on that specifically: http://www.amazon.com/Introducing-Covenant-Theology-Michael-Horton/dp/080107195X
And I disagree: You have encountered some good commentary on this: in an early book of the Confessions. Book III, IV, or V I would think, but I can’t be more specific off the top of my head.
Like practially everything else, it’s probably somewhere in Aquinas’ Summa.
I would suggest Emil Brunner’s Dogmatics – especially his sections on the law.
Thanks to you both! Now I have some research to engage in.
It’s funny you mention that passage from Augustine as ended up using it (Book 3, chapters 7-9) in my dissertation. Though it would be too much to get into here. (For Aquinas I would just say read Part II of the Summa, at least articles 90-97, that should hold you for a few years.)
Also in that same passage from Augustine he indicates that the “sin of the men of Sodom” would be an example of a sin against the universal law of God since it would be a sin against our human nature.
Of course if I start debating Augustine then I have wandered away from the point of this post.
The criteria for Augustine are simple, you take the 2 commands of Christ (Love God and your neighbor) and whatever can be found in the Old Testament, or anywhere, which harmonizes with these laws is the universal law of God, no matter who follows it or why. Everything else which God has decreed for specific times and places is part of the customary laws of that society, and thus relative, though it can’t conflict with the universal law.
I don’t know if I would say that this solves my problem though. Since even though Augustine explains that the 10 commandments fit the universal law (the first three fit Love God, and the last 7 fit love neighbor) It’s not exactly clear how they do that. For that matter it’s also not clear how “the sin of the men of sodom” is against human nature, especially since Augustine doesn’t tell us what that sin is and the Bible gives a few different possibilities there. (Ez 16:49 does not seem to be what he has in mind).
Still perhaps I want clear methodology, when in truth I will have to settle for general guidelines. Oh well.
“The criteria for Augustine are simple, you take the 2 commands of Christ (Love God and your neighbor) and whatever can be found in the Old Testament, or anywhere, which harmonizes with these laws is the universal law of God, no matter who follows it or why. Everything else which God has decreed for specific times and places is part of the customary laws of that society, and thus relative, though it can’t conflict with the universal law.”
No, I think that’s too simple. First of all, the Word of God is the Word of God, and we employ that rule of faith to interpret it only where the text is ambiguous; when the text is not ambiguous, our sole duty is to believe and obey. Also, like any good Protestant would also say, the content of that rule itself comes from Scripture; Scripture is supreme.
Accordingly, and second, the primary use of that interpretive rule is disambiguation of the biblical text–not categorization of God’s rules into eternal and temporary.
Third, you can’t say that anything that “harmonizes” with love of God and neighbor is the universal law of God; since nothing God commands actually conflicts, it all harmonizes.
Accordingly, and fourth, if there is a (secondary) use of the rule of love of God and neighbor to disambiguate eternal from temporary rules, it’s something different: like whether a rule from God directly requires behavior that manifests the love of God and neighbor, or is merely consistent with it. (Is there such a use of that rule in Confessions? I don’t know.)
“I don’t know if I would say that this solves my problem though. Since even though Augustine explains that the 10 commandments fit the universal law (the first three fit Love God, and the last 7 fit love neighbor) It’s not exactly clear how they do that. For that matter it’s also not clear how “the sin of the men of sodom” is against human nature, especially since Augustine doesn’t tell us what that sin is . . . .”
They don’t fit it; they require it.
Now the rule of love for God and neighbor tells us NOTHING AT ALL unless we know how to love. For knowing how to love God and man, we need to know two things: what God tells us about how to love, and what sort of being these humans are whom we are to love.
That last one may require a natural law ethic; it certainly does in Augustine–learned from great philosophers, from his own reflections, but almost certainly also from the application to the Bible of the good hermeneutics taught in De doctrina Christiana.
“Jesus leaned into the ambiguous. He did not throw stones at the adulteress, and he defended the prostitute despite the law.”
What ambiguity do you see here? The adultery was unambiguously a sin, sin, sin! Jesus knows this and treats it as such. He tells her “Go and sin no more.”
There’s also no ambiguity in the New Testament as to how and whether sinners are forgiven. They are—in Christ—by faith—a faith which includes repentance. No one follows the Shepherd’s call without repenting of sin.
If you want to point to biblical evidence that there’s ambiguity whether homosexual acts are sinful, then do it. That’s the ambiguity that matters.
Or if you want to object to the natural reading of New Testament passages that appear to include homosexual acts along with all the other sins we’re supposed to repent of, then do that.
“Some see homosexuality as deviant sexual behavior and others see it as not a choice but a natural biological reality.”
This is not a biblical case for moral ambiguity with respect to homosexual acts. It’s a philosophical case for moral ambiguity, but I don’t think it’s a very good one.
Let’s start by spelling it all out: Some see homosexuality as deviant sexual behavior, a choice, and not influenced by biology; others see it as not deviant, not a choice, and influenced by biology.
Now this is an inappropriate dichotomizing. A deviant sexual behavior is a choice, whether or not there is an underlying desire that is biological and not a choice. Probably every non-eunuch has deviant sexual desires, rooted partially or entirely in biology. Maybe the desire is sinless, but adultery is still sinful.
From the mere fact that a behavior is wrong you can’t leap to any conclusion about the morality of a person who desires that behavior. Nor can you leap from the mere fact that a person sinlessly desires something to the conclusion that acting on that desire is ok.
I thought Augustine was pretty clear on the notion that sin is inordinate desire. So if your desire is directed towards that which is perverse then the desire itself, with or without action, is a sin.
So is it possible to commit an act that is evil, but from the proper desire and thus still be moral?
The Augustinian answer to this question is No. But I think that’s the wrong question.
The right question in this context is: Can I have an evil desire and not act on it and still be blameless? The Augustinian answer is No; the desire itself is a sin.
The big question is whether some particular desire is evil.
The question is actually more specific than that. It is this: Can we conclude that a desire is evil from the fact that to follow through on the desire would be evil?
You can’t make that inference from the mere fact of the immorality of the act. But you can make that inference with the help of additional premises, some of which might come from Augustinian ethics.
Mr. Boone, Thank you for the detailed feedback. I sincerely appreciate you sharing your point of view.
Joben, this was an incredible piece. If anyone is interested I recommend reading Matthew Vines, God and the Gay Christian.
http://www.godandthegaychristian.com/#home
Joben, this is a well thought-out article. You took a public stand, and that’s something not a lot of folks are willing to do these days.
I disagree with your opinion that homosexual relationships are not wrong. My Bible says they are. Actually, every Bible says they are.
However comma, the church is alienating this group of people and pushing them farther away. This breaks my heart. How are we supposed to minister and share God’s love (for the person, not the sin) if we’re actively excluding an extremely huge group of people?
This is a tough subject. It doesn’t compare to slavery; it doesn’t compare to social laws about African Americans because being African American isn’t a sin.
I admit that acceptance is a major struggle in my life, but I want to be welcoming and loving toward this community. I don’t agree with it, but that’s not going to stop me from having gay friends, or for standing up for them.
Thanks Aaron. I struggle with the same things you describe you do. I am not equating LGBTQ rights and our history with race issues. That would be unfair to both groups of people. Every struggle is its own and requires nuance a blog post cannot muster.
I have also come to realize – and this is me speaking for myself – that in this case I am incapable of hating the “sin” and not hating the person. I have to allow that being gay is inherently part of the person,that they cannot be split apart. Consequently, if I hate your gayness, I automatically hate you. I haven’t ever found a way to be truly welcoming while maintaining the hatred you talk about. (Of course, the truth is none of us truly have the high hatred of sin we espouse. If we did, the church has plenty more issues to deal with).
Aaron and Joben, great remarks. A lot of that is true of me too.