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Holy Week resources and reflections

Members React to Views of Homosexuality Found in the PC(USA)

DALLAS – Think of this like an episode of your favorite TV show. You’re going to have to tune in later to find out what happens.

The Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) did talk about homosexuality during its Aug. 3-6 meeting, although nearly all behind closed doors, in more than seven hours of private discussions.


Its 20 members spent about an hour in public session Aug. 5 responding to a presentation that William Stacy Johnson, a theologian from Princeton Theological Seminary and a member of the task force, had made, in which he laid out six ways that Christians have looked at homosexuality – not arguing in favor of any of those views, just presenting them to get people thinking. For example, some Presbyterians see homosexuality as sinful and contrary to Scripture, others as a natural condition to be celebrated.

During that session, the 20 task force members did not describe their own views, but talked about the strengths people might perceive in each of the six positions.

For example, John “Mike” Loudon, a pastor from Florida, said the prohibitionist view – which holds that homosexuality is a perversion of God’s intent and that gays and lesbians should become heterosexual or abstain from sexual activity – is consistent with traditional biblical teaching and “where I live and serve, this would be culturally acceptable.”

Jack Haberer, a pastor from Houston, said the prohibitionist view “doesn’t indulge sin. It calls people to repent.” Scott Anderson, executive director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches, said prohibitionists make it clear that “unrepentant sexual sin is serious sin. It is capital S sin.”

Some people contend that for many sexual orientation is a given, unchanging over the course of their lives. But the prohibitionist view, by saying that homosexuals can try to become heterosexual, is congruent with the idea of Jesus being able to heal people, said Mark Achtemeier, who teaches theology at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary.

And so it went, through each of the six views. Unless someone had an advanced degree in tealeaf reading, it couldn’t be determined from that discussion where the task force is heading – for that, stay tuned.

But even their take-no-sides conversation did provide some nuggets of ideas to pursue.

Some people ask, “Why is the task force even looking at this?” said Mary Ellen Lawson, stated clerk for Redstone presbytery. Those people say just look at the Bible, “the answers are here” and homosexuality is clearly wrong.

But Milton “Joe” Coalter, librarian and professor of bibliography at Union Presbyterian Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, said others of the six views also turn to Scripture and reach other conclusions. The Presbyterian Church recognizes “there’s something other than inerrancy, but how far does it go?” – in other words, what’s fair and what’s not in interpreting Scripture? “When does the Bible speak with a clear voice and when can it be manipulated” to find other meanings, Coalter asked. “I think there’s a lot of confusion” in “trying to distinguish when God’s speaking and when biblical writers are speaking.” In describing some of the six views, Johnson said those approaches see homosexuality as a “tragedy” and a result of humanity’s sinfulness. Barbara Wheeler, president of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York, pressed him about exactly what that meant and on what doctrine of creation those views rely. One classic definition of tragedy is the hero has a tragic flaw, and that flaw “leaves a lot of bodies all over the stage,” including the hero’s, she said. Or in this case was it Adam’s flaw – his sin – that caused the bodies of homosexuals to be left all over the stage?

Johnson answered that, the way he interprets the PC(USA)’s current definitive guidance on homosexuality – guidance that’s been adopted by the General Assembly – homosexuality is “not a fatal flaw in the person who’s gay or lesbian” and “this is not the fault of the gay or lesbian person.” Definitive guidance suggests that they have a homosexual orientation “because we live in a fallen world,” a world full of sin, Johnson said. As a result, the church welcomes gays and lesbians but does not hold up gay or lesbian sexual activity “as something that’s good. It’s not. It’s not the result of the goodness of creation, it’s the result of the fallen-ness of creation,” according to that view.

But that dichotomy – the person isn’t sinful, but the behavior is, and sexually-active gays and lesbians can’t be ordained – can cause difficulty as it’s played out in congregations. Barbara Everitt Bryant, a research scientist from the University of Michigan business school, said she once recommended to a church evangelism committee that it not recruit gays and lesbians to worship there, because they would basically be telling those people: “We love you, we welcome you, but you can only be a second-class citizen.”

The task force also spent some time talking about images of the church in the Bible – looking for metaphors it might use in describing the PC(USA). The task force members have been reading Raymond Brown’s book “The Churches the Apostles Left Behind,” which describes images of the church presented in various books of the New Testament in the period after Jesus died and was resurrected, and when the apostles who had immediately followed him had died too.

Some of the images the Bible uses are of the vine and the branches, the household of God, the building on the rock. Coalter said as he looks at the Presbyterian church today, he thinks of the pilgrim people of God on an exodus, making a journey together, wandering, listening for God, trying to find a way.

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