Six views on homosexuality fram taskforce deliberation

So Johnson spent about three hours on August 4 laying out at warp speed for the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the PC(USA) – of which he is member – a framework of six significant ways in which Christians have considered homosexuality, ranging, on the one end, from absolutely prohibiting homosexuality as inherently sinful, to, on the other, celebrating homosexuality as a creation of God. He didn’t advocate any of the positions – he just tried to get inside the heads of Christians who hold them, and to consider the implications of each for how Presbyterians view ordination standards and same-sex unions.

Those six views “do not exhaust the possibilities,” Johnson said, but do provide “a roadmap of the terrain” through which the church has been traveling.

This task force meeting, being held Aug. 3-6 in Dallas, is being closely watched. The group has been meeting since late in 2001 and is expected to present its report to the church in September 2005, so the clock definitely is ticking. The General Assembly has for two years now held off doing anything controversial involving ordination standards, to give the task force time and space in which to work.

And finally, homosexuality – the issue consuming both secular and political debate – is on the agenda, front-and-center.

Johnson’s presentation, chock-full of theology, science and history, gave essentially no time for discussion. And it was immediately followed by more than four hours of closed-door discussions by the task force – in which the doors were shut to all observers to allow the task force to have a private, frank exchange of views. So far, however, the task force members have given the church no clue about what they think about an issue that’s considered one of the most significant in the denomination’s life.

But Johnson laid the groundwork for considering a range of ways Christians have considered homosexuality. The conversation the church needs to have involves much more than just lining up the few Bible verses that speak of homosexuality, said Johnson, who teaches systematic theology at Princeton seminary. “The passages by themselves are inconclusive,” he said, so theological judgments must be made about how broadly or narrowly to interpret and apply them. “Just citing the passages is not enough,” Johnson said. “One has to make a theological argument.”

Johnson also said that:

• Same-sex relationships have been present throughout history, but have been viewed differently in different times and places, sometimes being considered shameful and sometimes held in high-esteem. Those relationships – ranging from loving partnerships between equals today to relationships in ancient Greece in which younger men or boys provided sexual favors to more powerful older men – show there’s not one single, monolithic expression of homosexuality.

• Some people consider themselves exclusively gay or lesbian; others have same-sex relationships at particular times in their lives. “Sexual desire lies along a continuum, with from 4 to 10 percent of the population considered exclusively homosexual, Johnson said.

But for purposes of this discussion, Johnson limited himself to speaking of one particular type of person – a gay or lesbian whose sexual identity is firmly established, who is a baptized member in good standing of a Christian congregation, and who is involved in an exclusive, committed relationship with a partner. Where does that person fit, Johnson asked the task force, into “the grand gospel drama?”

Here are six ways of answering that question, as Johnson presented them

VIEW 1: Categorical prohibition
This view relies in part on divine intentionality – the idea that the institution of marriage is part of the order of creation as revealed in the Bible, and that the bodies of men and women naturally compliment each other.

In the second chapter of Genesis, a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. Prohibitionists see homosexuality as falling short of God’s intention for the created order, as “a specific act of disobedience” that “deserves to be condemned,” Johnson said. In this view, “homosexual acts are perverse, period,” and those who commit them need to repent of sin, both of the deed and of the homosexual desire.

Advocates of this view often recommend “reparative therapy,” in which gays and lesbians are encouraged to give up homosexual desire and either remain celibate or embrace heterosexual marriage. So the acceptable moral choices prohibitionists see for homosexuals are convert to heterosexuality or be abstinent.

Some advocates of this position veer too far, Johnson contends. For example, arguing that being created in the “image of God” means being created with bodies in which the male and female seem naturally to fit together can be problematic. Single people – those with no partner to whom their bodies can match – shouldn’t be presented as not in the image of God. Suggesting that heterosexuality is normatively human – and that homosexuality is somehow subhuman – ‘is no statement of the gospel,” Johnson said.

And “focus on body parts for sake of body parts suggests that any union involving body parts is graceful,” meaning it involves God’s grace, when clearly that’s not true (think of rape or incest, he said.) “It is hard to begin an argument with body parts,” Johnson said, “and arrive at monogamy.”

Overall, however, the prohibitionist view has “an impressive internal consistency,” Johnson said. While it is not the official view of the PC(USA) – meaning it’s not represented in the “definitive guidance” on homosexuality adopted by the General Assembly – “it is a view held by a significant number of Presbyterians,” at least 5 to 10 percent, which gives that view considerable political clout.

Before the definitive guidance, gays and lesbians were being ordained on a case-by-case basis, Johnson said. And when two presbyteries presented overtures seeking clarification of the rules about whether openly gay people who were not celibate could be ordained – essentially looking for a polity solution – they were ahead of the curve, asking Presbyterians to approve what “to many smacked of moral licentiousness” and asking for the denomination’s blessing of gay leadership “when the majority in the church had not come to grips with gay existence.”

Logically, Johnson said, “the church could only say no.”

But the definitive guidance, which states that “homosexuality is not God’s wish for humanity,” did plow new ground for Presbyterians, Johnson said. First, it accepted the concept of sexual orientation – the idea that for some people, homosexuality “is experienced as a given rather than a choice.” In doing that, Johnson said, the decision was made “to exit the worldview of the biblical writers,” who focused primary on sexual acts and not what people today would define as sexual orientation, the fixed and unchangeable nature of a person’s sexual desires.

And secondly, Johnson said, the definitive guidance recognized that church teaching had to change, “that change was unavoidable” as the church moved to become more welcoming of gays and lesbians living out their sexual orientations. It rejects homophobia and says homosexuals should be valued and welcomed as church members.

In that light, the definitive guidance sees homosexuality not as “a perversion to be condemned, but a tragedy to be understood,” a tragic result of the sinfulness of humankind after creation, Johnson said. The theology of the definitive guidance is to “acknowledge orientation, reject practice.” Straight people should repent of acting hatefully to gays, he said, and gays should repent of “acting out their orientation.”

But the definitive guidance makes it unclear, Johnson said, ‘what support from the church a gay or lesbian couple can expect to receive.” The definitive guidance seems to have no place for even committed homosexual relationships, while individual congregations may want to be welcoming. “This is the ambiguity under which the church lives,” Johnson said.

And, regarding ordination, the definitive guidance essentially gives the PC(USA) “a don’t ask, don’t tell policy,” Johnson said. “If gay and lesbian persons play by the rules and are circumspect about who they are, then certainly they can be ordained.”

But if they insist on being both self-affirming – meaning they speak publicly of their sexual orientation – and “practicing,” meaning they are not celibate, “then ordination is prohibited,” Johnson said. Those in the closet can be ordained, those who are out and honest about their relationships cannot. But in the current political climate even “don’t ask, don’t tell” is becoming a thing of the past, Johnson said, as other people “are doing the asking and telling for us” – apparently a reference to cases filed through the church disciplinary process involving allegations of homosexual activity.

All of this creates burdens for gays and lesbians in monogamously committed relationships, Johnson said – for example, for a gay man who is called to be an elder but is also in a relationship, and who “must sacrifice either his identity, his integrity or his calling,” Johnson said. “And probably, at some deep level, all three.”

So it’s not clear, with the definitive guidance, ‘whether the church really has a redemptive word to say to homosexual people” – whether it has a clear message about what a redeemed sexuality for gays and lesbians in committed relationships would look like, Johnson said.

“Heterosexuals “have at least the hope of a union the church will gladly bless,” someday, if they choose to marry, he said. ‘This is not so for the gay or lesbian person under definitive guidance.”

SUMMARY:
CREATION: Homosexuality is a tragedy, not a perversion.
REPENTANCE: Repent of acting gay.
REDEMPTION: Stoic acceptance of one’s faith through abstinence.

Advocates of this view agree with the definitive guidance “that homosexuality is a tragedy” and the result of humanity’s sinful nature, Johnson said. But they contend that “same-sex orientation may be a tragedy, but in this it is no different from any other sinful condition.”

And they focus on the logic of inviting people into membership in the church, yet excluding them from leadership as if being gay or lesbian “were somehow reprehensible.”

Advocates of this view also raise questions about the church’s hypocrisy in dealing with gays and lesbians. If gays and lesbians should be given civil rights, why should the church discriminate against them in ordination and employment? In some Presbyterian congregations, “employees are still fired for being gay,” Johnson said.

Supporters of this approach that contend that ordination should be determined by giftedness for ministry, not sexual orientation, and that redemption through Christ should offer a greater hope “than mere stoic acceptance of a lifetime of unhappiness.”

Jesus is the church’s true model for redemption, advocates of this view say. So the church’s model of a redeemed life “should not be taken from Ozzie and Harriet,” Johnson said, but from the ministry and mission of Jesus, who invited sinners to the table and made unconventional choices in picking leaders.

Some Presbyterians are critical of the justice view, saying ordination is a privilege that must be confirmed by the church when a call from God is discerned, not a “right” to be demanded, and that true church leadership should be servant leadership.

Perhaps the justice view could be recast, Johnson suggested – saying that none is righteous, all are under the power of sin and all must be justified by God’s grace, as a gift.

That’s not the only time Christians make such accommodations, Johnson said. For example, ‘we know that war is not God’s will but sometimes war is the lesser of the evils.” And heterosexuals can divorce and remarry even though that’s not seen as God’s will either. Sometimes “real life involves us in compromises,” Johnson explained.

The Southern church’s version of definitive guidance contained the seeds of this position, when it added a paragraph saying it “does not speak of the homosexual condition as a sin” but as “an effect of sin,” Johnson said. And “it does not preclude the possibility of relatively loving and faithful actions within the framework of such a sin.”

He also reminded the task force that the presbyteries defeated in 2001 a proposed amendment to the PC (USA) constitution, which would have prohibited church officers from blessing same-sex unions or allowing church property to be used for such ceremonies. That failed, Johnson said, in part because too many Presbyterians know and care for gays and lesbians in committed relationships, and have seen the caring and love those couples have shown within those partnerships.

To celebrationists, committed relationships among gays and lesbians are not viewed as the lesser of two evils, but as “a positive good, at least when rightly ordered,” Johnson said.

Celebrationists say that homosexuality is a fact of natural life, that nature is differentiated and complex. Johnson referred to an author who’s written about homosexuality in animals and who has found that 471 animal species, from dolphins to birds, exhibit some form of same-sex sexuality. If homosexuality is abundant in nature, it’s hard to argue that it’s unnatural among humans, this group contends. Homosexuality, rather than being a perversion or a tragedy, is “simply a fact that occurs naturally in the created world” and “should no longer be draped in shame,” Johnson said. The first chapter of Genesis states that “God saw all that He had made, and found it very good.”

Consequently, in this view gays and lesbians should be reconciled to the goodness of their sexuality, Johnson said, not asked to repent of being homosexual or of committing homosexual acts. Homophobia should be eradicated and gays and lesbians fully accepted into the life of the church, including ordination.

And celebrationists often are impatient with allies who want to move more slowly, to build coalitions and consensus. “They insist on justice now,” Johnson said.

Johnson said questions can be raised about whether celebrationists’ arguments are distinctively Christian, or whether they sometimes go beyond the boundaries of historic Christian theology. It’s one thing to argue that gay and lesbian committed partnerships can meet the standards of fidelity and chastity, he said, but quite different to argue that fidelity and chastity are not necessary. Some celebrationists seem reticent, Johnson said, to articulate norms for ethical standards in sexual behavior.

They argue that the purpose of sexual desire is to lift people into the kind of covenantal desire that God has for us in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. So consecrationists interpret sexuality not as isolated, as inherently good or bad, but in connection to God’s desire for us to be in relationship with God.

This view sees homosexual orientation as a fact of nature and part of the goodness of creation, but not as good in itself – nor does it see heterosexuality as inherently good. To consecrationists, both heterosexual and homosexual relationships need be “rightly ordered,” Johnson said. The focus is on sexual relationships, not sexual acts. To celebrate sexuality in and of itself is considered in this view to be pagan, not Christian, he said.

Consecrationists focus on sexual relationships as a way of understanding God’s will – they want a theological understanding of sexuality that arises from the concept that for Christians, the primary source of identity is being a baptized believer, part of the body of Christ, not one’s sexual orientation. “Our primary identification is that of child of God,” Johnson said. “Being baptized means that we’re all in this together as the body of Christ,” straight and gay, and that our earthly desires reflect God’s deep desire for us.

Also, in this view, how we order our lives isn’t just a private matter, but a matter for the community. “The community has a stake in our relationships,” Johnson said. So sin does not reside in one’s sexual orientation, but in how one orders one’s life.

And to consecrationists, for the church not to support a gay or lesbian committed partnership – partnerships that uphold the historic church teachings against adultery and promiscuity – “is an offense to the gospel,” Johnson said. They don’t want to do away with traditional church teachings about fidelity within committed relationships and chastity outside of them, “but to take that teaching to a deeper level,” to include gays and lesbians. Consecrationists say that to deny that is to “deny them an opportunity to grow in grace” and “is to deny them the gospel,” Johnson said.

To say that gays and lesbians must change their orientation is “a word of death, a denial of God’s grace” in this view, Johnson said. They argue for ‘a more Reformed understanding of marriage,” that marriage is not an order of creation but of redemption, existing not to shore up the world but to allow people to grow in grace and contribute to the world as it ought to be, “not as God’s final act of creation, but as one of God’s first acts to redeem creation,” Johnson said

The prohibitionists would discard the homosexuality card.

The definitive guidance players would hide it.

The justice folks would see it as “just another card in the game.”

The pastoral folks would want all the other players in the game to help the person who drew the card.

The celebrationists would consider it to be a very good card.