The web site, Homosexuality and the Bible, put together by Mennonite, Loren L. Johns, was a great help to me as I tried to work out my views on same-gender sexuality in relation to the Bible. Johns says:
Although my attempt in these pages has been to represent fairly and honestly the best arguments on both sides of this issue, I would like to say at the outset how I personally approach this matter. This issue has proved to be one of the more intractable issues the Mennonite Church has faced. Official church documents clearly call for celibacy on the part of gays and lesbians while also calling the church to remain in loving dialogue as we continue to study the Bible on this issue.
It seems that Johns comes down in favor of the Mennonite Church's call for celibacy, but I believe that he does present the issue, both pros and cons, in an even-handed manner. In a three-column format, he lays out in the first column all the Scripture passages that remotely or possibly reference same-sex sexuality, however tenuous the connection might be. In column two, he gives the interpretation for the passage that demonstrates why it indicates that same-gender sexuality is wrong. In the third column, he explains how another interpretation could show that same-gender sexuality is not necessarily wrong.
When GC 2003, voted consent to the consecration of Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire, I agreed with the vote cast by my bishop, Charles Jenkins, who voted against consent. But I could not forget that a majority of the Episcopalians in New Hampshire wanted him for their bishop. Why shouldn't they have him?
As I said in the first of my Confessions,
As the controversy continued to swirl around, I decided to search out the references to homosexual behavior in the Bible. The source that I found most helpful was from the website of Loren L. Johns, a Mennonite. The Gospels, which, to me, are the heart of the Bible, are, as you know, silent on the subject of homosexual practice. Either Jesus did not mention it, or the writers of the Gospel did not think it important enough to include in their accounts of his life and teachings.
Now some will argue about the inclusion or exclusion of certain passages from Johns' list, and others may argue about his interpretation of the pros and cons. Folks have told me that the centurion's servant was really his sex partner and that Jesus' healing of the servant meant that he approved of their relationship. I am not convinced about that, but I am not a Scripture scholar, and I could be wrong.
The passages from the Old Testament were, for me, rather easy to dispose of, because there are so many laws and instructions from the OT that we do not follow today.
I moved on to the New Testament, Acts, the Epistles, and Revelation. For me they were less then completely persuasive, because they include instructions and traditions that we no longer follow with respect to such issues as slavery, women in leadership, women covering their heads, and women keeping silent in worship.
Although Johns puts his list in the sequence that the books appear in the New Testament, I saved the Gospels for last, because I see them as the lens through which I read the rest of the Bible, the heart of the Bible. The Gospels were, for me, the final word. Jesus says nothing about same-sex sexuality. He says a good deal about love and faithfulness. If the proscription against sexual activity between persons of the same sex is vital to the faith life of his followers, why did he say nothing about it? That was most persuasive to me of all.
Whatever the combination of nature and nurture that causes a person to be attracted to members of the same sex, whatever the science - and I believe that we don't yet have all the scientific answers - I'm convinced that being gay or lesbian cannot be reduced to a "lifestyle choice".
Upon thinking and praying further, I came to the conclusion that, since my God is a loving God, that he loves his whole creation, why would he create persons who are attracted to members of the same sex, with the same strong sexual desires as persons attracted to the opposite sex, and expect them never to act on those desires, to live lonely lives bereft of love, and companionship, and faithfulness to another? The God I know and love would not do that.
My friends, this was the path the I traveled, and it is not one that I urge on anyone else. This is my story for better or for worse, from one without great knowledge or scholarship. I may have taken wrong twists and turns. Indeed, I may have come to conclusions based on interpreting the evidence wrongly. I am not lesbian or gay, so I cannot speak from experience. Everything I see in the Jesus of the Gospels points to his welcoming and including all who wished to follow him and help build God's Kingdom on earth.
Whatever mistakes I may have made in finding my way - mostly on my own, with very little advice or counsel - I believe that I came to the right conclusion in the end. I sense the guidance of the Holy Spirit throughout as I made my way, and, for me, I believe there's no turning back.
I offer this story humbly, with full knowledge that it is, no doubt, full of imperfections, nevertheless, I thank God for where I am now, and those of you who read this, I thank you for your patience.
When I read the words "homosexual" & "mennonite" my thoughts ran in the direction of clothing prohibitions (which nowadays is Amish only, not Mennonites), buttons and, finally and after after all these years, Erica Jong - a whole new take on the concept to the "zipperless you-know-what" (see "Fear of Flying"). Mind's in the gutter today, I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteOur old pall "Wiki" sets me to rights. The Dutch Mennonite church was the first in the Netherlands to have a female pastor (1911); the first (1970's) to approve gay & lesbian pastors, and the first (2001) to solemnize gay marriages. Live and learn, don't we?
And I thank you, Mimi, for your honesty and your willingness to explore and learn.
ReplyDeleteHaving raised the question of the Centurion's boy-toy, let me stress that the Gospel renditions of the story are not plain. But it is known (and would have been known to the original readers) that Romans, particularly in the military culture, kept boys as sexual companions, and the vocabulary used is consistent with this kind of relationship. Presumably, since nothing is said about this by Jesus, those readers were expected to draw their own conclusions. As should we.
My own reason for not bringing up David and Jonathan, or the centurion's "boy," etc. is that, as Paul (a.) says, the Bible isn't clear on the subject, and that lack of clarity should, I think, be our point. The simple fact is, the conservative side has not proven theirs is the correct interpretation, and "that's the way we've always done it" is certainly not a sufficient reason to let lie an interpretation which directly affects the lives of a portion of believers.
ReplyDeleteWe need to stop going on the defensive, stop allowing the conservatives to rest on "tradition" and the lie of "clear scripture" and demand proof or admission of uncertainty.
"The Gospels were, for me, the final word. Jesus says nothing about same-sex sexuality."
ReplyDeleteThis always strikes me as a dngerous argument. Jesus says nothing about rape, or incest. What conclusions do we draw from that?
(He does, of course, speak fairly explicitly about divorce, and we have certainnly taken that prohibition to heart, haven't we?)
"I came to the conclusion that, since my God is a loving God, that he loves his whole creation, why would he create persons who are attracted to members of the same sex, with the same strong sexual desires as persons attracted to the opposite sex, and expect them never to act on those desires, to live lonely lives bereft of love, and companionship, and faithfulness to another? The God I know and love would not do that."
Again, we know that some people have strong sexual desires for children. That such persons exist surely isn't an argument for pederasty, even if it does leave them lonley and unfulfilled.
But it seems to me that there is a more general argument, that the existence of a desire, an unchosen desire, means that the desire is of God, and should be affirmed. But I'm sure you can think of as many examples as I where such desires are to be avoided rather than satisfied.
I am surprised--I guess I shouldn't be--by the increasing reliance on the story of the centurian and his "pais." Suffice it to say that, if the relationship was sexual (for which I think there is no textual support), then Jesus' "affirmance" is of much more than a simple "same-sex" relationship; this is presumably a foundation for an argument for pederasty.
But really, if we are that gullible, then I suppose Karl Rove may start putting up billboards assuring us that Jesus affirmed the foreign military occupation of a middle eastern country with this healing.
Although I come at it from the opposite perspective, I share Rick's concern with the argument from silence.
ReplyDeleteBut why is it that conservatives ALWAYS have to raise the issue of pedophilia in concert with the subject of homosexuality?
Rick, you *have* to know how offensive even seeing the two things in the same paragraph has to be to gays and lesbians who are asking only to be allowed to make a lifetime commitment to their partners. Can't you find some other example to use? I find it stunning that, in 2007, I have to keep saying this: There is simply no equivalence between faithful, loving, consenting adults in a same-sex relationship and child abusers. Why is that so difficult to understand?!?!?!?
I have made a mess of heterosexual marriage. Jesus was quite clear on the evils of divorce. In the "clear words of scripture," I am condemned as an adulterer (because I married more than once--not because I had an affair. Just thought that needed mentioning! ;-).
Yet I am welcomed in the church, and could even be married again in it, if I lost my mind and contemplated doing so, and the Bishop approved.
Despite my status as an adulterer, I am welcomed into the church. I serve in leadership positions. I have been asked (and refused) to serve on the Vestry.
The church has made pastoral provisions for me. I hope that is because my love and longing for a relationship with God is apparent, and that I am attempting to mitigate the damage I have done to my children, the men I married, and my witness to the world as a Christian heterosexual person.
What damage have faithful gays and lesbians done to that witness? Who is a better example of Gospel values---Louie Crew and Ernest Clay, who recently celebrated 32 years of marriage, or Doxy, who has been married twice and failed at both?
Mimi---on another issue, I finally blogged about Davis and Josh. And thank you for your prayers. I have needed them.
I said I did it my way, didn't I? I may have taken wrong turns and come to conclusions based on mistaken evidence, but It is the inclusiveness of Our Lord Jesus Christ that is the most persuasive to me.
ReplyDeleteRick, if there seems to be a conflict between words in the Gospels and words from other books of the Bible, I will go with the Gospel.
Perhaps, "because it's not in the Gospels" is a poor argument, but. Rick, honestly, as Doxy says, how can you bring up rape and incest in the same breath? I believe that you have said something similar before. The rapist and one who commits incest are exercising power to do violence to another. How could we ever think that Jesus would approve of that sort of action? Many, many desires that willfully cause harm to others must, of course, be suppressed.
What pushed my change of mind and heart were the stories from people of the same gender, whose lives bear the fruits of the Spirit so obviously, who are adults loving each other as you love your wife, Rick. I do not find it within me to tell them that they must be celibate.
And your leap to the argument of Jesus approving the invasion Iraq is simply ridiculous.
Rick, I believe that you are a good man, but do you have any awareness of how harsh and judgmental your words appear?
Paul and Mark, I didn't explore the story of the centurion's servant in any depth, and it didn't figure into my coming to the conclusion that same-gender sexuality can be a good.
I knew when I posted these words that I was opening myself to correction and even ridicule, for there is much that I do not know. I may be wrong, but I would rather err on the side of inclusion, rather than on the side of exclusion.
I don't mind correction or disagreement; my hope is to remain open to new knowledge.
"There is simply no equivalence between faithful, loving, consenting adults in a same-sex relationship and child abusers."
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. I had no intention of saying otherwise. My issue is with appeals to the healing story in Matthew 8. If that story indicates "approval" by Jesus of something, and if the centurian's relationship to the "boy" was erotic in nature, then Jesus' approval is not directed to what we would call a relationship between consenting adults, but to the very common practice of pederasty in the Greco-Roman world. I'm just saying that, if we go with that approach, such a reading takes us someplace that, I think, none of us wants to go.
Similarly, the example of pederasty tests the general proposition that there are no "disordered desires." Its existence doesn't say anything about adult homosexual desires. But it does bring into question the general proposition (the "major" of your syllogism) that unchosen sexual desires, by their very nature, cannot be objectionable.
Mimi, of course the idea that Jesus' healing the centurian's servant indicates approval of the Roman military occupation is ridiculous. That was my point, using a healing story to somehow draw out approval of other actions. Jesus didn't vet people first to make sure he was only healing the virtuous. We don't draw the conclusion, because mercy is shown to sinners, that sin is therefore a terrific thing.
Mimi, I would never intend to ridicule you, and if I have done so, with you or any poster here, I apologize. Your heart, as always, is in the right place. Nor would I presume to "correct" anyone. If you post your reasons for finding something convincing, though, I am comfortable enough here to express my doubts, and explain why. I hope that's part of the use of these discussions.
The convincing Bible passages for me are the arguments over whether or not Gentiles must be circumcized before becoming Christians and how Peter was changed by his dream and his observations of Gentile behavior and love of God. Gentiles were as "icky" to him -- unclean in his words. It is the love of Christ and neighbor that shines through - that is what shines through for me. I know a couple where one partner is going through all the terrors of chemo - the devotion of the other is astounding to see. Their faithfulnees in sickness and in health is a blessing to us - I know they and their relationship are blessed - just hope the church gets around to seeing it too.
ReplyDeleteRick, in some of your comments you come across as God's policeman, and I don't believe that's what you are nor what you want to be. At least that how it seems to me. It makes me sad.
ReplyDeleteIt's quite true that many people make the leap in their minds from speaking of adult same-sex relationships to speaking of pedophilia, and it is offensive. I put it in the category of George Bush's linking of Saddam and 9/11 by saying the the two in the same sentence. One so often seems to follow the other that the two become linked in the minds of people, even if he did not say Saddam caused 9/11.
Ann, I like your passages, too. It was the stories and the loving relationships and the fruits of the Spirit of same-gendered relationships that went a long way toward convincing me that God's blessing is upon them. Who am I to say their unions are not blessed?
ReplyDeleteGrandmère, thank you for providing this place for honest and gentle conversation. It is in such stark contrast to some other sites that I have to simply stop visiting, or I think I will lose heart.
ReplyDeleteBlessings,
C.
"Upon thinking and praying further, I came to the conclusion that, since my God is a loving God, that he loves his whole creation, why would he create persons who are attracted to members of the same sex, with the same strong sexual desires as persons attracted to the opposite sex, and expect them never to act on those desires, to live lonely lives bereft of love, and companionship, and faithfulness to another? The God I know and love would not do that."
ReplyDeleteGM
By George, she's got it! Thank you, Mimi.
It would be hard not to be sceptical living where you are. To think outside of the box in LA, TX or other places is hard when everyone around you preaches a different stance.
I think that when you know the goodness of LGBT relationships then it is the love that witnesses to what is Christian, life-giving and holy.
Rather than finding the Scriptures proscriptive, I find that the principles that Jesus taught more important than the letter.
Thanks for sharing.
Also thanks for celebrating my aniversary. It is especially poiniant since I cannot work.
Cecilia, thank you. I can't take too much of the hurling of barbs back and forth either, and I'm pleased that it has not become the rule in my comments box.
ReplyDeleteMuthah+, thank you, too. I'm sorry you missed your party. It was fun, a regular bacchanal, but it would have been much more fun with the guest of honor.
I'm sorry you can't work at you vocation. I know a woman priest in my diocese, who is now managing her brother's business because she cannot find a position in a church. At least, she gets to do supply work on weekends. She's quite a good priest, and it's a sad situation - for you and for her, and I suspect others out there.
This always strikes me as a dngerous argument. Jesus says nothing about rape, or incest. What conclusions do we draw from that?
ReplyDeleteHe does indirectly. He told us to love our neighbour as ourselves and that we are to love each other as he loves us.
Loving your neighbour as yourself precludes rape and incest since both are crimes of abuse. None of us would wish that on ourselves so we cannot do it to others.
Consensual gay relationships do not violate that standard.
Consensual gay relationships do not violate that standard.
ReplyDeleteDan, yes. Thanks.
Rick Allen wrote: "I am surprised . . . by the increasing reliance on the story of the centurian and his 'pais.' Suffice it to say that, if the relationship was sexual (for which I think there is no textual support), then Jesus' 'affirmance' is of much more than a simple 'same-sex' relationship; this is presumably a foundation for an argument for pederasty."
ReplyDeleteAnd if the relationship was not sexual, Rick, it was nevertheless a same-sex loving relationship. (And whether it was sexual or not, Jesus would certainly have known better than to apply Levitical standards to gentile Romans.) And Jesus did not condemn the relationship but instead praised fulsomely one of the participants!
You see, it doesn't have to be all about sex (which the text is admittedly unclear on) but rather all about the relationship (which the text is absolutely clear on).
Again, why do we insist on condemning that which Jesus refused to condemn?
Rick, you are most welcome to comment here, because, "Your heart, as always, is in the right place."
ReplyDeleteThat's faint praise, but you said it first, my friend. I'm quite serious about the welcome.
Mimi, I think it no faint praise that one's heart is in the right place. There are plenty of wrongly-placed hearts out there.
ReplyDeleteBut I will balk at your characterization, "God's policeman." I police nothing. I have neither the authority nor the inclination to enforce anything. But I am interested in moral reasoning. We Americans are pretty good these days at saying how we feel. But our feelings are either shared or not shared. They do not persuade or lead to consensus.
So I think it appropriate, in looking at a statement that some moral conclusion was reached by such and such reasoning (and I commend you for putting such things into words), that the form of reasoning be examined, and, if the same argument, finding one thing good, when applied to another subject, finds another thing, which we both agree to be bad, good, then I think we may, in common, call the original argument into doubt. It seems to me that that kind of evaluation we can do in common--as opposed to noting that you (and others) feel one way and I (and others) the other.
Paul, unquestionably the centurian loved the boy for whom he sought Jesus' healing. My disagreement with using the story to find approval of a sexual relationship between a soldier and a boy ought not to detract from the fact that a real care and concern is evinced here by the centurian (Though the point of the story, I would say, is Jesus' commendation of the centurian's faith).
We are handicappped, in English, by the distinctly erotic and non-erotic connotations of the single term "love." Every Christian must of course approve of "same-sex love" in the second sense; it is only in the first sense that there is any disagreement.
Rick, A "heart in the right place" reminds me of good intentions, and we know where they lead.
ReplyDeleteIn my post, I was not talking about my feelings. Perhaps, my reasoning was askew, but I was giving reason a try.
Taking notice of folks whose lives seem to bear good fruit is not entirely about feelings either. There is a thinking process going on there, too.
My conclusion goes against what I was taught, mostly against what those around me think. Why would I take this position, unless I believed it was right? In worldly terms, I gain nothing from it, and lose a little in the process. My satisfaction comes from doing what I believe is right, which is a little different from having my heart in the right place.
The doing is in speaking out for justice and full inclusion for all members of Christ's body. It's pitifully little, but it's something.
In the end, I still think the conservative side bears the burden of proof - after all, gays clearly exist! We are not a matter of faith, but reality.
ReplyDeleteMy own belief rests on the fact that I do not believe that God creates just to contradict, nor do I believe that He would create us so incapable of discernment that what appears and has the effect of being harmful is in fact good. If He left us in that sorry state, either He is not good or empty of any real ability to reach us.
I have no great faith in the ultimate power of science and logic, but I have absolutely none in a tyrant who rules by fiat.
Really. If we could move on to other things. There's is so much that is wrong in our societies and in the world, that we should be working to change, in areas that involve war, torture, poverty, starvation, curable and preventable diseases, oppression, discrimination, I could go on and on, rather than prurient scrutiny of the private lives of good people.
ReplyDeleteReally. We should move on, but there are those who just won't let it go.
Another wonderful post from our lovely Grandmère Mimi - thanks :)
ReplyDeleteAnd may I add, esp. after reading her comments above, how much Doxy's powerful self-revelation and great courage rocks my world as well ? Inspiring. Both of you.
David, merci beaucoup, mon cher.
ReplyDeleteMorticia, that's French!
ReplyDelete::waits for Mimi to hold her arm out::
David, Morticia is way more talented than I am. My husband heard French all his life so my speaking French would not have much allure.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, we both heard French throughout our childhoods without actually learning to speak it, or even understand it very well, because the adults never spoke to us in French. They used the language, when they were speaking of things that were not for little ears.
Enceinte is one of the words that I remember hearing fairly often, since our extended family was large. It was not until I was in high school that I learned that the word meant pregnant. "Pregnant" was an unmentionable as I was growing up. That's how ancient I am.
My grandmother's standard comment upon hearing that a woman was enceinte was, "Pauvre petite bête," literally "poor little beast", meaning "poor thing". She was a frustrated concert-quality pianist who married and had seven children instead.
There ya go. I'll bet you didn't think you were going to get a dissertation, did you?