For Better Or For Worse

From Mark Harris at Preludium:

Most of my friends find it curious and just a bit appalling that Anglicans are spending so much time in solemn and serious infighting concerning moral (read sexual) issues. They wonder for our sanity. They mostly do not pay much attention to the details of the arguments.

I do pay attention. I have tried to listen to the voices that say again and again that sex between persons of the same sex is evil and I have heard their argument from scriptural restrictions. I am and remain unconvinced.

I was recently asked just exactly where I stand regarding the morality of homosexual sex, aka "homosexual behavior." So here is a response. No surprise, I am sure.

At the last, after all the arguments to the contrary, I still believe that sexual expression between persons of the same sex is no more evil or good than is sexual expression between men and women. And the Church's statement from General Convention 1990 that "physical sexual expression is appropriate only within the lifelong monogamous union of husband and wife" is totally inadequate. Sexual intercourse encompasses such a wide variety of "physical sexual expression" that no opinion about the moral value of such intercourse or expression, based on the anatomical characteristics of the participants or the purpose of sex as procreative, can hold as sufficient.

As to marriage, I am convinced that holiness of marriage is not in marriage, but in God's blessing on people committed to life long companionship. I see no reason to suppose that God does not, or can not, bless such commitments when they are other than between a man and a woman. The Church ought do no less.
....

I believe Christians are ill equipped to condemn persons of the same sex who are in love with one another for acting on that love in physical ways or for seeking ways to establish and maintain commitment to one another and for seeking blessing from God and the community. Moreover, given the realities of past Christian willingness to condone a wide variety of moral behavior that we would now consider reprehensible and the tendency to resist change from that behavior, the Church carries a beam in its own eye and has no business demanding that others remove the speck (if there is one) in their own.
....

The Word of God is our constant companion. That Word is a comfort, always with us, but is also uncomfortable in its provocative call to live not for ourselves but for others. But that Word is not the writings on the page itself, rather the Scripture is a gateway into the Word. (Emphasis mine)

Oh that I could have written those words! But - alas! - I rely on Mark's words, because I lack his eloquence and deep spirituality. He states my position far better than I ever could. Several years ago, in my own bumbling, stumbling, labyrinthine way, I arrived at the same conclusions as Mark and many others far more learned and schooled than I, mostly without input from folks like Mark, but simply by reading the Scriptures prayerfully, with special emphasis on the Gospels.