ESSENTIALS
Promoting Christ-centred Biblical Ministry

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Between Friends
A review of Faithfulness in Fellowship: reflections on homosexuality and the Church (Mulgrave: John Garratt Publishing, 2001).
reprinted from the Spring-Summer 2003-04 edition of Essentials

 

   I write this review "between friends" and (partly) about friendship, and about empty places and silent voices at the table. This book has already acquired some notoriety through the Easter publication of the Primates contribution advocating an Anglican friendship commitment ceremony between homosexuals (practising or non-practising). I am one of the few Evangelicals who goes to the Anglican theologians' conferences, where many of the contributors to this book go, and whose company I enjoy on those occasions. Sadly, Evangelicals, or even those taking a traditional or conservative view of homosexual practice are also largely absent from this book by the Doctrine Panel of the Anglican Church of Australia, 6/7ths absent, according to space. (At the risk of waving my own professional flag, ethicists are also conspicuously absent, and it shows). If gays have come out of the closet, others have been put into it here. Rev'd Dr Gordon Preece teaches ethics at Ridley College. In July 2004 he will take up leadership at the Macquarie Christian Studies Institute in Sydney.  
   There are several structural problems with this volume. First, like several US books on this debate, it could have been a debate or a forum for different views, one conservative, one liberal, on topics covering OT, NT, tradition, reason, experience, science and so on. Yet Gagnon (Horizons in Biblical Theology 2001) shows that even then traditionalists are in a marked minority in the way such US books are arranged. By all means let us have a debate or discussion, but let us not have one side with several times the number of speakers, time, space to speak, right of reply. (This also applies to Evangelicals who need to be confident enough of the truth of their position that they don't resort to party politics, as Robin Gill claims of the 1998 Lambeth bishops' resolution against homosexuality - a resolution I support). Second, the arrangement is peculiar with Muriel Porters "Homosexuality in the Christian Tradition" kicking off, as if tradition trumps Scripture.
   Muriel admits that "Christian tradition has always treated homosexual practices - though not always homosexual love - as sinful. However, the degree of sinfulness ... has varied, creating a tradition that can best be regarded as ambivalent". As the strangely anonymous introduction summarises Muriel's paper: "'the Church's traditional teaching' is in many respects a figment". This deliberate creation of ambiguity is a common strategy of the book (cf viii, 60) and of advocates of homosexual practice about the Bible also. The only ambiguity about homosexual practice in the tradition is whether it is a normal garden variety sin like gluttony or an abnormal abomination warranting death (as in the OT). There is no ambiguity about it being sin.   
   But of course, Muriel's tradition, in Chesterton's famous sense, is not "the democracy of the dead", but a Whig revisionist or progressive history that sees the past as little more than evolutionary stepping stones of progress towards the present. Such stepping stones are decisions to allow clergy marriage in the Reformation and to allow contraception at Lambeth 1958, and the reversal of the priorities of the purposes of marriage from procreation to "mutual society, help and comfort", first from 1662 to contemporary prayer books. However, the latter was argued for by Bucer and the Puritans in the 16th century from Scripture. This shows that tradition is not a smooth evolutionary road but has Biblical (and un-Biblical) bumps in it. The Biblical bumps trumped tradition on the question of clerical marriage at the Reformation and Lambeth 1958, and had priority at Lambeth 1988 (on homosexuality), though agreeing with tradition there.   
   Muriel Porters paper commits a kind of historical version of the naturalistic fallacy. If change has happened on the church's sexual ethics in history therefore it ought to continue to happen. In some ways similarly John Dunnill's two (another structural abnormality) stimulating chapters adopt a sociological fallacy. Because there is evidence of different patterns operating in biblical society (eg patriarchy, property rules, priority on procreation, purity rules, polygamy etc), therefore similar diversity ought to operate now. He forces creation-based norms and ideals into this descriptive sociology of sexual diversity. While seeing development in the OT from a primarily procreative focus to a covenantal one he lacks a biblical theology to determine what is normative (creation) or merely descriptive (fallen). So when he turns to the NT he does not do sufficient justice to Jesus affirmation of the heterosexual creation order of "one man one wife for life" or celibacy in Matthew 19 and his condemnation of the Pharisees not respecting created relationships and obligations to parents (Mark 7:9-13). Instead, as a corrective to Christian family values rhetoric, he rightly notes Jesus' and his disciples' modelling of a non-propertied, non-procreative, eschatological community - a preview of heaven "just as our citizenship is in heaven so also is our kinship" (39). But the eschatological/new creation/family-less dimension does not annihilate the present/creation/heterosexual family or chastity dimension, despite allowances like divorce for hardening of heart. In fact much of what Dunnill describes in the OT picture (polygamy, patriarchy etc) falls under this hardening of heart ethic that a NT new heart ethic transcends. So the NT rule is heterosexual monogamy for members and leaders (or chastity). Leaders should be "husbands of one wife". This, and the dominance of the heterosexual marriage image for Gods covenant with his people (Hosea, Eph 5, Rev 22), goes against Dunnill's severing of covenantal faithfulness from created heterosexuality and his bold but biased claim that "heterosexual monogamy and intercourse ... are not the biblical norm of human relating" (40-42).   
  Glenn Davies' short but clear paper argues just the contrary to Dunnill. The NT, including Jesus in Matthew 19, confirms Gods intentions in creation for one man one wife for life (& vice versa) or chastity outside marriage. "The prohibitions on homosexuality are not limited merely to cultic ... or promiscuous homosexuality. Rather, Paul's condemnation of homosexual practice appears absolute. It is against Gods created order (Rom 1:26-7). Nonetheless, homosexual sin is no worse than other sin, thus outlawing homophobia. Change, mercy and hope are possible for homosexuals". Peter Jensen's chapter takes a similar line, arguing against practising homosexual ordination.  
   The chapter on natural law by Cathy Thomson and Don Edwards was a confusing "this side says this", "that says that". It leant clearly toward a postmodern skepticism of the natural regarding sexuality, except to prohibit promiscuity. But this is inconsistent with our growing ecological awareness of natural order outside of sexuality. They also neglected the best treatment of nature by any Anglican or contemporary ethicist, that of Oliver ODonovan in Resurrection and Moral Order.   
   Sean Mullen's survey of "Science and the Meaning of Homosexuality" reinforces the impression of ambiguity from other papers. He helpfully avoids reductionistic, nature versus nurture, essentialist versus social constructionist dichotomies. However, he is overly positive about Kinsey (see J. Reisman ed, Kinsey, Sex and Fraud) and the American Psychiatric Associations 1973 removal of homosexuality from its list of disorders. This was much more in response to political pressures than new scientific evidence as J. Satinovers The Politics of Truth shows. It is also a shame he fails to cite the best and most up to date summary of the scientific evidence, Jones and Yarhouses Homosexuality: The Use of Scientific Research in the Churchs Moral Debate (IVP, 2000) or their earlier article in D. Balchs Homosexuality, Science and the Plain Sense of Scripture.   
   Primate Peter Carnley's highly publicised chapter on friendship uses that concept as a way to smuggle the meaning of marriage into gay friendships as a way to avoid head-on confrontation over gay marriages. It also avoids gays' doubts about marriage itself as a heterosexual construct and Anglicans association of marriage with procreation. However, he fails to note that for many homosexuals, especially males, the basic philosophical and practical problem is monogamy. Carnley rightly critiques C.S. Lewiss strong pre-Joy Davidman prioritising of The Four Loves in favour of agape over eros and friendship, but fails to differentiate sufficiently between them. Exclusive, heterosexual erotic relationships lose their distinctiveness over against a bland model of friendship as applicable to all relationships. Carnley favours church-blessed covenants for same-sex friendships based on the David and Jonathan model (1 Sam 20:42) but fails to note that there was no church blessing attached to this informal covenant. Nor does he note with Dunhill that David and Jonathan's same-sex friendship was probably non-erotic. Why not bless football teams and computer clubs as committed friendships too?   
   The Primate once again argues that Scripture is ambiguous about what behaviour is appropriate to homosexually oriented people, being ignorant of such orientation. On this he simply repeats a widespread furphy. I sympathise with his concern to mitigate promiscuity by covenantal constraints but regret his ignoring the massive empirical evidence of homosexual promiscuity (see T. Schmidt, Straight and Narrow, IVP, J. Satinover, The Politics of Truth, Baker). Further, he fails to recognise that biblical covenants reinforce creation norms i.e. heterosexual marriage, or chaste same-sex friendships as in later monasticism.   
   For Archbishop Carnley to say that "the recreative role of non-reproductive sexual activity in marriage inevitably leads logically to the consideration of the place of sexual activity outside of marriage relationships, and particularly ... of the same sex" is a logical bungee jump. It does not follow: 1. The Prayer Books mutual comfort clause recognising non-reproductive sex refers to male and female in all their complimentary nature, difference and otherness (to use postmodern terms), not same-sex relationships. 2. Non-procreation is not the only argument against homosexuality. More fundamental is the biblical emphasis on our sexual ecology or created order of complementarity (and equality) as male and female. Homosexual practice is a sexist rejection of the opposite sex (Gen 1:26-8). Further, Paul mentions nothing of procreation in Romans 1:24-7, the clearest biblical text on the subject. Lack of procreational potential is a secondary reason against homosexual practice in Scripture.   
   In the end, as Scott Cowdell argues, it comes down to how we view the Anglican and Wesleyan quadrilateral of authorities - Scripture, tradition, reason and experience. Cowdell, like a number of other contributors, sees the four as equal authorities, like a table, in contrast to Cranmer's original use of the first three and Hookers and Wesleys developments that saw the relationship as a hierarchical one, like a ladder. Though tradition, reason and experience all influence our reading of Scripture, they do not override its authority. Cowdell's appeal to the analogy of the inclusion of the outcast Gentiles in the early Church in Acts 15 has been shown to be problematic by Andrew Goddard (God, Gays and Gentile Christians: Acts 15 and Change in the Church, Grove, 2001). The prohibition of sexual immorality by the Gentiles almost certainly included homosexual practice.   
   In all, I find too much selectivity in this collection in the voices of contributors and the canonical voices allowed, too much special pleading, too much clouding with ambiguity of the plain sense and unanimity of Scripture and tradition against homosexual practice. Nonetheless, we cannot fail to be challenged by Graeme Garretts moving portrayal of his nieces homosexuality to learn to be hospitable to homosexual persons among us. If we aren't hospitable, distinguishing person and action, we too find ourselves guilty of sodomy (Sodom being condemned not only for its homosexuality but also its inhospitality). But the Spirit to which Garrett appeals as the basis for a change in our views is, in good Biblical and trinitarian theology, the Spirit of the Creator and of the Word, not another spirit of fallible and partial human experience and relationships. And it is this Spirit that provides the basis for true friendship, faithfulness and fellowship.   
        
        


       
 

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