A Time to Embrace

Same-Sex Relationships in Religion, Law, and Politics, 2nd edition

William Stacy Johnson

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781467435994
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Sexualité et genre dans la religion

In A Time to Embrace William Stacy Johnson brilliantly analyzes the religious, legal, and political debates about gay marriage, civil unions, and committed gay couples. This new edition includes updates that reflect the many changes in laws pertaining to civil unions / same-sex marriage since 2006.

PART ONE

RELIGION

CHAPTER ONE

The Non-Affirming Church

The difficulty with the biblical references to homosexuality is that they are so incidental that they give us little help in situating them doctrinally. . . . We need . . . a broader doctrinal base than those texts on their own afford, yet not forgetting that they, too, demand an account.

Oliver O’Donovan¹

For decades now, disputes over same-sex relationships have been waged as a clash between two completely antithetical viewpoints. This has certainly been the case in the Christian churches. One side passionately calls for an affirmation of gay identity and life; the other argues with equal vigor that the church and society must maintain their traditional non-affirming stances. Often the debate has been fueled by advocacy groups whose fund-raising efforts depend on defining the conflict in apocalyptic, either-or terms. These dynamics have prevailed in both the civil and religious arenas. Within civil polity, the debate focused on toleration, antidiscrimination, and the achievement of civil rights by gay people during the 1970s and 1980s. From the 1990s until today, the debate has shifted to gay marriage and civil unions. The controversy within the churches has focused almost exclusively on ordination to church office and has only recently begun to explore the ethical contours of gay relationships. This has put religious communities in the anomalous position of asking their members to accept gay leadership without first giving them the time or the biblical, theological, and practical resources to assimilate gay identity. One author has compared the resulting impasse to a pair of wrestlers who have fought each other to a draw, each remaining locked in the other’s grip, with neither one able to achieve a decisive win and neither one willing to quit the contest.²

If we are going to move beyond this impasse, we need a new way of understanding what is in dispute. Framing the debate as a clash between two antithetical viewpoints — one pro-gay, the other anti-gay — only perpetuates what has become an impenetrable roadblock. In order to help us move beyond this impasse, I will discuss in this chapter and the next a spectrum of seven theological ways of looking at same-sex relationships.³ These include both non-affirming and affirming viewpoints, with perspectives ranging from the categorical prohibition of all such relationships to the advocacy of their full ecclesiastical consecration. The spectrum runs as follows:

(1) Prohibition: does not approve of and would bar same-sex unions.

(2) Toleration: does not approve of, but would not prosecute or reject gay and lesbian people.

(3) Accommodation: does not approve ordinarily, but would allow for exceptions on a “lesser-of-the-evils” rationale.

(4) Legitimation: wants to include gays and lesbians in the community, and wants to prevent them from being singled out and condemned unfairly.

(5) Celebration: believes same-sex unions should no longer be scorned but affirmed as good.

(6) Liberation: perceives societal attitudes concerning gays and lesbians as being caught up in wider injustices, which need to be remedied.

(7) Consecration: argues for the full religious blessing of same-sex unions.

This sevenfold typology could be applied to many other issues. Imagine that we were not talking about sexuality but about something like the consumption of alcohol. Some religions, such as Islam, prohibit the drinking of alcoholic beverages (in fact, it was also prohibited for a period of time in the United States). Later it came to be tolerated by religious groups and then legitimated under law. One can also think of our present approach to drinking alcohol as one of regulating or accommodating it under carefully defined circumstances, such as only when sold with a valid license, only when consumed by persons above a certain age, or only when served in places where zoning laws allow. We know that the celebration of alcohol for its own sake may occur as a reaction to prohibition — all the more so when prohibition has been ruthlessly enforced. Those focused on liberating people from the social consequences of injustice might observe that the use of alcohol, though ostensibly an exercise of individual freedom, is often connected to conditions of poverty and oppression that society has neglected. Even the consecration of drinking is well-known to us in ritual contexts such as the Sabbath for Jews or the Lord’s Supper for Christians.

I have two aims in presenting this typology. First, my goal is to promote mutual understanding. There is more nuance and contour in people’s approaches to this topic than the typical either-or dichotomy allows. Even people who disagree with my conclusions can perhaps be informed by my analysis. Second, I treat all seven positions in some detail because I believe that each of the positions has something of value to teach us. Because I approach this topic as a Christian theologian, I shall consider each of the seven viewpoints here in its relationship to the Christian way of telling the story of God’s relationship to the world. It is the unfolding of a three-part story of creation, reconciliation, and redemption. From a Christian point of view, it makes sense to investigate how each of these seven viewpoints understands the place of gay and lesbian people within this drama. Those in other traditions naturally will think of this differently. But even those who espouse a nonreligious perspective or who reject Christianity would do well to pay attention here, for much of the current controversy is fueled by Christian presuppositions. Even thoroughly secular people need to know something about this framework.

First of all, by “creation” I mean the belief that God brought us and the world into being. One of the main issues in the dispute is discerning where homoerotic desire or sexual orientation fits within the scheme of creation. Is same-sex orientation a violation of creation, as some Christians insist? Or is it a fairly consistent feature of the natural world? Permeating discussions such as this are notions — both implicit and explicit — about the nature of bodily existence. Contained in all these reflections, too, are assumptions about the character of sin and wrongdoing, the attitudes and actions by which human beings turn aside from God’s purposes.

Second, the term “reconciliation” is one of many biblical words that speak about what God does to save human beings from wrongdoing and sin.⁴ Reconciliation presupposes that human beings have sinned and are in need of the restoration of a right relationship with God and with one another. The act of reconciliation is at the gracious initiative of God, but it also calls forth a human response. This response includes faith, repentance, and a life of holiness. One of the pivotal biblical passages concerning reconciliation makes an unmistakable connection between God’s action and our own:

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. (2 Cor. 5:18-19)

A key question in any Christian discussion of gay and lesbian life is how reconciliation in Christ becomes real in lived experience. Some speak of the need for gays and lesbians to repent of their lifestyle; on the other side, others remind the broader church that it, too, needs to repent of sins of hatred and exclusion directed toward gay and lesbian people. Still others insist that we should all be reconciled to the goodness of gay life and love. Through it all, we must understand that reconciliation includes both a vertical and a horizontal dimension: we are to be reconciled both to God and to one another. This suggests that, even when we disagree about a subject as controversial as sexuality, we should still look for a way to live together in harmony.

Third is redemption. It is sometimes difficult to see the difference between reconciliation and redemption. Reconciliation has to do with the restoration of a broken relationship. Redemption has to do with living out the wholeness that has been re-established. Reconciliation is something Christians believe was accomplished in the past by the gracious act of God in Jesus Christ, and which is still working itself out today. By contrast, redemption in the New Testament is almost always a future-oriented reality.⁵ We have been reconciled to God and are being reconciled to one another; and now we are moving forward toward redemption in the power of the Spirit. As with reconciliation, the power of redemption is already being experienced; but the fullness of our redemption lies always in front of us, awaiting the final consummation of all things. Therefore, when we speak of redemption, we are asking about how to live into the fullness that God desires for each one of us. To speak of redemption is to speak of the ethical life we must live by grace in order to become what God would have us be.

To sum it up, the words “creation,” “reconciliation,” and “redemption” give us a shorthand for speaking about the grand narrative in which God is at work to bring humanity to salvation and wholeness. I understand these three movements as individual moments in a unified drama, which proclaims the work of the Triune God, who is for us and with us in Jesus Christ and who invites us by the Spirit’s power to be for and with one another.⁶ The creation-reconciliation-redemption framework states a certain logic that is at work in all seven of the theological viewpoints considered here. This does not mean that every advocate of one of the seven positions refers to creation, reconciliation, or redemption explicitly. However, a Christian treatment of this subject must take into account God’s actions in creation, reconciliation, and redemption at least implicitly.

Finally, I make no claim that these seven viewpoints exhaust all the possibilities. Indeed, the reader may find that his or her own views do not line up neatly with any one position sketched here — or that he or she may resonate with aspects of more than one viewpoint. Nonetheless, by attending to each of the viewpoints in its own integrity, the reader will be able, I hope, to push beyond surface labels and reach a new understanding of the issues.

THREE NON-AFFIRMING VIEWPOINTS

For centuries there have been Christians who claim that all homoerotic behavior of any kind is an absolute violation of the will of God, making it wrong to affirm such conduct in any way.⁷ These non-affirming viewpoints lie on a spectrum from prohibition to toleration to accommodation.

I. Prohibition

Now if you are unwilling to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.

(Josh. 24:15)

Discerning the Ways of God

Many argue that homoerotic desire is a perversion and that homoerotic behavior should be prohibited. This viewpoint is based on a vision of God as a lawgiver who gives human beings absolute commandments that must be obeyed. Within society at large, the prohibitionist concern about gays is part of a larger anxiety about upholding traditional morality. This includes worries about sexual promiscuity (especially among teenagers), the decline in marriage rates, the rise in divorce rates, the dramatic increase in out-of-wedlock childbirths, and the legalization of abortion. Those advocating prohibition of all homoerotic conduct feel that support of gays and lesbians lends an inappropriate symbolic support to the decline of marriage. Some express concern that there is a “homosexual agenda” to undermine the family. In keeping with this, many believe that certain leadership positions should not be occupied by gay people, as recent controversies over gays in teaching positions, in the military, and in the Boy Scouts attest.⁸

For advocates of prohibition, living a righteous life requires steadfast adherence to God’s ways — in church, in society, and in the life of the individual.

The Case for Prohibition

This first non-affirming viewpoint is supported by four interconnecting layers of argument.

1. Arguments from Scripture The first argument is based on the Bible. It is largely a negative argument, and it is drawn from several biblical prohibitions uttered against certain same-gender sex acts. There are not many such biblical passages, but prohibitionists insist that their meaning is clear and uniformly negative. I shall discuss most of these biblical texts in much more detail in Chapter Three, but here I will provide a brief treatment of how these biblical texts are appropriated by advocates of prohibition.

One set of these biblical texts has had a lasting impact on the history of Jewish and Christian attitudes toward homoeroticism. These texts speak against same-sex rape and cultic prostitution.⁹ The most famous passage in this category is the cataclysmic destruction of the non-Jewish biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19). In the story of Sodom, God hears an outcry from the city and sends angelic messengers to investigate what is wrong (Gen. 18:20-21). When the messengers arrive, the male inhabitants of the city have surrounded the angelic beings and are attempting to rape them (Gen. 19:4-5). Abraham’s nephew Lot, who is playing host to the divine messengers, offers the men his virgin daughters to satisfy their lust. But the power of God blinds the men of Sodom before they are able to do harm to Lot’s daughters or the angelic beings (Gen. 19:11).

In a parallel story (Judg. 19), a Jewish priest is on a journey with his concubine, and they find shelter for the evening in the Jewish territory of Gibeah. The priest has just finished dinner with his host when local “perverted men” surround the house with the intent of raping him. To appease these marauders, the host offers them his virgin daughter. They refuse his offer, so the priest offers them his concubine, whom they take instead. The text says: “They wantonly raped her, and abused her all through the night until the morning” (Judg. 19:25). The next day the priest discovers his concubine dead on the doorstep.

Prohibitionists argue that both the Sodom and Gibeah stories condemn the homoerotic behavior they describe. This is most certainly true. However, one must ask whether the proposed behavior in question is morally reprehensible because of its same-sex character or because it is violently abusive. I shall say more about this in the reflection section below.

Two other sets of biblical passages figure into the non-affirming case: the le...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Preface to the First Edition
• Introduction: Gaining Perspective
• Part One: Religion
• Part Two: Law and Politics
• Conclusion: A Time to Embrace
• Select Bibliography
• Notes
• Index of Names
• Index of Subjects
• Index of Scripture References