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I want to consider gay marriage by first reflecting on the theology of marriage, and I want to reflect on the theology of marriage under the rubric of sanctification. This approach is consistent with the tradition of the Orthodox Church, which regards marriage as a way of participating in the divine life not by way …
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No more divisive issue faces the churches of this country today than the question of ordaining homosexuals. Like the issue of slavery a century ago, it has the potential for splitting entire denominations. And like the issue of slavery, the argument revolves around the interpretation of Scripture. What does the Bible say about homosexuality, and …
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In another article of mine that is being published this week, I speak of my resistance to all categorizing of human beings, including the use of sexual categories such as homosexual, heterosexual, and bisexual. The reason I cite for resisting is that “being human — being sexual — is not a matter of ‘qualitative analysis’ …
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When Bloomington, Indiana (population 62,000 and home of Indiana University), adopted legislation guaranteeing civil rights to homosexual persons, a heated controversy arose. By a city council vote in December 1975, discrimination based on sexual preference was prohibited in employment, housing, education and access to public accommodations. Many of the community’s conservative Christians saw the ordinance …
Continue reading “Conservative Christians and Gay Civil Rights”
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The tone of Walter Wink’s review of my book The Bible and Homosexual Practice (“To hell with gays?,” Christian Century June 5-12) is a disheartening reminder of how mean-spirited the debate about homosexual behavior can get. The title is inflammatory. The first sentence smacks of paranoid conspiracy theories: “It was inevitable that the antihomosexual lobby …
Continue reading “Gays and the Bible: A Response to Walter Wink”
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The question of the appropriate relation of the church to homosexuals and homosexuality has emerged as one of major importance in the deliberations of denominational bodies. The ensuing debate too often takes the form of a contest between defenders of traditional morality on the one hand and apologists for homosexual life style on the other. …
Continue reading “Homosexuality and Christian Faith: A Theological Reflection”
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The title sets the question of Christian evaluation of homosexuality in a different context from a title such as: “What does the Bible Say about Homosexuality?” The answer to that question would be, not very much, but what it does say is unrelievedly negative. (The only possible exception to this negativity is the depiction of …
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The gay caucuses now active in virtually every major American denomination no longer will let us forget that the church must face the issue of homosexuality more openly, honestly, and sensitively than it has yet done. Beyond this legitimate and appropriate pressure, however, there are other compelling reasons for the church to reexamine its theology …
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In its first issue for the year 1978, Christianity Today asked a variety of evangelical leaders to assess what was the most noteworthy religious development of the previous year and to predict what would be most important in the upcoming one. Hudson Armerding, president of Wheaton College responded, “I personally feel that the issue of …
Continue reading “Homosexuality and the Evangelical: The Influence of Contemporary Culture”
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If those in the church who are in favor of changing long-held attitudes and ordinances relating to homosexuals were merely cultural relativists with no regard for the Bible or tradition, the debate would be easier. The same would be true, of course, if those wishing to retain those attitudes and ordinances were merely diehard homophobes …
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The initial response to Educational Guidance in Human Love, published on December 1, 1983, by the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, has been largely positive. Father James Burtchaell calls the new document ‘dull but not damning’ (National Catholic Reporter, December 16, 1983). Comparing it with the 1975 Vatican Declaration on Certain Questions concerning Sexual Ethics, …
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It has been more than ten years since I wrote The Church and the Homosexual (Sheed Andrews & McMeel, 1976). I wrote the book out of love for and loyalty to the Christian tradition in general and the Roman Catholic Church in particular, and out of a desire to support the church’s moral authority. I …
Continue reading “Homosexuality: Challenging the Church to Grow”
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Let’s begin with a story, a folk tale from Central Asia. A man, having looted a city, was trying to sell an exquisite rug, one of the spoils. “Who will give 100 pieces of gold for this rug?” he cried throughout the town. After a buyer was found and the sale completed, a comrade approached …
Continue reading “Interpreting What the Bible Says about Homosexuals”
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It was the first time I had ever been frisked on the way into a Sunday morning worship service. “Why?” I asked the guard, who told me that the pastor regularly receives telephone threats against his life. It was also the first time I had ever witnessed so much gratitude for grace, so much sheer …
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In the small southwestern Iowa town where I grew up, there were three churches — each with its own unique appearance and reputation. The largest church seemed rigid, formal, uncompromising, intractable. Its church plant was a huge, imposing brick structure designed to last forever. Not even a midwestern tornado could threaten to dislodge it. The …
Continue reading “Process Thought and the Liberation of Homosexuals”
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We have a bumper sticker on our car: "Keep Vermont Civil." The sticker is a bit tattered, since it goes back to the controversy about "civil unions" — the Vermont law passed in 2000 establishing various legal equivalencies to marital rights for gay and lesbian couples. The legislature had been forced to take action following …
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BOOK REPORT: The Construction of Homosexuality. By David Greenberg. University of Chicago Press, 635 pp, $29.95. This is the most extensive and thorough world history of homosexuality ever written. Yet it is more accurate to call it a work of sociology than a work of history, for it develops a specific and arresting sociological …
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My tolerance for debating whether I am sinful or sick by virtue of being homosexual has, after sixteen years before the mast, reached nil. My intolerance is the result of an intentional, uphill journey toward, a purging of the internalized self-hate that all gay and lesbian people ingest at the hands of a hostile society. …
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Whenever the word "homosexuality" is mentioned, more than 90 per cent of the listeners or readers will assume that the reference is to males. In the first report by Alfred C. Kinsey and his colleagues on male sexual behavior in the U.S., one of the items that provided maximum shock value was the "cumulative incidence" …
Continue reading “The Neglected Phenomenon of Female Homosexuality”
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Book Review: The Bible and Homosexual Practice. By Robert A. J. Gagnon. Abingdon, 520 pp. It was inevitable that the antihomosexual lobby would develop something equivalent to a neutron bomb designed to wipe out the homosexual lobby without (it is hoped) altogether destroying the church. I refer to a tendentious study by Robert A. J. …
