‘Those texts’ and the sanctity of life: a contribution to the human sexuality debate
The gospel and practice of Jesus is radically inclusive. In his life and teaching he models the acceptance and affirmation of outcasts. He says nothing about homosexuality. Yet the Church’s attitude to homosexuality, in its traditional understanding, appears exclusive and homophobic, contrary to the kingdom values we profess to uphold. Christian gay men and lesbians have been described as “exiles: banished from the family, from the church, and from creation.”
Scripture is “the supreme authority in all matters of faith, order and conduct,” so our spirituality and morality must be biblically based. The apparent negativity of the Church’s official scripture-based teaching raises for me the question of how to reconcile scriptural authority with positive experiences of Christian friends who are gay. An authentic spirituality cannot ignore lived experience. The philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan outlined the steps required to reach discernment: attending to the data, inquiry and understanding, reflection and judgment, deliberation, evaluation, action, and finally “knowing what is truly good… capable of genuine collaboration and of true love.” We turn first to the data - relevant biblical texts, and traditional Christian teaching. The Biblical Texts “Those texts”, the scriptural passages quoted most frequently are: Genesis 19.1-29, 30-38 (the story of Sodom), Leviticus 18.22 and 20.13 (from the Holiness Code), and a few verses in the Epistles – Romans 1.24-27, I Corinthians 6.10, and 1 Timothy 1.10. At first reading, these texts appear explicitly to condemn homosexual activity. In Genesis 19 Lot greets visitors to Sodom, a town of unspecified wickedness whose destruction God has already considered. During the feast Lot prepares, Sodom’s entire male population surround the house, demanding Lot send out the visitors for them to rape. Urging the crowd not to abuse the visitors, Lot offers his virgin daughters instead: the crowd round on Lot, a settler in the town, and the household is saved only by the miraculous intervention of the visitors. From this story with its implication of homosexual rape, the word ‘sodomy’ passed into English as a term for anal intercourse, and “sodomite” came to denote a homosexual man. In Leviticus 18.22 and 20.13, a man is prohibited from “lying with a male as with a woman”, which is described as an “abomination” punishable by death, (for both men in 20.13). This is part of the Holiness Code: for ancient Israel their “intense concern with purity… was one of the principal forces keeping Israel separate from the Nations.” The Hebrew word toebah, usually translated as “abomination” is connected with perceived polluting religious practices of the Canaanites. This text is “central to the very strong Christian tradition that anal intercourse between men is absolutely incompatible with Christian discipleship.” Homosexual acts between women are not prohibited: either because “the framers of the laws may not have envisaged that such even existed” or because the uncleanness associated with the emission of semen (Lev 15.16-18) does not apply. In Romans 1, Paul warns about men and women “exchanging natural intercourse for unnatural” and condemns men who commit “shameless acts with men” – most likely a reference to Gentiles. It is not clear if Paul believes heterosexual people deliberately engage in behaviour unnatural for them, or whether he is condemning pederasty. In the first letter to the Corinthians Paul accuses some church members of immorality, including (in the NRSV translation) “male prostitutes” and “sodomites” (1 Cor 6.9) in a list of wrongdoers who will not inherit the kingdom of God (along with adulterers, thieves, and drunkards). In the King James Version the equivalent is “effeminate” (malakoi) and “abusers of themselves with mankind” (arsenokoitai), while the RSV uses “sexual perverts” to cover both terms. Clearly “the precise meaning of the terms is not known.” In the first letter to Timothy, Paul (or one of his followers) again includes arsenokoitai (NRSV sodomites) in the list of the godless and sinful, unholy and profane, such as murderers, slave traders and liars. The Gospels say nothing explicitly about homosexuality. Understanding traditional Christian teaching. The Roman Catholic Church takes a conservative position on homosexual acts as “acts of grave depravity” as they “close the sexual act to the gift of life.... Under no circumstances can they be approved.” The Presbyterian Church in the USA takes a similarly conservative line: “homosexuality is not God’s wish for humanity … the practice is sin.” The Methodist Church, however, after studying the biblical evidence in the light of contemporary experience and the moral consensus, decided in 1980 that "faithful interpretation of the New Testament leads to the conclusion that the homosexual person stands or falls in the kingdom of God on the same terms as anybody else”. Clearly there is no universally agreed Christian teaching regarding homosexuality. The Windsor Report noted that the events in New Hampshire and New Westminster were condemned by 18 out of 38 Anglican provinces, slightly less than half. It also stated that “the overwhelming (negative) response from other Christians” included “condemnation” from the Orthodox Churches, and concern from the Roman Catholic Church over “difficulties” for ecumenical relationships. But the question for the universal church today must be whether the traditional interpretation of scripture in this area derives more from (albeit unconscious) homophobia in tune with the culture of Ancient Israel than from Gospel values and the teaching of Jesus Christ. Homophobia in the church Reflecting on homophobia, defined as “an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people,” we recognise that it has been at the root of some church teaching and practice and exclusion in recent times. But in 1978 the Presbyterian Church in the USA stated: “There can be no place within the Christian faith for the response to homosexual persons of mingled contempt, hatred and fear that is called homophobia.” However appalling atrocities have been perpetrated on homosexuals by the Church, or in the name of the Church, or as in Nazi Germany, with the tacit connivance of the Church.” Comparing homophobia with anti-Semitism based on scripture, Michael Vasey wryly observes that “careless exegesis costs lives.” As to the question of the interpretation of the “those texts” – the much cited “clobber texts” - and the Church’s ethical teaching and practice based on them, while those texts initially appear explicitly condemnatory of homosexual activity, they may in today’s context be amenable to a more humane interpretation. Trying to reconcile the biblical texts with our modern understanding of sexuality and morality, there are a number of judgments to make: i) cultural (we are no longer bound by other items of the Levitical holiness code), ii) exegetical (Sodom’s sin was a violation of hospitality), iii) secular (we are not bound by ancient religious taboos), iv) human rights (justice for gay people), v) moral (homosexual people of faith are just as capable and worthy of making a permanent loving commitment as are heterosexual people). But none of these arguments satisfies the Christian who adheres to a literal view of scripture. Considering the texts more closely To find an authentic Christian spirituality which affirms the experience, and God-given sexuality, of gay people, we need to understand why the authors of the Pentateuch, and Paul in his letters, appear to have genuinely believed that God must view any homosexual activity as abominably wrong. In some cases, we find that homosexual activity was not the sin referred to in a particular “clobber text”, as in Genesis 19. The sin of Sodom’s and Gomorrah’s citizens is unspecified, and as the entire male population of Sodom was intent on attack, we must assume the majority were heterosexual, as Lot’s offer of his daughters suggests. The text is not universally recognised as being about homosexuality at all. Bishop Michael Doe points out that “the wickedness being denounced here is violence, and the violation of the sacred code of hospitality. It’s about gang-rape not same-sex love. No other biblical reference to Sodom gives homosexuality as the reason for its destruction. Even the reference in the Epistle of Jude (v.7) is to sex with angels, not someone of the same gender.” Abuse of hospitality certainly appears to be the interpretation Jesus makes of Sodom's sin in Matthew’s gospel. To use this text to justify condemnation of homosexuality is perverse; in fact to formulate any moral teaching from a story where a man condones the rape of his virginal daughters would seem invidious. Some further evaluation is required. Leviticus 18 and 20. The Holiness Code (Lev. 18, 19 and 20) provides guidelines for the Israelites to remain “pure” or separate from the Gentile nations around, e.g. refraining from the pagan activities of the latter in areas such as diet, agriculture, commerce and the occult, as well as sexual conduct. Biblical scholarship dates the text from the time of the exile in Babylon, when religious rituals may well have included some homosexual activity. The aim of the Code was to keep the Jews "holy," but as Jeffrey John observes: “It is highly selective to single out homosexuality from the whole list of activities which it condemns as ‘abominations’ - a list which includes, the trimming of one’s beard, the consumption of shellfish, and the weaving of two different kinds of yarn into the same garment.” Furthermore, the central tenet of the Holiness Code is to "love your neighbour as yourself” (Lev. 19.18). As Christians recognise the ethical commands of the Jewish scriptures but are not expected to adhere to the detailed cultic requirements, one cannot justify singling out 2 of the 104 verses of the Holiness Code as binding in all contexts. So the relevance of this biblical prohibition on male homosexual expression would appear equivocal. The Pauline texts. In Romans 1 Paul spells out God's disapproval of what he terms "degrading passions" and "shameless acts". But the thrust of Paul's argument is against sin in the Roman church: first, that of Gentile idolatry, which leads secondly (Rom 2) to an attack on the Jewish members who have less excuse for sin because they have the Law. For the Jews, homosexuality was thought to be a Gentile vice, so Paul could see "the moral 'exchange' of one sex for another ... as the direct result of the religious 'exchange' of the true God for an idol". For Paul it was “unnatural”, that is against the individual's own nature, which is not analogous to the situation of homosexual people whose natural sexual preference is for their own gender – a possibility apparently unknown to Paul. Sin was a deliberate act against God's law, but Paul later points out that even for non-Jews that law is ''written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness"(Rom 2.25). Paul's argument in this text is primarily about the sinfulness of all people. These sins are listed in Romans 1:29-31 but sexual behaviour is not included, let alone homosexuality. Jew and Gentile alike "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom 3.23). This is part of the human condition, not a condemnation of homosexual people. Paul's letters to the Corinthians and to Timothy contain brief references to homosexuality in lists of sins, again a reference to the Gentile world against which the early church was establishing itself. Paul may have been referring to the practice of cultic male prostitution. He would have been familiar with both "prostitution and pederasty (in the sense of the Greek practice of a temporary pupil-tutor relationship between a teenager and an older man.)" But neither of these types of relationship is comparable to a committed equal partnership between two consenting adults of the same gender. The Gloucester Report (Church of England, 1979) suggests that while "certain forms of homosexual activity, along with other sins and offences, are being condemned ... (the) real nub of the discussion ... is whether the authors had in view the homosexual condition or merely certain homosexual practices.'' From examination of these scant biblical references, it is only certain sexual practices that are condemned; and these are deliberately perverse or exploitative practices, incompatible with the Gospel; they are not ethically applicable to faithful Christian adults who want a stable committed same-sex relationship. The moral theologian Donal Harrington believes the church has tended to view biblical morality through the lens of law. Scriptural passages quoted on the subject of homosexuality have been used to justify the outlawing and condemnation of homosexual people. Indeed in many parts of the world homosexual activity remains illegal. Similarly, biblical texts have been used to justify discrimination, for instance against women (1 Cor. 11.4-15; 14.33-36; 1 Tim 2.9-15) and in favour of slavery (e.g. Eph 6.5-8). However, with the exception of more fundamentalist communities, churches no longer take a literalist approach in these areas. To use the Bible to condone or even promote injustice would constitute an abuse of scripture. Instead, thinking Christians interpret the texts in the context of the culture in which they were written and in the light of changed social conditions and human knowledge now. The same cultural argument is increasingly used in exegesis of the texts which mention homosexuality. This may not satisfy biblical fundamentalists, but it begs the question why the biblical authors thought homosexuality was an abomination in the sight of God, and how our own context and understanding of homosexuality differs from theirs. The Silent Experience of Gay and Lesbian People Churches have long ignored the experience of gay and lesbian people. Social and cultural acceptance in the west has only recently begun to give voice to gay people. The theologian James Alison points out: “We gay people have as yet been unable to inscribe our lives into the biblical story, inhabit the biblical universe. And that means that we have fragmentary stories, of coming out, of standing up against hypocrisy, of surviving and growing through AIDS, of discovering that we really can love after all, of peaceful partnering and husbanding of each other, of learning to invent new forms of family bind, of asserting civil rights, of becoming socially acceptable.” Fr Harry Williams, one of the “outstanding Anglican theologians of his day,” wrote about the gay experience of sex in his 1982 autobiography: “We cannot be whole unless our bodies are accepted, and the mutual acceptance of each other’s bodies in sex is one of the most glorious things in human life. That is a platitude, a commonplace, where conventional hetero-sexual activity in marriage is concerned. But it can also be most wonderfully true when it is two men who are sleeping together.” Critics point to the “gay scene” as one of promiscuity, and the scale of the AIDS crisis led many to denounce it as a punishment from God. Yet close friends of mine in England who are gay (some ordained) simply want loving faithful relationships like everyone else, and such partnerships can and do exist, and are capable of enduring for decades. The purpose of sex Whether sex is solely for procreation is a key question. From earliest times anxiety about the survival of the tribe or family placed a high value on procreation, and sex for any other purpose, according to the Fathers of the Church, was “to violate nature.” This attitude towards sexual intercourse between a man and a woman had a negative effect on attitudes to other sexual activity. One writer on sex in biblical times has pointed to the “chattelhood” of women in the patriarchal society of the day: “The act of sexual penetration was symbolically expressive of ‘taking possession’, for (this) was what men did to women. A man was not prohibited from penetrating an unmarried woman, for that was tantamount to ‘taking possession’ of her, which he was free to do. But he might not penetrate a married woman … for that would be to violate the rights of possession of her husband. For two men to engage in a penetrative sexual act with each other ... was similarly to alter the hierarchy both of sex and society.” In the 1950s birth control debate, the Church of England affirmed that “it is utterly wrong to say that … sexual intercourse ought not to be engaged in except with the willing intention of childbirth,” - a liberating statement at the time. Onan’s sin is concerned with patriarchy and survival of the tribe: his duty to his widowed sister-in-law Tamar was to raise up offspring for his dead brother, and his refusal by “spilling his seed on the ground” was punishable by death. Onanism, the prohibition of which has scarred generations of adolescent boys and young men, is explained, not as an effort at birth control or masturbation, but the “failure to fulfil the levirate obligation.” Other sexual prohibitions are ascribed to purity issues. A man’s wife is his property, but to penetrate her during menstruation would render him unclean. Concubines were permitted, a useful remedy against sin during a wife’s menstrual periods or pregnancy, and also as legitimate compensation in the case of a barren wife. Rape in scripture is not viewed as the brutal and horrific violation that our culture would consider it today. Indeed, the biblical penalty for raping a “virgin who is not engaged” is to pay her father 50 shekels of silver, and marry her (Deut 22.28-29). This may explain how Lot, a righteous man, could offer his virgin daughters to the rapacious men of Sodom. He could not offer hi¬¬mself as this would be “unnatural”, nor could he offer Mrs Lot as this would violate his own possession. Yet his unmarried (albeit betrothed) and nubile daughters also were his possessions. Some further exploration is needed. It is surely significant that until the 19th century the woman’s role in reproduction was unrecognised, on the assumption that a woman made no genetic contribution to her child, but merely nurtured the male’s “seed” to maturity. In the story of Lot’s family, this insight seems relevant. Lot could not condone the rape of his male visitors. Nor could he offer himself as this would also be “barren coitus” (the term St John Chrysostom used to explain Sodom’s judgment). The same might apply to his wife who may have been past child-bearing age. Could it be that the real issue here is the sanctity of life? The Torah proclaims the love of God as paramount; love of God the life-giver requires the sanctity of God-given life to be upheld. If a pre-biological understanding of human reproduction understood the male seed to contain the “complete and perfect living child”, then a prohibition on any barren coitus, including homosexual acts, made sense to the Israelites, being tantamount to infanticide or murder, which explains the background to the prohibition on contraceptive devices. Let us see what this insight brings to our texts. Genesis 19.1-11 (12-29 and 30-38). The righteous Lot not only has to prevent an abuse of the hospitality code, he must protect the sanctity of God-given life. Given the lustful men of Sodom’s insistence, the only way to prevent the sin of murder was to offer his nubile daughters. Lot and his daughters having escaped from Sodom, the account next day of the daughters getting their father drunk and incestuously “lying with him” seems scandalous; but the survival of the tribe was secured by their becoming pregnant by their father (19.34) and thus being faithful to the God of creation and life. Leviticus 18.22 and 20.13. It is now understandable why two men lying together should be subject to the death penalty. If the only acceptable and legitimate receptacle for the male seed was a fertile woman who was not already the possession of another man, then each man here is guilty of infanticide. Onan’s sin, and sex with a menstruating woman, would also ensure non-survival of the embryonic child. The Levitical Code lists abominable practices of the Canaanites, including child sacrifice. We may not deem a pagan religious rite wrong per se; but infanticide to the Jews would have been abhorrent, and could explain the abhorrence of homosexual practices also employed by the Canaanites. Romans 1.24-27; 1 Corinthians 6.9-10; and 1 Timothy 1.10. Paul the Pharisee, well versed in the Law, would instinctively view as unacceptable in the sight of God any homosexual activity, whatever the context, not so much because of the purity issue, but because it was understood as inimical to the sanctity of God-given life. In America in the 1950s purity laws in the church’s instructions to young people were “a powerful force.” Not only was all actual intercourse outside marriage condemned, so were “all non-vaginal forms of intercourse, even within marriage.” In the light of the above hypothesis, this makes sense. Anal intercourse within marriage was illegal until very recently, clearly because it could not nurture the life of the male seed. Oral sex falls into the same category. Most certainly the Levitical writers would have condemned it as actively hostile to the God-given life in the male seed, and thus as murder. The Bible has been used to shape traditional Christian understanding of homosexuality which has led to discrimination against gay and lesbian people in the church, including clergy. Exploring the texts, and looking at the experience of gay people, it would seem that prejudice based on the biblical texts stems from a misunderstanding of the thinking behind the prohibitions. Far from being a sign of God’s disapproval of a minority of men and women created in God’s image, it is in fact an attempt to protect the sanctity of God-given life, based on a pre-scientific understanding of biology. Such an understanding of scripture points to a more inclusive gospel of love for all God’s people. Although Jesus said nothing about homosexuality his focus was on how we treat one another, how we treat all God’s people. It is what comes out of our heart that defiles (not what goes into the body). There will be some who will instinctively recoil from any proposition that accepts homosexual activity as a valid human expression of love. Questions of morality are only relevant insofar as homosexual and heterosexual men and women are judged by the same criteria – that of love of God and love of one’s neighbour. As Bishop Michael Doe says: “In the end it is a question of spirituality: we were created to love God and to love one another. Sex is only part of the way we know and express that love, and of course we live in a culture which often overemphasises the role it plays. But sex – human desire, loving intimacy, and yes, physical intercourse – is an integral part of the way God gives to be together.” To conclude . . . The Church is called to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ; if the Church is not inclusive, it is a counter-sign of the kingdom. The Church of Ireland should call, as some other Anglican churches have done, for all relationships to be assessed in the light of an authentic spirituality, based on the kingdom values of healing, reconciliation, compassion and love. All are made in God's image and, as Christians, we are all one in Christ. Can the Anglican Communion find the courage to speak prophetically and with integrity to those within and outside the church in the third millennium of our Lord?* Full article available in printed copies.
Sandra Pragnell
Dean of Limerick (2012)