I think people have you haven’t listened.

Justifying our sinful behavior is part of this whole fallen world mess. You can be ignorant of your sin or acknowledge it and try to change it.
One is easier than the other.

I believe that you are saved so long as you trust Christ.

in love,
a fellow sinner.

Nevertheless, it is a good question you ask, and I don’t mean to brush it off lightly. I would, ideally, like to come up with some answer to it, because I don’t like to simply say that something is wrong without being able to say why. And with other issues, such as war, I think I can offer, at the least, much better guesses than I can for this issue. But they are all guesses, after all, and in the end it seems to me that we simply can’t know. Our best course of action may be to humbly submit ourselves to the teaching and example of Christ. Maybe I’m not doing that in this case; maybe my bias is making my read my own values into the text. Maybe you’re doing the same thing. The only thing I’m really sure about is that we all ought to be humble enough to not insist that everyone else come to the same conclusions we do, and somehow find a balance between declaring our convictions on contentious issues and not letting them override those values that we can agree on, and that are often far more central to Jesus’ message than the ones we argue about.

“and I have yet to see why it necessarily means that we should not view same-sex marriage as a sin, or as not the ideal form of marriage.”

I’m not sure if you’ve had the chance to read through all the earlier posts in this thread in detail, but I’d invite you to look at my post in #5 and give a response to it if you can. In it I tell the story of my partnership and ask a simple question (from #3): “What exactly is it about my relationship with my partner that isn’t whole or that’s unhealthy, on God’s terms?” More simply than that: “What is wrong with my partnership?” I ask this especially because no one who has posted on this thread in support of the church’s status quo (excluding LGBT people from the church) has taken up this question, even though I and others asked it several times. Let’s face it - this whole issue isn’t about abstract arguments and obscure Bible verses. It’s about a lot of people in the church telling me in my specific life with my specific partner that our relationship is wrong. And yet, while any number of people are willing to spend any amount of energy condemning me in the abstract, no one has ever personally been able to tell me or express to me why my relationship with my partner is wrong.

Eric, you observe that incest has genetic problems. You’re right, of course, and that is one of the common arguments against it. But, to be fair, should we really be basing our sexual ethics (or ethics in general) off of what is genetically healthy? I don’t find the argument that incest is wrong because of its genetic problems that different from the argument that homosexuality is wrong because of the dangers of homosexual intercourse. It is indeed true that (male) homosexual intercourse, at least in the form of anal sex, is more dangerous than heterosexual intercourse. But this in and of itself hardly makes homosexual intercourse wrong, right? As for the danger of producing genetically inferior offspring, should we let people with inheritable disabilities have children? Does that not have “genetic problems”? And finally, what if, hypothetically, a brother and sister were incapable of having children, or opted not to? Would the relationship be acceptable then?

As for polygamy, I think you’re right that it typically is a manifestation of patriarchal imbalance (and yes, when referring to polygamy I have pretty much been talking exclusively about polygyny). In that way, it is a product of a certain kind of culture—one that is becoming increasingly less common in our postmodern, globalized world. But of course, some would say, and I indeed did say, in my first post on this thread, that homosexuality—in its modern sense at least—is in many ways an outgrowth of Western liberalism, and its ideals of individual freedom and self-expression, often at the expense of community, responsibility, and respect for tradition. Although these ideals are not bad in and of themselves (nor are many of the ideals on which, for instance, African and Israelite cultures were based on), but I think that they ultimately ought to remain subordinate to Christ. What exactly this means, practically speaking, is of course a difficult question, and I realize that my simply observing that homosexuality is an outgrowth of Western culture says little about its morality. I was mostly making the point that although you’re right, polygamy has been condemned socially for its patriarchal imbalance, there might by that same logic be comparable reasons to condemn homosexuality.

Eric and Alan, you both ask why I can expand my understanding of acceptable divorce but not do the same for marriage. I think the difference is that I am not expanding my definition of what is “right” or what is “good”—marriage is still good, divorce is still bad—but what is culturally necessary. In fact, another possible implication of that passage I have toyed around with is an “updated” understanding of marriage. It seems to me that just as divorce is, while still a bad thing, unfortunately necessary in some situations, so homosexuality, while not a good thing itself, ought to be tolerated and accepted to an extent since it is such an integral part of the culture in which we live and since—like those who have undergone a divorce—GLBTs face the tremendous amount of persecution and suffering that they do. But this is of course different than what you seem to have in mind—my broadening the definition of not what is acceptable, but what is good, what is ideal. Although I practically never live up to such ideals—and as such often feel that I have no place condemning other Christians for their lifestyles—I do tend to believe in a very high ideal for which we as Christians ought to strive. Pacifism isn’t easy. Discipleship isn’t easy. The cross isn’t easy. There is an inherent difficulty in moving from one’s own commitment to living a life marked with the suffering inherent in following Christ to asking others to do the same—or even to do different, as of course the struggles that we all face are different. And I feel as if I’m treading on eggshells whenever I so much as suggest this—lest any LGBT Christians feel that I am making unreasonable demands of them that I cannot possibly understand, being a relatively privileged heterosexual. Indeed, it is this trepidation which often keeps me from openly voicing my thoughts on this subject in general. I am trying to be forthright here, however, because I feel that the best discussion occurs when those on both sides of an issue are honest (if sensitive—and if I have failed to be that I apologize) in stating their views.

All that to say that I don’t think it’s as simple as simply “expanding and interpreting” the Bible in such a way as to allow for homosexuality. I think you are right that to an extent we need to expand our interpretation of the Bible. I am a far cry from a Biblical literalist or inerrantist, believe me. I am more apprehensive about new “interpretations” of Christ’s teachings, because of the high value that I place on the person of Christ. And I do retain a certain hesitancy in the eager embrace of new interpretations of Scripture in general, for the reasons outlined above. Although I am almost certainly more liberal than Yoder in terms of my views on the Bible, I did like a quote of his from The Politics of Jesus. In the interests of honesty, I must confess that I actually disagreed with some of the interpretations he was using this quote to defend—but if I may nevertheless by hypocritical and use the quote anyway for my no doubt biased purposes:

“How can there by any corrective or challenge to our self-sufficiency, any continuity in the Christian community…if the present insight of the bearer is to be sovereign judge of any communication one will accept?”

Now, Alan observes, quite rightly, that there is a danger inherent in sticking with “safe” interpretations. I do try to remain aware of that danger, and open to new understandings of Scripture, and Jesus’ teachings. It is, unfortunately, impossible for any one of us to avoid reading our own opinions and interpretations into Scripture. Alan argues that an interpretation which allows for homosexuality is more consistent with Jesus’ message of love. I am not convinced that this is an accurate interpretation of what “love” means in the Christian sense. It clearly does not mean “anything goes,” and I have yet to see why it necessarily means that we should not view same-sex marriage as a sin, or as not the ideal form of marriage. As conservatives never tire of pointing out, Jesus may have kept the crowd from stoning the adulteress, but he nevertheless told her to leave her life of sin. Of course, I doubt he would have said “Okay, *now* I condemn you” if she had gone and committed adultery a second, or a third, or fourth or fifth or sixth, time. So we do need to have that ideal of inclusiveness, of forgiveness, of non-condemnation, especially as we are all terrible sinners and Jesus himself was sinless, but I think it needs to be balanced out by an ideal of discipleship which might have implications we don’t always like. Interpreting the Scriptures in the light of Jesus’ love doesn’t simply mean accepting certain practices because we don’t want to be condemnatory towards those who practice them. I think that in “updating” Jesus’ teachings on divorce I am not contradicting anything explicit or implicit that he was teaching, that, on the contrary, I am affirming it. Similarly, I would “err on the side of not stoning anyone, despite what the bible has to say on that,” because Jesus quite clearly teaches that we should *not* act as the Old Testament ostensibly commanded. Jesus never explicitly contradicted the ideal of monogamous heterosexual marriage that we get from the Genesis account, and indeed, it is my contention that he in fact affirms it. Now, of course, he never explicitly condemns homosexuality in so doing; there is admittedly a marked difference between implicity affirming heterosexual marriage and explicitly condemning homosexual marriage different (although on the other hand, in that passage he condemns divorce *because* of his affirmation of marriage). I may indeed be making a mistake in failing to recognize that his implicit affirmation of heterosexual marriage is merely an expression of the culture he lived in. But before I am willing to accept that, I need to see a reason why I *should* accept that interpretation, in light of passages like Genesis 1-2 and the difficulties that I see in understanding incest, polygamy, et. al if one accepts homosexuality. I really am of two minds on this; still, I am arguing the side which I am because of genuine difficulties that I do have with the other side.

A similar point that I will conclude on is that my disapproval of a homosexual lifestyle does not equate to me promoting the “exclusion” (to quote Alan) of anyone. I think that oppression of and hate acts towards homosexuals, or anyone else, are terrible things, far worse than I think homosexual marriage itself to be. Eric, you note that Jesus “condemned” “judgment and condemnation”—this itself shows that there is a distinction between “condemning” a sin and acting as if one is the sole arbiter of good and evil, making judgments on a person herself, ignoring the plank in one’s own eye while pointing out the speck in hers. I do not advocate exclusion of homosexuals—I imagine many are much better Christians than I am. All I am saying is that I believe gay marriage to be sinful, and that I believe such a belief to be the most faithful interpretation of the Bible and Jesus’ teachings. I could well be wrong. I’m not about to go taking God’s judgment into my own hands on this or any other matter. I happen to believe greed to be a sin, but I’m not in the habit of confronting persons who I do not know well because they are being greedy, or kicking them out of the church because of said sin. Now, if I felt a good friend of mine was being consumed by greed, I would probably tell him as much, but this would not amount to condemning him. I have only one good friend (that I know of) who identifies as gay, and he knows what my feelings on homosexuality are (or, at least, what I tend to say they are, since I honestly don’t know for certain what I think about it), although he does not share them.

Now, there is the question of how Christians of the same mind as me ought to actually deal with homosexuality in the church, and to be quite honest I don’t have a good answer to that. I don’t plan on pastoring a church myself, and so will probably never have to deal directly with this issue. I can tell you that if I were ordained, I would not marry two men, or two women. I would rather that my church did not either, but if it did I would probably not consider it cause to leave that church, unless I had other problems with it as well. Eric, your excellent post on schisms and church unity (which I mean to respond to next) illustrates this problem, of what one believes personally and what one insists that one’s church affirms, and I don’t really have a good answer to that problem, at least in this case. But I would like to make clear that there is a wide gulf between someone like me, who thinks that he thinks that homosexual marriage is wrong, and James Dobson or Pat Robertson. One of the unfortunate things that happens in both this and other “hot-button” issues are that people get pigeon-holed into one of two camps. A middle ground is neither conceived of nor allowed. I think that I can disapprove of homosexuality without being homophobic, or without hating homosexuals. I’d imagine that most folks on this blog aren’t big fans of Israel’s foreign policy, but I also imagine that few of us would appreciate being called anti-Semitic. Nor would those who support a woman’s right to choose likely label themselves as “pro-abortion.” The point is that there is a middle ground on this, and most, issues. Whether or not that middle ground is where we should be or not is up for debate, but there is a place between “hating” or “excluding” GLBT Christians and believing that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality.

Correction: Polygamy in Judeo-Christian tradition is almost exclusively polygyny - men with multiple wives. Thanks, Michelle, for the correction in terms.

No problem. I just think it’s important to recognize, especially when talking about “norms,” that there are a range of norms that exist (and have existed) in other cultures - and throughout the animal kingdom… including polyandry (females/women with multiple male partners/husbands).

Sometimes the reasons for polyandry and/or polygyny seem, well, reasonable. It may be more practical for the lifestyles, or even survival, of a culture. Other times, as I think Eric was pointing out, those structures can represent an abuse of power. And that, perhaps, is what several people are trying to get at…

I am not a biblical scholar in the way some of you are. But my understanding of one of Jesus’ primary messages is in reference to power. Who has it, and how do they (we) use it? And in this current thread, how do those with power use it to define their (our) own and - more importantly - others’ sexuality?

In a very simplistic way, I think misusing an imbalance of power is key to defining unhealthy sexuality in all areas - and that is the question to apply to individual situations. Is there an imbalance of power, and if so, how is it being used and/or acknowledged? There are other values I have that grow out of that question, and some situations are more complicated than that, but for me, that is the baseline from which to start.

I certainly acknowledge that I don’t have an airtight case for my interpretation—I suppose that I simply prefer to err on the side of caution when interpreting Jesus’ teachings, because it seems to me that utilizing more “open” interpretations almost inevitably leads to our reading into the passage.

Nevin, I would echo Eric’s confusion about how your preference to “err on the side of caution when interpreting Jesus’ teachings” leads you directly to exclusion instead of inclusion (something Jesus seems to explicitly speak to often). And, as he noted, you seem to backtrack on that when you address divorce, and how the interpretation has needed to expand over time.

My other concern is your default defense of not wanting to “read our agenda back into the text.” I understand your hesitancy (and I think that’s a topic for discussion), but I don’t see that as ever being a valid defense for biblical interpretation. As I challenged Nate with earlier comments, I challenge you to think about your seemingly obvious and “safer” interpretations, and where they come from. The Christian tradition that gives you those interpretations has been rich and full at times, but has also been consistently patriarchal, racist, hetero-bigoted, and ultimately exclusionary in reinforcing the status quo and generally not taking Jesus’ message of love seriously. But that’s just my opinion. I chafe at the idea that anyone can claim to stick with traditional interpretation because it’s inherently more godly, or closer to what Jesus actually meant — as if any “opening” of the traditional interpretation is inherently dangerous and somehow moving away from the Divine. No matter how you interpret it, there’s an agenda of some sort being read back into the text. The question is: What agenda? And is it an agenda we can reconcile with our understanding of Jesus’ message?

Incest has genetic problems. It’s not so much a religiously moral issue as a genetically moral issue. Polygamy is always men with multiple wives, why is that? Polygamy is also not condemned biblically, but has become condemned socially - maybe because of its patriarchal imbalance? The bible certainly doesn’t go out of it’s way to condemn multiple partners - it even requires it at times (leverite marriage, for example).

We tend to confuse our own cultural sexual morality with the sexual morality that is actually in the biblical text. I think that is the key to what Walter Wink talks about. Why do you find it so easy to expand your understanding of acceptable divorce, when you find expansive interpretations otherwise dangerous? How can you make an ancient text relevant to your life today without some expanding and interpreting? Even the concept of “Lord” holds entirely different meanings and connotations now than it did in first century Palestine.

I think you are right that it makes some sense to err on the side of caution in interpretation - and considering Jesus’ overwhelming condemnation of judgment and condemnation… well, it seems most prudent in my mind to err on the side of not stoning anyone, despite what the bible has to say on that.

On another note: you are right, of course, that it is not as simple as “gay” and “straight” - even scientifically. For more on that, look into the research of the Kinsey institute, where they talk about sexuality on a continuum.

Correction: Polygamy in Judeo-Christian tradition is almost exclusively polygyny - men with multiple wives. Thanks, Michelle, for the correction in terms.

The rest of your post is compelling, and I find myself wanting to agree with you. However, I’m afraid I don’t feel that you have addressed my concern about what is wrong with other non-traditional forms of marriage/sexuality. Why can’t that brother and sister in Germany marry each other? (Note: I just realized when I tried to click on that link that it’s broken… but that’s just because the hyperlink included the . in it—so delete that and it’ll take you to the page I was *trying* to link to.) If they truly love each other, why should we ask them to give up their love simply because we have this preconceived notion that incest is wrong? Heck, maybe we shouldn’t—maybe we’re just not progressive enough to see that. And cannot a man and his three wives truly love each other in a polygamous marriage? Can there not be a spiritual connection between him and more than one person? Indeed, it might seem odd to him the idea that he could only have that connection with one person. And again, I’m having difficulty seeing why, in principle, sex has to remain within the bounds of marriage at all, if we adopt a “living ethic of sexuality…based on…a kingdom ethic of giving, community, relation, and love.”

One possible response would be that while certain people are not naturally predisposed towards marrying their sibling, or having more than one spouse, or having sex outside of marriage, people are naturally predisposed towards being gay or straight. It’s naturally dangerous for me to make judgments in that area, being straight myself (and highly doubtful that I could make myself “gay” if I tried). But while I’m as skeptical of “ex-gay” counseling as anyone, I’m not entirely convinced that human sexuality is itself this neat little box in which we are either one way or the other, and then we should live that way. I don’t think that the science bears that out, and I don’t think that that makes sense intuitively, given how very little else in life can be separated so neatly. Also, I think that that is too deterministic a view of sexuality, and indeed, of anything in life. I know that this comparison is made ad nauseam, but I still think it has some validity: it is not just as natural for me to have sex with many women rather than one as it is for you to have sex with men? Science (and my hormones) would say yes. I have a moral sense that that is wrong, but how do I know that that simply isn’t an outgrowth of my culture? Is the guilt I get when I find myself attracted to girls other than my girlfriend that different from the guilt that gays who believe that homosexuality is sinful feel when they are attracted to others of the same sex? Of course, such guilt can be harmful—especially given that I’d say no sin has been committed in either case—but the guilt may reflect something real. I think we would both agree that I ought to make the sexual “sacrifice” of not having sex with a woman besides my wife. At any rate, the point that I’m trying to make is that I have difficulty drawing a line between homosexuality and other sexual taboos based solely on the idea of orientation, or that (a la Walter Wink) it’s “natural” for homosexuals to have intercourse with those of the same sex whereas it’s “unnatural” for heterosexuals to do the same. Nate already covered this some in a previous post, and I basically agreed with what he had to say about genes not being our destiny.
Thanks, davisagli, for your response as well. I agree that the main point of Mt. 19 is not to affirm heterosexual marriage but to affirm the sanctity of marriage itself. The point that I was trying to make was more that *implicit* in Jesus’ words was the *kind* of marriage that is sacred. You say that Jesus uses the words “male and female” because of the culture he was in, whereas I say that his use of those words shows his agreement with them. Of course, we could go back and forth all day on that all day, and never get anywhere, because there’s really no way to tell. I certainly acknowledge that I don’t have an airtight case for my interpretation—I suppose that I simply prefer to err on the side of caution when interpreting Jesus’ teachings, because it seems to me that utilizing more “open” interpretations almost inevitably leads to our reading into the passage. I was very fascinated by your take on Gen. 2—that marriage was instituted because “it is not good that the man should be alone,” and that the purpose of marriage, in the beginning, was to give people companionship and support. It certainly seems to make sense, and it wasn’t the way I had been approaching the passage before. I don’t know if it’s reading our agenda into the text or not—I will need to give it more thought, but I am glad to have another perspective on that passage now.

Skylark: I wasn’t actually so much asking about bestiality/pedophilia as other consensual forms of intercourse. I am familiar with the criteria of “consent,” and I think it generally makes sense (the line that is drawn between “child” and “adult” is of course somewhat arbitrary, but that is of course unavoidable). What I’m wondering is how one draws the line, not between heterosexual and homosexual marriage, but between non-incestual monogamous marriage and polygamous marriage/incest/intercourse outside of marriage. Of course, maybe we shouldn’t be “drawing lines” at all—that seems to be what Luke is arguing—but then where does that leave us with these other forms of marriage and sexual expression that we remain uncomfortable with? As for your questions on divorce, the approach I have usually taken to the passage is that although Jesus permitted divorce only in cases of “marital unfaithfulness,” in our day and age it’s reasonable to expand that to include spousal abuse, etc. The point of Jesus’ teachings was not: “never divorce except in cases of adultery,” but “divorce is a terrible thing because marriage is so sacred, and so it should never be done except when it is absolutely necessary.” Also, as you observed, in Jesus’ day divorcing one’s wife would pretty much have been condemning her to a life of poverty, whereas today it is much worse for many women to stay in abusive or unhealthy marriages than to divorce and try to get by without the “support” of their ex-husband. Now, I still think that divorce is far too prevalent in our society, and that it is never a good thing, but I also think that it is sometimes unfortunately necessary. (And now I begin sounding like Just War theorists—hmm.) You make a good point, however, that divorce is rarely mentioned as a “sin” in churches today, whereas of course homosexuality is. What’s interesting too is that a few decades ago, that was not at all the case, or so I understand from those who were around back then. Randy Balmer observes in a book of his (which I haven’t read, but which I have heard him give a summary of when he spoke here at Messiah) that the Religious Right in America stopped making divorce a big issue when they chose as their political hero a divorced man, Ronald Reagan.

No, skylark, my thoughts really didn’t have much to do with how much sexuality is displayed in public. My take on the church is this: the real, applied teaching on the church on sexuality, as it is lived out day to day, is basically “keep it in marriage, and beyond that, let’s talk/think about it as little as we possibly can.” That’s why I refer to the marriage teaching (and associated condemnations) as a “box” to place sexuality in - a box with the lid closed as tight as possible. Maybe if someone is straight, gets married at a youngish age, and never really thinks about it, they might not notice this as strongly as those of us who have to really think about and deal with sexuality intensely because it doesn’t fit into that pattern (for any number of reasons.)

This seems to me a very important topic for everyone on the board, but maybe it’s bigger and broader than should be contained in this thread, which should probably narrow back down to LGBT stuff. I’ll start a new thread for it.

I think what Luke (and myself) are asking for is honest and open conversation around sexuality. Conversation that is more interested in reality and people and life and love than condemnations.

I went through an abusive marriage and divorce several years ago. I found that the church teachings (and mainly lack of teachings) on relationships and sexuality were not only inadequate, but quite harmful in getting me into an unhealthy relationship and then telling me to stick with it despite everything.

If the church wants to work against divorce, domestic abuse, and many other related issues all at once, it has to start with more up-front honest conversation about sexuality - not simplistic condemnations.

Sexuality is such an integral and powerful part of our lives, it is dangerous to make it taboo in the way the church (and our culture) has. It’s not about doing away with all sexual boundaries, and it’s not about having sex in public, it’s about acknowledging sexuality as a powerful and important part of life, with potential for amazing amounts of good.

Nevin asked what is wrong with bestiality. Some secular thinkers use the criteria of “consent” to determine if a sexual act is acceptable or not. Since non-human animals do not have the capacity to consent in the same way humans can, this supports the idea it is wrong. Sex between an (legal) adult and a (legal) child is the same way — even if a child appears to consent to or initiate the activity, the capacity for fully comprehending the consequences of the act are not there. There’s too much room for manipulation and “using” by the legal adult.

davisagli’s comment prompted a question for me about divorce. It’s a lot more acceptable in Christian/Mennonite churches today for heterosexuals to divorce and/or remarry than it is for queers to get married the first time. This is definitely an issue worthy of its own post and discussion. On what basis do we allow divorce and remarriage? Jesus didn’t seem too keen on it in the Matthew 19 passage. I’ve had the thought that maybe he was reprimanding husbands not to condemn their wives to a life of poverty through divorce, ’cause I’d heard somewhere wives could not divorce their husbands under cultural traditions. Maybe someone here could fill me in.

Luke, thank you for your interesting and thought-provoking post. I guess I’m honestly not sure what your vision of love and intimacy looks like. Maybe this is my “dark side” rearing its head, but I’m not comfortable with public displays of graphic sexuality — whether hetero, queer, or whatever. I’d much rather people kept their pants on until they’re at home. I got the impression (perhaps mistakenly) from your post that people should be much more open — and by this I thought you meant publically demonstrative — with their sexuality. Could you clarify? Thanks!

Nevin, thanks for your thoughts and sincere questions. Leaving aside for a moment your thoughts on sacrifice (because Luke and Carl have addressed it better than I can), I’d like to offer my own interpretation of Matthew 19 and its quotations from Genesis. I was intrigued by the hermeneutic you applied to Genesis 1, of trying to focus on the main purpose of the text. But applying this to Matthew 19 led me to a different conclusion than you about homosexuality and sexuality in general.

Disclaimers: I am not a biblical scholar, and I recognize that this is a view (and a fairly undeveloped one at that) through the narrow lens of one passage, on a complex topic with which I am not as familiar as many of you.

Looking at Matthew 19, I noticed that after Jesus quotes Gen. 1:27 (”made them male and female”), he goes on to quote Gen. 2:24 (”For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”) He then goes on to conclude, “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Since Jesus is responding to a question about divorce, his main purpose seems not to be to make a claim about what sort of commitment God intended (which I believe was your reading of this passage, Nevin), but to highlight the importance of honoring a commitment. The Genesis reference, as I read it, seems to serve mainly as an introductory statement to remind Jesus’ listeners of why marriage is a special commitment, rather than as the main point of his response to the Pharisees. Jesus does reiterate the words ‘male and female’ from Genesis, but he does so in response to a question about divorce in a culture that only had a concept of marriage between a male and a female.

But I said that Jesus bases his claim to the specialness of the marriage commitment on the passage from Gen. 2:24 which talks about marriage between a man and woman. So how can I then claim that a male-female union was not God’s intent from the beginning? Well, I think that the main point of Gen. 2 is not about what sort of marriage union God created, but about why God created it (this is also the question you raised, Nevin, when asking what the institution of marriage is for). The section that ends “For this reason a man shall…be joined to his wife…” begins with God saying “It is not good that the man should be alone.” Based on this, it sounds like one reason for marriage is to provide intimacy, instead of lonesomeness (Question for another thread: where does this leave single people?). God also goes on to say, “I will make him a helper as his partner.” I read this as saying that one of the partner’s purposes is to be a partner in the tasks assigned just previously in verse 15 (to till and keep the garden)–in other words, another reason for marriage is to provide support in the service of God.

Looking for these fruits–a mutual commitment to intimacy and a mutual commitment to following God–can provide a more helpful starting place for a biblical basis for evaluating a union’s morality–and one that I think is more compatible with the good things Luke has to say about sexuality. And if I observe these traits in a marriage between two men or between two women, my conviction is that I can in the same spirit as Jesus say, “What God has joined together, let no one separate.”

As may be obvious, I am biased in my interpretation from being raised in a generally gay-friendly congregation. To those of you who hold a different bias, do my interpretations take too many liberties with the text? To those of you who share my bias and value same-sex sexuality, do you think there is any value in trying to interpret the Bible in a way that leaves room for honoring same-sex sexuality (as I have here attempted), or must we surrender this text to those who use it as a basis for condemnation or disapproval and instead base our ethics on some other source? To those who are married (I am not), homosexual or heterosexual, what insights into the relationship between spirituality and sexuality can you add to Luke’s?

I appreciate your sincere laying-out of your thinking on this issue. I’ll try to express what I see as the central flaw in your line of thinking, which I’m afraid is directly tied to how the church deals with (or fails to deal with) sexuality. I hope to get at your questions about incest, polygamy, and free love, although indirectly. What I see as the flaw is the implication that sex (in whatever) form is self-gratification - pleasure, basically - and that sexual ethics therefore consists of categories in which it is or isn’t appropriate to take this pleasure for oneself. To me this cuts sex out of a relational ethic, where I believe God placed it. I’ll say more:

You, and everybody around, seem to agree that sex between a married man and a woman is good. Yet… is this REALLY what you think? What if they got married while drunk and divorce three days later? What if the woman doesn’t want to have sex and is forced to (marital rape, it’s called)? What if the woman was forced into the marriage against her will? On and on… clearly there are some situations where sex isn’t okay in a straight marriage. My only point is that a categorical/individualistic approach to sexual ethics never works out… we always find ourselves falling back on some other ethic we can’t really name when faced with actual situations.

What if sex actually has some power, some place in life and in creation, beyond personal, individual pleasure (and procreation)? What if sex can actually create something good and positive in the world, can be a form of spiritual connection between people, can be a form of self-giving and love? What if sexual relation can be used to build up the kingdom of God? What if there is some living ethic of sexuality not based on Law but on a kingdom ethic of giving, community, relation, and love? And what if sexuality is something way beyond physical genital acts of sex, and is something that goes to the core of being human and relating to other humans, something that is so a part of us and so tied up in everything we do and are that it couldn’t possibly be separated out no matter how hard we tried?

This is my reaction to speaking of giving up one’s sexuality as a necessary form of “sacrifice” to be in God’s kingdom. To me that makes as much sense as saying that I have to sacrifice the use of my arm to be in the kingdom. An arm can be used for so many things… it can be the arm that gives the cool cup of water, that comforts the needy, or it can be the arm that strikes another down, or steals. This is how I see my gay sexuality. It’s not just a part of me - it IS me, it is my self in this creation that God has made. I’m not talking about gay sex here. I’m talking about being - being a human- in my case, being a gay human. Where can my gay sexuality (where can I) fit into God’s kingdom? Where can I offer myself, my sexuality, to build up this kingdom, and bring love to others?

Why is the church so afraid of this - why does the church seem terrified to its very foundation of this? Not just queer people, but of everyone’s sexuality? What are the boxes, the secrets, the shame - what are these for? Why can’t it just stop being dead and start calling its member to enter the real, living, kingdom of God in sexuality?

This is what we all really long for, I think - gay, straight, and otherwise. We long to live our sexuality openly and freely as a way of loving, being, and giving in the world, fully in harmony with God’s reality. Yeah, by forcing everyone into straight marriages, maybe some of this can come through on its own, but certainly not because of the box that it’s been shoved into. Real, living sexual ethics is not about categories, taboos, and being allowed to take a selfish pleasure for oneself, or having to sacrifice it. Real sexual ethics is the same as all other kingdom ethics. It’s giving, accepting, freedom from fear, loving, and building others up.

THAT’s the Garden of Eden, or Heaven, yo. The Garden of Eden is not a penis and a vagina.

This is the real gift we queers can offer the church right now. This is what Katie and BMC are working to bring to the church. We (well, me, and a lot of others I know) don’t just want to fit into our little gay marriages on the old law-based model and fade into the way of the church. The church’s sexual ethic is dead, and through struggling with our reality, maybe we can offer life not just to the queers of the Anabaptist world, but to everybody.

(I hope you don’t read this as being written “at” you Nevin, in the sense that I’m saying you’re working against what I’m talking about. Also, since this thread is very long, if you don’t have time to read through the whole thing, make sure to look at my post in comment #5 about my relationship with my partner for more context.)

Allow me now to give my own best reason why we can still use Genesis 1 in the way you and I want to (although I would be curious as to what other responses you would have to my objections). That is that Jesus himself uses it in that way. In Matthew 19 Jesus refers to Genesis 1, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’,” in responding to a question on divorce. Although he is, of course, talking about divorce and not homosexuality, it seems implicit (and I trust the implicit teachings of Christ far more than the implicit beliefs of the author of an Old Testament passage) in his words that God intends for marriage to be between a male and a female. And whatever we may say about other parts of the Bible or historical teachings of Christianity, one of the tenets of Anabaptism is radical discipleship of Christ, which, as I indicated in my last post (the part that didn’t get deleted) can (and does) involve suffering, and giving things up that we would otherwise be free to enjoy. Of course, the danger is to use this (as some think Yoder did, although I think they misread him) to justify oppression and glorify suffering. It is also dangerous to stake too much on a single passage which seems to support a viewpoint, even if it does so fairly well. We have, after all, not even considered the possibility that the historical words of Christ are different than what has been handed down to us, and although that may not concern us in some cases, in one in which I am placing so much on something incidental to the actual passage, perhaps it should. For these reasons I do try to remain open to new ideas on this subject (and others).

That being said, there remains one big difficulty that I have with the acceptance of homosexuality. This I shall put forward in the form of a question, for anyone who would care to answer. Katie, you objected to Nate’s ostensible comparison (in another thread—I didn’t read it, so I can’t comment on it) of LGBTs to murderers, etc. This is an understandable objection that I see quite often. You then go on to express surpise that he didn’t include “bestiality, polygamy, and necrophilia in there too.” For the first and the last I’ll say fair enough—no possibility of consent—but what, may I ask, *is* wrong with polygamy? Infamous to the Religious Right’s opposition to the legalization of gay marriage is the “slippery slope” argument—if people are marrying those of the same sex today, they’ll be marrying farm animals tomorrow. As an argument of what will happen, the slippery slope argument may not have much credence. But as an argument of what should happen, if we apply the same logic that you apply to homosexuality, on what grounds do we condemn (among other sexual “perversions”) polygamy, incest, and free love? I pick these three intentionally because with the other two examples you gave, and others that could be given (e.g., rape, pedophilia), there are problems involved with the consent (or ability to give consent) of one of the parties. But in the three cases I have given, we can do away with that problem. Let’s start with the first. Polygamy is, as I’m sure you’re aware, the norm in a number of African cultures. Indeed, missionary opposition to polygamy has, for better or for worse, caused a lot of cultural strife for Africans. One of the primary reasons for this is that the missionaries didn’t really understand what they were opposing (I’m generalizing, of course, but bear with me)—in their minds it was all about sex, whereas in reality it was about much more than that for the Africans involved. (Incidentally, one could take—in many of the same cultures—an example of a much more gruesome and probably easily condemned practice, female circumcision, and still come up with the same missionary misunderstanding and resultant cultural harm from their opposition to it.) This is the same thing that LGBT Christians object to (rightly) in many conservative Christians—that they simply don’t understand what being gay is all about. And yet, would you go so far, in the case of polygamy, as saying that it is completely permissible, or that there is nothing wrong with it? (When I say “you,” I don’t just mean you, Katie, but anyone else who agrees with the view of homosexuality that you’re putting forward. I’m asking these questions to anyone who cares to answer them.) At the very least, would you not want to (as I do) say that although the missionaries went too far in their opposition to polygamy, monogamy is still God’s ideal for Christians? Well, perhaps you wouldn’t. Perhaps you’re broad-minded enough to say that polygamy is just fine, if it’s culturally appropriate. (After all, it’s in the Bible—as Africans never tire of pointing out.) Then what about incest? On what grounds do you say that a brother and sister do not have the right to marry and engage in sexual relations, if they truly love each other? This question is not simply hypothetical. Germany’s anti-incest laws have recently been challenged by a couple making arguments very similar to those made by LGBT Christians: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6424937.stm. Is there something inherently wrong with siblings loving each other in that way? Who are you to be the judge of that? And finally, why do we even need the institution of marriage in the first place? Sure, it may have worked well in the past, but what is inherently wrong with a group of people simply having sex with each other—providing that they are all consenting mature adults who truly love each other? By this point it may seem as if my tone has gotten rather sarcastic, but I assure you that that is not my intent. I truly do want to know what *is* wrong with polygamy, incest, and free love. For those of you who believe that God’s ideal plan for sexuality is not between one man and one woman, on what grounds do you say that God’s ideal plan for sexuality is between two—and only two—consenting and unrelated adults within the bounds of marriage? Let me reiterate that this is not meant as a sneering attack—I truly do want to know how you can draw the line where you do, and am curious as to your responses. I’m not saying that homosexuality *is* equivalent to the things I’ve mentioned, but I’m asking *why* it isn’t. Part of me very much wants to come to the same place as you have on this issue, but the above objection is one of the primary reasons I have difficulty doing so.

Also, since I see my previous post has a response, I’ll respond to that now. Carl, you’re absolutely right that the overarching message of Jesus has very little to do with sexuality and a lot to do with how we treat “the least of these,” and that that is our moral priority. This is why I find it ridiculous that so many Christians make the deal out of homosexuality that they do. There are simply more important battles to be fought. However, although the above may constitute the core of Jesus’ message, I simply am not convinced that it constitutes the whole of it. *Any* follower of Christ is called to sacrifice, be they gay or straight, white or black, male or female, college professor or construction worker. And these people will have to sacrifice different things—I think that much at least we can agree on. This alone does not mean that LGBT Christians should have to sacrifice that which we heterosexuals enjoy, of course, and it is always dangerous for those of us in positions of power to tell those less powerful what they should sacrifice (and I would frankly rather that all the LGBT Christians out there go and get married to committed loving partners than people misunderstand my words to justify the terrible homophobia that is so prevalent in our culture). But if the whole of Jesus’ message is simply to be kind to the lowly, then I really don’t think we have any grounds for denouncing polygamy/incest/free love/et al. And if Jesus’ message consists of something more, then I think we have to seriously ask ourselves if we aren’t simply buying into the individualistic ideals of our culture when we claim to simply be living out the radical all-inclusive love of Jesus in our acceptance of homosexuality.

And I see that I again failed to keep my post short. Oh well. Perhaps one of you will have the patience to read through the whole thing, and the graciousness to respond. :-)

I think one of the strongest overall themes of the biblical story is God’s “preferential option for the poor/powerless”, and that might give us one guide as to who is called to sacrifice and in what ways. I simply don’t see God, through the Bible or anywhere else, calling on queers to self-sacrifice their sexuality. I do think that I, as a straight white man, and others like me, are called to do an awful lot of sacrificing our need for control. Now there’s a moral priority, if you ask me.