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Difference Is Not A Sin

Chapter 7: ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE

The church now finds itself in a confused state over its attitudes to the whole range of human sexuality. The present confusion and fudge is very divisive and must be resolved honestly and clearly. When I began writing this book I did so with not a little anger. It seems to me that firm positions have been taken up and statements made which show little more than the ignorance and prejudice of the speaker. I still boil with anger when I think of the comment made by the Cardinal Archbishop of Glasgow that homosexuals are as much of a threat to Scottish family life as Hitler's bombs. It was a wicked, stupid and shameful thing for a Christian minister to say. I hope that this short book will help some people to come to a clearer mind about some of the issues involved in the question of the biblical attitude to homosexual behaviour. In particular I hope I have challenged the three basic assumptions (excuses) behind most of the homophobia in the churches; that because the Bible takes a position it must be binding on us today; that the Bible has a clear and consistent stance against homosexual behaviour; that the Christian attitudes to the human body, human psychology and society have not changed since the first century AD. None of these assumptions are correct.

Every religion is divided between fundamentalists and liberals, between what is revealed and what is discovered . The issue of homosexuality like that of women priests, points up that division. "The letter of the biblical texts asserts that homosexuality is wrong . The Spirit of the New Testament message which matters to liberals, holds that it is the moral quality of relationships , not their sexual content, which matters." (`Independent', July 1998)

The real reason why the church's official stance on homosexuality has not changed is because it accords with the prejudices of most people and few people bother to question prejudices which do not affect or harm them; this is true in all walks of life in all societies at all times. St Paul could not see the true awfulness of the lives of slaves, the leap of imagination was beyond him. The British army is still reluctant to face up to the terrible racial prejudice which is the real reason why there are so few black people in the ranks or why so many of those who join do not stay. Management in British industry, senior ranks of the police (and the hierarchy of the church) has been very slow to change the attitudes which have prevented women from gaining senior management positions, the so called glass ceiling; or to take seriously the complaints of sexual harassment that women make. It is only when homosexuals or black people or women stand up and demand just treatment and challenge prejudices, that any change is possible. When they do this of course they must expect abuse and ridicule, such has always been the case, but justice is worth a fight.

I quote from Professor Pitinger's book "Time for Consent" published in 1967 when homosexual acts were still illegal. "Nothing in all the books I have read asserting the sinfulness of homosexual acts, has convinced me that they contain much more than special pleading, inherited or personal prejudice, outworn patterns of thought and inadequate or even erroneous factual data." (p.58) Dr Pittinger did not say that this included the biblical view because his book was not primarily concerned with the biblical texts, but I would certainly say so. St Paul was as guilty of cultural prejudice when he condemned homosexuality as he was when he pronounced on the status of women or defended the system of slavery. Condemnations of homosexual acts both in and outside the Bible seem to be little more than rationalizations of a sense of disgust at the thought of such acts or an ill disguised jealousy of the single life style which often appears, to those no longer living it, to offer more freedom and opportunity than conventional family patterns. It is remarkable how often people or couples who have chosen to remain childless are accused of selfishness.

We are all prone to rationalize our prejudices, the question is whether our rationalizations (granted that they exist), can as Canon Hodgeson said in a lecture, "stand up to the test of sound reasoning, common sense, knowledge of the relevant facts and vigorous critical attack." I have tried to bring all these to bear on the biblical attitude to homosexuality.

Given that the law of love is the measuring rod by which all our ideas and actions are to be judged we can see that there are two things which determine whether a relationship is sinful or not. First there is the inner spirit with which it is conducted. This means that the two people truly want to act in a way that is in accord with what we know of God's love in the life of Jesus. And second there is the intention behind the relationship, which means that both parties truly understand the nature of what they are doing, and the purpose in all loving relationships of faithfulness and loyalty. Thomas Merton in his book `Disputed Questions' in the chapter called `The Power and meaning of Love' put this in a slightly different way. "Love is only possible between persons as persons. That is to say, if I love you, I must love you as a person and not as a thing. . . . I must know how to love you as myself." (ibid. p.103)

The criteria for deciding whether a given relationship is sinful or not are the same for same sex relationships as they are for their heterosexual counterparts. Here I once again turn to Dr Pittinger's book. The two people must be committed to each other. They must give and receive in tenderness, so that there is no element of coercion, undue pressure or imposed restraint which denies the freedom of either partner. They must intend loyalty to each other acknowledging what we might call mutual belonging. They must expect change and developments in each other which should not only `be put up with' but welcomed and nurtured. This is a genuine union of lives. It would be an odd relationship of love if it did not involve physical expression. "I kiss my wife," said Martin Buber, "not only because I love her, but in order to love her." Physical acts of love are a proper and necessary part of a loving human partnership. As the marriage service says "It is given, that with delight and tenderness they may know each other in love, and through the joy of their bodily union, may strengthen the union of their hearts and lives." (Alternative Services Book 1980. p288) The idea that a loving relationship between two men or two women, may be good, but any physical expression of that love is bad is frankly absurd. It is obvious that loving lasting relationships are the greatest source of personal fulfilment for human beings; this is as true for homosexuals as it is for heterosexuals. To deny a loving sexual relationship to two people of the same sex who love each other, by heterosexuals who take such a relationship as their birthright, is not just absurd it is outrageous and cruel.

CONCLUSION

Whatever line we eventually want to take in this matter we have to accept that moral theology has moved away from the static world in which man has to discover his Makers instructions (natural law) which are formulated in universal principles. In previous times practical problems of morality were solved by a process of deduction from these principles. Objective morality was of prime importance while intensions and circumstances took a secondary place. In general today moral theology as taught by theologians like Jack Dominion, Haring (especially in his `Medical Ethics'), Edward Schillebeeckx in his `God, the Future of Man' and Fuchs in his `Human Values and Christian Morality.' is seen to be something more positive and constructive and much less judgmental. To be flippant, moral theology is not now seen to be a game of `hunt the sin'. We understand that God's call to us today is not so much a call to conservation but a call to development and progress.

The central truth of their teaching is that the ethical evaluations of the church must be based on the reality of human beings as we know them. This nature has been given to us by God, whether we are comfortable with it or not. The church can only do this successfully in the light of contemporary findings especially those of the psychological, social and biological sciences which have made more fundamental revelations about the nature of human kind than anything else in the last few generations. To devise a code of behaviour from `natural law' apart from these findings is unthinkable.

Yet unfortunately the natural law which has been generally explained and taught by many church people, particularly those who take a fundamentalist view of scripture, has been based on limited observations from the remote past. Suggest any change and they protest that the church can't be guided by the Holy Spirit to believe and teach one thing for centuries and then say that this is wrong and put forward a different view. Of course this view makes life or at least our understanding of it, static and quite unreal as well as being unhistorical. The most casual observer of the Old and New Testaments will see that there is a dramatic change and development in the conception of God from the early days of the Hebrew nation to the view revealed by Jesus. The new scientific understanding that we now have means that our view of the world, our view of society and our view of ourselves is radically different from that held by St Paul and his fellow Christians; to pretend otherwise would be ridiculous: Church teaching and belief must take this into account.

The static view of natural law is a strange misinterpretation of the church's role as proclaimer and guide to morality and indeed of the way the Holy Spirit works in the church. Continual reassessment of many aspects of life, including that of sex is vital, inevitable and in any case is quite clearly going on. We must accept this process and learn from it, or we will be left in the absurd position of the Catholic Church which only accepted in the last decade that Galileo's conception of the Solar System was correct and its own position and opposition to him was wrong!

Medieval attitudes however still persist - attitudes which spring from the ancient Jewish biblical convictions that our bodies are shameful; that sex is unclean and is linked to the passing on of original sin; that concupiscence is directly to do with sex; that sexual pleasure and desire are sinful in themselves; that sex is for procreation only. All this nonsense is due in large part to the ignorance of a celibate and neurotic priesthood. So it has come about that sexual offences which play such a small part in the Gospels, loom larger for some Christians even than lack of charity and justice.

How I wish that those Christians who get involved in indignant campaigns against `permissiveness' would turn their energies towards formulating a relevant and sensitive morality. Christian behaviour is to do with growth in love and knowledge of God and of our neighbour and this is where we begin. How these first principles are worked out in our daily lives and relationships has to be continually appraised and cannot be laid down in the form of rigid laws which replace the law of love.