July-August 1999
Same-Sex Partnerships
A Christian Perspective
by John Stott
Excerpted and condensed by Susan Reedy from Same-Sex Partnerships? A
Christian Perspective by permission Baker Book House ©1998.
No ethical challenge facing Christians today is more radical than the homosexual or "gay" debate. It tends to be polarized between "homophobia" and "homophilia," that is, between those who feel an emotional revulsion towards homosexual people and those who regard committed same-sex relationships as morally equivalent to marriage.
Is there a Christian way to combine biblical thinking about God's intention for human sexuality with an equally biblical attitude of understanding, respect and support for persons with a homosexual disposition? Because of the explosive nature of the topic, let me begin by affirming a number of truths about my readers and myself which I am taking for granted as I write.
Four Affirmations
First, we are all human beings. That is to say, there is no such phenomenon as "a homosexual." There are only people, human persons, made in the image and likeness of God, yet fallen, with all the glory and the tragedy which that paradox implies, including sexual potential and sexual problems. However strongly we may disapprove of homosexual practices, we have no liberty to dehumanize those who engage in them.
| Our sexuality, according to both Scripture and experience, is basic to our humanness. When God made humankind, he made us male and female. So to talk about sex is to touch a point close to the center of our personality. |
Secondly, we are all sexual beings. Our sexuality, according to both Scripture and experience, is basic to our humanness. When God made humankind, he made us male and female. So to talk about sex is to touch a point close to the center of our personality.
Thirdly, we are all sinners. We are frail and vulnerable. We are engaged in an unremitting conflict with the world, the flesh and the devil. Because all of us are sinners, we stand under the judgment of God, and we are in urgent need of the grace of God. Sexual sins are not the only sins.
Fourthly, I take it that we are all Christians. The readers I have in mind are not people who reject the lordship of Jesus Christ but rather those who earnestly desire to submit to it, believe that he exercises it through Scripture, want to understand what light Scripture throws on this topic and have a predisposition to seek God's grace and to follow his will when it is known. Without this kind of commitment, it would be difficult for us to find common ground.
Having delineated the context for our discussion, I am ready to ask the question: are homosexual partnerships -- lifelong and loving -- a Christian option? Is our sexual "preference" purely a matter of personal taste? Or has God revealed his will regarding a norm? Can the Bible be shown to sanction homosexual partnerships? What does the Bible condemn?
Biblical Reference
There are four main biblical passages which appear to refer to the homosexual question negatively:
1) the story of Sodom (Genesis 19:1-13), with which it is natural to associate the very similar story of Gibeah (Judges 19);
2) the Levitical texts (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13) which explicitly prohibit "lying with a man as one lies with a woman";
3) the apostle Paul's portrayal of decadent pagan society in his day (Romans 1:18-32); and
4) two Pauline lists of sinners, each of which includes a reference to homosexual practices of some kind (1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:8-11).
Reviewing these biblical references to homosexual behavior, we have to agree that there are only four of them. Must we then conclude that the topic is marginal to the main thrust of the Bible? Must we further concede that they constitute a rather flimsy basis on which to take a firm stand against a homosexual lifestyle? Are those protagonists right who claim that none of these passages alludes to, let alone condemns, a loving partnership between genuine homosexual inverts?
This is the conclusion reached by Letha Scanzoni and Virginia Mollenkott in their book Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? They write: "The Bible clearly condemns certain kinds of homosexual practice (...gang rape, idolatry and lustful promiscuity). However, it appears to be silent in certain other aspects of homosexuality -- both the 'homosexual orientation' and 'a committed love-relationship analogous to heterosexual monogamy.'"
But the Christian rejection of homosexual practices does not rest on "a few isolated and obscure proof texts" (as is sometimes said) whose traditional explanation can be overthrown. And it is disturbing that those who write on this subject and include in their treatment a section on the biblical teaching seem to deal with it in this way.
"Consideration of the Christian attitude to homosexual practices," writes Derrick Sherwin Bailey in Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, "inevitably begins with the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah." But this beginning is not at all inevitable. In fact, it is positively mistaken. For the negative prohibitions of homosexual practices in Scripture make sense only in the light of its positive teaching in
Genesis 1 and 2 about human sexuality and heterosexual marriage. Without the wholesome positive teaching of the Bible on sex and marriage, our perspective on the homosexual question is skewed.
Fundamental Truths about Marriage
The place to begin our investigation, it seems to me, is the institution of marriage in Genesis 2. Since members of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement deliberately draw a parallel between heterosexual marriages and homosexual partnerships, it is necessary to ask whether this parallel is justified.
We have seen that in his providence God has given us two distinct accounts of creation. The first (Genesis 1) is general and affirms the equality of the sexes, since both share in the image of God and the stewardship of the earth.
The second (Genesis 2) is particular and affirms the complementarity of the sexes, which is the basis for heterosexual marriage.
Genesis 2:18 reads, "It is not good for the man to be alone." God has created us social beings. He intends us to live in community, not in solitude.
God continues, "I will make a helper suitable for him." This "helper" or companion, whom God pronounces "suitable" is also to be his sexual partner, with whom he is to become "one flesh."
Having affirmed Adam's need for a partner, the search for a suitable one begins. The debate about how literally we are intended to understand what follows (Adam's divine surgery while under a divine anesthetic) must not prevent us from grasping the point.
God himself created the woman out of the man and brought her to him, resulting in the institution of marriage. Even the inattentive reader will be struck by the three references to flesh in Genesis 2:23-24: "this isflesh of my flesh"; "they will become one flesh." It teaches that heterosexual intercourse in marriage is more than a union; it is a kind of reunion. It is the union of two persons who were one, were then separated and now, in the sexual encounter of marriage, come together again.
Jesus endorses this Old Testament definition of marriage. He introduces it with words from Genesis 1:27 (that the Creator "made them male and female" [Matthew 19:4]) and concludes it with his own comment ("so they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate" [Matthew 19:6]).
Here are three truths which Jesus affirmed: (1) heterosexual gender is a divine creation; (2) heterosexual marriage is a divine institution and (3) heterosexual fidelity is the divine intention. A homosexual liaison is a breach of all three of these divine purposes.
Homosexual Christians are not, however, satisfied with this biblical teaching about human sexuality and heterosexual marriage.
They bring forward a number of objections to it to defend the legitimacy of homosexual partnerships.
| The biblical Christian cannot accept the basic premise on which this case rests, namely that love is the only absolute, that besides it all moral law has been abolished. |
Creation and Nature
People sometimes make this kind of statement: "I'm gay because God made me that way. So gay must be good. I can't believe that God would create people homosexual and then deny them the right to sexual self-expression. I intend, therefore, to affirm, and indeed celebrate, what I am by creation."
Others argue that homosexual behavior is "natural" (1) because in many primitive societies it is fairly acceptable, (2) because in some advanced civilizations it was even idealized and (3) because it is said to be quite widespread in animals. These arguments express an extremely subjective view of what is natural and normal. God has established a norm for sex and marriage by creation.
In Romans 1, when Paul writes of women who had "exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones" and of men who had "abandoned natural relations," he means by "nature" (physis) the natural order of things which God established (as in 2:14, 27; 11:24).
What Paul is condemning, therefore, is not the perverted behavior of heterosexuals who were acting against their nature, but any human behavior which is against "Nature," that is, against God's created order.
Quality of Relationships
The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement borrows from Scripture the truth that love is the greatest thing in the world (which it is) and from the "new morality" or "situation ethics" of the 1960s the notion that love is an adequate criterion by which to judge every relationship. This view is gaining ground today. In 1979 the Methodist Church's Division of Social Responsibility, in its report A Christian Understanding of Human Sexuality, argued that "homosexual activities" are "not intrinsically wrong," since "the quality of any homosexual relationship isto be assessed by the same basic criteria which have been applied to heterosexual relationships. For homosexual men and women, permanent relationships characterized by love can be an appropriate and Christian way of expressing their sexuality."
But the biblical Christian cannot accept the basic premise on which this case rests, namely that love is the only absolute, that besides it all moral law has been abolished and that whatever seems to be compatible with love is ipso facto good, irrespective of all other considerations. This cannot be so.
For love needs law to guide it. In emphasizing love for God and neighbor as the two great commandments, Jesus and his apostles did not discard all other commandments. On the contrary, Jesus says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15, NRSV).
So, then, although the loving quality of a relationship is an essential, it is not by itself a sufficient criterion to authenticate it. For example, if love were the only test of authenticity, there would be nothing against polygamy. We should not deny that homosexual relationships can be loving, but the loving quality of gay relationships is not sufficient to justify them.
"Surely," some people are saying, "it is the duty of heterosexual Christians to accept homosexual Christians. Paul told us to accept -- indeed, welcome -- one another. If God has welcomed somebody, who are we to pass judgment on him (Romans 14:1, 10; 15:7)?" God does indeed accept us just as we are, and we do not have to make ourselves good first; indeed, we cannot. But his "acceptance" means that he fully and freely forgives all who repent and believe, not that he condones our continuance in sin. Again, it is true that we must accept one another, but only as fellow penitents and fellow pilgrims, not as fellow sinners who are resolved to persist in our sinning.
Jesus was called "the friend of sinners." His offer of friendship to sinners like us is wonderful. But he welcomes us to redeem and transform us, not to leave us in our sins.
Is Sex Essential?
The secular world says: "Sex is essential to human fulfillment. To expect homosexual people to abstain from homosexual practice is to condemn them to frustration and drive them to neurosis, despair and even suicide." But the teaching of the Word of God is different. Sexual experience is not essential to human fulfillment. To be sure, it is a good gift of God. But it is not given to all, and it is not indispensable.
If God calls us to celibacy, he makes it also possible. Many deny it, however. "You know the imperious strength of our sex drive," they say. "To ask us to control ourselves is unreasonable." Really? What then are we to make of Paul's statement following his warning to the Corinthians that male prostitutes and homosexual offenders will not inherit God's kingdom? And what shall we say to the millions of heterosexual people who are single? To be sure, all unmarried people experience the pain of struggle and loneliness. But how can we call ourselves Christians and say that chastity is impossible?
Whatever our "thorn in the flesh" may be, Christ comes to us as he came to Paul and says, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9). To deny this is to portray Christians as helpless victims of the world, the flesh and the devil, to demean them into being less than human, and to contradict God's grace.
A Christian Call to Hope
Just as opinions differ on the causes of homosexuality, so they also differ on the possibilities and the means of "cure." Many homosexual people categorically reject the language of "cure" and "healing." They see no need (and have no wish) to change. There are also those who regard "healing," understood as the reversal of sexual orientation, as impossible. These views challenge us to articulate the third position, which is to believe that some degree of change is possible. The question is when and how we are to expect the divine deliverance and restoration to take place.
Complete healing of body, mind and spirit will not take place in this life. Some degree of deficit or disorder remains in each of us. But not forever! The Christian's horizons are not bounded by this world. Jesus Christ is coming again; our bodies are going to be redeemed; sin, pain and death are going to be abolished; and both we and the universe are going to be transformed. We shall be liberated from everything which defiles or distorts our personality. This Christian assurance helps us to bear whatever our present pain may be.
At the present we are living "in between times," between the grace which we grasp by faith and the glory which we anticipate in hope. Between them lies love. Yet love is just what the church has generally failed to show to homosexual people. Pierre Berton, a social commentator, writes that "a very good case can be made out that the homosexual is the modern equivalent of the leper."
The attitude of personal antipathy towards homosexuals is a mixture of irrational fear, hostility and even revulsion. It overlooks the fact that the majority of homosexual people are probably not responsible for their condition (though they are, of course, for their conduct). They deserve our understanding and compassion (though many find this patronizing), not our rejection. At the heart of the homosexual condition is a deep loneliness, the natural human hunger for mutual love, a search for identity and a longing for completeness.
The alternatives are not only between the warm physical relationship of homosexual intercourse and the pain of isolation. There is a third option -- a Christian environment of love, understanding, acceptance and support.
God intends each local church to be a warm, accepting and supportive community. By "accepting" I do not mean "acquiescing"; similarly, by a rejection of "homophobia" I do not mean a rejection of a proper Christian disapproval of homosexual behavior. True love is not incompatible with the maintenance of moral standards. It insists on them for the good of everybody.
There is, therefore, a place for church discipline in the case of members who refuse to repent and willfully persist in homosexual relationships. But it must be exercised with humility and gentleness (Galatians 6:1); we must be careful not to discriminate between men and women, or between homosexual and heterosexual offenses; and discipline is not to be confused with a witch hunt.
Perplexing and painful as the homosexual Christian's dilemma is, Jesus Christ offers him or her (indeed, all of us) faith, hope and love -- the faith to accept both his standards and his grace to maintain them, the hope to look beyond present suffering to future glory and the love to care for and support one another. "But the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:13).