velvetpage (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
velvetpage) wrote2005-01-09 02:49 pm
velvetpage) wrote2005-01-09 02:49 pm
PoAC: The Church and Homosexuality
I promised a post of actual content on this topic. It is not locked or filtered in any way, because I'm ready now to get off the fence on this issue. (I'll admit, though, that if my father read my livejournal, I would probably have locked this. We all have our hang-ups.)
As always, reasoned and friendly debate is welcome. However, this post comes from within the Christian community and I would rather not argue the right-or-wrong of the faith itself in the comments.
The Church and Homosexuality
*Disclaimer: This is a personal opinion, not an official one. Many, perhaps even most in my church would disagree with it.
There is no doubt that the Bible does in fact say that homosexual behaviour is a sin. That is not in question, really. What is up for debate in the Church today is interpretation and doctrine relating to the realities that face us. How does a modern Church come to grips with a millennia-old dictate, and what role does the Church have to play in shaping common morality for this new millennium?
There are basically three spots in the Bible where homosexuality is condemned. The first is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot is told to leave the wicked city of Sodom which is about to be smitten for its immorality. The second is in two parts of the same total, one in Exodus and one in Leviticus, both of which are laying down God’s law for the Israelites. The third is in the new testament, where the apostle Paul mentions it as kind of an aside. I do not believe it comes up at all in the Gospels, which is an important point. (If I’m wrong on this, please quote chapter and verse in the comments.)
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is not the best way to make an argument against homosexuality. First, the point needs to be made that no law had yet been handed down to God’s people at that time. This was pre-ten-commandments by about five hundred years. Second, Sodom and Gomorrah had an awful lot of problems that had to do with immorality. The people were cheating each other and guests, they were committing adultery, etc, etc. They were doing plenty of things worthy of smiting even without counting the homosexuality. Pointing out Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of God smiting homosexuals is akin to declaring Harry Potter to be evil because somewhere in the book of Judges, God tells Samuel that he shall not suffer a witch to live. The modern fantastic witchcraft of Harry Potter has nothing whatsoever to do with the kind of witchcraft Samuel was told to smite. It’s comparing apples and oranges.
The second example is a little bit more to the point, because it is actually enshrined within God’s law to the Israelites. It bears more examination. Within the same section(s) of those books where homosexuality is condemned, there are laws for a whole host of issues we no longer take literally. For example, men not only could have more than one wife, they were encouraged to marry the oldest sister first and then marry the younger one. Slavery was an accepted fact and the law did not try to eradicate it; it did, however, humanize the slaves and provide laws for their treatment and freedom. Children were considered to be under the authority of their father until he died – and by authority, they meant life-and-death control. All of these things fall well outside the boundaries of current morality even in the Church. We have made a mostly-unconscious decision to ignore large parts of the Talmud BECAUSE THEY NO LONGER FIT OUR CULTURE. Yet we cite this law as justification for condemning homosexuality. There’s a contradiction here, and it’s huge. Now, most Christians brush this off, saying they follow New Testament law. Fine, then. We’ll look at that.
The context of the New Testament is somewhat different. Palestine at that time was under the control of the Romans, for whom homosexuality was similar to Plato’s Greek model of a few hundred years before. The idea of love between a man and a boy was common and accepted in many, though not all, learned circles. Some of the rituals associated with worship of the Greco-Roman pantheon involved homosexual rites. The Jews were trying very hard to stand apart from these trends, and the Romans hated and feared them for it. Put that against a backdrop of near-constant warfare and occupation, and you have the breeding grounds for a strict version of Jewish morality to develop.
War and political unrest, or for that matter any situation where life becomes suddenly more fragile, tend to lead to a baby boom. The reason is recognition on the part of people living through such events that they may not get another chance to affirm life in this way. So they take their opportunities. It’s a survival-of-the-species mechanism as well; people who might be quite happy to give up their own lives will defend their children to the death. More kids means a better chance that some will survive the turmoil. In the context of first-century Palestine, war and civil unrest were a way of life, as were famine and drought. When life is fragile, personal pleasure takes a back seat to survival of the community. Sex becomes about procreation, and sex that can’t produce babies is condemned as being a sin. If the enemy seems to think that act is fine, well – that’s one more thing that separates you from them. My point is: condemning homosexuality in the first century A.D., and for that matter through most of history, made sense. By the same token, condemning adultery and incest made sense, and prioritizing some level of polygamy also made sense. They all increased the survival rate of the community.
My argument for a change here comes from the idea that they no longer make sense. We now have the technology to sustain the lives of most babies that come anywhere near full-term gestation. We have the ability to produce babies without heterosexual intercourse, and our lives are about as stable as life anywhere in history has ever been or is ever likely to be. We can sustain our community without having every member of it attempt to contribute to the next generation, and we can help people contribute to the next generation without any reference to their sexuality. As a community and a species, we can afford this change.
So what role does the Church play in shaping or guiding modern morality? I believe there is still a role here for the Church, and it comes down to the thing the Church has always had at its heart: the protection and succor of the weakest among us. The Church’s role in morality should be to guide people to make choices that will benefit as many as possible and hurt none.
To that end, the Church should be heavily involved in child welfare, in counseling for people who have been abused, in prison ministries, and in support for families (all families – not just traditional ones). If the guiding principles of the Church are “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and love your neighbour as yourself,” as Jesus himself said they were, then any act of support or advocacy which falls under those two categories is a good place for the Church to be.
There is, indeed there must be, lines drawn as to what the Church considers acceptable. But they should stop focusing on the sexual aspects of relationships and start focusing on how Christians should treat each other and others – with love, kindness, respect, responsibility and humility, recognizing that we do not have a monopoly on truth. It is totally reasonable for the Church to condemn acts of violence. It is not reasonable for the Church to condemn an act of love that doesn’t hurt anyone.
My last point: the organizations in the Church which are lobbying for these changes are pushing too hard and too fast. There is no reason why two thousand years of doctrine needs to be thrown out overnight to accommodate a relatively new interest group. My parents’ generation, as a whole, is more conservative than mine. They have seen what they consider to be the erosion of traditional morality all their lives, and they’ve seen the effects of it. They are right to be concerned, and it’s okay to disagree with something new. They have been told over and over again that the sexual revolution and easing up of divorce laws created a climate where people do not take responsiblity for their actions. They don't realize what I believe to be true – that the erosion of traditional family values did not create the problems they see as developing from it, but rather that erosion highlighted things which had previously been swept neatly under the rug. They have no reason to think that gay rights are going to be any different from, say, divorce-on-demand or unwed motherhood. The generation coming up behind them – mine - thinks differently about this. The changes are going to come. Within the next thirty years, as my generation are elected to political office and take positions of authority within the Church, these changes will happen from the inside. Forcing the changes before the bulk of the Christian community is ready for them will accomplish nothing. In fact, it’s counter-productive: instead of a gradual swing towards the left, the special-interest groups have forced the most right-wing elements in the Church to dig in and entrench themselves. Now, instead of a gradual shift, we have an issue which is threatening to split the Church down the middle. It can’t do the work it should be doing if that happens.
Note: "the Church" refers to the Christian community as a whole rather than to individual denominations.
As always, reasoned and friendly debate is welcome. However, this post comes from within the Christian community and I would rather not argue the right-or-wrong of the faith itself in the comments.
The Church and Homosexuality
*Disclaimer: This is a personal opinion, not an official one. Many, perhaps even most in my church would disagree with it.
There is no doubt that the Bible does in fact say that homosexual behaviour is a sin. That is not in question, really. What is up for debate in the Church today is interpretation and doctrine relating to the realities that face us. How does a modern Church come to grips with a millennia-old dictate, and what role does the Church have to play in shaping common morality for this new millennium?
There are basically three spots in the Bible where homosexuality is condemned. The first is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot is told to leave the wicked city of Sodom which is about to be smitten for its immorality. The second is in two parts of the same total, one in Exodus and one in Leviticus, both of which are laying down God’s law for the Israelites. The third is in the new testament, where the apostle Paul mentions it as kind of an aside. I do not believe it comes up at all in the Gospels, which is an important point. (If I’m wrong on this, please quote chapter and verse in the comments.)
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is not the best way to make an argument against homosexuality. First, the point needs to be made that no law had yet been handed down to God’s people at that time. This was pre-ten-commandments by about five hundred years. Second, Sodom and Gomorrah had an awful lot of problems that had to do with immorality. The people were cheating each other and guests, they were committing adultery, etc, etc. They were doing plenty of things worthy of smiting even without counting the homosexuality. Pointing out Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of God smiting homosexuals is akin to declaring Harry Potter to be evil because somewhere in the book of Judges, God tells Samuel that he shall not suffer a witch to live. The modern fantastic witchcraft of Harry Potter has nothing whatsoever to do with the kind of witchcraft Samuel was told to smite. It’s comparing apples and oranges.
The second example is a little bit more to the point, because it is actually enshrined within God’s law to the Israelites. It bears more examination. Within the same section(s) of those books where homosexuality is condemned, there are laws for a whole host of issues we no longer take literally. For example, men not only could have more than one wife, they were encouraged to marry the oldest sister first and then marry the younger one. Slavery was an accepted fact and the law did not try to eradicate it; it did, however, humanize the slaves and provide laws for their treatment and freedom. Children were considered to be under the authority of their father until he died – and by authority, they meant life-and-death control. All of these things fall well outside the boundaries of current morality even in the Church. We have made a mostly-unconscious decision to ignore large parts of the Talmud BECAUSE THEY NO LONGER FIT OUR CULTURE. Yet we cite this law as justification for condemning homosexuality. There’s a contradiction here, and it’s huge. Now, most Christians brush this off, saying they follow New Testament law. Fine, then. We’ll look at that.
The context of the New Testament is somewhat different. Palestine at that time was under the control of the Romans, for whom homosexuality was similar to Plato’s Greek model of a few hundred years before. The idea of love between a man and a boy was common and accepted in many, though not all, learned circles. Some of the rituals associated with worship of the Greco-Roman pantheon involved homosexual rites. The Jews were trying very hard to stand apart from these trends, and the Romans hated and feared them for it. Put that against a backdrop of near-constant warfare and occupation, and you have the breeding grounds for a strict version of Jewish morality to develop.
War and political unrest, or for that matter any situation where life becomes suddenly more fragile, tend to lead to a baby boom. The reason is recognition on the part of people living through such events that they may not get another chance to affirm life in this way. So they take their opportunities. It’s a survival-of-the-species mechanism as well; people who might be quite happy to give up their own lives will defend their children to the death. More kids means a better chance that some will survive the turmoil. In the context of first-century Palestine, war and civil unrest were a way of life, as were famine and drought. When life is fragile, personal pleasure takes a back seat to survival of the community. Sex becomes about procreation, and sex that can’t produce babies is condemned as being a sin. If the enemy seems to think that act is fine, well – that’s one more thing that separates you from them. My point is: condemning homosexuality in the first century A.D., and for that matter through most of history, made sense. By the same token, condemning adultery and incest made sense, and prioritizing some level of polygamy also made sense. They all increased the survival rate of the community.
My argument for a change here comes from the idea that they no longer make sense. We now have the technology to sustain the lives of most babies that come anywhere near full-term gestation. We have the ability to produce babies without heterosexual intercourse, and our lives are about as stable as life anywhere in history has ever been or is ever likely to be. We can sustain our community without having every member of it attempt to contribute to the next generation, and we can help people contribute to the next generation without any reference to their sexuality. As a community and a species, we can afford this change.
So what role does the Church play in shaping or guiding modern morality? I believe there is still a role here for the Church, and it comes down to the thing the Church has always had at its heart: the protection and succor of the weakest among us. The Church’s role in morality should be to guide people to make choices that will benefit as many as possible and hurt none.
To that end, the Church should be heavily involved in child welfare, in counseling for people who have been abused, in prison ministries, and in support for families (all families – not just traditional ones). If the guiding principles of the Church are “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and love your neighbour as yourself,” as Jesus himself said they were, then any act of support or advocacy which falls under those two categories is a good place for the Church to be.
There is, indeed there must be, lines drawn as to what the Church considers acceptable. But they should stop focusing on the sexual aspects of relationships and start focusing on how Christians should treat each other and others – with love, kindness, respect, responsibility and humility, recognizing that we do not have a monopoly on truth. It is totally reasonable for the Church to condemn acts of violence. It is not reasonable for the Church to condemn an act of love that doesn’t hurt anyone.
My last point: the organizations in the Church which are lobbying for these changes are pushing too hard and too fast. There is no reason why two thousand years of doctrine needs to be thrown out overnight to accommodate a relatively new interest group. My parents’ generation, as a whole, is more conservative than mine. They have seen what they consider to be the erosion of traditional morality all their lives, and they’ve seen the effects of it. They are right to be concerned, and it’s okay to disagree with something new. They have been told over and over again that the sexual revolution and easing up of divorce laws created a climate where people do not take responsiblity for their actions. They don't realize what I believe to be true – that the erosion of traditional family values did not create the problems they see as developing from it, but rather that erosion highlighted things which had previously been swept neatly under the rug. They have no reason to think that gay rights are going to be any different from, say, divorce-on-demand or unwed motherhood. The generation coming up behind them – mine - thinks differently about this. The changes are going to come. Within the next thirty years, as my generation are elected to political office and take positions of authority within the Church, these changes will happen from the inside. Forcing the changes before the bulk of the Christian community is ready for them will accomplish nothing. In fact, it’s counter-productive: instead of a gradual swing towards the left, the special-interest groups have forced the most right-wing elements in the Church to dig in and entrench themselves. Now, instead of a gradual shift, we have an issue which is threatening to split the Church down the middle. It can’t do the work it should be doing if that happens.
Note: "the Church" refers to the Christian community as a whole rather than to individual denominations.
no subject
In Canada the role of Christian evangelists in politics doesn't seem to be quite as pronounced and insidious as it is here - but the whole issue seems to be about the right of Queers to exist, rather than just their right to different tax status and medical benefits. (I'm assuming the medical benefits so vital in the US are a far less critical issue in Canada - and oh, boy, can you go paranoid with that one!)
Given that the religious right has been known to cheer on things like, say, the murder of Matthew Shepard, it makes sense that Queers would interpret this as an attempt to ban them.
I think that without both sides interpretting the issue as being the right of Queers to exist, rather than to a bit of terminology, the whole thing would be settled in a few relatively peaceful months.
no subject
Medical benefits are not as huge as they are in the States, either, but supplementary insurance (the stuff that pays drug plans and dental, for example) can still be a problem for same-sex couples. Granting them common-law status took care of quite a bit of that problem, because common-law couples have the right to access their spouse's supplementary insurance if the spouse puts them on it.
It is a very emotional issue for many Christians, because you're right - there's an element of "we're having to defend our way of life against immoral sinners! Yuck!" Also, many Christian couples see this as a personal attack on the institution of marriage in itself and on their own marriage - watering down something that should be meaningful until it's lost what made it special to them. I truly do not understand that point. My marriage is special to me because Piet and I have created it together. It has a religious significance, a very serious one - but someone else's marriage having a different religious significance will not change the import of mine.