Homosexuality and the Church

Why Leviticus 18 & 20?

A few years ago there was considerable tension in the Anglican churches of the diocese where I live, over homosexuality, and in particular the issue of the possible ordination of openly gay clergy.  At the annual Visitation we (primarily, I think, conservative parishes) were urged by the Archdeacon 'to keep an open mind and to listen'.  So I did, and I have.

The result is that after some years of listening and reading I have recently come to reject the traditional teaching of the church on homosexuality.   I can now see no reason why covenant relationships between men and between women cannot be recognised and honoured, or homosexuals or lesbians become priests or bishops.  The main reason for my change of view is perhaps best summed up by someone writing on an Anglican forum:  “I don't care what 'the mind of the Communion' or 'the plain reading of Scripture' says, if it gets in the way of behaving like a decent human being.”

Although I would say that that was my main reason, there was a web of inter-related factors.  Listening to and reading about the point of view of  gay Christians was one factor.  But what drove my interest was, I must confess, not so much the suffering of the people concerned in the deadlock over this issue, but more the knowledge that the authority of scripture was being generally dragged in the mud because of it: if Scripture could not give clear guidance on this issue what good was it?

Another apparently unrelated 'problem' of Scripture, which appears to affect far fewer people, is Old Testament warfare.  The occupation of the Promised Land in the Second and First Millenium B.C. apparently required the extermination of its inhabitants.  Many Christians, probably many ministers, get over this problem, and perhaps the Old Testament in general, by ignoring it, or using it as a picture-book to illustrate the life of Christ.  The only Evangelical scholar I have heard on the subject of Holy Wars of Extermination concluded that the Jews at this time simply misheard what God was saying.    My own area of study is world history, which is one reason why this particular problem has repeatedly presented itself to me.

Both these issues have profound implications for how we read Scripture.  Many, including many Christians, might wonder why it has taken so long (46 years since I was confirmed) to come to my conclusion: it is the downside of identifying with a church tradition, in my case Evangelical.  Those from different Christian traditions will probably have already dismissed the idea of the two chunks of Scripture I have mentioned having any authority at all.

By now I may have also lost those who do believe in the authority of Scripture as traditionally understood, who might expect me to point to the Scripture verse that says that 'homosexual behaviour' is O.K.  That is, quite simply, because it's all of Scripture.
Just as happened in my conversion to believing in Jesus Christ in 1963, my entire mindset changed recently in one fell swoop.  The first time I read through some of the discussion threads in the Anglican forum that I follow I found myself generally agreeing with the advocates of the traditional church position.  I picked out lots of special pleading by those who wished to change the church's teaching.  More recently I read the same material and had the exact opposite experience: all those proof verses appeared quite naturally to support those who wished to challenge tradition.

Like many, I have not read these proof texts in the original language or even read an expert intrepretation of them.  So, to a considerable extent, my change of view is an act of faith.  However, I suspect that many supporters of either 'side' in this argument rather take for granted the 'perpescuity' of scripture (ie its clarity) and that they themselves are perpescuitous!  Perhaps we transfer our own appoach to personal guidance from Scripture too readily to advising others - or even to laying down the laws of the land for others.

Two Old Testament verses from Leviticus have been very influential in the argument on homosexuality:
Leviticus 18 v.22
'You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.'
Leviticus 20 v.13
'If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them.'

The authors of 'Some issues in human sexuality' [pub.Church House Publishing 2003] comment: these texts have traditionally been seen as a rejection of homosexuality as being incompatible with the holiness required of God's people, and there is general agreement among commentators that this is the meaning of these texts in their original context.'  However, it goes on to say 'Where there is disagreement is not about whether these texts condemn homosexuality but why they should do so.'  Rejecting other reasons, it goes on to suggest that the moral purpose of these laws was to protect the family.

Commenting on these and Deuteronomy 23 v.17-18 they continue, quoting from a theologian, Gordon Wenham: ' “Seen in their Old Testament context the originality of the Old Testament laws on homosexuality is very striking.  Whereas the rest of the ancient orient saw homosexual acts as quite acceptable provided they were not incestuous or forcible, the Old Testament bans them all even when both parties consented.”  What requires explanation is why it is that the Old Testament takes this distinctively severe approach .. and following on from that why, if at all, it should be binding on us.'

I have come to believe that they are not binding on us, and that the explanation for them is quite simple.  Israel was to be holy, but it was also to be organised for a total war, a war requiring the extermination of its existing inhabitants:
Deuteronomy 7 v1,2
'When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy, and he clears away many nations before you—the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations mightier and more numerous than you— 2 and when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.'
Joshua 6 v.21
' 21 Then they devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys.'

In the 21st Century we regard these instructions as abhorent even though we (the UK and USA) possess weapons of mass destruction. The Scriptural explanation for them is explicit: these harsh measures were required if God was to carve out a nation for Himself and remove idolatry.

Consider what this meant, in reality.  In battle men would be expected to kill their opponents in hand-to-hand combat, and not take prisoners.  Then the real slaughter would begin – defenceless boys, girls, women, old men, and every living animal down to the last donkey.  The discipline and commitment required of the soldiers would be quite out of the ordinary – even the Assyrians, renowned for the cruelty of their warfare, exterminated a population only when faced with a particularly stubborn city.  Israel was a nation in arms, and every man would have been expected to play his part in this slaughter - something not for the faint-hearted.

This could be why the peculiarly severe laws against homosexuality were thought necessary.   Homosexuals, especially those who played a passive sexual role, were seen as effeminate and, more importantly, weak.  Consider how homosexuals have often been regarded by fellow soldiers and military authorities in modern times!  Homosexual encounters threatened not, as is suggested, the moral task of protecting the family but the 'moral' task of protecting military discipline.  The war fought to occupy the Promised Land was unique.  According to the Bible God ordered it to be a war of extermination.  'Only real men' - as this stipulation might have been explained at platoon level - were required.  Holiness in this instance meant complete dedication to the military task of extermination. Israel was in a life-or-death situation, that would remain until the entire Holy Land was conquered and idolatry entirely removed.

The laws regarding homosexuality related to the spiritual, political and military situation that existed hundreds of years ago, and have nothing to do with the law of Christ today or in the foreseeable future.

Gay marriage in church?

David Cameron believes that gay marriage should become the law of the land.  In a much repeated media-byte he said it is because he's a Conservative that he wants to do this.  I find myself telling other Christians this is no big deal - and telling people who are not Christians that it is.

How does that work you may ask!

For many, particularly those who are concerned about the rights of the individual in society, gay civil marriage is a straightforward and long overdue reform.  If the Church of England and the Catholic Church have problems with it, this would seem to many to be a typical example of the way the churches are a hundred years behind everybody else in their ways of thinking.  The churches would not be forced to carry out gay weddings, they argue, so their making difficulties would appear to be an outrageous interference in the rights of others.

However, there is a strong possibility that if gay marriage were enshrined in English law, priests who refused to carry them out would find themselves in court, if, as seems quite likely, those who support the idea of gay marriage in church take their cases to the European Court of Human Rights.  A further consequence could well be that conducting gay marriages would be included in priests' job descriptions.  Many priests would resign.  Secularists probably don't see this as a problem.  But it does, most certainly, make it a big deal, and something that needs more discussion and thought.

So why do I tell other Christians that this is not a big deal?  First, I have never regarded the conducting of marriage services as the core activity of the Church.  The core activity of the Church is loving God and one's neighbour and spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ, in every place and in every situation.  It doesn't mean enforcing Christian ideas on other people, but it does mean putting Christian ideas into practice, and talking about them, on every possible occasion.  (Clearly Christians find themselves being laughed at when they do this.) Unconsciously I believe, the Church of England has opted for an easier, safer, way of engaging with people - when they are at their weakest - in the context of christenings, marriages, and funerals.  

Christian marriage undoubtedly has a special meaning, which can be found from a number of passages in the New Testament.  How far this special meaning should be reflected in the law of the land should be a matter for national debate, during which politicians should perhaps listen carefully to what their constituents think.