What Does Grace Mean Within the Context of the Homosexual Issue?
Any person who wishes to deny the credibility of stories from Andrew Sullivan, Bruce Bawer or Mel White has to say these men are liars, and that they harbored some deep sin they are unwilling to come clean about. For those born with these particular affections, we are off to a very rocky start: we are basically saying somewhere you went wrong (common justifications are the person was sexually abused, had a dominant mother or absent father, etc.). A teenager who is struggling with his same-gender disposition will immediately and inevitably allow this to build a foundation of self-loathing, the unavoidable implications of which are believing that “somehow I am wrong - somehow, I am a mistake.” It should be no surprise that such a belief, when fully bought into, breeds the destructive behavior that many Christians use to then turn on the people struggling as accusations of their sinfulness, feeding an awful cycle of repression, depression and destruction.
SIDE NOTE: For reasons of preparation and propriety, I will be skipping over the seventh question in this series of eight - “Are You Willing To Ask Why Homosexuality Is Really Wrong?”. I may return at a later date when this part of my analysis has further crystallized and I have something unique to contribute.
Question 8: “What Does Grace Mean Within the Context of the Homosexual Issue?”
Grace as a concept and word is used and abused by most Christians in general, but in never a more pronounced fashion than with respect to the homosexuality issue. As a concept, its implications are rarely wrestled with typically because some other idea - usually Biblical literalism - is placed higher than the implications of grace. While not a bad concept, this word’s use is primarily self-serving, being turned inwards to influence our own feelings that we have treated homosexuals “just fine”, without turning the concept towards them, and asking what the word “grace” means to those to whom our comments are directed. Were we to truly put ourselves in the shoes of a homosexual struggling to balance faith with his identity, we would find the words and actions within evangelical’s treatment of homosexuality come up woefully short of any real meaningful grace.
Most of us have met that rare individual marked by genuine grace. It seems that what sustains Christianity is, in fact, these infrequent individuals who seem to have tapped into something special, some transcendent ability to see above the situation and see into the spirit of the person struggling. Real grace requires and results in empathy, and empathy on the homosexual question begs us feel their pain, know their struggle, and view their needs as legitimate. Unfortunately, those who make an effort to do these things almost always find their orthodoxy challenged and either become a part of the liberalism evangelicals are so afraid of, or reject the implications of their empathy, choosing to uphold the brittle doctrine of infallibility over the reality of another’s identity.
Jesus is remembered for many things, but one of those things he is most respected for is his willingness to sup with the marginalized. In one of the more interesting but not fully answered questions from the Gospel accounts, we often find ourselves wondering what his purpose was in these meetings. My suspicion is that it was almost always to help and to heal. If we accept that he was not just some sort of uber-politically correct spiritual guru, we begin to ask what purpose companionship with those society has discarded would serve? Was it only to make a point about the religious hypocrisy of the day? I doubt it. Was it to say that those culture called uncouth were members of a heavenly kingdom? That they were loved? I suspect in part it was, but I also harbor deep questions about how helpful it would be if the ultimate message to those discarded to the trash bin of first century Judaism was “it sucks now, but it won’t suck later on.” What caused his teachings to last? Perhaps it was because he really could help, offer insight, and soothe old hurts in ways that no one else could. Where we use the concept of healing to characterize his work and words, invariably we look to the idea of coping - its potential, but equally its limitations. This idea of coping has become the final separation between the liberal church’s full acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle and “hate the sin, but love the sinner” reasoning from the balance of progressive, conservative, and fundamentalist Christianity.
Too much of the dialogue surrounding discussions on Christianity’s perspective on homosexuality justifies its rationale by an outward grace that does little to take into account the authenticity of the struggle, identity issues, and passions of those marked by this particular set of affections. Outward grace is characterized by four things: first, it does not require we be transformed, only that we be familiar with certain Christian buzz-words like those of grace and love. Second, outward grace never moves us sufficiently to give credibility to another’s story. If you listen to even very progressive views on homosexuality within the church, it is remarkable how many refuse to acknowledge that homosexuality is not the by-product of some secret perversion. This position is a naked refusal to respect the truth of someone else’s story and struggle, resulting in an insensitivity that will be reflected in the teaching that supports such coldness. Third, outward grace will almost always talk about homosexuality with the oft-repeated phrase “hate the sin, but love the sinner!” This, as we will see, when actualized in a belief system holds no semblance to real grace, and is at best a mask that allows the person saying this to hide their deeper insecurities and suspicions (both about homosexuality, but about broader issues within modernity the individual is wrestling with). Fourth and last, outward grace will fight off elements of self-congratulation at how you treated them. These feelings will come to the surface most noticeably after a confrontation where you feel you handled yourself particularly well - the shift from real empathy over another’s struggle to feelings of superiority at how you dealt with the conflict, while imperceptible, will characterize outward grace.
In contrast to the prior outward emotions of grace is real transformative inward grace. Inward grace is much simpler and is continually calibrated by empathy - the belief that the biographies of those who deeply wish to find symmetry between their sexual identities and their faith is real and is not marked by some secret sin they are unwilling to discard. This type of grace is a grace that your spirit will recognize (which is why the questions and hesitations over the issue of homosexuality deserve to be wrestled with from people like NT Wright, Tony Campolo and Brian McLaren - McLaren’s questions specifically). These men are marked by real grace in the dialogue over homosexuality, even though each of them disagree with an acceptance of practicing homosexuality. While I disagree with each of these men on their view of religion, I can not avoid the fact that their lives bear the mark of men who have allowed their idea of grace to transform their souls. The second dimension to inward grace is that it is marked by a willingness to be changed. This is perhaps where these men and I separate - I place higher priority on what reason can tell me than being wed to the Bible as literal revealed truth. Because of this I come to an issue like homosexuality not just to listen, but to listen with an ear towards truth even if it requires that I set aside some cherished beliefs I can not justify but need, unless they be relinquished, and deeper questions follow. If I read biography after biography of real struggling homosexual men and women, choosing to wholly discount their stories and struggles, or resort to band-aid solutions that exemplify a putrid understanding of grace, then I am just using the idealism of grace to deflect my need to change belief or alter deeply seated stereotypes. If we want our version of grace to only change them, are we not falling short of its potential to change us? Or is this particularly what we are afraid of - that real empowered grace will require us to change?
To fully appreciate how the words, ideas and consequences of Christian grace impact the lives of homosexuals who want to find harmony between their faith and their desire for relationship, I believe Christian evangelicals should try and put themselves on the receiving end of the church’s doctrines and the implications to said doctrines. Most Christian responses to acceptance of homosexuality revolve around a carefully chosen set of words that state “you may or may not be born that way … I am not really convinced people are born gay …” Any person who wishes to deny the credibility of stories from Andrew Sullivan, Bruce Bawer or Mel White has to say these men are liars, and that they harbored some deep sin they are unwilling to come clean about. For those born with these particular affections, we are off to a very rocky start: we are basically saying somewhere you went wrong (common justifications are the person was sexually abused, had a dominant mother or absent father, etc.). A teenager who is struggling with his same-gender disposition will immediately and inevitably allow this to build a foundation of self-loathing, the unavoidable implications of which are believing that “somehow I am wrong - somehow, I am a mistake.” It should be no surprise that such a belief, when fully bought into, breeds the destructive behavior that many Christians use to then turn on the people struggling as accusations of their sinfulness, feeding an awful cycle of repression, depression and destruction.
Unlike other questions posed by revealed reason, an in-depth dialogue on homosexuality requires that a Christian hostile to accommodation of this lifestyle argue for the reasonableness as to why a person would be born to a lifestyle that God condemns. In response to the teaching that God made the world, you are a part of the world, and you are wrong (basically, you are a mistake), Christians respond in one of two ways: homosexuality is a consequence of the Fall (you are right up there with death, pestilence, famine, and eternal damnation) or, you are one of the elect God made to be damned (hat tip to Tony Campolo who points out that teenagers raised in Calvinist homes that teach predestination invariably become destructive and suicidal over their belief that they are made to be God’s eternal cannon fodder for hell). Ponder with me how it would feel to be homosexual and wrestle with these implications. Try and empathize, even if for just a moment, on how a homosexual person can ever come to know God? The guilt, shame, helplessness and lack of any hope are a powerful combination I do not believe well meaning Christians who teach such dogma wrestle with. They expect those most intimately affected by these doctrines to change at the most profound of levels, but they themselves are not as charitable when it comes to reflecting on what it means to be on the receiving end of these teachings, again because their idea of grace is primarily about how it makes them feel, not about what grace should mean to others. Christians want homosexuals to believe one or both of the ideas that God is a God of love and that you can change if God helps you change; but, both take us back to previously discussed points - namely, that such teaching discounts being born with a particular sexual identity and, that if you can not change you are damned to a temporal life of pain and an eternal life of torment should you give in to your disposition.
If, as some prolific Christian thinkers of our day have written, the supreme truth within Christianity is the teaching on the Trinity, because it teaches us most importantly that God is a creative God, a God of love, and a God of relationship, we have to ask ourselves why God would teach that respectable, sustained, committed same-sex relationships are uniquely destructive? If God is a God of community and relationship, and if these are the ultimate goods of creation, Christians implicitly tell homosexuals that what we hold out as ultimate goods for us are to be absolutely denied to them. It would seem to me that our option is three-fold: either we teach monogamous homosexuality with the same moral obligations as we teach heterosexual relationships, or we teach all homosexuality is wrong hoping celibacy is a viable option for all born with homosexual predispositions, or we teach that homosexuality is wrong, you choose this predilection, and then be surprised when people impacted by this teaching turn destructive. It would seem to me that a God whose supreme truth is relationship would opt for the first choice, denying any inherent good in the last two. But then again, such an argument places an emphasis on reason before Scripture, and there we have our infamous friction presented once again.
Where real inward grace is present, I believe it is painfully obvious that the church’s teaching on homosexuality is woefully out of sync with the real transformative properties of grace. I would also submit that homosexuality is such an important issue to the church not because it represents the encroaching sexuality of our culture Christians rightfully reject, but because a balance between a critical-historical reading of the New Testament and revealed reason, when combined with a commitment towards grace, makes the supremacy of Scripture untenable. That is what is at stake in the church’s dialogue over homosexuality - not morality, but the need to assert the constant primacy of Scripture over reason. Christians are faced with three choices: accept that Paul’s teaching on homosexuality was to be understood as we understand it today, that he was an inspired author of Scripture, and because Scripture has priority it stands before revealed reason. Second, argue that Paul’s understanding of homosexuality was only within the realm of the understanding on homosexuality as a life style in the first century Roman world, and that his comments are directed towards temple prostitution and the practice of pederasty. Because neither of these should be considered reasonable comments on healthy homosexuality, they can be rejected as historically limited in their usefulness and application. The third option is to accept that Paul’s condemnation of homosexuality was properly understood as being against all same-gender eroticism, and that he was wrong. The latter position, and one I would currently concur with, is marked by a willingness to let reason stand before tradition and scripture. It is for these very reasons that Christians, even of the most progressive nature, so strongly resist acceptance of homosexuality.
During a past conversation with a Christian friend on the topic of homosexuality he began to get increasingly flustered and stammered “well, something has to be wrong.” I suspect he is right, something does. My guess is it is less homosexuality and more his lack of transcendent grace.
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5 Responses to “What Does Grace Mean Within the Context of the Homosexual Issue?”
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May 16th, 2005 at 8:13 pm
The pivot point for your entire argument is the idea that the homosexuality Paul spoke of is some different kind of homosexuality from today’s prevelant occurance. The truth is, it’s pretty darn easy to read more into a word that the author intended.
My thought is that if Paul wished to be as specific as referring to temple prostitution and such, he would have been more specific in his choice of words. Pauls meaning and intent, as understood by countless thousands of scholars for almost 2000 years, is that he was speaking of homosexuality - plain and simple.
So in that sense, the homosexuality we see today is just as wrong and sinful as it was in Paul’s day. Nothing has changed. Moral standards aren’t eroded over time - they remain untouched. What changes is out self-righteous view of those moral standards, and as a result, we end up giving the green light to things God never intended to be allowed, simply because we feel we’ve “grown up” as a society. Homosexuality is a sin - plain and simple.
Now, that’s not a popular thing to say, though probably very expected from a Christian. So I have to cushion all that by saying I agree that the Christian world today has acted without an ounce of grace toward homosexual men and women, including the shameless act of refusing them entrance to a church, or ostrocizing them from a faith community. The entire Christian community should be ashamed of itself for thinking it is our job to sit as judge and jury in some moral court case.
But here’s the deal: grace doesn’t mean that sin is now right. Paul was clear on that…”do we go on sinning with grace available? Nope!” If the problem with the Church today is that we are so quick to call homosexuality a sin, then the flip side of the coin is that the Church is also guilty of forgetting that all sins are equal in God’s eyes.
In otherwords, just as homosexuality is a sin, so is gossip. So is lying. So is stealing. So is taking God’s name in vain. So is cheating on your taxes. So is cheating on your spouse. All sins are sins, and there is no grading scale or slide-rule that says one deserves excommunication and one doesn’t.
So…if we expect someone who is guilty of gossip to get rid of that behavior and live a different way, that we should expect the same from anyone who sins in any way - including homosexuality.
May 17th, 2005 at 6:54 am
Dear Anonymous - I do understand Christians argue that homosexuality is wrong based on the Bible, and from that point all interpretations are made; however, your comments say my “whole argument” revolves around a different understanding of homosexuality than what Paul has. Such was not my point at all, as I said explicitly in the essay and in other responses to questions in previous essays on MysteriousFaith. Let me quote from my essay - the next to last paragraph says “That is what is at stake in the church’s dialogue over homosexuality - not morality, but the need to assert the constant primacy of Scripture over reason.” If you go on I then stipulate three options, one of which is that Paul’s understanding was not our own and then I clearly say is not a particularly compelling argument. The underlying tension in all of my writing, of which this essay is just the most recent, is that we all give primacy to reason over Scripture (other than fundamentalists) and that this issue should be no different. My attempt is not to give someone like John Boswell who argues for a different understanding of the issue relevancy in the interests of explaining the issue away. My position is that homosexual behavior, like heterosexual, has the potential for destructive behavior and that type of behavior we should caution and warn against. But to simply say as you do that “it’s a sin” leaves us back to “the Bible says it and I believe it” reasoning, and I reject that. I suspect underneath the issue of homosexuality, as I suggest in this essay, that is what we are all wrestling with and disagreeing over.
May 17th, 2005 at 12:29 pm
You are correct, and I apologize for over-simplifying your argument. I read your handling of the Paul/homosexuality passage as a one-time mis-read, and I now understand that the underlying fault in your argument[s] is that you have a doubtful view of Scripture.
You wrote:
“But to simply say as you do that “it’s a sin” leaves us back to “the Bible says it and I believe it” reasoning, and I reject that.”
I suppose that sums it up quite nicely. But once you’ve stepped out from under the idea that Scripture is God-breathed truth that, whether we use reason or blind faith, should be followed and adheared to.
Listen Ben, your words are eloquent and educated, and I’m sure you are proud of your high-thought essays on etheral, cerebral issues, but the reality of the issue is this: our reason is broken, and has been since Adam and Eve. So to assert, as you have, that Scripture can take the back seat to Reason is in itself a broken idea, and wrong.
That is the power of Scripture - that though we can waver back and forth in our own little personal worlds, and our Reason can take us here or there in our suppositioning, the only true, solid, imitatable, and dependable teaching is that which is found in Scripture.
Trust me, I hear you perfectly clear…one of the biggest issues that has and will face the Church is the notion of the Inerrancy of Scripture, and as the world’s view changes more and more from a Modern perspective to a new, different perspective [some call it Post-Modern, but I’m sure a guy like you already knows that:)…], we will have to wrestle wiht this in a more serious manner than the little conversations theologians have about it today.
But…that said, I have to say that without believing in the truth and perfection of Scripture, we have cut ourselves off from the only help we have to live revolutionary lives in imitation of the Way of Jesus. I mean, that’s what it all boils down to - if we are to live lives that fulfill the promise of Abraham, to “bless the world”, then we need some sort of guide to show us the Way. We can’t trust our own human reason to figure it out because it is a broken Reason [powerful yes, and quite amazing at times, but broken nonetheless].
Thanks for dialoguing in a civilized manner…most people get pretty uptight when their views aren’t taken by others. i’m glad there are people out there like you who feel called to think and write, and yet dialogue with others at a level table.
- Aaron
May 18th, 2005 at 4:56 am
Aaron - Thanks for visiting again. As I was traveling on Wednesday I was thinking how I meant to include in my first comment a thank you for your spirit as embodied in the fourth paragraph of your initial response - it is an attitude that is not common within the church for sure. Your comments about reason are a good synopsis of the evangelical Christian position, one I understand quite well. But it is a position I can’t say I can get to now: aren’t we told to “come and let us reason together?” It would seem to me that we all embrace reason to come to our beliefs, some of us abdicating them earlier on than others. As an example, the faith tradition I was raised in (fundamentalist baptist) were dispensationalists - people who quite rightly believed in their simple view of Scripture being the most honest, a faith taken at face value. But even in these cases, their systemized theology (the idea of the Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, etc. dispensations) was the by product of real wrestling with questions modernity posed. Is reason inherently flawed? If it is, none of us have any means of knowing truth other than individual theophanies do we not? And that, as I have suggested elsewhere, poses unique difficulties as it makes the standard for truth and morality highly individual and unverifiable as opposed to knowable, constant, and universal. Your positions, based the clarity of your beliefs, are certainly not the result of ambiguous “what-ifs” but rather wrestling with truth - a truth you employ reason fully to come to understand. When you assert, as you did in your last response, the primacy of Scripture, you certainly did not just come to that belief - you have found reasons to believe this to the the case. I have never been quite able to understand where we choose to use reason and where we choose to discard it; if we throw it out because to not do so would require our beliefs to change, are we not assuming that irrational ratonality will be the standard of the day? I do agree with you that the issue of the primacy of Scripture is the most important issue for the church - it happens that I, for reasons I have elaborated on elsewhere, hold to another perspective. I may be wrong, and I say that in all honesty not in an attempt to be pretend to be magnanimous. It is an important discussion, and I appreciate your genteel way of participating in it.
September 15th, 2005 at 11:09 pm
Ben,
As someone who has known you now for the better part of ten years, I can honestly say I’m impressed by where you are today. I am fairly certain you are far from the “Young Republican” that I met back in December 1995.
As for this discussion, I would like to point out a few things.
First of all, let’s make one thing absolutely clear. Homosexuality is not a sin, even by the most creative interpretation of Scripture. Anytime that someone quotes the Bible in terms of homosexuality, it invariably deals with it in terms of sexual acts or my personal favorite “God created Adam and Eve - Not Adam and Steve.” (Thanks to God for that, or it would have been pretty difficult to have any of us.)
Second, I have to clear up for anyone that has any doubts, I did not choose to be gay. It’s the way that God (how ever you define “God” in your own sense of religion or spirituallity) made me. For heaven’s sakes, why would anyone, much less someone with an IQ in excess of 160, choose to be a part of a group that is ostracized by the vast majority of the population?
Third, in this world of cheating, stealing, killing, hateful individuals, I fail to understand how anyone can find fault with love, in whatever form it comes in. Homosexual. Heterosexual. Bisexual. Asexual. In the end, love is what it’s all about. Love brings out the highest of highs and the lack of love brings out the lowest of lows. THAT is the reason that “correcting” homosexuality brings out destructive behaviour. Stop for a moment and think about what it would be like if the church taught that heterosexuality was wrong. How would that make you feel? If they tried to convert you to homosexuality, how quickly do you think you could jump the fence? Or would you do exactly what homosexuals have done for all recorded history? Would you seek out a secret society of other heterosexuals that think and act like you do? Would you walk around lisping and limp wristed, so that nobody would know that you are really straight? Would you possibly take on the appearance of a gay home, while secretly meeting your heterosexual lover on the Q.T?
Seriously, I didn’t choose to be gay any more than you chose to be straight.
I would rant on a little more, but frankly I’m tired and it’s getting late.
My love to you and your family, Ben (Even Lizard Breath)
Greg