Homosexuality and Lines in the Sand (Part Two)

In my previous post I began to explore how evangelicals might respond to the General Assembly's decision to continue the path towards ordaining actively homosexual men and women into the ministry.

In this concluding post I want to continue my reflections on how we deal with those with whom we disagree regarding how to interpret the Bible.

There is a tendency in conservative evangelical circles to divide a mixed denomination like the Church of Scotland into "us" who believe in what the Bible says and "them" who don't. But if we're honest that's an oversimplification, is it not? The truth is rather more complex. Over the issue of homosexuality, those who would permit the ordination of practising homosexual ministers are actually composed of at least two broad groups.

First, there are those liberals who do not have as high a view of Scripture as evangelicals do. For them, the Bible is a testimony to God's people's experience of God down through the centuries. The Bible is therefore a fallible human document that reflects the times it was written in, but which may "contain" somewhere in it the actual Word of God, but presumably not in those parts that merely reflect the cultural background of its time. For this group, the Church is not bound by the Bible's teachings as such. This group likely regards contemporary attitudes towards homosexuality as more enlightened, more loving and dare we say more Christlike than the biblical prohibitions of the Old Testament and St Paul. I suspect that most "revisionist" supporters in the Kirk would broadly fall into this group. We could call this group the "liberal revisionists" for convenience.

But second, there is probably also a group who may have as high a view of Scripture as the Word of God as any other evangelical. This group accepts that what the Bible says is true and should be obeyed by Christians, yet rather than interpreting the biblical prohibitions as applying to all homosexual acts, they regard the Bible passages dealing with homosexual acts as merely condemning homosexual activity in certain specific contexts. For example, this group would see the Bible as condemning homosexuality connected to pagan worship and practices, as condemning homosexual rape, as condemning homosexual promiscuity, etc. Such an interpretation would leave the Bible at least silent on the question of same-sex acts within a committed, loving, consensual and monogamous context. This in turn would leave the possibility open that such relationships would not be against God's revealed will for people with a same-sex orientation. We might call this group the "evangelical revisionists" for convenience.

There is not much that can be said about the liberal revisionists. Liberals have been the majority in the Church of Scotland for probably a century or more. It would appear that there is still a liberal majority in the courts of the Kirk—certainly in the General Assembly if the recent votes are anything to go by. Like it or not, we evangelicals are in this kind of denomination and have been all our lives. We have learned to live with this group, share in what work we can, while not really being in meaningful fellowship with it.

The second group is more interesting. People in this group might believe 99% the same as any other conservative evangelical about the big issues - the authority of the Bible, about God, about Jesus, about the Holy Spirit, about sin and and about salvation. They differ from the majority on one point—they interpret the fairly scant references to homosexuality in the Bible not as general condemnations but as context-specific condemnations.

Those who believe this, in good faith, are not rejecting the Bible's teaching. They merely understand it differently than traditionalists do.

Perhaps we should not forget that the "revisionists" in one era become mainstream in another and then "traditionalists" themselves in another era. Just ask Luther and Calvin. And it was only a century and a half ago that mainstream evangelical writers defended African slavery, the subjugation of women, and openly anti-Jewish views, on the basis of biblical texts. Now, few if any mainstream evangelicals would take the same positions as Martin Luther on the Jews, Robert Lewis Dabney on slavery or Charles Hodge on women.
 
So how should we deal evangelicals in this second group, who do not interpret the Scriptures as imposing a blanket ban on homosexual acts even in the context of a same-sex marriage covenant? Conservative evangelicals differ with each other on a whole range of important issues including such important matters as:

• Spiritual Gifts
• Eschatology
• Baptism
• Communion
• Sabbath observance
• Church Government
• Women's Ordination

The list could go on to be a very long one!

We don't normally consider such matters as primary doctrines—we do not normally break fellowship over them when we disagree with other Christians.

The more evangelical revisionist position could be regarded as being on the same level as these other second order disagreements, and on that basis perhaps there can be fellowship with people holding these views. Our relationship with liberal revisionists will be different, but not because of the issue of homosexuality. Rather, the differences are over primary level doctrines and any break in fellowship should be over those primary doctrines, like denying Christ is the only way to God or that salvation is by good works.

Differences in views over Sabbath observance are directly relevant here. Those who insist on a strict Sabbath observance think the Bible is very clear on the issue—as indeed are the Presbyterian creeds—and for such people disobeying the Sabbath commandment is a clear sin issue. Those who do not believe the Sabbath commandments apply to Christians because the Sabbath is part of the Old Testament administration will do things on a Sunday that the others consider is sinful, yet they will be unrepentant about it and in fact refuse to accept it is a sin at all. Should those who accept the validity of the Sabbath laws for Christians refuse to regard those who do not as fellow Christians? After all, they are living in blatant and unrepented of sin. If the answer is no, then why should a different standard apply to those who do not regard a same-sex marriage covenant as sinful?

No doubt in the more strict parts of the Presbyterian world, a person who took a non-Sabbatarian view of the Lord's day would be barred from leadership, but I doubt that many evangelicals in the Church of Scotland would think this an issue worth leaving over. We simply agree to disagree, and each person is allowed to follow his or her own conscience in the matter.

I would like to suggest a similar approach may be possible between those who think the Bible condemns all homosexual acts in any context and those who think that such acts may be morally permissible in the limited context of a same-sex marriage covenant. The question is not whether a person agrees with you or I on every doctrinal or moral question, but whether that person loves God, trusts in Jesus Christ and seeks to follow his teachings as a disciple.

In closing, perhaps we need a timely reminder that our salvation does not rest on getting our doctrines or our ethical stances perfect. None of us are correct in all our views. We do our best to be work out what is right and trust in God to forgive us where we have gone astray. And God accepts us and loves us despite our failings. We are saved in Christ alone, by grace alone and by faith alone, not by our faith plus our views on homosexuality. And so for me, this issue is not a line in the sand.

Where do we go from here? I think those who are committed to the authority of the Bible on either side of this particular issue need to keep talking to each other. One side needs to make sure it is the Bible and not their feelings and tradition that are guiding them. The other side needs to make sure it is the Bible and not their feelings and contemporary opinion that are guiding them.

In the Church of Scotland context, we need to continue to work to guide the Church on the path we believe to be correct in dialogue with others and always showing the love of Christ to those who don't interpret the Bible the same way as us. I suggest that the single most important thing in this whole debate is that whoever wins it in the end makes their first and highest priority looking after and seeking the best for those on the other side.

Homosexuality and Lines in the Sand (Part One)

This post and the next follows in the wake of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland's decision in May to continue on the trajectory of allowing at least some congregations - where the local leadership in the Kirk Session agrees to it—to induct practising gay and lesbian ministers as parish ministers. At the same time, the Kirk is maintaining as its "default position" the traditional Christian understanding that the covenant bond between a man and a woman in marriage is the only God-ordained sphere for sexual activity and that homosexual acts are contrary to God's will and therefore sinful, exactly in the same way as all heterosexual acts outside marriage are considered sinful.

Now, many evangelicals in the Church of Scotland are more than just saddened that the Church seems to be slowly but surely drifting from traditional Christian morality in this area. For them a line in the sand has been crossed here on this issue and it is time either to leave the Kirk now as a few others have done already or at least time to start concrete preparations for leaving in a year or two.

Now, supposing that the proposal does pass all remaining stages and becomes the Kirk's position. What then? What if the Kirk continues to adhere to the historic Christian position but allows individual congregations to depart from it if their conscience will permit it? Should that be an automatic trigger for everyone who disagrees with them to walk out of the Church of Scotland?

There are a couple of thoughts I would suggest we reflect on, in answer to this question, before we jump to any conclusions.

The first thing to point out, as I did in my letter to the Herald newspaper on 23 May, is that there is nothing fundamentally new revealed in this decision about the theological spectrum of views in the Kirk. It is misleading for people to talk about lines in the sand here. Evangelicals and liberals have co-existed in the Church of Scotland despite deep differences in their views on both doctrinal and ethical matters for a long, long time. There are liberal ministers and certainly members in the Kirk today (I think I am fairly safe in suggesting) who would deny such fundamental doctrines as the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the deity of Christ, the Trinity as traditionally understood, the reality of sin, Satan or hell; there are those who teach salvation by good works and outright universalism (that all are saved), while others teach that all religions lead to God and many deny that the Bible is the infallible Word of God, and so on and so on. In effect, there are people in the Church of Scotland right now, in membership, in leadership and in ministry who have views that evangelicals would spend our lives opposing with our very lifeblood.

Yet, evangelicals have never seen fit to walk away from the Kirk despite such views being tolerated within the Church of Scotland. We have separated ourselves and our congregations from such false teaching, while remaining within the organisation. Why then is the issue of homosexuality considered such a fundamental thing that it should be the line in the sand when outright heresies have been tolerated (and sometimes more than tolerated) within the Kirk for many years?

I have yet to see a satisfying answer to that most basic question. I have to say that if denominational separation from error or heresy is always right, then even if the traditional view of sexual sin had been upheld at the Assembly, no one who takes that line should have been able to remain, in good conscience, within the Kirk anyway. There are ministers who deny even the most basic tenets of the Christian faith according to Paul himself - that Jesus is Lord and God raised him from the dead. If anyone can remain in a denomination where people can deny that without facing church discipline and removal from office, why then would the fact someone is gay or lesbian in leadership tip the balance towards separation? Compared to denying the resurrection, homosexual acts are small matters in biblical terms. We need to keep things in proportion.

Or perhaps it is merely because this would be an instance of the Church officially taking a position we would disagree with, whereas much of the liberal teaching is "swept under the carpet" of the "liberty of opinion" clause in the ordination vows? Perhaps, but that argument does not really wash. The Kirk's official positions on a number of points are also biblically questionable, for example the Kirk's official position on the nature of the Bible is hardly a ringing endorsement of evangelical Protestant doctrine! The Church has officially adopted non-evangelical positions on a number of issues over the years.

So we are then left with the impression that it is people's gut reaction to this issue that leads them to see it as such a big deal. If we can tolerate resurrection deniers in leadership but not gays, that tells us something about us and it's not a pretty picture.

All that has really happened is that two groups who disagree over what the Bible is have now found that disagreement surfacing over the question of the morality of same-sex sexual activity. The bigger disagreement was already there and both sides have lived with it for a century or more. Evangelicals believe the Bible is the Word of God written. Liberals, to a greater or lesser extent, believe the Word of God is only somewhere "contained" within the Bible. These two positions on the Bible have now been applied to the morality of homosexual acts within committed homosexual relationships and come to different conclusions.

If we walk away over this, we must do so in repentance for our own sin and the sins of our fathers and grandfathers in the faith who stayed within the liberal Kirk all these years and fought their corner, for if it is right to go now, then it was never right to be there in the first place—at least not in the last 100 years or so.

We have to tread very carefully here or it will merely look as if our true motivations are homophobic rather than theological or biblical.

(To be continued)