Why We Stand Where We Stand.

The following is taken John Burwell's column in the 11-07-03 edition of the Holy Cross Parish Newsletter:

I wish it were not necessary to write this, because I want Holy Cross to be known for what we are for, and not for what we are against. But I would be neglecting my duties as your rector if I merely ignored the situation that has been forced upon us by this past Sunday’s attempted consecration in New Hampshire.

Last week, our Diocesan Theologian, Dr. Kendall Harmon told the news media, "This crisis is not like other crises that have affected the Episcopal Church," he said. "You have a clear move away from the plain teaching of the Old and New Testament, as well as the ecumenical consensus of world Christianity. We are about to become a church that calls sin righteousness and righteousness sin."

I want you to know why Kendall is correct in saying what he says. I want you to know why this matters. I want you to know why we won’t just "get over" this like we did on other issues that have affected us in the past. There are four key points I want to pass along. (The first two points originated with Kendall, and the third with The Rev. Alison Barfoot.)

1. God designed sex for marriage. That teaching is fundamental not only to Christianity, but Judaism and Islam. In consecrating Robinson, who has lived with his partner for 14 years, the New Hampshire diocese has broken with the longstanding Christian teaching that sex is for men and women joined in marriage.

Even if the Bible did not condemn homosexuality, the New Hampshire action (and the action of General Convention) actually creates a new category of relationships beyond single and married. The key problem is this: either same-sex relationships such as Gene Robinson's are marriage, in which case the whole doctrine of what marriage is has to be redefined, or these relationships are a new third category of relationships beyond singleness and marriage, which are the only two human states of which the Church has spoken to this point.

If they are a new category of relationship - like marriage in some ways and unlike it in others - then there will need to be a massive amount of theological work done to explain what this new category is and how it can be holy for Christians. This theological work has not been done. As Kendall says, these are "relationships in search of a theology."

2. Robinson and many of his supporters say there was no understanding of homosexuality as an "orientation" in Biblical times. Anyone engaged in a homosexual act then was presumed to be acting against their nature. We know better now. This was the argument Sam Candler used in his debate with Kendall at General Convention. "We're asking the Bible to give us guidance about something it knew nothing about," [Michael Hopkins of Integrity] said. That is a sophomoric statement at best. The Greeks and Romans knew plenty about homosexuality, as any reader of the Classics can tell you. Kendall is right when he says, "To argue we know more now than religious leaders knew then is a form of ‘chronological snobbery’ [to quote C.S. Lewis]. It's an incredibly arrogant Western way of looking at the world." And as far as the Bible not giving guidance, the whole Biblical narrative, from Adam and Eve through the Song of Solomon, to our Lord’s teachings to the letters of the Church – The whole Bible celebrates an undefiled marriage bed.

3. A common argument in favor of the ordination and blessing of sexually active gay men and lesbians goes something like this: Over the past several centuries the church has realized that it was wrong in its Biblical interpretation about slavery, racial discrimination, and women’s equality. Accordingly, the church changed its teaching. Those expressing this thought says that it is time to realize that the church was wrong in its teaching about the blessing of committed same-sex relationships and the ordination of gay men and lesbians who are in committed same-sex relationships. The argument won’t work.

Homosexual behavior is uniformly condemned in the Bible. Nowhere in Scripture is it spoken of in a positive way. Although our culture presents the approval of homosexual behavior as a social justice issue, Scripture and the more than 4,000-year-old community of faith have regarded it as a moral issue, i.e., as sin.

In Scripture, social justice is understood to be counteracting injustices and their consequences that flow from the sin of disobedience to God’s Word, especially immorality and idolatry. It cannot, therefore, be claimed that reversing what the Bible considers immoral, e.g., homosexual behavior, is an act of social justice.

The ordination and consecration of a man in a sexually active homosexual relationship is a moral issue. The ordination of women, however, is not a moral issue; it is a matter of church order. To equate the two or to put them on the same continuum of logic is to engage in a category mistake.

Succinctly put, it is not a sin to be a woman, but the Bible does consider homosexual behavior [behavior – not orientation] to be sinful. [This third point is taken from a paper by The Rev. Dr. Alison Barfoot.)

4. Lastly, and maybe most importantly for our life together, this whole mess is not about inclusion or exclusion. It’s not. If I have to, I will repeat myself until I am blue in the face - Holy Cross welcomes everyone. We include everyone. We are not anti-anyone! The second of our Seven Premises states, "Holy Cross welcomes you wherever you are in your faith journey, believing that God will take you where He wants you to be, and on His timetable." We are inclusive. This is how we’ve operated for the almost 16 years I’ve been your rector. This is core belief for us.

How is this core belief possible? It’s because the Church is not a club for saints. It is a hospital for sinners, and your rector is the chief patient. As the book of Romans reminds us, "All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23) But, "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8) The Cross of Jesus is the great equalizer for all of us. As we all stand at the foot of the Cross, we all stand in need of transformation.

When Jesus began his ministry on earth, the first word out of His mouth was, "Repent." (Mark 1:15) It’s where we must begin. When we repent, Jesus comes into our lives and He begins a process of transformation. We begin to be less like the people we are by our human nature, and more and more like Him.

We all have to begin with repentance. It’s nice and it feels good to speak of inclusivity, but we simply can not stop there. Inclusivity without transformation is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. We will continue to love and welcome anyone and everyone, just as they are. We are inclusive. But we don’t stop there. We will also continue to believe that Jesus loves us too much to let us remain as we are.

Sunday’s attempted consecration has changed everything, and in a sense Sunday’s attempted consecration has changed nothing for us. What the future holds, only God knows. We are sailing uncharted waters, but Jesus is our Captain, and He’ll see us through. I’m glad and I’m honored to be riding with you in this journey.

I do know this – Holy Cross’ future is bright, alive, growing, and incredibly blessed by the Lord. We are going to keep right on being who we are, and we are going to be just fine. Just fine! Wait and see.

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The Argument, Simply Put.

In today’s edition of his "blog" (11/1/03), Kendall Harmon responds to an AP news story and within Kendall’s reply there are several key points worthy of underscoring. In simple language taken from Kendall’s quotes, we are given an overview of the current crisis. The overview is presented in four easy to remember points.

1. Both "sides" are saying they welcome gays in their churches. Everyone is welcome, the debate is not nor will it ever be about inclusion.

2. In consecrating Robinson, who has lived with his partner for 14 years, the New Hampshire diocese is breaking with the longstanding Christian teaching that sex is for men and women joined in marriage. That teaching is fundamental not only to Christianity, but Judaism and Islam.

Even if the Bible did not condemn homosexuality, "no one can actually tell me what the status of these relationships are," Harmon said of same-sex unions. These are "relationships in search of theology," he said.

The key problem is this: either same sex relationships such as Gene Robinson's are marriage, in which case the whole doctrine of what marriage is has to be redefined, or these relationships are a new third category of relationships beyond singleness and marriage, which are the only two human states of which the church has spoken to this point.

If they are a new category of relationship--like marriage in some ways and unlike it in others, then there is a massive amount of theological work to explain what this new category is and how it can be holy for Christians. This theological work has not been done.

Those arguing for change have not provided a meaningful theological rationale for what they are doing. You would think, since they are overhauling a basic doctrine such as marriage or inventing a whole new category of relationships, they would do this.

What I have said is either change the doctrine of marriage and then call what these new relationships are marriage (which they have not done), or, explain what these relationships are and why the church, for the first time in her history, is to call them holy and blessed for those in the new creation. If they were to do this theological work then those seeking change would be able to have these relationships supported. Alas, they have done neither.

3. Robinson and many of his supporters say there was no understanding of homosexuality as an "orientation" in biblical times. Anyone engaged in a homosexual act then was presumed to be acting against their nature. "We're asking the Bible to give us guidance about something it knew nothing about," [Michael Hopkins of Integrity] said.

"The Greeks and Romans knew plenty about homosexuality. To argue we know more now than religious leaders knew then is a form of "chronological snobbery" Harmon said, borrowing a term from Christian writer C.S. Lewis. "It's an incredibly arrogant Western way of looking at the world." .

4. At issue are not just a few individual passages of Scripture, as is often alleged, but the broad structure of the biblical narrative which flows from the primordial couple in the Garden of Eden through the Song of Solomon to the celebration of an undefiled marriage bed in the New Testament. Advocates for changing the church’s teaching know this, so they have tried two strategies.

The first is to focus on individual passages and to argue that they don’t say what we thought they said. So Paul’s famous statement in Romans 1 that homosexual practice was "against nature" and sinful, Yale Scholar John Boswell argued, is actually an argument that it is against nature ONLY for those who were made heterosexual, and who are improperly pursuing same sex intimacy. Boswell said Paul’s argument doesn’t apply to those made homosexual, and the Bible is important it just doesn’t apply to the debate. Boswell’s case doesn’t work on linguistic grounds and suggests Paul thought of some people as essentially heterosexual. Sorry, no post modern was he.

A second strategy admits candidly that the Bible is against same sex practice. The Bible didn't know what we know about sexual orientation therefore we can set the Bible's clearly negative judgment about any sexual activity outside marriage aside.

As Walter Wink of Auburn Theological Seminary, who favors altering the church’s teaching in the area of sexual morality, puts it: "Efforts to twist the text to mean what it clearly does not say are deplorable. Simply put, the Bible is negative toward same-sex behavior, and there is no getting around it." For Wink, "the issue is precisely what weight that judgment should have in the ethics of Christian life," and his answer is less weight because of what we now know.

The first reason this won't work is that it is not true: The Greeks and Romans knew plenty about homosexuality. You bet they did--go read Robert Gagnon's book or study the classical sources. There was not only a great awareness of same sex practice there was a lot of reflection on it.

The second reason this won't work is because behind it lies an assumption: the Bible is culturally rooted and therefore we can call the Bible into question (I am not saying I endorse this proposition that is a subject for another time). That is where those seeking change stop, but their logic will not let them. To finish the circle they also need to say: those advocating change are culturally rooted and the Bible gets to call them into question!

Of course if they did this then they might get asked hard questions such as why in North America at the beginning of the 21st century a particular group of people is seeking to rewrite Christian sexual theology based on their version of (mostly) American identity politics. Is it possible that Michael Hopkins' cultural context is influencing his argument in a way that may not be in accord with Christian truth?

To these four Kendall points, I will add a fifth, using part of an article by The Rev. Alison Barfoot:

5. A common argument in favor of the ordination and blessing of sexually active gay men and lesbians goes something like this: Over the past several centuries the church has realized that it was wrong in its biblical interpretation about slavery, racial discrimination, and women’s equality. Accordingly, the church changed its teaching. Now it is time to realize that the church was wrong in its teaching about the blessing of committed same-sex relationships and the ordination of gay men and lesbians who are in committed same-sex relationships.

Homosexual behavior is uniformly condemned in the Bible. Nowhere in Scripture is it spoken of in a positive way. There are no apparent contradictions in the Bible about this topic. Although our culture presents the approval of homosexual behavior as a social justice issue, Scripture and the more than 4,000-year-old community of faith have regarded it as a moral issue, i.e., as sin, and thus a matter of faith.

In Scripture, social justice is understood to be counteracting injustices and their consequences that flow from the sin of disobedience to God’s Word, especially immorality and idolatry. It cannot, therefore, be claimed that reversing what the Bible considers immoral, e.g., homosexual behavior, is an act of social justice.

The ordination and consecration of a man in a sexually active homosexual relationship is a moral issue. The ordination of women, however, is not a moral issue; it is a matter of church order. To equate the two or to put them on the same continuum of logic is to engage in a category mistake. Succinctly put, it is not a sin to be a woman, but the Bible (which knows nothing of sexual orientation) does consider homosexual behavior (regardless of orientation) to be sinful.

Inclusivity without transformation is not the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Not long ago, noted theologian Dr. Phillip Turner wrote an excellent paper on how we Episcopalians got to where we are today. A recent letter to the editor in the Charleston paper reminded me of Dr. Turner's work. I invite you to read the letter to the editor below,  and then read Dr. Turner's thoughts.  First, the letter to the editor:

I was born and raised in South Carolina and, in most cases, I am extremely proud to admit it. But once again, a group of South Carolinians has reinforced the national view of us as "backwoods," ignorant and intolerant.

I am a member of the Episcopal Church, and this position further affirms my decision several years ago to stop attending and financially supporting the local diocese. I would like to applaud Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold's support of the election of the openly gay Rev. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire. It is good to know that there is a voice in the state diocese that is forward thinking and isn't chained to prejudice and intolerance.

(Source: Letters to the Editor section, Charleston Post and Courier, October 23, 2003)

Dr. Turner's paper can be read HERE.