How to Handle Difficult Issues Biblically

1 Corinthians 8-10 is an often-neglected bit of the New Testament (except for a few verses in chapter 9, usually read out of context). But actually it provides us with a really helpful pattern for working with difficult issues in the Church.

The problem in Corinth was the issue of meat sacrificed to idols. In first century Corinth, most meat was slaughtered in the context of worship at one or other of the many temples. It was then either served at public feasts, served at guild meals or sold in the meat market. Membership of most trades required being in a guild; they generally met in pagan temples. If you ate meat that had been sacrificed to idols, it was often understood as sharing in the worship of the god to whom it had been sacrificed, just as Communion was seen as sharing in Jesus' sacrifice. The Corinthian church was obviously divided on the issue, and had asked Paul for advice.

So how does Paul handle this difficult situation?

1. Come up with the best Biblical-theological case on both sides (8:1-7; 10:1-12; 10:14-22). Some people think Paul is contradicting himself here, but actually he's stating the strongest arguments on both sides before coming to a conclusion. So often when we try to have debates now in the church, people only state one point of view and as a result are rejected by the other side. Paul clearly understands both sides, and states both arguments well. The arguments here are Biblical / theological in character - Paul argues from theology and the Shema (8v4-6), from the history of Israel (10v1-11), from the nature of communion (10v16-21).
   
2. Recognise that both sides are probably right, and identify the real issue. If both sides are supported by good scriptural arguments, both are probably right. If they look like they contradict each other, we need to see why they don't really. Here, Paul does it by seeing the gap between eating meat and actually participating in the sacrifice, which is an attitude of mind or heart on the part of the worshipper. [It is of course very possible to have bad arguments from Scripture too; I'm not saying those are right.]
   
3. Recognise explicitly that many people won't have done all the theology, and will be responding from their gut. Honour them and their consciences (8:7-13). This is again something we often miss today, and in some situations one side's consciences may say not to do something and the other side may say to do it, and it's genuinely hard to honour both, but we should try anyway.
   
4. Follow the example of Jesus, who laid down his rights for others, but don't slip into legalism. Maintain the importance of Christian freedom, but let it be trumped by love. As soon as people start talking about their rights, they show they've missed the point. The point of rights for the Christian is that we lay them down for others. That's what Paul means by "follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ" in 11v1. Jesus, being in very nature God, laid down his rights for us. Paul, having the right to financial support and to live as he wanted within the "law of Christ", gave those rights up for the sake of those he was ministering to. So we should also give up our rights for the sake of each other, even if that means avoiding offending their over-scrupulous consciences.

A couple of quick applications to current issues in the C of E:

People who talk about women's right to be bishops (for example) don't really understand what it is to live as a Christian, let alone to be a bishop. If women do have that right, they should be willing to lay it down for the sake of their brothers and sisters who would be offended by it. And those brothers and sisters should probably lay down their right not to be offended for the sake of preserving unity and allowing women to serve in the capacity of bishop.

What the homosexuality squabble debate desperately needs is people who are willing to articulate both sides of the Biblical argument and show how they fit together. So often what is produced by both camps is hideously one-sided, and sometimes just ignores important pastoral issues or runs roughshod over the consciences of those who in good conscience disagree, even if they do so without good reasons. Yes, if we disagree with someone, we should seek to persuade them, but we should do so in love - whether love for the knee-jerk homophobes or for the "out and proud" types.

Homosexuality and the Church - One Last Time

It's a difficult issue to avoid at the moment, largely because culture seems to be moving fast, and in a direction that is away from historic Christianity. There are three big issues here, and it's important to recognise that they are distinct issues - far too many people on all sides confuse them, to their peril.

1. What should our attitude be to people who experience same-sex attraction?

Simple - Love and compassion, same as everyone else. Sure, they are sinners, but so am I. Their same-sex attraction is not the most important thing about them, and we should resist labelling them as such. For years people have suffered opprobrium because of feelings they did not choose to have, and now they have become a political football. Treat them as individuals whom God loves, just like you are.

2. Is same-sex sex consistent with Christianity?

Again, the answer is pretty simple - No. Quite a few people disagree, but they always seem to do so on the basis of trying to treat people lovingly rather than having actually looked at the texts - they seem to twist the Bible's teaching on this to make it seem more compassionate. And I understand where they are coming from, I really do. But I still haven't seen a single decent argument from the Bible that same-sex sex is a good thing or a single respectable Bible scholar who argues that either Jesus or Paul would have approved of it. For those who do try to argue that same-sex sex is consistent with the Bible, here are a few questions which show the futility of their position:

1. If Paul had been told about a same-sex couple who wanted to marry and have consensual sex, do you honestly think he would have approved? (see here for Andrew Wilson pushing Rob Bell on that very question, which Bell keeps on avoiding.)
2. At the time the New Testament was written, were there people who were gay in the modern sense of the word? (if yes, then Paul wasn't just speaking into the context of pederasty; if no then orientation is only a social construct)
3. Can a human life be perfectly fulfilled without sex?
4. If you could be convinced that the New Testament condemned all same-sex sex, would you agree with it?

John 8 is a wonderful passage for thinking through our response to individuals. Having stopped all the criticism and condemnation of the woman there, Jesus turns to her and says "Neither do I condemn you; go now and leave your life of sin."

It's also worth saying that there's a big question for the church to wrestle with here. The Bible clearly speaks a lot about the value of same-sex friendships, and for centuries it was accepted as normal for two male friends to share a house without having sex. The question is "if there are two men who experience same sex attraction, and want to live together as friends but without having sex, is that ok?" I'd say yes...

3. To what extent should we expect society to regulate itself by Biblical standards?

This is the key to the same-sex marriage debate. In general, the older generations think this is still a Christian country. Constitutionally, of course, it is, but that is becoming more and more of an anomaly and it wouldn't surprise me if the gay marriage issue leads to disestablishment in time.

It is clearly wrong to expect Christians to disengage their brains either when in church or when relating to the big political questions of the day. Because Christians believe that the Bible is in some sense a record of God's revelation into the world, they should therefore see that it does have something to say. And since Christians believe that God's revealed way of running our lives is better than the way we'd just figure out for ourselves, we also believe that society would be better if it defined marriage as one man and one woman for life.

But I don't think that's the issue any more. In the 1960s, bishops argued that just because homosexual sex was a sin did not mean it should be a crime - it should be in the same category as greed and pride. We accept that same-sex sex should be legal now; we even accept that it makes perfect sense for there to be a form of legal recognition for same-sex partnerships. None of that is an issue any more.

4. So what's the problem?

The issue with the currently proposed law is none of those. If the proposed legislation were to rename "civil partnerships" as "same-sex marriages", I don't think there would be anywhere near as much opposition. The problems with the proposed law are essentially threefold.

• First, it is a big change without any mandate - it wasn't in a manifesto, there hasn't been proper public debate, etc.
• Secondly, it is desperately trying to say that two different things are in fact the same thing, and not quite managing it.
• Third, by saying that same-sex marriage is the same as marriage, it's opening the door for future discrimination against those who disagree on principle. I don't see the quadruple lock as surviving a legal challenge once same-sex marriage is ensconced as a human right, and I'm willing to bet we will see ministers and churches taken to court over this within the next decade.

The Trajectory Argument for Gay Marriage

I wish I was wrong about homosexuality - it would make life so much easier if there were even a half-decent Biblical or theological argumet for the legitimacy of committed same-sex sexual relationships. But I've never seen one, and so my conscience is held captive by the Word of God.

One of the really poor excuses for an argument in favour of gay marriage is what is sometimes called the trajectory argument. Steve Chalke spends about half his time on it here. It goes roughly as follows:

There are several things in the New Testament which the NT writers seem fine with but because of our years of reflecting on the Bible and doing ministry in a changing culture we now realise are wrong - the obvious examples are slavery and banning women from teaching. The Church's attitude to homosexuality is another one of those.

The danger with this argument is that in this form you can apply it to just about anything where the Bible disagrees with contemporary culture - where it applies and where it doesn't becomes just a matter for individual conscience, and the Bible loses its prophetic power to challenge our ways of thinking when we are too deeply shaped by our culture. We need some kind of clear control to see when a development is legitimate and when it isn't.

The best such control is trajectory - when we compare the New Testament to the surrounding culture, and see which direction the Bible moves the culture in. We can see this argument can be valid by thinking about the Civil Rights movement in the US. They campaigned for small steps to be made in terms of desegregating schools - they didn't campaign for a black President immediately. And that's pretty much what the Bible does with slavery. In a society where masters had strong rights over slaves but slave revolts were brutally suppressed, the Bible condemned slave trading and masters beating their slaves, and called slaves and masters brothers. It is clearly heading towards the abolition of slavery, even thought that move would have been unacceptable in the Roman society of the day.

We could say the same about polygamy. Polygamy is never portrayed positively in the Bible, and in the NT, it is banned for church leaders. The trajectory is clearly towards monogamy.

But what about when we look at the trajectory for homosexuality? In the above link, Steve Chalke summarises the situation in the ancient world fairly well:

It is common knowledge that from the early Republican times of Ancient Rome it was considered natural and unremarkable for adult males to be sexually attracted to and to pursue teen-aged youths of both sexes. Pederasty (a homogenital relationship between a man and a pubescent boy outside his immediate family) was regarded as normal and condoned... Though same-sex relations between women are not as well documented, the Romans generally had far more flexible gender categories than our contemporary society.

If anything, Chalke underplays it. The Romans also allowed same-sex adult sexual encounters, as long as it was a high-status man initiating. But most of the New Testament was written in and to culturally Greek areas, which were even more permissive - see here for example. And into that society, the New Testament and the early church advocated that sex belongs inside heterosexual lifelong marriage, and not outside. There is no hint of other relationships being potentially equivalent to marriage. There is no question of homosexual relationships being equal to heterosexual marriage, even though that would have been more accepted in the society of the day than at any time since.

The huge problem with the trajectory argument for allowing same-sex marriage is that the trajectory is in exactly the wrong direction.

Steve Chalke and Homosexuality

It is being widely reported that Steve Chalke has "come out" in favour of gay marriage. Here's his paper on it, and here are some more resources on it. Peter Ould, whose thinking I generally find very helpful on issues around homosexuality has started a reply here, which show that Chalke's work on the Bible passages is somewhat lacking.

I agree that at times the church has been guilty of hatred of people who experience same-sex attraction, and that we need to repent of that. However, I don't think we should change the Biblical understanding of marriage in order to do that - that would seem to be something of an extreme over-reaction.

I'd want to add three more questions for Steve Chalke:

1. Why do you put people into boxes marked "homosexual" or "heterosexual"? Isn't that part of the problem?

2. Is there any evidence in the Bible either that sex outside marriage should be permitted or that marriage should not always be between a man and a woman?

3. Do unhappily single people have the gift of celibacy?

Vaughan Roberts - "A Battle I Face"

Vaughan Roberts has done a superb interview with Julian Hardyman, in which he (Vaughan) speaks honestly about his struggle with same-sex attraction.

It's a really good read - I've got a huge amount of respect for Vaughan anyway, and that just went up another notch or two. Someone needed to say what he has said, and I'm glad it was him.

Same-Sex Marriage

Here's my response to the government consultation on same-sex marriage:

The essence of marriage is that it is two different people committing themselves to be together for life. The experience of having to live with, and committing yourself to love, someone who is fundamentally different from yourself, is one of the key drivers for personal growth. It is within the context of two people committed to love the other "for better for worse" that children are best raised, because the couple have learned to accept each other. That is the best societal basis for tolerance.

The most fundamental distinction between people is gender, as recognised on passports and just about everywhere else. Marriage unites two people of opposite gender, who are thus very different and so as they learn to accept each other, so they learn to accept people who are fundamentally different from themselves. The same is not true of "same-sex marriage". It would be a union of two people who are the same at the fundamental level of gender (and of orientation). It therefore is a very different thing from marriage, and hence a different word should be used. It does not provide the same basis for transformation, or for growth in tolerance and acceptance of the other.

"Healing" Homosexuality?

There is quite a bit of controversy at the moment about the possibility of therapy that is said might lead to gay people becoming straight. Albert Mohler, for example, has written an article about it which misses the point.

People argue about whether it is ok to condemn homosexuality. But that is surely neither here nor there in the argument! Consider this:

• It is acceptable to be either male or female.
• However, there are some people who are biologically male who wish to be female, or vice versa.
• In modern culture, that too is acceptable.
• We as a culture do not have a problem with men who wish to become women undergoing therapy to help them make that change.
• Biological gender is clearly "hardwired" in a deeper sense than sexual "orientation".
• Hence if we allow someone who wishes to change their biological gender to undergo therapy to do so, then we should also allow someone who wishes to change their sexual orientation to undergo therapy to do so (whether straight -> gay or gay -> straight)
• Therefore, even in an areligious secular liberal state, we should allow therapy for people to change their sexual orientation.

Note that this argument does not assume that homosexuality is right, wrong, neutral or disordered. It does not assume anything about the authority of Scripture. It is therefore much more likely to be accepted as an argument by people who don't agree with those points. I don't understand why it isn't used more.

History of Homosexual Theology

Concerning homosexuality there has been absolute unanimity in church history; sexual intimacy between persons of the same gender has never been recognized as legitimate behavior for a Christian. One finds no examples of orthodox teachers who suggested that homosexual activity could be acceptable in God's sight under any circumstances. Revisionist biblical interpretations that purport to support homosexual practice are typically rooted in novel hermeneutical principles applied to Scripture, which produce bizarre interpretations of the Bible held nowhere, never, by no one.

from here.

David Starkey on why the new intolerance of Christians is bad...

Gay historian David Starkey warns about a state imposed liberal morality.

My comment - I think that to an extent we brought this on ourselves by focusing on law when we should have focused on grace.

Hat tip to Cranmer.

Incest and Homosexuality

In an interesting article, Albert Mohler argues that the normal justifications for homosexual relationships apply equally to incest. (Of course, being Albert Mohler, he also shows that the commonly used societal arguments against incest apply equally to homosexuality...)

Atheists Saying Sensible Things

Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, said: “There are no Christians, as far as I know, blowing up buildings. I am not aware of any Christian suicide bombers. I am not aware of any major Christian denomination that believes the penalty for apostasy is death. I have mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity, in so far as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse.”

Peter Tatchell, the human rights campaigner and one of the organisers of the Protest the Pope demonstration at Westminster Cathedral last weekend, came to the defence of a Christian street preacher who was fined £1,000 in Glasgow for saying that homosexuality was a sin.

Shawn Holes, a Baptist from America, was charged with “uttering homophobic remarks” in a breach of the peace that prosecutors said was “aggravated by religious prejudice”.

Mr Tatchell said: “The price of freedom of speech is that we sometimes have to put up with opinions that are objectionable and offensive. Just as people should have the right to criticise religion, people of faith should have the right to criticise homosexuality.”

All from here (HT: Anglican Mainstream - though don't bother reading it, as the rest of the article is rubbish).

Of course, I don't really think that Christianity is in decline in Britain. As far as I can remember, I have been part of a church that was shrinking only for a period of about 15 months, which was while the church I was a member of was between vicars.

What we are seeing is a decline (especially in cities) of the older culture which was massively more nominally Christian than the newer cultures are. We're seeing decline in churches that don't know how to do evangelism or be culturally relevant or that have lost confidence in the power of the gospel. We may well be seeing the death of the massive nominal fringe that churches have had for so long, and we're certainly seeing a decline in the influence of Christianity on mainstream culture. But I don't think any of that implies we're seeing a decline in Christianity per se.

Having said that, it's great to see Dawkins and Tatchell making so much sense.

Being True to Yourself

There's something I've noticed where the Church is blindly following society, and getting into all kinds of trouble as a result.

In general, it's more of a problem the more the church understands and identifies with contemporary society. So I'd guess that a clear majority of charismatic evangelical leaders I know believe this in some form, with fewer conservative evangelicals going along with it (but then, I think charismatics are usually better at relating to postmodern society - conservatives are often still relating to modern society, which explains why in university towns people doing artsy subjects tend to be a lot more charismatic than people doing sciencey subjects).

Liberals seem to believe this far more than traditionalists. And I've hardly come across it at all among conservative Anglo-Catholics, but they often seem to relate to modern society by having rituals which contrast dramatically with it.

The belief that I think the Church has absorbed from culture is this:

It is very important to have "personal integrity" - to be true to yourself and to act in a way that fits with who you are.

I want to think about this area briefly. I think it's very important. For example, I think it is one of the key issues underlying the whole gay debate, and unless it is dealt with, could well lead to a big split among evangelicals.

Personal Integrity

Firstly, I'm pretty sure that's not what "personal integrity" means. Personal integrity means keeping your word, even when it hurts (Ps 15:4) and sticking by moral principles rather than by some sense of who I am.

God's Integrity

The closest passage I can think of in the Bible to this common view is 2 Timothy 2:13 - "if we are faithless, God will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself." But things are different for God, because he's perfect. Compare the following two sentences: "I should not disown God." and "I should not disown myself." Which is more important? Isn't it obvious that the key issue is not disowning God rather than no disowning myself? Why? Because to disown God means acting in a way that doesn't fit with his perfect character. God cannot disown himself, so we should not disown him.

The crunch issue here is the Incarnation and the cross.

Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death —
even death on a cross!

Philippians 2:4-8, NIV

Was Christ true to himself? In the sense of being true to his Father and to his Father's moral character, yes he was. But in today's sense of being true to who he himself was, he most certainly wasn't true to that. He was something and made himself nothing. When the moral and ethical imperatives of being true to God clashed with the ontological imperatives of being "true to himself", Jesus Christ became nothing, and he did it for us.

The Way of the Cross

And actually, that's meant to be a big part of the pattern for our lives.

Then Jesus called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.
Mark 8:34-35, NIV

Are we meant to be true to ourselves? No. We're meant to deny ourselves, be true to Jesus and to his Father, and follow in the glorious way of the Cross and Resurrection into new life in him.

The Way of the Cross in Mission

We are called to be Christ in our societies - Christ crucified to our old lives and raised in our new ones. And part of what that means is extreme adaptability in missions, because Christ became human and made himself nothing for us.

Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.
1 Corinthians 9:19-22

Those words grate with contemporary assumptions about being true to yourself. We have got so good at becoming like modern society to win modern society, that we have absorbed far too many of the unhealthy aspects of it. Some of us have often ceased to be merely in the world - too often we are of it as well. And others are not sufficiently in it because we spent so long in a past world that we got wedded to that instead.

Paul was willing to place the issue of who he was up for grabs, because it was far more important that he reach people for Christ than that he be "true to who he was". Paul was true to Jesus - willing to deny himself. Are we?

Brazil 8 - Some Things I Like

I've been asked to say some things I like about Brazil. Here goes...

Fruit

There is lots of fruit, and it's readily available. Quarter of a watermelon, for example, costs about 20p. The bananas taste very different to in the UK (much better here) and don't bruise anywhere near as easily. And there's a good few fruits which don't seem to have an equivalent in England.

There's one called Acerola (or something like that), for example, which has wonderful juice when sweetened. Caju is great as well - both the juice and as an additive to chocolate...

Hospitality

By and large, the hospitality I have received has been excellent. My host, for example, has really gone out of his way to help me feel as much at home as is possble.

Male Apathy

Men here aren't afraid to appear excited or show affection (in the UK, this seems to be restricted to sports, of which more later). A handshake on greeting and bidding farewell to someone is considered the minimum, even a little cold.

Random tangent - in the UK the reason this doesn't happen is, I think, often down to a kind of teenage homophobia - people don't want to be thought of as gay. There might be various reasons underlying that; personally I suspect it's a twisting of the conscience into something nastier. That exists here too, of course - it was amazing seeing how reluctant teenage lads were to sit on each other's knees during a silly game we played at English camp (far more so than they would have been in the UK) - but it takes a diffeent form.

So Brazil just doesn't seem to be anywhere near as afflicted by the culture of male apathy for everything except sex and sport as the UK is.

Relationality

Linked to this is the fact that Brazillians seem to be much more innately relational than British men. I hardly ever see people saying they are too busy to talk. Far more normal to just stop for 30 mins or so and chat to people. I rather imagine this is linked to the Brazillian concept of time...

Weather

Of course. I think the temperature has occasionally dropped below 20C here, but it is the middle of winter. The rain also reminds me far more of Manchester than Oxford, except that it's much quicker to dry off here...

Getting on with it

Brazillians really don't seem to stop and get annoyed about how inadequate whatever facilities are or anything. Or maybe they just don't show it. What they do seem to do is try to get on with life, whatever the conditions.

"Gay" as an Insult

There's a piece on the phenomenon here, though I'm not sure why it classes as news because everyone even vaguely aware of young people has known it for a long time. I was quite surprised that when I was a teacher, I was one of the few who objected to its use. As far as I can tell, it's a word used to describe an aspect of some people which they can't control and hence is inappropriate for use as an insult.

I'm sure I read someone arguing that it was appropriate because children's words and attitudes showed that homosexuality was intrinsically evil. Odd that we don't seem to see that sort of attitude in ancient Greece then, which suggests the commenter may have to come to grips with their own homophobia.

Here's my comment which I tried posting on the above page. I don't expect it to get included, because it isn't especially politically correct.

"Blowing trivial matters out of proportion" is not a good way of teaching. Much better to deal with the problem by always taking the word in its sexual sense and gently mocking the child who uses it in ways that don't then make sense.

But on the other hand, the concept of sexual orientation is itself an unhelpful one and does not go "to the core of someone's identity". There are people, and there are sexual desires. And most people experience most sorts of sexual desire at some stage. My identity is not defined by whether I prefer Indian or Chinese food on a given day.

Sexual Orientation is Bunk

I hinted at this in the comments on my previous post, and also here. The concept of sexual orientation, as it is usually presented in the British media, is rubbish, and not only so, but unhelpful rubbish. Let me explain:

A good place to start would be the Kinsey Scale. Kinsey's report in 1948 is an important cultural turning point, especially in legitimising homosexual behaviour. But this is what Kinsey actually wrote.

Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories... The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects.

While emphasising the continuity of the gradations between exclusively heterosexual and exclusively homosexual histories, it has seemed desirable to develop some sort of classification which could be based on the relative amounts of heterosexual and homosexual experience or response in each history... An individual may be assigned a position on this scale, for each period in his life.... A seven-point scale comes nearer to showing the many gradations that actually exist."
(Kinsey, et al. (1948). pp. 639, 656)

Quote from Wikipedia, not coz it's reliable but coz it's easier.

In other words, Kinsey thought that people are not split into homosexuals, bisexuals and heterosexuals, but that there is a continuous scale (if it's continuous, 7 points isn't really enough - you'd need to allow decimal points or just give it as a percentage, as Arthur C Clarke in The Songs of Distant Earth), and people's position on that scale can and does change over time and in response to events. For example, one potential (anecdotal but plausible) response to sexual abuse is to seek sexual fulfilment in different environments. So if a woman is sexually abused by a man, that may in some cases lead to increased sexual preference for women.

In fact, the scale is multidimensional as well. Some men prefer curvier women, some prefer skinnier women, and that preference can change over time (personally, I find that a lot of my preferences change depending on who I meet). Some women prefer butch guys; some women prefer more "effeminate" guys, and that preference can change over time too. Some people have random or not-so-random fetishes, and so on.

My guess is that there are as many sexual "orientations" as there are people, and that for most of us, our sexual "orientation" is constantly changing.

So then, if sexual "orientation" is actually individual, multidimensional and changing, it seems somewhat silly to split it into straight, gay or bisexual. It strikes me as much more like food preferences (except of course with the additional strong bonding element in long-term stable relationships which doesn't really happen with food). It also means that it is silly to label someone's identity by their sexual preferences at any one time. I like Chinese food, but that is not my identity. I also like Indian food, but that isn't my identity either. And food is really important to me, but it doesn't define my identity. If someone did define their identity by their food preferences, you'd worry about them. And I think it's the same with sex.

People should no more define their identity by their sexual preferences than by their food preferences.

Of course, this has a huge effect on how to present the traditional Christian understanding of sex. The usual way that I hear it presented, people draw a distinction between orientation and practice, but that leads to the response that we are calling homosexual people to a level of sacrifice we are not calling heterosexual people to. Not true. There are no homosexual people, and there are no heterosexual people. There are just people. (Maybe I just overargued that bit, but it sounded good.)

It also leads to an implicit devaluing of homosexual people by the church, and it really doesn't help the institutionalised homophobia in the church die out.

Much better, surely, to say that there are just people, and we all have different sexual preferences, and that some sexual actions (like loving sex inside male/female lifelong marriage) are good and that some sexual actions (like sex outside marriage) are bad, but that we don't expect nonChristians to obey Christian standards.

It's like banning spinach or the use of MSG in food for some as-yet-unknown health reasons. Now I like spinach and I think that MSG does often make food taste better, and I'd be upset if they were banned, but you'd be hard pushed to argue that a ban on MSG for health reasons discriminated against particular groups in society, even though Chinese cooking does use more of it than, say, Italian cooking.

Philadelphia

This film came out when I was 15. It doesn't seem like half a lifetime ago, but I guess it was. I bought it ridiculously cheap on DVD at the supermarket...

Basic plot for those who haven't seen it - a gay lawyer with AIDS (Tom Hanks) gets sacked by his law firm and sues them for discrimination. It won Oscars for best actor and best song - the soundtrack is awesome, if only for the combination of Bruce Springsteen and Callas singing Puccini in the most powerful scene in the film. Great film.

It's amazing how dated the film seems though. There's widespread acceptance of anti-gay prejudice in a way that just seems incredibly out of place now. The way I remember it, the film was important in changing my views on homosexual discrimination - I guess that was part of the point.

And it made me think - were Christians really so stupid that we weren't fighting for the rights of gay people to be treated the same as everyone else? I know Christians were at the forefront of helping AIDS sufferers (though that's been forgotten now), but were we fighting for justice for gay people, or were we opposing it? If we weren't fighting for justice, why not? And if we were, why is it that our reputation is so consistently messed up on it?

I'm not talking about a discussion of whether homosexual practice should be legal - I think there's approximately zero chance of changing people's minds on that and it's not an argument worth having. For my part, I think it's a sin in much the same way that envy or gossip or sex outside marriage is, and we're all sinners, and that means we have absolutely no excuse to treat other people worse because they are sinners too. And I don't think that people who are persistent and unrepentant gossips should be church leaders either.

So why weren't we fighting for justice then? And why do we tolerate homophobia in the evangelical church now? (it's most definitely there...) And what are we messing up today in the same way we messed up our attitude to gay people then?

Loving Homosexuals

There's an interesting article here. Most of it is fairly standard conservative evangelical stuff - going through the usual passages for homosexuality, without looking at it from the point of view of the theology of marriage, and missing the detailed reasons given for the destruction of Sodom, which don't explicitly mention homosexuality anyway.

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.
Ezekiel 16:49-50, NIV

But what's remarkable is the ending, which it's great to see from a conservative evangelical.

The first is that Christians should be in the forefront of those who protest when homosexuals are treated unjustly. That is because love and injustice are incompatible. Whenever homosexual people are the object of snide humour on the television screen or harsh penalties in the law-courts, genuinely loving Christian people ought to be the first to stand up in their support. Any minority group which suffers discrimination should have full Christian backing in a struggle for their legal and moral rights.

My second suggestion is also a requirement, if biblical standards are to be kept. Those who accept the Bible’s veto on homosexual behaviour must go out of their way to express genuine love for homosexual people.

At least two important distinctions underlie this essential Christian requirement. In the first place, temptation is not the same as sin. Even if homosexual acts are wrong in God’s eyes, it is not sinful to be tempted to make love to someone of your own sex – unless, of course, you go on to perform the act mentally (see Matthew 5:27-28 where Jesus has heterosexuals in his sights). Heterosexual Christians who ostracise their homosexual neighbours simply because of the pattern of temptations they experience are very confused and very wrong.

It's just great seeing conservative evangelicals being clear about that... The media stereotype, which is true too often in my experience, is that we are sometimes genuinely homophobic rather than being clear that it's a sin just like sex before marriage and that we're all sinners in need of grace.

Homosexuality

Hmmm.... No time to write much on this, though there is a huge amount to say, but was talking about it again last night, in the context of discussing homophobia and stuff and so thought it would be a good idea to record some controversial thoughts on it.

• No-one goes to hell for being gay.

• Homophobia (especially a fear of being thought to be gay) is deeply ingrained in large parts of British culture and in large parts of the church
• To treat homosexual sex outside marriage differently from hetereosexual sex outside marriage seems to be an example of homophobia.

• Sexual "orientation" is both continuous and fluid, though to varying degrees in different people.
• To define one's identity by sexual orientation (whether straight, gay, bisexual, 3 on the Kinsey scale, whatever) is unhelpful and flawed. We do not link our preference for sweet or sour foods to our identity - why should we link our preference for sex with men or sex with women?
• In light of the previous two aphorisms, the concept of orientation itself is in some ways deeply flawed and certainly unhelpful in debate.

• The Biblical doctrine of sex is intrinsically linked to the Biblical doctrine of marriage. To understand what the Bible teaches on the issue in the light of the new covenant, we need to approach the issue through the doctrine of marriage rather than by arguing over which OT laws do or don't apply
• A clear distinction needs to be drawn between temptation and sin. Temptation is fine. Jesus was tempted, quite possibly in homosexual ways (e.g. Hebrews 4:15). Sin is not fine.
• The primary Biblical mandate for how Christians are to act is to love rather than to judge.
• I see no reason why non-Christians should accept arguments based on "the Bible says..."

• In the light of that, it seems to me that Biblically, marriage is meant to be heterosexual and lifelong, and that sex belongs inside marriage and not elsewhere.
• If there are three men talking, then one of them goes away and has sexual fantasies about a woman, another goes away and has sex with a man, and the third goes away and is proud that he has controlled his sex life, Jesus would be most likely to condemn the third one. And the first and second are pretty much morally equivalent if we take Matthew 5:27 seriously.

To Understand is to Forgive?

One thing I mention quite a bit, largely to remind myself, is the importance of listening to other people and trying to understand where they are coming from before condemning them.

Alexander Chase said that to understand is to forgive. I think there's a lot of truth in there, but I don't think it's quite true. To understand someone else is usually to see that they're no worse than us, which can often lead to forgiveness because our standards are so low - they have to be, if we accept ourselves.

In a sense, to understand is to condemn, because our motives are so rarely pure. So God understands everything, and sees that we so often set ourselves up against him and so often fail to trust him, and rightly condemns us for that. It is then astounding that even though God both understands us and has perfect standards that he still offers to accept us by giving himself for us.

For us, to understand is to cease to be judgemental and to condemn without understanding is to run the risk of being judgemental.

The apostle Paul wrote this:

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment?
Romans 2:1-3, NIV

It is striking to me that the verses immediately before that are often used to condemn people, specifically over homosexual behaviour. But to do that is only to condemn ourselves.

I am not saying there is no place for moral standards - I am saying that the only place we should proclaim them from is the explicit recognition that they condemn us too, but that there is real forgiveness to be found in Christ.

Here is a story from the Bible that illustrates the importance of listening to other people before condemning them. I believe it is particularly relevant for those who would condemn other Christians because of their musical styles, use of liturgy (or lack of it), use of images in worship, etc, etc. The context is that Israel have just settled in the Promised Land, with lots of laws about how they could only do sacrifices to God at the Tabernacle.

So the men of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh left the rest of Israel at Shiloh in the land of Canaan. They started the journey back to their own land of Gilead, the territory that belonged to them according to the Lord’s command through Moses.

But while they were still in Canaan, and when they came to a place called Geliloth[a] near the Jordan River, the men of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh stopped to build a large and imposing altar.

The rest of Israel heard that the people of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh had built an altar at Geliloth at the edge of the land of Canaan, on the west side of the Jordan River. So the whole community of Israel gathered at Shiloh and prepared to go to war against them. First, however, they sent a delegation led by Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, to talk with the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. In this delegation were ten leaders of Israel, one from each of the ten tribes, and each the head of his family within the clans of Israel.

When they arrived in the land of Gilead, they said to the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, “The whole community of the Lord demands to know why you are betraying the God of Israel. How could you turn away from the Lord and build an altar for yourselves in rebellion against him? ... today you are turning away from following the Lord. If you rebel against the Lord today, he will be angry with all of us tomorrow.

“If you need the altar because the land you possess is defiled, then join us in the Lord’s land, where the Tabernacle of the Lord is situated, and share our land with us. But do not rebel against the Lord or against us by building an altar other than the one true altar of the Lord our God. ...

Then the people of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh answered the heads of the clans of Israel: “The Lord, the Mighty One, is God! The Lord, the Mighty One, is God! He knows the truth, and may Israel know it, too! We have not built the altar in treacherous rebellion against the Lord. If we have done so, do not spare our lives this day. If we have built an altar for ourselves to turn away from the Lord or to offer burnt offerings or grain offerings or peace offerings, may the Lord himself punish us.

“The truth is, we have built this altar because we fear that in the future your descendants will say to ours, ‘What right do you have to worship the Lord, the God of Israel? The Lord has placed the Jordan River as a barrier between our people and you people of Reuben and Gad. You have no claim to the Lord.’ So your descendants may prevent our descendants from worshiping the Lord.

“So we decided to build the altar, not for burnt offerings or sacrifices, but as a memorial. It will remind our descendants and your descendants that we, too, have the right to worship the Lord at his sanctuary with our burnt offerings, sacrifices, and peace offerings. Then your descendants will not be able to say to ours, ‘You have no claim to the Lord.’

“If they say this, our descendants can reply, ‘Look at this copy of the Lord’s altar that our ancestors made. It is not for burnt offerings or sacrifices; it is a reminder of the relationship both of us have with the Lord.’ Far be it from us to rebel against the Lord or turn away from him by building our own altar for burnt offerings, grain offerings, or sacrifices. Only the altar of the Lord our God that stands in front of the Tabernacle may be used for that purpose.”

When Phinehas the priest and the leaders of the community—the heads of the clans of Israel—heard this from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, they were satisfied. Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, replied to them, “Today we know the Lord is among us because you have not committed this treachery against the Lord as we thought. Instead, you have rescued Israel from being destroyed by the hand of the Lord.”

Then Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, and the other leaders left the tribes of Reuben and Gad in Gilead and returned to the land of Canaan to tell the Israelites what had happened. And all the Israelites were satisfied and praised God and spoke no more of war against Reuben and Gad.

The people of Reuben and Gad named the altar “Witness,” for they said, “It is a witness between us and them that the Lord is our God, too.”

Joshua 22:9-34, NLT

Oh, and thanks to Liam, whose post got me thinking once again about this.

Free Speech

What a world we live in! Today, I came across some interesting news about events in the UK from the blog of an American Baptist minister. He seems to trust the Daily Mail, which I'm aware is sometimes regarded as somewhere between the Sport and the Star in terms of journalistic standards, so I checked, and the same story (albeit much shorter) made it onto the BBC News website. Here's Melanie Phillips' editorial in the Daily Mail, which makes interesting reading.

To summarise quickly - a Christian campaigner (same guy as protested against Jerry Springer - the Opera, thereby getting it huge publicity) got arrested for the heinous crime of handing out leaflets at a gay rally in Cardiff. The leaflets consisted mostly of verses from the King James Bible about why homosexuality was wrong.

A few things spring to mind.

First, I think what he was doing is totally the wrong way to go about the issue of homosexuality, and the British version of the "culture war". Why should we expect non-Christians to obey Christian standards of behaviour? And why should we expect them to do so when we use language that is 400 years out of date? Would that he had been handing out leaflets explaining clearly to the people there how true fulfilment and liberation can be found only in Christ!

Secondly, it is worrying for the state of the nation as a whole that he was arrested. It's a slight but significant escalation from when the police interviewed the Bishop of Chester after he said that homosexual sex was wrong. Lets think of an analagous situation - lets imagine a big Christian outdoor event in a public place. Lets imagine some gay campaigners or muslims peacefully handing out leaflets saying that Jesus isn't God, we're all hateful and we're all going to Hell. That's fine. I disagree with them, but I'd defend their right to do it. This country has a long and good tradition of free speech.

These events suggest we're moving away from that. Will Christianity become illegal in Britain in my lifetime? Probably not, but I don't think that will stop some within the police from treating it as if it is.