A Theory of Everything, a song

I never knew that gravity could make you feel so light
I never knew that light could press you down with such a weight
I always thought each action had its equal opposite
I always thought each heartbeat was without its duplicate

When space and time collapse
And reference points collide
And everything is relative to you
When all my reason’s gone
And logic’s crucified
I find the source of everything that’s true

I always thought that two lines parallel can’t intersect
And rainbows shine only when there’s white light to reflect
And I was taught that equal poles would always push apart
And every circle brought you in the end back to the start

When space and time collapse
And reference points collide
And everything is relative to you
When all my reason’s gone
And logic’s crucified
I find the source of everything that’s true

Before we met I thought I knew
What my whole world was orbiting
Or anything could be so constant
As the speed of light. Before we met
I never guessed
The universe might be unravelling
But now we have and now I find
I’m having to rewrite my theory of everything

Before we met I thought I knew
What my whole world was orbiting
Or anything could be so constant
As the speed of light. Before we met
I never guessed
The universe might be unravelling
But now we have and now I find
I’m having to rewrite my theory of everything,
Everything, everything
You are my theory, my theory of everything

What's So Amazing About Advent? An Advent Wreath Liturgy (Week 3)

Last week we lit this candle as a challenge
for us to be a people who accept the Father’s will for us.

[light second candle]

And before that we lit this candle,
to remind us to be amazed
at the announcements of the advent season.

[light first candle]

But there’s still more to be amazed at in advent.

What else is amazing about advent?

Asks the curious in the crowd.
What about the amazing anticipation that happens this season?

Christmas, of course,
Is one of those few seasons where the waiting
Is perhaps more fun than the arrival.
Where the hustle and the bustle of preparing for the celebration
Rivals, almost, the dawning of the big day itself.

In this it takes its cue from the Christian story.

After all, hadn’t the people of Israel waited millennia
In eager anticipation of their Messiah?
Enthroning their kings and hearing from prophets
Building their temples and watching the signs
For the dawning of Emmanuel?

Amazing anticipation!

And in the days of John the Baptist
Didn’t they head on down to the Jordan River,
To wash away sin and clean up their act
To make straight the paths and get level places ready
In anticipation of his arrival?

Amazing.

And Mary and Joseph,
Knowing that it was none other than
The Son of God, the Maker of Everything
The savior of the world Himself
Kicking in her womb,
Still didn’t they have to wait the normal nine months
Filled with anticipation for the ordinary birth of their
Heaven-Sent Baby Boy?

Absolutely amazing!

Anticipation—the eager act of getting ready,
while we wait for a good thing to arrive—
this is a lost art in our instant-gratification world.

But it is also a serious Christian discipline.

Because whatever else it is,
The Christian life is always lived
In eager anticipation of God’s New Thing
The New Heavens and the New Earth
That he promises to give us when
that same Heavenly Baby Boy
Comes again a second time,
The Heaven-Sent Lord of All.

[light third candle]

And so, in the meantime, we light this,
the third candle of advent
To remind us to stay busy
And to stay amazed
As we anticipate that day.

Truth Be Told, a song

Everyone has dreaming that they
Think they have to hide
A little bit of longing
Tucked away somewhere inside
And I don’t wanna make assumptions,
I don’t wanna pry
But if you never spread your wings,
You’re never gonna fly

If the truth be told
And the world could see
All the secrets you hold
All your mysteries
They would set you free
If the truth be told
If I could be so bold
To tell you honestly
You’re a sight to behold
You can show it to me
It will set you free
If the truth be told

Everyone has disappointments
Swept under the rug
The whole thing would unravel
If you gave a thread a tug
And I can’t make you promises
Or give you guarantees
But if you don’t let the light in
You won’t ever get to see

If the truth be told
And the world could see
All the secrets you hold
All your mysteries
They would set you free
If the truth be told
If I could be so bold
To tell you honestly
You’re a sight to behold
You can show it to me
It will set you free
If the truth be told

Everyone has bruises too sacred
For the light of day
The scarring left behind
When your innocence was stripped away
And I can’t give you easy answers,
If you need to know the whys
But one day it will all make sense
When you look him in the eye

If the truth be told
And the world could see
All the secrets you hold
All your mysteries
They would set you free
If the truth be told
If I could be so bold
To tell you honestly
You’re a sight to behold
You can show it to me
It will set you free
If the truth be told

It All Depends: Toward an Integrative Perspective on Same-Sex Sexuality (X)

One of my favorite places in the Old Testament is Proverbs 26:4-5.

It’s right in the middle of a long list of proverbs helping us to envision what Wisdom looks like and how to walk in it, and it starts with this stark warning: “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.” Fair enough: I’ve found myself in that trap often enough, of making myself a fool by trying to respond to someone else’s folly on their terms. So I can see the wisdom there.

But the very next verse (and in the Hebrew, it uses the same words in the same form and order, so there’ll be no missing it), it offers us the exact opposite advice, as an equally wise word to live by: “Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will become wise in his own eyes.” Again, I can see the wisdom in that: sometimes you have to meet someone where they’re at, if you want to help them see the error of their ways.

So, both statements are words to the wise, but it does raise the question: which is it, Book of Proverbs? Should we answer a fool according to his folly, or should we not answer a fool according to his folly?

And with all the serenity of a quiet sea after a storm, Wisdom gives us a long slow look (I imagine her, too, with a twinkle in her eyes), and she says: well, it depends.

Who’s the fool? And what’s the nature of their folly?

Because there is something profoundly contextual about wisdom. It has absolute truths undergirding it, to be sure—the fear of the Lord is where it starts, according to Proverbs, and knowledge of the Holy One is itself understanding—but how that plays out in the real world of our lived experience, all depends on a thousand and one subjective realities that make the particular context in which we are trying to live wisely.

I have been thinking about Proverbs 26:4-5 a lot as I have worked on this series laying out the case for an integrative approach to same-sex sexuality and LGBTQ+ inclusion in the church. Not—let me be very clear—because I think of anyone as fools, regardless how this issue touches them or what side of it they are standing on. It’s just because in Proverbs 26:4-5, I hear the Bible saying something generally about wisdom that I often say, when people ask me how I see an “integrative approach” playing out in church life or discipleship.

It all depends.

One of the things I have learned as I have studied this issue, and especially as I have gotten to know LGBTQ+ people and their loved ones, is that there is no “one-size-fits-all” description of what it means to be LGBTQ+, what it looks like to carry that identity, or how it might impact your lived experience.

Some LGBTQ+ people are Christians who grew up in the church and are terrified of coming out because of the implications of what it might mean for them. Other LGBTQ+ people have next to no experience of the Christian church, and are somewhat baffled but mostly hurt by what they hear being said about them in many Christian circles. Other LGBTQ+ people are suffering profoundly from gender dysphoria, or suicidality, or just plain old loneliness and despair.

How do we respond to all these very different experiences, except to say that it depends on which experience we are responding to?

When I speak to Christians who are firmly settled in a non-affirming view, I often hear phrases like: “But the Bible says ‘it’ is a sin,” or “I just don’t agree with ‘the lifestyle.’” Such statements often leave me wondering: which of the many different experiences I described above (or the million-and-one other different experiences I might have described) do you mean when you say “it” is a sin? Which of those many different “styles of life” do you mean when you speak about “a lifestyle” with which you disagree?

Before we can say anything concrete about how to be integrative in the way I’ve been proposing in this series, we need to grapple profoundly with the highly contextual nature of what it means to be LGBTQ+, how each story is unique, and situated, and because of that, worth all the effort it may take to really understand it.

When we’ve done that kind of grappling, we will find, I think, that there is simply not a one-size-fits-all response, or position, or statement we can make about what the Bible says about “homosexuality” and how Christians ought to apply it in their lives and relationships. Each particular story will require a uniquely appropriate response, and integrating the teaching of the Scripture with the lived experience of LGBTQ+ people will always be highly contextual, profoundly personal, deeply individual.

That said, there are some practical things, by way of a consistent approach to these issues, that this series has suggested we can do. Before describing them, however, it might be helpful briefly to summarize how we got here. In this series, I have argued that, while the Bible does not give us explicit warrant to fully affirm same-sex marriage or same-sex sexual activity, and while the overarching orientation of the Bible when it comes to sex is exclusively towards heterosexual covenant unions, it is possible still to embrace LGBTQ+ people, to include them fully in the life of the community, and to respect and bless their relationships, and this without compromising our interpretation of the Bible or our commitment to its authority.

In brief: the Bible does not present same-sex sexuality as something that fulfills the creator’s intention for sex when he created human beings; however, the lived realities of the LGBTQ+ experience, and especially the pain, vulnerability, and distress LGBTQ+ people experience when they are unable to integrate their sexual identity with their sense of self, is such that compassionately embracing them, fully including them in community, and honoring their relationships does not, in and of itself, violate the Creator’s intention for us either.

Because this seems like an irreconcilable contradiction (the Bible never says it’s ok, but even so, it’s ok to make it ok for LGBTQ+ people), I have offered a few case studies of other ethical issues where we do just that: make something ok that the Bible never says is ok, or, indeed, clearly says is not ok. Divorce and remarriage, going to war, and using contraception are the ones I chose to look at. To these, if we had time, we might explore others: accumulating wealth, charging interest on loans, or (depending on your hermeneutics) freeing women to serve without restriction in the life of the church.

I have used the term “integrative” to describe our approach to these issues, because as far as I can tell, that is what we are doing: integrating the teaching of the Bible with our lived experience in the Creator’s world, a world that does not always fit neatly or simply into the straightforward categories of Scripture.

I have not tried to provide a comprehensive methodology for determining when an issue can be handled “integratively” like this, but taken together, these case studies suggest some common elements that may make such an approach justified.

1. If we are convinced that it would actually cause greater harm to adhere to the letter of the Law than it would to go against it (such as when Christians believe that remaining pacifist would cause greater harm than going to war);

2. If there are social developments or circumstances in our world that the Bible could not have spoken to and the original hearers could not have envisioned in the ancient world, which make a literal application of the Bible’s teaching untenable or uncompassionate (such as in the case of the Protestant embrace of contraception);

3. If we find ourselves in a situation where, in order to adhere to one biblical directive, we need to violate another (such as we see in the story of Ruth and Boaz);

4. If the issue in question is not a matter of Creed, to be resolved theologically, but is, rather, a question of Christian ethics, to be worked out ethically;

5. If there is reason to believe that when the Bible speaks about a particular issue, it may have something substantially different in view than how that issue occurs or is encountered in the modern world (people often make appeals like this when trying to make sense of the Bible’s “position” on slavery, arguing that slavery in the ancient world was a very different thing…).

I will leave it up to you to decide whether or not the question of LGBTQ+ inclusion meets any of these criteria, and, if so, to what extent. For my part, I am convinced that it meets all five, and I have sought an approach that welcomes, includes, embraces and honors, without denying what I understand the witness of Scripture to be.

I am tempted to say “It depends” when an impatient reader then asks me, “Ok, but what does that look like in real life?” Because in the end, it really does depend. For those of you who have stuck with me throughout this long and winding series, however, let me offer a few humble suggestions, here at the end, to help us imagine how we might actually begin to be integrative.

An integrative approach, I think, would leave LGBTQ+ people free to participate in the life of the community according to their gifting and calling, and would not make this conditional on their agreement not to seek or enter into a same-sex marriage relationship.

An integrative approach would continue to uphold the witness of the Scripture, that the Bible does not present same-sex sex as something that fulfills the creator’s intention, but it would leave the decision about whether to live singly or to pursue a same-sex covenant union up to the individual believer, per Romans 14, acknowledging that each person will give their own account to their own Master, and no Christian ought to “judge someone else’s servant,” as Paul so aptly puts it.

An integrative approach would provide spiritual support to LGBTQ+ Christians who, as a matter of faith, choose to walk a path of singleness and celibacy; and it would provide equal support to LGBTQ+ Christians who, as a matter of faith enter into a same-sex union.

A person (or church) with an integrative approach might refrain from performing same-sex marriages, as a position of conscience, though they would still honor such unions, respect them, and even bless them, as a gesture of solidarity (along the lines, perhaps, of how Pope Francis recently allowed priests to bless same-sex unions).

There are probably more points we could make, in terms of the boundaries and outer limits of what an integrative approach entails, but the more prescriptive we become, the less and less integrative we will be. Because at its heart, the integrative approach is profoundly contextual, eschewing cut-and-dry, one-size-fits-all approaches, and choosing instead to say (perhaps along with the author of Proverbs 26), a gracious, patient, compassionate, “It depends.”

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Be Here Now, a song

I never saw you standing there
Cause though my flesh and blood was here
My heart was still a million miles away
I tried with all my might to hear
But even though your voice was clear
I never really heard you say

Be here, be here now
Each second holds the secret of eternity
Be here, be here now
The universe in every grain of sand
Each heartbeat is a window on your destiny
The ground beneath your feet your promised land
Each breath unlocks a door onto infinity
Don’t need to have it figured out to understand
Just be. Be here.
Be here. Be here now.

I had borrowed all my worries from tomorrow
And escaping from my sorrow I got trapped in yesterday
My heart was always spinning in a whirl
Trying earnestly to follow
But I couldn’t find a way (to)

Be here, be here now
Each second holds the secret of eternity
Be here, be here now
The universe in every grain of sand
Each heartbeat is a window on your destiny
The ground beneath your feet your promised land
Each breath unlocks a door onto infinity
Don’t need to have it figured out to understand
Just be. Be here.
Be here. Be here now.

And where I ever I go, you’re right where I am
You’re right where I need to be
Taking it slow, and taking my hand
And whispering gently to me

Be here, be here now
Each second holds the secret of eternity
Be here, be here now
The universe in every grain of sand
Each heartbeat is a window on your destiny
The ground beneath your feet your promised land
Each breath unlocks a door onto infinity
Don’t need to have it figured out to understand
Just be. Be here.
Be here. Be here now.

What's So Amazing About Advent, an Advent Wreath Liturgy: Week 2

Last week we lit this candle to remind us to be amazed
At the glorious announcement of God’s love for the world
That he made to us in the birth of his son.

[light 1st Candle]

But Advent is not only a time of amazing announcements
It’s also a time of amazing … acceptance.

What a strange thing to be amazed at!

Says the skeptic in the crowd; but even so, think it through:

When the angel announced to the Virgin that she would conceive,
Even though it meant scandal and shame
To bear a child out of wedlock
Not to mention the absolute terror
Of bearing in her body the fetal Son of God

She accepted her role—isn’t it amazing?—and answered in reply:

I am the Lord’s Servant, may it be to me as you have said.

The same is true of Joseph, when he learned that his fiancé
Would bear a child that wasn’t his.
Despite the disgrace that fell on him
He humbly accepted his place in the plan,

As Matthew’s Gospel puts it:

He did what the angel commanded
And took Mary home as his wife.

Isn’t it amazing?

But it is perhaps more amazing that we can fathom,
Because we celebrate an even greater acceptance
Than theirs this Advent season.
Because when the Triune God looked down
On a world weary with sin and blinded with darkness,
And knew that the only way to save it
Was to offer up God’s own very own life for its redemption,
The Son of God—even though he was
Equal to the Father in every way—
Did not consider his equality with God
As a thing to be used for his personal gain
Rather he accepted his place in the Father’s plan
And came to earth to die.

As the Scriptures say

He made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant
Being made in human likeness
And being found in appearance as a man!

Isn’t it amazing?

[light second candle]

And so we light this second candle of Advent to challenge us
To be like him in this:
to accept from the Father’s Hand
Whatever he has in mind
And whatever he wants do
To use us in his plan to show the world his love.

The Lorica of St. Patrick, a song

The Universals and the Particulars: Towards an Integrative Approach to Same-Sex Sexuality (IX)

I have always been fascinated by Renaissance artist Raphael’s 1511 masterpiece, The School of Athens. It depicts an imagined assembly of the greatest philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians of the ancient world, standing together in a sort of collage, discoursing, discussing and debating with one another about all the deepest questions of life.

At the centre of the painting, standing on either side of the vanishing point, are the two greatest masters of ancient Greek philosophy, Plato, on the left hand, and Aristotle on the right. Plato—whose philosophy focused on the overarching, absolute Forms of which all material objects on earth are merely shadows—points a single, insistent finger upward, in a gesture that perfectly reflects his central philosophical preoccupation: the epistemological necessity of immaterial, immutable universals that give meaning to all the particulars of life. By contrast, Aristotle—whose philosophical system emphasized the Particulars of the individual substances and entities we encounter—points a hand out horizontally, with splayed fingers to symbolize his insistence that truth and meaning is to be derived from the particulars of any given instantiation of an object in time and space.

I sometimes wonder if this portrait of two philosophers, one with a single finger pointing skyward and the other with splayed fingers pointing outward, isn’t a perfect metaphor for the difference between affirming and non-affirming Christians when it comes to the debate about what the Bible really says when it comes to same-sex sexuality. It certainly illustrates the tension I feel in my own heart as I have worked through this issue to arrive at the integrative position I’ve been advocating for in this series.

When I focus on the overarching “ideals” that seem to be in the background, forming the shadow whenever the Bible happens to talk about sex—with my single finger pointing upward, so to speak—I can’t escape the conclusion that its overarching vision is for sex to be contained within the bonds of exclusive, monogamous, heterosexual covenant relationships. I have spoken briefly about this in previous posts (see here and here).

When I point my hand outward, though, to look at the particulars of those places in the Bible where it happens to be discussing same-sex sex, I can’t escape the conclusion that whatever same-sex marriage is, as it occurs in the modern world, is not what the biblical authors were imagining or, indeed, condemning, when they said that people who engage in certain kinds of sexual activities won’t inherit the kingdom of God.

Each one of the biblical passages where same-sex sex is the topic of focus needs a full-length monograph to discuss properly, so I’m under no illusions that a blog post can do any of the data justice, but let me share a few thoughts about how I’ve come to understand some of the so-called “clobber passages” in the Bible (i.e. those passages that non-affirming Christians often reach for to justify their position, often “clobbering” LGBTQ people with rigid claims of absolute truth, in the process).

1. Genesis 19:1-28, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

It is very obvious to me that this story contains no explicit condemnation of same-sex sex generally. The reason Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed, in the story, is because the men of the city intended to gang-rape a visitor, in horrific violation of the ancient world’s moral code of hospitality. Sodom and Gomorrah would have been equally deserving of destruction, according to the moral logic of the story, if they guests in question had been female. This is a point the parallel story in Judges 19 makes clear. This story does not necessarily condemn same-sex sex, anymore than the Bible’s stern words about heterosexual fornication and adultery means that all forms of heterosexual sex are wrong.

2. Leviticus 18:22, 20:13, a man shall not lie with a male.

I am not personally convinced that this passage is only condemning homosexual cultic prostitution in the context of idol worship (a common take on the prohibitions against homosexual activity in Leviticus). I say this primarily because it occurs in a list of other prohibited sexual practices, none of which have to do with worship, and all of which seem more to do with procreation (i.e. regulating certain types of sexual relationships to ensure a safe and healthy propagation of the family line). Some interpreters appeal to the passage’s subsequent reference to “sacrificing children to the pagan god Molech” as evidence that the prohibition against homosexual sex is about idol worship, but I find this unconvincing. Most commonly in the ancient world, it was unwanted babies who were “given to Molech” like this, so the prohibition against child sacrifice appears on this list of prohibited sex acts, not because it’s talking about cultic sex, but because children are the natural and expected result of intercourse.

Nor am I personally convinced that because Leviticus 20:13 uses two different Hebrew words to describe the men who are engaging in sex (first it’s ish, “man” and then it’s zachar, “male”), this must mean that the passage is only prohibiting exploitative sex, or homosexual sex with minors, or some other kind of abusive sex. While it’s true that zachar can mean “male child,” this is not the most common usage, and it tends to mean that only when the sex of the child, specifically, is germane to the point (like in English, when we say “was your baby a boy or a girl?”). Given the emphasis on procreation in the passage, my sense is that it uses zachar, which emphasizes the maleness of a man in terms of his sexed body, to undesrcore the fundamental problem: a man having sex with a “male” will not procreate, because, in terms of procreation, only a female is compatible with a man.

Note: this is not to say that, because I believe Leviticus is speaking about male-male sex generally in these passages (and not specifically about cultic prostitution or abusive sex) I therefore believe it ought to be applied today, and that those who are in same-sex marriages today are “abominable to the Lord,” per Leviticus 18. I most emphatically do not believe that. But that is because I believe that through his death and resurrection Christ has completely fulfilled all the requirements of the Law for us, and by the pouring out of his Holy Spirit, he has set us into an entirely new relationship with Leviticus, as with the rest of Torah. In other words, it is for theological reasons, not exegetical reasons, that I do not believe Leviticus 18 and 20 should determine our response to same-sex sexuality today.

3. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, and 1 Timothy 1:9-10, “men who have sex with men” will not inherit the kingdom of God.

In brief, I do not believe the references to same-sex sex in these passages are describing anything like the modern day phenomenon of same-sex marriage, or LGBTQ+ sexual identities. The Greek terms in question, often translated as “homosexual offenders,” “men who have sex with men,” etc., are aresnokoitai, and malakoi. Literally these terms mean something like “man-bedders” and “effeminate ones” respectively. The first was ostensibly coined by Paul, and the second was not widely used to describe sexual behavior in the ancient world (more commonly it was used to describe men who were seen as weak, lacking in self-control, or “soft” in a derogatory sense).

Given the fact that Paul groups arsenokoitai with “slave-traders” in 1 Timothy, given the fact that in Greek the word malakoi could be used to describe men who were the “receptive” partner in a same-sex encounter, and especially given the fact that same-sex sex in the Greco-Roman world always involved a power imbalance, was generally understood to be shaming for the receptive partner (but not for the penetrating partner), and typically occurred between men who also had heterosexual relations with their (female) wives, my sense is that Paul is referring here to particular sex acts that today we would think of as homosexual rape, homosexual fornication, and/or homosexual prostitution. These verses do not refer to same-sex covenant relationships, or even imagine them as a possibility. And to state the obvious: to prohibit homosexual rape is not to prohibit all forms of same-sex sex, any more than it prohibits all forms of heterosexual sex when we condemn heterosexual rape.

4. Romans 1:26-27, God gave them over to shameful lusts.

This passage is probably the most difficult to make sense of from an affirming perspective, and one of the main reasons I do not describe myself as “affirming,” even though I believe Christians ought to bless, respect, and fully include LGBTQ people in the life of their community. The literature on these few verses is vast, and I can only summarize, but suffice it here to say the following. Verse 27 uses the word “natural” (in Greek: phusikos) to describes heterosexual sex in this passage, and strongly implies that male-male sex is against nature (para phusis). (Note: it’s not entirely clear whether verse 26 is describing female-female sex; given the broader context it seems to be, but strictly limiting ourselves to what is said, it does not necessarily have to mean this, though verse 27 is clearly describing male-male sex). 

It is true that in the ancient world the concept of “nature” and what is “natural” had a broader meaning than just one’s biological nature. In 1 Corinthians 11, for example, Paul describes long hair on men as “unnatural,” even though today we would think of this more as a cultural matter than a biological one. Nevertheless, my sense is that the most likely interpretation here is that Paul describes male-male sex as “unnatural” primarily because it lies outside the “natural” male-female relations that “naturally” lead to procreation. Paul seems to have the creation story of Genesis 1 in his mind as he is dictating these words to his scribe, alluding to it in verses 20, 22, and 23 (Paul also has the Wisdom of Solomon in mind, though this ancient text, too, is deeply informed by the creation account of Genesis). If it’s true, though, that Genesis 1 is informing Paul’s writing, it’s also true that Genesis 1 culminates with the creator mandating humanity to “be fruitful and multiply,” suggesting that, whatever else sex given to us for, its most “natural” function is the propagation of the species.

Having said that, I think that if we are going to be strict literalists with the text on the meaning of “what is natural and what is not,” we also need to be strict literalists with the fact that Paul is clearly describing “lustful sex” here, and that the kind of sex these hypothetical people are having is “dishonoring” to one another’s bodies (that is, it is a form of degrading sex). The questions then become: (1) is all homosexual sex an instance of lust, by default? And (2) if there were forms of same-sex sex that were demonstrably not lustful, would they still fall under the general censure of Romans 1? 

I cannot speak for Paul on those questions, but my personal answer is “no” to both. In other words: all forms of homosexual sex are not lustful by default, and those forms of same-sex relationships that are not—that is to say mutual, exclusive, covenant same-sex relationships—should not be included under the censure of Romans 1. (I don’t know what Paul would say about them, if he could hop in the time-machine and get a glimpse of them; I’m just saying that they are not the same things as what Romans 1 is describing). I say that because: (1) the evidence that there were any same-sex sex relationships in the ancient world that were not “lustful,” “degrading,” and/or “abusive” is very weak, so it’s not likely Paul would have even imagined such forms of sex, let alone talked about them; (2) when Paul speaks in Romans 1:24 about people following the “lusts of their hearts,” he is not yet describing same-sex sex specifically, but all forms of lustful sex-acts generally (the topic of homosexual sex does not come up until verse 26-27, and there he talks both about women and men, suggesting that both women and men are included in the lustful sex-acts described in verse 24); and finally (3) I have known enough LGBTQ+ people, listened to their stories and experienced their relationships sufficiently to know, simply, that these relationships are not, lustful, or even, predominantly, about sex; at least they don’t have to be (anymore than all heterosexual relationships have to be lustful). Rather these relationships are about the same kinds of things that heterosexual people seek in physically intimate relationships: affection, companionship, mutual support, well-being, friendship, personal meaning, and more, all of it in addition to, and as an integral part of their sexual expression.

There is a lot more that could be said about each of the above passages, of course, but in very broad strokes, those are the reasons I have sought an “integrative approach” in my response to same-sex sexuality and LGBTQ+ identities. When I speak with Christians who are staunchly non-affirming, I often hear statements like, “But the Bible clearly condemns homosexuality…” What I hope this brief survey has shown, though, is that (a) these passages are not nearly so clear in their condemnation as we might have thought; and (b) the particular “kind” of homosexual activity in view may not have all that much to do with same-sex relationships as they happen today.

For these reasons, I have concluded that this is an ethical issue, and not a theological one (see here for my thoughts on that); and that as we do with other ethical issues (like divorce and remarriage, or the problem of war), we need to find a way to integrate the witness of the Bible with the world as we encounter it, and so find a wise way forward that is respectful of both.

In my next and final post in this series, I intend to get very concrete in terms of what this looks like in practice, but in general terms, I think it means the following things: (1) that churches should fully welcome LGBTQ+ people into the life of the community, leaving them free to serve in all levels of leadership and ministry, according to their gifting and calling, and this whether they are walking a path of celibacy or living in a same-sex covenant relationship; (2) that churches should respect and bless same-sex marriages, including those couples who are part of their community, even if, as a position of conscience, churches refrain from performing same-sex marriages themselves.

While this “integrative approach” may seem hopelessly compromised to some readers, and not nearly good enough to others, I have found it to be the best way to hold all of the relevant data and competing issues together. If our conclusions about the Bible’s teaching on same-sex sex were “The School of Athens,” you might say, an integrative approach is seeking a place right at the centre of the vanishing point, with one hand pointing upward, gesturing simply to the overarching ideals, and the other hand pointing outward, intent on respecting the particulars in all their complexity.

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Death in Battle, a song

Open the gates for me
Open the gates of the peaceful castle
Rosy in the west
In the sweet, dim Isle of apples
Over the wide sea’s breast
Open the gates for me

Open the gates for me, open the gates for me

Sorely pressed have I been
And driven and hurt beyond all bearing
On this summer day
But the heat and the pain are all disappearing
Suddenly fallen away
All’s cool, all’s cool and green

But a moment agone
Among men cursing in fight and toiling
Blinded I fought
But the labor passed with a sudden recoiling
Like a passing thought
And now I’m all, I’m all alone

Open the gates for me, open the gates for me
Open the gates for me, open the gates for me

Ah, to be ever alone
In the flowery valleys among the mountains
And the silent wastes untrod
In the dewy uplands near to the fountain
of the Garden of God
This would, would this atone?

O Country of Dreams
Out beyond the tide of the ocean
Hidden and sunk away
Away from the sounds of smoke and commotion
Near to the end of the day
Full of dim woods and bright streams

Open the gates for me, open the gates for me
Open the gates for me, open the gates for me

What's So Amazing Advent? Week 1: Amazing Announcements

This week marks the start of the Advent season, our four week journey of preparing for the coming of the Lord Jesus. This year at our church, our theme for Advent is: "What's so amazing about Advent?" As a bit of an advent devotional, I thought I'd post the readings we're using each week at our church as we light our advent wreath. Here is this week's reading, on the amazing announcements of advent.

***

Whatever else it is, Advent is a season for great amazement,

as we wait for the coming of our Lord.

In his account of the birth of Jesus, for instance
Luke keeps saying things like
“they were amazed,”
“they were filled with wonder”
and “they pondered these things in their heart,”
to describe everyone’s reaction
to the inexplicable events of that first Christmas season.

A Virgin conceived and bore a child…
A heavenly host announced it…
Shepherds welcomed him…
Magi worshipped him …
and little baby John the Baptist leaped in the womb for joy
when he drew near.

Be amazed.

Amazement is sometimes hard for us to come by
in this sordid, cynical, scientific age,
Where every whim can be met with the click of a button,
and every mystery, it seems,
has been inspected and dissected
and charted and exposed.

We have become a people who have forgotten how to stand amazed.

And if we are, perhaps we need the advent season more than we realize,

to remind us that one of the best responses we can have to our Lord and Savior,
when he shows up unexpectedly in our lives,
is just to be amazed.

But what’s so amazing about advent?

Asks the cynic in the crowd.

Well for starters, let’s remember
That advent is a season for amazing announcements.

“Your barren wife will conceive a child,
who will be the forerunner for the Christ,”
is what the angel Gabriel announced to John the Baptist’s Dad,
before the story was even underway.

Amazing!

“You will conceive by the power of the Holy Spirit,”
is what he later announced to the Virgin Mary,
who had never been with a man but had found favor with God.
“And he will be great and will be called the son of the Most High.”

Amazing!

And unto you is born this day in the City of David,
a savior who is Christ the Lord,
is what the herald angels announced
to certain poor shepherds, on that first noel long ago.

Absolutely Amazing!

[Light Candle]

And so we light this first candle to remind us never to stop being amazed
At the Good News of this majestic Christmas God
Who announced it to the whole world in the Birth of his Son:
That we are loved, and he is always with us.

Glory to God in the Highest
And on earth peace, good will to men and women
On whom his favor rests.

(The Lord is with You) Mighty Warrior, a song

The Lord is with you, mighty warrior
The Lord is with you, Gideon
And even though you hide your heart
Like grain in the winepress
And even though you think yourself
The weakest and the smallest
The Lord is with you mighty warrior

The Lord is with you barren Hannah
The Lord is with you, empty one
And even though you whisper dreams
In the shadow of the altar
And even though you lift your prayer
Till your voice starts to falter
The Lord is with you barren Hannah

Because your weakness is his power
And your foolishness his grace
The Lord is with you, mighty warrior
Though you shrink from his embrace
And he will clothe you with his spirit
He will arm you with his love
The Lord is with you, mighty warrior
He will guard you from above

The Lord is with you restless Jacob
The Lord is with you, Isaac's son
And even though you wrestle with him
Striving till the daybreak
And in your brokenness you beg
A blessing for the heartache
The Lord is with you restless Jacob

Because your weakness is his power
And your foolishness his grace
The Lord is with you, mighty warrior
Though you shrink from his embrace
And he will clothe you with his spirit
He will arm you with his love
The Lord is with you, mighty warrior
He will guard you from above

Because your weakness is his power
And your foolishness his grace
The Lord is with you, mighty warrior
Though you shrink from his embrace
And he will clothe you with his spirit
He will arm you with his love
The Lord is with you, mighty warrior
He will guard you from above

3 More Things and 5 More Things: Toward an Integrative Perspective on Same-Sex Sexuality (VIII)

Occasionally when I am working through an issue in theology or ministry that requires a careful interpretation of some passage of the Bible or another, I use a little thought-experiment to help me test my hypotheses. It’s not the first step in my hermeneutical method, by any means, nor do I use it in any conclusive way. After I’ve sifted the evidence, however, and done enough exegetical and hermeneutical “heavy-lifting” that I feel I’m ready to draw some conclusions, I’ll sometimes give this mental exercise a try.

I call it the “Time Machine Test.”

Essentially, you imagine yourself stepping into a time machine and teleporting back to the first century AD, to the Apostle Paul’s study, let’s say, or to John the Evangelist’s drawing room (with full acknowledgement that both these locales are stylistic anachronisms for the sake of vividness). Once there, however, you have the opportunity to float your interpretation past the author himself (the time machine in question also happens to give you a supernatural ability to speak Koine Greek, 1st Century Aramaic, or whatever language is necessary to communicate). Sometimes the thought experiment works even better the other way around: you bring the author forward to your time and place, to get his take on how you’re teaching, implementing or otherwise putting into practice his ideas.

Given the author’s very particular way of viewing the world, shaped by his cultural schema and historical provenance, what would they think of the way you’ve come to understand what they wrote?

I freely admit that this thought experiment can be problematic. Stepping into the mind-set of a First Century Messianic Jew so completely that you could accurately guess how they would view a 21st Century Christian’s approach to matters of faith and practice is far easier said than done. On its own, the “Time Machine Test” is just as likely to generate biases in our interpretations as it is to dispel them.

After all the other necessary steps have been taken, however, including a careful study of the original uses of the original words and honest efforts understand what they’re saying in their immediate context, and then testing that against the wider teaching of the Scripture and holding it all up to the light of our theological first-principles—after all that’s been done—I find the Time Machine Test can be a helpful way of weighing your conclusions.

What would Paul, the first century messianic Jew really say, for instance, if he witnessed the modern-day phenomenon of speaking in tongues? What would he really tell us, if we asked him whether or not women should be ordained as ministers in the church?

Not that this post is attempting to settle either of those two questions. I’m only telling you about my “Time Machine Test” by way of explaining—given all I’ve said so far in this series on same-sex sexuality—why I am not, in the end affirming.

After I’ve done the kind of careful exegetical work described above on the relevant biblical data—sorting through the passages that refer to same-sex sex as best I can, researching the way the relevant words were used (or not used) in the ancient world, doing my darndest to understand what first Century Christians thought was actually happening when two people of the same-sex had sex, and trying to fit all this in to the wider witness of the Bible, taken as a whole, and sounded against my most deeply-held theological principles—after all that—when I get into my imaginary time-machine and ask someone like Paul, “But what about same-sex marriage?” I have great difficulty imagining them saying, “Yeah, that’s okay.”

In saying this, I am not suggesting that the church should reject LGBTQ people, or try to convert them into being straight, or denounce same-sex marriage, or shame same-sex couples by teaching them that their relationships are abhorrent to God, or any of the things I see happening in non-affirming circles (even the kindest of them). I am only saying that I do not believe the Bible provides us a clear warrant for being affirming, and that, if we want to respond wisely to the phenomenon of same-sex sexuality as it is experienced in the modern world, we will have to do something to integrate the witness of Scripture with our understanding of what it means to be LGBTQ+.

In an early post in this series, I attempted to explain what I mean by the second half of that sentence: “our understanding of what it means to be LGBTQ+.” In that post, I proposed the “three things” that inform my own understanding of what it means to be gay, bi, and/or trans: that it’s (1) not chosen, it’s (2) not changeable, and it’s (3) harmful to people if they are not able to accept it and embrace it as being true of themselves in some meaningful way. You can read my thoughts on that point here.

In this post I’d like to begin exploring the first half of the sentence: what really is “the witness of Scripture” on this matter?

In the spirit of my previous post, I’d like to suggest that just like there are “3 Things” and “5 Things” that are true of the LGBTQ+ experience, there are also “3 Things” and “5 Things” that are true when it comes to the Bible’s teaching about same-sex sexuality.

It seems that nothing anyone says about “same-sex sex and the Bible” is without some controversy, but at the very least, here are “3 things” about the relevant biblical data that I find nearly indisputable.

1. The Bible is exclusively oriented toward procreative, opposite-sex sex.

That is to say, whenever the Bible talks approvingly about sex, it seems to have procreative, heterosexual sex in mind. When it enjoins people to do it, it is clearly enjoining them to do it with members of the opposite sex. Likewise, there is no instance where the Bible presents a same-sex sexual relationship positively, as an example of the kind of thing people might consider pursing.

2. Whenever the Bible does talk about same-sex sex, it always speaks about it negatively.

On whether or not the Bible has mutual, exclusive, same-sex covenant relationships in mind when it speaks so negatively about same-sex-sex, see point 3 below. Even so, it is indisputable, I think, that every time the question of same-sex sex comes up, the witness of the Scripture is exclusively disapproving.

3. Usually, when the Bible does speak about same-sex sex, it is describing something very different from the same-sex covenant relationships that occur in the modern world.

This is a point that very few non-affirming thinkers will admit, but it is, in my view, as indisputable as the previous 2 points. I intend to dedicate an entire post to showing why I believe this to be true. For now, however, suffice it to say that same-sex sex in the ancient world always occurred in the context of an exploitative power dynamic (amounting to what we would call sexual abuse today), or, if not that, it was viewed as a sign of inordinate sexual desire (what we would call “lust”). Extensive research into Greco-Roman cultural practices and ancient languages show this to be true, but even a close reading of the relevant biblical passages themselves point you to this conclusion. It’s clear, for instance, that Paul is talking about men who are “inflamed with lust” in Romans 1:27, and whatever he’s thinking about in 1 Timothy 9 or 1 Corinthians 6, it’s clearly grouped with fornicators and human-traffickers, suggesting that we are dealing with some form of exploitative or abusive sex.

Those, then, are the “3 Things”: the Bible speaks positively only about opposite-sex sex; the Bible only speaks negatively about same-sex sex; the Bible never has same-sex “marriage” relationships in mind when the question of same-sex sex comes up.

The “5 things,” in response to these 3 things, are the 5 ways that Christians can try to implement these basic facts.

A Christian could conclude that:

1. The desire for same-sex sex is sinful; that even the attractions themselves are a sign of one’s sinfulness, and that having them makes one an object of God’s wrath. The solution here is to change the sinner by helping them no longer have their LGBTQ “urges.”

2. All forms of same-sex sex are inherently sinful, but it is not a sin to be tempted, only to act on one’s temptations. Therefore, having same-sex sexual desire does not make a Christian sinful, but same-sex attracted Christians must redirect, suppress or otherwise control their sexual desires and not act on them.

3. Though the Bible meant what it says when it prohibits same-sex sexuality, those prohibitions “no longer apply” today. Sometimes this takes the form of an argument that the Holy Spirit is leading us into new interpretations and applications of Scripture, like he did on the question of the Mosaic Law. Other times it appears as a more nuanced argument about the “trajectory” of the Scripture pointing us toward being affirming even though the warrant for it is not found explicitly in Scripture.

4. Because the biblical authors are not talking about same-sex covenant relationships as they occur in our world, and could not have even conceived of them in their world, the Bible simply does not address a question like same-sex marriage. In the same way that the Bible’s prohibition (let’s say) of heterosexual adultery does not mean that every form of heterosexual sex is prohibited, the Bible’s prohibition of male-male rape (for example) does not mean that all forms of male-male sex should be denounced. LGBTQ Christians should be encouraged, then, to pursue mutual, exclusive, monogamous same-sex relationships similar to the type of relationships heterosexual Christians are encouraged in.

5. Though the Bible does not approve of same-sex sex (in any form), there are other biblical principles that must also inform our response to LGBTQ+ people. These include things like: compassion for the vulnerable, mercy for the sinner, agape love, hospitality, and so on. These principles out-weigh the prohibitions against same-sex sex, and direct us to make accommodations for LGBTQ+ people. Often arguments in this regard will frame the whole question as a “disputable matter,” an issue which cannot be settled by simple “chapter and verse” references to the Bible alone, and about which people with different views can make different appeals to different verses in the Bible to make an equal convincing case.

There is a lot of variation within those five views, in terms of how people hold their perspectives and what implications they draw from them, but in essence they sum up the main approaches you will find in the church these days: 1) it’s wrong even to want it; 2) it’s wrong only to do it; 3) it was wrong then, but it’s not wrong now; 4) it’s not wrong (and never was); 5) it’s still wrong, but there are worse things, so it’s not so bad.

I like to think that the integrative view I’ve been arguing for in this series is a new “6th” way forward, because it does not really fit any of these 5 conclusions. It is a bit like “thing 5,” only it does not use the language of “sin” to describe same-sex sex. I would suggest it’s far better to talk about God’s “intention” for sex, and the ways in which different sexual practices obtain or fail to obtain to that intention. The integrative approach is a bit like “thing 4,” in that it agrees that the Bible is not speaking about monogamous, exclusive, same-sex covenant unions when it prohibits homosexual sex, only it does not conclude from this fact that the biblical authors would see nothing wrong in such relationships if they could see them as they occur in the world today. The integrative view is a bit like “thing 3,” only I think it’s very problematic to talk about the Holy Spirit “leading us into something new,” or “trajectories of Scripture” that were not previously evident. My preference is to hold the witness of Scripture in tension with our experience in the world as it is, integrating the two as wisely and compassionately as possible.

Up to this point, I have argued that we do something like this on all sorts of issues, from pacifism to contraception. From this point on, I will start to suggest what I think the boundaries of such an approach are: where do we draw the line? How do we live together with Christians who see it differently? And so on.

At this very point, however, let me try to put my argument in a nutshell: the witness of the Scripture indicates that same-sex sex does not fulfill the creator’s intention for sex when he created people as sexual beings, and it offers no explicit warrant for approving of same-sex marriage; at the same time, we know that it causes many LGBTQ people profound psychological harm and/or religious trauma if they come to believe that their deepest experience of their selves—an experience they did not chose and cannot change—makes them fundamentally abhorrent to God. Because of this, wise Christians should appeal to the full breadth of the biblical witness in responding to LGBTQ+ people, remembering that God desires mercy and not sacrifice (Matthew 9:13), that the Lord has compassion on all things he has made (Psalm 145:8-9), and that agape love is the most excellent way (1 Corinthians 13). These principles suggest that we can graciously embrace LGBTQ+ people, as LGBTQ+ people, honoring and respecting any mutual, exclusive, covenant relationships they may enter into, and leaving the decision about how they can best express their sexuality as Christians between them and God (Rom 14:4).

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Liminal Spaces, a song

Waiting out here in the hall
Don’t want to sit but I just can’t stand it anymore
I thought I heard my number call
Look through the keyhole but I just can’t see behind the door

Lost in liminal spaces
Sunset on Holy Saturday
In these in-between places
I can’t go but I can’t stay
But I thought I caught a glimpse of your face
Floating with me in liminal space

Waiting at the terminal
I missed my train and yet it’s somewhere coming down the track
Don’t know where I’m supposed to go
I can’t go on and yet I know I’m never going back

Lost in liminal spaces
Sunset on Holy Saturday
In these in-between places
I can’t go but I can’t stay
But I thought I caught a glimpse of your face
Floating with me in liminal space

Liminal spaces, liminal spaces

Colours turning green to red
Winter’s welcome and the summer’s fond farewell
New life burns auburn among the dead
It’s all so beautiful, it gets so hard for me to tell

Lost in liminal spaces
Sunset on Holy Saturday
In these in-between places
I can’t go but I can’t stay
But I thought I caught a glimpse of your face
Floating with me in liminal space

Looking for Someone (Looking for Me), a song

Hey where did you go?
I thought you were there
Or that you’d be passing by
I tarnished my halo
Disheveled my hair
Just hoping to catch your eye

I rise with the morning
Wait on the sunset
Ride on the wings of the dawn
But it comes without warning
I blink and I miss it
Just when I get there, you’re gone

I’m looking for someone looking for me
Open my eyes up but I just can’t see
Scratching the surface of the mystery
But I’ll never find it till it finds me

Is anyone out there
Does anyone see
The yearning in my disguise?
I look in the mirror
Don’t recognize me
The stranger behind these eyes

I thought that I knew him
Thought that I found him
Thought that you called his name
But your eyes see right through him
Left him astounded
He won’t ever be the same

I’m looking for someone looking for me
Open my eyes up but I just can’t see
Scratching the surface of the mystery
But I’ll never find it till it finds me

And whatever it is, it’s already here
Can’t you see it? Whatever it is?
And whatever it is, it’s already here
Can’t you see it? Whatever it is?

I’m looking for someone looking for me
Open my eyes up but I just can’t see
Scratching the surface of the mystery
But I’ll never find it till it finds me

Speaking of God: Towards an Integrative Perspective on Same-Sex Sexuality (VII)

I came across a passage once in a book about the theological tradition of the Eastern Orthodox church that I’ve mulled over, off and on, ever since I read it. It was trying to explain the difference between the theological traditions of the eastern and the western church. I forget the exact words it used, but the gist went something like this: In the Eastern Orthodox church, theology is limited to its immediate subject: the person and nature of God. The goal of theology, in the east, is a right understanding of—so as to give proper glory to—the Divine. The direction of its gaze, so to speak, is upward.

In the west, it went on to say, theology tends to look outward as much as it looks upward, and assumes that, inasmuch as the world is the work of the Creator God, theology can also help us to understand our own human life in relation to the divine.

In the east, you might say, theology is about looking at the lightbulb, whereas in the west, theology is about trying to read by its light. That’s my analogy, not one that the passage I’m remembering used, but it did go on to say something like this: “This explains why, in the west, you can have a ‘theology of money,’ or a ‘theology of work,’ or (more to our purposes in this series) ‘a theology of sex.’” In the east, by contrast, none of these things are proper subjects for theology, because in the east, theology is much more strictly focused on the “theos” that gives the term its name: the person of God as revealed in Jesus Christ.

Maybe this is a false distinction. Certainly, giving proper glory to God includes handling our money or doing our work in ways that reflect his heart for such things. Conversely, discovering the truth about who God is should lead us to adopt a “theologically informed” view about all of life (which would include, among many other things, the way we think about stuff like marriage or sex). Nevertheless, I have found this distinction to be profoundly important. However good and useful it might be to develop a Christian view of things like family, or politics, or art, still, when we’re talking about these things we are not, technically speaking, talking about the subject that makes theology theological. To do that we would have to speak, specifically, about God.

This is a crucial point for us to grasp, I think, as we continue to sketch out the contours of an integrative view of same-sex sexuality and the church. In the strictest sense of the term, theology is the stuff we say about God. When we are saying stuff about things other than God, we are not doing theology, per se. We may be doing something adjacent to theology, something that enriches our theology, or something deeply informed by our theology, but even so, talking about money, or government, or (in this case) gender and sex, is not doing theology. It’s doing economics, or politics, or anthropology, or some other category of human knowledge. Hopefully, if those things are being done from a Christian perspective, they will be illuminated by our theology, consistent with it and informed by it. But we do ourselves a great disservice when we confuse theology with these other categories.

We are doing ourselves, actually, two great disservices. On the one hand, if it’s true that theology, as category of human knowledge, is the stuff we say about God, then framing discussions about something like wealth, say, or sex as “theological discussions” can feed the natural human temptation to elevate those types of things to divine status (the biblical term for elevating created things to the same status as the creator, of course, is idolatry). The second great disservice is this: that even if we’re not making an idol of these “other things,” it makes it very hard to think objectively and clearly about them. If we tie them that closely to our theology, then any decision we make about them will actually impact our fundamental understanding of who God is, which is a terrifying prospect.

To anyone who wants to accuse me of melodramatic handwringing over a non-issue, I’d simply point to the growing and concerning tendency I’ve observed over the last decade or so, to make one’s posture towards same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ identities a credal matter, an essential theological issue, a question of Christian orthodoxy.

I have seen a number of evangelical denominations make subtle, sometimes not-so-subtle moves to make a “traditional view of same-sex sex” a shibboleth to determine who is “in,” theologically speaking, and who is “out.” I have seen more than one evangelical denomination take steps to require their clergy, or their members, or both, “sign off” on the belief that same-sex relationships are wrong, as a matter of continued fellowship. Some have added addendums to their statements of faith, specifying what they believe about homosexuality, subtly implying that this is for them a matter of creed.

All this regardless the fact that never before has any historical creed of the church ever made one particular view of sexuality, gender, or marriage a matter of orthodox belief. If it comes to that, none of the historic creeds of the church have included any statements about ethical issues: neither in regards to the hoarding of wealth, or the evil of racism, or the necessity of peacemaking, or any one of the many profound issues about which the Christian faith has important things to say. The historic creeds contain no reference to any of these things, in part, because the creeds are theological statements, and the things we say about sex and money and power and war are not, strictly speaking, theological statements.

They are ethical statements.

So, when Christians seek to answer a question like: what’s the right or wrong way to have sex? they are not doing theology. They are doing ethics. Christian ethics, hopefully, shaped by Christian convictions and belief. We could even call it “theological ethics,” if our ethics are informed by and done in response to our theology, which hopefully they will be, but on the perils of confusing these two categories, see above. If we don’t end up making an idol, we’ll at least muddy our thinking.

I can see a few protests cresting the pass that I’d like to head off.

“I don’t care about theology,’” we might say. “I only care about God’s word, the Bible, which clearly forbids homosexual sex.”

The problem with this statement is that, in a way, it’s impossible to not have a theology. To say that the Bible is God’s Word is to make a deeply theological statement about how the Divine communicates with human beings, and how the Bible functions in relation to that Divine communication. To say that the Bible, as God’s word, “clearly forbids” something is to say a few more things about God—how does he relate to human beings?—Is he especially the divine rule-maker?—and also a few more things about how the Bible fits into that relationship—is the Bible primarily his divine rulebook?—is it always as clear as we assume it is?

Those are not rhetorical questions: they are the deep theological issues that surface when we try to make overly simplified statements about “just” following God’s word, which “clearly” prohibits some behaviors and approves of others.

“That’s all well and good,” you might say, by way of a different protest, “but saying ‘God doesn’t want us to have homosexual sex,’ is saying something theological: that God intends some things and prohibits others.”

This is true, in one sense. It is theological to speak about the revealed will of God. The problem with this statement, though, is that it still conflates theology and ethics in ways that make it hard for us to tell the difference and puts us at risk of confusing the one with the other. Before we can decide how this or that activity might relate to the revealed will of God, we will have to understand that activity on its own terms: what are the stakes? What are the implications? What are the consequences? What’s really happening when people do it? Theology proper does not answer these questions; and for Christians to answer them, we may need to listen to the psychologists, or the sociologists, or the anthropologists or the (heaven forfend) the gender studies majors, before we decide how our theology should shape our response.

This has been one of my basic, underlying convictions as I’ve written this series, and it is a “weight-bearing wall” in the integrative approach I’ve been trying to construct. Our posture toward LGBTQ+ people is not, ultimately, a theological issue. It is an ethical issue. And as with all ethical issues—should Christians go to war or not? Should Christians use contraception? Should Christians divorce?—settling these questions is not “doing theology.” A wise Christian will let their theology deeply shape how they settle such questions, but they will also keep clear on when they are doing theology and when they are not.

In saying this, I do not mean to create an air-tight chamber separating theology from ethical concerns. The best kind of Christian ethics flows naturally from our theological convictions. That God is love, for instance, should deeply influence the way Christians treat people. Nor do I mean to imply that LGBTQ+ issues are “merely” ethical, as though there are not any theological issues at stake when we address them. But this is also why I am making the distinction—because there are theological issues at stake, and our theology does influence the way we treat people. If we don’t differentiate them, we may never really examine the theology that is actually driving our ethics, or worse, we may believe we have done theology, when all we’ve really done is made ethical judgements.

If we do differentiate, though, between what is ethical and what is theological, we may discover that it is possible to embrace and include LGBTQ+ people fully in the life of the church, without it shaking to the core our most deeply held beliefs about the nature and person of God.

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The Eye of a Perfect Storm, a song

Clouds are forming in the distance
Shadows on the rise
Wind is driving with a vengeance
Darkening the skies
Can’t escape or run for cover
There’s nowhere to hide
Hold my breath until its over
Covering my eyes

Burning in the fire
Deafening the thunder
Shattering the summit
Of the holy mountain top
Quickening desire
Whispering in wonder
Crushing all the silence
Till the chaos stops

World turning, world burning
Spinning in the dark
World hurting, world yearning
World falls apart
Hearts are breaking, spirit’s aching
Calling out for you
Rocks are shaking, earth is quaking
World torn in two

Burning in the fire
Deafening the thunder
Shattering the summit
Of the holy mountain top
Quickening desire
Whispering in wonder
Crushing all the silence
Till the chaos stops

And I, I saw you there
Standing in the eye,
In the eye of a perfect storm
I found you swirling serene and
Shining in the night

And rising from the dead and
Glimmering with light
You were there
At the centre of the surging calm
In the eye of a perfect storm

Clouds are forming in the distance
Shadows on the rise
Wind is driving with a vengeance
Darkening the skies
Can’t escape or run for cover
There’s nowhere to hide
Hold my breath until its over
Covering my eyes

Burning in the fire
Deafening the thunder
Shattering the summit
Of the holy mountain top
Quickening desire
Whispering in wonder
Crushing all the silence
Till the chaos stops

And I, I saw you there
Standing in the eye,
In the eye of a perfect storm
I found you swirling serene and
Shining in the night
And rising from the dead and
Glimmering with light
You were there
At the centre of the surging calm
In the eye of a perfect storm

Where You Go I Will Go: Toward an Integrative Perspective on Same-Sex Sexuality (VI)

In the early days of the debate about same-sex sexuality, back when it was only the “liberal Christians” who were asking whether it was permissible, you would sometimes come across arguments in favor of LGBTQ inclusion based on the Book of Ruth. These would point out Ruth’s undying devotion to Naomi and suggest that here we have a positive instance of a same-sex relationship in the Bible, one that bears all the marks of a covenant union, but is presented entirely without censure. It’s not for nothing, perhaps, that we still use Ruth’s vow to Naomi in modern-day wedding ceremonies: “Where you go, I will go … your people will be my people, and your God my God.”

Of course, the fact that Naomi herself was previously a married woman, that she is, actually, Ruth’s mother-in-law, and that she works so tirelessly to marry Ruth off—all this suggests that interpreting her relationship with Ruth as anything other than a beautuful but platonic friendship is a profound misread of the story (it’s no accident that Ruth’s name actually means “friend.”). The story gives no hint that there’s anything sexual between Ruth and her mother-in-law, and we’d only see something there if we had decided to find it before we'd started reading.

That said, I believe that among all the books of the biblical cannon, the Ruth makes one of the strongest cases in favor of the integrative approach to same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ identities that I’ve been arguing for in this series. There is a relationship in the story that leaves me convinced that something like embracing LGBTQ people, as LGBTQ people (and not as “broken straight people” who just need changing or controlling), might not be so contrary to the heart of God as we think. It’s just not the relationship between Ruth and Naomi.

It's the relationship between Ruth and Boaz.

I say this because, as the story takes great pains to point out, Ruth is a Moabitess, a woman from Moab, that is, sojourning in Israel under the protection of Naomi, her Israelite mother-in-law. If this detail does not scandalize us as modern readers, it is probably because we are not so thoroughly steeped in the teachings of Torah as Naomi and her community would have been.

Deuteronomy 23:3-6 clearly prohibits any Moabite from entering the assembly of the Lord, and it strongly implies that its off-limits for any Israelite to marry one, making Boaz’s relationship with Ruth a truly illicit affair. Certainly none of their children (among whom are Jesse, King David, and ultimately Jesus) would be permitted among the assembly of God’s people, and if there’s any doubt about the matter, Deuteronomy 23:6 strictly forbids Israel from making a treaty of friendship with Moab, let alone marrying one into the community.

Deuteronomy bases this prohibition explicitly on the fact that back in Numbers 22:1-6, Moab hired Balaam to curse Israel while they were wandering in the wilderness. Deuteronomy also seems to have Numbers 25:1-18 in the background, which relates the story about a time some Israelite men “indulged in sexual immorality with some Moabite women.” This resulted in idolatry so heinous that a priest named Phinehas slaughtered them all in righteous indignation (an act for which the text praises him warmly). Granted it’s a grim story, but the point is clear: Moabite women mean spiritual trouble, and anyone who gets involved with them risks committing an abomination before the Lord.

And yet the Book of Ruth not only celebrates Boaz’s marriage to Ruth, but seemingly holds it up as an example of fidelity and covenant faithfulness in the time of the Judges, when everyone else was doing what they saw fit in their own eyes.

To understand the dissonance here, it’s important to note another key teaching from Torah that has clearly informed the telling of Ruth's story, namely: the call to treat the foreigner in Israel with kindness and hospitality. Torah is, in fact, shot through with injunctions of this sort, reminding Israel over and over again that the Lord God defends the cause of the foreigner (i.e. the sojourner, the alien in the land), and consequently, so too must Israel. (Deut 10:17-19, Lev 19:10, etc.). Leviticus 19:34 puts it succinctly: “The stranger who dwells with you,” it says,” shall be to you as the home-born among you, and you shall love him as you love yourself.”

While the significance of the moment may be lost on modern readers, in Ruth 2:2 we find Naomi and Ruth living destitute in Bethlehem, powerless and penniless, when Ruth decides to go out to the fields to pick up any grain that may have been left behind by the harvesters. This, of course, leads to the first, poignant meeting between Ruth and Boaz, but in terms of the logic of the story, it’s not just some generic romance we’re seeing play out here. It's covenant faithfulness. In Deuteronomy 24:19-21, Israel is directed to leave some grain behind when they’re harvesting their field, so that the foreigner, who has no share in the land, can go out and gather it and so not starve (see also Leviticus 19:10, 23:22, etc.).

You may see where I’m going with this and want to head me off at the pass, by pointing out that Torah only required Boaz to make sure Ruth was taken care of as a foreigner; there’s nothing saying he has to marry her. The Book of Ruth, however, won’t let us off the hook that easily. Towards the end of the story, we find ourselves bogged down in a complicated discussion of Boaz’s legal obligations toward Naomi’s family, all of which centre around a concept called the “kinsman redeemer.” This is another detail that may be lost on modern readers but is a crucial key for unlocking the story. Because the role of the “kinsman redeemer” is also carefully laid-out in Torah. Deuteronomy 25:5 stipulates that if an Israelite man dies childless, his brother (or, presumably, his nearest next-of-kin) must marry her and fulfill the “duty of a brother-in-law” to her. Ruth was previously married to Mahlon, an Israelite man, and Boaz is, apparently, a distant relative, the next in line as Ruth’s kinsman redeemer after Mahlon’s nearest relative (the unnamed man in 4:6) declines to marry her. By marrying Ruth, then, Boaz is technically fulfilling his obligations as specified in Torah.

All of this is to say that Boaz marrying this particular Moabite woman is both a breach of Torah, on the one hand, and also an act of deep faithfulness to Torah, on the other.

I would be shocked to discover that all of this was accidental. In fact, after many years reflecting on this story, I have become convinced that one of the things it is doing is seeking to answer this crucial question: what do we do when the commands of Torah seem to be in conflict with one another, when you would have to break one of them in order to keep another, and/or vice versa?

What does covenant faithfulness look like in such circumstances, where you need to break the law in order to fulfill it?

To my mind, the Book of Ruth offers us one of the most poignant and tender answers you will find in the Hebrew Bible to this specific question. Embrace always trumps exclusion, it seems to be saying. At least, if it comes down to a choice between the two, it does. Inclusion trumps rejection; and above all else, the path that leads to the most compassionate outcome for the most vulnerable is always closest to the heart of God, the God who insisted that the one who loves his neighbour has fulfilled the Law (Rom 13:8-10).

So far in this series, I have been laying the foundation stones for what I have been calling an “integrative approach” towards same-sex sexuality. An integrative approach takes, on the one hand, the Word of God at its word (believing, for instance, that when God told the Israelites to have no relations with the Moabites, he meant it, just as much as he meant it when he told Israel to take care of the widows and the foreigners in their midst). But an integrative view also takes, on the other hand, our lived experience in a world that does not always fit neatly into the clear categories of Scripture (acknowledging, for example, that sometimes taking care of the widow and the foreigner might mean marrying a Moabitess). And then it attempts to integrate these two realities, seeking a wise way forward that honors them both.

What might this mean when it comes to the question of same-sex sexuality? In coming posts I hope to get specific, but to give you a hint, I think it means something like this: honoring, blessing, and even celebrating the same-sex marriages LGBTQ identities, even while we hold to our convictions about the what the Bible teaches when it comes to sex. If this seems like an impossible goal, I would refer you one last time to Boaz’s illicit marriage to Ruth, and its reminder that, if it comes down to an either/or, embrace is usually better than exclusion, and the most compassionate way forward is always the right way.

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On Fruitfulness and Multiplication: Toward an Integrative Perspective on Same-Sex Sexuality (V)

The birth control pill first became available for public use in 1960. Today, some 60 years later, the idea that we might safely and reliably prevent conception during intercourse has become so ingrained in our social consciousness that it’s hard to remember, let alone believe the great controversy the pill created when it came along. Canada did not legalize it—or any form of contraception, for that matter—until 1969, almost a decade later.

The Catholic church was famously opposed to the pill when it exploded on the scene, and to this day it teaches that any form of artificial contraception is intrinsically evil. Protestants were more ready to accept the pill, but even so, most Protestants traditions had only started embracing contraception some 20 or 30 years prior (the Anglicans, for instance, did not formally approve of birth control until the Lambeth Conference of 1930).

Many scholars have traced out the connective tissue between the advent of the birth control pill, on the one hand, and the sexual revolution of the 60s, on the other. Never before had there been such a safe and reliable means of preventing pregnancy, especially one that put the power in the hands of women themselves. The role this played in the social transformation that occurred in the 60s and 70s—changes in how men and women related to one another, changes in deeply-rooted sexual mores, changes in dating and marriage and family—is hard to overestimate.

Among those changes, I would argue, is the modern assumption that the psychological function of sex is separate from its procreative function, that the pleasures of intercourse, the human bonding it facilitates, and/or the emotional well-being we experience in a sexually fulfilling relationship can be enjoyed in a way completely separated from the possibility of begetting children. Even the notion that sex could be “fulfilling” without it “fulfilling” its most obvious purpose of procreation is one that could only have a stall in the marketplace of ideas, I think, because the pill made it conceivable (no pun intended), conceivable that sex could happen with no risk or potential of making babies.

(In saying this, I am not meaning to suggest naively that prior to the 60s, no one had sex except when they wanted to make a baby. I am well aware that things like fornication, adultery, and lust have existed since Genesis Chapter 3; nor am I under any illusions as to which of the professions is oldest. The fact, however, that past societies always censured such carryings on, and controlled them through a range of strict social taboos, proves the point I am trying to make. In previous generations, traditional social mores around sex existed primarily to protect the children that were all kinds of likely to be produced by the sex act, and more broadly to protect the community from the problem of having to care for babies that their parents had no intention of raising. It's no accident that the decline in our hang-ups around extramarital sex coincides so exactly with the rise of reliable, safe, and readily available birth control.)

At any rate, the modern view of sex—that the act of intercourse is somehow separate in function from the act of procreation—did not only create a social revolution. It also caused one in the church (the Catholic prohibition against the pill not withstanding).

When I became a pastor 20 years ago, it was not uncommon for preachers to preach from time to time on “God’s design” for sex. I’ve certainly heard more than one such sermon. Though I’m still cringing from the worst ones I’ve heard, the best of them were very tactful, sensitive, and honest, talking frankly about the pleasures of sex, the bonds it creates between people, and wounds it can create when it’s misused or abused. For the life of me, however, I cannot remember a single sermon on sex that spoke eloquently, passionately, and enthusiastically about the plain fact that the reason we humans do it is to perpetuate the species. (I lump myself in with this critique. I once preached a verse-by-verser through the Song of Solomon, and, if I recall, I did not once name baby-making as sex’s primary purpose … but more on this in a moment).

If we have followed the culture in bifurcating the psychological and procreative functions of sex, then whatever else we’re doing, we are being, in the strictest and technical sense, unbiblical.

I believe that a fulsome, sober, and unbiased reading of the Scripture would leave most objective readers with the conclusion that the reason God gave people “the gift of sex” (as so many of the aforementioned sermons like to describe it), was so that they would, and could “be fruitful and multiply.” That is to say that biblically, sex was expressly designed for the purpose of procreation, and all the other attendant goods of sex are there primarily to serve this main purpose. Sex was made to feel good (to put it crassly) so that people would be better motivated to procreate; sex forms a deep psychological bond between the partners (a little less crassly) so that the children formed by the act of intercourse would have a better chance of being raised by both parents, and so on.

Let me pause at this point to make it clear where I am not going with this line of reasoning. I am not trying to argue that contraception is wrong. I am not trying to argue that God wants us not to have sex unless it’s to make babies, or that it's a sin to have sex that is intentionally non-procreative. I have many friends, Christian and non-Christian alike, who have not had children, some for health reasons, some, tragically, because they could not conceive, others by choice, others still by some personal combination of the above. If what I have written adds pain to an already painful circumstance, or guilt to couples who have nothing to feel guilty about, this post will have failed pitifully in what it’s trying to do.

All I am trying to do is to point out that the witness of the Bible gives us to understand that the ultimate reason to have sex is to have children. Conservative Christians often argue that one reason to denounce same-sex sex is because, the exegesis of specific passages aside, the Bible is oriented exclusively toward heterosexual sex. I would argue, however, that this is not saying enough. The Bible is not oriented toward heterosexual sex, in and of itself. The Bible is oriented toward procreative sex. If we have embraced other reasons to have sex, reasons that have nothing to do with having children, it is only because we have done what Christians do on all sorts of ethical issues, something I am arguing in this series that we can and should do in regards to same-sex sexuality. We have taken the clear witness of the Scripture, on the one hand, and then integrated it with our experience of life in the world that is, on the other.

Let me make the case briefly for the first point in that preceding paragraph—that the Bible is oriented exclusively toward procreative sex—before moving on to the second. There’s not room for a full treatment of the relevant data but suffice it to say that the creation mandate in Genesis 1:27 clearly indicates that humans were to be fruitful and multiply. By implication, then, sex would be necessary if people were to fulfill this part of their human calling. From this starting point, the Bible gives us no positive example of people engaging in intercourse for non-procreative purposes. Every instance where a couple is unable to conceive is presented as a tragic loss (Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Leah, Hannah and Elkanah, etc.). By contrast, all the examples of non-procreative sex we find in the Bible are presented as horrific examples of what not to do: Onan withdrawing before ejaculation, the Persian Emperor requiring Esther to “sexually please him,” Ammon’s rape of Tamar, and so on.

Evangelicals often reach for the Song of Songs at this point in the discussion. “Not so,” we will say. “The Song of Songs is a whole entire book of the Bible celebrating God’s gift of sex and it contains no mention of childbearing whatsoever.” When we say this, however, we are giving away how deeply the contraception revolution of the last 60 years has shaped our view of sex. No ancient reader would come away from reading the Song of Songs, I think, believing that all the joy and pleasure these lovers are finding in each other was not, fundamentally, about bringing bouncing babies into the world. It’s no accident that the poem’s imagery is shot through and through with images of flourishing gardens and fruit-laden trees. Nor is it just a throwaway line when, at the outset of the poem, the beloved tells her lover that she intends to bring him “into her mother’s house,” to the place where her mother conceived her (and, by implication, the place where all mothers conceive (3:4, see also 8:2)). This is about as clear a reference to the woman’s (fertile) womb as you could expect in a poem as lyrical and symbolic as this.

Whatever else it is, the Song of Songs is an epithalamion, an ancient near eastern fertility poem, and if modern readers like us overlook all the thinly-veiled references to the fertility of this couple, it is only because we have learned to think that making love and making babies are two fundamentally different activities.

Admittedly, the picture does change somewhat in the New Testament. Contrary to popular evangelical sensibilities, though, the change is actually away from sex altogether (not, rather, a change towards non-procreative sex). Jesus clearly upholds the path of singleness and celibacy as an ideal way of following him (Matthew 19:12), and Paul underscored this teaching of our Lord (1 Cor 7:7). In both instances, though, Jesus and Paul each make it clear that only those who can receive this yoke and walk this path (those who have the “charism” of celibacy, as Paul might say it), should do so. Those who cannot are enjoined to marry and, by implication, have children (or at least have sex in a context where the possibility of childbearing exists).

Again, to be clear: I am not meaning to argue that Christians who marry must have children, or that there is anything wrong when married Christians have non-procreative sex, whether its because they’re using contraception, or for some other reason.

All I am saying is that the witness of the Bible is oriented exclusively towards seeing sex and procreation as, essentially, one and the same thing. The reason to do it is to have kids, and all the other reasons people might do it are actually there, ultimately, to serve that first reason. I do not agree with the Catholics on this one, but I am willing to admit that they are applying the witness of the Bible far more consistently than the Protestants do, when they forbid contraception. A plain reading of the whole counsel of God on the matter would certainly point you to that conclusion.

So why do Christians (excepting the Catholics) use contraception, and approve of it, and counsel newly-weds to do so (or at least, we don’t counsel them not to), and all of this without blinking an eye at the fact that our use of contraception moves fundamentally against the warp-and-woof of a biblical view of sex?

My answer is that we tend to take what I am calling an “integrative view” of contraception. An integrative view is one that acknowledges and honors the witness of Scripture—in this case, that God’s intention for sex is that it produce children—but also acknowledges the fact that we live in a world where things do not always fit neatly and tidily into biblical categories. There may be health reasons not to have children. There may be reasons related to one’s Christian vocation. There may be circumstances where it’s not possible or advisable for a couple to try to conceive. They may simply be unprepared or ill-equipped to have children. And in those instances, wise Christians acknowledge that it would not be wise or kind to suggest that such couples refrain from having sex simply because they’re not willing or able to have children when they do.

As with my previous examples of pacifism and divorce, an integrative view on the question of contraception takes the biblical witness with all seriousness, but then seeks wisely to integrate it with the complicated realities of our lived experience. And whether we realize it or not, this is what Christians are doing when we use contraception.

Of course, this series is not about contraception, per se. It is about a Christian response to LGBTQ+ identities and same-sex marriage. My ultimate point is that I think it is possible to adopt an integrative approach in our response to LGBTQ+ issues, in a way similar to what we do with these other examples I’ve discussed. If I have dwelt longer than necessary on the issue of contraception, it’s only because with this question we are getting closer to the heart of our ultimate theme. If we can find ways to integrate the witness of the Scripture and our posture toward non-procreative sex for heterosexual people, is it not possible to do something similar when it comes to our posture towards LGBTQ+ people and their experience of their sexuality?

That is not a rhetorical question. In coming posts I hope to unpack it at length and draw some conclusions. At this point in the discussion, however, suffice it simply to say this: if we really wanted to apply the Bible’s teaching on sex with the strictest of literalism, we would not simply reject same-sex sex, we would also reject any form of contraception that artificially closes heterosexual sex off from the possibility of procreation. And if we don't do so on the later, perhaps we need not do so on the former, either.

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