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 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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Dreamcatcher, a song

I was tumbling through the air
In a freefall of dying dreams and of helpless hope
Up where only angels dare
I couldn’t see the sky above or the ground below
I was calling out your name
Words into the empty void of my heart’s desire
Disappointing me again
Burning with fading light and a searing fire

Dreamcatcher, catch this one before it hits the ground
Everything is up in the air
Keep it all from crashing down
Without a wing or a prayer
It was tossed into the here after
It was thrown away in despair
Can you bring it back with laughter?
Dreamcatcher, Dreamcatcher
Dreamcatcher
Catch me in this trust fall
I’m throwing it all to you

I had it hidden all away
I couldn’t bear to risk it all and to let it show
Or to see the light of day
I held it like a fist full of melting snow
I found it hard to believer
That I would really gain it all if I let it go
So I held it close to me
A secret that I didn’t want to let the world know

Dreamcatcher, catch this one before it hits the ground
Everything is up in the air
Keep it all from crashing down
Without a wing or a prayer
It was tossed into the here after
It was thrown away in despair
Can you bring it back with laughter
Dreamcatcher, Dreamcatcher
Dreamcatcher
Catch me in this trust fall

And I, I heard a rumor
I’d find my heart’s desire
If my delight was found only in you
But I was always a late bloomer
And the dreams that you inspire
Are easy to believe but the feel to good
To be true

Dreamcatcher, catch this one before it hits the ground
Everything is up in the air
Keep it all from crashing down
Without a wing or a prayer
It was tossed into the here after
It was thrown away in despair
Can you bring it back with laughter
Dreamcatcher, Dreamcatcher
Dreamcatcher
Catch me in this trust fall
I’m throwing it all to you

One Last Hurrah, a song

The party’s almost over and time is running out
And no one knows when we’ll be back here again
And we’re holding on for love or the fear of missing out
Cause the end is about to begin

The hour’s getting later, but I don’t want to leave
Cause we’ve been through a lot, but we’ve still got one shot
And now this might be our fate or our final destiny
So let’s give it all we got

When it’s all said and done,
The joy of the race is the ache of the run
Cause whether you lost or you won
You still gave it your all

For one last hurrah, here in the land of the living
We’re making the most of this moment we got
Cause nobody knows,
Just how much time we’ve been given
So stay lost in the wonder and standing in awe
For one last hurrah

The party guests are leaving the night is nearly done
But as late as it gets, it’s not over yet
We got one more chance at living before the rising sun
So let’s love with no regrets

Cause at the end of the day
Your heart is worth more than the parts that you play
And when it’s all stripped away
You still gave it your all, for

One last hurrah, here in the land of the living
We’re making the most of this moment we got
Cause nobody knows,
Just how much time we’ve been given
So stay lost in the wonder and standing in awe
For one last hurrah

Hallelujah, I’m holding on to you
Till our final au revoir
O, Hallelujah, I give my heart to you
For one last glorious hurrah

One last hurrah, here in the land of the living
We’re making the most of this moment we got
Cause nobody knows,
Just how much time we’ve been given
So stay lost in the wonder and standing in awe
For one last hurrah

Let No Man Put Asunder: Toward an Integrative Perspective on Same-Sex Sexuality (IV)

A few years ago, I was invited to do a presentation for the board of a Christian campground and retreat centre on the topic of “Homosexuality and the Bible.” At the time, I was deep in the throes of writing my doctoral dissertation on this topic, a document I mentioned in an earlier post in this series. Back in those days, I was exploring the theme of hospitality, specifically, as a possible way for churches with a traditional sexual ethic to respond to the LGBTQ+ people in their communities. This Christian camp was seeking to develop policies around how they might respond if LGBTQ+ people wanted to rent property on their facility, and they were hoping my research might inform their efforts.

I prepared the presentation on the assumption that this particular ministry was looking for ways to frame a policy that allowed LGBTQ+ people to rent lots, and that the board members were aware that the tenor of my work was towards including and embracing LGBTQ+ people in Christian community. As the afternoon unfolded, however, it slowly began to dawn on me that this was not the case, that the board was intending to draft a policy that restricted “practicing homosexuals” from rental agreements with their ministry, and they were hoping that my presentation might give them ideas on how to frame these restrictions “biblically.”

They listened politely to my research, and many took careful notes, but towards the end of our time together, as it became clear that my thinking and their intentions were not especially well-aligned, someone in the audience explained to me that they had seen other churches that tried to be “hospitable” in a way I was proposing, only to become full-on-affirming before they were done. He warned his fellow board members of this danger and then made it clear to me that they had no intention of falling into this trap.

The discussion continued around the specific policy proposals they were considering, and how the idea of “hospitality” might relate to it, and, realizing I was losing the crowd, I final said: “Well, whatever your board decides, it should not be more stringent or more restrictive than your policy on renting property to divorcees who have remarried.”

I meant this sincerely, in good faith, assuming that a Christian ministry that was so concerned about being “biblical” when it comes to LGBTQ+ people must surely have a policy on the question of divorce and remarriage, too.

Someone sheepishly explained to me that they didn’t have any policy on the question of divorce.

I was quite startled: “How could you be considering a policy on ‘renting to LGBTQ+ people,’” I asked, “If you don’t have a similar policy on renting to remarried divorcees?”

The same sheepish someone tried to help me see reason: “Well,” he said, “of course we can’t have a policy on renting to divorcees. That would require us to ask all kinds of personal questions about people’s private lives that are inappropriate.”

The irony—and the hypocrisy—of this statement was entirely lost on the room, but I’ve never forgotten it.

I bring it up here, in a series on developing an “integrative perspective” on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ identities because—as with my previous discussion on pacifism and wearing poppies in church—it illustrates another challenging but significant issue that most Christians today have adopted an integrative approach to, despite the fact that the teaching of the Bible on the matter is—to use a phrase that many staunch non-affirmers often use—“crystal clear.”

Jesus made no bones about it, that anyone who divorces their wife “makes her a victim of adultery,” and anyone who marries a divorced woman likewise commits adultery (Matthew 5:32). In Mark 10:11, Jesus sharpens the opposite edge of this teaching, so that it applies similarly to any woman who divorces her husband and marries another man. It is true, of course, that he offers one explicit exception to this rule, that a man who divorces a woman because of “sexual immorality” is not considered to have committed adultery if he choses to remarry. It’s not exactly clear what he means by this (the Greek is somewhat ambiguous), but from the context it sounds like he’s saying that if a woman cheats on her husband and the husband chooses to divorce her as a result, he is free to remarry. (Note that there is nothing in any of Jesus’s teaching that explicitly applies the same principle to women whose husbands cheat on them. In Mark 10, Jesus broadens his teaching about remarried divorcees committing adultery to include women who divorce their husbands, but the “sexual immorality” exception is strikingly absent from that passage. It would make sense, I suppose, to assume that the “sexual immorality” exception applies equally to wives as to husbands, but Jesus never explicitly says that it does.)

There is one other “exception” passage when it comes to divorce and remarriage that most conservative Christians tend to reach for, in addition to the “sexual immorality” exception. In 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 Paul reiterates Jesus’s teaching that husbands and wives are not to divorce (even if one is a believer and the other not), however, he explains, if an unbelieving spouse leaves the believing spouse—if a Christian is married to a non-Christian, that is, and the non-Christian abandons them—the believer is “not bound” to the marriage in that circumstance, and is (presumably) free to remarry.

These two exceptions aside, though, the New Testament is otherwise explicit and clear that (a) divorce is not God’s intention for people, and (b) those who divorce and remarry are, in all other cases, committing adultery.

I remember speaking with a fellow pastor once, who was quite firm in their non-affirming perspective on same-sex marriage, and I asked them if they had ever performed marriages for divorcees.

This pastor indicated that, yes, of course they had.

I then asked if this pastor had taken time to vet the circumstances surrounding each of these divorces, to ensure that they met the conditions for one of the two exceptions—that it was a case of “sexual immorality” or “abandonment” that had led to the person becoming divorced.

This pastor indicated (somewhat sheepishly) that, no, they had never done so.

They did not have a very satisfying answer, when I asked why, in the one case (divorce and remarriage), they seemed so at peace about violating the direct teaching of the New Testament, and in the other case (same-sex marriage) they were adamantly unwilling to budge.

Today I would suggest that the reason most pastors are willing to perform remarriages after divorce, even in cases that do not technically meet the biblical exceptions, is because we have adopted an integrative approach to this issue, one that does not hesitate to say that divorce is not the Creator’s intention for marriage, but also compassionately acknowledges that there will be instances where the circumstances of a marriage may be so fraught, dangerous, painful, abusive or otherwise destructive that divorce is the better of two evils. In such cases—even if they don’t technically meet the explicit criteria for the “exceptions” provided in the Bible—it would be cruel, actually, to add to the pain and harm that the divorcee has suffered, by forbidding them to remarry and confining them to a life of singleness and loneliness as a result of their divorce.

On this issue, an integrative view says something like this: we have no doubt that the Creator’s intent for marriage was that it be a permanent, life-long union of mutual blessing and support, but we also know that human relationships do not always obtain to the Creator’s intent. When they don’t, we do not resort blindly to a strict application of the letter of the law, rather we look for the most compassionate, gracious, and life-affirming way forward, which may include the possibility of remarriage.

If we have adopted an integrative view on the question of divorce and remarriage, we may have some small precedence for having done so. In Matthew 19, when Jesus was asked if it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife, he points out that, on the one hand, God’s plan was that no one should ever put apart what he had joined together, but, on the other hand, God knew that human hearts were prone to hardness—cruelty and selfishness and exploitation—and so he directed Moses to permit people to issue their wives a certificate of divorce (in this case, the certificate of divorce would protect the rights of the abandoned woman, by proving her husband had left her and that she was free to remarry). In some ways, Jesus’s statement here is a bit of precedence for the kind of “integrative approach” I am proposing in this series. He clearly states the Creator’s intent for marriage, but he acknowledges that the human heart does not always neatly obtain to the Creator’s intention, and in doing so he suggests that the Torah’s guidance around divorce was Moses’ attempt to integrate these two realities: the Creator’s intent and the world as we experience it.

(Some might reach quickly to the doctrine of sanctification, and the idea that, while it was true that people in Moses’s time had hard hearts which made divorce a necessity, Spirit-filled Christians on this side of the cross should have Spirit-softened hearts, making divorce no longer necessary. To this I would only suggest that none of us have yet attained to the fullness of our sanctification, and so long as we are still this side of Heaven, all of us still have hard places in our hearts that need softening. On an anecdotal level, I would also say that some of the most painful marriages I’ve seen have been so-called “Christian marriages,” between presumably “Spirit-filled Christians.”)

Of course, this is not a series on the question of divorce and remarriage. It is a series on how we can acknowledge the witness of the Scripture when it comes to the question of same-sex sexuality and integrate it wisely with what we know about people’s actual lived experience of being LGBTQ+. As with my previous post on the question of pacifism, though, I think the question of divorce and remarriage is a helpful “test-case” for an integrative approach. It helps us imagine what integration looks like, and it provides us evidence that Christians do it intuitively when it comes to other issues, often without ever realizing we do it.

Some will find the integrative approach unsatisfying, suspect, perhaps even spiritually dangerous. In coming posts, I hope to explain why it is none of these things, and how I see it working in real life. For today though, I would simply say that if we are not prepared to adopt an integrative approach when it comes to same-sex marriage, we had better be prepared not to allow church membership for all remarried divorcees, excepting only those who had been abandoned by unbelieving spouses, or men who had been cheated on by their first wives.

To do otherwise—to refuse to embrace and honor same-sex marriages or LGBTQ+ identities while willingly performing remarriages for divorcees—would make us guilty of that sin which Jesus spoke most vehemently against in his time here on earth: the sin of hypocrisy.

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Three Times Holy, a song

Holy, three times holy, holy
Holy three times holy, holy
Holy, holy, holy
Holy, three times holy, holy

Blessed are the Peacemakers: Toward an Integrative Perspective on Same-Sex Sexuality (III)

Today is November 1. In just 10 days, our society will be observing Remembrance Day, the national day set aside to commemorate our fallen soldiers—especially those who fought and died in World War I and II, but also, more broadly, our war-dead from all of the many armed conflicts the nation of Canada has participated in around the world and across the decades. As this day approaches, I am faced, as a pastor, with the low-grade spiritual struggle I wrestle with every year in the lead up to November 11.

Should I wear a poppy to church or not?

A little back ground may be in order, if you welcomed the above question with arched eyebrows, wondering, either: “Well, why on earth wouldn’t you?” or “How on earth could you?”

You see: I believe that the Bible is the inspired, authoritative word of God, that it is useful for teaching us how to live ethically in God’s world (as Paul says, it is useful for training in righteousness). And I’ve read enough of the Bible to believe very strongly that it teaches that human beings ought not to kill one another. That killing is, in fact, contrary to the Creator’s intention for human life together, that more violence is not God’s way to respond to the problem of violence, that the same God who speaks against sexual immorality in the Scriptures also says, very clearly, that we shall not kill.

As an interpretive aside, I should clarify a few things. Occasionally people will argue that the sixth commandment—God’s prohibition against killing—is more accurately translated as “murder,” and it does not apply to other kinds of killing, such as capital punishment or killing in war. Certainly, there’s some small case to be made in this regard. The Ten Commandments first appear in Exodus 20, and the word used there that usually gets translated as “kill” in most English versions is the Hebrew verb râtsach. In the Hebrew Bible, râtsach is most commonly used to describe intentional, unlawful killing—murder—not killing generally (which is usually described by the Hebrew verb harag). Having said that, though, râtsach is also used throughout Torah when it has unintentional or accidental killing in mind (e.g. Numbers 35). It is also used to describe the killing of someone who has accidentally killed a close family member of yours (the so-called avenger of blood); and within certain contexts, this kind of râtsach, a revenge-killing, is presented as entirely lawful (See, e.g. Numbers 35:17), even when the death they are avenging was accidental. So we can’t settle the question of whether Commandment Six is referring only to unlawful murder on linguistic grounds alone. We need to look at the wider witness of Scripture.

When we do look at the Bible more broadly, the case seems pretty strong to me that in the overall arc of the story it tells, killing is not, and never was God’s intention for us. This is assumed in the story of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:1-15). It is explicitly stated in God’s covenant with Noah (Genesis 9:5-6). And God’s prophets envision a time when God’s intention for peaceful human co-existence will be gloriously realized (e.g., Isaiah 2:1-12).

The case gets even more clear when we get to the New Testament, where the pacifist tendencies of the Scripture are reiterated and strengthened. Jesus blessed the peacemakers (Matt 5:9). He taught that the Old Testament prohibition against killing even included harboring hatred in your heart for your fellow human being (Matt 5:21). He commanded his followers not to (violently) resist the evil person and to offer the left cheek to the person who slaps them on the right. He famously warned his disciples that those who lived by the sword will die by the sword. And from the witness of the Book of Acts, it seems his first followers followed his teaching literally, and spread the Gospel in the face of intense violence, without ever once resorting to violence themselves.

The whole of the Scripture, in other words, is clearly oriented towards pacifism, the non-violent resistance of violent aggression. Its basic assumption is that this phenomenon of human beings settling their differences by killing one another was emphatically not something God had in mind when he created us in the beginning.

And yet, as I mentioned at the outset, I wrestle every year with the question of whether I ought to wear a poppy in church. The source of my wrestling is this: on the one hand, the poppy commemorates the bravery, self-sacrifice, and loyalty of men and women who literally gave up their own lives, seeking by violent means to resist and defeat a violent aggressor. And our nation is a peaceful, prosperous, safe and secure place to live as a result of their sacrifice. It is good citizenship to acknowledge this, to express gratitude for it, to commemorate it and even (if solemnly) to celebrate it. I have known many Christians who have served in the military or have had loved ones who served. The FMCiC has ordained ministers who serve as chaplains in the Canadian Armed Forces. And many of the things that the poppy honors: fidelity, courage, self-sacrifice, faithfulness, hope, and love, are either explicitly Christian virtues, or, if not that, certainly “Christian adjacent.”

In the church circles I minister in, many folks would notice it if the pastor did not wear a poppy in church on or around Remembrance Day; it’s not impossible that some would comment on it disapprovingly. Certainly, no one would speak negatively about the pastor if he did wear a one. And few would bat an eye for a millisecond if the church service closest to Novemebr 11 included a moment of silence for the war-dead. Most would expect it.

All this is true, even though the poppy explicitly commemorates the fact that men and women, at the behest of the state, sought by violent means to resist and overcome a violent aggressor. It is a commemoration of war, worn in honor of our national war heroes, who used violence to preserve our freedom, our property, our way of life. And to whatever extent it does this, it is honoring something that—in terms of the clear and explicit teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ—is not the Creator’s intention for human beings.

I want to be clear here. Some Christian traditions are strictly pacifist, and would argue that a thing like a poppy, and more importantly, the sentiment that the poppy represents, has no place on the lapel of a Bible-believing follower of Jesus Christ.

I am not a pacifist. I am aware of the carefully articulated and nuanced theology of “Just War” that has developed among Christians over the millennia, which suggests that, even though killing contravenes one of God’s clearly stated intentions for human beings, still, there are times and circumstances where it is the better of two evils, so to speak. If, by acting with force, one might stop greater violence from occurring, such force can be seen to be theologically justified, provided it is deployed according to strict guidelines that reflect other biblical principles (that it’s not more forceful than necessary, for instance, or that all non-violent means of resolution have been exhausted).

For the most part, I find the arguments that underly the “Just War” tradition to be convincing. I am even able to identify many moral goods that can emerge in the midst of war—acts of courage and self-giving, loyalty to friends, commitment to a cause, resilience and fortitude. All these are virtues I am willing to honor unabashedly, even though I still roundly condemn the context of violence which brought them into being and made it necessary that they be modeled.

In other words, when it comes to war and the teaching of the Bible, I have done what almost all Christians do (excepting those who have opted to walk a path of true pacifism): we have integrated what we know to be the witness of the Scripture on the question of war, on the one hand, with our lived experience in the world, on the other. We know in general terms what our Creator’s intention for human life is—that none should kill, or feel the need to—but we also know by lived experience that the world simply does not always “live up” to the Creator’s intention for it, and it’s not always clear how, exactly, we should best live in relation to the witness of the Scripture on the question of violence.

And so, wise Christians try to find ways to hold these two realities in tension—the pacifist orientation of the Bible, on the one hand, and the apparent reality that, this side of the Second Coming, there are occasions where the pacifist option seems only to exacerbate and permit the evil of violence, that there are times when war may be the wisest Christian response to the horrors of violence, because our lived experience in the world does not always fit neatly into the clear categories of Scripture.

Christians going to war, in other words, or serving in the Armed Forces, or wearing poppies to honor those who have, are all instances of Christians taking an “integrative” perspective on the problem of responding to violence with violence: we don’t deny that the Scripture clearly teaches that its not God’s heart for us, but we have integrated this fact with our lived experience, which leads us to believe that, even so, sometimes it is necessary.

In framing the issue like this, I am not trying to argue, necessarily, that non-pacifist Christians are right to adopt this kind of an “integrative view” of war. I myself am not a pacifist, but my point here is only that, most of us do this kind of “integration” quite instinctively and without much reflection when it comes to the issue of war. It comes so naturally to us, in fact, that very few of us ever even stop to wonder why we are so ready to honor something that so clearly contravenes the heart of God as revealed in Scripture.

Of course, this series is about developing a wise Christian response to the question of same-sex sexuality and LGBTQ+ experience, not about war. If you’ve stuck with me this far, however, perhaps you can see where I am going with this, and why I dove so deeply into the issue of war and pacifism. It’s because I am proposing that we can do something similar when it comes to the issue of same-sex sexuality and the Bible, holding together, without compromising either, our convictions about the biblical witness, on the one hand, and our lived-experience of real life in the Creator’s world, on the other. We can, and should, hold those two things in tension, and then wisely find a way forward that honors both: acknowledging that the Bible presents opposite-sex sex as the creator's intention for sex, but also recognizing that our lived experience of our sexuality in the Creator's world is such that there may be circumstances where the wisest and most compassionate thing to do is to honor and bless relationships that lie outside this basic intention.

In coming posts, I will offer some other, real-life examples of times and places where Christians do this kind of “integrative work” without even realizing it, before moving on to what I believe an "integrative approach" might look like when it comes to the question of same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ identities. I start with the question of pacifism and war, however, because that issue, it seems, has been settled for so long that it’s almost startling to have it pointed out how “integrative” non-pacifist Christians actually are.

I would hope that, if we can adopt an integrative approach to an issue as fraught and painful as the problem of war, we should be able to do something similar with the question of same-sex sexuality. I would humbly suggest that, if we can with the one but can’t with the other, we may be guilty of straining the gnat while swallowing a camel, loading burdens on the backs of others we ourselves are unwilling to bear, tithing on our dill and mint but leaving the weightier matters of the law undone.

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Reading Ecclesiastes Together (IX): But Fear Itself