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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