As Episcopalians and Anglicans wait to see if their fractious global fellowship will splinter or hold together in a long-running conflict over homosexuality and the Bible, other denominations are watching nervously.
The same or related issues are roiling many denominations, especially such mainline Protestant churches as Evangelical Lutherans, Presbyterians and Methodists. And many church leaders and scholars predict that the way these questions play out in the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion will hold lessons for them all.
“The struggle going on inside the Anglican Communion. . . is not peculiar to Anglicanism,” Sister Joan Chittister, a Roman Catholic nun, wrote in a recent column in the National Catholic Reporter newspaper. “The issue is in the air we breathe. The Anglicans simply got there earlier than most.”
Conservative Judaism has debated the issue as well, but the conflict is especially pronounced among Protestant churches. Said John C. Green, senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life: “They know it’s going to happen to them too.”
Across faith groups, the controversies revolve broadly around homosexuality: whether to allow openly gay and lesbian clergy or bishops and whether to provide official recognition to the unions of same-sex couples. But fundamentally, the debate involves questions of scriptural interpretation and whether the Bible’s teachings are to be seen as unchanging or in cultural and historical context.
The issues are not new. In many American Protestant denominations, the dispute has been simmering for about 30 years, longer than the same groups’ now largely resolved disagreements over ordination for women.
But in recent years, vocal minorities on both ends of the theological spectrum — religious traditionalists on one side, gay religious groups and supporters on the other — have become less inclined to search for middle ground.
Gay and gay-friendly pastors have been tried in church courts, and breakaway parishes and parent churches have fought legal battles over property. The national conventions of several denominations have taken up the topic again and again.
“On both sides of the question, there’s really no willingness at this point to compromise,” said the Rev. Jay Johnson, professor of theology at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley and senior research director at its Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry. “This isn’t something that’s negotiable.”
[blockquote] But fundamentally, the debate involves questions of scriptural [i]interpretation[/i] and whether the Bible’s teachings are to be seen as unchanging or in cultural and historical context. [/blockquote]
It’s not really about interpretation. There is little doubt about what the Scripture says in this matter. The conflict is rather about authority. Appeals to cultural and historical context are intended to subvert the authority of the text. Appeals to its unchanging nature are in reality assertions of Scripture’s authority over all men at all times.
But of course, the debate over authority is really a debate over the nature of revelation. Scripture claims to be God’s true revelation to man. Natural man would prefer not to receive this revelation, for he hates what it says. In response, he must either change Scripture to fit his desires, or he must attack its authority. And that truly is the center of the argument.
carl
Here we get to the nub of the matter: This issue is not negotiable. Precisely so, and this is why this battle is to the death. This issue should not be negotiable because TEC and the homophiles have made the issue a take-it-or-leave-it matter, and any compromise here would consist of giving up one’s principles while TEC gives up nothing except phrases that are at last meaningless.
One must wonder whether the homosexual world is not doing itself serious harm, for it is creating genuine enemies, its posturing is suggesting to many that the homosexual subculture is actually quite dangerous, that being a homophobe is not the same as being a bigot, and that rational people will fear what ought to be feared. The homosexual organizations like Integrity have made it clear that no one and nothing is going to stop them from pursuing the course that they are on, and this should suggest to many that such an agenda is culturally very dangerous because it is patently so self centered, so self indulgent, so devoid of self-restraint.
The 60’s generation and their children taught the vigorous lesson that self-restraint is bad, as is all guilt, shame and remorse, and two entire generations listened. BUt the first generation of the 21st century is beginning to look rather different in these matters. AT present, the homophile agenda is strong across the US exactly as gender-feminism is still strong, and we may see a female President who favors both. But this is not the last word, and the pendulum will swing the other way. That is, people who would not have resisted a more moderate approach are beginning to resist because they are being bullied and manipulated. I suspect, for example, the Representative Craig’s behavior has had a negative effect far beyond the cause. His intransigence will be taken as more than just one man’s wrong-headedness. LM
This battle is not only for the Episcopal church in America, or even the Anglican church in the world. It is being fought for every church everywhere. I know that the fight in the TEC has been a major influence in many people in my own church (Presbyterian in New Zealand) changing from being supportive of gay ministers (because we want to be nice) to being unsupportive (because we don’t want our church to go through THAT).
Margaret, as far as I know, we have heard litle or nothing from New Zealand concerning this present mess. Do the newspapers in NZ talk about this issue? Is the general public – esp. the unchurched – largely sympathetic with either TEC or the homosexual agenda? Is NZ largely a secular society?
I should be very much interested in you observations. Larry
[i]The issue is in the air we breathe.[/i]
It’s worth asking why this should be.
I’m just getting around to reading my Sunday L.A. Times, and I’ve noticed something very interesting between the print edition and the online version that this posting is linked to. The print story is on p. 16 of the “A” section of my Orange County edition. There is a prominent photo of Bps. Kisekka and Guernsey ordaining one of the new clergy, so surrounded by others that I can’t even see who the ordinand is. Then below it, there is the same photo of Bp. Robinson used in the online edition, but it’s cropped closely and became a tiny head shot. Other than that, the story is unchanged. Both photos of him show a pensive expression instead of his usual beatific smile.)
Why do you suppose they changed the pictures? It certainly wasn’t to sell newspapers in either version. Granted, the ordination photo is eye-catchingly colorful, and it did take place in conservative Orange County, but it’s still buried.
One could hope that the observing churches would have heard the Gospel message clearly form Jesus story of the after life and Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham and avoid the same error. Alas, it may be that “they sould not believe though one rose from the dead” to tell them the result of the error. Nor, apparently, seeing it live out daily.
[i]”Across faith groups, the controversies revolve broadly around homosexuality: whether to allow openly gay and lesbian clergy or bishops and whether to provide official recognition to the unions of same-sex couples.”[/i]
It is time to unpack this one.
We all know that in practice it is about our having no comment on homosexuality or other human sexuality — committed or otherwise — in TEC. Just as the fornicating heterosexual couples routinely are not commented upon by our clergy, so homosexuality of any kind will get a pass.
So let’s stop allowing all this nonsense to be spoken by liberals about “committed this or that” as it’s really about a culture of no sexual rules at all.
Well, at least for the time being, heterosexual adultery seems to be the last hold out of the biblical worldview.