Thus, in the case of the passage under discussion, the essentially narrative character of the account rendered by Paul, dealing with a particular situation involving what Paul interprets as the deliberate punishment of God on persons who defy and renounce the truth about Him, and featuring the application of reason and the contemporary knowledge of the time to the activities of persons who appear radically and wilfully to have changed their normal sexual orientation to embrace an orientation that was not originally normal for them, it cannot be held that what is unquestionably Holy Scripture is also a declaration of the Law of God. The only aspect that can be placed in the category of “Law” is the requirement to recognize the truth about God and not to exchange such acknowledgment of truth and the worship that goes with it, for the lie that anything other than the God revealed in scripture and through the created order is worthy of recognition and worship.
Indeed, this is the key, not only to the situation confronted by Paul but also to the situation confronted by the contemporary Church. The issue that confronted Paul and confronts us now is how to get across the damaging futility that will be encountered by those ”“ they are a great majority throughout the world ”“ who defy and deny the truth about God. Paul saw in the depravity of his contemporaries the punishment of God not on account of their depravity (which, Paul says was their punishment not their crime!) but on account of their denial and defiance, which was the sin that counted.
Romans 1, therefore, provides no declaration of the Law of God in respect of homosexuality and homosexual acts. Reference to such acts is what Hooker might call “by-speeches” in the context of an historical narrative and, as such, not a declaration of God’s Law. Furthermore, Paul, in his treatment of the issues, employs reason based upon the knowledge and presuppositions accessible to him in his day. These may be challenged if the knowledge base changes definitively. It is therefore inappropriate on the basis of Romans 1.18-17 and ff to judge or anathematize persons on the basis of sexual orientation. It will be necessary to scrutinize other sections of scripture in a similar way to discover whether elsewhere there may be established evidence of the Law of God in this matter and I have not attempted to do that in this essay. I remain committed to the view, however, that the tools of analysis which Hooker articulated are essential to our contemporary purpose and are especially relevant for the purpose of distilling the Law of God from the total corpus of Holy Scripture.
“…featuring the application of reason and the contemporary knowledge of the time to the activities of persons who appear radically and wilfully to have changed their normal sexual orientation to embrace an orientation that was not originally normal for them…”
But I thought that the idea of “sexual orientation” was unknown in Paul’s day, which is why he could be said to speak only of certain kinds of behavior (pederasty, etc.), but not homosexuality per se. But I’m sure the Archbishop knows that. It just happens to be inconvenient for the sake of the particular argument he’s making.
What this says to me is this: what counts is the result. People like +Armagh don’t care about historical accuracy, they don’t care about cultural context, they don’t care about any of the historical-critical apparatus that is supposed to be so important for teasing out a properly nuanced interpretation of passages such as Romans 1. All they really care about is achieving their political ends. If that means ignoring contrary evidence, or saying one thing on one occasion and another at other times, that’s fine. Only the end result matters.
Picky, picky, picky.