Archbishop Harper’s argument that we can come to new conclusions about homosexual unions is poorly cast and shows a need for further research on his part regarding the scriptural evidence in its historical context. Much of what I have written above can be seen in a fuller discussion in my 2003 article, “Does the Bible Regard Same-Sex Intercourse as Intrinsically Sinful?”[1] Put simply, Paul was not presupposing in Rom 1:24-27 that every individual who engages in homosexual practice consciously turns aside from felt heterosexual urges. Rather, they turn aside from clear natural revelation, here given in the obvious embodied complementarity of male and female. Nor is the concept of homosexual orientation wholly unknown in the Greco-Roman milieu. Nor was Paul deriving his view of homosexual practice solely from nature, as if he thought that the creation texts in Genesis 1-2 had nothing to say about homosexual practice by necessary implication. There is absolutely no evidence that modern orientation theory would have had any impact on Paul changing his strong negative valuation of homosexual practice. Indeed, all the extant evidence indicates otherwise.
This is vintage Rob Gagnon. Which is to say, it’s superb in every way. And he is totally right. And ++Harper is totally wrong. The Archbishop of Armagh’s claim to respresent the voice of reason and sound scholarship in this endless and vexed debate is completely delusional and fraudulent.
Rather, it’s Dr. Gagnon who does that. As Gagnon points out, ++Harper is merely rehasing a long discredited argument first populularized by the late gay scholar John Boswell back in 1980, i.e., that Paul was only condemning people who are heterosexual in orientation indulging in homosexual acts. As Dr. Gagnon aptly states, Boswell’s argument didn’t hold water back in 1980, and it doesn’t work any bettr now, as many gay scholars themselves admit.
Robert Gagnon rocks!
David Handy+
Oops, sorry for the typos above. In the second paragraph, I clearly meant to say that ++Harper is merely “rehashing” Boswell’s severly flawed orientation argument, and that it was John Boswell who first “popularized” that weak argument back in 1980. Richard Hays was one of the first to take Boswell to task for his shoddy scholarship. Many others have followed suit since then. But ++Harper seems oblivious to all that.
David Handy+
Vintage bob gagnon – great biblical exegesis, horrible theology. Complementarity might have etiological soundness, but it is as useful as young earth creationism. Paul might have known about homosexuality and found it wanting, but any Jew would have found it as distasteful as pork.
The reexamining argument – a coherent one – assumes that one cannot easily assume that the old or the new have priority over the other; and that we can be appropriately skeptical about how culture affects morality. Fortunately, we have some hints for how some aspects of Jesus’ world view trump the parochial aspects of the culture. Alas, Gagnon doesn’t refute Tobias Haller nor address his concerns.
Scripture never gets in your way, right John? Might be useful to prop up a desk but that’s about all.
And that’s the crux of it, Br. Michael. Scripture often gets in the way of human reason. That’s why we have Scripture.
I guess the bottom line question is this: why is so much time and energy being spent to justify what is simply unjustifiable? There’s something (or someone) pushing this whole agenda. How I pray for those in authority who are expounding these teachings. “It were better for them …”
It’s a matter of abstracting the issue until all distinctions are blurred, then zooming in on the blur one has created to declare the clear distinctions nonexistent. As Kierkegaard acidly put it, “Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible.”
Br. Michael, if thats what you think the reappraising position is, there is certainly a wide gulf in mutual understanding. I think for most reappraisers, scripture’s understanding of grace and God’s love tend to trump the handful of verses on same-sex relationships. But I do think we are wary about applying scripture to modern times, as if its possible to see one through the other without the use of reason. Simply put, when I read scripture about homosexuality, I just don’t understand it. It is incomprehensible to me. You seem to know what it means. But I can’t pretend I’m a Jew from that era listening to it with any comprehension.
Furthermore, until we start deciding to stone people for their sexuality, it seems like a convenient belief: homosexuality is wrong, but we won’t do what God says we should do….
However, plenty of bible scholars and theologians have argued you can’t have both.
#8: What part of ‘No’ don’t you understand?
I think, actually, you don’t mean ‘understand’; you mean ‘agree with’. For you, it’s clear that reason trumps revelation every time: only by ‘reason’, you mean ‘my intellect’ (and thus ‘my assumptions’), not ‘logic’: since there are perfectly good logical arguments which counter approbation for homosexual acts, but which you’ll reject, because you reject the assumptions on which those arguments are based.
Given this situation, it seems pointless to argue. When people disagree on first principles, they won’t convince each other by any argument. But it would be helpful if you acknowledged that Scripture is not, for you, in any sense part of the foundation of your faith; then, at least, your opponents could stop wasting their time by quoting it and assuming that any quotation will have an effect.
[blockquote]Furthermore, until we start deciding to stone people for their sexuality, it seems like a convenient belief: homosexuality is wrong, but we won’t do what God says we should do…. [/blockquote]
This is a deceitful sleight of hand, John. The issue isn’t homosexuality, but homosexual acts. It always has been. Heterosexuals engaging on homosexual acts are just as sinful in the eyes of God.
We all have sinful urges, but it is when we act upon them that we transgress. VGR and other homosexual clergy blaspheme and preach heresy when they claim that their homosexual acts are “blessed.” It really couldn’t be simpler.
#8’s remarks about not understanding what scripture says about homosexuality is an excellent example of what I h ave been saying, about the breakdown of the “universality” of our language. The scripture, most of us would say, is clear, it’s English unequivocal (and we hope accurate.) But John doesn’t understand it. How can this be?
The correct and only answer is that he does not speak the same language. It LOOKS the same, but it is not. LM
John, if you can’t understand scripture then maybe you are in the wrong profession. If you don’t understand the difference between grace and license then maybe you are in the wrong profession. If you equate love with affirming what some one wants to do even if it to their harm then maybe you are in the wrong profession.
Brother Michael, perhaps you are far more saintly than I, that God has told you what my vocation is. Bless you Michael – you challenge me to recognize that God is in your life as well. I’m not sure how “grace” and “license” came up, but yes, I can tell the difference. For example, it is graced when a gay person understands that they are loved by God as a gay person and not as a disordered person. License, in my mind, would mean we bless a series of partners. That’s only for straight people who get divorced. It is good to eat meat occasionally, but it is not good to hoard all the meat in the world. It is better to marry than to burn. That is also in scripture. Of course, gay men learn – like we ask of straight couples – to see the holy spirit in each other. I may desire lots of women, but I would choose only one. Paul was ambivalent about even one, however, suggesting that most people should probably stay celibate.
#9 I’m not sure what you are saying, as you don’t offer any first principles. When I read scripture, the context seems to indicate homosexual relationships that are non-consensual and exploitative: but also that before judging, we must examine ourselves first. I don’t see a lot of that on this blog. Jeffersonian says “homosexual acts” are sinful, as if everyone knows what homosexual acts are. Two men holding hands and promising fidelity? What are the homosexual acts that can’t be done by heterosexuals? Does this mean that serial monogamy by heterosexuals is more blessed by God than faithful homosexuals?
For I would not bless either homosexual “acts” or heterosexual “acts.” It is the quality of the relationship that represents the work of God. And I hope to God that we do not reduce real living relationships between people to a p0rn0graphic description.
My first principle is that revelation, mediated through the teaching of the Church (in which, of course, Scripture is primary) trumps – to use your word – what I might take to be my ‘reason’, but which is frequently my prejudice. Example: as an ex-evangelical (CofE variety) coming into the Catholic Church, I had to accept that the Catholic teaching on infant baptism was right, and that my deeply-held conviction that baptism was for believers only was wrong.
As for serial monogamy, the Church teaches that this is wrong. Which is why Catholics are forbidden to remarry after divorce. I grant you that Anglicans have departed from this teaching (as from many others), but at least allow that we’re consistent.
John, thanks for commenting on a conservative blog. I know it’s unpleasant sometimes to be the one who disagrees with the group, so good for you for sticking in there.
However, I don’t think you’ve responded well to the comments people made about your posts. I’m not sure, for example, how you could say you don’t know how “grace and license came up”, when you had previously said that grace and God’s love trump the verses on homosexuality. In post #8, you set up a dichotomy between grace and certain behavioural standards that implies they are mutually exclusive concepts. You tell us that grace and God’s love trump the handful of passages on homosexuality.
If a general principle like grace or love “trumps” what you seem to acknowledge as clear scriptural prohibitions on behaviour, backed up by the understanding of the church and synagogue throughout history, how can you expect people not to ask whether all prohibitions aren’t “trumped” in your theology? What principle did you offer for the governance of behaviour beyond that it be “loving”? Isn’t it fair for me to wonder how promiscuity or other traditionally proscribed behaviours might be wrong if they are undertaken in a “loving” way? Isn’t this what license is?
True, in #13 you list several behaviours that you deem to be wrong. However you offer only that they are “in scripture” as a justification for why we ought to follow your advice on their impropriety. Is this the hermeneutic that will guide us through our current impasses? Thousands of years of interprative tradition apparently aren’t helping us understand the Bible at present, so the alternative is to ask John for his take on it?
Moreover, you tell us that “it is graced” when a gay person sees themselves as “loved by God as a gay person and not as a disordered person”. Again, why isn’t it fair to ask whether this isn’t doesn’t imply license? As if we don’t need radical correction? Here, you seem to be suggesting more than that we re-examine the Church’s classical prohibitions on sexual behaviour, but that we revise her anthropology. No longer are we to see ourselves as disordered, fallen creatures in need of redemption by God’s grace (I’m assuming you mean grace extends to heterosexuals too). In contrast, we are presumably fine but for the fact we don’t realize we’re fine. That’s where grace comes in? If we aren’t “disordered”, the atonement clearly needs some revision, too. Whatever it is, it could no longer be understood to be about redemption since it is the “disordered” who need redeeming.
Surely you see why your assertions raise important questions? I don’t think it’s just an insufficient quantity of grace that makes me want better answers.
Your brother in Christ,
Stephen+