The Church of England struggles to come to a
common mind on the question what sexual behaviour is and is not appropriate for
Christians. In November 2013, a working group published a
discussion document for the House of Bishops, the
Pilling Report. It identifies “the meaning and authority of
Scripture” as the nub of “the Church’s ongoing disagreement on questions of
sexuality” (par. 57).
The group points to “the plain fact that
faithful, prayerful, Christians who aspire for their lives to be governed by
Scripture, do not agree about the implications of the scriptural texts for same
sex relationships.” It also claims that “to endorse the idea that the Church’s understanding
of the meaning of Scripture might change, seems, to some in the Church and on
our Working Group, to be tantamount to denying that Scripture is authoritative
to the Church and to open the door to relativistic readings of all scriptures”
(par. 58).
Maybe this is badly phrased.
I doubt that there are many Anglicans who
believe that “the Church’s understanding of the meaning of Scripture” must
never change. The controversial point is rather whether the Church’s
understanding of the implications of Scripture for sexual activity between
people of the same sex can change without recourse to specious reading
strategies which in effect abandon Scripture’s authoritative role to the
Church.
The Pilling Report adds: “One of the main
reasons for the intensity of the arguments about sexual morality is that, for
many, any deviation from, or modification to, what they see as the Bible’s
teaching would constitute an apostasy. A Church which made such a move would,
in their view, have rejected the authority of the Bible and, thus, have turned
away from the revealed word of God” (par. 234).
The critical words presumably are “what they
see as” (the Bible’s teaching). Without these words, the view described in the
quotation is the one affirmed in Article 20, “it is not lawful for the Church
to ordain anything contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound
one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another.”
Now, the authors may well want to allow for
the possibility of expounding one place of Scripture in such a way that it can
render another part of Scripture inoperative but this is not clear because the paragraphs that follow the
one just cited are about translation problems and about the ways in which meaning
is bound up with cultural context. These
are issues which to my mind concern what precisely the Bible teaches. This
is, however, possibly not how the authors of the Report see it.
The question is “when a text speaks of
homosexuality, is the phenomenon that is being described or condemned the same phenomenon
that concerns us, and the Church, today?” The Report suggests that the answer
to this question “divides one view of Scripture from the other” (par. 242). It
is noteworthy that they have not written “divides one view of what the Bible
teaches from the other”.
The specific reference made in the next
paragraph (par. 243) to David Runcorn’s claim that “homosexual relationships in
antiquity were characterized by abusive power and were seen as ‘unmanning’ the
passive (male) partner” suggests that greater clarity on the teaching of
Scripture might be gained from the sort of research which is a standard part of
normal exegetical procedures. But what if, as Keith Sinclair suggests, “same
sex relationships of equality and fidelity were not unknown in those days?”
This would still not tell us “what was in St Paul’s mind as he wrote.” The
Report continues, “Was he speaking of every same sex relationship whatever its
character, or was he condemning only the way those relationships were most
widely known at the time? The text alone cannot tell us” (par.244).
The next two paragraphs confirm that the
phrasing in par. 244 is no accident. Discerning the Bible’s teaching is seen as an exercise in reading the minds and hearts of its
human authors. This may be an unsophisticated way of describing an approach
which in the field of biblical studies, and indeed literature generally,
operates with the category of “implied author”, so, e.g., when Keith Sinclair
later claims that the apostle Paul “knows nothing of an inner ‘nature’ consisting
of varieties of sexual attractions which constitute an ‘identity’ at the core
of one’s being which must be allowed to determine self-understanding and
self-expression and which competes with the obvious and given created and creative
male/female order” (p. 167).
Sinclair’s claim can be made, or refuted,
with appeal to the text; read within the cultural
context in which it originated. It does not require recourse to the
mind and heart of Paul specifically. In the latter direction lies the danger of the sort of
psychological speculation which has the distinction of being both novel, as far
as the long history of Christian exegesis of Scripture is concerned, and
outdated, as far as biblical scholarship and literature studies are concerned.
More importantly, this (“intentional
fallacy”) description of the exegetical task hints at a separation of meaning
and significance which leaves the very phrase “what the Bible teaches”
ambiguous (meaning sometimes this, sometimes that) or ambivalent (meaning this
to some, that to others), quite apart from any reference to the specific issues
discussed in the Pilling report.
Is “what the Bible teaches” an aggregate of
the (presumed) thought-processes of the apostle Paul and others with “implications”
for us being decided not least with reference to the credibility of these
thought-processes today? Or is “what the Bible teaches” a coherent
whole, ultimately tied to the intentions of the implied author of the whole canon? There
are indeed different views of Scripture in play here but it cannot be said that
the Report helps us much to distinguish them clearly.
The distinction between meaning and significance
is not entirely without merit; uncertainty can arise with regard to both the
former and the latter. Indeed, the Report suggests that there is uncertainty
about both “what the Bible teaches” and its implications because people hold
different views about either and do so with integrity.
Two things are noteworthy about this claim. First,
it is not consistently applied. Summarising a brief excursion into Genesis 1-2,
the Report concludes with something that appears to them to be clear from the first two
chapters of the Bible: “We can say with confidence that the created nature of
humanity as male and female is built into that natural order, and also that
human beings are intended to live in relationship with others” (par. 253). Christina Beardsley, for one, does not share this confidence. If the mere fact that
people disagree on the meaning of a text, and do so with sincerity, is sufficient
reason to hold any judgement on its meaning in abeyance, this paragraph would
need to be withdrawn.
Secondly, if taken seriously, the claim has
far-reaching consequences. The rehabilitation of Pelagius might be one of them.
Having no confidence in deciding on the validity and force of exegetical and hermeneutical
arguments by appeal to reason, and being unwilling to give the tradition of the
church a casting vote (cf. par. 60), how can any sincerely held view of "what the Bible teaches" be ruled
out?
This is not a rhetorical question and an
answer is suggested in the Report. The listening exercise brought to light that
“a key issue was the different ways in which Scripture was read and the harm
done to people by some ways of reading it” (par 30). If we cannot arbitrate
between different readings on the grounds of good exegesis and coherent hermeneutics,
the pastoral implications can tell us which is the better reading. The critical
point here is that “harm done” does not only lead us to re-consider our reading
of Scripture; anyone should be willing to do that. But that the “harm done” with the help of some readings and
avoided by other readings can tell us which are the better readings, even if strong exegetical
arguments to support them have not yet emerged.
Christina
Beardsley suggests that harm is already done by
choosing the wrong starting point. She “would question whether the small number
of texts that are thought to condemn sexual activity between people of the
same-sex is the right place to begin this discussion about Scripture.” By
starting there, rather than what “would be the appropriate starting point,
namely the love and commitment of the couple, the Report has focused on the
secondary issue of sexual activity.”
The fact is that we do not even agree on what
we disagree on. The primary concern for those who do not want the church’s
teaching to change is sexual behaviour. This is considered prurient by those
who insist that whether or not LGBT people who are in loving, faithful and
stable relationships have sex with each other should be of no concern to anyone
else.
The starting point may not be as critical, as
Christian Beardsley fears. Neither Keith Sinclair nor David Runcorn begin their
presentation of the Scriptural evidence with the “terror texts”. What is
critical is the question in which contexts sexual activity should be of concern to the
Church. No-one suggests that the Church should stay silent on anything to do
with sex; the condemnation of non-consensual sex and sex between adults and
children is not questioned.
Nor has it been argued that the Church should
simply adopt our society’s distinction between good and bad sexual behaviour.
(Bad is non-consensual sex and sex which betrays the adult-child or a marital
relationship; good is all other sex.) Given that in our society many under the
age of 35 see apparently nothing wrong with recreational sex between consenting
adults who are not thereby betraying a committed relationship, it may be
surprising that the Report does not see a missional imperative for a wider
reconsideration of the Church’s view of sexual behaviour. The Church’s view on casual sex between men and women is hardly more comprehensible to many outside
the Church than its view on gay and lesbian sex.
Focusing on sexual behaviour has its risks.
Those who seek to preserve traditional teaching can overlook the love and
faithfulness expressed in same-sex relationships; not only found in such
relationships, as if an incidental feature, but made possible thereby for some
who would otherwise not be able to express this kind of love and faithfulness.
‘Conservatives’ may overlook the importance of same-sex friendships although this is maybe less often the case. Many value deep same-sex friendships and
see it threatened by its sexualisation in our contemporary context. (Some ‘revisionist’
readings of the friendship between David and Jonathan may indicate a growing inability to imagine strong, intimate same-sex friendships which
are not homosexual.)
An emphasis on the potential “fruitfulness”
of heterosexual intercourse over against the “barrenness” of gay sex can lead
to a devaluation of celibacy. The Report refers to Stanley Hauerwas as
suggesting that “the sacrifice made by people called to celibacy is not so much
the absence of sex but the absence of heirs to take forward their lineage”
(par. 134). This consideration, brought to the group’s attention by Robert
Song, offers an important insight.
If the temptation towards sexual immorality
is greater for some LGBT people than their heterosexual friends because the
latter have, in principle, a legitimate outlet for their sexual urge in
marriage, then the temptation to conquer our fear of death by creating
descendants rather than putting our trust in Christ is maybe greater for
heterosexuals than those who feel no sexual attraction to members of the
opposite sex.
Focus on sexual behaviour can also lead to a
devaluation of eros in relation to LGBT people. I can do no better than
quote Eve Tushnet, explaining her problem with the (Roman Catholic) “intrinsically
disordered” language:
I think it relies on a mechanistic understanding of eros. If sexual desire can be easily tweezed away from nonsexual longing and love and adoration then yeah, sure, I guess I can see the point of calling homosexual desire "disordered." But that's not how eros actually works! My lesbianism is part of why I form the friendships I form. It's part of why I volunteer at a pregnancy center. Not because I'm attracted to the women I counsel, but because my connection to other women does have an adoring and erotic component, and I wanted to find a way to express that connection through works of mercy. My lesbianism is part of why I love the authors I love. It's inextricable from who I am and how I live in the world. Therefore I can't help but think it's inextricable from my vocation.
There is indeed so much more to same-sex attraction and relationships than sexual behaviour. This must not be forgotten in any discussion of "Scripture and same-sex relationships".And what's funny is that even the defenders of the "intrinsically disordered" language are defending so little. Basically all of them say one of two things: either "everything you do which is influenced by your lesbianism is tainted," which is bleakly hilarious if you've ever nursed a sick woman through her illness in part because you loved and were attracted to her; or "it just means that your eros can never be acted on, whereas even wrongly-directed heterosexual eros might be in some hypothetical made-up world." Which is like... do we really want to be encouraging unhappily-married heteros to think, "I could totally act on this desire and it would be ordered!... you know, if the old ball-and-chain died, or we got an annulment"? I mean, at that point literally nothing is added by the "explanatory" language of disorder which wasn't already stated by the bare moral teaching: You don't get to have sex with ladies, case closed. I knew that already! What extra work is this jargon doing? It doesn't even make straight people feel superior, since none of them know or think about it unless their kids are gay.
