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First
delivered at UUCB on January 11, 2009
Attribution: The second half of this sermon draws very heavily upon
Homosexuality and Christian Faith: A Theological Reflection by
Theodore W. Jennings. Everything between < > uses the first half of Jenning’s
article in both basic outline and summary of content and should not be
considered original material. I am indebted to his work for an understanding of
essential Christian theological principles as they relate to homosexuality.
I remember the day clearly. I was in junior high school
when the most beautiful girl in my grade walked into the class. She had gorgeous
black hair that always curled away from her face in feathers the rest of us
could only dream of duplicating. She had the body we all wanted for ourselves
and looked great in anything she put on. Right behind her entered a Greek god in
a twelve-year old body. His izod shirt with the up-turned collar and the comb
handle sticking out of his back pocket rendered him absolutely irresistible. I
instantly knew I had to make a decision. I looked at both of them and thought,
“Well, which way am I going to go here?” I’d already decided that opting for
both made me incredibly greedy and I was already fairly compassionate at that
tender age.
On the one hand, I could become a lesbian and fear the
taunting and possibly violent response of my classmates. After all, being the
punch line of tasteless jokes and mercilessly harassed sounded like a real hoot.
I could lose friends who I thought liked me until they found out I wasn’t like
them. Michelle was beginning to annoy me anyway. I wasn’t giving much thought to
my future career at that point so it really didn’t matter if I would be
discriminated against or lose my job. If I was really lucky, I could get thrown
out of my church when the word got around. I’d much rather spend Sunday morning
in bed than listening to Dr. Curl.
On the other hand, Richie was just plain hot. Besides, the wedding of my dreams
included a tuxedo and I was pretty sure my parents would approve of
grandchildren some day. So I made my choice and became a heterosexual.
I sincerely hope you found the opening commentary of my sermon today patently
absurd. I honestly cannot fathom how anyone who contemplates the onset of their
own awareness of their sexual nature can possibly accept the preposterous notion
that sexuality is something we choose. I defy anyone to tell me they woke up one
morning, analyzed their options, weighed the pros and cons and made a conscious
decision to prefer one gender or another—or both.
Recently I watched a fascinating program on the BBC called The Making of Me.
Sadly, only available on YouTube in six parts as best I can tell. This
particular episode featured openly-gay actor John Barrowman. I admit it. I have
a crush on him. He is the gay best friend I have always wanted. At any rate, the
show was riveting because of the scientific tests to which he agreed to subject
himself.
The obvious first step was to determine if he was gay or not. Sounds silly, but
in order to progress through the exploration it does help to establish that
you’re on the right track. I won’t go into detail, but the tests he took
indicated that yes indeed, males sexually aroused him while females did not. So
the next questions they pursued were how and when he became gay.
They looked at Mr. Barrowman’s early childhood and noticed his play pattern fit
with our cultural expectations for females rather than males. I was particularly
fascinated by a pair of twins featured in the show—one with a decidedly
masculine pattern of play and the other more feminine. I’ll give you an example
of the difference using legos or blocks. Males tend to build something to
subsequently smash it up to which the state of my living room can attest.
Females will build something to then use in the context of pretend play.
But taking behavioral patterns back to early childhood doesn’t necessarily
settle the nature verses nurture debate. A feminine male child can still be a
heterosexual and a masculine male child can still be a homosexual. The play
patterns can point to probabilities but not flawless predictions.
So Mr. Barrowman took some genetic tests, which
surprisingly, were not conclusive. Scientists have not discovered a “gay gene.”
But what they did find that pointed to the in utero environment was astounding
to me. I am not sure what the implications are for homosexual females, but
apparently the odds of a male becoming homosexual increase for each older male
sibling he has. Mr. Barrowman had an older brother and discovered his mother had
previously miscarried a male fetus. As the third son, he had something like a
70% higher chance of being gay than a first-born son. Yes, I am watching my
youngest to see if I may luck into that son-in-law I have always wanted after
all.
In another confirmation of genetic or prenatal environment contributing to our
sexuality, they showed an interesting statistical study of hand patterns. If I
tell you about it now, I’m going to lose you all as you look at one another’s
hands to find out if you conform to the pattern or not. You’ll have to wait for
that until the congregational response after our hospitality time this morning.
I will tell you that it does seem to hold pretty true to form for everyone I
have told about it.
I do hope there isn’t a single person left in this room who will use the phrase
“lifestyle choice” in connection with our human sexuality.
I chose to address this topic today for two reasons. One, our congregation is a
welcoming congregation and it is important that we continuously renew our
commitment to that purpose. I can think of no other group of people today who
are more subject to religious persecution than the gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgendered. We are called as people of faith to provide an intelligent and
compassionate sanctuary for all of our brothers and sisters. We must be willing
to challenge the prevailing social construct in our country that promotes
homophobia and heterosexism as normative.
My second reason is a matter of timing. When president-elect Obama selected Rev.
Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration I was absolutely
appalled. Warren has compared homosexuals to sexual predators and worked to deny
them marriage rights in California. He actually holds a slew of religiously
conservative viewpoints derived from sloppy theology, but I could keep you here
all day. Now I understand that Obama is free to select whomever he wishes to
deliver the invocation and that he is attempting to reach across the aisle as it
were and demonstrate his inclusivity. I can sympathize with the notion that this
is a political move designed to stifle conservative critics. However, I still
believe it was absolutely an appalling choice to make. Actually, as an aside, I
am not much in favor of an invocation at the inauguration. It should be a
secular ritual simply marking the transition of political power. Be that as it
may, the invocation is a tradition we’re probably going to have around for quite
awhile and invariably the selection of any particular member of the clergy is
likely to upset someone.
So I am going to focus on my issue with clergy like Rev. Warren who perpetuate
the absurd notion that sexuality is a matter of choice and therefore willfully
advocate statutory discrimination. Honestly, do we really live in a country
where people choose whether or not they will be afforded equal rights and
protection under the law? I hope not! It is cruel and immoral to expect the GLBT
to shut up and be content with their second-class citizenship. The legal
protections heterosexuals enjoy in Florida for the cost of a $93.50 marriage
license costs thousands and thousands of dollars in legal fees for homosexual
partnerships and even then the documents might not be upheld if challenged in
court.
So how do clergy like Rev. Warren get away with vilifying their fellow human
beings and seeking to abridge their civil rights? Bad theology. Very bad
theology.
I am going to tread on very dangerous ground here by trying to make some general
statements. Please understand that I am going to call this “mainstream
non-denominational Christianity,” but there are going to be exceptions depending
upon the specific branch of Christianity or a particular theologian. But
essentially, Christian theology works something like this.
< First principle: God is gracious and his supreme intention is to justify, save
and redeem humanity. Not on the basis of deciding between good and bad persons,
but exclusively on the basis of God’s own grace. This means that no human act or
condition can inherently serve as an obstacle to God’s grace. If we negate this
principle than we have placed into human hands the capacity to effect our own
salvation. That works for many UUs, but we’re going with basic contemporary
Christian theology here. So with respect to homosexuality or homosexual acts,
they may not be considered as excluding someone from God’s intent for salvation.
Second principle: Interrelated with the first principle is the idea of
universality of God’s judgment in relation to human nature. Any attempts to
establish ourselves as either righteous or sinful are undermined. This means
that even those people who do still believe homosexuality is a lifestyle cannot
either defend or condemn it because no human condition is intrinsically
justified or righteous (Jennings). The theological Theodore Jennings says, “One
should therefore view with alarm discussions of this question which, discovering
that homosexuals are sinners, conclude that they are unfit for the ministry and,
almost, for the Christian community. Are we then necessarily to conclude that
since homosexuals are sinners—and healthy heterosexuals are less so—that Christ
died for homosexuals but not for us? Out of our own self-righteousness we
therefore have condemned ourselves.”
Some theologians, such as Karl Barth, look to the evidence in Genesis where we
are created in the image of God, male and female to justify heterosexism. This
is usually done in a way that violates these first two principles, but even when
not, is this interpretation justified? For those who consider scripture to be
infallible and the literal word of God, perhaps, but I am not so sure the
metaphor works that way. If you look around us, we cannot escape the fact that
humanity is divided into two types, male and female. I am not surprised the
writers and editors of Genesis would note that. I think the key point here is
that human beings differ from one another and experience otherness. How is that
isolation bridged? By love. This principle is called cohumanity.
We can examine the principle of cohumanity and determine which relationships are
better and which are worse. Is a sexual relationship based on lust and
exploitation or on love and mutual esteem? Is a political relationship based on
transformation or oppression? But when it comes to whether a relationship is
heterosexual or homosexual there is no basis upon which to state one is
inherently better or worse than the other.
Another area of sloppy theology concerns natural law and works something like
this. Sexuality belongs in the realm of nature and was created for the purpose
of procreation. Therefore, sexual activity that does not have children as the
goal violates the natural order. Now we would have to be fair and assert that
masturbation, contraception, non-genital sexuality between man and woman also
pervert the natural order. Mainstream Protestant Christian theology asserts the
celebratory aspect of sexuality and renders it less goal-oriented which is why
contraception is not a problem. So given this perspective, we can’t exactly
single out homosexuality if these other “perversions” are permissible.
Here comes the biggie for contemporary American right-wing clergy, the sanctity
of the family. There is a good reason why Dobson calls his organization, “Focus
on the Family.” The theology and politics are rooted in the strict father model
of family that depends upon dad, mom, two point three kids and a dog or maybe a
cat. Anything besides this picture is anathema. But can this social construct be
justified theologically? Hard to say when we look at how suspicious Jesus and
Paul were with regard to family ties. Our notion of the American nuclear family
just does not exist in the New Testament. So even theologians who believe
homosexuality precludes marriage and a family cannot claim homosexuality is a
priori unchristian.
Responsible Christian theology, of course, utilizes Scripture as a primary
source. I have spoken in the past about the resounding biblical silence
regarding homosexuality. The word didn’t even exist until something like 1892.
It is true there are several passages in the bible condemning homosexual acts,
but nothing regarding human sexuality at all. Theologians who use a collection
of proof texts to buttress their anti-homosexual arguments are being lazy or
disingenuous, possibly both. We call it cherry-picking in the vernacular.
Cherry-picking is when you promote proof texts, passages which appear to support
the position you have already taken, while disregarding other passages which
might logically negate or create tension with your position. If we are going to
put homosexuals to death we must also subjugate women—i.e. I shouldn’t be
standing here before you today—keep kosher kitchens, not wear anything made of
both wool and linen, and forget everything we learned in science class. Proper
biblical exegesis demands that we determine whether a passage expresses a
central principle of faith or should be seen as accidental, peripheral or time
bound. >
The Bible was written millennia ago based on even older
verbal traditions. It is simply irrational to expect every word to apply equally
to every society in every period of time. A literal and static reading of the
Bible is offensive to both humanity and God. Learned, intelligent, responsible
and yes, devout theologians neither cherry-pick nor take the Bible as literal
and inerrant in its entirety.
Based upon Scripture and the essential tenants of Christian theology, anyone who
seeks to condemn homosexuality must engage in extremely irresponsible, careless
and shameful theology. They defy the evidence and claim homosexuality is a
choice and therefore disobedience to God’s will. As we have seen, even if that
were the case, it does not render the homosexual inapplicable for God’s saving
grace. Even more disgusting, however, is the solution to this theological
conundrum whereby homosexuals are demonized and removed from humanity
altogether. When this is the case, not only legal discrimination, but violence
and murder are not just condoned but sanctioned. Soldiers for Christ battling
Satan and his minions—and who are these minions? Right now the far religious
right in our country has nominated the GLBT community for that role. We cannot
afford to be ignorant of this point of view. We have a responsibility to all of
our brothers and sisters to make sure this brand of evil does not prevail.
May it be so.
Copyright
© 2009
Ann
Fuller, January 2009
Further Discussion
Email: Thanks for recommending "The Making of Me." I found it on BBC America
on Demand and it was great! Can we do a forum on it?
AF: You are most welcome. I will forward the suggestion to our Forum
Chair.
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