The Bible's Yes to Same-Sex Marriage, New Edition with Study Guide

An Evangelical's Change of Heart

Mark Achtemeier

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781611646481
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Sexuality & Gender in Religion

In the early 2000's, Mark Achtemeier embarked on a personal journey with the Bible that led him from being a conservative, evangelical opponent of gay rights to an outspoken activist for gay marriage and a fully inclusive church. In The Bible's Yes to Same-Sex Marriage, Achtemeier shares what led to his change of heart: the problems with excluding groups of people and the insights into the Bible's message that led him to recognize the fullness of God's love and support for LGBT persons. Readers will discover how reading snippets of Scripture out of context has led to false and misleading interpretations of the Bible's message for gay people. Achtemeier shows how a careful reading of the whole Scripture reveals God's good news about love, marriage, and sexuality for gay and straight people alike.

This new edition includes a study guide and a new introduction from the author that reflects on the U.S. Supreme Court ruling and changes within the church. Perfect for groups or self-reflection, the study guide directs readers over four sessions to explore both Achtemeier's book and the Bible.

CHAPTER 1

THE HARVEST OF DESPAIR

Why Traditional Condemnations of Gay Relationships Can’t Be Right

The young seminarian speaks to me in hushed tones across the table in the café where we have agreed to meet. Kristi (not her real name) is bright, capable, and committed, but today her face appears deeply troubled.

Kristi describes herself as a conservative evangelical who has always been deeply committed to Christ and the church. She has grown up convinced that God was calling her into full-time ministry, and she arrived at seminary tremendously excited about having her call become a reality.

Kristi also confesses to me that she has struggled with same-sex attraction since the time when she was a young teen. When she first became aware of these feelings she was horrified. At first she tried her best to ignore them, hoping they were a passing phase. But even though she never acted on them, the feelings have persisted over the years, becoming an ever deeper source of anguish and struggle for her.

I note the quaver in her voice as she speaks about all the years she has spent in fervent prayer, begging God to relieve her of what she believes are unholy impulses. She has sought out ministers and chaplains and Christian counselors. All have advised her to keep praying and hanging on, trusting that God will give her the strength to overcome these feelings.

As her story tumbles out, it becomes clear to me that Kristi is at the end of her rope. She speaks about faith with resentment in her voice, wondering why God would weigh her down with such an affliction when all she wants is to serve Christ as a committed disciple. She can’t understand why a loving God would ignore her heartfelt prayers. She is not praying for any selfish reasons, she assures me, but only so that she can become the kind of faithful minister God has called her to be. After so much struggle, it is clear that God seems more like a distant, uncaring judge to Kristi than the loving, heavenly Father she grew up hearing about. Her future plans are in shambles, and she is on the verge of giving up on the faith altogether. The many years she has spent faithfully battling temptation and following church teaching have left her feeling bitter, hopeless, and deeply depressed. With tears running down her cheeks, she confesses to me she has been thinking about suicide.

I found Kristi’s story very troubling, first and foremost on a human level because her deep distress couldn’t help but tug at my heartstrings. But even beyond the emotional impact of her story, her testimony was disturbing because none of it matched up with the Bible’s teaching about how faith and discipleship are supposed to work.

A really striking feature of Kristi’s story was that through all this trial and struggle, she had continued to faithfully follow the path that her Christian mentors and teachers had identified as God’s will for her life. This was not a story about a person falling prey to temptation and reaping a bitter reward as a result. Kristi had persisted in the battle against the troubling feelings that disturbed her so deeply. She had not surrendered to her impulses; she had done everything the church was telling her she should do. In many ways Kristi’s struggle was a model of Christian faithfulness. Yet the result of this faithfulness was a depth of despair and brokenness that was very different from anything the Bible would lead us to expect.

Shouldn’t Faithfulness Lead to Life?

The Bible is preoccupied from beginning to end with the choice between following God’s will for us or falling away. And the consistent message that echoes throughout the pages of Scripture is that this choice—of being faithful to God or not—is a choice between life and death, light and darkness, hope and futility, flourishing and withering. Psalm 1 is absolutely typical as it describes the results of being faithful:

Happy are those

who do not follow the advice of the wicked.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

but their delight is in the law of the Lord,

and on his law they meditate day and night.

They are like trees

planted by streams of water,

which yield their fruit in its season,

and their leaves do not wither.

In all that they do, they prosper.

The wicked are not so,

but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

(Ps. 1:1–4)

Our loving God has set before us the path to life and blessing. Therefore we should choose life! This is the consistent message of Scripture.

But Kristi’s story did not seem to fit this pattern at all. The result of her many years of faithful, costly obedience was not life and flourishing, but brokenness and spiritual exhaustion, alienation from God and a weariness that was leading her to give up on the faith altogether. These were not at all the outcomes Scripture would lead us to expect from a life of faithfulness.

This is not to suggest that faithfulness to Christ always leads to a peaceful life of serenity and comfort. The Bible never suggests that faithfulness will always be easy. Followers of Jesus are by no means exempt from facing hardship, suffering, and struggle in life, and in this they follow their Master’s example. After all, the path of perfect faithfulness for Jesus led to the cross, and Christ teaches his followers that they, too, must be willing to pick up their crosses daily and follow him (Luke 9:23). God sometimes calls us to do things that are very hard for us.

But the Bible also speaks clearly and consistently about the blessing that attends such sacrifices in the form of closeness to God and the “peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” (Phil. 4:7). Jesus went to the cross out of his passionate desire to do the Father’s will; as a result of his supreme sacrifice, God has highly exalted him (2:9–10). Paul and Silas, attacked by a hostile mob, beaten and thrown into prison, pass their time in captivity singing hymns of praise (Acts 16:16–25). The early Christian martyrs gave heartfelt testimony to God as they made the ultimate sacrifice for their faith. Even a modern-day martyr like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, imprisoned by the Nazis and struggling with isolation and depression in his filthy prison cell, gives a witness to a calm and sustaining faith that has inspired countless thousands down to the present day. A prison doctor gave the following eyewitness account of his death:

Through the half-open door in one room of the huts I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer, before taking off his prison garb, kneeling on the floor praying fervently to his God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution he again said a short prayer and then climbed the steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.¹

The abiding presence of God, strengthening and upholding the faithful through times of hardship and suffering, has been a nearly universal feature of Christian experience from biblical times down to the present day.

But this was strikingly not the case for Kristi. The sacrificial commitments she had made in her attempts to remain faithful had resulted in alienation from God and loss of faith. I was left wondering: If this path Kristi had been walking produced results that were in so many ways the exact opposite of what Scripture would lead us to expect from a life of faithfulness, could it be that both she and I were mistaken about what path God really wanted her to follow?

Kristi’s story didn’t end there, but the events following our lunchtime conversation served only to reinforce my questions. By this point in my journey I had developed some contacts among gay Presbyterians. I was so concerned and shaken by the depth of Kristi’s distress that I asked one of those friends if he might be willing to talk with her. That contact in turn put her in touch with a quiet fellowship of gay seminarians, many of whom had also come from very traditional backgrounds. These were people who had struggled with the same issues that had led Kristi to the brink of despair. Hearing their stories and becoming a part of their fellowship led Kristi for the first time to consider that God might not be automatically condemning her for the attractions she was feeling. For the first time she considered the possibility that her future might include sharing her life together with a partner whom she loved, in a relationship blessed by God.

The ensuing transformation in Kristi was remarkable. Her faith in God revived, stronger than ever. Her previous despair and depression rolled back, and a passionate, committed, Christ-centered young woman appeared, eager to be a witness of God’s love. Once again, these were exactly the opposite results one would expect if her new openness was a move away from God’s will for her. If a person’s life departs in a serious way from God’s will, one would not expect the result to be a flourishing spiritual commitment. John’s Gospel records Jesus’ clear teaching on this:

I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers. . . .

(John 15:5–6)

Seeing Kristi’s vibrant faith and strong commitment re-emerge as a result of her newfound openness made as deep an impression on me as her former despair. I couldn’t help wondering if this really was the path God intended for her. I could see nothing in Kristi’s life that looked like the spiritual withering one would expect to find in a person whose life had moved away from abiding in Christ.

Kristi’s story is far from unique. I remember being struck early in my journey by the testimony of author and blogger Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan spoke in an interview about his early attempts to conform his life as a gay man to the teachings of his Roman Catholic faith, to which he was deeply devoted. Sullivan writes,

The moral consequences, in my own life, of the refusal to allow myself to love another human being were disastrous. They made me permanently frustrated and angry and bitter. It spilled over into other areas of my life. Once that emotional blockage is removed, one’s whole moral equilibrium can improve. . . . These things are part of a continuous moral whole. You can’t ask someone to suppress what makes them whole as a human being and then to lead blameless lives. We are human beings, and we need love in our lives in order to love others, in order to be good Christians! What the church is asking gay people to do is not to be holy, but actually to be warped.²

Here again the same, puzzling pattern appears: Sullivan’s committed attempts to follow church teaching on homosexuality did not lead to the spiritual flourishing that Scripture would lead us to expect as the fruit of true faithfulness. Instead they led to a spiritual life that was warped and stunted. Perhaps what the church was asking of gay people wasn’t true faithfulness after all.

Another early conversation that got me thinking took place with a gay friend who was speaking to me about her marriage to her partner. I was suggesting, very generously I thought, that perhaps a commitment like hers could be justified from a Christian standpoint as a concession to human weakness: I believed that God’s ideal for her as a gay person was to live a life of chaste singleness. But if she lacked the ability to do that, perhaps a marriage like hers could be viewed as a lesser evil in comparison with simply being promiscuous. Looking back on the conversation, I am amazed that she had the patience with me to respond in a civil manner, but her response has stayed with me. “I know all about sin and repentance,” she said. “I have lots of areas in my life where I know I fall short and where I ask God’s forgiveness and strive to do better. But my marriage just doesn’t feel like one of these problem areas. My marriage feels like the part of my life that brings out the very best in me. It is where I learn the most about love and giving and self-sacrifice.” Here was another striking break in the biblically predicted pattern: Scripture says that departing from God’s will leads to spiritual withering. But the part of this person’s life that I assumed was deeply contrary to God’s will turned out to be one of the most fruitful areas of spiritual growth for her.

This conversation also started me wondering about what the church was asking gay people to do who were in committed, covenanted partnerships or marriages. Was it really God’s will for people like my friend to abandon a beloved life partner and get a divorce?

I tried to think if there was any precedent in the Bible where God actively commands people to divorce their spouses. The one example I came up with was from Ezra, chapters 9–10. That biblical book chronicles the rebuilding of the nation of Israel following the peoples’ return from seventy years in foreign exile. As chapter 9 opens, a group of officials brings to Ezra’s attention a situation that has developed during the time of exile. Within that situation of captivity, many of the scattered Israelite men had intermarried with women from idol-worshiping foreign peoples, in violation of the Law of Moses. When Ezra and the other officials bring this situation to light, a great zeal for purifying their national life overtakes the Israelite masses. They resolve to “send away” their foreign wives and children, and the officials subsequently put in place a systematic plan for imposing divorces on all the affected families in the nation. The whole episode struck me as heartless and a bit chilling.

It is not at all clear that God approves of these mandatory divorces imposed on the nation. Nowhere in the story does anyone report a direct word from the Lord commanding this action; it is the idea of the religious leaders. Furthermore, the book of the prophet Malachi, which comes from the same period of Israel’s history, contains a blistering condemnation of the divorces that have taken place within the nation (Mal. 2:13–16). This prophetic denunciation, which is reported as coming directly from God, sounds as if it is aimed squarely at this tragic episode of mandatory divorce undertaken by the returning exiles. The one recorded biblical instance where divorce is used as a remedy for marriages that were seen as violating God’s law leads not to blessing but to div...