Unchanging Witness

The Consistent Christian Teaching on Homosexuality in Scripture and Tradition

S. Donald Fortson, Rollin G. Grams

• Publisher: B&H Academic
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781433687921
• eBook ISBN: 9781433687907
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Christianity

The church is going through a time of severe fracture over the issue of homosexuality. This book addresses the arguments from the gay Christian movement and revisionist theologians and exegetes on a single point: Can they withstand the evidence of the primary sources? In Unchanging Witness, Donald Fortson and Rollin Grams articulate the consistent orthodox view on homosexuality by presenting primary sources throughout Christian history and by interpreting the biblical texts in their cultural contexts. The first part of the book examines church history from the patristic period to the present day, and the second part engages biblical texts in light of Ancient Near Eastern, Jewish, Greek, and Roman primary sources. Throughout, the authors survey the conflicting and changing arguments of revisionist readings and contend that, in light of the overwhelming evidence of the relevant texts, the real issue is not one of interpretation but of biblical authority and Christian orthodoxy.

Part I

CHRISTIAN TRADITION AND HOMOSEXUAL PRACTICE

Introduction to Part I

CHAPTER 1

THE GAY CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT

The origins of the gay rights movement in America are usually associated with the New York Stonewall Inn riots of 1969 and the ensuing arrests of gay demonstrators. A 1965 New Year’s Day Mardi Gras costume ball in San Francisco, sponsored by the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH), also resulted in the arrests of homosexuals. In both instances public opinion began to shift in favor of homosexuals. The CRH, founded in 1964, was one of the first organizations to use the title “homosexual” and asserted that “one should no more deplore homosexuality than left-handedness.” Thus began a concerted effort by the gay community to achieve public approval. Efforts to change the public’s mind about homosexuality and “whack away at the sickness theory” led the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to remove homosexuality from the officially approved list of psychiatric illnesses in 1973.3

Gay activists have crafted an aggressive strategy for persuading straight Americans to tolerate and eventually celebrate homosexuality. Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen outlined this strategy in their 1989 book After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90s.4 They admitted that the campaign for gay acceptance would likely not work on intransigent religious conservatives who were “diehard homohaters”; thus, the campaign targeted ambivalent skeptics through the mainstream media by using a “keep talking” principle which over time would give the impression that homosexuality was commonplace. Homosexual behavior was to be downplayed because “gay sex habits provoke public revulsion.” The primary objective with religious homohaters was to “cow and silence them as far as possible.” Kirk and Madsen offered a twofold plan for dealing with the religious:

First gays can use talk to muddy the moral waters, that is, to undercut the rationalizations that “justify” religious bigotry and to jam some of its psychic rewards. This entails publicizing support by moderate churches and raising serious theological objections to conservative biblical teachings. It also means exposing the inconsistency and hatred underlying antigay doctrines. Conservative churches, which pay as much lip service to Christian charity as anybody else, are rendered particularly vulnerable by their callous hypocrisy regarding AIDS sufferers.

Second, gays can undermine the moral authority of homohating churches over less fervent adherents by portraying such institutions as antiquated backwaters, badly out of step with the times and with the latest findings of psychology. Against the atavistic tug of Old Time Religion one must set the mightier pull of Science and Public Opinion (the shield and sword of that accursed “secular humanism”). Such an “unholy” alliance has already worked well in America against churches, on such topics as divorce and abortion. With enough open talk about the prevalence and acceptability of homosexuality, that alliance can work for gays.5

The gay Christian6 movement has followed the blueprint proposed by Kirk and Madsen in its efforts to infiltrate various denominations with the gay-rights program. One of the battleground denominations for homosexuality in recent decades has been the United Methodist Church. Methodist minister Karen Booth, in her book Forgetting How to Blush: United Methodism’s Compromise with the Sexual Revolution, chronicles destructive gay activism within her denomination. Booth evaluates the arguments of pro-gay Methodist apologists through the lens of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral—a manner of depicting the fourfold authority of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience—pointing out that Methodist progressives regard reason and experience as more authoritative than Scripture and tradition. Traditionalists are accused of being oppressive “neo-Pharisees” on a “witch hunt” to exterminate gays and lesbians. They are guilty of “soul murder” and hate, upon which God will bring his judgment. Booth notes, “This extreme and inflammatory rhetoric could have been lifted almost verbatim from Madsen and Kirk’s After the Ball playbook.”7

Metropolitan Community Church

In the early stages of the gay Christian movement, the door was shut to gay church leadership in almost all denominations. Therefore, a few homosexuals decided to start their own “church.” In 1968, former Pentecostal preacher Troy Perry, who was openly gay, gathered a small group of California homosexuals. The group eventually took the name Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), also known as the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, and initiated a ministry primarily for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender persons. Now, with about two hundred congregations in the US, the MCC is comprised mostly of former Protestants and Catholics who could not find affirmation of their gay lifestyle in traditional Christian churches.

According to its website, the “MCC began as a fellowship of churches, each church linked to another through affiliation as an open and inclusive body. Collectively, MCC churches offer a picture of Christianity and religion which celebrates God’s diverse creativity. At our foundation, MCC brings to bear the co-existence and complementary relationship of sexuality and spirituality; initially bringing the message of God’s love to homosexual persons.”8 The MCC is committed to ending all forms of supposed discrimination against persons based on sexuality, gender identity, or ethnicity. The rite of Holy Union, “the spiritual joining of two people,” has been a part of MCC practice almost from the beginning.

The MCC includes churches in multiple nations, drawing together people whose common bond is often their self-identified sexual preference. The MCC has been compared to the Unitarian Universalist Church in its theology and practice, although it claims to embrace the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed.9 Most denominations do not consider the MCC a Christian body. Often the group is excluded from lists of Christian denominations in the United States. In 1983 the governing board of the National Council of Churches voted to “postpone indefinitely” the membership application of the MCC.

Gay Organizations

Multiple support groups for gay persons have arisen within Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and mainline Protestant denominations. These groups function as national networks that lobby within their respective denominations. The gay networks’ goals are ecclesiastical affirmation of gay sexuality, the ordination of practicing homosexuals, and the blessing of same-sex unions.10 These groups typically chastise their denominations as homophobic and heterosexist, calling on them to practice inclusion and cease unjust discrimination against gays. Gay advocates within these groups often reference an inclusive Jesus who would not discriminate. Appeals are made to new biblical scholarship that has “exploded the myths” of Christian prejudice against minority gay persons.

A typical Protestant gay organization is the GLAD Alliance, a gay advocacy group within the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). GLAD’s resources for congregations include films, books, and Bible studies directed toward transforming Christians to be “open and affirming” of homosexuality. GLAD describes its history and mission this way:

The GLAD Alliance had its beginnings in the struggles for a more inclusive Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the late 1970s. Our founders sought a church that welcomes the gifts and graces of those persons who have traditionally been excluded because of their gender or sexual identities. While our mission was initially focused on working for inclusion for lesbians and gay men, GLAD’s mission has since broadened to include a commitment to working for the inclusion of persons of ALL gender and sexual identities (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, and ally). In those early years of struggle, our mission was primarily to be a community of sanctuary, offering a safe place for lesbian and gay Disciples to gather and share their struggles. As our church and society at large has moved toward a place of greater acceptance, GLAD has been moving more and more into the realm of advocacy and activism as we seek to transform the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in every manifestation into a more just, welcoming, and inclusive community of faith, one that truly does welcome all to Christ’s table as God has welcomed us.11

A host of nondenominational pro-gay organizations has made traditional Christian objections to homosexuality their prime target. While remaining off the radar screen of most evangelicals, these advocacy groups have been a potent force for assaulting historic Christianity. Typically these groups claim that they offer a new and improved version of outdated fundamentalist Christian faith. Some groups even include the word evangelical in their organizations’ titles, claiming to embrace orthodox Christian teaching.12 Their attacks usually focus on how Christianity has “misinterpreted” the Bible and must be corrected to align with pro-gay ideology. Any ministry to gays which suggests the possibility of healing or “conversion” to heterosexuality is a special target of vitriol. Undermining the so-called...

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Part I Christian Tradition And Homosexual Practice
• Part II The Bible And Homosexuality
• Conclusion: Orthodox Christian Practice
• Excursus: Slavery and Women