Homosexuality and Catholicity, Part 2: Evangelical Hypocrisy

Whoops...I never posted the second half.

Finally, let me explain part of why I am so concerned about the typical evangelical response to this issue (though this criticism is not aimed at you).
You alluded to 2 Timothy 3, from which I shall now quote,
“For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.” You quoted some commentator who glossed “avoid such people” as “have no fellowship with them, depart from their communion, withdraw from them, and come out from among them: this passage sufficiently justifies the reformed churches in their separation from the church of Rome.” If this is so, then surely we are of all men most to be pitied! For who is not a lover of self, or a lover of money? Who is not proud, or ungrateful? Who does not love pleasure rather than God? Obviously, we cannot avoid every sinner, so presumably this applies to those who obstinately cling to their sin and spurn calls to repentance. What we see with homosexuality is a serious ethical confusion--an acceptance of activities which, though our culture tolerates them, are clearly immoral. But is homosexuality the only phenomenon where we see this in the church today? No, and abortion is not the only other one. At least since World War II, a great number of conservative Christians have embraced the world’s approach to war, an unrestricted, utilitarian, “you gotta do what you gotta do” approach. Christians have even endorsed nuclear weapons, carpet bombing, and more. If this isn’t a great ethical confusion, what is? Conservative Christians have also happily endorsed economic practices and uses of money that earlier generations would have considered terrible examples of greed, luxury, and exploitation. American Christianity is rife with this kind of mammonolatry, as Doug Jones has pointed out over the past couple years; and indeed, as he has also pointed out, economic sins are more harshly condemned in Scripture than are sexual sins (e.g., notice that the chief criticism of Sodom in the Bible--Ezek. 16:48-50--is not for her sodomy, but for luxury and neglect of the poor).
If we are going to take a hard line on homosexuality--refuse to associate with them, excommunicate them, call down judgment upon them--what are we going to say about these ethical confusions of ours? “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” (Mt. 7:2) If we’re really serious about righteousness in the Church, we need to be just as hard on our own sins as others, and that means that we need to be careful about using serious sin as a reason to divide a church, because there’s enough serious sin around to keep the Church dividing until judgment day.
Conservative Christians rarely seem to notice that after Paul’s harsh condemnation of homosexuality and idolatry in Romans 1, he turns to us and says, “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who do such things. Do you suppose, O man--you who judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself--that you will escape the judgment of God?” (2:1-4)
Yikes. Clearly Paul does not mean that the Jews he is addressing practiced exactly the same sorts of things, but theat they were guilty of sins just as serious. Are we evangelicals guilty of sins as serious as confusion about homosexuality? Maybe, maybe not. After seeing American conservative Christianity through the eyes that our brothers in Britain can see us, I really do wonder whether we’re not worse sometimes. And yet conservative condemnation of homosexuality and abortion has given us a convenient way to hide our guilt. We focus so obsessively on the sins of liberal Christianity, filling ourselves to the gills with righteous indignation, that we manage to avoid ever turning the sword of the Word on ourselves, to divide our own flesh and spirit, discerning the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. Until we can learn to be just as honest about the seriousness of our failures to understand and apply Jesus’s standard of godliness as we are about those of brothers in more liberal churches, we had better tone down the rhetoric of judgment and division, of shunning and schism, lest God judge us with the measure by which we judge, and come and strike the land with a curse. Here is the beginning of my post.

Homosexuality and Catholicity, Part 1: Unity and Purity

After the presentation of the nine (or eight) theses given in the previous post, I received an email from one of the participants, which voiced concern about sacrificing righteousness for the sake of unity. This gave me the opportunity to clarify my thoughts in a lengthy response, which I shall post here in two segments. Here's the first, much longer section:

First of all, then, I think you are mischaracterizing my position when you speak of it as a willingness to sacrifice righteousness for the sake of unity. In fact, I think it is deeply problematic to articulate the problem in these terms. I do not think we should set up two poles, righteousness and unity, and play them off against each other in a kind of zero-sum game. Properly understood, neither is possible without the other. Our unity in Christ through one table, one Spirit, one baptism, is the only possible basis for righteousness--a house divided against itself cannot stand. Only as we are nourished by the common life of the body of Christ are we enabled to pursue righteousness and purity, to grow up into maturity, into the fullness of Christ. A purity of individuals or sects that holds aloof from the common table of the Body is no true purity. Likewise, unity that is not founded upon Christ’s gift of justification and sanctification to his people, which does not unite us in a common commitment to and pursuit of holiness, is not Christian unity; at best it is cooperation and compromise, which, while occasionally valuable in their proper place, cannot be the foundation of the Christian Church.

But of course, things are more complicated than this, because both unity and purity exist in the tension of the already/not yet. We certainly know this to be the case with purity. We have all been washed, we have all been sanctified, the whole Church bears Christ’s name and is robed in His righteousness. And yet, we wear the robe badly, and our own soiled garments underneath often peek through, so we must constantly strive to cleanse ourselves and one another. As we seek to grow in purity, however, we must remember that what counts above all is the commitment to strive; we are all riddled with sin in our various ways, and so the presence of actual sin in our midst, while it must never go unconfronted, is an inevitable feature of our pilgrimage. Likewise, we are not called upon to create unity--we already are one in Christ--all who have been baptized in his name, who listen to his word and eat around His table. Unity is a starting point, not a destination. And yet, of course, we cannot rest secure in this; just as we are simul justus et peccator, we are simul unus et divisus. We must patiently strive to overcome these divisions in love, and sometimes, when they are severe enough, they may be beyond our ability to overcome, but never God’s. When our efforts fail, we await God’s action to restore the alienated party to oneness of mind or else, perhaps to cut it off and kill it for the life of the body. But we must remember that this latter, fearful act of judgment is ultimately God’s, not ours; even when excommunication is pronounced, it is not so much a putting of someone outside the fellowship of the body, as a recognition that they have already put themselves outside and must therefore be called to repentance.

Probably you agree with all this, but my point is simply to say that I do not want us to act as if we find ourselves standing on some neutral ground and weighing before us two alternatives--righteousness and unity. Rather, we find ourselves already in unity, and called to maintain it and pursue it, while also growing in righteousness, a task that requires naming and rebuking the sins in our midst--something that is part of the task of unity, rather than opposed to it. Ephesians 4 and 5 seem to me to be a wonderful statement of this simultaneous reality of and call toward unity and purity in the Church. Paul demands both, and the key for achieving this is love (4:2, 16).

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So my concern is to discern what forms this pursuit of righteousness takes within a body that is inescapably unified.

Before going on, I should flesh out what seems to me an implication of us being “inescapably unified”:
“If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” (1 Cor. 12:26)
That is to say, at one level, we do not have a choice as to whether to be “contaminated” by a particular sin in the Body--we already are. If certain branches of the Church are practicing or condoning serious sin, then the whole Church suffers, and the whole Church, in a sense, bears responsibility. This notion of corporate responsibility is clear in the Bible, as in your example of Israel in the wilderness, where the whole is often held responsible for the sins of the many. We can learn from the example of great Old Testament leaders like Nehemiah and Daniel, who both pray to God confessing the sins of Israel--sins which are not theirs (see Neh. 1, Dan. 9). They recognized that the whole people of God bore responsibility for the sins of the people, even those who had not personally taken part. So, I think it is first of all important that conservative Christians acknowledge our “participation” in the sins of more liberal churches, a participation that exists whether or not we remain in outward fellowship with them. This is of course not to say that “Oh, we’re all tainted already, we might as well sin boldly now.” Obviously, we can always fall more deeply into sin, and a concern to avoid being led astray may require an attenuated fellowship with serious sinners; but we should be under no illusions that we can purify ourselves of all stain by picking and choosing our brothers in Christ.

Mere fellowship with a sinner, then, does not constitute sin. Dishonest fellowship--fellowship which tries to ignore sin--does constitute sin. If I believe a fellow Christian is in serious sin, then I must (prudently, patiently, and charitably, to be sure, but firmly) let him know that I think so, but then I can, and indeed must, continue to fellowship with him as long as he is willing to let me. If he is hardened in his sin and wants nothing of my advice, our communion will likely be severed, despite my continuing attempts to reach out to him. But if he is willing to listen to me, even though he may disagree and is convinced that his actions are defensible, then I should remain in fellowship with him, and indeed, attempt to discern whether I cannot learn something from him, while still maintaining an uncompromising opposition to what I see to be sinful.

With the current chaos about homosexuality in the Church, I certainly do not want to call on Christians to put their hands over their mouths, look the other way, and pretend like nothing is wrong. That would be sacrificing righteousness for the sake of unity. By all means, we must maintain a faithful and fearless witness to the truth (though, I would add, whenever possible we must do this in charity and patience, with particular concern for the well-intentioned weaker brother, rather than unnecessarily alienating and dividing by fire-and-brimstone rhetoric). But this action, this standing up for righteousness, is not an action against unity, but is rather a call to unity in Christ in the midst of a house divided. Why then should this stand be an act of division? “Divisions will come, but woe to the one through whom they come,” as O’Donovan says. If an individual, or a church, or even a denomination, makes a stand for righteousness, then, no matter how charitably they do it, divisions will come. But let the unrighteous be the ones who break fellowship, not the righteous. Why not say, “This is Christ’s Church, and we are worshipping Christ, so by golly, we’re not going anywhere unless you throw us out!” This, it seems to me, is the general pattern of how the faithful in Israel resisted the widespread unfaithfulness of the people of God in the Old Covenant, and in the New Covenant, we are summoned to even greater charity, patience, and faith that God will defend his Church.

Now, though I feel strongly about this, perhaps there are cases where a separation is necessary. But is homosexuality really that point? I do not want to minimize the sin, but certainly, there are worse ones--blasphemy and idolatrous worship being near the top of the list.

When talking about the practice and condoning of homosexuality, it seems to me that we have to be careful about discerning two different phenomena. One is the product of a deep-seated rejection of the Bible’s authority and rebellion against God, which may manifest itself in a high-handed contempt for God’s word or else in a hypocrisy hidden underneath a veneer of piety and faith. This kind of sin is utterly destructive, and must be resisted fiercely (though still with the aim of bringing the erring brother or leader to repentance). This, I take it, is the sort of sin that Paul warns against in 2 Tim. 3 and Ephesians 5 (Titus 3, the other passage you cited, seems to be a warning not so much against the impure, as the divisive, and so would support my concerns more than yours, though, as I have been arguing, the two cannot be separated). If a Church leader has a person like this in his flock, he must discipline him; if a leader himself is like this, the leaders to whom he is accountable have the responsibility to remove him. If proper disciplinary action is not being taken, then fellow-believers may need to shun the sinner, even while still holding the promise of fellowship if repentance occurs.

Then there is the Christian who practices or condones homosexuality while genuinely desiring to serve God and build up the Church. These exist--I have met them. And it should be no surprise to us that they exist, because within our own circles, there are well-intentioned Christian leaders with huge moral blind spots (e.g., I would suggest about war and greed--more on that below). Now, with folks like this, more patience is necessary--a willingness to work toward common understanding while refusing to compromise on allegiance to Christ and His Word. If this “well-intentioned” sinner is a fellow layman, then patient instruction, dialogue, and occasionally rebuke is in order. If he is a church leader, then for one’s own sake or one’s family’s, it may be prudent to find a different church home, but the leader and his congregation should not be shunned. If you are a leader, in the position to discipline a layman or clergyman sinning in this way, then formal disciplinary action may prove necessary, but should not be your first resort. If we cannot learn to distinguish this latter kind of sinner from the former, and to address him in patience and love, with a willingness to learn and repent of our own errors, then we are not being “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Ep. 4:3)

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It occurred to me after reading your email that perhaps there is a problem with our readiness to invoke Paul’s exhortations to shunning and excommunication in the current context. There’s two reasons. First of all, my main concern has not been to say, “How should church leaders address the sins, homosexual or otherwise, of those under their authority?” Obviously they should address them, by instructing, rebuking, and if necessary, formal discipline. This is what I would call the vertical dimension. My main concern has been to address the horizontal, and perhaps what we might call the “reverse-vertical” dimensions--that is to say, how does the believer who is not in authority over an erring brother (or the church which is not in authority over an erring sister-church) engage him (horizontal dimension), and how does he engage an erring leader (reverse-vertical dimension)? So, of course the Bishop of Edinburgh ought to do his job and refuse to ordain the homosexual curate; but, given that he didn’t do his job, what’s my job? Do I take it upon myself to “un-ordain” him? Do I still accept that he is a leader in the Church? If not, do I still accept that he is a brother in the Church? How should other churches treat him, and treat the Bishop who ordained him? How should other denominations? These are the questions that are vexing me. This is not a matter of tolerating unrighteousness for the sake of unity, but simply a matter of discerning the appropriate and lawful means to resist unrighteousness. I can strongly believe that a thief should be imprisoned, but that does not mean that I have the right to seize him, convict him, and lock him up in my basement for ten years.

Now, I do not deny that there is a time and a place for “horizontal” or “reverse-vertical” judgment, in which a believer or a congregation must withdraw the right hand of fellowship from those in gross sin, but even in such cases, should we not act with great fear and trembling, and praying that such a break of fellowship may be a very temporary meausure?

Second, however, it seems that even for those leaders responsible to exercise discipline, like Rowan Williams in the Anglican Communion, Paul’s exhortations cannot always be carried over so easily in our setting. For leaders of small house-churches, or even men like Titus or Timothy, who seem to have been responsible for overseeing quite a few churches, discipline is a personal, relational, face-to-face action. Practiced this way, excommunication can be quite effective. However, to lop off a whole branch of the Church, containing thousands of churches and millions of members, both faithful and unfaithful (the sort of action many conservatives are clamoring for today), does not work the same way. Obviously, the sheep must be cared for and protected from wolves, but turning the whole flock loose is not the way to do it. Honestly, I’m not quite sure what exactly is the way to do it, but clearly, it is complicated, and requires great discernment and patience. For this reason, I want us to be less hasty to condemn leaders who are struggling to address the problem.

Eight Theses on Homosexuality and Catholicity

Travelling, groomsmaning, catching up with folks in Moscow, etc., have all gotten in the way of blogging in the past week. But lots of great ideas have still been flying around, especially about (what else?) homosexuality and catholicity. (I'm beginning to feel like that's all I talk about...yikes!) A friend of mine arranged a kind of reunion of old friends to chat theology, and I proposed this question for discussion: How are we to reconcile the demand for catholicity, church unity, patience amist disagreement with the widespread practice and condonement of homosexuality in the Church today? To prompt discussion, I submitted nine theses (of which one proved to be redundant, and so is omitted here):

1. Homosexual activity is a serious sin.
2. Homosexual sensibility and desire is not in itself sinful, though it is disordered.
3. Homosexual activity, like most other sins, can be practiced in well-intentioned ignorance.
4. Homosexuality can be wrongly, but well-intentionedly defended by Christians.
5. We do not contract the “infection” of a homosexual’s sin by fellowshipping with that person, or with an individual or a church who supports them.
6. We do not contract the “infection” of a homosexual’s sin by worshipping at a church supporting them, or even at which they are ministering.
7. The proper way to address homosexuality in the church is patient but firm church discipline, which may require excommunication of those practicing it or, possibly, those condoning it.
8. If the authorized leadership does not practice the discipline that they are obliged to practice, other believers do not receive the right to take disciplinary action into their own hands and unilaterally secede/declare other churches to be non-churches. They are required to rebuke in love, and pray and work for unity of mind and, if necessary, God’s judgment.

The discussion that ensued was excellent and edifying, and most present seemed willing to go most of the way in agreeing with these points. I did, however, receive an email afterward from one participant, registering some strong objections. I will probably post parts of my response to that email over the next couple days.

Three thoughts on Gay Churches

So I said that I was going to be meeting last week with a local Anglican clergymen who supported gay ordination and see what I could learn from him, and said that I was going to include the results in my review of O'Donovan chapter 7. It turned out that wasn't practical, so I'll lay out some of my resulting thoughts here. The three issues I'll explore are 1) the attempt to reconcile homosexual practice with Scripture, 2) the ramifications that the celibacy (permanent or temporary) of a gay clergyman may have on how we regard his ministry, 3) the teaching of the Church on the proper response to severely compromised churches and ministers.

First, here was his approach to the question of how homosexuality can be reconciled with Scripture. First, the Church has always been revising and expanding its interpretation of Scripture to address new situations; the tradition is not static, but always growing and developing. Now, of course this is indisputable, and though some of these revised interpretations prove later to have been foolish and hasty indeed, they have often proved valuable (e.g. the Reformation and justification). Of course, where the rubber meets the road is whether these new insights are in fact "reinterpretations" of Scripture, or just revisions. It's legitimate to interpret the text in a new way, or at least to try out a new interpretation (though it would be rash to try to implement it immediately in the Church), when it is really a matter of reading what's there in a new way that is consistent with what's on the page. But revising the text, "interpreting" it in a way that flatly contradicts it, is a different matter. Is there a way to defend homosexuality in a way that does not flatly contradict the text? Well, there's at least an attempt in certain circles--the argument runs that what is being condemned in these passages are culturally-specific forms of homosexuality that are reprehensible; e.g., promiscuous homosexuality, or the Greek pedophilic homosexuality. This would be similar to arguments (pretty standard among conservatives) that, e.g., the teachings regarding head-coverings were addressing a culturally-specific problem (not the best example, I know...supply your own). Stable conjugal homosexuality, on the other hand, is not what these condemnations have in mind.
Now, I find this argument highly doubtful, but I do at least appreciate the attempt to base the position on an interpretation of Scripture, instead of just tossing Scripture out the window and saying it's wrong and should be ignored. It seems to me that we should be able to treat Christians who mount such a defense differently than the latter, and, however much we disagree, still be in fellowship with them. As for Christians who think the Bible can just be chucked...well, two cannot walk together unless they are agreed on a point of such importance.

Second, what difference, if any, does it make if a gay minister is not actively homosexual? Well, there are three forms of this, of course. Type one would be a committed permanent celibate. In this case, the fact that he is "gay" is not particularly important; it is certainly not sinful as such. It may, perhaps, depending on how serious is the individual's struggle, be a reason why he should steer clear of the ministry, but it need not be. The homosexual inclination in itself is not any disqualification for a solid and holy ministry. Type two is that of someone who is merely between partners. They are not actively homosexual at the moment because they are not currently in a relationship, but they have no qualms about being so. In this case, the fact that they are "not actively homosexual" is of no moral relevance. But type 3 is more complex. It is that of a committed temporary celibate, that is, someone who does not see a problem with being in a conjugal, "marriage-like" homosexual relationship, but who is determined to remain celibate until such time as they are in such a relationship, just as a heterosexual should stay celibate until he or she is married.

Now, what is the nature of our objection to this person? We're not objecting to their homosexual inclination; that in itself is not culpable. We're not blaming them for their homosexual activity, because they are not, and have not been, active. We're blaming them for their views about the issue, their views which approve the possibility of their being active as something that is legitimate for them to do as a Christian, their views which clearly misunderstand the moral requirements of Christianity and especially of their office. Now, this is certainly a serious problem, but is it any different than the error of a heterosexual minister who held the same views--namely, that it was fine for a homosexual minister to pursue a conjugal partnership? We would have serious objections to a minister who taught such things, but it would an objection to wrong teaching and thinking, not sinful practice, still morally culpable perhaps, but not in the same degree. So, is the committed temporary celibate homosexual in a compromised sinful condition, over and above the intellectual error of his false understanding of the moral requirements for homosexuals? It would seem that there is still an additional objection we could raise, which is that in his case, unlike the case of the heterosexual sharing the same views, there is a sin of will, an openness to giving in to a temptation to sin. His is certainly a seriously compromised position.

However, this discussion raises the important question of whether the church whose minister is "Type 3" celibate homosexual is really more in the wrong, more compromised, than a church whose minister merely approves of such practice in principle. In what way do we relate to churches of these descriptions, and how do we fellowship with them? These are still questions I am struggling to answer, but the principles and distinctions discussed here provide, I think, some helpful direction.

Finally, then, an important part of this answer is provided by the twenty-sixth article from the Thirty-Nine Articles, which the priest read aloud and I found rather convicting:

"Although in the visible Church the evil be ever mingled with the good, and sometimes the evil have chief authority in the Ministration of the Word and Sacraments, yet forasmuch as they do not the same in their own name, but in Christ's, and do minister by his commission and authority, we may use their Ministry, both in hearing the Word of God, and in receiving the Sacraments. Neither is the effect of Christ's ordinance taken away by their wickedness, nor the grace of God's gifts diminished from such as by faith, and rightly, do receive the Sacraments ministered unto them; which be effectual, because of Christ's institution and promise, although they be ministered by evil men."

I think we conservatives tend to forget this crucial and ancient doctrine of the Church. I posted before about how we need to be more concerned with admitting the corporate guilt that we share simply by being fellow-members in Christ with those who have perverted the Church, instead of being afraid of being tainted with guilt by associating too closely, or worshipping with such. But this pushes it even further. We do not incur new guilt simply by sitting under the ministry of an evildoer. Before, I had thought to myself, "Well, as long as you don't know he's an evildoer. Once you know he is, you must flee." But that's not what the 26th article says, nor what the teaching of the Church has historically said. "Neither is the effect of Christ's ordinance taken away by their wickedness, nor the grace of God's gifts diminished from such as by faith, and rightly, do receive the Sacraments ministered unto them; which be effectual, because of Christ's institution and promise." Wow. That means that even if you have an actively homosexual priest in the pulpit and at the altar, you do not sin by worshipping in the service he officiates, nor does he prevent you from truly worshipping God and receiving His grace, as long as you participate in faith.

Now, there may well still be strong prudential reasons for staying away, especially if your faith is not so strong as not to be distracted by your knowledge of the sins of the leader. But this article removes forever a strictly moral consideration from the question of "with whom or under whom may we legitimate worship" (as long as it is a Christian Church following genuinely Christian worship." I don't think we conservatives usually think that way. Instead, we tend to think that there are a whole list of abuses and sins, doctrinal and moral, on the part of clergy and churches, that are serious enough to basically bar these churches from consideration as places where you may lawfully worship. Where do we get that from? Article 26 tells us that the sins and errors of the ministers, while they should not be taken lightly, should be treated simply as one among a number of factors in determining the prudence of worshipping with a certain congregation. I think this principle is extremely important to keep in mind, both for individuals seeking to discern how to interact with and participate in severely compromised churches, and for whole denominations or groups of churches that are tempted to fall prey to a "this is the last straw; we gotta get outta here" attitude.

Of course, none of this is said to deny the latter part of article 26, which says, "Nevertheless, it appertaineth to the discipline of the Church, that inquiry be made of evil Ministers, and that they be accused by those that have knowledge of their offences; and finally, being found guilty, by just judgment be deposed." Yes, church discipline needs to happen, but church discipline is not the same thing as--indeed, it is the opposite of--an uprising by individuals or particular churches to take matters into their own hands and decide who is and who isn't the Church.

Vindiciae Contra Detractos (Church in Crisis Review #7 and Last)

Chapter 7, “Good News for the Gay Christian”
Now at last I embark on a review of the last chapter in this book, the most important, and the reason why I began these reviews in the first place. You may perhaps remember that I decided to embark on this lengthy defense and analysis of O’Donovan’s book in response to Douglas Wilson’s very harsh dismissal of it, which you can read here (beware the comments at the bottom). Oh, and by the way, here’s the link to the online version of O’Donovan’s book, which I failed to supply earlier in this series) I shall address the specific quotes that Wilson criticizes as they come up in the course of the chapter, but suffice to note here that Wilson seems to completely misunderstand what O’Donovan is doing in this chapter.

This time around, I shall work very carefully through the text, even more so than previous chapters, to guard against the kinds of misunderstandings that Wilson falls into. But, since that will make this post extremely long, I shall provide a shorter summary first, and you can just read that if you don’t feel the need for the extended analysis and vindication.

In this chapter, O’Donovan takes the hypothetical (but a hypothetical that certainly has real-life examples) of a gay Christian who genuinely desires to live in obedience to Christ, but who has difficulty seeing how the condemnations of homosexuality in the Bible could really apply to his case. How does the Church address the good news of the gospel to this person? O’Donovan makes a couple of important points about this question. The first is that inasmuch as the gay Christian is to be addressed as a believer and a disciple, he should be addressed also as a potential evangelist, as someone who has a calling to not only be witnessed to about Christ, but to be a witness of Christ to the world. The second is that the good news is always a demanding good news, a gift that requires obedience. So the gay Christian cannot expect to hear a word of simple affirmation.

Then O’Donovan points out that, on the one hand, the good news as proclaimed to the gay will simply be the same as that proclaimed to anyone else--the promise and summons in Christ is, an important sense, the same for all men; on the other hand, the promise and summons of the gospel will take on a unique form in addressing gays with their unique struggles and challenges.
O’Donovan then fleshes out the nature of this unique address to gays, which he proposes will address the situation of the gay Christian as one of a vocation. This is perhaps the point at which most conservatives will balk, as we are used to using the word vocation to denote an entirely positive calling to be advanced, and are used to thinking of homosexuality as an entirely negative problem to be overcome. But if we listen patiently here, I think O’Donovan’s point is decisive and convincing; I will take extra time to go over the details at this point in the argument. If the gay Christian has a particular vocation, then our task in preaching the gospel to them is to help them see where in that vocation are strengths to be encouraged, and where are the temptations to be overcome, to help them see where their calling to follow Christ is one of burdens to be borne, and where it is one of opportunities to be pursued.

To make sense of the desires that homosexuals find themselves facing, O’Donovan reminds us that, in our state of fallenness, we must remember that not all desires can be taken at face value; they are always pointing vaguely towards some good that should be pursued, but usually in a disordered way that, if followed literally, will lead to evil. The Church must work together with gays to understand what homosexual desire really points to, so that it can sort out where is the good, and where is the evil. Moreover, it must work to understand what contemporary homosexuality means; instead of simply hastily saying, “Well, it’s just sin, so stop doing it,” we must, without necessarily denying that it is sin, understand the roots of it, the meaning of it, and in what ways a gay Christian might live out his or her hard vocation in a way that blesses the Church and the world. This will necessarily be a more patient and difficult process than either the liberal or the evangelical response to homosexuality.

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Now, for those who want more detail, I will work through the text carefully, summarizing and questioning it, and responding to Wilson’s particular charges as they come up (note that I address every one of Wilson's charges in here--they are all in response to quotes from the chapter, and I take up each one as it arises. The only exception is the mockery Wilson indulges in about "fairies" and "probing" at the end, which I have omitted to address [though I think I might have mentioned it in an earlier post] since it is not a substantive objection and is in rather bad taste.)

O’Donovan begins by considering a hypothetical homosexual who “declares: (i) that he desires to live in obedience to Christ; (ii) he is unable to see himself reflected in the description of homosexuals in Romans 1, since he is not ‘rejecting something I know in the depths of my being’; (iii) that he conducts a life of moral struggle like other Christians; and (iv) that it is ‘hard to hear good news’ from a church which insists his condition is spiritually compromised.” Like it or not, we must accept that such struggling, well-intentioned gay Christians do exist, Christians who want to follow Christ, but who do not understand that this necessarily requires an abandonment of their homosexuality. As O’Donovan says “If there are homosexual Christians who see themselves in this way, then, precisely because they intend to take the disciplines of the Christian life with perfect seriousness, we may and must listen and speak to them with perfect seriousness about the good news in Jesus Christ.” So far, so good, right? Well, no, actually. Oddly, Wilson interjects an objection after just this quote, saying, “But of course, this is only the case if the true center of authority is to be found in the disciple's sentiments and self-justifications and not in the master's commands. We must take the homosexuals' self-assessments as authoritative only to the extent that any such self-justifications are authoritative, which of course they aren't.” I’m not really sure what to make of this objection, since O’Donovan said nothing about the homosexual’s self-assessment being “authoritative” but only as being something that we must address “with perfect seriousness.” Of course his self-assessment isn’t authoritative--O’Donovan has established that quite clearly earlier in the book.

In any case, O’Donovan goes on to say that we must ask not only how the gospel is to be proclaimed to this homosexual Christian, but “How does the homosexually inclined person show Christ to the world?” We may do a double-take here, but O’Donovan’s point is quite simple--every Christian believer, sinner or saint, has the task of both receiving the gospel and proclaiming the gospel; of receiving the witness of Christ and being a witness for Christ. If we are to address the homosexual Christian as truly a Christian, we must keep both of these in mind; moreover, note that he refers here to the “homosexually inclined” person, not the homosexually active. Throughout this chapter, O’Donovan is not calling upon us to cheerfully endorse homosexual practice, but to seriously engage the Christian who has homosexual desires, who wants to understand how he is called upon to live his Christian faith.

Before going any further, O’Donovan pauses to emphasize “an elementary point about Christian ethics”: “there is no Christian ethics that is not ‘evangelical,’ i.e. good news. There can be no change of voice, no shift of mood, between God's word of forgiveness and his word of demand, no obedience-without-gift, no gift-without-obedience. The gift and the obedience are in fact one and the same.” Therefore, whether addressing gays or non-gays, the Gospel will be both a word of promise and a word of demand; we must neither forget (as conservatives sometimes do) that the gospel addresses gays with comfort, or forget (as liberals usually do) that it addresses them with demands.

“The righteousness of Jesus Christ is not comfort without demand, any more than it is demand without comfort. It is never less than that demanding comfort by which God makes more of us than we thought it possible to become. And from this there seems to follow an important implication: the Gospel must be preached to the gay Christian on precisely the same terms that it is preached to any other person.”

We cannot, says O’Donovan, treat gays as some special kind of human, as the homophobic do in a judgmental way, or as the liberal gay-rights agenda does in an wrongfully affirming way. The gospel comes to them with the same words as it does for anyone else. The homosexual Christian must see Christianity, Christ, as the ground of his identity, not his homosexuality.

“Homosexuality is not the determining factor in any human being's existence; therefore it cannot be the determining factor in the way we treat a human being, and should not be the determining factor in the way a human being treats him- or herself. Gays are children of Adam and Eve, brothers and sisters of Christ. There is no other foundation laid than that. ‘He will feed his flock like a shepherd’; from which it follows, simpliciter and without adjustment, that he will feed gays like a shepherd, too.”

But then O’Donovan questions this line of reasoning--this may be so, and yet surely people possess specific subordinate identities, to which the Gospel should be addressed in a specific way. Should we not apply the Gospel differently to the different sectors of society, as Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Rule does? O’Donovan counters this question by asking,

“Why would there be a Gospel for the homosexual any more than a Gospel for the teacher of literature, for the civil magistrate, or for the successful merchant (to name just three categories that the early church viewed with the same narrowing of the eyes that a homosexual may encounter today.) It is for the church to address the good news, we may say; it is for the recipient - homosexual, pedagogue, politician or captain of industry - to hear it and to say how he or she hears it in and from this or that social position.”

At this point Wilson sharply objects,

“And, of course, in response the question should immediately arise whether the early Church was correct to view these persons with suspicion. If they were, then we should still be viewing them with suspicion. If they were not, then we should not be. And if the suspicion directed at sexually-active homosexual ‘Christians’ throughout the entire history of the Church has been correct, then let it continue. If incorrect, then let us abandon it now in repentance. But how about some exegesis first? O'Donovan tries to anticipate that clever trick by creating some hermeneutical wiggle-room early on in the book, which in these pomosexual times is not hard to do. Simple right? Clear wrong? All this deep theology is making my head hurt.”

Of course, in response the answer should immediately arise that O’Donovan never said here, or anywhere else, that homosexuals should not be viewed with “suspicion,” at least, in the same sense as civil magistrates, as those prone to be engaged in types of activity that the Church must oppose. Moreover, O’Donovan is not clearly talking about “sexually-active homosexuals” per se, but about prone-to-be-sexually-active homosexuals, and in any case, I find deeply troubling Wilson’s placing of quotation marks around “Christians” in referring to homosexuals. But, the biggest problem with this objection by Wilson is that O’Donovan goes on to object to his own question in the very next paragraph.

O’Donovan, having asked whether the Gospel has nothing special to say to the homosexual, replies, “Not so; it does!” I will quote: “The Gospel does have implications for the way we conduct ourselves in the world, and the way we conduct ourselves in the world is differentiated as the forms and circumstances that constitute the world are differentiated. There are special needs because there are special contexts within which the Christian life has to be lived out.” So, on the one hand we must beware of treating homosexual Christians like some special class that receives a different Gospel than the rest of us; on the other hand, we must recognize that they have unique struggles and tasks, to which a specific application of that Gospel must be made. Such a specific application, O’Donovan says, has traditionally fallen under the heading of “vocation”; just as the teacher, politician, or banker faces particular temptations in their station in life, that the Gospel must help them overcome, so does the homosexual. Now, as I mentioned above, it is here that we are likely to object--homosexuality isn’t a vocation; it’s a sin. But we must remember here that O’Donovan is speaking of those with “homosexual sensibility”; those who find themselves, for whatever reason, characterized by an attraction to the opposite sex, and for whom such desires cannot simply be swept under the rug and replaced with new desires; these are those who find themselves called to live lives confronted by this desire. In such cases, we can rightly speak of a vocation, and not merely of a vocation to suffer, because it would be harsh indeed to suppose that God had no special use to which he could put such Christians, no special gifts with which they were endowed amidst their weaknesses, no special service which they could do for the Church. If we truly believe that all members of the body are needed and valuable, then certainly we may speak of homosexual sensibility as a vocation within the body that some are called to live out.

As O’Donovan puts it,

“Of course, this pastoral train of thought does not entitle us to demand that the gay Christian (or the teacher, politician and banker) should repent without further ado. Theirs is a position of moral peril, but also a position of moral opportunity. In preaching the Gospel to a specific vocation we must aim to assist in discernment. Discernment means tracing the lines of the spiritual battle to be fought; it means awareness of the peculiar temptations of the situation; but it also means identifying the possibilities of service in a specific vocation. The Christian facing the perils and possibilities of a special position must be equipped, as a first step, with the moral wisdom of those who have taken that path before, the rules as have been distilled from their experience. A soldier needs to learn about "just war", a financier about "just price", and so on. Again, can it be any different in the realm of sexual sensibility?”

To these last two sentences, Wilson objects, “Sure it can. It is completely different. Scripture provides multiple examples of soldiers fighting the way soldiers ought to fight. Scripture provides multiple examples of merchants conducting their pricing operations in an honorable way. It contains no examples of "just sodomy." And by "no examples," just to be clear and precise, I mean nada, zilch, zip, zero.” Again, this entirely misses O’Donovan’s point. I don’t know about “just sodomy” but there is certainly “just homosexuality,” which would be celibate homosexuality. Now one may say object that this is a silly point to make, because it means that the only just way to fulfill the calling is just not to fulfill it. But this, to anticipate something O’Donovan says further on, would wrongly assume “that a homosexual is someone essentially characterised by an inevitable homoerotic desire. That would be to close down the exploration of the gay experience with a vengeance!” (Part of the point that I take O’Donovan to be making, in insisting on homosexuality as a “vocation” and on there being more to “gay experience” than “inevitable homoerotic desire,” is that homosexual sensibility is often associated with many great strengths of sensibility and mind. Many of the great artists and writers in the Christian tradition have struggled with homosexual desire, and it seems quite clear that such desire often goes hand-in-hand with great creative abilities or unique perceptiveness. We cannot treat this as a mere coincidence, but as one of the strengths and unique opportunities of service that belong to the homosexual vocation.) And in any case, it would hardly be the only vocation in which a Christian would find the obvious paths for action closed off to him. Christians in the Roman army (and in the American army today) would find that the just way of carrying out their calling would be to refrain from doing most of what they were called upon to do. Moreover, Wilson commits a fairly obvious fallacy here, since the fact that there are no examples of something in Scripture clearly does not necessarily mean that such a thing could not rightly exist--there are no examples of “just actors” in Scripture, but it would be wrong to therefore assume, as the Puritans seemed to, that such could not exist. (I say this not to contest Wilson’s point that there is no such thing as “just sodomy,” but only to say that this point was made very poorly, and this kind of poor argument is not likely to help the evangelical cause.)

Anyway, to move on...O’Donovan immediately points out that the homosexual’s task of discerning the right and wrong in his vocation is not his task to carry out on his own, but must be done by listening to the tradition, which, although it may not have the final word, must have a very important word, without which the final word may never be found. “No one who has not learned to be traditional can dare to innovate.”

But, what of the sincere gay Christian, who, having listened to the tradition, and accepted that “discipleship cannot be without a price in self-denial” yet wonders “whether that price may not be paid, pari passu with the married, in the ‘daily discipline of a shared life.’ And then he asks how that daily discipline can fit in with its two exclusive categories of ‘marriage’ and ‘singleness’.” (He is here referring to the text of the St. Andrews Day Statement, a 1996 statement by open-minded conservatives on the matter of homosexuality.) O’Donovan points out here that the Statement did not rule as an absolute final word that these were the only two possible categories, and that homosexuals could only choose the latter, but that it did say (and O’Donovan agrees) that such is the teaching of the tradition, which must not be lightly overturned. The Statement’s main purpose was not “merely to declare what its authors supposed to be the case. Its intention was to pose open questions to gay Christians which might elicit what they supposed to be the case. It was an invitation to dialogue within the basic terms set by Christian faith.” This invitation was not answered, he says, but was greeted with suspicion, and by liberals, with disdain. This is because liberalism “reckons it knows what gay Christians need, which is ‘stable relationships.’” But this, he points out, is the testimony of liberal Christians, not necessarily of gay Christians. Do gays see the primary fulfillment of their desires as a conjugal relationship, or not? It is dangerous, thinks O’Donovan, to abandon the tradition to offer a hasty solution for gay Christians before even determining if that is the solution that gay Christians need. We need, says O’Donovan, to have a much more serious discussion with gay Christians about how they understand their experience than liberalism has ever actually engaged in.

Now, having discussed all this time the vocation of those with “homosexual sensibility,” O’Donovan turns to address the question whether, if such sensibility is not sinful in itself (as I think we should all agree), a sexual expression of it need be sinful. This is, for many, the crux upon which all turns, and it must be addressed, although O’Donovan has been right to steer our attention to the larger contours of the issue. However, following his strategy throughout the book, O’Donovan does not offer a straightforward answer (he does not conceive this as his task in the book), but rather clarifies the framework within which a right answer can be given.

And the first thing to say in establishing this framework is that to ask the question this way is to turn it on its head--we cannot start from desire as from a given, and then move outward to expression as doubtful, but must start from given social norms of expression, and approach the desire as that which is doubtful. As O’Donovan puts it, “Wrapped up in this is a certain psychological positivism, an unbiddability characteristic of romantic, pre-Wittgensteinian psychology. Within, we have a self-interpreting mental state, "desire"; outside, we devise an action to "express" it, i.e. lead the mental state uncompromised from the inner expanses of the mind to the public world. Inner certainties demand untrammelled expression. But that approach can only invite a sceptical reply. What is this inner certainty certain of? How can we know what the desire is for?” Desires, he says, cannot be taken at face-value, especially in this fallen world:

“The language of ‘expression’ is treacherous. It lets us suppose that our desires are perspicuous, when they are not. Sexual desire in particular is notoriously difficult to interpret....It is characteristically surrounded by fantasy, and fantasies are never literal indicators of what the desire is really all about, but are symbolic revealer-concealers of an otherwise inarticulate sense of need. But the point holds also for many other kinds of desire - let us say, the desire for a quiet retirement to a cottage in the countryside, or the desire to own a fast racing-car. We cannot take any of them at their face value.” In other words, just because a homosexually inclined person understands himself to have same-sex sexual desires does not mean that the only, or even the best way, for him to respond to his desires is to have a same-sex sexual relationship. “To all desire is appropriate self-questioning: what wider, broader good does this desire serve? how does it spring out of our strengths, and how does it spring out of our weaknesses? where in relation to this desire does real fulfilment lie? It is in interpreting our desires that we need the wisdom of tradition, which teaches us to beware of the illusory character of immediate emotional data, helping us to sort through our desires and clarify them. The true term of any desire, whether heavily laden or merely banal, is teasingly different from the mental imagination that first aroused it. And gays have no infallible introspective certainties in relation to their desires that would put them outside the common human lot of self-questioning.”

In other words, we must not say, with the liberals, that the proper response to homosexual desire is simply to endorse the indiscriminate literal fulfillment of this desire; but nor must we say, as many evangelicals tend to, that the proper response is just to shut it down, write it off, turn away from it in horror. Rather, we must recognize that this desire, like every other desire of fallen man, is a desire for true goods, but a disordered desire, that is likely to lead away from them if we are not careful. Our task in addressing homosexuals is to help them discern what true goods their desires are distortedly aiming at, and to help train them to pursue those goods rightly, and avoid acting on their desires in the ways that do not lead toward the good.

“It is perfectly possible to think of desires as no matter for blame, and yet be persuaded that their literal enactment can never be their true fulfilment. Think of the desires we conceive in relation to our enemies when we are angry, or of the desires we conceive in relation to money and possessions! Desire is, however, one aspect of what Christian doctrine used to speak of as ‘concupiscence,’ a brokenness of the world reflected in a confusion of desire that our human society itself instils in us.”

And this, of course, as O’Donovan hastens to remind us, puts us again in the position of having to understand that gays are, fundamentally, in no different position from the rest of us sinners; we all find ourselves facing distorted desires, which we must overcome and re-orient, and this all the more so in the fractured post-Christian world of modernity.

“The gay Christian who complains that the good news is difficult to hear because his position is treated as compromised from the outset could learn that it is not his position, but the position of the human race, that is compromised from the outset....If the distinctiveness of gay experience reflects original sin in some way, it is because it also reflects the fractured quality of society and its loveless disorder, a disorder for which we all share common responsibility and all pay the common price, the fruit of our uneven social formation.”

Following this train of thought, O’Donovan says, leads us to consider the novelty of the gay phenomenon in modern society: “The world has never seen a phenomenon like the contemporary gay consciousness. There have been various patterns of homosexuality in various cultures, but none with the constellation of features and persistent self-assertion that this one presents.” I would’ve thought that this was one of the most uncontroversial sentences in the book; indeed, when I read it, my first reaction was that it was a rather pointlessly self-evident statement, since almost by definition, no pattern in a previous society could have exactly the same “constellation of features” as it does in today’s society. But, oddly enough, Wilson jumps on this sentence with a sharp objection:

“Let us assume this assertion correct, which it almost certainly isn't. But let's grant it for the sake of discussion. Why is this unique development assumed to be an ameliorating point in favor of some kind of softened judgment? Why isn't it assumed to be the most perverse development in the history of the human race? As in, this is ‘far worse than Sodom’? ‘This thing is unique -- it must be the mother of all perversions.’ Why don't we take that line?” I am mystified by Wilson’s suggestion that this assertion “almost certainly isn’t” correct, given that, as I just said, it seems rather to be by definition correct. Wilson also seems to again mis-read between the lines, since O’Donovan never said that this was supposed to be “an ameliorating point in favor of some kind of softened judgment.”

He never makes such a point here. Rather, his point is that this fact must force us to come to careful and comprehensive grips with the nature of the contemporary homosexual issue, so that we can offer a judgment that is not necessarily “softened” but which is balanced and informed. An approach like Wilson’s, which sees nothing in the contemporary gay phenomenon except “the mother of all perversions,” risks being an approach closed to new insight, unable to learn anything from the age in which we live, or from the homosexual Christians whom we encounter in the Church.

Having drawn attention to the uniqueness of today’s homosexual movement, O’Donovan insists that we must read the problem of homosexuality in our culture not as some isolated sin, that can be condemned and dealt with on its own, but as in many ways the product of late-modernity, and the chaos which our society has fallen into. When we read it this way, we will see another way in which we may benefit from attentiveness to the experience of gay Christians--we will be able to read therein a clearer picture of the society we inhabit, the disorder it engenders, and the ways in which the Gospel might be brought to bear upon it.

“From the place of special sensibility in which the homosexual Christian may find him- or herself we may hear a testimony to the way the world confronts our mission in our time, to its fragmented identities, its disjunctions of feeling, its cruelties, its dislocations and the peculiar possibilities of redemption that God has put at its heart. The rest of us cannot do without this torchlight shone through the fog of the late modern world in which we, too, must grope our way.”

When we approach gay Christians this way, we approach them as friends, as neighbors, as companions on the hard path of faith. Such an approach, suggests O’Donovan, is what gays need far more than liberal Christianity’s “managerial juridicalisation of the gay Christian's claim, by its ‘laws and peremptory dogmas,’ designed to settle questions without exploring them, to adjust relations without justifying them, to reassure the uncomforted without comforting them, in short, to manage the situation.” In this hasty liberal attempt to manage the situation, the actual experience, needs, and particular vocation of gay Christians has been largely ignored, and if conservatives are to offer a better answer to the situation, they must fill this void, and fill it with love and friendship.

“The role of attorney's client, the perpetual petitioner before the court of pleas, is open and inviting, and there are plenty to welcome the gay into it - for the time being. But the catalogue of candidates for emancipation will be extended further, and the gay cause will lose the interest it once had - irrespective of whether it has won the concessions it fought for. The role of friend among friends, on the other hand, questioned and self-questioning, joined with those in pilgrim search for the new name that no man knows except the one to whom it is given, is an altogether different role, and perpetually available to those who seek it. The gay Christian thus faces in a particular way the choice that constitutes the human situation universally: whether to follow the route of self-justification, or to cast oneself hopefully on the creative justification that God himself will work within a community of shared belief.”

O’Donovan approaches his conclusion by summarizing the questions that the gay issue confronts us with--for gays “how this form of sensibility and feeling is shaped by its social context, how it can be clothed in an appropriate pattern of life for the service of God and discipleship of Christ?” and for non-gays, “how and to what extent this form of sensibility and feeling has emerged in specific historical conditions, and how the conditions may require, as an aspect of the pastoral accommodation that changing historical conditions require, a form of public presence and acknowledgment not hitherto known?” Now, I will confess of course that I am not wholly comfortable with a “pastoral accommodation” that involves “a form of public presence and acknowledgement not hitherto known.” I will grant of course that we cannot a priori rule out the possibility of such an accommodation, and perhaps what O’Donovan is calling for here is nothing too radical, nothing that would involve a shift in the fundamental ethical requirements of the situation that the Church has insisted upon. Indeed, based on the rest of the book, I should expect that this is the case--that O’Donovan does not anticipate or desire any such fundamental shift; but I wish he’d be a little clearer here at the end.

O’Donovan ends by reminding us that if we are patient and faithful, we can hope for a real resolution of this crisis: “No disagreement refuses to be analysed, and its constituent elements sorted out according to size and shape. No disagreement does not lure us on with the hope, however distant, of a genuine resolution. Can we promise ourselves, then, that if the churches would only discuss homosexuality long and fully and widely enough, they would end up agreeing? Well, we are not entitled to rule out that possibility.” Even if such final agreement is not forthcoming, it is also possible that the disagreement may cease to evoke such “threatening resonances” which seem today to make it a communion-breaking issue, just as, for example, the formerly tense debate over whether divorce was ever appropriate now seems a manageable disagreement for Christians. I admit that I am not as sanguine (or perhaps my imagination is just not so expansive) as is O’Donovan here. I have trouble conceiving of how this could be a matter that the churches are able to “agree to disagree” on; yet I have no right to rule out this possibility; after all, it is certainly not a dispute over credal orthodoxy, as serious as it may seem.

“There are no guarantees. There never are in the Christian life. But that is not a reason not to try. And seriously trying means being seriously patient. Anyone who thinks that resolutions can be reached in one leap without long mutual exploration, probing, challenge and clarification, has not yet understood the nature of the riddle that the ironic fairy of history has posed for us in our time.”

So, is O’Donovan’s final chapter satisfactory? Is his book satisfactory? Certainly not for most liberals, probably not for most conservatives. We conservatives are left frustratedly asking, “OK, that’s all well and good, but what’s the upshot? We shouldn’t ordain gays, right? We shouldn’t let them get married, right? We should urge them to be celibate, right?” As far as I can tell (and this impression is confirmed by others who know the man better than I do), O’Donovan would answer “right” to all of these--certainly this is clearly implied by the principles he lays out in this book. But laying out these answers is not the task he sets for himself in this book; as I mentioned to Donny, I think he sees his task as a theologian differently than most Reformed theologians would. Although ordained, he is not currently serving as a churchman, and so it is not his task to throw his “vote” on the issue onto the table. He does not want to add his voice to the cacophonous shouting match on one side or the other, despite having stronger sympathies with one side, but he wants to calmly direct the attention of the shouters to the nature of the situation, the nature of the questions to be addressed, and the ramifications of the answers that may be given. In so doing, he performs, I think, a great service to the Church, and gives us a great deal of food for thought. I would hope that other conservatives like myself, would, instead of casually dismissing this book, see in it a source of blessing and illumination, as I have.

Pro Christi Ecclesia Testamentoque