Received this commentary via e-mail and found it enlightening (although, granted, I think being gay is more than a mere matter of biological preference)! What do you all think?
Peace,
happimedium
This comes from Bishop John Shelby Spong, thanks to Meg Gaines.
The Church and the Homosexuality Debate
It was Professor Sarah Coakley, an Anglican theologian at Harvard
University, who described the church as being something like a
swimming pool. "Most of the noise," she said, "comes from the shallow
end."
That is exactly my sense when I listen to the current debate over the
issue of homosexuality taking place today in the Christian church in
general and within my own Anglican communion in particular. The
noise, and it is very loud, comes from those who define this issue as
a moral battle between God and the devil. To maintain this attitude
they must elevate a pre-modern definition that sees homosexuality as
a sinful and evil practice, engaged in by people who are either
morally depraved or mentally sick. Against this distorted practice
they assume that God has called them to do battle lest all morality
disappear from the Christian world. They cite the sacred scriptures
that they seem to believe God dictated, despite the fact that in some
passages God is portrayed as less than moral, to demonstrate that the
God they serve has affirmed their judgement. They either fail to
recall or conveniently forget that it was this same appeal to
scripture that has been used again and aga! in to undergird causes
that the Western world has today totally abandoned.
The Bible was quoted to defend the divine right of kings when
democracy made its first appearance in the 13th century in the form
of the Magna Carta. The Magna Carta won and democracy was born. The
divine right of kings and the Bible that supported that institution
lost and it has long since died.
The Bible was quoted in the 17th century to prove that the earth was
the center of the universe around which the sun rotated and that
therefore Galileo was wrong. But once again the Bible lost and
Galileo won. Even the Vatican admitted that in 1991.
The Bible was quoted, and still is in the less enlightened parts of
the world, to prove that women are not fit to be priests and bishops.
In most parts of the my Anglican Communion that battle is simply over
and is not likely to be fought again with those who are unable to
adjust to this new reality. Their kind will either change or die.
There is no other alternative. A church that treats women as if they
are somehow inherently inferior, or even a church that tries to cover
its prejudice against women in the pious sounding phrase of "separate
but equal" will simply not survive in a developed world where women
are emerging in positions of top leadership in every area of our
corporate life from business, to law, to medicine, to finance, to
politics. Imagine trying to convince today's woman that God
designated her for an inferior role or that a woman must never have
authority over a male. The day of the male domination of "Mother
Church" is simply over.
The battle over homosexuality is thus a kind of final battle and last
stand for the Bible quoters. Perhaps that is why they fight so
furiously and so constantly trying to make a virtue out of a
close-minded and uninformed prejudice.
The homosexuality debate is, quite simply, not a battle between light
and darkness as homophobic church people try to pretend. It is a
battle over consciousness, over new definitions based on new
scientific and medical data that are invading and winning the minds
of educated people. Quoting a sacred text like the Bible, which came
into written form between 1000 BCE and 135 CE is strangely
inappropriate to this new consciousness. No one would go to a doctor
who sought authority for his or her medical practice in a medical
textbook written in that period of history. Jesus is actually
pictured in the gospels as believing that epilepsy is caused by demon
possession, that deaf muteness is caused by the devil tying the
tongue of the victim and that sickness is the result of God's
punishment. No one in his day knew about brain lesions, the causes of
profound deafness or germs, viruses, tumors, or leukemia.
The new consciousness on homosexuality has emerged only in the last
50 to 100 years from a consensus of modern medical and scientific
data that asserts that sexual orientation is no more a matter of
choice than is left-handedness. It is rather a matter of awakening to
one's own being and identity. It is just the way some people are.
Studies also indicate that homosexuality is a stable and consistent
percentage of the human population at all times, in all cultures and
in all places. Homosexuality has even been documented as present in
the animal kingdom, which makes it quite difficult to maintain that
it is something "unnatural".
This new definition also asserts that no one can cause another person
to become homosexual. Efforts therefore on the part of zealous but
uninformed people to change homosexual persons into being
heterosexual are not only ignorant, but also hysterical and
fraudulent. That is indeed the way these efforts are now generally
regarded in medical circles. One association of psychologically
trained therapists in America has branded efforts to change a
person's sexual orientation, "an act of pastoral violence". These are
the realities that are formed by the data from the new consciousness
that is now seeping down from the scientists into the common minds of
the average citizen. As these data gain foothold and acceptance the
old definitions become inoperative and the destructive, rejecting
behavior based on those old definitions becomes both evil and
incapable of finding further support. That is really where the battle
is in our churches. It is being fought between the definition! s of
yesterday and the emerging new consciousness of today. That is why it
does not lend itself either to rational discourse or to compromises.
It is a battle to the death. The voices of the past, who in ever more
strident ways are trying to hold back the future, look very much like
those who stand on the shore seeking to hold back the incoming tide.
Quoting the Bible will not save this losing effort. Indeed, in time
it will render the Bible quoters quaint, irrelevant, ignorant and
when the pain and tragedy, that this mentality inevitably creates,
becomes a part of the past, this use of the Bible will even be seen
as laughable.
Does this mean that those people who accept the new consciousness
must condone all homosexual behavior? Of course not! Yet that is what
so many of the homophobic religious voices of our day try to assert.
Let me be very clear, there is some homosexual behavior that is quite
obviously depraved. Perhaps people haven't noticed, however, that
there is also some heterosexual behavior that is obviously depraved.
In this debate one cannot equate homosexual distortions with
heterosexual faithfulness. Be aware that prostitution, pimping and
even child molesting are overwhelmingly the proclivities of
heterosexual people not homosexual people. Multiple partners, divorce
and unfaithfulness are certainly not unknown in the heterosexual
world. The day must surely come when any sexual behavior that
violates the dignity of another person, any sexual behavior that is
forced, unloving or imposed as an exercise of physical or
psychological power is wrong. Any sexual behavior, which viol! ates
the sacred vows that one has made to another, is destructive. Those
are the areas where the opposition of the Christian Church needs to
be heard. Sexual activity, however, that is mutual, faithful, and
committed, that does not use another for simple gratification, that
enhances life, increases love and calls each partner into a new
humanity must and will ultimately be called holy. Whether that life
giving expression of sexual behavior is lived out among heterosexual
partners or homosexual partners becomes irrelevant. The ethics of the
Christian Church must grow out of and serve the fullness of our
humanity. We are disciples of the Jesus who was quoted as having
said: "I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly."
That quotation takes us beneath the level of the literal text and
introduces us to the spirit of the Bible that is always a call to
life, to love, to wholeness. When we arrive at this point in the
debate, the Church might once again be se! en as having something to
say about the integrity of sexual behavior a mong all of the people
who call Jesus Lord. Then our witness to the world will have power.
-- John Shelby Spong
Peace,
happimedium
This comes from Bishop John Shelby Spong, thanks to Meg Gaines.
The Church and the Homosexuality Debate
It was Professor Sarah Coakley, an Anglican theologian at Harvard
University, who described the church as being something like a
swimming pool. "Most of the noise," she said, "comes from the shallow
end."
That is exactly my sense when I listen to the current debate over the
issue of homosexuality taking place today in the Christian church in
general and within my own Anglican communion in particular. The
noise, and it is very loud, comes from those who define this issue as
a moral battle between God and the devil. To maintain this attitude
they must elevate a pre-modern definition that sees homosexuality as
a sinful and evil practice, engaged in by people who are either
morally depraved or mentally sick. Against this distorted practice
they assume that God has called them to do battle lest all morality
disappear from the Christian world. They cite the sacred scriptures
that they seem to believe God dictated, despite the fact that in some
passages God is portrayed as less than moral, to demonstrate that the
God they serve has affirmed their judgement. They either fail to
recall or conveniently forget that it was this same appeal to
scripture that has been used again and aga! in to undergird causes
that the Western world has today totally abandoned.
The Bible was quoted to defend the divine right of kings when
democracy made its first appearance in the 13th century in the form
of the Magna Carta. The Magna Carta won and democracy was born. The
divine right of kings and the Bible that supported that institution
lost and it has long since died.
The Bible was quoted in the 17th century to prove that the earth was
the center of the universe around which the sun rotated and that
therefore Galileo was wrong. But once again the Bible lost and
Galileo won. Even the Vatican admitted that in 1991.
The Bible was quoted, and still is in the less enlightened parts of
the world, to prove that women are not fit to be priests and bishops.
In most parts of the my Anglican Communion that battle is simply over
and is not likely to be fought again with those who are unable to
adjust to this new reality. Their kind will either change or die.
There is no other alternative. A church that treats women as if they
are somehow inherently inferior, or even a church that tries to cover
its prejudice against women in the pious sounding phrase of "separate
but equal" will simply not survive in a developed world where women
are emerging in positions of top leadership in every area of our
corporate life from business, to law, to medicine, to finance, to
politics. Imagine trying to convince today's woman that God
designated her for an inferior role or that a woman must never have
authority over a male. The day of the male domination of "Mother
Church" is simply over.
The battle over homosexuality is thus a kind of final battle and last
stand for the Bible quoters. Perhaps that is why they fight so
furiously and so constantly trying to make a virtue out of a
close-minded and uninformed prejudice.
The homosexuality debate is, quite simply, not a battle between light
and darkness as homophobic church people try to pretend. It is a
battle over consciousness, over new definitions based on new
scientific and medical data that are invading and winning the minds
of educated people. Quoting a sacred text like the Bible, which came
into written form between 1000 BCE and 135 CE is strangely
inappropriate to this new consciousness. No one would go to a doctor
who sought authority for his or her medical practice in a medical
textbook written in that period of history. Jesus is actually
pictured in the gospels as believing that epilepsy is caused by demon
possession, that deaf muteness is caused by the devil tying the
tongue of the victim and that sickness is the result of God's
punishment. No one in his day knew about brain lesions, the causes of
profound deafness or germs, viruses, tumors, or leukemia.
The new consciousness on homosexuality has emerged only in the last
50 to 100 years from a consensus of modern medical and scientific
data that asserts that sexual orientation is no more a matter of
choice than is left-handedness. It is rather a matter of awakening to
one's own being and identity. It is just the way some people are.
Studies also indicate that homosexuality is a stable and consistent
percentage of the human population at all times, in all cultures and
in all places. Homosexuality has even been documented as present in
the animal kingdom, which makes it quite difficult to maintain that
it is something "unnatural".
This new definition also asserts that no one can cause another person
to become homosexual. Efforts therefore on the part of zealous but
uninformed people to change homosexual persons into being
heterosexual are not only ignorant, but also hysterical and
fraudulent. That is indeed the way these efforts are now generally
regarded in medical circles. One association of psychologically
trained therapists in America has branded efforts to change a
person's sexual orientation, "an act of pastoral violence". These are
the realities that are formed by the data from the new consciousness
that is now seeping down from the scientists into the common minds of
the average citizen. As these data gain foothold and acceptance the
old definitions become inoperative and the destructive, rejecting
behavior based on those old definitions becomes both evil and
incapable of finding further support. That is really where the battle
is in our churches. It is being fought between the definition! s of
yesterday and the emerging new consciousness of today. That is why it
does not lend itself either to rational discourse or to compromises.
It is a battle to the death. The voices of the past, who in ever more
strident ways are trying to hold back the future, look very much like
those who stand on the shore seeking to hold back the incoming tide.
Quoting the Bible will not save this losing effort. Indeed, in time
it will render the Bible quoters quaint, irrelevant, ignorant and
when the pain and tragedy, that this mentality inevitably creates,
becomes a part of the past, this use of the Bible will even be seen
as laughable.
Does this mean that those people who accept the new consciousness
must condone all homosexual behavior? Of course not! Yet that is what
so many of the homophobic religious voices of our day try to assert.
Let me be very clear, there is some homosexual behavior that is quite
obviously depraved. Perhaps people haven't noticed, however, that
there is also some heterosexual behavior that is obviously depraved.
In this debate one cannot equate homosexual distortions with
heterosexual faithfulness. Be aware that prostitution, pimping and
even child molesting are overwhelmingly the proclivities of
heterosexual people not homosexual people. Multiple partners, divorce
and unfaithfulness are certainly not unknown in the heterosexual
world. The day must surely come when any sexual behavior that
violates the dignity of another person, any sexual behavior that is
forced, unloving or imposed as an exercise of physical or
psychological power is wrong. Any sexual behavior, which viol! ates
the sacred vows that one has made to another, is destructive. Those
are the areas where the opposition of the Christian Church needs to
be heard. Sexual activity, however, that is mutual, faithful, and
committed, that does not use another for simple gratification, that
enhances life, increases love and calls each partner into a new
humanity must and will ultimately be called holy. Whether that life
giving expression of sexual behavior is lived out among heterosexual
partners or homosexual partners becomes irrelevant. The ethics of the
Christian Church must grow out of and serve the fullness of our
humanity. We are disciples of the Jesus who was quoted as having
said: "I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly."
That quotation takes us beneath the level of the literal text and
introduces us to the spirit of the Bible that is always a call to
life, to love, to wholeness. When we arrive at this point in the
debate, the Church might once again be se! en as having something to
say about the integrity of sexual behavior a mong all of the people
who call Jesus Lord. Then our witness to the world will have power.
-- John Shelby Spong
