"H" The Modern Scarlet Letter

Several of my friends have offered their opinions on homosexuality in their blogs. When my response to one of those blogs became longer than the blog itself, I decided to post it in my own blog. As is typical for me, this will be long. In fact, I can't imagine having another blog post be as long as this one. Perhaps someday I'll learn how to make short points, but for now, I'm unable. I hope you can excuse this. Four warnings:

1. I take forever to get to my point.
2. Even when (more like if) I get to my point, I do not come to a conclusion on this topic. So if you're looking for one, please don't be surprised.
   
3. A message to my gay friends that may be reading this: At this point in my walk through wisdom, not coming to a conclusion is the best that I can offer for you. I have a tremendous amount of love for you, and not just because the Bible tells me to love you. I also have a tremendous amount of respect for your courage. I've never had to fight a battle like you are fighting and I've never been rejected like you've been rejected. I do not consider myself any "gooder" than you. This issues has rocked my faith like no other.
4. I say things here that will probably upset every reader at some point- gays, Christians, gay Christians, fundamentalists- I try not to discriminate. But, I am not intending to upset you, I'm only sharing my journey with you. I have no malicious intent, and at no time to I claim that I'm correct and you are wrong. These are just my thoughts.
   

Homosexuality is the most difficult issue for me to discuss. I just don't get it. I've said before, one of my biggest obstacles to understanding this topic is that I'm not gay. I never have been and I never will be. It's very similar to having never been black. I'll never truly know what it's like to live as a black man in America since I've never been black in my life. I didn't always understand this. I used to think I could identify with homosexuals because I know what it is like to struggle with my own sexual temptations. The problem is, a homosexual is not simply struggling with the desire to have sex with someone of the same sex. They are not fighting for the right to get married because they want to have sex. People do not need to be married to have sex. People, both gay and straight, have extra-marital sex all the time. Sexual intimacy is probably last on the list of reasons homosexuals have for seeking marital rights. In fact, the fact that we focus so much on the sexual act probably says more about a Christian heterosexual's motivation for marraige than it does the homosexual's motivation for marriage. Sexual intimacy should be the last reason people get married. In healthy marriages, sexual intimacy is a blessed bonus.*

I guess the best way for me to understand how homosexuals feel is to consider that the circumstances were reversed. What if homosexuality was the norm and heterosexuality was illegal and considered sin and an abomination? What would that mean for me? Simply put, that would suck. Yet that's the reality for thousands of people. So what now?

Homosexuality has forced me to examine my values- where they come from and how they guide me. My values come from my upbringing and my faith. It is very possible that if I had been brought up in a different family, I would be of a different faith. However, I was brought up in a Christian, conservative home with Biblically based, Judeo-Christian values. Difficulty arises when many people use the Bible to support opposite sides of the same issue. Why do some people think the Bible says one thing, and other people think the Bible says other things? Apparently, the Bible isn't as clear as some people think it is. Frankly, sometimes the Bible is as clear as mud for me, but it's still sacred to me. Further, while the Bible can be as clear as mud, the Kingdom of God doesn't seem that difficult to understand.

I am reminded that according to the Bible, Jesus said more than once that he was sending a gift to help his followers in with faith. This gift was the Holy Spirit; it was not the Bible. The Bible is a blessed and sacred collections of Holy Spirit driven writings of various kinds (songs, poems, letters, etc...). It is a book about God's relationship with creation. It is a story about how God has interacted with man throughout history. I do not view it as a collection of do's and don'ts. I find more value in viewing the Bible for what it shows me, not what it tells me. For instance, you don't have to be a Christian to recognize the lyrics to the song Jesus Loves Me.

Jesus loves me this I know,
For the Bible tells me so...

I'm of the mind to change one little word so that it would be sung,

Jesus loves me this I know,
For the Bible SHOWS me so...

It's a small change, but it changes my perspective tremendously. It shows me how God has interacted with humanity in the past and informs me about how I might expect God to interact with me today.

Disagreements about what the scriptures mean is nothing new. The new testament is fraught with documented theological disagreements. (Think Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, and Herodians.) The Bible also shows several instances where two or more Christian leaders (think Peter and Paul) disagree vehemently about certain issues (think ministering to gentiles and Jews). The early church leaders were trying to figure out some very important issues without the benefit of the New Testament. They had their scriptures, but relied heavily on the guidance of the Holy Spirit. They weren't just "we agree to disagree" issues either. They were just as significant as out discussions about homosexuality. If the early Christians couldn't see clearly on some of the issues of their day simply by using the scriptures, who am I to say that the Bible is "clear" on issues of my day? I won't. And I'll always err on the side of Grace.

Understanding this, I try to approach the issue of homosexuality (and violence, and abortion, and whatever) by referring to the Bible, but also relying heavily on the guidance of the Holy Spirit to help me understand how to approach certain situations. Fact is, I won't know for sure until I take my last earthly breath. In doing this, I have felt free to consider God's motivation for delineating certain sins. For instance, why did God give the Hebrews the ten commandments? If you killed somebody before Moses received the ten commandments was it not a sin? Was it OK with God because hey, He hadn't given humanity the Ten Commandments yet? No. "In the beginning was the Word..." God's law has always been God's law. Unfortunately, it seems that we as a race were so incapable of maintaining diligence in adhering to God's natural law, we were so far fallen from what God wanted us to be that it became necessary to spell out how we were to live. Then we fell into the trap of adhering to a list of "sins" or "not sins" even to the point of categorizing sins. Nothing beneficial comes from this categorizing, and it detracts from the meaning of life. We're either creating a holiness hierarchy or trying to determine what we can get away with to avoid God's wrath rather participating in creation as God meant for us to. We're either striving for holiness, or we're not. We're either living in the Spirit or we're not. So what's my point?

I don't believe that God sat down one day and tried to find a list of the ten best rules for us. (Actually, Mosaic law had a lot more than 10 laws.) They weren't just rules for the sake of having rules. They were logical and critical fundamentals for progressive participation in God's ongoing creation. It was as if God was saying "Hey Hebrews! If you want to participate successfully in life, you'll need to adhere to these 10 basic things..." The end result is a holy relationship with God and each other which sustains life. The end result is not an eternal party with wings and harps. God's law is the necessary glue with keeps the creative process in place.

So what does this have to do with homosexuality? Well, it kind of explains my worldview. It explains where I'm coming from when I consider whether something is wholesome in God's eyes.

Let me be clear about something. I believe that most gay people actually are gay. They're not faking it. They mean it. Most of them didn't want to be gay. Coming out was a difficult process for most of my gay friends. They risked everything for it. They knew they would hurt people when they came out. I believe that most of them were born gay. It is real, and it is seldom a choice. There is a list of people that I believe are gay, yet for some reason have not come out yet. I will not be surprised when it happens. I didn't always feel this way, but I do now. (And so does my church leadership. They have stated that they believe homosexuality is rarely a choice. This will surprise many members of the Church of the Nazarene.)

I guess I just need to know where homosexuality fits into the Holy Creative Blueprint. One of the issues in this debate is that of whether or not people are born gay. This quickly moves towards the question of whether or not God makes people gay. One of my gay friends once asked me "Do you think God put gay people on the earth to control the population?" He wasn't being cynical. He really wanted to know what I thought. At the time, I didn't know how to answer him. Fortunately, I don't have a problem admitting when I don't have an answer. But it bothered me that I didn't have an answer. Let's assume that homosexuality is a sinful state. (Remember, I consider homosexuality to be a state of being, not a simple sinful act.) If I believe that people are born gay- which I do- and if I believe that God creates people, then this means that God creates them in a sinful state. This is many people's reason for believing that people are not born gay. God wouldn't create sin. As I see it, this leaves me with two options:

1. Homosexuality is not sinful.
2. God does not create babies.

At this point, my homosexual friends have hope, and some of my conservative, fundamental friends are cringing, thinking of that "knit me together in the womb" verse (Psalm 139:13), and getting ready to surf away to somewhere else on the www. One choice will make my gay friends happy, but neither choice is likely to make some of my other friends happy. What to do?

I choose option 2. (Now before my gay friends get upset with me, please remember that I promised I wouldn't come to a conclusion and I haven't. I'll get back to dealing with #1 in a moment.) I don't just choose option 2 to avoid choosing option 1 because the Bible is clear enough about homosexuality. I choose option 2 because there are other reasons I have trouble accepting that God is a baby making factory. I have trouble accepting a God that over-populates impoverished nations. I have trouble accepting that God creates babies that suffer. I have trouble accepting that a grown man can rape his 11 year old daughter and God would create the baby as a result of incest. I don't believe God is that cruel. That seems a bit sadistic. I don't believe God is sadistic.

I do believe that God sometimes intervenes in pregnancies. I do not know when or why, but I believe that it is possible. I believe that God values all lives, even the lives of babies born with challenges. Further, I believe that God doesn't just value the lives, but God can use lives to bring unlimited joy into this world regardless of mental capacity or physical agility. (I'll leave the abortion debate for another blog.) But I don't believe God creates most of the babies that are born into this world. In fact, as far as I know, there was only 1 Immaculate Conception. I believe God created a wonderful and good process of creation in the beginning- whenever that was- and gave us the magnificent privilege of participating in that process in many ways including procreation. So in essence, while I believe that God is the designer of the process, mommies and daddies create. And sometimes, mommies and daddies create a baby that is gay.**

So let me get back to the void I left by not choosing option 1. Is homosexuality sinful? I'm afraid the best I can do is offer a hearty "I don't know." How's that for not pleasing anyone? I simply don't know. But I do believe that putting your sexuality- hetero or homo- in front of seeking God's desire for a holy relationship with you is wrong. Our desire for intimacy with God needs to trump our desire for intimacy with anyone else. Our life's motto should be "God First" (not "Country First" as some have recently claimed.) And we cannot be putting God first as long as we are denying fundamental rights to our neighbor. So would I define marriage as strictly between a man and a woman. Well, yes (I think) and no (I think).

From a faith perspective, I once again try to consider what part marriage plays in Holy Creation. (I'm not sure I should be capitalizing that, but it seemed appropriate.) In as much as the creative process necessitates procreation, it is rather important that mommies and daddies have the tools to get the job done. Sounds a bit simplistic, I know, but it also seems kind of elementary. I'm very hesitant to consider gay marriage in the church. Probably beyond hesitant. It doesn't seem to fit well into the creative process. BUT...

I believe that many of the statements regarding homosexuality are also culturally relevant for the time in which they were written. At the time that the Old Testament scriptures were written the Hebrews were concerned with their very survival as a people. Homosexual activity was a direct threat to the survival of the Hebrew nation in that it could not result in offspring. Clearly this is not an issue now, and this argument it illogical. But at one time it was logical and essential for the survival of a people.

A few quicker thoughts on the topic:

• It is entirely hypocritical for the Church to vilify homosexual marriage when we can't even make heterosexual marriage work. Consider:

  "...data showed that the highest divorce rates were found in the Bible Belt. "Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama and Oklahoma round out the Top Five in frequency of divorce...the divorce rates in these conservative states are roughly 50 percent above the national average" of 4.2/1000 people.

  	11 southern states (AL, AR, AZ, FL, GA, MS, NC, NM, OK, SC and TX averaged 5.1/1000 people. (LA data is not available; TX data is for 1997).
  	Nine states in the Northeast (CT, MA, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VT) averaged only 3.5/1000 people."

(Source: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm)

According to the same source, the state with the lowest occurrence of divorce is Massachusetts, the first state in the nation to allow gay marriage. It is high time that we began to openly discuss sexuality in our faith communities. I think we'd do well to re-examine the spiritual term "sexual temptation" which can, I think, ignore the biological sex drive that we all have, and stigmatize those who have pre-marital sex.

• The United States of America is not a theocracy and nor should it be. A state passing a law legalizing gay marriage does not mean that religious institutions must perform gay marriages. Some of the commercials that I've seen in favor of Prop. 8 in California have been filled with naive claims about the loss of religious freedoms at best, lies at worst.
• Christians, both gay and straight, really need to understand what marriage is in the Kingdom of God, remembering that according to Jesus as recorded in Matthew 22, "...at the resurrection people will neither marry or be given in marriage," instead we'll be in service to God. I'm not sure how this totally fits into this conversation, only to say that we really need to be sure we know what we're defending. If you can't imagine giving up your spouse for anyone, even God, then perhaps the Kingdom of God isn't for you.
• I really have a difficult time defending homosexuality when bi-sexuality is so pervasive as well. What am I supposed to make of that?
• I don't see any good reason a gay person shouldn't be able to visit their significant other in the hospital, get good health care, etc...
• I think we'd do well to re-examine the spiritual term "sexual temptation" which can, I think, ignore the biological sex drive that we all have, and stigmatize those who have pre-marital sex. It would serve us well to understand the ebb and flow of sex drives so that we can expect them and know how to deal with them when they flame! "Sexual temptation" is far too narrow of an understanding about what is really going on.
• We've all heard the term "Love the sinner, hate the sin." Even if you believe homosexuality is a sin, this is a terrible way to approach the topic considering homosexuality is a state of being, not an act. So in essence, by hating the "sin", by definition, you're hating the "sinner." "H" the modern scarlet letter.
  

Like I said, I don't really come to a conclusion and am still "dealing" with this issue. I just don't know, and I'll err on the side of grace.


*In fact, people don't usually cheat on their spouse simply out of a desire to have sex with someone else. They are driven to a different person to fill an emotional void in their marriage relationship. This is a different topic for a different day.

**I know this leads us to the question, "Then is homosexuality genetic?" I don't know, but I do know gay people that don't have any gay relatives. At any rate, as far as morality goes I don't think it matters if it's genetic or not. Alcoholism is genetic and nobody seems to think that changes the moral issue any.