Pastoral Letter #3
to the Members and Friends of Saint John's Church
from
The Rector
The Rev'd Jesse L. A. Parker, Rector of Saint John's Church, Huntingdon, Waverly, Baltimore
Do not be children in your thinking, my friends; be infants in evil, but in your thinking be grown-up.
I Corinthians 14.20
This is the third of the Pastoral Letters I have written to you, but here I will not deal with essentials of the Christian Faith or our practise of that Faith. The present Letter is meant to address issues of human sexuality, and in particular, in light of the actions of the 2003 General Convention of the Church, what has evolved in the twentieth century as an understanding of what we now call 'homosexuality'. It is not meant to argue for what the Convention has done or what many of our Bishops are doing, but rather to give a context and superficial explanation of the reasoning behind it.
What was at one time taken for granted as Christian teaching about human sexuality has not only been called into question, but frequently today has been abandoned by our clergy and laity alike. To begin to understand the reasons for this questioning and admitted changes in our teaching and practise, it will be necessary to look at the historical roots of traditional teaching about human sexuality, and at the collision of Biblical presuppositions with modern research and science, a clash similar to that between scientific theories of evolution and Biblical stories of Creation.
Today, many teachers in the Church present human sexuality as a beautiful and holy gift from God. Many others, however, have treated sexuality as though it were a curse, replete with danger and damnation, as something to be contained, channelled, controlled, repressed, and sublimated. We hardly hear that it is instead a wondrous gift to be enjoyed, employed, expressed, disciplined, and explored like the other gifts God has showered upon us. It is treated like the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, needing a flaming sword to guard us from its harsh reality. Saint Augustine is just one example of this mindset, which persists for many into our own day. For him, every sexual act seemed at least in some way tainted with sin, and actually to enjoy sexual acts must be so. (This was, of course, his opinion after his conversion and a heady youth spent widely indulging his sexual appetites and fathering an illegitimate son). This was an attitude shared by more than a few in his day, and by still others today.
But the truth is that sexuality is a gift from God, like all the other attributes of our humanity. It has the same nature as our other 'appetites', as the medieval theologians called them. They must be satisfied, or we die. Like thirst, hunger, and curiosity, which all lead us to health and life, sexuality, too must be satisfied. It is a gift which gives us tremendous joy and pleasure, which issues in new life, both in ourselves, in a partner, and when it is God's Will, in a new individual- a child. Combined with our reason it can be a tremendous source of comfort, joy, and assurance of the life of God coursing through us.
There can be no doubt that sexuality is a powerful, even determining force in our lives. Indeed, like its sister gifts of our humanity, it can be dreadfully misused, and like the other gifts its power is so fierce in us that it can destroy us. It is no accident that Lust is rightly counted as one of the seven deadly sins of Holy Tradition along with Gluttony. An unreasoned, "inordinate" sexuality is mercilessly destructive and ultimately deadly. The great gift becomes a hideous device of death and destruction, a power and tool of Evil become incarnate. But that is not its God-given nature, nor its purpose.
One of the purposes of the gift of human sexuality has consistently been seen by the Church, for obvious reasons, to involve the procreation of children. To some extent, it has also been seen to be a contributing factor to the establishment of the bond of intimacy which provides the foundation for their nurture and security by adults. But for centuries, while people enjoyed using their sexuality, as people tend to do for many purposes, most academics and theologians considered that it was primarily and simply the means of begetting children. Such was their fear, perhaps well-founded, of the power of this tremendous gift.
From earliest Biblical times, both Jewish thought and law saw the procreation of children, together with their nurture and protection, as an individual's responsibility to the community. Children ensured the survival of the community, and their procreation was seen to be the principal use of sexuality. The social contract for the Hebrew people summarised in The Decalogue (the 'Ten Commandments') and elaborated in books of the Old Testament governed the community and emphasised the communal nature of individual morality. Therefore, acts such as adultery, fornication, and even masturbation (at least by men), which broke down this social contract, rendered one ritually impure. Having broken the Law by sinning against the community an individual thus sinned against God who had established the community. Same-gender sexual acts are mentioned quite rarely, but when they are it is within this context of community obligation and a context of ritual purity, as a reading of Leviticus with its lists of other "abominations" against ritual purity clearly shows.
Centuries later, advocates of natural law theories, theories unknown to the Biblical writers, maintained that observation of what was involved "naturally" in the conception of a child indicated what God intended for sexuality in the order of Creation. They believed that this observation applied 'naturally' to everyone. They, too, were concerned with the order and maintenance of Society. In western Christianity, the Roman Catholic Church was and is the chief exponent of what might be called this "utilitarian view" of sexuality, based upon theories of 'natural law'. In general, this theory holds that every genital sexual act has to be open to the possibility of the procreation of children. Genital acts which cannot allow this, and any act to interfere with this, are considered not part of God's plan for sexuality and are considered, therefore, immoral. Biblical texts removed from their context and theories of "Natural Law" advanced in the high Middle Ages were then and are today used to support this utilitarian view of human sexuality. The principal purpose of human sexuality is seen to be the procreation of children, with the allure and delights of sexuality as a necessary condition and means of insuring, in so far as possible, that procreation actually happens. It was not until the Second Vatican Council that the nurturing of love between a married couple was recognised officially as a purpose of sexuality. Beyond these (and the second concept belatedly affirmed), in this theory, the powerful and potentially dangerous appetite of human sexuality has to be strictly controlled and mastered to preserve the order and stability of Society, and indeed, of civilisation itself.
In all of the Bible and the natural law theories, the tremendous power of the gift of human sexuality is recognised and the need to protect the order of Society from wanton sexuality is acknowledged. The procreation of children is considered essential. There is as well a fundamental presupposition of tremendous importance for the discussions in the Church today: there is the fundamental presupposition that by nature every individual is what we today would call 'heterosexual'.
There is in the Bible no concept whatsoever of the phenomenon we today call 'homosexuality'. The word does not occur anywhere in the Bible, and there is no mention of what we understand today as homosexuality in either the Old or New Testaments. The Bible does know and mention with condemnation sexual acts between same-sex individuals. The idea that such acts are the natural expression of sexuality for some individuals, that they are an expression of their "sexual orientation", that these individuals could express love, commitment and fidelity through such acts, that such an expression might be what God intended for them, would have been inconceivable. It is certainly true and can be correctly argued that there are Biblical condemnations of same-gender sex acts, but to do so begs the question which asks why the condemnation exists, what is the reason for the condemnation? It is because the presupposition of the Biblical authors is that everyone is what we today would call 'heterosexual', and that anyone engaging in same-sex activity was, therefore, doing so deliberately, perversely, and contrary to his or her individual God-given nature. For example, when Saint Paul condemns those who change the "natural use of their bodies" into that which is unnatural he is presupposing that their natural inclination and destiny is for the opposite sex. That same-sex attraction and sexual activity might, in God's Providence, be natural to some individuals, as today so many scientists, moralists, theologians, physicians, and ordinary folk experience and believe, was just as unimaginable to the Biblical writers as would be believing that the earth rotated around the sun, that the sky was not solid, that divorce could be wrong, or that slavery was in any way immoral.
The march of human knowledge has not stopped nor ended. Teachers familiar with scientific research argue that homosexuality is demonstrable in everything from penguins to chimps. The presupposition that everyone is naturally heterosexual is rejected as self-evidently incorrect, and is not supported by basic research into human sexuality. The fundamental presupposition of the Biblical authors, who did not and could not at that time share this information, is, therefore, rejected. Just as we have vastly more factual knowledge about the natural sciences today than did the Biblical authors, so we also have vastly more knowledge about human development, and not only that, but also entirely new sciences of human development and psychology unimaginable to the Biblical writers. Contemporary teachers who argue for reform point out that the Holy Spirit has not been asleep for the centuries since the last Biblical word was written, but has been leading us, as promised in the Bible, into all truth. Studies in genetics, sexual biology, psychosexual development, hormonal influences, pre-natal development, and so on and so on were simply not conceivable to the Biblical authors; they did not have at their disposal the information, and therefore, the insights, that we can and do from this hard-won knowledge. Many bishops, priests, deacons, and lay persons have now asked themselves: "In the face of what we know today, can we base contemporary teaching and morality on pre-literate and pre-scientific primitive constructs of reality, and honestly ask people today to believe them, ignoring the evidence to the contrary laid before their eyes?" The reasoning continues: "We are people of this century, with just as much capacity for wisdom, and far more information at our disposal than our ancestors in Faith". Modern teachers who are revising traditional teaching argue this: "To base our moral decisions about human sexuality solely on Biblical pre-scientific constructs would be, in truth, as blasphemous toward the workings of the Holy Spirit from those days until now, as would be ignoring the inspiration of the Bible itself altogether."
Many contemporary teachers argue that it is and should be impossible to support a discrimination in Church and/or Society which is based on Biblical prohibitions derived from a primitive understanding of human nature, sexuality, and physiology, and which had no concept of the sciences of human psychology and human psychosexual development. It is equally impossible to support such discrimination from demonstrably flawed theories of 'Natural Law', and much less so from ancient Biblical ritual purity laws of the same nature and context as those which condemn eating shellfish or wearing garments of mixed fabrics.
Those who would reform the teaching of the Church argue that human sexuality is indeed a gift from God, intimately linked to the procreation of children and the ordering of Society. It has no single purpose, but rather many purposes and nuances which contribute to what makes us human beings. It is a gift which, when properly used, elevates us above the 'brute beasts that have no understanding' mentioned in the English Prayer Book marriage rite. Its purposes are for our mutual joy, enrichment, and pleasure, for solidifying our unions, and for a witness to the energising, creative power of God Himself, as well as for the profound responsibility and joy of begetting children.
For many, many in the Church a more informed understanding of both heterosexuality and homosexuality has caused ancient cultural and religious taboos to fall away, in the same manner as taboos about menstruating women fell away in the face of fact and science. Reformers argue that the menstrual taboo, once venerated in common wisdom and morality and which was biblically sanctioned, took much more than a generation to be rooted out. As further evidence of the persistence of prejudicial thinking, they cite that we are still working to eradicate the sin of racism from our culture. Proponents of change in the Church's teaching about sexuality believe that prejudice about homosexuality will likely take more than a generation to overcome. But they firmly believe that change must come, for the sake of justice, for the sake of moral and intellectual integrity, for the sake of the Gospel. They argue that those who would oppose the reform of traditional teaching must answer important questions, among them these: If the modern concept of homosexuality, or heterosexuality for that matter, began in the late nineteenth century, does the Bible actually condemn homosexuality as we understand it? What is it that the Biblical authors actually condemn? Why do the Biblical authors make the condemnation? Is their reasoning valid for us today?
Because of the insights of medicine, biology, anthropology, psychology, and all the human sciences into which the Holy Spirit has painstakingly led us through the centuries, up to and including our own day, the Church is re-evaluating, and indeed, actually revising its teaching about the use of human sexuality. Teachers are reasoning that the lives of homosexuals, a small but significant segment of the populace, would be advanced by civil laws and liturgical rites which would bring order and support to the expression of their sexuality. In such an ordering all of Society itself would be enriched.
Holy Matrimony, Christian marriage -as opposed to mere contractual civil marriage- is rooted in the stories of Creation. Its purposes are listed in the Book of Common Prayer rite (BCP pp.422ff.) Jesus himself graced an ancient marriage rite with His presence, and the Bible tells us that at the urging of His Mother He performed His first miracle at that wedding feast. However, members of the Church should understand that Christian marriage as we know it is of relatively recent origin. It is a late-comer as a sacramental rite, and was virtually unknown in the early Church as we think of Christian marriage today. Christians simply followed the customs of local culture and Society, and whatever was required by the State. Holy Matrimony evolved in the Church over centuries. As Christians, we believe that Holy Matrimony is uniquely given to men and women as a means of establishing common life and fulfilment in a life-long commitment, for the good ordering of individuals and of Society, as a context for sexual activity, and especially for the procreation, nurture, and protection of children. We believe that it is a life-giving and life-saving channel for the expression of the deepest sexual desires, pleasures, and intimacies between men and women. It is a union of heart, body, and mind. It is a life-long covenant entered into freely by both persons. The Church blesses and does what it can to protect the sanctity of the union of a man and woman who make such a commitment with these understandings as its foundation. It provides a sacramental context for the public expression and acknowledgement of the union. The Church tells us that it is a vocation, a calling from God, to show the world that reconciliation of fundamental differences can result in new life, in unity, and in joy. It is a vocation to live life as an example of the love which exists between Christ and the Church, and in profound continuing renewal, forgiveness, and to be a living testimony to the power of God in the world to do the same among societies and nations.
In the past the presupposition of this thinking has been that everyone is heterosexual. While some may be more naturally inclined and suited to a solitary life, and therefore to celibacy, the reasoning goes, everyone else is capable of contracting a Christian Marriage within which to fulfil his sexuality. The Bible, which has never heard of homosexuality, is again cited in support. It is this reasoning which has led to much of the consternation in the Church today about what are often called 'Holy Unions', the covenanting of two mature adults of the same gender in a sacramental manner similar to that in Holy Matrimony.
A recognisable form of public union, it is argued by those who would revise the traditional teaching of the Church, would provide homosexual couples with the same societal and sacramental safeguards and helps to sanctity which Holy Matrimony applies and gives to heterosexual couples. Heterosexual marriage and the establishment of families is not threatened by recognising in a similar way the union of two mature, loving, and mutually committing individuals of the same gender. Instead, the healthy ordering and expectations of communal life in Society are extended, giving grounding, boundaries, and support to more individuals in the expression of their sexuality. Furthermore, greater stability and protection is afforded to the children of these individuals, natural or adoptive.
In some dioceses of the Church these blessings of holy unions are already routinely performed, in others they are forbidden, in others they happen unofficially, but with episcopal permission. The national Church is studying the question of whether or not to provide an official liturgy for them. It appears to be a question of when and how, not if, they are to appear as officially sanctioned.
Unquestionably, this present discussion and action on the part of many Christians in the western Church around same-sex unions represents a significant revision and departure from generally received Christian Tradition. It should be noted, however, that the Church in the past already has blessed same gender unions and called them holy; we know this because the liturgies for them still exist in manuscript. The hardening of attitudes in the late Middle Ages towards the persistence of homosexual acts, in the apparent absence of their rational explanation (which Christians today can readily make), was responsible for the disappearance of these rites, although examples survived well into the sixteenth century in eastern Europe and the Balkans.
Further, while it might be forcefully argued that acceptance of contemporary views about homosexuality represents a departure from traditional morality taught in the Church, these views are not a departure from the Christian Faith. That point cannot be stated forcefully enough. The Anglican Churches have no doctrine of the Faith except that received in the historic Creeds of the Catholic Church. This is a question of morality, which is applied ethics. As is clearly demonstrable in the Bible, morality as an expression of underlying ethical principles changes in historical application through the generations. As a simple and more recent example of changing attitudes and morality surrounding relationships we have only to look at the different reactions to the marriage of a fifty five year old man and a fifteen year old female youth occurring in 1860 and in 2003. Eyebrows just might have been raised in 1860, but in 2003 any consummated relationship of this kind would constitute statutory rape in virtually every state.
Those who would support the full acceptance of homosexuality in the life of the Church argue that revisions of teaching with regard to homosexuality change the Faith of the church no more than did the revision in thinking which denounced and eliminated slavery, or condemned the exploitation of women, and the tolerance of wide parts of the Church (even today) for legalised prostitution, or the recognition and acceptance of divorce in the Church today. It is not a matter or question of the Faith, but of our application of morality and discipline, and our understanding of what the Faith has revealed to us about God and his Creation. It is about the incorporation into Holy Tradition of the insights, labour, and results of twenty centuries of guidance by the Holy Spirit. The Church, it is argued, is recognising that homosexuality and its expression exist in Creation, not as an intrinsic disorder or fundamental flaw, but as an expression of the diversity of Creation on the same order as right and left handedness, eye colour, or pigmentation.
Late in the day, the Church is recognising that, as do heterosexuals, homosexual persons need strengthening by the Church in forming holy unions which are life-giving and contribute to the up-building of Society, and which provide for the nurture and protection of their children, and for the appropriate use of their gift of sexuality. As the Church was slow to condemn the manifest evils of slavery, and to condemn, and confess to its part in, the oppression of peoples due to their race, and as in the face of mounting evidence it was slow to accept that the earth revolved around the sun or that all species of life evolve, it has also been slow to recognise that homosexuality is natural to some. It also has been slow to see that, just as heterosexuality does, homosexuality finds the application of the Holy Gospel and the resources of the Church a welcome gift to bring it to its fulfilment.
It may be objected that the Lambeth Conference, a decennial meeting of the Bishops of the Anglican Communion, has found that homosexual acts are incompatible with Scripture and Christian living, but it must also be remembered that the Lambeth Conference said similar things, about birth control, divorce, and the ordination of women, among others, reversing or accommodating itself on each of these issues at later dates, either by pronouncement or actions. It is the nature of most human beings to resist change, and it is the history of the Church to condemn (and often burn to death) those who seriously, reasonably, and cogently advocate ideas and practise, which the Church will later adopt as normative. The opinions of the Bishops at Lambeth are, for good reason, not binding on the Church, but rather are advisory. Our Communion does not have to suffer the embarrassment of trying to undo the official condemnation and/or excommunication of people like Galileo, Thomas Aquinas, or Savonarola.
Nevertheless, the opinions, insight, and wisdom of the diverse Bishops of the Conference, and the mutual respect and forbearance owed to one another in the Body of Christ which is the Church, compel us to listen to one another with a holy gravitas, carefully attending and weighing the words and inspiration of our fellow-Christians. At the same time, the demands of justice and mercy must both be served, and opponents must declare themselves like Peter and Paul to one another's face, and remain in holy Communion and fellowship, not giving rise to formal division and rending of our common witness to the love of God revealed in Christ Jesus.
No matter what our present opinions and differences, those who are committed to the proclamation of the Gospel of God in Jesus Christ will find unity in the Faith, in the Holy Spirit, and in the Sacraments. There are many details and questions to be attended to, and the resolutions may be hard in finding, and difficult in understanding. But we are not permitted to abandon one another, our mutual communion, or our mutual respect, over our disagreements. We are to take all of our disunity and disagreement, our striving and our pain, to the Altar of God. There we are to offer it all in humility, joy, repentance, and confusion in union with the sacrifice of Christ on the Altar to the God we say we worship. It is in our Holy Communion with Christ at His Table, at God's Altar, that we find, and repeatedly will find, our unity with one another. For to be in Communion with Him is to be at one with all whom He takes to Himself- even those who hurt us, whom we do not understand, and with whom we most profoundly disagree. We do not see each other as He does, and we, praise be to God, are not the arbiters of salvation and Holy Communion. We are to be faithful, and to present our selves, our souls and bodies, at His Altar as a reasonable, holy, and a living sacrifice. When we each do that our unity and our witness is assured.
Human sexuality is a gift, not a curse. It requires appropriate outlet and discipline, and the guidance and blessing of the Church in its use- but the Church's guidance must be based on all the information at hand today which the Holy Spirit has brought to us through generations of hard work and terrible sacrifice. To do otherwise is to make the Church's pronouncements irrelevant to the very people who need them the most.
JLAP 
A NOTE ABOUT SAME GENDER RELATIONSHIPS
It is important in considering same-sex relationships to make the clear distinction between homosexuality (homophilia) and two other 'philias', or sexual attractions, with which it is often confused or associated. Homosexuality is same-gender attraction between psychosexually mature adults. Ephebephilia is the sexual attraction of an adult (male or female) to a post-pubescent youth (male or female). Paedophilia is the sexual attraction of an adult (male or female) to pre-pubescent children (male or female). While ephebephilia and paedophilia are expressed either heterosexually or homosexually, heterosexual manifestations of both are more common and more documented.
Sexual boundaries around paedophilia are relatively clear. Inappropriate sexual contact with pre-pubescent children is illegal and harshly punishable in most states and most countries. There is considerably more confusion about ephebephilia. For example, the age of consent for sexual relationships with youths varies from state to state in America and abroad. There is often a distinction between age of consent for males and females, male age sometimes being somewhat higher. Marriage may be contracted with teenage youths in many states and countries. What constitutes an adult or a youth is contradictory and often hypocritical, especially in America, where a fourteen year old may be tried as an adult and receive the death penalty, but cannot work a full time job. A seventeen year old may be tried as an adult, serve in the armed forces, get married, quit school, and buy alcohol and tobacco in some states or many countries, but be assumed to be a child when refused a credit card, protected from statutory rape, excluded from signing a legal contract, and protected from exposure in the press for crimes.
Acceptance of homosexuality as moral and healthy is no more a 'slippery slope' to the acceptance of paedophilia or ephebephilia than is accepting heterosexuality. Heterosexuality and homosexuality are both expressions of adult sexuality. The level of maturity of individuals involved in either sort of sexual behaviour is wide, to say the least, but relationships between consenting adults are a very different thing than sexual relationships with children or youths. While Society in America and abroad is relatively clear about relationships with children, it is still debating what is appropriate behaviour between youths and adults. Any one who has ever seen MTV (a cable television music channel) knows this to be true.