Thoughts on Moral Discernment
Since reading my sister's article, I have come to the conclusion that this is just as good a time as any to post some of my thoughts on the subject of homosexuality. Since the page on which J's article appears also included a poll and a few links on homosexuality, I couldn't help making the connection between her article and the thorny subject we all seem to be talking about these days. I expect that J wrote her article in an attempt to deal with the problem of accepted sin in general, so what I'm saying is not at all a criticism of her argument; but I'm fairly sure that some can and do apply her argument against acquiescing in sin to homosexuality.
And why not? Given a premise that homosexual behavior is always and in every case sin, and given also that the power of one's orientation is great -- perhaps irresistible -- such a scenario is inevitable: the individual continuing to trust in the strength and grace of God while also continuing to resist and repent one's inclinations and actions. It is, after all, what we do in the case of temper, or alcoholism, or any other incontrollable impulse or addiction.
But there are two things wrong with that conclusion, as I see it. One is that such frailties as temper, alcoholism, and addictions of all types are part of a psychological deterioration -- that is, they all lead us on a downward spiral. Nobody who is an alcoholic remains an alcoholic without feeling its destructive effects, little by little, throughout his or her life. Alcoholism, or uncontrollable temper, or whatever addiction, is metastatic -- it spreads from system to system and makes the human progressively sick and liable to commit even more sins that would never have happened without its influence. By the grace of God such a situation can lead to brokenness -- the painful awareness of one's failure to overcome -- and thence to the grace and power to heal, to sin less, to cut out the tumor and fight back. But is homosexuality a sin of this type?
Sexual addiction certainly is. Even the attitude of embraced promiscuity can be argued to be of this type, leading to spiritual, if not physical and psychological, deterioration. But addiction and promiscuity do not comprehend the entirety of homosexual feelings, actions, and relationships. In fact, the only thing keeping some homosexual individuals from living spiritually deep, refreshed, and grace-full lives is the fact that the Church's position is one of abhorrence and condemnation -- forcing them to take their health somewhere else. It is the same with heterosexual people who do not choose to marry, except that in the case of homosexuality there is the added stigma of being an "unnatural" creature. If monogamous homosexual relationships are of the same sinful cloth of addiction and promiscuity, then clearly we should be able to see that, like the slippery slope described in Romans 1, such a lifestyle leads to a progressive coarsening of the fibers and a spiritual death. But salient examples (I'm thinking in particular of the integrity and spiritual depth of Gene Robinson, here) show that this is not at all the case, that there seems to be a level of spiritual and emotional health native to homosexual relationships of the same type as their monogamous heterosexual counterparts.
Which leads to my other problem with using my sister's argument in terms of homosexuality. To assume that dealing with homosexual "brokenness" takes this form of resisting sin while trusting God, is to assume a priori that homosexual behavior, and the impulse that engenders it, is sin. I won't dwell here on the seven texts in the Bible that deal with homosexuality one by one, but I will say that its prohibition in the Torah is accompanied by all sorts of prohibitions we take no notice of today -- prohibitions just as punishable by death like working on Saturday or cooking a young goat in its mother's milk. Many of these prohibitions were given, if not solely, at least primarily to set Israel apart from its pagan neighbors, and most modern Jews just don't live by them, or if they do it is in a very modified form.
But I won't betray my relative ignorance of Judaism further by going on in that vein. Suffice it to say that the identification of homosexuality with sin is dependent on one very particular hermeneutic which, in such inflamed times, is applied so stringently on this issue but not on others that appear to get even greater billing in the Bible.
I don't have a settled opinion on the matter. I don't think it is easy or simple to chuck away all the accretion of tradition which says that homosexuality of any variety cannot possibly be healthy, natural, or pleasing to God. But neither do I think that liberal (I will not say "new", as such opinions have been held by individuals and even churches in the distant past) hermeneutics that allow for homosexuals' existence-as-such and activity within boundaries as reasonable as those allowed for heterosexuals, is mere casuistry. And since I'm not directly affected by the issue, I feel content to pursue the policy I set for myself since making the acquaintance of gay people in college: justice and charity toward everyone, and a fight against any hint of judgmental attitude. Such a policy can be pursued by anyone whether they believe homosexuality is sin or whether they don't.
In any case, it can be agreed that we are dealing with people who are, while not more than human, are certainly not less.
Since reading my sister's article, I have come to the conclusion that this is just as good a time as any to post some of my thoughts on the subject of homosexuality. Since the page on which J's article appears also included a poll and a few links on homosexuality, I couldn't help making the connection between her article and the thorny subject we all seem to be talking about these days. I expect that J wrote her article in an attempt to deal with the problem of accepted sin in general, so what I'm saying is not at all a criticism of her argument; but I'm fairly sure that some can and do apply her argument against acquiescing in sin to homosexuality.
And why not? Given a premise that homosexual behavior is always and in every case sin, and given also that the power of one's orientation is great -- perhaps irresistible -- such a scenario is inevitable: the individual continuing to trust in the strength and grace of God while also continuing to resist and repent one's inclinations and actions. It is, after all, what we do in the case of temper, or alcoholism, or any other incontrollable impulse or addiction.
But there are two things wrong with that conclusion, as I see it. One is that such frailties as temper, alcoholism, and addictions of all types are part of a psychological deterioration -- that is, they all lead us on a downward spiral. Nobody who is an alcoholic remains an alcoholic without feeling its destructive effects, little by little, throughout his or her life. Alcoholism, or uncontrollable temper, or whatever addiction, is metastatic -- it spreads from system to system and makes the human progressively sick and liable to commit even more sins that would never have happened without its influence. By the grace of God such a situation can lead to brokenness -- the painful awareness of one's failure to overcome -- and thence to the grace and power to heal, to sin less, to cut out the tumor and fight back. But is homosexuality a sin of this type?
Sexual addiction certainly is. Even the attitude of embraced promiscuity can be argued to be of this type, leading to spiritual, if not physical and psychological, deterioration. But addiction and promiscuity do not comprehend the entirety of homosexual feelings, actions, and relationships. In fact, the only thing keeping some homosexual individuals from living spiritually deep, refreshed, and grace-full lives is the fact that the Church's position is one of abhorrence and condemnation -- forcing them to take their health somewhere else. It is the same with heterosexual people who do not choose to marry, except that in the case of homosexuality there is the added stigma of being an "unnatural" creature. If monogamous homosexual relationships are of the same sinful cloth of addiction and promiscuity, then clearly we should be able to see that, like the slippery slope described in Romans 1, such a lifestyle leads to a progressive coarsening of the fibers and a spiritual death. But salient examples (I'm thinking in particular of the integrity and spiritual depth of Gene Robinson, here) show that this is not at all the case, that there seems to be a level of spiritual and emotional health native to homosexual relationships of the same type as their monogamous heterosexual counterparts.
Which leads to my other problem with using my sister's argument in terms of homosexuality. To assume that dealing with homosexual "brokenness" takes this form of resisting sin while trusting God, is to assume a priori that homosexual behavior, and the impulse that engenders it, is sin. I won't dwell here on the seven texts in the Bible that deal with homosexuality one by one, but I will say that its prohibition in the Torah is accompanied by all sorts of prohibitions we take no notice of today -- prohibitions just as punishable by death like working on Saturday or cooking a young goat in its mother's milk. Many of these prohibitions were given, if not solely, at least primarily to set Israel apart from its pagan neighbors, and most modern Jews just don't live by them, or if they do it is in a very modified form.
But I won't betray my relative ignorance of Judaism further by going on in that vein. Suffice it to say that the identification of homosexuality with sin is dependent on one very particular hermeneutic which, in such inflamed times, is applied so stringently on this issue but not on others that appear to get even greater billing in the Bible.
I don't have a settled opinion on the matter. I don't think it is easy or simple to chuck away all the accretion of tradition which says that homosexuality of any variety cannot possibly be healthy, natural, or pleasing to God. But neither do I think that liberal (I will not say "new", as such opinions have been held by individuals and even churches in the distant past) hermeneutics that allow for homosexuals' existence-as-such and activity within boundaries as reasonable as those allowed for heterosexuals, is mere casuistry. And since I'm not directly affected by the issue, I feel content to pursue the policy I set for myself since making the acquaintance of gay people in college: justice and charity toward everyone, and a fight against any hint of judgmental attitude. Such a policy can be pursued by anyone whether they believe homosexuality is sin or whether they don't.
In any case, it can be agreed that we are dealing with people who are, while not more than human, are certainly not less.
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