The Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson: The first openly homosexual man ordained to the episcopate of The Episcopal Church
Credit: Episcopal News Service
The Episcopal Church for years has struggled politically, as it should, over a matter of pastoral theology that leaves none of us untouched by deep and perhaps troubling thoughts.
Conservatives have formed new denominational organizations to keep them safe from the world, the flesh and the Devil, of which, in their view, The Episcopal Church has become. Liberals crow that The Episcopal Church is becoming what God wants it to be – inclusive, open and affirming of all people, including homosexual men and women.
Some have decried the politics of all this, and it hasn’t been pretty. On the other hand, when has the church ever settled matters of theology without politics? All have enunciated a broad range of theological positions, calling upon Anglicanism’s traditional way of dealing with theological controversy by appealing to scripture, tradition and reason.
I hated to see how this played out politically, especially since 2003, when the issue came to a head with the ordination of Gene Robinson, an openly homosexual man, to the episcopate of the Diocese of New Hampshire. As a liberal Christian, I have to say it was disappointing to see a majority faction of The Episcopal Church’s General Convention do something unlawful just because it had the votes. In my view, the church ought to have, first, changed its canons to permit the election of an openly gay bishop, the ordination of openly gay men and women and the blessing of homosexual unions. Impatience is a sin, and the General Convention has certainly committed it in this matter and others since I was confirmed in 1966.
Intolerance, too, is a sin, except where sin itself is involved, and that’s the theological issue. Are we called not only to be tolerant of homosexual people but also to affirm them in their life’s journey on the Way of the Cross? My answer is, unequivocally, yes; but I’d rather not make a political argument; so, let’s stick to theology.
Opponents of accepting homosexual behavior in the Christian community argue that Jewish and Christian scripture forbid accommodation with homosexual behavior. Fundamentally, they say, homosexuality isn’t a biblical understanding of human being in the world. I would agree. There is no point in arguing that scripture is not utterly opposed to homosexual behavior. “Understanding the context” will not prevail against the argument that scripture is opposed to homosexuality, from Leviticus to Romans, scorning as an “abomination” men (and, presumably, women) who, it is said, lust “unnaturally” for one another. It’s a position rooted in ignorance and fear, but it is nonetheless undeniable that scripture forbids homosexual behavior.
Photo credit: Matthias Media
The problem, however, is that scripture is wrong. It has been wrong before about other things, or so the community of faith has decided, and in this case it is wrong. We have discovered, contrary to scripture, that homosexual people are not unnatural in their desires. We have discovered that they are not queer, but by God’s grace are becoming who they have been created to be. We are indeed fortunate to be living in a time when socio-cultural fear of homosexuality is on the wane; indeed, who would have thought, in 2003, that the U.S. Supreme Court, in 2015, would support homosexual marriage as a matter of law? (And, yes, it was a 5-4 vote.) Perhaps it was a kind of perfect love that truly cast out society’s fear. In Christian terms, perhaps God is finally healing us of our fear of homosexuality; perhaps our minds have been opened by what theologians call, the “Spirit of Truth.” In any case, I believe that the world is a better place because of it. Politics be damned. If God there be, and if God be in this, who are we to deny it? That just might constitute blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, for which Jesus of Nazareth had no tolerance whatever, according to the Jesus traditions in the Christian gospels.
It’s theologically helpful on the issue of homosexuality to reflect on the tradition of Jesus’ intolerance and how the church has dealt with it in other matters of faith and practice. Jesus, for example, had no tolerance for divorce, but within a generation, his followers had added an escape clause to traditional sayings on the subject.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in 2015, declared that homosexual persons have a constitutional right to be married to each other
Associated Press photograph by Andrew Harnick
In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus clearly teaches that “whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. (Mark 10.11) Jesus had just defined marriage for the Pharisees as an act of God not to be dissolved by humans. Divorce, he said, was a Mosaic concession, not the law of God. No fewer than 20 years after Mark’s gospel was composed, other gospels appeared. In this case, it was the Gospel of Matthew, which used almost every word of Mark in its composition, that watered down Jesus’ teaching on the subject of divorce: “But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Mt. 5.31-32, emphasis added)
Bible scholars generally agree that the original, unadulterated teaching of Jesus on this subject is to be found in Mark (also the Gospel of Luke, which doesn’t include the escape clause), and that the proviso on unchastity was likely added based on the church’s experience of failing to live up to Jesus’ standard. Did the church decide that Jesus was wrong about marriage? If not, then why the loophole; or, was it for the church’s hardness of heart, as Jesus said of the Mosaic concession to the Jews had been? Who knows? There’s not a word about that in Christian scripture. The point is that the church saw fit to alter tradition, bedrock tradition from the sayings of Jesus, because it found that the strict teaching of Jesus was not workable. Either Jesus was wrong about marriage, or the church was willing to live with its imperfection, but there is no doubt that the church’s theology changed to meet changing times – fewer than 50 years after the crucifixion.
Indeed, the church already had changed a great deal with regard to marriage by the time Mark’s gospel was written. Paul the great evangelist was ambivalent about marriage. He advised those whose spouses had died not to remarry, not because it was wrong but because it made no sense in light of the imminent end of the world. He urged young men and women to remain single, as he was, but to marry if they were incapable of sexual continence.
The church’s view of marriage in the epistles is an enormously complex issue, and Paul’s views certainly are not all there are. The epistles were written over decades and reflect development of the church’s pastoral theology, but for this discussion, it is enough to see that from the earliest days of church history, the concept and practice of marriage evolved. It’s indisputable that Paul – and Jesus, for that matter – were wrong about the imminent end of the world. In light of that new insight, the church had to change its theology, and it did. The church has been accommodating itself to cultural norms of marriage ever since – and without a biblical norm.
There is a host of ways that the church over the past two millennia has had to accommodate itself to the teachings of Jesus and to the biblical witness of his ministry. It is clear, for example, that Jesus had no use for laying up treasures on Earth, but we long ago jettisoned that teaching in favor of something more compatible with the trend of secular culture. Now, we say, it’s irresponsible not to lay up treasure on Earth, because if we don’t, we’ll be destitute in our old age.
“Field of Irises Near Arles,” by Vincent Van Gogh
What kind of world did Jesus imagine when he told his followers to consider the lilies of the field? We’ll never know, because the church long ago, at least for the most part, gave that up as a norm for Christian life. Some fervent Christians still give up all that they have to follow Jesus, but most don’t, even though it was clearly a bedrock demand Jesus made in his own lifetime of those who would follow him. Conventional Christianity simply doesn’t accept this teaching of Jesus because it’s unrealistic to expect people to give up all that they have in order to take up their cross and follow Jesus.
Was Jesus wrong about that? Was the church wrong to preserve that tradition among Jesus’ sayings? Perhaps. But whether Jesus or the church was wrong is irrelevant. The point is that the church had to accommodate itself to a worldly understanding of the strict teachings of Jesus and has done so consistently for the past two millennia. Christians have managed to follow Jesus anyway, even though we haven’t been willing to live up to his standards. We’ve lowered the bar in order to be inclusive, because all have “come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3.23, KJV)
And note well: Jesus said not a word about homosexuality; or, at least, there’s nothing retained by the church in the sayings of Jesus that speak to such issues. It’s likely that Jesus, a first-century Jew, would not have condoned homosexual behavior, but the silence of the gospels indicates, theologically and pastorally, that it’s a matter for the church to decide – and The Episcopal Church has, courageously, because it’s clear that this matter of justice for homosexual persons has led to major decline for a denomination that has been losing members for decades by adopting progressive pastoral theology.
Nevertheless, it’s hard for some of us not like what The Episcopal Church is becoming, even as it declines: more tolerant, more inclusive, more open to change, more likely to be responsive to those in need. I marvel at how the church – parts of it, anyway – has grappled with history through the centuries and generally has not become a backwater of irrelevant reaction. In fits and starts and by degrees, the church is being led into all truth, withal the wide range of perspectives and denominational differences. It’s hopeful to believe that God in Christ will not abandon the church, and that the greatest miracle of all may be that all will be one even as Christ Jesus and the Father are one.
The pelican papers 