The Emerging Conversation and Gay Christians

One of the weaknesses in the emerging conversations among Christians, according to David Fitch, is that the conversation keeps going, and going, and going, and going, just like the energizer bunny, never arriving to truth. At some level, I am in agreement with him that we need to arrive at the truth. 

Then at another level, I am with Brian McLaren (has he revealed his position on gays yet?) that we really need a thick view of gender dynamics and socialization.  I don't think its a slam dunk that homosexuality is not according to God's heart and plan in the new kingdom.   My postmodern hermeneutic of suspicion won't allow a Michael Jordan slam dunk special.  For example, for years traditionalists have used Genesis 19 as a justification against homosexual practice.  Yet there are some theologians who embrace the traditional view now, but say Genesis 19 shouldn't be anywhere close in the contemporary discussion.

Andrew Goddard points out that Christians arguing for homosexuality, "argue either that the biblical prohibitions are not universal moral laws and so no longer binding or that homosexuality today is something so different from that found in the biblical world that we cannot treat it as requiring a similar response to that found in Scripture" (Semper Reformanda in a Changing World in Alister McGrath & Evangelical Theology.

It's not a slam dunk. 

Andrew Goddard continues, "In some circles, evangelicals and evangelical theology are understood as inherently conservative (even reactionary), with part of their popular appeal allegedly lying in the constancy and certainty they offer in a world of rapid change.  Although there are elements of truth there, if evangelicals are serious about being heirs of the Reformation who seek to conform their lives and the life of the church to the voice of the living God, then mature evangelicalism should be a vital and dynamic theological movement neither resisting all challenges to its traditions (as if all challenges were a sign of unfaithfulness) nor adapting uncritically to trends in society." 

I like that.

Comments

[Jennifer]

The way the Old Testament speaks of homosexuality changed meaning for me last year. I started to buy into the idea that "do not lay with a man as you do with a woman" is more of an expression of "do not make a man take a woman's place because a woman's place is as low as you can go and its wrong to make a man take a spot that low." In the story of Sodom, it was preferable for a god-fearing man to give up his virgin daughters to a mob than to make his male visitors take the place of a woman.

I dont know what to do with that yet – as a woman, or as a Christian.

[sue]

Wow Jennifer, I don't think that I've ever heard that perspective before. I would need to look at what the original language intended, how it was used there and in other places of scripture. Right now my response is that I don't think God would look at it the same way, it just doesn't match with His character and His deep love for all of us, regardless of gender. I would seriously question the source of that perspective.

[Jennifer]

Sue,

That was my original reaction. But, the reality is that women really were nothing but property. They were the lowest of the low - even among God's people. The Sodom story really does seem to illustrate this. It seemed better to a godly man to give up his own virgin daughters to the mob than to give up 2 men he had just met.

[sue]

I recognize that culturally women were (and still are in many places) considered property. It is sad that even a righteous man such as Lot would place so little value on his virgin daughters that he would rather give them up. If women were to accept that what culture says about them is equal to what God's perspective is we would have very little to build relationship with Him on. Thankfully His thoughts about us as women are very different than any culture that we have experienced even to this day and time. I think that while it is imperative to know where we come from it is more truthful to know who we are. From God's point of view.

[Jennifer]

Sue,

Yes Yes Yes. From where we stand today, I totally agree with you.

But, I do struggle, a lot, with how women were treated in the Old Testament - not because of some vauge culture that had nothing to do with God, but because of the very laws God gave to the people (think : the limitations on women's access to worship, how much time they had to spend being "unclean", their status as property/non-persons).