‘Lesley’s Blog’ has a new post The first casualty of war is truth – a critique of Peter Ould’s article Institutional Homophobia. I wanted to comment on this dialogue as a particular focus of Flocked Out is the language that conservative Christians use when discussing LGBT issues. Lesley takes issue with Peter’s language. In particular, she picks up on Peter’s use of the word ‘revisionist’, preferring the word ‘inclusive’ – Lesley suggests we use terms that those it describes would be happy to use of themselves:
I guess I would be termed a ‘revisionist’. I don’t like the term, can we use labels that the other person would accept of themselves? In this case we are merely talking about homosexuality. There are people with quite orthodox views of scripture and doctrine who think homosexuality is fine. Why not use the label ‘inclusive’? Also, let’s not reside in ‘camps’ – we shouldn’t be at war – we are brothers and sisters in Christ. I imagine that all Christians think that it does matter what the Biblical texts say, but we put different emphases on ‘rules’, ‘values’ and ‘results’ to one another. That isn’t to say scripture doesn’t matter.
Lesley also takes issue with Peter about his assertion that some in the ‘revisionist camp’ would not change their position even if it was ‘proved definitively for [them] that the texts meant what the conservatives said they meant’ (which, incidentally, is unlikely to happen – this ‘if’ is a method Peter uses to imply truth without actually being able to prove it, and indeed an acceptance that the case is not proven). Lesley writes:
Yes, this is me too. Take for instance usury. Now the Bible is clear that borrowing money and paying interest is wrong. But Christians have mortgages – why? Well because we consider that the rules in the Bible are advocating being responsible and not greedy with money, i.e. we take the rules and turn them into values. Same with homosexuality. Even if we were clear that the Bible said that homosexual sex is wrong, we know that there was no possibility of marriage for homosexual people in those days, and we can take a broader ethical view…. My interpretation is that faithfulness and being in a covenanted relationship is important. Why do we make the rules about money culturally relevant but not the rules about sex?
This is an argument that is often used, but one that Christian conservatives somehow manage to dismiss, almost as if the very frequency of the use of the argument makes it invalid: ‘oh yes -we’ve heard that one before.’ For the record, I completely agree with Lesley on this point. I don’t believe the ‘conservatives’ will ever be able to prove their point fully for the simple reason that none of the much-quoted passages do speak about what to me is the real issue: the issue of one person’s love for and commitment to a person of the same sex. When I read Romans 1:24-32, I find it impossible to relate it to myself. I am not someone who has ‘exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator’. I am trying to do exactly the opposite. Neither am I someone who is ‘inflamed with lust for one another’ (plural, not singular). Neither, for that matter, do I recognise myself in this description:
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. [Romans 1:28:30]
I am not saying that I never commit any of the sins listed above, but I do not recognise this as a description of people with a homosexual orientation per se. If this passage is about me, then it is about you also.
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Thanks for this. I think anyone should be wary of people who are quick to divide a society into ‘us’ and ‘them’. It is of course part of human nature to do this. I can’t help feeling a certain degree of pride that I choose to shop at Waitrose rather than Tesco’s or Asda’s. Yet my parents and my sister shop at Aldi – shopping at Waitrose is just nothing more than snobbery. A good portion of the Gospels is concerned with these little games we play of constructing hierarchies of righteousness. The parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector at the temple is a clear example. The Pharisee was outwardly righteous: he prayed, fasted, knew his scriptures and lived an outwardly moral life (see Lk 18: 9-14). Yet he lacked humility and moreover saw himself as superior to those lesser mortals who are encumbered by something as mundane as human frailty.
There is no graduation of sin; sin is sin is sin… Yet the fact there is a bias among some of our conservative brethren towards seeing homosexuality and homosexuals as specifically sinful, says more about their own failings than those, real or perceived, of a homosexual person. I am amazed at the frequency of the use of the term ‘homosexual lifestyle’ in many conservative writings. What does this mean? From reading the contingent comment, when this term occurs in blogs and articles, that it is the inference that homosexuals spend the bulk of their waking hours in search of sex. They have sex frequently and anonymously throughout the day. This sex is always anal sex and is usually reckless, often including the use of recreational drugs. It is probably true for a minority of homosexuals, as it is for a minority of heterosexuals; tho’ there are far more of the latter than the former, but the former are the ones who are the focus of opprobrium.
A few years ago, on the web-version of my hometown’s local paper, there was a story of how a public toilet had become something of a problem at a local beauty spot, because it was used as a cottage. The leader ran ‘Public Toilet Closed Down Because of Homosexuals’. I wrote a letter of protest (which was printed as an article in the paper) noting that the toilet had been closed down because of homosexual activity, not because of homosexuals – as police records show, a not infrequent number of men who use public toilets for sex would normally be ‘classed’ as heterosexual – often married. I went on to note how odd it was that so much fuss was being made of ‘homosexual behaviour’ when the cost and social impact of a ‘heterosexual lifestyle’ as expressed in the pubs and bars of my hometown on a Saturday must be hundreds of times greater, given the number of police in the town on a Friday and Saturday night. But you can see what is happening, it is easier to quantify and qualify deviant behaviour by attributing it to a minority. Something similar is happening with our conservative brethren; it is easier and less costly to see social and moral problems as ‘out there’ rather than face the less attractive option of taking on board Jesus’ words, that the problems of the world come from within our own hearts. In this sense homosexuals are being used as moral scapegoats.
I don’t know what to make of Peter Ould’s comments. Sometimes he can seem the voice of reason, at other times a rather petulant reactionary. On this I tend to agree with him. But I do have concerns that he seems ‘bent’ on setting himself up as the voice and example of a ‘healed’ homosexuality when there is very little evidence he was ever really ‘afflicted’. He talks of having homosexual desires on occasion, but there are many happily married men and women who could say they same, if they are honest. What concerns me is the use of his own experience as a template for all. For 20 or so years I was a celibate homosexual who lived by the ‘discipline’ of the Church. Now I am very happy in my same-sex relationship and my decision to embark upon a same-sex relationship was not arrived at lightly. Ould offers his personal example of change (tho’ it is unclear just how great that change was in the first place) I can offer a personal example of how I have become a much happier and fulfilled person (by other people’s observation, not just my own) by entering into a same-sex, committed, monogamous relationship. The fact that in conservative circles, Ould’s experience would be seen as something that trumps my own suggests homosexuals are, and continue to be seen, as second class citizens. Therefore I would voice caution when it comes to aligning oneself with Ould: I think much of what he says is a nice way of being nasty… But that is just my opinion and as Rev Ould has told me, I have a chip on my shoulder (when in doubt, pathologies your adversary!) so take it with a pinch of salt…
P.