The following article has been posted to various Usenet newsgroups since
1995, and usually creates quite a stir!
It addresses one of the two or three most-argued-issues between
Christians and non-Christians on the Internet, and between Christians
themselves...
Some object to the idea of an imaginary interview with Jesus about
anything. But 'dialogues with Jesus' / sermons on 'What would Jesus
do/say?' are common homiletical devices often used by Christian
preachers and theologians. (For example Jacob Neusner's 'A Rabbi Talks
with Jesus' is a well-known imaginary dialogue between Jesus and a
sympathetic Jewish scholar).
Many (most?) conservative folks seem to have a visceral homophobic
tendency to shut their minds to any possibility of changing their
deeply-held prejudices and paradigms.
This is too brief, probably simplistic and somewhat tentative. Those of
you to my ideological right and left will want to modify some of this. I
invite your critical comments.
For the record, I am an active/exclusive hetero***ual. I believe that
(a) God intended marriage between a male and a female to be the norm for
humans, but (b) the vast majority of homo***uals - if not all of them -
did not choose their orientation, and (c) they have a right to be
treated as precious human beings created in the image of God like the
rest of us.
So on this broad issue I have critics to my right and left (Jesus did
too)!
Some of this needs to be updated, but read it with an open mind, eh?
......
HOMO***UALITY: An Interview with Jesus...
Interviewer: Jesus, you had a reputation for hanging around with those
on the edges/margins of society. But some of my homo***ual friends and
clients wonder why you said nothing about homo***uality, even though it
was rife back then. We're in a 'bi' bar in San Francisco... why are you
here?
# Jesus: Hi! I was invited by a friend. Remember when Matthew threw a
party for his mafia-type mates? I was enjoying myself before the
religious leaders gate-crashed it.
What is a homo***ual? Can we agree that he or she has an *****c
attraction to and preference for members of the same ***? And can we use
the word for both ***es (the Greek word 'homos' means 'same')? And that
not all homo***uals are ***ually active; nor are all people who engage
in homo***ual acts necessarily homo***ual? And that Kinsey's 'shrinking
10%' of exclusive homo***ual males is more realistically about 1% (Time
Magazine 26 April, 1993)? But what's in your mind when you meet a
homo***ual?
# First, like all of us they're made in the image of God and are loved
by God. So they know I love them too. Many feel ostracized - actually,
like the lepers of ancient Palestine, so, as you know, I share an
affinity with those kinds of people. And where would the arts - music,
drama, media - be without them?
That word 'love'...
# Oh yes, your English language is impoverished isn't it? I mean
'love-before-worth' not 'love-responding-to-worth' or 'love-me-to-
meet-my-needs.' The most tragic thing in life is not to know you're
unconditionally loved.
Your Bible condemns homo***uality doesn't it?
# No.
No?
# No. Leviticus 18:22, 20:13 and Romans 1:26-27 condemn homo***ual
_activity_. But lending money at interest, having ***ual intercourse
during a woman's menstrual period etc. are also condemned; slavery and
polygamy are condoned in the Bible. Do you want to be consistent?
You didn't mention 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10.
# Are you sure they're about homo***ual practice? Or do they talk about
promiscuity and prostitution - *** for payment? And did you notice that
the 'greedy' and 'revilers' are in the 1 Corinthians list? I would have
thought Western churches have a fair share of those. And, back to Romans
1 - there's no break at the end of the sentence at verse 28: Paul goes
right on condemning all sorts of things. Your website has a good article
by a New Testament professor on all this -
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/12636.htm
.
OK - but there's also Sodom.
# And you're a 'master in the church' and don't know that the problem
there (as in Judges 19-21) was gang-rape, not homo***uality? Every time
Sodom is referred to in the OT and apocryphal books - and in the one
Gospel reference, Luke 10:10-12 - it's never in connection with
homo***uality. In Ezekiel 16:49 for example, Sodom's sins are pride,
materialism, idleness or being uncaring.
If someone's testicles are crushed or their ***** cut off or they're
illegitimate they can't wor****p with others (Deuteronomy 23:1-6).
# Isaiah (56:3-8) predicted that eunuchs and others banned from the
Temple would one day have a full place in God's community. I came to
fulfil all that. Those on the margins are moved to the centre, and
vice-versa. So when convention, custom or law prevents the exercise of
compassion or justice-love (John 8:1-11, Matthew 23:23, Luke 11:42 etc.)
the latter takes precedence.
When Bishop Spong or Troy Perry write about God affirming homo***ual
love - what do you think of that?
# I did not come to do away with the law, but to fulfil it. Using a
modern analogy, law is to love what railway tracks are to the train: the
law gives direction, but all the propulsive power is in the train.
A government survey in Australia ('Project Male Call', May 1994) found
that 12% of homo***ually active males re****ted having unprotected anal
intercourse with casual male partners. 49% of homo***ually active men
engaged only in casual *** compared with 19% who re****ted having a
regular relation****p and engaging in casual ***. Almost three quarters
of those interviewed (73%)re****ted having had multiple ***ual partners
in the previous six months. What do you think of all that?
# My conservative friends are disgusted; my liberal friends may respond
'So what?' I feel compassion for what are obviously many lonely,
frustrated people. They are sad, and I am sad with them. And I say to
them, _after_ 'I do not condemn you', 'Go and sin no more.'
Let's talk about politics. Christians generally get more uptight about
giving 'family rights' to 'gay' couples than to hetero***ual de facto
relation****ps. Why is that?
# Well, you've got to figure when 'sins' become 'crimes'. Adultery? Same
*** relation****ps? It's odd that in your country, Australia, it has
never been illegal to be a lesbian, but in Tasmania *** between
consenting males in private was, until recently, a criminal act. Then
there's the whole question of 'adultism' - the choices adults make (as
also in divorce and abortion) in favour of themselves and often against
children. But I think your modern Western culture has a deeper problem:
its insistence on the nuclear family being the key way to raise children
in a post-industrial world. Back in my Palestinian days we had extended
families - far better. Every child ought to relate regularly to safe
nurturing adults - of both ***es - other than their biological parents.
Which raises the question of '***' generally. What's your view?
# The Bible is quite clear that human ***ual activity involves three
relational components - procreation, enjoyment, and covenant. The
Catholic church has generally majored on the first and last of these :-)
Alright Lord, the churches: Evangelical groups (Christian Voice, the
Festival of Light, the Southern Baptist Convention's Christian Life
Commission, Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition) oppose any 'special
rights' for homo***uals. (Their posters say 'God made Adam and Eve, not
Adam and Steve'). They cite statistics like 'The median age of death for
homo***ual men from all causes is 42, and of lesbians is 45; fewer than
3% of homo***uals today are over the age of 55; and only 1% of
homo***uals die of old age.' (I wonder where they got those figures?).
Mainline churches defend homo***uals' civil rights but have mixed
feelings about ordaining openly gay people to the priesthood (though all
of them ordain some homo***uals from time to time). A UK gay-rights
group, Outrage, alleges that 10 C of E bishops are homo***uals.
Recently, the retired bishop of Glasgow and Galloway became the
highest-ranking clergyman in the faith's 460 years to admit publicly
that he was gay. Some see as anachronistic at best and hypocritical at
worst the fact that the Church of England does not accept ***ually
active gays and lesbians as priests. A few clergy will bless same-***
unions; probably most won't. Andrew Greeley (Confessions of a Parish
Priest, 1987, p.129) says homo***ual Roman Catholic priests are a small
minority and fall into four categories - some don't have a strong ***ual
orientation in either direction; those whose homo***uality is clear but
hidden; some go to gay venues (did you see the movie 'Priest' Lord?);
and pederasts - who prey on boys or young men.
# Shows there are saints and sinners at all levels of the church. So
let's not be too judgmental: I often said that when I was here 2000
years ago. And remember my friend Peter's word about judgment beginning
in the house of God (1 Peter 4:17). Some conservatives can be
compassionate (eg. Alex Davidson's The Returns of Love). Some liberals
can be too permissive, and their followers don't know what's right/wrong
any more...
What 'causes' homo***uality? Elizabeth Moberly (Homo***uality: A New
Christian Ethic) says most homo***uals during childhood got detached
emotionally from members of the same *** (often the same *** parent). So
they may have pre-adult emotional needs which are confused with adult
physiological desires - and so intimacy is related to genital ***. Most
of my homo***ual clients present with this sort of story.
# Ah... but you're about to add 'not all'?
Yes. A (small) minority came from apparently loving and stable home
backgrounds. Hormonal studies (eg. disorder 5-alpha-reductase deficiency
where males are born with female genitalia; or congenital adrenal
hyperplasia where females are born with male genitalia); genetic studies
(eg. Bailey and Pillard's finding that a male homo***ual identical twin
has a 52% chance of having a brother who is also homo***ual; or Hamer
et. al's studies of gene markers); and neuroanatomic studies such as
LeVay's - all seem to indicate a recent bias towards 'nature' rather
than 'nurture' as causal, eh?
# They do, _perhaps_. Scientists are simply discovering, incrementally,
various aspects of God's truth. But these studies have a long way to go
yet?
Yes, I guess. Can I make a few comments? LeVay acknowledges that the
brains he studied were of AIDS victims, so he can't be sure that what he
saw was genetic rather than the result of disease. The twins studies -
and the figure is 22% for non-identical twins, 9.2% for non-twin
biological brothers - suggests a significant 'nurture' factor. And gene
markers were also re****ted for schizophrenia, manic-depression and
Huntington's Disease, but I think only for the latter have they been
successfully replicated. Time Magazine (June 12, 1995, pp. 50-51) in an
article headed 'Search for a Gay Gene' says: 'No one has proved that a
particular gene promotes gayness.' (I'm out of my depth when it's
scientific, Lord, but someone out there will bring me up to date on all
this). But let's move on to sociology. Kinsey said hetero-/homo-
orientations exist on a continuum... In some cultures homo***ual
behaviors are common before and sometimes after marriage... Then there's
institutional homo***uality - navies, prisons, and so on.
# And have you wondered why before the 20th century the focus was on
behavior - now it's more on identity?
OK. Are we saying that it's reductionistic to think of homo***uality as
either biologically 'hardwired' or psychologically determined?
# Compassion focuses on needs not causes. Most did not choose to be
homo***ual. Some are struggling with guilt and self-esteem problems.
Again, they knew I accepted and loved them, but they feel my followers
don't. Why is that?
Some homo***uals abhor the question I'm about to ask (I saw a banner at
a gay church which said 'He died to take away your sins. Not your
***uality.') Anyway: what if a homo***ual _wants_ to change?
# The principles are clear: my followers are to do in their world what I
did when I was physically with them (John 20:21). Remember I sometimes
asked 'Do you want to change/be healed?' Some did, some didn't. But all
were loved, and if guilt was a root cause of their problem I forgave
their sins - still do. But homo***ual sins aren't the worst: I got more
angry with 'sins of the spirit'.
So whatever happens, homo***ual people need an accepting community over
a long period of time, particularly if they've struggled with their
***uality: they 'can never live as if they never were' homo***uals. Some
miracles take longer?
# Yes. Think of my disciples: their personality-changes took years.
Judas bombed completely. Some people (including some homo***uals) who've
been ***ually, emotionally or spiritually abused almost always take
longer to recover. But some miraculous changes can be instantaneous.
Can true homo***uals become hetero***uals? It seems to be pretty rare.
The way out of homo***uality is not easy - about 10% according to some
studies make the change completely - and they need strong determination
and constant sup****t (American Journal of Psychiatry, 137:12, Dec.
1980). Many won't fulfil the role of 'healthy hetero***ual' epitomized
by marriage, children and mortgage. Tony Campolo writes somewhere, 'In
the likelihood that most (homo***uals) will still have their basic
***ual orientations regardless of their efforts to change, we must do
more than simply bid them be celibate. We must find ways for them to
have fulfilling, loving experiences so that they might have their
humanity affirmed and their incor****ation into the Body of Christ
assured.'
# I'll go along with that. Some of my fundamentalist followers issue
edicts: 'Repent, change, or be celibate. Then you're acceptable here.'
(Have you noticed that was the way of the pharisee? My approach was the
opposite - acceptance preceded repentance). Some of my pentecostal
followers expect miracles to save them from the trouble of 'hanging in
there', week in week out. But some of my liberal followers expect no
miracles at all: they are not convinced, with Jude, that God can keep
people from falling, even though we are never free from the tempter's
power (Luke 17:1).
What would you say to such groups as The Festival of Light?
# I'd insist (on this issue) they set up a compassionate pastoral
ministry to HIV/AIDS sufferers, and not be allowed to make any comments
about homo***uality until their spokespersons had spent 500 hours in
that ministry.
Until 1974 the American Psychiatric Association listed homo***uality as
a mental disorder. Why does this issue create such intolerance - from
all sides?
# Well, think of the Gospels' stories about Samaritans, for example.
Racially, religiously - and ***ually, too - humans have great
difficulties tolerating those not-like-one's-self (xenophobia,
heterophobia, homophobia). Until you're truly 'redeemed' you'll have
your own 'antipathy' people - who represent all that frightens or
repulses you. I like the sentiments in a Psalm (139:14) I sing
regularly: 'I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.' And also the words of
my disciple John: 'Perfect love casts out fear' (1 John 4:18).
Rowland Croucher
--
Shalom/Salaam/Pax! Rowland Croucher
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/
(20,000 articles 4000 humor)
Blogs - http://rowlandsblogs.blogspot.com/
Justice for Dawn Rowan - http://dawnrowansaga.blogspot.com/
Funny Jokes and Pics - http://funnyjokesnpics.blogspot.com/
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