I.
Introduction
This portion of my response to Peterson
and Hedlund’s Critique of my work corresponds to their
Part 2 on Scripture. The general pattern of their approach is to ignore
most of the historical and scriptural evidence that I accumulate for
developing a position, misrepresent the remainder, and charge me repeatedly
with distorting the biblical witness through “unethical” selectivity and
“heterosexist” bias. Below we shall show that the distortion of the witness
of Scripture rests with Peterson and Hedlund, treating in succession their
discussion of:
I.
Dan Via’s alleged rebuttal of my Scripture case
II.
The creation texts
III.
The Sodom and Gibeah narratives
IV.
The Levitical prohibitions
V.
The “silence” of Jesus
VI.
Law vs. gospel?
VII.
The divorce-and-remarriage analogy
VIII.
St. Paul and the exploitation argument
IX.
St. Paul and the orientation argument
X.
Core values
I direct readers’ attention particularly
to new material in sections II, VII, VIII, and IX.
This is not an exhaustive critique of all
of Peterson and Hedlund’s exegetical and hermeneutical mistakes and their
misrepresentations of my work. There are too many mistakes and
misrepresentations to do a full response. Consider this a selection of some
of the conspicuous problems in their interpretation of Scripture.
I. Dan Via’s Alleged Rebuttal of My
Scripture Case
I noted in Part 1 an intimation on the
part of Peterson and Hedlund that the accuracy of their work with biblical
texts would be even more suspect than their handling of the scientific data.
A more direct admission of their biblical ‘non-expertise’ (to put it
delicately) appears on p. 7 of their “Discussion.” There they state,
referring to Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views (Fortress, 2003),
which I co-authored with Dan Via: “Professor Dan O. Via has rebutted many of
Professor Gagnon’s theological arguments much more effectively than we could
hope to.” This is a problem for Peterson and Hedlund because Via does not
give an effective rebuttal of my arguments at any point.
Even to venture such a claim about the
alleged effectiveness of Via’s rebuttal, however misguided, requires that
Peterson and Hedlund at least read my contribution in the same volume. But I
see no evidence that Peterson and Hedlund read either my essay (pp. 40-92)
or my response to Via (pp. 99-105), to say nothing of my online rejoinder to
Via’s response (click here for
pdf or
html versions). In their footnotes they once cite from Via (n. 86) and
once cite from “Via and Gagnon, Homosexuality and the Bible, pp. 264,
296, 424” (n. 82) but the former is not from my material and the latter is a
bit of a feat since the book has only 117 pages. Beyond that, what they
don’t acknowledge in their reference to Via is that Via himself, in his
response to my essay, made no effort to rebut my “accumulation of
biblical texts condemning homosexual practice” (p. 94). This is telling
because Via does make such an effort in his own essay, where he
responds to my book The Bible and Homosexual Practice but clearly did
not read it carefully. Possibly the 500 pages was too long for him to digest
the whole adequately (a criticism that applies equally to Peterson and
Hedlund). However, after reading my more condensed argument in my 50-page
essay, where he could hardly ignore my arguments, he in effect capitulates
on the point.
Professor Via, this champion for Peterson
and Hedlund’s views on Scripture and homosexuality, justifies his surrender
of the Scripture argument in two ways (ibid.). First, he says that, anyway,
he agrees that “Scripture gives no explicit approval to same-sex
intercourse.” This is understated: Scripture gives frequent explicit and
implicit strong rejection of same-sex intercourse. Via’s first justification
also does not respond to the thrust of my argument; namely, that Scripture
treats an other-sex requirement as a core value in sexual ethics, not just
as a peripheral matter. Even given these failings, this first justification
for surrendering the Scripture argument is in obvious tension with positions
espoused by Peterson and Hedlund. For Via at least admits on various
occasions in his essay that Scripture’s opposition to homosexual practice is
“absolute”; that is, it transcends the existence of any loving commitment on
the part of those engaged in homosexual activity. Do Peterson and Hedlund
not recognize the problem that such an understanding has for their own
claims that St. Paul and others are not addressing loving, committed sexual
unions?
Via’s second justification for not
disputing my analysis of Scripture is that “the absolute prohibition can be
overridden regardless of how many times it is stated.” This too sidesteps my
point that the hermeneutical significance of Scripture’s witness is located
not just in the number of times that the prohibition is explicitly and
implicitly stated. That reflects the pervasive dimension of Scripture’s
opposition but not the strength and intensity of that opposition and the
countercultural character of that witness relative to its own day. Even so,
Via’s statement in his “Response” stands in tension with, indeed
contradiction to, his confession to Scripture’s authority in his essay;
namely, “I take the Bible to be the highest authority for Christians in
theological and ethical matters” (p. 2). This tension/contradiction holds
despite the further qualifications of his position; for a core value in the
eyes of Scripture’s authors has to carry tremendous weight even in a non-inerrantist
position. Since Peterson and Hedlund endorse at least Via’s main arguments,
the same tension/contradiction between, on the one hand, confessing
Scripture’s ultimate authority for matters of faith and practice and, on the
other hand, disregarding core values of the apostolic witness holds for the
position of Peterson and Hedlund as well.
II. The Creation Texts in Genesis 1-2
A. Holistic male-female
complementarity. Peterson and Hedlund seem not to understand my
argument about the relevance of Genesis 1-2 (part 2, pp. 1-2). It is not
simply an argument about parts fitting. The story of human origins in
Genesis 2:21-24 takes a holistic approach to man-woman complementarity.
Irrespective of the extent to which this story is taken symbolically or
literally, it communicates that man and woman are each other’s sexual
counterparts, two halves of a single sexual whole. The Hebrew word often
translated “rib” (tsela‘), denoting what is extracted from the
’adam (earthling, human) to form woman, is better understood as “side,”
in accordance with its 40 other occurrences in the Old Testament. This also
accords with some later ancient Jewish interpretation. The image of one
flesh becoming two sexes grounds the principle of two sexes becoming one
flesh. The only way to restore the original sexual unity is to reunite
(not just unite) the primordial constituent parts, man and woman. That this
two-dimensional character of human sexuality is an important part of the
sacred architecture of the human creation is suggested by the fact that the
word tsela‘ refers nearly everywhere else in the Old Testament to the
“side” of sacred architecture: the ark, tabernacle, incense altar, and
temple rooms (compare Paul’s usage of temple imagery for the human body in
its sexual capacity, 1 Cor 6:19). So far as extant evidence indicates, no
Jew in early Judaism regarded this binary feature of Gen 1:27 and 2:24 as
optional for human sexual relations; that is, as a feature easily
substituted by a male-male or female-female combination.
B. Use of Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 by
Jesus and Paul. In accordance with Jesus’ own teaching in Mark
10:6-9, the creation texts in Genesis 1-2 play a pivotal rule in defining
normative sexuality. Indeed, Jesus predicated his views on marital monogamy
and indissolubility on the self-contained wholeness of the two sexes in
complementary union. This is clear enough from his back-to-back citation of
Genesis 1:27 and 2:24: “For this reason,” namely, because God “made
them male and female,” “a man . . . will be joined to his woman/wife
and the two will become one flesh.” Because there are essentially two
and only two sexes, the presence of a male and female in a sexual
relationship is necessary and sufficient for reconstituting a sexual whole,
so far as the number of persons in the union is concerned. Thus a third
party is neither needed nor desirable. Thus Jesus implicitly extended the
logic of the twoness of the sexes that had always been incumbent on women
(polyandry was unknown) to men as well, closing a loophole that Moses had
granted due to human “hardness of heart” by appeal to “the beginning of
creation” (Mark 10:5-8 par. Matt 19:4-5, 8).
Saint Paul understood the implications of
Jesus’ teaching about human sexuality for homosexual practice. His chief
indictment of idolatry and homosexual practice in Romans 1:23-27 contains a
clear intertextual echo or allusion to Genesis 1:26-27. There are here not
only eight points of correspondence between Gen 1:26-27 and Rom 1:23, 26-27
but also a threefold sequential agreement: (1) God’s likeness and
image in humans; (2) dominion over the animal kingdom (birds,
animals, reptiles); and (3) male-female differentiation. The
point of the echo is to show that idolatry and same-sex intercourse
constitute a frontal assault on the work of the Creator in nature. Those who
suppressed the truth about God transparent in creation were more likely to
suppress the truth about the embodied complementarity of the sexes
transparent in nature, choosing instead to gratify contrary innate impulses.
Just as Gen 1:26-27 lies in the background
of Paul’s remarks in Rom 1:23-27, so too Paul cites Gen 2:24c (“. . . the
two shall become one flesh”) in close proximity to his indictment of “men
who lie with males” (arsenokoitai) in 1 Corinthians 6:9 (see 6:16).
Although the immediate point of the citation was to show that immoral sexual
intercourse on the part of believers involves the indwelling Christ, Paul
could not have missed the relevance of Genesis 2:24a-b (“a man shall . . .
become joined to his woman”) for his rejection of male homosexual
intercourse in 1 Corinthians 6:9, given the echo to Genesis 1:27 in Romans
1:23-27. Indeed, his use of Gen 1:27 and Gen 2:21-24 later in the same
letter, 11:7-12, though it has problems, clearly shows that Paul regarded
these texts as integral for establishing the significance of male-female
differentiation in the context of marriage. Indeed, the discussion of hair
and headgear has overtones of concern for homosexual practice; namely, that
by deliberately obliterating markers of sexual differentiation the community
might move down a slippery slope of embracing homoerotic relations.
Hence in his two primary critiques of
homosexual practice (cf. 1 Tim 1:10 also) Paul took the same two creation
texts that Jesus lifted up as decisive for defining sexual ethics, Genesis
1:27 and 2:24, and applied them to various sexual issues, including an
absolute rejection of homosexual practice.
For further discussion of the creation
texts see pp. 25-29 of “A
Faithful Journey Through the Bible and Homosexuality?” (hereafter
“Faithful Journey?”), my response to two ELCA documents, “Journey Together
Faithfully, Part Two” (produced by the ELCA’s Task Force on Sexuality) and
“Background Essay on Biblical Texts” (commissioned by the Task Force).
C. On hermaphroditism, congenital
factors in homosexuality, and the twoness of the sexes. Peterson and
Hedlund argue that the existence of hermaphroditism (the ‘intersexed’) and
congenital factors for subsequent homosexual development discount my reading
of the Genesis text—though it is better put to say, ‘discount Jesus’ reading
of Genesis 1-2.’ They do not.
As regards the intersexed, the phenomenon
of extreme sexual ambiguity, where assignment to one or the other sex
becomes tricky, is only a tiny fraction of a fraction of 1% of the
population. All absolute sexual standards, including incest and pedophilia,
have some ambiguity around the edges. Where exactly is the line that makes a
person sufficiently unrelated by blood or a child no longer a child? Yet we
don’t throw out the absolute standard. The existence of hermaphroditism, of
which people in the ancient world were aware, does not invalidate the
centrality of the twoness of the sexes on which Jesus’ argument for marital
monogamy and indissolubility was predicated. People recognize that
hermaphroditism derives from an error in nature. It is not part of what God
deemed to be “very good” at creation. The human being afflicted with the
condition is not an error but the affliction is.
Recently I rewatched the riveting movie
The Elephant Man, the story of John Merrick, a man grossly deformed
since birth with twisted spine, massive bony outgrowth, and tumor-ridden
skin. While God uses even extreme deformities for redemptive purposes, I
don’t know anyone who would contend that such afflictions—a baby born brain
damaged or severely-conjoined “Siamese” twins—represent nature’s
well-working processes or a new standard for extrapolating God’s will for
sexual behavior. Should the existence of “Siamese” twins do away with a
monogamy standard? I don’t think that even Peterson and Hedlund would argue
that. But they would argue that we should discount the significance of
sexual differentiation for mate selection, even though a monogamy standard
derives from the self-contained character of merging the two sexes.
As regards considering congenital factors
in homoerotic development part of God’s good creation, this is a development
that is attributable to the Fall, like so many sexual desires that are
inconsistent with prerequisites for structural compatibility. After all, I’m
sure that Peterson and Hedlund wouldn’t want to argue that any prenatal,
congenital, or early developmental factors contributing to pedophilia or
intense polyamorous affections are part of God’s good creation. No, they are
part of the Fall.
D. Peterson and Hedlund’s convoluted
argument about the Fall. Speaking of the Fall, Peterson and Hedlund
develop a most convoluted argument in relation to it:
But a more
heterosexist dimension of Professor Gagnon's "perfect" heterosexual
complementarity concept is that he omits incorporating the temptation and
Fall in his interpretation of the Creation texts. This both helps idealize
his "perfect" complementarity heterosexuality concept and also sets the
stage for later constructing a parallel discomplementarity view of
homosexuality by inserting multiple references to the Fall in his
interpretation of the Romans 1 references to same-sex relationships. A
reasonable interpretation of the importance of the Fall is that it not
only introduced the potential for sexual and non-sexual abuse within
sexual relationships even when anatomically complementary but also the
potential for good committed relationships even when anatomically not
complementary. This reality could be the prophetic judgment of our time,
just as new judgments about cosmology, slavery, women's rights,
segregation and women's ordination developed in the past.
In response:
1. It is false to say that I don’t discuss
the Fall in connection with the creation texts. See The Bible and
Homosexual Practice, p. 60 n. 43:
It is interesting that
while J views the subordination of women to men as a product of the fall
(implying the woman’s equal status pre-fall), he unmistakably views the
divine authorization for (and only for) heterosexual marriage as a
pre-fall phenomenon. Those who argue that the case for validating
homosexual behavior is comparable to the case for validating women’s equal
status overlook this point.
2. I don’t say more about the Fall because
God’s design for male-female pairing precedes the Fall; it is not a product
of the Fall. Jesus himself appeals to the pre-Fall creation texts, Genesis
1:27 and 2:24 regarding, respectively, creation “male and female” and the
joining of “man and woman” into “one flesh.” As pre-Fall events they
represent God’s supreme will for human sexuality, as again Jesus advocated
(“but from the beginning of creation . . .”). Peterson and Hedlund might as
well argue that Jesus’ use of Genesis 1-2 in Mark 10 is invalid because he
doesn’t refer explicitly to the Fall in Genesis 3. A reference to the Fall
is always implicit when talking about pre-Fall developments: departure from
the twoness of a male-female bond established by God at creation, whether in
homosexual or polyamorous relations, is by definition part of the Fall and
is thus to be rejected.
3. Instead of drawing the proper
conclusion that desire for homosexual practice is part of the Fall Peterson
and Hedlund argue the reverse; namely, that the Fall introduced “the
potential for good committed relationships even when anatomically not
complementary.” How about that? The Fall brought new good to the world!
Actually proper Christian doctrine holds that the Fall introduced sin into
the world, which in turn brought an array of impulses that are contrary to
the way God created us. Remember again Jesus’ own position: “but from the
beginning it was not so” (Matt 19:8).
4. This is part of Paul’s point in Romans
1:18-32, although Peterson and Hedlund are angry with me for claiming that
the Fall has anything to do with this text. This is in spite of fact that I
make the case for a clear intertextual echo in Romans 1:23-27 to Genesis
1:26-27 on pp. 289-93. As I note there, “even though Rom 1:18-32 speaks of
events after the fall, for Paul all human rebellions are in one way or
another rebellions against God’s will for humankind set in motion at
creation” (p. 291). What would Peterson and Hedlund have us believe? That
the continuation of the vice list in Rom 1:29-31 (“envy, murder,” etc.) has
nothing to do with the Fall? That these vices do not represent departures
from God’s will at creation? One of the things that Peterson and Hedlund do
not understand is that, while the human “exchanging” and the divine “handing
over” are events that occur after Genesis 3, and are ongoing, they reflect
responses by humans and God to God’s creation will still transparent in the
material structures of nature.
E. Peterson and Hedlund’s hapless
argument about heterosexual crime. I cannot even fathom the rest of
Peterson and Hedlund’s argument: Because heterosexuals vastly outnumber
homosexuals and thus commit more criminal acts in terms of total numbers we
should . . . accept homosexual practice? No, we should not condone criminal
violence and we should not condone homosexual practice. But I haven’t
noticed anyone in the church advocating for criminal violence. I do see
Peterson and Hedlund advocating for what Scripture clearly regards as sexual
immorality.
III. Genesis 19 and Judges 19: Sodom and Gibeah
A. On misrepresenting my view of the
“orientation” of the men of Sodom. Peterson and Hedlund’s critique
of my interpretation of these narratives (p. 3 of part 2) is another
instance of gross misrepresentation, here perhaps even more egregious (if
that were possible) than his misrepresentation of my views on the creation
narratives. Peterson and Hedlund contend that my use of the expression
“homosexual rape” proves that I thought all the men who participated in the
rape had a predominant homosexual orientation. They make this false claim
even though I explicitly state that I do not think such to be the case:
The truth is that no
one can say precisely how the Yahwist construed the motives of the men of
Sodom (beyond generic evil), though a reasonable conjecture might be a
combination of homoerotic or bisexual lust on the part of at least some of
the crowd and an aggressive intent to dominate and humiliate strangers to
Sodom by forcing on them an abominable and shameful practice. A strict
either/or interpretation, either homosexual/bisexual lust or
an aggressive disgrace of visitors goes beyond the wording of the text and
imposes a distinction that did not always hold true in the ancient world.
. . . Whether each and every man in the mob aimed solely at pure violence
and domination, or whether some hoped to take advantage of the strangers
for a sexual thrill as well, matters little to the story line—and
certainly would have mattered little to the visitors. . . . As with the
author(s) of the Levitical prohibitions, the Yahwist is less concerned
with motives than with the act of penetrating a male as if he were a
female, an act that by its very nature is demeaning regardless of how well
it is done. (pp. 77-78)
How could I be clearer? And yet Peterson
and Hedlund choose to distort what I say, apparently banking on the hope
that readers of their critique will not have bothered to read my work. How
they justify this morally is beyond my understanding. When I say that the
Yahwist understands this story as a description of attempted “homosexual
rape” I mean only that he understands a significant dimension of the evil
act to be its ‘same-sexness,’ the demeaning of the masculine sex of the
visitors by having sex with them as though they were women (i.e., by
penetration). Even many commentators supportive of homosexual unions refer
to the Sodom story as an attempt at “homosexual rape” and, like me, they
mean no more by it than that the act is between persons of the same sex. A
perfect example of this is Dan Via himself, their champion, who refers to
this as an episode of “homosexual gang rape” (Homosexuality and the Bible,
p. 5). Now, why don’t Peterson and Hedlund make the same charge against Via
that they make against me?
B. The contribution of the parallel
Gibeah story. The same point applies to the Gibeah narrative in
Judges 19. Peterson and Hedlund see some sort of “heterosexist”
contradiction in my saying both that even penetrative rape requires some
degree of sexual stimulation and that the narrator at any rate is not
concerned with “psychologizing the motives of the perpetrators.” There is no
contradiction here, much less a “heterosexist” one. The first point helps to
establish the second point for people like Peterson and Hedlund who in their
interpretation of the Gibeah story make a “strict either/or approach to the
question of motivation (intent to do harm vs. sexual passion)” (p. 97).
Moreover, the attitude of the narrator of
the Gibeah story toward an act of consensual receptive male-male
intercourse is known. (Note: Scholars refer to the narrator as the
Deuteronomistic Historian because he uses the Deuteronomic lawcode as a
basis for evaluating Israel’s past as recorded in the books from Joshua
through 2 Kings.) His attitude is clear from his caustic description of the
qedeshim, cult figures who sometimes served as the receptive partner
in male-male intercourse. Even Phyllis Bird, a prominent Old Testament
scholar who wants the church to endorse committed homosexual unions and has
written significant articles on the qedeshim and on homosexuality in
the Old Testament, has acknowledged that what the Deuteronomistic Historian
found most offensive about the qedeshim was “their repugnant
associations with male homosexual activity” (“The End of the Male Cult
Prostitute,” Congress Volume Cambridge 1995 [Leiden: Brill, 1997],
75). This is apparent from the description of the qadesh in Deut
23:18 as a “dog,” an epithet that parallel Mesopotamian texts apply to male
“men-women” precisely because they allowed themselves to be penetrated by
other males (Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 48-49,
100-110; Nissinen, Homoeroticism, 28-34). If the Deuteronomistic
Historian was repulsed by the idea of men willingly consenting to be
penetrated by other men (here too the term “abomination” [to’evah] is
employed), then it is apparent that the same narrator of the story of Gibeah
in Judges 19 would have found the attempt of the men of Gibeah to have sex
with a man repulsive per se, and not just because it was coerced. Given the
strong literary agreements between the story of Sodom and the story of
Gibeah, evidence for how the Deuteronomistic Historian would have
interpreted any act of male-male intercourse, consensual or coerced,
provides strong evidence for how the Yahwist would have viewed the same;
namely, as inherently or structurally offensive.
Peterson and Hedlund conclude that because
the whole crowd has sex with the Levite’s concubine after failing to obtain
the Levite himself the whole crowd must be heterosexual. But that conclusion
no more follows than does the conclusion that their attempt at having sex
with a man proves that they are all homosexual (which conclusion they reject
and, contrary to what they allege, I don’t make). The Deuteronomistic
Historian, like the Yahwist, no more cares what the individual sexual
preferences of each man in the crowd are than he cares whether a sexual
relation between a man and his mother is the fruit of genuine sexual
attraction or the fruit of coercion.
C. The Sodom and Gibeah stories as
indictments of all homosexual acts. The bottom line is this: Like so
many, Peterson and Hedlund miss the obvious point that criticism of same-sex
rape, like criticism of incestuous rape or a pedophilic rape, is not just a
criticism of rape; nor does the presence or absence of sexual orientation
play any role. Obviously same-sex, incestuous, or pedophilic rapes are
compound offenses, adding, respectively, a same-sex, incestuous, or
pedophilic component.
In “Faithful
Journey?” pp. 36-43 I have an extensive discussion of how we know,
through a series of literary- and historical-context concentric circles,
that the narrator of the Sodom episode was including an indictment of
male-male intercourse per se (similarly, Homosexuality and the Bible: Two
Views, 56-62). Generally this information is already present in The
Bible and Homosexual Practice, which Peterson and Hedlund claim to have
read and fairly represented. However, the length of the presentation in
The Bible and Homosexual Practice seem to have overwhelmed Peterson and
Hedlund and others, so I have streamlined and refocused more in “Faithful
Journey?” and in Two Views. No biblical scholar or theologian to
whom I have presented in public debate this array of “concentric circles of
context” around the Sodom story has ever even attempted a refutation. So let
us see if Peterson and Hedlund can do it.
Like a mantra Peterson and Hedlund
repeatedly refer to my interpretation of biblical texts as
misrepresentations owing to an alleged “heterosexist” bias. After
demonstrating the absurdities and misrepresentations of their arguments
concerning the creation texts and the Sodom/Gibeah narratives, it should be
evident that the “heterosexist” label is just their way of diverting
attention from the fact that they are poor exegetes and interpreters of the
biblical witness.
IV. The Levitical Prohibitions (Lev
18:22; 20:13)
A. The association with incest.
Peterson and Hedlund complain that I make an association with incest and
same-sex intercourse. Yet Leviticus itself makes that association (pp. 3-4).
Leviticus 20:10-16 lists the first-tier of sexual offenses: adultery, the
worst forms of incest, male-male intercourse, and bestiality. All the other
extant evidence from early Judaism and early Christianity also supports such
a correlation in terms of severity of offense. If anything, I can make a
strong case that, among consensual sexual offenses, male-male intercourse
was second only to bestiality in severity (occasionally, too, there were
conflicting opinions over whether man-mother incest or homosexual practice
was worse). Consistent with this, St. Paul in Romans 1:24-27 treats
homosexual practice as the supreme instance of suppressing divine truth so
far as the horizontal level of human relations is concerned. So Peterson and
Hedlund’s complaint is not with me but with Scripture and the traditions. In
fact, as I have noted, there are significant points of correspondence
between the prohibitions of incest and the prohibitions of homosexual
practice:
-
Both sets of prohibitions
involve acts of sexual intercourse that are strongly, pervasively, and
absolutely proscribed in the canon of Scripture (this is certainly true of
man-mother incest). Both are mentioned in the sex laws in Leviticus 18
and, in ch. 20, among first-tier sexual offenses.
-
Both acts, incest and
male-male intercourse, are regarded as wrong because they involve sex with
another who is too much of a structural same—incest on the familial level
of blood relatedness (no sex with "the flesh of one's own flesh" according
to Leviticus 18:6), homosexual practice on the level of sex or gender.
-
Both acts can be conducted
in the context of adult, committed, monogamous, adult relationships.
-
Both acts suffer from a
disproportionately high rate of negative side-effects: incest from
procreative abnormalities and intergenerational sex; male-male intercourse
from higher rates of sexually transmitted disease, mental health issues,
high numbers of sex partners lifetime, short-term relationships, man-boy
love, problematic sexual practices (like penile-anal or oral-anal
intercourse), and gender identity disorders. At the same time, neither
incest nor male-male intercourse (nor any other form of consensual sexual
practice, including polyamorous behavior) produces scientifically
measurable harm to all participants in all circumstances.
Instead of
attempting to refute these comparisons, Peterson and Hedlund try
unsuccessfully to do an end run around them. First they note that “nobody
condones [incest] today.” Well, that is the point, isn’t it? Since we don’t
condone incestuous acts that are adult, consensual, and committed, and since
too the problem with incest is analogous to the problem with homosexual
practice (structurally incongruous mergers between individuals too much
alike, whether on a familial or sexual level), why are they condoning
homosexual unions?
B. Not the
“same” potential. Peterson and Hedlund contend that the difference
between homosexual practice on the one hand and incest, polyamory, and
pedophilia on the other is that “homosexuality has about the same potential
for constructive relationships as heterosexuality” whereas these other
behaviors do not. Well now, this is not true, is it? So far as the matter of
constructive relationships is concerned, one has to ignore completely the
homosexual dimension, which (as I have noted) is the primary problem with
homosexual behavior: the manifest arousal and attempt to merge with what one
already is and shares in common with as a sexual being. Moreover, studies to
date confirm that homosexual unions do not have the “same potential” as
heterosexual relationships for achieving lifelong loving commitment. “Same
potential” would include the same likelihood of success whereas, as studies
indicate, male and female homosexual unions have far less likelihood of
success because of basic biological differences between men and women,
differences that are normally neither balanced nor supplemented in same-sex
sexual relationships. In addition, one can say, too, that if not for
“incest-phobia” adult incestuous relationships too would have “potential”
for lifelong loving commitment. Traditional polygamous unions have greater
likelihood of lifelong commitment and, ironically, of keeping down the total
number of sex partners lifetime than do male homosexual unions. But we don’t
support committed adult incestuous unions or committed adult polyamorous
unions because, quite frankly, we recognize the structural incompatibility
of sexual unions comprising close blood relations or three or more persons,
irrespective of whether the relationship shows love or commitment. Even
adult-adolescent relationships can be loving and committed and do not
produce intrinsic, scientifically measurable harm in all circumstances, as I
show in Part 2 (IV.) and contrary to what Peterson and Hedlund
contend. True, we can demonstrate disproportionately high rates of harm for
incest, polyamory, and pedophilia but the same is true for homosexual
practice. Proponents of each contribute the higher rates of harm to societal
phobias but most people can see through such an argument.
C. On “abomination” and intrinsic
exploitation. Peterson and Hedlund complain:
Gagnon uses the word
“abomination,” over 20 times in the Old Testament section, especially as
meaning inherently, intrinsically or unprecedentedly evil, victimizing or
exploitive—meanings which were repeated in relation to other texts in
other chapters of the Bible even though the word abomination is not in the
other texts.
Their footnote cites pp. 118, 120, 311,
317, 325 of The Bible and Homosexual Practice. The references on pp.
118 and 120 occur in a section where I discuss the meaning of the term
to‘eva. Should I avoid the translation “abomination” when that it is a
universally accepted translation by biblical scholars? The term is not
mentioned on pp. 311, 317, 325, though I do speak there of the fact that
Philo, St. Paul, early Jewish writers generally, and even some Greco-Roman
moralists regarded homosexual practice as inherently exploitative—not in the
sense that they thought homosexual practice could only be conducted in an
unloving or coercive context or always led to personal distress or societal
maladaptiveness (which are Peterson and Hedlund’s restrictive definitions of
exploitation) but rather in the sense that by their very nature homosexual
acts intrinsically efface the stamp of maleness and femaleness imprinted on
men and women respectively by attempting to treat as appropriate sexual
counterparts two persons who are already of the same sex. As part of
Charicles’ attack on all homosexual practice in the pseudo-Lucianic text
Affairs of the Heart the assertion is made that male-male love is an
erotic attraction for what one already is as a sexual being:
She (viz., Aphrodite) cleverly devised a
twofold nature in each (species). . . . having written down a divinely
sanctioned rule of necessity, that each of the two (genders) remain in their
own nature and that neither should the female be masculinized contrary to
nature nor too should the male be softened (malakizesthai) in an
inappropriate manner. . . . Then wantonness, daring all, transgressed the
laws of nature. . . . And who then first looked with the eyes at the male as
at a female . . . ? One nature came together in one bed. But seeing
themselves in one another they were ashamed neither of what they were
doing nor of what they were having done to them. (19-20; emphasis added).
Now doesn’t this sound like “inherent
exploitation” in the sense that I define it? Would Peterson and Hedlund
prefer that I make up the evidence to suit their own ideology and deny that
such persons viewed homosexual practice as inherently or intrinsically
wrong? I can’t, and won’t, change the historical record for Peterson and
Hedlund or anyone else.
V. The “Silence” of Jesus
A. The overwhelming case for Jesus’
opposition to homosexual practice. Peterson and Hedlund argue that
the length of the chapter “The Witness of Jesus” in The Bible and
Homosexual Practice, 34 pages, is proof of its shaky, “speculative”
quality (pp. 7-9). On the contrary, the length is indicative of the
overwhelming weight and number of arguments that can be adduced for
demonstrating Jesus’ opposition to homosexual practice. This includes Jesus’
use of Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 in Mark 10, where he justifies his restriction
of two persons to a sexual union by his appeal to the fact that God made us
“male and female.” But it also extends to nine other pieces of evidence, as
well as another half dozen responses to counterarguments. These are all laid
out quite conveniently and online in “Faithful Journey?” pp. 25-26, 30-35.
Since Peterson and Hedlund don’t even attempt a rebuttal there is no point
in me recapitulating the array of arguments here. Suffice it to say that
there is no reasonable, historical case that Jesus was open to homosexual
practice, committed or otherwise. Those who allege that he was open are
simply engaging in revisionist history in the worst way.
B. Jesus’ reference to Sodom.
Peterson and Hedlund go on to misconstrue Jesus’ reference to the Sodom
narrative as only indicting the inhospitable act of rape by heterosexually
oriented men (would the rape be morally improved for Peterson and Hedlund if
it was perpetrated by homosexually oriented men?). They obviously don’t
understand the text in its historical context. As I explain in both The
Bible and Homosexual Practice (pp. 90-91) and in Homosexuality and
the Bible: Two Views (p. 73), Jesus acknowledged Sodom’s role in
Scripture as the prime example of abuse of visitors (Matthew 10:14-15; Luke
10:10-12). In the context of other early Jewish texts, a major element of
the special revulsion for the evil at Sodom was the attempt at treating
males sexually as females (see, for example, Philo, Abraham 133-41
and Questions on Genesis 4.37; Josephus, Antiquities 1.194-95,
200-201 and Jewish War 4.483-85; 5.566; Testament of Naphtali
3:3-4; 2 Enoch 10:4; 34:1-2; within Scripture, Ezek 16:50; Jude 7;
and 2 Pet 2:6-10 also point in this direction). For ample online discussion
of this element in the history of interpretation, see “Faithful
Journey?” pp. 39-42. Whereas Peterson see inhospitality and treating men
as the receptive sexual counterparts of other men as mutually exclusive, the
early interpreters of the Sodom narrative viewed the latter as a specific
and egregious manifestation of the former.
Incidentally, Peterson and Hedlund suggest
that I left Jesus’ use of Sodom story out of my chapter on Jesus (pp.
185-228), mentioning it only in my discussion of the history of the
interpretation of the Sodom story (pp. 90-91), because I didn’t want readers
to connect the dots that Jesus was only opposed to inhospitable forms of
homosexual practice (top of p. 8 of their part 2). This is nonsense. I had
already made the point in discussing the history of interpretation that what
made the Sodom episode atrocious for Jesus and first-century Jews generally
was not just the attempt at raping strangers but also the attempt at
“emasculating Lot’s guests by treating them not in accordance with their
nature as males but as females to be penetrated in sex” (p. 91). In
retrospect I wish I had included an additional mention of it in the Jesus
chapter; it would have only added to my case there. Had Peterson and Hedlund
read my essay in Homosexuality and the Bible they would have seen
that I include discussion of Jesus’ reference to Sodom in my treatment of
“The Witness of Jesus.”
C. Anal penetration as only a
subordinate problem. Peterson and Hedlund then try to get around the
implications of Jesus’ interpretation of Sodom by arguing that as many as
30% of homosexual men don’t engage in anal intercourse and some
heterosexuals do. This observation, which incidentally exaggerates with the
30% figure, is entirely beside the point inasmuch as Scripture identifies as
the main problem with homosexual behavior as the same-sex erotic content.
When St. Paul talks about it in Romans 1:24-27 the focus is squarely on the
immoral quality of homoerotic “passions” and “desires,” not on any specific
homoerotic act. It is the active acquiescence to erotic attraction by men
for essential “maleness” and by women for essential “femaleness” that is the
root issue, not any specific technique. Do Peterson and Hedlund seriously
believe that the biblical authors and Jesus and ancient Jews generally would
not have found erotic fondling by two persons of the same sex offensive?
That so long as erotic touching did not include penile penetration, they
wouldn’t have seen a problem? It is historically absurd. That is like
arguing that incest or adultery short of penetration would have been
acceptable to them.
D. Peterson and Hedlund’s morality:
purely relational without structural prerequisites. Peterson and
Hedlund assert that my “biblical priority for sexual morality is more
anatomic than relational” (again, the complementary argument is more than
anatomy; see above). What this statement really means is that Peterson and
Hedlund don’t believe that there should be any prerequisites for structural
complementarity that transcend the erotic love that persons have for each
other, unless scientifically measurable harm can be ascertained in all
circumstances. But that means no absolute rules against polyamory, incest,
and even pedophilia; everything will have to be taken on a case by case
basis. We cannot jettison the notion that sexual relationships must meet
certain structural prerequisites before the quality of the relationship can
be considered; that is, objective facets of congruity or complementarity
that are grounded in nature or physical makeup and transcend positive
dispositions of the heart or mind and even positive behaviors. Apparently
Peterson and Hedlund believe otherwise. I think most people, though, don’t
want to see sexual requirements and standards devolve to the place where
Peterson and Hedlund find themselves.
VI. Law versus Gospel
In their part 2,
F.2 (pp. 8-9), Peterson and Hedlund take exception to my relating serial
unrepentant sexual immorality to judgment. On p. 221 I list seven areas
where Jesus “intensified the law’s demand”; as my “for example” indicates
the list is not exhaustive. Nor, contrary to what Peterson and Hedlund
allege, does the enumeration indicate prioritization (I list sexual ethics
first). I then add: “In most of these areas, we have sayings of Jesus
indicating that failure to comply leads to exclusion from the kingdom of
God.” Peterson and Hedlund take offense at (stumble over) this assertion.
Too bad: The witness of Jesus and the apostolic witness, including Paul, are
absolutely unequivocal on this point. Instead of dealing with the numerous
New Testament texts, including sayings of Jesus, that deal with this point,
they simply ignore them and attack me for being faithful to this witness.
The early Reformers, including those from the Lutheran tradition, held a
similar view to what I espouse (see my “Ed
Schroeder Parodies the Lutheran Faith”). For example, in Philip
Melanchthon states in his Apology for the Augsburg Confession,
Part VI:
Likewise the faith of which we speak exists in repentance
i.e., it is conceived in the terrors of conscience, which feels the wrath
of God against our sins, and seeks the remission of sins, and to be freed
from sin. And in such terrors and other afflictions this faith ought to
grow and be strengthened. Wherefore it cannot exist in those who live
according to the flesh, who are delighted by their own lusts and obey
them. Accordingly, Paul says, Rom. 8, 1 [and 8:4]: There is,
therefore, now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. So, too, vv. 12. 13: We are
debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after
the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the
deeds of the body, ye shall live. Wherefore, the faith which receives
remission of sins in a heart terrified and fleeing from sin does
not remain in those who obey their desires, neither does it coexist
with mortal sin. (emphases added)
Peterson and
Hedlund speak of this as a personal merit doctrine but this is a false
characterization of what I say in my book, and of how Jesus, Paul, and the
Reformers interpret this theological understanding. No one can merit their
way to heaven but people can behave in such a way as to disregard a living
faith in Christ and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Then the confession
of Christ’s Lordship becomes meaningless: “Not everyone who says to me,
‘Lord, Lord; will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will
of my Father in heaven” (Matt 7:21). The necessity of a transformed life
clearly includes the sexual life. Jesus believed that what one did sexually
could get one thrown into hell; that one should “cut off” an eye or hand if
it threatened one’s downfall because it was better to go into heaven maimed
than to go into hell full-bodied (Matthew 5:29-30, sandwiched in between two
antitheses involving sex). For an accumulation of other sayings of Jesus
that refer to coming eschatological judgment even against those who profess
allegiance to God, see my online “Rejoinder
to Walter Wink,” pp. 23-30.
Paul repeatedly
warned people of the potential disaster of serial, unrepentant sexual
conduct. Thus he could say to the Thessalonian believers, in the earliest
extant New Testament document:
For you know what commands we gave to you through the Lord
Jesus. For this is the will of God: your holiness, that you abstain from
sexual immorality (porneia)
. . . [and not live] like the Gentiles who do not know God. . . . because
the Lord is an avenger regarding all these things. . . . For God called us
not to sexual uncleanness (akatharsia) but in holiness. Therefore the one who rejects [these
commands] rejects not humans but the God who gives his Holy Spirit to us. (1
Thess 4:2-8)
And to the Galatian Christians:
The works of the flesh are obvious, which
are: sexual immorality (porneia), sexual uncleanness
(akatharsia), licentiousness
(aselgeia) . . . , which I am warning you about, just as I warned you
before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of
God. . . . Stop
deceiving yourselves; God is not to be mocked, for whatever one sows this
one will also reap. For the one who casts seed into one's flesh will reap a
harvest of destruction and decay from the flesh, but the one who casts seed
into the Spirit will reap a harvest of eternal life from the Spirit. And let
us not grow tired of doing what is right for in due time we will reap,
if
we do not relax our efforts. (Gal 5:19-21; 6:7-9)
And
again to the Corinthians, in the context of how to deal with a practicing,
self-affirming Christian participant in an incestuous adult union:
Or do you not realize that unrighteous people will not
inherit God's kingdom? Stop deceiving yourselves. Neither the sexually
immoral (the pornoi),
nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate males who play the sexual role
of females (malakoi), nor men who lie with males (arsenokoitai) . . . will inherit the kingdom of God.
And these things some of you used to be. But
you washed yourselves off, you were made holy (sanctified), you were made
righteous (justified) in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit
of our God. (1 Cor 6:9-11).
In 2 Corinthians Paul expresses deep
concern that
I may have to mourn over many who have continued in their
former sinning and did not repent of the sexual uncleanness (akatharsia), sexual immorality (porneia), and licentiousness (aselgeia) that they practiced. (12:21)
The message of Colossians and Ephesians is
similar:
So put to death the members that belong to the earth: sexual
immorality (porneia),
sexual uncleanness (akatharsia), passion, evil desire . . . because of which things the
wrath of God is coming [on the children of disobedience], in which things
you also once walked, when you were living in them. But now put away all
(such) things . . . , because you have stripped off the old humanity with
its practices and clothed yourselves with the new, which is being renewed
into knowledge according to the image of the one who created it. (Col
3:5-10)
[N]o longer walk as the Gentiles walk, . . . who . . . have
given themselves up to licentiousness (aselgeia) for
the doing of every sexual uncleanness (akatharsia). . . . Sexual immorality (porneia) and sexual uncleanness (akatharsia) of any kind . . . must not even be named among you, as is
proper among saints. . . . Know this indeed, that every sexually immoral
person (pornos)
or sexually unclean person (akathartos) . . . has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of
God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things
the wrath of God is coming on the children of disobedience. (Eph 4:17-19;
5:3-6)
And
so too the Pastoral Epistles:
The law is not laid down for the righteous,
but for the lawless and disobedient, the ungodly and sinners, the unholy and
profane, killers of fathers and killers of mothers, murderers, the sexually
immoral (pornoi), males who take other males to bed (arsenokoitai),
kidnappers (or: slave dealers), liars, perjurers, and whatever else is
opposed to sound teaching that accords with the gospel. (1 Tim 1:9-11)
What could be clearer? How many times does
Paul have to say it? Sex matters. Serial unrepentant sexual immorality can
put a believer at risk of not inheriting the coming kingdom of God.
Believers should not deceive themselves into thinking that they can persist
unrepentantly in immoral sexual behavior and still be saved. For Paul,
porneia, akatharsia, and aselgeia included same-sex
intercourse at or near the top of a list of sexual offenses. Just as Paul
correlated man-male intercourse with sexual immorality (porneia) in 1
Cor 6:9 (cf. 1 Tim 1:10), so too he treated same-sex intercourse as the
prime example of “sexual uncleanness”
(akatharsia)
in Rom 1:24-27:
Therefore, God gave them over, in the
desires of their hearts, to a sexual uncleanness (akatharsia)
consisting of their bodies being dishonored among themselves. . . . to
dishonorable passions, for even their females exchanged the natural use
(i.e., of the male as regards sexual intercourse) for that which is contrary
to nature; 27and likewise also the males, having left behind the
natural use of the female (as regards sexual intercourse), were inflamed
with their yearning for one another, males with males committing indecency
and in return receiving in themselves the payback which was necessitated by
their straying.
Paul also made it abundantly clear later
in Rom 6:19 that believers must no longer “present [the] members [of their
body] as slaves to sexual uncleanness (akatharsia) and to lawlessness for (the doing of) lawlessness,” but instead
“present [their] members as slaves to righteousness for holiness.” In other
words, all believers should now cease from any sexual uncleanness that they
participated in as unbelievers. Continuance in such patterns of behavior as
believers would risk death and exclusion from eternal life (6:21-23; 8:5-8,
13-14). Paul is quite emphatic in Rom 6:14-8:17 that he is applying this
message to believers (“you”), not just to unbelievers. The same is true of
the context of 1 Cor 6:9 where the overarching issue is the case of a
believer involved in an incestuous relationship (ch. 5) and where the
analogy of joining the members of one’s body to a prostitute refers to a
believer indwelt by the Spirit of Christ (6:12-20).
What
shall we say? Well, if we follow people like Peterson and Hedlund we shall
have to say that Paul did not have a good grasp of the distinction between
law and grace. But this is preposterous and, I might add, turns the entire
Reformation on its head. Paul’s views coincided with Jesus’ views. If
anything, Paul was more law-free than Jesus, not less—Paul spoke of the
abrogation of the Mosaic law; Jesus did not. It is we who have truncated the
gospel of grace by voiding its connection to a transformed life in the
Spirit. Anyone who contends on the basis of a Pauline (or Lutheran)
law/gospel distinction that attention to keeping the commands of God,
especially as regards sexual behavior, is a legalism that subverts a gospel
of gracious redemption has not understood Paul (or the Reformers).
Paul
insisted that what matters is “keeping the commandments of God” (1 Cor 7:19)
and did so within a broader discussion of sexual purity (1 Cor 5-7). Paul
emphasized to the Corinthian believers what grace and redemption are for:
Flee porneia. . . . The one who
commits porneia sins against his (or her) own body. Or do you not
know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit in you, which you have
from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought with a price. So
glorify God in your body. (1 Cor 6:18-20)
What
price? The price of the precious blood of Christ. To what purpose? To
glorify the God who now owns us, body and soul. What we do with our bodies
sexually is an essential part of what it means to “present [our] bodies as a
living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God” (Rom 12:1). Why? Because “sin shall
not exercise lordship over you; for you are not under the law but under
grace” (Rom 6:14).
VII. The Divorce-and-Remarriage Analogy
Peterson and Hedlund complain that have a double standard about homosexual
practice on the one hand and divorce/remarriage on the other (pp. 6-7 of
their part 2). But different treatment of the two issues is justified by
Scripture and church practice.
A. Violation of structural
prerequisites as greater offenses. Scripture itself does not put
homosexual unions and divorce on the same level of severity. Jesus’
statements on divorce-and-remarriage were designed to close remaining
loopholes in the law of Moses, not to suggest that divorce-and-remarriage
was a more serious infraction of divine norms than having sex with one’s
mother, sister, or daughter; adultery; same-sex intercourse; and bestiality.
There is a big difference between the dissolution of a natural union and
entrance into an inherently unnatural union that violates God’s creation
ethic. Both Paul and Matthew provide for limited exceptions to the
prohibition of divorce and remarriage in Jesus’ teaching. However, neither
would have granted exceptions to a prohibition of homosexual practice. The
kinds of extenuating circumstances that exist for divorce, which might
mitigate an absolute prohibition, are not comparable to the kinds of
extenuating circumstances alleged for homosexual practice. Some people can
be divorced more or less against their will or may seek divorce only after
the partner has in effect already dissolved the union through serial
unrepentant acts of adultery or serious spousal abuse. These are very
different circumstances from an active choice to enter a homosexual union,
which Scripture regards as grossly incompatible with structural, embodied
existence and which choice is not coerced or accompanied by a threat of
violence.
So Peterson and Hedlund complain:
“Same-sex fidelity is a worse sin than opposite-sex promiscuity.” Note how
he recasts divorce and remarriage as “promiscuity” and omits the fact that
divorce and remarriage are usually one-time and rarely more than two-time
acts over the course of life. At any rate, it’s basically true: both are
sins but homosexual practice is worse. But it is more accurate to say:
Grossly unnatural (i.e., structurally incompatible) sexual acts, whether
committed or not, are worse than infrequent divorces and remarriages, which
create otherwise natural heterosexual unions. In Scripture’s eyes, the
male-female paradigm was so sacred that violating it was considered a major
sacrilege against the Creator who ordained it from the very beginning.
Jesus’ criticism of divorce and remarriage was predicated on the sacredness
of the inherent logic of the twoness of a male-female bond, ordained by God
at creation. His view of divorce and remarriage was merely the inference
from the sacred premise of a two-sex requirement for sexual
unions. Homosexual acts of any sort would have appalled the authors of
Scripture and Jesus. Peterson and Hedlund don’t have a grasp of this most
basic of points in the Bible’s sexual ethics.
To draw an analogy, I’m sure that Peterson
and Hedlund would agree that having sex with one’s mother or adult sibling
is a worse sin than infrequent divorce and remarriage too, even when
measurable harm cannot be proven for the incestuous relationship. Can you
imagine a church treating a faithful and committed sexual relationship
between a man and his widowed mother as comparable to a person getting
divorced and remarried? Of course, Peterson and Hedlund will contend that
the incestuous relationship in question produces inherent measurable harm—to
which I say: prove it. If the two close blood relations love each other, are
adults, are committed, and are taking proper birth control precautions, how
is measurable harm going to be proven? By their distress? What if they don’t
feel distress? Or what if whatever distress they might feel is due to
intense societal incest-phobia? How else is harm going to be proven? By
establishing that it makes them socially dysfunctional? But what if they can
continue to function effectively in the work force and have social networks
at least with people who aren’t offended by the incestuous quality of their
bond? How then are Peterson and Hedlund going to prove measurable harm? Of
course, the answer is: They can’t. They are left with a vague but powerful
sense that a certain degree of blood unrelatedness is one of those
irreducible minimums of sexual relationships, irrespective of whether
measurable harm can be proven. There is simply too much structural sameness
on a familial level, what Leviticus calls having sex with “the flesh of
one’s own flesh” (18:6). And that is the problem with same-sex intercourse,
only now on the level of sex or gender. Indeed, homosexual practice is
arguably a greater offense than a loving incestuous union because it
violates a more foundational creation standard. However, Peterson and
Hedlund don’t want to admit that there is a problem with incest that
transcends the question of measurable harm; for if they did admit it, then
it would lead inevitably to a realization of what is problematic about
homosexual behavior per se.
Scripture clearly doesn’t make exceptions
in its prohibition of homosexual practice and incestuous unions for
monogamous, committed unions. Why? Quite simply because the structural
prerequisites have to be met before issues of fidelity are considered.
Scripture doesn’t want people in an incestuous or homosexual union to be
committed to that sinful union or to stretch out the union over many years.
It wants immediate disengagement from such a sexual union. In the case of
the incestuous man in 1 Corinthians (specifically, a man and his
stepmother), Paul didn’t start by asking: Do they intend the union to be
committed and monogamous? It didn’t matter. Sex with one’s mother (and, by
extension, with one’s stepmother) is so offensive an act that any “fidelity”
associated with it is quite beside the point. The same applies to homosexual
practice.
B. Why remarriages are not
like homosexual practice. Dissolution of remarriages replicates the
problem with divorce and is thus no solution. However, dissolution of
homosexual unions does not replicate the problem with homosexual unions
(i.e., its same-sexness) but rather corrects it. While remarriage may not be
God’s initial will there is no evidence that Jesus felt that remarried
persons should dissolve their second (or third) marriage. The reason is
obvious: The problem with divorce is that it dissolves a natural marital
bond. To require dissolution of a second or third marriage, a union that in
its heterosexual character is otherwise natural, would be to restart the
cycle of dissolution that was the problem to begin with. Consequently, the
church rightly does not counsel a second (or third) divorce but rather a
renewed commitment to a lifelong union. However, Scripture is not reluctant
to command the dissolution of an inherently unnatural union that does not
meet the structural prerequisites of sex, age, or degree of blood
unrelatedness. The primary problem with such unions is not the absence of
longevity and commitment but rather the presence of longevity and commitment
to a relationship that is structurally unsound. Continuing in inherently
sinful and unnatural behavior does not improve the moral quality of that
behavior; it merely regularizes the sin. Homosexual behavior is wrong
because it involves a union with someone who sexually is a structural same
rather than a sexual counterpart. Dissolution of such a union does not
exacerbate that problem but rather appropriately ends it.
This point helps to explain the
speciousness of Peterson and Hedlund’s argument that sex in a second
marriage is as much serial unrepentant sin as a homosexual relationship.
Again, the analogy of an incestuous union makes the point. Moreover, the
main problem with divorce and remarriage is not the number of times that
sexual intercourse is had but the number of partners. It is precisely the
reverse for unnatural unions involving persons of the same sex or close
blood relations. The main problem is the number of times that sexual
intercourse is had; each act, regardless of the number of partners, is a
violation of a structural prerequisite. This brings us, then, to a better
way of formulating a parallel between divorce/remarriage and homosexual
practice.
C. A better analogy between
divorce/remarriage and homosexual practice. Since society and
certainly church do not encourage multiple divorces and remarriages, a
better analogy with participants in regular homosexual practice would be
with persons who have been divorced and remarried fifty times or more, who
think that this cycle of dissolution is a good thing, and who plan on
continuing in that cycle for the rest of their lives, hopefully with the
fewest negative side-effects. Any sin can be forgiven but all sin must be
repented of. That is the point of contact between divorce/remarriage and
homosexual practice. The issue is whether the behavior is repetitive and
unrepentant. Divorced persons should commit anew to stop the cycle of
divorce and remarriage. Homosexually active persons, like persons engaged in
incest or polyamorous behavior, should commit anew to stop the structurally
discordant behavior, here specifically sex with persons of the same sex.
Just as society and certainly church work to end the cycle of divorce and
remarriage, so too they should work to end the cycle of homosexual behavior.
It is inadequate to say: But we do want to end the cycle of promiscuous
homosexual activity. For neither do we say merely: We should end the
cycle of promiscuous incestuous or polyamorous activity. The
structural incongruity of same-sex intercourse remains even when the
promiscuity stops.
For further discussion of the
divorce/remarriage issue, including an explanation of why Jesus probably
would not have commanded a remarried couple to dissolve the union, see pp.
110-22 of my article, “Are There Universally Valid Sex Precepts? A Critique
of Walter Wink’s Views on the Bible and Homosexuality,” Horizons in
Biblical Theology 24 (2002): 72-125 (also available
online).
VIII. St. Paul and the Exploitation Argument
Would St. Paul have
opposed loving homosexual unions? Peterson and Hedlund argue
“no” or “not likely” but there is no historical or textual basis for this
position. Here’s why:
A. The Genesis 1 echo in Romans
1:23-27. As noted above, Paul clearly echoes Genesis 1:26-27 in his
critique of idolatry and homosexual practice in Romans 1:18-27 and cites
Genesis 2:24 in close connection with his reference to male-male intercourse
in 1 Corinthians 6:9. That means that the standard used by Paul for
assessing homosexual behavior was not just how well or badly it was done in
his own cultural context but whether it conformed to God’s will in creation
for male-female pairing. Paul, then, obviously thought that the primary
problem with homosexual practice was not what it happened to be in his
particular cultural context but rather what it wasn’t and could never be: a
structurally congruous joining of the two sexes, male and female.
B. The nature argument in Romans
1:26-27. Paul’s nature argument in Romans 1:26-27 (“their females
exchanged the natural use for that which is contrary to nature; and likewise
also the males, having left behind the natural use of the female . . . ”) is
not the kind of argument that lends itself to a distinction in Paul’s mind
between good and bad forms of homosexual practice. Nature for Paul here
refers to material structures of creation, still intact despite the fall of
Adam and still giving evidence for God’s will even to those without access
to the revelation of Scripture. This is precisely the point made in the
parallel discussion about idolatry in 1:19-24; namely, that humans (here
primarily Gentiles) are culpable not merely for sinning but, more, for
suppressing, and thereby sinning against, the knowledge of the truth
accessible to them in creation structures. Thus Romans 1:19-20 emphasizes:
The knowable aspect of
God is visible (or: transparent, apparent, evident) to them because God
has made it visible to them. For since the creation of the world his
invisible qualities are clearly seen, being mentally apprehended by means
of the things made.
For Paul the sin of same-sex intercourse
provides the perfect complement on the horizontal level to the sin of
idolatry on the vertical level. For, like the sin of idolatry, it involves
the suppression of truth that should be obvious to all by means of the
“things made,” here the complementarity of our gendered bodies in terms of
genital fit, physiology (including procreative capacity) and various
interpersonal features distinctive to men and women. Female-female
intercourse and male-male intercourse are “beyond nature” (para phusin),
contextually in the negative sense of being “contrary to” or “against
nature,” because they “dishonor” this self-evident complementarity of male
and female “bodies” through a bodily incongruous union with a structural
same. The issue of exploitation by having sex with a minor, slave, or
prostitute is simply beside the point of gender incompatibility.
C. Exchange, mutuality, and
lesbianism in Romans 1:26-27. Other features of Romans 1:26-27 rule
out a focus on particularly exploitative behavior. (i) The wording of
1:26-27 regarding “exchanging” and “leaving behind” the other sex for the
same sex is absolute and clearly inclusive of all same-sex sexual relations:
“their females exchanged the natural use . . . and likewise also the males,
having left behind the natural use of the female, were inflamed with their
yearning for one another, males with males . . . .” What is the point of
Paul charging males with “leaving behind” sexual intercourse with “the
female” and females with “exchanging” natural intercourse (with the male) if
his indictment is aimed solely at an exploitative subset of same-sex unions?
Would he not rather have to say that they exchanged or left behind loving
consensual relationships with a person of either sex? This is precisely what
he does not say. (ii) In fact, the wording in 1:27 stresses the mutuality of
affections: “. . . were inflamed with their yearning for one another”
(similarly, 1:24: “their bodies being dishonored among themselves”). (iii)
Further, the mention of lesbian intercourse in 1:26 does not fit with a
focus on intercourse with prostitutes, slaves, and adolescents, since in the
ancient world lesbianism is neither known nor critiqued primarily for such
practices.
In short, there is absolutely nothing in
Paul’s denunciation in Romans 1:24-27 about an absence of loving commitment.
“Passions of dishonor” (1:26) clearly refers to passions to engage in a
sexual “use” or function of the body that is “in deviation from nature”
(1:26), namely, a use in which females exchange intercourse with males for
intercourse with females and, likewise, males leave behind intercourse with
females for intercourse with males (“males with males,” 1:27), thereby
“dishonoring their bodies among themselves” (1:24). The notion put forward
by some (e.g., David Fredrickson, Dale Martin) that Paul is only concerned
with excess passion (cf. “inflamed in their yearning” in 1:27) and not with
the gender of the participants gets Paul’s critique backwards. The sequence
of thought for Paul was not: Same-sex intercourse is excess passion;
therefore it is wrong. It was: Same-sex intercourse is wrong; therefore it
is excess passion. The concept of “disoriented desire” logically precedes
the concept of “inordinate desire.” Indeed, how would one know to define a
given passion as excessive apart from some prior understanding about what is
wrong with the behavior in question?
D. “Soft men” and “men who lie with
a male” (1 Corinthians 6:9) in historical and literary context. The
terms malakoi (literally, “soft men”) and arsenokoitai
(literally, “men lying with a male”) in 1 Corinthians 6:9 also do not
suggest any kind of restriction to exploitative practices. The sense of
malakoi as “men who feminize themselves to attract male sex partners” is
evident from: its place in the vice list amidst other participants in
illicit sexual intercourse, its pairing with the immediately following word
arsenokoitai, Philo of Alexandria’s use of cognate words, and
instances where the parallel Latin word molles is used to refer to
effeminate adult males who are biologically and/or psychologically
disposed to desire penetration by men. The complaint about such figures in
the ancient world generally, and certainly by Philo, centers around their
attempted erasure of the masculine stamp given them by God/nature, not their
exploitation of others, age difference, or acts of prostitution (see, for
example, Philo, Contemplative Life 59-60, and Special Laws
3.37-42 and On Abraham 135-6).
The word arsenokoitai is a compound
formed from the Greek words for “lying” (koite) and “male” (arsen)
that appear in the Greek Septuagint translation of the Levitical
prohibitions of men “lying with a male” (18:22; 20:13). The rabbis used the
corresponding Hebrew abstract expression mishkav zakur, “lying
of/with a male,” drawn from the Hebrew texts of Lev 18:22; 20:13. This way
of talking about male homosexuality is a distinctly Jewish and Christian
formulation, undoubtedly used as a way of distinguishing their absolute
opposition to homosexual practice, rooted in the Torah of Moses, from more
accepting views in the Greco-Roman milieu. The appearance of arsenokoitai
in 1 Tim 1:10 makes the link to the Mosaic law explicit, since the list of
vices of which arsenokoitai is a part are said to be derived from
“the law” (1:9). That Jews of the period construed the Levitical
prohibitions of male-male intercourse absolutely and against a backdrop of a
male-female requirement is beyond dispute. For example, Josephus (a
first-century Palestinian Jew) explained to Gentile readers that “the law
[of Moses] recognizes only sexual intercourse that is according to nature,
that which is with a woman. . . . But it abhors the intercourse of males
with males” (Against Apion 2.199). There are no limitations placed on
the prohibition as regards age, slave status, idolatrous context, or
exchange of money. The only limitation is the sex of the participants.
According to b. Sanh. 54a, the male with whom a man lays in Leviticus
18:22 and 20:13 may be “an adult or minor.” The term arsenokoites and
cognates after Paul (the term appears first in Paul) are applied solely to
male-male intercourse but, consistent with the meaning of the partner term
malakoi, not limited to pederasts or clients of cult prostitutes.
This absolute and inclusive sense is
further confirmed not only by Paul’s longer treatment of male-male
intercourse in Romans 1:27 (“males with males”) but also by the broader
context of 1 Corinthians 5-7: the parallel case of incest in ch. 5 (which
gives no exceptions for committed, loving unions and echoes both Levitical
and Deuteronomic law), the vice list in 6:9-11 (where the sexual offenders
are distinguished from idolaters, consent is presumed, and a warning is
given to believers not to engage in such behavior any longer), the analogy
to (and not identity with) sex with a prostitute in 6:12-20 (where Gen 2:24
is cited as the absolute norm and the Christian identity of the offender is
presumed), and the issue of marriage in ch. 7 (which presumes throughout
that sex is confined to male-female marriage).
E. Caring homosexuality and
universal critiques in Greece and Rome. The Greco-Roman milieu of
Paul’s day supplies us with two additional reasons why Paul’s opposition to
homosexual practice was not grounded in a perceived absence of loving
commitment in homosexual relationships. One reason is that the conception of
caring homoerotic unions existed in Paul’s cultural environment. For
example, in Plato’s Symposium Aristophanes refers to males who are
“not inclined by nature toward marriage and the procreation of children, yet
are compelled to do so by the law or custom” and must “live their lives out
with one another unmarried.” When those who are “fondly welcoming that which
is of the same kind”
happen upon that very person who is his half
. . . they are wonderfully struck with affectionate regard and a sense of
kinship and love, almost not wanting to be divided even for a short time.
And these are they who continue with one another throughout life. . . . [the
lover] desiring to join together and to be fused into a single entity with
his beloved and to become one person from two.” (192)
Similarly in the much later work, the
Pseudo-Lucianic Affairs of the Heart (ca. AD 300) Callicratidas
defends love for males by arguing, in part, that “reciprocal expressions of
love” between a man and his young male beloved reach a point where “it is
difficult to perceive which of the two is a lover of which, as though in a
mirror. . . . Why then do you reproach it . . . when it was ordained by
divine laws . . . ?” (48). There are numerous examples of committed
homosexual love in antiquity (see texts in T. K. Hubbard, Homosexuality
in Greece and Rome). Had Paul and other Jews of the period opposed only
unloving kinds of homosexual unions, they could easily have made the
distinction in their writings.
The second reason for recognizing the
absolute quality of Paul’s anti-homosex indictment is that, as T. K. Hubbard
notes in his sourcebook of ancient Greek and Roman texts treating
homosexuality, the first few centuries (AD) “bear witness to an increasing
polarization of attitudes toward homosexual activity, ranging from frank
acknowledgement and public display . . . to severe moral condemnation of all
homosexual acts” (Homosexuality in Greece and Rome, p. 383). He adds:
“Basic to the heterosexual position is the characteristic Stoic appeal to
the providence of Nature, which has matched and fitted the sexes to each
other” (p. 444). Such arguments transcend the issue of individual
exploitative acts and reject homosexual acts categorically. For example,
Plutarch’s friend Daphnaeus admits that homosexual relationships are not
necessarily exploitative, for “union contrary to nature does not destroy or
curtail a lover’s tenderness.” Yet, he declares, even when a “union with
males” is conducted “willingly” it remains “shameful” since males “with
softness (malakia) and effeminacy (thelutes) [are]
surrendering themselves, as Plato says, ‘to be mounted in the custom of
four-footed animals and to be sowed with seed contrary to nature” (Dialogue
on Love 751). Similarly, “some kind of argument from ‘design’ seems to
lurk in the background of Cicero’s, Seneca’s, and Musonius’ claims: the
penis is ‘designed’ to penetrate the vagina, the vagina is ‘designed’ to be
penetrated by the penis” (C. A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality
[Oxford, 1999], p. 242). The second-century (AD) physician Soranus (or his
fifth-century “translator” Caelius Aurelianus) characterized desires of
“soft men” to be penetrated by other men as “not from nature” insofar as
they “subjugated to obscene uses parts not so intended” and disregarded “the
places of our body which divine providence destined for definite functions”
(4.9.131). Part of Charicles’ attack on all homosexual practice in
Affairs of the Heart is the assertion that male-male love is an erotic
attraction for what one already is as a sexual being (cited above under D.).
Knowing the universal disdain among men
for lesbianism, Charicles culminates his argument by saying that, “if males
find intercourse with males acceptable, henceforth let women too love each
other” (28). Opponents of homosexual practice also often employ a variety of
exploitation arguments, as do modern apologists for a two-sex prerequisite
when they allude to disproportionately high rates of harm attending
homosexual behavior. Nevertheless, they clearly add an array of arguments
that strike at homosexual activity per se: an appeal to nature, the
anatomical and physiological (e.g., procreative) incompatibility of same-sex
unions, arousal for and merging with one’s already intact sexual nature,
blurring or erasure of essential maleness and essential femaleness and an
indictment of all lesbianism. It makes little sense to assert, then, that
Paul, operating in a Jewish milieu known in the ancient world for its
vigorous opposition to homosexual practice, was someone more affirming of
homosexual practice than Greco-Roman critics.
In conclusion, given these five arguments,
there is absolutely no basis for claiming that Paul’s rejection of
homosexual practice did not have in view all homosexual activity. A number
of scholars supportive of homosexual practice acknowledge this point (e.g.,
Dan Via, Walter Wink, Bernadette Brooten, William Schoedel). As Louis
Compton puts it in Homosexuality and Civilization (Cambridge, 2003),
According to [one]
interpretation, Paul’s words were not directed at “bona fide” homosexuals
in committed relationships. But such a reading, however well-intentioned,
seems strained and unhistorical. Nowhere does Paul or any other Jewish
writer of this period imply the least acceptance of same-sex relations
under any circumstance. The idea that homosexuals might be redeemed by
mutual devotion would have been wholly foreign to Paul or any other Jew or
early Christian. (p. 114)
IX. St. Paul and the Orientation Argument
Would Paul have been opposed
to homosexual practice by homosexually oriented persons? Again, Peterson and
Hedlund say “no” or “not likely.” Again, there is no basis for such a
position in the historical and textual evidence:
A. Ancient sexual orientation
theories. Greco-Roman theories (Platonic, Aristotelian, Hippocratic,
and even astrological) existed that posited at least some congenital basis
for some forms of homosexual attraction, particularly on the part of males
desiring to be penetrated. These theories included: a creation splitting of
male-male or female-female binary humans; a particular mix of male and
female sperm elements at conception; a chronic disease of the mind or soul
influenced indirectly by biological factors and made hard to resist by
socialization; an inherited disease analogous to a mutated gene; sperm ducts
leading to the anus; and the particular alignment of heavenly constellations
at the time of one’s birth (see my article, “Does the Bible Regard Same-Sex
Intercourse as Intrinsically Sinful,” in Christian Sexuality [ed. R.
Saltzman; Kirk House, 2003], pp. 140-52).
Some of the ancient theories are obviously
closer to modern theories than others. Differences, however, are beside the
point for our discussion here. What matters is that many in the ancient
world attributed one or more forms of homosexual practice to an interplay of
nature and nurture; and, moreover, believed that homoerotic impulses could
be very resistant to change. As T. K. Hubbard notes, “homosexuality in this
era (viz., of the early imperial age of Rome, AD first century) may have
ceased to be merely another practice of personal pleasure and began to be
viewed as an essential and central category of personal identity, exclusive
of and antithetical to heterosexual orientation” (Homosexuality in Greece
and Rome, p. 386). He also points to a series of later texts from the
second to fourth centuries that “reflect the perception that sexual
orientation is something fixed and incurable” (ibid., p. 446). It is
important to add here that many of the same Greco-Roman moralists and
physicians who held such views could still oppose the behaviors arising from
homoerotic predispositions. They could do so by distinguishing, as one
Aristotelian text puts it, between behavior that is in accordance with
nature and behavior that, though given “by nature,” is yet “constituted
contrary to nature” as a “defect” (Problems 4.26).
B. Why an orientation argument would
have made little difference to St. Paul.
1. Was Paul aware that at least some
homosexual desire was not a matter of personal choice? As with Philo of
Alexandria, Paul was probably aware of the existence of a lifelong
homoerotic proclivity at least among the “soft men” (malakoi)
who, even as adults, feminized their appearance to attract male sex partners
(1 Cor. 6:9). In addition, nothing in the language of Romans 1:24-27
suggests that Paul viewed homosexuality solely as a chosen condition of
constitutional heterosexuals. The expressions “exchanged” and “leaving
behind” in 1:26-27 do not refer to a willful exchange of heterosexual desire
for homosexual desire, as Peterson and Hedlund mistakenly believe (p. 4 of
their part 2). Rather, they refer to a choice of gratifying innate
homoerotic desires instead of complying with the evidence of male-female
complementarity transparent in material creation or nature. In fact, the
terms “exchanged,” “leaving behind,” “God gave them over,” “desire,” and
“inflamed with their yearning” in 1:24-27 collectively suggest passions that
are preexisting, controlling, and exclusive.
2. Even exaggerated claims about
“homosexual orientation,” particularly notions of congenital determinism and
absolute immutability, are compatible with Paul’s view of sin in
Romans 5 and 7. Sin for Paul was an innate impulse to commit actions
prohibited by God—an impulse passed on by an ancestor, running through the
members of the human body, and never entirely within human control. If St.
Paul could be transported into modern times and told that some homoerotic
desire may be due to partial congenital causation factors (which is the most
that we can say at the present time), what we know about Paul and his
cultural environment suggests that he could either “I suspected as much” or
at least “That fits well with my understanding of sin.”
3. If some Greco-Roman moralists and
physicians, operating within a culture that tolerated and at times
endorsed at least some homosexual practice, could reject forms of
homosexual practice committed by those with a biological predisposition,
it is virtually impossible that Paul, operating out of a Jewish subculture,
would have embraced homosexual unions entered into by homosexually oriented
persons. Nor could one charge Paul with logical inconsistency if he, aware
of something akin to homosexual orientation, did not acknowledge homosexual
desire as “natural” in the best sense. For, as noted above, the ancients
rightly recognized that not everything that has an origination in nature is
natural in the sense of conforming to nature’s well-working processes.
Persons’ deeply ingrained sexual desires can be at odds with their embodied
sexuality. (A pedophilic orientation would be an instance that all could
agree on today.) For Paul, too, nature meant something structurally broader
than innate desires: the transparent structures of creation, including
essential maleness and femaleness in their anatomical, physiological, and
interpersonal complementarity.
Even Bernadette Brooten, a New Testament
scholar who has identified herself publicly as lesbian and has written
extensively on lesbianism in antiquity, admits that knowledge of homosexual
orientation would have made little difference to Paul’s absolute views on
homosexual practice (and, by extension, the views of Jews everywhere in the
ancient world):
Paul could have believed that tribades,
the ancient kinaidoi, and other sexually unorthodox persons were born
that way and yet still condemn them as unnatural and shameful. . . . I
believe that Paul used the word ‘exchanged’ to indicate that people knew the
natural sexual order of the universe and left it behind. . . . I see Paul as
condemning all forms of homoeroticism as the unnatural acts of people who
had turned away from God” (Love Between Women: Early Christian Resposes
to Female Homoeroticism [Chicago, 1996], p. 244).
X. Core Value
The most important
point to be made about the biblical witness, and one that is consistently
missed by Peterson and Hedlund, is that an other-sex prerequisite for sexual
relations is no more an isolated or insignificant view in the canon than is
opposition to man-mother incest or even bestiality (the latter is mentioned
fewer times in Scripture than homosexual practice, not at all in the New
Testament). Every narrative, law, proverb, exhortation, metaphor, and poetry
that has anything to say about sexual relations at least implicitly
presupposes a male-female requirement. There is no dissenting view in
Scripture. Rather, the witness of Scripture holds this value pervasively,
absolutely, strongly, and counterculturally. In other words, it is a core
value of biblical sexual ethics. The love commandment cannot serve as
counterweight to this overwhelming witness inasmuch as Jesus’ sexual ethic,
as with that of Scripture generally and even modern Western culture, has
distinctive structural requirements that transcend any generic obligation to
love. These distinctive features are attributable to the fact that a sexual
relationship is not merely intimacy in depth but an actual merger of two
into “one flesh.”
Conclusion
I believe that this presentation of the
witness of Scripture demonstrates the groundless and baseless character of
Peterson and Hedlund’s repeated charge that my “heterosexist” perspective
has led me to distort what Scripture has to say about homosexual practice.
Rather, it is they who, out of a desire to legitimate a form of behavior
that Scripture categorically treats as immoral, have twisted the biblical
witness to coincide with an immoralist ideology.