“I found myself saying to pastors with growing conviction, ‘this issue is not going to be settled in the academy.  This is ours to deal with and we can no longer avoid our responsibility’…  I am the pastor of Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor.  And I realised that I had to face it squarely and deal with it, come what may.”[1]

As the pastor of a Metropolitan Community Church (Crave MCC in Sydney Australia), I have come at this question from a very different perspective.  Instead of the problem of how to deal with LGBT ‘outsiders’, MCC’s deal with the problem of living life on the ‘outside’ of Christian world, and helping people whose identity has been shaped by exclusion.

But from this very different place, I think that the solutions Wilson suggests solve some of my problems just as effectively as they solve his.  In fact, upon reading Wilson’s plea that we look to pastors rather than theologians to address the problem, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders.

Ken Wilson writes about the topic with the heart of a pastor and a lifetime of wisdom, and he brings the question out of the academy and into the realm of personal moral discernment.  Having read his work, I will never approach the issue the same way again.

Pastoral care among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people has always meant trying to explain the intricacies of biblical interpretation about the few passages which seem to condemn homosexuality.  People who arrive at my church often need answers to a very complex question now, because their ability to accept themselves depends on it.   Wilson also relates experiencing this kind of urgency from people,[2] but he experiences it while people are agonising over it.  The people I meet are one step further along – they’ve left their churches with an overwhelming sense of rejection, and they are looking for a place that is (wait for it…) “affirming”.

And yet, if I give them quick and simplistic answers, they will feel like I am trying to play a trick on them.  Obviously, the world in which the bible was written was not a ‘safe place’ for people to celebrate diverse sexual identities, but I need to make this text a “safe place” where people can meet God.   Yes, a C. S. Lewis fan from my youth, I know the lesson of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Jesus “isn’t safe, but he’s good”.   But when people are going through trauma, Jesus wants to provide them with moments of safety.

Here’s my struggle.  Educating people about context, language and author’s intentions, as well as the hermeneutical task of integrating the Bible’s witness into their own life, is a wonderful process.  But trying to do this for a person who needs urgent answers for a topic of massive personal impact in the context of a political and social controversy seems like trying to do brain surgery with a hack-saw.  Because of Wilson’s book, I now realise that I can put down my hack-saw.  Trying to help people to understand ‘the Bible and Homosexuality’ was the wrong tool for the job.  Instead, I need to help people discern the will of God about a complex moral question.

Wilson’s gift to us is only possible because of the way he moves beyond binary terms.  He writes of the two sides in contemporary Christian debate:  ‘open and affirming’ and ‘love the sinner hate the sin’.  The line has been drawn by the requirement of the ‘love the sinner’ churches to exclude gay and lesbian believers from something (most often somewhere on the spectrum of baptism, membership, leadership and ordination).

Instead of taking a side, Wilson suggests that issue be treated as a ‘disputable matter’, drawing on Romans 14-15.   The ‘disputable matter’ approach is Paul’s answer to the conflicts arose when Christian Jews, who had been exiled from Rome by Claudius returned to Rome, and found a Gentile church which no longer observed Jewish customs.  This led to a significant controversy and division, which many scholars suppose Paul was writing to address.  Paul therefore argues that matters such as eating marketplace food which may have been offered to idols and the observation of the Sabbath should be left to individual conscience, rather than being a requirement for inclusion in the church.

This approach is used in many denominations on a variety of controversial subjects, including:

• Divorce and remarriage
• Christian participation in war
• Lawsuits against other believers
• In-Vitro Fertilisation

Given that controversial issues are routinely treated in this way to prevent division in the church, it is difficult to understand how we can justify turning homosexuality into a ‘litmus test’ issue of Biblical faithfulness.  In fact, there are many uncontroversial moral issues where failure is widespread in the church (including greed and gossip) and yet even then, exclusion from membership or ordination is not used as a remedy.

Wilson upheld a conservative stance on human sexuality for most of his ministry, and recounts his usual policy of asking people to end any sexual relations with people of the same sex before becoming members.  The issue was never enforced, but there was an assumption that people were complying.  Wilson’s reassessment of this policy came from conversations he had with people who were struggling with this issue, anf the possibility of doing harm to people in his care.  He carefully defines the word ‘harm’ as follows,

When enforcing an exclusion from the church and her ministry, a pastor takes the question of harm into account. By “harm” I don’t mean “hurting someone’s feelings”, but placing an obstacle in the path if their pursuit of Christ, the path of human flourishing.”[3]

But, he also notes that the possibility of harming people by excluding them from mininistry is balanced by the less often considered harm of undermining the commitments made by Christians with strong same-sex attraction to celibacy or to difficult heterosexual marriages that such people are determined somehow to make work.[4]

Exegesis

Wilson gives a summary of the exegesis on homosexuality and the Bible.  He does not make an original argument but shows considerable depth of reading with the exegetical literature.  He concludes that scriptures are uniformly negative about homosexuality, but that the context of a world where sexuality was interpreted as a contest for male honour and expressed in ways such as male-shrine prostitution, paederasty and sex between slaves and masters could call into question the direct application of these passages to modern, monogamous and covenant commitments between people of the same sex.  This leaves the question open to interpretation and discernment.

Wilson states his exegetical case very cautiously.  He avoids some of the conclusions which, although coming from reputable scholarly sources, may appear radical to those who are used to the stayed interpretations of the Evangelical theological community.

He does not consider the possibility that certain scriptural texts are positive towards homosexuality, such as the positive teachings of Jesus and the Hebrew prophets on the place of eunuchs among the people of God, Jesus’ rejection of hetero-normative family life, or parallel between relationships like those of David and Jonathan, or Ruth and Naomi, to contemporary homosexual relationships.

He also does not consider some of the works which may show that those ‘uniformly negative’ texts could possible have not been so uniformly negative.   He does not consider David Steward’s proposal in The Queer Bible Commentary’s article on Leviticus that what Leviticus forbids is male incest, even though Jacob Milgrom’s Leviticus commentary, widely considered the most learned and thorough Leviticus commentary available, has adopted that position.  He also does not consider the work of L. William Countryman on the rhetoric force of Romans 1 in Paul’s argument to accept non-kosher gentile Christians, which shows that Paul is tentatively agreeing with Jewish scruples, only to turn the argument on its head in Romans 2 by showing that torah-observance is no better an alternative since sin is universal.  This would have lead nicely into his reading of Romans 14-15.

It is impossible to know whether Wilson has chosen to focus on more conservative exegetical claims because he thinks they are more reliable, or because he wants to position himself in a way that will appeal to a conservative readership, but I think that limiting himself to more conservative arguments will make Wilson’s book more useful, not just because conservative readers will find a more modest proposal easier to digest, but also because framing the arguments in such a way as to leave the conclusion ‘in the air’ allows the reader room for questioning and discernment process that he is recommending for pastoral reasons.

Myself, having practiced ministry in ‘open and affirming’ churches for some time, the sanity of this approach is appealing.  New members and seekers who have passed through the doors of my church (who often are full of questions on this, and are highly critical thinkers) are often fascinated by our interpretations, but the fact that we have a stance to uphold, and the fact that this is a question which in many cases will impact their entire lives, creates an atmosphere of rushed decision making and even suspicion.  Am I not just fast-talking my way through the Bible’s “clear” condemnation of homosexuals?

Ken Wilson has given me a way of articulating a more modest answer to the question with a little less certainty, a little more humility, and yet to offer people guidance which will not harm them, whether they are same-sex attracted and celibate, loud and proud, or somewhere in the middle.

The Gospel Way

Chapter 5, The Gospel Way, is a highlight of the book.  It describes what a “third way” would look like.  In essence, this requires treating the application of these passages to monogamous gay relationships as a disputable matter in the style of Romans 14-15.  People on both sides of the debate must agree to accept each other without requiring the other person to accept or affirm one’s own moral choices on this matter.[5]  This requires both parties to accept that they are not responsible for the other party’s actions, and to leave the judgment to God.[6]  Churches engaged in this process are providing time and space for the spirit to work in guiding people to eventually resolve the issue peacefully.[7]

Both sides of the debate should find this approach challenging.   Wilson desribes the challenges in optimistic terms:  “Conservatives” will find the challenge of raising their children to be faithful to Christ in a pluralistic environment, while the “liberals” will be challenged to hold back their condescending attitude to people of more traditional morality.[8]  But the reward from all this is that the energy that was being directed towards moral controversy can now be directed to the Lord.[9]

What This Looks Like in the Affirming Church Movement?

Wilson’s book is aimed at the Evangelical church, and I bless it to that purpose.  But I have a few unanswered questions about how this will work in my context in MCC.  We have been unwillingly labelled ‘gay churches’, but we have understood ourselves as ‘affirming’.  Wilson’s book has convinced me that to uphold the unity of the church, I must let go of my role as ‘affirmer’, and understand myself as facilitating other people’s discernment processes.  That’s not going to be an easy process.

And yet as a pastor I am deeply aware of the pastoral needs of people who show up at the door of my church.  Many of them do not show up until after they reach the breaking point in their relationship with God, and present with the felt need of being affirmed.   They have an overwhelming sense of being unworthy, or broken spiritual beings.  Their intellectual acceptance that homosexuality might not be wrong is accompanied by years of internal programming, often from their parents and pastors during formative childhood years, which tells them to be ashamed of themselves.  In this situation, the best way that I can care for them is to assure them in no uncertain terms that they are loved and accepted by God.

So here is my dilemma.  If I build an ‘affirming’ church ministry in response to such pastoral needs, I encounter all the problems Wilson highlights.  I create an “LGBT affirming church” which exists in sectarian isolation from other churches.   I do not model discernment so much as proof-texting, and I do not empower independent thought.  I also risk harming the sacred commitments of same-sex attracted believers who are either celibate or upholding difficult faithfulness a heterosexual marriage.

I don’t yet have answers to the dilemma, but I am part of a church, Crave Metropolitan Community Church <www.cravemcc.com> which is committed to listening to the Spirit and having the hard conversations about how to move forward.

Our annual conference is a time to engage the issues!  On January 24 2015, Crave conference will be featuring Brandon Wallace, author of  Straight Face, a book about growing up in the Southern Baptist church and reconciling his sexuality with a call to ministry.

Facebook Event: <https://www.facebook.com/events/435764879898904/?fref=ts>

Book here <http://www.trybooking.com/frwv>

We will also be hosting workshops on spiritual and mental health, kids’ spirituality, the theology of gender, and nonviolence (with Love Makes A Way).

These are all conversations about how to build a church culture that is undivided over issues of sexuality, that provides room for personal discernment over issues of sexual ethics, and yet doesn’t put obstacles in the spiritual lives of people who are living authentic lives as they understand God’s will for them.

Join the conversation!

[Dr] Karl Hand

~~~

[1] Ken Wilson,  A Letter to My Congregation: An evangelical pastor’s path to embracing people who are gay, lesbian and transgender in the company of Jesus. (Canton, MI.:  David Crumm Media LLC, 2014), kindle location 1298.

[2] Ibid., kindle location 312-65.

[3] Ibid., kindle loc., 1412

[4] Ibid., kindle loc., 822.

[5] Ibid., kindle loc., 1806-36.

[6] Ibid., kindle loc., 1836-46.

[7] Ibid., kindle loc., 1836-46

[8] Ibid., kindle loc., 1905-56.

[9] Ibid., kindle loc., 1956-85.