Hath God said ...?

The questions about sexual acts between men, or between women, are not only contentious but complex. That is, to come to a responsible decision demands consideration not only of biblical texts and the lived experiences of our gay Christian brothers and lesbian Christian sisters but also of what authority the biblical texts have, the varying history of biblical interpretation, changes in society and its understanding (or misunderstanding) of sex, and newer understandings of the homosexual orientation--and beneath it all, what is the will of God. I offer this essay hoping it will help my sisters and brothers to sort through the many levels of argument and come to a sound conclusion.

Time for decision

I sense that the path I have walked through these issues may be like that of many others. It has not been short or direct. Initial prejudices or assumptions fell to new thoughts and possibilities. Namely, at first I was shocked at the mere suggestion that homosexuality was not simply perverse. Eventually--and I am grateful to those who speak up as, or for, gays and lesbians--I was made aware of how their orientation is primarily determined by forces beyond their control. Second, I came to see that their condition is one that no one would choose: to be very different from the vast majority of humanity in so basic a matter as sexuality. And with this rise of empathy for gays there also came to me the wish to make their situation better: to remove the condemnation, the ridicule, and the social and ecclesial prohibitions.

On the most important plane, I hoped that the biblical criticism toward homosexuality could be removed or at least modified. I was glad to learn to distinguish between homosexual people and homosexual acts. For the Bible never condemns people of homosexual orientation, only homosexual acts. Are homosexual acts condemned wholesale? What about when they are a part of an otherwise laudable relationship, like two men who love and care for each other? Perhaps the Bible intends to condemn only promiscuous homosexual acts. Maybe, in a good gay relationship, homosexual acts are the equivalent of marital coupling. Then the burden of condemning the actions of people we know and love and respect, fine church members and leaders, would be lifted from us--a longed-for relief.

But this revision was opposed by those arguing for the correctness of the tradition, even though maintaining that the tradition is awkward or even painful for us. I continued to listen to both sides, revisionists and traditionalists, and eventually I was persuaded that the latter were correct.

Order of presentation

I reckon with two considerations:

1. We must first arrive at a theological judgment: Does God prohibit or permit homosexual acts? Practical decisions about what then we must do, whether in civil legislation or church policy decisions, do not follow automatically from theological judgments (as when Moses, being a sensible legislator, allowed divorce simply because strict enforcement would have done more harm overall in society than controlled lenience). But the theological determination must be first, and this essay concerns only that.

2. I do not begin with scriptural texts, because our thinking does not in fact always begin with the Bible. We have many assumptions and values that we bring to our Bible reading. These must be reckoned with first so that we can better hear the biblical voice.

This, then is my order of presentation:

1. My understanding of how God has created sexuality to be.

2. On the authority of the Bible--what authority it has and why.

3. The Bible on slavery and the position of women.

4. Interpreting the Bible in the twenty-first century.

5. The biblical texts in question.

Sex

My understanding of the biblical teaching on sex comes from Genesis 1 and 2 and their quotation and interpretation by Jesus in Matt 19:3-9 (similar is Matt 5:32).

Jesus' point in Matthew 19 is that sex and marriage go together. His argument is not that there is merely a moral connection, that sex and marriage "should" go together. Rather, he says, sex and marriage simply are together, like two sides of one coin. This is true, he says, whether or not we like it or even know it.

This very important point comes up as he answers the Pharisees' question about divorce. Jesus' response is that divorce does not end marriage: "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman is committing adultery." Against whom could he be committing adultery?--his first wife? But they are divorced; there is no longer a marriage for adultery to violate. Except, by Christ's word, there plainly is. How can this be?

To show the truth of this, Jesus draws our attention to what marriage essentially is and distinguishes that from those things that usually accompany marriage but do not constitute it. Specifically, even if the legal obligations of marriage are ended by a legal divorce, the marriage itself is not ended. The Pharisees' mistake--and ours, since we have trouble taking this in--is to confuse the legal accompaniments of marriage with marriage itself. According to Jesus, the legal contract does not make the marriage. It can be ended and yet the marriage itself continue--at least enough to be violable by adultery.

Then what is marriage itself? It is the union of one flesh. The one flesh that is created when man and woman join themselves sexually is real. This union lasts longer than the act of sexual intercourse that consummates it. It is permanent: "They are no longer two, but one flesh." This change is irreversible. Sexual intercourse so unifies husband and wife that, even when the local legal structure has declared the marriage legally defunct, the real union, the actual marriage, created by sexual intercourse, still lives and endures as long as the flesh.

Here are a few facts from life and Scripture that illustrate the truth of the Lord's word. (1) It is a commonplace that divorce is more painful than a spouse's death. In the latter, one half has died. In the former, two living halves are severed without anesthesia. (2) The old legal category of common-law marriage recognized that marriage can happen without the participation of court clerk or church cleric. (3) This is our understanding of the marriage of Adam and Eve. (4) In canon law, not consummating a marriage is ground to regard it as null and void. (5) When patriarch Jacob discovered in the morning that he had had sexual congress not with Rachel but with Leah, he recognized the fait accompli of his marriage to Leah.

An understanding of marriage as "a committed relationship" is badly inadequate. First, though marriage surely is that, a host of other relationships are that as well. "Committed relationship" tells us too little. Second, what a disembodied understanding of marriage this is--as if bodily and sexual intimacy of wife and husband were not constitutive of marriage. Third, how sad if marriage were built on no stronger foundation than the sand of human commitment. It is a great blessing that through sexual relations husband and wife "are no longer two, but one flesh."

Not that commitment is not important. The official marriage rite of the ELCA (in the LBW and accompanying manuals) says that the couple "by their promises bind themselves to one another as husband and wife." This presents a different view from the one implicit in Matthew 19. Promises do not make a one-flesh union, but do they not have a role?

Just as promises cannot alone inaugurate a marriage, neither does sexual intercourse alone. Consider the one-night-stand, as Paul does in 1 Cor 6:16. Even this creates a union, the apostle states, however little either man or woman intend it to. But what social chaos if we regarded that as a marriage rather than as fornication. Traditionally, the nuptial vows have served to distinguish the consummation that rapidly followed them as constituting a marriage from other sexual intercourses which constitute fornication, concubinage, or even rape.

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This social need for distinction seals the point. Though "from the beginning" sexual intercourse was for marriage, just because there are so many cases of sexual intercourse that are not meant to and, as a purely practical matter, cannot be treated as making a marriage, society needs the nuptial promises to understand in which unions the man and woman are actually taking on the obligations of marriage and in which they are not. But we must remember the Lord's stress that marriage is the union of one flesh. The vows are necessary only after the fall, because of the confusion of sin.

To summarize: The Creator made us male and female so that sexual union is possible, through which the one-flesh union which is marriage can happen. Therefore sex without marriage is a bad misuse, and it is no wonder that it results in such damage.

Only in a time when our culture has forgotten these facts and divorced sex from marriage (and, for that matter, from reproduction) could it be proposed that a gay sexual relationship is like a marriage. Two gay men in a beautiful platonic relationship, plus same-sex sexual acts, does not equal marriage. For a man putting his penis where it is not physiologically designed to go does not really resemble a husband and wife's joining their most intimate parts and becoming one.

Arguments unconnected to biblical texts

Pathos. This argument is the strongest the revisionists have. It appeals to me; it sways many, even sober legislative assemblies of our church. This argument in brief is that if a gay man cannot have sexual relations with a lifelong male partner, he is condemned to a life of loneliness. He is deprived of the joys of lifelong partnership.

The immediate response to this argument must be that it is beside the point. The point is, "What hath God said?" (Gen 3:1) Does God approve of and bless same-sex sexual acts, or does he condemn and punish them? What the church must say, and how it must regulate its own life, are not based on pity but on what God says.

The second response is that even if two gay men have a lifelong profound partnership, and then add same-sex sexual acts to it, they can never have a marriage or one-flesh union like a male and female couple can have.

The third response is that they are far from alone in having sexual desire unfulfilled. The list of people who do not have sexual intimacy is long: widows and widowers, the never-married and divorced. And it includes persons who were celibate and still champions of marriage, such as Paul and our Lord.

Like remarriage. A second possible argument, though I have not seen revisionists introduce it, is that every pastor knows of truly blessed second marriages involving divorced persons. One or both spouses are committing adultery against their first spouse, and yet God has manifestly blessed that second marriage with deep love, joy, and spiritual gifts. So, it could be argued, even though God prohibits remarriage as he does same-sex sexual acts, since he nonetheless blesses some of the former, could we not suppose he might bless some of the latter?

I can think of two necessary responses to this, though neither is entirely convincing: (1) remarriage of divorced persons typically includes regret, humility, and asking for forgiveness, whereas proposed gay partnerships demand to be recognized as righteous; and (2) remarriage is at least within the form of the Creator's male-female design.

Biblical material

What is the Bible's authority? First, the Bible is the authoritative witness to Jesus Christ. We are not authorized to say any more or less or different about him and his salvation and benefits than what the Scriptures say. But this is beside the point here, for our question concerns the Lord's law on same-sex sexual acts.

The Bible has such laws, but reading laws from the Bible is not simple. Everyone knows that not all biblical decrees are for all people. But, then, which are for whom?

This question is answered very helpfully by Luther in a treatise, "How Christians Should Regard Moses." Following the breakdown of the Roman Church's control in 1520 there were suddenly many teachers and preachers, and not all of them were well informed. Luther found that he had to protect his hearers from those who said Christians must obey all OT laws since they are part of God's word.

Luther's response: "We must deal cleanly with the Scriptures." Of course it is God's word, but that is not the whole question. You must also ask, Is it God's word for you? For example, God told David to make war and conquer cities. That was God's word--but to David, not to you. So also the dietary laws are God's word to Jews but not to Christian believers or anyone else in the world.

In the most dramatic part of his argument, Luther says that even the Ten Commandments don't apply to us. Read them. They begin, "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt." Did God bring you out of Egypt? If not, this word does not address you.

This sentence is stunning. And even more so when we recall that Luther's own catechism begins with the commandments! Luther continues: Of course we teach Christians to obey the Ten Commandments. For they are God's law for us, but why are they so? Not because Moses gave them to the Israelites but because they are the law of human nature. (Rom 2:14: "When Gentiles who do not possess the Law, do instinctively [literally: 'by nature,' whence Luther gets the term] what the Law requires, these, though not having the Law, are a Law to themselves. They show that what the Law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience bears witness.")

Indeed, except for oddities, all humanity, even without having Moses, has condemned disobedience to parents, murder, adultery, theft, and perjury. Only the commandment not to work on Saturday is not universal, the one commandment of Moses' ten that the NT explicitly nullifies for Christians (Rom 14:1-6).

Here we have at least a tool, though no more than that, for looking at scriptural words on same-sex sexual acts. The OT clearly forbids "lying with a man as with a woman." In the same paragraph (Lev 18:19-23) are also forbidden sex with a woman during her period, sexual relations with a kinsman's wife, sacrificing children to Molech, and sexual relations with an animal. There is no question what God's word is for Israel. The question is whether or not these words are also for all people. About the first, sex during a woman's period, we could suspect that this may not be universal-divine-natural law for all humans. About the others, though, who would argue that they are not God's law for all people? Again, not because Moses decreed them for Israel, but because all people just know they are wrong.

That question about how to tell if a law applies is taken up below. The initial point to be made here is that the church can no more quote the decrees of the OT and impose them on Christians than it can dismiss them out of hand. "We must deal cleanly with the Scriptures." Some OT laws indeed apply to all people, and the Lord judges people by them. Others are valid only for Israel, and the Lord evaluates only Israel on their basis.

Slavery and women. The argument is made that we have decided that the Bible is simply outdated on slavery and the roles and status of women, so it is equally legitimate to set aside its condemnation of same-sex sexual acts.

Let us look at what the Scriptures actually say and not muddle them by thinking in terms of general tendencies.

The Bible does not command slavery. Little more needs to be said. Those Americans who from the eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century wanted our republic to prohibit slavery could do so without violating God's Word.

Slaveholders countered this by saying that the Scriptures tolerate slavery. This same point is made today by people wishing to limit the Bible's use for moral decisions. But the observation is beside the point. Our American decision to eliminate slavery from the republic does not violate a clear biblical message that there must be slavery. In contrast, there are clear biblical words that there must be marriage, baptism, worship, and government, and we would be in violation of divine law to eliminate any of them. So "toleration" is irrelevant to the question. The Scriptures deal with slavery because it was a huge part of ancient society and economy. Scriptures do not say "slavery is a good thing" any more than they say "bigamy is a good thing." Jesus, in telling parables about masters and slaves, is neither commanding nor commending slavery. And from Exodus 21 to 1 Peter the Bible does a great deal to soften the harshness of slavery. But that is no command that slavery must be. Slavery can be outlawed without violating the Word. We can give thanks that through the leading of the Spirit we do not tolerate slavery, but that does not set Spirit against Word.

There are also the texts about the role and status of women, both in marriage ("Wives, be subject to husbands as you are to the Lord," Eph 5:22; "Wives, accept the authority of your husbands," 1 Pet 3:1) and in the church ("As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says.... For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church," 1 Cor 14:33b-36; and "I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent," 1 Tim 2:12).

In marriage, concerning the texts about wives being subordinate to their husbands, one can wonder why this needed to be said. In nearly all societies until recently, the husband-father of a household was the decision maker, and subordination by wives was expected. The household was openly a hierarchy, with superiors and subordinates, just like today's businesses, schools, and the military are. (In all cases harshness is an unnecessary perversion of the gift of authority.) Because these epistles adjure obedience not only by wives but by slaves (or, as we might interpret today, employees and students) as well as by citizens to government and by children to parents, it may be that this was to counteract the kinds of misinterpretation of the gospel we have often seen, as if it abolished all temporal hierarchies. Still today in almost all these areas of life the church concurs that God's Word demands subordination, except today, in the two-person structure of marriage, we have doubts about that, I admit.

In church, undeniably the gospel levels. It casts down the mighty (by confining all under sin) and lifts up the lowly (by giving rights of divine offspring to all believers). In the church people of every class, sex, race, and occupation receive the Lord's Supper side by side. In 1 Corinthians 11 Paul gives precise instructions for how women should dress and conduct themselves when they publicly pray and prophesy (preach). Obviously women were active in sacred functions as well as having other responsibilities as leaders of house churches. Therefore 1 Corinthians 14 cannot be harmonized with chapter 11. Which word authoritatively bears God's word to us? At least we can see that there was a practice of women as ecclesial leaders that is not criticized by Paul. Meanwhile, the traditional view had not disappeared, and 1 Timothy reflects this, though even there the writer merely says "I permit," suggesting that this may be a personal decision rather than an apostolic imperative for all time.

If this attention to small linguistic details cannot satisfy us that there is a convincing univocality to the Scriptures, we must admit that the NT has mixed messages regarding ecclesial leadership by women. There are instances of the new thing (that in Christ there is neither male nor female) as well as old-style "men only" rules. With this lack of univocality, our practice of ordaining women can be justified from the Word as permitted by precedence and recommended by the new trajectory that seems to have arisen from the advent of the gospel.

In sum, while the church has changed its view of slavery and of women's roles, it has not done so contrary to an unambiguous word from the Lord not to do so.

The twenty-first century is different. There is another way of questioning whether the Bible can be a norm for us, even before looking at texts, and that is to observe that the world has changed much in twenty centuries. We may have new situations that the Bible does not speak to because it could not anticipate them, such as guidance on how to vote in a republic.

Two points answer this question when applied specifically to the matter of whether God allows same-sex sexual acts. The first is to note that one of the characteristics of the twenty-first century is extreme sexual license. Sexual intercourse is rampant among teenagers. Couples to be wed routinely engage in intercourse long before the wedding. As part of the same cultural wave, abortion and divorce are common. The point is that such an era, when there is scarcely any sexual restraint to be found, is the worst time to consider formally liberalizing the culture's or church's sexual ethic, because in the imbalance of these days almost any sexual sin will look mainstream and normal.

The second point is to examine the revisionist argument about this century. It has two forms. One, the historical-critical, claims that the Bible objects only to the kinds of homosexual relationships it knew at that time (cultic, exploitative, commercial, or adult male with adolescent male). The other form, the textual, says that because the Bible does not specify what kinds of homosexual relations are wrong, we cannot be sure that it objects to the modern kind of loving, committed relationship.

The first form of argument imports reasons why same-sex sexual acts would be rejected. But, as the second points out, the Bible never gives reasons beyond the thing itself. It does not reject this or that kind of homosexual relation. It does not give reasons why one kind would be wrong (so that, possibly, some other kind would be okay). The condemnation is always general.

This answers the second form of the argument, which claims that because the Bible does not specifically reject the modern, loving form of homosexuality, how do we know that the Bible does reject it? Answer: because it simply, constantly rejects all forms of homosexuality. The Bible says that a same-sex sexual act is wrong and says nothing about its being redeemed by any particular emotional context.

There is even a biblical text that can help us to see this. In 1 Corinthians 5 Paul objects vigorously because a man is having sexual relations with his (presumably widowed) stepmother. Why is Paul critical? Is it because that relationship is not consensual, loving, and committed? Because it is commercial or cultic or exploitative? It may or may not be. We do not know, because Paul does not say, and this omission is the most interesting part. That particular sexual relation is wrong in itself--just plain wrong ("not even the Gentiles do such!"). The psycho-emotional relationship in which it may take place is simply beside the point.

Biblical texts

Actually, now that we finally come to the biblical texts there is little that needs to be added. As the most honest revisionists admit, the Bible has nothing good to say about homosexual sexual acts. The only arguments, which we have already reviewed, are not about interpreting the texts but advocate setting them aside entirely.

However, there are a few points to be made. First, is the OT prohibition of same-sex sexual acts merely for Israel or, as part of the law of human nature, valid for all people? What is "natural"? Luther's argument refers to the phenomenon Paul describes in Rom 2:14, when the nations act according to the law even though they don't have (from Moses) the law. It is not a matter of an individual's "natural" or innate urges or desires. By that definition vengeance is "natural"--it is present in all cultures. So are adultery and oppression of foreigners and violence "natural" in that sense. But this is not natural law but natural lawlessness! That humans have a will and desire for these does not make them compatible with natural law. To the contrary: all societies seek to restrict vengeance, adultery, and violence--just because they are common instincts, which all societies reckon are not good. This is Luther's sense of natural law. So, when revisionists say that what is natural for heterosexuals is not natural for the homosexually oriented, that is not the sense of "natural" that is relevant here, that Luther means in his argument.

Second, neither is it true to say that because homosexual orientation or desire is not sought but a given, probably even innate, it is then created by God and can be gratified without sin. Human nature is a great thing, so fine a work of God that he took it on personally in Jesus Christ. But human nature in all other cases but Jesus Christ is always corrupt. So we confidently tell people the Lord made them with personal care (Psalm 139). And we also confess that we are born infected, and only through death and resurrection will our purity be regained.

Third, even if homosexual desire is innate, the physical act of same-sex sexual acts is not natural in the plain anatomical facts.

So, just as an orientation toward anger or greed or domination does not justify the acting out of such an orientation without further reason, neither does orientation toward an otherwise forbidden sexual act legitimate it. Same-sex sexual acts cannot be defended as in harmony with natural law based on the givenness of homosexual orientation.

Answering the question "What is natural?" can be approached in another way. The Ten Commandments, except the Sabbath law, are found nearly universally in human societies diverse in space and time and so are taken to be natural law for all humans. On the same basis, because condemnation of same-sex sexual acts is, though not completely universal in human history, nearly so and vehement, this strongly suggests that that condemnation is also part of the law of human nature.

We are spared the need to calculate whether or not the prohibition of same-sex sexual acts is only Israelite law or natural law. Where the NT abolishes OT prohibitions they do not bind Christians. And where the NT explicitly carries them forward, they do. The NT clearly sets aside laws for diet (Mark 7:19), Sabbath (Rom 14:5-6), and separation from Gentiles (Acts 10:28). But sexual taboos are rigidly up-held: only between husband and wife are sexual acts legitimate.

There is a persuasive argument in "Background Essay on Biblical Texts for 'Journey Together Faithfully, Part Two: The Church and Homosexuality,'" edited by Arland Hultgren and Walter F. Taylor Jr., p. 15. It says that arsenokoitai (1 Cor 6:9-11) is a word that does not occur prior to Paul (NT scholars say it may even be of his own coinage). It appears to be made from the two words in the Septuagint for "male" (arsenos) and "lie" (koite) in Lev 18:22 and 20:13. This makes it probable that not only is the OT proscription of same-sex sexual acts carried forward into the NT but that these very verses are taken as authoritative for all people.

Conclusion

While feelings and experiences of gays and lesbians need to be seriously considered in our attempt to determine God's will in this, it is scarcely necessary to describe the theological disaster if feelings are the only or even the dominant factor in our deliberations.

There are many, many arguments to consider and contentions to examine. This question is not simple at the beginning of consideration. But, now that we have done the hard work of considering the arguments, in the end it is quite simple. We have on the one hand the desires of some people--dear Christian brothers and sisters and genuine sexual desires, to be sure. In opposition to that are, first, the nearly universal repugnance toward same-sex sexual acts of humanity both around the world today and throughout time; second, the anatomical given that penises and vaginas are meant for each other; and third, in addition to these items from the book of creation, there is the book of revelation, the Bible, whose rejection of same-sex sexual acts is constant.

Todd Murken

Calvary Lutheran Church

Green Bay, Wisconsin

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