Wesleyan Philosophy 5c -- Gender and Sexual Ethics, Part 2

Last week I attempted to sketch out the general contours of a biblically-based, Wesleyan sense of sexual ethics. This week we dive into even deeper waters. Here are some reflections as part of the ongoing conversation of the church. I am not the church, just a voice in the choir.

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Homosexuality
Truth versus Relationships
I start here where I started the previous post on sexual ethics. There is a distinction between truths regarding LGBTQ questions and our relationships with individuals. This dynamic can cut both ways. 

If something is true, the truth does not change if it troubles someone or even if it causes them problems. I may not like that I am going to go splat when I fall off a tall building, but the concrete doesn't care. There is a distinction between truth and the impact of that truth (no pun intended). Similarly, I can be right on a truth and morally wrong in how I treat others in relation to that truth. It is not Christ-like to berate, beat up, oppress, or mock someone who has a different conclusion than I do or who struggles with something I don't struggle with. There are individuals who love God and the Bible who have sincerely come to differing biblical conclusions. The truth is never an excuse for hate.

The former president of a Wesleyan college used to say that the college "welcomed" gay students while not "affirming" a homosexual lifestyle ("welcoming but not affirming"). Although I believe this is the Wesleyan position, that president understandably got hit from both sides. One side objected to the idea of welcoming sin, while she meant welcoming people. The other side objected to not affirming people, while she meant not affirming sin.

In the end, it is unclear whether most evangelical colleges could actually be welcoming to individuals who are attracted to the same sex. Even if an administration could walk that fine line of welcoming but not affirming, even if you could get all the faculty and staff to walk that fine line, it is unclear that you could get all the students on campus to do so. This is a dilemma for Wesleyan schools. I suspect that we are generally not pleasant environments for Christian young people who are processing these issues at the same time that we presumably want to be.

Activity versus Orientation
We all operate with "paradigms" of which we are generally not aware until we encounter others who operate with different ones. A recent paradigm of "Western" culture is to think of homosexuality in terms of an "orientation." The paradigm divides people into those who are attracted to the same sex ("homosexual") and those who are attracted to the opposite sex ("heterosexual"). I might add that in the 1950s, the psychologist Alfred Kinsey developed a scale from 0 to 6, plotting desire from purely heterosexual to purely homosexual in orientation.

In the last couple of decades, the types have multiplied. A "bisexual" is someone who can experience attraction to both sexes. Then a person may be "transgendered." For example, a biological female may want to identify as a male while being attracted to either males or females. The acronym LGBTQIA+ stands for:

• Lesbian (female attracted to female)
• Gay (older term for someone attracted to the same sex)
• Bisexual (attracted to both sexes)
• Transgender (identifying with a different gender than one's biological sex)
• Queer (generally, different from traditional heterosexual sexuality, not straightforwardly "cisgender" or heterosexual)
• Intersex (someone whose body has both male and female sexual features)
• Asexual (someone who does not really have sexual drives) 
• + (something else)

Suffice it to say, none of these are categories with which the biblical texts operate. Even a hundred years ago, the terms homosexual or gay were not used in these ways in common parlance. A "sodomite" was a pejorative reference to someone who engaged in male homosexual sex. There was really no clear category for a person who was tempted by the same sex but never demonstrated or acted on those desires in any way. 

Similarly, the seven biblical passages that relate directly to homosexual sex seem pretty clearly to be about the act of sex rather than some orientation in the modern sense. Genesis 19 is about an attempted act of rape at Sodom, to which Jude 7 also refers. It would be anachronistic to think of these men as homosexuals in the modern sense. Ancient readers would likely have assumed they had wives and children. They seem like the men of Benjamin in Judges 19 who, after being denied access to do violence to the priest, go on to rape his concubine to death. 

Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 are about men lying with men as men lie with women. Romans 1:26-27 is about the "use" of the same sex instead of the opposite sex--the only text in the Bible that mentions female homosexual sex. All these passages are about homosexual acts. The "passions" of Romans 1:26 are not temptations but passions expressed in sex acts. James 1:15 indicates that temptation itself in general is not yet sin, which is how Jesus could be tempted without sinning.

The word used in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 (arsenokoites) may actually have been coined from Leviticus, although we have no way to know for certain. It appears for the first time in all Greek literature in 1 Corinthians. Its etymology suggests it refers to "male-bedders." The parallel term in 1 Corinthians 6:9 means "soft." A reasonable hypothesis is that arsenokoites refers to the active role in male homosexual sex and malakos to the passive role. This is presumably why the NIV1984 translated malakos as "male prostitute." In the end, we don't really have enough context or background evidence to say for certain what these terms meant exactly. These are educated guesses.

The Bible thus does not condemn someone who would discipline their thoughts by the power of the Holy Spirit (like a heterosexual must) and who would not act on homosexual temptation mentally or physically. It indicts the homosexual act. Matthew 5:28 presumably would apply not only to heterosexual lust but homosexual lust as well. Wesley Hill is a good example of a Bible-believing Christian who is tempted by the same-sex but is committed neither to lust in his heart nor sin with his body. [1]

These seven passages inevitably leave us with many questions of context. Where was homosexual sex practiced in the ancient world? Was prostitution normally involved? Were pagan temples or gods typically involved? Were those who engaged in such sex normally married? These verses took their precise meaning and connotations from a world about which we do not have complete knowledge. [2]

The Core Principle
Some would argue in effect that there are "hidden variables" in the Bible's indictment of same-sex, context that is not clear in the words removed from their background in history. Some argue that these texts are about same-sex rape or perhaps temple prostitution relating to another god. Some argue that these instances of same-sex prohibition assume that adultery was taking place in the act.  

However, if we assume that there is no hidden context, the core underlying principle against homosexual sex in Scripture would seem to be that it is not "the natural use" of men and women's bodies, as Romans 1:26-27 puts it. In effect, human bodies are designed to function in a heterosexual way. The implicit claim would seem to be that humanity is most fulfilled and thrives the most when it acts sexually in accordance with how its bodies were created. Heterosexual sex can fulfill the command to be fruitful and multiply. It has provided social stability in history by containing sex within marriage and commiment. Homosexual sex would thus reflect a world out of order with its design.

I believe it is possible to abstract a Levitical, priestly "theology of kinds" from Leviticus. The world of clean and unclean things in Leviticus is a world of certain "boxes." Mary Douglas once analyzed the Levitical food laws along these lines. [3] Why are things in the sea without fins and scales unclean (Lev. 11:9-10)? Why are things that go on their belly on the land unclean? 

Her answer in part was that these things do not fit their kind. As she put it, "Dirt is matter out of place." It's ok in the yard but not on the carpet.

We see this theology in Genesis 1, which has sometimes been seen as a priestly introduction to the Pentateuch. God creates all the entities of Genesis 1 "according to its kind" (e.g., Gen. 1:11, 21, 24). The birds that are prohibited also seem to be of the predatory kind or the kind that eat already dead prey (Lev. 11:13-19). Some features of health may be going on here, but it seems that much more than health is going on. [4]

So when we look at the prohibition against male-male sex in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, it is quite possible that something similar is going on at least in part. In these situations, men are not joining with the right kind. The New Testament seems in continuity with this underlying thought. Jude 7 may have angelic "flesh" in mind when it speaks of going after "different flesh," but it could also mean flesh different from its appropriate kind. Paul says something similar in Romans 1:26-27. Both women and men exchange the "natural use" of the other sex. [5] 

The inner logic of Leviticus thus may in part be analogous to not wearing clothing of mixed thread or sowing more than one kind of seed in the same field or breeding two different kinds of animals (19:19). However, the word abomination in 20:13 suggests an intensity that goes beyond these other practices that made something unclean. Similarly, the punishment is death, much more severe than your run of the mill unclean. Admittedly, we do not have enough context to know the full dynamics of what is going on here.

The sense of a world out of its intention seems clear also in Romans 1. This passage, probably drawing on the book of Wisdom 13-14, gives a sequence where 1) failure to recognize God as God (1:20-21) leads to 2) idolatry, mistaking idols for the real God (1:23), which devolves into 3) sexual immorality (1:24) and eventually 4) all manner of wickedness (1:28-31). Gentile humanity seems especially in view. Because (Gentile) humanity did not glorify God as God, God let go. God "gives them up" (1:24) and the world spirals out of control.

In this sequence, homosexual sex is an illustration of what happens when the world is out of order, beginning with a failure to recognize God as the all-powerful Creator. In the thought flow of Romans, Paul is setting up a sting operation. Some Jews might love his argument here. They might be thinking, "Yeah, God is going to fry those wicked Gentiles." But he turns the tables in Romans 2. Jews have sinned too. They are no better than Gentile sinners. In effect, "all have sinned and are lacking the glory of God" (3:23).

The inner logic again would seem to be that homosexual sex is an illustration of a world that is out of order. Theologically, this is presumably a world where the love of God and neighbor are not optimized individually or societally.

Transgenderism
The last five years have brought to the fore questions of individuals who do not identify with their biological sex. A gay man may still identify as a male. A lesbian female may still identify as a female. What would we do if a biological male identifies as a female but is still attracted to females? What would we do if a biological female identifies as a male but is still attracted to males? 

At this point we have entered waters that seem almost completely foreign to anything substantially addressed in Scripture. There is a verse, Deuteronomy 22:5--"The articles of a man will not be upon a woman and a man will not wear the garment of a woman, for an abomination to the LORD your God is everyone doing these things." When I was a boy, people used this verse to say that women should not wear anything but dresses and skirts--no slacks or pants because these things "pertained to a man."

Verses like these are obscure one day, then they become focal. This is a function of paradigm shifts. This verse was very significant in my worldview when I was 17. Should I should date a girl that wore jeans? I almost broke up with a girl for my conscience's sake until she removed the issue by only wearing skirts and dresses. Let's just say she eventually (and wisely) broke up with me.

Then the church largely ignored this verse in my 20s, 30s, and 40s, almost making fun of the old holiness people who made a big deal out of an obscure verse in the ceremonial law of the Old Testament. Now it is once again a central verse in our paradigm because of the issue of transgenderism. We should be self-reflective of how easily we make these shifts without a thought. This is how paradigms work. [6]

In my brief memory, there have always been individuals on the edges of the church who have seemed "not to identify" with their biological sex. I remember in particular from time to time a biological male or two who would come to church or camp meeting in woman's clothing. My sense is that people treated them kindly, not quite knowing what to do. I suspect the fact that they were out of the norm was quite obvious to them.

Someone once confided in me that they did not feel comfortable as a man. Their impulse was to begin dressing and living as a woman. The problem is that this person was married and had children. My advice to him was that his love and commitment to his family was more important than what might make him feel most natural, that it would be selfish for him to throw them away for his own sense of self-satisfaction. After all, he was not a bad husband or father.

I do not claim to be inerrant on that advice, although it makes sense to me within my overall sense of love of neighbor over love of self. I frankly do not understand the psychology of transgender individuals. 

"Intersexuality" seems to have an anatomical component. Such individuals would have likely been considered unclean in the Old Testament (cf. Deut. 23:1), but Philip's encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch presumably declares them full participants of the church. Modern science has made possible procedures to remove anatomical ambiguity. "Let each be fully convinced in their own mind" (Rom. 14:5). 

When one's anatomy is not ambiguous, the question of using modern science to change one's sex seems much more serious. I'll confess that this impulse does not seem healthy to me at all. The Wesleyan Church does not consider such procedures appropriate.

If Scripture did more explicitly address these issues, I suspect it would maintain the same train of thought it seems to have in relation to homosexual sex. I suspect it would argue from the "kinds" that correspond to our biological sex. When Scripture is not explicit, our normal instruction is for us to "work out y'alls salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12). The Wesleyan Church has worked out its salvation by deeming transgenderism contrary to God's ideal for human identity and relationships. This position seems to be consistent with our stance on homosexual practice.

God will do what is right. God will sort out the "oughts." My commitment is to love individuals I do not understand. The idea of declaring pronouns is unfamiliar to me. I am simply resolved to be kind to others. God has it all figured out.

[1] Wesley Hill, Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2015).

[2] Some historians have concluded that King James may have engaged in such relationships with two men at his court, even though he had a wife and children.

[3] Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (Routledge, 1966).

[4] We naturally seize on a possible health dimension because it fits our modern worldview better.

[5] Paul makes this argument from what seems "natural" in 1 Corinthians 11:14 when he indicates that nature teaches that a man should not have short hair. There thus seems to be a blurring in his language between what we think of as natural and what is also a matter of what may have cultural elements.

[6] On the issue of women in leadership and ministry, 1 Timothy 2:12 is a verse that is actually quite obscure, and yet it is huge in the word cloud of current debates, out of proportion to its place in the whole counsel of Scripture.