Homosexuality
and Biblical Authority
by Russell Stannard
An edited version of a sermon delivered
at St Barnabas Church, Linslade, 20th July 2003
The Church of England has gone
through a difficult time over the proposal to appoint Canon Jeffrey John as
Bishop of Reading. There was the opposition expressed on account of his homosexuality,
and final withdrawal under pressure to maintain church unity. Adherents to
both sides of the argument have doubtless acted throughout from the best of
motives, trying genuinely to discern God's will in this matter, and in doing
so have made use of the Bible.
The opposition to the appointment was largely based on scripture: a verse
in Leviticus that clearly condemns homosexual acts between two men - a view
backed by St Paul. Those in favour of the appointment directed their attention
instead to the teachings of Jesus. Jesus is not reported to have expressed
any view about homosexuality. But inasmuch as his teachings were centred on
the fostering of love, it was argued, he would have been in favour of love
in all its forms - including love between members of the same sex. The eventual
declining of the appointment can be traced to Jesus's instruction to his followers
that they should be one even as he and his Heavenly Father are one.
All of which raises the question of the nature of Biblical authority - how
the Bible is to be used, not only in this specific case, but as a guide to
life in general.
In the past, supreme authority rested with the Pope. At the time at which
the protestants were breaking away from the rule of Rome, they rejected papal
authority and instead declared that they recognised only the authority of
the Bible. Those remaining loyal to Rome were at pains to assert that
they too accepted the Bible as an authority. The rival factions competed with
each other as to who reverenced scripture the most. At the Council of Trent
(1546), the Roman Catholic position was made clear in a decree that announced
that God was the 'author' of the Bible, its writing having been produced 'at
the dictation of the Holy Spirit'. The protestants, led by Martin Luther,
not to be outdone, went along with much the same view. This total acceptance
of the Bible being the very word of God still has many advocates today. When
objections were raised to Canon Jeffrey John's appointment on the grounds
that there was this verse in Leviticus, this was done in the belief that this
was a command directly from God.
The idea of direct dictation by the Holy Spirit might appear acceptable when
considering a verse in isolation, but becomes difficult to sustain once one
compares one part of the Bible with another. Worrying inconsistencies are
exposed. It seems that God in dictating some words to one writer has forgotten
what he previously told another! In view of this, the Second Vatican Council
(1965) amended the earlier Council of Trent teaching to speak of the biblical
authors writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, not at the
dictation of the Spirit. It went on to say '...the interpreter of sacred Scripture,
in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully
investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God
wanted to manifest by means of their words...'
Despite this change of understanding, many today still insist on a straightforward,
literal interpretation of each verse of the Bible as a direct command from
God, and try to live by it.
Or do they? What about another verse in Leviticus: the one that bans the cutting
of hair on the sides of the head. No short back-and-sides! Mothers, have you
obeyed the injunction that on the 66th day after you have given birth you
are to offer up a one-year old lamb and a pigeon or dove as a sin offering
to atone for the impurity you have incurred through child birth? What of the
eating restrictions, forbidding, for example, meat that has blood in it? The
Bible condemns usury - the payment of interest on loans. Have you tried getting
a loan from a building society while declaring that it is against God's command
for you to pay the interest charges? And so one could go on pointing out how
all of us, without exception, pick and choose which verses of the Bible we
shall take seriously - and which to ignore.
And for good reason. We have to recognize that conditions change over time;
knowledge and understanding progressively increase. What seemed reasonable
two to three thousand years ago might not seem so now. For instance, in those
days any talk of interest payments would inevitably have conjured up a mental
picture of grasping money lenders exacting extortionate payments from their
victims who were being ruined in the process. God remains against loan sharks
and the exploitation of the poor - from which it does not follow that he is
also against the modern-day building society.
What about that verse banning homosexuality? Whoever wrote it was subject
to whatever understanding people had at that time as to the nature of homosexual
acts. What was clear to them, from the Adam and Eve story, was that the normal
relationship should be between a man and a woman. Common sense says that heterosexual
relations are vital; each person owes their very existence to the heterosexual
relationship between their parents - never to a homosexual one. The continuance
of the human race itself depends on heterosexual relations. If everyone were
heterosexual, fine; if everyone were suddenly to become homosexual, the race
would be wiped out in a generation. With heterosexual relations thus being
the norm, it was but a short step to regard anything else as abnormal and
unnatural. Why did people engage in such acts? Presumably because they were
perversely experimenting with alternative ways of getting a sexual thrill
- despite being perfectly capable of having normal heterosexual relations
like everyone else. If that was how they understood homosexuality in those
days, then one can fully appreciate why they were opposed to the spread of
such behaviour - why such acts would be regarded as against the will of God.
Today, however, we have a greater understanding of homosexuality. We now recognize
that - for whatever reason, nature or nurture, it is not entirely clear -
for certain people heterosexual relations are not natural - not for
them. Rather, they are instinctively drawn to members of their own
sex. They are not thrill-seeking perverts perfectly capable of otherwise having
'normal' relations. Love of someone of the same sex is the only kind
of sexually expressed love open to them. In the light of this new understanding,
perhaps that biblical teaching regarding homosexuality needs to be re-thought.
Another command in the Old Testament is that anyone committing adultery should
be taken out and stoned to death. I doubt that even the most zealous exponent
of the view that we should live by every word of the Bible would today be
in favour of reinstating that penalty. So how does one justify setting aside
that supposed command from God?
Easy. We point to the story in the New Testament of the woman caught in the
act of adultery being brought before Jesus. The teachers of the Law and the
Pharisees point out that the Law, as set down in Scripture, requires that
she should be stoned to death. They ask Jesus what he has to say on the subject
- obviously trying to find a pretext for discrediting Jesus as someone
who rejects the commands of God. We know how Jesus replied. 'Let him who is
without sin be the first to cast a stone.' And that was the end of the matter.
With no-one able to claim that they were sinless, there was no-one qualified
to carry out the sentence. And this would, of course, always be the case;
there would never arise an occasion when anyone could be put to death.
The interesting thing about this story is that nowhere in the Old Testament
does it say anything about the need for the executioners to be sinless; it
just says that the adulterer must be taken out and stoned to death. This requirement
of sinlessness on the part of the executioner was a condition that Jesus himself
added. He was being clever. It was his way of rendering the command inoperable,
without himself getting into trouble with the authorities. In effect he was
saying that he did not believe the woman should be stoned to death as required
by the law.
And so it is we might ask how Jesus would have reacted if the people had brought
before him, not an adulterous woman, but a man caught committing a homosexual
act. We can immediately conclude that he would not want the man to be punished,
any more than he wanted the woman punished. But would he have then gone on
to say to him, as he said to the woman: 'Go now and sin no more.' It is clear
why Jesus regarded the woman's act as a sin. By committing adultery she was
deliberately damaging the loving relationship she ought to have been promoting
with her husband; her act went against Jesus's teaching regarding the fostering
of love. But what of the homosexual? How did his act damage any other loving
relationship? And if it did not, in what sense was his act sinful?
Each of us has to make up his or her own mind as to how we think Jesus would
have reacted in such a situation. But one thing is certain. As Christians
we believe Christ to be the purest revelation of God - the very Son of God.
In his time on Earth, he took to task the Pharisees for their blind, automatic
adherence to the strict letter of the Law. Instead he raised the principle
of Love to be the touchstone by which all our attitudes, actions and decisions
are to be judged. As followers of Christ, it is incumbent upon us to address
each issue, and each biblical text, as far as we can, through the mind and
heart of Christ.