Reflective

Another major theological point that derives from Genesis 1, and one which I only addressed in passing in my previous post, is that of the image of God within each of us that makes humanity the pinnacle of creation. But what exactly is the image of God? Theologians have speculated and debated over this for millennia without ever reaching a solid consensus. Various attributes of God have been proposed, but in the end it would seem that it's more important for us to know that we are created in God's image than it is for us to understand what that entails.

Some Christians would insist that gender is an integral component of that image. After all, Genesis 1:27 says "God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." The wording of the verse opens the possibility that members of each gender hold a different half of the image of God and that each of us must unite with a member of the opposite sex to fully reflect that image. That is, however, an extrapolation from what the text actually says, and a questionable one at best. In fact, there are four major problems with the assertion that gender is part of the image of God.

First, it makes sexual intercourse a religious activity that draws its participants closer to God. Most of the societies surrounding ancient Israel would have agreed with that assessment; their view of sex as a sacred act is a reason they made it the centerpiece of so many of their temple rituals. But given the almost obsessive amount of attention that the authors of the Old Testament focused on condemning those religions and all of their practices, how likely is it that those same authors would have found common cause with the objects of their ire on such a major theological point?

Second, gender is not a unique trait to humanity; animals possess it as well. Few Christian theologians would argue that the image of God is present in even the most intelligent animals, yet that is precisely what we argue for if we assert that gender is a component of the image of God. And given the reverence that some Pagan religions hold for some (or even all) animals, this would once again muddy the lines that the Old Testament authors were trying to draw.

Third, if male and female must come together to complete the image of God (as they must if gender is integral to that image), then celibacy must necessarily be an inferior state to marriage, if not inherently sinful. Given the high regard that the New Testament authors and the early Church had for the celibate lifestyle, this seems implausible.

Finally, the New Testament authors suggest that gender is primarily a temporal concern. In Matthew 22:30, Jesus says "At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven," and in Galatians 3:28 Paul says that in Christ there is "no male and female." Though these statements fall short of suggesting that gender is meaningless, they do imply that it is of limited importance when it comes to spiritual matters.

Some would argue that Paul was merely establishing spiritual equality for men and women without abolishing gender roles, just as Paul made slaves the spiritual equals of their masters without abolishing the institution of slavery, but that's a separate debate. The point to be made here is that if we accept that race ("Jew nor Greek") and social class ("slave nor free") will be irrelevant in the eternal state, the most consistent conclusion we can reach is that the third pairing in that verse ("male and female") is equally temporal.

Given that one would reasonably expect any aspect of the image of God that resides within us to be as eternal as God is, that creates a dilemma. If marital union completes that image in this lifetime, it's not unreasonable to expect that couples would remain married in the next - and that those who remained 'incomplete' in this life would find a partner of the opposite gender waiting for them in heaven.

And once again, there remains the problem created by the existence of intersexed human beings. Do these individuals reflect the image of God more perfectly than the rest of us, or are they spiritually marred in a way that implies that not all people are equal before God? Can a human surgeon correct any such spiritual deficiency by choosing which gender they will outwardly appear to be? Conversely, does the doctor's knife have the power to distort God's image within a person?

There are many other attributes that one can make a better case for as aspects of the image of God within us, including dominion over God's creation, spiritual immortality, the capacity for rational thought, creativity, and the need for community. And again, the fact that we bear the image of God is more important than the details of what constitutes that image.

So why mention gender in the same verse that confirms we are created in the image of God? Taking the worldview of the ancient peoples Genesis was written for into account, one very revolutionary point stands out: both men and women bear the image of God. Given the inferior status women were relegated to in most ancient cultures, the radical significance of this point cannot be overstated. The idea that women are the spiritual equals of men is accepted even by some Christians who still hold a patriarchal view of the world, but it would have been all but unheard of in Old Testament times.

Does this negate the fact that women are different than men in significant ways, or that there is something special and mysterious about gender? Not at all. But it does help us put things back in perspective by dethroning an idol that many Christians today treat with a reverence that only God Himself deserves.

Every one of us reflects the image of God from a slightly different angle. As such each of us is equally important to our efforts to put together a more complete picture of the One who created us, regardless of gender, talents, spiritual gifts, social class, race, sexual orientation or any other consideration.

How people so vastly different from us could be of equal value to God may be a mystery to some, but perhaps that's for the best; whenever we get ahold of what we think is a moral absolute, we immediately wield it like a club to beat down those who don't conform to our visions of perfection. And that's more disrespectful of the image of God that lies within them than anything they could do to themselves.

Created

The creation account, and particularly Genesis 1, gets a significant amount of attention in modern theology. From the creation/evolution controversy to the debate over human sexuality, few biblical passages get trotted out more frequently for apologetic purposes.

But was the creation account really meant to be taken literally, as most evangelical Christians interpret it? Do the early chapters of Genesis present a History Channel-style account of where humanity and the physical universe came from? Given how far removed we are today from the mindset of the ancient cultures that the Bible was written for, it's far from a given that we can answer either of those questions with a 'yes.'

One item of particular interest to this discussion is the Babylonian creation myth, which displays some striking parallels to the Genesis account. Most scholars believe that the Babylonian account predates the biblical account by several centuries. Conservative Christian scholars who believe Genesis was written first base their assertion primarily on the belief that the Pentateuch was authored by Moses.

Historically speaking it seems more likely that the biblical account was based on the Babylonian account than the other way around, but we can't be absolutely certain which came first. It's also possible that both accounts were conceived separately, based on some older creation myth that existed primarily in oral tradition.

In any case, Genesis 1 takes on a whole new meaning when read as a counterpoint to the pagan myths of the day. Rather than being byproducts of the actions of various warring gods, the world, the sun, the stars and everything else in the universe are shown to be specific, intentional creations of the one true God. Mankind, far from being the slaves and playthings of capricious deities, represents the pinnacle of God's creation.

Viewed in this light, the creation account fulfills a purpose different than the ones we commonly ascribe to it today. It is truthful, inasmuch as it points us away from the false gods of antiquity and toward the one Creator of everything, but it is not necessarily a literal account of how the world came into existence.

Similarly, it's questionable at best whether these passages can be taken as an instruction manual for how God intends for us to order our lives. Advocates point to the fact that Jesus and Paul both reference the creation account in passages related to marriage, while quietly ignoring the fact that Paul also appeals to the creation account in his argument that women should keep their hair long and men should keep theirs short.

"Male and female He created them" (Gen. 1:27) has become a rallying cry for the 'pro-family' movement, but what does it really tell us? Taken in the context laid out above, it reasserts God's role as the creator of everything, including both men and women.

The modern argument that this statement proves that each of us was specifically created to be heterosexual stretches the passage far beyond what its context can support. Not only does it require reading an incredible amount of subtext into a single verse, but it's a demonstrably false statement when extended beyond God's original act of creation.

The primary biblical passage that is used to support the assertion that God specifically designed each of us down to the last genetic marker is Psalm 139:13-16, which speaks of God forming the psalmist in his mother's womb. But do a few lines from a poem, biblical or not, really provide adequate support for what is ultimately a fairly elaborate theological position? It's a comforting passage that speaks to how intimately God knows and loves us, but how literally is it meant to be taken?

Are we really ready to face the ramifications of saying that each of us was directly designed by God? Not only would this mean that God intended for some individuals to be intersexed (in direct contradiction to the conservative reading of Gen. 1:27), but it would make him directly responsible for every genetic anomaly, including a host of physical and mental disabilities and more than a few chronic ailments.

Many Christians would respond by stating that such suboptimal genetic variances are a byproduct of Adam's sin, but that then requires us to adopt a nonliteral reading of Psalm 139:13-16, which in turn removes our support for the assertion that each of us was specifically created to be heterosexual. (One can still argue that heterosexuality was programmed into the original template, but it's an enormous leap from there to the claim that all homosexuals are therefore just repressed heterosexuals who would have turned out straight given better childhood circumstances.)

Of course, the topic of what we attribute to Adam's fall opens up another giant can of worms, so it's probably best for me to put up the "To Be Continued" sign and leave it at that for the moment...

Idealism

I recently came across a statement by a pastor who, although he decries the abominable way that the religious right treats gay people ("abominable" is my paraphrase, but not out of line with his sentiments), nonetheless believes that homosexuality doesn't represent "God's best." I have no problem with his holding to that conviction, given his seemingly authentic regard for us as human beings of equal value in God's eyes (a sentiment that most evangelicals would vocalize agreement with, but that far too few seem to genuinely believe when it comes time to put their faith into action).

But I do have to question the use of the phrase "God's best." I'm a bit reluctant to do so, since many of those who use it are doing so in an effort to steer away from the "us vs. them" mentality that has tainted so much of the church's interactions with the gay community, but it is nonetheless a questionable assertion. This isn't the first time I've challenged the use of this phrase, but I think it's worth revisiting.

The first question we have to ask is whether any of us truly experience God's best in this imperfect world. We can certainly strive for such an ideal, but is it really supposed to be an "all or nothing" proposition, as conservatives strongly imply (consciously or otherwise) when they inject those words into this debate? Why, then, do we not hold people to the standard of "God's best" in other ways?

Can divorce ever be said to represent God's best for anyone's life? Yet the Bible (both Old and New Testaments) allows for divorce in certain situations, most notably infidelity. But if anything less than God's best is sin, then why would God suddenly condone one person's sin as a response to another person's sin? Isn't the lesser of two evils still evil?

Even if one dodges the question by stating that anything the Bible explicitly condones cannot be sin, that doesn't resolve the dilemma. Few rational people would tell a woman whose husband is physically abusive that she should stay with him, yet the Bible doesn't explicitly condone divorce in that situation. That divorce may not represent God's best for either the woman or her husband, but is she truly sinning by separating herself from such an unhealthy situation?

And then there's the issue of slavery. Extremely few Christians alive today or within the last century would have anything positive to say about that institution, yet for many generations Christian slaveholders used the Bible to justify their ownership of other human beings. Modern scholars would argue that Paul and the other biblical authors were meeting people where they were at while pointing toward something better, and that their toleration of a deeply ingrained institution did not represent an endorsement of it.

(They'd also argue that the institution of slavery present in ancient Rome differed greatly from the form it took in the American South, but even though some slaves in Paul's time were only temporarily so, others were born to that station or sold into it at an early age and consigned to live their lives as the property of others.)

So can involuntary slavery ever be argued to represent God's best for any individual? If anything less than God's best is sin, why would Paul have shown any leniency toward slaveholders, however culturally acceptable their practices may have been? When else are the New Testament authors soft on the topic of sin?

For that matter, why wasn't the New Testament more forceful in its declarations that men and women are equal in ability and worth? Sure, Jesus and his apostles were light years ahead of their contemporaries in their treatment of women, but surely a society that treats women as little better than property is far enough removed from "God's best" to warrant a more direct attempt at correction.

Or maybe our error lies in our theology, whether it's in our use of the phrase "God's best" or in our understanding of sin, or both. I don't know. I wish I knew, but I'm far from convinced that those who claim to know actually do.

Maybe the perfection that we demand from others isn't in line with what God requires from them. Perhaps, if we were to focus more of our energy on fulfilling our mandate to self-sacrificially serve others without reservation or condition, a lot of the 'sin' issues that preoccupy so much of our time and energy would resolve themselves in ways we never would have imagined.

Of course, now I'm the one speaking in idealistic terms.

Cause

So how does a person become homosexual? As the existence of intersexed people demonstrates, God's original template for humanity may have been male and female, but since then he's allowed genetic variance to create exceptions to that norm. And sexual identity has proven to be an even more complex issue, as there's no simple "gay gene" to answer the question for us. Recent research does increasingly suggest that genetics plays some role in the development of sexual orientation, but nothing has been found that definitively settles the matter.

On the other end of the spectrum, conservative Christians (at least the ones educated enough to understand that it's not a matter of choice) still generally hold to the idea that same-sex attractions are entirely psychological, most commonly through Elizabeth Moberly's theory of the "defensive detachment."

For my part I can fit my early life experiences into Moberly's model (poor relationship with same-sex parent) well enough that I accepted it without question when I first read it. But even aside from the fact that there are millions of people who don't conform to that stereotype - both gay individuals who had good relationships with their same-sex parent as children and straight people who didn't - there are things that no psychological theory can adequately account for.

Of course, the stock response to such criticism is that it's all in the child's perceptions, and that therefore a boy who's beaten daily by his father can still turn out straight, while one who's deeply loved and affirmed by his dad can still turn out gay, all because of some subconscious misunderstanding on the child's part. Which, of course, can conveniently never be disproven since it's pure speculation and completely untestable.

This utter disregard for the scientific method is one of the reasons that the APA and its sister organizations pay little attention to Moberly's theory and its variants, Exodus and NARTH's cries of "politics" notwithstanding. ("Hello, kettle? This is the pot. You're black.")

It is plausible that same-sex attractions are purely psychological for some individuals. Reparative therapy does reportedly work for a subset of those that have sexual abuse in their backgrounds. For the rest of us? Not so much. And if Moberly's theory was true for everybody (or even the majority), one would expect her solution to work for more than a tiny number of people.

But that still leaves questions unanswered. If I'm gay because I patterned myself after my mother instead of my father, why didn't I develop more effeminate mannerisms? Why have I never had the slightest desire to dress like (much less to actually be) a woman, if I wanted to be just like mom? And could that patterning really be adequate to explain why I've been largely non-aggressive from birth?

Interestingly enough, NARTH has provided an answer to these questions, though not all of its members would endorse my application of their own evidence. In the article Gender Differences Are Real by Frank York, Dr. York refutes the notion promoted by some radical feminists that the differences between male and female are purely societal constructs by arguing first from genetics (the most obvious difference) and then from hormonal differences. He demonstrates how gender-specific behaviors are determined by hormones – testosterone and other androgens in males, estrogen in females – as illustrated by the following example:

At the University of Wisconsin, researchers injected testosterone into unborn female monkeys. Monkeys engage in very sex-stereotyped behavior, according to Stossel; the males are aggressive and fight, while the female monkeys typically groom and nurture the young. When the testosterone-injected females were born, they didn't groom or nurture their children. They fought and behaved like males.

Although the article pays only passing lip service to the ramifications of this point, the conclusion is clear: if gender-normal behavior is dictated by prenatal hormone levels, then gender-abnormal behavior (effeminacy and lack of aggression in males, tomboyish behavior in females) logically has its roots in the same source.

It's a complicated line of study that scientists will no doubt need years to investigate fully, but it shows promise. Most perplexing, perhaps, is the fact that, while hormones have a direct impact on physical development as well as mental (as evidenced by the effects of Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome), most homosexuals are largely indistinguishable from their heterosexual counterparts in physical terms (with the possible exception of brain development).

Some ex-gay proponents have begun to acknowledge the likely role of hormones in the development of sexual orientation, though they would still argue that hormonal (and/or genetic) influences create, at most, an increased propensity toward homosexuality that is still fully dependent on a psychological element (and therefore curable). Whether or not they can come up with a testable theory that's worthy of mainstream consideration remains to be seen.

Ultimately, of course, the question of how people become homosexually oriented is a peripheral issue (albeit a very interesting one). Conservative Christians would continue to regard all gay relationships as unconditionally wrong even if a purely 'natural' (i.e. genetic) cause was found, just as you wouldn't see gay couples splitting up in droves to pursue celibate lifestyles if their attractions were proven to be purely psychological. And both sides would have a valid argument for maintaining their respective positions. In the end, the morality of acting on one's attractions is not dependent on how one came to have those attractions.

Despite that, the question of origin remains a muddy one. It's simple human nature to reach one's conclusions first and then work backwards to tailor the evidence to fit those conclusions, and people on both sides of the aisle are equally likely to do so. Christians, of course, are inclined to defend their bias by arguing that they're working backwards from God's conclusions, but in the end it's just the same old eisegesis in fancier packaging.

Someday, maybe, the picture will become clearer...

Addenda

Following up on a couple of past items:

1. Jim Burroway, author of the Box Turtle Bulletin, has recently completed an in-depth, footnote-for-footnote analysis of Paul Cameron's main propaganda piece. It's not necessarily for the weak of stomach (Cameron paints a deliberately lurid and disgusting picture of gay life), but Jim's carefully and thoroughly researched rebuttal is a must-read for anyone who wants to be fully informed on this issue.

Read all about it here.

How telling is it that a man as thoroughly divorced from the truth as Paul Cameron continues to be quoted so frequently by those who claim to speak for the church?

2. For those interested in the topic of intersexed individuals, I found this helpful article at Answers.com. The issue goes far beyond hermaphrodites.

Of particular interest is the phenomenon known as Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS), which causes individuals possessing male (XY) chromosomes to develop as females. Although infertile, many of these individuals are externally indistinguishable from genetic (XX) females. According to popular rumor, actress Jamie Lee Curtis falls into this category (though to my knowledge this is unconfirmed).

Did God intend for these people to be male? If not, why not, when they have a Y chromosome? If so, how do we as the church treat these individuals? Assuming a person with AIS is attracted to men, can we call this heterosexuality when she herself is genetically male? These aren't just theoretical questions.

Anomalies

One argument I've generally shied away from in the debate over homosexuality is the question of intersexed individuals - people born with both male and female sex organs, as well as those who appear to be one gender but don't fit that gender in terms of their genetic makeup. I've always thought it a relatively weak case to make, since the intersexed make up an extremely small percentage of the population and homosexuals (with very rare exceptions) have the same XX or XY chromosomes as their heterosexual counterparts.

Last year, however, I read a blog piece (which is no longer online, unfortunately) that pointed out some very pertinent questions that the existence of intersexed individuals raise regarding Christian assumptions about gender.

The basic conservative case goes something like this: Genesis teaches us that God created us "male and female," and other biblical passages related to marriage teach that each of us was designed for a heterosexual relationship with a member of the opposite gender. To further reinforce the assertion that homosexuality is something artificially imposed on us during childhood (if it's not in fact a conscious choice), one might turn to Psalm 139:13-16 ("For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb" and so on) as proof that, since God was intimately involved in designing each one of us, he clearly would have made each of us heterosexual.

Without even touching on the mounting evidence that homosexuality is at least partially attributable to genetic influences, that still raises the question: what about the intersexed? If God specifically designated our gender and intended for every individual to conform to specific gender roles, how do we explain the existence of even one intersexed person?

And if intersexed individuals do in fact have a specific gender that God assigned to them, what do we do if the doctor excises the wrong set of sex organs? What if God intended for Jill to be a man, but she's now a woman because Dr. Jones decided it would be easier to snip off her male parts? Would her church stand behind her if she pursued a 'lesbian' relationship or decided to undergo gender reassignment surgery? And all of that doesn't really even begin to touch on the issue of transsexualism, which is yet another bundle of complicated questions.

Is it possible that God isn't as intimately involved in the details of our birth as we assume? The alternative seems to be that he has a direct hand in the existence of genetic anomalies, and I'm not convinced that many Christians are willing to seriously face up to the ramifications of such an idea.

If we, then, acknowledge that the world is a far more complicated place than our tidy categories allow for, what does that do to our efforts to reduce all of life to simple either-or propositions? For my part, it makes me suspicious of anyone on either side of the debate who thinks that such questions have simple, pat answers. I'm far less impressed by a person's skill at throwing proof texts in other people's faces than I am by their ability to display humility and compassion (which is to say I'm impressed far less often than I'd like to be).

If God really intended for life to be simple, it would be.

Perfectionism

I recently came across a statement by Alan Chambers on a discussion about homosexuality at another blog. Alan's position was stated with grace and provided a refreshing contrast to the hostility and general nastiness of most of the conservative posters. At the same time, though, it contained the usual ambiguous promise of "change" coupled with 1 Cor. 6:11 (which, for the last time, does not contain any promises of heterosexuality).

What made his statement noteworthy was this one comment: "I believe it is a sin that God hates MOSTLY because it hurts those who are involved in it. It isn't that homosexuality is so bad; it is that it isn't best. In that light, it falls short of the Creator's intent for sexuality. Good is the enemy of God's best."

What first stands out in that statement is that he would go so far as to use the word "good" in association with "homosexuality" (which is actually a misnomer here, since very few Christians would still support the unbiblical proposition that the orientation itself is sin), even indirectly. It is true that one can see good flowing out of many committed gay relationship, and it's refreshing to hear someone on that side of the debate acknowledge that fact, but nonetheless I suspect that Alan may want to reconsider his choice of terms.

Good, after all, is the word God uses to describe his creation in Genesis 1. In fact, contrary to popular misperception, the Bible never describes Eden as perfect. The assumption of perfection stems largely from the influence that Plato and other Greek philosophers had on early theologians. So if good is, in fact, the enemy of God's best, then we've got a theological dilemma on our hands.

And that still leaves us with a rather problematic term, namely "God's best." Does the Bible really tell us, in encyclopedic fashion, what God's best is for every individual? Assuming, for the moment, that it does, and that one size fits all, it's a pretty safe assumption that Alan would have Genesis 2 in mind as evidence that heterosexual marriage represents "God's best" for everyone.

But does being married to an opposite sex partner automatically mean that a person has found God's best for his or her life? Should an individual with an abusive or chronically neglectful spouse remain in that marriage since leaving would mean abandoning "God's best" for them?

Does it ever represent "God's best" for an individual to marry someone that they've never been attracted to? Real life experience would suggest otherwise; the primary byproduct of most marriages where one spouse is exclusively same-sex attracted is pain and grief for both, even if the homosexual partner remains faithful. Speaking for myself, the idea of marrying a woman sounds more like hell on earth for both me and her than like something God-ordained - not because I dislike women (I have some wonderful female friends), but because, even setting aside the whole issue of having to have sex with her, I'm incapable of bonding with a woman on the deep levels that a heterosexual man could. And this understanding remains despite having spent the majority of my life trying to convince myself that marrying a woman would be a good thing.

Exodus, of course, would advocate that I could "change," even though their most optimistic numbers show that only one third of their participants actually achieve "change" (which is always very nebulously defined and ultimately has far more to do with managing external behavior than with any real shift in one's attractions). All I have to do is want it enough ("name it and claim it," anyone?). But not too much, since wanting it too badly can reportedly sabotage the process as surely as not wanting it badly enough.

So, barring any actual change in my orientation (which is roughly as likely to happen as hitting a jackpot in Vegas), that leaves celibacy. Celibacy can be described as a good thing; it's specifically treated as a positive thing in the New Testament. But we can't call it God's best, since Genesis 2 (in conjunction with numerous other passages) has already defined that for us as heterosexual marriage. And the misery experienced by many (heterosexual as well as homosexual) who have been forced to celibacy testifies to the fact that they aren't experiencing God's best. Which makes sense, since we've already established that "good" is the enemy of "God's best." Thus, while some may be called to celibacy, it doesn't appear to be something that the rest of us should settle for.

Of course, that leaves us with a serious problem: we have an entire group of people who are incapable of experiencing God's best for their lives, and God has shown little interest in making his "best" a possibility for them. Could it be that translating ideals into absolutes creates an "all or nothing" situation in which many will ultimately end up with nothing?

It brings to mind Jesus' illustration of the servant who buried his talent for fear that he might lose it. Yes, he preserved what he had been entrusted with, but his master was not pleased by his inaction. Perhaps, instead of telling people they should put their lives on hold until God comes through with a change he has never actually promised, we should encourage them to make full use of the gifts that he has given them, here and now.

Regardless of where one ultimately stands on the issue of same-sex relationships, the good news of the gospel is God's "yes" to us, not another list of "no's." It's extremely easy to become focused on avoiding and/or overcoming sin to the point of paralysis. Not to excuse or downplay the dangers of sin, but in our preoccupation with the things we shouldn't be doing, we quickly lose sight of the greater requirement of God's law, namely that we freely give of ourselves for the benefit of others. Love carries with it an element of risk, and an emphasis on risk avoidance all too frequently becomes an exercise in love avoidance. How much power might the church have to change the world if it truly loved with abandon?

But back to the subject at hand. I feel like I'm beginning to repeat myself, but it's worth saying again. We rob people of their humanity when we try to impose two-dimensional ethics onto complex issues. While "God's best" is certainly worth holding up as an ideal to be aspired toward, it becomes a tool of death and destruction when wielded as a club against those who have no hope of achieving it.

Perhaps God wasn't just blowing smoke when he gave us two simple rules to live by. Loving God and loving others is necessarily going to look different for different people. And the best way of measuring the quality of a person's love is by examining its byproducts.

Collision

An impressive amount of research has been done by Faris Malik and others into the term eunuch and the various ways it was used in ancient cultures. Malik makes a compelling case for the argument that eunuch (and particularly born eunuch) was commonly used as a euphemism for homosexual in biblical times.

This understanding sheds new light on Matthew 19:21, in which Jesus identifies three types of eunuch (including those "who have been so from birth") who are exempted from the institution of marriage. Some in turn use this to argue that Jesus was endorsing gay relationships, when in fact Jesus' statements don't go nearly that far; the most that can be reasonably drawn from this passage is the conclusion that gay men (and women) should not enter into heterosexual marriages.

And real world experience tends to support this conclusion. Can a marriage work when one partner is exclusively same-sex attracted? Sure, at least in some cases. The most common products of such unions, however, seem to be heartache and divorce. The homosexual spouse's inability to truly desire his or her partner creates difficulties even when both are determined to make the relationship work.

At the same time, however, the Bible presents us with another truth that doesn't quite mesh with this one. As God Himself says in Genesis 2:18, it's not good for a man to be alone. Paul further reinforces this point with his curious statement in 1 Corinthians 7:9: "it is better to marry than to burn." And it is rather curious, given the New Testament's emphasis on self-control and reining in one's passions. Surely, if "all things are possible" with God, then Paul could simply counsel those who lack self-control to ask God to provide them with enough for them to live celibately. But he doesn't. And so we see that, when two truths collide, they resolve in different ways for different individuals.

So where, then, does that leave the homosexual who has been counseled not to marry heterosexually but cannot bear the thought of remaining alone? If celibacy is too great a burden for some heterosexuals to bear, then it's incredibly presumptuous to assume that all homosexuals should endure it without question. And it's no less presumptuous to proclaim that any homosexual who isn't cut out for celibacy should marry an opposite-sex partner.

Most conservatives would argue that there is no third alternative, since the Bible "clearly" indicates that all homosexual relationships are unconditionally evil. That conclusion, however, is based primarily on a handful of verses that speak of acts of idolatry, rape, prostitution and selfish exploitation. Ultimately one can only justify universalizing those statements by placing them in the broader context of the Bible's endorsement of heterosexual marriage, and even then it requires making the assumption that the parameters of God's original template carry the force of law in all situations (which in turn leads to other problems that I've examined in previous posts).

If we assume, for the sake of argument, that the church's traditional position (all same-sex relationships are wrong) is correct, that leaves us with three truths that conflict with each other: homosexuals are forbidden from entering same-sex relationships, and it's not good for them to enter opposite-sex relationships, yet it's not good for them to remain alone. Within the two-dimensional plane that Christian ethics are usually consigned to, there's no way to reconcile these three truths without reducing one to a subordinate position. And that's precisely what has happened:

For those who believe that same-sex relationships are morally acceptable, there is no conflict. Everyone is free to search for and marry a partner that they're sexually attracted to, regardless of gender.

The Catholic position (which is also held by some in other denominations) states that all homosexuals are called to celibacy, without exception. Individuals in this group would advocate that it is in fact better to burn than to marry where homosexuals are concerned.

The Exodus position takes a different stance by acknowledging that celibacy is not an equally healthy state for everyone. Exodus' conclusion, however, is that heterosexual marriage is feasible for anyone who is unhappy being single. To accommodate this view, proponents define homosexuality as an illusion that can be dispelled through a program of inner healing and gender-normal activities, and rip verses like 1 Corinthians 6:11 out of context to prove that God will transform the orientation of anyone who repents of their same-sex attractions. If an individual's 'natural heterosexuality' fails to manifest itself, then he (or she) obviously did something wrong and is completely to blame for failing to achieve orientation change.

In truth, orientation change is extremely rare except among those who had some degree of bisexual tendencies to begin with. Those that rate as a 6 (exclusively same-sex attracted) on the Kinsey scale may manage to change their behavior to the point of ceasing all sexual activity, but they almost never develop even the slightest degree of heterosexual attraction. Most ex-gay leaders acknowledge this fact nowadays (at least in private), and so they counsel individuals in their programs either to live celibately or to enter heterosexual marriage anyway.

But can we really say that one of those two options will always be healthy for every same-sex-attracted individual? Many celibate individuals fail to find the joy and contentment that ought to follow committing one's life to God, and many married homosexuals find themselves stuck in miserable marriages (or enduring the pain of divorce). Are we really in a position to say that their unhappiness is their own fault, and if they'd just tried a little harder or prayed a little more everything would work out well for them? Undoubtedly that's true in some cases, but are we sufficiently godlike in our knowledge to be able to state what God's will is for every person's life? What if neither celibacy nor heterosexual marriage are healthy states for some individuals?

Just what do we do when two (or more) biblically-supported truths come into apparent conflict? Do we relativize God's truth by inventing a hierarchy that reconciles the conflict by declaring that some truths are more important than others? Or do we allow God, in His superior wisdom, to reconcile those truths within each individual according to the innumerable factors that make each of us unique?

Fulfillment and Idolatry

It is not good for man to be alone. So said God shortly after He created Adam - and, since Genesis 1-3 was written not as a narrative to explain where we came from, but as a prescription to tell us exactly what everyone's life must look like (or so some theologians would tell us), far be it from me to say anything positive about singleness or any other state of being other than heterosexual marriage. [/sarcasm]

Not that most of us need a biblical command to drive us to seek out our fellow human beings. Our need for companionship is hard wired into the deepest part of our being; even those who genuinely have no desire to get married still have a need for human interaction, to be known, understood and affirmed.

For the rest of us, that need takes the form of longing to find that one person that we can share our lives with - our soulmate, a companion who will be with us through the good and the bad from now until death. Which creates the ultimate catch-22 for those of us unlucky enough to only be attracted to members of our own gender. We possess this God-given drive to seek out a life companion, only to be told by the church that we can never, ever have one (at least not with someone we're actually drawn to beyond the friendship level).

And who knows, maybe it really is for the best. After all, true fulfillment ultimately comes only from God and not from other human beings. Randy Thomas shares, as part of his testimony, a vision God showed him in which Jesus was weeping over the fact that he (Randy) was seeking fulfillment in the arms of another man. I see no reason to question the veracity of his experience, given how limited human relationships are in their ability to meet our needs.

What I do question, however, is the unspoken implication that Randy could have found the level of fulfillment he was seeking in a heterosexual marriage. As any of my married friends would be quite happy to remind me, it's impossible for any one person to meet all of another person's emotional needs. However inappropriate it may be to seek sexual fulfillment outside of one's marriage, it's entirely appropriate (and important) to have other relationships that are intimate in nonsexual ways.

And yet many in the church, both single and married, have an idolatrous view of marriage as the ultimate state of being, without which one can never be a truly whole individual (which is the logical conclusion of viewing Genesis 1-3 as prescriptive rather than descriptive). Is it any wonder, then, that we have a 50% divorce rate within the church when people enter marriage focused on how it will meet their needs instead of on how God wants to use them through that relationship?

So where does that leave those of us that are same-sex attracted? Most ex-gay groups are so caught up in worshiping at the altar of heterosexual marriage that they offer little beyond false hopes of orientation change, and most churches are too prostrate before that same altar to notice what's wrong with that approach. I'd really like to be married, yes (and I say that without any illusions about marriage being some idyllic state), but I don't want to live a lie - and that's exactly what I'd be doing if I bought into the ex-gay notion that I can grow into my natural heterosexuality and tried to marry a woman. So where does that leave us?

Assuming that all gay unions are unconditionally wrong (and that is an assumption, not a given), the real question becomes whether our churches are willing to be the communities they were intended to be and play caretaker to the millions who are being forced to go through life without ever marrying and building a family that could take care of them in their old age. Of course, that would require a lot of Christians to leave their comfort zones by confronting the reality that we really are here and won't be going away anytime soon, which would in turn require them to open their eyes to a world that doesn't fit neatly into prepackaged little black-and-white boxes, which would forever burst their happy little suburban bubbles -- oops, I guess I need to close that sarcasm tag again...

The Implications of Design

I recently heard Joe Dallas speak at a seminar. He's a good speaker, though like so many evangelicals he seems to have reached his conclusions before even beginning to interact with the data.

He did use an analogy that I thought worked pretty well, when he compared sexual promiscuity to fast food. Fast food, though filling, lacks many of the nutrients that a body needs to function healthily; likewise, promiscuous behavior satiates the sex drive for a time but ultimately leaves unmet a person's need for genuine intimacy. Of course Joe would lump all gay relationships in with heterosexual promiscuity, which seems to have more to do with his pre-drawn conclusions than it does with any actual evidence, but in terms of promiscuity (on either side of the aisle) his analogy works well enough.

Of course, it also works pretty well as a case for categorizing the consumption of fast food as sin. After all, God designed our bodies to work a certain way, and that design extends well beyond the sexual aspects of our being. Sexual sin may get considerably more attention in the Bible, but then again how much attention can we expect people to pay to nutrition in an era when most people lived at (or just slightly above) subsistence level? When the New Testament authors declared that all food was 'clean,' they were commenting on the Old Testament's purity laws, not on whether all foods were equally beneficial to one's physical health.

Our bodies, after all, are temples of the Holy Spirit, and as such we have a moral duty to treat them properly and with respect; to do otherwise can only be sin. And what are some of the ways in which we sin on a habitual basis?

-We routinely consume 'junk' foods (chips, burgers & fries, soda pop, candy bars, etc.) in large quantities, even though these substances are largely or entirely devoid of nutritional value and are a major source of many of the health problems our society faces today (heart disease, obesity, diabetes and a host of other illnesses).

-We spend our days sitting at desks, driving cars, watching TV and otherwise being largely inactive for hours or days at a time. Our bodies need the daily workout that comes from frequent walking and physical labor, and few of us adequately make up for it through our leisure activities.

-We fly around the globe on a regular basis, traveling distances in hours that used to take weeks or months to cover. As miraculous as this ability is, the sudden change in time zones is disruptive to our bodies’ internal clocks and deleterious to our health. We can bounce back quickly enough from the occasional long-distance flight, but those who travel those distances on a routine basis risk damaging their health in a very real way.

-We deprive our bodies of sleep, getting to bed late and then forcing ourselves to get up before we’re fully rested, and then we make up for that deficit by jolting our bodies awake with caffeine. Even if we sleep in on the weekend we never fully make up for that lost time.

-We fill our minds with an overload of information on a daily basis through television, radio, newspapers and magazines, and now the internet. As a result we seldom take the time we really need to pause and reflect on all of this new data.

-We treat every ailment by reaching for the latest pharmaceutical drug, going for the 'quick fix' instead of giving our bodies what they need to heal themselves. What we gain in short-term relief we more than pay for in long-term side effects.

-Our environment is filled with toxins: air pollution, pesticides, heavy metals, preservatives, artificial sweeteners, synthetic hormones and many other unnatural substances. Over time these things build up in our bodies and cause (or compound) a host of health problems.

Our bodies are wondrously designed to tolerate and compensate for such things, within limits, but when they become part of our regular lifestyle, we eventually overwhelm the body's ability to protect itself.

One can argue that the above activities are not specifically prohibited by the Bible while same-sex relationships (allegedly) are, but all the same we are polluting God’s temples with each one of them. The damage we do to our physical bodies spills over into our mental and emotional states and ultimately limits our effectiveness for God’s work. How can we not categorize such neglect as sin?

The design argument cuts both ways. If God's standards hold us to acting only within the strict parameters of His original, ideal design for our bodies, how can we say that this standard doesn't apply across the board? What makes us think we can compartmentalize activities whose effects spill out into every aspect of our lives? What makes us think that a God of absolute purity wouldn't care about all the ways we pollute our physical bodies?

Of course, such a call for holiness wouldn't go over very well in most churches...

Gift Giving

Perhaps this is more of a commentary on me than it is on the topic at hand, but it drives me crazy when people talk about homosexuality being wrong because it misuses "God's gift of sexuality." I suppose in theory it's simple enough: all I have to do to make use of this great gift is marry a woman.

So does it matter that I've never been attracted to a member of the female gender? Or should I take the plunge anyway and marry someone I'm not really interested in having sex with? If that's the case, it sounds like sex is something more akin to a chore than a gift. ("Happy birthday, honey, I bought you a new ironing board!" Moments later, the clang of a frying pan connecting with a human skull can be heard...)

And if I'm called to celibacy even though that's not one of my spiritual gifts, is my sex drive really a blessing or just another burden to be endured as I travel the road to my eternal reward? Yeah, yeah, I have the 'privilege' of learning how to sublimate my sex drive by channeling it into other pursuits. God save us all from such 'privileges.'

It's kind of like a father buying his son a shiny new Jeep and then telling him it can never leave the driveway. I know that's not a perfect analogy, but it's the closest I can come to conveying what an enormous slap in the face it is to call sexuality a gift when there's no realistic possibility that I can ever legitimately use it.

The analogy breaks down, of course, because the father (unless he's the world's biggest sadist) is probably only putting a temporary restriction on the Jeep until his son's driving skills improve. Ah, some would point out, but God doesn't condone heterosexuals having sex outside of marriage, either. True, but there's an ocean of difference between having to refrain for now because you haven't found a spouse yet and having to refrain permanently because your spouse of choice would be the wrong gender.

"Ah," that same group of 'some' would counter again, "but you shouldn't give up on change so quickly. It's a lifelong process, after all." Great, so when I'm 95 and peeing through a catheter, I might be ready for marriage. Woohoo, I can't wait.

That last statement probably sounded dreadfully bitter, so let me clarify that I believe God is a good Father who only gives good gifts. Thus, I'm led to one of the following conclusions:

A) God intends heterosexuality for me and Exodus is simply too clueless to help me get there.
B) There is, in fact, a legitimate context within which I may engage sexually with someone I'm attracted to (i.e. another man).
C) Sexuality should not be viewed as a gift.

I'm leaning toward either B or C here, though I guess I shouldn't rule out any of them just yet.

The Not-So Great Divorce

I've noticed that Christians who resort to the design argument seldom seem to understand the full implications of their position. Focused as they are on the finger they're busy pointing at the "unnatural" actions of gays and lesbians, they're completely blind to the fact that the rest of their fingers are pointing back at them.

God's design, as revealed in Genesis 1-2, cuts both ways.

On the most superficial level, the "anatomy" argument states the obvious fact that male and female sexual organs were designed to fit together, and concludes from this observation that a man and a woman are required in order to use them properly. The logical implication of this conclusion, however, is that all other forms of sexual activity (oral, anal, mutual masturbation and whatever else is possible) are sin, even if done by a married heterosexual couple. The parts just weren't designed to fit together that way, after all.

Even more serious than that, however, is the issue of divorce, which attempts to sunder the sacred bond of marriage. Divorce is allowed by the Bible under certain circumstances (infidelity, abandonment and arguably certain forms of abuse), but remarriage by a divorced individual is unconditionally condemned by no less an authority than Jesus himself.

Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. (Luke 16:18, NIV)

That alone should be enough to settle the matter. Remarriage, after all, violates God's original design (one man plus one woman for life) by introducing a third person into the mix. The first spouse may not be physically present, but as the Apostle Paul points out, the spiritual bond formed through sexual union is broken only by death.

Nevertheless, few churches today treat remarriage as anything worse than two people making the best of an unfortunate situation. You never see Christian activists lobbying for bans or even restrictions on second (or third, fourth, fifth, etc.) marriages; for the most part, they've even largely given up on rolling back "no fault" divorce laws.

And the reason is obvious: remarried couples make up a significant percentage of the average congregation; ostracizing them would empty out the pews of many churches, large and small. Gays, on the other hand, are a small enough minority that their absence is barely noticed at all, and thus the blatant hypocrisy of condemning one group of 'sinners' but not the other becomes a matter of expediency.

So what, if any, justification is there for condoning remarriage following divorce in the face of Jesus' own words against it? Just one: the active presence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of many remarried Christians. Having seen firsthand how God works through and blesses the second marriages of individuals that the letter of the law calls 'adulterers,' I cannot state with any certainty that a divorced person's only legitimate options are reconciliation or lifelong celibacy. Some second marriages probably are blatantly adulterous, but I, for one, am not wise enough to determine where the line should be drawn.

In light of this, what are we to do with gay Christians whose lives and relationships demonstrate that the Holy Spirit is actively at work within them? Even if 1 Cor. 6:9 is referring to all homosexuals (which is far from certain), the fact that some 'adulterers' apparently can inherit the kingdom of God suggests that we may have misinterpreted Paul's intent in that passage.

The letter of the law leads to death. What does it really look like to choose life?

Design

First of all, thanks to everyone who's stopped by so far and given me encouragement (online or off), and thanks to those who have linked my blog to theirs. It's gratifying to learn that I'm not completely insane to ask the questions I've been asking, and to be unsatisfied with the answers that I've found so far.

Partly insane, probably, but sanity is highly overrated anyway.

Anyway, getting to the point of this post, my thoughts keep coming back to the issue of design, seeing how it's one of the central arguments that Christians use when stating that all homosexual behavior is sin. This will most likely end up as a multi-part series, as there's a lot more to consider on this point than most people seem to realize.

I don't doubt that God originally designed us to function heterosexually (that's how procreation occurs, after all), but then again He also didn't design us to be blind, deaf, paraplegic, diabetic, etc. - and yet we wouldn't argue that it's sin to use Braille or hearing aids or wheelchairs or insulin injections. And no, I'm not saying that being gay is equivalent to being handicapped or ill, just making a point about the shortcomings of arguing from design.

In any case, the design argument also needs to take into account the fact that we were designed for companionship, and for intimacy that goes beyond friendship. Which leads me to conclude that one of the following statements must be true:

1) Romantic love is irrelevant to marriage, and physical attraction is not an important factor in the choosing of a spouse.
2) Sexual purity is the highest ideal of all, and therefore lifelong celibacy, though described by the Bible as a voluntary state, can be justly forced on people against their will.
3) Orientation change really is possible for the majority, and Exodus and NARTH are simply so ignorant of how the change process actually works that they have harmed more people than they've helped.
4) God's original design, though it represents an ideal, does not carry the force of law.

Given how heavily the entire design argument rests on the early chapters of Genesis (a narrative, and therefore not necessarily meant to bear the weight of all the law we've built upon it), I'm increasingly inclined to at least consider the validity of #4.

Yes, Jesus and Paul both appeal back to the creation account in reference to sexual matters, but Jesus was primarily concerned with hammering home the point that the Pharisees were not as righteous as they thought they were, and Paul later uses the creation account in his argument that women should keep their hair long (and that men shouldn't). So while conservative theologians have a good basis for making the arguments that they do, they don't have an airtight case.

Ultimately it all seems to come back to what assumptions a person chooses to make. For many, telling them that "God designed you to be heterosexual" is enough for them to conclude that it's wrong to be gay, without ever asking the questions that necessarily follow from the original statement. Did He really specifically make each of us that way, or was that just the original template? Were the opening chapters of Genesis really meant to be treated as law? Is it necessarily immoral to use something for a task other than the one it was primarily designed for? If God is that concerned with every detail of how we use His physical creation, how do we justify the many questionable things we do on a daily basis to this planet and the living things that populate it in the name of progress?

There's a lot more to explore here (and probably a lot more I could do to strengthen what I've already written), but in the interest of actually getting this posted sometime before Christmas I'll leave the rest of that to simmer for now.