My friends!\u00a0 I am sorry to be submitting this paper later than the others and to be behind the wave on this conversation within our cohort.\u00a0At the same time, in approaching this book and topic, I think that I am also ahead in a certain way.<\/p>\n
I say this, because the topic that we are discussing through this book and online this week (around homosexuality and the Bible) is one that my denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA) (PCUSA) has\u00a0talked to death\u00a0<\/em>over the past 4 decades.\u00a0 In reading through the rest of the posts for this week (since I am late in submitting, I get that advantage!) I notice that many of you also have had long-term conversations in your church tribes about this.\u00a0 For my own denomination, the kinds of questions that are being asked by our book for this week, Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church, <\/em>have been asked for a long time.<\/p>\n In approaching this book, I thought back to numerous others that I have read or encountered over the years.\u00a0\u00a0 These include resources like Homosexuality and Christian Community<\/em>, edited by Choon-Leong Seow, which in the mid-1990s was a selection of writings from various disciplines of the faculty at Princeton Theological Seminary.\u00a0 It also includes more specific and in-depth studies like Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality\u00a0<\/em>by Jack Rogers who was a Presbyterian pastor and professor.<\/p>\n As Dr. Seow writes in his introduction, \u201cTwo general perspectives emerge in these dialogues.\u00a0On the one hand, there are those of us who believe that nothing less than the survival of the faith is at stake\u2026 on the other hand, there are those of us who are equally convinced that the authenticity of the church is in question if it is unchanging and exclusivistic.\u201d<\/a>[1]\u00a0 This essential divide in the minds and hearts of Christ\u2019s people is also clearly summed up by Preston Sprinkle where he writes, \u201cfew topics have become as volatile, confusing, and debated in contemporary religious and political discourse as homosexuality.\u201d<\/a>[2]<\/p>\n It is interesting to me that this book is part of the \u201cCounterpoints\u201d series within Zondervan, in which biblical and theological topics are set up in a \u201cpoint\/counter-point\u201d structure.\u00a0 This probably belies the way that many of us have thought about this topic over the course of our lives.\u00a0 Most thinking Christians are aware that there are fairly different points of view on this, and so positions can be staked out and then defended and enforced.<\/p>\n From my perspective at this point in my life and journey with questions about homosexuality and scripture, I have two main takeaways.\u00a0 First, I know that there is a diversity of views within churches across the spectrum and many faithful people will disagree about what the \u201cright\u201d answer will be.\u00a0 This book may be helpful to some who are in one \u201ccamp\u201d or another, but more than likely it is simply describing the contours of differences that run really deep.<\/p>\n This book seeks to describe a diversity of views, but as Dr. Clark expressed in our Zoom call (again, the perverse advantage of writing after the fact), this is largely a debate within the Evangelical church, rather than within the whole Christian community at this point.\u00a0 Mainline churches and denominations like my own have moved on from this fractured discussion and I am thankful for that.<\/p>\n For the PCUSA, we ratified the possibility of ordination for Deacons, Elders, and Pastors within our churches in 2011.\u00a0 As one national leader said at the time,\u201cWe\u2019ve been having this conversation for 33 years, and some people are ready to get to the other side of this decision\u2026 Some people are going to celebrate this day because they\u2019ve worked for it for a long time, and some people will mourn this day because they think it\u2019s a totally different understanding of Scripture than they have.\u201d<\/a>[3]<\/p>\n This change then led to the 2015 decision to allow Presbyterian pastors to perform same-sex marriages in states where that is legally permitted (and where the church and pastor want to perform such unions).<\/a>[4]<\/p>\n With that being the recent history of my denomination, this book and the discussion around the topic brought me back in time, to alllllllllll those earnest conversations along the way.\u00a0 If my first takeaway from the question of homosexuality and Christian faith is that there is a variety of opinion, my second takeaway is that I believe people of good heart and conscience can disagree on this matter and still stay together.\u00a0While it caused a significant schism within my denomination, it had a much smaller effect on my local congregation.\u00a0Part of the reason for this is that we have covenanted together to be a unified church, even in the midst of differences over this particular issue.<\/p>\n These days, I am praying for my sisters and brothers in the United Methodist Church as they continue to wrestle quite publically with this question.\u00a0 At the same time, I do not pine in the least bit for \u201cthe old days\u201d, when this issue dominated nearly every gathering of Presbyterian leaders.\u00a0In many ways our church has moved on from this discussion, and the question now is, \u201cwhat kind of future does God have for our church?\u201d\u00a0 What kinds of issues will we spend our time and energy on?\u00a0 Will we find new ways to relate to our communities and the people in our churches?\u00a0 How will we follow God into a future that is different from the past, and yet, we believe a future that still holds hope\u2014even for a bunch of Presbyterians!<\/p>\n <\/a>[1]Choon-Leong Seow et al,\u00a0Homosexuality and Christian Community<\/em>\u00a0(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), vii-ix.<\/p>\n <\/a>[2]Preston M. Sprinkle et al.,\u00a0Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church<\/em>, Counterpoints: Bible and Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016), 9.<\/p>\n <\/a>[3]Laurie Goodstein, \u201cPresbyterians Approve Ordination of Gay People,\u201d\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, May 10, 2011,\u00a0https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/05\/11\/us\/11presbyterian.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n