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The ecclesiastical landscape of Canada will change significantly if The United Church of Canada adopts the recommendations of its National Coordinating Group for the Programme of Study and Dialogue on Sexual Orientations, Lifestyles and Ministry. The report is to be considered by the delegates to the General Council meeting in Victoria, B.C. in August 1988, and disposition of the report will have implications not only for the United Church but also for the wider Christian community in Canada.
The recommendations, not yet the official policy of the United Church of Canada, affirm that “there is a variety of sexual orientations: homosexual, bisexual, and heterosexual.” The report affirms “the acceptance of all human beings as persons made in the image of God regardless of their sexual orientations.” It is acknowledged that “heterosexual, gay, and lesbian adults can engage in sexual behaviour within a committed relationship with the intention of permanence that is morally responsible. The standards for discerning whether sexual behaviour is morally responsible are the same irrespective of orientation or marital status.” The report asks the United Church of Canada to “affirm that sexual orientation in and of itself is not a barrier to participation in all aspects of the life and ministry of the Church, including the order of ministry.”
While the report has polarized the United Church as never before, the mounting opposition to the report has developed across theological lines. The United Church Renewal Fellowship is only a small part of a much larger movement against the report. It is to be hoped that this groundswell at congregational and presbytery levels will win the day, not simply because it represents the majority opinion of the United Church, but because it is seeking to call the United Church back to the Word of God. Dr. Victor Shepherd’s article, printed elsewhere in this issue, represents the kind of careful biblical theological critique of the report which is being put forward.
But what are the implications for Presbyterians in Canada? A friend of mine commented, tongue-in-cheek, that if many leave the United Church over this crisis we Presbyterians in Canada may yet double our membership in the eighties before the decade closes! But this issue is of far greater importance than denominational self-interest. We do well to think and pray humbly for our brothers and sisters in Christ in the United Church, and to be reminded of our own Reformed position in order that we may stand firm.
Questionable Theological Presuppositions
Perhaps the most disturbing aspects of the report are the theological presuppositions. In arriving at its conclusions, the National Coordinating Group “relied on an interaction between Scripture, tradition, experience and reason,” thereby elevating tradition, experience and reason to an authority equal with Holy Scripture. In reality, the report relies heavily upon human experience and the insights of some psychologists and sociologists with scant attention being paid to the Bible and tradition. This is a method of doing theology highly questionable to those holding a Reformed theological position.
Presbyterians in Canada believe with the Westminster Confession of Faith that the whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for God’s glory, humanity’s salvation, faith and life, is expressly set down in Scripture unto which nothing is to be added, whether by tradition, new revelations, or human experience. Holy Scripture is the infallible rule of faith and practice. Whenever the church gives precedence to the voice of culture, experience, and history over Scripture a radical departure from the counsel of God follows. This is why The Barmen Declaration of 1934 contained this statement in opposition to the German Christians who were reinterpreting the Christian faith in terms of German culture and political life: “Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death.” The church must never listen to the voice of a stranger.
In Living Faith we confess the following:
The Bible has been given to us by the inspiration of God to be the rule of faith and life. It is the standard of all doctrine by which we must test any word that comes to us from church, world, or inner experience. We subject to its judgement all we believe and do. Through the Scriptures the church is bound only to Jesus Christ its King and Head. He is the living Word of God to whom the written word bears witness.
The report’s conclusions and recommendations are based, then, upon highly questionable theological presuppositions, particularly concerning the authority and interpretation of Holy Scripture. In such an approach, human experience and human rights determine God’s revelation. Let us be praying, however, that in studying the report of the United Church’s National Coordinating group people will recognize the need to return to the Bible. And as we seek to address the complex questions of human sexuality in our world today, which we must do, let us do so in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ as he is revealed to us in Holy Scripture.
Presbyterians and Homosexuality
In 1985 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada adopted a report from the Committee on Church Doctrine on the issue of homosexuality and the church. We do well to remind ourselves of the position taken by our own church in the midst of the wider national debate within the United Church.
The 1985 report of the Committee on Church Doctrine sets forth an ethical estimation of homosexual practices from a biblical perspective. It does not attempt to identify the causes of homosexuality or describe homosexual orientation. It does, however, take a clear position on the appropriateness of the Christian community to set forth a biblical estimation of homosexual acts.
The 1985 report surveys the appropriate biblical texts and concludes that while it cannot be said that the Bible very often speaks of homosexual practices, where it does, it speaks of them with disfavour. Further, the Bible frequently celebrates the joys of committed heterosexuality. The voice of the Bible with respect to homosexual practice is therefore quite clear and consistent, and no hermeneutical principle will allow us to ignore this clear word.
The 1985 report of the Committee on Church Doctrine concludes by noting that Christians must not share in the homophobic cruelty so widely practised in our culture, and must oppose all forms of bigotry and hatred. But neither must we accede to the antinomian ethical indifference which often passes for wisdom in our time. We must neither condemn entirely, nor condone. Rather, we are called to proclaim a middle way, to point sinners both homosexual and heterosexual to the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ and to declare before all his unconditional command for holiness.
Thus far in the debate within the United Church very little has been said about the implications of the report for relations with other Christian communions in Canada. Some leaders within the United Church are arguing that their denomination is simply out ahead of everyone else, and other churches will follow their lead. Aside from a certain arrogance implied in this position, it also ignores the reality that almost every mainline denomination in the United States has already dealt with the issue, rejecting the kinds of recommendations put forward in the United Church’s report, and seeking to move on to develop a positive and biblical approach to sexuality, including a ministry to homosexuals.
But what if the report is accepted? Can we any longer recognize the ordained ministry of the United Church as a genuine order of ministry? Will the United Church be apostate? Is it on the verge of heresy? If a schism ensues what are the implications for the Presbyterian Church in Canada’s relations with the United Church? These are deep questions, asked painfully, with wide implications for the Christian church across Canada. But they are questions which are in the minds of many Presbyterians today.
In 1934, just nine years after Church Union, Walter Bryden, the former principal of Knox Church wrote a book called Why I Am A Presbyterian. In it he set forth what he understood to be the mission of the then “continuing” Presbyterian Church in Canada. Its mission, he argued, was to carry forward a Reformed witness to the Gospel of the Judging-Saving Word of God in Jesus Christ across our nation. It may well be that God, in his providence, will use the current crisis within the United Church to refocus our need as Presbyterians to witness faithfully to the Biblical, Reformed, and Evangelical faith entrusted to us.