A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article appears below. John A. Vissers is minister of Vaughan Presbyterian Church, and professor of systematic theology at Ontario Theological Seminary, Toronto, ON. This article was first presented in the West Toronto Presbytery in April, 1994.
This article deals with what Thomas Gillespie, the President of Princeton Theological Seminary, described to me in a recent letter as “the issue” before the church today: homosexual relationships.
To be sure, Section 5 of the Doctrine Committee’s report sets this issue, as it should, within the context of a discussion about marriage and singleness. But let us be clear: the flashpoint of the present discussion in our church and in our culture is homosexuality. Our response to the report as a whole is shaped by our response to the section on homosexual relationships. To suggest otherwise, it seems to me, is naive.
This is so because most of us feel strongly about homosexuality. “Why we feel so strongly about homosexuality depends upon our perception of what the issue is.”1 For some it is simply people. This is an issue of pastoral care and concern. The discussion is not about an abstraction called homosexuality but about living human beings who have a same-sex orientation.2 Such people may be friends, members of our families, colleagues in our work, members of our congregations – indeed they may be us. As a pastor and theological professor, I have ministered to homosexual people, counselled with them, prayed with them, and agonized with them. Within the past year I have wept with parents who were trying to come to terms with the homosexual lifestyle of one of their children. During my tenure on the original sub-committee which drafted the Doctrine Committees report from 1988-91, I spent several hours each week with a close member of my extended family who was gay and dying from AIDS. This is for many a deeply personal and emotionally laden pastoral issue.
For others the issue is one of justice. It is a question of human rights as guaranteed in a liberal democracy. It seems unjust that those with a same-sex preference should be the victims of social and political oppression. The struggle of gays and lesbians, in this perspective, is not unlike that experienced by women and ethnic and racial minorities. This is the view which presently dominates the public discourse of our culture.
For still others the issue is one of morality. The acceptance of same-sex sexual relationships seems to signal the end of a particular moral fabric in our culture. Traditional family values are in decline. Western culture is in the midst of disintegration, and moral relativism is rampant.
At the same time, there are still others for whom this issue is one of scientific knowledge. Current medical and social scientific insights, it is argued, require that we revise our thinking about human sexuality, including the origins and nature and practice of homosexuality.
For some, this issue is predominantly a question of biblical authority. God our creator and redeemer, it is argued, intends sexual relations between men and women to be monogamous, lifelong covenants of marriage. The Bible describes same-sex and extra-marital sexual relations as sinful, and no amount of exegetical malpractice can wash away this fundamental biblical vision of human sexuality.3
And finally, for some this issue is an example of how the church relates to culture. Should the church stand its ground over against the changing sexual mores of the culture, and thereby risk ridicule and irrelevance? Or should the church adjust its own moral vision in order to adapt and minister more effectively to those within the culture?
How do we determine the will of God for our sexuality among the many striking and discordant voices clamouring for our attention?
Please do not misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that these six perspectives are mutually exclusive. Indeed, our conversation is complicated by the matter in which these concerns overlap in our thinking. And I hope none of us is working with the simplistic idea that this is a neat debate between conservatives and liberals.
The issues are broader and deeper. The debate is not neat but messy. What is at issue, it seems to me, is how we as a Christian church construct a theological ethic. And it is precisely at this point that we come to the crux of the issue: as we go about this task how do we discern the voice of God in the midst of the cacophony of voices? How do we determine the will of God for our sexuality among the many striking and discordant voices clamouring for our attention? What will be the orientation and practice of the Presbyterian Church in Canada in a sexual culture?
If the crux of our problem is how to determine the will of God as a church, then the question underneath the questions to which we need an answer on this matter is “What does it mean to be human coram Deo, i.e., before God?” The perspective underneath the perspectives is that of theological anthropology. The crisis underneath the crises is one of faith in God among Presbyterians. Do we really believe in the words of Living Faith that “There is one true God whom to know is life eternal, whom to serve is joy and peace” and that this is determinative for us as human beings in Jesus Christ? Let me explain.
In a very illuminating article in Christian Century last summer called “Can’t stop talking about sex,” John Burgess suggests that the language of sexuality has come to supplant the language of spirituality in our culture. “Sexuality” now serves the same purpose that “soul” did previously. Human beings used to find their identity as spiritual beings created in the image of God. The language of the soul gave us a way to attach significance to being human. It united and integrated the various aspects of human identity.
Life after God for many in our culture, however, has meant that another well-spring of human identity had to be located. Enter sexuality. The modern, or if you prefer, postmodern self is the sexual self. For Baby-boomers and Generation X identity and sexuality are inextricably bound together – they are the same. The true human being is the sexual fulfilled self – in whatever arena and by whatever means such sexual gratification may be found.
The Christian community has not been immune from the effects of this cultural shift. Even Presbyterians, Burgess argues, “seem more drawn to the language of sexuality than that of theology – or even of bureaucracy – when they talk about who they are and where they are going.”4 Talking about sex, which is so powerfully experiential, appears to be real and relevant in a way that talking about God does not. Wanting desperately to be relevant, we Presbyterians now talk about sex the way Calvinist forbears used to debate predestination.5
But what is going on here? In short, the problem facing us is our unwillingness to talk about God. The demand that the church should accept homosexual relationships as normative is part and parcel of a larger trend in our culture in which sexuality itself has become determinative for our humanity. And by definition in such a view, being human has very little to do with our relationship to God. A Christian view of what it means to be human is being supplanted by the postmodern sexual self. But to paraphrase Karl Barth, you cannot talk about God by talking about human beings, even sexual human beings, in a loud voice! It was Augustine who said, “If you believe what you like in the gospel and reject what you don’t like; it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.” The crisis of faith which confronts us is one in which we are being asked to believe in ourselves more and more as sexual beings, and in God less and less.
And it is for this simple reason, among others, that I urge the commissioners to the 120th General Assembly in June to adopt the present report of the Church Doctrine Committee: it talks about God. The report talks about what it means to be human in the presence of God. It talks about human sexuality as gift and trust from God. It reminds us that we have been bought with a price and that we are to honour God with our bodies. It reminds us that we have to do at every moment of life, including our sexual activity, with the Triune God. Our bodies are gifts from God, they are members of Christ, and they are the temple of the Holy Spirit.6 The church, therefore, cannot talk about human sexuality without talking about God.
Contrary to what some have argued think, this report does not bind the Presbyterian Church in Canada to some archaic perspective of human sexuality. It binds us instead as Reformed Christians to Jesus Christ, the only King and Head of the Church, in matters of sexual practice. It reminds us as Canadian Presbyterians that the obedience of discipleship embraces all of life, including our sexuality. And as we contemplate our sexuality, it calls us to listen to the God whose word Holy Scripture is. And that God, revealed in Jesus Christ, who speaks by the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures intends sexual relations between men and women to be monogamous, life-long covenants of marriage. Same-sex and extra-marital sexual relations are described as sinful, i.e., contrary to the will of God and the spiritual well-being of humanity.
As difficult as such a confession is in our world today, I believe faithful pastoral ministry with and for those who struggle with homosexuality can only flow from such an affirmation. The adoption of this report, therefore, is only a first step. Pastoral and educational resources must follow. But without such an unequivocal first step we will never be in a position to minister the gospel of Christ compellingly and compassionately in a sexual culture. The report will provide the context and direction for the pastoral care we intend to offer. We must not falter at this critical point. Faithfulness today demands that we adopt the report. Failure to do so will signal not only our unfaithfulness, but our abandonment of all those in the creation, including our homosexual sisters and brothers, who long to be liberated from the bondage and decay of this present world and be brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God (Romans 8:18-27).
Endnotes
- Thomas Gillespie, “Can We Talk About It?,” Princeton Seminary Bulletin, Volume XV Number 1, (1994) p.3. I am indebted to President Gillespie for many of the insights which follow.
- Ibid. p.3.
- Ibid, pp.3-4.
- John P Burgess, “Can’t stop talking about sex,” Christian Century, Volume 110, No.22 (July 28-August 4,1993) pp. 732-734.
- Ibid, p.734.
- St. Louis Statement on Human Sexuality, p. 1.