Many of our readers have probably heard of Matthew Vines, who released a video earlier this year arguing for a revisionist understanding of Scripture on the morality of same-sex sexual activity. The video has gained a lot of attention—over 400,000 views—and he has also recently been profiled in the NYT.
Today, in First Things: On the Square, I offer a response, which can be found here.
For almost 20 centuries, there was little controversy over Christian teaching about homosexuality. For the last few decades, there has been an extraordinary amount of controversy. How should Christians respond to this changing situation?
The core truths of the Gospel never change (Hebrews 13:8). However, each generation of Christians faces its own challenges in sharing the good news of God’s love. Different cultures ask different questions and require different approaches to preaching.
The Christian Post has recently published an interview with Matthew Vines, a response from various Christian theologians, and a series of brief personal essays. Here is my response:
Yesterday, the Gospel Coalition blog posted an article by Jeff Buchanan of Exodus called “The New Sexual Identity Crisis.”
Today, Matt Anderson (of MereOrthodoxy) blogged about “The Trouble with Talking about Our ‘Identity in Christ.'”
I agree with Matt that there is a lot of confusion surrounding use of the term “identity.” I want to address this issue in more depth at some point, but I don’t have the time these days. So I will just throw out a couple of (relatively) brief observations.
Last summer, the Commission for Doctrine of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops released a document on “Pastoral Ministry to Young People with Same-Sex Attraction” (pdf).
Various positive things could be said about the document. However, I want to draw attention to a fairly serious problem with the document itself, which reflects a much broader problem in the Church’s response to the sexual revolution in general. (To be clear, I am addressing only the manner in which the Bishops present the Church’s teaching: am not questioning the content of the teaching itself.)
There has been a fair amount of response to my recent piece in First Things. Much of it is positive: the responses by Elizabeth Scalia, by Rod Dreher, and most of all by those who know me are particularly laudatory. There has also been a good deal of negative response, and some of my friends have taken up the task of coming to my defense with a courage that can only be described as heroic (you know who you are). Unfortunately, such tasks tend to be endless, as the problematic attitudes are often very deeply entrenched, and people have expressed frustration over this. While beautiful cracks seem to be appearing, there is still much to be done, and I would be surprised if this problem (or any other problem in the Church or society) is entirely resolved in my lifetime.
Most of my early experiences with discussing LGBT issues in a Christian context came from discussions on the Bridges Across the Divide e-mail lists and web forums.
The following is from “How We Agree,” which was the organization’s charter statement, written by Bob Buehler and the Bridges-Across Working Group in August of 1997. I think it still provides helpful guidelines for how people on either side of the debate can engage in positive and constructive ways.
Over the last decade or so, I have had the chance to interact in one way or another with hundreds of men and women who are striving to be faithful to the traditional Christian teaching on homosexuality. For many of them, this has been a terrible burden, a source of grief, loneliness, and much else besides. Along the way, I have seen many give up on chastity, or give up on faith. I, too, have struggled many times with the question of whether it is worth it, or whether this is a misguided teaching that causes unnecessary suffering.
How should I try to make sense of this?
First Things has published a short piece I wrote on the recent Dan Savage debacle. Note: I did not choose the title!
Update: Elizabeth Scalia (“The Anchoress”) has picked up the article and offered her own commentary.
Update II: Rod Dreher has also responded to the article.
One of the key Scriptural sources for the theology of celibacy is Matthew 19:12:
There are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it. (RSV)
Most Christian thinking about celibacy has focused on the clause about eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Within both the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, a celibate vocation is understood as a choice to give up marriage for the sake of service to God.
Because Christians who think about celibacy at all focus almost exclusively on voluntary celibacy, many gay and lesbian people object to the prohibition on gay sex in the Christian tradition on the grounds that it imposes involuntary celibacy on people who are exclusively attracted to their own sex.
But this stems, at least in part, from focusing on only a third of what Jesus has to say here. In this post, I want to think a little bit about the relevance of the other two clauses: those who were born eunuchs and those who were made eunuchs by men.
Spiritual Friendship 
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