Homophobia

This is a chapter in the book, "A Passion for the Possible" by William Sloane Coffin, printed in 1993 and 2004

It is a long article, but in light of the discussions going on in Anchorage and at the national ELCA gathering right now, and in light of my sermon on Sunday, Homosexuality and the Bible, an appropriate one. If you like this, please let me know and please purchase a copy of "A passion for the Possible" as well as "the heart is a little to the left" by William Sloane Coffin.

Pastor Dan

Too many Christians use the Bible as a drunk does a lamppost – for support rather than illumination. This includes even the scholarly ones, a conclusion I reach after reviewing much of the writings about scripture and homosexuality. While the research is impressive, the arguments on both sides strike me as either simplistic or too tortuous to be convincing. Why can’t Christians just admit that there is such a thing as biblical deadwood, not to say biblical folly?

To pretend to be shocked at such a suggestion is pure hypocrisy, unless of course you still believe in slavery – “Slaves, obey you earthly masters” (Eph. 6:5); or in the inferior status of wives – “the husband is the head of his wife” (1 Cor. 11:3); and wouldn’t dream of eating barbecued ribs, for to do so would be an abomination, toevah – the same Hebrew word used in Leviticus for homosexual acts.

The one piece of scholarship I did admire was a four-page pamphlet. On the cover side was the question, “what did Jesus say about homosexuality?” the two inside pages were blank, and on the back of the pamphlet was written, “That’s right, nothing!”

It’s time we grew up. It’s time to realize that any belief in biblical inerrancy is itself unbiblical. Read the story of Peter and Cornelius (Act ch. 10) and you will see that scriptural writings do not support the inerrancy of scripture. Besides, Christians believe in the Word made flesh, not the Word made words. Christianity is less a set of beliefs than it is a way of life, and a way of life that actually warns against absolute intellectual certainty: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are God’s judgments and God’s ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of God” (Rom. 11:33 kjv, alt.)

I think we know far more of God’s heart than we do of the mind of God. It’s God’s heart that Christ on the cross lays bare for the whole world to see. And “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them” (1 John 4:16) – that passage suggest that revelation is in the relationship. And a relationship with God provides more psychological certitude than intellectual certainty. Faith is not believing without proof, it is trusting without reservation. I think all belief systems that rest on absolute intellectual certainty –be that certainty the doctrine of papal infallibility or the doctrine of the verbal inerrancy of scripture – all such belief systems should go out the stained-glass windows, for they have no proper place in church. They induce Christians to sharpen their minds by narrowing them. They make Christians doctrinaire, dogmatic, mindlessly militant. To such absolute belief systems can be attributed all manner of unchristian horrors such as inquisitions and holy wars, witch burning, morbid guilt, unthinking conformity, self-righteousness, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and homophobia.

Every Christmas I marvel at how the word of the Lord hits the world with the force of a hint. Naturally enough, we want God to be God, but God wants to be a human being, a babe in a manger. We want God to be strong so that we can be weak; but God wants to be weak so that we can be strong. Christ came to earth, not to overpower – he came to empower. He came to provide maximum support but minimum protection, and it is precisely his support that should make Christians stop sheltering themselves between the covers of the Bible as house martins nest under the eaves.

Emily Dickinson wrote: “the unknown is the mind’s greatest need and for it no one thinks to thank God.” Well, I do. I thank God not only for all the wisdom in the sixty-six books of the Bible, but also that “the Lord hath yet more light and truth to break forth from his word.” So I pray that the Lord will save all of us from three things; the cowardice that dares not face new truth, the laziness content with half-truth, and the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth.

Clearly it is not scripture that creates hostility to homosexuality, but rather hostility to homosexuals that prompts some Christians to recite a few sentences from Paul and retain passages from an otherwise discarded Old Testament law code. In abolishing slavery and in ordaining women we’ve gone beyond biblical literalism. It’s time we did the same with gays and lesbians. The problem is not how to reconcile homosexuality with scriptural passages that condemn it, but rather how to reconcile the rejection and punishment of homosexuals with the love of Christ. It can’t be done. So instead of harping on what’s “natural,” let’s talk of what’s “normal,” what operates according to the norm. For Christians the norm is Christ’s love, If people can show the tenderness and constancy in caring that honors Christ’s love, what matters their sexual orientation? Shouldn’t a relationship be judged by its inner worth rather than by its outer appearance? When has a monopoly on durable life-warming love been held by legally wed heterosexuals?

Beware of ministers who offer you a comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. The worst are the TV “evangelists” (those children of a “looser” God!). Not content with calling homosexuality a sin, they go on to declare AIDS a form of divine retribution on homosexuals. If doctors don’t know the cause of AIDS, you can be sure ministers don’t either. And to suggest that a God of love would root for a virus that kills people, that a God of justice would wage germ warfare on sinners and not go after war makers, polluters, slum landlords, or drug dealers, all of whose sins affect others so much more profoundly, - such a suggestion represents, in an apt phrase from Alcoholics Anonymous, “shinking thinking.”

What AIDS does is raise heavy – duty questions for which many of us are not quite ready. One example: Along with straight children, gay children need to be taught that promiscuity is dangerous to their physical, psychic, and moral health. If, as most of us still think, an example is the best form of teaching, then gay children have the same need as straight children to see loving, stable couples. If gay and lesbian couples show the same deep and abiding love for each others as do straight couples – and demonstrably they do; the evidence is all around – then why shouldn’t the state offer the same civil marriage available to straight couples, with all the benefits that marriage entails, including the all-important-these-days death benefits?

Why shouldn’t the Christian church do the same? Is John Fortunato, an Episcopal psychotherapist, wrong to formulate the issue as he does? “As evidence increasingly emerges that homosexuality is a natural biological variation in the human species, is it not time for the smug heterosexual majority to give up its self-image of monochromatic normality and acknowledge God’s right to a pluralistic creation?”

Much ado is made about ordaining gay men and lesbian women. The fact is, many already are in the clergy and serving altogether as well as straight clergy. Most, of course, are “in the closet.” What’s so sad and ironic is that their congregations’ love for them is based on a deception, and such an unhealthy and needless one.

The United Church in Canada has found a simple solution: it bases ordination on membership. If homosexuality doesn’t exclude you from membership in a church, it can’t exclude you from ordination.

When for ten years I was at Riverside Church, I watched the gay community of New York City, a community drenched in grief, reaching out to AIDS victims. The Gay Men’s Health Crisis instituted hot lines, issued health packages, organized buddy systems so that no one would be alone, developed legal resources to protect their members against eviction and loss of medical insurance and care. And I watched gay members of our church be, one to another, shining examples of pastoral care. As they awaited death, as they all did, for themselves or thier friends, the grace of God shone in their faces.

I think of them whenever the suggestion is made that we build more weapons at the cost of untold billions that could better be invested elsewhere – in the research, for example, necessary to find a cure for AIDS. And I think of them whenever I hear Christians say, “We must be patient; it will take time before the churches and the country accept homosexuality.” Yes, let’s be patient with bigotry at the expense of its victims, those who are suffering the most and least deserved to be abandoned.

Homophobia, the fear and hatred of homosexuals, is bigotry. It is on par with racism and sexism. In some ways it’s worse; I’ve heard teenage gay and lesbian children tell of the pain that comes when the three main institutions of society turn their backs on them. They have in mind their families, their schools, and their churches. That kind of pain deserves to be met not with patience, but with holy impatience.

In a culture as prejudiced as ours is still, it is doubtful that many of us, gay or straight, will completely overcome our homophobia. What did most to help me battle mine, more than the accumulation and analysis of the evidence available, was to spend time with gay people. Familiarity bred only respect, never contempt.

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18) It is love that banishes fear and prejudice, that allows us to grow in understanding, freedom, and compassion. It was love that made Jesus draw to himself those whom the world abandoned. We who live in his name can do no less.