Homosexuality and Christian Faith: Questions of Conscience for the Churches - Softcover

Wink, Walter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0800631862 ISBN 13: 9780800631864

Publisher: Fortress Press, 1999

Synopsis

Issues surrounding homosexuality threaten to divide the Christian churches and the people within them. This unique resource presents short pieces from some of the nation's most prominent church leaders - Protestant and Catholic, mainline and evangelical - who address the fundamental moral imperatives about homosexuality. Together they invite the reader to open his or her heart to the Spirit, to tolerance, and to Gospel values. Through personal testimony, factual clarification, and moral suasion, they provide much-needed clarity on the biblical witness and biblical authority, the nature or character of homosexuality and sexual orientation, and many related topics. Contributors include Elise Boulding, Ignacio Castuera, John B. Cobb Jr., William Sloane Coffin, Peggy Campolo, Bishop Paul Egertson, James A. Forbes Jr., Maria Harris, Barbara Kelsey, Morton Kelsey, Gabriel Moran, David G. Myers, Richard Rohr, O.F.M., Ken Sehested, Carole Shields, Donald W. Shriver Jr., M. Mahan Siler Jr., Lewis B. Smedes, and Walter Wink.

About this title

About the Author

Walter Wink was professor emeritus of biblical interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City. He also taught at Union Theological Seminary. From 1989 to 1990, he was a Peace Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. He authored several books, including the award-winning Fortress Press trilogy: Naming the Powers, Unmasking the Powers, and Engaging the Powers.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Today the churches are undergoing fratricide over the issue of homosexuality, and the irony is that not just gays and lesbians, but the churches themselves, are likely to become the victims. The level of pure hatred, bitterness, closemindedness, and disrespect is staggering, going beyond any form of acrimony I have witnessed over any issue since the struggle against racial segregation.

This book aims to shine light into that darkness. Its authors have, in the past, led us through one difficult moral test after another: the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, resistance to nuclear power and nuclear war, the struggled against apartheid, the exploitation of developing countries, the oppression of women, opposition to the religious right. Time after time they have been out in front and alone, sometimes assailed as traitors, pinkos, communists, law-breakers, harebrained idealists. And time after time their wisdom has been belatedly confirmed by the churches.

I believe they are right on this issue as well, and that we should listen to these guides. They have proven to be prophets before. They could be wrong this time, but I think it unlikely that all of them are wrong. All I ask of the reader is a fair reading. The writers are a mix of evangelicals, conservatives, and liberals, with a number who reject all such labeling in regard to themselves. I believe that they represent the church at its best, struggling for clarity on this tortured issue, and that what they say will be confirmed by the church of the future.

Several of the contributors speak personally about children, classmates, colleagues, and friends who are gay (Shriver, Shields, Egertson). Conscious of the human cost of same-sex orientation in our society, we then turn to face head-on the task of interpreting Scripture around this contentious issue (Wink, Sehested). But the very ambiguity of Scripture and the suffering of gays and lesbians requires that we look to the human sciences and Christian ethics for additional light on the issue (Kelsey, Myers, Harris and Moran, Smedes). This examination leads us to reassess our Christian tradition (Rohr, Cobb) and challenge the churches to recover their prophetic vocation (Campolo, Coffin, Boulding). We conclude with the practical questions of ordaining gays and lesbians, blessing their unions, and granting them not only full human rights, but whole-hearted acceptance in our churches (Castuera, Siler).

Despite the amount of heat the debate over homosexuality has produced in the churches, the discussion has been woefully slack as far as rigorous theological thinking is concerned. The sheer passion of the discussion betrays emotionalism on both sides, and the necessary exegetical and theological grounding is ignored.

It is my hope, and that of all the contributors, that this volume will help bring serious reflection and a loving approach to this controversy. We stand, blessed, before this stupendous gift---the mystery of human sexuality---awed, confused, and rendered delicate toward ourselves and others as we seek to listen closely to the new things the Spirit is saying to the churches. ---from the Preface

In the final analysis, Jesus is the model for Christians. Jesus' silence on homosexuality is not so significant; he was silent on many things. But he was not silent regarding compassion toward those who had been marginalized and rejected as a class, or group, or occupation. If we attempt to enter the mind of Jesus, we can scarcely conclude otherwise than that he would have sided with the humanity and dignity of those whose sexual orientation was same-sexed.

Wherever we come out on this issue, however, that same spirit of Jesus surely calls us to respect, honor, and be civil toward those with whom we differ. No moral matter should be regarded as so urgent as to permit dehumanizing and demonizing our opponents. Jesus did not speak out on homosexuality, but he did command us, openly and unequivocally, to love our enemies---even when they choose to behave unlovingly toward us. As John Cobb urges in his essay, we can act Christianly toward one another while still holding to our convictions.

There is no room for lovelessness, hatred, or intolerance. God is confronting both sides of this controversy with an opportunity to transcend our verbal violence and put-downs, and to learn how to love, cherish, and value those whose positions are different from our own. We can treat this controversy, not as a sign of the church's decadence or its disobedience, but as a marvelous opportunity to learn to love as Jesus commanded us to love. ---from the Afterword

Edition details

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0800631862
• ISBN 13: 9780800631864
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 144