Friday, August 05, 2011

Responses to the P&C article, "Being gay in Charleston"

On Sunday, July 31, The Post and Courier published a long 1A feature article about "Being gay in Charleston," accompanied by three short profiles of gay couples. Needless to say, it drew much comment, including this thoughtful response from College of Charleston philosophy professor Richard Nunan, published here with permission. Nunan's letter prompted a response from the Rev. Peter C. Moore of St. Michael's Church in Charleston, and that in turn triggered religion professor Charles Lippy to write a letter to the editor (which, alas, was not published in The Post and Courier). The entire string is available here...

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Yvonne Wenger’s & Adam Parker’s thoughtful two-page Sunday spread on ‘Being Gay in Charleston’ was noteworthy as a sign of changing times. A decade ago, it would probably have been unthinkable for the Post & Courier to devote so much ink to this topic, and to do it so sympathetically. (It hasn’t even been five years yet since the SC electorate ratified our state constitutional amendment prohibiting recognition of gay marriages.)

But the article and sidebars also catalog just how far we still have to travel before we can put virulent homophobia to rest in South Carolina, and in the nation. Apart from our local and national indifference to the core meaning of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, what troubles me most about the substantial hostility we still see directed toward lesbians, gay men, and transgendered individuals is the defense of such hostility in terms of religious “authority”.

In Sunday’s article this approach was represented by the Rev. John Van Deventer, pastor of Johns Island Presbyterian, who dresses up that hostility in the language of “loving the sinner while hating the sin.” While this high-minded abstraction may sound more tolerant than the fulminations we sometimes hear from the pulpit, I think the distinction is actually lost on most of us.

To call someone a ‘sinner’ in this sense is to question their moral integrity, their capacity for self control, and for reasoned judgment. In my experience at least, rightly or wrongly, people tend to judge other people by their actions and by the perceived cut of their character. They do not withhold judgment for the sake of some abstract distinction between the sinner himself or herself, and their perceptions of that individual’s actions and character. Self-professed Christians appear to be just as freely disposed as others to conflate sin and sinner.

The only exceptions I’ve noticed, among both Christians and non-Christians, arise when observers believe there to be some temporary divergence between character and action, so that the action is perceived to be atypical of the character. Forgiveness is then more or less readily granted to agents who express remorse for their isolated transgressions, or the desire to modify the “degenerate” elements of character which provoked the transgressions.

Neither sexual orientation nor gender identity qualify as such exceptions, since they constitute sustained dispositions, not temporary aberrations. So in these cases, to “hate the sin” is also, unfortunately, to hate the sinner.

Of course, it is quite contentious to insist that scriptural authority entails that same-sex orientation, or action on that orientation, is always (or mostly?) sinful. There are plenty of revisionist biblical scholars who are not disposed to read passages in Genesis, Leviticus, and Paul in the way that perhaps Rev. Van Deventer reads them. Nineteenth century clerical defenders of the institution of slavery spoke with equal authority about the meaning of God’s curse on “the children of Ham”. The depth of their conviction did not make them right, and certainly did not do much for the moral integrity of Christianity at the time.

It is also contentious to suggest, as Rev. Van Deventer does, that “the problem with homosexuality...is it’s loved turned inward on itself.” Long-term monogamous same-sex relationships strike me as being just as strongly other-oriented as long-term monogamous heterosexual relationships. It defies common sense to suggest otherwise. When thinking about cases of “love turned inward” (toward ones own perceived interests, narrowly conceived?), one might do better to reflect on the implications of Paul’s recommendation that women should be subservient to their husbands (Ephesians 5: 22-24 or 1 Timothy 2 11:12).

The truth is that scriptural passages have been subject to a wide range of interpretations over the years, enlisted in the service of various social doctrines and theories of human nature devised long after the contended passages were originally written. I’ve written about two such competing theories of human nature which I believe to inform the differences between Evangelical and Catholic forms of hostility to same-sex relationships,* differences which have precious little to do with scriptural authority, and a great deal to do with how some latter-day religious theorists think the world should be viewed. This is often the case. It sometimes leads to the achievement of great social good, but it is unfortunately equally likely to lead to great social harm.

Richard Nunan
Professor of Philosophy
College of Charleston

*The article in question appears in the 2010 volume of Biblical Theology Bulletin, and is available for public download at:
http://btb.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/40/1/37?ijkey=qr5Yzw3szSL8w&keytype=ref&siteid=spbtb&utm_source=eNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1J22

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Tolerance can't trump theology
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Professor Richard Nunan is right that at times Christians have been intolerant of people with homophile sexual desires for reasons other than specifically Christian ones. But his association of changing views of homosexuality with changing views of slavery and women betrays a lack of biblical understanding.
Views of women and slavery have changed in part because people rediscovered the true meaning of Scripture that layers of culture and tradition had obscured.
Paul's great statement that "in Christ there is neither male nor female, slave nor free" (Gal. 3:28) shows how far in advance of its culture the Bible really was. But his argument that because revisionist scholars have a variety of interpretations about the biblical passages about homosexuality the church should stop calling it "sinful" fails to recognize that these agenda-driven scholars have not gained universal acceptance of their views.
These "revisionist" scholars, are just that -- eager to bend Scripture to say something it doesn't say. Which of them, for example, has been willing to engage Dr. Robert Gagnon's landmark volume "The Bible and Homosexual Practice"?
Their widespread silence in dealing with his comprehensive analysis of what the Bible actually says on this subject is deafening. (See www.robgagnon.net)
Furthermore, Prof. Nunan fails to distinguish between "sexual orientation" and sexual practice. Do we not make such a distinction in dealing with an orientation towards gambling, alcoholism, anger, overeating, or lying? Even though we recognize the cultural, and even perhaps inherited, factors that may influence these tendencies, is it intolerant to call the activities that flow from them sinful? On his reasoning, because of some people's orientation we should stop calling fornication, pedophilia, incest, and polygamy wrong.
I would also question Prof. Nunan's assumption that those with homophile tendencies desire "long-term monogamous" relationships. While some do, the number of sexual partners in the homosexual community exponentially exceeds that among heterosexuals.
Andrew Sullivan is doubtless right when he writes in The New Republic, "There is something baleful about the attempt to educate homosexuals and lesbians into an uncritical acceptance of a stifling model of heterosexual normality."
Then finally, Prof. Nunan makes the uncritical assumption that to identify certain behavior as "sinful" is to demean a person's character.
Quite the opposite. It is to affirm the value of the person. It is precisely because God "loves the sinner" that God "hates the sin." Sin destroys. That's why we need redemption. It is because of the Bible's high view of our humanity that it takes a dim view of those actions that mar the imagio dei within us all.
Tolerance is good as a pastoral impetus. But it is not a particularly useful as a theological foundation. The church should help people with same-sex attraction find hope and, when possible, healing. But it should also continue to identify as sinful those actions that rob us of our full humanity.

PETER C. MOORE
Associate for Discipleship
St. Michael's Church
Meeting Street
Charleston

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As a relative newcomer to Charleston, I hesitate to comment on the Rev. Peter Moore's August 31 letter for it apparently is part of an ongoing acrimonious exchange concerning religion and homosexuality. However, as a retired religious studies professor, I must challenge some of Moore's assumptions.

Moore accepts current biblical scholarship that has challenged centuries of sexist and racist interpretations of scripture, claiming that they revealed the "true meaning" of texts long obscured by tradition. Betraying inconsistency at best, he refuses to consider that fresh insight on passages dealing with sexuality, not just homosexuality, might also reveal scripture's true meaning.

Essentially Moore buys interpretations that support his biases. After all it is not fashionable to be racist or sexist. But he rejects those that challenge his biases. It is still culturally acceptable to label homosexuality as an "other" to be scorned.

Yet as our understanding of race and gender have changed over the millennia, so, too, has our understanding of sexuality. In the world of ancient Mediterranean cultures that nurtured the biblical traditions, twenty-first century ideas of consensual, committed same-gender relationships were simply not part of the worldview of the day. Practices such as pederasty and temple prostitution had some credibility in "pagan" circles. And, as numerous writers have pointed out, the Christian New Testament never records an instance when Jesus himself addressed issues of homosexuality.

Moore also makes a strained distinction between orientation and practice, arguing that acceptance of orientation mandates acceptance of all practices associated with it. That is pure hogwash. Many with a heterosexual orientation--which Moore sees as the only acceptable one--engage in practices such as spousal abuse that most would see as wrong and hurtful.

Let's face it. Human beings, whether heterosexual or homosexual are imperfect creatures. None has a claim on perfection, and those who hold their personal views as indicative of the divine will might need forgiveness for arrogance and egocentrism.

We live in a diverse world, whether we like it or not. To affirm diversity is not to say "anything goes" but to ask, even when we are uncomfortable, what word the divine might be speaking to us in and through all the diversity. The danger is assuming our own prejudices encapsulate absolute truth.

Charles H. Lippy, Ph.D.

LeRoy A. Martin Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies Emeritus
Uniersity of Tennessee at Chattanooga