Lambeth Diary: faith people 'moderate' on gays

This video is a brief report from the conference yesterday.

Also online today is the latest news report emerging from Anglican goings on.

Today, a report commissioned by Stonewall claims that religious people are more positive towards homosexual people than is claimed by conservative faith leaders. According to resarch by academics at Leeds University, faith leaders are failing to reflect what the people in the pews really think about gays.

The report Love Thy Neighbour, a report commissioned by the gay rights lobby group Stonewall, says Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Christian believers are "significantly more moderate" in their views on homosexuality than is often alleged on their behalf.

You can download the full report here .

"When the perceived tension between faith and sexual orientation is discussed in public, the agenda often becomes so dominated by aggression and sensationalism that levels of respect between faith communities and gay communities are overlooked," the report says.

Ben Summerskill, Stonewall Chief Executive, said: ‘Witnessing the tragic divisions in the Church of England demonstrated at this week’s Lambeth Conference, it’s telling that so many people of faith say they actually live, work and socialise with lesbian and gay people, and that significantly reduces negative ideas about difference.

"Many Christians, Jews, Muslims and Hindus are clearly markedly more moderate that we are often allowed to believe. The stark conclusion to draw when it comes to religion and homosexuality is that it may be time to start listening to the voices of the many people of faith in Britain which have until now not been heard enough."       

Those interviewed for the report said that new legal protections for lesbian and gay people, including civil partnerships, have had a "civilising effect" on British society. The increased acceptance of gay people on a national and political level has also had a positive impact on attitudes at a local level, they said.

Last year a YouGov survey of 2,000 people published by Stonewall found that 84 per cent of people who identified as religious disagreed with the statement "homosexuality is morally unacceptable in all circumstances."

Interviewees suggested that organisations working towards community cohesion should make more effort to listen to all people of faith, not just claimed religious leaders.

Catherine, 58, a Christian, told researchers: "It isn’t, in my opinion, the church’s role to say to gays and lesbians: 'You’re not welcome, you can’t serve God and you can’t be a Christian”. That just doesn’t make any sense to me at all."

Nadish, 60, a Hindu, said: "Everybody has got the right to live life in his own way … so if somebody is lesbian or homosexual, it’s entirely up to them."

Husna, 24, a Muslim, said: "I’ve come across some gay people and I think I have changed my opinion. I have worked with these people. They’re really, really nice people … they are people."

Janet, 20, Jewish, said: "One gay man is from a very Orthodox religious family and his family are fine with it and, you know, it was a bit of gossip, like people did talk about it, but now everyone’s fine with it. And they’ve got boyfriends and it’s fine."

This video was from a brief report for Sky outside the cathedral. Our story is here.

Comments

[clive]

Potoroo, thank you for this extremely useful article, what else have you written

[Christopher]

Potoroo, thank you for posting that very helpful survey of biblical marriage and associated topics. You mention "I suggest you revisit my brief history of the way the understanding and practice of marriage has radically changed over the centuries" so could you supply a reference?

[Jesurgislac]

Phil: This is a bit odd...I don't think many (any?) conservative Christian leaders in the UK say to gay people, in the words of Catherine, "You’re not welcome, you can’t serve God and you can’t be a Christian."

The Evangelical Alliance maintains this position consistently, as do many other outspoken conservative Christian leaders in the UK and elsewhere. Perhaps you haven't been paying attention?

[NP]

"Go into all the world and tell people what they want to hear...."

Not quite what we are told to do

[Potoroo, australia]

The Bible only ever talks about sexual acts, never about sexual orientation. Not once, not ever. Romans 1 is talking about people exchanging their "natural lusts" for "unnatural" ones as a consequence of having walked away from God (Paul is so keen on making this point he says it three times), not homosexuals enacting their natures within loving unions. The passages in Corinthians and Timothy are vigorously disputed amongst scholars, not least because they are based in part on ancient Greek for which we lack a complete understanding and have no English equivalent. That pretty much leaves Leviticus.

OT marriage is, not surprisingly, primarily about social stability and protecting male property rights (women and children are property, something reflected in Anglo secular law until not much more than a century ago). Men are allowed multiple wives (Gen 29:17-28; 2 Sam 3:2-5), men are allowed concubines (2 Sam 5:13; 1 Kings 11:3; 2 Chr 11:21), the marriage is only valid if the bride is a virgin and if she isn't she must be stoned to death (Deut 22:13-21), marriage with unbelievers is forbidden (Gen 24:3;Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30), etc. Women are worth half a male (Lev 27:1-7) and giving birth to a female makes the mother doubly unclean (Lev 12:1-5), etc. Adultery was only wrong for a man if the woman was married (and hence another man's property) and while men are prohibited from visiting temple or cult prostitutes they are not prohibited from visiting ordinary prostitutes.

Even in the OT marriage changed form. Levirite marriage (wherein a man was obliged to marry his brother's widow), for example, was sometimes required (Deut 25:5) and sometimes prohibited (Lev 20:21). Over time the Jews tended towards monogamy, which is why you don't see Jesus praising concubinage, for example, even though it is entirely Scriptural. Divorces also became frowned upon, hence the theological argument between Jesus and the Pharisees in Mt 19 about Deut 24:1-2, even though, once again, divorce (under certain circumstances) is again Scriptural (Deut 24:1-4; Lev 22:13; Num 30:9; 1 Chr 8:8).

Marriage changed again in the NT. While Jesus endorsed it (cf Mt 19), Paul clearly saw it as a second-best option to celibacy (1 Cor 7:8-9), possibly misinterpreting Mt 19:10-12. The church went on to misinterpret Mt 5:31-32, Mt 19:3-9, Mk 10:2-12 and Luke 16:18 as meaning divorce was never acceptable which is not what Jesus said, the adultery in remarriage occurring in God's eyes if the previous divorce had not been granted on the strict grounds of "uncleanliness", which meant sexual impropriety. It also turned Mt 19:4-6 into an impediment to marriage, for not only was consanguinity prohibited (Scriptural) but because the "two were made one flesh" both familities were subsequently deemed related and thus any marriage between them was impossible (not Scriptural). Getting around this mess led to the fatuous distinction between divorce (impossible) and annulment (possible) in order to dissolve marriages.

Ironically, while the complicated church laws regarding consanguinity, affinity and spiritual affinity gave clergy a huge role in determining who could and could not get married, it was not until the 13th century that priests became necessary to the act of marriage itself. Until the 9th or 10th century the marriage act occurred outside the church, with the couple subsequently going to the church for their union to be blessed. Marriage did not become a sacrament until the 12th century. That means that for most of the history of the church marriage has not been a sacrament. Something to think about.

So-called traditionalists should also take note of the subsequently prevailing distinction between marriage as a secular institution and as a sacrament. Martin Luther, for example, said in the 16th century that marriage was "a worldly thing... that belongs to the realm of government." The English Parliament passed a law in the 17th century declaring "marriage is no sacrament" and therefore entirely secular (a law passed by the Puritans, no less). The marriage impediments like affinity were eliminated and consanguinity reduced.

The Catholic response to the Reformation, the Council of Trent in 1563, must be seen in this light. It was only then that the RCC instituted the requirement not only for a marriage to be conducted by a priest but also in the presence of two witnesses, thus eliminating not only secret marriages but also the common law marriages that had prevailed in Europe since Roman times. It is only in this period that marriage began to be seen foremost as sacramental (the CoE followed suit in 1753), the form that is the so-called "Biblical marriage". But this form was not only contingent, it was never unopposed. The French Revolution in 1792 made civil marriage compulsory. Newly united Germany under Bismark followed suit in the 19th century.

The point that marriage has for most of the church's history been seen as secular and that it has changed form many times should by now be obvious. When bigots like John Howard thus change secular law to overtly privilege heterosexuals in the name of "traditional marriage" they are ignoring or are ignorant of the fact that there is not and never has been any single "traditional marriage" and that as marriage has changed before, sometimes in light of changed understanding of Scripture, so shall it change again.

Furthermore, privileging heterosexuals in this way is unambiguously homophobic. Civil unions are "separate but equal", which is called apartheid and can never be acceptable to anyone who truly believes in equality. Marriage, said the California Supreme Court recently, "contains within itself many intangible benefits." Marriage thus has a meaning that goes beyond merely sorting out things like inheritance rights. As the mother of a gay man said in the California hearings, "My friends don't understand civil unions or domestic partnerships. They understand marriage." Marriage, ultimately, means equality and no-one here has given the slightest sound reason why the God who is Love would have it any other way.
Mt 19:4-6 is part of a theological debate between Jesus and the Pharisees. The text in dispute was Deut 24:1 ("When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house."), centering on the interpretation of "uncleanness". The Pharisees were trying to force Jesus to chose between the doctrinaire and unpopular view of Rabbi Shammai, who held that divorce could only be granted on the most severe grounds of matrimonial offense, and Rabbi Hillel who held the broader and more popular view that a man could divorce his wife for any reason whatever. As usual, the Pharisees were trying to trap Jesus. If he held to Hillel's view they could accuse him of taking a permissive view of Scripture, but if he held to Shammai's view he risked losing followers.

Thus, the question: "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?" (Mt 19:3). Instead of answering directly, Jesus counters with his own question: “Have you not read that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So, they are no longer two but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." (Mt 19:4-6). He's changing the terms of the debate from divorce to marriage, in such a way as to emphasize its spiritual character rather than its social one.

The Pharisees don't understand this. In v.7, "They said to Him, "Why then did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?" to which Jesus replies, "He said to them, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman, commits adultery." (Mt 19:8-9). Jesus is saying that the Pharisees have misinterpreted the law. This is clear from the form of their question, "Why then did Moses command..." His response is that God never commands divorce, although he does permit it "because of the hardness of your hearts" (said hardness may be on the part of offender, the offended or both). He then takes the view of Rabbi Shammai, that "uncleanness" means sexual immorality, but in a way the Pharisees were not expecting. (Note: the Greek for sexuality immorality, "porneia", went beyond just

adultery, and thus is translated as "marital unfaithfulness" in the NIV).

Now, getting back to v.4-6, Jesus didn't quote from Genesis 1:27 in order to shore up some sort of crumbling heterosexuality. He was concerned with here, as in so many other places in the Gospels, human dignity and worth. As usual, the Pharisees were concerned with legalistic interpretation of Scripture, the "new idolatry" Jesus takes them to task for many times. The traditional Jewish view of marriage was that it was a contract between families and it was badly lopsided. Divorced women, who were essentially considered property within the marriage, would frequently become destitute upon being discarded.

Jesus was overturning the lopsided social contract in favour of a more balanced spiritual one, binding before God and therefore not to be lightly entered into or discarded. If the "two [became] one flesh" then marriage could not only not be abandoned at whim but the status of the wife necessarily rose within it, for Jesus was collapsing the husband-wife dyad (hi, Kyle!). He was in no small part putting a brake on patriarchal selfishness by saying that once a man was married he had to be committed to making it work and he couldn't just throw his wife out with the garbage because he was in a grump.

The disciples, at least, didn't seem terribly impressed with the idea of having to do their share: "The disciples said to him, "If this is the situation between a husband and a wife, it is better not to marry." (Mt 19:10). Marriage was now hard! Next comes one of the more unusual and interesting passages in the Gospels: "Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given. “For some are eunuchs because they hers have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it." (Mt 19:11-12).

Eunuchs?

Lacking as they did a clear conception of an afterlife the Jews placed a premium on fertility, for that was a form of immortality, and consequently had a great fear of infertility. Thus, under Jewish law a man had to have intact genitals to enter the Temple (Deut 23:1; cf Lev 21:17). Having lots of children was a sign of God's favour (Ps 127:3-5; 128:3-6) and there are plenty of examples of women asking God to "open their wombs" (Ps 113:9; Gen 30:1; 1 Sam 1:10). Isaiah 54 uses barrenness as a metaphor for Israel when it felt abandoned by God. Is 56:3 uses a traditional female metaphor of barrenness, "dry tree", for eunuchs, and prophesies that both eunuchs and foreigners who keep the Lord's ways will be accepted by God (Is 56:4-8). Eunuchs, prophesies Isaiah in v. 5, will be given "a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters."

So, the very same eunuchs who are excluded from the heart of Judaism, the Temple, are to be included when God "gathers the exiles of Israel." (Is 56:8). Mt 19:11-12 is the fulfillment of that prophesy, and in so doing, Jesus collapses yet another category of Otherness. As Jesus made clear, one did not have to be castrated to be a eunuch. Eunuchs included the impotent, the functionally infertile (homosexuals) and the voluntarily celibate. Moreover, in contradiction to Jewish law and tradition, he advocated this mode of being for those "who can accept it." The great irony is that by dying without heirs Jesus was, in the Jewish understanding, a functional eunuch himself. However, the Resurrection

means eternal life is redefined, in that it no longer requires producing children.

That's worth stating again: the Resurrection means eternal life is redefined, in that it no longer requires producing children.

"Infertility" is no longer a bar to being part of God's kingdom. Jesus foreshadowed this new understanding in Mark 3:31, "For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother." He has blown the old understanding clean out of the water. And in that light I suggest you revisit my brief history of the way the understanding and practice of marriage has radically changed over the centuries, this time remembering that as it has changed in the light of new understanding so it will change again (as is already happening in some countries and churches).
consider 1 Cor 6:9-10:

"Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."

The semantics of "arsenokoitais", translated in the NIV as "homosexual offenders", is non-trivial. Passages like these are used to condemn homosexuals, so if they in fact have a different meaning it must be brought to light. So, what did "arsenokoitais" mean in Paul's time? The scholarly answer is that no-one knows. The only other text in which it is used is 1 Tim 1:9-10 (an almost mirror image of this passage), a text also attributed to Paul. Many scholars believe Paul actually invented the word.

The root of the word, "arsen", simply means male. "Arsen-o-koitais" literally translates as "the male who has many beds". Anyone who wants to use this word to condemn homosexuals - which includes lesbians in our understanding - must show how they equate to "the male who has many beds". The word "koitais" is found elsewhere in the Bible and other ancient Greek texts to refer to promiscuity. On the face of it, "arsenokoitais" seems to simply mean a promiscuous male.

That is consistent with the passage. If Paul had wanted to refer specifically to men who had sex with men he had every opportunity to do so but he did not. Promiscuity is not a homosexual preserve.

How then did it come to be translated variously as "homosexual offenders" (NIV 1 Cor 6:9), "perverts" (NIV 1 Tim 1:10), "homosexuals" (NAS 1 Cor 6:9 & 1 Tim 1:10), etc? The earliest English translations, such as the KJV, translated it either as "sodomites" or "abusers of themselves with mankind". According to the Blue Letter Bible's Hebrew lexicon a sodomite ("qadesh"; Strong's H6945) was a male temple prostitute consecrated to Astarte or Venus. A female sodomite ("qadeshah") was translated as harlet. Funny how we keep bumping into temple prostitutes in the Bible.

Interestingly, the Hebrew "qadesh" ("sodomite") bears no linguistic relation to "Cĕdom" ("Sodom"; Strong's H5467). IOW, there is no Biblical link between the sin of Sodom and "sodomites". Even so, bearing in mind the urban myth that the sin of Sodom is somehow linked to homosexuality and the principle that God is not the author of confusion (1 Cor 14:33) let us see what the Bible says about it. The term "sin of Sodom" is used 48 times in the Bible but most are references in passing which assume the reader already knows what it means. The most extensive comment on it comes from Ezekial:

"Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen." (Eze 16:49-50).

Jesus referred to Sodom once, when he sent the disciples out to preach:

"If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town." (Matt 10:14-15).

The only reference to the sin of Sodom having any connection to sex at all is Jude 7:

"In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire."

Sexual immorality and perversion is certainly consistent with a town that not only sought to pack-rape Lot's guests but whose sins generally were so grievous that God intended to destroy them utterly. All three references have two things in common. The first is that they all involve sins of selfishness. The second thing is these sins are universal. There is nothing particular to male to male sex in any of them.

At this point, we have two important observations. The first is that, in the Bible, sodomites are not homosexuals. They are temple prostitutes. The second is that, in the Bible, the sin of Sodom was not homosexuality. It was selfishness, pride and inhospitality.

In fact, no pre-1st century AD Jewish scholar equates the sin of Sodom specifically with male to male sex. That radical departure from the traditional Jewish understanding came primarily from Philo of Alexandria and Josephus, which reflected the growing Jewish distaste for the Greek practice of "paiderastia" (adult male love for a post-pubescent youth; note that we moderns distinguish between homosexuality per se and pederasty). It is notably absent in Jesus' teaching, but it is pertinent to note that Jude was written post-Philo.

That still leaves open the question of how a Greek word which means a promiscuous male is today rendered as homosexual. The most polite answer, surely, is bad scholarship. It takes no great imagination to conceive how all "deviant" sex became demonised within a framework of doctrines predicated on a rigid, teleological misunderstanding of sex. That does not excuse the modern scholars, of course, but it is a mark of the continuing power of homophobia in the church that they feel pressured to cling to outdated and non-Biblical understandings even though they certainly know better (you should read up on some of the behind the scenes arguments in the various translation teams).

Is this a semantic argument? You bet! Does it matter? You bet! All interpretation of a text is ultimately about semantics - the meanings of words. When the text is Scripture then those meanings assume ultimate importance. If anyone wants to condemn anyone else on the basis of Scripture then they had best be on sure ground, but I assert to you that the Bible does not, anywhere, condemn loving same-sex unions and I defy you to show me otherwise. And I say that on the authority of the Bible.

[Fr Mark]

Magistra: thanks for these figures. Interesting that the RC laity are the most liberal of all!

[Fr Mark]

Magistra: thanks for these figures. Interesting that the RC laity are the most liberal of all!

[William Sulik]

Hmmm. Reminds me of this quote:

"The church once changed society. It was then a thermostat of society. But today I feel that too much of the church is merely a thermometer, which measures rather than molds popular opinion."

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Playboy Magazine, 1965.

[Bruno (Rome)]

What a joke this people have made of the Anglican Church. I saw a rainbow I wonder what that stands for? sad day for the Tradional Anglicans.

[David Palmer]

And why has the Church been hijacked by the homosexuality issue? Is this on the basis of the Bible a Gospel issue worthy of so much attention?

Will re-evangelising Western societies get as much attention let alone the priority that Jesus might put on evangelisation?

But then I guess that is what Gafcon is about and why Gafcon/Foca is not going to disappear any time soon.

[robroy]

More fawning mouthpiece reporting for Integrity/Stonewall.

[Shaun Clarkson]

"faith leaders are failing to reflect what the people in the pews really think about gays."
and since when was it a faith leaders job to reflect rather than lead?

[Phil Craig]

This is a bit odd...I don't think many (any?) conservative Christian leaders in the UK say to gay people, in the words of Catherine, "You’re not welcome, you can’t serve God and you can’t be a Christian."

[magistra]

You get quite similar results from British Social Attitudes (registration needed) which helpfully charts attitudes over time (it's useful for other moral issue as well). Here are their figures for the percentage of people who said sexual relations between two adults of the same sex are "always wrong" (to nearest percentage):

Church of England/Anglican:
1983 50%, 2006 32%

Roman Catholic
1983 50% 2006 20%

Other Christian
1983 61% 2006 36%

Non-Christian religion
1983 63% 2006 42%

No religion
1983 40% 2006 13%

The real difference is age: in 2006, 19% of 18-23 year olds thought same-sex sexual relations were always wrong and 14% of 55-59 year olds, as compared to 29% of 60-64 year olds and 46% of those 65+.