Northwestern Ohio Synod
Days of Prayer, Study, & Reflection
The Lutheran 'Lens': Reflections on Biblical Passages from a Lutheran Perspective
Saying "Yes" to God's Design: A Traditional Response

Presentation by R. Kevin Mohr, April 24, 25, & 27, 2004
(revised 04/28/04) 

[NOTE: Most of the material presented below is not original, but is very much dependent upon the texts cited in the select bibliography below. However, I take full responsibility for the use or misuse of those sources. I have cleaned up the presentation as given orally, and have added in a few clarifications based on comments from the other members of the panel. All new and/or edited portions are in brackets and italicized.]

INTRODUCTION

1. Personal Background:
Until 5 years ago, my wife and I served for 17 years, straight out of seminary, as missionaries in Madagascar. Therefore, some might question the relevance of what I have to say to the context here in the US on the particular issue before us.  While what I feel led to share with you today is not in any way unique or original, I believe that my context is exactly what makes my presentation relevant.  Let me explain:

I first went to seminary in the late seventies and early eighties, right when the ALC was in the midst of its study of human sexuality, concluding with its social statement in 1980.  A year after my graduation, my wife and I went off to Madagascar, but in 1990/91 we were back in the States for a study leave, which just happened to be the year of the first ELCA attempt at a sexuality study. Back to Madagascar we went until we came home in 1999, to the current context of our study on gays and lesbians and the Church. The study of human sexuality and the Church has bracketed my public ministry in the United States.

2. The Issues Before Us and the Historic Christian Response:
What strikes me the most about the ongoing debate is that, in my opinion, no new information or interpretation has been put forward in the past twenty-five years to suggest that the Church needs to change its traditional position on homosexual erotic behavior as being a sinful departure from God’s original and ongoing intent for human sexuality.   God’s good design for human sexuality has been virtually unanimously affirmed for the past 3500 years or more by God’s people as follows: the only divinely approved context for genital sexual behavior is in a heterosexual, monogamous, committed relationship.  Given that positive affirmation of human sexuality as God intends it, I believe it is impossible for the Church to be faithful to its identity and mission from God and affirm the blessing of same-sex unions or the rostering for leadership in the church of non-celibate gays and lesbians.

3. Being ‘For’ and Not Just ‘Against’:
That is my basic position, arrived at through twenty-five years of prayer, study, reflection, discussion, and relationships with a few gay and lesbian friends and colleagues.  The problem is that those of us who hold to the traditional position have oftentimes been our own worst enemies.  First of all, we have far too often not spoken the truth as we understand it in love, but in anger.  Second, we have tended to define our position in terns of what we are against, rather than in terms of what we are for.  This is a particular problem for me—I love to debate—I was on the debating team in high school and was the rebutter of the opposition arguments.  My natural (and usually sinful) instinct, therefore, is to attack.  Please pray for me that I will resist the temptation to go into my attack dog mode today.  I do want to speak the truth in love because I believe that what we are for in this discussion is exactly what makes the traditional position the only faithful and loving response to those in the Church who are wrestling with this issue. 

I believe that the Christian faith, message, and witness are presented most convincingly when we are not merely against but for something.  In this context: being for the great gift of human sexuality and all that the stewardship of that gift means for our relationship with God, the world, and others.

4. The Lutheran ‘Lens’:
However, as Lutheran-flavored Christians, what we are for needs to be stated in the light of basic Lutheran principles of interpretation – our Lutheran lens. Therefore, as you hear my presentation, please evaluate it in the light of the following principles of interpretation: 

Is it Christ-centered?  Does it adequately acknowledge the revelation of God in and through Jesus Christ?  Next, does my presentation proclaim clearly the central truth of our justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ? Also, does my presentation handle scripture faithfully in the light of the two principles above and in light of the fact that we are part of an historical, ecumenical, and confessional Christian tradition?  What that means, in my opinion, is that we cannot ignore what the Church universal has believed in the past and still generally believes today concerning human sexuality and homosexual behavior.  We are not alone in our wrestling with this issue.

The specific task for today is to examine what Scripture has to say about homosexual genital behavior.  This focus is appropriate and essential for us Lutheran-flavored Christians.  Because of the input from previous days of reflection, we [the panel] have all been asked to address Romans, chapter 1 and Leviticus, chapters 18 and 20. In my presentation, I will also deal with what Jesus said, but will begin with a look at what should, in my opinion, be the starting point for any discussion of human sexuality: Genesis, chapters 1-3.

I. Foundation: Genesis, Chapter 1-3

1.  Throughout its history, the Church has always received these wondrous chapters as foundational and essential for understanding the world, humanity, our relationship to the created world, one another, and to our Creator. In a story that reads almost like a liturgical dance, we find God creating order out of the primordial chaos (1:1-2). It quickly becomes clear that the goal is the creation of conditions suitable for biological life, the pinnacle of which is the human being.  This ordering of the chaos results in the freedom of structure, and this structure makes intelligent and relational life possible in the same way that the organization of our bone structure makes purposeful movement possible.

The cosmos, plant life, animal life, and finally even human life are ordered around the primary relationship of God to the human being, who, alone of all the creatures, is made in God’s image.  More specifically, the text says: “in the image of God he created human-kind; male and female he created them.” (1:26-27)

2.  In other words, our sexuality is absolutely crucial for understanding our identity as the physical/spiritual creatures made in the image of God.

3.  Gen. 2:15-23 further clarifies that our sexuality, our identity, and our place in God’s creation is most fully understood only in our differentiated complementarity*, not just in sameness [Adam’s “aha” moment upon seeing Eve for the first time is not simply the recognition of someone “like” him, but is also a self-awareness that was not possible until he could see himself through the gaze of another who was similar yet not identical to himself, and vice-versa]. (*See the glossary at the end of the article.)

4.  This complementarity is an essential part of our being made “in the image of God” and points to the divine community within the Triune God.  It suggests that to be relational in the deepest sense demands complementariness and not just sameness (1:26-27, 2:15-23).

5.  All of the created order, including human sexuality, received God’s approval as being ‘very good,’ and the proper context for erotic sexuality established by God from the beginning was within committed, heterosexual monogamous relationships (1:31, 2:24-25).  [The language of “one flesh” clearly points to monogamy as God’s original intention.]

6.  As good as sexuality is, though, and exactly because it is so central to who we are, it has been and continues to be affected by the Fall.  In fact, one of the very first consequences of the Fall is reflected immediately in human sexuality. In Gen. 2:25, we are told that the man and the woman were without shame in their sexuality but with the entry of sin into the equation they experience shame at their nakedness, attempt to hide from God, and when confronted with their sin blame each other and their Creator for their predicament (Gen. 3:6ff.).  The Fall is the result of a rejection of God’s created order that makes for life.  This rejection leads back to chaos that manifests itself in all of the brokenness of our lives.

7.  There are good reasons to believe that all other scripture on sexuality (from Leviticus to the words of Jesus to Romans and other texts) is based on this foundation, assumes it, and when silent, most logically should be understood to approve and support it.

II. Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13

1.  Context:
As the people of Israel moved towards and then into the Promised Land they came into contact with and observed the practices of the people around them who worshiped other gods.  Among those practices was possibly that of ritual male prostitution.  Based on what we know of those cultures, it seems clear that ritual male prostitution may have been the most tolerated type of homosexual erotic behavior at that time.

2.  The Texts:
It is perhaps in response to this context that the two statements in Leviticus were given.  Lev. 18:22 reads, "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." Lev. 20:13, similarly, states, "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them."

What I find to be very significant for our discussion in these laws is the lack of specificity in the words used here. The Hebrew language already had a technical term for ritual male prostitutes, which was being used in other parts of the OT essentially contemporary with this passage. In Deuteronomy 23:17-18 that technical term qadesim is used, but in Leviticus a whole different phrase is constructed to describe “a man lying with a male as with a woman.”  The most logical conclusion is that this more general phrase is to be taken globally as a prohibition against all male homosexual erotic behavior, and not just against ritual male prostitution. 

The seriousness of this law is re-inforced not just by the fact that the violation of it is punishable by death, but also by the fact that while all of the sexual sins described in Leviticus 18 and 20 are summarized as “abominations” – i.e., that which God abhors or hates – only this particular sexual behavior is specifically identified as an abomination in the verses that actually describe the behavior itself.

3.  Meaning:
What is it that makes this activity a sin and worthy of this strong reaction?  The bottom line is that all of the Laws of the Old Testament, starting with the Ten Commandments, uphold the basic structure for relational life established by God “in the beginning.” Collections like the Holiness Code in Leviticus, chapters 17-26, of which chapters 18 and 20 are a part, are further clarifications and expansions of the application of the Decalogue to the primary goal behind all of the Laws: God’s Shalom/Peace—life,  health, and community in relationship to God and others.

All the sexual laws in Leviticus 18 are specifically concerned with these issues, and all of them are introduced in verse 5 by the rationale for obedience: "so that you may live." The divine will behind all of these laws is the desire for God’s people to bear the divine image and experience the blessed life, health, and community possible within the structure provided by God in the beginning.  To reject God’s order for life is to reject God and all that God desires for the world and humans in particular.  It is to choose, not life, health, and community, but death, disease, and disorder.

III. Jesus and Human Sexuality

1. Context and Jesus’ Silence:
We move now to the New Testament, beginning with Jesus’ views on human sexuality.  The first point to make is that we have no record of Jesus ever directly addressing the issue of homosexual behavior.  What does our Lord’s silence mean?  Sociological evidence suggests that the Galilee of Jesus’ day was a far more cosmopolitan area than we have long assumed.  While it cannot be proved, it is likely, therefore, that Jesus’ silence does not mean he was unaware of what was going on in the dominant Greco-Roman civilization of his day—a civilization that was tolerant of some adult male same-sex pederastic* practices. (*See the glossary at the end of the article.)

Given that context, Jesus’ silence on homosexual behavior could possibly be construed as approval, only if Jesus had also been silent on human sexuality in general.  But he was not silent, and whenever Jesus did address matters of human sexuality, he always supported the God-given structure of human genital sexuality within a heterosexual, monogamous, committed relationship.

2. Jesus and Human Sexuality:
Significantly, when the Pharisees, according to Mark 10:2-9 and its parallel in Matthew 19:3-9, asked Jesus about the legality of divorce, he quoted from both Genesis chapters one and two and went back to the creation for his argument:  “God made them male and female,” and “for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh" (Gen. 1:27 & 2:24 in Mark 10:6-8//Matt. 19:4-6).

What we see in this case is that Jesus affirmed marriage in terms stronger than his contemporaries liked by grounding the institution not in Mosaic Law, but in the bedrock for sexuality laid by God “from the beginning.”  The creation account is Jesus’ basis for sexual morality.

Therefore, while there is no dispute that Jesus’ basic message was one of liberation and love, the Son of God’s message was not a denial of the Father’s prior revealed will. Jesus came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it, and thereby make abundant life possible for humanity again. Ethical behavior was so important in living out discipleship in God’s Kingdom according to Jesus that he used a very strong hyperbole about plucking out a wandering, lustful eye when discussing temptation with his followers (Matt. 5:27-29).

In other words, Jesus’ message of love had specific content and the liberating the Good News he brought and proclaimed was not from moral behavior but to and for moral behavior, especially including moral sexual behavior exactly because our sexuality is so fundamental to our identity as humans and as bearers of God’s image in the world and to others.  Therefore, when Jesus encountered the woman caught in adultery he both exposed the hypocrisy of the stone-throwers around her, and then responded to her, not by saying: “Go and do what your body tells you to do” but by commanding and inviting her to “Go, and sin no more” (John 8:11).  Jesus called her to the high road of God’s original intent for her sexuality.

IV. Paul & Romans 1:26-27

That same concern for love and liberation drives all of the Pauline material on human sexuality in general and homosexual genital behavior in particular.  The key passage is Romans 1:26-27. However, these two verses must be understood in their context and within Paul’s overall argument in the book of Romans as a whole.

1. Paul’s Overall Argument:
Rom. 1:18-3:20 is a prolonged indictment of human failing, leading to the conclusion that, in the light of the revelation of God's power of salvation in the Gospel (1:16-17), no humans are justified by their own accomplishments in God's sight (3:20). The opening section, 1:18-32, deals with Gentile religion and morality.  Gentile religion is foolishness (1:22) because it imagines God in the likeness of created beings (1:23). The first lie of idolatry is immediately followed by moral degradation: "Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves" (1:24). Religion and ethics belong together, but for Paul they are combined in a way that ethics is the outcome and consequence of faith or unbelief.  In the case of Gentile religion, the primal error of substituting the honor of the immortal and invisible God with images of creation is followed by its necessary consequence in the degradation of morality. The very showpiece of this moral degradation for Paul is homosexual genital activity. Verses 26-27 read:  

For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions.  Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another.  Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

2. Basis in the Creation Accounts:
There is good reason to believe that Paul’s whole argument here is based and even linguistically dependent upon the fundamentals revealed in Genesis, chapters 1-3, about creation, humanity, sexuality, and sin. 

First: the order of idolatry in Romans 1:23 is essentially the same order of creation listed in Genesis: "human being, birds, four-footed animals and reptiles" echoes Gen 1:26 which says that the human being will have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over the reptiles.  Second, Paul uses words for "males" (arsenes) and "females" (thleiai) in these verses which are otherwise not used in his letters (except in Gal 3:28). The words here derive from the vocabulary of the creation story in Gen 1:27 where the one human being (anthropos) is said to exist in the form of the union of two, male and female (arsen kai thly).

Third, the three uses of the phrase "exchange" (vv. 23, 25, & 26) coordinate idolatrous religion and homosexual activity. Idolatrous religion substitutes the worship of the only true God for objects unworthy of veneration, and homosexuality substitutes the relationship established by the Creator with a relationship that has no foundation in God's creation.

Homosexual genital behavior is “unnatural” therefore, because it goes against God’s original, established structure and intent for human sexuality—and this unnaturalness is evident through observation of the simple logic of form following function.  That is what makes homosexuality such an effective example for Paul in his argument.  No one is without excuse: not the believer, who should know better on theological grounds based on the witness of Genesis 1-3, and not the unbeliever who can see the physical evidence, if nothing else.

3. I Corinthians 6:9-11:
Given this basic position it is no wonder that in I Cor. 6:9-11, Paul lists willful persistence in homosexual genital behavior as one of many sinful activities that disqualifies a person from the Kingdom of God.  Also significant is that in the same passage Paul acknowledges the liberating power of the justifying grace of God in Christ Jesus, which had freed some of his readers for discipleship from those very same behaviors.  In other words, they were freed for life, health, and community in the Kingdom of God.

Conclusion:

I believe the biblical witness is clear:  The prohibitions against same-sex intercourse, like those against incest, prostitution, adultery, and bestiality are 1) absolute: there are no positive statements about any form of homosexual genital behavior anywhere in Scripture; 2) the prohibitions are pervasive, i.e, the texts are found in both the Old and New Testaments and within each; 3) they are severe, calling for exclusion from God’s Kingdom; 4) they are interdependent, meaning that there are clear conceptual, theological, and even linguistic ties between the different texts; and 5) the prohibitions against homosexual genital behavior are consistent with God’s original intent for human sexuality as established in the beginning.  So, where do we go from here?   

Well, as a Lutheran Christian, and more specifically as a Lutheran pastor, I took a vow, based upon the ELCA confession of faith, to uphold the Scriptures as the norm and authority for my life, faith, and ministry. Sometimes I may not understand what the Bible says, often I don't like what it says, most of the time I don't feel like doing the good things it tells me to do, but I trust it, because I trust the God revealed in Scripture through Jesus Christ who loves me enough to suffer for me in order to set me free from all of the brokenness in my life.

As we saw in the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery, God’s liberating love in Christ never leaves us where we were or are, but always moves us toward God and others; moves us from sin to good works.  We are freed not by but for ethical living, for a life of loving God and loving our neighbor.  That ethical behavior—the new life in Christ—has content, and that content is defined by God—not by us, not by our desires, not by genetics, not by sincerity, and not by personal self-validating experiences.  As one letter to the Lutheran in November 2000 put it:

“Whether my sinful desire is for too much money, the wrong sexual partner or revenge, and whether I was born with it or acquired it along the way, my need remains the same: forgiveness, healing, and the hope of change in Jesus Christ.  Although I like it when people tell me to celebrate my sin, it’s not ultimately helpful--and definitely not what the church should be doing.” Letter to the editor, The Lutheran, Nov. 2000

If we are for God’s good plan for human sexuality; if we are for the Gospel’s inclusive love principle; and if we are for the liberating power of God’s justifying grace through faith in Jesus Christ, then we must learn from Jesus how to allow the marriage of truth and love.  We must learn from Jesus how to confront sinful behavior head-on, and yet not destroy the sinner in the process.  The woman caught in adultery had no doubt as to Jesus’ view on adultery.  Yet, she also had no doubt about his love and acceptance of her as the unique child of God she was.

That is the challenging privilege we have of ministering to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters by saying first a firm but loving “no” to the blessing of same-sex unions, and the ordination, consecration, and commissioning of people in committed same-sex relationships. We must say that loving “no” because we are then called to invite them to join us in a life-affirming “yes” to God’s sole, gracious plan for human sexuality within the God-blessed structure of heterosexual relationships. Those relationships, when they are at their best, are images of the life-giving relationship within the Trinity.

Glossary of selected terms:

Social sexuality—all aspects of our being that are distinct from specific feelings, attitudes, or behaviors related or leading to genital union.

Genital sexuality—all specific feelings, attitudes, or behaviors related or leading to genital union.

Complementarity—those physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of dissimilarity and similarity which complement or fulfill the opposite sex and give relationships depth and interest.

Pederasty—same-sex genital behavior involving an on-going relationship between an adult and a boy in which the elder usually assumes the active role and the younger the passive in sexual relations.

Select Short Bibliography:

Comiskey, Andrew. Pursuing Sexual Wholeness: How Jesus Heals the Homosexual. Lake Mary, Florida: Creation House, 1989.  See especially chapter two, “A Biblical Understanding of Sexuality.” 

Dawn, Marva J. Sexual Character: Beyond Technique to Intimacy. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1993.  Especially pp. 8-12, 20-24, and chapter nine, “Homosexuality.”

Gagnon, Robert A. J. The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001

Satinover, Jeffrey. Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth.  Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996 

Schmidt, Thomas E. “Searching for Truth in Lifestyles: Homosexuality and Christian Morality.” The Veritas Forum Lecture at University of North Carolina at Asheville, October 2, 1996

Taylor, Jr., Walter F. “The New Testament and Homosexuality: Denying God’s Purpose.” The Lutheran. “What Scripture Says . . . Two ELCA scholars examine biblical themes on homosexuality,” May 2001, pp. 54-57. [This article was originally part of a presentation to the ELCA Conference of Bishops on March 2, 2001.  The full text is available online at www.thelutheran.org/scripture.html.]