G'day Linz and the Group
Good to hear from you, and Happy Christmas all.
And as usual, a well thought out contribution, expressing what I'm sure many others are thinking. Good stuff. Please accept the reply as it is intended.
Because I'm somehow unhappy with the overall tone of my reply. I've been a lot more negative than I would like. I've tried to fix it and failed. So I'm going to send it anyway.
If my unease comes from any underlying inconsistency in my thinking, you may be able to point it out better than I can just now.
At 08:43 AM 23/12/03 +1100, Lindsay Cullen wrote:
I agree that the majority of thoughtful people arguing for a conservative position distinguish between orientation and practise, and do not see orientation as a bar to ordination. However I can t allow Andrew s OTT passage below to go unanswered. There are many people, within the UCA and without who do see orientation as a bar to ministry, and they are a part of the discussion. I was shocked when this idea surfaced, not once, not twice, but three times in a Presbytery meeting where we were discussing the topic. It was also stated at a Congregational meeting I ran.
The rationale given for this position was a denial factually that gender orientation is in any way a given,
That's another big topic.
The view you describe in your last paragraph above is so sweeping that it's almost certainly false, agreed. But I think the equally simplistic thinking that all GLBT people are so strongly oriented that they can't be anything else is also wrong. Kinsey decided that there was a continuous range of orientations, and even that we are all to some extent potentially bisexual. The research I've seen quoted that has challenged this view seems to me to be politically motivated, with the conclusions written before the data was gathered (and there's been a lot of that).
If Kinsey's first conclusion above (the continuous range one) is true (and I'd be interested in other opinions) then we need to deal with all of this range of orientations. Certainly those who are very strongly gay need helpful and accurate guidance as to what God expects of them. But, so do those somewhere in the middle, and they have no less right to it or need of it. The current focus on the extremes is understandable but unhelpful.
and a denial theologically that God would ever create someone with a homosexual orientation. Thus anyone who felt that they were of homosexual orientation was either self-deluded (and thus unfit for ordination) or was wilfully making excuses for their sinful choices and desires (and thus unfit for ordination).
Hmmm. I think it's obvious that God does create people with homosexual orientation. I think those who deny this are just playing with words.
I think we need a theology of sex, expressed in terms that we laypeople can understand, and that we need it urgently. That's the main conclusion of my "Homosexuality, Me, and the Church" web page, written now eight years ago. The wowsers seem in practice to see all sex as wrong, that is as post-fall. And certainly, there's no *record* in Genesis of sex before the fall. But I think this needs a lot more exploration.
It's not easy. Here's a little quote from my sexuality pages:
"Research is also hindered because it is a very normal human thing to want privacy in sexual matters. Most men are impotent in public, otherwise nudism wouldn't work."
Food for thought?
Another example simply the most recent I have come across: Stephen recently posted a link to the Bridges Across the Divide website (http://www.bridges-across.org/ba/index.htm) and in reading through that website I came across the following quote from John Rankin, President of the Theological Education Institute (whatever that is) and a member of a Presbyterian church in the US:
I think Lureen has also raised a very interesting issue when she said she is a lesbian regardless of her practices or her acts, which is an ontological statement, a statement of being. She says that that's who she is.
I looked for this article, but I couldn't find it. It may be on a page that Google either doesn't index yet, or perhaps lists under another domain. Could you give me the exact URL?
But note this preamble, which refers to Lureen's own words. I don't have these, that's one thing I was looking for. It's important. It's always dangerous to discuss a reply without reading the question.
And I think ultimately that's what the question is about, whether debating within the Presbyterian Church or other denominations.
I think he's wrong here.
Who are we? What is it to be made in God's image?
Yes yes yes. That's exactly the right question.
Can someone be made in God's image according to the order of creation and be homosexual by identity. Or a fornicator by identity. And I believe in both cases the answer is no.
But a poor answer. At first reading this is appallingly bad both logically and theologically.
But then I realised that the problem may be more one of communication. I think those words "by identity" are very important here. This guy's an academic. He's making a very fine logical distinction, and it's easy to lose it. What he is criticising is not so much Lureen's *practice* as her *rationale*.
It's obvious that he doesn't like the practice either, but I don't think the quote actually even says Lureen is practising, we are just assuming this if you look closely. Her practice is not the point under discussion at all. That's why the preamble is so important.
Obviously, it's possible for God to create homosexuals and fornicators, in the sense He created us all and we all have sinned. That's not what this is about. The question seems to be more, how do we see ourselves?
I don't want to defend the view put there. I might if I had the whole article, but I doubt it.
Just as an aside, what's a fornicator? In precise terms, I mean. Oh, you don't know either? Don't worry, I don't think anyone really does. That's why we use the word. There's no fear of being proved wrong, because even we don't know what we've said. A bit like "inerrent". (;->
I think I'd like to invent something, a piece of farm machinery or somesuch, but something really radical and useful, and then launch it first in non-English-speaking areas under the name of "the Fornicator". Try to establish that as its (English) name. I think it would be possible. (:-o>
So by all means, where it is possible to establish a common position that sexual orientation is not a bar to ordination, then let us press on to discuss other issues, but we cannot assume that such a common position can be assumed either within the UCA or Christianity more widely, and we cannot stop pressing the debate on that point where it is necessary.
Hmmmm. In my last post I suggested that there *are* people in the UCA who hold these views. I don't actually think you *have* provided any examples, but in any case I've already said I think these people are there, so there's no argument.
I still don't see why it is necessary to continually raise the issue in replying to any of *my* posts, or even anywhere on this list. The active members of this list seem agreed, at least. I'm willing to be corrected on this.
I still think we should move on.
But to move on, we need to overcome the presupposition that orientation is an issue. It's not one for me, nor for whoever wrote the current EMU website, nor AFAIK for anyone who spoke on the subject at Assembly, whether on either side or anywhere in the middle.
And I still think that there have been some attempts, historically at least, to blur the distinction between orientation and practice as a tactic. It goes roughly like this. It's agreed (and it is on this list) that there's no problem accepting people of homosexual orientation for ministry. These people are then called simply "homosexuals", blurring the distinction between them and those in active relationships. Then, with agreement having been gained that "homosexuals" (meaning those of this orientation) are acceptable, it's claimed that there has been agreement that those in active relationships are acceptable.
And even if you think this has never been used as a deliberate tactic, it's certainly been a cause of confusion.
One further thing. If I understand you aright Andrew, your last posts seem to indicate that the reason you do not feel actively homosexual people can be qualified for ministry is that they are exercising their sexuality outside of marriage. Is that correct? And your way of dealing with this is either to offer marriage to homosexual people, or else to overturn the link between ordination and marriage (or celibacy). Is that correct?
It's not correct, in that I was looking at the way presbyteries *do* currently act, which is actually very different to the way they'd act if they we made up entirely of clones of Andrew Alder.
My own view is that we should drop ordination altogether for reasons quite independent of this issue, which then seems to solve this problem too. In computer programming, it's a useful technique to fix the bugs you can clearly see, even if they are minor, even while you struggle to understand the major bugs. Often the enigmatic major bugs go away when the obvious but seemingly minor ones are fixed. Not that I see ordination as a minor issue, but all the more reason to think that fixing our woolly thinking there can't hurt.
But I'm also looking for a way forward without dropping ordination. In that sense, this is my suggestion, yes.
The two options you describe seem to me to be the only logical possibilities. I certainly said that, in this context. Can you offer any others?
If this is correct, I have to say that I find it rather bizarre that you are choosing to deny active homosexuals the opportunity to enter into the particular ministry reserved for those who are ordained, not on the basis that they are (objectively) unfit for such ministry within God s kingdom, but rather on the basis that the church (UCA) has erred by not offering marriage to homosexuals or has erred by not overturning its position on ordination and marriage.
Hmmm? On first reading that sounds so logical, but it's full of emotive terms and I suspect the logic is a bit twisted. Try rewriting it as shorter sentences. Can you? If not, that's a sign of twisted logic.
I think my view is both clear and consistent on these issues, while your paraphrase is almost incomprehensible. That's what your last paragraph is, fifteen words of introduction and then a paraphrase of my supposed view. This has points in common with my real view, certainly. But there are also lots of things inferred. Not all of your inferences accurate, but I don't think I even want to try to untangle them.
I certainly think that there are areas in which the UCA should change both the rules and the rationale which underlies them, and others where we should consider it. Some of my proposals are quite radical. But I don't think it's good to suspend the rules in question while we discuss them. Life needs to go on.
You've overstated my position on gay marriage. The details are on my web page. I can post them to the list if you like.
In other words, you seem to be putting the letter of the law, and moreover a law you have said you feel is wrong, above the spirit inherent in the gifts and calling of such people to ministry.
I don't think that's fair at all. This discussion is *about* the rules. Proposals 81 and 84, and all their previous versions, were *about* the rules.
I do think rules have their uses. I don't think we should have any more of them than absolutely necessary.
I agree that the Spirit has priority over our human rules.
As evidence of this, let me say that long ago I knowingly and comfortably (no, make that joyfully) accepted communion from a person I knew to be practising GLBT. By then this was no longer an issue for me personally, but it had been not long before, which is why I say "joyfully". This occasion was an important part of my journey. In those days, the minister in question was quite deliberately hiding their sexual practise from their presbytery, in order to avoid the discipline of the church.
This wasn't an issue for me either. If I were currently on a presbytery that was discussing the ordination of someone I knew privately to be GLBT but who wished to keep this private, I have no doubts that at this stage in UCA history I would regard that as irrelevant to the question of their ordination.
But that's a sign of how big a mess we are in, isn't it?
The issue for me is that of listening. Listening to each other, and listening to God. That's a lot more important than sex. But sex does seem to be very important to God.
That doesn t seem to me to be the kind of solution Jesus favoured in dealing with law and spirit. Or have I misunderstood some aspect of your position?
Perhaps. Has the above changed any of your understanding?
If not, what's your suggestion? Surely you don't object to fixing the rules?
If so, what should we do instead?
YiCaa
email: andrewa @ alder . ws
http://www.zeta.org.au/~andrewa
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