November 01
Combining caution and compassion: A pastoral perspective on sexuality
By Harvey YoderShould Christian congregations and institutions affirm and support gays and lesbians in intimate relationships?
This simple question, affecting the lives of real people among us we should all love and care about, is threatening to tear us apart.
But the issue isn’t simple. Rather than it dividing us into just two opposing camps, I note at least seven different positions people are taking:
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Condemn and ostracize all lesbians and gays; keep them “in the closet.”
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Advocate acceptance of gays and lesbians but expect them to undergo a change of orientation (“healing”), with heterosexual marriage or a life of celibacy as their only options.
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Openly welcome and accept all believers into membership without making sexual orientation a barrier, but support sexual relationships for only one man and one woman in marriage.
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Support the above approach as the church’s official position, but make pastoral exceptions for faithful same-sex relationships where no other option seems viable (similar to Paul’s “better to marry than to burn with passion” counsel, an approach many churches have applied to divorced persons seeking to remarry).
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Celebrate and affirm all monogamous and faithful relationship equally — heterosexual or homosexual.
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Encourage monogamous relationships, but make questions of exclusivity and fidelity matters of personal conscience.
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Leave all questions about sexual behaviors up to the individual.
Comments
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Harvey, Thanks for this reflection. I think your 7-step spread of opinion in the church on this issue is accurate and helpful. The Mennonite Church is not of one mind on this issue, as some try to argue pointing to the Confession of Faith (already 15 years old!)
Your article also carries the conversation in the right direction--looking at sexual behavior in general rather than only homosexual behavior.
Certainly there should accountability in the church for sexual behavior, just as there should be for how we use our money, words and other human resources. The key is for the church to start trusting homosexual members just as much as heterosexual members. Gay people are just as capable of using their sexuality in healthy ways as straight people are.
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Brother Yoder, I'm curious about your phrase "the Genesis-old position of one man and one woman for life." I'm not sure how you can defend the one-man-and-one-woman definition of marriage from Genesis, since the majority of marriage arrangements involving our favorite Old Testament heroes were: "one man and multiple wives plus concubines and harlots." There's no record that Yahweh disapproved of these arrangements, nor was there ever a divine announcement that things have changed in this regard. Seems to me that if you want to go to the Torah for guidance on marriage, you must then allow for polygamy. Maybe instead of insisting that everything marriage-related be biblically based, we should rely on our common sense and modern sensibilities, using the brains that God gave us.
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Thanks for your comments.
Charlie, I should have phrased this as a "Genesis 2:24" or a "Creation story" position, one both Jesus and Paul refer back to--rather than drawing on any of many other variations that can indeed be found in the rest of the Hebrew Bible. But I understand where you are coming from.
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Gay people are just as capable of using their sexuality in healthy ways as straight people are.
@Forrest - You have just summed the problem I have with all sides in the current discussion; ie, that some people cannot use sexuality in a healthy way. The New Testament position on chastity is that it is for the strong; Jesus and Paul. Traditional Jewish society looked suspiciously at unattached individuals as an invitation to promiscuity and a stumbling block of temptation for others. The presumption in their minds was that long periods of chastity for the sexually mature was inherently unhealthy.
Could the contemporary view, which turns this understanding on it's head, explain why we have such high failure rates for intimate relationships of all kinds? Is the current trend to individuality in relationships the collective result of turning away from this older tradition in order to suit other goals; ie, career and education?
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Thank you for this insightful reflection and article. I wish that there would be more responses here supporting and affirming a more objective effort to get to the root of an issue that in reality stems from a much larger topic. Instead I find that responses are posted in the articles that seem to be much more emotionally charged. Why is this?
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