A new round in the ongoing homosexuality debate
For a generation, the Presbyterian Church (USA), like many groups in society, has been locked in an increasingly bitter debate about homosexuality. Last week, Reformed Pastor blogger David Fischler reported the PCUSA group “That All May Freely Serve” (TAMFS) is done with lobbying and pleading. In his March 24 post “Funny, San Jose Doesn’t Look Like Chicago,” he reports they’re moving to more dramatic forms of protest.
And they don’t want to be alone. Fischler links to a TAMFS brochure inviting “allies” who are “Presbyterian or concerned about the future of the mainline Protestant church” to join them to “descend on the General Assembly in San Jose.”
As Fischler writes,
So presumably ACT-UP and the Human Rights Campaign and the Lambda Fund and all the rest of the gay-advocacy apparatus will be free to send traveling bands of atheist, Buddhist, Jewish, Mormon, and maybe even Episcopalian gay-friendly shock troops to the PCUSA General Assembly to engage in “street theater, intentional conversation, parades, poster art,” and who knows what other kinds of mayhem.
Why bother? Why invest so much energy in changing the PC(USA)? People say the new generation is post-Christian, certainly post-denominational. The TAMFS publicity claims “the next generation has already decided for the full equality of all people.” If they’ve already made up their minds on their own, why do they need to bother with the PC(USA)? Why enforce conformity on what is so obviously a debatable issue? (This applies with equal force to the troubles in the Episcopal Church/Anglican Communion, or to any of the NCCC-related communions struggling with this.)
Perhaps it has to do with validation.
In the 70s, the activists fought with professional Psychologists, who had ruled homosexuality a mental disorder. They managed to change the diagnosis manual, and now they could say homosexuals were not sick. But that turned out to be insufficient.
In the 80s and 90s and into the new millennium, the activists fought court battles to give legal status to homosexual partnerships. For the most part, they have won those battles, but somehow just being “legal” is still insufficient.
Maybe it goes back to hearts being restless until they find their rest in God. They need the benediction that affirms them as a blessed part of the diversity of Creation. And nothing the doctors or lawyers have said really sounds like that benediction.
And so TAMFS will gather its allied, descent upon the Presbyterians in San Jose, and try to force the church to offer that benediction. And they may succeed. But will they find a benediction delivered under such duress truly satisfactory?
3 comments:
you ask "why?". it does not have to do with validation but equality. the psychology diagnosis manual wasn't changed because of protests but because of research. the research showed homosexuality not to be a disorder.
so why protest the PC(USA) (of which i am a proud member and servant)? because we care about our denomination and want to see it fully recognize others. we want to see our denomination move into a place where every child of God will feel welcomed and challenged to fully realize their God-given gifts. the argument to not ordain (or even sanction marriages) homosexuals went out the window when we realized that women were just as worthy (and in some cases more so depending on which man or which woman we are talking about) for called ministry and authority as men. if paul was wrong about his view of women, why is he right about his view of homosexuality? for paul, homosexuality was caused by idol worship (read Romans 1). is that what those who are against the ordination and marriage of gays and lesbians really believe? can we just admit that paul did not have access to the scientific data we have today, therefore his diagnosis was wrong? it does not change the theme of his message (that being worshipping anyone or anything other than God is wrong and harmful to ourselves and the world around us) and does not attack the inspiration of scripture. what it does is force us to move beyond our own prejudices... isn't that what God has been doing from the beginning?
PJ,
The next GA could actually be much more secular and frightening than usual. This sounds as if it could get quite ugly. Thanks for the heads-up and blessings on your faithful witness.
Modern,
You wrote, "Can we just admit that paul did not have access to the scientific data we have today, therefore his diagnosis was wrong?"
I suppose that you think that Peter got this wrong too:
"But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God."(2Peter 1:20-21)He didn't have the scientific information of evolution and secular humanism.
Somehow I got the mistaken idea that the Holy Spirit had a very serious hand in the writing of Scripture? I don't know how I could have gotten that impression?
But since Paul was wrong about this, maybe, just maybe he was wrong about the whole salvation by grace through faith thing? I wonder what else he might have gotten right? But since we are the judges of that, why don't we just create a faith that suits us best and discard all the theology that we don't like. Oh! It looks like we're busy doing that now.
timefortruth,
I agree that no prophecy is open to private interpretation. That is exactly what the GA is for... public interpretation... corporate interpretation.
I was in no way saying that the HS didn't have a 'hand' in inspiring the scriptures (not writing them), but we must remember many other passages that at one time were though literal and have later been shown to be either poetic, symbolic, allegorical, parabolic, etc. A prime example is the sun standing still in the sky in the book of Joshua. We now know that the sun does not revolve around the earth but the other way around. Because of that, we have changed our literalist reading of that statement. We must also use common sense and recent discoveries to interpret today as well.
I am not saying that the scripture is at the mercy of cultural shifts, but I am saying culture, time, place, and present knowledge must be included in our interpretation.
OUR interpretation... not MINE. I do find it ironic that the numerous people who interpret scripture to include homosexuals are guilty of "private" interpretations while those who exclude (not in a salvific way, but regarding full participation in the church) are not.
Bear in mind also, much of my original comment is a little devil's advocate. I wrestle with this issue some, but I am frustrated by both sides' inability to see the validity of the others' argument.
I do think this situation looks a lot like the debate over the ordination of women.
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