Questions from Listeners

Homosexuality and the Church

Questions from Listeners

Neil: All right, let's get to the phones. 716-883-5000. Jim from Collins Center, you're on with Mel White and John Rankin.

Jim: Yes, I'd like to just make a few comments. One, I would say with Mel it could be hereditary, we could be born like that. But that doesn't mean we have to continue in sin. I think the scripture points out that the sins of the father are handed down from generation to generation. And if Mel searched diligently, maybe in his ancestry, he might find that. But that doesn't mean we have to continue in sin. And Second Timothy chapter 3 tells what it will be like in the last days. And one of the signs is that they will be without natural affection.

Neil: All right, Mel, let's respond to that.

Mel: Well of course, when we bring up the law of nature, there is nothing more natural for me than my affection for Gary. What was unnatural for me was to try to perform as a heterosexual for twenty-four years. So you know, even if I have made a terrible decision with my life, even if I have done wrong, I feel so at ease with the spirit of Christ in my own life, and so comfortable with the notion that God's love for me is complete, that even if I've made a terrible mistake out of my own weakness, I know God loves me and I know God will forgive me. So when it comes down to it, I'm glad to be a gay Christian man and I'm thankful for that.

Neil: John Rankin, can you respond?

John: Sure. I think we have to look at the issues of what is natural. And in going deeper than Thomas Aquinas and natural law, going back to Genesis. And I don't know if we have much time to get into this.

The uniqueness of Genesis 1 and 2 in God the Father as creator, is that all his power is employed in the act of giving. And we have one of two choices in human relationships, either to give and we receive back, or we take before someone else takes from us. The first prescription is one for peace, the second is one for war. And what God does in Genesis is he sets forth his order of nature, order of creation, that which is natural. And in order for there to be giving, there has to be one in whom the responsibility is placed. So God starts by giving himself the responsibility to give. He gives to Adam. Adam experiences being alone with only the animals. And therefore not bearing the completion of God's image until woman is made. Then she is not subservient to him, she is part of him, she gives to him, and he receives back from her.

Neil: Got about twenty seconds, John.

John: We'll have to come back over the break. There's a complementarity between the sexes that is required to fulfill the image of God, that which is most natural. You can fulfill parts of it otherwise, but you can't fulfill all of it.

What I was saying, was when we were talking about the issue of that which is natural, and Mel had talked about feeling natural in a homosexual relationship. What I want to be careful of, is that there are lots of things that momentarily, or even over a period of time, can feel natural, OK? But ultimately, do they line up with God's word, if indeed we claim to be Christians. And what I'm saying is that when we look at the order of creation, and male and female, we see that man and woman give and receive to each other in a way uniquely necessary to build society, to fill and subdue the earth according to the creation promise to man and woman.

And so I'm concerned that Mel's definition of "natural" is more based on experience, and not based on scripture. When I did a forum with Bishop John Spong, with whom I'm sure Mel White is familiar (he's the Episcopalian bishop in Newark, New Jersey who has written a number of books defending homosexuals as Christians). I did a forum with him at Yale in January 1994. My number one critique of Bishop Spong's presentation was that unlike the normal Episcopal or Methodist or indeed evangelical framework, he didn't have scripture, tradition, reason, and experience, with everything hinging on scripture. He inverted it and had experience first, followed by reason, tradition, and scripture finally. So that's my concern there, are we defining "natural" according to the order of creation or according to the order of our experience.

Neil: Mel, respond to that quickly.

Mel: John, have we learned anything about the human condition, about humanity, about the universe since those books were written?

John: Well, I guess the question I have for you is this....

Mel: No, no, no. You don't answer a question with a question. That's a debater's trick and you're too much loving for that! I asked you a real question.

John: (laughter) My answer is that God gave to Adam and Eve and in the books of scripture, everything we need to know. And we're still catching up with its brilliance. We experientially and by means of scientific investigation have learned a lot. And my experience as someone who loves the liberal arts, is that basically everything we learn only confirms what the scriptures gave us to begin with. And this indeed should not be surprising, since God revealed the scriptures.

Mel: See, what I believe is that the scriptures are so alive with truth and so trustworthy in terms of what they speak to. But when they put Galileo and Copernicus in house arrest for saying that the Bible was wrong, in terms of its cosmology. That the earth isn't the center of the universe, that the sun was. When the Pope condemned him, when Martin Luther condemned him, when Melancthon condemned him, when John Calvin condemned him, on the basis of the scriptures, saying Galileo and Copernicus are worse than sinners because they are not trusting the word. The Catholic church put them under house arrest. And now last year John Paul II said, you know, we were wrong 340 years ago. We misunderstood the scriptures. We have learned so much about cosmology since then. And we should have trusted Moses to talk to us about God and the spirit. But we should have trusted our own senses to see that we were wrong, that the earth isn't flat.

We as gay and lesbian people are afraid now that we are going to have to wait 300 years before they discover that science has informed us about human sexuality. And that the Bible doesn't condemn us, but instead the scriptures, old and new, give us as gay and lesbians, like heterosexuals, the guidelines that help us live our life with honor and with nobility.

Neil: John, let's get some response from you quickly.

John: Oh, absolutely, the church was wrong in how it dealt with Galileo. And the church has been wrong in many ways. The apostle Peter said that judgement begins with the household of God. They misinterpreted scripture. Look at the metaphorical power of scripture when Jesus says, I am a door. No one interprets him as though he is saying he's actually made out of oak fibers with a brass doorknob. The power of metaphor is tremendous. Nowhere in scripture, in the Hebrew, the Greek or the original language, do you have any indication of a flat earth or a scientific cosmology revolving around the earth.

Mel: But Luther and Melancthon and Calvin and the Pope all condemned him as though it did. They were reading the Bible, I think, as people who hate gays and lesbians are reading it today, saying they are taking it literally, whereas in fact you're proving my point. That they were not. It was never meant to be taken literally, that Jesus himself used metaphor and allegory to make important points.

John: But you know, just like the whole beauty of Hebrew parallel poetic structure, it's all meant to serve history and revelation. I believe I am taking it more literally than they did. Not literalistically, through the myopia of my present perspective. But literally in terms of the Hebrew, the culture, the exegesis, the archeology, and everything that comes into place there. And when we exegete, when we dig out of the sources the original meanings of scripture.... For example, in Genesis 1, and this is in contrast with every other world religion's origin text, it treats the sun, the moon, and the stars as inanimate, celestial, material objects. From Babylon on forward, all the other world religions treated them as gods and goddesses. It was the other world religions that didn't have science in view at this point.

Now Moses was not making scientific points. But everything he was saying was in accord with the universe that God made. And I think that the analogy between a false... Well OK, number one. Number two, what Moses does say is that the whole reason for the existence of the universe is that you and I, man and woman in God's image, Psalm 8, are made to be the rulers of the works of his hands. So we are the moral center of the universe, the only ones with moral choice made in God's image.

Neil: Let me interject a question here, and both of you can respond very quickly to it, just a sentence or two. In Romans chapter 1, where the scripture so clearly says, God let them go ahead into every sort of sex sin, and do whatever they wanted to do, yes vile and sinful things with each other's bodies, the men instead of having a normal sex relationship with women, burned with lusts for each other, men doing shameful things with other men, and as a result, getting paid within their own souls with the penalty they so richly deserved. Are we saying here, and I want to get both of your opinions on this, that 350 years from now, we will look back and say we misinterpreted scripture? It really wasn't talking about a homosexual relationship and God's displeasure with that. Are we going to see things differently 350 years from now? Mel, what do you have to say about that?

Mel: See Neil, when we look at that passage now, and see what Paul was doing. He was using that, and I think John will agree, to describe pagan culture at that time. People who had given up on God and had been left with their own devices. And what I don't like about the dueling Bible thing, where we argue, and John has shown a much wiser thing than to get into the passages and then fight about them, is this: that right now the misunderstanding of those passages is leading to death.

We buried a 23-year old Southern Baptist singer, just weeks ago, named Nicholas, who was taken by five other kids from a park near our town, taken out into the woods and shot. First his fingers and then toes and then his genitals, and then on the 29th shot through his brain. Because when they were asked why did you kill him, they said because he was a faggot and worthy of death. Going right back to Leviticus 20 and the misunderstanding of these passages. So for me this is a desperate moment. We are being killed because these passages are being not only misunderstood, but even if they are understood correctly, the spirit and nature of Christ, the spirit of love, is not being understood. And that's why John is so important, and his spirit. If we start arguing about Romans.... See, John and I both know that Romans can be taken both ways. You can use it to condemn me or you can use it to liberate me. And we can go on endlessly about the Greek and the English.

Neil: OK, I want to hear John's response on this. But I guess my ultimate question here is not about Romans, but about the standard of scripture as an authority in our lives. John, go ahead and respond.

John: Well, I will disagree with Mel and say that, no, we can't interpret it in two ways. It's only one way. The whole basis of Romans.... Paul wrote Romans to the church of Rome, whom he had never met, and he gave them a prolegomena, an introduction to basic Christian theology. So he started by making appeal to the order of creation. He said for since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have clearly been seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. He then goes through a whole list. And homosexuality is just one deviance from the order of creation. So in terms of good exegesis, we can come up with no other conclusion in my estimation.

However, I think that Mel is perceiving something that is very much in accord with my desire. I think there are much deeper issues. We can get hung up on individual passages. I'll be hung up as long as we want to, to argue what they really mean.

But I also believe that, for example, those people who killed the homosexual young man, I mean, they're making a mockery of scripture and the word of God and it's a terrible evil. And we as Christians need to oppose that.

But there is no basis, no basis whatsoever, for me to condemn anyone, period. The highest ethic within all scripture, ratified in the Sermon on the Mount, chapter 5 of Matthew's gospel and in Romans 5, is love for one's enemies. Now enemies can be a mortal enemy or can be someone who has a different worldview, someone who disagrees with you. And in the culture wars that we are faced with right now, unless we as Christians can know that God sent his son to die for us while we were still enemies, unless we can then love those who we think oppose us with the same love Christ gave us, then we are mocking the love of Christ. So anyone who does that kind of stuff is not reflecting Christ.

However, I think that Romans 1 is clear and I think, Neil, your question goes to the source, and that is that ultimately Mel, I, anyone else -- and I had a long talk with Randy Terry about Operation Rescue in another context -- are we making ourselves accountable to creation, sin, and redemption in Genesis 1,2,3. And I don't believe that we are ever going to interpret scripture correctly until we make ourselves accountable to that foundation.

Neil: All right, Jim, are you still with us? You wanted twenty seconds to comment. I apologize for you hanging on so long.

Jim: That's OK. Yeah, I'd just like to say to Mel that my natural tendency would be to commit adultery. But I know that's not what my creator has in mind for me. And I even felt that he blessed those relationships and I felt I was walking closer with the Lord at that time. But in reality I was as far away from the Lord as I could be.

Neil: OK, Jim, thanks for your call and I apologize that we've gotta do it this way. It's one of those strange days where we spend an awful lot of time talking about the subject matter and not getting to too many calls.

Rich, good to have you with us, very quickly if you would, let's get a comment from you.

Rich: Yes, thank you, I've got but two scriptures, Mel, to give you. In Psalms 81:12, the Lord's dealing with the Israelites there. He's given them up because they wouldn't harken to God's voice. Verse 12 reads: "So I gave them up unto their own hearts lusts, and they walked in their own counsels". Mr. White, I believe you're walking in your own counsel.

Mel: I'm so glad you brought that up. I'm so grateful that I'm walking in the spirit of Christ and perfectly satisfied and content with it.

Rich: No sir.

Mel: It's just your word against mine. I love Jesus and Jesus loves me and there ain't nothin' more I can do about it!

Rich: No. No. No. Romans chapter 1 verse 32 is the last scripture I'll give you. "Who knowing the judgement of God and they that commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them."

Mel: Now we're back to it, aren't we. You want us dead, Richard?

Rich: That's God's word.

Mel: You want us dead, Richard?

Rich: That's God's word.

Mel: Do you want us dead? Say yes or no.

Rich: What's that?

Mel: Do you think we should be killed?

Rich: I think that's God's will and God's plan that he should take you out.

Mel: Well, there you are John, you better help him.

Neil: I think I know where Mel White stands on this issue. John Rankin, very quickly in thirty seconds, should homosexuals be killed, is that what that scripture is saying?

John: Absolutely not. Not within a pluralistic democracy, number one. Number two, the whole goal of the law is to teach us the penalty of sin so we will cry mercy. The whole goal of Christian love is to show mercy. But I want to throw something in here that's very important. The reason I'll go the extra mile to love one who disagrees with me and to listen to those who have a different view of scripture and living in this context in homosexual sin, the reason I will do that is because there is a judgement. Because 1 Corinthians 6 says that those who are living in homosexual relationships are not going to be inheritors of the kingdom of God. And it's because....

Mel: No one says that people living in homosexual relationships will not inherit the kingdom of God. That is not in the Bible, old or new, and you know it, John.

John: Well, OK, we're talking about the Greek word there for male prostitute. And I think if we exegetically take that back to the order of creation, homosexuality, it says those who are living in sexual sin, of which the Bible clearly identifies that....

But Mel, you disagree with that. But let me say this in terms of why I think this is so important. Because I believe that the person living in sexual sin, homosexual or heterosexual, is liable to God's judgement when they stand before God. I need to point out the seriousness of that warning, but in so doing I do not take upon myself the prerogative to judge or to pass sentence on the person.

Neil: OK, very quickly, Grace from Tonawanda. Welcome to Lifeline.

Grace: Hi, Neil. You guys just basically commented on what I was going to ask Mel, if he was living a celibate lifestyle. And if he is not, because he was married and chose not to stay married, regardless of whatever went on in their marriage, he is living an adulterous lifestyle. Also, as a heterosexual, I am not free, being single, to go out and have sexual relations. I have to guard that according to scripture.

Neil: Yeah, Mel. How does your interpretation of scripture apply to other sexual sins?

Mel: I believe that all the New Testament passages and Old Testament passages that talk about loving, committed, monogamous relationships should be taken very seriously by gays and straights alike. And that the standards of Christ, both judgement and grace, we should listen to very carefully. Because it's good news, it's good advice. It helps us know.

My relationship with Gary Nixon has been for ten wonderful years. And we live under the same Jesus who guided us in that relationship, as Grace does and as John does.

Grace: Are you living a celibate lifestyle?

Mel: I am living a loving, caring, intimate, sexual lifestyle with my lover and partner, married partner.

Grace: But if there is sexual relations it's sin. I could say that the same way.

Mel: You'd have to say that, then, about any divorcee who is remarried, wouldn't you. Because Jesus was very clear about that, wasn't he.

Grace: It's still sin. I'm not judging you if you're divorced. That's between you and God. But the point of the matter is, you are not free to continue a sexual relationship, if you were even heterosexual. You're not free.

Neil: Let's get John Rankin's ideas on this. We've gotta wrap this up real quick. Grace, thank you for your call.

Grace: OK, Neil, thank you.

Mel: Love your name.

John: Very quickly, the rootedness is how we understand Genesis 1 through 2. The Mosaic prohibition in the ten commandments against adultery means anything outside of marriage, heterosexual monogamous marriage. And of course, the Old Testament's full of it. Look at Solomon, he just sinned wickedly once he moved outside of God's will.

We have to measure ourselves by that positive, and unless we understand that positive then from my perspective I've got nothing to offer to Mel. Because I believe he's made in God's image and because I believe that living as a homosexual is an error for his well being, eternally and presently. Therefore, I will give everything I can to open up respect and communication. But ultimately, God is a judge, which frees me to be loving. But number two, I also have to say that he is a judge. And if we say we believe in Jesus Christ, we have to do serious business with the nature of scripture.

Neil: Mel, I'll allow you a quick response and then I'll say thanks for both of you joining us.

Mel: I say that "by grace ye are saved through faith." It's a gift. "Not of works that I should boast." That one day John and I and Grace and Richard and you, Neil, we'll all stand there before Christ. At this point in my life, with an Old Testament degree and a New Testament degree, I am convinced in my heart that Christ loves me and sees me as a gay Christian, and that's where I have to stand.

Neil: All right, John, thank you for being with us. Mel, you as well. God bless the both of you.

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