[1] How far can confessional Lutherans bend to accommodate an
urgently felt pastoral need and, if possible, to preserve the unity
of the ELCA (such as it is)?
Direction from the Confession of Faith
[2] It is a sign of the theological weakness of this troubled
denomination that it has yet to see the question framed by the
Augsburg Confession Article XXIII. The article commits the ELCA to
the Scriptural teaching of I Corinthians 7, Matthew 19 and Genesis
1 that God instituted and preserves the union of male and female in
the public estate of marriage as the fundamental form of human
community. At the same time, it affirms with the ecumenical church
that "sometimes severity and rigor must be alleviated and relaxed
for the sake of human weakness and to avoid greater scandal." The
ELCA's confession requires of it both this Scriptural
clarity in public teaching and humane flexibility in
pastoral care. Violating either term divides the community that is
supposed to be directed theologically by its confession of
faith.
[3] It is evident that same-sex union is not the
foundational public state of co-humanity blessed by God according
to Genesis 1:26-28. This blessing remains the very Word of
God spoken in the church's rite for marriage and persists in spite
of sin, failure and disorder. How then can the church respond
pastorally to those Christians who attest to fixed homophile
orientation and seek to establish stable relationships analogous to
and informed by Christian teaching on marriage? Carefully
delimiting the question at issue this way, I do not see that
pastorally we can avoid it. Posed this way, the question is not
antinomian. Certainly, adult persons of fixed homophile orientation
constitute a vulnerable minority, whose burden Christian people are
called to share, not scorn.
Public Witness and Christian Freedom
[4] Robert Benne, in the second edition of his widely read
Ordinary Saints has proposed a "strategy of gracious
tolerance… Repentance, forgiveness, and amendment of life
should be left for homosexuals to work out privately, as is the
case for other persons who struggle with the demands of the
Christian life." For those "who seem 'fixed' in their
orientation… [and where sexual abstinence] is not being
observed, it is gracious privately to encourage sexual fidelity
within committed friendships. Such an arrangement is far better
than the dangerous promiscuity practiced by a significant portion
of the homosexual subculture. From a Christian point of view, it is
the lesser of evils." The lesser evil argument Benne makes
here is the honest price that must be paid to the authority of
Scripture. Scripture, as read in the Augsburg Confession,
authorizes and blesses the life-long union of one man and one woman
in the hope of children; any other blessing in God's name would be
extra-Scriptural "enthusiasm," as the Reformers tagged the
schismatic belief that God speaks apart from his revealed Word in
canonical Scripture. Honest proponents of blessing same-sex unions
acknowledge this.
[5] Where this truth of God's Word is acknowledged, however, we
might in Christian freedom make morally ambiguous compromises for
the sake of afflicted brothers and sisters in a world broken by sin
and death. We routinely do such, for example, by recognizing in the
church the remarriage of those divorced at variance with the
prohibition of Jesus. I believe that in this light churchly
recognition (not blessing) of same sex unions might be
possible.
[6] In this connection Benne's argument for privacy is
problematic. He is rightly worried about opening the flood gates in
a church that lacks discipline and about scandalizing the faithful
who see the Bible being treated contemptuously by the advocates of
homosexuality as a variant creation of God rather than a defect
caused by sin. Nevertheless, the courage of Lutheran conviction
rests in the freedom of the Christian. I do not know that the ELCA
is capable of it, but the difficult, complex and prophetic stance
of Christian freedom will witness both to the law of God which
judges homosexual desire as defective and to the mercy of God which
nevertheless makes the best of things. In regard to same sex unions
this requires a distinction between blessing by the church and
recognition in the church. Indeed, tacit recognition of same-sex
couples is arguably something the church has done intuitively and
pastorally, if privately, for a very long time. If that is so, is
not a public witness is now demanded of us, not least for the sake
of the highly conflicted homosexual community? Let me try to thread
the needle here.
Repentance and Faith
[7] It is helpful to recall that for Luther God's forgiving love
and procreative purpose cover the abiding concupiscence at work
even in married love. By analogy, it might also be understood to
cover the disordered love of gay or lesbian partners as this
homosexual desire is acknowledged in repentance and faith as a
cross to be born, not the creative work of God to be celebrated.
Likewise politically, as "it is better to marry than to burn," so
exclusive same-sex unions would be better than the destructive
illusions of sexual liberation. In rejecting the notorious
promiscuity of the "gay lifestyle," and in seeking a form of social
recognition that is compatible with the social nurture of children
through the estate of marriage, same-sex unions can be analogous to
Christian marriage and recognized as such.
[8] In spiritual life, God's inclusive love in Christ entails
repentance as well as faith. It is not simply sinners but penitent
sinners who are embraced in the communion of the church. Same-sex
partners finding no other recourse in their situation (i.e., having
sought unsuccessfully in prayer the gift of celibacy for the sake
of service or therapeutically to restructure homosexual desire),
and seeking the recognition of the Christian community, confess
(just like the divorced seeking remarriage) that normative
Christian teaching stands in judgment over them, whose union falls
short of the marriage God intends for his creature; homophile
desire reflects the brokenness of the fallen creation (Romans 1),
not the original intention of the Creator (Matthew 19).
Order and Disorder
[9] This is a painful acknowledgment. Yet the distinction
between God's creative intention and the disorder produced in
various ways by universal sin must be sustained. Commenting on
Genesis 4:1 ("And Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bore
Cain."), Luther insisted on the "distinction between original sin
and the product of creation. The work of creation is something good
and holy that God has created; for it comes from God, who bestows
His blessing on it… Even among married people themselves,
how manifold are the ways in which the weakness of the flesh
manifests itself! All this stems, not from what was created or from
the blessing, which is from God, but from sin and the curse, which
is the outgrowth of sin. Therefore they must be kept separate from
God's creation, which is good; and we see that the Holy Spirit has
no misgivings about speaking of it… referring to the
copulation or sexual union of husband and wife…" (LW
1:237-9).
[10] Thus, in political life, "disorder" is not the same idea as
"sinful." Disorder is more like disease than moral evil. Paul
teaches in Roman 1:18ff that the refusal to acknowledge God as God
is the root sin, while the disorder of homophile desire is one
reflection among many of this universal human idolatry. The idea is
that sexual desire is disordered on the primal level of the human
body in its heterosexual form by refusing the sexual other whom God
would give, frustrating in the process the procreative and
nurturing purpose of God in the institution of marriage. In
refusing the sexual other, homosexual love turns away from the kind
of union from which the Creator draws and rears new life. In this
concrete way, God is refused as God, who is the One who so joins
together from the beginning. In turning away from union with the
sexual other, and the prospect of children as the fruit of love,
homosexual love is consequently burdened with an inherent tendency
to sexual self-gratification that by contrast is sublimated in the
mature love of the heterosexual couple for their children and
grandchildren.
[11] Note well: a similar critique could be made of contemporary
forms of heterosexuality which have replaced Christian marriage
with narcissistic relationships of convenience and consumption
which violate the covenant of the generations. Equally, however,
the disordered love of homosexuality, like any other disorder, can
be mitigated and managed with grace and charity. But to achieve
that limited healing in this life which would be analogous to
Christian marriage, the inherent defect must be squarely and
truthfully faced. Thus the notion of disorder is critically
important, not least of all because it requires us to come to terms
with -in this ideologically charged atmosphere of conflicting
scientific claims-- the disturbing positive correlation between
much adult homosexual identity and childhood experience of sexual
abuse or emotional neglect by parents or other significant elders.
In eagerness to stand with a vulnerable sexual minority, the church
dare not overlook the very real possibility that the psychogenesis
of much homosexuality lies in the vicious sins of sexual predation
upon children or more subtle sins of emotional manipulation of
children by elders.
Pastoral Care
[12] All of this, both the spiritual and political dimensions,
is pastorally relevant, even as the chief question under discussion
here is how the church speaks pastorally with adult Christians who
know very well the disorder within and without that attends their
homosexual orientation and are seeking a form of healing in analogy
to Christian marriage. It is and forever will be hard to be
homosexual; even harder to be a Christian in this circumstance. Yet
pastorally the mercy of Christ embraces all who are troubled,
broken, and defective and it suffices for carrying the cross and
following him - if indeed, that is what we seek.
[13] It might be objected that the burden of this complex
judgment is unbearable for gay and lesbian partners, who are asked
to consider their love, not sinful, but abidingly defective. Yet
from the law-gospel perspective, this is-- to speak with necessary
clarity in our situation-- a childish objection. All
Christians are continually asked in many different respects to
acknowledge in concrete ways how they defect from God's purpose. We
may, however, agree with the objection in this precise respect:
apart from living faith in the merciful Christ and hope in our
final healing through him, the burden of God's judgment is always
unbearable. But the solution to that is pastoral care that mediates
the merciful Christ for the consolation of troubled
consciences.
Conclusion
[14] I conclude, therefore, that in case by case pastoral
determination on the foregoing basis, that pastors and
congregations of the Church of the Augsburg Confession may in
Christian freedom recognize and support same-sex unions, just as
they recognize and support remarriage of the divorced, since
repentance and faith in this life do not achieve the perfection of
sin eliminated, but only of sin forgiven and controlled. The final
healing is eschatological.
A Codicil
[15] This proposal makes conservative Lutherans nervous that, in
the utter absence of ecclesial discipline and confessional fidelity
that has characterized the ELCA since its inception, it will be
embraced as little more than a Trojan Horse by the forces seeking
the eventual blessing homosexuality as such in the name of God. Let
me therefore add this codicil to my proposal: uncritical
blessing of same sex unions is a church dividing issue. The
foregoing case for critical recognition of same sex unions
among confessing Christians is as far as those can bend who hold to
the Reformation confession of the authority of canonical
Scripture's witness to Jesus Christ as redeemer of the creation. To
go further and "bless" in the name of God such relationships as if
they represented the proper will of God for his creature is
unavoidably church-dividing - for we would then inescapably be
invoking different Gods in pronouncing contradictory blessings.
That exactly is what would divide the church, since we would then
be unable to do together what is essential to what we do as the
body of Christ: call upon God and act in his name.