Incompatible with Scripture

I once tried to have a discussion concerning Scripture with a Jehovah's Witness. I soon learned that this was not possible, beyond a certain minimal level, because she insisted that parts of Scripture I thought of as literal were symbolic, and the bits I thought of as allegorical and apocalyptic were literal truth. For her, the Gospel was a symbolic drama, while Revelation was as literal as an Amtrak timetable.

I find myself in a similar situation now. A substantial majority of the bishops of the Anglican Communion meeting at Lambeth have gone on record "rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture." It is not my purpose here to address the accuracy of the bishops' opinion. Rather, I choose to hold the bishops to the same standard and assert that they already tolerate practices that are no less incompatible with Scripture. Indeed, while a prohibition on blessing same-sex couples and ordaining gay or lesbian clergy can only be inferred from Scripture, the practices tolerated by the bishops, and in some cases even practiced by them, are contrary to Scripture's express, literal word -- and not hoary old injunctions from Leviticus, but from the Gospels and the Epistles of Saint Paul.

Remarriage after divorce

Scripture declares that the remarriage of a divorced man or woman is the moral equivalent of adultery. This assertion rests on the very highest authority, Jesus Christ himself (Mt 5.32, 19.9 -- the "Matthean exception" being noted; Mk 10.11-12; Lk 16.18), bolstered by Saint Paul (1 Cor 7.10-11). This was the position of the church until well into this century, and earlier Lambeth Conferences made their rejection of marriage after divorce abundantly clear. Yet the passage of time has softened episcopal rigor, and the church now recognizes civil divorce and allows remarriage with the stroke of a bishop's pen (Canon I.19.3.a.), and offers annulment (itself a legal fiction unforseen by Scripture) merely as an option for those whose consciences may be troubled. (Canon I.19.2.a) Remarriage after divorce is contrary to Scripture, yet the church tolerates it and blesses it.

Mixed marriage

Scripture forbids a Christian woman entering into a marriage with a non-Christian man. (1 Cor 7:39. Note that the earlier passage, 1 Cor 7.13-16, refers to a couple already married at the time one of them was baptized. Paul allowed the Christian party to permit -- but not seek -- a "no fault" divorce in that exceptional case, though he recommended against it.) One early church father went so far as to describe mixed marriage as comparable to sodomy (Tertullian, To His Wife 2.2, applying Jude 7 to mixed marriage). As recently as 1948, a Lambeth Conference committee urged that such marriages be "forbidden." However, the Episcopal Church now allows marriages in which only one of the couple is baptized (BCP 422; Canon I.18.2.d). Mixed marriage is contrary to Scripture, yet the church tolerates it and blesses it.

Ordination and digamy ("second marriage")

Scripture says very little about ordination, but it does expressly state that a bishop, presbyter, or deacon must be "the husband of one wife" or "married only once" (1 Tim 3.2, Tit 1.6, 1 Tim 3.12). This prohibition is not directed against polygamist clergy (though it would cover them as well) but against the ordination of remarried widowers. Paul permitted such remarriage to youthful lay women (1 Tim 5.14), but explicitly forbade it to clergy, who are called to a higher standard. The early church took a dim view of second marriages even by lay widows or widowers: but clergy were forbidden even to attend such weddings (Council of Neocaesarea 7). Second marriages by clergy are contrary to Scripture, yet the church tolerates it and ordains them.

Conclusion

It is no more contrary to Scripture to bless a same-sex couple than to bless a couple one of whom is divorced or not baptized. It is no more contrary to Scripture for a gay person to be ordained than it is one who has taken a spouse after widowhood -- to say nothing of divorce. From the standpoint of the literal text Scripture, the former are, if anything, less contrary to Scripture.

How many of the Lambeth bishops who voted with the majority on the resolution condemning homosexual practice as "incompatible with Scripture" fall themselves under one or more of these three Scriptural incompatiblities? How can they gloss over the hard bits that apply to themselves, while weaving iron-clad prohibitions out of the bare handful of strawy texts alleged against the faithful gay couples and clergy who have loved the church they serve, and served the church they love, in the face of such opposition?

The bishops might argue that homosexuality is contrary to natural law. But we're not talking natural law here. We're talking Scripture: God's positive law. And on that score some of them are as guilty of incompatibility as any they assail.

The bishops have taken up Scripture and used it as a weapon against their fellow Christians, some of them, it appears, in a misguided effort to win over Muslim converts -- as if this condemnation of homosexuals was all the Islamic fundamentalists will need to throw down their Qu'rans and leap into the baptismal font. These bishops are using Scripture as a political tool. Let them learn and know that "the word of God is… sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account." (Heb 4.12-13)

Tobias Stanislas Haller, BSG

The Voice of Lambeth, 1908

The 1998 Lambeth Conference was the last of this century. The following is a look back to the first Lambeth Conference held in this century, ninety years ago.

A further evil with which we have had to deal is of such a kind that it cannot be spoken of without repugnance. No one who values the purity of home life can contemplate without grave misgiving the existence of an evil which jeopardises that purity; no one who treasures the Christian ideal of marriage can condone the existence of habits which subvert some of the essential elements of that ideal. In view of the figures and facts which have been set before us, we cannot doubt that there is a widespread prevalence amongst our peoples of the practice of resorting to artificial means for the avoidance or prevention of childbearing. We have spoken of these practices and endeavoured to characterise them as they deserve, not only in their results, but in themselves; and we would appeal to the members of our own Churches to exert the whole force of their Christian character in condemnation of them.

-- Encyclical Letter of the Lambeth Conference 1908

We have to report on the question of the Artificial Restriction of Population. In every Western country there has been a decline in the birthrate; but this decline has been most marked among the English-speaking people, once the most fertile of races… Many causes have been alleged for this decline… but it is admitted beyond all power of dispute that it is largely due to the loss of the sense of responsibility to God for the fruits of marriage resulting in deliberate avoidance or prevention of childbearing. "Preventive abortion has taken the place of direct abortion, and is daily growing more frequent in England and America." Medical men are constantly consulted by those who desire to avoid the burden of a family; the old reserve of modesty has largely disappeared; … not only was restriction practised, but that the habit of it was regarded without shame or abhorrence; the Malthusian Society openly advocates the practice; newspapers contain advertisements in which appliances for the purpose are offered for sale, and in which experts seek public patronage by announcing the number of their successes in this malpractice…

The moral evil of this habit claims our first attention. We are glad to notice that the New South Wales Commission commented on "the grave immorality of deliberately preventing conception." The habit, in the view of the Commission, tended to "undermine the morality of the people, to loosen the bonds of religion, and to obliterate the influence of those higher sentiments and sanctions for conduct with which the development of high national character has ever been associated." Abstention from marriage is within a man's moral right; self-restraint in marriage is within his right; but to marry with the deliberate intention of defeating one of the chief ends of marriage is to deprave the ideal of marriage.

The verdict of Nature appears to endorse the moral instinct which condemns these practices, for there is good reason to believe that the use of artificial methods of prevention is associated with serious local ailments. In the view of many eminent physiologists the ill-effects of the habit resemble those of self-abuse, and nervous enfeeblement follows. The mental and moral vigour may become impaired and the question has been asked whether the increase of insanity may not be closely connected with these habits of restriction…

The dangers of the practice are to us sadly and clearly evident. There is the danger of the loosening of home ties, for, to use the language of the Pastoral Letter of the Australian Bishops, this habit, which degrades the holy estate of matrimony, "is a fruitful source of discontent, unfaithfulness, and divorce." There is the danger of physical ills, and there is the worse danger of character enfeeblement -- and character is, far beyond riches, the best asset of nations. There is the danger of deterioration whenever the race is recruited from the inferior and not from the superior stocks. There is the world-danger that the great English-speaking peoples, diminished in number and weakened in moral force should commit the crowning infamy of race-suicide, and so fail to fulfil that high destiny to which in the Providence of God they have been manifestly called.

The Committee, moved by these considerations, desire to recommend that wherever possible legislation should be promoted to secure -- (a) The prohibition of so-called Neo-Malthusian appliances, and of patent drugs, and corrupting advertisements. (b) The prosecution of all who publicly and professionally assist preventive methods…

-- Report of the Committee on Marriage Problems, Lambeth 1908