Bible & sexual issues

Another look at how we interpret biblical teachings on divorce, remarriage, and homosexuality

from Gene TeSelle

[9-4-01]

Kurt Norlin has sent a couple notes expressing the hope that Presbyterians can discuss issues of ordination and sexuality in a tone of civility and mutual respect. His latest note offered some thoughts about why conservatives are more willing to accept divorce and remarriage, even though that seems to be condemned by Jesus, while they are less able to accept the possibility that same-sex relationships might also be permitted.

Gene TeSelle has sent this in response to the questions raised by Mr. Norlin. We hope this can help to begin a conversation whose tone will reflect the mutual respect that we all would cherish.

I appreciate Kurt Norlin's thoughtful discussion of issues concerning same-sex relationships - and the claim of many that Jesus' condemnation of divorce and remarriage is much clearer than anything he said about same-sex relationships. Norlin tries to soften Jesus' statements about divorce by suggesting that they may be hyperbole and pointing out that the permission of divorce still stands in the books of the Law. But then, toward the end of his reflections, he acknowledges that conservatives may "cut heterosexuals slack more readily than they do homosexuals," and also that "when biblical passages on homosexuality are scrutinized, complications arise there, too."

Let me try to summarize, as briefly as possible, some of the recent debates about both divorce and same-sex relationships, mostly from biblical scholars but occasionally from historians, too.

The Torah does lay down procedures for divorce (Deut. 24:1-4), and the rabbis elaborated upon them. But Jesus condemns divorce as contrary to God's original intention. According to one gospel remarriage is an adulterous act as long as the former spouse is living (Mk. 10:10-11). Hence the Roman Catholic prohibition of divorce, while allowing for "annulment" as though the marriage never existed. According to another gospel he permits divorce only for adultery (Mt. 19:9). Hence the Protestant permission of divorce and then remarriage "as if the offending party were dead" (footnote to C-6.131-2). This principle was not merely Protestant; it had already been enunciated earlier in the British Isles in canon 26 of the so-called Second Synod of Patrick, probably influenced by Greek practice via Theodore of Canterbury.

In various ways, church law perpetuated the assumptions of Roman law that matrimony is a legal relationship terminated by death - but in some cases it goes on to redefine the meaning of either marriage or death. Some permitted separation on grounds of adultery; others spoke as though the bond of marriage continues even after separation. At times entering the monastic life was regarded as a dying to the world and its responsibilities, freeing one's spouse to remarry. Sometimes an unwanted spouse would be forced to enter the religious life to enable the other person to remarry, just as in more recent times a spouse has been known to make a false confession of adultery in order to get a divorce. In real life people often make the most of legalities!

Well, these are some of the ways "the tradition" has interpreted the admittedly complex statements in the New Testament concerning divorce. Clearly "the tradition" has not spoken with one voice or found a single criterion that resolves all problems.

Now let's look at same-sex relationships.

What are we to make of the narratives of Sodom (Gen. 19) and the Levite's concubine (Judg. 19)? Their point is the gang rape of travelers, a humiliation of other males that was also a gesture of contempt toward the host. In both stories it is also clear, however, that it was permissible to give women over to the sexual aggression of males - either the host's own daughters, as Lot did, or both one's own daughter and the traveler's concubine, as the Levite's host suggested. Females were, on a relative scale, more expendable. The attitude, then as now, was, "Well, at least there are no unnatural acts going on here" and "Men are just like that." I'm not sure that we want to make these passages the key to "biblical sexuality."

It is important to find the reasons for the condemnation of same-sex acts in the biblical tradition. One is this concern about violence and lack of consent, a dramatic instance of humiliation and violation. If one side of the relationship is aggression, the other side is passivity, a role regarded as inappropriate for males; hence the prohibitions on a man lying with a man "as with a woman" (Lev. 18:22 and 20:13). This could be the reason for a New Testament passage like I Cor. 6:9-10, where the two words that are used may apply respectively to the passive and the active partners. But this is not beyond dispute, however. The first term, "soft," was applied in Greek writings to all kinds of weak-willed persons, and in the exegetical tradition it was generally interpreted to apply to masturbation, not to same-sex relations. The second term, "those who lie with men," is probably derived from the Septuagint's translations of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 and depends upon the meaning of those passages at various stages of transmission, translation, and reception.

More broadly, certain kinds of same-sex relations, on the part of both women and men, were taken to be disruptions of natural order, symptomatic of the wider disruptions of natural order that follow from human sin (Rom. 1:26-27). Paul speaks of them as being "against nature" or contrary to the "natural use of women." But in what sense? Because they do not lead to procreation? Or because the natural order was assumed to include the primacy of males and their monopoly on the "use of women" (Rom. 1:27)? Concerns like these, it must be said, were far more definite in Roman law than in the biblical writings themselves.

Once we see the reasons for traditional attitudes toward homosexual acts, we have to ask the further question whether these biblical prohibitions apply to all same-sex relationships, or only to those that involve violent assault, humiliation of the victim, or a mercenary relationship, and thus do not apply to consenting and faithful relationships between mature adults.

In recent years many advocates for full inclusion of GLBT members have asked that the church not define them in terms of a certain set of "acts" but place them under the same expectations of commitment and fidelity as heterosexuals - expectations about which, as Norlin suggests, we are not as sure as we were in former times.

I'd like to add, finally, my concern that over the past few years, the reality has had little to do with our understanding of scripture. Rather we have seen the enforcement of G-6.0106b being truly discriminatory, singling out this one practice and ignoring the many other issues that have been raised, also related to sexuality, including some self-accusations.