There's a Wideness in God's Mercy

"Homosexuality is a burden that homosexual people are called to bear, and bear as morally as possible, even though they never chose to bear it" (229). So wrote Lewis Smedes in his 1994 revised edition of Sex for Christians.

Last year was the tenth anniversary of Smedes' powerful Perspectives essay, "Like the Wideness of the Sea" (May 1999), which lamented his (Christian Reformed) church's one-time marginalization of divorced people, and similarly of gays and lesbians. Whomever Paul had in mind in Romans 1:18-27, Smedes noted, "We can be certain... they were not... Christian homosexual persons who are living their need for abiding love in monogamous and covenanted partnerships of love." Moreover, he added, "My church's exclusion of homosexuals who confess Christ and live together in committed love makes me very sad."

In 2002, Smedes sent me an email detailing the further evolution of his thinking: "I wish the sentence about the church making me sad were a bit stronger." And "I wish that the sentence following the 'burden to bear' clause could be something like this: 'It is a burden most obediently and creatively born in a committed love-partnership with another.'"

As Lewis Smedes' understandings and attitudes were changing, so also, simultaneously, were those of his kindred-spirit and one-time faculty colleague at Fuller Theological Seminary, Jack Rogers. Like Smedes, Rogers had taken a Ph.D. under Dutch Calvinist influence in the Netherlands, was evangelical and Reformed, was widely published, and was highly esteemed in his (Presbyterian) denomination, which elected him Moderator. Mindful that Smedes' life was cut short by his accidental death seven months after our exchange, I had a thought while reading Rogers' Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality: if Lew Smedes were still with us, this is a book he might have written.

Rogers' "change of mind and heart" occurred as a result of his "going back to the Bible and taking seriously its central message for our lives.... I now know many people across all theological and ideological lines who are convinced that the Spirit of Christ is leading us, based on our best understanding of the Bible, to be consistent in allowing all of our baptized members eligibility for positions of leadership" (15-16 ).

After explaining his personal history and that of his denomination, Rogers takes readers on a historical tour of how Christians have misused the Bible to justify slaver y, segregation, the subordination of women, and those seeking mixed-race marriages. Time and again, the church "got it wrong" (29) by making the Bible say what the culture assumed. And so also today on same-sex relationships, says Rogers, in ways that are strikingly parallel to the past misuses of scripture. Rogers then explains how in these prior instances the church, guided by theology, arrived at a new biblical understanding of race, of women, and of divorce and remarriage, and how it can similarly reform its understanding of sexual orientation.

Central to the book are two chapters on biblical interpretation. Chapter 4 provides seven guidelines for "interpreting the Bible in times of controversy." For example, "Let all interpretations be in accord with the rule of love, the two-fold commandment to love God and to love our neighbor." And "seek to interpret a particular passage of the Bible in light of all the Bible" (65) as well as in its historical context. Later, Rogers notes:

The best methods of interpretation, from the Reformation on down through today, call upon us to interpret the Scripture through the lens of Jesus Christ's life and ministry. Using this method, we see clearly that Jesus and the Bible, properly understood, do not condemn people who are homosexual. In fact... the Bible contains an extravagant welcome for sexual minorities. (127)

The ensuing chapter offers Rogers' exegesis of the seven "clobber passages" (as some gay Christians have called them). I know, I know (Perspectives readers needn't remind me), critics such as Robert Gagnon find some of these passages condemning of all same-sex behaviors, even those unmentioned in Scripture, such as those between two covenant partners who re naturally disposed to same-sex attraction. As a lay person viewing the biblical culture war--between biblical scholars who think like Rogers used to think and those who think as he does now--I've wondered: given the Bible's relative silence (a mere seven non-Gospel verses among 31,103 biblical verses in the Protestant canon), why do so many Christians have their passions more aroused by the contested seven passages than by the hundreds of biblical verses dealing with poverty and injustice?

Recent social psychological research on moral intuition suggests an explanation. The rationalist idea that we reason our way to moral judgments often has it backwards. Instead, we make instant gut-level moral judgments and then seek rationalizations for our feelings. First come the feelings, then the rationalization.

Much prejudice therefore arises less from cool rationality than from automatic, gut-level reactions which seek justification. Reason becomes the slave of passion. Moral reasoning aims to convince others of what we intuitively feel. No wonder that in times past people have so readily found biblical support for their racist and sexist feelings. And no wonder nearly all anti-gay tracts are written by men (who, more than women, feel disgust over same-sex relationships). The reason-follows-feelings phenomenon also helps us understand why those with gay family or friends come to have more accepting feelings, and then also to have more supportive opinions about gay rights and gay marriage. As empathy replaces disgust, one's rationalizations change.

Rogers next introduces us to some "Real [Gay] People and Real [Gay] Marriage" (chapter 6), people whose experiences illustrate what psychological science confirms:

• Sexual orientation is a natural disposition. This conclusion is buttressed by a growing list of you-never-would-have-guessed revelations of gay-straight differences in things ranging from brain centers to fingerprint patterns to skill at mentally rotating geometric figures to the number of men's older brothers.
• Sexual orientation, especially for males, is an enduring disposition. Anecdotes aside (both of those claiming reorientation and of ex-ex-gay leaders who now disown such claims), sexual orientation is rarely reversed by willpower, reparative therapy, or ex-gay ministry.

That being the reality, what should Rogers' Presbyterian church and its sister Reformed denominations do? For starters, he says, the church should acknowledge the suffering it has caused, confess its repudiation of "Jesus' message of love," and "reach out to our gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender sisters and brothers and show that we understand that we have truly caused them pain" (106-07). Mindful of the example of the Good Samaritan, we should appreciate how "Jesus' teachings illuminate God's extravagant welcome" (128). "There's a wideness in God's mercy" (104), writes Rogers, consciously echoing Smedes.

The Smedes-Rogers message is being heard. People are becoming more accepting of gay rights and relationships. Moreover, a large generation gap is emerging, with most older adults opposing gay marriage and most younger adults supporting it. Given that the forces driving the attitude changes are likely to continue, and given the inevitability of generational succession, the culture war over gay marriage and gay ordination will be resolved within the next decade or two, much as were previous culture wars over minority and women's rights.

Those wishing for a meatier analysis of the pertinent biblical, theological, and legal sides of this issue may prefer A Time to Embrace: Same-Gender Relationships in Religion, Law, and Politics, by Princeton Theological Seminary theologian William Stacey Johnson (Eerdmans, 2006). But for adult education classes, book groups, and ministerial dialogue, Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality and its built-in study/discussion guide is just right. It is comfortably brief, warmly pastoral, and admirably humane. Lewis Smedes would have been pleased.