When mainline denominations debate whether to
ordain practicing homosexuals or to sanction same-sex marriages, one wonders:
where are the persons of Christian stature and theological wisdom who will
stand up for the biblical truth about human sexuality? In Germany there is such
a person: Wolfhart Pannenberg, eminent professor of theology at the University
of Munich. While evangelicals would question aspects of Pannenbergs theology,
his critique of liberation theology and his defence of the historicity of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ have been widely influential. In this essay he
takes his stand on the issue of homosexual behaviour. Perhaps his voice will
give courage to others to speak the truth about love-in love.
Can love
ever be sinful? The entire tradition of Christian doctrine teaches that there
is such a thing as inverted, perverted love. Human beings are created for love,
as creatures of the God who is Love. And yet that divine appointment is
corrupted whenever people turn away from God or love other things more than
God.
Jesus
said, "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of
me" (Matt. 10:37, NRSV). Love for God must take precedence over love for
our parents, even though love for parents is commanded by the fourth
commandment.
The will
of God - Jesus' proclamation of God's lordship over our lives - must be the
guiding star of our identity and self-determination. What this means for sexual
behaviour can be seen in Jesus' teaching about divorce. In order to answer the
Pharisees' question about the admissibility of divorce, Jesus refers to the
creation of human beings. Here he sees God expressing his purpose for his
creatures: Creation confirms that God has created human beings as male and
female. Thus, a man leaves his father and mother to be united with his wife,
and the two become one flesh.
Jesus
concludes from this that the unbreakable permanence of fellowship between
husband and wife is the Creator's will for human beings. The indissoluble
fellowship of marriage, therefore, is the goal of our creation as sexual beings
(Mark 10:2-9). Since on this principle the Bible is not time bound, Jesus' word
is the foundation and the criterion for all Christian pronouncements on
sexuality, not just marriage in particular, but our entire creaturely
identities as sexual beings. According to Jesus' teaching, human sexuality as
male and as female is intended for the indissoluble fellowship of marriage.
This standard informs Christian teaching about the entire domain of sexual
behaviour.
Jesus'
perspective, by and large, corresponds to Jewish tradition, even though his
stress on the indissolubility of marriage goes beyond the provision for divorce
within Jewish law (Deut. 24:1). It was a shared Jewish conviction that men and
women in their sexual identity are intended for the community of marriage. This
also accounts for the Old Testament assessment of sexual behaviours that depart
from this norm, including fornication, adultery, and homosexual relations.
The
biblical assessments of homosexual practice are unambiguous in their rejection,
and all its statements on this subject agree without exception. The Holiness
Code of Leviticus incontrovertibly affirms, "You shall not lie with a male
as with a woman; it is an abomination" (Lev. 18:22). Leviticus 20 includes
homosexual behaviour among the crimes meriting capital punishment (Lev. 20:13;
it is significant that the same applies to adultery in v. 10). On these
matters, Judaism always knew itself to be distinct from other nations. This
same distinctiveness continued to determine the New Testament statements about
homosexuality, in contrast to Hellenistic culture that took no offence at
homosexual relations. In Romans, Paul included homosexual behaviour among the
consequences of turning away from God (1:27) . In I Corinthians, homosexual
practice belongs with fornication, adultery, idolatry, greed, drunkenness,
theft, and robbery as behaviours that preclude participation in the kingdom of
God (6:9f.); Paul affirms that through baptism Christians have become free from
their entanglement in all these practices (6:11).
The New
Testament contains not a single passage that might indicate a more positive
assessment of homosexual activity to counterbalance these Pauline statements.
Thus, the entire biblical witness includes practicing homosexuality without
exception among the kinds of behaviour that give particularly striking
expression to humanity's turning away from God. This exegetical result places
very narrow boundaries around the view of homosexuality in any church that is
under the authority of Scripture.
What is
more, the biblical statements on this subject merely represent the negative
corollary to the Bible's positive views on the creational purpose of men and
women in their sexuality. These texts that are negative toward homosexual
behaviour are not merely dealing with marginal opinions that could be neglected
without detriment to the Christian message as a whole.
Moreover,
the biblical statements about homosexuality cannot be relativized as the
expressions of a cultural situation that today is simply outdated. The biblical
witnesses from the outset deliberately opposed the assumptions of their
cultural environment in the name of faith in the God of Israel, who in Creation
appointed men and women for a particular identity.
Contemporary
advocates for a change in the church's view of homosexuality commonly point out
that the biblical statements were unaware of important modern anthropological
evidence. This is new evidence, it is said, suggests that homosexuality must be
regarded as a given constituent of the psychosomatic identity of homosexual
persons, entirely prior to any corresponding sexual expression. (For the sake
of clarity, it is better to speak here of a homophile
inclination as distinct from homosexual
practice.) Such phenomena occur not only in people who are homosexually
active. But inclination need not dictate practice. It is characteristic of
human beings that our sexual impulses are not confined to a separate realm of
behaviour; they permeate our behaviour in every area of life. This, of course,
includes relationships with persons of the same sex. However, precisely because
erotic motives are involved in all aspects of human behaviour, we are faced
with the task of integrating them into the whole of our life and conduct.
The mere
existence of homophile inclinations does not automatically lead to homosexual
practice. Rather these inclinations can be integrated into a life in which they
are subordinated to the relationship with the opposite sex where, in fact, the
subject of sexual activity should not be the all-determining centre of human
life and vocation. As the sociologist
Helmut Schelsky has rightly pointed out, one of the primary achievements of
marriage as an institution is its enrolment of human sexuality in the service
of ulterior tasks and goals.
The reality of homophile inclinations, therefore, need not be denied and must not be condemned. The question, however, is how to handle such inclinations within the human task of responsibly directing our behaviour. This is the real problem: and it is here that we must deal with the conclusion that homosexual activity is a departure from the norm for sexual behaviour that has been given to men and women as creatures of God. For the church this is the case not only for homosexual but also for any sexual activity that does not intend the goal of marriage between man and wife - in particular, adultery.
The
church has to live with the fact that, in this area of life as in others, departures
from the norm are not exceptional but rather common and widespread. The church
must encounter all those concerned with tolerance and understanding but also
call them to repentance. It cannot surrender the distinction between the norm
and behaviour that departs from that norm.
Here lies
the boundary of a Christian church that allows itself to be bound by the
authority of Scripture. Those who urge the church to change the norm of its
teaching on this matter must know that they are promoting schism. If a church
were to let itself be pushed to the point where it ceased to treat homosexual
activity as a departure from the biblical norm, and recognized homosexual
unions as a personal partnership of love equivalent to marriage, such a church
would stand no longer on biblical ground but against the unequivocal witness of
Scripture. A church that took this step would cease to be the one, holy,
catholic, and apostolic church.
Translated by Markus Bockmuehl for publication
in
the Church Times; copyright Wolfhart Pannenberg.