Does Scripture condemn same - sex, sexual relations as being against God's plan for nature and for his Creation? New Hampshire's openly gay Episcopal bishop very recently said that we are asking the wrong question. +Robinson suggested that Scripture, viewed in "its own context" (the time, place and circumstances of the author in question) requires us to ask a more precise question and one which narrows the focus from same-sex relations between heterosexual persons to such relations between persons whose sexual orientation is exclusively homosexual (no mention here of bisexuals or transgendered persons). Thus, as to the question posed to him + Robinson stated, "The Bible simply doesn't address that."
If you are like me your head may be spinning as you try to get your arms around +Robinson's comment. Actually, he said quite a bit more than that and rather than attempt to quote him (and perhaps get it wrong or out of context), I provide a link to the CNS online article which contains a video that I invite you to watch and then, on the flip side of your watching +Robinson and listening to his words, I'll have a few more things to say and invite your comments.
+Robinson's comments and his approach have given me considerable pause. First, he purports speak as one with authority about what Saint Paul knew and did not know about human sexuality and about "the context" in which Saint Paul was writing to first century Romans (in fact he does not limit his comment to Saint Paul, he broadly claims to speak about what ancient societies knew and did not know about human sexuality and orientations, and to appropriate for modern man an original understanding of human sexual orientation, particularly same sex orientation). Second, and again purportedly speaking as one "with authority", +Robinson declares that The Bible simply does not address same sex relations (or relationships) that are characterized by lifelong fidelity and mutual commitment - - characteristics that Christianity has always ascribed to holy matrimony between a man and his wife (a woman). And finally, he has, I submit, taken a very clear question about whether Saint Paul was right or wrong to state that homosexual relationships (and sexual relations between persons of the same sex) were against nature in general [which to this writer means God's creation and his plan for nature] and crafted an answer that changed the focus from God's concept of and intention for nature and instead placed the focus upon the homosexual persons' concept of "
their nature."
Let's go back to the question posed to +Robinson by the reporter in the video:
was Saint Paul right or wrong when he (Saint Paul) said that sexual relations between persons of the same sex was against nature? That question was posed in the context of having just read to +Robinson a part of Chapter 1 of Saint Paul's letter to the Romans. Here are the relevant verses from the English Standard Version of The Bible:
Romans 1:22-27 (English Standard Version)
22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Now I am quick to admit that I am but a mere Christian lay person and not one blessed by a seminary education. However, if I ask myself after reading the quoted passages from Romans, "Was Saint Paul talking about 'nature' in general and as God created it (or at least as the Church has universally accepted and taught 'Creation') or was he limiting his use of 'nature' to the view of particlar persons' appreciation of
'their nature'," I have little trouble concluding that Paul was speaking of the former. When I read these five verses from Romans I hear Saint Paul stating that his understanding of God's natural order of things does not sanction relations which result from "passions" either between two or more women or between two or more men, but rather that God's natural order (nature if you will) only sanctions relations arising from passions between men and women. Yet, it is the latter that +Robinson said was Saint Paul's focus (the homosexual persons' appreciation of
their particular nature).
+Robinson's comments in this interview, and in so much of his ministry and his public statements, are clearly designed to clothe same sex relations and relationships with the same sort of blessing that the Church believes that God bestows upon traditional Christian marriage. But we need not even get to the marriage discussion and what does or not constitute "marriage" in God's eye's (and I'm the first to admit that all of us tread on very thin ice whenever we purport to declare what God sees or does not see, or thinks or does not think). Focusing strictly upon the quoted verses (and viewing them through a poor lay man's eyes and in what I understand to be the context in which he wrote), Saint Paul was not talking of marriage per se, rather he was describing the righteousness of God to an infant church. He was directing his readers attention to God's gift of grace, the grace of salvation which only comes through faith and belief that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. Paul's focus was the danger of ungodliness for mankind and the nature of God's wrath when man turns away from God. Paul was cautioning the young church to beware of false claims of human wisdom, warning that the perceived "wise" men were actually "fools". The bottom line, as I read Paul, is quite simply that in biblical history when men become foolish and unwise and turn from God, God's wrath, his justice, is the natural consequence. In these passages from Romans, Saint Paul is quite clear and direct and tells the Romans that God's wrath, his justice, was that God inflicted an evil upon men and women who had fallen away from the love and worship of God and substituted other gods,
images of mortal men, of birds and animals and creeping things as the object of their worship, and the evil was that God gave them up to "dishonorable passions."
+Robinson may believe what he is saying, but my poor lay person's mind simply does not buy it. As we say in the south, "
that dog just won't hunt."
Returning to my original question about whether "Scripture" condemns same - sex, sexual relations as being against God's plan for nature and for his Creation, well I'm not qualified to say, and frankly I am mindful of the fact that it is not for me to judge (or for any of us for that matter). However, I pretty comfortable in saying that I believe that Saint Paul thought so, and thought so not because of anything that men in the first century knew or did not know because of their own discoveries (scientific or otherwise), but because of what Saint Paul understood God to have revealed to mankind through Scripture. For me, +Robinson's words are not those of an enlightened bishop bringing some new revelation, guidance or teaching of the Holy Spirit. Quite the contrary, what I hear are the words of a false prophet, the words of one who purports to be wise but is instead, foolish.
God's peace.
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