Moderator Doug Schmidt  

Pastor Jeff Short  
  

Lureen LaFountaine is an ordained minister inthe Denver Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church USA.  

John Rankin is President of the Theological EducationInstitute. Address: TEI, 100 Allyn St., Hartford, CT 06103 Phone: (860)246-0099 

JOHN RANKIN: Good evening. In a proper debate format like this, it iscrucial that the comments I give are comments that do not respond to anythingthat Lureen has said and I will seek to maintain that. We'll get into dialogueafterwards. 

When we look at the issue of homosexuality and the question tonight("Does the Bible Object More to Homophobia Than to Homosexuality?") I willsay that the best way to say "no" to homophobia is to say "no" to homosexuality.In other words, the fear of any person is not countenanced in scripture."Perfect love drives out all fear." (1 John 4:18) 

If we're going to understand what the Bible says on its own terms, wehave to do exactly that, grapple with it on its own terms. Whether we havedifferences of understanding about what is literal, literalistic, cultural,and so forth (and I'm glad to deal with those issues as an evangelical),I will say that the scriptures on its own terms says "no" to homosexualityfrom the beginning. And I know of no interpretive basis that says otherwise.So let me share with you that basis, and then from that basis I will thenargue against homophobia as well, but on the basis of the prior objectionto homosexuality. 

First of all, if we are to understand scripture, we are to understandthree basic doctrines. These doctrines are outlined for us in Genesis 1through 3, and very simply they are creation, sin, and redemption. Anotherway of speaking about it is the order of God's creation, the reversal ofthat order which is sin, and the reversal of the reversal, which is redemption. 

Now if we want to be those who are redeemed, we have to know what itis to reverse the reversal. And we cannot know how it is to reverse thereversal until first we know what the reversal is. And we don't know whatthat is until we know what the order of creation is. Indeed, in God's redemptiveacts he is always restoring us to the promises and the ethics and the natureof God's order of creation. Therefore, it is an understanding of the orderof creation in which we have to ask ourselves, what is the understandingof sexuality? 

And the phrase is used often among those who call themselves homosexualand Christian, that homosexuality is God's good gift. Not only has Lureensaid that tonight, but I have talked with many others who have also saidthe same thing. And so the question I will pose from the front is: God'sgood gift? Where in scripture? Not only that, but where in the order ofcreation? In other words, my interest in argument tonight is not to benegative against homosexuality or homosexuals, it is to be positive infavor of the image of God the way God ordained it. Then to ask ourselveshonestly in the sight of scripture, what deviates from the will of Godand what holds true to it. And in fact there are far more heterosexualswho sin heterosexually than there are homosexuals who do it. But on bothcounts I will argue that they are outside the order of creation. 

In the order of creation we are made in God's image. We are made inhis kind to rule over and enjoy the works of his hands. I like to sum upthe qualities of God's image with what I call the POSH L's. In other words,each one of us is made to seek peace, order, stability, and hope. We aremade to live, to love, to laugh, and to learn. That's just an acronym Icame up with accidentally years ago to describe what it is to be made inGod's image. And I have spoken with countless numbers of unbelievers aswell as believers, and I have yet to find one person who will disagreewith those qualities. I have yet to find one person who will disagree withthe fact that in their lives they are seeking peace, order, stability,and hope, to live, to love, to laugh, and to learn. Even in the two painfulcases where I had to counsel with those who ended up committing suicide,I know that even in the act of suicide they were seeking those qualitiesin their broken remains. It's just that they thought they had no hope tofind it apart from death. So, an honest basis of the gospel in the orderof creation is that all people, period, are seeking those qualities. Thequestion is, what is it that serves the accomplishment of those qualities? 

Now also in the order of creation, God makes us male and female. Hedoesn't make us male to have male sexuality or female to have female. Hemakes us male and female. And there are many wonderful reasons for that.Perhaps one principal reason is the reflection of the trinitarian characterof God. 

If you look at God, he is community from the beginning: Father, Son,and Holy Spirit, giving to and receiving from the members of the triuneGod before the creation of the human race. This is in stark contrast tothe Islamic view, or the monad view of Allah, who is a singular entitywho has no one to communicate with. And consequently, if he has no oneto communicate with, how can he even demonstrate the act of love, sinceboth in terms of human experience and in terms of the Bible, love is alwaysthe act of giving. How can you love unless you have someone to give to?So this is God's nature from the beginning, where the three are one. 

And in the crowning verse of Genesis chapter 2, when the man leaveshis mother and father and is joined to his wife, and the two become one,we have a reflection of the nature of the triune God, the act of givingand receiving emotionally (right-brain, left-brain), physiologically, sexually.And in terms of the gift of life, male and female are different from eachother in a complementary sense, where they need to give to each other forthe gift of life to continue. God ordained that from the beginning. 

I asked a question at Yale Divinity School not long ago in addressingthe same issue: Is there any understanding that anyone can bring to methat homosexuality is to be found as God's gift, or even a possibility,within the order of creation? If it is not found in the order of creation,then how can it be said it is God's gift? And then we have to look at thesix passages, which I can deal with if you like to, that address homosexuality,not as an overriding biblical concern, but a very simple observation thatit is contrary to the order of creation in the given context in which theissue is addressed. 

Another understanding that is crucial in dealing with the order of creationis the four subjects. In Genesis 1 and 2 we have four subjects which inmy understanding are the basis for everything we'll ever know. Everythingwe need to know is understood by how these terms are defined and how theyrelate to each other, and especially the order of their relationship. Thesesubjects very simply are the following: God, life, choice, and sex. "Inthe beginning God ..." That is the grand opening passage in Genesis 1:1.No philosophical debate, no uncertainties, rather the statement that "Inthe beginning God ..." Contrast that with all the pagan religious origintexts that start with an eternal universe producing finite gods and goddesses,who along with us have no eternal future. Whereas Genesis 1 says in thebeginning an eternal, loving, all-powerful God spoke and the universe cameinto being. That is why the doctrine of God's sovereignty is the beginningpoint of scripture. "In the beginning, God ..." 

Then the whole trajectory of Genesis 1 and 2 is that God creates themost remote and animate portions of the universe and moves until finallyat the conclusion of the creation week he declares, "Let us now make manand woman in our image" to rule over the works of our hands. In other words,God is saying both in Triune community and in the presence of the heavenlyhost, that man and woman together equally are the crown of his creation.In fact, in Genesis chapter 2, when Adam is made first, he is not completeuntil woman is made. The whole trajectory is completion comes at the end.And God actually had to demonstrate to Adam he was not the full image bearerof God without woman. So in the beginning we have God, then the gift ofhuman life made in God's image. 

Then in Genesis 2:16 we have the introduction of choice or freedom.If you look at every religious origin text on the face of the planet apartfrom Genesis, their definitions of freedom are negative. It is freedomfrom being violated. The reason for this I think is fairly clear. All thesetexts are written by people struggling to understand themselves in thesight of the universe, but having moved away from the history of biblicalrevelation and the cultures that brought them forth. And therefor theyhad some memories perhaps of one God, but they did not understand the revelationof that God. And therefore the whole human experience was one of beingviolated by the gods and goddesses of the various pantheons and by oneanother. And therefore, their highest vision of freedom was freedom frombeing violated. And we can say a full, categorical amen to anyone who isseeking the freedom from being violated. I do not want to be violated.But how can you have the freedom from being violated unless you know thefreedom that preceded the introduction to that violation. And this is foundonly in Genesis 2. 

Genesis 2: "Yahweh God commanded the man, you are free to eat..." TheHebrew is more robust. "Yahweh God commanded the man, ocolt ocale..." Twotenses of the verb to eat. In feasting you shall feast from any tree inthe garden. The idea from the beginning is that God gave us an unlimitedmenu of good choices, moral choices, aesthetic choices. And he says youare free. But, and here's the caveat, the warning, the boundary of whatI call the ethics of choice. But, you must not eat from the tree of theknowledge of good and evil, for buhyom, in the day, the moment, the timeyou eat of it, moth tomouth, in dying you will die, you will surely die. 

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was an Hebraicism that meantthe knowledge of everything. And only God could know everything. Only Godcould know evil without being polluted or tempted by it. And therefore,his goodness to us was for him to say to us, you are creatures, nothinggood is withheld, have a feast. Nothing good is withheld from you in thecreated universe. But if you try to become God or to supplant his authorityall the goodness turns upside down, will crush you and in dying you willdie. Therefore, the idea from the beginning is an unlimited menu of goodchoices. We don't have to have sin to combat against in the order of creation.So God, life, choice. 

And then sex, the crown of God's creation. God designed us from thebeginning in Genesis chapter 2, one man, one woman, one lifetime. Thereis no death possible until sin comes into the universe, therefore no distrust,no divorce, no brokenness of relationships. Not only that, when God givesthe gift of sexuality within faithful marriage, he gives the power of theimage of God in the order of creation uniquely. For in the act in the relationshipof marriage, and the sexual acts within marriage, we uniquely possess thepower to pass on the gifts of life, choice, and sex to our offspring. Thatis the order of creation. And unless life was passed on to us by our parents,whether joyfully or through sorrow, but nonetheless passed on to us, wewould not have life, choice, or sex. We certainly wouldn't have this debatebecause we wouldn't be here. That's the order of creation. 

The reversal of the order of creation, which is the definition of idolatry,is instead of God, live, choice, sex, it becomes sex, choice, life, God.I will argue the number one sin in all of human experience is sex outsideof faithful marriage, whether heterosexual or homosexual or bestial orwhatever the nature is. Why? Because once the fidelity, once the trustbetween man and woman is broken, all sorts of evils come from that pointon forward. Is there anyone who did not desire in their upbringing to havea mom and dad love each other first, and out of the love and respect equallyto one another, to love them as their child? This is the way that God hasordered from the beginning. And when you put sex outside of marriage atwhatever level, it begins the unraveling of trust in human relationships. 

I was talking with a friend of mine who theologically is conservative,politically very liberal, and he said to me a while ago, John, why do youfocus so much on sexual politics? I didn't think I was, but as we talkedabout the issues he said, you worry so much about homosexuality and abortion.I turned to him and I said, Roger, you know as well as I do that between70% and 90% of men incarcerated for serious crimes today are the productof functionally fatherless homes. Are you telling me that marriage integrityand policies such as no-fault divorce, abortion, treating homosexualityequal to that of heterosexuality within marriage (my view of heterosexuality),doesn't have an effect? And he didn't challenge me from that point on forwardbecause he knows my concern for the gang warfare happening just blocksfrom my office in downtown Hartford, and for the violation at so many levels.But once it is broken in marriage, the brokenness follows. 

When sex is taken outside of marriage it will then reverse the orderand make choice a subservient to sex outside of marriage, which can destroylife. It can destroy it through the ethos of abortion, it can destroy itthrough the lifestyles that lead to promiscuity and sexually- transmitteddiseases and AIDS and things like that. Also, on that point of destroyinglife it is an affront against God. Therefore I will say that the incumbencyupon those who argue that homosexuality is God's gift is to show it isin the order of creation and it honors the God, life, choice, sex paradigmand doesn't subscribe to a sex, choice, life, God paradigm. 

Then another paradigm I think is very important is what John Wesley,an Anglican until his death, put forth: the quadrilateral basis for theChristian faith. That we base our understanding of what is Christian byscripture, tradition, reason, and experience. And I will argue as I didwith John Spong (he's the first Episcopal bishop in the country to ordainpracticing homosexuals), as I argued with him at Yale a couple of yearsago, I argued that his whole understanding and presuppositions for homosexualactivity was a reversal of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. In other words,he put at the top of it human experience, then reason, then tradition,then scripture. And consequently he would take scripture out of contextand bend it accordingly. 

MODERATOR: One minute, John. 

JOHN RANKIN: I have one minute, thank you. So very simply, what I'vedone here is instead of looking at a lot of the passages, I have givena prolegomena, a preliminary discussion. I am glad to look at the passages,I have argued them, and I will look forward to Lureen's cross-examinationon those passages. But I think ultimately the question I want to put beforeLureen and us tonight is this. When we look at homosexuality and homophobia,I am one who studied feminist ethics at Harvard Divinity School and I'vebeen in the midst of homosexuals for many years. I treat them with respectand dignity as God's image bearers. But I also believe that homosexualitygoes against the image of God and therefore I will lobby for them to embracethe image of God on its own terms. If they don't that's their choice inthe sight of God. But their incumbency, if they call themselves Christian,is to show me from the order of creation where homosexuality is providedfor, or show me I am wrong in interpreting the order of creation, or toshow me the order of creation doesn't relate. Thank you. 

[applause]