Recently, as I was nearing the end of my weekly walk through the Religious Herald, I came across Drexel Rayford’s opinion piece in which he charged the Baptist General Association of Virginia with having a “Galileo moment.” I confess that this surprised me a bit, but also challenged me.
I was surprised because I didn’t expect this perspective from Drexel. Now, I have only met Drexel once, but was immediately wildly impressed. I encountered a man with a deep love for God who pursues his creator in the outdoors in ways I wish were more frequent in my own patterns. His extroverted but soft-spoken demeanor resonated with my equally soft-spoken but more introverted outlook. After reading his column, none of that has changed. I simply didn’t expect his perspective.
Jonathan Waits
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I was challenged because although his ideas are spoken from the heart, I think there are some flaws in his arguments which I believe if left un-countered will seem convincing in ways they should not be. To this end, with the utmost of humility, I offer the following observations.
First, the guiding thematic piece of Drexel’s article is his comparison between the storied battle royal pitting the theologically sincere but mistaken Roman Catholic Church against the persecuted but dedicated scientist Galileo Galilei and the recent actions of the BGAV to essentially disfellowship Ginter Park Baptist Church following their indication to stand by their decision to ordain to the ministry an openly-gay young man. While I don’t happen to believe that this internal and doctrinally-focused point of conflict will ever be afforded the mythic status our culture has given to the Galileo controversy, the comparison is unfortunate in another way.
The telling of the story utilized by Drexel here is one that could be found in any introductory science textbook. The problem is that this doesn’t give the whole story and this particular retelling has been structured to make the church look as bad as possible while whitewashing any conceivable guilt borne by Galileo himself. A bit more detailed historical research reveals that Galileo was himself very much to blame for making the conflict larger than it might otherwise have been. Furthermore, the Catholic Church was not standing athwart the advance of science as it is often presented to have done. In fact, Pope Urban VII, who fancied himself a man of science, was one of Galileo’s most important defenders until Galileo needlessly burnt this important bridge.
Now, the church was perhaps a bit too dogmatically rooted in both a view of the cosmos stemming from a hermeneutic that didn’t properly account for the type of biblical literature being interpreted and its accompanying scientific theory. But neither was Galileo entirely correct in his passionately held scientific theories to the contrary in spite of their being based on the better hermeneutic of Augustine. His uncritical embrace of Copernicanism led him to some conclusions that were themselves scientifically mistaken. Furthermore, his rather egotistical disregard of Hebrews 13:17 forced the issue in a way that wasn’t wise and, historically speaking, has done more harm than good to the church he loved.
A fair argument can be made that the church was simply advising caution in moving forward on a controversial point beyond the pace they believed wisdom dictated. Galileo spit in the church’s face and it used the authority it possessed in good faith to discipline him (arguments on whether the church should have ever had the amount of authority it did then can be saved for another time).
Unfair comparison
So what’s the point of this historical correction? If Drexel is making comparisons between the modern and the medieval based on faulty information, perhaps his comparisons aren’t entirely right or justified. Here’s the truth: the issue of homosexuality and how we the church should handle it is fraught with high emotions and there aren’t many whose opinion is ambivalent on the matter. People experience this issue in very personal ways as Drexel indicates. This, combined with the largely unhelpful cultural rhetoric regularly bandied about, makes charting a course forward excruciatingly difficult. Holding to good theology and solid biblical interpretation when life seems to scream to lean or even run in a different direction is difficult to the extreme.
Perhaps some clarity will be helpful. First, I have no problem accepting that someone struggling with a desire for homosexual sexual encounters can be a committed follower of Christ. However, I don’t believe this is the real issue. Speaking personally, there has been a single phrase in this discussion that has been the cause of the bulk of my heartburn: “openly gay.”
Now, if our culture allowed for that to be understood to refer to a person who is public about his or her struggle with lustful physical desire for individuals of their own sex but, who is committed to pursuing the celibate chastity commended rather clearly in the Bible for unmarried individuals, much controversy would perhaps evaporate. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The cultural connotation of this phrase is that it refers to a person who has embraced the homosexual lifestyle, including homosexual sexual intercourse. The issue here is that the Bible speaks with a fair bit of clarity on the fact that such sexual encounters go against God’s design for human sexuality. Drexel refers solely to a single verse out of Leviticus which pronounces a particular sexual act to be sinful and assigns to perpetrators of this act a penalty which seems grievous to us. Could it be that the stated punishment fit the culture of the original recipients of Leviticus and, though the same is not true of ours, the injunction still stands?
The act in question placed people in line with Israel’s pagan neighbors, not the Israelite community, and thus their behavior has disqualified them from fellowship with the people. Furthermore this verse and its sister in Leviticus 18 are often used by critics of the church to justify rejecting biblical moral standards gleaned from the Law of Moses in a manner that often creates more confusion than clarity in handling an interpretively thorny section of the Bible responsibly.
What about the New Testament?
Drexel makes no reference, however, to the various New Testament passages written several hundred years and a vastly different culture later that powerfully suggest a similar opinion on the matter and do not lend themselves so easily to mere cultural write-offs. Nor does he make any mention or indicate in any way that the sister verse in question from Leviticus 18 appears without mentioning any kind of punishment and sits in a whole litany of other sexual practices also pronounced aberrant but whose deviancy go utterly unquestioned. Why should this one practice be singled out from the list? Also, given that Jesus fulfilled, not abrogated, the Law of Moses, wouldn't a better approach with hard to understand commands be not to reject them as cultural relics but rather to seek to understand the principle involved and apply that?
What, then, is the real debate about here? Is it about love? Hardly. There is no question regarding the effusive love of Christ. His demonstration of love was complete, without exceptions, and worthy of our sincerest attempts at mimicry. No debate there.
But, when we speak of love, we must define our terms carefully. I often hear the word “love” thrown around casually when this particular debate arises, but it is never defined. Biblical love is the intentional decision to see someone else become more fully who God designed them to be. Nothing less than this qualifies as an expression of the love of Christ. No, the real debate here seems to be about the circumstances in which sexual intercourse between two consenting individuals is morally permissible.
Well, in what sense is allowing people, whether gay or straight, to uncritically engage in sexual relationships with whomever they feel most drawn a demonstration of the love of Christ? God created sex as a gift to us, but pronounced it an adequate expression of love in a very narrow band of circumstances — namely, heterosexual, monogamous marriage. Outside of these conditions the Bible seems clear that sex is not morally permissible. Now, is this fair? Perhaps not, but only from the perspective that sex is somehow a right for all people (a lie eagerly peddled by our culture). We can debate another time whether or not the definition of marriage accepted by the church should be broadened to include homosexual unions (I think there are good reasons not to), but until that time, unmarried sexual intercourse is simply not a moral option available to followers of Jesus.
A troubling phrase
This now brings us back around to the issue with that phrase “openly gay” as currently defined culturally. Assuming on the cultural definition of that phrase, the problem here is that a person has been pronounced as fit for ministry who on at least this point is publicly declaring an intention to act in a manner which the Bible has explicitly pronounced out of sync with the lifestyle appropriate for followers of Christ. Ministers, though held to higher standards than most, are certainly far from perfect as I myself can attest. But it should cause us more than a little pause to consider ordaining someone publicly committed to continuing a practice the Bible clearly describes as transgressing one of God’s intentions in creation.
This is not about rejecting a person and the value of this particular person should be explicitly affirmed. But until there is a point of repentance and public commitment to live up to the biblical standards of sexual morality (in this case total celibacy), ordination should not be an active consideration. I would expect a single heterosexual individual who has had an active sexual life in the past to make a similar commitment prior to any consideration of ordination.
Now, perhaps this happened at Ginter Park, making this whole conversation moot. Such information was never publicly revealed. But, again, presuming on the generally accepted definition of “openly gay,” the assumption made by myself and most of the delegates at the annual meeting is that it was not. By the way, should a church attempt to ordain an individual insistent on pursuing a lifestyle out of sync with biblical standards in some other way next year, I hope the BGAV would take a similar approach. It is unfortunate that this particular issue has been allowed by the culture to become such a lightning rod one. This has undoubtedly added unwanted and unnecessary complications to the lives of those individuals who find themselves faced with it.
In the end, I have no doubts of Drexel’s character and commitment to living out the way of Jesus. Nor do I have any qualms with his assessment of his daughter’s similar character and commitment. That’s not what’s at issue. Where I have trouble is his equating the BGAV and its “biblicist” members who voted against Dr. Somerville’s motion, as I did, with the medieval Roman Catholic Church. And this not because I totally disagree with the actions of the church. Rather, his insinuation that the church is standing athwart of culture (instead of science) on this issue, while undoubtedly true, appears to pointedly suggest that the church should capitulate to culture in a manner that, to many, seems unwise.
Furthermore, setting folks on the other side of this issue in the place of Galileo, given the historical record, is not entirely helpful to his point. Again, Galileo’s science wasn't all right. Additionally he needlessly antagonized the church and needed a good dose of humility to boot. If the church has erred on this issue it is not in its rejection of the “openly gay” lifestyle as it is currently defined culturally. That is the right decision.
Instead, the error lies in its poor demonstration of the love of Christ to those individuals who identify themselves as homosexuals. We've too often thrown the baby out with the bathwater. How can we celebrate homosexual individuals as unique bearers of the image of God all the while calling them (and ourselves) to fully live up to the lifestyle of a follower of Jesus in every area of life? This is the important question and the one most worth our time and attention.
Jonathan Waits ([email protected] is pastor of Central Baptist Church in Church Road, Va.