Dear Readers, I will be away from home in Northern Ireland this weekend in Hillsborough Presbyterian Church (a wonderful congregation). The blog will resume on Monday 14th.

This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news:

President Obama states approval of gay marriage 

Leviticus 18

19 You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness.²⁰You shall not have sexual relations with your kinsman’s wife, and defile yourself with her.²¹You shall not give any of your offspring to sacrifice them^* to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.²²You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.²³You shall not have sexual relations with any animal and defile yourself with it, nor shall any woman give herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it: it is perversion.

24 Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, for by all these practices the nations I am casting out before you have defiled themselves.²⁵Thus the land became defiled; and I punished it for its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.²⁶But you shall keep my statutes and my ordinances and commit none of these abominations, either the citizen or the alien who resides among you²⁷(for the inhabitants of the land, who were before you, committed all of these abominations, and the land became defiled);²⁸otherwise the land will vomit you out for defiling it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.²⁹For whoever commits any of these abominations shall be cut off from their people.³⁰So keep my charge not to commit any of these abominations that were done before you, and not to defile yourselves by them: I am the Lord your God.

Here is one of the Biblical texts which denounce homosexuality amongst males. It’s important to note that the condemned practices are described as “abominations” which defile the land: that is, they issue from an understanding of what is “clean” and “unclean” in human behaviour. God is portrayed as attaching his name to the prohibition on unclean behaviour, whether that involves eating, or sex, or even costume. This is not to denigrate these laws but to know that they come from an area of cultural perception that many of us have difficulty in understanding today. Many heterosexual couples will have had sex during the woman’s periods. For the priestly lawgivers of Israel, that would be “abomination.” Clearly there is a difficulty here for those who want to take every word of the bible as binding on them. In Leviticus there are also intructions about stoning people who break the commandments. People obeying these today would probably be in trouble with the law of their land.

Some scholars have tried to get us out of the difficulty by distinguishing between ritual laws and moral laws, but as I’ve indicated above, laws regarding abomination seem to be both ritual (involving purity) and moral (dealing with right and wrong behaviours).

Truly the only sensible thing is to follow the rules that most mainstream churches have worked out for interpreting their scriptures:

1. The Scriptures of the Old Testament are to be interpreted “in the light of Christ”; where there is a clash, Christ’s word’s and actions are decisive. In this light it’s interesting that Jesus is recorded as speaking on many topics but not on homosexuality.

2. The Scriptures have to be interpreted in the light of the Holy Spirit. “The letter kills but the spirit gives life” St Paul says. What is written cannot be changed but the Holy Spirit helps the church to use it well.

3. The scriptures have to interpreted within the fellowship of the church, that is, of the world church: Catholics should listen to Protestants, Quakers to Merthodists, Africans to Asians and so on. This doesn’t make things easier but it at least prevents any church thinking the only view is its own.

Once we think we know what the scripture means, we then have to judge along with the fellowship of the church, whether in conscience we can live by it. We cannot simply say “Scripture says blasphemers should be stoned,” and proceed to stone an offender. We have to submit the scripture to the rule of our conscience. Yes, I know that will sound heretical to some people, but I can’t see any other way of doing my duty as a Christian. If God didn’t want me to use my conscience He shouldn’t have given me one.

So, as regards gay marraige, where does all that get me?

1. The sort of faithful loving relationships which I’ve seen amongst gay men and women are nowhere mentioned in scripture or any ancient literature. The bible assumes that homosexual activity is promiscuous and corrupt: either related to ritual sex or paedeophilia or prostitution. If I’m right in this, then the Bible simply doesn’t deal with the issue of gay marriage.

2. I see no evidence at all that people choose their sexual orientation, so I have to accept that there is a prima facie case for saying God has created them this way.

3. There is however the fact the some people are oriented to children, or to rape. That means I have to use my conscience to discern whether the particular sexual  orientation can be shared by two equal persons who love each other. If this is not so, then the orientation cannot be “of God.”

4. God,  as revealed by Jesus, seems to me more likely to be concerned about the quality of a sexual relationship than the gender of its participants.

5. Our democratic laws should treat all our citizens equally.

These considerations lead me to approve of the president’s announcement, although I’m not sure that any religious body within the state need feel its own practice bound by his decision.