November
11 I woke early with thoughts of the subject on my mind. After an hour, I got
up, had breakfast and wrote the blog entry “We Are Being Rushed,” which some of
you might have read [reflect-lulu-isle@blogspot.com]
.
This morning it was an hour and a half of thoughts mostly on this topic before
I got up, had breakfast, checked in with my email and Facebook and I'm now
writing this.
To
begin with, I want to bring our attention back again to the resolution that
Mennonite Church Canada passed by a wide margin of the delegates at Assembly
2016, the biannual sessions of the Church, in Saskatoon:
A Resolution to the
Mennonite Church Canada Delegate Assembly July 2016: Being a Faithful Church
|
AMMENDED
Based on what the
Task Force has heard in our discernment process concerning same-sex committed
relationships, and in the spirit of the church speaking again, the General
Board has approved for consideration at the 2016 Delegate Assembly, the
following BFC task force recommendation:
CARRIED
|
The first bullet here states that
"One of our foundations of unity has been the Confession of Faith in a
Mennonite perspective. We recommend that it
continue to serve the church in the ways suggested in the Introduction of the
Confession itself."
It
seems to me that there are individuals, even leaders and pastors, in our
churches who are now brandishing this document in the faces of those who
approved the resolution in ways that are definitely not unifying. As some of
you know, pastors/leaders of 11 of Mennonite Church British Columbia
congregations shared a letter with the rest of the conference in which they
generally expressed their disapproval of the above resolution. They say that we
cannot adopt this resolution if we say that the Confession of Faith in a
Mennonite Perspective is still to serve the church as such. They overlook the
second sentence of the first clause of the resolution which points to the
Introduction of the Confession which states that it is a guideline. In my
opinion, they are instead making this document a standard, a law.
I
believe that at least some of the individuals who put their names to this
letter are genuinely sincere in their opposition to this resolution. They might
also really cherish our Confession of Faith and want to uphold it as they
understand it. If I want to be less than charitable, I could say that they, or
at least some of the signatories, are just putting forth the confession as a
smokescreen, an excuse to refuse to accept the resolution. Indeed, one of their
suggested ways forward is to put a moratorium on further discussion of the
subject!
Furthermore,
Confessions of Faith have change over time. We all know that. However, being
the type of document that they are, they cannot be changed easily and quickly
when a new understanding develops in the church. A good deal of soul-searching,
prayerful study and discernment needs to occur first. For example, rightly or
wrongly, most of our congregations now accept divorced and even divorced and
remarried individuals into membership, sometimes even leadership. The Confession
has not yet been adapted to address this. The most that it says on page 74 is
"4. Some in the church experience divorce… that make(s) marriage and
family life burdensome or even impossible. Jesus affirmed the sanctity of
marriage (Matt. 5:52) and pointed to hardness of the heart as the ultimate
cause of divorce (Mark 10:4-9). Today's church needs to uphold the permanency of
marriage and help couples in conflict move toward reconciliation. At the same
time, the church, as a reconciliation and forgiving community, offers healing
and new beginnings. The church is to bring strength and healing to individuals
and families."
Unfortunately,
the document does not say anything about homosexuality or all the other forms
of sexual/gender diversity that the acronym LGBTQ encompasses. This is in spite
of the fact that the issue had been on the floor of conferences in both the USA
and Canada for a decade before this latest version of the confession came out. It has taken special steps to endorse and
support singles in our congregations, which is commendable. It defines, on page
72, "Christian marriage" as "a mutual relationship in Christ, a
covenant made in the context of the church." This statement in itself says
nothing about sexual identity or gender. It could apply to homosexuals.
However, it is actually preceded by this qualifying statement: "We believe
that God intends marriage to be a covenant between one man and one woman for
life." Later, it goes on to say that “Marriage is meant for sexual
intimacy, companionship, and the birth and nurture of children." All quite
standard and what we would consider, up to this point, orthodox statements.
Now,
according to Scripture, we know that God's good creation apparently only
included male and female (Genesis 1:27). However, we know that creation has
been spoiled by choices that were made way back in the beginning of time
(Genesis 3). I would posit that God, in his redemptive mercy and goodness,
besides offering us repentance and a way back to him through the work of Jesus
Christ, has also been making accommodations to the human situation ever since.
Divorce would appear to be one of those accommodations. Jesus clearly indicated
his disapproval ( Matthew 5:31-32), but did not say we should not continue with
divorce, if we humanly speaking can see no other way out. He only talked about
it making people commit adultery, but we know even he forgive adulterers. Ergo,
I think he also forgives divorcees.
Why
can we not apply the same rationale to acceptance of LGBTQ individuals? I would
put forward that God did not create all of these categories of human
sexual/gender expression. However, we know that God is not opposed to
diversity. Just look at creation, and even what he caused to happen at The
Tower of Babel (Genesis 11: 1-9). My simple understanding of the origin of all
of this sexual diversity is that it is a result of "sin’s" impact on
our brains and bodies. We know that there are those in the animal kingdom who
exhibit homosexual behavior. There are also those that reproduce sexually with
themselves, hermaphroditically.
For
many, one of these forms of sexual diversity other than heterosexual, is not
something they choose. They are born with it. It is part of who they are. So
how can we deny that? To be sure, there are those who, perhaps because of a
life of misguided parenting or abuse, or other influences causing confusion
about identity, choose or settle into one of these forms of diversity that most
closely approximates how they see themselves.
Some
of us will say, we can accept the individuals as fellow Christians, as members
in our congregation, perhaps even in positions of leadership, as long as they
do not practice non-heterosexual activities. To me, this has become a totally
irrational and unacceptable position. How can we see, yes we can accept what
you say about yourself, about who you are, over here, but not in this area? Is
that acceptance or not? It can certainly create a lot of hardship and suffering
for some of the individuals who try to comply with that.
Then,
there are others who will continue to insist that these orientations are not
right, let alone any related practice. We can only accept these individuals
into our midst if they repent of this alleged sinfulness and live either
celibate or heterosexual. I could go into my understanding of Scripture which
does not support this view, but that is more than I wish to do in this
document. That would be a treatise in itself.
I
think many of those who take these latter two positions do so in part out of
ignorance, perhaps not even knowing individuals who fit any of these
descriptions, or never have listened to their stories. I have read and heard
enough of these personal testimonies, including from my patience as his
psychiatrist, even dealing with Christian homosexuals, transgender youth etc., to
know that be really have nothing to fear of these people. To be sure, there
have been those in Christian circles who have exploited the fact that some
individuals under this umbrella engage in unhealthy and promiscuous sexual
practices. Much of the behavior exhibited at their so-called Pride Parades only
adds to this negative impression of these people. Some of them recognize that
it does not help their cause and do not take part in these events. Some of this
behavior, although this is not an excuse, arises as over-reaction to the
suppression that our society places on these individuals. We all know how you
sometimes have to exaggerate to make a point.
Those
of us who wish to totally include these individuals in our fellowship might be
making a mistake. I am humble enough to admit that. However, I know that God
can forgive us when we err in good faith. We are accused of going beyond what
Scripture says, as many who resist these directions believe they have it on the
authority of The Bible that this is all wrong. In my view, this opinion places
Scripture in an unacceptably high position. It runs the danger of making God
have to obey the Bible in what he lets us do. Let me share with you some
lessons from my understanding of Scripture in this regard.
In
the first place, when it comes to Old Testament injunctions, we could be
tempted to categorically say we can disregard those because we are no longer,
as Christians, in the New Testament era, under the New Covenant, in the Kingdom
of God, as Jesus presented it, under the authority of the Mosaic law. You may
say, but Jesus said he came to fulfill the law. At the same time, we know that
there are many instances of where he re-interpreted it in ways that the
religious leaders of his day could not accept. Ultimately, as many of us
understand it, the fulfillment of the law that he refers to meant that what he,
in his death and resurrection, accomplished what the law was meant to do, but
as the Apostle Paul so poignantly writes, especially in his letters to the
Romans and Galatians, was unable to. We know that Jesus saw the law summarized
in two phrases: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and
strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Is that not enough for us to
begin to see that we can accept these individuals and let the Spirit work with
us and them within the church to see what they might need to do in their own
lives, just as we have many corners in our rooms that we struggle with letting the
Spirit into?
There
are four further instances from Scripture that I could draw our attention to. One
is where Jesus himself, as recorded in John's gospel, himself appears to
support the idea that The Spirit, in its work with us, is not limited to what
Scripture says. In chapter 16:12 we read, "I still have many things to say
to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will
guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak
whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come."
Might acceptance of LGBTQ individuals be one of these "things that are to
come?"
Then
we have the story of Peter and the visions he had about uncleanness as recorded
in The Acts of the Apostles, chapter 10. Having been brought up to be faithful
to the law of Moses, he could not accept what The Spirit was telling him
through these dreams to do. However, after three of these dreams, no longer
able to sleep, I am sure his head was spinning when he gathered his companions
and went off to Cornelius' place. In his mind, he was breaking the law by
entering the home of a Gentile, much less eating with them and welcoming them
into the kingdom. Is this not a clear example of The Spirit leading us beyond
what the law said?
The
next example comes from The Acts of the Apostles chapter 15. The new church was
still struggling with what it meant to admit Gentiles to the Fellowship.
Ultimately, after much discussion, and I am sure a lot of prayer, and listening,
they wrote to the Gentiles (versus 28-29), "For it has seemed good to the
Holy Spirit and asked to impose on you no further burden than these essentials:
that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and what
is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourself from these, you will do
well. Farewell." Note, they did not say, our study of Scripture leads us
to conclude this. In their mind, they probably felt that they were going out on
the proverbial limb, but the experiences and circumstances that they were
witness to lead them to believe that this was the direction of The Holy Spirit.
There was no clear proscription against homosexual behavior here. Fornication can
be understood as simply another word for adultery. However, we know that in the
Bible it was also used to refer to incest, pornography and other unacceptable sexual
acts of the time. We also know that when Paul, who is the only one in the New
Testament to addresses the issue most directly, spoke of what we understand as
homosexual behavior, he was referring to two practices common at the time. One
was the custom of the elite males in Greek and Roman society to have for
themselves what we would now it is sometimes refer unflattering way to as
"boy toys." The other was a reference to homosexual practices in the
idolatrous religions of the day, including in their temples. Be that as it may,
my main point for pointing out this passage is my comments above about how the
Holy Spirit worked with the new church.
Finally,
we have reassuring words in The Apostle Paul's Letter to the Philippians, which
our congregation has just completed hearing a series of messages on and studied
in our home LIFE groups. I refer to Chapter 3, verse 15: "Let those of us
then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about
anything, this too God will reveal to you. Only let us hold fast to what we
have obtained." When we walked with the Spirit, we don't always have
rock-solid evidence for the rightness of the way we travel. We talk about
stepping out in faith, as Peter did when he went to Cornelius's place. The
rightness of that decision was approved when he saw them except the gospel and
receive the Holy Spirit in front of his eyes. Likewise for us, when we keep in
touch with the Spirit, prayerfully trying to be obedient and follow its leading
as we continue our pilgrimages, this passage tells us that we, perhaps not even
as individuals in our lifetime, but as a church, will be shown the error of our
ways if we are wrong.
One
closing comment. The third bullet of the resolution introduced near the
beginning of this document states:
“We
recommend that we create space/leave room within our Body to test alternative
understandings from that of the larger Body to see if they are a prophetic nudging
of the Spirit of God.” This past weekend, at an Indigenous Wisdom for the Church
Conference put on by Hummingbird Ministries in Vancouver, I heard an indigenous
pastor say, "Sometimes spirituality just slaps us across the mouth, and we
have to decide whether to open our mouths and take it in or not." Indeed, we know some of our indigenous neighbours have long had a tradition among the elders of giving a special place of respect to the 'two-spirited' as they call them. They saw them as possibly having special gifts because of what they embodied. Maybe that is just another area where we could learn from our First Nations brothers and sisters.
Perhaps, to say that "alternative understandings" could be "a prophetic nudging of the Spirit" is rather weak, perhaps politically correct; certainly an expression that would ruffle less feathers. Maybe the Spirit, after all this time and having heard the anguish of LGBTQ individuals and their families, is trying to slap us on the face, not just nudge us. After all, did our Lord not say he came to set the captives free (Lk. 4:18, quoting Isaiah 61)? Have we not been guilty of keeping the LGBTQ captive?
Perhaps, to say that "alternative understandings" could be "a prophetic nudging of the Spirit" is rather weak, perhaps politically correct; certainly an expression that would ruffle less feathers. Maybe the Spirit, after all this time and having heard the anguish of LGBTQ individuals and their families, is trying to slap us on the face, not just nudge us. After all, did our Lord not say he came to set the captives free (Lk. 4:18, quoting Isaiah 61)? Have we not been guilty of keeping the LGBTQ captive?
