3/9/98

To the Editor

The juxtaposition of the two letters (3/6/98) on homosexuality and scripture from our brothers, Richard Smith and Robert McCord, reveals a divergence which, I think, now lends itself to an easy reconciliation, namely where pure reason itself enables us to come to a proper interpretation of the scripture.

According to McCord's insightful thesis (which is nothing less than brilliant!) to denounce homosexuality per se, as a physical act, would be the same as denouncing left-handedness per se; and since the latter would be morally absurd, it follows that the denunciation of homosexuality per se would likewise be absurd. And since scripture must be paramount (as Smith rightly observes) we must return to the scripture and seek another understanding with regard to homosexuality (and I focus now particularly on Romans 1).

And there is another interpretation which is more far closely attuned to the verbiage of that chapter of Paul's letter and certainly more consistent with Jesus' notion that sin proceeds from the heart and is not anything material (like some specific act). Accordingly a pagan society (such as Rome) embodies a supreme maxim of action called the Principle of Satan, i.e., personal pleasure above all! In the hands of absolutely powerful people (such as the emperor of Rome) this maxim results in a perversion known as jaded sex, namely: when the pleasure of heterosexual sex has been tapped and found wanting through great and even abusive excess, the heterosexual's flesh leaps to something else to arouse pleasure and finds it in homosexual acts. But this in turn is also found wanting and the next step is the bizarre. This was the case with Tiberius Caesar who eventually gave up women for men and boys, and was finally murdered by Caligula who, as the next emperor, descended in turn into utter madness which was mirrored recently by the inexpressible depravity of Jeffrey Dahmer's cannibalism of our own times. In brief: pleasure seeking, when unfettered, leads to homosexuality (but only as a perversion, i.e., like right-handed people seeking to write with their left hands, and like the well-documented phenomenon of prisoners turning to homosexuality temporarily in their desperate attempts at sexual satisfaction, and then giving up such homosexual behavior upon returning to society), and this in turn tends toward insanity. It is no wonder that Paul would have cited this procedure as symptomatic of a lost society, for it had been personified before his very eyes in these two emperors of his own generation.

We have now the marvelous spectacle of hundreds of homosexuals flocking to St. Mark (Atlanta) in (partial) response to the proclamation of the Wesleyan vision of Christ. These people must now be assimilated even as the gentiles were given access to the church via the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15). According to this model 1. we must demand abstinence from fornication as an absolute of the faith (but which also means that a Christian covenant between two informed and queried adults must be made possible by the church); and 2. certain manners must be followed by the homosexuals when amongst heterosexual Christians, e.g., no kissing on the lips.

The homosexual church, as also the church in general, must come to understand that the greatest act of freedom on the part any Christian is the voluntary entrance into a community which reflects the Holy Trinity, the most important one, of course, being the Church, but the most intimate one being where two persons (regardless of gender) enter into a covenant for life (no divorce, and certainly no remarriage and) to which their personal drives are subordinated in accordance with Paul's model given in scripture; and where the third member of this "little trinity" is God himself in the person of the Holy Spirit, and is the means whereby all Christian communities (including the Church) find union with one another.

Thanks to the WCA and Brothers Smith and McCord for making this reconciliation finally possible. And thanks to God for the vision of John Wesley where reason, tradition and experience come forth as validations of our entirely adequate foundation, namely the Word of God.