February 8, 2004

To the Editors of the Wesleyan Christian Advocate:

I respectively request you to disregard my earlier letter to you on this subject. My sentiments have not changed nor the conclusion, but merely the presentation. The current letter now follows. I think you will agree that it is far superior.

The Council of Jerusalem has freed all gentile Christians from all allegiance to any and all law. Immanuel Kant himself publicly noted this fact and found it remarkable that the gentiles were not only exempt from Jewish law, but from any law whatsoever. The presumption was and is that we wish and intend to represent the person of Christ in every situation of our lives, and dedicate our very bodies to his service through self control for his sake, especially chastity apart from Christian union. The further presumption is that we will always be aware of the conscience of another follower in the Way who is weaker in faith and who must honor laws in order to be at peace with Christ in conscience. We would never flaunt our liberty, but rather seek to strengthen that weaker one in his determination to walk the common Way. This is the ruling.

Our discussions regarding what Paul may have meant regarding homosexuality have now all become moot, for we are not only free with regard to ecclesiastical law, as Luther rightly saw, we are also free with regard to scriptural law; for whom Christ has made free, he is free indeed. And so it doesn’t really matter what Paul said with regard to his commands, many of which are obviously conditioned upon his situation and outlook in expecting an early return of the Lord. We look to Paul as the father of our faith and it is in that faith and in his insistence upon right reasoning that we turn to think for ourselves as scripture reports him urging us to do all the time. As our spiritual father, Paul told us this: each of us will stand before Christ alone and in conscience and that we were not to fear, for the Master is able to make his servant stand. And besides doesn’t it seem an affront to God to declare that a person under self control for the sake of the Lord would need special instruction from the mouth or pen of man in addition to what is conveyed immediately by the Holy Spirit and which can be recognized via the Law of Love?

As the Church of Christ we are bound to follow the Lord’s injunction (according to Matthew) and to bless in union twos and threes in his name and for his sake. The Council gave us our freedom, Paul explained to us our freedom, and now we are called upon to exercise this freedom in utter faith by granting our blessing to the homosexual union. And of equal importance: to develop a sane and compassionate program for the rejection of any divorce among any of those in Christ. We cannot expect but only hope that God would keep his promises to us if we will not keep our promises to each other.

If the Council has given us freedom in the name of Christ, I think we ought to take advantage of the situation and use this freedom for the sake of that same Christ in our present, equally troubled world.
Yours in Christ!

Philip McPherson Rudisill