The Editor of the Wesleyan Christian Advocate.

November 29, 2004

Paul’s representation of the gospel of Christ is so simple and pure as to be dazzling. By virtue of his commission by Christ and by virtue of its authenticity attested to by the disciples and the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem, Paul declares that God loves all people, just as they are, and that Christ calls them to follow him in their condition and just as they are: if Jew, then as a Jew; if a gentile, then as a gentile. The Jewish Christian obeys the torah out of conscience, even as the gentile obeys the civil authority out of conscience. There is no longer any fear of the sword, for we know through Christ that God is our Abba/Daddy.

Now the premise underlying the Christian is simple: a determination to reflect the three loves of Christ (God, neighbor, disciple/Christian) in his every condition. For the gentile, Paul tells us, this means simply this: there is no law except the law of love and so all things are lawful, and so the only question is how best to achieve a meaningful goal (which is sheer rationality itself) and knowing that the most meaningful goal is the love of Christ. This he termed expediency. How best to represent Christ in any condition. This rule works for all conditions.

Consider an illuminating case. A young, single, male, gentile, homosexual, left handed thief is called to follow Christ. In terms of the expediency of Paul with respect to the great goal of the love of Christ, the youth would quite naturally give up his thievery and find honest work, but he would not give up his sexuality or his handedness, unless he just wanted to, for those would be his condition. Here we see clearly the liberty of the gentile Christian as principled by Paul. [And note that in order to put this homosexual convert on a par with heterosexual Christian youth in the relief from the burning of the passions, he would have to be provided a means of a sanctioned, intimate union in Christ with a person of mutual attraction.]

Of course this means that Paul’s complaints against same-sex sex or long hair on men, just to mention two unnatural things, can be explained in terms of expediency with regard to the three loves of Christ.

If same-sex sex is a choice and thus is being practiced by heterosexual men, then we have a spirit of rebellion and revolt against law in general, including the laws of nature, and this spirit is the antithesis of the lovers of order and justice and is very abusive and unloving. It is like the domination sex of the present day jail house. And so it follows that this spirit of selfishness and even of evil would not be expedient for the manifestation of the love of Christ. And so Paul was quite right in his condemnation, for it follows expediently from the law of love.

If same-sex sex is a nature, like one’s handedness, then this could not have been recognized by Paul, who declared same-sex sex (with Kant's concurrence) as a crime against nature. And so Paul will not have been talking about homosexuals (those who reflexively turn to the same sex), even though they would be there before his eyes, for he would be only conceiving of same-sex sex as something unnatural and practiced by straight men. It is like this: Paul looks up and sees the stars revolve around him, while we look up at the same sky and see that we are moving around an axis and the stars are not moving at all. Or like driving along and seeing telephone poles moving toward you and then seeing those same poles as fixed and you are moving toward them. He may have the homosexual before his eyes, but sees only straight-men thwarting nature. This view is bolstered by the obvious fact to Paul that sex will have been provided in order to make us have children, as the high infant mortality rate of his day would have made clear. Let’s not blame Paul for not realizing that the earth was moving, and let’s not blame him for not realizing that same-sex attraction can be as natural as opposite-sex attraction, just as the attraction for the left and right hand can vary naturally among people.

There is a middle way, by the way. Since we are a miracle religion we can assert that there were no homosexuals in Paul’s day at all, and that he had only straight men dominating other straight men to thwart all law and all order. Thus his every word is literally true in an objective sort of way. And then, we can add, that the homosexual was created by God since that time in anticipation of a later time when the heterosexuals will have so overpopulated the world, that some relief would be necessary, something as natural as the left handed people. The left handed people were once called: worthless, clumsy and sinister. Now we know them as equally beloved of God. Perhaps they have led the way to suffer first and then prove that they were as good and as bad as right handed people. And perhaps their suffering over the ages helps us to understand the sufferings of the homosexual, a (proposed) miracle of God to help us, even though we (the heterosexuals among us) are unworthy of such help through our own lack of self control with regard to sex.

We have presently in our midst the following testimony: in full faith in Christ I am willing to admit that my same-sex attraction was engendered by some choice that I made at some time, but regardless of that it is now my condition, proven in my reflexes, and I claim it in Christ and on the authority of Paul and I do not desire to change, any more than I or my wife desire a dissolution of our union of 18 happy years.

We can now declare our liberty through Paul and the disciples of Jesus, namely that we are secure in Christ in our condition, whatever that may be. And while we may change our condition if that is possible and if that is our desire, still it is better for Christ for us to remain in our present condition; and there is no sin. Now, let us assume purely for the sake of speculation that it could be determined that sexuality were really a choice, then what a marvelous vista that opens up, for now, armed with our edict of liberation, and knowing the tales of male/male sexual delight, we could not only happily sanction same-sex unions as something very desirable, we could even promote it as something noble that men and women might undertake voluntarily for the sake of the sanity of our overcrowded world. They could provide a means of joining unexcelled sexual delights with the sterility of the outcome, and we would not have need for abortion or infanticide or contraceptive, or birth controlling drugs (all unnatural) nor even the weakest of all, human will power (for the male has no period).

I challenge this church as a church of “Open Minds” to seriously consider this matter and to join with me in proclaiming the fact of the gentile Christian, namely that Paul really wasn’t kidding at all. He meant exactly what he said. And it really is quite simple.