Open letter to the Church of Scotland

In May 2009, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland upheld the decision of one of its Presbyteries to proceed with the induction of a minister who is living in a same sex partnership. As a result of the controversy surrounding this decision, the General Assembly is putting together a consultation document around the matter of ordination of minister in practising homosexual relationships. As part of this consultation, they wrote to TfT to ask our view on the matter. The response below is from one of our staff on behalf of TfT. We are publishing our response openly, as we believe that it may be of interest to the wider church.

Thank you for the invitation to True Freedom Trust to contribute to your consultation.  The stance of our ministry is clearly laid out on our website and any of our published material would only duplicate what is available there.

However, I would like to take the opportunity to respond from a personal perspective and I am sure what I say will augment TfT’s public stance.  I write as some one who has experienced same sex attractions all my life, but who has chosen a lifestyle of crucifixion to my own desires in order to be a disciple of Jesus Christ; not an easy path, but did Jesus say it was easy?  I have never regretted making this choice and am very grateful to God that I have been very happily married for 34 years. 

I believe there are a number of points that need to be considered:

The nature of marriage

To begin at the beginning, Gen 2:24 seems to me to be the fundamental definition and foundation of marriage, which is the only context for a sexual relationship.  It is re-enforced by Jesus in Matthew and Mark and again by Paul in Ephesians.  The definition makes clear that it is between man and woman.  I consider that any discussion of human sexuality begins and ends with marriage.  There are few passages in scripture that deal with homosexuality and I find, sadly, that debate too often focuses on these alone, rather than the breadth of biblical teaching on marriage which in many ways features on every page from Genesis to Revelation.  I believe Martin Luther described marriage as God’s best way of explaining Himself to us.  The Old Testament relates the story of Jehovah and His unfaithful wife Israel; whilst the New talks of Christ’s relationship with His betrothed, the Church.  Genesis opens with marriage and Revelation ends with marriage.  I regard it as part of the essential mission of the Church to uphold marriage as defined by God in His Word.

In that sense, homosexuality should be treated no differently from  heterosexuality.  We all face the problems and issues brought on by a sexuality damaged at the Fall.  The current focus on homosexuality in the Church removes the focus from the much more populous issue of damaged heterosexuality.  The Church needs to have a clear vision of what holy sexuality really is, and not just take the world’s view of heterosexuality and hold that as the norm for Christians.

The nature of homosexualities

Homosexuality has very many expressions. Essentially though there are three aspects: attractions, behaviour and identity.  The bible is silent on attractions, it focuses on behaviours and as regards identity – the concept is recent, but the biblical focus is on our identity in Christ alone.  It certainly does not validate sexuality as a determiner of our identity.

As regards behaviours, these are wide ranging but often manifest in a mixture of sexual addiction and emotional dependency and relatively rarely in loving stable committed relationships – although these are not to be denied.  The Church should not be encouraging either addictions or dependencies, and by embracing gay lifestyles will be assumed to be doing so.  Certainly it is evident from some parts of the Church, (eg the Bishop of Los Angeles’ presence and support at Gay Parades), that all forms are homosexuality are being encouraged by some.

My own view would be that the only form of homosexuality that the Church could even consider debating is something which mirrors marriage.  This would entail clear prohibition of sexual relationships outside that.  Those Churches that do accept homosexual practice, however, do not seem to me to be exercising such stricture.  Even so, as the biblical definition of marriage is between man and woman, it would be a debate that is soon settled.

The nature of the gospel call

The life and death of Jesus present a huge challenge to all of us.  We see there, a man who “lays down His life for His friends”.  It is not a message that encourages us into self-expression but into self-sacrifice.  In Romans 7 and 8, we see Paul challenging his readers to warfare with the “sinful nature”.  As Christians we have to engage in a battle with our flesh.  We are at war.  Sinful, sexual tendencies of all sorts are our enemy, not our friend.

Jesus deeply wrestled with His own flesh in Gethsamane before submitting to the Cross.  The challenge of the Gospel to all of us is to do the same.  “Not my will be done, but Thine”.  To me, the acceptance of homosexual practice into the church nullifies this call.  The will of God is made clear to us in Scripture.  Do we lay down our lives for Him or not?

The message we give to those who choose to follow

Following on from the last point; what message is therefore given to those who despite pain and personal sacrifice choose to follow biblical teaching? Are we saying to them, they have misunderstood scripture? Or are we saying to them that their pain and sacrifice is meaningless as God “never had a problem with gay sex in a loving relationship”?

I can only begin to imagine the rejection, discrimination and injustice I would feel if my church was saying that to me concerning my life-style choices.  Accepting one group will alienate the other.   

The issue of church leadership

From what I have said above, the church has first to understand what it will teach.  With that settled, we then look to the leaders to see whether they are prepared to teach for or against that stance.  Whilst there is great value in autonomy and not being overly prescriptive in what individual ministers teach, there is a strong argument that they remain within the orthodoxy of their movement, and accept a parting of the ways if they depart from that.

In addition to the teaching which they are required to uphold, there is also an obligation to live as far as possible (and no-one is perfect) in a public lifestyle that accords with the teaching.  For me two questions arise concerning recent events:

1. Will these men teach scripture?
2. Will these men lead a public life-style that is congruent with scripture? 

The prominent recent cases such as your own Mr Rennie, Gene Robinson and Roy Clements fail on both counts.  Indeed, as I understand it, in addition to their homosexual  issues. all three left wives and children to pursue a gay-lifestyle, something which seems rarely to feature in the media, and yet for me, is probably the poorer witness to what the Church stands for.

There is much more that could be said, but I trust these five points give some pointers to areas that need investigation and consideration.

In His love and service

Phil