Isaac's Press

The recent counsel to the church by President Steve Veazey included guidance found in paragraphs 6c through 7d. Unfortunately, not everyone who goes to the Bible seeks the “Living Word,” but instead finds comfort and support for existing beliefs and prejudices. Let’s be honest here: taking biblical words at face value when it comes to the topic of human sexuality, without regard for historical and cultural contexts, can lead to unfortunate results.

Ancient Mediterranean cultural understandings (whether in New Testament times or centuries before) were far removed from some 21st-century societies, although they aren’t that different from some current cultural practices in the so-called developing world. For example, the industrialized West (which includes North America, Western Europe, Australia, and numerous others countries) offers a cultural climate in which same-gender relationships can exist on the basis of equality. But in the ancient world, all sexual relationships existed only between non-equal partners. In the vast majority of cases that meant males were dominant and females were submissive.

Same-gender relationships also existed on the basis of inequality. In ancient Greece adult males “mentored” (that’s the nicest term I could come up with here) adolescent males. Today we’d call it pederasty but back then it was the accepted way to introduce males to adult, civic responsibility. Keep in mind that whenever those relationships lasted “too long,” they were condemned by acceptable society. Why? First of all, it was assumed that all males were heterosexual; two adult males exhibiting an equal partnership or relationship violated accepted cultural norms for sexual activity.

Now, what does that matter today? Consider this quote from the document: “…the issues include female submission, female genital mutilation, child brides, forced marriages, and sexual permissiveness. They include cleansing and exploitation of widows, harsh conflicts over same-gender attraction and relationships, and varying legal, religious, and social definitions of marriage, to name just a few.”

With the exception of “sexual permissiveness” and, perhaps, “female submission,” nothing in that first sentence or the beginning of the second relates to Western societies, but it does relate directly to other places where the Community of Christ has a presence. In fact, those practices date even to biblical times. We in the West have a tendency to look down our noses at what we often refer to as “primitive societies” and try to tell them how to live. I don’t want to get into an extended discussion of that, but I do want to point out the extraordinary importance of using Galatians 3:26–27 (as cited by President Veazey) as a primary basis for our actions as a church.

It will be an extremely difficult path for the church to follow as it deals (legislatively and administratively) with all the cultural practices mentioned or alluded to in the above-mentioned quotation. For starters, we’re going to have to re-imagine what being a “world church” means. The North American church, for example, does not have the responsibility to tell the African church how to deal with every local or national issue, even while upholding the view that female genital mutilation and the rest of that list are morally wrong, which of course they are. There’s a very messy contradiction in there, I realize. By the same token, the African church does not have the responsibility to tell the North American church how to deal with same-gender relationships, activities, ordination, and ministerial roles (including that of women, too). Once more, there’s messy contradictions.

So, where is the appropriate “place” to deal with these issues? Should we just leave everything up to jurisdictional leaders and conferences in national churches, apostolic fields, or maybe even mission centers? When you’re trying to be a world church that also views congregations as its basic (and therefore most critical) unit, there’s no simple answer. This is a challenge not just for nations or entire continents but right down on local levels. There’s still a few congregations in my own Central USA Mission Center that do not accept women in ordained ministerial roles (with the acquiescence of church leaders). What would happen if we follow that same practice in regard to same-gender relationships and ministerial roles? Well, if nothing else, I fear it’s going to get a whole lot messier.

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