PROPOSAL
Narrative
I have been involved in and witnessed many debates over homosexuality not only in the forum of its relationship to society in general, but its characterization and association in the life of the Church. Scholars on many sides have presented careful expositions of their own positions in relation to Scripture and the various traditions and theologies within the history of the church.
However, many of these studies are rather ignored in water cooler talks and in often whispered breaths in our congregations. This does not mean that people do not read them. It means that even when read, the conclusions are often ignored due to a personal discomfort with the outcomes. It also means that one's own experience often trumps whatever those conclusions might be.
The result is that in most debates, one's personal commitment intervenes and effectively blocks an objective engagement of the arguments. What I have witnessed are a lot of dishonest conclusions even when plausible objections are rendered against a certain view. The debate is then cut off due to altogether irrational reasoning strategies that result from personal adjudication rooted in experience rather than evidence.
What we often do not do from various personal motivations is test our own often deeply personal assumptions and boundaries about reality and engage such processes with the willingness to change. Or, if we are not willing to change at a given moment in time, we tend not to be honest with the reasons why. Often this is because the "other side" whichever it is, places an unfair demand on the opposition to capitulate. The message is that if you do not change now, then we should go our separate ways. Or you could take Brian McLaren's strategy of not talking about it for a while. But if one thing is clear about McLaren is his intentional lack of clarity as somehow inherently a good we need to observe. I find that has little to no use.
For instance, the idea of two men having sex is gross to many people. It is hard to get past that image no matter what any other evidence is presented. On the other side two people who are even in a monogamous same sex relationship cannot see past it if Scripture and the intent of the passages that deal with same sex relations clearly forbid it. For the former, the argument will usually boil down to "scripture is clear" even when it is not. For the latter, the argument comes down to "scripture does not address our situation" even if it very well might.
Intent
I would like to do something different here. I would like to propose hypotheses related to this issue where we do not look at it with personal interest or experience as a motivation at all, but bracket out personal commitments on either side of the issue and engage it on as rational a basis as possible. What I would like to do is propose hypotheses from the perspective of affirming homosexual relationships and see where the debate comes out. It might end up at stalemate and that should be OK since we are not here adjudicating polity. The reason for coming at it in this direction is that the affirmative hypotheses are the source of the discord which is a fact regardless of one's position in the matter. It is the affirming position that is new in the church.
I want to do this because I think we can work with the issue better. Whatever your take on homosexuality, one thing that we need to agree on is that division in the church is clearly not an effective witness of God's continuing act of reconciling the world to himself. Laying effective groundwork by being honest is a good way to do this in my estimation.
Format
The primary question is this: On what bases is our position on the affirmation and/or negation of homosexuality made plausible and legitimate?
Here is a proposed format:
- A series of blog summits following a general agreement on the hypotheses rooted in the above question that will be tested. There will be one of these a month starting the third week of May through the third week of August.
- The goal would be to have an essay that seeks to affirm the hypothesis and one that seeks to falsify it. In the spirit of fair and balanced dialogue I would recommend that the position you choose to take would be the one that you are most likely to currently disagree with in an effort to try to affirm it.
- At the close each participant would offer a personal concluding statement that takes into account their own theological, biblical, and traditional assumptions that inform their view with a reflection on how those assumptions are both plausible and legitimate.
- There would be no attempt to "sway" people to consent to a given view. The goal is an open and honest engagement of the issues in order to lay bare our assumptions for the good of reconciling the church. Moreover, we may not find a hermeneutic that can effectively adjudicate a balance between the two positions. However, an effective groundwork can at least be established.
- I will post an index of the summits as a separate page unless there are objections.
- I would also consider the contributions of the summit to send to a publisher if all participants would be in agreement. Lulu.com is also an option for this, but if the contributions are stout enough, I think we might be able to do much better. Naturally this introduces another level of risk, but I think one well worth it for the good of the church.
If you have concerns over copyright we can work something up to establish a good faith agreement to ensure that your intellectual property is protected when your content is posted on this site. (By default, if you post anything to a site for which you have no license, it defaults to a dual ownership between the license owner and the producer.)
Would anyone be at all interested in taking a risk here to engage the debate the summer? Post your interest here or use the contact form if you wish.
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