We have just published Women's Ministry and Homosexuality: Questioning the Connections by Stephen Kuhrt. Please use this thread for discussion

Excellent piece Stephen - thanks. I found your last couple of paragraphs about the significance and blessing of male / famale complimentarity very enlightening. And I would certainly endorse the comment that ministering in a Church that fully accepts the ministry of women does not automatically lead to a liberal position on the issue of homsexuality but can have precisely the opposite effect.

Plain and simple there is no connection in spiritual terms with women in ministry and homosexuality.

But just the same as there is no connection between a person BORN homosexual , and a sexual offender or predator, can we really Judge??

That will not be popular with some but if you look at the issues earnestly you will know it is true.

Jesus i believe help my unbelief, forgive me for ??

Waterangel

It's not so much a liberal position as a consistent ethical position. If you allow some ancient texts to make your mind up for you, in that you privilege texts over people, then don't be surprised if the people most directly affected walk away and don't pick up your books of text. (Oh dear, I'm beginning to sound like Nersen Pillay)

Thank you Stephen for your article that raises legitimate questions on assumptions that women's ministry and homosexuality are completely parallel issues in terms of biblical interpretation.  I agree that the debate on the two subjects needs to recognize that different hermeneutical principles are involved between them.

The thread, 'Presuppositions and Homosexuality' has wrestled, through many of its 455 postings since February, with seeking to discern a biblical hermeneutic that questions the transcultural and absolutist stance of the traditional interpretation on gay sex.

I respect your view, from your engaging with women's ministry at your church and your revisiting of Genesis 1 and 2 and Romans 1, concerning 'the God-given uniqueness of life-long heterosexual marriage'.  However, I question once more whether that conviction necessarily excludes the legitimacy of godly, faithful same-sex relationships.

I agree that the hermeneutic for the latter is weaker than that for women's ministry on purely textual grounds but I believe the case for faithful, committed same-sex partnerships can be made from a fuller hermeneuic that embraces the wider sweep of general revelation and other biblical principles such as 'by their fruit you shall know them'.

I was very moved by one particular section of Stephen's article. It is his wonderfully positive and grateful  testimony to the transforming and enriching partnership of women and men in the life of his own church. All too often these kind of articles, however articulate and biblical, leave women and their ministry reduced to a problem  'issue' in the church that needs solving. Thank you Stephen for faithfully, biblically modelling Kingdom ministry in this way.

Stephen's article is indeed interesting, but - and this really is a big but - it would have been better if he had sought to address the nagging question that inevitably arises from recent church history, namely why it is that denominations that ordain women to the pastorate quite soon afterwards experience great internal pressure to bless homosexuality and indeed sometimes go on to take that step.  In other words, if there really is no theoretical link between the two issues, why is there such a strong correlation in churches in practice?

Dan. That's often said. But (a) what proofs can you offer to back up this statement? and (b) what proof is there that one leads to the other?

"Dan. That's often said. But (a) what proofs can you offer to back up this statement? and (b) what proof is there that one leads to the other?"

(a)  You only have to look at the history of North American Protestantism over the last 40 years, with special attention to those denominations that have begun ordaining women as pastors during that time, and above all attention to developments in those denominations since that point as regards pressure to do the same for active homosexuals.

(b)  I think you're asking me to prove that "post hoc ergo propter hoc".  Rather, a better way to look at it is this:  a conservative view of the matter would predict this sort of trend from theoretical principles; and the fulfilment of this prediction in several denominations constitutes a measure of confirmation for the correctness of those principles.  On the other hand, the raw data alluded to in (a) above present an unresolved explanatory challenge for the view that denies any even correlative link between the two issues.

Please note that there is no necessity to argue that the one "causes" the other, any more than one rung of a ladder "causes" the one next above it.  However, stepping onto the first rung makes it easier to ascend to the second; and the general point of ladders is that you're meant to go right up them, one rung after another.

So in the matter of these issues, it's not that the WO issue is the logical cause of the gay issue, but rather that both are generated by a revisionist theological method, only for purposes of practical implementation it has been found politically prudent to begin with WO to establish a beachhead for more serious departures down the line.  Christians who take pleasure in eschewing "proof-texting" against WO have surrendered the moral right to embrace it in a defence against gay consecrations.

Dan

Your 'slippery slope' attempt to connect WO and faithful gay relationships is simply that - slippery. You continue to make very vague assertions as if this is evidence. It isn't.  Protestant Churches around the world have been ordaining women for a lot longer than the last 40 years - including Pentecostal churches. The emergence of support for gay relationships in the church has been much more recent than that. And why start in North America in the last 40 years? The discussion needs much more careful setting in the context of social history. Theological exploration or innovation doesn't happen in a vacuum. The Word always takes flesh. I think you still have to make a more careful historical case.

You then write: 'it's not that the WO issue is the logical cause of the gay issue, but rather that both are generated by a revisionist theological method'. That does for me reveal your own starting point. If you regard both as based on revisionist reading of scirpture then of course they have that in common and neither can/will be faithfully anchored in the Word. They are for you liberal partners in crime. But you need to argue your case much more carefully on that too. I feel you have not been open about your own presuppositions here.

For what it is worth, my own position (like many others who contribute on these topics on these threads) is that scripture teaches the full inclusion of women alongside men in the life and ministry of the church and we have been lamentably slow to be faithful to scripture on this. The ordination of women therefore represents the renewal of theology not revision of it.  But evangelicals who are exploring a more positive, inclusive understanding of gay relationships in the church are not doing so using the same interpretative approach that are used to support the ordination of women. We are clear that the discussion about homosexuality and scripture requires a different kind of reading. I don't know where your evidence is for this claim either.

Finally, doesn't the logic of your accusation (which is what your claim is) imply that we should not support the ordination of women even if it was supported by scripture because it leads (up the rungs of ladder or down the slippery slope) to the acceptance of gays. It may well not be your intention. I even hope I have misunderstood you.  But I confess to finding aspects of your argument offensive to women and their biblical vocation.

S Kuhrt makes a case that WO is not incompatible with scripture so it does not follow that WO leads to anything incompatible with scripture........ this has to be correct   -   but if most of the people given leadership in the church through the acceptance of WO do make excuses for actions which are incompatible with scripture, then there is greater pressure for sin to be accepted and even blessed.......   male or female, the church slowly kills itself by ordaining anyone who is unfit for the job or unfaithful to what God has revealed in scripture.

Let us not forget the ecclesiological perspective. Lambeth 88 accepted that there could be two views on women's ordination. Lambeth 98 affirmed one view and rejected another on homosexual practice.

Sometimes there is a deep common ground in the reading of scripture between some evangelicals and some liberals. One way or another they see themselves and their friends as the final judge and court of appeal.