Bowman - a note on 2b - most of the people I know gay and straight have identities that are based on self-perceptions that are created by a huge number of things - family, education, upbringing, nationality, temperament, employment, and religion. Oh yes, and sexual orientation. But not usually sexual behaviour.

To construct your identity around any one sexual behaviour is what we tend to call fetishism - and I think it is important to draw a very clear distinction between that and gay people in general. Fetishism is something found in the straight and the gay population (Charles Kingsley the great Victorian moralist and Christian was a keen spanker, as was C S Lewis (certainly as  young man)- both were fervently heterosexual). The Bible has no discussion of fetishism at all - so it is not clear whether this is a good or a bad thing - perhaps we can only say that it can be very limiting to people whose fetishes are ireplaceable - it can inhibit the capacity for normal sexual life - as without the presence of the fetish object or behaviour in extreme cases there can be no sexual satisfaction.

Most people are not fetishistic. And it is important not to focus discussion of the life of gay people on any one sexual behaviour (unnaked) as if they were as a class of fetishists! They are not. Nersen has a tendency to do this, despite my telling him on a number of occasions that there is no standard sexual behaviour among the gay population. Gay identity is about a great deal more than what you do or don't do in the bedroom. Of course a particular orientation to one's sexual attraction is involved, but it is  lot more than that. Gayness per se does not make me like all other gay people, and I can no more tell anything about the sexual life of another gay person simply by virtue of knowing that they are gay than I can about any straight person. All I know, if I know their orientation, is that I know their orientation. And then again, I don't know if that is exclusively to the opposite gender, or the same, or a mix, or if they have had fleeting attractions in the other direction or whatever. So harping on about any behaviour is not a lot of help in all this .

The Bishop of Liverpool's Presidential Address to Diocesan Synod, 2010 is really quite interesting. And I think sums up a lot of evangelical thinking.

Which, being executively summarised, seems to be: "we have lived with different opinions on other moral questions for centuries, so we can live with different opinions on this one" [My paraphrase] Its not worth splitting over.

quote:

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...we do already as a Diocese accept a diversity of ethical convictions about human sexuality in the same way that the church has always allowed a diversity of ethical opinion on taking human life. 

Within our own fellowship we are brothers and sisters in Christ holding a variety of views on a number of major theological and moral issues and we are members of a church that characteristically allows a large space for a variety of nuances, interpretations, applications and disagreement. 

I know that sometimes it stretches us, but never to breaking point, for it seems to me that there is a generosity of grace that holds us all together.

If on this subject of sexuality the traditionalists are ultimately right and those who
advocate the acceptance of stable and faithful gay relationships are wrong what will their sin be? That in a world of such little love two people sought to express a love that no other
relationship could offer them?

And if those advocating the acceptance of gay relationship are right and the traditionalists are wrong what will their sin be? That in a church that has forever wrestled with interpreting and applying Scripture they missed the principle in the application of the literal text?

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Nersen-- You are too kind; as the term ends, I've been a slow poster. I think you might agree that you have been raising two "new" sorts of questions of late, and that they may have escaped the notice of some villagers. Restating them in my own admittedly quite different way, they concern self-regulation and personal identity--

(1) How is the self-regulation required for a homosexual to remain celibate different in principle from all the other sorts of self-regulation that a Christian life requires?

(2a) What is it that a gay identity supplies for life or faith that an evangelical Christian identity does not?

Or--

(2b) How is it better to take on the cognitive dissonance of disbelieving the face meaning of the scriptures and constructing a personal identity around a sexual practice than to accept that one has an inclination to sin, and work out one's repentence as an evangelical Christian?

Perhaps we could add to Nersen's questions--

(3) Given that a person has homosexual inclinations, is it easier to maintain a Christian identity in the Church of England as a catholic or as an evangelical, and why?

It is worth noting that identity-making is happening rather a lot in our world, and the bishops stress in 1.10 that Christ is the ground of a Christian's identity. Taking the long view, we could well see similar pastoral issues arise with other groups as yet unknown.

Ambrose-- Thanks for a useful link.

Nersen and David W

Since we have come to the Accepting evangelicals site, perhaps you can comment on their exposition in the series  Bible Focus http://www.acceptingevangelicals.org/resources/

Dave

Nersen, I doubt I am alone in finding your comments to Pluralist, his views and his faith, unacceptably rude.

pluralism, unitarianism....totally irrelevant to a thread re evangelical views..... mere trolling to repeat ad nauseam, totally unsurprising non-evangelical views on this thread.... the unitarians get around 0.01% of the UK population attending..... tragic and irrelevant to more than just evangelicals in this country today?   All can read the thread title to test whether contributions are engaging with  this thread or just boring trolling....

Ambrose -  thanks for the link but the trouble with the link you have given, and even with what great brains like Roy Clements have written post changes in his circumstances, is that while claiming to be evangelical and perhaps being true to scripture on many issues, those trying to justify a revisionist view on this one issue make no positive case from from scripture to show that the sexual practice Lambeth 1.10 says is incompatible with scripture is in any circumstances blessed in scripture. Why not, if they are pushing an evangelcal position?   And if there is such a strong case from scripture against Lambeth 1.10, why was there no vote to repeal at Lambeth 08  to get rid of it?  Most of the AC's evangelicals were not even there....easy to get Lambeth 1.10 removed then if it is wrong re scripture......  the case from scripture to justify the sexual practice in any circumstances which Lambeth 1.10 says is incompatible with scripture is never forthcoming  -  or what verses would you refer us to?

Bowman - thanks for your reply  -  I think it is quite important not to make any sin special, whether to condemn it or justify it...... some make greed special and materialism even becomes blessing in their eyes (and sermons)....regardless of what scripture says re storing up treasure on earth and the poor....... I don't buy that as it is selective re scripture and ignores many verses which are inconvenient to our greed. Same goes for other sins....what does scripture say is what matters.....   nobody can show (below or anywhere else) that the NT overturns the OT laws re sexual practice, especially as it reinforces it.  But, we learn more about God's grace in Christ  - so we see Christ in John 8 not stoning someone caught in sin  (grace) but offering her a new life (grace)......with the words 'go and sin no more'..........    no excuses for sin, no arguments from silence, no licence to sin.....but God showing his gracious response to us sinners  - by offering us the chance of repentance and a new life.........  same attitude with little Zac.......  is that not Christ's message to us all -  '....neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

When people come through Unitarian doors for the first time, and that they do is why the denomination continues along, they often say something like, 'Well I've actually been Unitarian all the time.' In other words, the views of a small denomination are far more widespread than the group itself. And let's be clear, the reason the Anglican Covenant failed wasn't because there was a solid churchgoing majority of evangelicals but because the broad Church in the C of E is much stronger than others often think.

The difference between my contributions here than those of Nersen Pillay's is that I actually engage in the arguments of what others say. He just repeats. I don't, like him, make the rule of debate and then say no one else meets the rule. If you turn biblical scriptures into a rule book - which they are not - and then invent a Communion with an authority system - which it does not possess - then you find your repetition secure. Everyone else becomes a 'revisionist'. We keep hearing an argument here from apparent numbers, but by far the biggest number is the 95% that do not attend any church with loyal frequency, and it is in that somewhat secular, dare say, unitarian-like, society where attitudes to gay blessings and recognition have changed and changed to the good.

The NT texts that we have seem to be directed at the pagan society around the first Christians rather than against any nascent movement of 1st C homosexuals with Resurrection faith. That makes them harder to apply to the present circumstance without resort to the NT's other injunctions to "try the spirits,"  "hold fast what is good," etc. to get clear what in lived situations today actually glorifies God in Christ.

The intent of the texts is fairly clear. In the post-Resurrection messianism of Jesus's disciples, God's grace in support of marriage was and is a sign that he has begun to repair the damage done in the Fall. It seems obvious that, as the faith moved into the gentile world, the apostles were concerned to draw a stark contrast between the values of the old pagan society and the values of a new society rooted in confidence that the reign of God had begun. They did so in other aspects of life beyond sexuality. Yet, clearly, any such contrast would have to specify sexual practises that compromise personal integrity, participate in idolatry, glorify domination and cruelty, and alienate women and men from each other. Such practises directly oppose the Way of those who believe that God in Christ had begun to set the original created order aright, and that relations between women and men are a part of that order. However, it is not obvious that a practise that is not doing any of those destructive things in other contexts would have been important to condemn for its own sake. And that is the question today.

As Nersen has pointed out, often, there is no hearty approval of homosexual practises or orientations in these texts, although it is not clear what would have motivated random endorsements of behaviours in texts that tend to have a virtue ethic, rather than the legal ethic characteristic of Judaism. And, curiously, though I have often asked below for some argument that contemporary homosexuality is a manifestation of God's creative intention for humanity, I am still waiting for one. So facing today's question, we have as yet no case to consider.

We also have very imperfect knowledge of homosexualty itself, which is part of the reason why it is difficult to make the argument for which I have been asking. Despite some interesting clues from genetics and epigenetics, we are not close to an enduring neurobiological explanation for the inclination itself. In the 21st C, that gap in our knowledge preempts most discussion of the psychology of homosexuality, which leaves us unable to tell from evidence whether it is a natural kind or a disorder. But this gap may not go unfilled long.

What in that situation is a pastor to do in any of the myriad situations that arise in relation to a homosexual inclination? She or he will certainly affirm the apostolic values mentioned above in helping all persons, for they were from the beginning implicit in the appearances of the Lord after his Resurrection. We cannot imagine an orthodox Christianity that is indifferent to the embodiment of persons, hence we cannot imagine an orthodox Christianity without a sexual ethic. However, is there anything further to say to homosexuals as assuredly from God?

I have posted on the "...Understand..." thread the position of a pastor who believes that the texts often mentioned prove that homosexual acts per se are sinful. What is striking to me in reading the transcript of his talk is that his actual approach is not notably different from what a pastor might try in relation to, say, a Christian tempted to sin because of a neurobehavioural disorder. He does not offer cures; he offers Jesus, or as he says, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus." If the gospel is true, then God has the power to enable the obedience that he desires. That obedience may be celibacy, as many homosexuals who have been exemplars to all Christians have discerned, and in that case, a pastor will be concerned to support that calling. But all obedience in all of us will always depend on prevenient grace, and all the glory for it goes to Him.

Postscript-- Getting at God's truth is more important than figuring out which group can best claim to own it, but there is one caution worth mentioning that should affect the way we assess the several theological traditions. No matter how one reads the much-discussed texts, one cannot read other texts that bear on discernment out of the scriptures. Among these one would count, not just the few mentioned above, but also the whole system of St Paul's virtues ethic. One reason why one cannot, apart from their canonicity, is that discernment is an activity made necessary by the very claim that, amid the flux of life experience, there are evidences of the work of God that began in Christ that believers can see.  Where a theological position cannot accommodate situational discernment at all, perhaps in the pursuit of an angelic objectivity not given to us, it falls under inevitable suspicion.

http://www.acceptingevangelicals.org/