Through My Eyes, The Gay Christian Network, 2009. “What to Do about Unbiblical Unions” by Susan Wunderink, Christianity Today online, June 25, 2009. “Is the Gay Marriage Debate Over?”, by Mark Galli, Christianity Today, July, 2009.
by Dr. Ralph Blair
Conservative Ted Olson and liberal David Boies, opposing lawyers in the Supreme Court case, Bush v. Gore, in 2000, have joined forces to work for same-sex marriage. Olson says: “If you look into the eyes and hearts of people who are gay and talk to them about the issue, that reinforces in the most powerful way possible the fact that these individuals deserve to be treated equally.”
Thanks to a new DVD from Justin Lee and the Gay Christian Network he founded in 2001, we all can “look into the eyes and hearts” of some 25 young adults who are both gay and evangelical Christians. It’s must viewing for gay and non-gay Christians who struggle with gay/Christian issues. These deeply committed Christians speak of their confusion, isolation and pain as well as integration, acceptance and peace in dealing with a same-sex orientation they didn’t choose and tried to overcome.
Watching these young people speak simply and straightforwardly of their hard-won struggles is a profoundly moving experience. I sent the DVD to a heterosexual couple involved in evangelical Christian ministry with this same age-range. They emailed back: “We SOOO enjoyed the video. We shared it with a couple friends and it launched a fantastic conversation about intimacy, sexual desire, attraction and sex. Thank you thank you thank you for passing it along.”
The DVD’s trailer is at www.throughmyeyesdvd.com, where it can be purchased.
The “Unbiblical Unions” title of CT’s earlier online version was changed to “Polygamy” in its July print edition. And the original’s 11-paragraph section, “Lessons for Same-Sex Marriages?” was dropped. Apparently, “unbiblical” doesn’t quite fit the topic of polygamy sans gay marriage.
CT’s international editor starts with a reference to South Africa’s new president – a polygamous traditionalist. She wonders which of his several wives will be first lady: “The media-shy senior wife? Or the middle wife who responds to reporters’ questions with ‘Jesus is Lord’?” Wunderink reports theologian Isabel Phiri’s noting that polygamy, once the privilege of only the rich, “is now practiced by middle-class and poor” Africans, too. Yet, she says, there’s no agreement about how these churches should handle their polygamy. But on homosexuality, not only is it illegal in 38 African nations, it’s punishable by death or imprisonment. In Phiri’s words, most Africans “look at gay marriage as something that is completely off.” Says Wunderink: “Few African Christians are likely to see parallels between gay marriage and polygamy.” She explains: “This is partly based on Scripture and partly on culture.” But given the fact that Christians in Africa and in the West have the very same Scripture though not the same culture, their contrasting views on polygamy and homosexuality would appear to be more a matter of culture than Scripture.
Nigerian ethicist (and John Stott Ministries scholar) Sunday Agang is cited as saying that no polygamist in the Old Testament is condemned specifically for his polygamy. (According to Gordon Wenham, the Bible on polygamy “is more concerned with illustrating how all human activity, including marriage, is affected by sin”.) And as polygamy never worked well even in a male-dominated world, how well is it likely to work in a world that values parity over patriarchy?
The CT report notes the tragic history of Western missionary intervention in which African wives and children were psychologically, socially and economically devastated, put “out in the cold” as it’s put here, in order to preserve the newly converted husband’s “Christian” reputation. Not all men accepted the colonialists’ edict and they went back to their old spiritualities – as did David Livingstone’s only convert. We see much the same results from demands of antigay Christians today. Insisting that newly converted gay people renounce their loving partnership with a mate of longstanding, either the new Christian gives up on the Gospel or is jerked away from a non-comprehending partner who then, understandably, is not further interested in such “good news”.
John Azumah teaches at the London School of Theology (London Bible College). He’s the child of a polygamous Muslim family. Wunderink writes: “He said when Christians ask him, ‘Is your mother going to go to hell?’, it’s not easy for him to answer. In the same way, he said, ‘I tell my people in Africa, ‘We sit in Africa and can be very condemnatory about gay people because we don’t have relations who are openly gay. If we did, it would make our theology more complicated.’” He adds: “There’s always flesh attached to the Word. Jesus was full of grace and truth. When we’re dealing with gay people or polygamists, our church should be undergirded and guided by grace and truth”. Exactly. And it’s on this true grace note that the CT online version concludes. But it seems that this was too grace-filled for more senior editors. All these good “lessons for same-sex marriages” got chopped in hard copy.
Warning that, “gay marriage is simply a bad idea,” CT senior editor Galli complains that “traditional Christians feel like the armored tank of history is rolling over them”. Rather like gay people have felt for lifetimes? He scorns: “Even in some evangelical seminaries, fellow Christians lobby hard for gay marriage.” He sighs: “We are at our wits’ ends about what to say next.” How about listening?
Galli admits that, with all the misbehavior of evangelicals, “we have been perfect hypocrites on this issue. Until we admit that, and take steps to amend our ways, our cries of alarm about gay marriage will echo off into oblivion.” But, of course, “we” won’t amend much, as Galli perceptively grants in a CT online essay (July 2): “It is God’s utter acceptance of us that allows us to look at our miserable sinfulness and not flinch. If that’s not the final step in sanctification, it is certainly a prerequisite to any other step. And it’s about all most of us will experience in this life.”