“Truth and Compassion in the Church’s Ministry to Homosexual Persons” by Melvin D. Hugen, Calvin Theological Journal, November 1994.
by Dr. Ralph Blair
In his 1938 classic on Christian fellowship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer noted that, “Many people are looking for an ear that will listen”. He observed that, sadly, “they do not find it among Christians because these Christians are talking where they should be listening”. Nonetheless, as Bonhoeffer stated: “The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them”. His call was prophetic for the needs of lesbian and gay Christians. But as a recent resolution of The Reformed Church in America confesses: “Few [in the church] have creatively and lovingly spoken with persons with a homosexual orientation [and] Many … have shown no interest in listening to their heartfelt cries as they struggle for self-acceptance and dignity”. Hugen – who teaches pastoral care at Calvin Seminary – rightly says that “empathy [defined as[ that ability to enter into the experience of others and to dwell there with compassion … is where we must begin”, but he speaks of “the church’s ministry to homosexual pesons”, and says empathy is “where we must begin when we wish to speak of and to” them. [Italics mine.] Might it not be better to speak with them? Hugen fails to call on a single self-accepting gay or lesbian Christian witness. Instead, he begins by asserting: “I hope to say some seven or eight things about homosexuality that should shape the parameters of our discussion”. These, he says, are the “givens for an informed and Christian discussion”.
With a seemingly inclusive perspective, Hugen notes, “brokenness, also in our sexuality”, e. g., heterosexuals’ own “pain” and “lusts” and “temptations”. But it’s an empty gesture because he views all homosexuality as brokenness in a way he does not see all heterosexuality. He uses the seemingly respectful term, “homosexual persons” rather than the noun “homosexuals”. He does this, he says, to “avoid bearing false witness” that homosexuals are all the same. But he here confuses objection to the term “the homosexual” for objection to the term “the homosexual”. His use of the adjectival form is part of his argument against the immutability of homosexual orientation.
Hugen says “arguments about numbers … are usually politically motivated” and then devotes his longest single argument to downsizing the numbers. He asserts: “God has a great many things to say about our sexuality [that have a] bearing on the issues of homosexuality”, though he doesn’t refer to the popular proof texts used against lesbians and gay men. His only specific Bible reference (Genesis 1 and 2) is used to support his statement that “God tells us … that sexuality functions to attract us to others, to draw us out of our aloneness and into community”. This, of course, is as descriptively true of homosexuality as it is of heterosexuality.
Again using the seemingly inclusive indictment that “for all of us our sexuality needs redemption, restoration to wholeness”, Hugen says that “we all need healing, and healing is possible for all of us. God can change us”. But what he means by “healing” and “change” for homosexuals – “change of sexual orientation” – is not what he means by “healing” or “change for heterosexuals. He tries to back up his claim that “change of sexual orientation is possible” for homosexual persons by citing outdated and discredited anecdotal reports and meaningless figures. He recommends, as “one of the most helpful” publications on change, a book by two leaders in the “ex-gay” movement (Davies and Rentzel). But they themselves here admit that sexual desire for “an attractive member of the opposite sex … certainly is not our goal in being healed”. They concede that “in the summer, when everyone dresses in skimpier clothing … the visual stimulation soars” among the “ex-gays” when they’re around attractive people of the same gender. They acknowledge that “ex-gay” men “do not struggle with sexual temptation for women”, including “their future spouse”, and “do not experience sexual arousal solely by looking at their wife’s body”. Hugen says that a 1980 report by a Christian therapist and his wife (the Pattisons) came up with eight “ex-gay” testimonies from “a Pentecostal church fellowship”. A careful reading of the report itself reveals several contradictions, inconsistencies in the data, and continuing homosexuality in even these few hand-picked “successes” from among many hundreds of cases of failure in the same program. The report was, long ago, proven to have been based in a hoax. Years later, Pattison himself wrote that “there are no published evaluations” of “ex-gay” efforts and that their “efficacy remains to be determined”.
Hugen began by urging empathy: “We must learn to love the stranger”. But learning to love requires listening – even to what we don’t want to hear. Whether or not heterosexual Christians choose to “enter into” the everyday life of gay and lesbian Christians and to “dwell there” in order to “learn to love” them, gay and lesbian Christians themselves have no choice but to “dwell there” day after day. They deserve better empathy than Hugen offers. Until heterosexual Christians change, they will continue to live out the proverb of Judah Bonsenyor: “Who hears badly answers badly.”