A Response to the Archbishop of Wales’ Defense of Same-Sex Relationships
by Revd Dr Rollin Grams, Bible and Mission:
Let us consider the logic of the outgoing Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan’s, recent defense of homosexual relationships.[1]
The First Argument in Two Parts
The bulk of his argument—over half—is this: Since there are ‘different perspectives’ and ‘shifts in perspective’ within Scripture on several matters—parts of the Bible are at variance with other parts—‘there is no one settled understanding of what the Bible says about a number of subjects and … reading it as a whole can alter one’s total perspective.’ This argument has two parts—apart from any assessment of the examples of ‘variance’ that the Archbishop gives. First, it commits the fallacy of claiming that, because Scripture has different perspectives on several other topics, it also has different perspectives on the topic at hand. Must one really have to respond to this sort of argument? Surely one should simply look at the topic itself to determine whether there is any shift in perspective rather than examine possible shifts in other perspectives. One can imagine an analogous argument for, say, adultery in Scripture. The Archbishop’s logic suggests that, because Scripture offers different perspectives on certain other issues, it therefore must have different perspectives on adultery, or bestiality, or incest. As it happens, Scripture uniformly condemns all these as well as homosexual acts.
The second part of the Archbishops first argument is that we need to interpret Biblical texts with principles rather than follow the teaching of concrete texts. (He might have said this more directly.) He will later in his speech argue in favour of a particular principle, which will be addressed anon. Here, we simply need to note that his argument is simply an assertion. How would one go about arguing the point, though? Surely one dimension of the discussion should be how the New Testament handles differences from the Old Testament. This would amount to coming to an understanding of how the early Christians in apostolic times interpreted their Scriptures. We might note that (1) the early Church affirmed the sexual ethic they found in their (Old Testament) Scriptures rather than reform it as they did some other issues (like circumcision, Jewish holy days, food laws, and sacrificial practices); (2) they appealed to specific Scriptures of the Old Testament on the issue of homosexuality rather than apply a general principle to them. On this second point, note that Jude 7 mentions Sodom’s sexual sin—not, by the way, inhospitality or failing to care for the poor and needy—in Gen. 19; Paul coins a compound word for homosexuality (arsenokoitos in 1 Cor. 6.9 and 1 Tim. 1.10) that can only come from the Greek version of Lev. 20.13’s use of two words side by side (hence he was affirming Mosaic Law on the issue); and Jesus and Paul both appeal to Gen. 2.24 to affirm that the ground for sex and marriage is the ‘one flesh’ union of a male and female.
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