And the Greatest of These Is Love

Captain Daniel Hall and Captain Vinny Franchino

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. 
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
I Corinthians 13:1-8,13

On February 24, 2004 I spoke at a press conference of clergy supporting equal marriage. I remember the date because it was Elaine's birthday and in my remarks I referenced our marriage of (at that time) thirty-five years. 

"As a Christian," I said, "my support for same sex marriage is rooted and grounded in the theology of marriage itself. Marriage is a covenant between two people; a promise made before God and the community to love one another forever. We make this commitment in spite of the fact that we know that forever is not ours to give; it belongs to God. And the fulfillment of the commitment is never just a human effort; it is always a gift of grace."

Not long after that a woman in her eighties, one of the saints of the congregation, asked me to visit with her. She wanted to talk with me about her grandson who had recently told her that he was gay and that he was in a serious relationship.

The grandson and his partner had been fighter pilots in the Navy. They were graduates of Annapolis. But in the era of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” they had resigned their commissions and taken civilian jobs in the Pentagon. Even so, they were worried that if their relationship were known it could jeopardize their security clearances.

The young man’s parents, a wonderful couple, had been invited to share in the discussion and it was clear that they were fully supportive of their son. Their only concern was that we all understood the need for complete confidentiality.

Mildred was comforted by the thought that there were responsible and thoughtful Christians who supported same sex relationships. And she was glad that I was supporting equal marriage, but she could not completely let go of the reservations that she had lived with for so many decades.

The memory of Mildred’s grandson came to mind when I read the story of two Apache helicopter pilots who became the first active-duty same sex couple to be married in the chapel at the West Point military academy. Captain Daniel Hall and Captain Vinny Franchino met at West Point in 2009 when Hall was a senior and Franchino was a first year.

“We couldn’t tell the truth for fear of what would happen to us,” Franchino told a reporter. “So we put it in our minds that we were never going to say we were gay, we were never going to get made fun of, and we were certainly never going to get kicked out of the Army.”

When congress repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 2011, the couple felt safe enough to go out on their first date, which took place in 2012.

Franchino said that although he’s been through a lot with his new husband, nothing was worse than when he had to hide his identity.

“We’ve experienced everything from people feeling awkward around us to being called faggots while holding hands and walking down the street, stuff like that,” Franchino said. “But despite what we’ve been through, nothing was worse than having served during the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ years.”

Mildred passed away before the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and I don’t know what became of her grandson and his partner. I would like to think they were married in the chapel at Annapolis and have been living happily ever after.

But this is a story that still casts a dark shadow.

One wonders how it is possible for the United States Army to be more loving than our beloved United Methodist Church. How can the army be ahead of the church when it comes to accepting and affirming our gay and lesbian siblings?

And as happy as I am to see a photo of the army captains embracing under the traditional arch of crossed swords after leaving the chapel, reading some of the comments on the story reminded me how deeply the Christian faith has been wounded by the hatefulness of some of those who call themselves by that name.

Consider this:

“An act of hate against God, mocking marriage. I have to wonder what these two boys are expecting to accomplish, committing such a sin. Homosexuals will not inherit the Kingdom of God, after all, if they choose to be enslaved to that spiritual disorder.”

Or this:

“Despite the efforts of a liberal of a liberal society to normalize this behavior, it is not and never will be. This country is bombarded daily with stories of the ‘first gays to _________’(fill in the blank). Call me what you want, but I will never accept, condone, support, or recognize this behavior as anything but immoral and against the laws of God and nature.”

There is no excuse for such hatefulness. And disguising it as Christian faith just makes it worse. The comments are crudely written, but more polite language would not make the sentiments less offensive. Those who dress up such views with cleaner rhetoric do no less damage.

This is toxic. It is unloving and it is unlovable. 

It is a slander to our faith.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

LGBTQ Civil Rights (A Lenten Lesson in Law and Grace)

Law came in, with the result that the trespass multiplied; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

Romans 5:20

Through the mysterious algorithms of Facebook I was reminded of a blog post I wrote six years ago after testifying in favor of Marriage Equality at a State House hearing.

It had been in many ways the perfect Lenten experience.

I was at the State House for almost six hours before it was my turn to testify.

I spoke briefly (but passionately, I hope) about how I believed that God is always calling us forward as Abraham and Sarah were called to leave home and journey toward "the land that I will show you." We are working toward the Kingdom of God and we are impatient with the present because we look for a future that will be more just. And I believe that Marriage Equality is part of a more just future.

While I waited and watched, I had a lot of time to reflect and meditate. (A good Lenten discipline.)

As a Christian it hurts to hear the Bible (and Jesus!) misused to promote an unholy trinity of tradition, fear and ignorance. One woman lamented the fact that until her testimony, no one had mentioned “the sin of sodomy.” She assured us that a same sex couple cannot really teach children about sin because their lives are immersed in sin. She told us that “it grieves our Lord and Savior, and his Blessed Mother in heaven.”

The Bible has over 30,000 verses, and there are, in fact, six brief passages that condemn homosexuality. None of them are in the Gospels. Oddly, they only condemn male homosexuality. Each of the passages is problematic in one way or another. And not one of them is addressed toward a faithful, committed, monogamous same sex relationship. But listening to some of these folks one would think that everything from Genesis to Revelation was written just to condemn homosexuality.

At times I felt like I had fallen into the Bible Study from hell. No wonder that to many people outside the church it looks like Christianity is fundamentally about self-righteousness and condemnation. This was a weaponized Gospel. Devoid of grace. Abounding in judgment. It was painful.

In a post last month I spoke of ours as "a time when so many Christians seem to hate immigrants (and LGBTQ people, and people of color, and poor people) so much more than they love Jesus." That statement drew immediate and fervent response from several traditionalists. Just because they believed something was sinful, they argued, that did not make them haters.

As an intellectual argument, it sounds plausible. But in practice it does not work. Expressing the belief that homosexuality, or "the practice of homosexuality," is sinful is experienced as hateful.

And that night at the State House there were many Christians who seemed to hate gay people a lot more than they loved Jesus.

“But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.”

There were wonderful grace-filled stories told by parents about their gay children and by children about their gay parents. 

Partners told of their struggles to build a life together. 

A neuro-scientist talked clinically about studies of sexuality and the brain, and then introduced his brother, who is a pediatrician and cannot marry his partner.

Altogether it presented a very vivid illustration of Paul’s argument about law and grace in Romans. The more the traditionalists invoked the Law (Natural and Religious), the more “the trespass multiplied” by them against their sisters and brothers.

The Law was used as a club; in the apparent belief that if they could pound home their point with sufficient force, then they could make same sex relationships go away.

They are against Same Sex Marriage because they are against homosexuality, and they are against homosexuality, at least in part, because they do not believe that the Bible is a living Word. For them it is a dead letter. As Paul argued in his second letter to Corinth, “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” The dead letter of the Law can be used to wound, but it cannot heal and it cannot bring life.

We need to remind ourselves that we are called to be “ministers of a new covenant, not of letter, but of spirit: for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (II Corinthians 3:6)

Just One Question for Christians Opposed to Marriage Equality

Tony Campolo. Sociologist, Pastor, Author

Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12:29-31

More than twenty years ago, I was part of a small gathering at Community Baptist Church in Manchester, Connecticut, listening to Tony Campolo talk about what it means to be a follower of Jesus. He was and is a compelling speaker: bold, enthusiastic, insightful, inspiring, and honest. He spoke in conversational tones, but his energy filled the room.

When it was time for questions, someone asked him what he thought about homosexuality.

This was long before there was any serious thought about equal marriage. At that time, most Protestant churches were still grappling with the basic idea of gay and lesbian civil rights.

Campolo paused. He looked directly at the questioner. “Well,” he asked slowly, “What did Jesus say about it?”

Silence.

And then, with increased energy, he answered his own question. “Jesus didn’t say anything about it.”

“So,” he said, “My question for you is, ‘Why is this so important to you?’”

I have thought about that exchange often over the years. I had already been committed to gay and lesbian civil rights for a long time. In terms of philosophical and theological ethics, it seemed obvious. But twenty something years ago, the biblical piece had not yet become clear to me and I found his response very helpful.

A few weeks ago, when Tony Campolo unsettled many evangelicals by “coming out” in support of the full inclusion of gays and lesbians within the church, I was not surprised. I doubt that it was a great change in his perspective. I think he was just finally admitting to the world (and possibly to himself) what he had believed for a long time.

Kevin DeYoung, senior pastor of University Reformed Church in East Lansiing, Michigan published a blog post titled, “40 Questions for Christians Now Waving Rainbow Flags,” that has been widely shared on social media. Some of the questions might prompt reflection, others are obvious, and some are accusatory, but the overall thrust is to suggest that supporting equal marriage is unbiblical. Many others have answered those questions in a variety of ways, and some of the answering is probably necessary. If only to prove that those of us waving the rainbow flags have also read the Bible.

My first response was to think of all the questions I have for those who think that the advent of equal marriage is the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it. I thought of writing something called “400 Questions for Christians Opposed to Equal Marriage.”

But in the end, all of my questions boiled down to the one Tony Campolo asked two decades ago. 

Why?

Why is this so important to you?

Why aren’t you more concerned, as Jesus was, about income inequality, about social and economic justice? Why aren’t you more concerned about war?

When the Hebrew prophets pronounced God’s judgment, the issue was justice, not sexuality. If you are looking for signs of the end, why aren’t you looking there?

How can you possibly be so invested in denying rights to people? And how can you believe that is what Jesus would want you to do?

Let Us Not Talk Falsely Now: Good News and Bob Dylan

Then Jesus said to those who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
John 8:31-32

“’So let us not talk falsely now for the hour is getting late.’ That line was written by Bob Dylan in the late 60’s. But it is appropriate for The United Methodist Church in 2014. The hour is getting late. And it’s time to speak the truth.”

Those sentences comprise the opening paragraph for an editorial by Good News president Rob Renfroe. The Dylan quotation fits well with Renfroe’s appearance. With his (relatively) long hair and a beard, he looks like a refugee from the late 60’s. But appearances can be deceiving.

Good News describes itself as a reform movement. They say they are “a voice for repentance, an agent for reform, and a catalyst for change within the United Methodist Church. They say that they are Christ centered, faithful to the scriptures, and committed to the Kingdom. In fact, they are committed to a judgmental and legalistic interpretation of the scriptures that is at odds with the teachings of Jesus. They are, sadly, bad news. And they have been bad news for a long time.

The truth, according to Renfroe, is that unless our bishops act swiftly and decisively to punish the clergy who are defying church law and violating their ordination vows by performing “homosexual marriages,” our church will face schism.

Renfroe says that a bishop once told him that there was nothing that a bishop could do about pastors celebrating gay marriages. It was, the bishop claimed, an issue for the Board of Ministry and for a jury of the pastor’s peers. Renfroe then asked, “Bishop, if you were to discover that I was cheating on my wife and I told you I had no intention of stopping, would I be leading worship in my church next Sunday?” When the bishop said that he would remove such a pastor, Renfroe responded, “Then, Bishop, you can do something about pastors who perform gay marriages.”

Of course, that would be a very good point if cheating on one’s spouse had anything in common with officiating at a same sex wedding, other than the fact that both are forbidden by the Book of Discipline.

Our church is declining, Renfroe says, because “many of our people cannot abide to stay in a local church or an Annual Conference where the Gospel is not preached, the Bible is not respected, and the Book of Discipline is disregarded.”

This, too, would be an excellent point, except that we are talking about less than one tenth of one percent of what is in the Bible and the Book of Discipline and zero percent of what is in the Gospel. This assumes that we ignore the fact that there are legitimate arguments to be made over those small fractions, and one can make the case that the Gospel and the Bible taken as a whole are on the opposite side from the Discipline.

The issue is not that complicated. The basic problem is that the Book of Discipline is simply wrong. It is wrong in calling “the practice of homosexuality incompatible with Christian teaching,” wrong in prohibiting equal marriage, and wrong in calling for sanctions against clergy who perform such marriages. This should not be surprising. One of the reasons we amend the Discipline every four years is that we expect to have things that need to be changed. We expect it to be an evolving document.

The question is, what do we do in the meantime? What do we do in the time when we know that the Discipline is wrong, but before it is amended? The answer is that when the Discipline is in conflict with the Gospel, we obey the Gospel.

The truth is that the few passages condemning same sex relationships are no more valid for us today than the passages telling us that women should not speak in church, or those that assume it is alright to have slaves as long as we treat our slaves according to the rules.

For Good News and for Rob Renfroe it is all about following the rules and punishing those who stray. The times are not changing. Moreover, our task is to keep things from changing.

And he says all of this in the name of Bob Dylan. He starts the editorial with Dylan and he comes back to Dylan at the end. The Alpha and the Omega.

He concludes, “The hour is getting late. So, let us not talk falsely. The truth is our bishops can act. The truth is our church needs them to act. The truth is, if they do, there is hope for the UM Church. If they do not, we are standing at the beginning of the end. I pray such is not the case.”

For forty years Good News has been trying to claim Jesus as their own personal property. Now they want to steal Bob Dylan.

It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.
                It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleedin’

World Vision and the Great Reversal

Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.
John 9:39-41

Last week, Rich Stearns, the president of World Vision, announced a new policy which showed vision. Stearns announced that the agency was changing its personnel policy to allow gay Christians in same sex marriages to serve as World Vision employees. The change, he said, would make their policy “more consistent with our practice on other divisive issues.” While denominations and individual churches might be divided over the issue of marriage equality, World Vision would look beyond the sectarian battles to a unity built on the common goal of feeding hungry children. Under the new policy, the sexual standards for gay and straight employees would be the same: abstinence for those who were single and faithfulness for those who were married.

In a letter to employees announcing the change, Stearns wrote, "I want to reassure you that we are not sliding down some slippery slope of compromise, nor are we diminishing the authority of Scripture in our work. We have always affirmed traditional marriage as a God-ordained institution. Nothing in our work around the world with children and families will change. We are the same World Vision you have always believed in." The decision, he said, was made without external pressure and was overwhelmingly supported by the World Vision board.

In terms of what we generally identify as Evangelical Christianity, it was a light shining in the darkness. But sadly, in this instance the darkness did overcome it.

Reactions were swift and even more judgmental and self-righteous than one might have feared. And there was no shortage of hyperbole. Russell D. Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, declared, “This isn’t, as the World Vision statement (incredibly!) puts it, the equivalent of a big tent on baptism, church polity, and so forth. At stake is the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Michael Brown, who writes a blog called “In the Line of Fire,” and hosts a “Christian” radio program, posted his commentary under the title, “The Apostasy of World Vision.” In it he wrote, “Let it be stated plainly to the leadership and board of directors of World Vision U.S.: The Lord Jesus is no longer central in the corporate life of your organization. You have denied His lordship by your actions.”

Never mind what Jesus actually said. Apparently what he meant to say was that the key test of discipleship is whether or not we offer sufficient condemnation of our LGBTQ sisters and brothers.

Before I had time to write a blog affirming what World Vision had done, they reversed themselves. They apologized for the heartbreak they had caused in the evangelical community. They repented of their inclusive vision and compassion.

In an interview with Sarah Pulliam Bailey, published in the Huffington Post, Stearns was asked whether any of the World Vision employees had resigned as a result of either their initial decision or their reversal. He said that a few had resigned because of the stress. “You can imagine some of the folks in our call center that are answering our 800 line. They’re receiving an earful of anger. I think we had a few people who couldn’t handle the stress and the anxiety created by the incoming calls.” He went on to say that, “Within an hour of the reversal, the call volume dropped. The angry calls stopped and dropped to a much lower level. Some of the sponsors called back to reinstate their sponsorships.”

World Vision initially lost nearly 5,000 sponsorships, totaling over $2 million in annual revenue. But Stearns reported that after the reversal, many called back to reinstate their sponsorships. “They’re forgiving, they’re saying, ‘Hey we stand with you.’”

As a Christian, it is hard not to feel both shame and anger at this episode.

For the past several years our youth group has participated in the “30 Hour Famine” to support World Vision. All day Saturday and part of Sunday they fast together. They do service projects (yes, on an empty stomach), they do Bible study, they pray together, and they learn about world hunger. They also raise money for World Vision. Each year our group raises a few thousand dollars.

If you go to the 30 Hour Famine page on the World Vision website you will see a tab for the “Famine Study Tour,” a special study opportunity that those who participate in the famine can apply for. One of our kids, Adam Sticca, was chosen from among thousands of applicants to participate in last year’s tour. In the group picture, he’s right in the center, wearing a T-Shirt with the words that Jesus spoke to his disciples when they asked him what to do about the hungry crowd following them, “You Feed Them.”

We will be participating in the famine again this year.

We have never been fully on board with the theology of World Vision, but we are in one hundred percent agreement with their mission.

What Kind of a Church Are We?

“Woe to you hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” 
Matthew 23:27-28

Pastor Frank Schaefer of the Zion United Methodist Church in Iona, Pennsylvania will go on trial next month for officiating at his son’s same-sex wedding in Massachusetts six years ago. His actions almost slipped past the six year statute of limitations which the United Methodist Church has for such offenses, but a parishioner filed charges just before the clock ran out.

Our United Methodist Discipline (a book of by-laws) prohibits pastors from officiating at same sex marriages or blessing same sex relationships.

This isn’t the Inquisition. The worst case scenario for Pastor Frank is that he will lose his clergy credentials. But it’s bad enough.

Over the past few weeks, many of my colleagues have posted Facebook links to vigils for Pastor Frank or stories about the church trial. In response, someone asked, “What kind of a church puts people on trial?"

And that is the key question. What kind of a church are we? Or maybe more accurately, what kind of a church do we look like?

I could give a long explanation about United Methodist polity and the function of church trials in protecting the rights of clergy from overzealous bishops and district superintendents, but that really isn’t the point.

Pastor Frank’s son Tim came out in 2000, after contemplating suicide because his years of praying had not changed his sexuality, and he feared that he would be ostracized by his family and his faith community. Rev. Schaefer chose to affirm his son by officiating at his wedding, and now he is on trial for that.

As the political commentators like to say, the optics are not good.

Rev. Thomas Lambrecht, an outspoken opponent of equal marriage, told a reporter, “Sadly, our church is once again being led down the path of a costly and divisive trial by a pastor who chose to disregard the prayerful and consistent teaching of our church that Christian marriage is the holy union of one man and one woman. As a father, I share Rev. Schaefer’s desire to affirm his son, but there are ways of doing so that do not require a pastor to break the Discipline and the covenant that all United Methodist pastors agree to uphold.”

I can only imagine what a wonderful affirmation that would be.

Even if we don’t care about the civil rights issues, and even if we assume that Tim Schaefer would have gotten over his disappointment if his father had refused to officiate at his wedding, this would still be very bad.

I am a United Methodist for lots of very good reasons. I believe in John Wesley’s theology of grace and his emphasis on practical spirituality. But this is the church at its worst. It makes us look stupid or irrelevant, or both.

We Are Past the Tipping Point

“Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 
Mark 16:6-7 

As I read the story about the Rev. Dr. Thomas Ogletree, a retired United Methodist clergy person and former dean of Yale Divinity School facing a church trial and possible censure for officiating at the wedding of his gay son, the sound in my head was of that Easter hymn that Christians have sung for more than 300 years., “The Strife Is O’er, the Battle Done.”

The strife is o’er, the battle done,
the victory of life is won;
the song of triumph has begun: 

Alleluia!

The powers of death have done their worst,
but Christ their legions have dispersed;
let shouts of holy joy outburst: 

Alleluia! 

It’s over. We may still be fighting the battles on this one in the United Methodist Church. And the arguments will persist. But it’s over.

Last week Rhode Island voted for marriage equality. We are the last New England state to embrace same sex marriage, so it’s about time. But we are also the most heavily Roman Catholic state in the country. And the legislature voted overwhelmingly in favor of marriage equality in spite of strong opposition from Bishop Thomas Tobin and the Roman Catholic Diocese.

We are beyond the tipping point. It’s over.

For United Methodists, the more critical issue is how we will manage the inevitable change. We need an exit strategy from a position we should never have taken. Our problem is not just that we unwisely declared homosexuality to be “incompatible with Christian teaching” forty years ago, at the same time as the medical people were declaring that homosexuality was not a mental illness. We compounded a bad decision on ethics with an even worse decision on church policy.

In our United Methodist Discipline we declare ourselves to be in favor of lots of wonderful stuff, like environmental stewardship and gun control and economic justice. We are against war and against capital punishment. But in all of those other cases (and many more) there are no penalties for clergy or others who disagree and act on their disagreement. A United Methodist pastor can bless a nuclear submarine without fear of official censure, but he or she cannot celebrate a same sex wedding.

In the New York Times article it notes that the clergy persons who brought the complaint against Dr. Ogletree belong to the “Good News” movement, which the Times calls a “tranditionalist” United Methodist group. They are “tradionalists,” but traditionalism is not our United Methodist tradition. Our tradition is to be what is now called “progressive” Christians. Our tradition is to be forward thinking and forward looking and forward moving.

My guess is that at our next General Conference in 2016 the Discipline will be revised to remove the negative characterization of homosexuality and endorse full civil rights for our gay and lesbian sisters and brothers. My hope is that we will do better than that; that we will focus on the future rather than the past.

Christ is not to be found buried in the bitterness and bigotry of the past. He is risen as he said. And he goes ahead of us. He is always calling us into the future. Our task is just to follow.

Bill O'Reilly, Dan Savage, and Bible Thumpers

For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love—and I, Paul, do this as an old man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus. I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me. I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. 
Philemon 1:8-12 

Recently on “The O’Reilly Factor,” Bill O’Reilly commented that in the debate over marriage equality, the strong arguments were all on the side of same sex marriage. They just want to be treated like everyone else in American, he said. “That’s a strong argument.” By contrast, he noted that all the opponents can do is “thump their Bibles.” And that, he opined, is not a good argument.

Not that long ago, Bill O’Reilly was criticizing those who had shifted toward supporting equal marriage for what he termed “pandering” to public opinion. And he mocked those who said that their perspectives were “evolving.” His own shift, if that is what it is, has been much more abrupt. And it represents a seismic shift in the argument.

The public sentiment in favor of equal marriage is growing at an amazing rate. And that is a very good thing.

But what is not a good thing is that the Bible has been “thumped” from both sides.

Opponents misuse it, and supporters ignore it or denigrate it.

A friend posted a quotation from Dan Savage that is indicative of how the Bible has been dismissed in the debate. Addressing a high school group in Washington State, Savage declared:

“The shortest book in the New Testament is a letter from Paul to a Christian slave owner about owning his Christian slave. And Paul doesn't say, 'Christians don't own people.' Paul talks about how Christians own people.... the Bible got the easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced wrong: slavery. What are the odds that the Bible got something as complicated as human sexuality wrong? One hundred percent."

In spite of the fact that the Bible does not condemn slavery, at least not consistently, and there are many more verses condoning slavery than there are condemning it, we need to put that in historical perspective. Nearly two millennia after the last biblical writer wrote the last verse in the Bible, the framers of our constitution “got the easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced wrong.” If Jefferson and his colleagues were wrong two hundred years ago, it’s not surprising that Paul was wrong two thousand years ago. We should also note that the “slaves” in Paul’s time were more like indentured servants than the slaves kept by the Founders.

But wait, there’s more.

Paul, like Jesus, was a radical egalitarian. In his letter to Philemon, he is appealing for the release of Onesimus. He hopes that Philemon will do this, out of a sense of Christian faith, rather than under compulsion, because he feels Paul’s appeal as a command. But one way or the other, he wants Onesimus freed and embraced as “a brother.” Paul understand the early Christian church to be an egalitarian community, and a model for what the whole world will eventually become when the Kingdom of God is realized “on earth as it is in heaven.”

John Wesley, who was deeply committed to biblical Christianity, was a life-long opponent of slavery. Wesley knew the many verses that condoned slavery, but he also saw that the whole thrust of the Bible, from the Exodus to Paul’s letters, was toward freedom and liberation.

While the founders were enshrining slavery in the Constitution, Wesley was condemning it. In his last letter, written to William Wilberforce, he writes: “O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.”

Wesley did not oppose slavery in spite of his faith, but because of it. In the same way, we cannot develop an authentically Christian perspective on equal marriage by appealing to a few scattered verses of Scripture. We need to look for the broad themes and principles.