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[James B. Nelson. (1992).Body Theology. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, Ch. 4.]
Sources for Body Theology: James B. Nelson It is no news that matters of sexual orientation for some years now have been the most debated, the most heated, the most divisive issues in American church life. While it is typically an issue approached with fears and passions, it is also susceptible to more understanding than many realize. One church's experience in the mid-'80s speaks to the point. In Riverside Church in New York City, on May 5, 1985, Dr. Channing E. Phillips, one of the associate ministers, preached a sermon, "On Human Sexuality." Dr. Phillips was an African American minister of considerable national stature in both church and public life. Commenting on words in Genesis 1:27, "male and female [God] created them," he said, "It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that heterosexuality . . .is being lifted up as the model of human sexuality. . . . Those are hard words . . . that imply that deviation from the parable of heterosexual relationship ordained by marriage is contrary to God's will--is sin. . . . And no theological or exegetical sleight of hand can erase that 'word of the Lord.'"1 Following the sermon, the sacrament of Communion was celebrated, with Dr. Phillips presiding. After Communion, however, a young straight man from the congregation stood up and walked to the Communion table, interrupting the service. Speaking to the congregation, he stated that he could not support the words froth the pulpit that morning. He declared that he would stand by the table during the singing of the last hymn, standing there in support of gay and lesbian people. He invited anyone else who shared his concern to join him. Dr. Phillips said, "I don't mind." About five hundred of the worshipers, including members of the choir and other clergy staff, left their seats to crowd around the chancel to sing the last hymn together. The New York Times would report the event in a prominent story.2 The senior ordained clergy team of Riverside Church, "the Collegium," quickly did several things. Part of their approach was to address the matter theologically and with pastoral concern. While for some months they had been in a process of discussing sexual orientation, they invited several theologians to help them consider the issues further.3 They decided that each of the other three clergy would preach on human sexuality including homosexuality--on the three following Sundays. On the next Sunday the senior minister, Dr. William Sloane Coffin, said in his sermon:
Later in his sermon, Coffin made his position clear: "I do not see how Christians can define and then exclude people on the basis of sexual orientation."5 On the following two Sundays, the other two Collegium clergy, the Rev. Eugene Laubach and the Rev. Patricia de Jong, likewise made clear their convictions affirming the inclusiveness of the church regardless of sexual orientation, and also their pastoral concern for all persons of whatever belief on this issue. Five months earlier, Riverside Church had begun an intentional process of studying the theology and ethics of sexual orientation. A statement affirming the church's inclusiveness was almost ready for congregational action. Then came Dr. Phillips's dissenting sermon and the demonstration. Immediately the Collegium took additional steps to assure a fair and open process of hearing all viewpoints before the congregational vote was taken. A churchwide retreat on the subject was planned to follow the vote. Congregational action took place in the weeks following the sermons by each of the Collegium clergy. The vote formally declared Riverside Church to be an "Open and Affirming Church"--fully open to and affirming of lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons. It was the first congregation affiliated with the United Church of Christ to make that formal declaration. This action did not mean that Riverside's struggle was finished. Relationships between many African American and white members had been strained, as was true also between gay and lesbian members and some heterosexual members. The healing process would take considerable time. But the church had faced the issue directly and courageously. Riverside Church was one of the early congregations, and doubtless the most publicized, to enter this process of reconsidering sexual orientation and church practice in light of the faith. There have been many others. Many issues and questions emerge along the way, issues and questions in addition to the theological-ethical ones. But theological-ethical matters are paramount, and they engage our attention here. How shall we approach them? Protestants typically have asked, first and foremost, "What does the Bible say?" Roman Catholics typically have asked, "What does the church say?" Both questions are crucial. Neither is sufficient by itself. One of John Wesley's legacies is the "quadrilateral" interpretation of authority, an approach with roots in Wesley's own Anglican tradition, and one still used by many persons in many communions. The quadrilateral formula reminds us that when we do our theological reflection, we must draw on more than one source. Wesley himself gave central weight to the scripture. But, over against the biblical literalizers and simplifiers, he argued that scripture must always be interpreted through the Spirit, with the indispensable aid of the church's tradition (which checks our own interpretation against the richness of past witnesses), reason (which guards against narrow and arbitrary interpretations), and experience (which is personal, inward, and enables us to interpret and appropriate the gospel).6 Let us apply this approach to the subject of homosexuality, surely a test case for the church in our day. Scripture A friend of mine, a professor of chemistry at a major university but also by avocation a competent and published theologian, was invited to Washington, D.C., several years ago to give the keynote address to a large convocation of government scientists. The convention's theme was the social responsibility of science. My friend decided to open his speech in a way that would get his audience's attention but also make an important point. Here is what he said:
My friend remarked that his opening words did get the audience's attention. And he had made an important point: the real issue, whether for those scientists or for all of us, is justice. By implication, he also made another critical point: the importance of careful interpretation of scripture. The Genesis story of Sodom and Gomorrah, one of the major biblical texts used to condemn homosexuality, was centrally concerned not with sex but with the injustice of inhospitality to the stranger. To the extent that homosexual activity was condemned, it was only homosexual rape.7 When we approach scripture on the question of homosexual expression, or any other issue, we must always ask two questions.8 First: What did the text mean? What was the writer trying to say? What questions was the writer addressing? What was the historical context? What literary form was being employed? Answering the question, What did it mean? requires our drawing upon the best insights of biblical scholars with their various forms of critical analysis. Only after having struggled with the first question, can we proceed to the second: What does the text mean for us today? Whether a particular text has relevance for us now depends on our answer to two additional questions. First, Is the text consonant with our best understandings of the larger theological-ethical message of the Bible as interpreted through the best insights of the church's long tradition and our reason and experience? Second, Is the situation addressed by the biblical writer genuinely comparable to our own? When, but only when, these criteria are met, the text is ethically compelling for us. Not many texts in scripture--perhaps seven at most--speak directly about homosexual behavior. We have no evidence of Jesus' teachings on or concern with the issue. The subject, obviously, is not a major scriptural preoccupation. Compare, for example, the incidence of texts on economic justice, of which there are many hundreds. In any event, what conclusions can we reach from careful assessment of the few tests in question? My own conclusions, relying on the work of a number of contemporary biblical scholars, are several: We receive no guidance whatsoever about the issue of sexual orientation. The issue of "homosexuality"--a psychosexual orientation--simply was not a biblical issue. Indeed, the concept of sexual orientation did not arise until the mid-nineteenth century. Certainly, biblical writers knew of homosexual acts, but they apparently understood those acts as being done by heterosexual people (they assumed everyone was heterosexual). Thus, when persons engaged in same-sex genital behavior, they were departing from their natural and given orientation. Regardless of our beliefs about the morality of same-sex expression, it Is clear that our understanding of sexual orientation is vastly different from that of the biblical writers. It is true, we do find condemnation of homosexual acts when they violate ancient Hebrew purity and holiness codes. We do find scriptural condemnation of homosexual prostitution. We do find condemnation of those homosexual acts which appear to be expressions of idolatry. We do find condemnation of pederasty, the sexual use of a boy by an adult male for the latter's gratification. Note several things at this point. First, scriptural condemnation is also evident for similar heterosexual acts--for example, those that violate holiness codes (intercourse during menstruation), commercial sex, idolatrous heterosexual acts (temple prostitution), and the sexual misuse of minors. Further, the major questions that concern us in the present debate simply are not directly addressed in scripture. Those unaddressed issues are the theological and ethical appraisal of homosexual orientation, and the question of homosexual relations between adults committed to each other in mutuality and love. On the other hand, we do find something in scripture that is frequently overlooked in the current discussions. There are clear biblical affirmations of deep love between same-sex adults. I am not implying genital relations in these instances. I simply note that in the instances of David and Jonathan, Ruth and Naomi, Jesus and "the beloved disciple," and others, the scripture seems to hold strong emotional bonding between members of the same sex to be cause for celebration, not fear. Robin Scroggs' New Testament scholarship provides an example of the help we need on the biblical question. Looking closely at the cultural and religious contexts of the relevant New Testament passages, he discovers that in the Greco-Roman world there was one basic model of male homosexuality: pederasty, the sexual use of boys by adult males, often in situations of prostitution and always lacking in mutuality. He concludes that "what the New Testament was against was the image of homosexuality as pederasty and primarily here its more sordid and dehumanizing dimensions. One would regret it if somebody in the New Testament had not opposed such dehumanization."9 In short, the specific New Testament judgments against homosexual practice simply are not relevant to today's debate about the validity of caring, mutual relationships between consenting adults. Nor does the Bible directly address today's question about the appropriateness of homosexuality as a psychosexual orientation. However, the problem concerning direct guidance from scripture about specific sexual behaviors is not unique to homosexual behaviors. The same problem arises with a host of other forms of sexual expression. The scriptures are multiform and inconsistent in the sexual moralities endorsed therein. At various points there are endorsements of sexual practices that most of us would now reject: women as the sexual property of men; the "uncleanness" of menstrual blood and semen; proscriptions against intercourse during menstruation and against nudity within the home; the acceptance of polygamy, levirate marriage, concubinage, and prostitution. On these matters some would argue that the cultic laws of the Old Testament are no longer binding, and they must be distinguished from its moral commandments. Such arguments fail to recognize that most of the sexual mores mentioned above are treated as moral, not cultic, issues in scripture. Those Christians who argue that, since Christ is the end of the law, the Hebraic law is irrelevant, must, if consistent, deal similarly with New Testament pronouncements about sexual issues. Even on such a major issue as sexual intercourse between unmarried consenting adults there is no explicit prohibition in either Hebrew scripture or the New Testament (which John Calvin discovered to his consternation). Indeed, the Song of Solomon celebrates one such relationship. I believe that our best biblical scholarship reaches Walter Wink's conclusion: "There is no biblical sex ethic. The Bible knows only a love ethic, which is constantly being brought to bear on whatever sexual mores are dominant in any given country, or culture, or period."10 This is by no means to suggest that these sources have little to say to us. Consider scripture. As L. William Countryman reminds us, the New Testament frames its particular sexual ethic in terms of purity and property systems that no longer prevail among us. Thus, we cannot simply take numerous New Testament injunctions and assume that they apply literally to significantly different contexts. On the other hand, scripture does for us something far more important. It radically relativizes our theological and ethical systems. It presses toward the transformation--the metanoia, the conversion--of the hearer. It presses us to do our ongoing theological-ethical work in ways that attempt faithfully to discern the inbreaking reign and grace of God in our present contexts. Even if many specific scriptural prescriptions and proscriptions regarding sex are not the gospel's word for today, there are still more basic and utterly crucial scriptural foundations for our sexual ethic.11 What are some of those foundations? Surely, they include such affirmations as these: the created goodness of our sexuality and bodily life; the inclusiveness of Christian community, unlimited by purity codes; the equality of women and men; and the service of our sexuality to the reign of God. That incorporation of our sexuality into God's reign means expression in acts shaped by love, Justice, equality, fidelity, mutual respect, compassion, and grateful joy. These are criteria that apply regardless of one's orientation. Scripture also offers ample testimony that sexual acts that degrade, demean, and harm others and ourselves are contrary to God's intent and reign. But, for more specific application of such scriptural guidance to issues of homosexuality and same-sex expression, we need to read the scriptures in light of the other three sources. Tradition G. K. Chesterton once counseled our taking out "membership in the democracy of the dead." To do so, in Chesterton's thought, is to refuse to submit to that small, arrogant oligarchy of those people whose only virtue is that they happen, at that moment, to be alive and walking about.. When we join this democracy of the dead by taking our tradition seriously, we realize that our ancestors in faith and culture have relevant and important insights for us, Truth is not necessarily carried by the book with the latest copyright date. However, the postbiblical tradition provides no more unambiguous guidance on specific sexual expressions than does scripture. Selective literalism in use of the tradition is almost as common as it is in the use of scripture itself. Most of us would fully endorse the tradition's movement toward monogamy and fidelity. Many of us would endorse the tradition's growth toward the centrality of love as the governing sexual norm. Many of us would celebrate those parts of the tradition that not only tolerate but positively affirm gays and lesbians, including lesbian and gay clergy. But few of us would endorse those elements of tradition which baptize patriarchal oppression, endorse violence against women, oppress lesbians and gays, exalt perpetual virginity as the superior state, or declare that heterosexual rape is a lesser sin than masturbation (since the latter is a sin against nature while the former, while also sinful, is an act in accordance with nature). As with scripture, it is impossible to find one consistent, coherent sexual ethic in the postbiblical tradition. Of what use, then, is the long sweep of Christian tradition regarding homosexual orientation and expression? On this subject, I believe that tradition most helpfully poses a series of questions--challenges to much of our conventional Christian wisdom. One question is this: Has the church's condemnation of gay and lesbian people been consistent throughout its history? As Yale historian John Boswell has demonstrated, a careful examination of tradition yields a negative answer. Indeed, for its first two centuries, the early church did not generally oppose homosexual behavior as such, Further, the opposition that did arise during the third to sixth centuries was not principally theological. Rather, it was based largely on the demise of urban culture, the increased government regulation of personal morality, and general churchly pressures toward asceticism. Following this period of opposition, however, ecclesiastical hostility to homosexuality largely disappeared once again. For some centuries there was no particular Christian antagonism toward homosexuality, and legal prohibitions were rare. Indeed., the eleventh century urban revival saw a resurgence of gay-lesbian literature and leadership in both secular society and the church. Once again, though, hostility appeared late in the twelfth century--now as part of the general intolerance of minority groups and their presumed association with religious heresies. Our conventional wisdom has assumed that Christian history has been all of one piece, uniform in its clear disapproval of homosexuality. In fact, a closer look at the tradition tells us that there were periods of remarkable acceptance. Further, we are reminded to interpret the theological opposition that was, indeed, often present in the context of broader changes occurring in the surrounding society. Another challenge to us, suggested by the tradition, is this: Has the church always agreed that heterosexual marriage is the appropriate sexual pattern? The answer is no. Singleness, particularly celibacy, was prized above marriage for much of the time from the church's beginnings to the sixteenth-century Reformation. Moreover, a careful look at tradition reveals that heterosexual marriage was not celebrated by Christian wedding services in church worship until perhaps the ninth century. We have no evidence of Christian wedding rites until that time. Obviously, many Christians married during these earlier centuries, but marriage was considered a civil order and not a rite of the church. Curiously, there is some emerging evidence that unions of gay or lesbian Christians were celebrated in some Christian churches earlier than heterosexual marriages. All of this suggests that heterosexual marriage has not always been central as the norm for Christian sexuality. The tradition suggests a third question: Is it true that procreation has always been deemed primary to the meaning and expression of Christian sexuality? That is, if we do not use our sexuality with the intent to procreate or at least with the possibility of doing so, is there something deficient about it? It is an important question, for the procreative norm has often been used to judge lesbians and gays adversely: "Your sexuality is unfit to bless because your acts are inherently nonprocreative." Once again, tradition casts large question marks on many current assumptions. In those times wherein celibacy was more highly honored than marriage, it is obvious that procreative sex was not the norm--it was second class on the ladder of virtue. But what of the centuries, particularly since the Reformation, when marriage has been blessed as the normative Christian calling? Still the answer is no. In the seventeenth century, a number of Christians--especially among the Puritans, Anglicans, and Quakers--began to teach, preach, and write about a new understanding. It appeared to them that God's fundamental purpose in creating us as sexual beings was not that we might make babies, but that we might make love. It was love, intimacy, mutuality not procreation, that were central to the divine intention for sexuality. Some Puritans, for example, declared that if children were born to a marriage, that was "an added blessing," but not the central purpose of the marriage. The centrality of love, companionship, and mutual pleasure in the meaning of sexuality has been embraced by most Protestants during the last three hundred years and, in practice, by numerous Catholics, even if not with Vatican approval. The proof in heterosexual relations is the use of contraception as a decision of conscience. Most of us do not believe we must be open to procreation each time we make love--in fact, we believe strongly to the contrary. The curious double standard still exists, however; the procreative norm has been smuggled in the back door and applied negatively to lesbians and gay men. Thus, while the church's tradition may not give definitive answers to specific questions about homosexual orientation and same-sex expression, it raises questions--these and others--that challenge conventional wisdom and refocus our perspectives. Reason In searching for God's truth, theologically and ethically, we need to draw on the best fruits of human reason, a third source from the quadrilateral. Wesley put it this way: "It is a fundamental principle with us that to renounce reason is to renounce religion, that religion and reason go hand in hand, and that all irrational religion is false religion."12 One of the ways we honor our God-given reason is in striving for consistency and adequacy in our theological judgments. These two age-old tests of the philosophers are perennially relevant. Consistency eschews the use of double standards. Adequacy prods us to judgments that do justice to the widest range of data. Reason is also expressed in the various sciences, our disciplined human attempts to understand creation. Biological, psychological, and social sciences can shed significant light on questions of sexual orientation. What, for example, might we learn? In 1948 Alfred Kinsey and his associates jarred America with the first major study of the sexual behaviors of persons in this society. In his volume on the male, he presented two things that particularly caught the public eye regarding sexual orientation. One was the continuum on which orientations might be represented. Challenging either-or assumptions (one is either homosexual or heterosexual), Kinsey introduced evidence suggesting that we might be "both/and." The other finding, widely reported in the press, was Kinsey's discovery that at least 50 percent of the male population had experienced homosexual genital relations at some time in their lives, and for 37 percent of them it was orgasmic behavior after puberty. This alone startled many, simply because it appeared to be that same-sex attraction and expression were not just the province of a tiny minority.13 Though most of us tend toward one or the other side, it is probable that the vast majority of us are not exclusively either heterosexual or homosexual. Kinsey's conclusions were substantiated by his studies on the American female five years later and by subsequent research by others. Indeed, in recent decades, most sexologists have not only validated Kinsey's continuum but have also added other dimensions to it. While Kinsey was primarily interested in behaviors (genital experiences culminating in orgasm), later sexologists have argued that when other dimensions of orientation--such as fantasy, desire, social attraction, or emotional preference--are added to the picture, it is probable that none of us is exclusively one or the other. Most of us have more bisexual capacities than we have realized or than we have been taught in a bifurcating society. This recognition is of particular importance when we come to try to understand some of the dynamics of homophobia. Another question on which the sciences shed some light is the origin of sexual orientation. While there is still much debate, at least two things seem clear. One is that our orientations are given, not freely chosen. The likelihood is that they arise from a combination of genetic and hormonal factors, together with environmental and learning factors--both nature and nurture. The other general agreement is that our sexual orientations are established rather early in life, most likely somewhere between the ages of two and five, and thereafter are largely resistant to any dramatic changes. "Therapies" that attempt to change persons from homosexual to heterosexual are now discredited by reputable scientists. Such procedures may change certain behaviors, they may make some people celibate, but they will not change deep feelings and most likely will produce great psychic and emotional confusion. These facts, too, are relevant to, the theological-ethical questions. Further, stereotypes about gay men and lesbians wither under scientific scrutiny. For example, the notion that homosexual males are more likely to abuse children sexually than are heterosexual males has been thoroughly disproved. Linking emotional instability or immaturity with homosexuality, likewise, is no longer scientifically tenable. Granted, lesbians and gay men suffer emotional distress from their social oppression, but this is far different from assuming that the cause of this distress lies in their orientation. These issues do not exhaust, but simply illustrate, the ways in which the uses of human reason, including the human sciences, provide important insights for our theological reflection and understanding of scripture. Experience The fourth and last area of insight comes from experience. Wesley was rightly suspicious of trusting all the vagaries of human experience. Experience by itself is not reliable, nor does it give a consistent picture. However, without the validation of scriptural insight by experience as well as reason and tradition, such insight remains abstract and uncompelling. The Spirit, Wesley believed, inwardly validates God's truth through our experience. I believe that is true. And I also believe that we must expand the focus of "experience" to include the careful examination of both individual and common experience to find those things which nurture wholeness and those things which are destructive to our best humanity. Our experience of homophobia, in careful examination, provides one key example. The term refers to deep and irrational fears of same-sex attraction and expression or, in the case of lesbians and gay men, internalized self-rejection. Though the word was coined only within recent decades, the reality has long been with us.14 Another term, heterosexism, more recently has come into use. It too is helpful, for it reminds us that prejudice against gays and lesbians is not simply a private psychological dynamic but, like racism and sexism, is also structured deeply into our institutions and cultural patterns. While I clearly recognize the pervasive realities of heterosexism, in this illustration of the uses of experience in doing body theology I will focus on homophobia.15 I lived the first forty years of my life assuming that I was completely heterosexual. That had been my sexual experience, and that was my only awareness. Then, through some volunteer work in urban ministries I came into close interaction, for the first time that I consciously recognized, with a number of articulate gay men and lesbians. They challenged my stereotypes and my homophobia, and they launched me into a process of examining my own experience. One thing I discovered was that homophobia was a particularly acute problem for males--it certainly was for me. For the first time I realized that my fear of lesbians and gays was connected to issues in my own masculine identity. Gay males seemed to have an ill-defined masculinity, a threat to any man in a society where one's masculinity seems never achieved once and for all and always needs proving. Lesbians threatened my masculinity simply because they were living proof that at least some women did not need a man to validate or complete them as persons. Gay males were a problem for me also, I realized, because they threatened to "womanize" me (a threat to any male in a sexist society where men have higher status). The gay could treat me simply as a sexual object, a desirable body-not a full person. I had to admit that this was the way that men (myself included?) had treated so many women for so many years. Now the tables were turned. Examining my experience made me aware, further, that I might be involved in what the psychologists call reaction formation and projection. If it is true that all of us are a mix of heterosexual and homosexual capacities (even though we happen to be considerably more of one than the other), and if it is true that we have been taught by a rigidly bifurcating society to deny the existence of anything homosexual, what do we do with any same-sex feelings that might arise? We vigorously defend against them in ourselves by projecting them onto others and blaming those others for having more obviously what we, to some extent, may also experience. Though I had not been conscious of same-sex desires, I needed also to examine this possibility in my experience, for some capacity was likely there. Another factor I discovered was simply sexual envy. Looking at gays and lesbians through stereotypical lenses, I had been seeing them as very sexual people. That, in part, is what stereotyping does to the stereotyper--it gives us tunnel vision. I did not see them fundamentally as persons with richly multifaceted lives; I saw them fundamentally and almost exclusively as sexual actors. The result was obvious: they appeared more sexual than I. And this was a cause for envy, particularly to a male who has been taught that virility is a key sign of authentic masculinity. Still another contribution to my homophobia, I discovered, was intimacy envy. As a typical man, I had difficulty making close, deep, emotionally vulnerable friendships, especially with other men. Yet, deep within, I sensed that I yearned for such friendships. Then I saw gay men closely bonding with each other, apparently having something in friendship that I too wanted--male-to-male emotional intimacy. I was pressed to took at my experience again, this time to see if my intimacy envy and consequent resentment were part of my homophobia. Further, confronting my own fears meant confronting my fears of sexuality as such--my erotophobia. Though I had long enjoyed the sexual experience, I came to realize that, reared in a dualistic culture, I was more distanced from my sexuality than I cared to admit. Reared as a male and conditioned to repress most bodily feelings, reared as "a good soldier" and taught to armor myself against any emotional or physical vulnerability, I discovered I was more alienated from my body than I had acknowledged. Gay males and lesbians brought into some kind of dim awareness my own erotophobia because they represented sexuality in a fuller way. The fear of death may sound like a strange contributor to homophobia, but it is likely there. Though in Christian community we are named people of the resurrection, our reassurances in the face of mortality are often grounded much more by children and grandchildren. The thought of childless persons awakens fear of death. And while many gays and lesbians have produced and parented children, they stand as a key symbol of nonprocreating people. In this way also, I realized, they caused me fear, but once again it was fear of myself. Homophobia, thrives on dualisms of disincarnation and abstraction that divide people from their bodily feelings and divide reality into two opposing camps. As never before we need gracious theologies. Homophobia thrives on theologies of works-justification, wherein all persons must prove their worth and all males must prove their manhood. As never before we need erotic theologies. Homophobia thrives on erotophobia, the deep fear of sexuality and pleasure. Homophobia thrives in eros-deprived people because it grows in the resentments, projections, and anger of those whose own hungers are not met. As never before we need theologies of hope and resurrection. homophobia, thrives wherever there is fear of death, for then people try to dominate and control others to assure themselves of their own future. homophobia, thrives on bodily deadness, so deeply linked as it is with sexual fear and repression. Though its varied dynamics are complex, the root cause of homophobia is always fear, and the gospel has resources for dealing with fear. These are a few of the dynamics of homophobia that I became conscious of in my own experience some years ago. Doubtless, there are others. I have focused particularly on the male experience both because that is my own and because I believe homophobia is a particularly severe problem for dominantly heterosexual males such as I. Nevertheless, it is a disease that affects. all of us--female as well as male; lesbian, gay, and bisexual as well as heterosexual. Homophobia is an example of the experience that enters into our theological and ethical reflection on issues of sexual. orientation (and many other matters as well). Our awareness of these dynamics in ourselves gives us heightened self-critical consciousness, an important ingredient of theological-ethical reflection. I have not attempted here to present a fully developed theological-ethical perspective on sexual orientation. My attempt is far more limited. It has been to name and to illustrate some uses of the four major sources of interpretation--scripture, tradition, reason, and experience--so important to the churches' responses to the most troubling and divisive question facing them. My own bias is evident. just as homophobic fears are not principally about "them," but about myself and about us all, so also the basic issue is not homosexuality but rather human sexuality. Our sexuality, I believe, is a precious gift from God, critically important as part of a divine invitation. It is an invitation that we come together with each other and with God in relationships of intimacy and celebration, of faithfulness and tenderness, of love and justice. Our sexuality is a gift to be integrated fully and joyously into our spirituality. Our orientations, whatever they may be, are part of that gift--to be received with thanksgiving and honored by each other.16 NOTES
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