Regular readers of Sojourners may recall that last year in our July issue we published an article called "God's Gift of Sexuality" by the Quaker theologian Richard J. Foster. The article attempted a brief survey of biblical teaching on sexuality and tried to put forward an affirmative Christian approach that avoided the twin evils of repression and permissiveness. In the course of that discussion, Foster included a section on homosexuality which quickly became one of the most controversial items we have ever published.
Regular readers may also remember that for two months last fall our "Postmark" section was dominated by a sampling of reader response, mostly negative, to that portion of Foster's article. Many found Foster's approach to the subject outdated, overly legalistic, or lacking in compassion. Other letters, albeit fewer in number, expressed appreciation for Foster's willingness to challenge some prevailing liberal assumptions from a biblical perspective.
What even the most careful of our readers may not know is the extent to which all those feelings and responses were also present among our magazine staff and within the circle of Sojourners Community, though in different proportions. The decision was made to publish the article, including the portion on homosexuality, because it was consistent with the approach to sexuality taken by Sojourners Community since its beginning.
Homosexuality has been a very controversial and polarizing issue in the Christian community. On one hand the Christian Right is often hateful and dehumanizing in its condemnation of homosexuals. At the other end of the spectrum, some would like to see homosexuality fully accepted as a valid Christian lifestyle. Somewhere in between are those who take a more traditional view of biblical teaching on this subject, while extending Christian compassion, pastoral sensitivity, and public justice to persons with a homosexual orientation.
Sojourners has historically fallen into that middle ground. In our dealing with the issue over the years, as a community and a magazine, we've been unable to accept homosexuality as simply an alternative lifestyle because of the serious biblical, theological, and pastoral questions it raises. That posture has been coupled with a serious attempt to show pastoral sensitivity toward individuals struggling with these questions and a strong stand in support of full civil rights for homosexuals.
IT WAS ASSUMED that this stance was generally known and accepted by the community when we published the Foster article. But after a few intense weeks of individual discussions, it became apparent that due to a lack of collective discussion on sexuality over the years, there was not a universally shared understanding of where we stood on the theological and pastoral questions around homosexuality. Some in our community felt they had been publicly spoken for on those issues without their consent and in a way that they either disagreed with or were ambivalent about.
It became clear that both the feelings aroused by the publication of the article and the broader question of where we stood on homosexuality needed to be discussed and worked through together. We began a series of meetings involving our entire community. Those meetings began simply with the airing of feelings about the publication of the Foster article. Much of the discussion was intensely personal. Several community members told of homosexual friends who struggled painfully with their faith, their sexual identity, and the experience of rejection by the church. The fear was expressed that, for those friends, reading the article we had published would constitute yet another experience of judgment and rejection.
It was also noted that other Christians weighing the biblical teachings and the historical context then and now have come to very different conclusions from Foster's. Others felt that the publication of such an article in our magazine was inappropriate because we have not said enough over the years about the legal and social injustices and oppression that homosexuals suffer in our society.
At the same time, others in the community expressed their essential agreement with the article's basic perspective, if not all the specific language used. In their view it reflected our community's firm commitment to the authority of scripture. There was concern expressed that in our discussions the biblical witness needed to be weighed more carefully alongside our individual feelings and experiences. The point was made that beneath specific biblical texts about homosexuality that are sometimes disputed, there is a pervasive assumption of heterosexuality throughout scripture.
Others noted that most of the writers who have taken different positions from Foster's also hold a more liberal view of scripture in general than that historically taken by our community. Some community members reaffirmed our need to be consistent with a traditional understanding of scripture but also compassionate toward persons who are homosexual. And some told of relationships with committed Christians struggling with their homosexuality who had felt our community's pastoral stance and relationship with them to be compassionate and sensitive.
It soon became clear that there was presently no consensus among us about homosexuality and that none was likely to emerge. With that realization we ended the recent series of discussions with a commitment to pursue more discussion and study of homosexuality in the context of an overall biblical approach to sexuality. In the interim we agreed that our previously established approach to the question would stand until there was a consensus to change it. We also reaffirmed our commitment to speak out more clearly on questions of justice for homosexuals and in the months since have begun doing so.
Two other areas of agreement also emerged among us. We are committed to working through this difficult question together and not allowing particular disagreements to fracture our essential unity. And we are committed to dealing with the issue of homosexuality within the context of our commitment to the authority of scripture as God's revelation. We don't anticipate it being an easy process. This has already been one of the most difficult areas of discussion we have faced as a community. But we intend to continue, as we have begun, to hear each other and to listen together to the word of God.
- Sojourners Community
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