Respect Him That Weareth Gay Clothing | Sexuality – Part 3

 

I mentioned earlier, that one of the reasons I started thinking about this issue, was a TV show about a crime fighting vicar. The show is the 1950s period drama, Grantchester. In the show, the local police, who are presumably short on resources, enlist a string of local parish vicars to help them solve the many murders that are committed, in the sleepy village of Grantchester. It doesn’t make a lot of sense and it’s hardly the cutting-edge TV that I usually go for, but I am getting older and my tastes are mellowing.

 

In the show there is a vicar called Leonard, who is gay and in a secret relationship with a local photographer. In one of the episodes the cast all go on holiday, and at the holiday camp they are staying at, Leonard befriends a member of the staff, who was also secretly gay. The guy tries it on with Leonard, who refuses him, so he takes revenge at being rejected and blackmails Leonard, and eventually Leonard is put in prison. Leonard’s fictional imprisonment is what got me started on this subject, and as I thought about this story, I started looking at some of the history around homosexuality and the law.

 

Homosexual sex, or buggery as it was called at the time, first became a civil offense in 1533, when Henry VIII issued a formal decree against it, which was called ‘The Statute of 1533’. Following the statute, buggery remained a capital offense in England until 1828.

 

Henry VIII is best known for having six wives, five of which he did away with, and for being a serial adulterer, but Henry was also famous for starting the Church of England, after the pope forbid him from divorcing his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. As the head of the church, Henry also dissolved the Catholic monasteries, resulting in the execution of two hundred people, and the imprisonment and subsequent death of many monks and nuns. Given this information, it’s fair to say that Henry held the Bible in high regard, although he clearly read it selectively, and didn’t seem that interested in the teachings of Jesus, but let’s ignore that for a moment.

 

Let’s suppose that Henry was following God’s commands, and that despite his own moral behaviour and failings as a human being, he was trying to take the Bible seriously. The Bible says that homosexuality is punishable by death, and so he issued a statute based on the Law in Leviticus, which made that possible. Henry obviously took Levitical Law seriously, because he also had his wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, executed on charges of adultery, keeping in line with the Bible. Henry VIII was actually thought to be a deeply devout Christian. He knew the Bible, and it was a theological argument with the pope, that caused him to split from the Catholic church. When he was younger, he was a pious Catholic, and we have a prayer scroll that belonged to him, which he would have prayed every day, and which has his own theological notes and comments written in the margins. As king he was appointed by God, and he also had the divine right of the king, which meant that his authority couldn’t be questioned, because he ruled in God's name. The fact that he invented the doctrine of the divine right of the king for himself, is a bit suspect, but he obviously must have believed in the teachings of the Bible to do what he did. Through the Statute of 1533, Henry was making a divine interpretation of Leviticus, as God’s anointed monarch, and his word was infallible.

 

Considering all this, makes me wonder what Henry VIII would have thought of the liberal Christian faith practiced by the church today, with people going around not executing homosexuals, or worse still, saying that we should love homosexuals and simply hate their sin. What would he make of all these left wing, liberal, Bible denying heretics, who allow homosexuals to live. The Bible is clear about what should be done with homosexuals and adulterers, they should be put to death. The Bible is divinely inspired and saying that these sinners shouldn’t be killed is going against God’s inerrant word. Anyone who says otherwise is being swayed by the pressures of society, and Christians are called to be holy and to be set apart from sinful culture.

 

Whether you believe it or not, our understanding isn’t always correct, and our interpretation of the Bible evolves and changes. Henry VIII must have believed on some level, that what he was doing was right by God, even if it was to the point of delusion, but I think that most civilised people today, would agree that homosexuals, and other sinners shouldn’t be executed.

 

There are some frustrated fringe evangelicals who don’t agree, and some countries who believe homosexuals should receive the death penalty. Recently Uganda was in the news after MPs there passed a bill which would make homosexuality a capital offence, however. I think most evangelical Christians would say this this legislation is backwards, medieval and barbaric, right?!

 

Some historians have tested Henry VIII’s actions on the psychopathic spectrum, and they believe that he would be classed as a psychopath nowadays. Despite this, the Statute of 1533 which made homosexuality a capital offence, remained in law in England until 1828. Private consensual acts of homosexuality were only decriminalized in England in 1967, and in a twist, the Church of England backed the law, eventually, after a bit of flip flopping. However, between 1967 and 2003, over 30,000 gay and bisexual men, were still arrested for consensual acts of sex, despite the change in the law, and conviction could mean a sentence of up to 5 years in prison.

 

Views on sexuality have shifted in the church in the last twenty years, and many churches now openly support same sex marriage, but for the majority of Christians, sexuality is still a hot potato.

 

I think it is time to cool the potato down.

 

A judgment on sexuality by the church, is not an act of grace or love. Saying that you say “love the sinner but hate the sin”, is not a statement of acceptance. Saying that, “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”, is not how adults should be engaging in dialogue with LGBTQ people. It’s a tired playground cliche. Grow up!

 

I understand why Christians have a problem with issues of sexuality. When I was younger, I used to be uncomfortable with seeing two men kissing or holding hands, or with the idea that someone had two mums. It was alien to me, and all I knew is what my church told me, and that is what informed my feelings. As I got older, and I met gay and lesbian people, or had friends who came out, I realised that they were just normal people, and they weren’t demonic or evil. Some Christians have never had the opportunity to talk to or meet LGBTQ people, and so they still see them as an unknown evil, and how would they know otherwise, if they have carried a certain belief their whole lives?

 

Despite how I might sound, I’m not an ultra-liberal Christian who accepts all things LGBTQ. If I’m being completely honest, I still have my own hang ups, but I know that a lot of them are based on my own ignorance, or they are feelings based on who I am and how I see the world. I choose to be open though, and I am willing to engage in conversations with people, and listen and learn. I want to approach those interactions with love, because that is what I think Jesus teaches us to do. If we are Bible believing Christians, then we ultimately need to take the words of Jesus seriously.

 

The most important command is this, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength, and love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

 

I believe in a God who loves us for who we are, and accepts us no matter what we do, or have done, and I believe that if we are in that knowledge and know that love, then that is how we should be towards others. That is the standard that I aspire to, and that is all that should matter, not judgment, not condemnation, not opinion, just love. My thoughts, ultimately don’t matter, nor do the thoughts of anyone else who is coming to this conversation, without really knowing what it’s like to wrestle with faith and sexual identity.

This is where I think the church needs to be standing when it comes to LGBTQ issues, not in judgment, condescension and disapproval, but with arms open in love.

 

Just to finish up, if you are from the LGBTQ community and are reading this, then perhaps some of what I have said has been interesting, maybe even helpful. However, as I’ve said, I’m just another straight voice weighing in on something I know little about. Hopefully though, you can see that this is not an open and shut case. There are LGBTQ Christians who have made their own decisions, who have written or spoken about this subject. Some have fallen on one side of the argument and made their peace and live by that decision, others have fallen on the other side, and made their peace and live by that decision. In this way, the issue of sexuality is just another faith issue, but unlike the other issues, it is not one we all have to wrestle with. No one can tell you what is right, it is for you to explore and find peace in a decision.

 

This is something we all have to do, when it comes to our faith.

 

 

Text taken from “Unanswerable: Exploring the Complexities of the Christian Faith and Biblical Truth”, which is available from Amazon, and from all good book shops. An audiobook is also available at https://mindmole.bandcamp.com/music