15. A Strong Delusion

I have just now finished reading A Strong Delusion: Confronting the “Gay Christian” Movement by Joe Dallas.  I will admit to skimming through some if it, but that’s because he seemed to be ‘confronting’ things that I don’t believe – i.e.: the notion that believing that homosexuality is innate naturally leads to acceptance of homosexual behavior.  If you’ve read any of my blog you know that I don’t believe that – my attempt to discover if homosexual behavior is okay is not revolving around my belief (or inclination to believe) that homosexuality is innate.  Another assumption he makes is that gay Christians for the most part dismiss the Bible as an authority on homosexuality because the writers of Scripture had no knowledge of homosexual orientation as we understand it today.  Maybe he’s right about the fact that most gay Christians hold this view (Mel White definitely does) – he has had more contact with gay Christians than I have, but that is not the perspective I am looking at this from.  I believe that God knew what He was doing when he put the Bible together, so I’m not going to ignore passages of Scripture simply because the authors may not have understood something – God understands everything.  

So… this book left me a bit frustrated, simply because most of it was not dealing with any issues that I’m thinking about… and because it appears (to me) to give an unbalanced view of the gay Christian perspective.  In the entire book there was only one chapter confronting the actual Scriptural arguments that gay Christian theologians use – and he didn’t cover all of them (notably omitting the arguments I found most interesting: the Roman centurion and the meaning of the word eunuch). He has recommended other books that are more exhaustive, so I’m going to see if I can find copies of them.  I am doing my best to be balanced in my reading.  

One of the other things that frustrated me was his terminology.  This is a syntax thing, I suppose, but for the most part he does not make a distinction between homosexuality and homosexual behavior.  This is a distinction that I think must be made, and the language we use is important in making it… but I may have a personal bias in this… in grade 10 when someone spread the rumor around my entire school that I was a lesbian, I hadn’t done anything, and no one was saying that I had… but… well… it was a bad year.  Luckily I changed schools for grade 11.  Anyway, the point is, the distinction must be made.  And while I don’t think he believes that a person can’t be a Christian and be gay, he keeps saying that because he was not careful with his use of language… and I’m kind of sensitive to that because there was a time (a rather large portion of time) when I was worried that I was doomed to hell because of what I was, so I don’t like hearing that.

One of the things he says that I just disagree with is that Christians do not ‘pick and choose’ what passages of Scripture to believe and preach on.  He says that Christians are quick to condemn heterosexual sin as much as homosexual sin.  I just don’t agree with this.  First of all, no one got up in arms and said that legitimizing common-law relationships between heterosexual couples was a sign that our ‘civilization was in crisis’ … and if anyone did, no one really cared.  There were no protests or letter writing campaigns or spiteful sermons, even though most conservative Christians would agree that common-law relationships are a sin.  For some reason it just didn’t bother people that much… maybe because common-law, heterosexual relationships look like marriage.  Who knows.   And divorce… I almost never hear that talked about.  I went to a church in Toronto where both the senior pastor and his wife had been married previously.  And no one asked whether or not either of their previous spouses had committed adultery, therefore leaving them free to marry again. (Matthew 19:8-9).  And then there’s the issue of women in the church.  Most of the verses that talk about this are dismissed as culturally based, and people look to rather obscure things (like the fact that in his letters Paul sometimes puts the woman’s name first. E.g.: Romans 16:3) to prove that women should be allowed to preach, or speak etc…  And yet when gay theologians try to do the same thing they are accused of diluting Scripture.  

I will say that, other than Tony Campolo, this author is the first one I’ve come across to take the conservative view who didn’t feel the need to use some of the more hateful rhetoric I’ve read.   He also does not insist that all homosexuals can change (even though he himself identifies as ‘ex-gay’).  He probably takes the most reasonable stance on this that I’ve read so far actually… saying that just because some people change does not mean that all change, and likewise, just because some people are unable to change does not mean that this applies to everyone.  

One of the things he talks about in an early chapter is how he believes that the legitimization of homosexuality will lead to the legitimization of pedophilia.  Now before you get all upset, he (quite strongly) explains that homosexuals are not pedophiles (something I wish would be shouted from the rooftops until heterosexuals get it in their heads… statistically speaking, their children are safer from sexual abuse with us than they are in their own homes with their heterosexual parents.)  What he is saying is that he believes that lifting the cultural taboo off of homosexuality will lead to lifting of other cultural taboos, including pedophilia.  He cites some quotations from various sources that sound strikingly similar to arguments from gay activists – i.e.: pedophilia is a problem only to those who are distressed by it.  

I wanted to address this because I think that there is a fundamental difference between the taboo on homosexuality and the taboo on pedophilia.  I do believe that it was the lifting of restrictions on sexual activities between heterosexuals during the so-called ‘sexual revolution’ that led to the gay rights movement.  The idea was that whatever two (or more… the 60s were weird) consenting adults did together was their own business.  As long as no one was hurt, why should anyone else care?  I think the fundamental difference is contained in the phrase that you will hear repeated again and again in arguments for gay rights – “consenting adults”.  First of all, consent.  As a society, we have agreed that children cannot consent – not that they are not allowed to, but that they do not have the ability to consent.  And this does not only apply to sexual activity.  I remember learning at one point (after a weird incident involving our phone bill) that any contract I signed before I was 16 years old was not in any way binding because it was recognized that I did not have the ability to make that kind of decision.  I believe that for pedophilia to be accepted it would take a fundamental shift in our perception of what children were capable of.  Another huge paradigm shift that would have to take place is in our perception of what our role as adults is in relation to children.  Now, perhaps I am a bit extreme in this (I do work with children a lot), but I believe that one of the major roles of adults (not just parents, but all adults) is to protect children.  And I believe that most people, whether they would word it like that or not, agree with me.  This is why, when organizations like World Vision, or the Red Cross (by the way, donate if you can) want to elicit donations; they will use the image of children suffering more than any other. Instinctively, as adults, we want to protect them.  This instinctive impulse is the main reason why I do not believe that the taboo on pedophilia will be lifted, no matter what taboos are lifted in the sexual activities of adults… at least not as a result of the lifting of these restrictions.  

Anyway, I just wanted to address that because his argument was so alarming, and at its base, rather faulty (at least to me).  

Frustratingly, this author (like Stott) also does not offer anything up as hope for gay Christians.  He tells his story, but it is just his story.  He was gay, he is now not, and so he’s married and happy.  But, as he already stated, this is not going to be the case for everyone.  The thing is, I’m realizing, is that none of the conservative authors (with the exception of Tony Campolo – and even then, it’s only one chapter in an entire book) are writing to gay Christians, they are writing to straight Christians to tell them how to argue against pro-gay theology – this book in particular, as evidenced by the hilarious mock conversations he puts at the end of his chapters.  This does not really help me all that much.  

Next I think I’ll read Boswell’s book on gay marriages in the middle ages… I’m kind of inclined to save it for last, because I’m so excited about it.  I hadn’t realized how much of a historical text it was, and, well… I’m a history buff.  But I don’t really have much else to read on this subject on hand… well, except for Women, Slaves and Homosexuals… which… oy.  I’ll get to it.  I will… just not now.  It’s just too heavy.