Episcopal Church and the Gay Debate
Saturday, November 01, 2003
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 11:35:37 -0500
To:
From: "Peter Greenwood"
Subject: RE: [forum] Re: [HoB/D] What would it look like to honor all members'
convictions?
Message-ID:
Annkri@aol.com writes:
> God made some male and female in the same person - intersexual. What
meaning
> does that have on your "positions"? Genesis is not a biology text. ANN
Your statement supports my contention that, in respect of same-sex
orientation, there are evident at least two fundamentally different views as
to what God intended in creating us.
While there are no doubt bigots in this dispute, there are also some (many?)
who believe that same-sex orientation is not part of what God intended for
humanity, because when they read their source of authority concerning God's
intentions (i.e. the Bible) they read only about maleness and femaleness
(not for example, about intersexuality).
On the other hand there are many who believe that God created some of us
with the intention that they have a same-sex orientation (intersexual if you
prefer), and would read in the Bible (at the very least) nothing that they
felt denied this belief, and maybe much that supported it.
Now my point is that these are two very different views about God's creating
us. And it is these two different views that lie behind much of the
(sometimes passionate) debate about the blessing, or not, of same-sex
practice. So first of all, we'd all do ourselves a favor if we discussed
what is at the root of our differences, rather than what is merely
symptomatic (both agreeing, of course, that bigotry is not part of what God
intends for us, so we move on past that issue).
Secondly, I think that tied together with the two different views about
God's creating us, are different views about what God is up to in the world,
what his (and therefore our) message is to the world. Two different gospels,
if you will.
Two radically different views of God and the world is what we need to come
to terms with.
Peter Greenwood
Pittsburgh
