Reflections on Why I Left, Why I Stayed, by Tony and Bart Campolo, Part 5
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Our previous installment ended with mention of the example of homosexuality as a theological topic about which Bart Campolo changed his mind. After defending for a while what Bart thought was (and thinks is) the biblical proscription of homosexual behavior, his relationship with some gay friends led to a change of mind.
In order to understand the trajectory of his thought, we need to examine with some care exactly what transpired here. He admits that for a while he struggled “to reconcile the Bible’s clear injunctions against homosexual behavior with my dawning realization that my gay friends’ sexual orientations were no more chosen than my own.” But eventually none of his interpretive solutions were satisfactory both to his friends and his own evangelical sensibilities, and, he writes, “I knew I had to choose between them.”
Bart’s story is similar to and different from Tony’s change of mind on this issue. Although Bart refers later in the book to his dad’s famous decision to support gay marriage, Tony himself doesn’t refer to it in the book. But on June 8, 2015, Tony released this statement, which I will cite in its entirety:
As a young man I surrendered my life to Jesus and trusted in Him for my salvation, and I have been a staunch evangelical ever since. I rely on the doctrines of the Apostles Creed. I believe the Bible to have been written by men inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit. I place my highest priority on the words of Jesus, emphasizing the 25th chapter of Matthew, where Jesus makes clear that on Judgment Day the defining question will be how each of us responded to those he calls “the least of these.”
From this foundation I have done my best to preach the Gospel, care for the poor and oppressed, and earnestly motivate others to do the same. Because of my open concern for social justice, in recent years I have been asked the same question over and over again: Are you ready to fully accept into the Church those gay Christian couples who have made a lifetime commitment to one another?
While I have always tried to communicate grace and understanding to people on both sides of the issue, my answer to that question has always been somewhat ambiguous. One reason for that ambiguity was that I felt I could do more good for my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters by serving as a bridge person, encouraging the rest of the Church to reach out in love and truly get to know them. The other reason was that, like so many other Christians, I was deeply uncertain about what was right.
It has taken countless hours of prayer, study, conversation and emotional turmoil to bring me to the place where I am finally ready to call for the full acceptance of Christian gay couples into the Church.
For me, the most important part of that process was answering a more fundamental question: What is the point of marriage in the first place? For some Christians, in a tradition that traces back to St. Augustine, the sole purpose of marriage is procreation, which obviously negates the legitimacy of same-sex unions. Others of us, however, recognize a more spiritual dimension of marriage, which is of supreme importance. We believe that God intends married partners to help actualize in each other the “fruits of the spirit,” which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, often citing the Apostle Paul’s comparison of marriage to Christ’s sanctifying relationship with the Church. This doesn’t mean that unmarried people cannot achieve the highest levels of spiritual actualization – our Savior himself was single, after all – but only that the institution of marriage should always be primarily about spiritual growth.
In my own life, my wife Peggy has been easily the greatest encourager of my relationship with Jesus. She has been my prayer partner and, more than anyone else, she has discerned my shortcomings and helped me try to overcome them. Her loving example, constant support, and wise counsel have enabled me to accomplish Kingdom work that I would have not even attempted without her, and I trust she would say the same about my role in her life. Each of us has been God’s gift to the other and our marriage has been a mutually edifying relationship.
One reason I am changing my position on this issue is that, through Peggy, I have come to know so many gay Christian couples whose relationships work in much the same way as our own. Our friendships with these couples have helped me understand how important it is for the exclusion and disapproval of their unions by the Christian community to end. We in the Church should actively support such families. Furthermore, we should be doing all we can to reach, comfort and include all those precious children of God who have been wrongly led to believe that they are mistakes or just not good enough for God, simply because they are not straight.
As a social scientist, I have concluded that sexual orientation is almost never a choice and I have seen how damaging it can be to try to “cure” someone from being gay. As a Christian, my responsibility is not to condemn or reject gay people, but rather to love and embrace them, and to endeavor to draw them into the fellowship of the Church. When we sing the old invitation hymn, “Just As I Am”, I want us to mean it, and I want my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters to know it is true for them too.
Rest assured that I have already heard – and in some cases made – every kind of biblical argument against gay marriage, including those of Dr. Ronald Sider, my esteemed friend and colleague at Eastern University. Obviously, people of good will can and do read the scriptures very differently when it comes to controversial issues, and I am painfully aware that there are ways I could be wrong about this one.
However, I am old enough to remember when we in the Church made strong biblical cases for keeping women out of teaching roles in the Church, and when divorced and remarried people often were excluded from fellowship altogether on the basis of scripture. Not long before that, some Christians even made biblical cases supporting slavery. Many of those people were sincere believers, but most of us now agree that they were wrong. I am afraid we are making the same kind of mistake again, which is why I am speaking out.
I hope what I have written here will help my fellow Christians to lovingly welcome all of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters into the Church.
Obviously, there is a great deal to unpack here, but for now I will point out one significant similarity between Tony and Bart, and one significant dissimilarity. The similarity is that, for both of them, their decision was importantly spurred by personal friendships they had formed with practicing gay people. The difference I wish to highlight, however, is important. Bart came to think of the effort to square such acceptance with biblical teaching as futile, ad hoc, and unprincipled. Tony instead argues that a solid biblical interpretation can be rendered according to which gay practice is morally permissible. This is no small difference. Although they both end up condoning gay practice, their respective rationales for doing so, despite a surface resemblance, remain starkly different.
Bart remained dissatisfied with an interpretation of scripture that allowed for gay behavior; he thought scriptural teachings were pretty clear that gay sex was unholy and immoral. With this pronouncement he disagreed, so for him the decision to accept gay practice as normative required a rejection of biblical authority—“inerrancy,” as he puts it. Tony’s decision is different. He claims he came to think that the Bible is not rightly interpreted as proscribing gay practice. So in principle Tony can continue to affirm biblical inspiration, but simply deny that the Bible teaches that homosexual behavior is wrong.
Recall Tony’s words: “Rest assured that I have already heard – and in some cases made – every kind of biblical argument against gay marriage….” Tony thinks the Bible, “rightly divided,” simply does not teach that gay practice is wrong. Bart thinks it does. They both wish to accept gay behavior as normative—though they often couch it in terms of people being born with gay proclivities, with the apparently hidden premise smuggled in that proclivities to do X make X morally permissible, which is obviously rather problematic. But, importantly, they differ on what the Bible teaches here. Since Bart thinks the Bible teaches against gay practice, he rejects biblical authority; since Tony thinks the Bible is consistent with gay practice, he can be gay-affirming while continuing to embrace biblical authority.
So two distinct questions need to be identified here. One is what the Bible actually teaches about homosexuality. This interpretive matter is the “hermeneutical question.” The other is whether that teaching is reliable. This is the “inspiration question.” Bart and Tony disagree on both questions. The vast majority of Christians in the history of the church would have agreed with Bart on the hermeneutical question, and with Tony on the inspiration question. Of course this means they would also have disagreed with Tony on the hermeneutical question, and disagreed with Bart on the inspiration question. Truth isn’t simply settled by a vote, of course, so the next installment will continue this discussion by elaborating on the hermeneutical question.
David Baggett is professor of philosophy and director of The Center for the Foundations of Ethics at Houston Baptist University. Author or editor of about fifteen books, he’s a two-time winner of Christianity Today book awards. He’s currently under contract for his fourth and fifth books with Oxford University Press: a book on moral realism with Jerry Walls, and a collection on the moral argument with Yale’s John Hare.
