Homosexuality: A Contemporary View of the Biblical Perspective by The Rev. Dr. Robert Treese (39 pages)

Homosexuality: A Contemporary View of the Biblical Perspective by The Rev. Dr. Robert Treese (39 pages)

Prepared for the Consultation on Theology and the Homosexual, sponsored by Glide Urban Center and The Council on Religion and the Homosexual in San Francisco, August 22-24, 1966.

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Homosexuality: A Contemporary View of the
Biblical Perspective
by
The Rev. Dr. Robert L. Treese
Prepared for the Consultation on Theology and the Homosexual, sponsored
by Glide Urban Center and The Council on Religion and the Homosexual in
San Francisco, August 22-24, 1966.

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I. INTRODUCTION
What is God trying to tell us about homosexuality? About sexuality?
About creativity and the redemptive community today? This is the proper
focus of the question this paper attempts to face; a focus into which
our sight and insight are being forced by events of which we are all
aware. The pioneering work of the Moral Welfare Council of the Church of
England in the early 1950's, bringing into existence the official
Committee on Homosexual Offenses and Prostitution in 1954, marks the end
of a long ecclesiastical silence about homosexuality as a recognized
condition of a segment of humanity. Not only did the Wolfenden Reportl
challenge the basic presuppositions of the laws regarding homosexual
practices (so that on the third attempt before Parliament the law assigning
criminality to homosexual acts between consenting adults was repealed)
but it also raised inescapable theological questions which must now be
faced.

The evolution of the Council on Religion and the Homosexual out of
faithful and persistent attempts of a few pastors and a few members of
the homophile co~munities to communicate mutually in search of the common
human bases for understanding and fellowship marks the second reason we
must ask the question of what God may be trying to tell us. The C.R.H.
has made it possible for "straight" and "gay" persons to meet one another
in mutual trust in search of mutual acceptance. It has helped us to
begin to sense the dimensions of depth and integrity which exist, actually
or potentially, within and among groups of people who have traditionally
written each other off as "pious frauds" or as "perverts" and "sinners."

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Theological wrestlings in these years of an affluent but relatively
ineffectual church have focused on attempts to view contemporary human
experience through a renewed Biblical understanding of God's purposes for
the Church as well as for all of the world . These struggles have exposed
us to a new awareness of how God has acted and continues to act in and
through His creation to bring it to fulfillment. No longer can we think
heretically of the Church as the redeemed portion of humanity who have
been rescued from the God-forsaken world and whose work now consists of
waiting faithfully and in purity for death and heaven or for God to
vindicate their own and His righteousness by the destruction of the world
and the re-construction of His Kingdom with them as His subjects. Jesus
Christ affirmed human life and showed us that the ultimate rest of our
love of God, of our commitment to value, lies in our attitudes toward
and treatment of other human beings . The Church , the community of those
who call Him "Lord," far from being in retreat from the world is 'rather
thrown into the world to participate in God's continuing reclaiming
restoring, dignifying, humanizing action.

In the realm of human sexuality I, as a churchman, feel moved to
confess that a great deal of the blame for preserving, if not indeed creating
, the fears and guilt of sex which permeate our culture, lies at our
feet. The failure to see sexual relationship in any other light but the
functional one of reproduction has resulted in t he limitation of sex to
the purely physical with no concept at all of t he depth of significant
interpersonal trust, empathy and love of which sexual intercourse, at
best, is the expression . Of course our generation in the Church has

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modified these ancient views but the pall of centuries of sin-obsessed
taboos and misanthropic caricatures of human nature still blankets our
culture and informs our mores. The current reduction of sexuality to
the status of experience devoid of relationship and responsibility to a
biological function needing only satiation, to a medium for mass marketing
seems to me to be only the expected result--the acting out of a low view
of sex which we have fostered.

With regard to homosexuality and homosexual practices the Church
has maintained a consistent, perhaps because unexamined, attitude.
Between Thomas Aquinas' 13th Century designation as peccatum contra
naturum and 1950, no theologian, to my knowledge, has seriously reexamined
the nature and meaning of this phenomenon. 2 As mentioned earlier,
the ice has been broken and perhaps a thaw is on its way if enough heat
is generated. D. S. Bailey in England has done a remarkable study of the
historical roots of our attitudes and now Helmut Thielecke, in Germany,
has come out with a forthright o.pener to theological discussion. A word
of caution and perhaps of reprimand to us is in order at this point.
As D. S. Bailey reminds us, we are all in the habit of attributing
instinctively to our favorite whipping boy, the Church, every idea or
development of which we may disapprove. To be sure the Church is not
blameless but surely it is not wholly responsible for the present condition
either. We must see the Church as trying earnestly, in each generation,
both to conserve values from our tradition--values and tradition from
which, in part we gain our identity--and to respond openly to the new
in human experience in terms of attempts to understand God's leading.

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Sometimes she does the former more effectively than the latter . Naturally
her decisions are limited to and by the knowledge and understanding of
the time. Thus, from our superior position, we should not feel justified
in deriding the 6th Century rationale for supporting repressive legislation
against homosexuals because homosexual acts cause earthquakes, plague and
other natural disasters. This was the level of knowledge and understanding
of causation current in that day. Bailey puts in pugently: "It
is not as if throughout the last two millenia reluctant legislators had
been forced by the spiritual authority to enact laws and to prescribe
punishment which they secretly detested.,,3

Having said this, we also recognize that the medieval attitude of the
Church with regard to the problem at hand must be brought up to date.
The Church, for all her weakness, can be an opinion-leader and can influence
culture as she has in the past.

II. THE NORMATIVE IMPORTANCE OF THE BIBLE

Before we can consider relevant passages it is in order to discuss
our stance toward the Bible. We cannot simply write off the Bible as being
irrelevant . It has helped mold the attitudes of Western Civilization .
Even though grossly abused by many, it is still normative in the life of
the Church, that is, it provides the norms, value structure and guidelines
for understanding contemporary life and God's purposes for history; it is
still influential, often negatively so, in decision making in our time.

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The typical, unthinking approach to the Bible is that of the
literalist, and in varying degrees perhaps we all employ it. This is the
approach which says, "That's what it says--and its God's word, so .... "
Many homosexuals reject the Bible because they are literalists. Because
of a half dozen brief passages describing homosexual acts as grievous
sin; they say that the Bible can have no relationship to contemporary
life. The literalist must necessarily be highly selective in his choices
of the words which he takes to be God's word. For example the Old Testament
command for circumcision of the male as a sign that he was a son of
the covenant is set aside by the Christian because of the new covenant in
Christ, but many are not so consistent when dealing with the Old Testament
Sabbath laws. The elaborate regulation for proper observance of the
Sabbath which is Saturday, the seventh day, are transferred to the Christian
Sunday, the Lord's Day meant to be a day of rejoicing, even though Jesus
said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." The verse,
"Slaves be obedient to those who are your earthly masters" (Ephesians 6:5)
was taken to be God's word in support of the institution of slavery until
the interpretation of other portions of Scripture supported a confluence
of political-historical-economic forces which overthrew slavery and
caused reconsideration of that verse in its proper context . The command
that witches should be burned to death was taken at face value in Salem,
Massachusetts and other places until the human spirit was sickened and
revolted at the fiendish excesses enacted and until witchcraft was shown
by modern science to be a combination of superstitution and coincidence.

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An approach or stance for understanding and appropriating the Bible
today includes:
(1) The affirmation that the Bible is not the Word of God, but the
words of men in which and through which, we believe, the living, active,
constantly contemporary Word of God comes to men .
(2) The Bible passage is to be interpreted in terms of the experiences,
life-setting, and problems of the writer of the particular section,
as well as of the purposes for which it was written.
(3) The passage is to be further explicated in the light of our
contemporary experience and knowledge. Here we try to see it in
perspective with our social-psychological-historical-philosophical as
well as existential knowledge . There may not be agreement for sometimes,
in fact often, the Bible stands in judgment on our contemporary life, but
the task is to discern, as nearly as possible, the meaning for us today.
(4) The realization that the Bible writers faced the same basic
existential questions which we face, but their answers are time-caught,
as are ours, and valid only for them. The values they affirmed by their
answers are of significance to us.
(5) The whole Bible is to be seen in light of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ and the experience of the early Church.

III. A CONSIDERATION OF RELEVANT BIBLICAL PASSAGES
A consideration of Biblical passages which specifically refer to
homosexual practices must precede any attempt to see our problem in the

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perspective of the Christian faith. There are about a dozen places in the
Bible which have been seen as supporting the idea that our current laws
and attitudes toward the homosexual are true to "God's law.,,4

Five Instances of Mis-translation
The first five we shall consider have been shown to have been due to
mis-translation, an error since corrected in the R.S.V. In I Kings 14:
22-24; 15:12; 22:46; II Kings 23:7; and Deut. 23:17-18 there are references
to what was apparently a fertility cult flourishing in the temple at
Jerusalem. Such cults were more the rule than the exception among primitive
peoples; the mystery of fertility and man's utter dependence upon its
continuation in plant, animal and human for his survival was hedged
in by a variety of religious rituals including sacred prostitution.
The concept (strange to our ways of thinking unless one thinks of the
Playboy cult, where, however, the values guaranteed are virility and
success) was that the devotee guaranteed fertility of crops, animals, and
of his wife (wives) by participating in sexual intercourse with the
prostitutes who were dedicated to serve the diety in charge of fertility.
(There's more than one way to get people into church, I guess). Bailey
has shown5 that, whereas the King James Version translation correctly
rendered the Hebrew noun Qedheshah ("consecrated one") as (female) temple
servant (or prostitute) they erred by translating the masculine form of
this noun (Qadhesh, QedheshIm, plural) as "sodomite," thinking no doubt
that it referred to a male homosexual temple prostitute. They gave,
apparently, no thought to the utter incongruity of homosexual prostitutes

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serving in a fertility cult. The correct translation is as in the R. S.V.,
"male cult prostitute," whose duties, along with those of his female counterpart,
were deplored in successive passages and finally banned and their
houses destroyed by King Josiah about 625 B.C. (II Kings 23:7; Deut. 23:17-
18). This error having been corrected in current translations would seem
not to be worth mentioning except that the King James Version is still very
influential, more especially perhaps with the literalists among us.

Sodom and Gomorrah
This brings us to the Biblical passage which has perhaps been most
influential in justifying our civilization's legal and social abhorrence
of homosexuality and homosexual practices. That i s the story of the destruction
of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:1-28) . Throughout the centuries,
especially in the eras before modern science, and even today among literalists,
this story has been proof positive that God abhors homosexuality,
to such a degree, in fact, that he literally destroyed two whole cities
with fire and brimstone from heaven . Recapping the story briefly, God
was bent on destroying Sodom and Gomorrah "because the outcry against .
(them) is great and their sin is very grave" but Abraham importuned Him
to first search for as few as ten righteous men who, if found, would justify
a change in God ' s plan (Gen. 18:20-33) . So God sent two emissaries,
male angels, to Sodom and they lodged for the night in the house of Lot
(Abraham's nephew) . The "men of Sodom, both young and old , all the people
to the last man" (19:4) surrounded Lot's house and demanded that he bring
out the visitors "that we may know them." (19 :5) When Lot refused, offering
them his two daughters instead, they became angry and would have stormed

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the house had not the angels struck them blind. In the morning, when Lot
and his family had fled, the city was utterly destroyed.

The issue lies in the meaning of the yadha' (to know) . This verb is
used ten times in the Old Testament to denote sexual intercourse (as in
Gen. 4:1, "Now Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived and bore Cain."
Bailey points out that this verb is used nine hundred forty-three times in
the Old Testament of which fewer than a dozen uses denote coitus, and that
furthermore these latter always refer to heterosexual coitus. Another Hebrew
verb (shakhabh) is used directly to describe "both homosexual and
bestial coitus, in addition to that between man and woman."6 Thus there
is no necessity linguistically to see the verb y~dha' as implying a desire
for homosexual acts. In fact, it could well be translated "get acquainted
with. "

This linguistic argument alone would prove little were it not for
the fact that the "Old Testament depicts Sodom as a symbol of utter destruction
(cf Isaiah 13:19; Jeremiah 49 : 18; 50:40), and its sin as one of
such magnitude and scandal as to merit exemplary punishment, but nowhere
does it identify that sin explicitly with the practice of homosexuality.,,7
Two quotations from the 6th Century B.C. prophets illustrate this:

But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing:
they commit adultery and walk in lies; they strengthen the
hands of evildoers, so that ,no one turns from his wickedness;
all of them have become like Sodom to me. (Jer. 23:14)
Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her
daughters had pride, surfeit of food, and prosperous ease, but
did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did
abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I
saw it. (Ezekiel 16:49-50)

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In the latter verses the words " abominable things" could lend themselves
to homosexual interpretation in light of later attitudes toward Sodom,
but in the Old Testament " abomination" or "abominable things" is the
"conventional term for idolatry."8

How did the homosexual interpretation of Sodom' s sins originate?
Bailey, after thorough study of the writings of the period, finds that
the idea began in the second century B.C . in non- Biblical writings of the
Jews . This was the period of Greek ascendency and rule in Palestine and a
life-and-death struggle ensued, over more than two centuries, between the
more orthodox Jews , who did not want Judaism contaminated with Greek ideas
and practices, and more liberal Jews who embraced Hellenistic customs and
manners. Homosexual practices were among the more objectionable Hellenistic
Customs eschewed . (A listing of such practices, manners, customs, etc.
which were in controversy would include dress, speech, athletic activity,
architecture, sculpture , etc .; some Jews wen t so far as to seek surgery
which would remove the scars or marks of circumcision in order to be more
Hellenistic.)

Appearing first as an allusion in the late second century B. C. - - for
example, "that ye become not as Sodom which changed the order of nature"
(Testament of Naphtali, 3:4-5) ca . 109 B. C. --the concept of t he sin of
Sodom as homosexual practices developed more directness in t he first century
B.C . and came to full flower in the writings of Philo and Josephus
in the first century A. D. Philo' s imagination ran wild as he described
men of Sodom who
threw off from their necks the law of nature and applied them-

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selves to deep drinking of strong liquor and dainty feeding
and forbidden forms of intercourse. Not only in their mad
lust for women did they violate the marriages of their neighbors,
but also men mounted males without respect for sex nature
which the active partner shares with the passive. (DeAbr . 26 : 134-136)

Josephus, the Jewish historian and contemporary of Philo, writes

Now when the Sodomites saw the young men (the angels) to be of
beautiful countenance, and this to an extraordinary degree • ..
they resolved themselves to enjoy those beautiful boys by force
and violence . (Antiquities I. xi. 3:200)

It is significant that the Rabbinical literature, according to Bailey,
"reflects scarcely anything of this development." With the single exception
of an allusion to adultery in the Midrash on Genesis, "no sexual (let
alone homosexual) implications can be read into these conceptions (Rabbinical
interpretations) of the sin of Sodom ... Traditionally , the offense of
the Sodomites was supposed to be that of the dog-in-the-manger."

The early Church Fathers, taking Philo and other Hellenistic-Jewish
writings at face value, set the tradition in the Church for the homosexual
interpretation of Sodom's destruction.9

The significance of this whole disclosure lies in the fact that we
cannot, in truth, say that Sodom proves that God is categorically against
homosexuality. Bailey puts it sharply in the concluding chapter of his
important book:

It has always been accepted without question that God declared
his judgment upon homosexual practices once and for all time
by the destruction of the cities of the Plain. But Sodom and
Gomorrah, as we have seen, actually have nothing whatever to
do with such practices; the interpretation of the Sodom story
generally received by Western Christendom turns out to be nothing
more than a post-Exilic Jewish re- interpretation devised
and exploited by patriotic rigorists for polemical purposes.
Thus disappears the assumption that an act of Divine retribution
in the remote past has relieved us of the responsibility
for making an assessment of homosexual acts in terms of theo-

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logical and moral principles. It is no longer permissible to
take refuge in the contention that God himself pronounced these
acts "detestable and abominable" above every other sexual sin,
nor to explain natural catastrophes and human disasters as his
vengeance upon those who indulge in them. 10

The Six Specific References

The exposure of the historical roots of error in interpretation of
the Sodom story leaves us with six remaining passages in the Bible which
explicitly designate homosexual practices as gross sins, five dealing with
males and one with females. These can neither be ignored nor explained
away, but they can be put in perspective. It may be well to point out, at
the outset, that the Bible shows no knowledge of homosexuality, per se; it
knows nothing of the condition of homosexuality in distinction to heterosexuality, the complexity of human sexuality, or the possible causes of sexual inversion. All the references are to homosexual practices as acts of
choice and of will.

The two references in the Old Testament are in the Levitical Holiness
Code, the codification of laws for maintaining spiritual, ritual, and ceremonial
purity and separation from other peoples . Leviticus 18:22 is imbedded
in a long passage proscribing incest, intercourse during menstruation,
adultery, bestiality, and, incongrously on the surface, child sacrifice:
"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination."

Leviticus 20:13 likewise is in the midst of a passage repeating essentially
the same list of grievous sins, with the addition of the death
penalty, rather than exile, for those who commit the immoralities of child
sacrifice, incest, adultery, homosexual acts, and bestiality: "If a man
lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them."

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Two things must be said about these very specific statements about
homosexual acts between males:

(1) The fact that homosexual acts appear in a listing of offenses
which are attributed to Egypt ("where you dwelt") and Canaan ("to which I
am bringing you"), and are considered an "abomination" raises the question
of underlying meaning. Bailey discusses "abomination" (To ebhah) in this
perspective:

Research fails to establish any satisfactory positive support
for the allegation that homosexual practices were customary among
the nations. surrounding the Hebrews ... it is not impossible that
the attribution in question (i.e. of homosexual practices in
Egypt and Canaan) is simply a piece of rhetorical denigration
...designed to intensify Israel's sense of national "holiness"
or separation as a peculiar people dedicated to Yahweh. Supposing
this to be the case, it would seem that the significance of
To ebhah (abomination) in these verses has often been misunderstood.
This term, as we have seen, is closely associated with
idolatry and designates not only false gods but also the worship
and conduct of those who serve them. By a natural extension of
meaning, however, it can also denote whatever reverses the proper
order of things and this seems to be the connotation (of abomination
in these verses) ... Such acts are regarded as an "abomination"
not ... because they were practiced by Egyptian or Canaanite idolators
(for of this there is no proof) but because, as a reversal
of what is sexually natural, they exemplify the spirit of idolatry
which is itself the fundamental subversion of true order ••.
They (these laws) condemn homosexual acts •.• between males as
typical expressions of the ethos of heathenism which Israel must
renounce no less than religious and cultural syncretism with the
nations which bow down to idols .ll

Until proved wrong by Hebrew scholars, this interpretation is stimulating
to this writer. The Holiness Code sought to fence out the alien
world and to establish rules for the separation (holiness) of the People of
God . Seen in this light, homosexual acts then are proscribed as an indication
of idolatry, the reversal of the true order. At this juncture, it is
seen that child sacrifice is not incongrously included in the listings
quoted above, but rather would tend to support this interpretation of idolatry.

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This leads directly to my second comment.

(2) For the Christian, the Jewish legal code has been superceded by
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As Thielicke suggests, "It would never occur
to anyone to wrench these laws of cuItic purification from their concrete
situation and give them the kind of normative authority that the Decalogue,
for example, has." We tend to deal with the Holiness Code selectively,
naturally rejecting all instructions for animal sacrifice, all injunctions
regarding ritual purification, such as after childbirth, menstruation, the
handling of anything dead, etc., as well as all dietary laws such as eating
flesh with blood in it; and accepting, as in line with the Christian Gospel
any of the admonitions against behavior which causes harm or abuse to
another human being or dishonors God. It is the Gospel which frees man
from the Law that becomes the criterion for the Christian. To accept
Leviticus 20:13 (that those guilty of homosexual acts should be put to
death) and to reject, for example, Leviticus 20:25 ("You shall therefore
make a distinction between the clean beast and the unclean"), or Leviticus
20:27 ("A man or woman who is a medium or a wizard shall be put to death,
they shall be stoned with stones."), is inconsistency of the rankest sort,
to say the least. This, however~ still leaves us with the problem of homosexuality and homoerotic acts as they may be seen in light of the Gospel.
To this we will turn in a later section.

Probably the best known New Testament verses on our problem are Romans 1:26-27:

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions.
Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural and
the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and
were consumed with passion for one another, men committing

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shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons
the due penalty for their error.

These verses serve as illustrations of Paul's discussion of why man (he
seems to be referring specifically to Gentiles, i.e . non-Jews) does not
know God or does not live as though God exists . Even without any special
revelation, as that granted to the Jews, he implies that man should be able
to acknowledge the Creator in the very facts of Creation : "Ever since the
creation of the world his invisible nature, his eternal power and diety,
has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made . " (vs . 20)
He goes on to say that man, refusing to honor God, turned instead to "images
resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles (thus God has abandoned
them) • . • to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they
exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature
rather than the Creator . " (vss . 23-25) Then follow the verses which
concern us: this would-be- autonomous man's refusal to accept his creatureliness
by honoring the Creator is exemplified by disorders in the natural
relationships of man to woman. "Because the lower and the higher, the
creature and the Creator, are exchanged ('perverted') the result is a perverse supremacy of the inferior desires over the spirit ."13 Paul could
just as well have chosen other examples of human behaviour as a means of
illustrating the distortions of the Creator ' s purposes by man's willful
refusals to acknowledge his dependent status : pride or sloth would have
served as well to point out "the hidden connections between the Fall, as a
disordering of creation, and the pathological changes in existence in the
world as a whole."14 He is obviously discussing original sin ("Therefore
God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity" (vs. 24) as

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exemplified by specific acts contrary to the Creator's purposes. It is important
at this point to bear in mind that Paul is talking about concrete
libidinous acts, of a homosexual nature, and is not discussing the pre-disposition
to homosexuality or what could be called constitutional homosexuality,
which characterizes some persons. The theological issue here is not
in the concrete acts, but in the meaning of the homosexual condition, as an
empirical fact, in light of God's order of creation. It would have been
out of place for Paul to have discussed this issue in this context, even
had he known of the reality of constitutional homosexuality. But the common
interpretation that verses 26-2 7 of Romans I indicate that homosexuals
have been abandoned by God (unless they become heterosexuals) is certainly
not consistent with Paul's purpose in this whole passage. This issue will
be dealt with in section IV of this paper.

It must not be supposed from anything that has been said to this
point, that Paul was not rejecting homosexual acts. In I Corinthians 6:9-10
he includes them in a catalogue of unrighteous practices which will deny
the kingdom of God to persons guilty of such offenses :
Do not be deceived: neither the immoral, nor idolators, nor
adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom
of God.

(It is very misleading and unfortunate indeed, as Bailey has pointed out,15
that the translators of the Revised Standard Version, now so widely used
in our land, have elected to combine two separate Greek words denoting
homosexual practices into the word which can only mean all persons of homosexual
pre-disposition, without regard to libidinous practices on a par
with adultery. The meaning is obvious in the Greek text where malakoi

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(meaning in this context "effeminate" or "the passive male partners") and
arsenokoitai (referring to the active males in the homosexual acts, sometimes
also being rendered simply as "sodomites") are used to refer to
specific homosexual practices. It is clear that again Paul was speaking of
such acts, without qualification, as being seriously sinful.

A similar catalogue listing of grievous sinners for whom the law has
been made includes "sodomites" in company with murderers, kidnappers, liars,
perjurers, and "whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine." (I Timothy 1:9-10)

Summary of Biblical Evidence

Even though the two Old Testament verses (Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13)
can be considered as of historical interest but not of contemporary relevance
because of their setting in the rules for cultic purification, and
the lack of clarity in their underlying meaning, and even though the Sodom
story has been shown to have been used fallaciously in condemnation of homosexuality,
the four verses cited from the New Testament (Romans 1:26, 27;
I Corinthians 6:10; and I Timothy 1:10) indicate with no possibility of
qualification that homosexual practices were considered by Paul (and the
writer of I Timothy) as concrete sins on a par with adultery and murder, as
evidence of the original sin with which the human race is infected. Thus
the moral question has been illuminated somewhat, but the theological issue
of homosexuality remains unopened in the New Testament. Toward the tentative exploration of this theological question we now turn in the next
section.

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IV. A LARGER BIBLICAL VIEW OF HOMOSEXUALITY

We must begin this final section by setting the context for theological
discussion from two perspectives: (1) a consideration of the
causality and the definition of homosexuality; and (2) meditation on the
meaning of the writer ' s personal knowledge of homosexuals; for theological
reflection , to be true to its essential nature, must be grounded in contemporary
phenomena and knowledge.

Most persons who have given any thought to the problems of the definition
and the causality are aware of t he vast sea of confusion into
which this leads. Everybody seems t o have an opinion on causation from the
extremes of " I (he) was born this way" to "My (His) mother made me (him)
this way." From genetics, to psychodynamics, to social-cultural conditioning,
theorists run the gamut, for there is truth in all factors . Most of
the research and writing in this field has been done by psychoanalysts,
psychiatrists, anthropologists, and psychologists with little or no attention
from sociologists . In the midst of much continuing hard work the confusion
seems to be settling into definable patterns which give us a great
deal of guidance on these basic problems . The recent book Sexual Inversion
(The Multiple Roots of Homosexuality)16 edited by Dr. Judd Marmor, Clinical
Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California at Los Angeles, and
President-Elect (1965) of the Academy of Psychoanalysis, brings a great deal
of order into this chaos and offers refreshing analyses of the current state
of various theories . The introduction to this anthology , written by the
editor, Dr. Marmor, is a frank and open-ended critique of current views of
homosexuality and it will be helpful to lean heavily, in this section, on

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what appears to be the latest (and in this layman's view the best) attempt
to put homosexuality in perspective as a human phenomenon.

There are a variety of reasons why persons participate in homoerotic
practices: from the true homosexual, for whom heterosexual experience is
neither possible nor desirable; to those who engage in transitory homosexual
acts because of enforced deprivation of heterosexual outlets over long periods
of time (prisoners and military personnel, for example),17 or because of rebellion
or hostility, or for money and status (as, for example, the young
male prostitutes, many of whom have little homosexual predisposition), or
the adolescent experimentation with which many are personally familiar. A
definition of homosexuality must "exclude patterns of homosexual behaviour
that are not motivated by specific, preferential desire," says Dr. Marmor
and he, therefore, offers the following definition:

(T)he clinical homosexual (is) one who is motivated, in adult
life, by a definite preferential erotic attraction to members
of the same sex and who usually (but not necessarily) engages
in overt sexual relations with them.18

This writer is not entirely clear why Marmor uses the qualifier
"clinical" here, but the significant phrase is "definite preferential erotic
attraction," with its implication that the patterns of need and behaviour
are a part of the personality structure of the individual and the desire is
the same, even when the other alternative is present.

This means, then, that an individual having a "definite preferential
erotic attraction to members of the same sex," may in all respects but this
one be as like another individual who has a "definite preferential erotic
attraction" to members of the opposite sex as any two persons can be alike.
The common tendency to stereotype all homosexuals on the basis of the most

Page 21:
deviant or most bizarre behaviour of some is a cultural prejudice, the
nonsense of which becomes obvious if we make the equally absurd assumption
that all heterosexuals are alike, or are to be judged by the mos t bizarre
behaviour of any heterosexual. Dr. Marmor develops this thought further:

One reflection of this stereotyping is the almost universal
belief that homosexuals are not to be trusted "with young
people of the same sex. The assumption that t hey are somehow
less in control of their impulses than are heterosexuals is
the same kind of assumption that underlines white prejudice
against Negroes or native-born prejudice against foreigners.
In all these instances, the feeling is a reflection of fear
based on lack of intimate knowledge of the people involved.
A homosexual individual -is neither more nor less trustworthy,
necessarily, with young people of the same sex than a
heterosexual is trustworthy with young people of the
opposite sex. 19

Without sacrificing the force of this claim that there is no "homosexual
personality" ~, Marmor qualifies the above statement. He
reminds us that, because of the extreme pressures of a society which
makes the homosexual's "behaviour ipso facto maladaptive", he tends
"statistically (to be) more likely to feel inadequate and to show evidence
of less adequate ego formation" than the heterosexual:

(T)here is, nevertheless, as wide a personality variation
among homosexuals as among heterosexuals: from extremely
passive to extremely aggressive ones; from quiet introverts
to loud and raucous extroverts; from hysterics to compulsives;
from sexually inhibited and timid types to sexually
promiscuous and self-flaunting ones; from irresponsible
sociopaths to highly responsible and law-abiding citizens. 20

With regard to causality, the origins of homosexuality are seen now
to be multi- factorial, including socio-cultural, psychodynamic, biological
and situational. "There is yet no single constellation of factors
that can adequately explain all homosexual deviations...21

Page 22:
Investigations into the possible genetic origins of homosexuality
so far have proved relatively fruitless . There is some evidence that

a chromosomal abnormality, originating perhaps in the
mother's ovaries as in Mongolism, may be the mechanism
involved in many of the cases . . . (but) the nature of this
defect can, at the moment, be only a matter of guesswork.
It should be pointed out, however, that it need not
influence the direction of the libido directly and that its
action can be indirect via general personality characteristics.
Environmental factors do, of course, playa part
in most genetically determined conditions ... the degree to which
genetic and environmental factors are important, in homo- 22
sexuality, as a whole and in any individual, remains uncertain.

We have assumed naturally, on the basis of limited experience,
that heterosexual is the biologic norm and that therefore "normal" and
natural" mean "heterosexual." Strange as it sounds to our ears, this
may not in fact be the situation.

All the evidence from comparative zoology indicate that
bisexuality or "ambisexuality" is the biologic norm and
that exclusive heterosexuality is a culturally imposed
restriction . 23

In addition there is some evidence that sexuality operates adaptively,
that is that at birth a human being is psycho-sexually neutral and this
potential "permits the development and perpetuation of divers patterns
of psycho-sexual orientation and functioning in accordance with the life
experience each individual may encounter and transact. ,,24 The human
being--unlike the animal lower on the evolutionary scale which has a
complex inherited pattern of instincts subject to little manipulation
by the environment--is born "not with complex instinctual patterns, but
with relatively unfocused basic biological drives . The direction these
drives take in human beings and the objects to which they become attached
are subject to enormous modifications by learning...25 This means that a

Page 23:
human being has what could be called bi-sexual potentialities and that
the direction his sex drives take is determined to some degree by the
positive and negative learning he attains from his environment. Marmor
goes so far as to affirm that on the basis of research by Money and by
Hampson and Hampson into the origins of sexual behavior and gender role,
"the objects of human sexual drives are experimentally determined rather
than biologically determined." And he concludes, on this basis:

that there is nothing inherently "unnatural" about life
experiences that predispose an individual to a preference
for homosexual object-relations, except insofar as this
preference represents a socially condemned form of
behavior in our culture and consequently carries with it
certain sanctions and handicaps.26

While admittedly all this is theory, based on research which no doubt
will be extended and re-examined, the concept of bi-sexual potential
presents a serious problem for the theologian, because from the doctrine
of creation which includes "male and female created He them" the assumption
has always been that the sex roles of male and female are immutably
a part of the order of creation.

Marmor is refreshing and a bit unusual in the experience of the
writer when he considers the question of whether homosexuality is, as such,
a sickness. He states, with remarkable and welcome candor that

The concepts of psychoanalysts are all derived from the study
of homosexuals who have sought psychoanalytic therapy or else
have been referred by external difficulties .. . a strong possibility
thus exists that traditional psychoanalytic concepts
about the characteriological defects of homosexuals are based
on a skewed sampling of homosexuals and may not accurately
represent the spectrum of personalities present in the total
homosexual population ... lf the judgments of psychoanalysis
about heterosexuals were based only on those they see as
patients, would they not have the same skew impression of
heterosexuals as a group?27

Page 24:
One other factor ought to be mentioned in this brief summary of the
causes of homosexuality and that is the power of social-cultural role
expectation in the determination of gender- role patterns. Every culture
has developed patterns of expectation of "masculine" and "feminine"
behaviour and these patterns vary greatly among cultures. Anthropologists
and psychologists have noted marked variations in these gender-role
patterns in human societies. This can only lead to the conclusion that
the common assumption that our "Western concepts of masculinity and
femininity are rooted in the biological difference between the sexes"
is fallacious. 28

Social-cultural factors are a powerful determinant in the acquisition
of gender-role by the individual. The person whose body build,
and/or interests fits the pattern has significant emotional support, of
which he may be unaware, for this proper development. But the individual
whose physique, inclinations, or interests do not fit, faces conflicts
with culture and with self. In our culture

the unathletic or poorly coordinated boy and the unattractive
or "masculine-looking" girl are sometimes ... "pushed" into
inverted gender roles, not only bht reactions of people on the
outside, but also by the distortion of their own self-concepts,
which are similarly dependent on the dominant social values
of their environments. Even such non-physiological personality
attributes as mathematical ability in a girl or artistic talent
in a boy may be endowed by a culture with values that then tend
to push such children t~ward distorted self-concepts and
inverted gender roles. 29

This realization leads the theologian to ask the hard question of
the helpfulness of a theological construct which may well be social-culturally
conditioned, and of the effectiveness of a culturally-accommodated
church.

Page 25:
(2) The theological issues have been raised inevitably and abruptly
for this writer by the experience of working together with homosexuals on
projects of common concern. From a traditionally naive acceptance of the
cultural norm of heterosexuality and its accompanying attitudes of ignorance
and condescension of homosexuality, and of rejection of the idea of such
perversion (with, however, no conscious rejection of the homosexual person)
he was suddenly faced with t he realization that something didn't add up .
Life isn't that neat and simple.

The writer has seen "gay" persons accept Christ and join His body .
Was grace witheld? This same question was raised by the elders of
Jerusalem when they had Peter on the carpet for baptizing Cornelius,
a Gentile. He had been amazed when the Holy Spirit had directed him to
the home of a non-Jew and had likewise prepared Cornelius for his message .
"Truly," he said, "I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every
nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable."
(Acts 10 : 34-35) In Peter ' s experience I see a parallel to my own. The
question comes in Peter's phrase, "does what is right." Is it possible
that homosexuality can be "right" for some persons?

I have come to know and admire some homosexuals who are mature and
responsible persons. They have fought through God knows what kind of hell
in the identity-formation crisis, and still face daily the threat of the
ruination of their lives, and the loss of jobs and social standing if
their true natures were known to employers and the authorities . Yet,
these persons are committed to relationships which are fulfilling and
have redemptive qualities. The plumbline of judgment must be my own
perception of the capacity of these persons for openness to other human

Page 26:
beings, for mature and responsible social involvements, and for love in
its fulfilling depth. I must, in the face of the church's "no", speak a
loud "yes" to these persons, for I have seen the marks of self-giving
Christian love upon their lives.

With these two contemporary perspectives in mind--current definitions
and theories of causality,and the admittedly subjective (but not
therefore invalid) experience of the writer--we turn finally to ask
questions of our theology and to propose tentative guidelines for a
theology which includes the phenomenon under consideration.

1. The Creation of Man

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he
created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)

Man, created male and female, in the image of God, raises at once
the question of obvious physical sex differentiation and what has been
taken as inevitably concomitant, the psycho-sexual expression of this sex
differentiation. Are they the same onto logically? The Hebrews believed
that a man was incomplete without a woman and children. The good life
was the family life, barrenness was a curse. (This may explain the
extremity of punishment for persons involved in homosexual practices in
Leviticus 20 : 13). They thus affirmed the unity of sex difference and of
the psycho-sexual expression, which is part of the Judeo-Christian view
of man. Without in the least belittling the ontological reality of this
unity, we must ask the question, "Does this fit all of the facts?"
Thielicke discusses this unity as follows:

The differentiation of the sexes is so constitutive of
humanity that, first, it appears as a primeval order
(Gen . 1:27; 2:18ff) and endures as a constant despite
its deprivation in the Fall Gen. 3 :16), and, second,

Page 27:
that to it is attributed symbolic value for the fundamental
structure of all human existence, that is to say, for the
existence of man in his relationship to his fellow man, for
the fact that he is defined by his being as a Thou in
relationship to a Thou.30

It is apparent to this writer that, perceptive as this statement
is, it nevertheless errs by equating biological (and perhaps psychological)
sex differentiation with essential being. To say that, to the factor of
sex distinction "is attributed symbolic value for the fundamental
structure of all human existence" and to qualify this statement, as
Thielicke does, by further stating that this means a man's relationship
to his fellow man defines him as a man, is to affirm the ontological
unity of biological sex difference and psycho-sexual expressions, that is,
that such unity is inherent in the creation of man.

If we assume that scientists, working on the frontiers of anthropo
logical knowledge, are moving toward what may one day be determined to
be a true assessment of man's psych-biologic-social nature, then we must
question this unity. For, as discussed above, if male-and-female, at
birth, is not more than a physical differentiation (in terms of the eventual
kind of sexual relationship which may develop), and if the potentiality
for sexual expression is neutral (or "ambisexual") at birth so that the
direction which the sex drive takes in seeking expression and the "choice"
of another human being to which the drive shall be attached are truly
conditioned by learning, then Thielicke has not taken all the facts into
account. For "the differentiation of the sexes" may not be so
"constitutive of humanity" as he assumes.

Page 28:
Does the answer to the question of what it means to be a human being
hinge on heterosexual union? This question is ultimately ridiculous, but
it would seem to be required of Thielicke's statement above.

The real question is also implied by Thielicke. This is the question
of relationship, what he calls "a Thou in relationship to a Thou." He
quotes Barth with approval "that man does not have"

the choice to be fellow-human or something else . . . Man exists in
this differentiation, in this duality.31

because Barth is saying the same thing about sex differentiation . With
the first part of Barth's statement this writer could not be more in
agreement. Certainly man is defined by his relationship--he has no choice
but to be "fellow human". But must the "fellow human" be in relationship
to a fellow human of the opposite sex? The theological norm would
correctly be seen as "fellow-human relationship". But there is a good
possibility, given the current theories of sexual nature as noted above,
that man is defined in relationship to fellow man, as a Thou in relationship
to a Thou devoid of biological differentiation.

What does it mean that man is made "in the image of God, male and
female"? Does it mean that man must be united with woman to be in
relationship to God? Certainly not! In this I am in agreement with
Thielicke:

On the other hand, the theological ontology of human existence
must not go so far as to imagine that it can express the idea
of imago Dei by means of this differentiation . It is true
that this differentiation is very important as a medium of our
relationship to God and our fellow man and thus is one of the
media in which, through which and despite which that relationship
is realized. The imago Dei, however, both in its implications
for our creaturehood and its Christological implication,
expresses our unmediated relationship to God.32

Page 29:
When we speak of man's essential nature and his essential relationship
to God in the eschatological dimension (that is, in the ultimate
intention of God) sex differentiation is of little importance. In support
of this unqualified aloneness before God, this "unmediated relationship"
as the meaning of man being made in God's image, we recall Jesus' statement
that "They neither marry nor are given in marriage" in the Kingdom
of God (Mark 12:25); that Paul, thinking in terms of the eschatological
end of time, completely separated sexuality from life (I Corinthians 7:lff);
and "there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus"
(Galatians 3 : 28).

It is important to point out here that there is no implied distinction
of importance or rank between man and woman. In the first creation story,
the verse quoted above, there are no distinctions of value or relationship
to God. Both man and woman are created in God's image, hence both are
equally in relationship to Him, and both "receive the blessing as well as
the command to subdue the earth." (Genesis 1:28ff)33

2. On The Fall and Homosexuality As a Result of Original Sin

The second account of creation (Genesis 2:4-3:24) contains the story
of Adam and Eve and the act of disobedience which eventuated in what
theologians call the Fall of Man. By this myth is explained a fundamental
fact of human experience--the tragic contradiction between man's essence
and his existence, between what man senses he was meant to be and what he
is. The myth affirms the Creator's good intent, and the creature's
perversion of that intent; it recognizes the essential estrangement of a
man from his Creator, hence from other men and even from self. Such a
myth is a necessity to capture and personify the existential longings for

Page 30:
purpose and meaning and relationship in life, and the pervasive quality
of paradox in man's existence: for example, his capacity for goodness
is equalled by his capacity for evil, his freedom is limited by his
willingness to be bound . This is not the place to discuss the merits
of the concept of the Fall except to say that it is not to be interpreted
biologically in that we inherit from one man and woman our sinful natures,
nor is it necessarily to be assumed that any such ideal state existed in
history from which men have fallen. 34 Rather, it is every man's story-the
Creator's intent and every man's distortion of that intent.

From the perspective of the Fall and the concept of original sin-that
is, estrangement and assumed independence of creature from Creator-one
can view homosexuality as a perversion of the original or intended
order of nature, insofar as homosexuality is a condition caused by human
sin. This would be true of the socio-cultural determinants, which are
the result of generations of ignorance, of outdated taboos, of a t00-
narrow view of life, and of a cumulative social fabric of sins against
the deviant. It is also true of the social-psychological conditioning
(also cumulative) which occurs in the family, which can distort human
personality unknowingly. But original sin cannot serve to explain the
possible genetic factor in homosexuality any more than in mongolism or
some other congenital defect, unless the theologian were to say that
mutations are the result of original sin, which would be patently ridiculous.
When we posit the question of the existence of evil we can account
for moral evil (sin) as being due to man's free choice and deliberate acts
(which may have cumulative social-psychological effects), but we must also
face the presence of natural evil--the congenital deformity, to name one.

Page 31:
These must be seen as (1) works of the devil, or some other personification
of evil at war with God; (2) as deliberate acts of God, hence not ultimately
evil ; (3) as evidence of the existence of an as yet "uncreated chaos" over
which the Creator has not yet assumed control; or (4) as part of the
statistical chance the Creator must take in his working to bring his
Creation to perfection.

Assuming the reality of the possible genetic factor in the genesis,
of homosexuality, the Fall does not explain all the possibilities of
causality. Even if we assume , for the moment; that homosexuality is a
manifestation of creation put out of order by original sin, Thielicke is
certainly correct when he says

(T)here is not the sl!ghtest excuse for maligning the
constitutional homosexual morally or theologically. We are
all under the same condemnation (original sin, the guilt of
which and fact of which we all participate in) and each of
us has received his "share" of it. In any case, from this
point of view the homosexual's share of that condemnation
has no greater gravity which would justify any Pharasaic
feeling of self-righteousness and integrity on the part of
"normal" persons. 35

3. The Thou-Thou Relationship

It was argued in a previous section that the current ontological
doctrine which affirms that man's existence as man, in fact that which makes
him human, is "his being as a Thou in relationship to a Thou," that is, .
another human being . We took issue with the claim that sex differentiation,
even as a symbolic value, is seen as fundamental to the structure of this
relationship. Now in Genesis 2 : 25 this question comes sharply before us
once more:

Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and
cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh. (Genesis 2:25)

Page 32:
There is no intention to deny the validity of this, but simply to
ask whether it fits all the facts?

Certainly, in this verse more is implied by "one flesh" than sexual
union, though that is an important constituent. Rather, the sexual union
must be seen as the expression of a relationship of mutual love, of
empathy, of confidentiality, and of trust. There is little evidence that
heterosexual union can produce these qualities of relationship, but much
evidence that such union does serve to symbolize, enact, express and even
enhance such qualities already existent. Cannot the same qualities be a
possibility for a homosexual union? This writer thinks so. He has known
a number of homosexual couples who have developed highly successful
relationships over relatively long periods of time, one of 25 years and
several of more than 10 years. Admittedly, these are rare, from all that
is known. Indications are that the socia-cultural and psychological
pressures on the homosexual account for his comparative inability to
establish permanent relationships comparable to marriage of heterosexuals.
Recall Marmor's conclusion that in all ways, save one, homosexuals exhibit
as wide a range of personality variation as heterosexuals, and that the
tendency "to feel less adequate and to show evidence of less adequate ego
formation" is inevitable in a society which proscribes their every manifestation
of the sexual nature with which they have been endowed. 36
Thielicke recognizes the grave hazards facing the homosexual which make
permanent relationships more difficult to achieve but not therefore less
desirable than for heterosexuals . I quote this long passage for its
magnificent description of the problem:

Page 33:
1. The homosexual does not have the benefit of living with a
supportive order than is informed by a traditional ethos
such as that of the institution of marriage. Instead of
having at his disposal a set of prefabricated decisions which
are made for him by the tradition and make it easier for him
to find his way about, he is to an unimaginably greater degree
thrmm back upon himself. Since he generally begins only
gradually to recognize his disposition, he goes through phases
of terrible loneliness and stages of groping and uncertain
improvisations.

2. Otherwise than in the "normal sphere", the non-ingrained
normative attitude easi ly produces a propensity toward the
excessive, toward rapidly changing partnerships (promiscuity)
and thus a sabotage of even that relative "order" which the
homosexual could achieve on his basis.

3. The ostracism the homosexual suffers through the criminal law
and the defensive instinct of society leads him to frequent
very dubious circles. He cannot risk any public attempt to make
advances . Whereas the "normal" person is permitted to regard
a representative of the other sex as a potential partner and
is exposed only to the possibility of being refused (without
thereby being socially or morally compromised), the homosexual
runs the danger of encountering a "normal" person, with a l l the
consequences that this may involve . This search for a partner
of his own kind in the shady areas of society means an extraordinarily
heavy spiritual burden and, what is more, a dangerous
temptation especially for the person who really ,vants to live
an ethically responsible life.

4. The same burden and temptation result from the fact that the
homosexual must wear a mask and act like a hypocrite before
friends and acquaintances, and as a rule even in his mm family,
but nevertheless live in constant fear of discovery and its
consequent compromise of character. Thus he is thrmvn into a
situation of permanent conflict.37

Under these conditions, it would seem that logically and theologically
there is no reason to deny the possibility of marriage to the homosexual
couple, subject to the same privileges and restrictions that inhere in
heterosexual marriage.

Creativity, certainly in the context of man as being considered cocreator
with God, is not limited to pro-creation . There are many ways in

Page 34:
which man is called upon to share creativity with God: to bring order and
meaning out of personal and social chaos, to bring to fulfillment that
which is only potential, to mention only two . Reuel Howe speaks in his
writings of what this writer feels is the highest type of human creativity
in this context . Howe, affirming that a person is a person only in meaningful
relationship to another (the Thou-Thou relationship discussed above),
says that we can "call one another into being. " By responsible, responsive,
personal, caring relationships one person can call another into being--that
is, can help him become truly a person by the act of affirming his being . 38
Man's deepest longings are not for sexual relationship, per se, but
for significant self-affirming and other-affirming relationships. Sexual
promiscuity, both hetero- and homo-, has, among other drives, this universal
desire to escape loneliness and personal extinction by non-affirmation of
personhood. Perhaps this is the reason Jesus was much more lenient with the
sensual sinner (the adultress and the prostitute) than he was with the pious
hypocrite and those who were not in responsive, affirming relationships with
persons.

The Gospel proclaims that we are accepted by God, that to be "in the
Kingdom" is to be both accepted and therefore accepting persons. Christ was
concerned about the quality of the relationships between persons, and pointed
out that relationship to God is only possible through responsible relationships
with other persons . He taught us that love of God and neighbor liberates
man into fullness of life-- liberates us from the bondage of estrangement, of
anxiety, of hostility.

It is part of the mission of the Church to enable these kinds of person

Page 35:
affirming relationships to occur. There is no indication in Christ's teachings
that the quality of life he lived and which he envisioned for all men,
and which the Church is called to manifest in the world, was limited to
heterosexually-oriented persons.

If the homosexual is accepted by God, a belief which is implicit in
this paper, then he can be an accepting person, and this includes self-acceptance. Thielicke is provocative at this point:

What then does "acceptance" mean here? It can mean to accept
the burden of this predisposition to homosexuality only as a
divine dispensation and see it as a task to be wrestled with,
indeed--paradoxical as it may sound--as a talent to be invested.
(Luke 19 : l3f)39

And when the "master of the servants" comes and s ettles accounts with
us (Matthew 25 : 19, Luke 19 :15) he will not ask what talent we have had (none
of us asked for what we got) for he knows t hat already, but he will ask to
see what we have done with that which has been given us.

The question of ethics, of responsible, responsive relationships,
comes naturally' to the fore at this point, but that cannot be taken up here.
Thielicke points out

We may assume that the homosexual has t o realize his optimal
ethical potentialities on the basis of his irreversible situation.40

The homosexual, no less than the heterosexual, needs understanding and
sympathetic pastoral guidance in his struggles for ethical fulfillment, as
well as the spiritual and emotional support of a church which enables redemptive relationships to occur . These are largely non-existent at the present
time, and remain one of our tasks for the immediate future, while we
hammer out a theology which will include him as a part of creation about
which the Creator is concerned.

Page 36:
Footnotes
1. The Wolfenden Report . (Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offenses
and Prostitut i on, New York : Lancer Books , 1964)

2. Bailey, Derrick Sherwin , Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition. (New York : Longmans , Green and Company , 1955) . p . Vlll. Bailey says "the tradition (regarding homosexuality) has not undergone any significant, alterations since the end of the Middle Ages."

3 . Bailey , Ibid , p . ix .

4 . The remark attributed to someone in the San Francisco Police Department
on the occasion when ministers from CRH were informing the police of
the forthcoming ball (January 1, 1965) that "If you aren't going to
enforce God's law , we are," is a good example of the assumed righteousness
of society ' s attitude . (See "The Council on Religion and
the Homosexual" by Del Martin in Essays on Religion and the Homosexual,
Vol . I , p . 20 . n . d . )

5 . Bailey, op . cit . pp . 49-53 .

6. Ibid , p . 3.

7. Ibid , p . 9.

8 . Ibid, p. 10.

9 . Ibid . pp . 10-26 .

10 . Ibid, p . 155.

11 . Ibid, pp . 59- 60 .

12 . Thielicke, Helmut , The Ethics of Sex . Translated by John W. Doberstein .
(New York : Harper and Row, Publishers , 1964)

13 . Ibid , p . 279.

14 . Ibid, p. 282 .

15 . Bailey, op . cit. pp . 38f .

16 . Marmor, Judd, Editor , Social Inversion (The Multiple Roots of Homosexuality). (New York : Basic Books, Inc ., 1965)

17 . See Reiss , Albert J . , Jr . , "The Social Integration of Queers and Peers,"
in Ruitenbeek , Hendrick M. , Editor , The Problem of Homosexuality in
Modern Society . (New York : E. P . Dutton & Co ., Inc . , 1963) , pp . 249ff.

Page 37:
18. Marmor, op. cit., p. 4.

19. Ibid, p. 19.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid, p. 5.

22. Pare, C.M.B., "Etiology of Homosexuality : Genetic and Chromosomal Aspects," in Marmor, Ibid, pp . 77-79 .

23. Marmor, Ibid, p . 11 .

24. A quotation from the Hampson's report of their studies of the acquiring
of the gender role by humans, reported by Marmor, Ibid, p. 9.

25. Ibid, p . 10 .

26 . Ibid, p . 16 .

27 . Ibid.

28 . Ibid, p. 13 .

29 . Ibid.

30. Thielicke, op . cit. , pp. 3f.

31. Ibid, p . 4.

32 . Ibid, p . 6 .

33 . Ibid, p . 7.

34 . E.g. If Thielicke's statement (Ibid, p . 283) "the status of existence
which we all share as men in the disordered creation that exists
since the Fall," is a historical statement, then it does not make
sense, though theologians have been talking in these terms for centuries.
If, on the other hand , he is speaking metaphorically of
existential reality--the persistent distortion and disordering of
the Creator's intent by the would-be-autonomous creature--"since
the Fall" refers to every man's history and to a culmulative social
fabric of sin and the results of sin into which every man is born,
hence the " disordered creation which we all share as men," then the
Fall can be a meaningful concept .

35 . Ibid, p. 283.

36 . See above, pp . l8f .

Page 38:
37. Thielicke, op. cit ., p. 286 .

38. See Howe, Reuel, Man ' s Need and God's Action. (Greenwich, Conn .: The
Seabury Press, 1957) and Herein Is Love . (Valley Forge, Pa .: The Judson Press, 1961)

39. Thielicke , op . cit ., p . 284 .

40. Ibid, p. 285 .

Page 39:
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