Same-Sex Marriage – II

COS – March 17, 2019

Nicholas Wolterstorff

1. Let me begin by repeating one of the preliminary comments I made last time. Like most of
you, I am not a specialist on any of the issues we are discussing. I am not a psychologist, not a
biblical scholar, not a Christian ethicist. In each of those areas, I am an amateur. In each of them,
there are people in this audience more deeply informed than I am. So I do not stand before you as
an authority, telling you what you should think about same-sex marriage or telling COS what
position it should take on the matter. All I am doing is telling my personal story of how I was
slowly moved from the traditional position on these matters to my present position of thinking
that covenanted same-sex marriage is acceptable in God’s sight.
I can imagine that some of you are thinking, ”Well, Nick, if you’re not a specialist on these
matters, why are you taking up our time with your amateur personal story?”
Let me explain. Only once before have I spoken in public on this matter: in the talk I
mentioned last time that I gave in Neland Ave. CRC in October 2016. I did not give that talk
because I felt some inner urge to speak out. Rather, a good friend of mine, Clarence Joldersma,
who teaches in the education department at Calvin, knew that I had written extensively about
justice, believed firmly that the issue of same-sex marriage raises issues of justice, and
challenged me to speak out. I resisted. He kept after me. Finally, I felt that I could no longer in
good conscience reject the challenge he had issued to me. That’s why I gave the talk. I am giving
these present talks because the organizers of GPS thought it would be good for me to say to my
fellow COS’ers what I had said at Neland.

2. Last Sunday I presented the considerations that gradually led me to the conclusion that loving
covenanted same-sex marriage is acceptable in God’s sight. I said that, so far as I could see, it
was fully in accord with Christ’s law of love.
I then observed that I was well aware of the fact that many of my fellow Christians – including
some of you here – disagree with the conclusion to which I had been led. Some of those who
disagree do so on the basis of the Catholic natural law tradition. To the best of my knowledge,
everyone else who disagrees does so on the basis of their interpretation of Scripture. So I said to
myself that, before coming to a final conclusion on the matter, I had to look at the relevant
scriptural passages.
Could it be, I asked myself, that Scripture makes clear that same-sex relationships inherently
violate the law of love in a way that I had overlooked? Or could it be that Scripture teaches they
are wrong even if they do not violate the law of love?
The question prior to these two questions is, of course, whether Scripture does in fact teach that
same-sex relations are inherently wrong. So that’s the question before us today. Together with
you, I want to look at the relevant scriptural passages. I do so in humble awareness of the fact
that there are biblical scholars present in this audience, and that I am not a biblical scholar. A
careful reader of Scripture, indeed; but not a biblical scholar.

3. If we had lots of time at our disposal, I would devote an entire talk to discussing how you and
I should go about interpreting Scripture. But we don’t. So let me make just two very brief
remarks.
 First, the relevant passages must be read and interpreted in context. The Reformed tradition –
in which you and I stand – has always declared its opposition to biblical proof-texting -- that is,
opposition to extracting a sentence or two from its context and using it to serve one’s purposes.
Isolating a sentence from Proverbs, say, to justify spanking one’s child.
Second: it is undoubtedly developments in society that are leading some of us to look again at
these texts to see whether the traditional interpretation is correct.
In response to a question that somebody raised last time, I noted that the Reformed tradition,
from its beginnings, has held that God has written two books for us: the “book of Scripture” and
the “book of nature,” as the Belgic Confession calls them. Special revelation and general
revelation. Each book is to be interpreted in the light of the other. We interpret general revelation
in the light of what we learn from special revelation and we interpret special revelation in the
light of what we learn from general revelation. I could give lots of examples from the history of
the church of changes in society and developments in science that led to changes in the
interpretation of Scripture that all of us now accept.
Be that as it may. I know that some of you are worried that, in this case, those of us who no
longer favor the traditional interpretation of Scripture on this matter are allowing developments
in society to lead us to misinterpret scripture. I share that worry; in my opinion, we should all
share that worry. Is the change in society on these matters leading us to a better interpretation of
scripture or is it leading us to a misinterpretation of scripture? No matter what our position, we
should prayerfully be asking ourselves that question.

4. To the texts. I have listed the ones most commonly referred to. Though I am not a biblical
scholar by profession, I have read around a good deal in the commentaries. And what astounds
me is the extent and intensity of disagreement among specialists as to the conclusions to be
drawn from some of these texts. The disagreement is such that it seems to me that not even a
specialist can say that he or she speaks with authority – speaks with expertise, yes, but not with
authority.

The first two texts on our list report two utterly appalling episodes in which some men of a city
clamor to be allowed to gang-rape a male visitor. In both cases, the house-holder refuses to allow
this “wicked” act, as he calls it. But then, in one case, he offers his two daughters to be gang-
raped, and, in the other case, he offers his daughter and his concubine. I have come across no
commentator who thinks that we can infer, from the declarations of the house-holders that gang
homosexual rape is wicked, that same-sex relationships are always morally wrong.

5. Next, the two texts from Leviticus. The context here is the code issued to Israel by Moses on
God’s behalf. If you read through the entire Code, you will find many instructions that seem to
us now truly horrible -- among them, the instruction to put to death those who engage in male
homosexual activity. Ever since the Council of Jerusalem, to which I referred last time, the
church has held that the Mosaic Code does not apply, in general, to Gentile Christians. The
Council concluded that the only prohibitions that do apply to Gentile Christians are the
prohibitions of fornication, of eating food sacrificed to idols, of drinking blood, and of eating the
flesh of an animal killed by strangulation. So if you or I think that some additional component of
the code applies to Gentile Christians, we will have to have some reason for that. We cannot just
point to the fact that it is a component of the Mosaic Code and conclude that it applies to Gentile
Christians.

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 In the first of the two passages from Leviticus, God instructs Moses to tell Israel that it is not to
do as they do in Egypt and Canaan. The practices mentioned that they are to abstain from
engaging in are said to “defile” those who engage in them. Many of the commentators I have
consulted argue that the practices mentioned in the verses I have reproduced were probably cultic
practices of Egypt and Canaan. Apparently these cultic practices commonly included child
sacrifice, male prostitution, and cohabitation with animals.
Does the passage give us some reason for holding that, unlike the great bulk of the Mosaic
Code, the prohibition of male homosexual relations holds for Gentile Christians?
Well, male homosexual relations are said to be an “abomination,” whereas none of the other
actions prohibited in this chapter are said to be an abomination. Might that be a clue that this
prohibition holds for Gentile Christians, whereas the other prohibitions do not?
I have never come across what seemed to me a well-grounded explanation of what was meant
by calling something an “abomination.” The explanations offered all seem to me to be, at
bottom, guesses. Male homosexual relations were by no means the only thing said to be an
abomination. In the next chapter we read that if a sacrifice of well-being to the Lord is not eaten
by the second day, but is instead eaten on the third day, “it is an abomination.”
But there’s no need for us to figure out what was meant by calling something an abomination.
Presumably the Jews present at the Jerusalem Council knew what was meant. And they did not
think that something’s being called an “abomination” in the Mosaic Code implied that the
prohibition of that action applied to Gentile Christians.
In short, I fail to see that the passage gives us a reason for holding that the prohibition of male
homosexual relations applies to Gentile Christians.

6. The context of the second Leviticus passage on our list is not instructions on how Israel is to
distinguish itself from the “defiling” practices of Egypt and Canaan but, rather, what is
commonly called the Mosaic “Holiness Code.” The Holiness Code says, among many other
things, that Israel is to keep itself holy by not eating unclean animals, such as pigs, by not
wearing garments made of different materials, by not getting tattooed, and by not engaging in
male homosexual activity.
Does this passage provide us with a reason for concluding that, whereas most of the Holiness
Code does not apply to Gentile Christians, the prohibition of male homosexual activity does
apply?
Here too, of the activities mentioned in the parts of the passage that I have reproduced, only
male homosexual activity is said to be an abomination. Might that be a reason for concluding
that this prohibition applies to Gentile Christians?
No it does not, for the reasons mentioned when discussing the previous passage: whatever was
meant by calling some activity an abomination, the Council of Jerusalem did not think that some
activity’s being call an abomination implied that the prohibition of that activity applied to
Gentile Christians.
In short, this passage, like the previous one, does not give us a reason for holding that the
prohibition of male homosexual relations applies to Gentile Christians.

7. So let’s turn to the NT. So far as I know, there is no disagreement among translators as to what
the OT passages we have looked at mean. Quite the contrary for the passages from I Corinthians
and Timothy; these raise hotly contested issues of meaning. In the Corinthians passage, men who
are called malakoi in Greek and men who are called arsenokoitai are condemned. Both the

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NRSV and the original NIV translate malakoi as “male prostitutes”; the new NIV translates it as
“men who have sex with men.” The NRSV translates arsenokoitai as “sodomites”; the original
NIV translated it as “homosexual offenders.” No significant difference there. The new NIV
translates it as “men who have sex with men.”
In the Timothy passage, only the word arsenokoitai occurs. The NRSV translates it again as
“sodomites.” The original NIV translated it as “perverts.” The new NIV translates it as “those
practicing homosexuality.”
Between the NRSV and the original NIV there is no significant difference. But whereas the
original NIV translation has Paul in these passages condemning male prostitutes and homosexual
offenders, the new NIV translation has him condemning “men who have sex with men” and
“those practicing homosexuality.”
You see the difference: is it specific perverse forms of male homosexuality that are being
condemned, or is it male homosexuality in general? (Dave Jackson, in Risking Grace, claims
that the change in the NIV translation was due to pressure against the original translation from
“influential advocates of the traditional view of homosexuality” p. 165).
Behind these differences in translation is intense controversy among specialists over what the
words mean. The problem is that the term malakoi occurs seldom in Greek literature, and that the
term aresenokoitai seems to have been created by Paul by putting together two Greek words and
is used, in the NT, only in these two passages.
In the face of these controversies among specialists over the meaning of the crucial words, I
don’t see that you and I can decisively conclude that these passages teach that male homosexual
activity is always morally wrong. Maybe they do teach that, maybe they don’t.

8. This brings us finally to the Romans passage which, of the famous seven, everybody (so far as
I know) agrees is the decisive one. Thousands of pages have been written about it.
In verses 20 and following, Paul clearly has his eye on the profoundly corrupt cultic practices
of many cities in the Roman empire. Some commentators argue that it was common for Jewish
writers to exaggerate the perversity of the cults. And it does sound as if Paul was exaggerating.
But to the best of my knowledge, everybody agrees that what was going on, in many places, was
truly corrupt and repulsive.
The homosexual couples that I know, who are faithful members of the church, are nothing like
the homosexuals that Paul here describes. They are not consumed by lust and degrading
passions, they are not idolators, they are not full of envy, murder, strife, etc. Can we nonetheless
infer from Paul’s condemnation of the homosexual activity that he has in view that homosexual
activity in all its forms is morally wrong – even within a loving covenanted bond?
There’s a lot that could be said, and a lot that has been said, about the passage. But for the issue
that concerns us, I think it comes down, in the last resort, to what Paul means by “exchanged
natural intercourse for unnatural.” What did he mean here by “unnatural”?
A preliminary point is that Paul is rather more loose in what he calls “natural” than you and I
usually are. In I Cor. 11:4 he says, “Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long
hair, it is degrading to him, but if a woman has long hair it is her glory?” The Greek word,
atimia, translated here as “degrading,” is the same word that Paul uses in Romans 1:24 when he
describes the people has in mind as given up “to the degrading of their bodies among
themselves.” John Calvin, in his commentary on this Corinthians passage, says that what Paul
calls natural is “what was at that time in common use by universal consent and custom.” That
seems to me correct.

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 Be that as it may, what might Paul have thought was “unnatural” in homosexual activity? A
possibility that I find plausible is that Paul is here expressing the idea, common among Jews at
the time, that it was unnatural for a male to be passive in the sex-act. Philo, a prominent Jewish
writer who was a contemporary of Jesus and Paul, wrote of “passive partners, who habituate
themselves to endure the disease of effemination,…and leave no member of their male sex-
nature to smolder.”

9. Another possibility as to what Paul might have meant by “unnatural,” which in recent years
has become common among those who defend the traditional position, is that Paul is here
alluding to Genesis 2 where, so these writers say, we are introduced to the principle of what they
call “gender complementarity,” a principle which, so they argue, subsequently runs throughout
Scripture, is fundamental for our understanding of how God ordains that the sexes should relate
to each other, and implies that same sex relations are always wrong.
I doubt that Paul is in fact alluding to Genesis 2. What he says in this chapter about God as
creator is very different from what one reads in Genesis 2. But let that pass.
What is the principle of gender complementarity that, so these writers claim, is presented to us
in Genesis 2? I have never come across a clear statement of the principle that I can quote to you.
Robert Gagnon, one of the main promoters of the idea, talks at length about the principle without
ever quite explaining it. But I’ve done my best to understand him and others, and I think what
they have in mind is this: male and female complement each other anatomically with respect to
propagation. They may complement each other in other ways as well; on the basis of certain NT
texts, some of these writers argue that men and women also complement each other with respect
to men issuing directives and women obeying those directives. But complementing each other
anatomically with respect to propagation is seen to be fundamental. Here is what Gagnon says in
one place: “The naturalness of opposite-sex unions is readily visible in the areas of anatomy,
physiology – that is, the procreative capacity – and in a host of interpersonal aspects that
contribute in our own day to the popular slogan ‘men are from Mars and women are from
Venus’.”
It’s true, of course, that male and female complement each other anatomically with respect to
procreation. About that, there can be no controversy. But these writers do not just affirm this
obvious principle. They claim that, in Genesis 2,we are taught that God created Eve to be an
anatomical counterpart to Adam for propagating humankind, and that we can infer, from this,
that homosexual relations are always wrong.
I fail to see how we can make that inference. None of the writers on these matters that I have
read explains how it follows from the claim that God created the woman as a gender counterpart
to the man that same-sex relations are always morally wrong. But let’s look at the text to see
whether it does in fact teach gender complementarity.
One of the several ways in which the story of creation in Genesis 2 differs from the story in
Genesis 1 is that, in Genesis 2, God creates Adam before creating the animals. After creating
Adam, God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his
partner” (18). So God creates the animals, brings the animals before Adam, and Adam names
them. But he finds none that could be “a helper as his partner” (20). Note well: the writer does
not say that Adam found no animal that was his gender counterpart – none with whom he could
have procreative sex. The writer says that he found none that could be a helper as his partner.
Adam is still alone.

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 God then causes Adam to fall into a deep sleep, extracts one of his ribs, and makes from this a
woman whom God brings to the man after he has awakened. Adam does not then say something
that can be interpreted as meaning, Now at last I have a gender counterpart with respect to
procreation. Nothing in the preceding sentences leads us to expect him to say that. What he says
instead is , “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” – which is to say, This at last
is a creature of my very own kin, the suggestion being that, as a creature of his own kin, she can
be a helper as his partner. (“Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” is used with this meaning at
many points in the OT.) Not a gender counterpart but a kin counterpart!
The writer then says, “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife,
and they become one flesh.” (In these two verses there is a play, obviously, on two senses of the
word “flesh.”) It is not his desire for procreative sex that is said to impel the man to cleave to the
woman; it is his desire for a certain kind of companionship, described as being a helper-partner
to each other. I find it interesting that in the CRC Form for the Solemnization of Marriage, the
first thing said about God’s intention for marriage is that “it would provide a context within
which husband and wife can help and comfort each other and find companionship.” That is
Genesis 2 exactly.
Impelled by his longing for companionship to cleave to the woman, the man does so in such a
way that the two become one flesh. Becoming one flesh includes having sexual relations with
her. But becoming one flesh, in the biblical sense, includes much more than that. (In the passage
from I Corinthians 6:16 on your sheets, you can see Paul shying away from saying that having
sex with a prostitute is sufficient for their becoming one flesh [sarx]. He says instead that they
become one body [soma]). In some difficult-to-describe way, the two become one.
In the Ephesians passage on your sheets, Paul mentions some of what is involved in becoming
one flesh (he makes no mention of sexual relations). And then, after saying that becoming one
flesh is a “great mystery,” he says that the relation of the church to Christ is like two people
becoming one flesh.
In short, I do not find the Genesis 2 passage saying that God’s purpose in creating the woman
was to give the man a gender counterpart. God’s stated purpose was to provide the man with a
creature of his own kin who could be his companion, his helper-partner. And the desire of the
man for a companion impels him to become united with the woman in a way that the biblical
writers describe as “becoming one flesh.” The implied purpose of marriage is not to function as
gender-counterparts to each other but to enact the mystery of becoming one flesh.

So what can we conclude about the morality of same-sex relations from this passage? Can we
conclude that same-sex relations are always morally wrong? Not so far as I can see. Suppose
someone sees in a person of the same sex someone who can be a companion, and suppose that
impels him or her to become one flesh, in the deep mysterious way to which Paul alludes. Can
we infer, from the text of Genesis 2, that what they are doing is wrong? Not so far as I can see.

10. We got into this discussion of Genesis 2 because some commentators hold that Paul’s
declaration in Romans 1, that same-sex relations are unnatural, is an allusion to Genesis 2,
where, so they claim, we learn that God created the woman for the purpose of being a gender
counterpart to the man, and that this implies that same-sex relations are always morally wrong. I
think this interpretation of Genesis 2 is a misinterpretation .

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11. To conclude: so far as I can see, Scripture does not clearly teach or imply that same-sex
relations are always morally wrong – wrong even in the context of covenanted love. I know that
some of you disagree. I honor that. You have skilled and responsible commentators on your side,
just as I do. That is the uncomfortable position in which we live, at present, in the Christian
church.