For a Christian to refuse to receive communion, not from, but along side of other Christians sends a resounding message.  I am not sure it is the message that +Akinola, +Orombi and the GS want the rest of the Communion to hear.

I was sorry to see our beloved Peter Akinola state in this interview that the pivotal question is whether gay people are born that way or not.  It’s sad, and ironic too, because in this he is actually in agreement with TEC’s gay lobby.  They too think that this is the question that everything turns on.  (They think gay people are born that way, Akinola doesn’t; but both agree that “God doesn’t make junk.”  Both agree, implicitly, that if a person is born with a condition, then that condition can’t be sin… i.e. a mark of a fallen disordered world.)

Compare this with the tremendously important piece that traditionalist Paul Zahl wrote back in Feb 2004 where he outlined why this idea (that people can’t be born with a broken sinful condition) is so deeply mistaken, and what it ultimately leads to.  PZ writes:

  So what is the big deal? Why do people like me stand against the Gene Robinson consecration and the blessing of same-sex unions? Why do we feel these two things are destructive of life in the Christian church? I note in passing that our struggle against them so far has been unsuccessful, failed, and demoralizing for the zeal and good conscience of our ministries.

Why is the issue so important?

First, we believe the gay position as we hear it undermines the anthropology of the Gospel. It undermines the teaching concerning the inherent sinfulness of the creature before the Creator. It wants to exempt a particular category of persons, gay men and women, from Original Sin on the basis that they are “created” a certain way, therefore how can it be wrong? For reasons beyond our human understanding we are all created sinners: distorted, inverted, libidinal and narcissistic. Our baggage is psycho-genetic, not the sum of our deeds. The gay argument confuses creation with redemption – as in the old 1970’s poster “God don’t make no junk”. That was a half truth then, and it is a half truth now. The core, universal, and seemingly impenetrable claim of the gay lobby is this: If I came into the world this way, then how can it be wrong? That claim is in opposition to the classic Christian doctrine, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant, of the human being as being intrinsically and inherently fallen in all cases. The claim is Arminian explicity and Pelagian implicitly.

If the anthropology is flawed, then inevitably the soteriology is flawed. If “God don’ t make no junk”, then what need is there for a Savior? Why did Christ have to die on the Cross, if the need of the human race were not rooted in our paralysis and inability to help ourselves? The result of an overly high anthropology is an overly low soteriology.

The result of an overly low soteriology is a weak Christology. If Christ is not a Savior in the full and plain sense of the word, then He did not have to be God. The whole encounter of Jesus with the Pharisees in Mark, Chapter Two, when he made a connection between his divine authority and the forgiveness of sins, ceases to mean anything. High anthropology means low soteriology means inadequate Christology.

Finally, the Trinitarian implications of the weak Christology implicit in the gay lobby’ s argument – become now the Episcopal Church’s argument – are devastating. The Son who is no Saviour becomes automatically subordinate to the Father. We are quickly into Arianism and what we today call unitarianism. Now most theological liberals I know in ECUSA insist that they are Trinitarian Christians. And I believe them. But I wonder whether they have realized the implications for the whole of theology of the overly high anthropology of the arguments we have been hearing from the gay lobby and their friends. Please, think through the implications of a weakened profile of Original Sin.

Again, let me repeat what PZ says above: “For reasons beyond our human understanding we are all created sinners: distorted, inverted, libidinal and narcissistic.”  And let me repeat what he says in closing (but applied to Akinola): “Please, think through the implications of a weakened profile of Original Sin.”

Another way of looking at this is to look at all kinds of twisted mental and physical conditions which people are born with.  People are born with autism, with schizophrenia, with all kinds of marks of a disordered and fallen world. 

It is precisely our understanding of the human condition as broken, inherently so from infancy, an understanding we get from St. Paul and St. Augustine, that enables us to reject the inference: If I was born this way, then you ought to bless it!  No, we don’t, any more than we need to bless the conditions of schizophrenia or autism or any number of others.  But it is ONLY that orthodox understanding that protects us here: otherwise we end up with the “Christianity” of Pelagius, one in which people just really need to try hard and they’ll be able to fix themselves, a faith that is pastorally cruel.  (Read Fitz Alison here!  Or if you don’t mind a Lutheran theologian, try Forde’s On Being a Theologian of the Cross .)

Again, I can’t urge traditionalists strongly enough to abandon the approach of claiming that gay folks are wrong when they claim they were born a certain way.  The proper response is not to tell them they are wrong, because doing so implicitly places you on the side of Pelagius.  Rather the right thing to do is gently explain the orthodox understanding of universal inherited sin and the bound will, and how the cross and the blood of our Lord saves us AS bound sinners, not as righteous Pharisees.  But if we are to be saved as sinners, then the church must stay steadfast in describing us that way: that is why TEC’s recent actions are wrong.

#3:  I believe you misunderstand Archbishop Akinola.  He and the African Church base their rejection of the homosexualist agenda on the strong foundation of the biblical doctrine of Creation.  Which is to say, God has created us male/female and His Divine Will includes the formation of man/wife marriage and family to reflect the Glory of God and build up the Body of Christ.  Those who claim, as the homosexualist lobby does, that there is a secondary Divine Will related to a so-called in-born same sex attraction are resisting the Creator’s intentions.
That is what ++Akinola is confuting when he challenges the gay rights doctrine of “we were born this way”. 

Of course, the doctrine of salvation includes the reality that we sinners are blighted in our use of the gift of sexuality, as well as in every other area of life.  St. Paul’s dirty laundry lists of sins in his Epistles always include both sexual sins and more directly spiritual sins (such as pride, gossip, party spirit, idolatry, etc.).  I don’t believe that ++Akinola would have any problem saluting Fr. Zahl’s support of the doctrine of Original Sin.  After all, both Zahl and Akinola have been formed by Evangelical Anglicanism, not Catholic Anglicanism.

Jim, Yes we are all born or acquire sinful weaknesses for which we need God’s help. I’m not sure your examples like autism fall into that category. I’d say that an example like a weakness for the abuse alcohol is a better example. Moderation is fine, but some of us have a propensity for addiction and abuse of drink.
Then, turning to the question of homosexuality, the question is is the practice of homosexuality a sin. Biblically speaking, I don’t think it is. Others disagree. What I do about is that anything can be abused and we can be in abusive relationships—hetero or homosexual.

EmilyH
For Christians to put a stumbling block in front of their “weaker” (sic) brethern is not a message that I think the reasserters want to show either. 

Not long ago, I had a conversation with a Bishop from outside the US.  He had been to Lambeth ‘88 and ‘98.  In ‘88, the big issue was ordaining women to the episcopate.  He said that the Americans basically said:  “We’re going to do it anyway, we have the money and power, so you might as well approve it.”  The difference between ‘88 & ‘98 is that the Americans no longer had the votes and the Global South put a stop to American Theological Imperialism. 

What +Akinola and others are doing in not sharing communion is showing the importance and depth of the schism that TECUSA caused.  It would actually be wrong to say:  “We are out of communion with you because you no longer follow the Faith delivered to all of us, but we will share Holy Communion with you.”  That would show their first statement to be merely political posturing rather than the result of the schismatic acts of TECUSA.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

#4… I’d agree with you, Stuart, except that Akinola is explicit in saying that homosexuality is NOT something someone could be born with.  If all he wants to do is claim that there is an ideal order which the church should, in its declaration of holiness, describe as normative (e.g. heterosexual monogamous marriage with a resulting strong Christian family structure), then he doesn’t need to make the (implicitly Pelagian) claim that people couldn’t be born with conditions that make compliance with that norm hard for them.  In the same way that the church can and should declare alcoholism to be a broken state, a departure from God’s original creation; but to do so there is no need to claim that some people aren’t born with a condition that makes drunkenness hard for them to avoid (see post #5).

RE: “For a Christian to refuse to receive communion, not from, but along side of other Christians sends a resounding message.”

Yes it does.  It is the message that the New Testament refers to.

RE: “I am not sure it is the message that +Akinola, +Orombi and the GS want the rest of the Communion to hear.”

As a reasserter, it is precisely the correct message to send.  I am very happy that some of the Primates have done this and am pleased at the scriptural message that they are sending.

#7:  It was not until Sigmund Freud’s day that “homosexuality” as a noun was in our lexicon.  The notion of identity as a “born homosexual”, or a “born alcoholic” is a Western conceit.  Akinola does not accept the premise that your behavior (i.e. homosexual practices/activities) is your identity.  Obviously, no one would say “I don’t need to repent…you see, I have ______[fill in the blank] as an inborn identity”...if that statement included, say, pedophilia!!!
Yes, AA teaches that there is such a thing as a genetic predisposition to addiction.  However, the 12 steps of AA do NOT concern themselves with arguinng over whether you are born with the identity of an addict.  The 12 steps lay out the Gospel message of our helplessness to overcome sin and our abject need for a Savior.  As it is with addictive behavior (drinking, drugging) so it is with sexually sinful behavior (fornication, sodomy, incest, etc):  we have sinful behaviors from which to repent.  We cannot hide behind “God made me an addict; God made me a child-molester; God made me an adulterer”!  Homosexuals need the same thing as gossip:  the saving power of the Holy Spirit to convict, cleanse, and convert.

correction:  “...homosexuals need the same thing as gossips…”

I agree with #4, that #3 was overstating ++Akinola’s position. The doctrine of Creation sets forth the rightness (divine goodness) of Male/Female complementarity.  ++Akinola was not disagreeing with St. Augustine on original sin, nor do I think he would disagree with the statement: One is not born a slave to homosexuality, but one may be born with a stronger temptation than others toward the same-sex, and with certain environmental development, people often have SS attraction without ever having consciously decided to be that way.

For my part, I believe real change is possible. Even some Ivy League PhD’s think so too. That said, the percentage of those who would really like to change, and are long-term successful, isn’t very high. My sense from what I’ve learned is that it is a bit less than 50%, and even then it includes “relapses” for some, and persistent (but manageable) bi-sexual attraction for many.

That said, the Scriptures are still true: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful, he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will provide a way of escape…” I Cor. 10:13

“Akinola is explicit in saying that homosexuality is NOT something someone could be born with” But I think Akinola is using the definitional equation: “homosexuality = permanant slave to same-sex lifestyle”. He is taking severe exception to the pro-gay stance that certain people are born with the inevitable destiny of homosexuality. I still think Akinola would not disagree that some people can be born with higher inclinations to same-sex attraction (temptation) than others, even though he suspects environmental factors the most.

Whether homosexuality is genetic or acquired is irrelevant to the theology—unless you deny that we have freedom of choice, or deny that God has the power to enable us to overcome sinful urges.  Indeed, if “sin” is something we are unable to resist, with or without God’s help, it is not really sin, lacking any moral culpability.

Have you noticed that things which seem to represent order are said to be the result of chance or chaos and that things which seem out of order are part of God’s plan for diversity?

John Stamper,

I simply cannot believe that you can argue in this way in the year of our Lord 2007. How on earth (or in heaven) can you talk of God’s ‘creating’ or not ‘creating’ homosexuals without any consideration whatsoever of evolution?

Hi John S.  Nice to see you are still alive and kicking!  You’re a nice guy, but the issue that is of great interest to you—namely your belief that the evolution of life on earth, particularly humanity, renders most traditional Christianity probematic or impossible—is just not something I care to talk much about (largely because you and I have talked about it at great length on other T19 threads).  It’s of great interest to you, but not to me, since I don’t see anything strange about traditional creedal claims of God as creator and also belief in human evolution; and in this respect I am not much different from huge numbers of much deeper traditional Christian thinkers.  My guess is that if you put Bob Duncan, Ken Harmon, Paul Zahl, John Stott, Fitz Alison—and a bunch of equally thoughtful fellows from the Anglo-Catholic and Roman Catholic side—and a few other traditionalists like C.S. Lewis who don’t neatly fit into either evangelical or A-C camps—and asked them whether they believed in both a Creator God and human evolution they’d say yes to both and would not feel any particular dissonance either.

Perhaps, however, you will be able to get some other folks on this thread to talk to you about it.

John Scholasticus - homosexuality is a very low probability of being caused by genetics.  If you accept the idea of human evolution and that for the vast majority of the evolutionary period, those who became human (or were human) did not live in civilizations where sexual mores are imposed, then how do you posit that the genes that “cause” homosexuality were passed on?  For genes to show up in the next generation, they need to be passed on through sexual intercourse.  Since a person who had the genes for homosexaulity would not have had heterosexual sex, he or she would have had a much lower chance of passing on the necessary genetic material.  How then, is homosexuality passed on?

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Hi Cousin Vinnie.  I do come from a tradition that denies we have freedom of choice, in the sense you probably mean.  Luther wrote a book called “On the Bondage of the Will”—it was a famous dispute with Erasmus.  Luther was acting in a tradition that starts with St. Paul (e.g. Romans 7), continues through Augustine and his disputes with Pelagius, and was revived again with Luther (who regarded it as absolutely crucial to the Reformation program).  Luther’s view of the bound will was adopted by many subsequent thinkers, such as Calvin and all the early Anglicans (Cranmer, Hooker, Donne, etc.).  That view continues down to modern day Episcopal conservatives like Zahl and Bishop Fitz Alison.

I say all that just by way of explaining that it is possible to be a Christian and to have a very low view of human capacity for choice—there is a definite Christian tradition that takes that view.  There are also other views held by other Christians too, of course.

Hey CStan (#20)... just curious.  Who was your last post directed at?

I don’t often post on questions I know nothing about, but…

The question has been raised whether, since homosexuals are inherently non-reproductive, their occurrence would have been “selected out” if it were genetically determined.

As I understand it, some theorists have proposed that families that tend to produce genetically predisposed homosexuals also tend to produce hyper-reproductive siblings. Put another way, families that don’t produce genetically-predisposed homosexual offspring also produce reproductively sub-optimal heterosexual offspring.

Another, quite different argument is that natural communities in which a proportion were not involved in the breeding game were more successful than those other communities in which there was no such proportion; so that although the genetic predisposition certainly didn’t help those individuals to reproduce, their communities as a whole benefited from the fact that there was a non-reproductive element within them.

Obviously these are speculative theories (I don’t know how speculative); but unless they can be shown to be absurd, they do fatally undermine the argument that the incidence of predisposed homosexuals, because they are non-reproductive, cannot be genetically predisposed.

CPKS - an interesting theory in that it posits some “intelligence” guiding the genetic distrubition - we give a family a homosexual childe and a promiscious heterosexual child to make up for the fact that the homosexual child will not reproduce.  Does that theory discuss how the genetics are distributed that make a person homosexual or heterosexually hyperactive?  How makes the decision to give the homosexual/hyperactive heterosexual pair to a family?

From what I understand of the process, genetic material is shared between a father and mother and the genes are dominate, recessive or some mixture.  The genetic combination that produces heterosexuality would tend to be bred out of the race because that combination of genes would not be passed on.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

I am glad to see that the letter requesting the financial accounting written by the retired bishops has finally been answered.

One of their leaders said they have set aside over eight billion dollars to fight us

CPKS and Phil,
My understanding is that the genetic argument for homosexuality surviving natural evolution is that males tend to pass on more DNA than females (i.e. they can impregnate multiple women).  If that assumption is true, some geneticists hypothesize (drawing on Dawkins’ “selfish” gene) that the more male children are born to a specific mother, the less likely it is that a younger male’s sperm will be necessary to pass on specific genetic material.  Rather, a younger brother might be born without a natural “urge” to procreate in order to help raise the offspring of his older siblings.  Though apparently based on community studies of ants, this hypothesis explains the stereotypical “gay uncle” and possibly the “spinster aunt.” (no pun intended). 
Not sure that it helps shape the debate much, but those who are interested might check out Matt Ridley’s “The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns on Nature.”

#25 - then what is the mechanism behind this seemingly intelligent passing of genetic material?  If what you suggest is the case, then we would see a very strong correlation to birth order and homosexuality such that only 3rd or 4th or 5th sons are born with the homosexual genetic makeup.  I don’t know if this is the case.  Do you know of any research behind birth order and homosexuality?  It seems a logical conclusion to what you posit.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

#25: Yours sounds like a different (though also interesting) theory. The one I was half-remembering was that the propensity to produce homosexual male offspring was correlated with a propensity to produce more successfully reproductive female offspring. I don’t know whether Dawkins’s “selfish” gene myth really explains anything, but it certainly need not be invoked in this case. Any family that has this propensity would ex hypothesi enjoy greater reproductive success and thus propagate the propensity to the next generation.

#27: I see your point about birth order. I have never heard of a genetic theory that posited a non-random distribution of genetic characteristics to successive offspring, and would likewise be interested to know if anyone more knowledgeable has. A priori, this would seem to run counter to the principle of random mutation, which is pretty important both to biological evolutionary theories and to simulated genetic optimization algorithms.

Phil and CPKS (27 and 28),
I first heard about the birth-order hypothesis in “The Agile Gene” by Matt Ridley.  At pp. 160-161 he writes “By far the most reliable discovery about the causes of homosexuality in recent years is Ray Blanchard’s theory of the fraternal birth order.  In the mid-1990s Blanchard measured the number of elder brothers and sisters of gay men compared with the population average.  He found that gay men are more likely to have elder brothers (but not elder sisters) than either gay women or heterosexual men.  He has since confirmed this in 14 different samples from many different places.  For each extra older brother, a man’s probably of being gay rises by one-third.  (This does not mean that men with many elder brothers are bound to be gay:  an increase from, say 3 percent of the population to 4 percent is an increase of one-third.)”

Ridley’s overall argument is that the old nature vs. nurture debate is a false dichotomy.  He argues that environmental factors can turn genetic switches on or off AND that genetic predispositions can trigger environmental changes.  It’s an interesting theory, but, as a fairly pure scientist, he’s forced to skip over the concept of free will entirely. 
As a newbie on this board, I wanted to express my admiration and thanks for the excellent opinions and courteous tone.  It’s wonderfully refreshing!
Pax