Aaagghh!
Ok. So, far too much has been said by christians on this 'topic' (What?! it's PEOPLE!), but I do have one thought that I want to share.
First off - the reason i have been thinking a little bit about it is because, as some of you may know - I am likely headed off to seminary next year. Specifically, an episcopal seminary. But not an ordinairy episcopal seminary, but one where the rift of TEC (The Episcopal Church USA) and ACNA (the counter-TEC, re-aligned polity) is quite present-in-dialogue, AND where, if I am to attend (and maybe even one-day be ordained?!) I need to first get confirmed, which means I need to make a choice as to which 'denomination' to be confirmed in.
And this is where the 'issue' of homosexuality has arisen - since it is one of the prominent points of division between TEC and ACNA, and I have been investigating in my mind whose declarations on the 'issue' I think are more truthful. On the one hand I do feel like many priests and bishops in TEC patently ignore the fact that the Bible does seem to do the opposite of affirm homosexual practice qua homosexual practice (rather than as 'loving relationship' as the dialogue is often re-framed as within TEC). On the otherhand - the fact that ACNA is intentionally in communion with many provinces in the global south who are at least tacitly complicit with the very hateful, homophobic statements of the govenments alongside which they preside (I.e. Uganda, Nigeria, etc.)
What to do?!
Ultimately - a combination of factors (other theological problems with TEC, like, the de-emphasizing of a historical Resurrection, etc; the fact that if I chose my local TEC diocese, the bishop wouldn't let me attend Nashotah House (the seminary I hope to attend)) pushed me into ACNA, but along the way I had this thought, following the scattered fragments I have learned along the way (Foucault?) about the development of 'homosexuality' as an identity, as opposed to just a practice which one could partake in, even if one had a wife, family, etc (like it was in Rome):
If you take away from an understanding of the humans, of the self, the notion that we are created beings, that we are caused beings, and that - and now we move into the realm of the Christian - we bear the image of God, and are of such worth that God willingly died to re-unite with us (all of which were indeed stripped from the what-we-now-call anthropology held by the average western man during the great secularization that began in the mid 19th century.), what is the next-deepest level of experience? That is, if a meta-physical understanding is pulled, what then remains as the most powerful, primal thing we experience? why - our desires of course?! All humans experience the overwhelming power of our primal desires: to eat, to reproduce, etc, and these forces do verily shape a large portion of the societies that we observe and construct. Here then is a foundation. And so it makes sense that when variations of desire are present - that is, the fact that around 1 in 10 people feel sexual attraction to the same sex - the desires are already in the realm of 'Identity', and so it add's up, quite logically, that in today's world we don't conceive of humans with homosexual desires, but rather - homosexuals, as a noun, since Identity is grounded and explained by our desires.
Right? I guess I just mean - the math of it makes sense.
As far as right/wrong, can-you-be-gay-and-a-bishop-as-well, etc. I am very reticent to weigh in since any public words cannot be used for good, i don't reckon. That said, this is a 'living room', and not a forum, and so I shall say just this: When I imagine living on the New Earth, with a resurrected body, I don't imagine my friends that in this life 'are' gay (quotation marks - not because it is a choice or any of those other foolish evangelical postulations, merely that 'are' is a form of 'is' which is an ontological statement, which, considering my previous argument's is only how we talk about homosexuality (as Identity) in the last 150 years, and I want to leave that part of it open to debate) will still be so in the next life. Now, obviously it is very dangerous to make declarative statements about today based on speculations of a supra-physical future (!), indeed, sexual desire may be entirely absorbed into other forms of love in the New Jerusalem, but since it is the case that our pre-lapsarian bodies had genitals and sexual differentiation, it may be the case that it still exists somehow (although - maybe not? since we will neither 'marry nor be given in marriage', which would definitely have conjugal consequences) in the hereafter. Oh man. I realize that my intial idea here (gay people won't be gay in heaven) might be a bit more problematic than i realized. shoot.
Ok, but my first point still stands - that homosexuality as identity is both new and understandable.
Ok, I don't know if i have actually contributed anything at all? Have I already mis-spoken so quickly and in so doing injured the hearts of my gay brothers and sisters? Lord have mercy, I hope not.
05/16/11 UPDATE: apparantly some other people are musing along similiar lines: http://tgcreviews.com/reviews/the-end-of-sexual-identity/
