An Evangelical who writes on same-sex orientation must be brief and comprehensive at the same time.  Brief, because there is little patience that anything useful or new can be said on the subject.  But comprehensive too, because they will attract motivated criticism from a range of perspectives.  This outline chapter is the brief version of the larger, more comprehensive argument of this book.

There is, though, something more important than just being brief and comprehensive.  To be genuinely Evangelical, an answer must be illuminating.  It must show why we have had certain difficulties, why they seemed intractable for so long, and why they can now be resolved.  To do so, it has to present a clearly more biblical understanding of the issues than we have had.  And it must be an answer for literally everyone.

§1.a.  Letters to various readers

This book is addressed to a range of different readers, from LGBT Christians to Evangelical academics and leaders, and beyond these narrow groups to anybody curious or alarmed about the intersection of same-sex orientation and Evangelicalism.  It is written for a broad audience, and relies on as little assumed knowledge as possible.  I will begin by welcoming each group and responding to some of their obvious concerns.

I assume, on the one hand, an Evangelical audience.  An intelligent Christian reader who wants to know and do what is right, whether or not it is popular, but who sees practical conflicts between the biblical condemnations of same-sex relations, our expectation of mandatory lifelong celibacy as a response to same-sex orientation, and the consequent charge, in public life, of discrimination against same-sex oriented people.  I will especially address Evangelical leaders and academics, who are expected to speak publicly on this subject, and who comprise the largest group of subject matter experts on this issue.

But I also assume, on the other hand, an LGBTQ audience, whether Evangelical or not, who expects the story of their experience of life and church to be faithfully told, and will not and should not be content to be treated as remote, impersonal, or mostly political problems.  If they are Evangelicals, they will also recognize just what a feisty puzzle they pose for Evangelical theology and biblical interpretation, and will want this puzzle solved.  I focus primarily on the L and G of LGBT, that is, on permanent and exclusive same-sex orientation, whether lesbian or gay.  This is for three main reasons: because same sex orientation poses our sharpest theological challenges; because it probably needs to be settled before queerness, bisexuality, and transgender can be sensibly thought about anyway; and because it offers a sensible pathway to understanding those other experiences.  But I will leave that for an appendix (§7.b).

Many LGBTQs, like many heterosexuals, will be committed to sexual liberation in society and see the primary issues as freedom from control, whether that control is religious, political, or of any other kind.  I think in the tradition of Locke that Christians should see liberal and democratic freedoms as substantially Christian.  But I think that Evangelicals will support a sexual ethic in which love, sex, and the public commitment of marriage are never separated, and this will seem, in popular categories, to be in many ways a traditional ethic even if it applies as much to LGBTQs as to others.

This book requires a content warning for LGBTQ readers, because it takes the biblical condemnations of same-sex relations at full force in order to best understand the disconnect this creates with our understanding of same-sex orientation.  This may be difficult material for some who’ve had bad experiences with Christian schools or churches; if that’s you, I invite you to look after yourself for now, and check back if and when you later may be ready to address these questions.

This book may be equally difficult reading for same-sex oriented Evangelicals who are committed to celibacy or who have entered into mixed-orientation marriages.  It argues that the enormous sacrifices you have made are not necessary, and so, it may seem like precisely the kind of temptation you have trained your hearts and minds to guard against.  For you also, this may not be the right time to dig into these questions.  I invite you, just as much, to look after yourself for now, and check back only if and when you feel you’re ready.

§1.b.  What is same-sex orientation?

We can define same-sex orientation with a five-point acronym.  Same sex orientation is a T) total inversion of desire; it is having same-sex attraction instead of heterosexual attraction.  It occurs U) universally across human societies.  It consists of L) loving and romantic attraction, as well as sexual attraction.  It is I) involuntary not chosen, and P) permanent not changeable.

Same-sex orientation, under this definition, affects about one in sixty-five people (see the appendix §7.c, Statistics).  For the present population of the world, that means more than 100 million people.

Some Evangelicals treat orientation as merely the rationalisation of same-sex desires.  However, many same-sex attracted Evangelicals who are committed to a traditional view of marriage, who pursue celibacy or mixed-orientation marriages, and who consequently are not rationalising anything, still describe this experience of orientation.

This is the phenomenon that causes the most difficulty for Evangelicals in both theory and practice.  It differs in important ways from sexual behaviours, lifestyles, or choices.  It differs from the more common phenomenon of bisexuality.  It has no necessary connection with sexual liberation, modern individualism, or LGBT political movements, having preceded all these things.  It has no necessary connection with distinctly modern worldviews or ideologies.  It would exist just as much without them and in fact did so.

§1.c.  What problems does this pose to Evangelicals?

Same-sex orientation creates at least seven major problems for Evangelicals.  These are: 1) acknowledging it at all in some cases, 2) defending mandatory lifelong celibacy as our default response, 3) refuting the public charge of discrimination over this response and others, 4) explaining what moral problems accompany same-sex marriages in public life, 5) defending either traditional or revisionist understandings of scripture, 6) maintaining Christian communion when differences arise over these problems, and 7) preventing these issues from undermining Christian mission through the public presumption of bigotry and homophobia in western societies, or by pitting ‘decadent’ first world nations – those who take account of these issues – against other nations who do not, or who have not yet had to.

Sometimes Evangelicals avoid the issue of orientation by talking about ‘practices’, ‘lifestyles’, ‘desires’, or ‘temptations’ instead.  Even when we intend to take account of orientation, we may not notice that we are implicitly ignoring it.  Evangelicals who appeal to ‘historical’ or ‘global’ Christian ethics to establish normative default positions, implicitly focus on times and places when orientation was or is not understood, or where same-sex marriages were or are still an economic impossibility for most people.  It’s no help longing for those times and places in which orientation was not understood, could practically be ignored, and did not pose urgent moral challenges.  We can’t ignore the moral challenges it poses to us now.

The default Evangelical response to same-sex orientation is mandatory lifelong celibacy, where celibacy means not just chastity, but the commitment not to marry.  Celibacy in scripture and in orthodox tradition is always voluntary and can never be an obligation, let alone a lifelong obligation that falls upon a random subset of all people.  That Evangelicals today require mandatory celibacy can be obscured by saying they can still marry heterosexually, or appealing to Christian celibacy as a long-standing tradition with certain spiritual and practical advantages that we find in the New Testament.  However, a marriage not grounded in sexual and romantic attraction is not itself the biblical ideal.  And comparing mandatory celibacy with a tradition of voluntary celibacy misses the most important distinction between the two.

Discrimination can be morally justified, but we have struggled to defend this.  Part of the problem is that we expect mandatory lifelong celibacy from a randomly-selected group of people, who usually have to face up to this in early adolescence.

So, we presently discriminate over same-sex orientation, by requiring mandatory lifelong celibacy.  We think the prohibitions of same sex relations in scripture require this response.  If the modern understanding of orientation makes this discrimination over innate qualities, we say the discrimination is morally justified.  But then, of course, we must publicly justify it, and that has been our most apparent difficulty.

Our central moral challenge is that this appears to be a textbook case of discrimination.  It is discrimination to treat some people worse than others, to their detriment, because of an innate quality.  If some-sex-orientation is permanent and involuntary then it is an innate quality.  This is not just a social and legal concern, nor merely a moral or pastoral issue.  It is a biblical and theological problem.

To most Evangelicals, these problems seem serious enough to deserve pastoral and ethical attention, but not so serious that they could overcome the strength of the case against same-sex relations, which must necessarily include same-sex marriages.  Some of us try to deny orientation outright, and most see no way that it could ever change anything.  Others look for ways to live steadfastly with a public perception of discrimination for the sake of faithfulness to God.  But without a refutation of the charge of discrimination, this discredits the gospel in practice.  Can we acknowledge orientation and still demonstrate that we – and God, and scripture – do not discriminate on that basis?

§1.d.  The argument of this book, in outline

Our four main chapters (§2–5) can be quickly summarised.  Evangelicals are quite correct to see the Bible’s prohibitions of same-sex relations as absolute and categorical.  The statement and their rationales fall into four broad topic areas, proceeding from the most universal to the most specifically Evangelical.  These are the arguments from (§2) nature; (§3) morals; (§4) marriage; and (§5) theology.  To many of us they appear as immoveable pillars.  They are individually strong, so that it doesn’t seem like a few tricky questions here or there would ever change even one of them.  And they seem mutually reinforcing, so that if one ever did seem to wobble, the others would hold it securely in place.  If any argument seems unclear or uncertain, we can always say “yeah, but what about”, and switch to any of a lengthy list of others that have no such difficulties.

Or can we?  Our problems appear when we try to make this apply to a same-sex marriage between same-sex oriented people.  What seemed like pillars when we could ignore orientation and marriage now seem like dominoes when we must face it.  Orientation happens ‘naturally’ – as we ‘naturally’ use that term – to a certain proportion of all people.  The morals are hard to explain publicly, and that itself must be explained if they are also supposed to be self-evident, as a great many of us believe.  Same-sex marriage seems to resolve rather than to compound the problems associated with same-sex relations and same-sex desires, just as heterosexual marriage does for heterosexual relations and desires.

We fall back to talking about ideologies or worldviews, when this is supposed to be a simple moral issue.  Specifically religious convictions about creation and salvation are only useful with people who share these convictions.  But even among Christians, arguing from creation and fall raises complicating questions that are often instinctively avoided, especially in public life.  And we might mask rather than resolve unanswered moral problems by retreating into weighty sounding fields of expertise when challenged, as may be thought to occur with arguments from natural law or total depravity.

In this book, we will see why these arguments individually fail when applied to orientation and marriage, and how each domino in turn topples the next.  We will see why the biblical condemnations work strongly and sensibly in scripture, in history, and in life today – and why their strength and sense completely vanishes when we have to consider same-sex marriage as an Evangelical response to same-sex orientation.  This will explain why we have the problems we do with same-sex orientation, and how they all resolve themselves, like a knot unsnarling.

In the absence of these moral condemnations, same-sex marriages appear closer to the biblical ideal of marriage than several kinds of unions God acknowledged as marriage in scripture.  If he recognized and celebrated those, then he recognises and celebrates these.  This, we will see, resolves the biblical problem of mandatory lifelong celibacy, the moral and theological problems of discrimination over innate qualities, and the practical problem of justifying the biblical prohibitions in the case of same-sex orientation.

• §2.  Nature.  a) Language.  b) Observations.  c) (Law?)
• §3.  Morals.  a) Scripture.  b) Romans.  c) Reasons.
• §4.  Marriage.  a) Ideals.  b) Exceptions.  c) Meaning.  d) (Hierarchy?)
• §5.  Theology.  a) Genesis.  b) Creation.  c) Fall.  d) Purpose.

For each of these four areas we will ask two summary questions: Firstly, how does this argument work in Evangelicalism when we don’t consider same-sex orientation and same-sex marriage, together?  And, secondly, how does it work when we do?  As we will see, the first question implicitly covers scripture and history, in which orientation was not, for several reasons, considered.  The second question covers Christian public life today, at least in the context of western, pluralist, liberal democracies, where orientation is an unavoidable question.  This is the context in which I am writing, though I will now and then consider historical and global perspectives as well.

§1.e.  Scenarios and questions for discussion

Many common situations confront Evangelicals with pointy questions about same-sex orientation.  In this optional chapter, three scenarios are given, with attached discussion questions, for each of our seven main problem areas.  Think of the teenagers facing lifelong celibacy through no choice of their own – and perhaps also being treated as unusually shameful people.  The young leader in your church who was convinced they had to change their orientation, or who married heterosexually thinking it would help.  The lesbian parents who bring their kids to your church having heard it was ‘welcoming.’  The angry Christian parents clashing over the attitudes and ideas to which their children are being exposed.  The denominational leaders trying to navigate legal compliance and freedom of conscience.  A set of answers, from this book’s perspective, can be found in the conclusion (§6.c).

The first pillar of the Evangelical argument against same-sex relations is nature.  This is largely the conviction that heterosexual relations are natural and same-sex relations are correspondingly unnatural.  We’ll begin by considering how nature language is used to make moral arguments, and whether Christian scripture suggests that we should (§2.a), what kinds of observations of the world around us seem to support moral claims about same-sex relations (§2.b), and then (optionally) whether this offers a basis for civil laws, or, perhaps for a secular form of natural law based on evident natural goods (§2.c).

When we ask about ‘nature’, we are asking if there is a system of morals that is accessible to everybody through their perception of the world around them and their own rational being.  Some Evangelicals hope such a system can offer a basis for public laws that accord with Christian moral values, while also finding common moral ground with people who have no commitment to Christianity.  I’ll use the term ‘simple nature’ to mean the external, observable, material world, apart from any religious or philosophical ideas about it.  Of course, we are never perfectly objective, and we never have the God’s-eye point of view.  However, there are many things that we can point to and say, “look at that,” and expect anybody to see it.  This kind of ‘simple nature’ is our common ground in a plural and global society.  If simple nature gives us morals then they should be universal.

The point of looking first at ‘simple nature’ is to see how much of it stands on its own, and which of its arguments can be used in arguments from morals, marriage, and theology in later chapters.  Our chapters will build in this way, helping us avoid the tendency to keep saying “yeah, but what about that other thing” and bouncing between unresolved issues until everyone’s patience runs out.

Of course, when Evangelicals use nature language we may mean much more than just our common experience of the visible world.  We might mean, among other things, morals implicit in nature’s order, God’s design in creation, or a more explicitly theological concept of natural law in which ethics are all based on the created or evident purposes which different kinds of things possess.  But we will look at these larger questions in later chapters.  First, let’s look at what pretty much anyone would agree with.

§2.a.  What do we mean by ‘natural’?

The major reason Evangelicals believe same-sex relations are unnatural is that both male and female same-sex relations are described in this exact way in the New Testament’s main passage on same-sex relations.  These terms could have a range of meanings, though, and all four of our major chapters (§2–5) will consider at least some of them.

• Does ‘natural’ mean something we can see just by looking at the world around us?
• Is ‘unnatural’ just a way of saying super-immoral or twisted?  Is it a euphemism that avoids having to name immoral acts?
• Does ‘natural’ mean according to God’s purposes in creation?  For example, for sexuality and marriage.
• Does ‘natural’ mean an original, good creation – and so, specifically not the observable world around us?  Does ‘unnatural’ in fact exemplify our fallen nature?

Many Evangelicals will think it means all of these things, at least in some respects.  And we will think that when we say something is natural or unnatural, we really mean it is moral or immoral.  We’re saying how human beings should or should not behave, based on their nature, especially their rational nature, and the nature of the world around them.  We typically think of the world in two main ways: either through a secular or religious lens.  A secular lens is not automatically anti-religious.  ‘Secular’ is an originally religious term, meaning ‘things of this world’ or this ‘age’.  But when ‘secular’ humanism was so named to distinguish it from the earlier Christian humanism, the term ‘secular’ was adopted by many Christian writers to denote their opponents.  There are four essentially secular concerns with our use of nature language:

1. The terms ‘nature’ and ‘natural’ can be slippery and ambiguous.
2. Natural facts only give us moral conclusions when we add them to moral principles, and those principles don’t come from natural facts.

Also, statements about nature are generalisations, which gives them a double weakness:

3. Generalisations are much more abstract than statements about individuals and concrete situations, and this diminishes their moral force.
4. Life’s complexity means that many generalisations have exceptions or special cases.

There are also two specifically Evangelical questions we can ask about how we understand nature language.  Firstly, does scripture tell us there is moral knowledge in the world around us, or what that knowledge is, or that ‘nature’ is what scripture defines it to be – and would that ever overrule what we observe around us?  Secondly, does it say we come into the world with natural moral knowledge, or natural moral reason that gives us the knowledge?  Does it teach a ‘natural law’ that should be the basis for all human law?

§2.b.  What morals can be seen in nature?

If morals are evident in nature, can we make a list of these natural morals that relate to same-sex relations?

Most obviously, we can see that human life depends on heterosexual reproduction for its continuing existence.  Most people are unambiguously men or women.  Men and women have complementary anatomy that lets us together have children.  While human beings and many other higher species exhibit same-sex behaviour, that is not how any of us reproduce.  And while a range of reproductive technologies are now available, they mostly just repackage goods and services that male and female bodies offer naturally.  If we value human life continuing (a moral value), and heterosexual reproduction is how that occurs (a natural fact), then heterosexual reproduction is a moral good (a moral conclusion).

This is also true for human societies, though in a more complex way.  Any group of people needs a stable population for resilience against disease, disaster, predation, invasion, and other threats to their existence.  Stability is equally required for progress: for commerce, law, education, medicine, and government to build from one generation to the next.  And while this is all true today, of course, it was a much more pressing concern in historical times, where procreation was more dangerous and less certain, yet societies and individuals depended on it absolutely for security, well-being, and often just their bare survival.  To neglect procreation and child-rearing was in those situations as betrayal of the urgent needs of your family, tribe, and nation.  The needs of the many very much outweighed the needs of the few, and our customs in history often reflected this.

However, the general good of procreation does not mean every individual has an obligation to reproduce.  At least, not in modern western life where our individual and collective security does not depend upon it.  It is necessary that a certain minimal number of us do, which is to say, it is a collective imperative rather than an individual imperative.  But the 1–2% of the population that are same-sex oriented will not doom us to extinction if they all get same-sex married.  The New Testament comes out especially strongly against the idea that all people must reproduce.  It values and in some cases prefers voluntary celibacy.

As a brief and positive aside we can note that, compared to other forms of sex outside marriage, same-sex relations have the moral advantage that they do not expose anyone to the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth, nor create new life without committed parents.

Granting that reproduction is a collective moral value, then, a bundle of natural facts can tell us what makes reproduction and child-raising more effective, both for individuals and for societies.  When comparing heterosexual families, we can note that children do better when raised by their biological parents.  It might also be better for any child to be raised by their own biological mother and father, but we don’t in general treat this as something to be legislated.  Among heterosexual parents, we don’t regard adoption, single parenting, or blended families as all immoral for that reason.  Having parents who love each other will be one of the factors in good parenting, and that applies equally often to same-sex marriages if they are premised on orientation.  If single parenting is acceptable, then gay parenting, which has has twice the care-givers (two) for the same number of gender models (one), would on those grounds be preferable as well.

However, even if there are small statistical differences between different types of families, few of us argue that this should affect individual liberties under law.  Rather, we generally hold that individuals and societies must take responsibility, make good choices, and work to improve outcomes.

Insofar as sexual and romantic bonding in marriage is seen as part of its natural furniture, we must note that this should only be expected in a same-sex marriage if a person is same-sex oriented or bisexual, at least where that includes being bi-romantic.  We can also observe that same-sex orientation has the disadvantage that it prevents a person having a sexual and romantic bond in the same relationship in which they bear their children by natural means.  In this respect it is comparable to a physical disability like infertility, since 1) it is an innate quality; 2) same-sex oriented people may be as likely as any other people to want to have children, even if they choose love when necessity forces a choice between one and the other; and 3) like infertility or any other disability, same-sex orientation is not morally culpable (though see §5.c for some Evangelicals who think otherwise).

Complementing the practicalities of heterosexual reproduction, the sexual part of reproduction is for most of us quite notably enjoyable and desirable.  Most people prize good life partners and healthy families above all else.  However natural this seems, though, it is premised on heterosexual attraction.  A heterosexual marriage is not a wholly natural good if heterosexual attraction is entirely missing because of same-sex orientation.  We are ordinarily loath to suggest people marry in the absence of romantic and sexual attraction, as happens when same-sex orientated people default to heterosexual marriages.

The general desirability of sex, love, bonding, and reproduction naturally affects the way we live.  Our biology, our anatomy, and the social dance of finding a partner will strongly suggest certain ways to dress and act in order to attract one.  Every culture will have customs, traditions, and expectations of these kinds, directed to these ends.  Men and women will compete among themselves to better meet these expectations and respect those who do so best.  We might call much of this behaviour masculinity and femininity, believe it is the most natural behaviour there is, and think that same-sex relationships will necessarily disrupt it.  Some of that worry comes from thinking of gay men are effeminate or that lesbians are tomboys.  Early research into same sex attraction focused very much on these kind of issues.  But with greater LGBT visibility, once-prominent stereotypes have disappeared as any kind of general rule.  If a person is constitutionally unsuited to a heterosexual marriage through the entire absence of sexual and romantic desire for the opposite sex, there’s no reason to apply to them a set of social rules that presuppose heterosexual attraction.  There was such reason in historical times when orientation was not recognised in the same way, and reproducing was something like a moral obligation – but more on that later (see §4.a, History).

In addition to these arguments from reproduction, natural observations can also be made from health or revulsion.  Same-sex relations are unhealthy when promiscuous or unfaithful, though that is also true of similar heterosexual relations.  More importantly, though, anal intercourse is more prone to infection or disease than vaginal intercourse.  The concern that same-sex relations are risky or unhealthy also contributes to the sense that they are unnatural.  This might be argued in terms of ‘design’, whether meaning God’s good creation, the fundamentally heterosexual natural order described above, or the way that evolution selects for success in heterosexual reproduction above any other factor.

It is predictable that healthy functioning would be damaged by misuse.  It may seem that ‘natural’ relations keep us safe from natural threats.  Still, anal intercourse is by no means unique to same-sex relationships, so that in practice it is up to individual couples, whether heterosexuals or same-sex male couples, to decide about those risks or how to mitigate them, and lesbian couples have no such risks at all.  Same-sex relations have sometimes been characterised by extreme promiscuity, with a range of infections and diseases following.  But faithfully exclusive couples – which are of course the whole-point of same-sex marriages – are no more prone to sexually transmitted diseases than similarly faithful heterosexual couples.

Those who feel revulsion at same-sex relations – especially anal intercourse – may see this as a natural emotion, a healthy reaction to an ‘unnatural’ practice.  They might say this is a rational and principled disgust, to distinguish it from merely emotional bigotry or prejudice.  However, it is much easier to make this argument in the absence of any understanding of same-sex orientation, since the person involved will be believed to be naturally heterosexual and so, to have deliberately perverted that ‘natural state’ for no possible good reason beyond the pursuit of novelty or pleasure.  As with the other arguments from simple nature, things change if we acknowledge orientation.

The arguments above have all asked whether same-sex relations should be considered ‘unnatural’.  But there is, of course, a contrary argument that same-sex orientation itself occurs ‘naturally’.  That is to say, we observe it happening to a certain seemingly constant proportion of people, something like 1–2% of the population (see §7.c, Statistics).  It is thus a part of human nature insofar as ‘simple nature’ is concerned, that is, if human nature is something that we can observe in the world.  If so, this is an entirely ‘natural’ situation within nature itself.  Heterosexual marriages are not so good for some people as they are for others, because some people lack the heterosexual attraction that marriages ought to be built upon.

✻ ✻ ✻

These are the major arguments against same-sex relations based on ‘simple nature’.  We will consider more theological concepts of ‘nature’ when we consider nature as creation (§5.b).

Simple nature is the first of our four dominoes.  It falls over if the arguments that work for same-sex relations in other contexts can’t be made to work for the combined case of same-sex orientation and same-sex marriage.  In assessing each of these dominoes, we will return to the two summary questions that we will be asking throughout: Firstly, how does the argument from simple nature work in Evangelicalism when we don’t consider same-sex orientation and marriage?  We can only answer this, so far, for the subset of natural arguments that are explicitly secular.

If we don’t account for orientation, we will implicitly assume everybody is basically heterosexual, having by nature the same kinds of romantic and sexual desires.  If society depends on reproduction for individual and societal wellbeing, the self-evident goodness of these desires will be reinforced by those interests.  Since all men and all women will be competing for the same basic things, masculinity and femininity will also be generally agreed.  If society is highly dependent on reproduction for individual and societal wellbeing, these desires will seem essential to our collective well-being, a part of our responsibility to each other.  Deviations will be understood as personal choices which oppose our common good.  These patterns of behaviour will be seen as somewhere between senseless and revolting, as individuals foolishly trading wellbeing and responsibility for pleasure.

If we don’t account for same-sex marriage, then we’ll think of same-sex relationships as innately transient and uncommitted, perhaps just seeking novelty or pleasure rather than acting out of love.  This will reinforce the perception that they are more sexually than romantically driven, or that same-sex relations are intrinsically promiscuous in a way that heterosexual relationships are not.

But now, how does the argument from simple nature work in Evangelicalism when we do consider same-sex orientation and marriage?  Any arguments which presupposed that heterosexuality was universal must be reworked or abandoned, and likewise those which treated same-sex relations as essentially promiscuous or individualistic.

This second question necessarily informs how Christians live and work in pluralist liberal democracies.  Appealing to tradition our the ‘global church’ – say, to a concept of marriage “everybody believed until five minutes ago” – implicitly ducks the question of orientation.  It ignores the recent discovery of orientation that is the source of the problems that we are discussing (§1.c).

More importantly, in a liberal democracy, any response to the charge of discrimination must begin with a persuasive refutation of that charge.  We have not succeeded in doing so, very largely because we have not come to terms with orientation, nor found publicly persuasive moral problems with same-sex marriages.  Despite Paul’s use of the word ‘unnatural’ in Romans, arguments from simple nature don’t get past orientation as a natural phenomenon, or same-sex marriage as a response to it.

§2.c.  Does nature give us objective natural goods?

(To be added.)

The second pillar of the Evangelical argument against same-sex marriage is built upon human morality in general, and then Christian morality in particular.  Once again, we’re dealing with a topic that is a matter of direct and ordinary perception, since we all seem to have a moral faculty.  Just as I considered ‘simple nature,’ meaning facts anybody can see, we’ll focus here on ‘simple morality’, meaning morals we think any normal person should agree with.  We will consider the moral convictions that we find in scripture as morals that the authors meant to be self-evident.  For Christians, these morals also have a theological dimension, and build directly upon scriptural ideas of love, equality, and more.  But Christian morals that rely on larger theological structures will be considered in the subsequent chapters on marriage and theology (§4, §5).

So, we will want to know what ‘simple morals’ appear in Christian scripture, or seem to underlie its condemnations of same-sex relations.  We will:

• review the references to same-sex relations in Christian scripture as a whole (§3.a),
• consider in detail the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans (§3.b), then
• try and draw out the reasoning we find in these passages, both on their own and in light of what contemporaries said on the same subjects and with the same kind of language (§3.c).

§3.a.  Does scripture condemn same-sex relations?

Scripture contains a sexual ethic that ranges from outward actions to inward desires.  Seven main passages refer to same-sex relations directly, and a few others may well allude to the topic.  All the clear references are strongly negative, although a few biblical figures seem suggestively affectionate, and it is often remarked that Jesus himself said nothing about the subject.  This overall picture can be quickly summarised.

Firstly, the Old Testament contains two horror stories of threatened male rape by large groups.  In each case the purpose of the story is to illustrate the moral breakdown of society.  There are also a smaller number of more disputed references to same-sex rape or prostitution.  None of this first group of passages is relevant to same-sex marriages, or even to lasting and consensual relationships of any kind.  Accordingly, these do not feature much in contemporary discussions of the subject.

Next, Israel’s legal code prescribes a death penalty for same-sex relations between men, putting this on the same level as murder, adultery, bestiality, and rape, among twenty-something other capital crimes in the Jewish Law.  It calls them abominable, and says Israel is to be separate from these practices, which characterised the surrounding nations, and which attracted and deserved God’s judgement.

On the other hand, the Old Testament also contains the best of several proposed examples of same sex relationships in scripture, that of David and Jonathan.  But some of the effusive declarations of affection come in a funeral oration full of sweeping overstatements, and none of the accounts necessarily go beyond men who faced death together being soul mates.  David was notoriously capable of desiring women, so same-sex orientation would not have been his motivation.  More importantly, though, narratives aren’t morally prescriptive in the way explicit laws and moral exhortations are.  So, while same-sex oriented people would have existed in biblical times, neither this story nor any others appear to describe them as such.

This brings us to the New Testament.  Arguments for same-sex relations often say that we must pit some parts of scripture or theology against others.  For example, we might argue that scripture tends over time towards inclusion, pointing to gentiles, women, and slaves as examples.  Arguments of this kind set the Old Testament, or God’s judgement, or early Christian history, or the Apostle Paul, or Christian faithfulness on one side of an historical division, then sets the New Testament, or God’s love, or later church history, or Jesus himself, or love for our neighbours on the other side.  This usually asserts a contradiction somewhere within Christian faith, and not just at the level of practice or culture.

However, the kinds of progress or internal tension that can be seen in scripture on other issues are entirely absent in the case of same-sex relations, where scripture is neither balancing competing moral concerns nor developing them in new ways over time, nor in response to revelation.  In the absence of internal development, an argument of this kind would need to say that the modern discovery of orientation means that the same biblical principles apply in a different way to a new situation.  Which, of course, is what this present book is saying.

For Greek-speaking Jews and Christians in the first century the Old Testament laws for sexual immorality were summed up in the Greek umbrella term porneia.  Jesus refers to porneia in the gospels, so we cannot say that he “never mentioned homosexuality,” at least where porneia is understood to include any sexual behaviour condemned in the Old Testament.  This term appears in New Testament vice lists, and is always non-negotiably wrong.

Both idolatry and sexual immorality are seen by Jews and Christians in New Testament times as fundamental points of difference with gentiles, that is to say, with all non-Jewish people.  While the New Testament does not expect non-Jewish Christians to obey all or even most of Israel’s laws, the rejection of idolatry and sexual immorality continues to be a matter of basic self-identity.  There is no coherent position that says same-sex relations are sexual immorality in God’s sight and that Christians may engage in them.  This book argues that marriage, as a response to orientation, resolves this immorality, and does so in God’s own mind.

Next, two vice lists in the New Testament use a Greek word that was translated ‘homosexuals’ in some twentieth century translations (arsenokoitēs).  In one case it is accompanied by a term referring to ‘soft’ men (malakos).  More recently the terms have together been translated ‘homosexuals’ on the supposition that they jointly mean the active and passive partners in same-sex intercourse.  The translation ‘homosexuals’ made some sense when homosexuality was widely thought of as a behaviour and not as an orientation.  But because The word is now understood principally as orientation, it is a bad translation and should be avoided.

Paul’s uses of the word arsenokoitēs are its first occurrences in all recorded literature, so we can’t define the term from earlier usage.  However, there are four good reasons for thinking that arsenokoitēs must mean something like “men who have sex with men.”.

Firstly, the passages refer to something completely immoral from a Jewish perspective.  The passage in 1 Timothy refers to things condemned in the Old Testament law and follows the order of the Ten Commandments.  Arsenokoitēs appears between adultery and theft, the seventh and eighth commandments as Evangelicals usually count them, so it should be understood as an elaboration of one broad category or the other, either sexual immorality or (possibly) exploitation.

Secondly, we know of two dozen other Ancient Greek words ending in -koitēs, spread across 1,600 years of writing.  Half of them predate Paul, while those that come later are assembled in the same way as the earlier ones to mean “where or with whom someone sleeps.”  Here ‘sleeping with’ can be just as much a euphemism as it is today.  In English, we can add –phobia to a word and others would instantly know that we meant a condition of aversion to that kind of thing; this construction works like that.  Sleeping among men, say in the male quarters, would not appear in a sin list.  But ‘sleeping’ with men, like ‘sleeping’ with one’s slaves or with one’s mother, would certainly do so, at least for people who respected Old Testament law.

Thirdly, the words arsenos and koitēn appear together in both the condemnations of same-sex relations in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, adjacently in one case, and a few words apart in the other.  In these passages, arsenos and koitēn together translate the Hebrew phrase mishav zakur, “lying with a male.”  This suggests an obvious source for Paul’s newly recorded term, which first appears among people who know those passages and, if they were like Paul in the New Testament, avoided the ordinary Greek language for same-sex relations.

And fourthly, if we run through the fifteen occurrences of the term in the 200 years up to 250 CE, we find: Most just appear in sin lists without context, often quoting Paul in 1 Cor 6.  However, the half dozen that add other context refer to it as a very great sin, often grouping it with sexual sins like fornication and adultery, and in several cases referring explicitly to same-sex intercourse.  One text groups this term with violent offenders (thieves?), but that is not inconsistent with prevailing same-sex practices.  Another text from the 300s explicitly contrasts it with thieves, suggesting the terms were not confusable in some contexts.  So, on balance, early references see it as a serious sexual sin.

These four reasons together leave no meaningful alternative to translating arsenokoitēs as something like “man-bedders.”  The term malakos can refer to luxury or effeminacy, and is paired with terms for sexual immorality, including arsenokoitēs, in other early sources.  Being used together with the same term suggests a similar pairing here.  But this is not as clear as the meaning of arsenokoitēs alone.

While it is thus unambiguous that same-sex relations are condemned in these passages, and condemned specifically as sexual immorality, there is little to suggest why, as these statements do not give supporting reasons.  For anything like that we must turn to Paul’s letter to the Romans (§3.b), and then compare these passages with the rationales we find there and in other contemporary writing (§3.c).

§3.b.  What is Paul saying in Romans 1?

When the New Testament Apostle Paul writes to the church in Rome, he makes an extended argument about the moral corruption of Roman society, using a stock Jewish argument that the worship of idols gives rise to sexual and social immorality, of which the Wisdom of Solomon gives an earlier example.  Paul uses same-sex relations as the definitive proof of Greco-Roman depravity.  This is by far the most significant reference because it occurs in an extended argument, and calls both male and female same-sex relations unnatural.

There are two broad ways of reading Romans, especially its early chapters.  As the most theological of the New Testament letters, it has often been read as a kind of textbook on the Christian gospel.  But while it covers a lot of theology it is still, like all of Paul’s letters, an intervention in a certain local church’s problems.  In this case, the problem is an ethnic dispute between Jewish and non-Jewish Christians in which each believe they are superior to the other.  Here I will contrast a ‘textbook’ reading with an ‘intervention’ reading.

In the Textbook view, Paul opens his theology with a statement of the problem to which the gospel the answer, the being the depth and breadth of human sin.  It thus describes all people, and offers a grim anthropology.  In Evangelical writing, passages in Romans 1–3 are often used as simple proof-texts for universal human depravity.

In the Intervention view, Paul shows that first gentile and then Jewish Christians have no basis for superiority or ‘boasting’ over the other.  Not on the basis of culture and Empire, and not the basis of their Old Testament law.  Romans 1 shows gentiles to be characteristically grossly immoral, and Romans 3 show the Jews to have had God’s word but not reliably kept it, at least not according to Jewish scripture.  So, neither Jews nor gentiles have any special superiority before God; rather they are reconciled to God and to each other only by faith and faithfulness.  Paul has previously dealt with boastful people in his other churches, especially in Corinth and Galatia.  He tells the Romans that boasting is excluded by faith.

The structure of his argument means that the first chapter describes gentiles and not Jews, while the third chapter describes Jews and not gentiles.  Now Paul really does believe that all people suffer from moral corruption.  But in Romans 1 and 3 he cannot be speaking about all humanity’s essential nature because in each case he addresses only one part of humanity and charges them with different faults.  In fact, Paul does not even need to describe all gentiles or all Jews in order to make his case.  He can merely describe the worst characteristics of each culture or its history.  He can exaggerate and even stereotype, so long as his general point about the moral depravity of gentiles on one hand, or Jews on the other, cuts through.  As we will see, this explains some otherwise confusing passages in his argument.

It will be significant here that many if not most historical commentators took a ‘textbook’ approach to Romans, and that this influenced historical theology in several important ways.  The intervention view accounts much better for the structure and the content of the letter, and most modern commentaries employ it.  But it is not always noted that Paul, by addressing himself to gentiles and then Jews, prevents us from assuming that Romans 1 describes all people, or that the sins that most concern it are equally descriptive of all people.

Romans 1 also tells us – and quite clearly – whether Paul was thinking of anything like same-sex orientation when he wrote.  Modern writers tend to assume either that he must have been, since people like Plato mention lifelong, exclusive, romantic same-sex attraction, and recent Roman emperors had scandalous same-sex relationships.  Or they think he must not have been addressing it, since ancient ideas were still a long way from the modern understanding of orientation.  The key thing to note is that Paul’s references to same-sex ‘passions’ claim to understand their nature and origin.  We can compare this directly with the nature and origin of same-sex orientation as that is now understood.  The passions that Paul describes are both exclusively gentile and exclusively voluntary.  This means they are not anything comparable to same-sex orientation, which is, in contradiction, both universal and involuntary.

This can be seen in eight separate ways.  1) The structure of Paul’s argument shows he is only addressing gentiles in Romans 1.  This parallels how his Jewish precursors and contemporaries saw idolatry and sexual immorality as distinctively gentile problems.  2) These passions characterise the whole of gentile society, involving much more than just a small minority of the population, as would be the case for same-sex orientation.  3) These passions are ultimately caused by a prior religious denial of what pagans know or should know about God, which leads them through idolatry to both sexual and social immorality.  4) This immorality is so extreme that Paul attributes it to God, in present and active judgement, handing the gentiles over to their chosen sins, to be dominated and degraded by them beyond any normal measure.  At each of these four points the passions Paul is discussing differs from orientation.  Orientation affects Jews as well as gentiles, affects only a small subset of the population, does not derive from pagan religion, and is not God’s active judgement on a person or a culture’s prior immorality.

Paul also understands these passions to have been acquired in exclusively voluntary ways.  5) He says of gentiles that “they exchanged” good desires for bad just as culpably as they, and some Old Testament Jews, exchanged God’s glory for worthless idols.  This was why “he handed them over” in judgement to greater and greater corruption.  6) The order of his argument also suggests (though this is less sure) that these same-sex passions follow a prior voluntary corruption of heterosexual desires.  7) A voluntary exchange explains why Paul calls these passions shameful or dishonourable, when he, like us, believes a person can only accrue any true guilt, shame, or dishonour in God’s sight by their own voluntary choices.

And, 8) a voluntary exchange also explains why neither this passage nor any other part of scripture expresses the slightest sympathy for same-sex-attracted people.  This stands in marked contrast to modern Evangelicals who take extraordinary pains to declare their love and concern for those who are ‘struggling’ with unwanted temptation.  We stress our sympathy both for its own sake and, we hope, to preempt any charge of bigotry.  Paul has no sympathy here because he thinks the passions that exemplified the utter corruption of gentile society were voluntarily acquired.  Once more then, the passions Paul is discussing differ from orientation.  Orientation is not a voluntary and culpable “exchange” of one kind of passions for another, is not a corruption of an individual’s prior heterosexual desire, is not intrinsically shameful or dishonourable in itself, and it deserves sympathy, understanding, and care from Evangelicals.

In these eight different ways, Paul shows he is not addressing same-sex orientation as we understand it today.  Other references occur in passing, and they address actions rather than desires, so they cannot be assessed in this way.  We can only note that, whatever desire lay behind those actions, no special sympathy is accorded to them.

I should note, concerning points 7) and 8), that Reformed Evangelicals will have some special objections here that other Evangelicals will not, especially through believing that involuntary desires can nonetheless be sins.  This is due, in part, to a deep historical and theological dependence on the ‘textbook’ view and to reading Romans 1 very much as an anthropology.  We’ll consider this further in §3.c and when we come to arguments from human sinfulness in §5.d.

All this shows that Paul in Romans 1 is not providing an anthropology of all human beings, and so, is not discussing what would come to be called original sin.  And it is very clearly not considering orientation, because it’s discussion of ‘passions’ restricts itself to those that are both voluntarily acquired, and characteristic of only gentiles.

§3.c.  What reasons underlie the biblical condemnations?

When applying scripture to new situations, Evangelicals will ordinarily proceed by identifying the reasons or principles that are in view, then asking how they might transfer across.  Since orientation is for all practical purposes a new discovery, this is how we should proceed.  Seven reasons of this kind are apparent.

A first reason is fornication and unfaithfulness, which is to say, “sex outside of marriage” in modern Evangelical terms.  Old Testament Jews saw marriage and child-bearing as a basic social necessity.  Jews and Christians then saw sex outside of marriage as fornication, as well as some sex within marriage.  It wouldn’t have helped that same sex relations were ordinarily highly promiscuous, whether by single or married people.  As a result, they were either adultery of fornication in virtually all cases, and could be criticised on those grounds apart from any other considerations.

A second and closely related reason is the neglect of family, especially the obligation to bear and raise children.  If same-sex relations lack the risk of illegitimate offspring that followed from adultery, it was especially emphasised by Paul’s Jewish contemporaries that they nonetheless diverted time and energy from the already precarious task of reproduction, like a foolish farmer sowing on barren ground, and neglecting fertile soil to do so.

A third reason is exploitation and abuse.  In Roman life, same-sex relations were in very many cases the sexual abuse of slaves.  In Greek life, they were mostly, in modern terms, the exploitation of minors.  Of course, some significant number of early Christians were themselves slaves, had no legal recourse against such abuse, and faced severe penalties for resisting or running away.  One New Testament vice list suggestively couples same-sex relations with slave trading.  But the passages in scripture cannot be limited to only exploitation.  A person being raped cannot be held to be guilty of rape, yet in Leviticus and Romans both parties are at fault.  So, the relationships appear consensual, and 1 Corinthians may, as we have seen, refer to both the active and passive partners.  It follows that exploitation or abuse is not a prominent concern in the prohibitions, even though same-sex relations in the Greco-Romans world would more often than not involve such exploitation.

Our fourth and fifth reasons seem to build upon such exploitation.  Among contemporary Jewish writers, same-sex relations were seen as feminising for young men, who are described as wearing women’s clothing and make-up, presumably to appeal to older heterosexual men.  Paul’s reference to ‘soft’ men may be a reference of this kind, though it has a number of other possible meanings.  Some same-sex relations were prostitution, of course, and class differences would have made frequently exploitative even though it was a paid service.  A general pattern of cultic prostitution has sometimes been assumed in the Old Testament and parts of the New, but this has recently been sharply disputed and may be considered uncertain.

The sixth and seventh reasons concern well-being.  Paul’s contemporary writers see these relations as compulsions or addictions, reinforcing their concern for neglect of family.  Paul’s reference to “burning with passion” may be an allusion of this kind, tapping into Roman revulsion at the man who lacked self-control in any area of life.  And, as typically promiscuous activities, same-sex relations would also have been prone to disease and infection, especially under ancient hygeine standards.  Venereal disease may be in mind when Paul refers to the partners receiving a “penalty in (or among) themselves,” though other matters may also be in view, such as shame, effeminacy, or his own references to judgement.

All of these concerns fit perfectly into Paul’s condemnation of Greco-Roman behaviour; they reflect common abuses in ancient society.  However, the exclusive commitment of marriage resolves these concerns much as it resolves any parallel concerns in heterosexual unions.  Two reasons that may transfer to modern same sex marriage are fornication (if God does not recognise the same-sex marriage), and neglect of family (if a same-sex oriented person was still expected to marry heterosexually, or barred from adopting).  But of course we do not expect a same-sex oriented person to marry heterosexually, and so these seven reasons for condemning same-sex relations are not applicable to same-sex marriages.  Unless, of course, there is something else behind them.  We’ll come to that in chapters §4 and §5, next, when we consider marriage and theology.

Three other moral concerns may amplify these seven moral reasons for condemning same-sex relations.  One that is definitely present in Romans, as we have seen, is that same-sex passions were a wilful perversion of originally heterosexual desire.  This amplifies their immorality, but in a way that is clearly inapplicable to same-sex orientation.

A second compounding issue is that Paul sums up Romans 1 by saying gentiles know all these things are wrong but do them anyway.  Paul thought gentiles knew or should have known these things were wrong, as, of course, Jews did.  It may be argued that people today know this also.  That seems easily established if Paul was referring only to the reasons we can identify when we look at scripture and contemporary literature, few of which will find any modern defenders.  Modern advocates are closer to Paul in these respects than to Ancient Romans.

Evangelicals may also understand this knowledge to refer to something like conscience, especially if they understand Romans 1–3 to be an anthropology of some sort.  It is known to all people “so that they are without excuse”, even if it is in practice suppressed by them.  But as already noted, (§2.c, Law) the New Testament does not present the faculty of conscience as a kind of moral revelation, but rather as a fallible referee of our faitfhulness to whatever morals we otherwise believe.  This is, of course, why conscience offers us a way of respecting each other’s good intentions in spite of disagreements in which at least one of us is certainly wrong.  In fact, this is Paul’s approach to conflict resolution in the latter part of Romans.  We will discuss natural law and natural morality at greater length in §5.c (Purpose).  So conscience cannot be treated as either revelation, or a universal constant.

A third compounding issue is the possibility that Paul’s references to ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural’ relations are just euphemisms for behaviour that was considered too vulgar to speak about in a direct way, or with the usual Greek terminology, which, as we have seen, he avoids.  This would presuppose an underlying moral rationale against same-sex relations, but would not say what it is.  We have by now considered the rationales that seem to come from simple nature or simple morality.  If the perception is based on marriage, creation, or any larger theological convictions, that takes us beyond ‘simple morality’, and we will consider this in the chapters that follow.

Orientation and Marriage: Second Domino

Let us return now to our summary questions.  First, what do these arguments from morals show when we do not consider same-sex orientation or marriage?  Evangelical writers correctly note that the Bible consistently condemns both same-sex ‘practices’ and the general category of sexual immorality to which it assigns them.  Attempts to dispute this have not been remotely persuasive, at least on Evangelical grounds.  In scripture same-sex relations are considered a simple moral issue, something Paul expects non-Christian gentiles to understand.  If we take Paul to be addressing same-sex relations as they were practised in Roman society, this makes perfectly good sense, and applies equally well to the same goings-on in our own society.  Certainly no-one today, whether relying on Christian or post-Christian ethics, is likely to defend Roman-style same-sex relations.  They were a knock-down-drag-out argument against gentile society, and Paul uses them as such.  However, Paul speaks in broad terms which suggest he is not limiting them to just his immediate subject.  Is he thinking of God’s will in creation, and is that what he means by ‘nature’?  We’ll pick this up in §5.b, Creation.

Secondly, what do these arguments from morals show when we do consider same-sex orientation and marriage?  We have seen that Paul in Romans was not thinking of orientation.  This is the only passage where the nature of the ‘passions’ themselves are considered, so we can’t assess the others in this way.  But if Paul didn’t need to address orientation here, then he probably didn’t think the Old Testament was doing so, and probably didn’t do so himself in his other letters (nor his followers, depending on your view of the Pastoral Epistles).  This all means there is no biblical position on orientation.  We have to derive it, one way or the other, on other grounds.

In addition to which, we have found that wherever we can identify the likely moral rationales behind the biblical condemnations, we ran into problems applying them to either orientation or marriage.  But we are probably already aware of that at some level.  It is why we have had so much trouble arguing against same-sex marriage in public life in recent years.  We haven’t had simple, obvious moral arguments that we could expect outsiders to understand.

Simple morality  is our second domino.  By ‘simple’ we mean we are assessing moral arguments that anyone could understand, without requiring any special theological background.  Our moral arguments work against same-sex relations generally, especially as they existed in antiquity, but fall down when applied to orientation and marriage, especially as these are now understood.  In fact, we run into a range of equally moral counter-arguments.  In this respect they mirror the arguments already considered from simple nature.  Nature and morals are the basis for the arguments that most explicitly appeal to common ground in public life.

It may be quite surprising to Evangelicals that neither common basic morals nor the strictly moral arguments we find in scripture apply to same-sex marriages.  It is certainly more surprising than finding that arguments from simple nature failed to apply.

Once again though, Evangelicals may not be too concerned by this.  Recent writers have taken the approach that scripture’s overarching narrative is the key to understanding the condemnations.  It places them in a larger moral framework – marriage and theology – which promises to makes them absolute and universal regardless of whether individual moral arguments apply to particular cases or not.  We might say a union can’t be moral if it can’t be marriage, and vice versa – and that this will even help define for us what ‘natural’ really means.  We’ll consider the first of these topics, marriage, next.

We have seen by now that there is no case against same-sex marriage from simple nature or simple morality, where by ‘simple’ we mean natural facts that we could point to, or moral convictions that everyone can be assumed to share.  The concerns that could be raised about same-sex relations in other contexts were either resolved by same-sex orientation or by same-sex marriage.

However, this is a negative and limited conclusion; even if all natural and moral concerns disappeared – and we still have more sophisticated cases to consider – we would still not know whether God recognized and celebrated same-sex marriages as a response to being same-sex oriented.  This is of course the fundamental Evangelical question.

The third pillar of the Evangelical argument against same-sex relations and then same-sex marriage, is heterosexual marriage.  This includes marriage in general and Christian marriage in particular.  Once again, we’ll look at the convictions most people and cultures would share about marriage today – ‘simple marriage’ – but also think through how these things appear in Christian scripture.

It’s in the chapter that follows (§5, Theology) that all these arguments come together, and each argument reaches its fully biblical, theological, and Evangelical form.  Nature becomes a creation, morals become faithfulness to God, and marriage becomes the created order, symbolic of our life with God.

Now, though, we will consider four aspects of marriage as a social institution and as a Christian ideal: §4.a) Can it be described as a single biblical ideal?  b) Are there biblical exceptions to that ideal?  c) How does marriage have special meaning for Christians?  And: d) Does it assume a kind of gender hierarchy in scripture, which would necessarily not exist in same-sex marriages?

§4.a.  Is this a single biblical ideal?

The ways that Jesus and Paul talk about marriage in the New Testament bracket out large parts of the Old Testament by its focusing on marriage as God’s intentions in creation.  This means that Evangelicals can speak about a single overarching picture of marriage in the Bible, in spite of all kinds of strange goings-on in the Patriarchs and the Law.

This overall picture of marriage can reasonably be called an ideal.  Marriage in the Bible consists of one non-negotiable core, and two desiderata, that is, two ‘desirable things’ that will usually accompany it, but which are not strictly required.  The core is a covenant, a committed bond of faithfulness, explicitly modelled on God’s own character and actions.  This is a pledge of life companionship, offering one faithful life for another.

Supporting this core are the two desiderata of love and family.  Marriages can exist without either.  In historical times where economic necessities took precedence, love might not have been realised or even expected in many cases.  In the two centuries or so since the Romantic Era, it has been expected that love should lead to marriage rather than follow from it.  Nowadays many simply do not marry, and marriage is more likely to exist without family.  Still, love and family are ordinarily desired in marriage, both in general experience and more specifically in Christian scripture.

In addition to these three central threads, three others are commonly considered important in Christian life and practice.

Christian marriage symbolism appears in the Old and New Testament covenants, and also in the way Paul speaks about marriage and the relationship between Christ and the Christians (collectively) in Ephesians 5.

Whereas Israel in the Old Testament was pictured as married to God, Christians in the New Testament are pictured as betrothed to Christ.  A betrothal was a like a modern engagement in that it is expected to result in a marriage in future, but was different in one very important respect: that it was already a legally binding agreement.  In the New Testament this captures precisely the idea of a binding personal commitment that demands absolute love and faithfulness, but awaits fulfilment in the future.

§4.b.  Were there biblical exceptions to the biblical ideal?

The Bible contains two obvious exceptions to its overall ideals of marriage, and two non-obvious ones as well.  To be an exception, a marriage must clearly depart from the overarching ideal, and yet be clearly accepted by God in scripture as a marriage.  Remarriages after (some) Old Testament divorces fit this definition, as does Old Testament polygamy.  This is to say, there were in scripture some legitimate exceptions, in God’s own mind, to God’s own general norms and ideals of marriage.

Both Mosaic divorces and Old Testament polygamy departed from the conviction that marriage was a lifelong mutual covenant.  These were wilful departures from that ideal, and made out of choice rather than necessity.  They lack the justification that we find in same-sex orientation, that a person can be by nature unsuited to heterosexual marriage.

Two other cases have some similarities to these.  These are the New Testament practice of voluntary celibacy, which has no Old Testament precedent – Jeremiah doesn’t count as voluntary – and the inclusion of eunuchs in Israel during the Exile.

Celibacy is not chastity, though these terms are commonly confused; it is the permanent renunciation of marriage rather than the practice of sexual self-control before and during marriage.  New Testament celibacy creates space for service and devotion apart from the concerns of family, but is only ever voluntary.  This means that churches cannot elevate marriage above intentional singleness, and that they cannot require mandatory lifelong celibacy from any person.  This offers a further argument that scripture nowhere considered orientation; Evangelicals might think that it would have never prohibited involuntary celibacy if people could, to all appearances, be born into exactly that necessity.

The inclusion of eunuchs in Israel in the exile shows a developing recognition that no-one is excluded from God’s kingdom for merely circumstantial reasons, however horrifying.  An analogy with the involuntary and permanent nature of orientation may be drawn here.  Neither of these possible exceptions are forms of marriage, but they each involve people excluded from the whole ideal of marriage and family, in ways comparable to same-sex oriented Christians in Evangelical churches.

§4.c.  What does marriage symbolise in Christianity?

Scripture contains two big-picture analogies involving God and marriage.  These add an extra layer of Christian understanding to what marriage means, and have direct moral implications in scripture.

The first analogy, which dominates the Old Testament and is picked up in the New as well, says that our covenant relationship to God, which must be characterised by both love and faithfulness, is like a marriage.  This leads to a sustained two-way metaphor between adultery and idolatry as forms of deeply personal unfaithfulness.  In some of these comparisons, God’s greater power and rights are likened to those of men in patriarchal societies.

The second analogy, which dominates the New Testament, says that our expectation of future joy, of the perfection of our bodies and of the cosmos in general, and of full communion with God, is like being betrothed.  A betrothal is an engagement that it is legally or socially binding, and will become a marriage in the future, though it is not yet.  The same faithfulness is in view, but its fulfillment remains in the future.

The only case where marriage is used as a present metaphor in the New Testament is in Ephesians 5, where Christ’s attitude of humble servanthood is given as the model for how husbands should love their wives, and marriage is suggestively called a ‘mystery’.

The relationship between God and ‘his’ people, whether portrayed as marriage or betrothal, is focused firstly on covenant faithfulness, and secondly on affectionate love.  All metaphors are partial, and this one employs only two out of the three aspects of marriage we have discussed.  There is no biblical imagery of God and Israel or God and the church starting a family or having children together.  Rather the ‘family’ metaphors in church use childhood for our relation to God and brother-and-sisterhood for our relation to each other.  The Christian is “one with the Lord in spirit”, not one flesh.

Accordingly, the biblical metaphors for marriage apply quite directly to same-sex marriages.  That is not to say that scripture did this intentionally; we have no basis for thinking any biblical writer was responding to any alternative to heterosexual unions; on the contrary, these are everywhere assumed.  However, when we consider same-sex marriages as a response to same-sex orientation, the biblical marriage symbolism happens to avoid the bodily or reproductive aspects of the union that are its primary difference from heterosexual marriages, and reinforce only the aspects which are shared with same sex marriages.

§4.d.  Does marriage involve gender hierarchy?

Before leaving the subject of marriage and turning to theology – the real substance of this book – we should briefly consider whether marriage in scripture encodes a kind of gender hierarchy.  If it does, is it something grounded in the nature of marriage?  And what would that mean for same-sex marriages?

Jewish society in the Old and New Testament, and Roman society in the New Testament, were strongly patriarchal.  This is especially reflected in Old Testament laws and in New Testament advice to households.  Evangelicals take two basic approaches to this pattern, either seeing these as timeless norms or as responses to their own historical situation.

In this optional chapter, we will consider some of the gender hierarchy apparent in Old Testament patriarchal culture, and in New Testament passages that teach female submission or silence.  Over history, especially recent history, increasing opportunities for learning and ministry have established that women can be just as competent as men at leading and teaching.  In some church contexts, they can be the best qualified candidate available.  This poses questions for our understanding of scripture, comparable to how same-sex orientation does.  In each case, some number of Evangelicals appeal to the order of God’s creation to support the universality of biblical norms, and to say new circumstances can’t require us to understand or apply them differently.

I will offer my own brief introduction to these passages.  This differs from those Egalitarians who argue that the passages don’t actually say that women should be in various ways subordinate to men.  I agree some of these passages are dealing with other issues, and some are just concerned with Christians avoiding unnecessary conflict over things they can’t change in a patriarchal society.  But this does not explain them all, nor, in my view, does it need to.

Family and marriage have changed in important ways between biblical and modern times.  When we compare life today with, say, Israel in 1000 BC we see good reasons for a gendered division of life into public and domestic spheres.  Work in the female, domestic sphere was neither less skilled nor less arduous nor less necessary nor less lifelong than work in the male, public sphere.  Women spent perhaps a third of their lives in bearing and raising children, and more passing on their knowledge.  This fitted naturally with complex home-bound work like making and preserving food and clothing.

A wide range of social changes have eliminated the reasons why gender hierarchy once made more sense than it does now.  Some of these changes will be obvious on a moment’s reflection.  Household labour is no longer equal in effort and greater in complexity than labour outside the home.  By living longer, women no longer spend the largest part of their adult lives in child-bearing and child-raising.  Work today is less determined by differences in bodily strength, and, while there are areas in which one sex or the other seems generally better suited to a given role, it is rare that nobody of the other sex could meet the standards it required.  Education and opportunity has shown women, against even comparatively recent prejudices, to be capable of any role in society.  Involving women in public life, leadership, and decision-making ensures that their interests and well-being are not ignored by male leadership in every sphere.  So, there is a general case that the biblical gender roles applied to social realities that no longer exist – and, in Christian terms, should no longer exist.  Women should not be dependent on men for their baseline financial security, as sinful men so routinely let them down in this regard.

The present debate between complementarians and egalitarians has two main threads: practical and theological.  The practical concern asks whether their opponents are implicitly supporting more extreme positions than they claim for themselves.  We ask whether complementarians give material support to bigotry and misogyny, or whether egalitarians are smuggling into church ideas that oppose healthy family life or deny any sex differences at all.  On such practical matters, we can deal first with the best examples of opposing views, and later see if we agree about more extreme ideas.

The theological concern asks whether the statements that seem to show gender hierarchy or gender roles are principles that transcend these kind of social changes, and so, are just as applicable today.  There are apparent practical reasons for the prohibitions, which made good sense as general norms; yet these are all harder to argue today.  In addition, there are biblical counterexamples to the kinds of hierarchy involved; women lead, teach, and speak for God in scripture.  They are not the majority of leaders, teachers, or prophets by any means.  But they should not be there at all if gender hierarchy was an absolute principle existing in God’s mind through all historical time.

Readers may see some parallels between my argument for Evangelical egalitarianism and my argument for Evangelical same-sex marriage.  In each case, attempts to uphold a particular understanding of biblical prohibitions result in apparently anachronistic discrimination, and are resolved by a better understanding of scripture itself, both in its historical context, and as God’s word applied to current questions.

Orientation and Marriage

When we consider marriage apart from same-sex orientation, it will seem obvious that all the pieces are necessarily heterosexual.  Apart from orientation all true love or attraction will be assumed to be heterosexual.  Since human life in general requires men and women to have children, the ideal of family will also seem naturally heterosexual.  Even though technology now can make this happen apart from sexual intercourse, that isn’t a general solution for all people.  And these understandings of love and family will of course be most naturally fulfilled in a heterosexual covenant.  When Jesus or Paul contrast marriage with divorce-on-demand-for-men or with unfaithfulness or prostitution, they appeal to the pattern of creation in Genesis.  So, we can point to an overall ideal of marriage that includes covenant faithfulness, love, and family.  Surely, then, there can be no exceptions, especially if there are supporting arguments from nature, morals, and theology.

Now let’s consider marriage in light of same-sex orientation, starting with the ‘simple’ and common aspects of the ideal: companionship, love, and family.  A same-sex oriented person must give up one of these.  A same-sex marriage chooses love over having a family by natural means.  A mixed-orientation marriage gives up a loving sexual and romantic union, unless the person is in fact more bisexual.  The Evangelical default of mandatory lifelong celibacy gives up on biblical marriage entirely, but also on biblical celibacy, which is only voluntary in scripture, and only ‘a gift’ possessed by some people.  There is no possibility that an exclusively same-sex attracted person can attain the biblical ideal of marriage.

Is it better to give up one aspect of the ideal than another?  Either a same-sex marriage (which might give up family) or a mixed-orientation marriage (which gives up love), are closer to the ideal than giving up the whole ideal through mandatory celibacy.  For Christians, they participate in Christ’s model of humble and self-sacrificial love, “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”.

More importantly, a same-sex marriage is clearly closer to the biblical ideal of marriage than at least two kinds of marriage that God recognized scripture: those which followed Mosaic divorces, and those that were polygamous.  These unions sacrificed the absolute core of the biblical ideal of marriage, its covenant faithfulness, and were not, in doing so, responding to any incapacity for heterosexual marriage, such as that which same-sex orientation presents.  Same-sex marriage, in contrast, preserves the core of covenant faithfulness, plus the desideratum of love, while responding to an extenuating circumstance that is not the fault of anyone involved.  This suggests an argument from the lesser to the greater: if God accepted those unions as marriages, but these are closer to God’s own ideal, then God accepts these too.

Unless of course, as Evangelicals would usually emphasise, we have natural, moral, or theological objections to same-sex relations which apply to orientation and marriage together.  We have considered ‘simple’ natural reasons in §2 and ‘simple’ moral reasons in §3.  These, together with the idel of marriage, will come together when we look at creation, fall, and depravity in §5 (‘Theology’).

Marriage  is the third pillar of the case against same-sex relations, and, correspondingly, is the third domino of the case against same-sex marriage.  This may seem the most surprising of all, as those objecting to same-sex marriage have largely understood themselves to be defending biblical or otherwise traditional marriages.

However, like nature and morals, marriage is not only understood as something biblical and common-sensical.  It is also understood within the framework of nature as God’s good, orderly creation.  So, if we consider it within that framework, does it underline and reestablish these concerns from nature, morals, and marriage, but in a unified and comprehensive way?  We look at this in the next chapter.

If the reader has been persuaded by the preceding conclusions, they may then wish to think through some optional asides which follow from it, or may wish to follow up the sources for the frequency of orientation or other statistics mentioned.

§7.a.  Was the death penalty then unjust?

The first appendix, ‘Theodicy’, considers the justness of the biblical condemnations in history.  If same-sex orientation has always existed, and always presented the same problems, and always been resolvable in the ways we have discussed, then why do we have the biblical condemnations at all?  Were they good?  Was the death penalty in Leviticus, in particular?  Thinking biblically about moral progress in history offers a way past a number of classic blunders here.

§7.b.  What does this mean for other LGBTs?

The second appendix, ‘Nonbinary’, offers a brief introduction to queerness, transgender, and bisexuality, and asks what our conclusions about same-sex marriages may imply for these partly related questions.

§7.c.  Where do those numbers come from?

The third appendix, ‘Statistics’, lists the sources for various figures and findings mentioned in the book, such as the proportion of any population who are same-sex oriented or bisexual.