News

A prominent Canadian Anglican bishop has touched off a heated debate by saying the Christian church has a deeply flawed understanding of sex that has led to morally groundless objections to birth control, abortion and homosexuality.

In particular, the church has been wrong for centuries on the notion that sex exists only for the purpose of procreation, Right Rev. Michael Ingham, bishop of the Greater Vancouver Diocese of New Westminster, says.

"Christianity as a religion stands in need of a better theology of sexuality," he said, "a better understanding of the complex role sexuality plays in our human nature and of the purposes of God in creating us as sexual beings."

He said the church has misunderstood references to homosexuality in the Bible, wasted energy in persecuting individuals who have argued for a new understanding of sexuality, and failed to comprehend how much the Bible and church doctrines have been shaped through the lens of male experience.

Some leaders and theologians in the Anglican Church welcomed the bishop's remarks. Others felt he went too far.

"He is largely correct in his claim that theological work, by and large, on the nature of human sexuality has been largely underwhelming in its scope and that such work is urgently but prudentially needed," said Dr. Darren Marks, a professor of theology at Huron University College, University of Western Ontario, in London, Ont.

Fellow theologian Dr. Gary Badcock said the bishop's arguments rest on "slender foundations."

"The fact of the matter is that Judaism, prior to Christianity, universally rejected homosexuality," he said. As for the argument that procreation is not truly basic to human sexuality, Dr. Badcock said the procreative aspect can't be ignored.

Right Rev. Barry Clarke, bishop of the Diocese of Montreal, said he has long admired Bishop Ingham's forthrightness and agrees "wholeheartedly" with his concerns about the church's understanding of sexuality. But he cautioned any debate must avoid the trap of "discussing only genital sexuality."

What do you think?

Have the church's teachings made you question your understanding of sex? Have its moral objections to birth control, abortion, homosexuality and other sexual issues affected your opinions?

We were very pleased that prominent Christian journalist Lorna Dueck joined us earlier today for a question-and-answer program on this issue.

Ms. Dueck writes a column for The Globe and Mail, and hosts Listen Up TV, a weekly newsmagazine on spiritual perspectives in current events, seen Sundays on Global TV, Saturday on CTS, Salt and Light TV and Christian Channel.

Editor's Note: We were pleased to have Ms. Dueck take your questions on this issue Friday. This was not one of our usual hour-long live discussions. Rather, this was an online question-and-answer session. Your questions and Ms. Dueck's answers appear at the bottom of this page.

We will follow the same policy for this Q&A as we do for our normal hour-long discussions. globeandmail.com editors will read and allow or reject each question/comment. Comments/questions may be edited for length or clarity. HTML is not allowed. We will not publish questions/comments that include personal attacks on Ms. Dueck, Globe journalists or other participants in these discussions, questions/comments that make false or unsubstantiated allegations, that purport to quote people or reports where the purported quote or fact cannot be easily verified, or questions/comments that include vulgar language or libellous statements. Preference will be given to readers who submit questions/comments using their full name and home town, rather than a pseudonym.

Brodie Fenlon from Globeandmail.com: Hello Lorna. Thank you so much for joining us today for a question and answer session on sexuality and the Christian church. Many of our readers' questions today address the tension - some would say chasm - that exists between human sexuality, pleasure and sexual identity, and the traditional teachings of the church.

Like many readers, DJ from Canada asks about the belief held by some that sex should be solely for the purpose of procreation. DJ wonders if Christians are supposed to feel guilt and shame at the obvious physical pleasure derived from it. And if not, how is this justified within the Christian framework? In a similar vein, John Silvernman asks about those couples who can't procreate for a variety of reasons, such as menopause or physical limitation. Are they allowed to engage in sexual activity? Others, like Kevin Knelman from Brampton, asked if this emphasis on the procreative nature of sex is proclaimed and defended in the bible. Does religion view sexuality as a necessary evil to be indulged only to create offspring?

Lorna Dueck: The Christian Bible's first directive to male and female was to go have sex. Immediately out of that activity, God tells the human creation they will discover multiplication, the process of being a creator in the world. Christian doctrine believes this was God's invitation to humanity to live out their relationship of being able to be a creator; we are made "in the image of God" so this power of being involved in making new life is given to humanity, and its deeply pleasurable to create new life. If you're sticking to the Bible story on this, God's evaluation to describe this sexual activity is "good." However, that same storyline on sex in the Bible is, with breathless speed, soon marked by a curse, a divine curse caused by human choices to ignore God. To make a long story short enough for online dialogue, that's why we are messing around with pain and sex, church teachings and sex. There's only one clear story I find in the Bible where we get back to the beauty of the sexual process God started in the world. It's in Solomon's Song of Songs, a sexual passage much longer than the creative sexual passage. It is absolutely a pleasurable, provocative, read by candle light, spiritual reading in which only the most devout could think of these Biblical words as purely allegorical of the relationship between Christ and the soul. So to conclude your question Kevin, I would argue that the whole of Christian thought on sexuality is that the original intent of God was that the experience and the procreation that naturally derives from sex was intended to be a profoundly pleasurable experience. Discussions like this remind us we have the ability to cut away a lot of the theological wrangling that has been painful to people.

Eric Wong from Hamilton: I always wonder about religion's view on sex, in this case Christianity's, and the fact that it was developed under a certain set of circumstances in a certain time period for a certain group of people, and if it is relevant to the circumstances now for us as a society? Back then abstaining from premarital sex was probably a very good idea, seeing as people got married at 14 years of age. But now, people are not getting married until their mid-20's, and I think if we repress these natural instincts and behaviours, they will manifest in some other (possibly negative) form. What do you think?

Lorna Dueck: Yes they will as natural instincts have a lot of traction on sex. I was reading Laura Session Stepp, author of "Unhooked; How young women pursue sex, delay love, and lose at both." It's an insightful look at human sexual desire outside of theistic help. If sexual desire is part of our identity given by God then deciding how to handle its energy must be questions we take to God, which can be argued, is how the church has gotten itself so embroiled in sexuality. On a lighter note, I was taking a class recently with some youth pastors who went into an explicit discussion on masturbation and how these discussions unfold amongst teenagers. It was both funny, and frank. I couldn't help but think that the real work of helping people understand their sexuality and God is done far from the ivory towers and rather in relationship with people who understand and care about each other.

Bob in Chilliwack: What does the church says regarding sexual relations between a husband and wife outside of intercourse.

Lorna Dueck: Formally, it doesn't say much about this area. But the example given to marital love in the New Testament is to love as Christ loved, which would mean pleasure is respectful and honoring of choice.

Brodie Fenlon from Globeandmail.com: We had several questions asking whether the Christian church lacks relevance and is losing adherents because of its teachings on sexuality. God Free from Kingston asked if the church's views on birth control, abortion, homosexuality and other sexual issues, plus its rejection of empirical scientific evidence on issues like evolution, is driving people away from the pews in the developed world. Cameron Reid from Toronto asked if Rev. Ingham's statements represent a "giant leap forward towards making churches relevant again?"

Lorna Dueck: I do think many church leaders read the headline demanding a "better theology on sex" and said "at last!" Obviously the public invites discussion on sexuality and Christianity must continue to apply the teachings of Jesus to this topic if it is to have any relevance.

M David from Ottawa: I was surprised that the bishop of New Westminister included abortion as an example along with birth control and homosexuality, since the reasons many Christian opposed abortion are usually very different from the reasons they oppose homosexual practice or, in some cases, birth control. Christians generally do not oppose abortion as some sort of sexual sin, but because of ethical questions surrounding the rights of the fetus, and about when human beings become 'persons'. Do you think Bishop Ingham's comments may confuse the issue for some people?

Lorna Dueck: I don't think it's wise to make any conclusion about Bishop Ingham's comments as we read them in the press; they are fragmented and partial and yes, confusing. It should be noted the Bishop was asked to do this Q and A and declined, that's too bad for all of us.

Brodie Fenlon from Globeandmail.com: We did ask Bishop Ingham to join us today for this discussion. A spokesperson told us the bishop was not available because of a busy schedule.

Patrick O'Neil from Guelph: Lorna, are you familiar with Pope John Paul the Great's Theology of the body and an earlier papal encyclical Humanae Vitae? Do you think it's possible that this Anglican bishop can actually be ignorant of some of the significant theological work that has been done on the topic of sex? Finally, in your experience, do you believe greater communication between Protestant and Catholic theologians would create a greater understanding of this topic? My comment and concern is that Bishop Ingham is wholly dismissive of both scripture and Christian tradition, and that from that perspective, it is absolutely impossible to develop any theology that could properly be called Christian.

Lorna Dueck: Yes and no to all of the above, but especially yes to it would be excellent to have greater communication between Protestants and Catholics on our understandings of sexuality. I like how you bring up the elephant in the room: What can "properly be called Christian?" One of the most uncomfortable things in our faith is that Jesus did not come to simply affirm whatever we felt like doing. In this new theological re-appraisal of sex, we would like to conclude that "whatever humanity thinks is best = God's goodness." Sometimes God's teaching goes against the grain of what we want to be doing. (That's why Jesus said people would hate him and his followers.) If God wasn't going to do something new and against the grain with our lives, there would be no point in God speaking into our lives in the first place.

Jack Sparrow from Windsor: At one time Christians believed that women were not full partners in the reproduction of another human being, but rather incubators for a man's child. Christians no longer believe this. Why then do some of them believe that the authors of Leviticus have it right regarding same sex relationships?

Lorna Dueck: Jack, I wish I could answer this better for you, but I can't speak for the isolation of one scriptural passage on this difficult issue, just as the "incubator" argument was never grounded in scripture. I'm a great believer that God loves homosexuals and lesbians, and am puzzled in the mystery of the tensions they live in spiritually. Personally, I do believe God calls homosexuality to conform to the one flesh creative model that originated in the beginning of Scripture, and for many that will mean celibacy.

Laura Woof from Langley: How do you propose that the church re-evaluates its Gnostic view on sexuality?

Lorna Dueck: By good teaching on the nature, character and activity of God. My very limited understanding on Gnosticism is that Gnostics believed we should be delivered from sex, that all things physical about us are lower, or just a base part to be shunned and just our soul and its experiences are of value. If that were true, the God we believe to be the creator of the world (and Gnostics believe that too), would not have left us with such a vast physical world, a world of beauty around us. Nor, if I can quote a favourite pastor of mine (Rev. Bruxy Cavey), Would God have created a sexual organ on a woman's body whose only purpose is pleasure?

Brodie Fenlon from Globeandmail.com: We had several questions by readers trying to reconcile their understanding of homosexuality and God's creation of sexual beings in His likeness. Barret Cressman from Guelph asked why Christians have a problem with homosexual sex and what is the biblical justification for this opposition. John Ridout from Canada wonders if all of God's creation was declared by Him to be good, then are we not called by God to be faithful and obedient to our gifted sexual nature and to express it through relationships that are rooted in love? Also, he asks, if God graces us with sexual desire, then isn't it inconceivable that a loving God would gift humans with a homosexual nature and then expect/ask/demand that they not experience or express their sexual desire?

Lorna Dueck: No, I don't think all sexual desires are meant to be expressed. That results in sin, and the Bible is full of examples of sex gone crazy and the pain that it causes. This is weak of me, I know, but I would really prefer to have a homosexual Christian be able to answer this compilation of questions, as they so are deeply intimate and personal on what it means to be human. I can only answer from the limited understanding that our sexual identity was never meant to be separated from God. I hedge on answering this question in this format of public debate because I have done less reading and study on this difficult homosexual issue and more listening to people who are gay and believers in God, or at least, looking for God's approval, which is different than God's unconditional love. The church has hurt an awful lot of gay people and the more I see the fall-out, I can't feel good about quick online answers to this issue. I do suggest www.becomingreal.org does helpful work with some of the homosexual and Christian stories on their links.

Rob Misek from Whitby: I often reflect on your response to my question from a few months ago. I had suggested that religions need to recognize the dynamic truth as discerned through logic and science not democracy. You responded that you didn't have faith in humanity to improve upon the biblical texts. Hasn't our understanding of the truth changed in two thousand years and isn't religion supposed to align with it? To do so, shouldn't religion recognize both parts of the human experience as separate but affecting the completeness of the whole? The two being the need for blind spiritual faith, and the need for physical rules based on dynamic truth.

Lorna Dueck: Rob, I don't endorse blind spiritual faith. I do embrace informed spiritual faith. It's remarkable to me that we sit in this technology discussing questions like this. It's a long way from the crowds that first gathered on a shore to hear the implications of God's intentions for their lives as Jesus talked it out to the curious. That these kind of conversations about God can still hold an audience is proof that a dynamic truth is at the core of it all.

Brodie Fenlon from Globeandmail.com: That concludes our Q & A today. A sincere thank you to Lorna Dueck and the many readers who sent in questions. Comments will remain open for the time being.