So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)
... so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. (Romans 12:5)

For many, being Christian and gay in a divided church, means that we live torn between two sets of opinions, held in tension. One expresses the open love and acceptance from Christians who receive us as under the reign of God, loved and set free. They do not discriminate, on grounds of sexuality and practice, or limit participation in the full life of the church.  This group of Christians is very much in the minority. The other set of opinions is homophobic, in its extreme case, and cautiously non-committal in its more moderate expressions.  Some of these Christians see homosexual persons as anathema and simply wish that they would go away.  Others seek to convert their sexuality to their own normative values of heterosexual behaviour.  The result is to feel torn between "Yes" and "No", between full participation in the life of the church and a marginal place of denial.

The Uniting Church in Australia struggles within itself, as an institution, to define appropriate understandings of human sexuality in light of the Gospel and practice in our time.  For the moment, with the absence of a general, resounding "Yes," some gay and lesbian Christians experience a strange ambivalence within the church that is felt as a swinging from Yes to No, between freedom and oppression. This is at a time when the official view of the Church Assembly is that sexuality is not a barrier to participation.  It is at a time when secular views of Human Rights give one freedom to express one's innate sexuality.  People have a right to intimacy, human dignity and to a life style that sets them free, within the laws of the nation. Our nation gives legal protection from discrimination, imposing reasonable limits on behaviour to ensure justice.  Personal freedom is regulated by personal and social responsibilities. The Bible teaches that "for freedom Christ has set us free. ... the only thing that counts is faith working through love." (Gal. 5:1...6b). The Church teaches that our responsibility as Christians is to love God and to do justice with compassion.  The Uniting Church also says:

Yet many homosexual people, Christian or otherwise, do not experience oneness of the Spirit, fellowship or the love of being built up in Christ, and experience the Church's voice as a discordant, "N0." As Robert Goss says:

As gay, we also connect with the relationships that Jesus showed to His friends. We think of His relationship with Lazarus and the Beloved Disciple, of His relationship to Mary Magdalene and to oppressed women.  We remember Him as the man who lay down His life that others may believe.  We remember Him as the sensitive man who referred to Himself as a mother hen, placing nurture and protection before condemnation. (Matt. 23:37).  We remember Him as the healer who showed mercy to the Centurion's slave boy (Matt. 8:5-13). We know him as the friend of sinners and the one who repented when challenged justly by an outsider (Mark 7:24-30).

Jesus showed his feelings to His friends, he knew intimacy and shared His vulnerability. He was misunderstood, different. His ministry was rejected and condemned by the religious people of His day.  Gay Christians can empathise with Christ, who triumphed over rejection. With Christ, we rise above rejection and alienation so that "Easter becomes the hope of queer sexual liberation." (Goss, R., ibid. p.84.) Robert Goss maintains that the Easter event is our assurance of liberation: "the queer struggle for liberation will triumph; this is the promise of Easter". (Ibid. ) And, like Black Christians who construct a Christology of a Black Christ, or feminists who refer to the Christa, "it is only natural for queer Christians to reclaim Jesus as gay/lesbian sensitive and construct a queer Christ." (Ibid. p.82.) Similarly, Malcolm Boyd argues for a gay-sensitive Jesus for queer Christians. (Ibid. p81; as quoted by Goss. ) As Leonardo Boff says:

Where values of mutuality and justice are denied or where practice denies human dignity, as in prostitution, drug abuse, exploitation and homophobia, Christians are called to love, in Christ, to set captives free, to do justice with love and with mercy. Our Christian responsibilities are shaped by the rights of others, their rights to dignity, self respect and the respect of others. They are called to hold relationships as sacred and inviolate. (Boff, L. Church Charism and Power, p.32.)  In this way justice-making and love-making become one and the same action of justice/love.  We all participate in the same ministry of reconciliation to which Christ calls us, to expereince and accept forgiveness, to love God and to love our neighbours as ourselves.

Homosexual relationships are not sanctified by public rites or sacraments such as marriage. Christian homosexual people may try to live life together, sacramentally, and they do so without formal sanction from most churches. Questions of promiscuity, faithfulness (fidelity) in relationships, power relationships, exploitation, violence and the ever-present threat of the HIV retro virus and other sexually transmitted diseases, are faced by the homosexual community with at least as much concern as heterosexual people. We all stand in need of salvation and liberation from our own excesses and sin towards our fellows.  Sexuality does not impart a special case here.  All persons fall short and need to hear and respond to the Gospel proclamation of love and justice.

In practice, Christians have an "imperative and utopic model" in Christ and the reign of God, (Boff, L. Ibid. p.33.) expressed in non-sexist terms as the reign of God, in mercy, love and justice. We see this clearly in the prophetic traditions, such as in Micah and Isaiah. In Isaiah 56:1-8, where God gathers in the outcasts and declares their service acceptable, it is relevant to note that the prophet's concern is for those deemed radically different- foreigners and eunuchs. The concern is for people ostracised or declared unfit by the Levitical law. The visionary concern of the prophet (Trito-Isaiah) was inclusive of all those who loved the Lord.  The challenge was to maintain justice, and to do what is right (Isa.56:1a), to include people who were excluded by the provisions of the Law, declaring them within the salvation and deliverance that was to come (Isa.56:1, 7).

This is the essence of a liberation theology, today: "to do justice, and to love kindness (mercy), and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6: 8b.) I hold this to be the appropriate basis for a gay and lesbian sexual ethic, that gives rise to mutual care, fidelity and freedom from exploitation or having power-over others in our relationships.

Leonardo Boff argues that the modern Church, as an institution, marginalises people. He points to the hierarchical structures, the entrenched, patriarchal, male dominance of power structures that have subjugated women and marginalised the poor. (Ibid. pp. 47-64.) Robert Goss points out that the Church is also pathologically heterosexist and homophobic, (Goss, R. Ibid. p.12ff. ) and it is alien and hostile ground to many homosexual persons. The Church is seen as exercising ideological control through heterosexist hegemony and has done so since before the third-century.  Those who currently control church power structures are called, in the interests of justice and the Gospel, to be moved to a position of change. Change cannot be imposed but is wrought by conversion from within, through the convicting activity of the Spirit of God. As Leonardo Boff has written:

Any appropriation of a gay liberation theology or a gay Christ (or lesbian Christa) is subversive from the viewpoint of the established order.  It is to that order that we speak, seeking to turn around (bring to repentance) and renounce oppressive power. To be complete, it must, of necessity, seek reform of the whole Church, so that all people may participate. This involves the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, to bring change and to maintain unity of Spirit. The Spirit of Christ has always worked for those who are oppressed. The Church "will enter into the struggle for liberation with all peoples only insofar as it is converted and becomes more and more an incarnation of the Gospel." (Ibid. p.64)  The subversive and dangerous memory of Jesus will help us on the way.

Uniting Network stands calling the church to repentance, to accept homosexuality within a Christian life-style.  Is this a stand-off?  Or, as Boff asks, "Can the Church be converted to a more vibrant witness of the Gospel in our world today?" (Ibid.) We stand in a post-modern context, with active, contextual theologies and different understandings of sexuality and sexual practice.  We expereince the conservative Church as being entrenched in the past, in need of transformation in order to understand and minister to homosexual people, without insisting on converting us to heterosexuality.

Our hope is that the Church can be converted, indeed will be converted.  As it listens to both the Gospel and the witness of its homosexual members, the Church is called to act with compassion, to do justice and to remove stumbling blocks, even those that it places down in itself. The reign of God is one of liberation for the oppressed.  It is built upon faith in justice, love and compassion.  A new Church has appeared at the edge, at the boundary, looking in at the power structure in the centre. Those churches that engage in self-criticism and seek to retrieve the original, liberating message of the Gospel, under the reign of God, will give hope for queer Christians and move to lift the barriers of homophobia.

The task for liberating theologies in Australia, is to give voice to the prophetic call for justice. This call must be taken up by the people, articulated through dialogue and confrontation where necessary. Those who support us may need to deploy their own power, which is rooted in orthodoxy, and empower homosexual persons to present their own prophetic call, to embrace the orthodoxy of justice for all. This involves seeing God in new ways, just as Christ is viewed in new ways. The apathetic God needs to be replaced with an engaging God, who created male and female, lesbian and gay, bisexual, transsexual and heterosexual persons, in his own image. Human diversity is blessed by this God, erotically empowered in God's image and brought to fullness in love of life. Love of life is not defined by procreative sexual activity but by the quality of our relationships. God is not neutral, God chooses to empower the weak, the down-trodden, and builds the reign of God upon The Rejected One.

Goss and Carter Heyward both speak of re-visioning God. As Incarnate Christ, God moves, feels, weeps, suffers, and loves in powerful ways. From the four Gospels and the Epistles, we can draw on many images of Christ. We select those that are most culturally significant for us or comfortable to us, glossing over those images that we may see as hard or difficult to follow. For example, we believe that Jesus would have been open and welcoming to lesbian, bisexual and gay people, as he was to the leper woman (Matt. 26:6-11; Mark 14:3-9; Jn 12:1-8). His ministry was among and for the outcasts. Others believe that Jesus would respond to us as he did to the adulterous women at Jacob's Well, saying, "go and sin no more" (Jn 8:2-11). However, regardless of these views, the over-riding power of the death and resurrection of Christ is to bring all to new life in Christ (Rom.6:3-4). As baptised believers, all Christians are sons and daughters of God through faith and trust (Gal. 3:26).

In the Uniting Church we are a diverse people of many different theological understandings. Yet our unity is found in the common way we seek to live in Christ, yet expressing a diversity of shape, form and theological understanding.  The challenge is to find this a rich and fulfilling union, that celebrates our diversity and our unity, without doing injustice to minorities within the Church and suppressing our differences. We live within the same divine ground yet we have diverse expressions of that experience of God-With-Us.  

Help us God, to break down the barriers so that we may be one in Christ.

wla 6/98 & 5/04

© This article is adapted from a lecture by W. L. Anderson and is published here by Tehomot Publications, Port Willunga, South Australia, 2004.

The other articles in this series are:

Radical Inclusivity 

We Exist in God 

A Choice of Images 

One in Christ 

Do Justice