Thank you for your well-thought out and considered posts.

The response which Hinlicky seeks is in the works. It should be finished by Monday, June 13.

I will be happy to read what you write, but as, so far as I can see, you are neither a signatory of the LSTC faculty statement, nor a faculty member of that institution, whatever you write is not the 'response which Hinlicky seeks...'

Paul, it's interesting that would pre-judge before you read it. If it speaks to the subject, it speaks to the subject. I'll deal with this issue in the article.

Dr. Johnson,

Though I frequently do not see eye-to-eye with Dr. Hinlicky about a variety of issues, I must defend him in regard to his skepticism about your response. In light your party within the ELCA's previous response to those who uphold confessional and biblical standards of practice and teaching, it is highly unlikely that you will not simply present more of the same arguments that both I and Dr. Hinlicky find implausible.

I also must say that I find the fact that the ELCA power structure does not realize what they are doing is, to put it mildly, very, very ill advised a little strange. I suppose that there is an abiding conviction that whatever the cost to Church unity, ecumenical unity, and intellectual coherence, we must make this sacrifice because we the Church must take the lead in "the civil rights movement of our time."

First, I do not think that it is the "civil rights movement of our time." Neither do I think that Christians will remember it that way in a 100 years. Also, the backbone of the denomination (people who go to rural Churches in small town mid-western states) are being alienated by this. They are being alienating merely because a select interest group is demanding public recognition. This will make them push for a break up in the denomination.

In liberal, urban congregations, passage won't even really mean anything new. Most liberal ELCA congregations already accept open homosexual practice without any problems. When I was in an ELCA seminary, homosexual and transgender persons regularly brought their boyfriend and girlfriends to campus without fear of reprisal. Therefore, de facto, this is already the situation and it's merely a matter of having public recognition for a particular culturally constructed homosexual identity within the Church.

So more or less, the denomination has simply decided to self-destruct for no good reason. Even if I were convinced that homosexual practice were not immoral (which from the Biblical doctrine of the orders of creation and the ecumenical consensus for 2,000 years of we must conclude that it is), I would never make such a unwise decision as to endanger the Church and its mission for a handful of people seeking public recognition.

This is something I've never understood about most Christian denomination in the US. Why not just stick to doing the work of the gospel? Just fund the seminaries, fund foreign missions and call it good! Why all these absurd crusades which only lead to trouble, division and alot of intellectual gymnastics, just to abandon historic Christian position on any number of issues. In the end, you just make a big mess and undermine the Church's mission.

Hinlicky is ultimately correct though- it's the gospel the that's at issue! The key is, the ELCA leadership believe that what they are doing is the mission of the Church! That is, as Dr. Hinlicky correctly pointed out, to be the vanguard of the advance of secular political progress. That though is another gospel, one that is "no gospel at all" to quote Paul.

Mr. Kilcrease,

First of all, I'm not "Dr." Johnson. My basic bio information will accompany the forthcoming article.

And secondly, I find it interesting that both you are Dr. Hinlicky are so anxious to jump the gun in anticipating the content of what I will publish instead of waiting a few days to see what I have to say. Does such jumping the gun signal a closed mind at this point? Is your page-long reiteration of previous arguments an attempt to pre-emt a further, logical discussion of the issue? Only you can answer that, but it is food for thought.

Where is the "pre-judgment" for which you criticize Dr. Hinlicky? I only see a comment from him that whatever you write will not be the response he seeks. Since you were not a signatory of the LTSC document, no matter what you write, it will not be the response from LTSC signatories that he would like to receive.
And he did say that he will read your response.

David,

I'll treat this subject in the article.

Sorry Kurt to have called you "Dr." when you are not. I just wanted to show the proper level of respect. BTW, I am actually "Dr." Kilcrease, though I do not use it very frequently and it's perfect alright whatever title you wish to assign me.

Kurt, sorry to have called you "Dr." when you are not- I was simply trying to be respectful. BTW, I am actually "Dr." Kilcrease, but I do not mind if you call me "Mr." I do not use it except in professional settings and I place very little value in titles. To be perfectly honest, I feel somewhat uncomfortable with it at times. But I digress.

Being close minded is actually rather different thing than being experienced. For example, I would not be close minded if I hung up on a telemarketer without listening to what they are selling. In your case I will actually listen to what you have to say, but I have experience and am certain I know what will be said already. Similarly, I do not even believe that the subject of the morality of homosexual practice is worth debating in the Christian Church. The moment God spoke and said "let us make them male and female" and "for this reason a man shall leave his mother and father...." the issue was settled.

I agree totally with Hinlicky- the discussion is over. We're not really talking anymore and really just waiting to see how the denomination is going to enforce a decision they made a long time ago without any logic to it. I have literally never heard an even remotely convincing argument in favor of it. I will read your piece, but I suspect it will be more of the same.

If you want my full argument- read "The ELCA, Homosexuality and the Orders of Creation" in LOGIA (Reformation, 2005).

My response to Dr. Hinlicky's Five-Part article, which is titled "Commentary regarding Dr. Paul Hinlicky's attack on the LSTC faculty," has been posted at:

http://www.kurtjohnsonbooks.com

as the first item under the essays column

Kurt,

I read your piece. I have a couple of thoughts.

1. I noticed that you dug up a student evaluation on the internet that said I was boring in the Old Testament class I taught two semesters ago. First, I'm not at Marquette anymore at this point- I'm at Aquinas College in the Fall. Two, I was merely an instructor. Three, only someone who lacks an academic background would take a student evaluation to some how be damning of someone's character. Four, how does this relate to the argument regarding homosexuality? So I'm boring, so I can't be trust on the gay issue? This is a logical fallacy- ad hominem. What is even more interesting is that you accuse Dr. Hinlicky and I of this, when in fact it's you who does this the most in that piece. It had to be roughly 70% ad hominem.

2. Though I attended an ELCA seminary- I am no longer ELCA. Therefore I am not a member of the ELCA's "conservative coterie" as you put it. I actually have alot of disagreement with Hinlicky, as you will recognize if you go to Logia.org. I am presently a member of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. This partially will also serve as a response to the question of how author of Genesis 1 (whom I believe to be Moses) knew what God said. I believe in verbal inspiration of Scripture and inerrancy. It might be of interest for you to know that by reading Biblical scholarship I came to my conservative position. I was much amused in your citation of Bart Ehrmann who is something of a second rate NT scholar who just writes sensationally titled works. "Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium" was an OK book. He basically agrees with the Schweitzer thesis, which is cool. His other works are fairly bad in my opinion. I would recommend to you some real books on Jesus- namely NT Wright's "Christian Origins and the Question of God" volumes 1-3 and Richard Bauckham's "God Crucified" and "Jesus and the Eye-Witnesses" (in the later, Bauckham, who is probably the number 2 NT scholar in Britain right now demonstrates that the Gospels were written on the basis of eye-witness testimony).

3. I found it interesting that you assume that younger people will be on your side- I believe you talk about "gray heads" or something like that. I turned 30 about 3 months ago. Also, I believe that Dr. Wilson is only a few years older than me in light of the fact that I went to seminary with her husband.

4. But let's get down to the matter at hand. Hence the title "Really?" You had some things to say about theology- but they were mostly not very well thought out.

A. You don't believe in the Virgin birth? I'm afraid that if you don't even believe in the creed or at least you think people can fudge on it and still be Christian you are very seriously mistaken. You have now at this point defined yourself not just outside of Lutheranism, but outside orthodox Christianity. You claim that we have "reason"- meaning that you apparently think that human reason trumps revelation. This position again is not within he bounds of historical Christianity. If you believe the reason thing also, you apparently also don't believe in Original sin much either. Sin distorts our reason- that's one of the reasons we need revelation.

B. You claim that Lutherans teach that the individual has the right to interpret Scripture as they see fit. Wrong again- have you read the later articles of the Augustana regarding the right of people who occupy the office of ministry? They have "the right to reject doctrine contrary to the Gospel (they mean Scripture here)" and "to publically preach and teach." Luther also says in "The Bondage of the Will" that the external clarity of Scripture belongs alone to people who occupy the office of ministry- lay people may not publically interpret Scripture or publically teach in the Church. The idea that the Reformation taught that all persons could interpret Scripture according to conscience is not true. That's the principle of the first amendment to the US constitution, not the Reformation.

C. Actually I would agree with Luther on the issue of the Peasants. They were creating anarchy- what were the princes supposed to do? Not on the Jews of course- but remember orthodox Lutheranism is not based on Luther, but on Scripture as interpreted by the Confessions. His ideas about Jews or geo-centrism are not confessional doctrines- and therefore not at issue.

D. The gospel is the promise of the forgiveness of sins for the sake of Jesus and eternal life. It has nothing to do with social justice- as you claim. Social justice is the law, which is good too- but it's not the gospel! You might want to look into some of Luther's writing such as "Two Kinds of Righteousness" and "Freedom of a Christian." Also see articles 5 and 6 of the Formula of Concord.

E. What does science have to do with the homosexual question? I think that homosexuality probably has a genetic component- it does mean that it isn't wrong. Various criminality genetic component as well (And no I do not view homosexuality is a form of criminality). Original sin is not something I choose, but I'm still condemned from my conception because of it (see Psalm 51). We live in a fallen creation and cannot read God's will off of it.

F. Jesus and the other authors of the NT affirmed the authority of the OT on many occasions. Even if you do not have as high a view of Scripture as I do, it's irrelevant whether or not there were various stages of the text's composition (which I do think in fact there was- though not the ones that you think!). Christ's authority confirms it in its present canonical form. Again, once you start questioning whether or not we can really trust the canon we're out of the realm of orthodox Christianity and in the realm of Gnosticism.

G. What does the "Sermon on the Mount" have to do with homosexuality? Actually, as David Scaer points out, it is really about justification by faith and the exercise of the office of ministry-(See "The Discourse of Matthew" and "The Sermon on the Mount: The Church's first statement of the Gospel"). I think you're reading a bunch of things into Scripture at that point that are more liberal Protestant sentiment, than exegetical truth.

H. The Scriptures and the confessions reflecting the Scriptures present definite rules as to how Scripture is to be interpreted based on it's external clarity. For a summary see Fagenberg "A New Look at the Lutheran Confessions 1529-1538" pg. 42.

I. I find it strange that you so unfamiliar with the basic structure of Lutheran theology.

J. I also presented theological arguments against homosexual practice as well as one of utility. You ignore my arguments from theology (remember I directed you to an article I wrote where I give more theological arguments). That was a distortion on part within the article.

K. How is it that your side is so certain of itself when you cannot muster more than a series of personal attacks on Hinlicky and myself, with little knowledge of orthodox Christianity or Lutheranism in general? How do you become so certain of your position? How is it that you say that you are the tolerant one when you consistently define persons who agree with you as being the smart and creative ones- and confessional theologians are dumb and closed-minded?

Dear Kurt, I said I would be happy to read whatever you wrote. After about the second paragraph of your tirade, I regretted the promise. But I ploughed on to the bitter, and I do mean, bitter end.
What to say? As Luther said to Zwingli: We have a different spirit. Or, as I wrote some months ago, your spirit and its evident influence in the denomination in which God has placed me for reasons beyond my comprehension, causes me to wonder, 'I think I want a divorce.'
There is little point to refuting all the silly statements you make, not least because you can't keep to one author or one argument but attack the 'coterie' of Hinlicky, Zumwalt, Wison, Kilcrease etc, as if we were all of one mind. Serious opponents like the blogger Rob and Chris Sharen show by contrast with your screed what an unmitigated ideologue you are. With defenders like you, I should think, the LSTC faculty members hardly needs opponents like me. Or rather, they need to answer my criticisms for themselves. In the peace which really passes all understanding, Paul.

Dr. Hinlicky,

In your response to the various posts that I made under Pt. 2 of your critiques, you made the following statement (in the course of your agreeing for the need for justice and compassion towards all people, GLBTQ folks included):

"This divine movement for greater justice on behalf of a minority, is not the Gospel by which the Church stands and falls. The gospel by which the Church stands and falls must also offer a specific counsel of repentance to gay and lesbian persons, that their sexual unions fall short from God's will and purpose for His people, even as it offers the abundant mercy and power to bear this cross, if it must be born, in constructive ways short of the kingdom's coming when we will all be freed from sorrow, freed from sin."

It seems to me that it should be abundantly clear by now that this is the chief bone of contention between you and the LSTC document. You feel that a gospel message that does not call gay and lesbian individuals to celibacy/repentance is not the gospel of Jesus Christ; the faculty statement, meanwhile, disagrees with that claim. Meanwhile, one of the signers (Kurt Hendel) of the document already has stated on this Forum (also under Pt. 2 of your critique) that the drafters of the document do not view incorporation of gays and lesbians into the ordained ministry and the vocation of marriage as a betrayal of the gospel as mediated by the confessions. One might disagree with that statement, but I don't see how it needs further clarification.

So, in brief: Dr. Hinlicky contends that ordaining and marrying gays and lesbians is counter to Scripture and the confessions; the LSTC faculty statement says, no, it is not. The faculty statement has given its reasons, you have said why you disagree, and one need not be a mind reader to suppose that the LSTC faculty (like many other ELCA theologians on record) would simply disagree with your disagreements.

Regardless of where one falls on this issue, my question is: what more, specifically, would you like the faculty to say? This debate has already reached the same impasse that it always does. Hundreds of teaching theologians agreed with the previous document (also drafted by members of the LSTC faculty) supporting the Task Force resolutions; meanwhile, many other theologians, yourself included, supported a statement opposing the resolutions. The sides have lined up, the battle lines are drawn. Any reader with the time and inclination can read the LSTC statement, read your critique, see where the fundamentally incompatible axioms are, and then decide for himself or herself which set of axioms are most convincing.

My contention is this: both sides have adequately provided their rationales for siding with one side or the other on this issue, and I am skeptical as to whether there is much else left to say. One may speculate that perhaps the "silence" on the part of your interlocutors is attributable to their feeling likewise.

What I would like Dr. Hinlicky and others of like mind to tell us is this:

1) If the ELCA adopts the proposed changes by the Sexuality Task Force, can we continue to say (if we really ever could) that the Holy Spirit is working through what is essentially a democratic, congregational polity (with assemblies comprised of more lay people than trained and regularly ordained theologians) when it routinely votes against what has been standard teaching in faith and morals for roughly 2,000 years?

2) Should the ELCA vote to approve the changes advocated by the Sexuality Task Force, which in truth call sin either not sin or say "We don't know if it is sin or not," then can the ELCA any longer truthfully consider itself to be a part of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church?

3) If the answer is yes to #2, on what grounds?

4) If the answer is no to #2, can anyone who opposes this offense against God and His Gospel remain in the ELCA?

5) If the answer is yes to #4, on what grounds?

6) If the answer is no to #4, where do we go, what do we do, and based on what grounds?

Some brief responses:
To Rob: it is not a done deal yet. You conclude, prematurely and by your own speculation on the silence of the LSTC faculty to my criticisms, “this debate has already reached the same impasse that it always does.” I hope not. Indeed, I think not. I have tried to change the framework of discussion by talking about two contending theologies of reconciliation, with the hope that by means of some clarity about this, we might even be able to reconcile our theologies of reconciliation. But you reduce theology to a political stance on marriage and ordination of gays and lesbians. Not in my view a hopeful move.
By contrast, I have made it clear how flexible I could be on these political questions, if our theology of reconciliation were authentically confessional. And, let me remind, it was the LSTC faculty statement that elevated this dispute into a contention about what the gospel is and what it means for us. Thus I fear your irenicism and earnest desire for charity in interpretation in these final remarks have gotten the better of you. If the LSTC faculty members will neither repent of their document, nor defend it against my criticisms, then I conclude that they concede defeat. Or, if not, then I require that they own up to the theological consequences of their position. That is what I would still like them to come out and say clearly.
The only honest interlocutor in this entire debate has been Chris Scharen, who forthrightly teaches that if we marry and ordain homosexuals with the blessing of God, we are teaching that ‘God loves gay gay, that God desires homoerotic desire.’ That is clear and forthright and intellectually honest and not spiritually deceptive – unlike the LSTC faculty statement.
To Dr. Kilcrease: While I appreciate your words of support, I find myself having something similar to say to you as I just said to Rob. You state, “We're not really talking anymore and really just waiting to see how the denomination is going to enforce a decision they made a long time ago without any logic to it. I have literally never heard an even remotely convincing argument in favor of it.” Of course, I quite agree with your sentiments, but again: it ain’t over till its over. One has a Christian duty to argue rationally, even if the other side is acting deceptively, manipulatively, dishonestly, etc.
To Son of WMC: if the draft Social Statement and the Recommendations for ministry are approved in August, the corruption of the ELCA governance process will be increasingly manifest to all. I have opposed this system since the inception of the ELCA, and I hope that friends associated with the Word Alone movement will now see why polity is not an adiaphora, and ecclesiology is part of the gospel. Theologically speaking, I have said for 20 years now that there is nothing an ELCA assembly can do that binds conscience – even, ironically, with the logically absurd notion of respect for bound consciences which is now being put forward to make doctrinal incoherence palatable. What has kept me in the ELCA is its constitutional commitment to Scripture and Confession and its understanding of the nature of the Church as articulated in its Constitution, Chapters 2 and 3. As you rightly discern, should these innovations be approved in August, it will undermine this latter rationale.
What then? An open judgment that the ELCA has become a heterodox body. That is something less than outright apostasy; the proponents of change ostensibly act on the basis of their own understandings of conscience, gospel, scripture, confession, howsoever inconsequent these are. But with this open judgment, new possibilities for the fundamental realignment of American Christianity might also emerge. Certainly this much is true: if the worst case unfolds in August, no traditional Lutheran bound in conscience to the Word of God has any obligation of loyalty to the ELCA.

Dr Hinlicky,

While you may see the other gospel of Liberal Protestantism in the LSTC document, it is something of a strawman to try to cast the debate on this issue as solely being between Liberal Protestantism and the Gospel as confessed by the Reformers at Augsburg. I believe that Visions and Expectations is not congruent with that Gospel in requiring celibacy from ordained homosexuals nor is the ELCA's failure to publicly recognize (in the exact sense that it publicly recognizes marriage) homosexual unions in line with the Gospel. A group from the ELCIC has produced a Gospel-grounded statement on this issue, found here: http://www.webelieveinthegospel.org/2652.html
There are also people in the US who have articulated this as well, one example found here: http://www.crossings.org/archive/ed/ReformationResources.pdf

I think the homosexuality issue does serve to highlight the other gospels already present in the ELCA. But the opposite of universalism and antinomianism is pharisaism and biblicism, and those need to be just as vigorously defended against, if not more so, given the witness of the Scriptures and Reformers.

Dear Peter: it is easy to make assertions, and hard to make arguments. Show me where I am wrong. Show readers where you are right. Otherwise, keep the emoting for an ELCA assembly where it is at home in a safe habitat. Peace, Paul.

1. I have no idea how anyone can read the Lutheran confessions or any of Luther or Melanchthon's writings and get that homosexual marriage and ordination are acceptable out it.

2. I'm particularly unimpressed by your invocation of Ed Schroeder and the crossing community. Schroeder is a classical example of several historical mistakes made the by the Erlangen school taken to the extreme in US Lutheranism(ultimately resulting in Gospel-Reductionism). Particularly troubling is the fact that he claims basically that in terms of the content of the law, it's up to your given society to dictate what is useful for the regulation of good order. This idea has its orgin in Adolf Harless' work "The System of Christian Ethics." It essentially gives a rather wide scope to the state and secular society's ability to dictate what the content of the law is. In practice, this is one of the reasons why Althaus and Elert early in the 1930s said that they did not agree the Reich Church's decision to exclude non-Arians from the pastorate, they couldn't say much about it since secular society was effectively automous (they later changed their minds about this- part of the problem here also was Christopher Lutherhardt's interpretation of the two kingdoms doctrine as well, which germinated during the 1860s and the rise of Germnan statism and nationalism).

This explains then why Ed Schroeder makes bizare statements like "there is no Biblical doctrine of marriage" (what about Genesis 2 and Jesus' interpretation of it in Matthew 19?) and "marriage is a secular institution which the Lutheran confessions say the Church has nothing to do with." In other words, the Church does not possess a clarified version of the law, which they should instruct their members in (3rd use) and criticize secular society with in order bring it to repentance(2nd use), but rather must simply kowtow to whatever standards secular society decides on. Hence gay marriage is acceptable- because secularity approves of it and finds it useful to maitain societal order.

Following this, there is also a tendency of interiorized the mission of the Church. The Erlangen school generally thought of the law's function within the Church as a kind of amorphous threat to be removed by the gospel. Gospel tended to be thought of as an unthematized experience of divine love mediated through Christ- in the case of von Hofmann this tends to be true- less so with Elert who has a clear and pretty good atonement theory. Much of this interiority comes form Pietism- von Hofmann mother was active in a Pietism movement coming out of Wittenberg, Harless was Pietist, etc.

In any case, Schroeder's understanding of law-gospel is also dictated by this. Instead of being a rule as to how to proclaim the text of Scripture (the events of salvation history actually can function as either law or gospel depending on how they are proclaimed), law-gospel is a hermeneutic which tells me what is gospel and what is not-gospel in the text. Gospel is liberating and brings about a new, law-free creation. In the law free creation, we leave behind things like the prohition against homosexual practice. He says this quite explicitly on several occasions.

3. All of this is a misreading of Luther. It comes partially as I have suggested above 19th century German Pietism and concepts of legal order. It also comes partially as a result of prioritizing certain texts of Luther over others (for example "How Christian Should Regard Moses" over The Antinomianian Disputations). Luther definitely thinks in Antinomian Disputations (which thankfully will be present the new editions of Luther's works!) that Scripture clarifies the law and that the teaching of the law is necessary for the Christian life. The Genesis commentary also is a fine example of Luther's belief that what we do is rooted in the structure of creation. In it he sets forth the classical Lutheran doctrine of the orders of creation. In my article mentioned above, I suggest that in light of the fact that Lutheran and Luther believe that our place within the orders of creation is reaffirmed and freed to function properly by the gospel, Schroeder's Antinomianism has no place within the Lutheran Church.

Dr Kilcrease,

1. Check Augsburg Confession Article 28: 65, 66 and most especially 69-70. Oh, and Luther's ideas that celibacy is a gift that most do not have.

2. Both Genesis 2 and Matthew 19 presuppose marriage as an institution. Genesis 2 cannot be ordaining 1 man/1 woman marriage given Jacob's story later on. It's a description of an existing institution and as such, not a Biblical doctrine.

Also, regulation of marriage is not the Church's task. It does not have authority to say what form marriage is to take. The Church's authority derives from the Gospel. As such, it understands the 2nd and 3rd uses of the Law in how it and the Gospel crosses with the individual in their particular place and time. Given the diversity of individual situations, there cannot be one specific regulation that universally works (and isn't this what Bonhoeffer is getting at in his Ethics when talking about the "Christian" and the "Ethical"?). That isn't saying that the local government's law stands entirely in as God's Law. It's saying that the Law must be tailored to the sinner. And this is what Luther and the Reformers are saying when they say that laws of the Jewish theocracy did not automatically hold for their own time.

3. You're just prioritizing Luther's texts in a different way. I think the problem is related to the antinomianism Paul had to repeatedly deal with, and gives the basis for most of these morality texts some hold as God's last word on things. Paul did profess a law-free Gospel in contradiction to the circumcision requirement of the time. We are set free in Christ and the old law no longer holds. However, people took that freedom as freedom from the Gospel, too. All those lists are Paul trying to give guidelines as to how one walks in the Spirit, but mindful that the only way one can do so is walking in the Spirit. Those guidelines were never meant to be a checklist. Guidelines, yes, but absolute rules? No, because that would be a return to the old legalistic way of life, just with slightly different rules.

3. Which brings us to the Creator's ordainings. Some of us are ordained by God homosexual. So far as I can tell, one of Dr Hinlicky's beefs with the LSTC document and others is that they claim he and others deny this and that this obfuscates the issue. But if some are ordained homosexual, not asexual, but homosexual, you're denying God when you say that they should refuse that calling to live in an intimate, sexual relationship with another. Given that the Gospel reaffirms and frees us to function properly in our place in creation, how can you say that it stands against homosexual marriage/ordination?

1. Genesis 1-2 do ordain 1 man/1 woman. I would re-read Matthew 19 and use it as a hermeneutic for dealing with the rest Scripture. It's part of this old Reformation principle you may be familiar with called Scripture interpreting Scripture. Jesus of course states that what God ordained in the beginning is what he intends. What he has allowed to deviate from this, Jesus says (in this case allowing divorce), God allowed as a concession to sin. Consequently, polygamy would be a concession to sin. 1 man and 1 woman would be God's intention which he ordained in the beginning.

2. Yes, you are correct to say that Luther and Melanchthon said many are not fit for celibacy. This does not mean that they would have approved of people engaging in sexuality activity which contradicts the Word of God.

For example, I was single for many, many years and could not find a wife. I was not therefore free to fulfill my sexual impulse by going to prostitutes. Why? Because it's a sin. So, a homosexual person who has a sexual desire is not free to fulfll their sexual impulses with a person of the same sex because it is contrary to God's law. In light of the fact that I myself had to remain celibate for many years in order to follow God's law, I see no particular reason why this should not also be the responsibility of homosexual persons as well.

3. Though we possess a certain knowledge of the natural law (Romans 1-2) it has been distorted by sin. Luther in his early writings tended to emphasize the practicality and immediacy of the knowledge the law through reason. Johann Agricola helped him sharpen his understanding by claiming (just as you are doing) that in the Church only the gospel should not be preached. Agricola also claimed that secular reason and philosophical traditions had a much an ability to teach the law as Scripture.

Therefore I'm not really doing the same thing when I prioritize the Antinomian Disputations over "How Christian should regard Moses." The former is a sharpening of his position in the later. If you just take the later and run with it,then you get alot of non-sense.

In any case, the law must be clarified by Scripture because it has been distorted by sinful human reason (Luther and the Formula of Concord are quite clear about this- also the Augustana tells us that we are to avoid "childish and self- chosen works"). If we are to avoid "childish and self-chosen works" (like wasting millions of dollars on a sexuality study and other forms of political activitism at the expense of the preaching of the gospel) we need Scripture to clarify for us what works are to be done.

4. You cannot directly read God's will off creation or what is present in a given society. The idea that has been ordained in their vocation as a homosexual is like saying that I have been ordained to be an army officer, so I should fight in an unjust war. Similarly, I could not say that I have been ordained to be a prostitute to the glory of God. We live in a distorted creation and need the law to tell us what is good and what is bad.

You are correct that marriage is a given institution as part of creation. But we are told in Genesis God's intention behind this institution and we are given laws clarifying how we should exercise our life as married people. This involves a list of things we should do. Leviticus 18 gives a good list of sexual practices that the Israelits shouldn't engage in. Martin Chemnitz in "The Examination of the Council of Trent" points out that because God criticizes other nations for engaging in these practices, it holds that this is part of God's universal will for creation.

5. Human existence is pretty universal. Everything that the natural law as it is expressed in the Ten Commandments has to say to the Israelites, it can say to us. There of course can be different applications in different situations-but that is something different.
Also, the law is eternal (lex aeterna). It is God's eternal will- Luther also says this in the Antinomian disputations, as does the Formula of Concord.

6. The Church's authority comes from the Word of God, not merely the gospel. The gospel is a subset of the Word of God. The gospel could not be the gospel otherwise because it makes no sense if it does not presuppose the law and the history of salvation. Therefore those things must be the Word of God to, and they must contextual the gospel.

The Augustana uses the word "Gospel" to denote all those things. The ELCA has abused article 7 by claiming that it is enough to agree on justification by faith to entered into fellowship with other denomination. Not so. Melanchthon means the whole counsel of God. Doubt me? Multiple historian have demonstrated that he is making an allusion to the code of Justinian in which the term means the whole body of Apostolic teaching. He was concerned at this point that the Lutheran Church be seen as a legal Church under the imperial law code which was based on the code of Justinian. In any case, you must believe alot of other things not just justification by faith to understand the gospel. All the articles of the faith are interconnected. One cannot be, for example, a non-Trinitarian and believe in Justification by faith and be in fellowship with the Lutheran Church since the gospel is about the action of the Triune God.

3. You are using Elert's idea of "Evangelical imperatives." This is non-sense. Though we are free from the condemning effect of the law, we are still under the obligation to obey the law in our external relationship with others. Luther and Paul make the distinction between the external person who is still regulated by the natural law as clarified by Scripture this side of the eschaton and the inner person who is totally free from the law. My external person must be disciplined by the law -"therefore I beat my body to bring it under discipline" as Paul says. Luther says the same thing in freedom of a Christian.
By saying that there are regulations to conform with life in the Spirit just makes the gospel into a new law. Gospel is now a code and demand- even if it's a nice demand! Both Marcion and Agricola did this also.

Peter you bring up circumcision. Paul's point in Galatians regarding circumcision is that because Abraham received circumcision after he was justified circumcision and any divine commandment could never be the basis of righteousness before God. What he says about it is that circumcision was a sign of the promise of the coming "seed." It doesn't mean that the ancient Israelites shouldn't circumcise their children (God had commanded that), what it meant was that they should not view it as a basis of being righteous before God. He makes a similar point in Romans. If one is circumcised, but then does not follow the rest of the law, then one is not justified. Your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. Christian do not need to be circumcised as he points out in Colossians 2:16, because all the ceremonial laws of the old dispensation were merely signs of the coming of Christ. Christ was the seed, circumcision gave a sign that Christ would come from Abraham's loins. Christ won't come from any Christian's loins since he's already here. In colossians, Paul also makes the point that it pre-figured Baptism, which circumcises the heart. Therefore there's no need of external circumcision when the type of inner spiritual circumcision has arrived. Nevertheless, we are to obey the governing authorities, we are not to abuse our Christian freedom with works of darkness and we are to discipline our flesh. This goes for the external person who is still under sin and where there is sin, there is the law (see Romans 7!). Our inner person is free from law because of both justification and sanctification. We are forgiven by the death of Christ and we have faith which sanctifies us and therefore frees us from the demands of the law. The law cannot demand anything of us if we have fulfilled it after all. Hence as Luther say in the Antinominian Disputations, when we are in heaven, the law will remain, but as an empty law (lex vacua).

Honest debate requires recognition when one has misinterpreted one's interlocutor, and I have concluded that the admitted pessimism of my previous post was based on a misinterpretation of one of Dr. Hinlicky's terms.

To Dr. Hinlicky:
I think that I have identified the basic point in which I have misunderstood you, and it has to do with the phrase "operationally." I had concluded that your point about the citation of Galatians hinges upon your comment (to me and to Kurt Hendel under the second part of your critique) that the LSTC statement "operationally" ignores Galatians' requirement of baptismal unity grounded in death to sin and resurrection to new life and the Confessions' rendering of that unity in terms of a law-gospel framework. I think that I have been interpreting the charge of "operational ignorance" as a reference to the outcome of the document (i.e. the recommendation of blessing homosexual marriage/ordination) rather than the absence of adequate (in your view) reference to law-gospel framework in the document itself. It was on the basis of that interpretation that I made my suggestion that perhaps the issue had reached an impasse.

You are contending, however, that the key problem is with the document's over-privileging of Jesus' "ministry to the marginalized" (which, in fairness, you indicate has some basis in the gospel texts) that makes no effort to relate itself to a more robustly confessional dialectic of law/gospel - THAT, and not its conclusions on sexuality, is the document's "operational ignorance." You see this as such a problem because, in the context of centuries that have seen liberal Protestantism make similarly problematic overtures towards "inclusivity" as the bedrock of Christian faithfulness, this lack of connection ultimately renders the LSTC document's view of reconciliation incompatible with the Confessions, even if the document makes gestures towards Lutheran themes that the its authors understand to be confessional (again, please note that I am attempting to describe your view and not my own here). Hence your rebuttal to me that, in our historical/theological context, your critiquing the document's lack of explicit tie to the more robustly baptismal vision of Galatians is not an argument from silence (as I had charged it) but a contextual indictment of an "operational theology" whose language is more decisively amenable to liberal Protestant theology than Lutheran confessionalism.

To the extent that this is a correct casting of your view, then I suppose that it's chiefly on the last point that I am not entirely convinced. I do wish to indicate, however, that in the course of disagreeing with you I now see that, yes, there probably is more to talk about theologically; the debate is not closed. I also must again note and commend your repeated assertions that the ELCA needs to explore options for combatting violence and bigotry towards homosexuals. These remarks lend genuine credence to the "flexibility on political questions" that you ascribe to yourself.

Let me share one more quick thought, if I may. Your final comment on my penultimate post that my reasoning justified the quatenus rather than the quia strikes, in my estimation, very close to the heart of this issue. I suspect that you are right in saying that my rationale for the LSTC document depicts its strategy as being closer to the quatenus; indeed, I'll go further and admit to having sympathies for the quatenus (which is not to say that the authors of the statement would agree). More precisely, in my mind part of the genius of confessional subscription is the way that it forces a dialectical "schweben" between the two modes, but that's a different subject for another time. Perhaps the conversation that the ELCA needs to be having is a revisitation of that old but still relevant question of which view (or views) of the normativity of the confessions is claimed by the ELCA. That is an issue of real theological substance that could make for salutary discussion on the convention floor, and off.

I am very grateful to you for this insightful correction of your previous misunderstanding of me, and I concur with your analysis for the most part. Three quick comments.
1. Your willingness to debate theologically is commendable, because anyone who debates in good faith is willing to be changed by the process of deliberation and clarification that ensues. Your willingness stands in sharp contrast to the LSTC faculty members.
2. Your admission for sympathy with the quatenus interpretation of confessional subscription is sufficient acknowledgment for me of what a stretch it is to justify the proposed innovations as materially or substantially Lutheran.
3. I don't agree with your statement that 'operational ignorance' refers only to the failure by the LSTC faculty members to employ a law - gospel analysis of the matter, for also I refer to an active ignoring of what the text of the Bible, as interpreted by CA XXIII, draws from that operational law-gospel theology as binding doctrine (for quia subscribers) on the question of what form of human sexuality is pleasing to and blessed by God. It is quite beyond my comprehension that theologians can claim with a straight face the authority of the Confessions and Bible and then go on to brazenly contradict what these texts say without feeling either need or responsiblity to justify themselves!

I share your desire that Word Alone discover that polity is not adiaphora. I learned this lesson well from Dr. David Gustafson (God rest his soul). But as one who experienced all the fuss over the CCM regarding the issue of the historic episcopate, there is too much latent anti Roman Catholicism within the ranks of Word Alone. Despite the clear language of the Lutheran confessions that would have preferred to maintain the magisterium if it weren't for the abuses of power cited, Word Alone can't accept such a polity because it is too anti-clerical and suspicious of hierarchy. The great irony is that through the Word Alone efforts to get an exception to the rules policy regarding ordination by bishops, they have sown the seeds for the proposed and unpalatable "local" option regarding the ordination of persons in same gendered relationships and the blessing of such relationships. Having said all of that, it would have been wise to disolve pulpit and altar fellowship with the Episcopalians when they ordained Gene Robinson as a Bishop. But the ELCA let that slide too.

My response to Dr. Hinlicky's Five-Part article, which is titled "Commentary regarding Dr. Paul Hinlicky's attack on the LSTC faculty," has been posted at:

http://www.kurtjohnsonbooks.com

as the first item under the essays column

Kurt,
I will not seek to discuss the totality of your essay here in this response as it is perhaps more appropriate for Dr. Hinlicky and the others who you have mentioned in your essay to do so. I do however take issue with your final section and it's discussion of the "next generation." Being a seminary student and a 20 something I assume that I fit the description for the "next generation" group.
My issue is this; while you acknowledge that this "next generation" group is not of one mind, as I read it, your essay seems to paint us "next generationers" with the same brush. You write "My conclusion is that these young and early-middle-age individuals who represent an excellent cross-section of American society and culture don't have a great deal of affinity for the conservative coterie's view of the ELCA human sexuality matter." It would seem, one could infer, that your point is that the younger generation, as a whole, are not of the same mind on this issue with the likes of Dr. Hinlicky and others. If I am understanding you correctly then I must say that you are indeed very wrong. I for one would not be one of these next generation people you speak of and I know several others who would not fit into this group as well. We do have a great deal of affinity for this "conservative coterie" as you name us.
My point is this, don't just assume that all people under say the age of 40 are of the same mindset on this topic or that even a majority of this group is of the same mindset. During my time with Lutheran Campus Ministry our national meetings focused on this issue and I can tell you this group of collage aged people where just as divided as the ELCA is now with regard to this issue. Your effort at trying to point to the "next generation" as a group that is overwhelmingly on your side is grossly mistaken and makes one wonder if you are merely using this "next generation" for your own purposes. I welcome you comments.

I don't assume that "everyone" in the next generation hold the same opinion regarding this subject. My only observation is that the "under 40" generation has a more tolerant attitude toward the homosexual question than does the generation represented by Hinlicky, Benne, Nestigen and others at the forefront of this issue's debate. Clearly, there is a generational difference. How it affects the ELCA is still yet to be determined.

Thanks for reading the article so thoroughly.

Kurt,
My point is this, it seems (from experience) that many in other generations, say for instance your own, are highly tolerant of homosexuality as well. Rather than taking our own experiences as fact we should perhaps test them to see if indeed one generation is more tolerant than others. Then, if say the younger generation is more tolerant we can make those assertions in our arguments. However, to do so with a lack of evidence could be seen as merely using a group to make a point in a deceptive way. I guess my argument is with the use of experience as the chief norm in all debates. Further, I get rather tired of my younger generation constantly being cited as a reason for making changes. By way of an example we can look to contemporary worship. Many churches that seek to start a contemporary service often times cite the younger generation as evidence for why they need to do this. Interestingly enough the evidence is beginning to show that older generations (baby boomers) are drawn to contemprary worship, not so much the under 40 generation. This would lead one to believe that the baby boomers are merely using the younger generation to get what they want.

Further I'm not sure though that toleration necessarily translates to blessing (this seems to be the heart of the matter). True I am perhaps more tolerant on this issue than say my parents; but, as stated above, I'm not entirely sure that you or I have adequate evidence for a ruling that the under 40 generation is more tolerant than others; all we have to work on is our experience (hardly a strong arguing point for debates). For some tolerance may mean outright blessing and full acceptance of lifestyles. For others, like myself, tolerance means seeking in earnest ways to provide pastoral care that is in keeping with the churches 2,000 year stance on this topic. We have then no common definition of tolerance.

I guess for me it seems as if we are putting the cart before the horse. We are taking a vote on something that has really been poorly considered and is bound to cause division. For instance we have no common hermeneutic, this certainly already calls into question our unity as it is described in Augsburg VII. We have never outlined an appropriate way to discuss this matter. For instance, if someone in the traditional camp refers to homosexuality in the terms of sin people get incensed, angry and ignore what is said, the same happens in the other direction very often was well. Finally it seems to me, as I have discussed earlier, that we talk to much from experience (on both sides). I have yet to see a public debate on the topic making use of our best minds. I have to wonder why that is?

Please realize that I approach this dialogue with an open mind and in the interest of being civil, as outlined by Lutheran Forum. I appreciate your comments both in the article and in your response to me, thank you for your time.

P.S. Since you recommend a resource (which I plan to obtain) might I recommend one to you? "Christian Faith and Same Sex Attraction: Eastern Orthodox Reflections" by Father Thomas Hopko. I believe that many of the points he makes and questions he raises need to be considered by those seeking a change. Again thank you for your consideration.

The Latin expression means ‘against the person.’ It is a fallacy in argumentation which responds not to the logic or evidence or analysis presented by an opponent, but attacks the motives, integrity or character of the opponent, even though these are irrelevant to the argument in question.
I have sought in my criticisms of the LSTC faculty statement to stick to the logic, evidence and analysis in the actual text that they have produced. The judgments I have made have be aimed at the text, not the persons. The text, I have shown, is intellectually dishonest and religiously deceptive, for invoking the authority of Bible and Confession, while brazenly ignoring what Bible and Confession actually say. Likewise, where I have passed moral judgment upon the signatories, it pertains not to their persons, but to their offices as teaching theologians. Since it is the signatories who put themselves forward as experts, and demand respect for what they say on the basis of their teaching office, this is not the ad hominem fallacy but rather the plea for rationality not mere authority, for the sake of their own honor and for the sake of the church, to defend the position they have taken against the criticisms I have made. To call my demand for public and rational accountability ‘invective’ is itself invective and the lowest form of polemical sleaze.
Rules of logic, however, are not the only consideration. In the field of the church, first-order religious language is appropriate. I called the signatories of the LSTC statement to repentance. Since when is a call to repentance considered out of bounds in the life of the church? One can dispute the reasons I give for issuing this call, but then disputation is the appropriate response, not the childish game of personal attacks on those who criticize by falsely characterizing their criticisms as personal attacks.
What Kurt Johnson is evidently unaware of, going back to things said in my initial forays into this controversy, is that many of my opponents have been teachers, comrades and students through the years, whose good opinion I both desired and enjoyed. I take no pleasure, but a lot of pain, in breaking ranks with these good folks.
I am grateful to Zumwalt and Kilcrease for so ably refuting the many half-baked ideas found in Kurt Johnson's eternally long jeremiad. I couldn't myself bear to descend to that level of trading arrows with the barbarians, Crossfire style. On the other had, Kurt Johnson and his campfollowers ought to know, as Kilcrease points out, that I sharply disagree with Kilcrease about the validity of historical-critical exegesis. We are not of the same mind on this important point. But that disagreement doesn't for a moment unvalidate the many sound arguments theologically, morally and philosophically which Kilcrease has advanced in this interchange. But enough with Kurt Johnson, we have bigger fish to fry.

1. Actually what Jesus states is "What God has joined together, let no man put asunder" in direct reference to the one flesh union of the man and woman. That one flesh comes from the physical fact of marriage. So the policy requiring homosexuals (or heteros for that matter) to choose between ordination and maintaining that one flesh with their partner is contrary to Matthew 19. Jesus is not upholding 1 man/1 woman here, He's upholding commitment to one's partner. He does talk about a man and a woman, but remember that the case before him is a man and a woman. The generalization in the text is not '1 man/1 woman' it's 'what God has joined together let no man put asunder'. If the Church takes that view of marriage, it needs to support both heteros and homos in their one flesh of marriage. Also, Genesis 2 does not ordain only 1 man/1 woman. It just says that's one ok way to do things. The absence of a ruling is not the same as ruling against it. And at that point in the text, it cannot say anything about homosexuality because there are only 2 people around. So if anything, it means that humans are created to be in relationship with each other and to love and nurture each other. And that ordaining of the Creator does find fruit in homosexuality*.

2. The difference between homosexuality and visiting prostitutes to fulfill your sexual desires is the same difference between getting married and visiting prostitutes with one slight twist. According to you the homosexual is allowed no place in which to fulfill his sexual desires. You aren't just asking him to wait, you're requiring life-long celibacy. You're also making the statement to him that sex with your life partner is wrong.

3. I'm not actually saying that there's no place for the Law being preached in Church. I'm saying that the Church's task is proclaiming the Gospel. The difference is that I think the Law should be preached to sinners only where it pushes sinners to Christ. Scriptural "clarification" of law is something I'll agree to, but I think we have different ideas of what that word means, and in regards to 'works to be done' it can at best make suggestions which we are encouraged to ignore as needed. Anything else contradicts justification by faith alone and only.

4. Leviticus 18 as general rules does not generally hold, even if God criticized other nations at the time for those problems. All it shows is that it was wrong for all of those other nations at that point in time. That doesn't mean everything in Leviticus 18 needs to be thrown out, but that it needs to be read in the context of Christ.

5. Those different applications in different situations is exactly the point. The 10 Commandments do say similar things, in that it's articulations of how we are in rebellion against God, but those articulations must be made in our context.

6. Here, I disagree with you. The Word of God is Jesus Christ, who came into our world as man to reconcile the entire world unto Him. Christ, as God's final Word on creation, is that sinners are given mercy on Christ' account. That is the Gospel and that is the Word. Salvation history isn't actually a prerequisite for the Gospel-- look at all of the Gentiles who come to Christ without ever knowing what it was to be Jewish or knowing the Torah. Knowledge of the Law is necessary to put the Gospel in focus, but that knowledge isn't solely contained in Scripture-- any man with eyes can see the execution of God's Law in our world. He may not understand how or why God is behind it, and Scripture certainly provides clarification, but if knowledge of the Law only through Scripture was necessary, Paul's mission would have HAD to end in failure. Remember- his Gentile converts came to Christ first and then to Jewish law. If Paul taught Jewish law first (and Galatians certainly suggests otherwise!) circumcision would have been a non-issue.

Your later requirement that one must understand a lot of 'other things' besides faith alone to know the Gospel is also a direct contradiction of Article IV of the Augsburg Confession. That makes it cease to be faith alone. Your example of the Trinity is a poor choice, because we've understood the Gospel in Trinitarian terms for the last 1700 years. It's like saying understanding language is necessary to knowledge of the Gospel. That isn't what makes language the Word of God. The Word of God is Jesus Christ as God's answer to man's sin. Also, Luther generally meant Gospel when he said Word of God and used 'Die Schrift' when he meant Scripture.

3 (or 7). Evangelical imperatives, as you call them, are not a new list of regulations, or a new code or anything. They are descriptive of the new life in Christ, not prescriptive for the new life in Christ. No demand there.

8. On circumcision, Paul says that circumcision is unnecessary for salvation, even if God had commanded it of Israelites in the past. That means not being circumcised is not a sin. As you say, it's unnecessary because we have Christ. But the debate wasn't just about a given ritual, it was about the Gospel itself. Is Christ sufficient or is more needed? The answer is Christ alone. The Law is not our vehicle for righteousness, but only faith in Christ alone. Seems to me the homosexuality debate is just a recasting of circumcision. Do homosexuals need to dance to our tune in order to trust Christ, proclaim the Gospel and serve as rostered clergy? I think they need to dance to Christ's tune, and part of that dance involves them being married. Much like Paul's converts, we need to put our faith in Chirst, not in circumcision, or our interpretation of what we think Paul said regarding the sinfulness of homosexuality.

*just in case it needs to be said, I'm not trying to obfuscate the issue by referring to homosexuality. I'm using that word as shorthand to mean married homosexuals, or those in 'committed, monogamous, sexual relationships' if using the word married in that context makes your head asplode.

Peter,

Couple things.

1. I'm saying that Jesus specifically says one man, one woman. What I'm saying is that Jesus says what God established in the beginning was the regulative principle of the law. That's why slavery is bad as well, yet certain portions of Scripture seem to allow it. It was a concession to sin.

2. As I pointed out- certain things are universal. How could certain sexual practices described in Leviticus 18 only be wrong for the time being? Also, you give no solid basis regulating what is ethical and not ethical. I think that it is correct that the law can be applied in somewhat different ways in different contexts, but the solid norm is what God established in the beginning. This is the Lord Jesus' hermeneutic.

3, You are correct about Luther's use of the language of Gospel, but I was talking about the Augustana. Also, you are totally incorrect about the Word of God. In the NT Jesus is called the Word of God on only two occasions, the rest refer to the Scriptures. The Trinity is not a language, but an ontological fact. The NT authors are all full blown Trinitarians and consider it to be essential to their gospel- if you doubt me I would suggest you read some of the writings of Richard Bauckham, Larry Hurtado and Charles Gieschen. Irenaeus and Ignatius of Antioch are as well. Thing just got corrupted by the time of Athanasius because of Greek philosophical traditions, much like things got corrupted by the time of Luther. Again, people are not awakened to the condemning effect of the the law fully without it's preaching- see Luther in the Galatians commentary chapter 2 regarding the issue of "veiled law." Also, without a knowledge of salvation history and the facts concerning Christ's history, the gospel does not make sense. The Gentiles Paul converted were mostly "God-fearers" who had already sat in the synagogue and knew the history of salvation. Similarly, the gospel is dependent upon certain historical facts being true. For example, Jesus existing, dying, rising from the dead, etc. If these things didn't happen, then the gospel is untrue. Also, these things must not merely be probable, but most certainly true. This does not contradict CA 4 because believing them is simply the logical corollary of the gospel, in the same way that putting away the works of darkness is.

4. Your Pauline scholarship also is perhaps lacking. On circumcision, I agree with you that the gospel was at stake, I don't see how this contradicts the answer I gave earlier. Circumcision also was part of the ritual law of Israel as well, and not part of the the structure of creation which I hold to be the regulating principle of the law. In 1 Cor. 6:9 Paul considers specifically violating the law (that is the natural law, not Jewish ritual law) as faith killing and disqualifying for the kingdom of heaven. Deliberate sinning destroys faith. I would deny the premise that any practicing homosexual has faith since faith cannot exist at the same time with deliberate sinning against God's law- "If we sin willfully a sacrifice no longer remains for us"(Heb 6). Luther is quite explicit about this in the Smalkald articles as well- he calls it a heresy of the Anabaptists that things are otherwise "if one sins against conscience, then faith is lost."

5. Again it is also irrelevant whether or not there is a release for a heterosexual person in marriage. What if I had never found a wife? Would I have been free to have sex with whom ever I wanted because the desire was unbearable? Of course not. Similarly, all homosexual practice, committed and uncommitted, is rejected by God in Scripture and is always a sin no matter what.

Dr Kilcrease,

1. I think the operating principle Jesus is upholding is marriage, not 1 man/1 woman. Remember, Adam only had one option. Everyone since then has had more than one. Or is Jesus upholding that marriage is between one man and the woman created from that man's rib? Also, what Jesus says is not to put asunder what has been joined together by God. Now, does that joining occur with sexual intercourse or with marriage? And if it is marriage, in which part of the marriage does the joining occur? And in the case of polygamy, which in your terms is a "concession to sin", why is God joining people into sin?

2. The solid basis for what is and is not ethical is Jesus Christ. Living in Him is what gives us the correct ethos, and with the correct ethos, correct ethics follow.

As to the universal nature of sexual mores in Leviticus, consider the practice of younger brothers inheriting older brothers' wives. How often does that occur these days, and is it sinful not to marry your brother's widow? It was Lawful then, as it provided for the women who were treated as property. But now?

3. The only historical facts required for the Gospel to be true/understood is Jesus' sinless life, death on our behalf and resurrection. Stipulating knowing salvation history hence becomes Gospel plus. I think it's very helpful to know it (so much so that we should endeavor to put Scripture in everyone's hands), but not necessary. And I don't think there's firm evidence that Paul's converts were all God-fearers.

4. This is the crux of the issue. For you, the married homosexual must have no faith because homosexuality is a sin and the two are incompatible. However, the fruits of faith is NOT adherence to what we think is God's Law. It's love for one another-- "By this all men shall know you are my disciples" (John 13:35). And that love is as much in evidence amongst married homosexuals as it is amongst married heterosexuals. They also proclaim the Gospel in both word and deed. The devil cannot stand against himself, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. All of that means you need to challenge your initial premise-- that homosexuality is a sin (or that faith and sin are incompatible, but I think the former is more palatable).

5. You've still got the wrong analogy here. If you'd found someone you trusted enough for sex, you could marry them. Those homosexuals HAVE found a spouse... they're not just grabbing random people to fulfill their desire.

Dr Hinlicky,

It's difficult to hit every single point I disagree with in your critique, but I'm going to hit the major ones.

First, you do use an awful lot of language suggesting that the LSTC folks and the ELCA is generally intent on deceiving others, clouding the issue and trying to trick the faithful remnant into losing the Gospel on this issue. I think that characterization is as incorrect as it would be to claim that you are doing the same thing. We are all united in our desire to proclaim Christ and I think that is reflected in the passion we use to make many of our statements. Also, I think it is a mischaracterization to say that people telling their stories is about 'manipulative testimonies of personal suffering'. They're giving witness to their lives. If it sounds like that's something awful as a result, we should take a step back and consider what's going on. Your language paints them as con men, and that's not what they're doing. Even your concern that 'dialogue instead of debate' is hiding the issue is incorrect, I think. That doesn't mean we can't talk about the issue or shouldn't lay out our theology of why we should or shouldn't. It's an emphasis on approaching this topic from a Christian point of view-- that we speak to each other grounded in the love Christ has shown us, not as opponents in a contest. I would also say that if this distinction changes one's approach, one lacked the right approach in the first place. I do think that what theology develops in the ELCA sexuality document is lacking in rigor, but that does not mean there is no rigor at all on the side "in favor of" the document. I put "in favor of" in quotes because this document is not the product of some pro-gay conspiracy that got appointed to be the Task Force. (in fact, I'll bet most of the Task Force members would laugh at that idea). It's not even the document those who affirm homosexual marriage as part of the Gospel would put out. It's what the Task Force found to be the compromise between two mutually exclusive sides that insist that they have the Gospel.

Second, you talk about threats to our ecumenical partnerships with other churches like the Catholics, etc. However, our call to unity is unity in Christ. If this homosexuality issue were not a Gospel-issue, it might be a consideration. However, that is not the case. Unity with other denominations requires that they accept the Augsburg Confession and the other documents that outline our understanding of the Gospel. If it's a choice between the Gospel and unity with an other church, we need to cleave to the Gospel. Also, there are other churches in the Lutheran tradition this would bring us more inline with.

Third, you use Genesis 1:26 and Mark 10:2-12 as your only grounding texts for marriage. In addition to my comments to Dr Kilcrease, I would add that the language of AC Article XXIII is aimed at including everyone that can in marriage. Yes, the document refers to male and female, which applies to the majority of readers. However, it only speaks to the contrast between permanent celibacy and marriage between men and women. It doesn't address homosexuality one way or the other. How can you read the substance of AC XXIII without believing that marriage is the proper place for homosexual desire? If the Reformers made a case for anything, it was that celibacy didn't work. Especially if 1 Cor 7:2 is part of the grounding.

Fourthly, even assuming that homosexuality is a sin (which I contest), Melancthon's words that “the old canons also state that sometimes severity and rigor must be alleviated and relaxed for the sake of human weakness and to prevent and avoid greater scandal” certainly suggests marriage as the proper recourse for homosexuals. We actually reMARRY divorced persons, not just 'bless their unions' nor do we withhold "the blessing of God in Genesis 1:28". (and isn't that for God to give to whom He chooses, and not us?)

Finally, your critique has not laid out precisely how their position contradicts the Gospel. You do make the claim that it is contrary to the Gospel, but don't really show how, nor how your contention that homosexuality is a sin (and ordination, marriage, etc should be denied) fits into the Gospel. Even if you want to ground it in Mark 10:2-12 (I contend that it doesn't address yes/no for homosexual relationships at all since the context is man/woman), you still need to show how that measures up to Article IV.

Thank you Peter for trying to rise to the level of argumentation. I appreciate that. One of the problems with blogging is that folks jump in on a conversation that has been going on for some time, unaware of what has previously been said. I see that to be the case with you, focusing as you do only on the five part series criticizing the LSTC faculty statement (not laying out my own position), for claiming the authority of Scripture and Confession, but then operationally offering another gospel than that of AC IV, and coming brazenly to contradict the express words of Scripture and Confession without any sense of rational or public acountability to warrant such a prima facie contradiction.
Briefly in response to your five points.
1.See what I wrote above about the ad hominem fallacy. You might also consider the democratic fallacy, i.e. just because a given majority holds something to be the case does not make it so. Behind my rejection of the demogogery of the ELCA governance system is a political critique of the bureaucratic manipulation put in place by the Committee for a New Lutheran Church 20 some years ago when the ELCA was founded. See the most recent post by the editor of Lutheran Forum for more on this.
2. I am afraid what you say in this paragraph witnesses to great ignorance of the ecumenical dialogues, including the 'ecumenical intention' of the Augsburg Confession. I don't want to get into a dispute based on ignorance. But none of the ELCA ecumenical relations depend on others accepting the Augsburg Confession! Our unity within the ELCA depends on accepting the AC (see its Constitution Chapters 2 & 3) -- and that precisely is why the proposed revisions are so destructive to us. They can't be squared with the AC. If they could be, they would have been. But that is precisely not with the draft Social Statement or the LSTC faculty have asked for. They have asked for respect for consciences bound to some other gospel. To say that we are all passionate about proclaiming Christ is question begging a question which cannot be begged. Which Christ (Mark 13:5)? What gospel (Gal 1:6-8)?
3 & 4. You really haven't done your homework here, either. See what I have written in 2005, entitled 'Recognition, not Blessing' in the online Journal of Lutheran Ethics at the ELCA website. I could under other circumstances support something like Recommendation Number 1. See Bishop James Mauney's proposal posted elsewhere on this website. I appreciate Dr. Kilcrease's strong arguments, but please note that he stands for a position which is conservative even within the LCMS; it is not my own. If you wish to argue with me, be precise.
5. Finally, go back to the intial argument I made leading up to the critique of the LSTC faculty statement, on two contending, if not conflicting theologies of reconciliation which is all about how AC IV can include elements of the LSTC 'boundary crossing gospel,' but the 'boundary crossing gospel' cannot consistently include AC IV. I won't repeat all that here, except to say that inclusion in the church is offered to all penitent sinners, who confess their sins and do not in principle protest them. Contrition, in the language of the AC, suffices, complete reformation of life awaits the eschaton.

Finally, a plea for greater clarity. Please say who the antecedents of your pronouns are. I am not sure who says what in your writing. Please be precise. For example, you might have noticed that I am very wary to call the condition of homoerotic desire sin. I have argued 1) that there are many homosexualities and discernment is necessary, 2) that the frequently cited condition of homosexual 'orientation' is more like a disorder or defect than a deliberate act of any kind, which becomes sinful, like any other desire, only when it assented to against God's commandment (Gen 1:26-28), which commands male and female to unite in marriage with openness to children. This is the sexual relation which the Church is authorized to bless with the blessing of God, and not any other.

I don't mind being criticized for positions I actually hold, but I do mind being criticized for positions I don't hold.

Dr Hinlicky,

You're a fairly prolific writer, so it is difficult to simultaneously concisely and completely address every issue in one post. Even you broke up the LSTC statement into five parts. That is why I focused my attention on that series, rather than a broader spectrum. And while it is good practice to summarize important aspects of your argument made elsewhere, it is especially necessary when posting online where people interested solely in the LSTC statement may be directed here.

You also make some very bold claims about my arguments, but as you said to me earlier: "Show me where I am wrong. Show readers where you are right." There's a lot of talk about the AC cannot be squared with either my statements or the sexuality one, but you do not lay that argument out here. I look forward to seeing it so laid out.

I do disagree with some of your brief points as well.

1. The democratic fallacy does not apply to churches living in the Spirit. If you have a body of people who all trust Christ and yet hold differing opinions, it's entirely reasonable to go with the opinion that bears the greatest witness. If they don't trust Christ, there's a very serious problem within the church and it doesn't matter how the rules will be applied. Trying to apply the democratic fallacy requires an accusation that the ELCA is not living in the Spirit and that's back to the AC. Also, this is a separate issue from the sexuality one and should really be addressed outside of other contentious issues.

2. I don't agree with the way the ELCA is using bound conscience either, but I think that is intended to either allow both sides to think they have the AC on their side, or an attempt to claim that there are Christ-trusters on both sides of this debate. While I would prefer that the ELCA did ground their statement in the AC, I think Reformation theology requires full rostering and permitting clergy to marry homosexuals in committed, monogamous relationships. There are also two issues here. One is that the ELCA is not grounding their arguments in the Gospel. The other is that current church policy is at odds with the Gospel. While this resolution does not address problem #1, it begins to address problem #2.

3. I was addressing some of the arguments you laid out earlier on in the critique, not just Dr Kilcrease's statements. He didn't bring up AC XXIII, and you have mentioned Genesis as your grounding here again. Which brings us to that text. Marriage is not a church institution. That's why the Reformers removed it as a sacrament. The church has no authorization to "bless with the blessing of God" any union. The blessing in Genesis 1:26-28 is entirely of this world, which means it does not relate to salvation and hence is not the church's business. It's also very naive to assume that married homosexuals are incapable of enjoying all of those blessings or that they are not open to children. The only role the Church can legitimately claim in marriage is instruction and assistance for the new couple in living their new life together in Christ. To that end, public proclamation of the marriage is important, but that argues for letting clergy 'do the ceremony' for homosexual couples exactly as they would for heterosexuals.

5. I don't contest that you can find elements of an other gospel in the LSTC statement. My contention is that based on the existence of those elements, you are dismissing their entire statement and the more general rostering and marriage questions. You are also blinding yourself to the genuine Gospel statements within their statement, as well as the other gospels (like tradition, Biblicism and ecumenical unity with Catholics) heavily present in many arguments made against the prospect of the church marrying homosexuals and/or ordaining homosexuals in committed, monogamous relationships.

Well, this is very interesting. If I may quote you back to yourself, you are conceding the fundamental points of my critique of the LSTC faculty statement, "I don't deny that you can find elements of another gospel in the LSTC statement," and of the ELCA statement's invention of "bound conscience" to evade the manifest teaching of the AC, which you would "prefer" that it had used as grounding, since, agreed, the "ELCA is not grounding their arguments in the gospel." Thank you, those have been my fundamental points.

Otherwise we radically disagree about the AC itself, if I can just list the two main bones of contention: 1) you discount the AC's catholicity and ecumenical intention and turn the AC into the private theology of a Lutheran sect, 2) you make a dualism between the realm of creation (which becomes a sphere of adiaphora where anything is permissible) and the realm of redemption (which becomes the sphere of those with the right understanding of the AC). You do this when you falsely interpret the AC's rejection of marriage (Gen 1:26-28)as a sacrament (of redemption) by failing to grasp its redemption of marriage as a divine institution. This exactly is what our Lord teaches in Mark 10:2-12. It is astonishing to me that you want to use the AC as an alternative to the Bible rather than as a key which opens up its teaching.
If the Church were so united such that all the baptized could vote, and all the baptized were educated as they ought to be in Scripture, Creed and Confession, I suppose that such a vote might be strong evidence of the Spirit's guiding in a consensus fidelium. What a good idea, if the ELCA required that such change as you support should be authorized by the majority vote of every single congregation, like the Presbyterians do. Now, that would be 'democratic!' But in fact, the ELCA has a stacked and manipulated goverance system which is in defiance of the sense of its own faithful; that is why if this goes through in August you will see the beginning of its institutional end.
But I jest. Consensus fidelium also includes the faith held across the globe and through the ages, such that no matter what minority would oppose these changes, that minority would be the true church in a heterodox body.
Finally, as to the question of whether I am in my criticism blinding myself to the genuine gospel arguments for marriage and ordination of homosexual persons, you simply have to do your homework if you want to continue to debate with me. I have since 2005 published on this question, where I have carefully weighed the kinds of arguments you put forward and found them wanting.
But thanks again for trying to argue and debate. I appreciate that.

Dr Hinlicky,

I said there were 'elements', not that the entire LSTC statement was an 'other gospel'. In which parts of it do you read the Gospel, if at all? Although I reject the ELCA's notion of bound conscience, this forum has helped me understand why it is included. It is essentially making the statement that both of us are wrong when we say this is a Gospel issue, as we are both acting in faith, grounded in the Lutheran confessions, and called to a greater Christian unity that we're both too myopic and sinful to see. It may well be that position is right. Of course, it is precisely my reading of the AC that leads me to conclude both that it is a Gospel issue, and that your understanding is an 'other gospel'. Briefly, I think it comes down to your calling one of the Creator's ordainings a result of sin. If one thought homosexual relationships were sinful, I don't think your position would be an 'other gospel'. That said, I would still disagree with where you're going from that position. Instead of calling for a rejection of the current statement for further institutional review, a moratorium on the issue, and challenging the 'homosexuality is no sin' crowd, you should be primarily challenging the 'homosexuality is a sin' crowd and bringing them around to this "concession to sin". Most of the statements against the sexuality document, including the one released by the Task Force renegades, make no mention of any concessions to sin. I think the entire discussion will be less charged and polarizing if it's over whether the ELCA marries homosexuals as a concession to sin or as their calling in Christ. I think you'd find that the unity issues largely disappeared, too.

All that said, I do disagree with you on the AC itself. I am not contending that marriage is not a divine institution, but rather that by virtue of it being a divine institution, homosexuals are called to fully participate in it. I also don't think Mark 10 intends 1 man/1 woman. Rather, that is the specific case Jesus has before him and his statement about marriage applies equally well to lifelong homosexual partners as to lifelong heterosexual partners. Nor am I using the AC in place of the Bible. It is exactly as a key in which I'm using it. We have to bounce all of our understandings off the Light that is Christ, and where those understandings do not measure up, we discard them. It doesn't matter if we got that understanding out of Scripture, the Koran, whatever. Our authority is Christ. I don't think I'm denying the catholicity of the AC, either. That's the problem of those churches that reject it. It's our problem only in that we're called to proclaim the Gospel, and rejection of the AC is an other gospel.

Peter: I am glad that you read it, but in this post you are not arguing. You are merely opinionating, and telling me what I ought to do, in rather a petulant tone, I must remark. Your writing remains unclear and hard to follow, but I will make this much of a response.
I think if you ask the "hard core conservatives" (of which I am supposedly one), they would unhappily tell you that they are well aware that I approve of some way of recognizing gay and lesbian couples within the context of Christian community as, in some, carefully discerned cases, the best possible in a broken world -- in your words, as a "concession to sin", sort of like making grape juice available in place of wine to recovering alcoholics. And I glad that you seem to think my proposal could in principle help diffuse the tension that is otherwise rapidly polarizing us as we move towards a trainwreck in August.
But, alas, you quickly slide into the terminology of marriage for gays and lesbians, which I would deny, since marriage according to Gen. 1:26-28 has essentially to do, among other things, with the possiblity of procreation, the impossibility of which for gay and lesbian couples being the factor which makes their unions ineligible for the blessing of God ennunciated in that Scripture. And the church has no other blessing to pronounce than this one. I showed how important this text is for Luther, by the way, in another, more recent article in Journal of Lutheran Ethics.
I am not tryng to play proof text games here. The reason why this text is so important is that it prohibits the total separation of sex and procreation. This increasingly total separation in our culture (not only or even primarily in legitimizing gay unions, of course), is something which Christianity historically finds deeply troubling, and this separation could not be more dramatically symbolized than in the demand to "marry" same-sex couples. I deeply regret that because homosexuality symbolizes this troubling separation, opposition to it draws the line on the necks of a vulnerable sexual minority (when there are plenty more serious heterosexual sins which I would prefer to talk about). But I am reacting to the aggression of others.
All I can do about that vulnerability of gays and lesbians is urge, in God's left-hand kingdom, rejection of all bullying and bigotry. But in God's right-hand kingdom, I must also offer a challenge to sexual personae other than that commended and commanded in God's Word, and thus a specific counsel of contrition to gay and lesbian couples, namely, that their unions fall short of what God wills for His children, if as God mercifully covers this shortfall, provided we confess rather than protest our predicament.

To gay "marriage" then I must say, No!, on the basis of Scripture, tradition, including the traditon of the Lutheran confession, reason and above all the gospel of justification which delivers us both from the guilt of sin and its dominating power.

Dr Hinlicky,

Logically, it seems to me that if physically having children is the deal-breaker, infertile couples should be similarly denied marriage. Do you hold that the ELCA should not recognize marriage for people known to be sterile? And if not, why not? While I don't know if you invoke this 'openness to children' idea, I don't believe that to be a valid argument. Gay couples can be as 'open to children' (and even more likely to actually have them!) as sterile couples. The fact that so many gay couples choose to adopt also points to this openness.

This is also where your May '09 JLE article falls short. You don't include adoption, which is another means for families to have children. This incorporates children into a sexual relationships that cannot result in children for whatever reason. It also fulfills any duty to procreation, as that duty necessarily involves not just squirting out babies, but properly raising them. In this day and age, it seems that we as a culture fail in our duty to procreation far more through the absence of the rearing than through the bearing. Homosexuality just might be God's solution to this imbalance.

It's also surprising that you see the separation of sex and children in the "demand to 'marry' same-sex couples". Realistically, they are already in a prime position to divorce the two. It isn't to assuage a guilty conscience that homosexuals want to get married-- it's their very desire to have both raising children and sex united together that leads to their demand for marriage. That means Genesis 1:26-28 requires blessing their marriage, as one that binds the rearing of their children to their sexual union. Furthermore, your idea that the community is called to support marriage further argues for this state. The commitments homosexuals would make to each other in marriage would be exactly as binding as the ones a man and woman can make. That also means that it requires the community's support just as much as a heterosexual marriage. The community's duty to the homosexual couple and their children is sustaining them and their nascent family together. If the community is rejecting the couple's request for supporting them in their lives together in Christ, it is rejecting the divine institution of marriage. That is war on God Himself, and we know how that ends.

Instead, our burden in the left-hand kingdom is establishing the legal protections that fortify a homosexual couple's monogamous and permanent commitment to each other and support them as they raise children, identical to what marriage provides. In the right-hand kingdom, we must teach how their sexuality proclaims Christ, which is best done in supporting, uplifting and strengthening the union with the lifelong partner with whom they will raise any and all children given to them by God. Both tasks can be accomplished the same way as is done for heterosexuals-- by public and ecclesiastic recognition of their marriage.

Please, Peter, get serious. I never said that "physically having childen" is the deal-breaker or -maker, or, how ridiculous, even cruel, that we should excommuinicate the infertile couple -- what a ludicrous stretch you have to make to avoid engaging my real point.
My real point is that the biblical text says to the male and female partners, 'Be fruitful and multiply..." etc. This is normative for church teaching of what God wills and blesses in the realm of sexuality -- if we remain the church under the Word. If, in spite of the defect of homoerotic desire, gay couples should aspire for themselves to something approximating this relation (including adoption and raisng of children), and if gay couples contritely recognize their concrete form of brokenness in a fallen world in the context of Christian faith in God's redeeming mercy in Christ, I favor finding ways to recognize that and making the best of a broken situation.
What cannot be said without silencing the Scripture or brazenly making Scripture say something it does not say --which for me is the real deal-breaker in this dispute-- is that God loves gay gay, God desires homoerotic desire. That is where you appear to want to go, and that is where I and other wills not go, and that is why we appear to have on our hands a church-dividing dispute.
In fact, following Romans 1:18 homoerotic desire is intrinsically disorded, a desire for a same rather than a desire for an opposite. The world is full of disorders, and it is no shame to have a problem, unless one denies that it is problematic. Assenting to this desire as if it were unproblematic means intending sexual relationship without the natural possibility of conceiving a child; that intention structures sexualy life in ways that tend towards sexual immorality. I can only be glad if gay and lesbian couples recognize this and want to approximate marriage in their relationships. Why? Because opposite sex desire structures sexual life in ways that tend towards marital commitment and fidelity because of the children they produce and all that it takes, as you so rightly emphacize, to raise them.
If it helps, I am pasting in here an op ed I recently published in our local paper when the California Supreme Court declined to overturn the popular referundum from November.
Opinion on California Proposition Eight
Paul R. Hinlicky, Tise Professor of Lutheran Studies, Roanoke College
For the sake of democratic self-governance I was relieved when the California Supreme Court upheld the will of the voters to amend the state constitution to define marriage as they wished. Progressives have tried to use the courts to by-pass the rough and tumble democratic process for social change. But such resort to judicial fiat erodes the culture of self-governance. It is particularly galling for the losers, to be sure, that in an election that went overwhelming Democratic, it was African-Americans who turned the tide in favor of the ban on same-sex marriage, rejecting the analogy between the Civil Rights struggle and Gay liberation.
Yet neither do I celebrate the court victory for those claiming to defend traditional marriage. Culturally conservative Christians (I count myself among them, though on the liberal end of this spectrum) are deceiving themselves, if they think that to ‘save marriage’ they have to draw the legal line in the sand against same-sex unions. The reason why this is so is that ‘contract’ marriage has replaced ‘covenant’ marriage in the law of the land, with the passage of ‘no fault’ divorce laws in the Sixties and Seventies. With this, the legally binding vow of exclusive fidelity (‘till death do us part’) was abandoned. In many ways the battle has already been lost.
To ‘save marriage’ from same-sex unions when ‘marriage’ has already been transformed into a private contract is to save little from the classical Christian understanding, the gravamen of which is, in Jesus’ words: ‘What God has joined together, let none tear asunder.’ One has to wonder, indeed, whether Christians have looked the other way on a matter that is arguably of far greater importance to their Lord (i.e., the prohibition of divorce, as in, e.g. Mark 10:2-14) than homosexuality.
Whether our culture’s recent privatization of the core form of human community is ultimately healthy is eminently debatable. Emory University legal scholar John Witte thinks not: “America’s experiment with the private contractual model of marriage has failed on many counts and accounts—with children and women bearing the primary costs. From 1975-2000, a quarter of all children were raised in single-parent households. One-quarter of all pregnancies were aborted. One-third of all children were born to single mothers. One-half of all marriages ended in divorce. Two-thirds of all African-American children were raised without a father. Mother-only hgomes had less than a third of median income of homes with a regular male present, and four times the rates of foreclosure and eviction. Teenagers who grew up in broken homes proved two to three times more likely to have behavioral, learning and socialization problem than teenagers from two-parent homes. More than two-thirds of juveniles and young adults convicted of major felonies from 1970 to 1995 came from single- or no-parent homes.” This litany is significant evidence from social science of an unwholesome correlation between contract marriage and the sorry fate of contemporary children.
What then? Christians along with other people of good will ought rather to advocate for social reasons (as above) marriage law reform that better protects children and strengthens the two-parent family, realizing that at present what Christians have called ‘marriage’ and what the State today calls ‘marriage’ ain’t the same thing.
The Christian understanding of marriage includes not only the teaching that this union is between a man and a woman, but that this covenant union is sexually exclusive, for life, and for the sake of children such that the violation of the vows very much involves fault. The same Prof. Witte argues that legal recognition of covenant marriage, voluntarily undertaken, is what Christians would have to advocate publicly, if, with integrity, they wanted legally to save ‘marriage’ as Christians have understood it – but even that as a free option, not a universal requirement.
What about registering both civil unions (understood as contract) as well as marriages (understood as covenant)? That does not settle the question of same-sex unions, but it does clarify what substantively is involved in any future claim by Christians to be supporting, defending or protecting marriage.
I conclude with two questions. Could not the gay marriage movement be understood as a socially conservative one, that is, as aimed at an ordered and publically accountable sexual life analogous to Christian marriage? Should Christian churches refuse to perform weddings with blessing of God (Genesis 1:26-28, Mark 10:2-12) that would not be registered as civil covenants, with provision for fault in the case of infidelity, neglect, abuse, etc.?

Dr Hinlicky,

I do think that marriage should be taken seriously by heterosexuals as well, but your solutions in that op-ed are entirely legalistic and hence will fail to solve the problem. At best the solution proposed in your op-ed fixes the external, and maybe the internal problem. You don't have a fix for the eternal problem of failed marriages, which is rejection of God. The law CANNOT fix that. That fix requires Christ, which I don't see proposed anywhere in that op-ed. If one is in Christ, divorce will not be an issue. Instead, two Christ-trusters will live together in mutual trust, love and care and help others, including homosexuals, to do so as well. Those homosexuals who have been married, despite church and state recognition of that fact, for 30+ years have been so through the grace of God.

I think you're trying to use law both for marriage (as per the op-ed) and in the homosexuality debate as the cure, and that loses Christ. The Law diagnoses our brokenness, but it does not offer the prognosis. Redeemed by Christ, homosexuals can boldly live together with their trust in Christ and proclaiming the kingdom.

Also, I didn't say that you proposed the excommunication of sterile couples, but that logically any requirement for "natural procreation" or the use of bearing children to exclude homosexuals from marriage leads also to that conclusion.

I think I am having difficulty following your argument against homosexual love at this point. It sounds like your argument against homosexuality has boiled down to "I think the Bible says so in Genesis 1:26 and Romans 1:18", which sounds like a Biblicist argument to me. I'm not clear on how that argument is grounded in Christ's death and resurrection. Saying committed, monogamous homosexual relationships are not sin is no more "making Scripture saying what it does not say" than does Christ's cleansing of the Temple, Paul's argument against circumcision or the Reformers' rejection of the abstinence from blood.

1. The op ed is addressed to the pluralistic public where Christians in the USA today are minority, divided among themsevles and heirs in America of a one-kingdom Calvinist theology. The op ed tacitly uses Lutheran two kingdoms theology to solve temporal problems with temporal means, viz., to use the law. To call this legalistic is, sorry, just ignorance of Luther who taught that you cannot rule the world with the gospel, but that the world is precisely the arena where law and reason must reign.
2. Whether or not I lose "Christ" begs the fundamental question between you and mean, whether we are referring to the same one. I know no other Christ than the Torah-observing Jew, whose teaching on sex, marriage and family is found, as in a paradigm, in Mark 10:2-12. By Christ I mean the figure we have in the texts of the Bible. By Christ, you seem to mean with the liberal Protestants the idea of radical inclusiveness and divine permissiveness. So appealing to "Christ" --was Christum treibet-- begs all the decisive questions, if you will not also accept Luther's and the Confessions' teaching on the authority of the Bible. Trust in Christ is not a blank check; it has an ethical content, laid out in NT parenesis -- see the latest post by the LF editor.
I find that contemporary "antinomimian" Lutherans teach a purely forensic doctrine of justification which is untrue either to the NT, to Luther or even to the Melanchthon of the Confessional writings. Justification delivers not only from the guilt of sin but also from the dominating power of sin, even if the latter consists in this life only in the contrition of repentance. So Luther: "Our sins can no longer harm us, if only they displease us, for then our sins are Christ's and His righteousness is ours."
3. Lex semper accusat does not equal your claim that the law only diagnoses. This is a non-sequitur. In fact, the Law can only validly accuse us because it validly speaks God the Creator's will for the life and well-being of His creature, a will articulated on the Bible's first page in Genesis 1:26-28. The reduction of divine law to the mere, vague existentialist experience of inadequacy before God is antinomian in that it has no ethical content, i.e. no positive command for the good as in Geneis. For Luther and the confessors the first or political use of the law is oriented toward social well-being and directed against egoism of sinful individualism, as they saw represented in the self-chosen religious work of monastic vows. Against this, they lifted up marriage as a divine institution for society's well being as well as individual remedy against sin.
4. Logically, you claim, that any use of natural procreation to exclude gay marriage should lead to excommunication of infertile couples, and thus my position reduces to absurdity. Friend, you need to take a course in logic. The distinction here is analytical. Gay "marriage" is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, given Gen. 1:26-28, because gay sexual union cannot be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, etc., even though gays and lesbians have been children too, who have come into this world the same way as everyone else, and accordingly are likewise obligated to respect the divine institution of marriage, no matter how they feel about it. We can even call certain gay unions, as I have argued, something analogous to marriage and we might find ways to recognize them in the context of Christian community, but we can't call them marriage without arbitrarily tearing up the texts of scripture and rewriting things according to our own wisdom. And anyone who has read even a little in Luther must know how impossible the latter procedure is.
More serious, spiritually, is that all you seem to care about is the private good of hurting individuals, in this present case, gays and lesbians 'excluded' from the social status of honorable marriage. I share pastoral concern about such hurting individuals, but the source of the pain is not their exclusion from marriage but the cross they bear of disordered sexual desire. There is mercy and healing and help, but there is no evading the necessary contrition required here, if the word of divine mercy for such hurting folks is really to help. Moreover, what the church believes, teaches and confesses about sex, marriage and the family cannot be calibrated solely to salve private wounds. Appropos the above discussion, it is the well being of society that is at stake in our exposition of divine law. Marriage is not only about begetting and rearing children, but it is also about begetting and rearing children, which is why infertile couples are in such pain at the defect they bear in their own bodies, at their own fruitless love-making. Like gays and lesbians, they have here a cross to bear. And in either case, socially, what is decisve is the well-being of vulnerable little ones, who are best nurtured by the man and woman whose love created them. To be sure, in a fallen world we make the best out of bad situations all the time.
5. Finally, if doing theology by exegesis of the Bible and its theological exposition makes me a 'biblicist,' I plead guilty. The alternative is constructivism in theology, of which liberal Protestantism is rife. Your own attempt radically to isolate the gospel from the Bible opens up a dialectic of negation which heads down the prim-rose path to liberal Protestantism.
There is legislation in the Bible which is, as Luther said, not addressed to us, but to ancient Jews. There is also legislation in the Bible which is addressed to us because, in the light of the gospel, it brings the divine creative intention in the true and natural law to light from the obscurity into which it fell on account of sin. Mark 10:2-12 is a paradigm of this latter clarification of God's purpose in giving the law, in light of which the Bible, rightly read, instructs us ethically. For the Lutheran reformers, cross-bearing, burden-sharing marriage was at the center, not only of its reform of the church, but its reform of society.
Homosexuality, taken as an orientation, as I have repeatedly said, is from this perspective disordered, not sin -- something broken, not something violated, a consequence of universal sinfulness (like divorce) not itself sin. Thus your final paragraph misses me and its appearance here is nothing but a rhetorical flourish, if not cheap shot.

Dr Hinlicky,

1. Those people are exactly the ones to whom you should be proclaiming Christ, which you do not do in that op-ed. The two kingdoms still has TWO kingdoms in it, not one alone. As Bonhoeffer discusses at great lengths in Ethics, the two kingdoms are inseparably linked. Considering the world alone without the redeeming word of Christ forgets that Christ's redeeming word is precisely to that world. All the reason and law in the world has not and cannot solve the world's fundamental problem-- lack of faith in Christ. That is the solution needed for marriage and the one your ordination vow commits you to calling for. Calling a band-aid the solution does not fix the problem, and loses Christ to boot.

2. I'm not arguing that trust in Christ is a "blank check". It gives one an entirely new ethos. From that new ethos arises our ethics. Teaching ethics are unnecessary to one who has the correct ethos because correct ethics follow from having the correct ethos. When we discard that ethos, we have problems, but those are ones that ethics cannot solve. At best they can only point out our eternal God problem. In regards to Christ's observance of the Torah, I would also draw your attention to His acts of healing on the Sabbath, His numerous violtaions of ritual purity and rejection of the Temple system. His teachings in Mark 10 are certainly authoritative, but it is speculation to claim that talking about a man and a woman in marriage has any universal meaning when the specific context is divorce between one man and one woman.

3. When the law diagnoses our lack of trust in Christ, and broken relationship with God it is certainly accusing us of our failure. The diagnosis is that of a problem (our disobedience to God), and that problem is always an eternal one. One also cannot uphold only one use of the Law, either, as it has a threefold purpose. Not only does the Law preserve creation, but in its second use pushes sinners to Christ. Your proclamation of the Law in your op-ed did not cover that use, either.

4. You cannot exclude homosexual unions from the definition of marriage based on Genesis 1:26 without also excluding infertile couples. Just as a homosexual couple has trouble being fruitful and filling the earth, the infertile couple has the exact same problem. No children will be coming out of that marriage. You would have to call what infertile couples have as 'something analogous to marriage' as well. Neither does this require "tearing up Scripture". Less so even than rejecting slavery or ordaining women, I think.

More seriously, it seems that you think homosexual marriage is only "to salve private wounds". I contend that recognition of homosexual marriage strengthens both marriage and society. It does so by providing an environment in which to provide a proper upbringing for children. Especially if one is considering "well-being of vulnerable little ones", providing MORE environments in which they can be protected and their well-being assured is better. Also, in an ideal world, the homosexual couple will have exactly as many children as the infertile couple will.

I also contest your use of bearing crosses here. The crosses we bear are not things that God has given us that we don't like. Cancer, infertility, homosexuality, skin color, etc are what we are stuck with whether we like it or not. We have no choice in whether or not we deal with the problem. That's nothing like the cross Christ voluntarily took up on our behalf. The crosses we bear are those problems we take on voluntarily. It's when we risk ourselves on behalf of Christ.

5. The problem is not in exegesis, but the hermeneutics. The problem is that you must consider Christ's death and resurrection, and that consideration is lacking the moment it comes down to "the Bible says so here". Liberal Protestantism is certainly one potential pitfall to theology, but it is no greater than that of trusting only the Bible. I don't contest that "cross-bearing, burden-sharing marriage" is extremely important, both during the Reformation or today. In fact, its very importance is why homosexuals must be called to participate in it as well.

6. I was careful to say "committed, monogamous homosexual relationships" in my last paragraph in my previous post. So does that mean you believe committed, monogamous homosexual relationships aren't sin? In that case, the sexuality statement is consistent with your beliefs, as it works to make provisions for those in committed, monogamous homosexual relationships to serve without actually calling it marriage. Also, if that is in fact the case, both I and many others on this site have misunderstood some of the things you've said on this subject.