I am grateful to Pastor Ley for his exemplary challenge to the possibility I have lifted up since 2005 of the “recognition, not blessing” of same-sex unions in the context of Christian community. He is not the only one to have objected, but he has made the best case against it. We need his kind of carefully reasoned and theologically acute questioning, in which participants intend Christian orthodoxy and charitably assume the same of others in the face of apparent disagreement. As pastoral theologians addressing controverted matters, we should aspire to submitting our possible solutions to vexing problems to the mind and judgment of the church under the Word and keep ours egos out of it. In replying to his challenge accordingly, I want to acknowledge that I don’t have a vested interest in my own pet idea of “recognition, not blessing”; it is indeed possible that I can be persuaded that it “untenable,” perhaps even “silly,” as one not-so-exemplary interlocutor put it. Before I deal with that, however, it is worth a moment to reflect on the history of my idea.

In 2005 I published in the online Journal of Lutheran Ethics an argument under the title, “Recognition, Not Blessing.” This appeared in response to the ELCA’s summons to discuss what was often being described as an “urgent matter of pastoral concern”; indeed, it was one that I, too, as pastor of gay and lesbian persons through the years have had to deal with. In good faith, I tried to filter out from consideration the not-so-hidden agenda of the religious left, in tandem with the secular agenda of the gay liberation movement, despite my deep suspicions about these forces in church and society. I tried rigorously to deal with the reality of ordinary Christian people who find themselves incorrigibly drawn to members of their own sex but, seeking to escape the depravations of the so-called “gay lifestyle,” consequently look to the Christian faith for an alternative life and ask the support of the Christian community for their own “loving, caring, monogamous, lifelong” commitments. Taking such real people at face value, rather than viewing them suspiciously as a Trojan horse for the aforementioned parties, what conscientious pastor would not inquire into the possibility of an appropriate form of “recognition”? The question thus posed is theologically legitimate.

Pondering this, I argued that while such unions manifestly cannot be blessed with the blessing of Genesis 1:26-28 (the very blessing which our Lord took up and validated in Mark 10 in the context of discussing divorce), we have the Christian freedom to do what neighbor love requires in the ambiguities of a fallen creation where legalist rigor can make bad situations even worse, just as the Lutheran Confessions remind us in dealing with controverted matters of sexuality in their own time and place. So long as we are truthful, I maintained, we can recognize such unions, just as we have come to recognize even the “unscriptural” remarriage of the divorced. That was one analogy I drew. Another analogy was this: as the goods of Christian marriage are the one-flesh union of man and woman, the procreation of children, and the signification of the love of Christ and the church, so the goods of same-sex union might in analogy be monogamy rather than promiscuity, care if not procreation of children, and an attestation of the bounty of God’s mercy. As my bishop, James Mauney, argued in taking up this idea, the “strong tree” of healthy, happy Christian marriage is big enough to provide some shelter in its branches for those sons and daughters of the church who find themselves incorrigibly drawn to members of the same sex.

At the same time I also drew my line in the sand: “blessing” of same sex unions would overthrow the plain-sense meaning of the aforementioned biblical texts about the union of male and female, which have historically provided the foundation for the Christian, and especially Lutheran, doctrine of marriage. Withholding this blessing from same-sex unions, on the other hands, indicates the pauline judgment of the first chapter of Romans, namely, that homosexual desire manifests alongside other disorders the divine judgment on universal sinfulness. So long as we are truthful about this disorder (not sin) of homosexual desire, I reasoned, we have the Christian freedom to do what seems best to us and the Holy Spirit in the concrete situation.

As I expected, my proposal was mocked in the environs of San Francisco, but surprisingly was taken up by Prof. Chris Scharen, now of Luther Seminary in St. Paul, in my view the only prominent proponent on the side of revision who has been intellectually honest and not religiously deceptive in this entire sad affair. He realizes, I think, the cost to Christian orthodoxy and church unity his side will likely pay for its alliance on this issue with the religious left; he is trying (“hope against hope,” in my view!) to steer the “progressives” theologically away from the radical (Zwinglian, not Lutheran) narrative of Protestant progress which now dominates in the UCC and the ECUSA and will shortly overwhelm what remains of the ELCA. Scharen in response to my proposal urged that real theologians work together on the issue, rightly noting that he and Hinlicky at the time were but a hair’s breadth apart, the only difference being the latter’s pauline position, noted above in regard to Romans 1. But what a difference in doctrine that hair’s breadth makes. Scharen teaches: God loves gay as gay; God desires homosexual desire. Hinlicky teaches: God mercifully accepts all us variously distorted beings, gays and lesbians too. Scharen says that no repentance is needed, for the truth is that homosexuality is God’s good creature. Hinlicky says a definite repentance is required, for the truth is that homosexuality is a disorder of God’s creation. And this difference in doctrine on the issue of our time is, I fear, a church-dividing difference.

But the ELCA sexuality task force was not persuaded even to try theological deliberation. Like the ELCA itself, it gave up on theology and a theological solution with its “bound conscience” hocus pocus in order to force the issue to a vote on a supposed “live and let live” compromise but in reality in cahoots with a well-financed and politically mobilized religious left. Hinlicky’s proposal for “recognition, not blessing” was accordingly retooled by the task force to appear as the most conservative and least radical “revision” of traditional teaching in the Social Statement and Ministry Recommendations, yet now fatefully linked with the notorious subsequent steps voted on in August. My squeals of protest did little good. What I intended as a line in the sand was co-opted to become the first step down the slippery slope.

Now it is too late for genuine convergence in theology to occur. The August decisions force all of us, willing or not, into a congregationalism that ill-accords with the normative theology of a biblical, creedal, and confessional church. As the ELCA fragments, all of us will have to seek new alignments. It is in this present context that I would like now to answer Pastor Ley’s sharply formulated question to me, as he wrote:

“For all the weighty arguments defending orthodoxy Hinlicky has developed, why does he defend a position so close to what the human sexuality document argues for, a ‘live and let live’ attitude toward those who support same-sex relationships? In short, I’m struck by the imbalance between demanding and fighting ferociously for the normative view, and then all but giving up the expectation of repentance and adherence in behavior through a ‘recognition’ status.”

This is a fair and meaningful question. I have already shown that as a matter of history, it was the Social Statement that used and abused my proposal rather than the other way around. But Pastor Ley’s question is theological and substantive and it deserves that kind of answer. Is the proposal to “recognize, but not bless” certain same-sex unions a “live-and-let-live” capitulation to the Zeitgeist, which gives up the expectation of repentance and new obedience?

I still think not. First, you can test what metanoia (change in thinking) is being asked of those who self-identify as gay or lesbian in my case of the church’s proposed “recognition, not blessing” of such unions. Imagine the hypothetical pastor, utilizing my proposal: he or she will refuse to accept at face value any of the sexual personae of modern consciousness, let alone immediately pronounce, “As you are, so God created you!” Instead, this pastor will want to test and probe and even push. I recall the case of an adulterer I once confronted who pleaded that it was just his robust male nature to bed every woman he could! God created me this way! Only after long and careful pastoral conversation will this hypothetical pastor come to the conclusion in a particular case that same-sex desire is incorrigible, an aspect of the brokenness of the fallen creation that cannot be fixed until the kingdom dawns. Then, and only then, might a pastoral and perhaps congregational “recognition” of  the union of such persons be contemplated. Clearly, the proposal requires those who self-identify as gay or lesbian and seek recognition in the Christian community for their unions to acknowledge their plight and appeal, not to political rights nor nature nor creation, but strictly to the mercy of God.

Note that I take for granted theologically the same kind of pastoral conversation in preparation for Christian marriage of heterosexuals, though I fear how little of it actually happens in our churches.

Note also, if this kind of pastoral conversation seems “untenable,” that only testifies to how far we have fallen from Christianity and the pastoral care of souls, how much pastoring has become instead a “helping profession,” a chaplaincy of the neurotic affluent classes in an age of diminishing expectations that mindlessly reassures us that everything is grace.

Second, you can test what new obedience is being asked of gays and lesbians who enter into unions so recognized but not blessed by the church of God. They will carry a double cross. They will be maligned not only by stick-in-the-mud bigots but also by “progressives,” so-called, for selling out to real Christianity. Entering upon this narrow road, they will testify that they are not in the first place gays or lesbians but rather Christians, seeking not the approval by the church of homosexuality as a social gain, but rather seeking the approval of God that comes to truthful people in repentance and faith, no matter what the cost of their new obedience.

Note again now, if this version of “new obedience” seems less than full, that only testifies to how little we regard our fallenness, the mercy of God, and the glorious hope of the new creation. But bearing the cross in true contrition is the life-long repentance to which our Luther called us. Think only of the lethal illusions of self-righteousness with which the church’s history is peppered when people have forgotten, as Augustine said, that in this life our righteousness for the most part consists in the forgiveness of our sin.

If my proposal passes these tests, what about the matter of a failed analogy at the heart of my proposal, on which Pastor Ley’s critique focuses? In his own words:

“One cannot really apply the analogy [between remarriage of the divorced and recognizing same-sex unions] at all because we are talking apples and pears here. The analogy breaks apart because Scripture excludes the homoerotic relationship as ontologically intended by God, something which even the failed marriage as a marriage can assume. The strong and even severe restraining of homoerotic expression in Scripture argues against God ‘permitting,’ in an interim ethic, a lifelong, same-sex relationship.”

By definition, an analogy contains both difference and similarity. If two things were totally similar, we would have an identity. If two things were totally dissimilar, no comparison would be possible. The weight of an argument from analogy lies upon the discovery of sufficient similarity between two items in comparison to justify drawing the same consequences for one as for the other, at least in some specified respect. It matters not at all that one item in the comparison has “ontological” weight. If the analogy actually holds, it follows that the comparable item also has some “ontological” weight. That would be the point of a valid analogy, which runs A is to B, as C is to D, where and when A and C are the same in the same respect.

I mentioned above two analogies that I had drawn. One is with respect to Christian freedom. Just as we have come to recognize the marriages of the divorced, even those unscripturally divorced, so we could also recognize the unions of gays and lesbians (under the conditions specified above), even though Scripture likewise does not contemplate this possibility. We could do this, I specified, under the condition of a truthful acknowledgment that homosexuality is not what our heavenly Father desires for His children, yet just like any other disorder of the fallen creation it is something, short of eschatological healing, that God can and will mercifully overlook in those who cannot do otherwise. This latter is finally a judgment that falls to the individual Christian, in the context of pastoral care and Christian community that, this side of the kingdom, others can only respect.

The other analogy argues that there are certain goods in homosexual unions that are like the goods of Christian marriage, and that these goods are better than the evils of what is called in our day “the gay lifestyle.” Taken in good faith, the “gay marriage movement” is a socially conservative one, despised by radical gay ideologues, who think the turn to marriage is a sellout. This is a fact overlooked by those who in bad faith and suspicion see only a duplicitous attempt to undermine traditional marriage. My friend, no-fault divorce has already turned “traditional marriage” on its head and created a new heterosexual norm of “serial monogamy”! If you are serious about Christian marriage, and not just repeating the political talking points of one faction in the American culture wars, the affirmation of lifelong monogamous commitment marks a remarkable change in attitude since the heyday of the sexual revolution. We Christians should welcome this movement! And we should turn our concern to the disaster which Christian marriage has become among heterosexuals!

I acknowledge that Christians who intend to be orthodox can in good faith disagree with me about the second analogy. Some will think that therapeutic healing of homosexual desire is a present possibility for Christians, and if not, then celibacy is and should be the expectation of the Church. If that is the position they hold, however, integrity requires them in mission and ministry to provide that therapy and support that celibacy. But I do not yet see how Lutheran Christians, who are supposed to know about “the freedom for which Christ has set us free,” can disagree with me about the first analogy. It is not unreasoned, bleeding-heart compassion, but Christ’s own love for the fallen, the disgraced, the sinner which conflicts with the rigor of the law’s demand for perfection. As Christ was free by the power of the Spirit to seek and find us as we are, broken beings one and all, and to celebrate our new community as the forgiven, so his believers are also free to seek and find, that is, to recognize, also those broken beings who are gay or lesbian and to deal with them, as ourselves, not as we will be some day in glory, but as we are now under grace.

I submit this reasoning to the mind and judgment of the church. I am open to rational persuasion otherwise, as I trust Pastor Ley is as well.

Paul R. Hinlicky is the Tice Professor of Lutheran Studies at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia.