Evangelicals Concerned Inc.
Welcoming But Not Affirming: An Evangelical Response to Homosexuality by Stanley J. Grenz (Westminster John Knox, 1998, 210pp.)
by Dr. Ralph Blair
Since he fails to listen with empathy to the testimonies of gay men and lesbians themselves and does not rely on the serious psychosocial research, he baldly asserts a priori that there is no homosexual orientation parallel to heterosexual orientation. Thus, he fails to recognize the parallels. Even though his presumed experience of heterosexuality is "orientation," his polemical preference for homosexuals’ experience is "preference." Though he knows he didn’t choose his sexual desires, it’s his choice that they chose theirs. This fits his purpose, but can he really be this naive?
Fixated on genitalia and genital acts, he fails to understand that genitalia and genital acts no more constitute the experience of homosexuality than they constitute the experience of heterosexuality. Arguing from genitalia that "same-sex intercourse loses the symbolic dimension of two-becoming-one present in male-female sex," he shows a lack of appreciation for the complexity of even heterosexuality. Whether the loving couple is made up of a man and a woman or two people of the same gender, it’s not the "body parts" that become one flesh; the two persons become one flesh! His reducing sexual complementarity to the shapes of genital organs blinds him to the fact that, no matter the gender of the two partners, it’s their perception of the other person’s fascinating otherness from their own sense of self – a whole Gestalt – that draws them together in complex sexual union. It’s not their fault if Grenz can’t see what they see in each other.
One of his weirdest pretenses is his insistence that for the homosexual to commit to "abstinence outside [heterosexual] marriage does not mean that as a single homosexual person one is ‘condemned’ to a life devoid of sexual expression. On the contrary," he asserts, "those who are not ‘sexually active’ still experience dimensions of affective sexual expression." Of course they do. But how is "affective sexual expression" effective sexual satisfaction – in even the broadest sense? He goes on to argue that "we all form nonmarital friendship bonds with others. Whenever such bonding occurs, our fundamental sexuality – sexual desire – comes to expression." Really? Desire may come to expression in a few of these friendships, but that’s not the same as fulfillment – which, in heterosexuality, is permitted to be fulfilled with another. But homosexual desire’s coming to expression in the context of a blanket prohibition of its ever being permitted to come to fulfillment with anyone of the same gender is, indeed, a condemnation to a life devoid of sexual intimacy.
What Grenz says under "The Bottom Line" is misleading: "scientific research – whether psychological, biological, or sociological – has not substantiated that this attraction is either innate or an ineradicable trait." The research shows that, for all practical purposes, it’s innate. Grenz himself cites even pro-change sources that admit that change is difficult or impossible. One suspects that the gut instinct of even those who want to support Grenz prevents them from buying into change claims. Ask Grenz supporters if they’d have any qualms if their daughters fell in love with Christian men who "used to be gay" but who now say they’re "ex-gay." Would these fathers be pleased to walk their daughters down the aisle and hand them over to such "ex-gays?" Their unease says they assume or know that homosexuality is ineradicable and innate.
Grenz’ own summation effectively counters his seeming certitude: "We seem no closer to a definitive conclusion as to what homosexuality actually is." Why then, is he so sure that all homosexual behavior is sinful? And why is what he admits he "can only present as theory," the best way of "welcoming" homosexuals who have to live with their homosexual orientations day after day, year after year, and long after Grenz has moved on?