This was originally intended as a response to comments added by Daniel Farmer to Justin’s ‘In Defense of Infant Cannibalism’ post, but as often happens it evolved into something else, becoming a distinct argument about the eschatological framework within which we attempt to address the problem of homosexuality.

One of the problems with PastorPete’s three question test is the unstated assumption that by ‘beneficial’ or ‘helpful’ in 1 Corinthians 6:12; 10:23 Paul means ‘builds up the community’ in the sense of promoting healthy relationships. I would suggest that although this is not irrelevant, Paul’s overarching concern was the preservation of holy and righteous communities that would be able to stand blameless before Christ at the parousia (cf. 1 Thess. 3:13). His concern in 1 Corinthians 6 is not simply with relationships - it is that this group of believers in Corinth should be fit to inherit the kingdom of God (6:9-10), and I would have thought that ‘are helpful’ (sumpherei) in verse 12 needs to be interpreted in this context: is their behaviour helpful towards this end of preserving a holy community. Paul is quite clear that the easy-going tolerance of certain forms of behaviour, including homosexuality, would disqualify the church at Corinth from inheriting the kingdom. I am not persuaded by the argument about the association with temple prostitution: Lev. 18:22; 20:13 are so clearly the source of the word arsenokoitÄ“s that I think Paul must be using the term in a way that evokes the general Old Testament prohibition against a man lying with a man as with a woman.

It is my view, however, that the eschatological narrative that centres on the parousia is not the one that should directly inform our own identity, purpose and values as the church today. I think that the parousia - the coming of the Son of Man, the inheritance of the kingdom - marks the transition from judgment to restoration, from suffering to wholeness, from contempt to vindication, from persecuted and outlawed minority to a people free to worship and witness under the lordship of Christ. We have moved beyond that, and what we have now is a narrative recentred on the renewal of creation. The issue here is not a change of cultural context but a change of eschatological context. What we now have to ask fundamentally is: What do we have to do, how do we have to live, in order faithfully to represent in ourselves, in our actions and words, in our life together, the hope of a renewal of creation?

I am not at all sure how one unpacks the implications of this, so these are only tentative suggestions.

1. The debate about homosexuality cannot be settled simply on ethical grounds of whether it is healthy or unhealthy, upbuilding or destructive - or even right or wrong. It needs to be assessed in relation to the larger narrative context and the vocation of the church to be - both actually and prophetically - a new humanity.

2. I think it means, in crude terms, that we need to acknowledge as a community - even as a community that includes homosexuals - that humankind was originally created to unite sexually as male and female. That ideal may also be acknowledged in practical terms by people leaving a homosexual lifestyle - provided that in doing so we don’t create more serious damage (social or psychological) elsewhere in the fabric of creation.

3. The renewal of creation must also entail the renewal of culture. Such an eschatological commitment, therefore, is bound to challenge a whole range of cultural assumptions, tendencies, fashions, blindspots - including how we view homosexuality as a matter of lifestyle or social-political bias.

4. The renewal of creation certainly includes the renewal of community and of relationships, which must have a bearing on how homosexuals are received and loved by the predominantly heterosexual church. Perhaps we need to see this as currently a critical test of the church’s commitment to be the people that it professes to be.

5. There are constraints on how far we can actually be a new humanity, which means there are inevitable constraints on how far we can conform to the creational ideal in our sexuality. The deficit is always made up by grace, experienced concretely in praxis, in relationships; but it is also, I would suggest, made up by prophecy - out of our inadequacy and inability to change we find ways to embody the hope that we have in a creator, creative, and recreating God.

6. It is a mark of the new humanity in Christ that deep social divisions are overcome. The fundamental question is not the divisive and individualizing one about who is saved and who isn’t, who gets to heaven and who doesn’t. It’s how do we as a community, together, in relationship with one another, with all our failings, take hold of the power of God to be a renewed humanity. There have been suggestions in some of our discussions that a less antagonistic approach to the debate would be fruitful. Don’t we need to affirm the oneness that we have in Christ and then take up together the challenge in all its complexity and difficulty of being the people of God in the world?

7. There are, of course, all sorts of ways in which we fall short of the creational ideal - the widespread breakdown of Christian marriages, from that point of view, is as much an affront to the original and originating goodness of God as homosexuality. Whatever the state of our sexual relationships, we participate in the church as broken people. Shouldn’t we confess that to one another, share it - homosexuals and heterosexuals alike? Isn’t that the proper ground for unity in Christ?