IRD Vice President and Presbyterian Action Director Alan Wisdom told the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Special Committee on Civil Unions and Christian Marriage that “the church today cannot give those in non-marital sexual relationships the affirmations that some may request. But it can give them much more: the unconditional, transforming love of Jesus.”
Wisdom pointed to multiple passages in the Bible and the PCUSA confessions defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. “No consensus exists today,” he said, “to undertake a radical reinterpretation” of all these passages.
“Friendship is the proper form for a close relationship between unmarried, unrelated persons,” Wisdom wrote to the committee. Regarding same-sex friendships, he affirmed, “To the extent that they form households, share their resources, care for one another in sickness, and encourage one another to follow and proclaim Jesus, the church can affirm and support them.” But he added, “What the church cannot bless is sexual relations outside of marriage.” Such relations “misuse the bodies God has given them and damage one another physically and spiritually.”
Presbyterian Action encourages all concerned PCUSA members to submit their own responses of 1000 words or less to the committee by August 16. Responses should may be e-mailed to the committee at civilunion.marriage@pcusa.org or mailed to Civil Union and Christian Marriage Committee, Office of the General Assembly, Room 4621, 100 Witherspoon Street, Louisville, KY 40202-1396.
To answer this question or any question, the church must remember for whom it speaks. It is “the body of Christ” (I Cor. 12:27), and “[i]t belongs to Christ alone to rule, to teach, to call, and to use the Church as he wills” (G-1.0100). “[A]ll Church power … is only ministerial and declarative” of “the revealed will of God” (G-1.0307). That will is found in Jesus Christ, as attested in the Scriptures.
So today the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has authority only to declare what God has declared regarding same-sex partnerships or any other relationships. And God’s message to persons in such relationships is the same as his message to everyone: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called the children of God” (I John 3:1). Jesus calls to all, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matt. 3:2). He asks all to “deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34).
Jesus reaffirms the Old Testament—not only the laws for Israel but also God’s common grace to all humankind. Among those common graces is the marriage of man and woman. “Have you not read,” Jesus asks, “that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” (Matt. 19:4-5). Jesus warns his disciples against sins that “come out of the heart” and “defile a person,” such as “evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication [sex outside of marriage], theft, false witness, slander” (Matt. 15: 19-20).
The PCUSA confessions instruct us to “live chaste and disciplined lives, whether in holy wedlock or in single life” (4.108) and advise “marriage by those that have not the gift of continency” (7.248). There does not appear to be room for the church to bless a sexual relationship other than marriage. This appears to be the reasoning of the PCUSA Permanent Judicial Commission in its Benton v. Hudson River decision (2000), which held that any ceremonies for same-sex partners “should not be construed as endorsing homosexual conjugal practice proscribed by the General Assembly.”
Our church’s understanding of marriage is expressed not only in one passage of the Directory for Worship (W-4.9000) but also in multiple passages throughout the Book of Confessions (5.245-251, 6.131-139, 7.248-249, 9.47). If the church were to attempt to redefine marriage, constitutional consistency would require it to amend all these passages. No consensus exists today to undertake such a radical reinterpretation of biblical teaching on marriage.
So if same-sex partnerships are not marriage, then what are they? And is there anything about them that the church can affirm?
Friendship is the proper form for a close relationship between unmarried, unrelated persons. Jesus called his disciples “friends” and bade them “love one another as I have loved you.” He set the example of “lay[ing]down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:12-15). The early church was marked by biologically unrelated persons forming a new family in Christ, learning his teachings and acts, praying together, sharing their possessions to meet one another’s needs, showing mercy to the sick and the outcasts, and proclaiming the Gospel to all who would hear (Acts 2:42-4-35).
There is no doubt that persons in same-sex friendships can show this kind of Christian love. To the extent that they form households, share their resources, care for one another in sickness, and encourage one another to follow and proclaim Jesus, the church can affirm and support them. It can visit them, counsel them, and pray with them. It can include them in its worship, fellowship, education, and mission.
Christians in same-sex friendships are welcome at the Lord’s Table, as they (like all others) examine their consciences before the Lord (I Cor. 11:27-34). Children in such households may receive the Sacrament of Baptism, if they have a believing parent or guardian ready to take the vows. Church members have a duty to the children, regardless of what they may think of the parents’ past choices or current living situations.
Because friendship does not presuppose or require sexual relations, there is no reason why same-sex friendships affirmed and supported by the church should involve only two persons. There is also no need for exclusivity, as one can befriend any number of persons. Therefore, any church blessing should extend equally to any grouping of friends sharing a common life. As the Benton decision declared, same-sex blessings “should not appropriate specific liturgical forms from services of Christian marriage”—because these friendships are not marriages or like marriages.
What the church cannot bless is sexual relations outside of marriage. Sexual intercourse is not an appropriate expression of friendship. The unmarried Jesus did not need to have sexual relations to show the deepest possible love. When Jesus’ followers fall into immoral sexual relationships, their love may be genuine, but they do not help the ones the love. On the contrary, they misuse the bodies God has given them and damage one another physically and spiritually. In settling for something less than the two-sexes-in-one-flesh union of marriage, they depart from the pattern of divine love that marriage images.
On several occasions during his ministry, Jesus met interlocutors seeking to justify themselves (e.g., Luke 10:25-37, 18:18-23). He did not usually respond with the affirmations that they desired or expected. Instead Jesus gave them something greater: what they truly needed. He opened the way to a new and abundant and eternal life. Likewise, the church today cannot give those in non-marital sexual relationships the affirmations that some may request. But it can give them much more: the unconditional, transforming love of God in Jesus Christ.