Sex & the Trinity

A discussion starter for “the orthodox” of ECUSA

The impression has been given by some, including Primates, that getting the doctrine and practice of sexual relations right is more important at this time than believing, teaching and confessing a right doctrine of the Blessed, Holy and Undivided Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and also accepting a right doctrine of the Son as Incarnate, as One Person made known in two natures, divine and human. In fact, there is one book in print by a leader of the Network in the Episcopal Church, which declares that the received Anglican doctrine of the Trinity is both unnecessary and probably wrong! *

The reason for this message of the priority of sexuality is that it is held that what is at stake is the authority of the sacred Scriptures, which, in the evangelical reading of them from within their methods of interpretation, teach that sexual genital relations should only be within holy matrimony of a man and a woman. So the stand taken by the “orthodox” against “gay sex” is really, they believe, a stand for Holy Scripture as God’s Word written.

Often, however, those taking this approach of the priority of correct approaches to sexual relations apparently are not wholly aware:

1. That the same Scriptures are on a common sense reading just as much against fornication and adultery as they are against sodomy. Thus they are against the co-habitation practiced by many couples who attend evangelical churches today, even as they are against the divorce culture and the serial monogamy which is just as much prevalent in evangelical churches as in “liberal” ones. Yet there is little said about these matters within the churches where these things are common and prevalent. They seem to be not sins at all in comparison with the supposed great sin of sodomy. In fact not a few leaders are divorced and remarried and they are not asked to step down.
2. That the new theory of translation of the Bible adopted in the 1960s of dynamic equivalency together with the new methods of interpretation developed also at that time, allowed for (a) the claim that the doctrine of the “headship” of the male in the NT is culturally conditioned and thus (b) the same NT allows for, or even commends, the ordination of women.
3. That the presuppositions (e.g., theories of human rights) and forms of biblical exegesis that allowed for good people to be persuaded of the right for divorced persons to remarry in church and of the rightness of female ordination, can serve and do presently serve also to justify the claim not that sodomy is right, but, rather, that faithful, covenant relations between two persons of the same-sex can be not only right but blessed of God and means of grace. It is, one would suppose, clear to all of reasonable mind that the common sense meaning of the NT (as confirmed by canon law for centuries) does not support either any right to serial monogamy or to women being made “heads” (certainly not as the episcopos, or senior presbyter) of the congregation of Christ’s flock. If it can be read to support divorce and remarriage it is in the most restricted of areas and possibilities.
4. That the sins of the flesh, though serious, are not the chief of sins before the Holy Lord God. The most serious of sins are those of the heart, mind and will, that is of the soul. One can commit these sins while holding strong views of the sinfulness of same-sex relations and living in a one-flesh relation of matrimony.
5. That error and heresy in the teaching of the basic doctrines of the Faith (e.g. Who is God? Who is Jesus? What is salvation?) are far more serious than error in teaching on sexuality. This is because unless one knows who is God and who is Jesus one cannot begin to form a truly Christian estimate of man as male and female. And unless one is informed by God’s self-revelation as to His own Being one cannot begin to think rightly on what it means for man, as male and female, to be made in the image of God.
6. That there is within the self-revelation of God to man not a list of truths that are of equal value, but rather a hierarchy of truths wherein the lesser ones are dependent upon the primary ones. Note what the Creed puts first and note also what the first five of the Thirty-Nine Articles state (concerning The Trinity and the Person and Work of Christ Jesus, the Son). This means that sexual relations have to be seen not as the first doctrine but as an important doctrine to be understand within the hierarchy of truth as a unity and as individual truths, and to be taught within this context, and not isolated.
7. That those “revisionists” who believe teach and confess that same-sex relations are acceptable to God and are blessed by Christ Jesus do not (when examined carefully) believe the received orthodox dogmas of God as Holy Trinity, as set forth in such places as the Athanasian Creed and the Thirty-Nine Articles. Rather, while they use a form of Trinitarian language, they hold to views which see the Trinity, for example, as a symbol and model of community, of equality between persons. Their real doctrine of God is often, truth be told, that of panentheism or Unitarianism/deism.

Much more could be said! However, the point from all this is that if there is to be reformation & renewal as hoped for by the Network and other groups, this needs to be a recovery of the whole truth of God, his whole counsel, and not merely the winning of a victory over sexual relations within the Episcopal Church USA and Anglican Church of Canada! For a church wherein there is no sodomy may well be a church in which there is much sin both of the heart and of the flesh!

Perhaps, the “orthodox” should refrain from any more condemnation of the doctrine of the rightness of same-sex covenanted partnership until they are sure that they do really and truly confess the whole of the Catholic Faith and that they know why it is (in their pastoral practice) right to remarry divorcees and ordain godly women but wrong to bless same-sex faithful couples. The probability is that if they go into this matter in some depth and with a readiness to learn that they will soon realize that in some way the ordination of women, the marrying in church of divorced persons, and the blessing of same-sex couples rely upon the same doctrines of human rights together with an enlightened and sophisticated use of the Bible as a source of proof texts.

petertoon@msn.com November 16, 2005